First Kiss?
"Who did you just say?"
"You probably saw him at the gathering... that Jung Jinwoo guy. The player who got caught two-timing both my girl Choi Jieun and Tae-jun's girl, Do Ye-rip."
"A player?"
"You didn't see him? Oh, right — you were wasted that night."
"That bastard's a total thug. He goes around seducing chaebol daughters and bleeding them for money. There isn't just one or two victims, either. Who was it again... I heard one of them even tried to kill herself..."
This was the moment. If they wanted Choi Ki-cheon's help, they were going to have to invent things that had never happened.
"So... you're saying Jung Jinwoo juggles women like an octopus and bleeds them for cash? And one of the victims even attempted suicide?"
Choi Ki-cheon asked it back, incredulous. The whole thing was absurd.
Hadn't Number Five gotten filthy rich off the information Jung Jinwoo casually tossed their way? Which meant Jung Jinwoo himself was even wealthier — vastly, incomprehensibly so. Lee Jinho had said something ridiculous once: that Jung Jinwoo was probably richer than Saengsong, MG, SA, Gyeondae, and Node Group combined. At the time it had sounded like nonsense. The more time passed, the more it seemed Lee Jinho had been right.
"So you want me to use the prosecutors and power brokers I know to put Jung Jinwoo in prison?"
"Yeah, that's it... If he were some ordinary punk I would've handled it myself. But that bastard seems connected to the gangs. Against gangsters, we're in over our heads — but SA? They wouldn't even register. If we don't take down that womanizing con artist, something terrible is going to happen."
Had Jung Jinwoo really been that much of a womanizer? Watching Shin Bin-sun throw herself at him, it was obvious he was the type women flocked to. But even with Shin Bin-sun constantly making eyes at him, he hadn't so much as flinched.
Besides, how he spent his time with women was his own business. And the idea that he'd be dating them to run a scam and squeeze them for money didn't make any sense to begin with.
"I get what you're saying. Listen carefully, Ham Ho-seok. And... Jung... what was your name again?"
"Jung Tae-jun, Ki-cheon hyung."
"Right. Both of you, listen to me carefully."
Choi Ki-cheon steadied his breathing and organized what he was about to say. This, too, was something he'd recently picked up in his Leadership Speech course. He was going to have to lead the group now. Better to prepare in advance.
"What you just said to me. About Jung Jinwoo... no. About Mr. Jung Jinwoo. All of it."
Ham Ho-seok and Jung Tae-jun blinked, waiting for whatever came next.
"Why? Why can't we talk about it?"
"......"
"......"
The color drained from Ham Ho-seok and Jung Tae-jun's faces. Just how terrifying was Jung Jinwoo, for Choi Ki-cheon to speak this seriously?
"Who's going to kill us?"
"See? That Jung Jinwoo bastard really is tight with the gangs."
The two of them were spinning their own wild theories.
"No. Not the gangs. You two would die by my hand."
As he said it, Choi Ki-cheon smiled wide enough to show his molars.
"K-Ki-cheon... what are you talking about?"
"Ki-cheon hyung, what's going on?"
"Where the hell did you two mongrels pick up this garbage and come running to me with it? What? You want me to take out Mr. Jung Jinwoo? You want me to get someone killed? Do you even know who Mr. Jung Jinwoo is, you little shits? You've been playing in a corner store so long you think everyone's on your level? I'm only telling you this because it's you. If you go around saying that kind of thing... you're dead."
"W-who's going to kill us?"
Ham Ho-seok managed to squeeze the question out with every ounce of strength he had left. He couldn't understand a word of what Choi Ki-cheon was saying.
"Who's going to kill you? First I'll kill you. Then Saengsong will kill you. Then MG, Node, and Gyeondae will kill you. And if you somehow survive all that... the President of this country will probably kill you himself."
This was a man who was making the entire nation filthy rich. Thanks to Jung Jinwoo, the profits Saengsong through Node Group had already reaped were staggering. If something happened to him and the JW Dive In project couldn't proceed as planned, all hell would break loose.
Ham Ho-seok and Jung Tae-jun could only blink at Choi Ki-cheon's completely unexpected response.
"You two... just quietly, meekly, stay in the mudhole you've been living in. Don't go pulling any stupid stunts. I'm telling you this for your own good. If you ever run into Mr. Jung Jinwoo... just run. That's the only way you live. The moment you get on Mr. Jung Jinwoo's bad side, Number Five will show up with our bodyguards and come to kill you." He paused, as if reconsidering. "No, wait. Thinking about it, you two aren't the type to listen... Should I just bury you right here? Manager Choi, you there?"
Choi Ki-cheon shouted, and a man in a suit entered the fitness center lounge. He was nearly two meters tall, with muscles that looked ready to burst through his clothes, sunglasses on, and a face covered in scars. Behind him, three more men in black suits stood like a folding screen.
"Yes, Director. Please give your orders."
The moment they saw the man, Ham Ho-seok and Jung Tae-jun began trembling uncontrollably. That wasn't a person. That was closer to a gorilla.
"Take these two somewhere quiet and bury them. They've been stirring up trouble they don't understand, and I don't think they'll stop."
"The ocean, or in the ground?"
"Wherever's quiet and fast."
"K-Ki-cheon!"
"Ki-cheon hyung!"
Ham Ho-seok and Jung Tae-jun dropped to their knees and wailed, their voices cracking with desperation.
"Hahahaha... ten trillion! Ten trillion won! I'm on a roll now. Good thing I turned down those Wall Street people... You're amazing, mister. This is all thanks to you."
Oh Se-eun was in high spirits.
"Can you pick one? Mister or oppa? Why is it mister sometimes and oppa other times?"
"That's up to me, isn't it? Be grateful I dropped the formal speech and I'm not cursing you out."
She'd dropped the formal speech, all right — and the moment it suited her she was calling him "hey" and "you," and even "you jerk" and "you son of a bitch."
"Fine! I'm in a good mood today, so I'll call you oppa. What else? What do you want from me, hmm?"
A sky-blue blouse, a navy jacket, and neat, precise makeup. If her face didn't look so young, anyone would have taken her for a proper investment-firm director. Truth be told, something about her — a presence that went well beyond the ordinary — had been tugging at his attention for a while now.
"What? Want to devour me? Hmm? Regretting that you blew your chance when I gave you one?"
She was waving that cotton candy right in front of his face again. There wasn't a minx like this in all the world.
"Yeah. I regret it a lot."
"Good grief... At least you're honest about your feelings."
As she said it, Oh Se-eun pinched his cheek and gave it a little tug. Honestly... was this any way for a thirty-year-old man and a twenty-three-year-old woman to act? Why was a twenty-three-year-old treating her thirty-year-old oppa like a child?
He wasn't actually annoyed. If anything, Oh Se-eun's teasing just struck him as cute.
"Do you do this with other people too?"
"Me? Why would I?"
So she doesn't act like this with other men.
"I'm not really interested in other guys... and that's the weird part, you know? It's not like you're ugly, but you're not devastatingly handsome either — there's just this strange charm. And you're not even filthy rich. You're a divorced man, and there's a seven-year gap. I honestly don't know why I like you so much."
"I'm curious about that too. What is it about me that made you do something that reckless? What did you see that you liked that much?"
"That's what I'm saying — I don't know. I came back to school and there was this older guy struggling to keep up with class, groaning over the lectures. He looked a little pitiful... and then I looked closer, and his eyes were so clear. I felt this random wave of sympathy, and I wanted to help him... so I did. And then one weekend I was lying in bed, and all of a sudden I just... wanted to see him. I wanted to see him so, so badly."
Well. If love had a reason, it wouldn't be love. Jung Jinwoo had felt it too. If Oh Se-eun had been only two or three years younger than him — if she hadn't been a twenty-one-year-old kid, but twenty-four or twenty-five — he would have loved her without holding back. They might even have been married by now.
"But... aren't we moving way too slow? All we've done is hug with our thick clothes on!"
"S-slow?"
"Why haven't you asked to kiss me? The whole world's full of hotels and motels... why haven't you said let's go?"
"Hah—"
Jung Jinwoo's face went scarlet. What kind of woman just said things like that out loud?
"There you go, turning red again. Don't just sit there imagining it by yourself... let's go!"
"Kh—!"
"I get that you're being considerate because your girlfriend is younger. I get that you're feeling the pressure because I'm still young. But we should still do things... right?"
"D-do you have to talk that freely? This is Korea, not America."
"I went to America, okay? I locked myself in the library every single day — studying, researching, never looking at anyone else, thinking about you and only you the whole time! I went through all of that and came back, and we finally found each other again, so... I should be allowed to love you as much as I want!"
Oh Se-eun huffed through the words as if she were genuinely angry, then slumped back against the outdoor cafe chair, sank into it, and looked up at the sky.
"Now that's weather made for kissing..."
She was even parodying a scene from the movie New World. It was unbearably cute — a kid doing an impression of a grown man.
It wasn't as if Jung Jinwoo's face turned red in front of just anyone. He could stand before the most monstrous human being on earth without so much as twitching an eyebrow. The razor-thin front lines of corporate management had tempered him that way, naturally, over time.
Well. There was one exception. Chairman Oh Jang-seok. That man truly terrified him. With the kind of grip that could crumple a phone, he looked fully capable of folding Jung Jinwoo's spine in half.
"By the way... oppa, did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok said... he's not actually the owner of the money. He said there's a real owner behind him. Some enormous big shot... and that if I invest well, he'll put in a hundred trillion won!"
That's me, you little brat.
"Is that so?"
"Isn't it fascinating? Someone wealthy enough to move a hundred trillion... the fact that a person like that exists in this country. Even Saengsong couldn't invest on that scale."
"Who knows. The world is full of all kinds of people."
"It's so cool! To move money on that scale, he'd have to have at least several hundred trillion, right? I really want to meet him someday."
"Oh? So now you're interested in that person?"
You're already meeting him, you cheeky little lady.
"Ugh, you're getting jealous again. Don't worry! No matter how rich he is, I won't look twice. I'm perfectly satisfied with just you, mister."
"Thank you... for saying that."
"You should be grateful, obviously... The only daughter of Daebang Group, a top-ten chaebol. Pretty, slim, and voluptuous on top of that — oh, and brilliant, too. Now an investment expert who tosses around ten trillion won... and a woman like that only has eyes for you. You ought to be thankful. At this point it's an honor to the family. Wow, if I were you... I'd seduce me and marry me on the spot. I really would."
Did she have to have such a precise grasp of her own worth? Anyone else listening would have written her off as an insufferable show-off. To Jung Jinwoo, she was simply saying out loud exactly what he already thought of her.
"Don't go saying that anywhere else. You'll get ostracized. People hate a show-off."
"I know, I know... They already hate me, envy me, and freeze me out even when I don't say a word. I don't care. I only talk like this in front of you. You think I don't know how to read a room? You think I'm some clueless airhead who just runs her mouth?"
"Let me ask you one thing."
"Go ahead, husband dear."
"Drop the 'husband dear'..."
"Anyway."
"Back then, if I hadn't introduced you to Chairman Ko Yoon-seok... were you actually going to go to Lee Jinho at Saengsong and sell yourself for two hundred billion?"
"Are you insane? Why would I?"
"Then... why did you tell me you were going to go to Lee Jinho and sell yourself?"
"Because then you'd step in, wouldn't you?"
Right... he'd suspected as much. So that was it.
"Aigoo, look at that jealousy... You were nervous I'd go to Jinho oppa, weren't you? That's what it was, right?"
Oh Se-eun was grinning, wicked and delighted.
Tug.
"Ah—!"
Oh Se-eun caught Jung Jinwoo's necktie in her hand and pulled.
"Aww... were you jealous? Hmm? Were you jealous? Were you worried I'd go to some other man?"
"N-no, that's not—"
That was the moment. Oh Se-eun pulled his necktie taut, and Jung Jinwoo's face tipped toward hers.
A soft, lingering press of lips.
Jung Jinwoo's eyes flew wide. Warm, yielding, and moist — Oh Se-eun's lips had touched his.
She ran her tongue over her own lip, then looked up at him with those big, glittering eyes and smiled.
A first kiss? That was what that was?
She'd been buried in her studies like a maniac all this time... she'd never even dated anyone?
His heart was pounding. He had never known a feeling like this existed. It was as if Oh Se-eun were the only person in the entire world.
This was the kind of heart you needed to get married. He just hadn't known it until now.
Like the warm sunlight of a spring morning, Oh Se-eun sat in front of him, smiling and smiling.
For the first time in his life, Jung Jinwoo was tasting — densely, completely — what it meant to be happy. He wanted to linger in the wonder of this moment for a long, long time.