Afterparty Schedule (Real Life)
"It's been a while, President Kim."
A middle-aged man and a younger one sat at the same table. At a glance, more than twenty years stood between them.
"Aigoo, Director Choi. I never imagined you'd come in person. If I'd known you were coming, I would have had a good tea prepared to offer you..."
The older man received the younger with a careful, bowing deference. Between the two of them, the difference was absolute.
"Ah, it's all right. You're one of ours too, President Kim. Of course I should come myself."
One of them was the official heir of a major conglomerate—power, absolute. The other was the president of a subcontractor beneath it—dependence, just as absolute.
"Ha... calling us family. That does please me. Chairman Choi is in good health, I trust?"
On the surface it was an ordinary conversation. For Kim Hyeongcheol, unmistakably the weaker party, it tasted like death.
Director Choi, the heir, was not a man with the leisure to seek him out for no reason at all. Something had happened. Good or bad, something.
"Yes. Very healthy. Still sharp. Still cold. Soft on my little sister, though."
"...That Chairman Choi is soft on his daughter?"
He had sifted every dangerous word out of what he meant to say, and still he could not hide the shock.
Out in the world, Chairman Choi's image was iron and blood itself. As the head of a subcontractor, Kim Hyeongcheol knew that image was no lie. The man drew absolute lines and absolute rules, and whoever crossed them—anyone—went unforgiven. That was the Chairman Choi he remembered.
And that man, without blood or tears, was a fool for his daughter?
"Of course. If you saw her yourself, you'd understand. She's incredibly cute. My little sister."
Choi Eunseo smiled, thinking of that cute little sister. Watching him, Kim Hyeongcheol fell into shock a second time.
The young director in front of him had inherited Chairman Choi's blood without dilution—the iron-blooded eldest son. They had met and spoken a few times, but this was the first time he had ever seen the man smile. Shock was more than justified.
A ringtone cut through.
"Ah, excuse me... I forgot to put it on silent... that boy..."
He checked who was calling. His worthless son. Couldn't even last this long without calling again?
"It's my son. He caused some trouble recently, and I mean to straighten him out properly while I have the chance."
"That must be difficult. I remember my own father scolding me often, back when he was teaching me."
"Aigoo. A son like you, Director, is an extraordinary filial son. With a son like that, Chairman Choi must feel very secure indeed. My son... haa."
"You worry about him a great deal, I see."
"All he knows how to do is cause trouble. He's about to be an adult, and I have no idea when he'll grow up..."
A sincere lament slipped out before he knew it. His son was pathetic enough that he wanted to unload it on someone.
"So—may I ask what brought you all the way here?"
Asking him to get to the point was, in a sense, rude. He simply did not want to talk about his son any further. In front of the man set to be the official successor, the story of his own shame was a fatal wound, nothing less.
"Ah. This was the point. Your son, President Kim."
Choi Eunseo took out his phone, set it on the table, and played a video. In it, a man was spewing abuse at someone.
"That fucker's definitely getting boosted! She's that good? Tell her to cut the bullshit!"
"What, a hand cam? Fuck off—a guy can have pale, thin hands too, you sick bastard. Shield something that actually needs shielding!"
"I'm saying I admit I played like shit, okay? But that is seriously impossible!"
"This is..."
Kim Hyeongcheol could not hide his shock. The man in the video was his son, Kim Dongwon.
He knew the boy was an internet streamer. He had told him to stop, over and over, and the boy had never listened, so in the end he had given up and left him to it.
"The streamer your son keeps talking about. This Eunha."
Somewhere in the middle of it, Director Choi's voice had gone a degree colder—emotionless, cold enough to raise the hair on a listener's arms. Kim Hyeongcheol held still for what came next.
At the words that followed, his hands went to his head before he knew it.
"Yes, Father. I handled it as you instructed."
"Good. You worked hard. Go home and rest for today."
"Yes."
The call clicked off.
"Haa. I'm tired..."
For a moment he had wondered if Father was about to break the unwritten rule—never load private feeling into business—over Eunha's matter. Instead, he was using the opening to absorb a subcontractor he had long treated as a nuisance.
Father had looked, at a glance, as if he were acting on emotion. As expected, Father was Father.
"Calculating the profit even in a moment like this..."
"Shall we head back to headquarters?"
"No. He said I can leave on time today. Secretary Hwang, you should clock out too."
"What? But still..."
"This neighborhood is near home. I can drive myself."
"...Thank you."
Father had never liked Eunha standing at the center of one controversy after another. Making herself known the way she had in that event tournament broadcast on TV was one thing. Getting famous inside scandals like these, he believed, was no good for her either.
That was probably why he was closing the incident so quietly. If their side—Eunha's side—took it to court, the noise would only grow. And the article he meant to put out right now was likely meant to smother that noise as well.
Honestly, even he had to admit it. Father was a severe case of daughter-fool.
That was what Choi Eunseo himself thought.
The exhibition finals had ended early, 3–0, so I could actually make dinner with the family. I came home from a rare, pleasant meal out with them to find a fair pile of messages waiting on KakaoTalk.
A voice message? I downloaded it and hit play, and out came Spax's voice. He'd said it himself, so now—
Fair. Honestly, that was pathetic.
Nebula, who'd been friendly with Spax for a long time, said the two of them had agreed to drop the formal speech because of this exhibition. During the event itself they'd kept the honorifics—player to coach.
Spax, officially KO'd. That's what you get for running your mouth.
He'd always been the type to cause accidents with things he blurted out in the heat of the moment. Once he became captain, those incidents got rarer. Looking at him now, the old saying really was true: the seat makes the person. Back when we were trainees, he and I were the problem-child double act, and the second he made captain he turned into responsibility itself.
Oh. That was probably something I said. I'd brought it up to tease Spax, and now it had rolled all the way here.
The mood was definitely sliding toward Wall-X Galbi...
Ah. I knew what that meant.
Every match day, if we won with a good showing, I used to run straight to Coach and beg him to buy us something good. Thanks to my pointlessly expensive mouth, the meat was always some pretty pricey beef house, and every time Coach would put on a sulk that didn't suit him at all. A bonus, not especially important: even iron-blooded Coach Yoo Seonho crumbled in front of a beef restaurant.
But...
If it was an afterparty, wasn't I supposed to be there?
Why was there not a single word about me?
As expected. The only one looking out for me is my friend.
Thanks, Bulla...!
My former best friend, cruel enough to forget me.
He was trying so hard to destroy the evidence. Too bad. On KakaoTalk, once five minutes pass, a message can't be deleted.
I already read every word, you bastard.
I considered what to do with him, then decided to just forgive him. From my side he was a best friend. From his, I was probably just New Acquaintance No. 1, someone he'd met through this exhibition.
He asked because, aside from Spax, all five of us were no-cam streamers who had never shown our faces. We didn't know what each other looked like, so even if we passed on the street we wouldn't know who was who.
Oldboy and Zzangdol had been close for a while, but Pola was someone we'd all only just met this time. Nebula and I called each other friends, but in truth we were friends on the net, so not knowing his face was the same story.
Fortunately, everyone knew the face of Spax, a famous first-division pro, and it was decided he would take the table first.
And so the afterparty was set.
The schedule was locked, and I decided to ask Father for permission.
I asked.
"Then why!"
It might have been the first truly stern face I'd seen on him since I became his daughter.
This... was probably not going to be easy.