The Pitiful SME Owner? (5)
“Hey! Executive Park! What the hell? Why are you there?”
Beyond the tightly shut factory gate, Kim Hak-soo’s roar echoed. Executive Park turned his head naturally. Their eyes met. However, as if he couldn't care less, Executive Park turned his head back and continued sweeping the yard.
“Hey, Executive Park! Hey, you son of a bitch! Can’t you hear me?”
Kim Hak-soo was practically foaming at the mouth, but once again, Executive Park didn't pay him the slightest bit of attention.
“Damn it!”
Finally, in a state of extreme agitation, Kim Hak-soo climbed over the firmly locked gate. Even looking at the playgrounds of the 80s, it was a level of climbing that would put a guerrilla training course to shame. For Kim Hak-soo, who had lived through generations long before that, a wall of this height was no problem at all. Why were there so many petty thieves in the 70s and 80s? It was because that many people had the ability to climb over walls.
“Hey! Executive Park!”
Having landed on the other side of the gate, Kim Hak-soo’s eyes bulged as he started running toward Executive Park, but his intention was never realized.
“Hey, man! Stop!”
A Black man, sporting short, curly hair, sprinted toward Kim Hak-soo in an instant.
“Hey, man! This site….”
It was roughly meant to say, ‘This is a restricted area for outsiders, so get out,’ but there was no way Kim Hak-soo would know English. However, the foreign guard did his job regardless of whether Kim Hak-soo reacted or not. That was to toss Kim Hak-soo back over the gate. While throwing him over was impossible, lifting him up and pushing him over was doable, so Kim Hak-soo found himself in a situation where he was being hoisted onto the gate like a small child.
“Hey! Can’t you let go? Hey! You black bastard!”
Even an American who doesn't know Korean well knows a few Korean swear words directed at them. The guard suddenly yanked Kim Hak-soo’s body, which was being pushed over the gate, back inside and threw him onto the ground.
“Argh!”
Since a person had been slammed onto concrete, it was bound to hurt. It was a miracle his bones hadn't broken.
“Wh-what is this!”
Kim Hak-soo could see the guard looking at him with extremely agitated eyes, and at the same time, he could see someone other than the guard or Executive Park.
“M-Miss Lee! Save me!”
Having discovered Lee Da-hae, Kim Hak-soo sprinted for his life and grabbed her arm. Lee Da-hae looked at Kim Hak-soo with dazed eyes in surprise before finally coming to her senses.
“Pr-President?”
Lee Da-hae habitually called Kim Hak-soo 'President,' and Kim Hak-soo, thinking he had grabbed a lifeline, began to cling to her without even thinking about why she was there.
“Miss Lee, save me. That guy over there is trying to kill me!”
“Mr. Brooks? That can’t be. He’s such a gentleman…?”
Lee Da-hae looked at Brooks, the guard. Brooks, who had been extremely agitated just a moment ago, was now looking at Lee Da-hae with the expression of a gentle puppy. It was truly the look of someone in love. However, Lee Da-hae was a bit oblivious when it came to such things, so she was completely unaware of Brooks’s feelings.
“Brooks, what’s going on?”
Understanding Lee Da-hae’s words from the atmosphere, Brooks spoke in English, but Lee Da-hae didn't know English either.
“Oh, right. We can’t communicate….”
Not being able to speak the same language was inconvenient like this. Therefore, Lee Da-hae gestured for Brooks to wait a moment, told Kim Hak-soo to wait as well, and started running toward the president’s office.
A moment later, when Ma Seok-il appeared through the opened office door, Kim Hak-soo, who had good eyesight, could see him too.
“Th-th-th-this is insane!!”
Only then did Kim Hak-soo grasp the whole situation. Of course, he didn't grasp it logically. Because Kim Hak-soo was in a state of extreme agitation right now. However, at least he could clearly understand that ‘Ma Seok-il screwed me over,’ so he started running toward Ma Seok-il with all his might.
“Hey! You goddamn son of a bitch!!!!!”
The volume was enough to make the entire factory site ring. It was Kim Hak-soo’s only talent, but there wasn't a single person here who would take his side. Because all the employees here were the employees of Seonggang Products who had suffered under Kim Hak-soo.
“Th-these bastards….”
Kim Hak-soo’s anger had turned into tears before he knew it. He had lost even the strength to be angry at the fact that he had been so perfectly played, and had resorted to lamenting.
“Well, Mr. Kim Hak-soo, what brings you here?”
Ma Seok-il’s oily attitude clearly contained the intention of ‘I want to mess with you.’
“Y-y-you, son of a bitch. H-h-h-how could you do this to me?”
“Why? Is it unfair because you’re the one being played?”
“Why are you doing this to me! Huh?! What grudge do you have against me to do this! Huh?!”
Kim Hak-soo was crying as he spoke, but not a shred of pity arose in Ma Seok-il.
“Then why did you do it?”
“What…?”
Kim Hak-soo didn't even realize that Ma Seok-il was speaking to him informally. In the first place, Kim Hak-soo was only one year older than Ma Seok-il. If it weren't for the status of president and employee, there would have been no reason to treat him with such respect.
“I asked why you did it. Don’t you remember what you did to the employees?”
“What did I even do! Where could you find a president as good as me, huh? Didn’t they all raise their families thanks to me!”
Ma Seok-il let out a scoff as if he were dumbfounded.
“Hey, don’t you remember? You didn't like me, so you blamed someone else’s mistake on me and fired me. You didn't even pay the severance pay.”
Since the IMF, employment in Korea has become more flexible, leading to many employees with precarious jobs. However, it wasn't as if employees had stable jobs before the IMF either. Because presidents would kick employees out whenever they felt like it. In fact, it was common for severance pay to not be paid either. Ma Seok-il was one of those victims. The day Kim Hak-soo swindled Ma Seok-il out of his severance pay, he enjoyed a flashy nightlife, saying he had earned some easy money.
“No, that’s because the damage you caused to the company was too great….”
“What damage? Don’t you remember the sales I brought in? No, I would understand if you scolded me for a mistake I made. But you framed me and cut me off just because the company became a bit stable and you didn't like me? Before you became a president, you weren't even a decent human being.”
“Damn it, so what! It’s just you, anyway!”
Thinking he couldn't win on ‘this issue,’ Kim Hak-soo started acting out.
“Wow, do you think you only did that to me? Just look at Mrs. Eun-hee, you fired her the moment she said she was pregnant, didn't you?”
In the place Ma Seok-il pointed to, a female worker in her early 40s was glaring at Kim Hak-soo.
“Huh? Wh-why is that woman here…?”
Ma Seok-il continued without explaining.
“And you fired Old Man Jong-oh because he lost two fingers while working, saying you didn't need a cripple.”
A man missing his right index and middle fingers was looking at Kim Hak-soo with eyes full of resentment.
“And you tried to do something to Miss Jung after getting her drunk, but failed.”
The woman called ‘Miss Jung’ trembled and stuck close to Lee Da-hae, looking at Kim Hak-soo with fearful eyes.
“Should I keep talking? You manipulated documents to say it was Mr. Jung-wook’s mistake because sales dropped, right? And you made Mr. Jung-wook pay for it. Because of that, Mr. Jung-wook had to sell his house and move into a monthly rental.”
“Stop! Stop!”
Kim Hak-soo covered his ears and shook his head wildly, as if he didn't want to hear any more. Then he looked around with fearful eyes.
“Ugh….”
The angry glares flying toward him. However, instead of choosing to grasp reality, Kim Hak-soo chose the path of being angry at everyone.
“You sons of bitches, forgetting the grace of me feeding and housing you all this time….”
Finally, Ma Seok-il decided that further conversation was meaningless.
“Brooks!”
As if he knew what the order was with just the single word ‘Brooks,’ Brooks hoisted Kim Hak-soo up and threw him out the front gate.
“Argh!”
Kim Hak-soo, who luckily didn't break any bones this time either. However, he didn't have the courage to cross back into the gate. ‘Th-that’s right. I have to report this to the police. This is fr-fraud!’ Kim Hak-soo started running toward the police station in a hurry. However, the police station Kim Hak-soo went to was the one where Superintendent Seo In-pyo, who practically served Ryu Geun-tae, was the chief.
* * *
It goes without saying, but Kim Hak-soo fell into a path of ruin without being able to do anything. Even if it were a place where Superintendent Seo In-pyo wasn't the chief, it wouldn't have had any effect anyway. If he had been tormenting employees with the power of being an ‘SME president,’ this time he was the one being tormented by someone higher up.
“Chairman, this might be the unnecessary worry of an old man, but I’m worried that you might feel guilty about this.”
In the study, Yoon-gi looked at Ryu Geun-tae with a puzzled expression.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
With Ma Seok-il gone and only the two of them left, they began a frank conversation between a lord and his loyal subject.
“Perhaps a sense of guilt for taking away someone else’s business….”
Contrary to Secretary Ryu’s worries, what followed was Yoon-gi’s hearty laughter. After the sound of laughter echoed in the study for a while.
“Secretary Ryu.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“You’ve watched me until now, do I look like a kind and pure person to you?”
“Uh… well….”
Ryu Geun-tae couldn't bring himself to answer. If he said yes, it would feel like an insult, and if he said no, it was bound to be the wrong answer.
“I know what you’re thinking without you saying it. To give you an answer, I’m definitely not a kind guy, nor am I a pure guy. If I were that type, I would have just forgiven Choi Cheol-min or Park Kyung-ja.”
Yoon-gi’s words continued.
“And it means that the economic world isn't a binary place where kind guys and bad guys fight. Well, it’s true that I’m not the type to mess with kind people for no reason.”
In fact, Yoon-gi has a tendency to never agree to making an innocent person like Kim Hak-soo. This was something Ryu Geun-tae also clearly understood.
“But a guy like Kim Hak-soo is a ‘thank you’ from my perspective. Because he’s the type that if I mess with him, I can actually gain public support.”
Yoon-gi smiled broadly and continued.
“You see, I have no intention of living kindly and purely. Of course, there’s no need to buy trouble and get cursed at externally. But I also have no intention of giving up an opportunity to profit because I’m caught up in unnecessary morality. I don’t need to say this again, right?”
“Of, of course. I think I worried for nothing.”
“Who would worry like that if not Secretary Ryu? But, I’m saying there’s no need to do it again.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
The content Yoon-gi spoke of was in line with the content of Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince.’
“A prince needs to be heard as having virtue, but he does not need to strive to practice virtue itself.”
In short, what was important to a prince was ‘image,’ not good deeds themselves, and it meant that Yoon-gi was instinctively grasping this fact.
“By the way, are you free next month?”
“If it is the Chairman’s word, I can make time whenever.”
At the words of a truly loyal subject, Yoon-gi smiled.
“From mold manufacturing to product production, and movie filming to distribution. It looks like God of Pachinko will be released in Japan around next month.”
The time to compete with Nintendo was finally right around the corner.