Translator: SourKimchi
Kim Tae-jun couldn't answer right away.
Then, belatedly, he let out a dry laugh and snapped back.
"......What's that supposed to mean? Made what, how?"
Park Ji-hun leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly.
"Think hard about it. Was there always someone who put in their two cents every time you picked something?"
Tae-jun's expression hardened.
"What is this bullshit now."
"And while you're at it, think about whether there was a certain face that strangely kept turning up every time something went wrong."
A short silence fell.
The chat had already blown up once. What's he talking about, who does he mean, this is creepy as hell, the reactions came flooding in nonstop, but Park Ji-hun offered nothing more.
Kim Tae-jun spoke through gritted teeth.
"If you're screwing with me, it's not that funny."
Park Ji-hun answered curtly.
"Believe it or don't."
That was the end of it.
Park Ji-hun made no move to keep him.
"That's it for today."
The stream ended.
But Kim Tae-jun couldn't get up from his seat for a while.
PerpetualJobSeeker's last words still rang clear in his ears.
Was there always someone who put in their two cents every time you picked something.
And whether there was a certain face that strangely kept turning up every time something went wrong.
Tae-jun's face twisted, and he muttered to himself.
"What the hell is this bullshit."
It left him in a thoroughly foul mood.
But it nagged at him too much to just laugh off.
Tae-jun searched his memory.
Novagen came to mind first.
The mood had been good. His early buy-in timing hadn't been bad either.
There'd been one chance partway through to cash out, but his uncle had put in a word.
"Cashing out now would definitely turn a profit, sure. But it could still go higher, couldn't it? If you want to beat your brother, times like this are exactly when you need to be a little bolder."
At those words, his hand had stopped.
He'd known it had already climbed enough. And yet, just a little more, just a little more, until in the end he missed the window.
It hadn't only been that time.
Looking back now, it had always been the same.
His uncle never set the direction outright.
He only ever picked out the words that would shake a person's resolve, and added them in.
"Going to settle for this just because you turned a little profit?"
"You're not planning to just trail after your brother again this time, are you?"
"Don't you think you ought to get out ahead of your brother, just once?"
Whenever Tae-jun said he felt uneasy, his uncle told him that opportunity always came exactly like that.
When he said it seemed too late to get in now, his uncle said that was precisely the right time.
His uncle always spoke as if the decision were Tae-jun's own to make.
But looking back, the choices he'd made were always the ones his uncle had quietly egged him toward.
Tae-jun bit down hard on his lip.
"......Fuck."
He couldn't quite bring himself to conclude that his uncle had truly meant to ruin him.
There wasn't enough to go on yet.
But this much, at least, seemed clear.
He could no longer take his uncle's words at face value the way he used to.
Tae-jun picked up his phone.
Once again, he meant to play dumb and ask his uncle.
He wanted to see for himself what words his uncle would use to lure him this time.
***
The bell rang about thirty minutes later.
Kim Tae-jun walked to the entrance and opened the door.
His uncle stood outside. He wore a coat, a black plastic bag dangling from one hand. His face was as composed as ever.
"You call me over out of nowhere, so I wondered what was going on."
"Come inside first."
His uncle stepped in and gave the living room a once-over.
"The cleaning lady must have had her work cut out for her."
Tae-jun's mouth curved up at the corner.
"I cleaned it myself."
"You did?"
"Yeah. Decided I'd quit drinking while I was at it."
"The sun must be rising in the west tomorrow, then."
His uncle gave him a skeptical look, then held out the bag.
"I picked up some hangover soup on the way, but seeing you this clear-headed, looks like I bought it for nothing."
"Yeah. From today on I'll be keeping a clear head."
His uncle sat down on the sofa. A flicker of small suspicion crossed one corner of his eyes.
Tae-jun didn't miss it.
"So. Have you settled on an answer in the end?"
Tae-jun answered, leaning at an angle against the kitchen island.
"Not yet. That's why I asked to see you, Uncle. Father told me to decide by Monday."
Tae-jun cut himself off there.
He wanted to see what answer the other man would offer.
His uncle drew a short breath, then nodded.
"So what are you thinking?"
"I'd rather hear your thoughts before mine, Uncle. You've never been stingy with advice."
His uncle answered without any particular wariness.
"Hmm. Like I said last time, construction is the best bet."
"Construction?"
"That's right. It makes the best picture, doesn't it. Looks good to the elders, and it saves face when you put it out in public. Start off safe and secure your footing first, that's the way to do it."
Tae-jun kept his eyes fixed and asked.
"What about biotech?"
His uncle gave a faint smile.
"If it pays off, it pays off big. But there are too many variables. One slip and it's hard to recover, and if it goes wrong, all that's left is a stain on your name."
He set his water glass down and added,
"There's no need to reach that far right from the start, is there. No sense getting greedy and ending up humiliated all over again."
Tae-jun's eyes went cold.
No sense ending up humiliated all over again.
It sounded like concern, but strangely it sounded like the words of someone who had already taken his failure for granted.
A tone that declared, so very naturally, that if he overreached he'd crash and burn again.
A position that looked respectable on the outside, and even if it produced nothing, was easy enough to smooth over.
That was construction exactly.
Biotech, by contrast, was risky, but it was a position where he might actually accomplish something.
Was his uncle saying all this because he truly didn't see that possibility?
Or was it that he didn't welcome that possibility in the first place?
"And distribution?"
"If you want an easy ride, that one might be better. Only it's too bland. It's not the picture the Chairman wants to see."
"So in the end you're saying construction is best?"
"That's what I think. Above all, it'll be the easiest for you to handle."
Tae-jun said nothing for a moment.
His uncle said nothing about how he could succeed.
Instead he spoke only of how to be humiliated less, how to settle down at some reasonable middle line.
Only then did it become clear why his uncle was pushing construction.
Construction was exactly as PerpetualJobSeeker had described it.
The game was already over, so even if he squeezed in, there was no place for him.
At best he'd be riding along on a board someone else had set up.
But if his uncle had truly had his interests at heart, it should have been different.
Even with the risk, he should have looked first for a position where Tae-jun could pull it off by his own strength, at least once.
He should have thrown his weight behind the side that had a chance of success.
But his uncle had never once looked that way.
From the very start, he'd only ever offered positions where Tae-jun couldn't change the game by his own strength, positions where he'd have to stay pinned beneath someone else.
A faint smile hung at the corner of Tae-jun's mouth.
"Understood. I'll think it over."
His uncle nodded, looking satisfied.
"Good. Don't go showing off bravado for nothing. You have to pick what you can handle."
Pick what you can handle.
The words lingered in his ears for a long time.
After his uncle left, the house fell quiet again.
Tae-jun was lost in thought for a while, then picked up his phone.
The answer still wasn't decided.
But this much, at least, had become certain.
This one time, he had no intention of taking the answer his uncle had handed him at face value.
***
Kim Tae-jun stopped in front of the door to the Chairman's office and steadied his breath.
Even with just a single door between them, he felt his throat go bone-dry.
It had been that way since he was a child.
Just standing before the Chairman's office stiffened his shoulders for no reason, and even at some trivial remark his heart would shrink back first.
Today was no different.
No, if anything, today was worse.
This time he had already sent his answer with his own hand.
Not construction, not distribution and logistics, but biotech, that was what he'd chosen.
'I must be out of my mind.'
He muttered it briefly to himself, but there was no taking back an answer already sent.
Tae-jun opened the door and stepped inside.
The Chairman's office was still.
The Chairman held a newspaper open before him. Even after Tae-jun came in, he didn't lift his eyes for a while.
It was while Tae-jun stood there in silence.
"Why biotech?"
There were no pleasantries.
He drove straight at the heart of it from the start.
For a moment Tae-jun felt his breath catch.
But today he had no intention of backing down.
"Construction looks the most impressive on the surface. And distribution and logistics is stable."
The Chairman said nothing.
Tae-jun pressed on.
"But the game in construction is already set. Even if I step in, there isn't much room to prove anything with my own hands. Distribution and logistics is good for holding steady, but I judged it likely to end at some safe, middling line."
Only then did the Chairman set the newspaper down.
His gaze was cold beyond measure.
"And?"
"I know biotech carries a lot of risk. But by the same measure, I thought it was the side with the most room for my own judgment and execution to show in the results."
A short silence fell.
The Chairman studied Tae-jun quietly.
There was still no feeling in that gaze.
Tae-jun swallowed hard and opened his mouth.
"I judged that what I need right now isn't a position to safely take on and hold, but a position to show what I'm capable of."
The Chairman asked,
"Did you decide this yourself?"
Tae-jun answered slowly.
"This time I made the choice on my own judgment."
The Chairman chewed the words over and said,
"On your own judgment, hm. You've learned to make it sound convincing, at least."
Tae-jun's face stiffened slightly.
Ordinarily he would have backed down here.
But this time he didn't want to.
"I didn't say it to sound convincing. I'm the one who decided, and that's the truth."
After a long silence, the Chairman tossed out,
"Fine. Let's see you give it a go."
Tae-jun bowed his head briefly.
"Yes. Thank you."
The Chairman picked the newspaper back up.
"You may go."
As Tae-jun started to turn, the Chairman added one more thing.
"No smell of liquor on you today."
Tae-jun just took hold of the door handle and stepped outside.
Only then did the breath he'd been holding leak out in a long exhale. In the end, he couldn't read what his father had been thinking.
Still, this one time, the fact that he at least hadn't acted like just another washout pleased him.
***
The Chairman sat in his chair, lost in thought.
His third son, whom he hadn't seen in a while, seemed unfamiliar.
He'd come in sober, no smell of liquor, and he hadn't avoided eye contact. His words were clumsy but organized, and above all, today his face wasn't the face of someone parroting lines another had fed him.
The Chairman pressed the intercom button.
"Secretary Choi, come in."
A moment later the secretary entered.
"You called for me?"
The Chairman spoke without raising his eyes.
"That third one of mine. Find out who he's been meeting with lately."
The secretary's expression stiffened.
"You mean the third Young Master?"
"That's right."
The Chairman added slowly,
"He's not one to change like that out of nowhere. No smell of liquor, and the look in his eyes is different."
After a short silence, the secretary bowed his head.
"Understood."
After the secretary left, the Chairman's office fell quiet again.
Without changing his expression in the slightest, the Chairman murmured,
"Someone's gotten to him. There's no other way a look like that ends up in his eyes."