“Bald isn’t your type, is it.”
With that, Taegun walked past him and headed for the study. A moment later the study light came on and the door clicked shut.
Jaeha blinked, trying to make sense of what he’d heard. Park Myungsoon? Why tell me that Park Myungsoon has hair loss?
He stood there for a long moment, wondering if there was a Park Myungsoon among the CEOs of construction firms that stood as Yushin’s rivals alongside Jang Construction.
…Is he telling me to use it as a political weak point? But baldness isn’t exactly a weakness…
Then he realized he hadn’t caught the surname, and that the man who worked under Taegun and helped with the housework was named Myungsoon.
“…Hair loss?”
But what on earth did hair loss have to do with Mr. Myungsoon? Puzzled, he didn’t have the nerve to ask. He couldn’t keep standing there, so he headed to his room.
Back in the room, he set his book on the console and climbed onto the bed. Only after a long spell of brooding did something occur to him.
“He’s telling me to be considerate because of the hair loss.”
He seemed to care quite a bit about his subordinate.
What was good for hair loss again?
On neither his mother’s side nor his father’s side was there any baldness gene, so he had never once thought about it; he closed his eyes, wondering, was black beans supposed to be good?
The fact that somewhere in this house Taegun was here settled over him with weight. Slowly, he rolled onto his side to face the door.
That alone made him feel good.
“Enjoying the honeymoon?”
“Cut the nonsense.”
With displeasure, he gave his brow a mild pinch. But Lee Jaeho only snickered harder at Jaeha’s reaction.
It wasn’t a topic suited for mention while handing over work at the office, and even more it was rude to say to one’s elder brother and his spouse; rather than anger, he felt only contempt.
His half brother was a thug who seemed to know no shame and went out of his way to do what he shouldn’t. But now that he himself had fully stepped back from Yushin’s management, he could only hope the boy would do well.
Even if he had little affection for his family, he had some for the company.
Yushin still contained the shares his maternal grandfather had brought when his mother married Lee Ikhyeong. His mother had been weak and high-strung, but in her way she had loved him.
On days she wasn’t ill, they would often read together or go to exhibitions and spend time that way.
On days she was ill, she would push him away with a face edged in irritation; later, when he sensed she wasn’t well, he simply stayed away, so he only saw her bright face on healthy days.
He had no particularly happy memories, but neither were they unhappy. He thought that was the warmth love gave.
If that truly was the warmth love gave, it was terribly faint, lukewarm as water boiled hard then left to cool; but the child he had been was satisfied. In a world where parents left their children only useless things, he had inherited quite a lot.
Thinking of the shares his mother had brought as her trousseau made it hard to simply run the company.
But Jaeho had none of that. He wanted to resent and insult Jaeha’s mother under Kim Ranhui’s prompting.
In truth, Jaeha’s mother had done nothing bad to that mother and son. She had merely used her family’s backing to keep an illegitimate child and a mistress Omega, brought from outside, out of the house; she hadn’t stepped in to torment or persecute them.
Even that had been for Jaeha’s sake. Though a bit high-strung, she was largely indifferent by nature, so she harbored no seething over being betrayed by Lee Ikhyeong, nor did she rage.
She had only worried that Jaeha would end up with a half brother. She had even barked at Lee Ikhyeong to his face—how useless must you be to go and get some stray Omega pregnant outside?
But there was no affection in it; it was merely an apportioning of right and wrong.
The one who couldn’t bear it, unexpectedly, was Lee Ikhyeong. He truly loved Jaeha’s mother.
But she did not love him, and love unreturned warped into troublemaking, like a child starving for a parent’s love.
It was absurd idiocy, and the biggest problem was that such idiocy was being done by the head of a conglomerate. Matters of property grew far more tangled than in an ordinary household. Read the latest chapters at NovelPing.
“…for our honored guests who joined us today—”
On the dais, Yushin Pharmaceutical’s planning director held the microphone.
Today was the day of a fairly big event. YS Biobooster, under Yushin Pharmaceutical, had succeeded in acquiring the diagnostics firm Mehudin, and this was the celebration.
Although the pharmaceutical arm had its own CEO, as a member of the owner family, Lee Jaeha’s attendance mattered. Normally he would have come alone, but since he was doing the handover, he’d brought Jaeho.
And yet after coming, the boy was spouting garbage. Wondering when his half brother would ever get his head on straight, he lifted his water goblet.
The ceremony was winding down. Dinner was to follow at the hotel hosting the event, but Jaeha just wanted to go home.
He wasn’t feeling well. Normally he would have stayed, but now he was a man on the verge of resigning.
He figured he could leave it to Jaeho and just go home. As soon as he decided, he called Yujin.
“I’m heading out right away. Manager Im, you can go too. I’ll drive.”
“Director, but…”
A man who never did such things was now leaving first, and saying he’d drive himself; thrown off by his contrariness, Yujin looked flustered.
Regardless, he silently held out his hand, and she had no choice but to pass him the keys. As he rose to go, an Executive Director from the pharma side stopped him.
“Director Lee, we’re truly grateful you could drop by our event—”
“Good afternoon, Executive Director Park. Executive Director-Appointee Lee Jaeho, what are you doing? Go say hello.”
He slid a hand onto Jaeho’s shoulder, nudged him toward Executive Director Park, and slipped away. Caught off guard, Jaeho—who had been about to head to the adjacent hall where the catering was set—found himself standing blankly before Park.
Using that opening, Jaeha left the hall entirely. It wasn’t his job anymore; what did it matter who shook whose hand.
He was heading toward the hotel lobby when it happened.
“Huh…?”
He blinked, wondering if he was seeing right.
It was an odd hour on a weekday afternoon, so the lobby was quiet. With Yushin renting a hall for the celebration, it was only natural there were few regular guests.
So he spotted Jang Taegun easily.
Not that he could have missed him even in a crowd.
A man a head taller than most stood with his suit jacket not on, but slung over his shoulder.
Startled, Jaeha started toward him, then faltered. A sleek man who read as an Omega was standing at his side.
…Who’s that?
The question rose. It was a face he’d never seen. He could have thought he was one of the men under Taegun, but something felt different.
He started toward them, then turned away. Thanks to Jang Changsik, they’d only just gotten frost in their early days as newlyweds.
Better to do nothing and stew in his own head than do something and earn more dislike. For Lee Jaeha, that was the better opportunity cost.
“If you saw your spouse, you should at least say hello. Why just walk off.”
So he didn’t even realize the words were meant for him. He took another step, then finally realized the remark was aimed at him and stopped.
Even as he turned back, he doubted it. Spouse? He did have a spouse, yes, but calling Jang Taegun that felt… not a little, but very strange.
When at last he fully turned, his eyes met those of the “spouse” who had been looking everywhere for him.
“…Team Manager Jang?”
Ignoring the title he’d been addressed with, Taegun glanced up toward the second floor where the hall was and came over.
Behind him stood Myungsoon, and an Alpha a bit shorter than Jaeha but solidly built. From the look of him, that Alpha was also one of “that side.”
“Yes. What brings you here, Team Manager Jang…”
“I go around sometimes, collecting on what’s overdue. As you mentioned, I’m still stuck at Team Manager.”
Even if he said overdue, he wasn’t some street punk moving for a few thousand; it was likely a multi-hundred-billion project had gone sideways and he was here to handle it.
…Or was he here to find someone?
But Jaeha didn’t pry and simply nodded.
“Director, good to see you.”
Quiet until now, Myungsoon grinned and offered a greeting. With a face straight out of a movie—textbook for that line of work—his smile could have set nerves on edge, but Jaeha returned it obediently.
Of all Taegun’s entourage, Myungsoon was the most familiar. Taegun barely came home.
“Yes, hello, Mr. Myungsoon.”
As he returned the greeting, the Alpha who had been standing behind with a somewhat stiff face strode forward and thrust out his arm.
“Good day, Director. I’m Mo Jeonggil. I serve under Brother Taegun.”
“Ah, yes. Hello.”
Hearing he was one of Taegun’s men, Jaeha was about to return the greeting warmly.
“Why do thug bastards always swarm in packs.”
A sneer drifted from behind them. Slowly, Jaeha looked back. It was Lee Jaeho.
…When did he get out here. He’d told him to make the rounds and come out.
It rankled to see an executive-director-appointee leave without properly finishing what a director had told him to do.
Catching Jaeha’s glance, Jaeho curled his lip in a smirk. With his attendants at his back, he seemed sure Jaeha wouldn’t say anything to him.
Jaeha was the type who valued how Yushin appeared in others’ eyes, and much of that came from the social gaze on an owner family; if he could help it, he didn’t scold Jaeho or slight Kim Ranhui in public.
Knowing that, he picked this moment to speak. …I should have dragged him to the main house, tied him up, and beaten him. Watching Jaeho, he regretted it.
Nine-tenths of the reason that, despite his hoodlum temperament, Jaeho had yet to cause major incidents was that Lee Jaeha held the line behind the scenes.
If it were a matter of Jaeho’s personal misfortune, whether he used drugs or blew his private funds at the tables, it wouldn’t matter; but as long as he was part of Yushin, he couldn’t be allowed to live as he pleased.
So he set a day and beat him. If he made trouble, he beat him; if he didn’t make trouble, he beat him anyway. Perhaps because no inferior Alpha could beat a superior Alpha, despite Jaeha’s years of boxing, Jaeho never once managed to fight back—he only ever got thrashed, pathetically.
Jaeha considered himself something of a gentleman, but only with civilized people. In his view, Lee Jaeho wasn’t one.
He was opening his mouth to say a word to the uncivilized one when—
“You a thug bastard too?”
“…What?”
With his head tipped to the side and no expression, Jang Taegun spoke to Jaeho. It wasn’t so much expressionless as if he didn’t know how to make an expression at all; it was eerie.
When an Alpha over one-ninety stared at him with that strange look, Jaeho seemed rattled.
“Are you a thug bastard too, brother-in-law. You all came swarming, so I’m asking.”
In that same speech that hovered between polite and plain, he asked Jaeho; he didn’t forget to jerk his chin at the attendants behind him.
Jaeho, flaring up, started to answer, then glanced back and waved off the people who had followed him out.
Watching all of it, Jaeha let out a long sigh. It was hopelessly pathetic.