Chapter 5. Definite Proof
A luxurious restaurant near the company, at least by my standards.
There was no way I could feel comfortable sitting here.
He was Yura’s older brother, as well as an executive director at the company where I was working as an intern.
I was in a position where I had to make a good impression on him somehow.
And from his perspective as Yura’s brother, there was no way I wasn’t a thorn in his side.
Not only had I gotten his precious youngest sister pregnant right after she became an adult,
I was also practically interfering with his workplace by joining his company.
“I introduced myself to you last time, so I suppose we can speak casually now, right?”
“Of course.”
“Calling you my brother-in-law… would be difficult since you aren’t married yet and there hasn’t been any official announcement. Hmm…”
“You can just call me by my name.”
“That would probably be better for now. If I get used to calling you something else, I might accidentally use it in front of other people.”
Our families hadn’t even properly met yet, and we hadn’t held the wedding either.
So we’d decided to postpone publicly announcing the marriage for as long as possible.
Not only because of my family, but also because I’d heard relationships within chaebol families could be quite complicated.
I’d also heard that even someone like me, who hadn’t established himself yet, would receive an enormous amount of attention.
This was partly for my sake as well.
“So, Do-jin. Why do you think I asked you to have lunch with me?”
“…I assume you wanted to implicitly let the team members know that I have a special relationship with you.”
“Oh, you’re quick. I guess a perfect CSAT score really is different. Exactly.”
“…”
I couldn’t jump to too many conclusions yet.
But thankfully, for now, he seemed to be treating me favorably.
Perhaps ours was a relationship where he disliked me but couldn’t completely hate me.
I had gotten his beloved youngest sister pregnant, but whether he liked it or not, we were going to keep seeing each other.
“I heard you have ambitions.”
“…I won’t deny it. At the very least, I want to prove that Yura’s judgment of me wasn’t wrong.”
“Hmm…”
Perhaps he was trying to understand what I really meant.
He crossed his arms and studied me carefully.
Honestly, it was frightening.
Even for a man, meeting his future in-laws before marriage was intimidating.
And I had shown up after getting their daughter unexpectedly pregnant.
How terrifying must this be for me?
Even so, I had to overcome it.
“All right. It’s good for a man to have ambition. But… you know that anyone can make a verbal promise, right?”
“Of course.”
“Do whatever you can to produce results in the team you joined. That team was created for your sake, after all. If you can produce results by any means necessary, I’ll recognize you.”
“…”
“Your senior coworker is skilled. The team leader isn’t particularly ambitious, but he’s someone who can act as a shield for you. Yoon will handle the annoying miscellaneous work. Don’t get distracted by trivial things. Absorb everything you can and prove yourself with numbers at least once.”
Gulp.
I nodded.
“I understand.”
“Good confidence.”
“…”
“I don’t know what you think of me. But at least I have no intention of getting in your way. If you have enough ability, I’d even be willing to give you the CEO position.”
“…”
“Of course, only if you prove yourself worthy of it.”
I swallowed again.
It was an incredibly bold offer.
And it didn’t feel like empty words either.
Being humble was good.
But—
“I’ll show you.”
For now, I wanted to show him my ambition and determination.
Even if his purpose was simply to test me.
After lunch, Jin Tae-kyung came face-to-face with the CEO of Changseong Investment & Securities.
The CEO’s expression was full of questions.
“I heard you went to see the intern today.”
“…Yes.”
“For now, there’s a limit to how much I can tell you, so please be patient.”
“Of course, Managing Director.”
“Hmm… Still, I think I can tell you this much. Depending on how hard that intern works, he might even become the next CEO around the time you retire.”
“…”
What he had said earlier was absolutely not empty talk.
Of course, there were several conditions that had to be met.
He had to be qualified to become the CEO of Changseong Investment & Securities.
He had to have built a good family life by then.
And he had to remain with the company rather than move elsewhere.
“If that’s the case, Managing Director…”
“I have no ambition for it. You know that.”
“…”
“Changseong Investment & Securities is a good enough company. But its limitations are also obvious. It’s not easy for us to recruit talent compared to other securities firms, our activities are limited, and growing the company isn’t easy either…”
“…”
“We’ve grown to this size because we’re the group’s source of funding, but in reality, our independent authority is fairly limited. And it’s not as if I’m ambitious enough to devote myself entirely to this company.”
“…”
He genuinely had no great desire to take control of the company.
What good would it do him?
All it would bring was enormous responsibility and restrictions on his actions.
At that point, he wouldn’t simply be an executive director. He would have to carry the responsibility of being the CEO.
Could he freely spend money then?
Could he go anywhere and casually hand out his business card?
Even if he did, it wouldn’t be a business card he’d earned entirely through his own ability.
What kind of recognition would that bring him?
Ordinary people would probably respect him.
But he could already receive that kind of recognition simply by being the third son of Changseong Group.
As for receiving recognition from other chaebol families…
To them, being the CEO of Changseong Investment & Securities wasn’t particularly impressive.
Would they only contact him when they desperately needed money?
Rather than holding onto such a company without reason, it would probably be better for someone ambitious to run it.
“I was originally planning to subtly pass it on to Yura…”
“Is there something going on between you and the young lady…?”
“It’s a secret. Anyway, please keep it a secret too. Father is also watching him closely. If he struggles to adjust to the company and becomes exhausted, I’m sure the chairman will be very worried.”
“…”
Wouldn’t their father be more concerned than anyone?
He had placed such a heavy burden on a girl who had only just become an adult.
What if she ran away?
Who would deal with that little sister?
Even he couldn’t handle it.
That’s why his appearance at the company today had been important.
He didn’t want anyone making things unnecessarily difficult for the kid.
He wanted them to help him adjust.
And he had subtly passed some of that responsibility onto the CEO as well.
That should be enough for now.
Feeling relieved, he took out his phone and searched for the movie he had invested in.
He scratched his head.
“Damn it… Why is this movie getting reviews like this? President, have you seen this movie?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for… Haah. It’s genuinely a good movie. Can’t people feel the philosophy behind it?”
“…”
“If I had more time, I’d get involved myself… But with results like this, I can’t persuade Father right now.”
Haah.
Yura, or anyone else for that matter,
Please get me out of this company quickly.
I just want to focus on the content industry.
Grow up well.
Brother-in-law.
Lunch break.
The hastily assembled Special Strategy Team at Changseong Investment & Securities.
The three team members were eating with blank expressions.
They still hadn’t recovered from the shock of earlier.
The managing director, who rarely involved himself in office politics,
had personally come to invite the new intern to lunch.
How were they supposed to interpret this?
“Uh… Team Leader. What exactly happened earlier?”
“Hmm… Employee Yoon, I was actually wondering the same thing. Assistant Manager Choi, you at least had a brief conversation with him.”
“…I’m getting a slight chill down my spine right now.”
“S-surely he didn’t say anything strange about maintaining discipline?”
“…It’s ambiguous, but for now, we’re still within a safe range.”
Everyone let out a sigh of relief.
Everything was full of unanswered questions.
But one thing was certain.
The new intern and the managing director were close enough to have lunch together.
And there was a high probability that this was the reason the Special Strategy Team had been created.
“Heh. At least one mystery has been solved.”
The team leader was right.
Many questions had appeared.
But at the same time, one question had been answered.
“People were saying our Special Strategy Team was basically a forced resignation waiting room or an exile… But at least this means the managing director is personally interested in our team.”
“…”
Assistant Manager Choi Kang-woo immediately understood what the team leader meant.
It was something he’d been wondering about himself, and the events earlier had answered it.
The only reason he couldn’t speak was because the earlier incident had been so shocking.
Once he had finished figuring out the situation,
and after rationalizing away his lingering anxiety as much as possible,
He gave some very firm advice to Employee Yoon, who was sitting beside him with an innocent and curious expression.
“Yoon Ah-young.”
“Yes?”
“You were planning to pass the coffee errands down to the new intern just because a newcomer joined us. Don’t dump that kind of work on the intern without thinking.”
“Yes, Assistant Manager.”
“Team Leader, I think our team was created around that intern.”
“Really…?”
After the Special Strategy Team had been created,
There had been many things he didn’t understand.
The team leader was one thing.
Since he valued safety over performance, perhaps the company had put him in charge of the team as a form of forced reassignment.
The same could be said for Yoon.
She had been hired as a full-time employee, but perhaps she had become an eyesore to someone higher up, and they were trying to push her out this way.
It was difficult to fire people these days, after all.
But Choi Kang-woo himself had received fairly good performance evaluations, and his results weren’t bad either.
He couldn’t understand why the three of them had been put together.
Only now did the puzzle finally fit together.
“The team leader seems to be the shield. So the intern won’t be bothered by employees from other departments.”
“Is that it…?”
“I think my role is to help the intern adjust to actual work as quickly as possible.”
“You? But you’re one of the aces in our company…”
“I don’t know about being an ace, but apparently I’m special enough that I need to personally assist him. And you’re probably here to handle the annoying tasks the intern is supposed to do.”
“Oh…”
In other words,
Everything about this team had been built around that intern.
“There’s no reason to be disappointed. At least this could turn out to be an opportunity instead of the crisis we expected. If our team produces good results centered around that intern… we might achieve results we’ve never seen before.”
“Wow…”
“Don’t get too excited. If that intern becomes dissatisfied or fails to adapt properly… we’ll probably have to take full responsibility for it.”
“…”
Whether this lifeline would be a rotten rope or a golden rope
depended entirely on that intern.
The next question was—
Just who is he…?
Who exactly was this intern?
We returned to the company after lunch.
Ah…
The atmosphere in the office was completely different from before.
Well…
It was awkward.
I needed to earn these people’s recognition.
My senior coworker had even warned me on the rooftop.
I had absolutely no intention of throwing my weight around just because I had Changseong Group behind me.
In the end, I needed their help to produce results.
My senior coworker told me to follow him to the rooftop.
What should I say?
My relationship with Yura was still a secret.
“Were you perhaps… with the managing director? No. I won’t ask.”
“…You can speak casually with me. I only happened to get acquainted with the managing director.”
“R-really?”
He was watching me carefully.
I was new to working in an office too, so this situation was awkward for me.
Of course, even if I’d had work experience, this situation would have been awkward.
I couldn’t satisfy my senior coworker’s curiosity.
It was a secret.
And I didn’t want to use it as leverage.
My senior coworker asked me a few questions first to break the awkward atmosphere.
“I heard you’re twenty…”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Ahem. Really? Then you just graduated high school?”
“I took a leave of absence from university.”
“Well, you must have gone to university. Which university?”
“Seoul National University.”
“…”
His eyes changed once again.
I couldn’t lie.
“What department…?”
“Economics.”
“…Regular admission?”
“Yes.”
“Then what was your CSAT score…?”
“…There was nothing wrong with it.”
“…You mean a perfect score.”
The senior coworker thought for a long time.
“…Why did you come here?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did your parachute open in the wrong place?”
“…”
“No, I’m not saying our company is bad, but with credentials like that, you could probably get into a top-tier financial company without much trouble… Did you need money urgently?”
“…”
He had accidentally insulted his own company.
His senior coworker quickly pulled himself together.
Then he tried to break the ice again.
“Ahem. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Yes. We’re planning to get married.”
“…That’s romantic. Whoever she is, she really hit the jackpot. A perfect CSAT score, and your family seems pretty well-off too.”
“…”
I think I’m the one who hit the jackpot…
My senior coworker put out his cigarette.
“Looking at how things are unfolding, this really is both a crisis and an opportunity.”
“What?”
“At least you don’t seem completely empty-headed. In fact, you’re more like a high-quality blank sheet of paper…”
“…”
“Let’s get along well. I don’t know who you are, but I want you to make the most of me and produce the best possible results. Don’t hesitate to ask me anything. I’ll teach you everything like a private tutor.”
“…Thank you.”
Just like that,
I got myself a private tutor.
My sixth sense was sending me a signal.
Hold onto this man’s hand tightly.
At least,
This was definite proof that he would be a great help to my success.
