‘……Grandchild? Beloved?’
For a moment my face almost contorted, but then I realized there was another visitor present and hurriedly composed my expression.
“That! That bastard!”
A middle-aged woman I had encountered once at a Baekil family gathering.
She was the spouse of my adoptive mother’s younger sibling, and the mother of the trash who had thrown crude jokes at me.
Seeing how she was pointing her finger right in front of people’s faces, it seemed her nature of looking down on me and my adoptive mother was still the same.
“Su-surely! The prior engagement Father mentioned couldn’t be that……!”
“That’s right. I need to spend some quality time with our Gunho, so you should head back now.”
‘Quality time.’
I was momentarily dazed by Baek Ildo’s dizzying choice of words.
“What on earth are you thinking, Father! You said you didn’t even have time to listen to our story, yet how can you be with such a lowly thing!”
“Isn’t that shameless attitude of demanding money without even a word of notice lowly too?”
Baek Ildo shot back harshly.
“Handle the W Food matter yourselves.”
“Father……!”
“Are you truly going to make me say the same thing twice with my own mouth?”
The W Food matter would be…… the news that quality control was sloppy, branding failed spectacularly, and overseas export plans all fell through.
Besides this, Baekil Group had no end of incidents and accidents. Just opening my phone screen, I could easily find article comments indirectly criticizing the incompetent chaebol family and community posts like ‘Boycotting Baekil Group who treats citizens like livestock,’ so it was clear that the main cause of the gray hairs on the group chairman’s head was stress rather than aging.
“You took not only the hotel but also the food business as if robbing it, and in the end you couldn’t handle it and caused this mess. At least pigs who refuse feed when full would be less greedy than you all.”
“Father! How can you say such things!”
“Leave. While I’m asking nicely.”
“……Kuk, I’ll contact you again next time.”
The woman bit her lip, then turned her body and strode away.
Just as she was passing by me with rough steps that showed all her anger and humiliation, the woman glared at me venomously.
“Not knowing your place and crawling in here!”
At that sound, I…… had no choice but to cover my nose with my palm.
‘The smell, really……’
At the stench as if all kinds of cheap perfumes had been dumped into one pot and boiled vigorously, I eventually stepped back several paces. Perhaps even more heated by that sight, her omega pheromones lost control and ran wild.
There’s no need to unnecessarily provoke someone so excited. When I carefully smiled as if nothing was wrong and bowed my head in greeting, for some reason the woman pointed at me with an even more humiliated expression before finally being escorted out by an attendant.
Did she misunderstand it as mockery……?
The venue finally became quiet. I let out a deep sigh and headed straight to Baek Ildo.
Chairman Baek Ildo, swirling a crystal glass on the high floor overlooking the Seoul landscape, looked as stylish as a character from some noir film, but having seen that sight for 10 years straight, the words ‘eyesore’ now naturally circled in my mouth.
“Drinking alcohol in broad daylight is bad for your health.”
“They keep making me drink. Those bastards.”
“Please stop using me to provoke them.”
“Provoke? What are you suddenly talking about?”
“I’m talking about ‘grandchild.’ Please don’t stimulate the main family people with words you don’t mean.”
Baek Ildo raised one eyebrow and looked at me.
It was Chairman Baek Ildo’s style of nonverbal expression telling me to say more.
“The fact that you’ve been meeting with me regularly to show off our closeness. I know it’s to sound an alarm to your family members.”
“Hmm. That reason isn’t absent.”
After our first meeting, Baek Ildo summoned me at all hours.
Saying he was lonely eating alone so he called me, or calling me to react while he played golf, or telling me to spit out some business ideas from the perspective of a young person called MZ generation or Gen Z these days, or treating me like a fortune-telling octopus asking which party would win the next presidential election……
As someone whose position was that of Lee Haram’s father’s company and Baek Seolheon being held hostage—not hostage—I had no choice but to play along with Chairman Baek Ildo’s games.
When the cold-blooded human Baek Ildo, who had never been affectionate to anyone, suddenly brought in a child from another family and pretended to cherish them more than his own children, tension began to circulate in the Baekil Group main family that had been full of complacency. The matter of that woman earlier forcibly taking management rights of W Food also happened less than 10 years ago, so timing-wise it was after I first set foot in the group.
“It’s already been 10 years. Isn’t it about time the effect wears off?”
“You’re such a sharp kid who knows all that, yet you ran away to that shithole school behind my back?”
Though Baek Ildo’s expression was harsh, I was the one who deliberately submitted an enrollment application to a third-tier university to make him think that way.
Changseong Global University, Department of Arts. I returned from military service and am now a 4th year student.
Though it was a school in Seoul with a decent reputation, it was far insufficient as credentials for a prestigious chaebol family member, and a completely random department showing not even a speck of ambition for success.
“Have you given up forever on your dream of being a business student?”
“I must not have had a talent for studying.”
“Don’t say such unfunny things. Do you think I don’t know you were at a level to easily get into Hanguk University?”
“Even if that were the case, I had to watch the family’s reactions, so I had no choice.”
I smiled bitterly and recalled the past.
During that time, it wasn’t just that middle-aged woman earlier who openly picked fights with me.
‘Are you that adopted kid?’
Was it around high school?
More than ten fingers’ worth of people came to me secretly, avoiding Baek Ildo and my adoptive mother’s eyes.
‘Your target university is Hanguk University, Stanford. Looks like you’re being cocky relying on that tiny brain of yours.’
‘But do you really think Baekil Group will actually accept you?’
As if they had coordinated in advance, they handed over bank accounts and thick envelopes. Some people even came accompanied by big-shouldered hyungs.
‘That’s your whole purpose for brazenly enduring with that pretty face, isn’t it?’
‘It’ll be enough money for you to live comfortably for life, so take this, cut ties with the Baek family and leave!’
‘If you keep sucking up in front of Chairman Baek again, know that you’ll get seriously hurt!’
Of course, right afterward I reported directly to Chairman Baek’s direct line with a smile on my face. In technical terms, it means I snitched.
‘Am I crazy? Why would I throw away a wealthy family environment and loving family?’
Above all, the fact that I can currently live a normal daily life with my condition is all thanks to my adoptive mother, who is the CEO of Baekil Pharmaceuticals. The moment I leave this family to receive some petty cash, I’ll really die crushed by pheromones.
Hearing my report, Baek Ildo shouted, ‘Instead of wasting time trying to catch a kid, worry about the work you’re responsible for!’ Afterward, while straightening out people inside the group, a certain branch family that had even hired gangsters was completely removed from management.
‘Even though they were distant branch family members…… did they really need to go that far because of me alone?’
I was suspicious that Chairman Baek Ildo might have used me as bait with the intention of wielding his cleaver the moment he caught evidence, and sure enough, I heard he made this statement at a group meeting.
‘Gunho is undeniably my daughter Yeonhui’s son! If you’re thinking of spreading false rumors about him being another bloodline or whatnot, or playing worthless tricks, I’ll consider it as an aspiration to dare challenge me, Baek Ildo, and I’ll specially cherish you.’
If I hadn’t known Baek Ildo, I might have been a little moved by those words like some double-eight year romantic delinquent.
That wasn’t protection, it was provocation.
After that, the suspicious movements lurking around me drastically decreased, but far from the sharp gazes subsiding, they only pierced more sharply day by day…… In the end, I had no choice but to raise the white flag in the name of a third-rate university enrollment application and personally show that I had absolutely no interest in the group management rights struggle.
For reference, I have no regrets. I was planning to live comfortably anyway, milking money through investment and real estate.
“The university issue aside, and going to the military without a word of consultation…… Fine, I’ll let that slide. It’s not too late even now. Transfer, or at least go somewhere decent for graduate school.”
Both school and military were because of you, yet what do you mean ‘let that slide.’
While grinding my teeth inside, I smiled on the outside.
“Thank you for your words, but I’m fine. I have no intention of continuing my education.”
“I’m telling you there’s no need to watch those stupid bastards’ reactions. With me behind you, who would dare say a word?”
Does that dominant alpha old man even know the feeling that even without saying a word, their gazes alone make me feel sick? I don’t have guts as big as a chaebol chairman.
In the end, having endured and endured, I brought up the question I had kept bottled up for so long.
“Why do you insist on keeping me by your side like this?”
“……Mm?”
“I’ve told you repeatedly, I don’t want to be at odds with the Baekil family members, nor do I want to be indebted to them.”
I didn’t want to be involved with the group in the first place. I wanted to live quietly as if I didn’t exist and remain with just enough presence for people to say ‘Ah, was there such a person?’
“Didn’t you say you had repaid the debt to my birth mother, Lee Jiyoung, back then?”
“……”
“If it’s to sound an alarm to a group that doesn’t have a sense of crisis even during management difficulties…… at least that alarm should be rung by someone truly suitable as a successor, not a scarecrow like me, shouldn’t it?”
The inner feelings I hadn’t been able to say because I was constantly watching others’ reactions,
I conveyed them directly to the silent Baek Ildo.
“Instead of me, you should keep my younger brother, Seolheon, by your side.”
* * *
“You’re home?”
As soon as I opened the door, Baek Seolheon greeted me with an expressionless face.
He was such a beauty that his mere presence created the illusion of brightening the surroundings, so there was no need for a separate entrance sensor light.
“Hyung. You look tired.”
“Because I am tired……”
“Take your medicine.”
“Ah, thanks.”
Baek Seolheon brought pills and a water glass with practiced hand movements. The pheromone response suppressant, that medicine I had been taking continuously since manifesting as an alpha.
Baek Seolheon always noticed like a ghost when my medication was wearing off and prepared it in advance.
“The living room is clean. Did you clean?”
“I was bored.”
“High school seniors don’t need to worry about this stuff.”
As I lightly tousled Baek Seolheon’s bangs and looked around, I noticed the interior was cleaner than usual.
A newly built 38-pyeong apartment in a Seoul station area, 19th floor.
Though more modest than the luxurious apartment I used to live in with my adoptive parents, it was spacious enough for two men to live in.
