【05. Compromise】
His condition had hit rock bottom.
Chaehun, who had been entering numbers while looking at the monitor, pressed his heated eyes with his hand. With only a slight exaggeration, it felt like his eyes were going to get burned.
It was a cold. Perhaps because he’d gotten caught in the rain last Sunday night and gotten angry, he’d come down with body aches. When he woke up Monday morning, his body felt heavier and more painful than usual—that was the warning sign. As a precaution, he bought cold medicine with body ache relief on his way to work and took it. The medicine wasn’t very effective. The symptoms got worse as the afternoon went on, but he couldn’t go to the hospital because of overtime work.
He had no choice but to take just the cold medicine and hope for the next day. And today, when he woke up in the morning, his throat was swollen. Still, he could manage to endure during the day, but when afternoon came, his fever got worse. He had a feeling he was going to get seriously ill.
Today, no matter what, he had to leave work on time and go to the hospital. There’s a joke that if you get a shot for a cold, it takes two weeks, and if you don’t go to the hospital, it takes 14 days. But still, he needed to get the medicine’s effects and have his symptoms improve so he could at least go to work; otherwise, he’d be bedridden.
“Cough, cough.”
Now he was even coughing. It felt like his heart was going to pop out.
“Ugh. I’m dying.”
“Assistant Manager Kang. It’s gotten worse, hasn’t it? Are you okay?”
When Chaehun made a groaning sound and put on a mask from his drawer, Deputy Lee sitting next to him spoke to him.
“Even though I took medicine, it’s gotten worse.”
“Go to the hospital first when you get off work.”
“I’m definitely leaving on time today.”
It was ironic. He was working at the best hospital in South Korea, but meeting a doctor once was like plucking stars from the sky. At times like this, he could use various connections to make an outpatient appointment, but today his luck was particularly bad in many ways and he couldn’t find the time.
Fortunately, there were less than 20 minutes left until the end of work. He had to hurry and finish his work.
He was coughing once more when suddenly a PR team employee rushed into the office and headed straight for the Section Chief’s desk. Soon after, the Assistant Manager shouted loudly.
“The CEO is coming?!”
At the word CEO, the office stirred once. And Chaehun was also surprised and turned his head to look at the Assistant Manager. The CEO meant Chairman Jeong’s grandson who had been newly appointed last time. That was Seunggeon.
The Assistant Manager started bustling about and then immediately got up from his seat and left the office. The PR team employee did the same. As soon as they left, murmuring arose here and there.
“This is ominous from the start, isn’t it?”
“You’re right.”
Chaehun agreed with Deputy Lee’s quiet opinion next to him.
Taehwa Group was a massive corporation called a chaebol, with many famous affiliates. But not long after becoming CEO, he was visiting Taehwa Hospital first. And without notice, 20 minutes before quitting time at that.
For someone at the level of Taehwa Group’s CEO, it was normal to make an appointment in advance and visit. And before the CEO’s visit, the hospital would fall into cleaning hell. Because they didn’t know where the CEO might want to go, they had to make everywhere sparkle. Of course, a CEO had never visited the hospital before, but Chaehun had been mobilized for cleaning because of other higher-ups.
Anyway, almost no General Affairs Department employee would fail to recognize that the CEO’s surprise visit was some kind of signal.
Even Chaehun, who had been meeting Seunggeon personally for a long time, knew nothing about work-related matters. Because Seunggeon had warned him and Chaehun hadn’t asked.
It was a situation where he didn’t know what might explode and how, but Chaehun looked at the monitor again. Right now, finishing the chart came first.
He was trying to concentrate on the numbers again when this time his cell phone rang. The caller was his mother. She was someone who hardly ever contacted him during work hours. He wondered if something urgent had happened. He had paid back all the money to the investors last weekend, but variables could arise anytime, anywhere.
Chaehun told Deputy Lee he was going to take a call and grabbed his cell phone and quickly got up from his seat. Then as soon as he went out into the hallway, he answered the phone.
“Yeah. I answered. What’s up?”
—You haven’t left work yet, have you?
“I still have 15 minutes left.”
—I have something to talk about, so come home today.
“Today? Why all of a sudden?”
—I said I have something to talk about.
When she called during work hours and told him to come home because she had something to talk about, it meant there was something quite important. Usually it was when she had a difficult request to make. But her voice was different. Looking at how stiff it was as if she was angry, it didn’t seem like a request.
“Okay. But I have to stop by somewhere, so I’ll be a little late.”
—If it’s not urgent, come quickly. I need to finish before Suchan comes back.
Kang Suchan closed the store at 8 o’clock. By then, it would be tight to stop by the hospital and go. Chaehun said he understood and ended the call.
He wondered what was going on when a breeze in the hallway made his body shiver. Because he had no appetite, he’d eaten lunch carelessly and now his stomach was upset and he felt dizzy. He felt like he should hurry and finish work and go to the hospital first, so Chaehun moved diligently. He completed the chart he was working on and as soon as it became 6 o’clock, he gave his greetings and left.
Usually he used the back gate to commute, but today the front gate was faster. He was walking quickly to leave the lobby when a group of people caught his eye. Most of them were people with familiar faces. Especially, Seunggeon was clearly visible between the Administrative Director and the Section Chief.
Chaehun unknowingly stopped walking. It was funny to see the Assistant Manager, who had rushed out 20 minutes ago saying the CEO was coming, moving in a manner that treated Seunggeon like a master. It didn’t feel real even seeing with his own eyes that his high school classmate and sex partner whom he’d met just a few days ago was his superiors’ superior.
As he was staring, at some point his eyes met with Seunggeon’s. Seunggeon showed no sign of surprise and just turned his gaze away. As if he were a stranger.
For a moment, the area around his chest throbbed.
It was natural. The official connection between Seunggeon and Chaehun was only that they were high school classmates. They weren’t in a position where they could acknowledge each other here. Even though he knew that, his feelings were quite strange.
Chaehun looked once more in the direction where Seunggeon had disappeared and frowned. Anyway, after 9 months, they wouldn’t meet even privately. So this was right.
He was making that determination when his cell phone vibrated again. It was his mother again this time too. This time her voice was more urgent. She said things had gotten bigger because Kang Suchan had overheard the two of them talking just now and was demanding to know what was going on.
The trigger for the incident was that all day yesterday, every time Jo Mihye called Kang Yeonghwan, his cell phone was turned off. Jo Mihye asked Kang Yeonghwan, who had returned from school, what was going on. At first he said it was because his cell phone battery was dead, then next he said it was broken, and when Jo Mihye said let’s turn it on to see how broken it was, Kang Yeonghwan stopped her, telling her not to.
Feeling suspicious, Jo Mihye coaxed him gently and asked this and that, and Kang Yeonghwan explained that he’d turned it off because he was scared of his second-oldest hyung. He complained about how unfair it was that he’d made a mistake and his hyung kept getting angry. When he said he was going to change his phone, a message finally came to Jo Mihye today saying he’d changed it. He even earnestly requested that she not tell his second-oldest hyung the new number.
Frustrated by this, Jo Mihye wanted to see Chaehun to find out what was going on, but it had become a situation where even Kang Suchan had stepped in.
Kang Suchan, who was managing the household in place of their deceased father, tried to actively intervene in his brothers’ problems.
—Why on earth did you do that? What’s the problem with him calling some friends over and messing up the room a bit? You know he didn’t have any malice. Do you have to corner your one and only younger brother like that? Now even Suchan knows, so this is serious. Really.
At Jo Mihye’s lament-filled interrogation, Chaehun was dumbfounded. It was clear that Kang Yeonghwan hadn’t said what he’d done wrong. He sighed at Kang Yeonghwan’s shortsighted behavior of being busy trying to avoid instead of acknowledging his mistake and cleaning it up.
And he even felt hurt by his mother who believed only Kang Yeonghwan’s words and blamed everything on Chaehun. Including Sunday night, Chaehun had only called Kang Yeonghwan five times. The messages were similar. He couldn’t talk because the phone was off, and in the messages he’d written that if he didn’t apologize properly, he shouldn’t come to the studio again. But it had become that he’d cornered his younger brother.
“Didn’t Yeonghwan say anything else?”
—Anything else? No. Why? Is there something more?
“Would I get angry just because he messed things up? And he didn’t even say sorry for turning off his phone.”
—Still, if it’s to the point of changing phones. Ah, I don’t know. Just hurry and come. Suchan has been waiting since earlier.
Jo Mihye changed the subject. She also knew that Chaehun didn’t get angry at Kang Yeonghwan unless there was a good reason. Also, now that she thought about it, it was strange that Kang Yeonghwan changed his phone and told her not to tell his hyung. But this matter had long left her hands.
Chaehun also knew he had to deal with his oldest hyung Kang Suchan, not his mother.
“I’ll come quickly.”
—Hurry.
Chaehun swallowed a sigh and hung up. Kang Yeonghwan was the one who caused the accident, but he couldn’t understand why cleaning it up was his responsibility.
* * *
Chaehun left work on time but couldn’t get treatment. He did step foot in the private hospital closest to Taehwa Hospital. However, during the spring seasonal transition, cold patients filled the waiting room. The hospital was open until 8, but at the notice that the waiting time alone would take over an hour, Chaehun eventually gave up on treatment and headed to his family home.
