Chapter 17: Chairman Kang Mansik’s Women
Kang Sunhyuk visited the chairman’s office to request that he be considered for the strategic marriage with Baek Hyeri instead of Kang Dohyuk. He heard commotion as soon as he stepped out of the elevator on the top floor. Looking at what was happening, he saw secretaries arguing with a middle-aged woman in front of the chairman’s office.
Wondering why there was such a commotion at the chairman’s office of all places, Kang Sunhyuk’s face contorted when he realized that the woman wrestling with the secretaries was his mother.
“What the hell are you doing!”
The secretaries turned around in surprise when Kang Sunhyuk shouted.
“Executive Director…”
“Sunhyuk!”
His mother, Kim Yumin, shook off the secretaries’ hands and ran to her son.
“Please do something about these people. I just came to see your father, but they won’t let me in.”
Her arms were red and blotchy from struggling with the secretaries.
“Shit. Which bastard…!”
After checking his mother’s arms, Kang Sunhyuk glared at the secretaries with a menacing aura.
“Which bastard did this to you? Do my words sound like shit to you?”
“Don’t. I’m fine.”
His mother grabbed Kang Sunhyuk’s arm and pleaded, afraid he might charge at the secretaries.
“Why did you come here in the first place!”
“I missed your father so much…”
His mother started sobbing, so Kang Sunhyuk let out a deep sigh and swallowed his curses.
“Why aren’t you letting her in?”
When he directed the question at the secretaries, they froze and glanced at each other nervously.
“Damn it, answer me now!”
When Kang Sunhyuk raised his fist, one of the female secretaries let out a scream. His mother quickly stood in front of the secretary. Seeing his mother shake her head, telling him not to do this, Kang Sunhyuk took a deep breath to calm himself.
“The chairman instructed us not to let her in…”
One of the secretaries finally answered in a barely audible voice.
“Why?”
“We don’t really know…”
The secretaries had simply followed Chairman Kang Mansik’s instructions. Kang Sunhyuk clenched his fist. He wanted to break down the chairman’s office door, but he couldn’t. Kang Mansik was the only person Kang Sunhyuk feared.
Unlike Kang Dohyuk or Kang Chahyuk, Kang Sunhyuk had lived with his father until he was about fourteen. The violence and cruelty he witnessed from his father during those years were deeply engraved in his mind, and even as an adult, that fear remained imprinted like a brand.
“Let’s go.”
If Chairman Kang Mansik had given an order, the secretaries would never move aside. If his mother insisted on entering, burly security guards would surely come up and forcibly remove her.
“Sunhyuk, I need to see your father.”
His mother stubbornly resisted as Kang Sunhyuk tried to pull her away.
“It’s been over three months since I’ve seen your father. I need to know how he’s doing…”
“For god’s sake, stop it!”
His mother flinched when he yelled. Seeing her reaction reminded him of how she used to recoil when his father was violent toward her, and it made Kang Sunhyuk wince.
“I guess he’s busy right now. So come again later, make a proper appointment next time.”
He tried to persuade his mother after calming down a bit.
“You’re right. I was short-sighted. Your father is a big man now…”
Though dejected, his mother allowed herself to be led away by Kang Sunhyuk.
After bringing his mother to his office, Kang Sunhyuk gulped down cold water. Only after emptying two cups did he feel his boiling insides start to settle.
“Call me before you come next time. I’ll talk to the chairman’s office in advance.”
In truth, he doubted his father would agree to meet his mother even with prior notice. Still, he could at least prevent her from being manhandled by the secretaries like today. He earnestly asked her to call before visiting, and his mother nodded with a weak smile.
“Is your father healthy? Does he have any discomfort?”
His mother always talked about his father. Kang Sunhyuk couldn’t understand what was so great about that man. Despite having two other women besides his mother, she accepted it all. She would say it was inevitable in business, and that his father only showed his true heart to her.
As he grew older, he came to believe that his father’s “true heart” couldn’t be expressed through violence, but his mother’s faith in his father was so unwavering that he couldn’t dissuade her. Indeed, as his mother said, his father wasn’t affectionate with the mothers of Kang Dohyuk or Kang Chahyuk either. Both women had met Kang Mansik in the early days when he was establishing Dragon Holdings, for business purposes. He borrowed money from them and gained their family backgrounds.
As a result, Cha Seonyoo, Kang Dohyuk’s birth mother, would look at his father with visible disgust whenever they met, and Lee Miseon, Kang Chahyuk’s birth mother, showed no interest in his father at all. Rumors suggested she was seeing various men, but his father didn’t seem to care much.
Only Kang Sunhyuk’s mother could be called something resembling a wife to Kang Mansik. Though her treatment was terrible, even that she believed was an expression of affection. It was absurd that she took comfort in the fact that he showed her sides of himself that he didn’t show other women, but having grown up witnessing this dynamic, Kang Sunhyuk had no means to change this deeply ingrained relationship.
Above all, his mother loved his father too much. According to her, his father was her savior. She had been working in a bar to pay off debts when she met him, and he took her away on the condition that he would clear those debts.
In retrospect, it seemed less like affection for his mother and more like a momentary whim or a need for someone to take care of household matters, but to his mother, his father was an absolute figure.
“Father is doing very well, please take care of yourself. Are you eating properly? Why does your face look like that?”
He was providing her with enough money to live comfortably. Yet his mother always wore plain clothes and had a haggard face. What she always yearned for wasn’t money, but his father’s attention.
“Since you’re already here, let’s have a meal together before you go. I’ll treat you to something delicious.”
“Sunhyuk.”
His mother looked up at Kang Sunhyuk with eyes full of anxiety.
“People at the company are saying strange things. That it’s not you, but Cha Seonyoo’s son who will inherit this company. That’s not true, right? They must have misunderstood something?”
His mother was visibly distressed.
“Which bastard said that? It’s absolutely not true, so don’t worry.”
“Yes… you’re the eldest son, your father wouldn’t do that…”
Even as she denied it, her eyes continued to wander in uncertainty. This, too, was a trauma implanted by Kang Mansik. As Dohyuk grew older, Kang Mansik often compared Kang Sunhyuk and Dohyuk. Whenever he showed favor toward the exceptional Dohyuk, his mother would worry that Kang Sunhyuk might lose everything to Dohyuk, or more precisely, that she might lose Kang Mansik to Cha Seonyoo.
“There’s talk of marriage with the only daughter of Kangsan Construction, that’s why.”
“Kangsan Construction?”
“We’re working with them on our current project… Well, it’s complicated, but anyway, it’s because if someone marries their daughter, the company’s inheritance comes into question, so people are talking.”
“But why not you?”
His mother couldn’t understand why Kang Dohyuk was being mentioned for the marriage instead of Kang Sunhyuk, the firstborn.
“Of course it should be me. I’m just telling you what others are saying.”
Kang Sunhyuk reassured his mother with a casual tone.
“When you get married, I’ll sit next to your father.”
His mother clapped her hands in delight, likely imagining herself sitting beside his father at the wedding ceremony. Though it was bitter that she cared more about meeting his father than who her son was marrying, he smiled and enthusiastically agreed. His mother beamed more brightly than he’d seen in a long time at his confident assertion that no one but he could marry the daughter of Kangsan Construction.
***
The car entered Daejeon city and stopped in front of a building about ten stories tall. Director Choi got out first and opened the back door. Dohyuk, who had been waiting as if this was expected, got out of the car and turned to look at Yeon. With a glance that seemed to ask why he wasn’t getting out, Yeon followed suit.
Robust men in black suits emerged from a car parked right behind the one Dohyuk and Yeon had arrived in. Passersby glanced warily at the group that looked unmistakably suspicious. Among them, only Yeon stood out.
As Kang Dohyuk moved into the building, the men followed in a group. As they entered the first-floor lobby, a security guard approached and asked who they were.
“This is Managing Director Kang Dohyuk from Dragon Holdings.”
Director Choi, standing next to Dohyuk, answered on his behalf. The security guard looked puzzled but, intimidated by the imposing presence of the men who had taken over the lobby, picked up the intercom and called somewhere.
“There are people here from a place called Dragon Holdings…”
The security guard had only gotten that far when the person on the other end hung up abruptly. Less than three minutes later, the owner of the building, the president of Daejin Industries, came running down.
“H-how did you come all the way… No, let’s not do this here, let’s go upstairs first. If you had contacted us, we would have been properly prepared…”
Dohyuk merely lowered his gaze to look at the anxious president of Daejin Industries. Terrified by the cold gaze, the president quickly bowed his head, seemingly afraid to make eye contact. Thump, thump, Dohyuk headed toward the elevator without a word, while the president of Daejin Industries floundered, not knowing what to do.
“Didn’t you say we should go upstairs?”
When Dohyuk stopped and asked, the man hurriedly came to Dohyuk’s side. However, he couldn’t stand side by side with him and hesitated a few steps behind. The president of Daejin Industries kept glancing back nervously, clearly worried about whether all those men would follow them up.
“Stay here and don’t cause a commotion.”
At Dohyuk’s command, the men who had been following stopped and responded with a loud “Yes!” Yeon looked back and forth between them and the backs of Director Choi and Dohyuk. He wasn’t sure which group he should join.
“Come with me.”
Dohyuk turned specifically to Yeon and spoke. Thinking it would be better to follow them up than to stay among the intimidating men who looked like gangsters, Yeon silently approached him.
However, just ten minutes later, he regretted not staying downstairs.
