Chu Seongwon let out a short, bemused laugh at the flustered response.
“Ah… I… um…”
Munyeong struggled to get the words out. His academic background was far too humble to state with any confidence.
“What’s going on. Are you a foreigner? Can’t speak Korean?”
Seongwon mocked him, clearly finding his inability to string words together incomprehensible. Munyeong instinctively glanced over at Haejeong without thinking. It wasn’t that he was looking to be rescued — he just didn’t know how to handle a situation like this, and he was looking for some kind of cue. But contrary to his expectations, Haejeong was standing with his arms crossed, quietly looking down at him. He had assumed it would be one of two things: either complete indifference, or irritation at the attention being directed at him. It was neither.
“Probably one of the SKY schools.”
Chu Dowon, who had been silently listening nearby, twirled his wine glass and said it like it was obvious.
“Then why can’t he get a word out.”
Chu Seongwon mimicked Munyeong’s stumbling speech in a mocking tone.
“Aunt wouldn’t hire anyone below SKY.”
“Doesn’t he have to have studied abroad too?”
“Right. He’s probably done a few years of language study overseas at least.”
They spoke as though they knew Rep. Chu inside and out.
“But the way he’s acting, he’ll probably get fired soon.”
Unlike Chu Seongwon, who came across as a bit childish, Chu Dowon ran his gaze over Munyeong with the practiced look of someone taking exact measurements. There was a sharpness in his eyes, and within that gaze, something like superiority stood out even more clearly. Which is to say — the authority he wielded in looking down on others was considerably more intense.
“Hey.”
Haejeong, who had been listening in silence, gave Im Munyeong a nudge. Munyeong, who had been quietly enduring the humiliation, turned to look at him steadily.
“They’re walking all over you because you won’t say anything.”
It was his way of telling him to answer.
Haejeong seemed curious too, pressing him for a response. Munyeong swallowed what was left of his flustered feelings and exhaled calmly.
“…Middle school graduate.”
He said it quietly, and all three faces crumpled at the same time.
He had been expelled before finishing high school, so middle school graduate was technically correct as his highest level of education. They looked as though they had never heard or encountered such a thing, and opened their mouths in disbelief.
“Middle school graduate? Like the kind I’m thinking of?”
“Ha. How does a middle school graduate become hyung’s secretary?”
The first was Chu Seongwon, the second Chu Dowon.
“Why?”
And the last was Haejeong. A reaction worlds apart from the other two. Munyeong had naturally anticipated the twins’ response — but Haejeong’s answer was something he hadn’t imagined at all.
“…Pardon?”
“Why are you a middle school graduate. You were clearly…”
Haejeong caught himself mid-sentence and stopped short. He clenched his jaw and shut his mouth, and then, with an expression that turned suddenly severe, he kicked Chu Seongwon’s leg hard.
“Ow!”
Seongwon grabbed his leg and stared up at Haejeong with a completely baffled look.
“What was that for all of a sudden!”
He cried out in aggrieved pain, but Haejeong just stared back at him blankly, as though he hadn’t done a thing. Seongwon shot him a sulky glare at the inexplicable behavior.
“Seriously, you’re so weird. God.”
But he didn’t have the nerve to actually push back — he just muttered it under his breath.
Then Haejeong kicked him hard in the other leg. The force of it was enough to buckle his knees, and Seongwon nearly crumpled as he whipped around to glare at Haejeong.
“Okay, why!”
And again, Haejeong wore the expression of someone who had done absolutely nothing. Chu Dowon, who was far enough away to have escaped being targeted, was slowly inching away, reading the room carefully. Whether something had gotten under his skin or he was simply in a bad mood, launching into one-sided bouts of violence without warning was just one of Haejeong’s habits.
“What’s all the noise.”
A middle-aged man with a solid build stepped forward and reprimanded Chu Seongwon with composed authority. At his father’s appearance, Seongwon — who had been pointing at Haejeong with a deeply wronged expression — quietly lowered his hand in the face of his father’s stern presence, which had a way of making a person shrink even when they’d done nothing wrong.
“No, it’s because Haejeong hyung…”
“Tch.”
“…I mean, the Senior Managing Director… all of a sudden…”
Seongwon trailed off with a deflated look. Apparently, telling the full story to his father was its own frightening prospect, with Haejeong right there.
“I heard you came back from America. Your aunt said she was hurt. Said you came back without showing your face once.”
It was Chu Daehyeong — Haejeong’s maternal uncle by family registry. His current title was Executive Director at Baekil Distribution, a subsidiary of Baekil Group.
“Is that so? Strange that she’d be hurt. It was Rep. Chu who sent me to America in the first place.”
“Are you still on about that? It was a study abroad you were going to do anyway. Do you still have a grievance with your aunt…”
“It was also Rep. Chu who kept me from coming back to Korea.”
Haejeong cut Chu Daehyeong off with a flat, expressionless face. As if daring him to keep talking nonsense.
At the cold response, Chu Daehyeong let out a small cough and continued composedly.
“She simply didn’t think you were ready yet.”
“Sure, whatever.”
He waved his hand dismissively, as if continuing the conversation was too much effort. The condescending attitude made even Chu Daehyeong flinch — and so did his twin sons standing behind him. There’s no son in the world who’d enjoy watching his own father be treated with contempt.
“Don’t you think it’s precisely that kind of behavior that’s kept you from earning your aunt’s trust?”
Chu Daehyeong, apparently unwilling to take being dismissed by his young nephew lying down, delivered one last pointed remark — not quite a scolding, but something close to it.
“Ha… this is exactly why it’s so exhausting.”
Haejeong let out a laugh that wasn’t quite a laugh — the kind that comes out when all the air just leaves — and raked a hand through his hair.
“And these uncles of yours are somehow more trustworthy?”
“Wh — what?”
At the blunt, contemptuous wording, Chu Daehyeong’s expression shifted — caught off guard first, then hardening into something cold. Haejeong paid him no mind and brought up the next thing casually.
“I heard someone’s celebrating a military exemption.”
“…What does that have to do with―!”
“Sounds like they’re planning to shout it from the rooftops. Can you imagine if the public found out. The people who are supposed to practice noblesse oblige, celebrating and making a spectacle of themselves because they dodged the draft.”
Haejeong shot back with a crude edge, shifting his weight to one leg like some street tough from a back-alley neighborhood. Chu Daehyeong’s face cycled through shades of red and white as he turned to burn a glare into the twins standing behind him. The twins flinched and shrank into themselves. Chu Daehyeong turned back toward Haejeong, his mouth twitching with barely contained fury.
“You little — just because your uncle said one thing, you go and―!”
“Mind your own house first.”
Haejeong gave him a scornful once-over from head to toe, then knocked him on the shoulder as he walked past. Munyeong, who had been watching it all, let out a silent exhale. Observing him, it was clear: Haejeong was the type who went out of his way to make enemies. Munyeong looked back and forth between Chu Daehyeong, who was trembling with barely contained fury, and Haejeong, who was already walking away. For a moment he stood there, uncertain of what to do — and then Haejeong, stopping in his tracks, snapped at Munyeong with irritation.
“You coming or not?”
It was an order to move, and move now. Munyeong followed after Haejeong, who was walking away from the mess he’d made. As he fell in step behind him and absently turned his head, he found himself looking directly into the eyes of Chu Dowon, who was staring straight at him. Startled, Munyeong looked away and turned his head back forward. Haejeong was scratching at the side of his neck with a perfectly unbothered face, as if nothing had happened at all. Completely indifferent to the sharp, resentful gaze being shot at his back.
Does he have any friends…? The thought crossed Munyeong’s mind out of nowhere. With a personality that crooked. Then again — he was the same way back in high school, and there were always people around him.
