Episode 2. The Strange Parachute Hire 1.
Ring, ring.
Min Yanghong, chairman of Mancheon Group, ranked fourth in the business world, picked up the internal phone.
“What is it?”
[The person you mentioned, Mr. Kim Hyunwoo, has arrived.]
“Mm. Tell him to come in.”
Min Yanghong put down the receiver, picked up a walnut, bit half of it with his front teeth, and crunched down.
About three years ago, his chauffeur, who had been by his side for fifteen years, passed away.
To Min Yanghong, he had been a very special person.
Long ago, when he was taking over the shipyard on Geoje Island in the South Sea from the Korea Development Bank, he had once gone to secretly look around the place at night.
But by mistake, he had ended up falling into the sea.
“Help me! Sa-save me, ugh! Glug!”
A place with not a single light, not a single person.
Unfortunately, he could not swim either.
He shouted until his throat felt like it would burst, but no one answered.
After swallowing a few mouthfuls of seawater so salty it numbed his tongue, his mind began to grow hazy.
The chill of the winter sea, so cold it felt as though his hands and feet would fall off, began to dull, and the ship under construction inside the dock grew blurry.
His whole body grew languid, and he thought, So this is how I die.
There is still so much I have to do······.
I haven’t even achieved my goal of making Mancheon the greatest company in the country······.
If I die like this, who will inherit Mancheon? My wife doesn’t have the ability to run it, and the children are still young.
Could my younger brother swallow up Mancheon?
Countless thoughts overlapped chaotically as his consciousness faded, when a human voice reached him as if through a dream.
“Who is it? Is someone there?”
Ah!
At the voice of salvation he heard in the final moment of his life, his eyes flew open.
“Sa-save······.”
Perhaps because his strength had drained away, his voice would not come out.
But he could not die like this.
He took a deep breath and wrung out the last of his strength, shouting with all his might.
“Here! Here! In the sea—glug! Th-the sea, glug!”
At that moment, a flashing light glimmered in Min Yanghong’s pupils.
Fortunately, the man had found him right away with a flashlight.
“Good heavens! W-wait just a moment.”
He disappeared for a moment, then his voice came again.
“Grab this!”
It was a rope.
Min Yanghong desperately seized that rope of salvation and was able to escape from the terrifying, icy black water.
The man who saved his life was a shipyard security guard.
He said he had been making his rounds when he heard the voice and came running.
Min Yanghong immediately hired him as his personal chauffeur, though he had neither a good educational background nor any particular skills, and told him to name a wish in return for saving his life.
But the man waved both hands and refused, saying he had only done what anyone should have done.
Still, Min Yanghong could not let it go and kept telling him to name a wish, so at last the man said he would think about it and tell him later.
And for twelve years, he never spoke of that wish.
Then, about three years ago, he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
“So I don’t think I can serve you any longer, Chairman. I’m sorry.”
“This is far too sudden······. Hmm······ I’ll speak to a doctor I know and have you receive treatment, so let’s do everything we can until the end.”
“Thank you, Chairman. But before that, there is something I must tell you.”
“What is it? Go on.”
“Do you remember how, long ago, you said you would grant me one wish?”
It was something so old that he had buried it in his memory.
“A wish? Of course I remember. How could I forget that?”
“I think I will tell you that wish now.”
“Huh······ You’re only telling me now?”
Min Yanghong felt deeply regretful that the man was only naming his wish when death was upon him.
“You should have told me sooner. If you had, you might have lived a better life.”
“No. I have been more than satisfied with my life.”
“Hmm······.”
When Min Yanghong met his eyes as if telling him to speak, the man calmly stated the wish he had kept buried for twelve years.
“I would like you to have my son hired at Mancheon.”
Min Yanghong’s thick white eyebrows rose slightly.
“That’s the final wish you’re making before you die?”
“Yes.”
“Something like that isn’t even a wish. I could grant it as a simple favor. Instead of that, something more······.”
The man cut Min Yanghong off.
“No. My wish is what I just told you.”
“Huh, well now······. If that’s the case, it can’t be helped. I’ll grant your wish, so you focus on taking care of yourself.”
“Thank you, Chairman. My boy hasn’t learned much, but he has a remarkable talent. If you make good use of him, I believe he will be a great help to you, Chairman. Thank you for everything, Chairman. Please take care of your health, and I pray you achieve your goal of making Mancheon the greatest company in the country.”
The chauffeur bowed deeply and turned away.
And one month later, he died.
When Min Yanghong went to the funeral, he told those words to the man’s son, who was serving as chief mourner, but the boy said nothing.
He only shed tears, drop after drop.
To keep his promise to his chauffeur, Min Yanghong sent his secretary to visit the son several times, but every time, the boy refused, saying he had something he needed to do and could not join Mancheon yet.
Just as the wish and last words of the man who saved his life were becoming intermittent in his memory, the son contacted him.
And then, bluntly, he said.
“I think I’ll join Mancheon now.”
Knock, knock, knock.
It was the sound of knocking.
It seemed the fellow had finally arrived.
“Come in.”
The son he had seen at the funeral opened the door, came in, and bowed his head.
He felt quite different from back then.
His body had grown sturdier, his face seemed firmer, and his eyes were a bit······.
“Good day, sir. I’m Kim Hyunwoo.”
“Sit.”
The fellow took a seat.
“So, is the work you were doing finished?”
“Yes.”
“I’m curious what kind of work took you three years.”
“I did some studying, and I did some mental training.”
The studying had been for the qualification exam, and the mental training had been to make himself someone who would not be shaken under any circumstances.
“Studying and mental training?”
“Yes.”
Studying and mental training······.
The words had a somewhat scam-artist feel to them, but he had no desire to press the matter.
This was a meeting to keep a promise made to the man who had saved his life. In any case, ability was not what mattered.
If the boy was lacking, he could be given a position suited to him.
There were plenty of on-site management jobs where academic background or ability did not matter much.
“You brought your résumé, didn’t you?”
“Yes, here it is.”
Min Yanghong took the neatly folded document from the boy’s inner pocket and looked at it silently.
He was not looking at it silently because there was much to read.
‘Graduated from XX Middle School. Education thereafter completed through qualification exams.’
It was because his mind had gone blank at a résumé that contained only that.
“By studying, did you mean the qualification exams?”
“Yes.”
“And mental training?”
“Mental training, just as I said. Strengthening the mind.”
Dumbfounded, Min Yanghong stared blankly at Hyunwoo.
With his calm gaze and posture, the fellow, who had nothing to his name, looked remarkably confident.
Then again, he had been confident from the start.
For three years, he had kept Mancheon Group at arm’s length, a place even people with outstanding credentials were desperate to enter, and then suddenly called and said, “I think I’ll join Mancheon now.”
As if he were doing them a favor by coming in.
The ache in Min Yanghong’s heart from old memories of his chauffeur suddenly turned troubled.
“Why didn’t you finish school?”
“Because I couldn’t adapt to school life.”
He couldn’t adapt to school life?
This was not something one should say in an interview.
Because it would be taken as: if he could not adapt to school life, how would he adapt to company life?
And yet this fellow said it far too confidently.
He even had the composure to give a faint chuckle, as if he found it absurd himself.
“And after you quit school?”
“I just wandered here and there.”
“Did you go traveling or something?”
“No. I spent about a year at a prayer retreat, around six months at a meditation center, and lived briefly with a few religious groups as well.”
“Because you couldn’t adapt to society?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s where you did your mental training?”
“No. I did that on my own, outside, by dealing with people.”
“······.”
There was nothing to say.
Whenever he asked something, the man would say, “No,” and then spout something strange.
For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that perhaps the driver, his lifesaver and longtime companion, was playing some sort of joke on him.
No, that couldn’t be.
He wasn’t that kind of man.
‘Did he, as his final wish, entrust his somewhat lacking, socially maladjusted son to me?’
If so, it made sense.
After all, the wish he had made of a chaebol was nothing more than asking him to get his son a job at the company.
Thinking this, Min Yanghong slightly wrinkled the bridge of his nose.
‘He should have just asked for money······. That would have been cleaner for both of us······.’
“Why did you suddenly decide you wanted to join our company?”
“Because of my father’s will, I had originally intended to join Mancheon. The reason I couldn’t do so right away was that I had to prepare for the qualification exam, and I needed time to confirm whether I could adapt to working in society.”
“And the result of that confirmation?”
At Min Yanghong’s dubious gaze, Hyeonu answered in a calm, confident voice.
“I believe I’m ready now.”
“Hmm······ You do know that company life, if anything, is harder than school life, and it’s never easy, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“And you’re confident you’ll do well?”
“I am.”
“What you’ve done until now has been practice. The real thing won’t be so forgiving.”
“Isn’t life itself the real thing to begin with? Since I’ve decided to go out into society, I ought to live diligently.”
His head throbbed.
It was the first time in his life he had ever had such an absurd conversation, and it had been so long since he had dealt with such a worthless fellow that he could barely remember it.
He considered giving him a little money and sending him away, but he couldn’t break the promise he had made to this man’s father.
His lifesaver, who had been with him for many years.
This man was his son.
Keeping him close and making use of him was somewhat questionable, but he decided to keep his promise nonetheless.
What kind of work would be best for him?
For a moment, he thought about hiring him as a driver like his father, then quickly dismissed the idea.
For some reason, looking at this man seemed as though it would be bad for his mental health.
Maladjusted to social life, with credentials that fell short of office work······.
Would something like a logistics warehouse manager be appropriate?
As he was thinking this, the man spoke first.
“I don’t think work that doesn’t involve dealing with people, or simple repetitive tasks, would suit me. For my abilities to be put to use, I believe sales would be appropriate.”
“What? You want to do sales? Didn’t you say you couldn’t even adapt to school life?”
“That was when I was young.”
He spoke with overflowing confidence, without the slightest hesitation, but Min Yanghong still couldn’t bring himself to trust him.
“If you don’t trust me, you don’t have to accept me.”
“Huh······.”
Baseless, boundless confidence.
What on earth was he relying on to act like this?
Could the reason he had failed at school life have been this drugged-up attitude of his?
As he was thinking that, the man drove in the wedge.
“However, since you said you made a promise with my father, how about having me work, even if only during an internship period, and observing me? If you still don’t like me then, I don’t mind if you choose not to hire me as a permanent employee.”
* * *
After Hyeonu left, Min Yanghong picked up the receiver.
[Yes, Chairman. This is the secretarial office.]
“Tell the Director of Personnel Coordination to come to my office.”
After hanging up, the afterimage of Hyeonu still lingered in his mind.
He was simply too peculiar.
Leaving aside his résumé, the man had been far too composed, and even while sitting face-to-face with someone who was confident he would lose to no one in charisma, he had not been intimidated in the slightest.
No, he had even subtly steered the atmosphere of the conversation into his own pace.
Suddenly, he recalled what the driver had said.
“My son may not have learned much, but he has an uncanny talent. If you use him well, I believe he will be of great help to you, Chairman. Thank you for everything, Chairman. Please stay healthy, and I hope you will surely achieve your goal of making Mancheon the top company in the country.”
Was the “uncanny ability” the driver had spoken of referring to something like this?
A mind of steel that never shrank before anyone and maintained its own pace.
Or was it that mental training he claimed to have cultivated on his own?
‘Good grief, what am I even thinking right now?’
Min Yanghong shook his head and put the half walnut he had left into his mouth.
Crunch.