Vol 6 Ch 13

Kwon Taeha had been abandoned by his father; I had been abandoned by my mother. No one is born alone. That truth doesn’t change, even with age. Did Father believe that half-souls could somehow hold hands together?

“A half-soul…”

“Huh? What did you say, Hawon?”

Wagner, holding the umbrella steady, asked. I looked at him. Even someone with a strong body like him only loved his lover in moderation—because he valued himself more. As Kwon Taeha had said, where in this world is there a love like Shakespeare’s tragedies, or Tristan and Isolde? To love someone so much you’d throw away yourself—that’s something only the insane do.

Once you’re dead, it’s all over. What does it matter what pain remains for the ones left behind? Just like with my real mother.

Did Father weep bitterly at the death of my real mother?

As a child, I remembered the funeral being crowded with people. But mourning my mother’s death was brief—soon after, they all spoke with Father about business. Even the funeral was business.

After the long funeral ended, my mother’s ashes were buried beside my maternal grandparents’ graves. Father held my hand and, gazing at the mound of earth over my mother’s grave, said:

I’m sorry, noona. I ruined everything.

I had never tried to understand him. Locking away her belongings in an unused storage room, sneaking in sometimes to listen to Teresa Teng’s songs—I had thought those were simply his own ways of loving my mother.

[Should we forget everything and move to the countryside? Sit at the mill you loved so much, Heeon noona, and live quietly with our son? Will the forest at night still be the same? Will the salt fields still be there?]

[Mom… were you more of a sister to Father than a wife?]

[It’s my fault. Everything breaks when it comes into my hands. I wanted to do well, but it all turned into a mess.]

Then why? Why were you so greedy? Why?

When we left for Macau, people whispered that he was fleeing because he had committed too many sins to live in Korea.

On the day he took me to the grave, Father merely stood before the three graves. He didn’t bow or offer liquor. He just stared at them so long it bored me. I never knew what he thought that day. Maybe guilt, maybe seeking forgiveness. When he pushed me toward the car, telling me to wait there, I found it hard to walk away. I turned back many times, and I saw him pressing the long burn of his cigarette into my grandfather’s grave. To me at that age, it was a terrifying sight.

Until the day he stole my grandfather’s company and left Korea, Father defiled his grave.

『君子报仇, 十年不晚』

A gentleman’s revenge is never too late, even after ten years.

I recalled the note from the old apothecary who claimed to see the future.

“The real half isn’t with Kim Jaeyeon… the real one is…”

Just then, Wagner excused himself for an urgent call. He froze mid-step, then looked down at me. His expression quickly hardened as he hurried me toward the sedan. Along the way, I saw the old man, whose wall had once been destroyed, now rebuilding it himself. Wagner’s strides were long and fast, and only after I sat inside the sedan did I manage to catch my breath.

“Hawon.”

Wagner, his throat parched, called my name and then drank from the water bottle left in the driver’s seat.

“What’s wrong?”

“From now on, just listen carefully.”

I felt like a kindergartener.

“We don’t know the situation yet. But—Notsignal.”

Frustrated by his own explanation, Wagner switched to German, then showed me his phone. It was a news alert for tomorrow’s German paper, containing only a single line related to STA Corporation.

The full article was embargoed.

***

「……Former chairman Kwon Yiwon handed over Tex Corporation, which focused on Celebrity Cruises and the shipping business, to his eldest son, ‘Felix Kwon,’ and the STA Corporation Group to his second son, ‘Yijae Kwon.’ The friction between STA Corporation, commonly referred to as ‘Pan-STA Corporation,’ and Tex Corporation had already been anticipated. Of Chairman Yijae Kwon’s assets, 30% was returned to society, while the remaining 70% was divided between the eldest and second sons. The one who inherited STA Corporation, practically the very body of STA, was the second son, ‘Yijae Kwon,’ who received about 50% of the shares. The eldest son, ‘Felix Kwon,’ filed for an inheritance redistribution after Kwon Yiwon’s death, but his request was denied.

The new successor of STA Corporation, the second son ‘Taeha Kwon,’ is a rising figure in Macau, particularly in the hotel and casino business. He leads STA’s offshore plant projects and successfully secured the U.S. government’s Arctic oilfield project. However, the eldest son ‘Jaehee Kwon,’ who had stepped away from the frontlines, submitted a request to the board to reclaim his rights as successor. The proposal stated that only the rights to ‘Macau STA Füssen’ should go to the younger son, while the STA Corporation Group itself should be inherited by him, the eldest. Since Felix Kwon, the head of Tex Corporation and a stakeholder in STA, supports the eldest son’s faction, signs of intensifying conflict with the second son’s faction are becoming evident.」

Kwon Jaehee……

I muttered the man’s name as I read the newspaper.

Kwon Jaehee, who had withdrawn from the frontlines and gone into seclusion, had reappeared. Had greed finally arisen in him? Well, being born into such a powerful family only to spend his days painting could feel unjust. Still, his timing was terrible.

The fact that Kwon Jaehee showed up to seize the successor’s position from Kwon Taeha…… and that Felix Kwon was backing him, could only mean one thing: he intended to oppose Taeha outright.

‘Mr. Jaehee, do you think WikiLeaks no longer exists?’

‘That’s none of my business. I only got involved because I found it interesting.’

‘It is rather curious. That Mr. Kwon Jaehee is even in Korea, and that he’s a painter, no less.’

‘I’m a man who already lost the fight. My pride couldn’t allow me to stay attached to the company.’

‘Mr. Hawon, do you know why I stepped away from the succession struggle? Back then, when I saw Taeha’s face turn deathly pale, I thought, “Ah, I’m going to die at this kid’s hands.”’

It was like a revolving lantern flashing by. I had a faint sense of goodwill toward Kwon Jaehee. He carried a gentle impression, different from the men I’d usually encountered. If my perception was correct, Jaehee didn’t wallow in self-pity. If anything, living in seclusion while painting seemed to have been liberating for him……

But perhaps I had read him all wrong. One can never easily know another’s heart.

The reason an embargo had been placed on a mere succession battle was that evidence of collusion between STA and the U.S. Democratic Party had been uncovered in relation to the Arctic project.

Tracing it back, in 2008, the U.S. housing bubble burst and the subprime mortgage crisis erupted.

In the late 2000s, to escape the recession, the U.S. implemented ultra-low interest rate policies, which also lowered mortgage rates. Simply put, people began borrowing money cheaply and speculating on real estate. Housing prices soared, and investment banks also took out massive loans to join the real estate frenzy.

There were three primary credit ratings for mortgage loans: prime for high credit, Alt-A for average, and subprime for low credit. Normally, subprime borrowers couldn’t get mortgages, but with soaring home prices, banks judged that even if they lent to subprime borrowers, they could recover their money through foreclosures. So they began recklessly lending to them.

The banks that extended loans to subprime borrowers then sold their bonds to Wall Street institutions with added fees. Since mortgage bonds had maturities ranging from five years to several decades, banks chose to offload them all at once rather than collect interest slowly over decades.

Wall Street institutions then chopped up the acquired bonds into small pieces to create supposedly low-risk derivatives, which they sold to investors worldwide.

When the U.S. government later judged that the economy was improving, it raised interest rates. The housing bubble then collapsed instantly.

As interest rates rose, so did mortgage payments, and subprime borrowers, unable to pay, began putting their homes up for sale. Housing prices dropped daily. The reason was simple: supply now far exceeded demand. Houses flooded the market, but buyers were limited, and so prices inevitably plummeted.

Even when investment banks repossessed foreclosed homes from subprime borrowers, prices had already fallen, leaving them with massive losses. Moreover, since the bonds had been repackaged and sold globally, it was impossible to recover them all. Mortgage finance companies collapsed one after another, and naturally, the investors in mortgage-backed securities also suffered losses.

It became an almost global financial crisis.

Astronomical amounts of capital vanished from the real estate market, and Wall Street suffered irreparable damage. The U.S. government injected about 1,200 trillion won (in taxes) into Wall Street as bailout funds. Amid all this, as the housing bubble burst and the global financial crisis worsened, a mysterious entity entered the U.S. market.

They were called BM (Black Man). Not a single individual, but a group of capitalists from various countries who began buying up tens of thousands of homes. At the time, nobody cared who they were. BM resold the acquired houses and land to the U.S. government and citizens at minimal markup. Naturally, behind the scenes, there had been collusion between the U.S. government (the Democratic Party) and BM.

The embargoed news reported in German and U.S. newspapers this morning revealed this: BM’s backers had secured the Arctic oilfield project based on their ties with the U.S. government. The company colluding with them was an oil firm in charge of drilling, Dutch Shell, which had agreed to rent a mega-float from them. Moreover, they had secured an order worth about 10 billion dollars to build an offshore special vessel (LNG-FPSO) equipped with liquefied natural gas production and storage facilities.

And everyone could guess who BM’s true backer was. The one who agreed to provide the mega-float for the Arctic oil drilling project was none other than the heir of STA Corporation, Taeha Kwon.

During the subprime mortgage crisis, Taeha Kwon had only been in his mid-20s. It was hard to believe. But if he truly had been BM’s backer, the timing was uncanny. Just as the succession battle was heating up, an article targeting Taeha exploded. It was clearly intentional, a smear campaign. Taeha himself must have anticipated such a sniper.

I closed the browser window displaying the article. Two white bodyguards stood watch at the entrance, while Wagner was right beside me. Security was stricter than usual. Surely, they didn’t think I would take this opportunity to run away…… Nor could anyone suspect me of orchestrating this mess. And since my father had already passed, the details of that time wouldn’t even exist in WikiLeaks.

“Where’s the CEO?”

I asked Wagner.

“Don’t know.”

My head throbbed.

“You saw Mr. Kwon Jaehee before too, didn’t you?”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Was he the type to do this?”

“Impossible. Met him once. Can’t know people’s hearts.”

“That’s true, but still.”

Could it be that Kwon Jaehee was utterly ignorant of the situation? If he knew that Felix and Kwon Yijae had orchestrated Taeha’s kidnapping, he couldn’t be acting like this. And since he didn’t know he carried Hyun Jeongwon’s bloodline, his attitude could only be explained that way. If Taeha played his hidden card, at best it might mean inheriting his biological mother Eva Kwon’s shares. But as things stood, Kwon Jaehee couldn’t even rank in the line of succession.

I wondered how Kwon Yijae, who had stepped down citing mental illness, was viewing the situation now……

“Hawon. Are you worried?”

Wagner asked with a puzzled expression.

“Am I not allowed to worry?”

“Strange.”

“What is?”

“You don’t like CEO.”

“…….”

“You’re not on CEO’s side.”

It felt like I had been caught off guard. In Wagner’s eyes, that’s exactly how it must have looked. I had run away, rebelled, and even gone to Aeil Kwon. I shook my head.

“I didn’t dislike him.”

“Then?”

“……I hated him.”

“Korean is hard. ‘Dislike,’ ‘hate.’ Same.”

“They’re different. Dislike can exist without reason, but hate requires one.”

Wagner mulled over my words several times, as if trying to grasp the meaning, before finally saying only, “Difficult.”

If collusion with the Democratic Party of America became fact and the Arctic Sea project was hit, Kwon Taeha would bear disgrace and losses I couldn’t even imagine. In Germany, business leaders were held to higher moral expectations compared to other countries. However, the Arctic Sea project was also beneficial to a resource-poor Germany, so it would become a dilemma within the country. If STA withdrew in disgrace, then not STA but Tex would likely bid for the $10 billion worth of special-purpose ships. Since Tex was the major shareholder of a shipbuilding and marine engineering company, it wasn’t technically impossible.

When my thoughts reached that point, suspicion turned into conviction. The sniper was definitely Tex. There was no way Kwon Taeha didn’t already know what I knew.

I rose from the sofa and paced around. He’ll handle it well enough. What good would it do for me to worry and overthink? …Yet I couldn’t figure out why my mood felt so foul. I had tried to win his heart by repaying my debt, and when things didn’t go my way, I had attempted to run from him. The image of Kwon Taeha, floundering because of me, had been the scenario I longed for, but seeing him fall into a trap someone else had carefully laid out—that was something I didn’t want to see.

‘I missed you, Joo Hawon.’

I remember the thrum in my heart when you found me.

‘I said I missed you.’

I pressed my fevered forehead against the window.

I missed you, Joo Hawon.

I muttered.

Pathetic. Back then, I thought that was a confession.

If Kwon Taeha hadn’t known about Aeil Kwon, perhaps things would have turned out differently. He might have forgiven me more easily, and I might have been a little more honest. But your way was strange. You never wooed me, never whispered words of affection. You wanted me right then and there, trying to wield me as you pleased, while all you planted for the future was vague unease. Until you grew tired of me. That was the probationary period you gave me, and you said once you were tired, you would never be lenient with me.

I didn’t want to relive the feeling of my heart plummeting to the ground. I didn’t want to acknowledge my own foolishness. I didn’t want to rely on you. I wanted to be strong enough to survive alone, even if stranded on a deserted island. To act unaffected, to sneer at the man who claimed to take interest in my heart—so I wouldn’t be hurt when abandoned.

I don’t believe anyone can love forever. A bride and groom promise each other until their black hair turns white. The future is unknown, but such vows give them strength in uncertainty. But you were too cruel. You showed me the worst possible end.

Protecting myself—that was the one purpose I’d lived with since birth, like a system forcefully programmed into me. That didn’t mean I avoided every danger. Sometimes I ran errands for Gyeongyeon that could have cost me my life, and when debt weighed me down, I even joined gambling tables where I had to stake my wrist. I was desperate.

Now I’m debt-free. If he discards me, I’ll just preserve my body as best I can and leave. Cowardly? Maybe. But I’ve always lived a cowardly life—I only pretended otherwise. Who cares whether she was murdered, or my father committed suicide? They lived however they pleased, so why shouldn’t I? Kwon Taeha and Ail Kwon are playing in the open sea, while I’m just a freshwater fish. Even if I swim before their eyes, I’d only be a mouthful.

I know well that compromise and complacency mean safety. And I am no longer desperate.

“Ha-ha…….”

A deep laugh rumbled from my chest. My breath fogged the window.

“Hawon?”

Damn it, I was searching for justification.

I wanted the man with ice-cold eyes to love me so much that he could melt even my frozen heart. I demanded agape from him when I couldn’t offer the same. If you sacrifice first, then I can open my heart. But I’ll never go first.

Just as you said, Kwon Taeha, I tried to use people’s feelings as a game of money, a means to seize advantage in relationships. I thought that was my way of protecting myself—that it was rational. I constantly hammered on a calculator disguised as reason, unwilling to take emotional losses, always finding excuses.

For me, liking someone meant fear. A life riddled with debt—if I loved someone, that person’s life would become one of suffering. If by chance I built a family, even the child would be miserable. With no money, I couldn’t afford trips. On the rare day I had off, I’d be too exhausted to do anything but sleep. My partner would grow weary of my incompetence. They would question why they had to suffer just because they met me. And eventually, when they reached the point of wanting to erase the very memory of me, they would say it:

“If only I hadn’t met you, my life wouldn’t be ruined like this.”

To me, love was an epidemic. I was the host, and misery would spread from me. So I cut off any relationship before feelings could grow. I worked the calculator tirelessly: This won’t work because of this, that won’t work because of that. And so, I never ended up loving anyone.

But what about Kwon Taeha?

In an instant, he erased the epidemic I was supposed to carry for life.

I always thought giving my heart to him was a loss, but he said he’d assign people to investigate my mother if I wanted, and when I asked if we needed to strike a deal, he said he didn’t want to calculate with me anymore.

It was Kwon Taeha who ended up taking the loss. The justification I had clung to so desperately, trying to see him with cold eyes, began to crumble. You won’t be unhappy because of my poverty. If you tire of me and throw me away, I’ll give you enough risk in return. I may be nothing more than noise drowned out by the crowd’s uproar, but I’ve had enough of living a life of resignation. I want to end my calculations on feelings here.

I picked up my phone and found Kwon Taeha’s saved number.