After returning to Korea.
I spent several days lying down, not going outside or contacting anyone, just sleeping.
Since the Big One occurred, I couldn’t remember sleeping properly for nearly a month before that. It felt like no matter how much I slept, exhaustion kept creeping in, as if I had unfinished homework.
In the meantime, my mother, Hyun-joo, Sang-yeop, and Henry visited me. There were countless meeting requests, from media outlets to CEOs of large corporations, but I turned them all down.
When I finally woke up, I opened my eyes.
I felt like I had dreamt something last night, but I couldn’t quite remember. I think an elderly lady praised me for something.
As I tried to get up, I noticed Ellie lying next to me.
I remember the three of us, Taek-gyu, Ellie, and I, drinking wine together last night. Did we decide not to return to the hotel and just sleep here instead?
It felt oddly natural to see her sleeping in my bed.
Noticing my movement, Ellie slowly opened her eyes.
“Uh, you’re awake.”
I kissed her forehead.
“It’s the weekend; go back to sleep.”
At my words, Ellie closed her eyes again, snuggling closer to me.
“It’s so nice having Jin-hoo next to me.”
“I feel the same.”
I can’t express how much I had missed her.
After confirming that Ellie had fallen back asleep, I carefully got up and went to the living room. Taek-gyu was lying on the couch, munching on some snacks.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah. My home really is the best.”
I made myself a cup of coffee and sat on the couch.
As I sipped my coffee while looking out at the garden, I suddenly felt the reality of being back home.
It felt like the events of the past few months were just a dream. Could it be that nothing really happened?
Despite the chaos on the other side of the world, Korea remains calm.
Thinking back, it was the same when massive earthquakes struck neighboring countries like Japan, China, and South Asia. It was similar within the United States as well.
Even though the West Coast was devastated, other regions functioned normally. This allowed for swift rescue and recovery efforts.
People generally pay little attention to events that don’t personally affect them.
“Let’s eat.”
“How about a Chinese restaurant for a change?”
“Sounds good.”
Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since I had jajangmyeon.
When I used to eat it every day, I got tired of it, but after a long time without it, I miss it.
“Let’s order a jajangmyeon and jjambbong set to share. And dumplings too.”
“Shouldn’t we ask Ellie what she wants to eat?”
Do I need to wake her up just to ask?
But does my friend’s girlfriend care that much about sleeping over?
When I asked, Taek-gyu responded nonchalantly.
“Yeah. I told her to stay over.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Just then, Ellie came down to the living room.
She hadn’t expected to sleep over, so she wasn’t wearing any extra clothes, just my T-shirt and pajamas. The mismatched outfit made her look oddly cute.
Even with no makeup and just waking up, her beauty was dazzling.
“Looks like Taek-gyu is up too.”
Taek-gyu waved his hand and asked, “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes. I think I actually got a good sleep for the first time in a while.”
Ellie stretched widely, raising both hands above her head.
“Ahh.”
I asked her, “Is it okay if I order food from a Chinese restaurant?”
Ellie nodded her head.
“Korean jjajangmyeon is delicious. I’ll have gan jjajang.”
Having grown up in Hong Kong, Ellie enjoys Chinese food regularly. (I’m not sure if we should call our country’s Chinese food actual Chinese food.)
Taek-gyu made the order over the phone.
In the meantime, I enjoyed my morning coffee while admiring the garden visible outside with Ellie. She leaned her head gently against my shoulder, looking sleepy.
“Is Hyun-joo unni going to work today too?”
“Probably.”
She’s still quite busy.
It’s the same on our side. Senior Sang-yeop has been busy organizing positions, and Henry has been shipping the products he pre-ordered from a Chinese steel company to the U.S. as soon as they are made.
We’ll have to stock them in the warehouse and maybe sell them to the U.S. government later.
“I was thinking of having dinner with my sister.”
“I’ll ask her.”
Not long after, the doorbell rang.
“Oh! They arrived early today.”
Taek-gyu pressed the remote to open the front gate without looking. Soon after, the doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it.”
I opened the front door wide. Standing there was my mother, holding a side dish container instead of a Chinese delivery bag.
I was taken aback.
“Whoa! What brings you here all of a sudden?”
“What do you mean, ‘what brings me here’? I told you on the phone yesterday that I’d bring side dishes today.”
“Did you? I don’t remember that.”
Why can’t I recall?
It’s sudden, but there’s no problem with my mother coming home. The issue is that Ellie is here.
She doesn’t even look like she just dropped by early; she clearly looks like she stayed overnight.
How do others usually handle this kind of situation? Do they hide in the closet?
Fortunately, the house is spacious with plenty of hiding spots. Surely, my mother won’t check the study.
But I no longer needed to worry about that.
“Can I help you? Oh!”
Seeing my mother, Ellie jumped in surprise and bowed her head in greeting.
“Ah, hello, ma’am. Good morning.”
My mother, looking flustered, alternated her gaze between me and Ellie, who was wearing my clothes, and asked,
“Are you two already this close?”
Ellie’s face turned bright red up to her ears.
She looks cute like this.
***
I went to work with Taek-gyu for the first time in a while. The employees gathered in the lobby and welcomed me with applause and cheers.
Seeing how happy they are that the CEO has returned makes me feel rewarded for paying their salaries.
Michael Lee, the head of HR, said to me, “Thank you sincerely. I’m so proud to work with you, sir.”
He is a second-generation Korean-American who grew up in California, and his parents still live in LA. This must hold special significance for him.
“Well then, please don’t leave just because your contract period is over; stay with the company.”
Michael smiled. “I will consider it positively.”
I asked my senior, Gi-hong, “How are you feeling?”
Gi-hong replied cheerfully, “I’m okay now. I still feel some aches here and there, though.”
Gi-hong had suffered eight weeks of injuries from a brutal attack by the protesters.
The assailants were identified using a facial recognition program on the recorded footage, and all of them were charged for collective assault without exception.
Most of them were older individuals. They all claimed they were just following the orders of the association president, but the president, Lee Yong-kwang, denied the allegations strongly.
I told the employees, “Many things have happened in a short time. While I was away…”
***
I gathered people at the managerial level for a meeting.
First, I received reports on the situation of our subsidiaries. Most companies have suffered significant sales impacts over the past few months. Some have urgently requested funds.
The chaos that unfolded is partly to blame, as there has been a boycott movement fueled by public criticism of me.
However, the situation has now turned around.
While it’s positive that my efforts have greatly increased the company’s visibility, it’s negative that we cannot avoid consumption recession due to the economic downturn for the time being.
Companies have also uniformly adjusted their strategies for the U.S. market. For instance, NPL has been unable to announce the nPhone Z, originally scheduled for release on September 28, for a whole month.
“Still, we should be thankful it hasn’t gone further. Otherwise, the global economy would have been stuck in a recessionary quagmire.”
Everyone nodded at Senior Sang-yeop’s words.
We too must revise our strategies. CarOS, which originally aimed to launch new models by the end of the year, wasted time relocating its research lab, and autonomous driving experiments centered around San Francisco have all been halted.
“Things will settle down in time, so don’t worry too much.”
Taek-gyu brought up another topic.
“We should also file damage claims against the conservative groups and media.”
While I had received reports about various situations, including protests, over the phone, seeing it in person was striking—conservative groups, the media, far-right sites were all chaotic.
There had long been suspicions that the Parents’ Association was being orchestrated by the government to stage controlled demonstrations and placeholder protests.
It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
Questions arose on where they were getting their information, the source of their funds for leading large-scale protests, and so forth. Furthermore, while the police strictly prohibited protests by progressive groups, they approved every single protest organized by the Parents’ Association without exception.
During the investigation of this illegal protest, the Parents’ Association’s office was raided, revealing a slew of related documents.
The phone of Chairman Lee Yong-gwang had call logs and texts exchanged with employees from the National Intelligence Service and the Blue House. Dozens of proxy accounts were discovered with hundreds of millions of won transferred, and a safe containing tens of millions in cash and records was found under his desk.
There will likely be more uncovered upon further investigation.
Chairman Lee Yong-gwang is currently under investigation while in custody, and he seems to be speaking loudly, perhaps because he feels he has some support.
“Look at this.”
Taek-gyu turned over a box, revealing a pile of letters sent from all over the country. They were letters of support and gratitude… or rather, pleas to withdraw complaints.
Senior Gi-hong said, “There are many more emails.”
“Some guy posts tearful stories online that are hard to read without shedding tears. He talks about how his family was poor since childhood, how they rarely ate out like others, and how he always had to cook instant noodles alone when his mother was at work.”
“……”
I don’t understand how his difficult family background relates to his abusive language.
Initially, I didn’t even file complaints just based on insults or swearing. I only selected the most serious cases to report, and even then, there were a truckload of them.
I was curious about who wrote those posts, and upon looking, I found a variety of people from elementary school students to office workers. Most had no particular reason; they simply didn’t like me or wanted attention.
Well, I accepted that part.
It wouldn’t lead to a serious arrest anyway, so I figured that if I went through the investigation and paid a fine, it might help me get my act together.
What’s notable is that some of the most active accounts posting and commenting to sway public opinion are suspected to be employees from the National Intelligence Service or government offices.
It wasn’t like they conducted a complicated operation through foreign servers; just checking IPs and searching for IDs on portals and social media made it easy to identify them.
Senior Sang-yeop said, “There’s one guy using the nickname ‘Jinhoo Hyosu.’ When I checked his ID, it seems he’s an NIS employee.”
“Jinhoo Hyosu?”
What kind of nickname is that?
Does it mean he wants to hang my head on a stake?
“That guy was also the first to post a photo combining your face with that of a porn star.”
I was so baffled that I asked,
“Does the National Intelligence Service really do things like that?”
Then Taek-gyu replied,
“You know, those kids are still making a profit from it.”
It’s not that the judiciary hasn’t investigated, or that the media hasn’t properly covered it; there have been numerous cases that have come to light so far.
“If we dig into this, it could get interesting. It seems like both the National Intelligence Service and the Defense Security Command are involved.”
“The Defense Security Command too?”
What kind of military is not protecting the country and instead writing insults about me online?
I crossed my arms and said,
“But will the investigation and punishment actually be carried out properly?”
Taek-gyu replied,
“I have no idea when the police and prosecutors started working this hard, but both sides seem to be ignited with enthusiasm for investigation, as if in competition.”
Senior Sang-yeop nodded.
“This time will be different. The misalignment has started to show over there as well. Those who used to move like dogs for power tend to have a keen sense for it. By now, Park Si-hyeong must have concluded that he’s like a kite with a broken string.”
