Real Man

In the midst of the noisy atmosphere, Min Su-jin, the team leader, approached.

She wore thin silver-framed glasses on her ponytail and asked sarcastically.

“Han, did you get possessed by a liquor ghost? Why are you drinking so much?”

“To become like family with strangers, you have to drink hard.”

“Was that a jab at my old toast mistake?”

“Of course not. How could I do that to the person who bought me a beautiful bag?”

Yoo-hyun pointed to the bag behind him with a good-natured smile, and Min Su-jin smiled brightly.

She looked nothing like the depressed person she used to be, pushed by factions, office politics, and purebloodism.

“I’m glad you’re using it well. Did you have a drink with the executive director?”

Yoo-hyun leaned his head and looked at the table in the corner.

The team leaders were trying to please Kim Hogul, the executive director, but the atmosphere was clearly dark.

Jung In-wook, the team leader, was unable to get up even though he was restless.

Kim Hogul, the executive director, seemed to have completely isolated the team leaders and above from the team members.

Min Su-jin, who was looking at the same place, whispered.

“He changed a lot after becoming the executive director.”

“Yes. The atmosphere seems to have changed a lot.”

“He definitely drew a clear line. Instead of making it hard for the people in charge, he made it hard for the other organizations.”

“I see.”

Yoo-hyun nodded and took in Kim Hogul’s flushed face and shrunk shoulders.

What made him change like this?

He had a hunch, but he wanted to hear his story.

Then Kim Hogul got up from his seat.

Seeing this as an opportunity, Jung In-wook came to Yoo-hyun.

But Yoo-hyun had to get up as well, as he met Kim Hogul’s eyes.

He felt like he was calling him.

“Huh? Han, where are you going?”

“I’m going to the bathroom. Just wait a minute.”

Yoo-hyun asked for Jung In-wook’s understanding and followed Kim Hogul right away.

Kim Hogul, who came out first, was sitting on a bench behind the barbecue restaurant.

His face was red from the alcohol and his shoulders were hunched.

The car was waiting in front of him, so he seemed to be leaving soon.

Thud.

Yoo-hyun sat next to him, but he didn’t turn his head.

He just stared blankly at the air.

The sun was setting in the sky.

When Yoo-hyun silently looked at the same place, Kim Hogul opened his mouth.

“It reminds me of the old days when I’m here.”

“When?”

“Was it the first time we had a drink? You talked about office politics.”

Suddenly, Yoo-hyun remembered the scene of sitting side by side with him.

-It’s not office politics to look after the higher-ups and waver. It’s real office politics to match the level of the team members.

He had even blurted out some blunt advice to him, who was the team leader, out of frustration.

Yoo-hyun chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.

“I was really nosy.”

“Yeah. But I don’t think I was smart enough to accept that.”

“You did well. You led the ultra-high-resolution TF project successfully.”

“Well. It might have looked like that on the outside, but I had a lot of worries inside. It was more so when I moved to the charge and had to do a completely new job. I got a lot of tackles from everywhere.”

“Leading a big organization is not an easy task.”

Yoo-hyun felt like he finally understood why he wore a stiff mask.

Kim Hogul nodded and asked Yoo-hyun.

“Do you know what kept me going then?”

“What is it?”

“It’s what I heard from you when we went fishing in the sea.”

At the winter outing, Yoo-hyun had told him.

-It will be hard when you become the director. I hope you don’t forget your current heart and overcome it.

Even when he recalled it with the alcohol, it was a rather cheesy remark.

“I said a lot of nonsense.”

“It was like you were the president, not an employee.”

“Right.”

He hadn’t thought much about it at the time.

He just wanted to encourage the inexperienced leader a little bit.

But that remark stayed in Kim Hogul’s heart and supported him.

Yoo-hyun felt a strange feeling as he realized that.

Kim Hogul asked him.

“Do you remember? We agreed that you would tell me what you wanted if you achieved a great result.”

“Yes. We did.”

“Will you be able to do that if you do what you’re trying to do now?”

“Probably.”

Yoo-hyun nodded, and Kim Hogul gave a meaningful answer.

“Good. I wanted to confirm that.”

Then he got up from his seat.

Wobble.

Yoo-hyun quickly got up and tried to support him.

“Let me take you.”

“No. I’m fine. I can go by myself. Oh, and this.”

He rummaged through his pocket and pulled out an envelope and shoved it into Yoo-hyun’s arms.

Yoo-hyun blinked his eyes as he held the thick envelope.

“What is this?”

“Just keep it. Don’t you need some personal money?”

“No. I have the support money.”

Yoo-hyun waved his hand, and Kim Hogul raised his voice.

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“But still…”

“That’s enough. I have a lot of money. I’m an executive director, you know, an executive director.”

He pounded his chest with his palm and boasted, then put his hand on Yoo-hyun’s shoulder and turned around.

He staggered but tried to walk straight until the end.

Vroom.

The car that took Kim Hogul away soon left the building.

“…”

Yoo-hyun couldn’t take his eyes off the car for a long time.

The drinking party became even hotter after Kim Hogul left.

Most of the people were already drunk, and Jung In-wook joined in to boost Yoo-hyun.

The other team leaders who joined late had no choice but to be swept away by the already set mood.

The most decisive moment was when Yoo-hyun signed a huge amount of money.

Beep.

The people who were awkward before came to him first and held his hand.

“Thank you. I’ll help you for sure.”

“We’ll help you too. Just ask us anything.”

“I have a lot of connections in Shinwa Semiconductor. Let me know if you have any trouble.”

“Yes. I won’t forget.”

Yoo-hyun replied with a happy heart, and Jung In-wook, the team leader, came to him.

He looked worried and asked Yoo-hyun for confirmation.

“Is it really the company’s money?”

“Yes. Of course. Don’t worry.”

“Still, you should have the director step in for something like this. Geez… Don’t feel too bad.”

“Feel bad? I’m very grateful.”

“That’s good. No matter what the director does, we’ll always help you. I’ll get everyone’s signatures for you.”

“That would be nice.”

Yoo-hyun smiled and put his hand on his chest.

His heart tickled under the thick envelope.

That night, Yoo-hyun vented his frustration with Ha Jun-seok, who came to Ulsan.

Ha Jun-seok also drank a lot with his former colleagues, so they didn’t need any alcohol.

They just had to sit face to face and the stories that had piled up flowed out.

“When I met the whole team…”

“I broke up with her because I moved to Busan…”

After pouring out their stories for a while, Yoo-hyun and Ha Jun-seok went to the rooftop room where he used to live.

He had moved to Busan for more than six months, but he still used this place sometimes when he came to Ulsan.

Yoo-hyun lay down on the floor and muttered.

“It’s weird no matter how I think about it.”

“What’s weird? The landlady just let me use it because I don’t go out of the house.”

“How is that not weird? She even prepared the bedding for you, not a motel.”

“I have that kind of trust relationship with the landlady here.”

“That’s a strange trust relationship.”

At Yoo-hyun’s words, Ha Jun-seok, who was lying next to him, teased him.

“What’s weird is that guy, the executive director.”

“Why?”

“Why would he deceive others and give you money just because you’re pretty? He’s just a salaryman, even if he’s an executive director.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

The situation earlier was something that Yoo-hyun didn’t understand a lot.

The only thing that was clear was that Kim Hogul, the executive director, deliberately made trouble for Yoo-hyun.

Thanks to him, Yoo-hyun was able to win the hearts of the entire charge.

He blinked his eyes and looked at the night sky, and Ha Jun-seok spat out a sentimental remark.

“Come to think of it, the power of fate is amazing.”

“What is?”

“You know, sometimes it comes back big when you think it’s cut off.”

That was what Yoo-hyun had felt throughout this vacation.

But good words were enough once or twice.

“I get it, but I wish you wouldn’t talk about love anymore. You’ve done enough.”

“I won’t, dude. Do I look like a person who always suffers because of women?”

“Yes.”

“Uh. Yeah. That’s why I want to come back to Ulsan… Anyway, what are you going to do for the rest of the time?”

Ha Jun-seok, who quickly agreed, asked out of the blue, and Yoo-hyun asked instead of answering.

“I was going to meet this person and that person more leisurely, you know?”

“Then?”

“I unexpectedly got a lot of allies. So I’m going to speed up the plan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just. I mean, I’m going to try harder.”

He left Ha Jun-seok puzzled and smiled meaningfully.

Moving the entire OLED mobile product charge was a later matter.

But when this was solved at once, Yoo-hyun’s choices widened.

He didn’t have to worry about the persuasion work of the other departments that was imminent.

Yoo-hyun tried to look further ahead, instead of the things that were in front of him.

What would be the result of the Shinwa Semiconductor takeover?

If the various tasks that Yoo-hyun was preparing were executed properly, he would be able to bring down the powerful director Lee Jun-il.

Lee Jun-il was only half as good without Shin Nyeongsoo.

The problem was that even if Lee Jun-il collapsed, his legacy, the data center, remained.

The conversation he had with him crossed Yoo-hyun’s mind.

-Director Han, do you know what I did first when I came here? It was building this data center.

-Is the digital surveillance system you mentioned going to be installed here?

-Yes. All the information in the company is collected and analyzed here. Most of it is done automatically.

-That’s amazing.

-This system will completely change the future of Hansung. It will be a healthier company.

Healthy my ass.

Lee Jun-il’s words were nothing but rhetoric.

The employees’ personal information, such as CCTV, ID card information, email, messenger, internet usage records, etc., were used indiscriminately, and that was not a healthy direction.

It would have been better if it stopped there.

Illegal acts such as hidden cameras, location tracking, phone records checking, etc., were carried out under the pretext of the company’s interests, and oppressed the employees.

Thanks to this, Shin Nyeongsoo easily took over the company.

He also used it as a means of rule, and purged many people who opposed him.

As long as such a system existed, he couldn’t guarantee the outcome of the fight with Shin Nyeongsoo.

He had to get rid of Lee Jun-il and the data center at the same time.

‘For that…’

He thought of several ways, and a name popped up in Yoo-hyun’s head.

He stepped on the accelerator to meet that person.