The Breakfast Table
Clang! The cutlery Song Yeon-ha had been holding slipped from her fingers and shattered the silence. The cause was Chairman Song’s remark.
“Songhwa Retail. I said I would think about it.”
Even her uncle, Vice Chairman Song Chi-hwan—who had always found Yeon-ha an irritation—widened his eyes, clearly hearing this for the first time. Yeon-ha’s jaw trembled faintly. So it had been her grandfather’s unilateral decision after all.
“It was the condition I put forward when I married.”
“For the time being I intend to install professional managers. Once the public noise dies down a little, we can revisit the matter. I have no intention of touching your shares.”
“…….”
This was exactly why she had not wanted to come. Yeon-ha felt the food she had forced down earlier surge back up her throat.
It was a rule of the Song family that had stood for decades: every third week of the month, the entire family was required to attend the breakfast. Even Je-yoon, who had watched it unfold since childhood, knew the schedule well.
Here, “everyone” included those beyond her grandmother and mother. Her grandfather had kept two mistresses; the uncle and aunt born of those unions, and their children as well… anyone who carried even a drop of Song blood was obliged to gather.
They disliked one another, kept one another in check, and felt not the slightest interest—relationships that took the shape of family yet could scarcely be called one.
Every gaze at the table rested on Yeon-ha, yet not a single person spoke. She glanced beneath the tablecloth. There she saw her mother’s hand clenched into a tight fist.
“Continue eating.”
With Chairman Song’s customary words the meal resumed as if nothing had happened.
The moment the nauseating breakfast ended, Yeon-ha fled the table.
“Song Yeon-ha, your face looks brighter. Even after a divorce.”
Song Dae-hoon, her uncle’s son, had followed her out and began to sneer. Being the same age, the two of them had grown up together through school and had spent a lifetime competing.
After her father’s death the vice-chairmanship had passed to her uncle. She had disliked how emboldened they became once the succession shifted, yet at the time it was also true that no one else but Song Chi-hwan was suitable.
Yeon-ha did not even glance at Song Dae-hoon. Conversation would only exhaust her.
“Did you treat Kevin with the same contempt? Still, surviving three years with a woman who completely ignores people the way you do—impressive, I guess.”
Yeon-ha stepped out onto the terrace and drew a deep breath. Closing the door seemed to shut out every other eye and ear. Everyone’s, that is, except Song Dae-hoon’s, who had followed her all the way.
“Your wife is impressive too. Living with a man who dumps whatever’s on his mind the way you do can’t be easy.”
“At least we won’t be getting a divorce. Ours wasn’t some strategic marriage. And you—surely you know that you taking over Retail isn’t going to make the stock price climb? What kind of game are you trying to play with Retail, anyway? Tsk tsk.”
Irritation surged, but Yeon-ha swallowed it down with a single hard gulp. Dae-hoon was not entirely wrong. An owner’s divorce was a risk; the market rose and fell on a single line of divorce news.
But it was no game. She felt the weight of responsibility keenly, and she intended to launch a new jewelry brand of her own through Songhwa Retail. She hoped it would become a turning point.
Above all, every time she sketched something that had lived only in her imagination and then held an actual sample in her hands, she could breathe again.
Like a fish that had been handled by human hands finally slipping back into the water and drawing its first true breath.
Through the terrace glass she could see the living room inside. Only her grandparents, her mother, her uncle, and her aunt remained. To an outsider the scene might have looked warm and familial; the sight only made her stomach turn. Everyone’s true intentions were blacker than greed itself.
“I have no interest in taking your place, so tone it down, Song Dae-hoon.”
“…….”
That much was true. She had no interest in the chemical or shipbuilding sides he controlled.
“I already told you I’m not interested in that side.”
“Hmph. Still, I’ll be the one sitting in my father’s seat after him.”
“How about you wait until he actually becomes chairman before you say things like that? Grandfather is still very much alive. Shall I go tell him for you?”
Struck squarely, Song Dae-hoon shut his mouth.
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and gave Yeon-ha a subtle shove as he passed. The reek of heavy cologne stabbed her nose.
“You know your ‘ex-husband’ is coming to the charity event next week, right? Things are going to get noisy again.”
Song Dae-hoon jeered at her back as she tried to slip inside, away from him. Confirming that Yeon-ha’s previously calm face had stiffened ever so slightly, he laughed in satisfaction and escaped the terrace a step ahead of her.
“Ha… he’s right. I’d completely forgotten.”
The event known as Korea’s Met Gala was scheduled for the following week.
Kevin, one of the sponsors, would naturally attend; she had simply overlooked it. That fact alone proved how little interest she had in him—before the marriage, during it, and even more so after the divorce.
Suddenly the woman’s moans she had once heard from Kevin’s bedroom rose in her memory.
I’m sure I’ve heard that voice somewhere…
Moans all sound the same. Forget it. What’s the point of replaying someone else’s sex life? It only ruins my own mood.
Throughout the divorce proceedings Yeon-ha had never been the first to bring up the affair. She had not wanted to. She had simply used the infidelity to achieve her goal; Kevin had been the one who grew angry that she never asked questions.
“Why should I need to know? The fact is you brought her into the house without any manners.”
“That’s the reason?”
“Yes. I told you I don’t like anyone invading my territory. You didn’t go into my room, did you?”
“Of course not—! How much of a piece of trash do you think I am? Just… just in my bedroom, so stop there.”
That had been the private truth. Publicly they announced an amicable divorce due to differences in personality, and that their business relationship would continue after the divorce.
At the charity event, attention would pour onto the divorced chaebol couple. Avoiding it would only make things worse; the cooler and more emotionless her response, the better. That was how Yeon-ha had always survived.
Even after leaving one cage, another cage often appeared.
Whenever she felt stifled, Yeon-ha lowered her head and looked at her own ankle. There sat the single anklet that had been the first of her countless sketches to step into the world.
Yes. This is enough. I’m finally doing what I want to do.
Comforting herself, she lifted her head and took out the phone that had been vibrating with short bursts for some time.
They had stayed up watching movies; when she left that morning she had seen Je-yoon asleep on the sofa, hair a bird’s nest, sunk deep into the cushions.
Even though the sofa was large, his enormous frame curled up there had looked a little pitiful. She had considered waking him and offering her own bed, but in the end she had not.
She was staring blankly at the cold sky when a knock sounded behind her. The glass door opened and Jang Eun-ju stepped out.
“I take it you’re not in the mood to stay for lunch.”
“…No.”
“Your grandfather can be so cold. I watched him install Song Chi-hwan as vice chairman before your father was even cremated, and still I never get used to it. Which is why you need to—”
Once her grandfather spoke a word aloud, he never took it back without a compelling reason. Yeon-ha stood beside her mother, listening to the rapid-fire stream of complaints, and for a long while simply gazed at the sky in silence.
Back home, Yeon-ha went straight to the study. She felt especially exhausted that day and had no energy left to drive the greater distance to her workshop.
She pulled out every sketch. It was a habit that surfaced whenever something stressed her.
For the next several hours she did not move from that single spot. When she finally checked the time on her phone, her eyes widened at how far past evening it had already gone.
“Ow… my shoulders hurt.”
Yeon-ha tapped the knotted muscles and stretched. As she kneaded the back of her neck with her fingers, she could almost feel the touch of Je-yoon’s hands from a few nights ago.
She toyed with her earlobe between her fingertips and lowered her gaze. Kicking off her slippers, she knelt and traced the anklet with her fingertips.
“Mm… Je-yoon. Go Je-yoon… I’d like to offer him a modeling proposal, but…”
No one else would suit it as well as he would.
Her mind was a tangle. She clutched her hair in both hands and buried her face against her knees.
In truth, there was one more story between the two of them that no one else knew.
It was not merely that Je-yoon had grown up in the shade of Songhwa.
One winter in the past, when the adults had been busy with their own affairs, Yeon-ha had taken him to Garosu-gil to buy him an entrance-gift.
His hair, cut short like an athlete’s, laid his features bare; the white sweater and black coat she had chosen for him suited the faintly melancholy air he carried.
Out of habit she had raised her camera and photographed him wearing the clothes exactly as she wished. A commercial photographer passing by had taken his picture as well; that day’s brief interview and single photograph had launched Je-yoon into modeling.
By then Je-yoon already towered over her, radiating the ambiguous atmosphere that exists between boy and grown man. Anyone who claimed not to have fallen for that image would have been lying.
To Yeon-ha, whose interest in the opposite sex was just beginning to heighten, the constant presence of Je-yoon gradually became that of a man. The change felt unfamiliar and awkward. Even as she grew more guarded toward him, she still wanted to share the smallest things.
Je-yoon was still a high-school student, and she did not want to confuse him at a time when his life was about to grow hectic. She wanted to keep her fluttering heart hidden until he became an adult.
Yet whenever Yeon-ha tried to put distance between them, Je-yoon would instead toy with her hair or lightly flick her earlobe.
Her insides burned, but she never let it show. Still, they said three things could never be completely hidden: a cough, poverty, and love.
The first person to notice Yeon-ha’s first love had been her mother, Jang Eun-ju.