Instinct
Kang-hyun learned that William was the grandson of the founder of Harrington Investment around the time the two of them had grown comfortable enough to drop all formality.
"Hey, Kang. Why don't you come over to my place sometime? I told Grandpa about you and he said he'd like to meet you."
It was an ordinary invitation to a family dinner, and Kang-hyun accepted it just as casually. He never imagined the place would be a grand mansion in Greenwich, where the giants of Wall Street lived, or that its owner would be George Harrington—the man everyone was desperate to share even a single meal with.
George turned out to be a surprisingly approachable, ordinary old gentleman. Yet even past seventy, his eyes alone burned with a vitality that rivaled any young man's.
"I hear you recommended Apex Engineering to my grandson?"
The easy, cultured conversation that had been flowing smoothly through the meal froze solid at that single remark.
Anyone else might have shrunk under the abrupt change in atmosphere, but Kang-hyun's expression did not so much as flicker. He answered with perfect calm.
"Yes. I judged it had a promising future."
"A company that peaked ages ago?"
The criticism was not wrong. To trace the origins of Apex Engineering—specialists in the ultra-precision machining once used for supersonic aircraft—one had to go all the way back to the Cold War.
Once the Cold War ended and commercial passenger jets became the backbone of aviation, technology designed for military aircraft was naturally left behind. Newly developed materials only pushed Apex further into the status of a relic.
And yet Kang-hyun had casually recommended that very company—now barely clinging to life in the research-equipment sector—to the grandson of the founder of Harrington Investment.
Of course, to him it had been nothing more than an offhand remark dropped while listening to a close friend's worries.
"The technology isn't limited to aircraft. I believe that once the space industry rises again in the near future, it will come into the spotlight."
"And the basis for that belief?"
Questions that felt like a pressure interview came at him without a moment to breathe.
Even if the recommendation had been made lightly, he had not simply named any random company. He had watched it steadily, accumulated data, and held a conviction grounded in projections and industry trends.
But Kang-hyun did not launch into a long-winded explanation.
He elegantly sliced into the cooling steak. After chewing and swallowing a still-warm piece of meat at his leisure, he opened his mouth again.
"Instinct."
"Instinct?"
"Yes."
Silence stretched for a moment after the unflappable reply. Then George burst into a hearty laugh.
After that the atmosphere turned warm and amicable once more. No further troublesome topics were raised, and Kang-hyun simply fulfilled the duties of an invited friend for the rest of the evening.
A few days later William, with his grandfather's backing, went ahead and invested in Apex Engineering. Some time after that, Kang-hyun's prediction was proven correct.
William urged the engineering major to change career paths. After only a short period of deliberation, Kang-hyun accepted the proposal.
"My grandpa said it. No matter how much investing is a game of numbers, at the very end the final judgment comes down to instinct. In that department, you're the best I've ever seen. You animal of a friend."
"That was a compliment, right?"
"Of course. Though I still can't figure out why that excellent instinct of yours is the one exception when it comes to women."
"So it was an insult after all."
It was a jab at the fact that Kang-hyun had become the public enemy of the female students after rejecting several date invitations to their faces.
Whether they treated him that way or not, Kang-hyun remained completely unbothered. If anything, he was rather satisfied; the disappearance of clingy girls had made college life considerably more pleasant.
To him, women were nothing more than bothersome, exhausting creatures—hands that clung with pitifully weak grips, and cowardly tears that froze a person in place.
"So? How's 'that business' coming along?"
William's pointed question yanked Kang-hyun out of his endless reverie.
Kang-hyun answered as obediently as he would to an investor who had entrusted him with a large sum of money.
"It's going well. Thanks to you."
William did not know the concrete details of whatever story Kang-hyun was carrying. He had, however, roughly guessed that the reason his friend had abandoned everything he had painstakingly built in America overnight and suddenly returned to Korea was for the sake of some shady grand undertaking.
"I don't particularly like what you're trying to do, but if you ever need my help, just say the word."
"I will. Thanks."
Kang-hyun made no effort to refuse the offer. The fact that he had been able to win Chairman Baek's favor at all was thanks to the Harrington name. Without that name he would have been forced to take a considerably longer detour.
One way or another, it was a path he would have entered eventually.
"I must have put you through a lot of trouble."
The quiet voice slipped out like a confession. William answered brightly.
"Living life, a person can slip once in a while, right? Everyone's still too busy being amazed that a lucky heir made it this far to have the leisure to make a fuss over one lost investment. Well, there might be a bit of ridicule, though."
William spoke as if it were nothing, but joining hands with a company whose funding sources were already suspicious could never have been as easy as he made it sound—even if the contract was destined to become void in the end.
"So finish it quickly and come back. Your seat is always empty."
"Of course. When the time comes."
Kang-hyun answered readily. He had not the slightest intention of settling in Korea. Once the goal was achieved, he planned to wrap everything up and return whenever he wished.
"I'll be waiting. And by the way—Grandpa is still depressed about losing his card partner. For the record, this is absolutely intended to put pressure on you, so don't overthink it."
At William's banter, Kang-hyun let out another soft snort of laughter.
Apparently his longtime friend had even noticed that he was currently caught in a dilemma. The moment a crack appeared, William was already shaking it.
"Give George my regards. And tell him his card partner will do his best to return as quickly as possible."
"Excellent. May God's blessing walk with you on the road ahead, my brother."
"May fortune always follow you as well."
With those mutual blessings the call ended.
Kang-hyun set the phone down on the desk and stared fixedly at the black, darkened screen.
"God's blessing…"
He felt a little sorry for the friend who had offered the prayer, but God did not appear to have any intention of granting him such a blessing.
Of course, Kang-hyun himself had never particularly hoped for the mercy of an absolute being. This was a path one could never set foot on while still carrying a heart that prayed to God.
Kang-hyun propped his chin in one hand and slowly closed his eyes. The landscape of Cheongbaekwon, which he had entered only recently, rose with vivid clarity from the darkness beyond.
He had lived a full ten years at Cheongbaekwon. From the age of seven—when his memories were still hazy—he had taken his mother's hand and entered the annex that served as the servants' quarters, and he had remained there ever since.
"Finally I'll be able to see my son every day."
What had his father's face looked like when he greeted the two of them with those words? Kang-hyun's brow furrowed even deeper as he groped through the blurred recollection.
Kang-hyun's father, Tak Hyung-sub, had worked at Paeksan since before Kang-hyun was born. From the days when Paeksan was not yet a corporation but an organization—when its founding chairman, Baek Soo-chul, had been a private moneylender who ruled the Myeongdong district.
Baek Soo-chul had been a ruthless loan shark without a drop of blood or tears, yet to Tak Hyung-sub he had been the one and only benefactor. He had saved the boy who had been cast adrift at the very bottom after his parents dumped their debts and vanished.
Recognizing early on that Hyung-sub's mind was extraordinary, Baek Soo-chul had taken him in as his right-hand man. In return, Hyung-sub had devoted absolute loyalty to the only person who had ever recognized his worth. He had waited until his son was old enough to understand the world before bringing him to Cheongbaekwon, for fear that the chairman—who had never known the joy of a grandson—might be saddened by the sound of a child's crying.
"The chairman is a very kind man who saved your father's life."
He had even frequently lectured his young son on the grace of Baek Soo-chul. Each time, Hyung-sub's wife would purse her lips and scold him.
"Why go on like that? It was all thanks to his own ability."
"That's not true. He took an uneducated fool and made him into a proper human being."
"If he'd really been properly educated, he wouldn't be stuck rotting his talent away in a place like this countryside."
"Yoon-ju."
Ordinarily Hyung-sub would have folded at a single word from his wife, yet on any topic connected to Baek Soo-chul he refused to yield—exactly the way devout believers always did.
Still, the fact that he had never received a proper education rankled him deeply, just as his wife said. He would seize every opportunity to urge Kang-hyun.
"Our Kang-hyun, study as much as you want. Dad will support everything you want to do."
At times it almost seemed as if he wished to resolve his own regrets through his child. Yet even a blunt son could not fail to understand that the feeling ultimately sprang from love. The same was true of his stubborn insistence on remaining as dependents at Cheongbaekwon despite Yoon-ju's complaints—it had been a decision made for Kang-hyun's future.
But Hyung-sub's resolve, which had looked toward a more distant future, met a forced catastrophe long before it could ever reach that future.