A Reason to Return

It all began with Baek Soo-chul's death. At the funeral of the man who had taken to his bed after a sudden cerebral hemorrhage and never risen again, Hyung-sub wept more bitterly than the deceased's own son.

"The Chairman entrusted you to me, hyung."

Until the very day his breath left him, Baek Soo-chul had fretted over his son Baek Sang-il's base and dull nature, and in the end he left the remaining affairs to Hyung-sub as his dying wish.

But a problem even parents could not fix was never something a mere subordinate could hope to mend. Hyung-sub's sighs only grew heavier with each passing day. He was not the sort to bare his private troubles openly, and so his wife Yoon-ju's heart alone burned black with worry.

On the nights when Hyung-sub still had not returned even after the hour grew late, Yoon-ju would send Kang-hyun to the office in the main building of Cheongbaekwon.

"Father, Mother is waiting."

"Has it gotten so late already? Yes… I should go. Let's go."

Why did the haggard face that appeared when he removed his glasses and scrubbed his dry hands over it remain so stubbornly in memory? Kang-hyun would have preferred to remember a wide, smiling face instead.

"Kang-hyun."

"Yes."

"Should we leave Cheongbaekwon and live somewhere else?"

One night, when Kang-hyun had come to fetch him as always, Hyung-sub asked the question out of nowhere. Instead of answering, Kang-hyun simply stared at him. The side of his father's face, turned toward the dark window rather than toward his son, was pale with the same exhausted cast worn by people waiting for a last train that would never come.

"No… never mind. I was only talking to myself. Forget it."

Perhaps the silence had stretched too long. When Hyung-sub finally looked back at Kang-hyun, he closed the conversation without waiting for an answer. The extra instruction not to tell Mother was thrown in for free.

Kang-hyun no longer remembered what reply he had been about to give. He had already grown sensible beyond his years; like a proper adolescent he never threw tantrums, never complained about living as dependents under another family's roof. He simply did not want to make things harder for his parents.

Looking back now, though, he sometimes thought it might have been better if he had been a little more unreasonable.

"Kang-hyun's mother! The police just came and took Director Tak away!"

One day, while a suspicious silence hung over Cheongbaekwon like a bucket of cold water, and while Kang-hyun was still absorbing the strangely chilly gazes of the adults around him without understanding why, the thunderbolt of news struck.

From the moment Hyung-sub was gone, the people of Cheongbaekwon began to show open hostility toward mother and son.

"You know President Jung, right? The one who used to run in and out of here like a dog with its tail on fire while Chairman Baek Soo-chul was still alive. They're saying Director Tak is the one who made him drop dead."

"I heard it was manslaughter. President Jung suddenly lunged at him and he was only defending himself."

"They say the money was something Chairman Baek Soo-chul had lent him with instructions to pay it back slowly. Then all of a sudden he was being threatened to hand over every last won—of course the man went out of his mind."

"That's why there's talk that Director Tak was trying to siphon it off in secret."

Whether the endless boredom of life at Cheongbaekwon had driven them half mad, they gossiped with relish. Pointing fingers at Yoon-ju and Kang-hyun came free of charge.

Yet Kang-hyun held his head high. His father could never have killed anyone. A man who had memorized Baek Soo-chul's teaching—that you must always leave a person a corner to escape into—as if it were scripture would never have done such a thing.

That was what he believed.

"I'm sorry to inform you, but Mr. Tak Hyung-sub has passed away."

In a flat, monotonous voice the police delivered the news of Hyung-sub's death. He had confessed to everything during questioning, they said; while held in the detention cell he had taken advantage of a lapse in surveillance and ended his own life. A short suicide note found at the scene stated that he would pay for his crime with his life.

Kang-hyun could not bring himself to believe it—not while he and Yoon-ju kept watch over a funeral hall no one visited, not when he could not even bring himself to touch the cold body and had to step back, not even in the moment he flinched at the residual warmth still rising from the newly handed urn of ashes.

Yoon-ju was different.

Where Kang-hyun still refused to accept reality, she remained calm and composed from beginning to end, as if she had long since steeled herself for this very moment. At times she would gaze quietly at Hyung-sub's portrait and her eyes would redden, but that was all. She was a long way from the woman who might collapse in hysterics.

"Kang-hyun, let's go to America."

When the shabby funeral rites were finally over, Yoon-ju made the proposal.

"An old friend of mine lives there now. She's agreed to help us settle."

"…"

"So let's go. Somewhere no one will remember us."

Overnight she had become the wife of a murderer, and she urged forgetting. Her tone was resolute, as if she could not bear to remain on this soil a single hour longer.

Kang-hyun forced the questions rising in his mind back down his throat. He did not ask where the money to settle in America had come from. He was too afraid of the answer he might receive.

And so the two of them fled Cheongbaekwon as if running for their lives.

Kang-hyun believed he would never set foot on this land again. Throughout the years he lived in America he never once thought of Korea—not because he had forgotten the past, but because he treated it as if it had never existed at all.

Yet now he was here.

On the night Kang-hyun abruptly tendered his resignation, William had asked the question, unable to hide his bewilderment. Kang-hyun's answer had been simple and clear. With that single sentence he began settling his affairs, and before long he was on a plane bound for Korea.

From there everything had flowed without pause—winning Chairman Baek's favor, until at last he set foot once more inside Cheongbaekwon.

Up to that point it had all gone smoothly enough.

"Tak Kang-hyun…"

A voice that suddenly cut through the air tore his thoughts to pieces. Kang-hyun slowly lifted the eyelids he had closed. In the thick darkness only the monitor cast its pale light.

He stared fixedly at the blank white screen, then switched it off and rose from his seat.

When an unexpected problem appeared, where was one supposed to look for the answer? For now he could not know. The one thing certain was that he would not stop until he found a solution he himself could accept. That alone was reason enough why he could not yet go back.

The clear clink of ice against glass slid lightly over the sound of the rain.

Seated across from Chairman Baek, who was examining documents, Kang-hyun quietly turned his gaze toward the window. Thick curtains of rain poured into a sky so dark it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night.

Today the Chairman had summoned him not to the study where they usually met, but to the reception room. Kang-hyun could not guess what sudden whim had prompted the change, yet the location itself hardly mattered—except for the tiresome necessity of matching eye level with Chairman Baek on a day when the discomfort index was already high enough.

"At this rate it looks as though we'll need more time before we can meet the standards you proposed."

Pretending to study the papers Kang-hyun had handed over, Chairman Baek heaved a heavy sigh. Kang-hyun shifted his gaze back and gave a leisurely nod.

"There's no need to rush, sir. Rushing wouldn't make it happen any faster in any case."

"That may be true, but I've lost count of how many times I've heard 'soon.' Honestly, it's enough to drive a man mad."

Chairman Baek grumbled, making no attempt to hide his displeasure.

Even as the full rainy season began, none of Paeksan's businesses had yet reached the technical level stipulated in the contract with Harrington Venture. Pressuring the employees produced no visible results. If he followed his usual temperament and started firing people, replacements would be hard to find and the contract itself might collapse; so he was stuck, unable to move either way.

Kang-hyun, however, already knew the truth: no matter how much time passed, Paeksan would never meet the standards Harrington had set.

The company at the heart of the contract—Core Synapse—was a small manufacturer of humanoid parts. Its present substance was thin, yet it held enough future promise that the real question was whether it could survive long enough to reach that future. Core Synapse had ultimately failed to weather the lean years; its representative, having borrowed money from every direction, went bankrupt, and Paeksan acquired the firm as an unexpected windfall.

The fate of a company that fell into the hands of someone ignorant of the industry was predictable. The core developers scattered in search of better prospects, leaving behind only the small fry who possessed neither the skill nor the nerve to change jobs—leeches whose sole talent was flattering Chairman Baek in order to prolong their own survival one more day.

That was why they never noticed how cunningly Kang-hyun had designed the conditions to be unattainable, and instead simply bellowed that of course they could do it. In that sense they were useful creatures; thanks to them he was buying time.

"Let's set this headache aside and talk about something more productive."

At that moment Chairman Baek tossed the documents onto the table as if discarding them, leaned his upper body to one side, and began to speak in a confidential tone.