Chapter 3
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If she showed up unannounced, he'd get mad.
She felt ridiculous dialing the phone now.
Her heartbeat pounded in her eardrums as the silence broke through the signal waiting tone. She was hoping he wouldn't pick up the phone when she finally dialed.
-Cho Min-seong
But regardless of Eun-jin's wishes, a heavy bass sounded over the receiver.
Eun-jin's head went white for a moment, but then she regained her composure and greeted Min-seong.
"Hello, big brother. I'm Eun-jin, Dong-jin's sister, Ha Eun-jin. Do you remember me?"
She stammered out her introduction. Hearing his voice, she suddenly shrank back, not knowing what to do if Cho Min-seong didn't remember her.
-Yes, it's been a long time.
But fortunately, he remembered her.
Eun-jin breathed a sigh of relief.
"Can I see you for a second?"
Eun-jin's insistence on meeting was met with a pause.
"If you're busy today, even on weekdays....... I can always make time for you."
Min-seong cut through Eunjin's voice like a knife as she quickly added a sentence.
-Whenever.
"It's a weekend, you must be working."
-I can see you for a while.
"In that case, I'm really sorry, but do you have a few minutes?"
-Yes.
"I'll be right there."
-I have some work to finish up, so I'll be back in about an hour.
"Okay, big brother."
Eun-jin hung up the phone. She rummaged through her closet for something to wear before she even bathed.
"What am I doing......."
It's not like she's visiting Cho Min-seong for a good cause.
She walked to the bathroom, trying to calm her nerves. She washed away her fatigue under the hot water. When she came out, she felt a rush of energy. Perhaps she had picked the wrong day.
She quickly organized the jumbled sentences in her head. She was still hesitant to go to Cho Min-seong’s at her mother's insistence.
Eun-jin and Min-seong weren't in a position to do each other favors. He had once sent Eun-jin a conspiratorial glance, but that had been a long time ago. A man like Cho Min-seong could have any woman he wanted.
A thug.
That was the clearest word to define him, and he was exactly the kind of man Eun-jin despised.
But despite Eun-jin's faded scorn, the headquarters building had the appearance of a thriving business.
The blood and tears of the people it had robbed were stuck like stakes in the center of Gangnam.
The skyscraper's overwhelming presence was suffocating.
Eun-jin felt the chill of late spring, which had already begun to heat up.
As she entered the building, a man in black walked up beside her and asked.
"Miss Ha Eun-jin?"
"Yes, it's me."
"The managing director is waiting for you, please follow me."
Eun-jin bypassed the entrance security and headed to the elevator with the man.
On the elevator ride to the 47th floor, she felt motion sickness. She felt like she had a bad cold.
She couldn't tell if it was breakup fever or life's hardships. Maybe it was a combination of both.
The higher the altitude, the closer she felt to an unreal world. When the elevator stopped at the 47th floor, the man escorted Eun-jin out.
Eun-jin stopped outside the managing director's office with the man. Life was funny when she thought of Cho Min-seong, who had become the managing director of a medium-sized construction company, unlike the thug he had been.
In the end, Ha Dong-jin was used. She couldn't blame him because she knew it, but he was still attached to the organization.
[Senior Managing Director Office]
"You can go in there."
"Okay, thank you."
The man bowed and disappeared from the managing director's office. The hallway was silent. Her toes dipped into the silence of the weekend.
Knock. Knock.
Eun-jin knocked twice on the door to the managing director's office and heard a familiar voice from inside.
"Come in."
Eun-jin took a deep breath and stepped into the office.
Sitting with his back to the glass window, Cho Min-seong slowly raised his head.
Her eyes met his for the first time in a long time. For a moment, she felt her breath catch in her throat.
Was it the passage of time?
The presence of Cho Min-seong, who carried the weight of the city on his shoulders, turned the room into a vacuum.
His dark eyebrows and fierce, black eyes of unknown depth, stared at Eun-jin without moving.
A sculpted bridge of the nose and a jawline as sharp as a knife honed for decades.
Cho Min-seong was the perfect male. Even his position, which could only be described as a thug, no matter how much he glorified it, made him uniquely terrifying.
"Hello, Min-seong."
Eun-jin awkwardly greeted him, and Min-seong stood up, the air thinning with every step he took.
Eun-jin was not small for a woman, at five-foot-two, but even in her nine-centimeter heels, she barely reached Min-seong’s chest.
"Long time no see."
Min-seong stalked over like a languid predator and sat down on the couch, and Eun-jin took the seat across the table from him as he gestured for her to sit down. The afternoon shadows fell on Eun-jin.
Her skirt curled above her knees. As she pulled her skirt up with her legs somewhat together to sit, Cho Min-seong’s gaze fell on her knees.
Just the look in his eyes made her skin tingle. She'd come to his workplace on the weekend, and she wasn't sure what to say.
"I didn’t think Eun-jin wanted to have anything to do with me."
Eun-jin's mouth clamped shut, and Min-seong guessed the reason for her visit.
"You must be here because of Dong-jin."
"......."
Eun-jin nodded. Even though she'd come to see Min-seong at her mother's tearful plea, it was still a step she didn't want to take.
She wasn't yet brazen enough to risk shame and come all the way here to beg for his favor.
Min-seong leaned forward, making a sound like wind being knocked out of him. His every move pushed Eun-jin to the edge of her seat.
She didn't want to be overwhelmed by the momentum, but he didn't seem like the Minseong she'd known before.
The rebellious, delinquent boy had given off the air of a reformed gun barrel. The refined overwhelmingness of his demeanor made it seem as if the muzzle would burst into flames if she so much as flinched.
"Eun-jin, did you think your presence would make any difference?"
Min-seong tilted his head sharply, locking eyes with Eun-jin.
She looked him straight in the eye. Unlike her inarticulate brother, Min-seong could still act like a human being sometimes, but that was in the past.
"Did you say you were going to sell Dong-jin to the island?"
Min-seong sat up, crossing his long legs. His relaxed demeanor made Eun-jin nervous.
"Dong-jin, that asshole. Even if he rots on the island for ten years, he can't pay back the money he borrowed."
Eun-jin narrowed her eyes at Min-seong’s casual way of speaking.
"How much did he borrow?"
The idea of paying off Dong-jin's loan had never occurred to her, but she asked, hoping that if she played her cards right, she might be able to push back the repayment date a bit.
"Two and a half billion."
But what Cho Min-seong said next made Eun-jin lose her composure. She burst out laughing like a madwoman.
"Ha......!"
Eun-jin covered her face with her hands.
The bastard.
A human she didn't even want to be related to.
She had no sympathy left for her brother.
"The asshole scammed me out of options and coins, and the only money he got from me was three thousand, and he spent it all on women."
Eun-jin couldn't keep her mouth shut. She knew her brother was a scumbag, but it wasn't pleasant to have it confirmed once again that he was beyond redemption.
Her heart tightened uneasily. No matter how well she knew Cho Min-seong, he was nothing more than a gangster.
He wasn't the kind of person who would do business at a loss. She couldn't imagine what would happen to the money her brother owed him.
"......I'm sorry."
Cho Min-seong looked at Eun-jin with an expressionless face. Faced with an unimaginable amount of debt, no words came out of her mouth, just a blank stare.
"I was going to send him away sooner or later anyway, but I'm surprised you came here on your own two feet. Should I say it worked?"
Min-seong’s eyes slowly closed and opened as he watched Eun-jin struggle to control her expression.
"I'm busy today, so you should go down to the parking lot. I'll have my driver take you home."
Min-seong stood up from his seat. As he turned toward his desk, Eun-jin called out to him.
"Min-seong."
Min-seong looked at Eun-jin and lowered his eyes. His eyes flashed black with something sinister.
"What happens to us......?"
She should have just turned around.
But at this moment, she remembered her mom's face again.
Since she had come all this way, she wanted to make sure her family was okay.
Turning back around, Min-seong took a step toward Eun-jin. He bent down, locked eyes with her, and laughed low.
"That bastard Ha Dong-jin, even if he was sold on the island, he wouldn't be worth 2.5 billion."
"That's why I asked."
"If you spend money and don't pay it back, you'll have to pay the price."
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