Chapter 74
“They asked if we could have the meeting first, so Manager Yoon okayed it for now. Is the weekend alright?”
I lowered my head that had been looking up at the CEO’s face and pressed my temples hard. An advertisement proposal from Knox.
A ridiculous thought came to mind that this situation was like a checkout counter at a mart during rush hour. The previous customer’s items hadn’t even been fully processed yet, but an impatient next customer had already dumped their shopping list onto the conveyor belt.
When I couldn’t readily answer, Gayoon asked the CEO instead of me.
“But why do they have to work on the weekend?”
“They want to push it forward quickly, I guess. Since tourists increase in fall, they probably want to finish filming and release the ad before then. Why, can’t you do Saturday, Jung-ssi?”
The CEO’s anxious face looked down at me.
My promise with him to go to Hongcheon. Knox’s youngest son who had recently transferred from Knox Hotel’s New York branch to join the headquarters.
Various propositions tangled in my head, making it impossible to draw a clear conclusion.
But I could sense a certain premonition.
I probably wouldn’t be able to keep my promise with him.
“……It’s fine, Saturday.”
It was an answer that flowed out like a sigh from my dazed face, but such things didn’t seem important to the CEO. He squeezed my shoulder once with a relieved expression.
“They seem to want to combine it with entertainment too, so it’ll probably be scheduled for around evening. I know you hate those kinds of occasions, but let’s cooperate just a little, okay?”
With the same light steps as when he entered the conference room, the CEO disappeared across the corridor.
“The second half of the year is really going well! Oppa, isn’t this your first TV commercial?”
Gayoon grabbed my arm that was resting on the table and spoke in a small but excitement-filled voice.
“Sometimes they cancel after interviews saying the image is different from what they expected. We don’t know yet.”
“Aw, oppa, after seeing you in person, they definitely won’t cancel.”
Gayoon, who had lightly shaken my arm and smiled with narrowed eyes, suddenly changed her expression. Her brow furrowed and the corners of her eyes drooped, showing disappointment.
“Ah… then we can’t go to Hongcheon? Hmm… I guess the commercial comes first. But isn’t this Knox’s first TV commercial too? Should we look into the background a bit more?”
Gayoon, who had been humming while looking for her phone, stopped her hand and looked back at me.
“Oh, you asked about Hanseo Group’s youngest son’s name, right? Just like oppa said, it’s really unusual. Lee Hancheoeum.”
I felt like a small explosion went off in my head.
Lee Hancheoeum. Lee Han.
Finding the common point between the two names was simple. Looking at it while knowing they referred to the same person, there couldn’t be an easier problem. Everything looks simple after you know the answer.
I felt like letting out a hollow laugh, like someone who realized they’d fallen for a simple trick. To hide my agitation, my hand unconsciously reached for the coffee cup. The paper sleeve was damp from not drinking it for so long.
“But oppa, you’re not really interested in Korea’s political and business circles. How did you hear about it?”
“When I was young… our mothers were acquainted…”
“Ah… right. Chairman Lee Wooyeol’s remarriage partner was also an actress.”
Having spent several years close in Paeli, Taeyoon and Gayoon knew that the owner of ‘Mio Palazzo’ and my adoptive mother who took me in was actress Jung Yoon. At my request, they were keeping my family matters secret.
Gayoon nodded and casually accepted this, took another sip of coffee, then began gathering the scattered materials.
Lee Hancheoeum.
Yes, that was the name. A very unusual and striking name.
When I was sixteen or seventeen, before my parents divorced, during some summer when a Korean child who stayed at ‘Mio Palazzo’ with his mother for about a week definitely had that name. But no matter how uncommon a name might be, the name itself fades with time, and what remains at the end is only the memory that it was an unusual name.
The blood flow in my veins quickened and my heart raced. It wasn’t because of the caffeine from the coffee I’d barely drunk. Contrary to the internal commotion, my body was stiffening.
If Lee Hancheoeum is Lee Han, which should now be considered a fact, then his and my beginning wasn’t that summer when he was twenty.
I knew that Lee Seogyeong’s younger brother was the kid who visited our house following his mother’s senior actress. But the person I had to avoid was Lee Seogyeong, and I’d never considered the possibility of getting entangled with that younger brother.
Moreover, that kid was my proper first experience partner, and that kid was the man who demanded to be acknowledged as my lover on the bunk bed in my room last Monday…
Was I a foolish person for not predicting that such a slim possibility of things overlapping to that extent could happen?
I don’t know how I got home.
I could have searched urgently in the taxi, but I didn’t have the courage to touch the problem. I tried setting up various hypotheses and denying them too. I also tried to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
The worst-case scenario. If he really was the son of Hanseo Group that owns Knox, and Lee Seogyeong’s younger brother…
I rested my chin on the window frame as if covering my mouth with a fist clenched so tightly the knuckles turned yellow. I bit my lower lip hard enough to split it.
I didn’t have the confidence to face the problems that would follow.
My legs just moved mechanically and brought me to the lodging. Hyunsoo must have cooked and eaten ramen before going out, because as soon as I opened the front door, a pungent soup smell hit my nose instead of flower fragrance.
The flowers from three days ago were no longer as fresh as they were initially. Despite changing the water on time, the white petals of the amaryllis were yellowing at the edges here and there, and the stems were losing strength, causing the blossoms to droop heavily.
I went straight into my room and closed the door. I sat at the table and turned on my laptop.
Perhaps due to less sunlight than the flowers on the kitchen table, the flowers in my room were in a more wilted state. Maybe it was just a reflection of my mood.
While the computer was booting up, I stared blankly at the small bouquet that was becoming shabby. Then I brought up a portal site on the prepared screen.
What should I type first? Hanseo Group? Knox Hotel? Lee Hancheoeum?
Even with my hands on the keyboard, I couldn’t press any keys for a long time. I remained frozen until the screen saver activated and the screen went dark. While bringing up the search window again and typing just four characters, I made typos three times.
My throat tightened as if my future depended on that trivial hand movement of pressing the enter key. My hands weren’t shaking, but my heartbeat was pressuring me to a painful degree.
Lee Hancheoeum
- The youngest of 2 sons and 1 daughter of the late Chairman Lee Wooyeol of Hanseo Holdings, the holding company of Hanseo Group, a Korean chaebol group. Currently serves as Team Leader of Public Relations Strategy Team 2 at Knox Hotel & Resort, an affiliate of Hanseo Group.
While it’s difficult to say he has participated in full-scale management yet, it’s known that he was granted authority practically above team leader level in the process of transferring from Knox Hotel’s New York branch to Seoul headquarters.
- Due to his relatively young age, he has less accumulated external activities compared to his older sister and brother. So far, he’s better known for gossip related to his birth, outstanding appearance, and unique name.
- He’s a late-born child with quite an age gap from his older sister Lee Hanseo and older brother Lee Seogyeong. (14 years younger than Lee Hanseo, 12 years younger than Lee Seogyeong) While it’s easy to assume he grew up monopolizing affection as the late and youngest child of a chaebol family, it’s speculated that he actually suffered considerable emotional hardship from childhood.
- Although Kim Juseon of Dongsin Group, who divorced Chairman Lee Wooyeol when Hancheoeum was 2 years old, is officially recognized as his birth mother, scandals related to his birth continue to this day.
(Various rumors persist, such as Kim Juseon being his birth mother but Chairman Lee Wooyeol not being his father, or that he was already born from an affair with Moon Seyeon before Chairman Lee Wooyeol’s divorce from Kim Juseon, etc.)
- What drew some people’s attention as much as his birth scandal that would interest the public and his actor-like handsome appearance was his unique name. It’s said that Chairman Lee Wooyeol named him directly.
‘Hancheoeum’ was proposed as a translation of the Hebrew word ‘bereshit’ used in scripture, meaning the first moment of the entire universe for which no earlier time can be assumed. It’s a name with a scale that only a chaebol family child could handle.
Just as the very center is closer to the core in the middle, and midsummer is the peak time of summer, Hancheoeum can be seen as the beginning before the beginning, the first of firsts. Similar in meaning to Daesi (Great Beginning), Changcho (Creative Beginning), Taecho (Great Beginning), etc.
(Chairman Lee Wooyeol openly designated his eldest daughter as successor and even had her change her name to Lee Hanseo, showing his bold naming sense. President Lee Hanseo’s birth name was Lee Hanjeong, but she changed it to Lee Hanseo at Chairman Lee Wooyeol’s recommendation when she joined Hanseo Holdings and began full-scale management training. Lee Hanseo of Hanseo Group. You can feel Chairman Lee Wooyeol’s firm will not to be challenged on his decision to designate her as successor through this naming. For details, refer to the Lee Hanseo entry.)
- After completing elementary, middle, and high school all in Korea, he studied business administration at a prestigious Ivy League university in America. Even while living in America, he didn’t create a separate English name, using ‘Lee Han’ derived from his real name. Due to the nature of hotel business dealing frequently with foreigners, he still uses the name Lee Han externally.
(There’s a rumor that his older brother Lee Seogyeong, who is known to be quite conscious of and wary of Hancheoeum, has never once called him Hancheoeum. It’s speculated this is due to jealousy, thinking their father favored him because of the strong meaning of Hancheoeum’s name.)
- He was quite brilliant even in college, and his active and bold business approach was already recognized during his New York branch days. Therefore, the general assessment is that he’s a more hopeful figure than his older brother Lee Seogyeong, who is called the epitome of incompetent third-generation chaebol management.
- Despite his long life in America, he’s said to be particularly interested in the European business division.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
