AVSH 2

Chapter 2

The Man from Hell

In front of the Taesan Trading headquarters.

The man who stepped out of the taxi looked up at the imposing building. The structure, which had moved into a newly built headquarters a few years ago, boasted extraordinary grandeur from its exterior alone.

Well, of course—Taesan Trading of twenty-some years ago and Taesan Trading of today had grown so enormously that they couldn’t even be compared, so this level of investment would have been well worth it.

Behind this growth, the contributions of Jang Hyun-woo, the eldest son of Taesan Trading, were distinguished.

The man pulled a crumpled business card from his pocket, glanced at it roughly, and strode forward.

The moment Jang Geon-woo entered the lobby, everyone’s attention converged on him.

Not only was he wearing short sleeves that showed off his sturdy muscles in the dead of winter, but he was also noticeably tall. On top of that, his expressionless face, indifferent to others’ stares, was as handsome as if a sculptor had carefully chiseled it.

When he—clearly no ordinary person—stood before the desk, the receptionist stared wide-eyed and asked:

“How may I help you?”

“I’m here to see this person.”

「Managing Director Jang Hyun-woo」

The employee, having checked the card, said with a slightly flustered face:

“This person is currently the Vice President. Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t have a phone. Then please relay it to the Vice President’s office. Tell him ‘Jang Geon-woo’ is here.”

An unfamiliar visitor named Jang Geon-woo. The person he was looking for: Jang Hyun-woo.

The employee, picking up the internal phone, glanced at Geon-woo with a look that said surely not. Geon-woo set his backpack down squarely on the desk and grinned.

“Hey, Jang Geon-woo!”

“It’s been a while, hyung.”

Jang Geon-woo, sitting boldly on the central sofa of the ownerless Vice President’s office, waved his hand cheerfully.

Jang Hyun-woo let out a hollow laugh at the sight, as if dumbfounded, and took off his cold-tinged coat. The two exchanged greetings full of warmth with a light touch of hands.

“Did you wait long? If you were coming today, you should have called ahead.”

“I was in a hurry and forgot. I almost couldn’t get in here either without your business card, hyung.”

“Right. Why don’t you answer your phone? Where’s your cell?”

“I threw it away. Didn’t want to receive all the annoying calls.”

Shaking his head—that’s so like Jang Geon-woo—Hyun-woo loosened his tie and sat on the sofa. He looked like he had many questions for the brother he hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Where are you stationed now? Iraq? South Sudan? Ah, did you say you moved to Syria?”

“If I tell you, are you going to come chase me?”

“Why. You think I can’t?”

” > “If you’ve got multiple lives, then bet one and try chasing me.” ”

At those words, Hyun-woo stared at Geon-woo with a momentarily dazed face.

“I really don’t understand. With that good brain of yours, why do you go to dangerous regions and bring suffering on yourself? Are you really safe?”

“Hyung, I appreciate the concern, but don’t try to know too much about me. I’m getting by safely in my own way.”

He said that, but scattered small scars were visible here and there on Geon-woo’s exposed forearms. Perhaps there were traces of even bigger wounds in places not visible.

All this time, Hyun-woo had nagged Geon-woo hundreds of times over to quit wandering through war zones and come back to Korea.

I guess I won’t be able to break his stubbornness today either—thinking that, Hyun-woo said:

“Anyway, welcome back safely from hell.”

Hell, huh……. Was the battlefield ever hell for me? Tilting his head, Geon-woo let out a soft laugh.

It had been almost three years since the brothers had faced each other like this. For Hyun-woo, he was simply grateful that his younger brother had willingly made the long journey to attend his wedding.

“Actually, there’s been a lot of noisy stuff lately, so I seriously considered postponing the wedding if you said you couldn’t come.”

” > “That doesn’t sound like something a groom two days before his wedding should say. Did I come for nothing? For the sake of your life, hyung, I think it’d be better not to go through with this marriage.” ”

“Luna would be hurt if she heard that. She’s been wanting to see you so much. It’s been over ten years since you two last saw each other, hasn’t it? Probably?”

“Yeah. Since I saw her when I was studying in the US, it feels even longer.”

In Geon-woo’s last memory, Kim Luna was a young girl in a school uniform.

Luna, five years younger than Geon-woo, had been a cheeky little kid who toddled after the high schooler Hyun-woo—ten years her senior—since childhood.

That little kid, who had always been a Jang Hyun-woo devotee, was going to become his sister-in-law……

From Geon-woo’s perspective, it was simply astonishing that the two had overcome a ten-year age gap and promised to marry.

Just as he was about to press for the details of their love story out of curiosity, a knock sounded.

“Vice President. I’ve brought the documents you mentioned. Shall I postpone the next meeting time a bit?”

Hyun-woo skimmed the documents he was handed and set them down on the table. Meanwhile, Geon-woo rose from his seat.

“Hyung. You seem busy, so don’t mind me and work. I’ll get going.”

“Get going where? I’ve arranged a family dinner tonight. Team Leader Choi, you didn’t forget what I asked earlier, right?”

“Yes, I’ve reserved the tailor shop.”

“Jang Geon-woo. Follow Team Leader Choi and change your clothes first. You’re seeing our parents after so long—you can’t go in that outfit. If you need anything more, buy it with this.”

Seeing Hyun-woo hold out a card, Geon-woo shoved both hands into his pockets and backed away as if he wouldn’t take it.

“What’s with this. I have plenty of money too.”

“I’m trying to play the older brother for once—just humor me, will you?”

He slipped the card into Geon-woo’s T-shirt pocket, said he’d see him later, and left the office. Seeing the usually cautious Jang Hyun-woo walking briskly, it seemed he was meeting a lawyer over quite an important matter.

“Then, shall we get moving?”

At Team Leader Choi’s respectful question, Geon-woo scratched his temple and opened his mouth.

“Going to a shop or wherever is a hassle, so—is there any way to have clothes delivered?”

“Yes, that’s possible.”

“Then let’s do delivery. 190, 80, 290. XXL, prefers all black. Will that be enough?”

“Understood. I’ll prepare clothes for you to change into, referring to the measurements you gave.”

After Team Leader Choi left, Geon-woo, gathering his backpack, paused in front of the documents Hyun-woo had looked at and set down earlier.

“Exclusive contract termination, penalty fee 3 billion……. Wow, that’s harsh.”

Curiosity getting the better of him, he picked up the documents, and something plopped onto the floor.

What he immediately picked up was a pamphlet for a Taesan Trading fashion brand. Geon-woo’s gaze fixed on the model’s name printed at the bottom of the pamphlet.

“Do Da-hee?”

Realizing that the problematic actress the taxi driver had mentioned was Taesan Trading’s exclusive model, Geon-woo’s eyes narrowed.

” > Hyung must be having a headache too. ”

Do Da-hee in the pamphlet was smiling brightly. Geon-woo, who had found himself staring intently at her photo without realizing it, quietly set the pamphlet down.

Geon-woo, who had chosen to go to the US at fourteen, set foot in the mansion only after turning thirty-three.

In other words, it was the first time in nearly twenty years that the four family members had gathered in one place.

“It’s been a while, so how have you……-”

“Sit down.”

That was the entirety of the conversation exchanged between father and son meeting for the first time in twenty years. Though it was a fully expected reaction, it was Hyun-woo who led Geon-woo, who had feigned bewilderment.

“Jang Geon-woo. Sit here.”

Geon-woo, who smiled at Hyun-woo for kindly even pulling out a chair for him, met eyes with Lee Myung-hee across the table and, wiping the smile from his face, bowed politely.

“Let’s eat.”

At Jang Dong-wan’s one authoritative word, the family quietly picked up their utensils.

Even so, the table—prepared by hiring even a chef for the occasion of a family meal—was extremely lavish, but every bit of food that entered Geon-woo’s mouth felt like grains of sand.

Geon-woo suddenly recalled his childhood, when he had chosen to go to the US because he hated the atmosphere of this household. Even when laughter echoed from the living room, the moment he appeared, the laughter would vanish completely.

That wasn’t merely his imagination. An invisible wall had always existed between Jang Geon-woo and the people of the mansion.

The only blemish on Taesan Trading Chairman Jang Dong-wan’s life, which he prided himself on having lived perfectly. An illegitimate child born to and abandoned by a lowly bar hostess. That was Geon-woo.

He had at least been taken in because he was a son rather than a daughter, but Geon-woo’s childhood—thoroughly shunned by a stepmother who found the very existence of an illegitimate child horrifying—was exceedingly lonely.

It was only thanks to Hyun-woo, who loved his younger brother so much that he played with him, that he endured; otherwise, he couldn’t have borne it.

Then, when Hyun-woo became an examinee and moved into a dormitory, Geon-woo chose to go to the US. It was a decision carrying the resolve never to return to Korea again. If not for Hyun-woo’s efforts afterward, Geon-woo would have lived having cut ties with this family entirely.

“How long do you plan to stay?”

At Jang Dong-wan’s question, which broke the long silence, Geon-woo raised his head, swallowed the sand-like rice, and answered.

” > “I plan to leave right after hyung’s wedding.” ”

“That soon? Why not stay a bit longer. Seollal is coming up soon—wouldn’t it be nice to spend the holiday with family?”

Family—at that unfamiliar and distant word, Geon-woo let out a hollow laugh and said:

“Hyung, you saw my luggage.”

“Don’t tell me that was all of it?”

When Geon-woo, who had come with just a single backpack and not even the usual suitcase, nodded, Hyun-woo furrowed his brow. He was genuinely disappointed that his brother, who had set foot on Korean soil for the first time in twenty years, would stay only two nights and three days before leaving.

Jang Dong-wan, cutting off Hyun-woo’s attempt to persuade him to extend the stay somehow, asked without even looking in Geon-woo’s direction:

“I heard you work in dangerous places. Do you have no thought of giving it all up and coming back to Korea?”

At that, Geon-woo looked at Jang Dong-wan. The intimidating charisma was still there, but the man’s deeply wrinkled face bore the traces of twenty-some years of time.

” > “Are you worried I might be in danger?” ”

“I don’t care about that. I’m saying this because if your reckless antics—diving into every war zone like a moth to a flame—become known, sparks might fly at Taesan for no reason.”

” > “Not once, ever, have I thought of my work as reckless. And I’ve never once spoken aloud that I have any connection to Taesan. So there will never be anything that causes trouble for your company, Father.” ”

Bang!—Jang Dong-wan set down his chopsticks with a sharp sound, and the atmosphere turned ice-cold in an instant.

” > “Wherever you go, never call me Father. You, who have nothing to do with Taesan, cannot be given the qualification of being my son.” ”

With those words, Jang Dong-wan left. Lee Myung-hee, sighing as if she had expected this, said “Let me see you for a moment,” and took Hyun-woo out with her.

In the end, only Geon-woo remained alone at the table. He hadn’t, of course, expected a warm welcome from his family after returning for the first time in twenty-some years. But having his very existence denied within mere minutes of meeting his father was nothing short of bitter.

Whether in the past or now, anywhere in this world, there was no home where Jang Geon-woo could comfortably stay. The moment he left the battlefield, he was always an unwelcome guest.

So Hyun-woo’s words were wrong. To Geon-woo, this place felt more like hell.