The Path of Return

“Sir, the transaction keeps getting declined. Do you have another card?”

The airline employee, who had met his reddened eyes, showed the card after a perfunctory greeting asking if he was okay. Hae-jun swallowed the grief that threatened to burst out the moment he opened his mouth and asked them to try again.

He had been absorbed all day in practicing for the live audition of the orchestra he would join after finishing the semester. While fully focused on the final rehearsal, he was interrupted by the sharp sound of a phone ring.

—Hae-jun, your father has passed away. Please return to Korea immediately.

The voice of his father’s secretary, Secretary Joo, sounded like a stiff mechanical noise. He had no idea how he had managed to rush from Rochester to New York. At the airport counter, he tried to buy a first-class ticket on the earliest flight, but all his cards were declined.

“The payment isn’t going through. Do you have another card you can use?”

Hearing the employee’s tired words after repeated failures, Hae-jun reluctantly stepped aside. His fingers trembled with anxiety as they fumbled through his phone, skipping numbers in search of someone to contact. When the long ringtone finally gave way to a connection, the tense Hae-jun pressed his ear hard against the receiver.

Amid the crowd of people rushing past with their own business, Hae-jun focused on the phone, but instead of the expected answer, only the airport’s announcement echoed hollowly in his ears. His anxious gaze swept around and caught sight of a passenger plane just appearing above the full glass window.

The plane’s lights came on as it lowered its altitude, seemingly preparing to land. Behind the plane slowly descending to the ground, an unusually thick mass of black clouds gathered. An ominously dark and gloomy shadow spread its wings like an attack and rushed into view.

****

A clear oak-colored liquid fell over the ice in a transparent glass. The wrinkled hand that had poured the whiskey into the glass now filled a shot glass with no ice to the brim and pushed it forward.

“It’s a new import. Try it.”

Instead of an answer, a large hand reached for the glass. The man lightly grasped the glass, reflecting the clear light unique to crystal, and slowly brought it to his lips. As his firm, well-formed lips parted, a few strands of his neatly combed hair fell forward, creating shadows. Across from him, the glass that had been shaking in the half-gray-haired man’s hand settled onto the ivory-colored table.

“Yes. I called you today because something annoying came up. You know that HCN we discussed earlier came up for sale, and I tried to join the bidding.”

Chairman Kwon Hyeok-hwan, who had opened the conversation slowly, frowned with displeasure. The item he had been eyeing appeared on the market and he ordered its purchase, but they were eliminated from the list of preferred bidders. He wanted to snatch it away out of regret, but overturning it wasn’t easy. So he called this professional hunter.

“It looks like I’ll lose the meat I’ve been eyeing if things go on like this. Indecently. So, Mujin, will you take charge?”

At the affectionate address, Mujin brought the glass in his hand to his lips. As he took a large gulp, the high-purity alcohol of the hard liquor, nearing 70 percent alcohol, burned down his esophagus.

“Understood.”

At Mujin’s answer without any additional words, Chairman Kwon’s eyes narrowed slightly and then relaxed.

“The Zenith Capital bastards have rolled up their sleeves, so it won’t be simple. They’re experts at squeezing the opponent’s throat, so it’ll be a bit troublesome.”

“You don’t need to worry.”

At Mujin’s confident reply, Chairman Kwon, who had twitched his eyebrows, soon put on an unconcerned expression and drank.

“Alright, do as you see fit. By the way, I heard you recently wiped out a house in Yongcheon. People were lamenting that it was a house so well-decorated it was a shame to break even a single stone.”

“Since the garden was uselessly spacious, I thought converting it into a gallery would be useful, so I gave those orders.”

“A gallery?” Chairman Kwon twisted his lips as if in mockery and let out a dry laugh. It went without saying that what Mujin meant wasn’t a gallery in the ordinary sense.

“If something like that appears at the top, the rotten bastards will go up to make their rotten noise. The JN Construction Group was quite solid too. Tsk, they attacked recklessly without knowing the opponent’s capabilities, so they ended up dead. Stupid.”

Chairman Kwon swirled his glass as if teasing it, then twisted his mouth upward.

“Yongcheon is a strange place. With one road in between, one side is the best affluent neighborhood, the other a slum. As you well know, of course. To smash something made to look down from the top—doesn’t it seem a waste?”

Chairman Kwon, who had been laughing heartily, now had his eyes narrowed meaningfully. The unique gaze, which even his close aides feared, scanned his adopted son. Mujin quietly emptied his glass. This time, he filled his own glass, and without even a twitch of his eyebrow, he met that cunning gaze head-on.

“There’s a certain pleasure in smashing a trophy when it’s in its finest condition. As you well know, of course.”

Mujin added, repeating his adoptive father’s tone exactly. At the retort that subtly twisted his own words back at him, Chairman Kwon Hyeok-hwan burst into loud laughter.

“Hahaha, that’s right. But didn’t that house have a child? To just sit back while a bastard child who swallowed the inheritance destroys the house. What’s the world coming to? Is there no one even pretending to throw an egg at a rock these days?”

As his adoptive father clicked his tongue as if criticizing the times, Mujin finished his glass and stood up.

“I’ll take my leave now.”

Chairman Kwon didn’t stop him and casually waved his hand. Mujin got into the car waiting in the parking lot, glanced at Chairman Kwon’s mansion, which resembled a huge fortress, and then turned his head.

Hae-jun felt a jolting vibration and groggily opened his eyes. The narrow view of the outside shook lightly with every movement of the car. He tried to come to his senses, but his body kept sinking like a wet cotton ball.

He had managed to return to Korea, but his father had already passed away, and his mother had lost her strength from the shock. The funeral was already underway, led by relatives who had taken his place due to his delayed return. As soon as he arrived, he was swept up in the chaos, doing as he was told, and before he knew it, the ceremony was over.

He had hastily enshrined his father in a designated columbarium and headed home. He wanted to see his mother, whom he hadn’t even been able to call. How ill must she be to have missed the funeral? On the way from the columbarium, taking a taxi, Hae-jun fell asleep as if fainting.

He couldn’t tell if this was reality or a terrible dream. Yes. It must be a dream. When he opens his eyes, he’ll find he fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of practice. If he sleeps longer, his friends will ring the doorbell. They’ll nag him about being late for practice…

“Son, they say I can’t go any further because of demolition work. Is this the right address?”

He snapped back to reality. He sat up to find the taxi driver checking the navigation. Ahead, a demolition warning sign and a messy road were visible. Hae-jun got out of the taxi and looked around with a dazed gaze. In the distance, a skycar occupying the middle of the road on the hill was moving broken concrete fragments here and there.