Chapter 5 …
I guess I really need a car.
Seyeon, sitting on an orange plastic chair while waiting for the bus home, finally made up her mind.
She realized that life without a car was like a form of penance. She had thought it would be manageable since there was a bus running from the resort to her house, and another bus into town whenever she needed to go out. That had been a mistake.
Every time she spotted something she needed at the market or a small shop, she found herself thinking about the car she’d left behind in Seoul.
She hadn’t planned on staying long, and she’d deliberately left it behind to avoid drawing attention—but that had been arrogance. Even the man in the house across the street drove a car worth hundreds of millions of won. No one thought it was strange.
On top of that, she couldn’t help being conscious of the way people stared at her wherever she went. She needed the shield of a car.
In a thoroughly dampened mood, Seyeon trudged back home.
The man across the street, the director of a clinic in Seoul, had insulted her, and the pharmacist next door—also from Seoul—treated her oddly, as if she were invisible. It left a bad taste in her mouth that the only doctor and pharmacist in town both seemed to be excluding her.
As soon as she got home, she crouched in front of Cheshire and fed him some Churu. She also filled the new bowl she’d bought with an appropriate amount of kibble and set it down in front of him.
The reason she’d gone to the market today was to buy Cheshire’s food. She didn’t know what he’d been eating or where until now, but since they were living together, she intended to take proper care of his meals.
After watching Cheshire eat for a moment, Seyeon sat down on the wooden floor and turned on her phone.
Daehyun had stopped by her place in Seoul yesterday. Judging from the photo uploaded to Soyoung’s Instagram, she could more or less imagine what the dinner atmosphere must have been like.
“……”
The latest post, tagged with #OurFamily #InARelationship, showed Chairman Myung—her grandfather—along with her uncle and aunt, and Soyoung and Daehyun, all having a meal together.
Since it was a family dinner, her grandmother must have been sitting next to her grandfather, but the photo had been carefully cropped to exclude her.
Just like her parents, Soyoung called her grandmother “Madam.” Chairman Myung had scolded her about it a few times, but she never corrected it.
That said, Soyoung never spoke rudely or behaved improperly in front of her grandmother either, so Chairman Myung eventually stopped saying anything.
As soon as Myung Soyoung started dating Daehyun, she immediately made their relationship public on social media. Daehyun came from a respectable family—his father and grandfather were both doctors, and his mother was a university professor. He was also handsome and popular at the hospital.
Judging by how cheerful the atmosphere looked, it seemed Chairman Myung had approved of their relationship.
From Seyeon’s perspective, it made sense. Chairman Myung had long wanted to supply mattresses to Hansung, and there was no reason he would turn down the son of an internal medicine department head who had access to Hansung’s purchasing team.
She had already known Daehyun’s feelings had changed before they broke up. No matter how busy he was, he used to make time to see her—but at some point, it became hard to see his face even once.
The last time they met, instead of looking at Seyeon, he’d been anxiously glued to his phone.
—
Let’s break up.
—
When Seyeon said it, he’d looked genuinely shocked.
—
Seyeon, why all of a sudden… why would you say that?
I know we already broke up. I just thought we should properly end things face to face.
—
And just like that, their short relationship of a few months came to an end. In that situation, having something she could throw herself into wholeheartedly was actually a good thing.
A problem had arisen with Best Furniture, the industry leader that had been supplying mattresses to Sunrise Resort for years.
With the top company shaken by scandal, this was an opportunity for the competitors. Everyone was going all out to secure the bid for the mattresses and bed frames that would be installed at Sunrise Resort going forward.
It wasn’t just about sales. The symbolic value of supplying beds to one of the most prestigious hotel resorts in Korea—and the world—was enormous. Not only domestic companies, but overseas ones too were watching closely.
—
This bid must be ours, no matter the means. Isn’t the person who can seize a big opportunity the one qualified to carry First Living into the future?
—
This was a chance to leap to the top of the industry, and Chairman Myung couldn’t afford to miss it. At a family dinner, he openly declared that he would support whoever succeeded in this deal—clearly intending to pit his grandchildren against each other for the position of successor.
—
We have absolutely no connection to Sunrise.
—
Myung Dongseok, Soyoung’s older brother, was trying to build a line to Chairman Kang, the owner of Sunrise, in order to pull this off. But it wasn’t easy to approach Chairman Kang, who had lost his wife early and had no children.
Chairman Kang was a self-made businessman who had built Sunrise Hotel & Resort from nothing, without parents or siblings. These days, he had stepped back and left the company to professional managers. He was known to be extremely reclusive—meeting him was said to be as difficult as plucking a star from the sky.
—
Oppa, is there really no way to meet Chairman Kang directly?
No one even knows where he lives. They say he travels around incognito with just one secretary, like a royal inspector.
Isn’t the bid price what really matters anyway? Our quality isn’t inferior to Best Furniture. Sunrise has to know that we’re next after Best.
—
While the two of them searched for connections that could reach Chairman Kang, Seyeon began thinking in a different direction.
Chairman Kang had built the very first hotel resort in Cheonghaeri. Since it was the first, it was also scheduled to be the first to undergo renovation.
Sunrise Resort in Cheonghaeri had over six hundred guest rooms. In other words, this place was the starting point of the entire hotel chain.
—
Sunrise Hotel & Resort—more comfortable than your own home.
—
For them, nothing would be more important than providing guests with a better night’s sleep.
Realizing that the key was to find a competitive factor beyond price and quality, Seyeon decided to go directly to the resort site. That was the reason she had come down to Cheonghaeri, where she had no prior connections.
—
All resort beds are the same nationwide—why bother going all the way down there? If you really want to go somewhere, just go to Gangwon Province.
You’re not going just to mess around because you know it won’t work, right?
—
Dongseok and Soyoung mocked Seyeon for going to Cheonghaeri.
But there was one thing they had wrong: Seyeon wasn’t going there as a guest—she was going to work there as an employee.
—
Seyeon, the highest you’ll ever get is executive director. You know that, right?
—
Dongseok, who shared Chairman Myung’s blood just as much as she did, said magnanimously.
Executive director was her father’s limit. Dongseok was deliberately pointing that out—no matter how hard she tried, that was as far as Seyeon could ever climb.
—
Oppa, what do you think would happen if I won the Hansung Hospital bid? You take Sunrise, and I secure Hansung Hospital—Grandfather and Dad would be thrilled.
Soyoung, that’s tough. I’ve tried it myself—the purchasing team won’t even listen.
Still, wouldn’t the head of internal medicine at the main hospital have some pull?
—
So you know I dated Kim Daehyun.
Listening to Soyoung’s oddly suggestive tone that day, Seyeon was certain of it.
Seyeon lay down in bed early. She was tired enough that sleep should have come easily, but the moment she thought of what had happened at the hospital, she was wide awake. He had humiliated her with blunt, factual words.
—
You look like a young lady who grew up gently, but not like a daughter who was raised with care.
—
She couldn’t understand why the man across the street, whom she’d met for the first time, had been so sharp with her. Unless he’d heard vicious rumors about her from someone, it didn’t make sense.
They had no connection whatsoever—so how did he know her?
Then, suddenly, Seyeon recalled the medical license she’d seen in the examination room.
Director Si Yujin had graduated from the top medical school in the country and completed his internship and residency at Hansung General Hospital.
“…Kim Daehyun.”
Hansung General Hospital was where Kim Daehyun worked.
