Chapter 1260. Mediating (5)

Hwang Min-Su took in the sight of a tall skyscraper before his eyes, his expression slightly tense.

Although this new building gave off an imposing impression, it wasn’t enough to make Hwang Min-Su, the former prince of the one and only Jaegyeong Group, nervous. Indeed, what made him tense was the person waiting for him inside this building.

“

Fuu-woo

...!”

Hwang Min-Su let out a soft sigh, then scanned his vicinity to find something. He eventually discovered a smoking booth next to the skyscraper and hurriedly walked up to it. After entering it, he urgently mouthed a cigarette.

‘Damn it. I gotta smoke first.’

He had no idea that he’d get this nervous. Despite his hand trembling ever so slightly, Hwang Min-Su still successfully lit his cigarette up. He deeply sucked in the unhealthy smoke.

‘To think I’d be going through a job interview at my age...’

Although this was his first time doing it, Hwang Min-Su thought there was nothing to be nervous about. After all, he was deeply confident about his academic and professional records. If things hadn’t ended up the way they did, countless corporations would’ve been trying their hardest to recruit him by now.

As he stood before the building, though, Hwang Min-Su quickly realized that his achievements and resume weren’t enough to quash this nervousness from the upcoming job interview.

As it turned out, the intensity of one’s nervousness was determined by how desperate that person was!

Hwang Min-Su silently puffed away, his somewhat forlorn eyes staring at the burning cigarette tip.

His feelings were rather complicated right now.

It was nice to have a place willing to hire him, but the idea of holding a job interview with a corporation he had never heard of made him realize how laughable his life had become.

‘No, wait. I’m being too arrogant here.’

He was no longer the son of Jaegyeong’s chairman who used to fight for the right to inherit the company. Indeed, he was nothing more than a jobless bum right now. A bum who couldn’t find a job unless he crossed the oceans and went to another country!

He needed to drill that fact into his brain right now. Otherwise, he’d definitely mess up the upcoming job interview.

“Right. I must wake the hell up.”

Hwang Min-Su stubbed the cigarette on the nearby ashtray, then glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes remained until the interview. Even so, he should head to the interview area.

At the very least, arriving ten minutes early would help with setting a favorable first impression. Being punctual was the minimum-expected courtesy in most social circles, after all!

After sucking in several deep breaths, Hwang Min-Su’s expression hardened, and he headed to the skyscraper’s entrance. It was now time to set aside his cautiousness and bravely jump into this situation.

Unfortunately, Hwang Min-Su’s determination crumbled to nothingness the moment he stepped inside.

“Hey, hey, hey! We don’t allow solicitors in here!”

A security guard with a massive physique and a twitching facial expression approached Hwang Min-Su.

Hwang Min-Su was taken aback. “A s-solicitor? Me?”

“Uncle, you shouldn’t just waltz into any ol’ building, okay? Please go away while I’m still being civil!”

“N-no, hold on. I’m here to...”

“Stop wasting my time, uncle! Hurry the hell up!”

“No, hold on! I’m not a solicitor, okay? I came for a job interview!”

“Job... interview?” The security guard suspiciously scanned Hwang Min-Su from top to bottom. A man who looked to be in his forties, even at a casual glance, came for a job interview? What a load of bull was that? “

Kyah

~, scammers sure have gotten sophisticated these days, eh? Uncle, this company is not hiring new people, okay? Stop with your rubbish and leave.”

“N-no, listen...”

“Shoo, shoo! You’re not a very good listener, are you, uncle? Before you get hurt, you...”

“Hold on, hyung-nim?”

The security guard turned his head when another security guard, who seemed to be his junior, called out to him. “What?”

“I just confirmed the visitor’s log, and we’re supposed to have a visitor today.”

“Huh? A visitor? Coming to visit whom?”

“It’s the chairman’s office.”

The security guard slowly, oh-so agonizingly slowly, turned his head back toward Hwang Min-Su, his quaking eyes slightly wider now. “M-may I ask what your name is?”

“...It’s Hwang Min-Su.”

The security guard’s head snapped toward his junior.

The junior nodded. “Yup, the visitor’s name is one Mister Hwang Min-Su.”

“It is him?”

“Yup, hyung-nim. He’s got an appointment in the chairman’s office at two o’clock.”

“...” The security guard sheepishly turned around to face Hwang Min-Su and took his hat off. A bright smile suddenly bloomed on that rough-looking face. “

Aigoo

~, it looks like I’ve made a terrible blunder, sir. Please excuse my poor behavior, and welcome to MK.”

“...But,

uh

, you didn’t sound so welcoming earlier.”

“I sincerely apologize, sir. It’s just that we didn’t have any visitors to speak of, you see...”

“I see. It’s fine, then.”

Hwang Min-Su slowly nodded, although his expression conveyed how much he wanted to get out of this situation.

Rather obviously, he wasn’t enjoying this interaction at all, but the sight of the security guard’s bulging biceps, seemingly ready to tear through the sleeves of his uniform, had this power to turn Hwang Min-Su into a generous person today.

People could make mistakes, no? After all, didn’t Hwang Min-Su also make a mistake? A big mistake that utterly ruined his life? Compared to that mistake, what this security guard had done was child’s play.

The security guard politely lowered his head. “Please, let me show you the way.”

“N-no, it’ll be fine. I’ll find my own way from here.”

“But...”

“It’s really fine.”

Only then did the security guard making an awkward face let Hwang Min-Su go. “I see. Then, please head to the top floor.”

Hwang Min-Su smiled weakly while hurrying his way toward the elevators.

‘Holy cow. Why does a security guard look like that?’

If a thief showed up, that man might not even bother—probably—with calling the police, since he’d personally beat the living daylights out of the poor would-be criminal! Hwang Min-Su could at least tell that this company was number one in security among all the companies he had been to.

Although his attitude didn’t really fit that of a security guard, his impressively thick arm muscles could cover for all of his faults, and then some! Just having someone like that in the building’s lobby should be enough to resolve most problems.

‘No, hold on. He’s not the only one, no?’

Hwang Min-Su scanned his surroundings before tilting his head.

‘Am I in the wrong place?’

He had finally noticed that the other people walking past him had impressive physiques, too. They weren’t hulking monsters like the security guard, but more like highly-trained top-tier athletes. If it hadn’t been for their business suits, Hwang Min-Su might have mistakenly thought he had wandered into a training center for Olympic athletes or something.

‘Huh. Well, I’ll be...’

Hwang Min-Su continued to tilt his head while tapping on the elevator button.

After arriving on the top floor, he peeked his head outside the elevator door and scanned the surroundings. Unlike the first floor, which was a hub of activity, he couldn’t see anyone on this floor. Which made sense.

Usually, the entry into the top floor of a corporation’s headquarters was granted only to the chairperson, the secretaries, and a handful of other executives. Someone like Hwang Min-Su, who was only a visitor right now, wouldn’t usually have the freedom to enter here so easily.

He used to frequently enter the top floor of Jaegyeong’s HQ in the past, but that was a long time ago.

‘So, this is how it feels...’

Back when he was still one of the presidents of Jaegyeong, the people entering his office to make various reports all carried tense expressions. At the time, Hwang Min-Su thought people’s nervousness stemmed from the pressure of talking to him directly. Now that the shoe was on the other foot, though... He finally understood that it wasn’t as simple as that.

In a building full of noises from all the hard-working people, such an eerily silent space had the power to heap subtle pressure on a person. Especially the echoes of one’s footsteps ringing within the corridor; those exponentially worsened the pressure.

Thankfully, though, someone was here to lessen the pressure on Hwang Min-Su.

“Good day to you.”

“Oh, hello...”

A man showed up at the end of the corridor to welcome the guest in. Hwang Min-Su bowed slightly at this unfamiliar person.

The affably smiling man offered his hand for a shake. “Welcome to MK, President Hwang. My name is Lee Hyeon-Su, the chief of a department in this organization.”

“Oh, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. However, you don’t have to call me president anymore.”

“Even so...”

“No, I insist. That’s the correct way, after all.”

Hwang Min-Su’s firm voice prompted Lee Hyeon-Su to nod. “I see. I’ll do that, then. How about Mister Hwang? Will that be satisfactory?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Please forgive me. I couldn’t think of a more suitable title.”

“No, it is very much suitable,” said Hwang Min-Su with a smile.

Unlike what his expression conveyed, however, he was getting quite tense right now.

‘This man... He should not be underestimated.’

Even though they had shared only a few words, Hwang Min-Su’s instinct still rang alarm bells. It warned him to never let his guard down in front of this man!

Lee Hyeon-Su looked younger than Hwang Min-Su. And he didn’t seem to be a veteran of the industry, either. If he was someone who had enjoyed a meteoric rise in the past few years, Hwang Min-Su would’ve heard of him by now.

‘The more I learn about this place, the more mysterious it gets.’

The security guard had been someone extraordinary, yet the person welcoming him proved even more so. If the security guard had agitated Hwang Min-Su in a physically threatening way, Lee Hyeon-Su agitated him in an intellectual way.

Lee Hyeon-Su grinned subtly. “I heard a lot about you from Jo Gyu-Min.”

“

Oh

...?”

“Mm? Haven’t you heard about us before coming here?”

“No, not really...” Hwang Min-Su replied awkwardly.

All he heard was that someone wanted to hire him so he should come here and go through a job interview. Hwang Min-Su only acted on this vague information because the person giving it to him just so happened to be Jo Gyu-Min, Hwang Jeong-Hu’s secretary.

A secretary was like the hands and feet of the person employing them.

Without Hwang Jeong-Hu’s consent, Jo Gyu-Min wouldn’t have delivered such information to Hwang Min-Su. In other words, Hwang Jeong-Hu was indirectly telling his son to come here for this interview.

Since that was the case, how dare he not listen?

Lee Hyeon-Su guessed the situation through Hwang Min-Su’s reply and smiled brightly.

“I see. It seems you weren’t informed of the situation.”

“My apologies.”

“Oh, no. Please don’t apologize. It’s Gyu-Min who hasn’t done his job properly, after all. In that case, why should you apologize?”

Gyu-Min?

Hwang Min-Su tried to study Lee Hyeon-Su’s expression once more.

Although it might sound funny for him to say this, Jo Gyu-Min’s status within the Jaegyeong Group was definitely not low. As a matter of fact, most directors were lower in the organization’s hierarchy than Jo Gyu-Min!

Being the Chief of Secretaries in Jaegyeong, where Hwang Jeong-Hu wielded absolute authority, meant one would wield a similar level of power to the ‘Chief of Staff’ in the administrations of various dictators in history.

In short, one would wield more power than what their official title suggested.

Since Lee Hyeon-Su knew that Hwang Min-Su came here at Jo Gyu-Min’s recommendation, he should also have an ‘understanding’ of this power dynamic within Jaegyeong, too. Yet he casually called Jo Gyu-Min out like that?

The more Hwang Min-Su thought about it, the more bizarre it seemed.

“This way, please. Our Chairman is waiting for you,” said Lee Hyeon-Su.

“I’m sorry? I’m not talking to the HR department, but to your chairperson directly?”

“Of course. I mean, if you end up joining us, the HR department will be working for you, after all. Knowing that, they can’t possibly interview you, no? Besides...” Lee Hyeon-Su smiled awkwardly. “This is a bit embarrassing, but we still don’t have a proper HR department yet as it hasn’t been that long since we opened our doors.”

“I’m... sorry?”

“That’s our current situation.”

“You don’t have an HR department in a company this large? Then... How did you hire all of your employees?”

“There is a story behind that, of course. But we can only explain to you at a later stage.”

“...”

Although Hwang Min-Su wanted to ask so many things right now, digging for more answers when he came for a job interview wouldn’t be easy. So, he did his best to suppress his curiosity and wordlessly followed Lee Hyeon-Su.

They reached the end of the corridor. That was where Hwang Min-Su spotted a doorway next to the stairwell entrance.

Lee Hyeon-Su headed to that doorway. “It’s this way.”

“That’s the chairman’s office?”

“Yes.”

Hwang Min-Su asked incredulously. “But the chairman’s office is... next to the stairwell? Was there a mistake with the floor planning?”

“Well, we also have a reason for this arrangement, of course...”

Lee Hyeon-Su could only grin wryly.

The chairman’s office was originally the biggest room on the floor, away from the stairwell, but Kang Jin-Ho said such a large space didn’t feel good to be in. He ordered that place to be converted into a shared office for the secretaries and then took up ‘residence’ in this comparatively much smaller office.

Of course, the chief architect was not pleased about this development.

“Shall we go inside, then?” Lee Hyeon-Su asked.

“Yes, thank you.” Hwang Min-Su nodded and followed Lee Hyeon-Su.

Lee Hyeon-Su knocked on the door. “Chairman, this is Lee Hyeon-Su. I’ve brought Mister Hwang Min-Su.”

“Got it. Come in.”

The immediate response from behind the door prompted Lee Hyeon-Su to open the door.

Hwang Min-Su briefly thought that the voice he heard sounded rather young.

To think the boss of a company occupying such a large building was a youngster!

While harboring a slight doubt and a hint of anticipation, Hwang Min-Su walked through the open doorway. And his eyes opened much wider almost immediately after realizing who was waiting for him inside.

“

Huh

? It’s... you?”