“Did something happen to hyung?” Choi Young Do barely croaked, his heart suddenly overcome with dread.

Cha Eun Sang looked confused but equally fearful at the thought. She shook her head slowly and sighed in exhaustion. She closed her eyes and opened them slowly as if the act alone would somehow wake her from the nightmare that her life had become in the past twenty four hours or so.

“Not that I know of. I texted Yoon Chan Young before I spoke to you. He said that hyung is no better and no worse. He said that he would let me know if anything changed. Why are you asking that? Do you know anything more? Has Director Yoon called you?” She tensed up, her voice trembled and her eyes welled up.

Stupid is as stupid does and at that moment, Choi Young Do asked the most stupid and inappropriate question of his life. His pride forgotten, his heart and mind clamored to make sense of what had just happened.

“Why did you hug me then?” He knew that it was a mistake as soon as he said those words. He sounded like an immature, clueless, prepubescent grade school student, taking offense at a female classmate’s overture, not quite sure why the girl he fought with all the time was being mushy all of a sudden.

“What?” Cha Eun Sang was unprepared for the straight forward question. She was reeling from an emotional upheaval and had not stopped to think that Choi Young Do would actually ask her to explain her odd behavior. But then Choi Young Do had a habit of calling her out on the things that she didn’t want to think about. Warm and fuzzy he was not, but sharp and amazingly intuitive about people’s weaknesses, he could shamelessly hone in on somebody’s Achilles’s Heel like no other.

She smiled despite her discomfiture and saw to her surprise that it was Choi Young Do who looked more uncomfortable than she felt. He reddened a little and dropped his gaze, seemingly focused on finishing his drink in quick sips, looking anywhere but at her. “I am going to miss seeing him sometimes. Not his bossy ways, not his callous and aggressive behavior, but moments like these, when he seems almost human” she thought.

“Well, since you asked…” she began, only to be interrupted by Choi Young Do’s brusque words.

“Never mind….forget that I asked.” Choi Young Do turned to walk towards the coffee table, intent on refilling his glass. He was embarrassed and he didn’t deal well with embarrassment. But he noticed that Cha Eun Sang came over to the seating area and actually sat down on the sofa, forcing him to sit down as well, out of courtesy.

“Well, last week I spoke to hyung. He was feeling a lot better….he seemed so upbeat and hopeful. We spoke at length and he even spoke to Omoeni….Kim Tan’s mother. He told me somethings that stayed with me. In the light of the.....twists….that have again thrown our lives into doldrums…I have come to realize the importance of what he said. May be it was Fate. He said those things to guide me to do the right thing, when it came down to the wire.” She paused to swallow the lump in and blinked hard to dislodge the moisture that was clouding her eyes.

Choi Young Do watched her struggle and felt his heart turn over. She was teetering on the edge of a melt down and he had a bad feeling that she would be inconsolable then. And it would pain him to see her fall apart. He wanted to stave off the inevitable. He decided to be cheeky.

“And…..he told you to do…..this?” Choi Young Do flicked his index finger in midair, pointing alternately at her and himself, all the while smiling like a cat who got the canary and was too smug to even put it in words.

Cha Eun Sang decided to be charitable in view of her plan. She was not going to ruin her, potentially, last encounter with Choi Young Do by bickering over trifles. She smiled gently, refusing to take the bait. She was an old hand at managing mischievous boys.

“Not in so many words. But yes, he did give me the idea.” She pursed her lips to control her smile as she watched Choi Young Do’s eyes widen in shock.

“The truth is that I have come to say two things to you. Thank you and good bye.” She finished firmly but refused to meet his eyes. She could sense that Choi Young Do went still. “Last night I learnt that my life was about to possibly change forever. I was not given a choice. I was told what I could do or couldn’t do, I was told that my life was already decided in the event of hyung’s passing. I was told that I cannot travel to be at hyung’s side because I am supposed to focus on finding my footing in the business. A lot of machinations, complicated wheeling and dealing were to take place to ensure the Kim family’s position in the Jeguk Group.”

She laughed a brittle laugh as she recounted bitterly, “Not prayer books but hyung’s will was opened; corporate lawyers were summoned instead of the extended family. Instead of circling the wagons to safeguard my family from this terrible tragedy, I was told that I have to step into murky corporate politics so that we can continue the family’s dominance in the board room.”

She looked at Choi Young Do’s impassive face and felt beleaguered. “But this is something you are familiar with, right? Seems OK to you?”

Choi Young Do nodded slowly, reluctantly acknowledging the truth of corporate politics. It is not a democracy. It is at best an oligarchy, if not downright absolute monarchy. And just like the dynasties of the yore, continuity of the family in power was of utmost importance. He raised his glass in a mock salute and bit out the nasty tradition in fitting words.

“The king is dead. Long live the king.”

“Don’t say that. It’s uncouth and goes against the grain of everything decent. Not in my world. Not in any civilized world for that matter.” Cha Eun Sang’s eyes flashed as she vented for the first time since that phone call that had woken her up.

“And I definitely do not want my son to grow up in a world that values power and money over love and affection. I will choose my son and my family over anything else. If that makes me a non-elite, so be it. I was poor but I was raised right. We had little money but we grieved together when my father passed away. There were others, who helped us with food and help, not much but whatever they could afford. I want my son to be raised in a community, not in a dynasty. He is not just an heir to the Kim family fortune, he is my son. He is my legacy. He is Kim Tan’s legacy. More important than Jeguk Group’s fortune.” 

“Do you want your child to grow up poor, just to instill good values in him through everyday struggles?” Choi Young Do was needled, despite all his good intentions, by her self-righteous spiel. “If I remember correctly, you were not particularly happy being poor. You were too proud even then but definitely not happy to be ‘raised right’. You were angry at me….us……with our entitlements while you toiled hard for everything. I accept that it was nothing to sneeze at. You earned my respect with your hard work and perseverance. But would you put your son through that?”

Cha Eun Sang bristled at Choi Young Do’s insinuation. “I am definitely in a better situation than my parents. My mother never went to college but worked herself to bone. My father was a high school graduate who worked hard at a factory job for as long as he could. I have finished college, I have a degree so I can find a decent job. I will earn enough to give my son a middle class upbringing.” She had already worked out a plan in her head.

“Really? Let me see, you barely worked for a year before you got married. You have been out of touch for….six years…now. And if anybody does a background check, they will know that it was a ‘favored internship’. The commoner girl who had captured the heart of a chaebol heir’s heart was given a cushy job at his family business, just for a little while, before he could march her down the aisle and take her away from the drudgery of a commonplace career. Even now, you are working at Jeguk Group because hyung ‘wished’ that you would. When was the last time you had to submit a resume or face an interview? How does that sound for a fact check?” Choi Young Do hated sounding so harsh but being emotional was not exactly his forte.

Cha Eun Sang blanched at the cold words but she knew that those had a ring of truth to them. But she was done being a chaebol daughter-in-law. The family was all but wiped out, only the fortune remained. She had to find herself again before she and her son fell victim to the unknown curse that seemed determined to destroy the Kim family. She had to escape the dark shadows of the misfortune that had already plagued her and little Sunny’s life.

“Are you telling me that I will amount to nothing on my own? That all my track record of hard work and education will amount to nothing? I thought you had more faith in me, Choi Young Do.” She almost rebuked “Did you not say I can work hard? I will work harder than ever. I will build my life up again, from scratch. I may lack experience but I have talent and a dogged determination.”

Choi Young Do reached for the wine glass that he had set aside before and poured out a measured amount of sherry in it. He got up and rounded the coffee table, standing over Cha Eun Sang and holding out the glass to her.

“Drink this. This kind of intense…debate….cannot take place without suitable sustenance.” He waited till Cha Eun Sang grabbed the glass reluctantly before seating himself next to her on the sofa. He left his glass on the table as he busied himself with making two plates from the platter of food that was left the coffee table by room service. Some sandwiches, cold meats and light desserts. He handed her a plate and made it a point of taking a bite of the sandwich on his, hoping that she would unconsciously follow suit. She kept staring at him with a frown as she took a few small sips of the superlative wine. Choi Young Do did not miss the way her eyes closed as her palate processed the fine flavors. She was too tightly wound up to listen to reason right then. So, he decided to take a softer route.

“Jackie Kennedy tried to build a life for herself as a book editor. But everybody still remembers her because of her association with her famous husbands though she spent more time as a single woman than as a wife to either. Lady Diana was an anti-landmine activist and actively supported many charities, even after her divorce but everybody still remembers her as a princess. Her fame followed her everywhere. Doris Duke, an heiress and a socialite was a curator of art and an avid horticulturist. But people don’t remember that. They all had talent but they were all tainted by fame, which overshadowed their talent. 99% people in the world aspire for public recognition. It opens countless doors and makes life easier than the most. But it is not easy to walk away from it. Even if you lose the favor of public opinion, you will still be treated differently, if not openly then definitely behind your back. Unless you are planning on leaving the borders of this country, anonymity would be hard to achieve. And if you leave this country, how would you feel about throwing yourself and your child into an alien culture? Devoid of any family support, strangers in a new land and practically alone? How is that better than fitting into the ‘alien’ culture of corporate life here? ” Choi Young Do looked up to see Cha Eun Sang listening to his words with unblinking attention.

“So I shouldn’t even try to lead a normal life?” She asked almost plaintively.

Choi Young Do got to his feet and wanted to mull over his answer because she needed to hear the truth. He stood by the huge window that looked over the impressive downtown skyline. Silhouettes of big buildings with intermittent lit windows winked back at him. Behind him was the suite that he had called his home for the longest time. It was more of a basecamp. The kind   the mountaineers use to gather their strength to launch their summit attempt and come back to, if they fail, only to attempt again. Home it was not but it was familiar, comfortable and reassuring in its own way. He decide to be honest in every way possible so that she could make a well informed decision.

“I don’t know about that. I do not know the world you come from and wax eloquent about. This…is…my world. I feel at home here. It is not perhaps perfect but this is all that I know. I didn’t want for anything as a child but neither did I dream of anything. I had wishes and they were fulfilled. Most of them anyway. I knew that one day I will inherit the command of this conglomerate that my grandfather had built. My father knew it as a child and so did I. I had no other thought of becoming anything else. It was just a matter of finding my own little place in a world that was preordained for me. I cannot speak of the merits of a life I know nothing about. I only made sporadic forays into that world, more as a token rebellion than any serious attempt to carve out a new path for myself. I cannot tell you if you should go back to your ordinary life with ordinary problems.” He turned around to face her. “Our ‘everything’ is big. We earn in millions and we lose in millions. Others may just see the wealth but you know that there’s also a frantic desperation to preserve and increase that wealth. No less intense than a salaryman’s struggle to put food on the table for his family.” He smiled sardonically at the analogy, which he knew would get a raise out of many political liberals. But she merely shook her head in disbelief.

“You have no idea, do you? Someday, I hope I can tell you how difficult it is to live from paycheck to paycheck. I have no illusions about the hardships that lack of wealth brings. But I cannot imagine not being by my child’s side if he is sick or hurt or just sad. Nothing can replace the care of one’s family.” She looked accusingly at the wine glass in her hand for making her feel weepy again.

Choi Young Do was leaning against window. He straightened himself and walked over to the sofa and sat down again. He picked up the untouched sandwich from Cha Eun Sang’s plate and held it out to her, tacitly implying his non-participation in the ‘debate’ till she actually took a bite. Cha Eun Sang glared, then sighed when he did not back off and then finally took the sandwich. Choi Young Do waited till she bit into the sandwich to refill her wine glass. He leaned back to savor his small victory as she ate hungrily after the first bite.

“On the other hand, sometimes just caring doesn’t help. Hyung is getting the best treatment, cutting edge stuff, because he could afford it. Would you remove that safety net from Sunny? Or your mother?” Choi Young Do watched as Cha Eun Sang slowed her eating and hastily dropped the remainder of her sandwich. She took a big gulp of the sherry though and sat brooding. “That must have hit too close to home…..aisshh….I shouldn’t have” thought Choi Young Do. He picked at his food, hoping he could subliminally ind