“It’s surprising. You may not care, but I think it would be right for you to stop by.”
“Senior, what do you mean?”
Yoo-hyun hurriedly approached and asked.
However, Kim Young-gil, who grabbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, raised his head and sighed.
“Hah! I’m here just to say this. Please understand that I wouldn’t want to come if not for him.”
“…”
Yoo-hyun had no choice but to look at his retreating back after saying those things.
The senior’s eyes full of resentment were stuck in Yoo-hyun’s mind.
The day’s schedule went by even with Yoo-hyun’s complicated mood. Then, he went to the funeral home located on the outskirts of Seoul.
It was a difficult place to come to, but he had to.
The mortuary was not very crowded.
Yoo-hyun, who first greeted the deceased, bowed in front of Se-joong.
In front of him, he saw Se-joong’s young son and Se-joong’s wife crying.
After barely meeting each other, Yoo-hyun took a heavy step.
“Hey, he was fired in the end. He couldn’t get a job, so he decided to jump off a building.”
“Hansung is way too much. They used them up as much as they could and simply threw them away. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it have been better to go somewhere else?”
“That’s right. The higher-ups are the main problem. The person who decided that then was…”
“Hey! Shh!”
The murmuring of people in the hallway ceased as soon as Yoo-hyun appeared.
After stopping briefly, Yoo-hyun started walking again, leaving the people behind.
There were situations where he could gauge the atmosphere even without looking at it.
Yoo-hyun, who was quick to assess the situation, thought that Kwon Se-joong’s suicide was directly related to the large-scale staff layoffs in Hansung Group.
‘I’m the one who made that choice.’
The company needed to revert back and make the profits somehow.
If left as it was, it could’ve caused damage and put the entire group into financial difficulty.
Someone had to take the lead, and Yoo-hyun, who was the group’s strategic director at the time, raised the agenda.
At that time, it was believed that it was an inevitable choice for the company’s survival.
“Anybody would’ve needed to do that if they were in my place.”
Yoo-hyun struggled to convince himself.
He finished paying his condolences and slowly moved towards his car.
At that moment, familiar faces entered Yoo-hyun’s sight.
These were the people who worked with Yoo-hyun in the past.
Of course, they don’t work there now.
Rather than feeling happy with this reunion, he felt sorry instead.
He knew that facing them head-on wouldn’t be good for him.
If he could, he wanted to just get out of there.
However, Yoo-hyun’s path led him into the reception room where they were located.
As Yoo-hyun entered, a startled man quickly straightened up and started to speak.
Like Kim Young-gil, he also spoke with a cynical tone.
“Oh my, what brought a big boss all the way here?”
“I’ve come late, senior.”
“Hey, are you even qualified to say that?”
“Stop, stop. Can’t you see where we’re chatting? CEO Han, we’re not at the company so I can talk casually, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
Yoo-hyun nodded his head.
These were the people that he had worked with before. He considered them as Hansung employees that were once his seniors.
Although now, Yoo-hyun’s rank is higher than anyone else’s, but only within the company.
Now that they were unrelated to Hansung, there was no need for formalities.
One senior picked up a bottle.
“Come here. Take a drink.”
“You just put your mouth on it.”
“You punk, you’re still unsociable.”
Those who were already drunk began to whine in front of Yoo-hyun.
“Man, honestly, didn’t you run away just because you’re good? We could’ve done well if we did it together.”
He blamed Yoo-hyun for abandoning a sinking team all alone and moving to another team.
“Yoo-hyun, you did something wrong then. If I went somewhere else, I would’ve just lived well alone. But why are you hitting us behind our backs?”
He also blamed Yoo-hyun upon recalling the trouble they were put in after Yoo-hyun worked in another team.
“Do you know how troubled we were because of how many people we lost? Have you ever thought of someone who lost their job overnight?”
“…”
Yoo-hyun remained silent.
The biggest resentment came from the mass layoffs.
Because they were facing each other, the senior didn’t say harsh words directly, but his eyes were full of resentment.
There were plenty of excuses that Yoo-hyun had from his point of view, but he didn’t voice them out.
That was because it was clearly a fact that they were the victims of Yoo-hyun, who only looked in front of himself and ran forward.
As he listened to every single story, he understood why he had no choice but to do what he did.
It was a really tough place to be in.
Still, Yoo-hyun held out firmly.
After staying at the mortuary for a long time, Yoo-hyun finally caught sight of Kwon Se-joong’s portrait.
The eyes of justice from Se-joong’s portrait continued to bore into Yoo-hyun.
Kwon Se-joong, whom he thought was a friend, colleague, and even a rival for a while, passed away just like that.
Yoo-hyun quietly asked towards the portrait’s smiling face.
‘Did I get it wrong?’
His words won’t reach him now.
Some time passed.
After finishing his final condolences, Yoo-hyun, who was laying in the backseat of his car, was immersed in deep thought.
The car was upgraded to a bigger and more comfortable one, and even his annual salary was doubled.
That was the result of being in the highest position that one can climb.
However, there was still an unfilled emptiness in his heart.
Instead, guilt always occupied an empty corner of his heart.
“Whoo…”
Yoo-hyun exhaled for a long time and then slowly turned his eyes to the side.
He looked at the night view of Seoul passing through the window while he lay on the soft backseat.
Along the Han River, the street lights stretched on for so long that the end could not be seen.
It was similar to the life Yoo-hyun had led as he just looked ahead and ran.
Each light represented what had been thrown away to achieve this success.
“Did you live a proper life?”
He spat out the question that he tightly wrapped around himself.
The answer may have been obvious for a long time now.