The next day.
Seonghyeon Production.
We did not need much time to think about Chairman Lee Jeongho’s proposal.
For Junseong, it meant that his father had finally acknowledged him properly as the head of a real business, and for me, it meant that a foothold had been prepared for me to pursue my dream in America.
“Did you tell the Chairman?”
At my question, Junseong answered with a bright smile.
“No?”
“Huh?”
“Tsk, tsk. You still have a long way to go, Mr. Gyeong Chanhyeon.”
Junseong clicked his tongue and wagged his index finger from side to side.
And the corners of his mouth were twitching so much, it was as if he had already forgotten that he had cried his eyes out in front of the Korean restaurant yesterday.
“I gave it some more thought after I got home yesterday.”
“What is there left to think about?”
“Of course there is.”
“What is it?”
Junseong stomped the floor once with his foot and came toward me.
“The basic rule of negotiation is that you should avoid getting excited by an offer and accepting it right away. I almost forgot that.”
“Huh? No, dragging it out makes sense if there’s something more to get. Is there anything more to get?”
“You never know, punk.”
Junseong let out a snort and emptied the glass of water in front of me as he spoke.
“Do you remember Father’s face? That expression?”
“Yeah. It looked the same as usual, didn’t it?”
“Come on. No, it was different. I mean the expression he had when he made the proposal to us. Hehe…”
He really must have completely forgotten that he cried yesterday.
Otherwise there is no way he could be making that kind of sly expression.
“All this time, because of Father, our blood pressure’s gone up how many times?”
“Huh?”
“No, when we first started film, didn’t your blood dry up too?”
“Well… I was tense, sure. But you’re saying you want revenge for that?”
“Yes.”
Junseong nodded and answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“You lunatic. Why are you saying that so proudly? The first reason is just an excuse for the second one, isn’t it?”
Thwack!
“Hehe…”
Even after getting smacked on the back of the head, Junseong kept grinning, and I laughed in disbelief.
“And when I first started with film. Huh? Think about me running away from home at twenty.”
“That was already ten years ago.”
“Don’t you know the saying, a gentleman’s revenge is not too late even after ten years?”
What a shameless unfilial son.
Still, Chairman Lee Jeongho was not going to withdraw the proposal.
He said he would give us plenty of time, so it was not like anyone would complain just because we did not accept the proposal the very next day……
Should I see it as a kind of push and pull in a father-son relationship?
“Do whatever you want. But if the Chairman withdraws the proposal, I’m going to bury you.”
“Come on. That won’t happen. He said he’d give us time.”
“If that happens, just get ready to be buried.”
“You cold bastard…”
“What are you talking about? You petty little fish-gut.”
With a sly smile, Junseong returned to his seat again.
And a little later.
Knock, knock.
“Yes.”
“They say President Yang Jingyeom of Sion Prime has arrived.”
“Ah, yes! Please show him to the meeting room. We’ll be there right away.”
President Yang Jingyeom had said he would come by today.
He said he wanted to stop by to express his thanks, and that there were other things he wanted to talk about too.
When we entered the meeting room, President Yang Jingyeom stood up from his seat.
“Director Gyeong, CEO Lee, hello!”
Even though he was older than us, he suddenly bent at the waist, and Junseong and I hurriedly bowed as well.
“Ah, hello.”
“Come on, what do you mean hello. These days, thanks to Space Vagabond, life feels worth living. The factory never gets a day off. Haha! It’s all thanks to the two of you.”
President Yang Jingyeom looked back and forth between me and Junseong and smiled brightly.
“Haha, for now, why don’t we sit and talk, President.”
Junseong’s business mode.
A smile that was perfectly neat and concise.
The slyness he had shown in the office just now had vanished without a trace.
At that sight, I barely held back a laugh and kept my mouth firmly shut.
“Ah, yes. Let’s do that. Haha.”
President Yang Jingyeom sat down, still beaming, and went on about everything that had happened in the meantime.
<Space Vagabond> had opened to match summer vacation, just as Junseong had suggested.
That had definitely been a big help.
Because families were coming to see it together, parents inevitably ended up in an environment where they had no choice but to buy toys for their children.
Junseong’s strategy of properly aiming for that environment had worked perfectly.
“It really is an unbelievable hit. Even the release timing was too perfect.”
“Haha, you flatter me. It’s thanks to Sion Prime making them with such good quality.”
Only after Junseong and President Yang Jingyeom exchanged pleasant words several times did the relay of compliments come to an end.
Then, looking at me sitting blankly beside them, President Yang Jingyeom spoke again.
“This is all thanks to Director Gyeong’s perfect presentation. Thank you so much. Haha. Thanks to you, I can finally stand up straight now too. Haha!”
“Congratulations. But…”
“Yes?”
“Is the situation maybe getting a little hard to handle demand right now?”
At Gyeong Chanhyeon’s sudden question, Yang Jingyeom blinked.
Thinking it might perhaps be some kind of test, he quickly shook his head.
“Ah, no. It’s not that bad. Haha. Well, with the factories we have now, it’s enough…”
“The thing is, in a few weeks, it looks like it might open in America too.”
At the word America, Yang Jingyeom’s eyes widened and he asked,
“A-America?”
“Yes.”
Yang Jingyeom’s thoughts started moving quickly as he tried to grasp Gyeong Chanhyeon’s intent.
America… the holy land of media mix.
Toys based on media conglomerates like Walt, Moble, and AC, companies built on countless comics.
The only things that could really break through the market share of such giant corporations were media mix goods based on Japanese animation or games.
But whether <Space Vagabond> could break through that huge wall was not something he could answer easily.
‘Probably Japan, and maybe even America depending on the quality of the figures. I think it is entirely possible.’
He remembered what Gyeong Chanhyeon had said during the presentation, but at the time, when he first heard it, he had assumed Gyeong Chanhyeon was only throwing out the word America to draw attention.
But maybe that had not been the case, because he could now see certainty in Gyeong Chanhyeon’s eyes.
“President Yang. You need to look at the bigger picture.”
“….”
“Have you ever seen a film like this before?”
“No…”
Even the results alone showed that this was not just empty bravado.
Starting with the title of Korea’s first blockbuster hit, it had become the first Korean film to succeed in China and Japan as well.
Yang Jingyeom himself had also watched <Space Vagabond> right after its release.
What the media had been saying was absolutely not exaggeration.
“Then why do you think this would not work in America?”
“Ah, it’s not that. It’s just… ha……”
A deep sigh. But right after that sigh, suddenly, a feeling Yang Jingyeom never wanted to feel again swept over him.
It had definitely been a spirit of challenge that led him to invest in <Space Vagabond> and jump into that business.
But perhaps because of the sense of relief from the fact that he was already making quite a bit of money, that spirit of challenge had suddenly vanished.
Looking at how different he was now from just a few weeks ago, a hollow laugh came out.
“Haha…”
Seeing Yang Jingyeom suddenly laugh, Lee Junseong and Gyeong Chanhyeon looked at each other in confusion.
At that, Yang Jingyeom nodded with a bright smile.
“Let’s do as Director Gyeong says. I’ll increase the production line.”
“What? What did you just say?”
Gyeong Chanhyeon smiled back as if responding to that bright smile, while Lee Junseong asked back in a bewildered voice as if he could not understand.
But at the same moment he asked, Lee Junseong realized that his businessman act had broken, and he shook his head and apologized to Yang Jingyeom.
“Haha. I’m sorry. My words came out wrong.”
“Ah, no. CEO Lee. Hearing what Director Gyeong just said, I feel like I’d become an idiot.”
Just as Gyeong Chanhyeon raised a hand and started to speak as if to wave it off, Yang Jingyeom bent at the waist and expressed his thanks once more.
“Thank you. It was a chance for me to confirm again why I invested in Space Vagabond in the first place.”
“Ah, we’re the ones who should thank you too.”
Gyeong Chanhyeon and Lee Junseong also stood up and bowed with him.
A few weeks later.
Gyeong Chanhyeon’s father, Gyeong Jaesu, stared blankly at the newspaper.
The headline, together with a table listing <Space Vagabond>’s daily audience numbers, announced that <Space Vagabond> had finally left the screens.
[Director Gyeong Chanhyeon’s Space Vagabond, a month-and-a-half long grand march.]
The film <Space Vagabond> (Director Gyeong Chanhyeon, Seonghyeon Production), which broke every Korean box office record, came to a close after 81 days in theaters with approximately 11 million viewers.
In addition, as the work that announced the beginning of Korea’s space opera genre, <Space Vagabond> created economic effects such as inducing 124 billion won in domestic production…
It has also been evaluated as a film likely to remain, just as Director Gyeong Chanhyeon said, a classic of the space opera genre…
“Wow.”
Looking at the endless hymn of praise for Gyeong Chanhyeon, Gyeong Jaesu could only marvel.
‘This really is an article about my son?’
It was far from the first or second time he had been flustered by the reactions of people who knew Gyeong Chanhyeon was his son.
–What kind of books did you make him read when he was little? And prenatal education?
–If I want to raise my child like your son, should I send them to a creativity academy? By any chance, what is his IQ…
His answer to such questions was always the same.
‘I was busy, so I couldn’t spend much time playing with him. Haha… he just grew up well on his own.’
Hearing that answer, people would click their tongues and leave.
There had even been ill-mannered people who insisted that something like that should at least be shared between them.
“Seriously…”
But Gyeong Chanhyeon had, in fact, grown up well on his own.
Of course, he had had a sensitive side, but since people in the arts were bound to be somewhat sensitive, he had never had much complaint about that.
And yet, after that sensitivity disappeared, Gyeong Chanhyeon’s genius had only exploded even more.
‘You shouldn’t rationalize having a rotten personality just because you’re in the arts.’
Thinking that if someone asked him later, he should answer like that, Gyeong Jaesu set the newspaper on the table and grinned to himself.
“Father. Have you eaten? What about Mom?”
“I haven’t yet either. Mom went on a trip with her friends today, didn’t she.”
When he was preparing <Space Vagabond>, he had barely come home for nearly a year, but the moment filming ended, Gyeong Chanhyeon was staying at home so much it almost felt excessive.
“Do you not have plans today either?”
“Yaaawn~. No.”
At the sight of his son yawning so wide his mouth looked like it would split, Gyeong Jaesu let out a small laugh.
No matter how much the world praised him as extraordinary, a son was still a son in the end.
It felt unreal that the little son who once seemed so small he could have fit into his eye without hurting it was now being praised by people.
“You’re thirty-one this year, right?”
“What?”
Pretending not to hear, Gyeong Chanhyeon asked back and took out some water from the refrigerator.
“Your age, I mean.”
“I haven’t counted since after twenty, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Then I guess you’re the same age as me?”
As if it were a joke he had not expected at all, Gyeong Chanhyeon spit out his water and started coughing repeatedly.
“Kehk. Ugh, how can you come in that hard all of a sudden?”
“Haha.”
At his son’s reaction, Gyeong Jaesu looked at him with a delighted smile.
“But why are you suddenly bringing up my age?”
“What do you mean, why? Japanese blanket1, that’s why.”
“Come on. That one’s too stale.”
“Tsk. Fine, punk.”
Gyeong Chanhyeon let out a snort of laughter, then pointed at the huge pot on the gas stove and asked,
“Father. Is all of that curry…?”
“Yes.”
“At this rate I’m worried we’ll turn into Indians…”
“Should I tell your mother? That you hate curry?”
“Come on, it’s not that.”
Gyeong Jaesu stood up and looked at Gyeong Chanhyeon as he said,
“Stay seated. I’ll personally serve a meal to our ten-million director.”
“Come on, if anyone’s setting the table, it should be me. But…”
At the sparkling look in Gyeong Chanhyeon’s eyes, Gyeong Jaesu frowned suspiciously, wondering what he was about to say now.
“What is it now?”
“I was thinking maybe, for the sake of some constructive conversation between father and son for once, we should grease our stomachs a little.”
“You’re making going out to eat sound awfully grand.”
“Come on, Father~.”
If madam finds out about this after getting back from her trip, there will definitely be fire raining down on our backs.
But even Gyeong Jaesu smiled a little at his son’s grand excuse.
“Then shall we?”
“I’ll pay! Let’s go right away!”
Gyeong Chanhyeon said it with a bright smile, looking excited.
“Wash up first, then.”
“Come on, I can just throw on a hat and go.”
“What if someone recognizes you?”
“It’s not like I’m a celebrity or anything. Haha. Let’s just go already!”
As they headed outside, Gyeong Jaesu remembered something Gyeong Chanhyeon had said and asked,
“You said you were looking into North American distribution too, right?”
“Yes. Whyo?”
Maybe because he was conscious of the “noraja” thing Gyeong Jaesu had said before, Gyeong Chanhyeon asked back with strange pronunciation.
“I told you not to do that.”
“Eing….”
“Good grief…”
Maybe Gyeong Jaesu’s reaction amused him, because Gyeong Chanhyeon smiled brightly and said,
“A good person named Chester said he’d help.”
“You really are lucky with people.”
Looking at Gyeong Chanhyeon, whose expression was somewhere between making a cute face and something with no clear purpose at all, Gyeong Jaesu could not help laughing in disbelief.
- It’s just a cheesy dad joke. Instead of answering ‘Why?’, he turns the word into a nonsense phrase to tease him. ↩︎
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