Plin Ch 2.19

Hugo was a person who exuded an aura of melancholy. The way he hunched over with his horns clearly visible, only appearing when he was sick, was pitiful. He sighed every 40 seconds, and sometimes he would rest his chin on his hand, lost in thought, gazing wistfully at the sky outside the window. He was almost 2 meters tall, but the way he curled up on the bed with his knees drawn up was quite…unbecoming.

“Hmm…”

It was time for work. Thibeau didn’t know how long he should just stand there watching the lonely Hugo, so he cleared his throat.

“The fox…what did he think of me? Even after hearing my confession…he got a bugging device from Ethan…”

As if he had been waiting, Hugo revealed what was the devilish whisper that was tormenting his mind. His voice was slow and gloomy.

“It wasn’t a confession, it was a proposal for a contract relationship.”

Thibeau corrected him simply with a clear pronunciation. That dragonewt was a bit more sensitive in the mornings, so he also offered a warm smile.

“I feel like shit. It was Plin’s fault, but I couldn’t even scold him…”

“It wasn’t the right timing to scold him.”

Thibeau answered calmly. He could testify at a National Assembly hearing about Hugo’s life, where he had never learned to hold back his words. It was the first time in his life that he hadn’t been able to say what he wanted, so it was natural that he felt as uncomfortable as if his chest were filled with cold embers.

“This feeling of helplessness. It’s annoying. Annoying. Annoying…”

Hugo was almost restless. The words he mumbled with his face in his hands were mixed with a sense of helplessness. It was necessary to give him a dose of cold, hard reality.

“You’re late in realizing it. You’ve been the underdog from the beginning. That’s why you ended up making excuses for him when it was his turn to make excuses.”

“Ha. You’re right. Should I have made more of an effort with the excuses? No… the fox didn’t want to lie to me, even if it was an excuse.”

The room was so spacious that any sound made echoed. It had good acoustics, like an actor’s vocalizations on a theater stage, but reality was not a play.

The stage of denial. Thibeau made a diagnosis. It was a state of avoiding the truth because the reality faced was too harsh.

First love can’t help but be painful. The inexperience, the uncontrollable fluctuations of emotions, the excessive fantasies about the other person are bound to be mixed together, and courtship is clumsy, leading to misunderstandings in communication. With each meaningless glance from the other person, the heart soars to heaven and then plummets into the mud, always ending in defeat. It was a bit late to realize the tyranny of unrequited love at the age of twenty-three.

He felt sorry for him. This time it wasn’t sarcasm, he really felt sorry for him. He had always served his master faithfully, and even when he suffered from that harsh karmic pain, he would only curse but never shrink back.

His wounded eyes and the emotions he frantically expressed were distinct. The voice filled with bewilderment and helplessness seemed to keep ringing in his ears.

He hoped he wouldn’t be too discouraged.

“You said you got the fox’s nosebleed on you yesterday.”

Thibeau brought up a topic that might lift his spirits.

“Yeah…it was delicious.”

“I see. I know you’re not feeling well. When you feel like that, you should try to imagine pleasant things.”

At Thibeau’s advice, Hugo nodded and muttered with a sullen tone.

“I want to lock him up and just keep drawing his blood to drink…”

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he was a little discouraged. Thibeau corrected his thoughts.

“You should get ready for work now.”

“Did you deliver the item?”

“Yes. Mr. Plin was jumping up and down with joy.”

“He needs to be fed properly so he can produce more fluid. Eating those commoner sausages.”

That day, Hugo ate 28 tasteless sausages because he was angry at the fox. He felt like vomiting when he had finished 25, but he forced himself to eat the remaining 3. He did it to see the fox’s expression when he looked at the empty bag. Was that measly sausage that he was giving him so precious? The fox really didn’t know his place.

While he was fuming, vrrr, his cell phone vibrated. Hugo checked the message.

Good morning, Executive Director. I am thankful for the gift today. I don’t have room to store it so I will eat a lot ^0^ Thank you. See you at the drink delivery later -Plin Fallfox 07:10

He was at least polite enough to get into a large corporation like The Scope as a peddler. Hugo controlled his lips at the corners, but he couldn’t control his softened eyes.

“The fox just texted me. Is he out of his mind?”

“Yes?”

The sudden serious tone was definitely directed at Thibeau. It was quite random.

“Did you only send 100 sausages?”

“I also included high-quality steak meat and fruit.”

At Thibeau’s absentminded answer, Hugo let out a deep sigh and glared at him as if he wanted to kill him.

“That’s the basics. Shouldn’t you have sent a refrigerator with it?”

“…Ah.”

“Do you even know what the fox’s standard of living is like? How can that much food be stored in a tiny refrigerator when he’s giving it away? And how much food can that fox’s tiny stomach hold?”

“I’ll take care of it right away. Would a 900-liter one suffice?”

Thibeau, realizing his mistake, asked politely. But Hugo let out an even more incredulous sigh.

“Ha, do you expect me to use common sense? How can a 900-liter refrigerator fit in that tiny house?”

“…I will also look for a house that can fit a 900-liter refrigerator.”

Hugo’s intentions were often cunning after grasping them.

“You should have done that from the beginning. You’re making things difficult.”

Hugo smoothed his voice as if he were embarrassed by what he had said.

He was devising a strategy from his inferior position. He needed to show him the taste of money for sure. That way, later, even if he wanted to leave, his body, tainted by the taste of money, wouldn’t listen. Once he was soaked in sweet comfort, it would be hard to go back to his previous life.

While Hugo was having optimistic thoughts, Thibeau, standing next to him, took notes.

“If we do the interior design, it will take at least 3 weeks to a month. Should we not do interior design?”

“We have to do the interior design.”

He couldn’t let the fox live in a house designed to someone else’s taste. Also, the fox had said he needed a fox den space to hide in, so he was going to accommodate that.

“Yes. I will take care of it.”

Having made a note, Thibeau placed a stack of papers in front of Hugo.

“This is the preliminary data related to the membership fee reorganization, which is on the agenda for today’s regular meeting. I gave it to you yesterday, but I’m giving it to you again because I don’t think you read it.”

“I looked at the table of contents. I thought things would roll along even if I worked roughly.”

“Of course, they won’t roll along on their own.”

Even though he was distracted by his skewed relationship with the fox, he felt a headache coming on from having to pay attention to company matters.

“What kind of advertisement is this, blurring the concept? Why are people who don’t understand brand identity sitting in executive positions?”

Even before Hugo took office, the executives had been discussing adding a much cheaper plan than the existing membership plan in order to expand the number of paid subscribers. The problem was that the new plan would include advertisements.

The clear intention of Father Idrohann, the chairman, in appointing Hugo as an executive in a new OTT service provider that was not a major affiliate, was there.

He was ordering him to quickly show results, rather than thinking about growing step by step. A new company, rather than a large one, and a content service business, rather than a manufacturing business, could grow aggressively in the short term.

Since Hugo and Ethan, his half-brother, were 9 years apart, Ethan was naturally ahead in everything. Ethan was already showing results in the hotel industry, and those results were the most prominent among the affiliates.

Chairman Idrohann, who was ill, did not have much time left.

The Idrohann family, a noble lineage, had for hundreds of years adhered to a strict primogeniture inheritance system, but in modern times, the inheritance tradition had become more flexible, and in exceptional cases where there was a problem with the firstborn, the order of inheritance could be changed.

Hugo was the legitimate heir of the Idrohann family, so if he hadn’t suffered from periodic and non-periodic karmic pain, Ethan, who was illegitimate, wouldn’t even be a competitor.

The health of the successor is like the roots of a tree, and no matter how good the seed is, a rotten root cannot deeply penetrate the soil of the organization. While Hugo was struggling with pain, Ethan emerged as Hugo’s potential replacement.

Hugo couldn’t afford to take it easy, citing his lack of experience or young age. Fortunately, he was interested in the media business, and his intuition was also clear.

Ethan’s side had been spreading rumors that Hugo was a sociopath and a typical incompetent chaebol, a delinquent. Until now, he had let it go because it wasn’t worth refuting, but now it was his turn to crush his dream.

“The beetle you collected.”

Hugo had handed over the bugging device to Thibeau yesterday. If he wanted to play a trick, he could feed Ethan false information.

“Yes. How shall I handle it?”

“Attach it to Ethan’s bathroom. Let him listen to the sound of his own shit.”

“Sir Ethan will be in a very foul mood.”

“Our white fox is clumsy, so he can’t be a spy.”

He hoped that Ethan would think so and leave the fox alone. Now, karmic pain, which was Hugo’s weakness and Ethan’s hope, could no longer threaten Hugo. Although the lovely and exhausting cooperation of the fox was needed.

07:15 From now on, call me. I want to hear your voice. – Hugo

Hugo replied to the message. A 5-minute interval was appropriate. After that, Hugo waited for 30 minutes, hoping that Plin would reply with a “Yes, I understand ^0^”, but no reply came.

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