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“And now, it is my honor and pleasure to announce that the winner of the inaugural Haneul Corporation hackathon is... Team OverAppleWatch, Ben Lim and Enoch Song from Canada!”
The room explodes into applause. The participants go around and congratulate the winning team as well as each other.
After handing the large fake check to the winners and taking a bunch of publicity photos, Hee-Jin makes her way over to Elijah and me. “You did it! You all did it. I can’t tell you how impressive this whole thing has been. The intern class at Haneul has never done anything of this scale,” she says.
I lift my chin, standing a little taller. This time it doesn’t feel like I have to fake it. I’m proud of myself. Truly.
“It’s all because of our fearless leader,” Elijah says, grinning at me. Hee-Jin looks at him like she knows the truth, that it wasn’t just me. This was Elijah’s idea in the first place, and the entire team came together to make it happen.
Jason comes up to us, handing out glasses of sparkling apple juice to me and Elijah and champagne for Hee-Jin. “I can’t believe we pulled it off,” he says. “It was amazing!”
“Cheers to a successful first hackathon, and may there be many more in the future, along with more opportunities for each of you to shine in your own ways,” Hee-Jin says as we raise our glasses. I’m on top of the world, like nothing could bring me down from this wonderful feeling.
“Jessica?”
I whirl around as soon as I hear the familiar voice.
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
His suit is rumpled and his hair a bit of a mess. He looks to see if anyone heard our greeting, and when it’s clear everyone else is in their own celebratory bubbles, he walks up to me. The smile on his face is like the warmest hug I didn’t know I needed right now. I go to embrace him but he shakes his head a tiny bit. “Not at work. No one knows you’re my daughter. I don’t want anyone to accuse you of having an unfair advantage.” He reaches out his hand and I stare at it a second before grabbing it and shaking it.
“I came because I wanted to see how this hackathon turned out. I would have arrived yesterday, but the airfare was cheaper if I flew the red-eye out on a Thursday,” he explains. Classic Dad. “This is,” he looks around the room, taking in the entire event me and the other interns planned, “quite impressive. There has always been incredible potential in what could be achieved with this program. It just never quite lived up to it until this year.”
“Yeah, Dad, about that...” I want to ask him why he didn’t come clean about how invested he was with the program. And why he didn’t want me involved. I understand his position on nepotism and unfair privileges and all that. But he has got to know that if anyone deserves this spot, it’s me.
“No, no, we can talk about everything later. I’m just proud that you were able to be a part of this. I do hope you were helpful to whoever was in charge.” He searches the room and his eyes settle on Jason and Elijah, both looking busy, both looking important, both looking very male.
In an instant, my joy and sense of accomplishment burst. I want to scream thatIwas the one in charge. I did even more than just help out. I led the team that put on this entire thing. But it would ruin everything. He’d know I lied to him all summer. And that look of pride on his face, the one that at the very least says that he knows I was part of a program that he champions in the company, would disappear.
Dad turns to Elijah’s sister. “Hee-Jin, I assume you are to credit for this as the executive sponsor? Well done, and thank you for always being an advocate for the internship program.”
“Well, Janet Kang in Marketing is the executive sponsor. But really, all the credit should go to Jessi—”
“Mr. Lee? Hello, my name is Elijah. I’m a friend of Jessica’s who also worked on the hackathon.” Elijah quickly cuts off Hee-Jin before she reveals too much to my dad. He holds out his hand, and my dad looks at it suspiciously before shaking it.
“A friend of Jessica’s, you say?” he asks.
Uh-oh.
I step up to intervene before my dad goes into full-on scare-away-any-suitors mode.
But just as I do, a sudden chill fills the air as the buzz and excitement in the room quickly dies down. I look over my shoulder to see what’s going on as a group of short, intimidating Korean men in suits enters the room.
“Shit,” Hee-Jin says under her breath.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Elijah adds.
My blood turns cold and I freeze on the spot. Leading the way is a man with a face oddly familiar to me. He walks with a sense of importance, and people step back, bowing, and clearing a path as he makes his way toward us. As he gets closer, I realize where I’ve seen him before. His is the face of his children.
Lee Jung-Hyun, CEO of Haneul Corp.
And his eyes are on no one else but me.
“Hwe-jangnim.” My dad steps in front of me to intercept him, bowing and greeting his boss.
“I should have known you’d be involved in this,” Mr. Lee says to my dad.
Their voices are professional, cordial even, but I know all the different ways my dad expresses himself. This, with his jaw clenched, arms held straight to his sides, is tense, forced.
