Alexander Cho is the handsome only son of one of the biggest conglomerates in South Korea. But his world violently spins into darkness after he is forced to split up with his foreigner lover and contend with the shocking crimes of his family's busin...
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TUESDAY, MARCH 18th
Dear Diary,
Tomorrow is the first day of midterms for all Clinton University business students.
Earlier this morning the Buford Library was packed: men and women huddled around textbooks of varying thickness—some slumping into their MacBooks, others fast asleep in an ocean of loose-leaf papers and open five-star journals. It's been a hectic week.
The business kids in particular have been stressing out about reserving enough private study rooms because of the stem-major kids: they're always swift to claim territory around this time of the year. And they almost always get the VIP treatment. As I write, I can see a crowd of them across the hall talking avidly in one of them. Most likely the Physics majors.
My classmate—whom I saw earlier today curled up at one of the desks on the main floor, crunching out numbers on his excel sheet—told me they'd been in there since 8 am.
It's 12pm right now.
I almost feel bad for him. I've never had any problems renting any of the study rooms since I always reserve one on the seventh floor two weeks ahead of time (students are not allowed to do that, by the way). I suppose it helps a bit that the front desk knows who I am. And what my parents will do when they find out that my academic experience is being unnecessarily difficult because of their refusal to comply.
Then again, it can be truly sad that that's all it takes to bypass the rules around here. Right now, I could even run those Physics geeks out of their own room for whatever reason I wished.
Yes, I'm aware that may have sounded prideful—and a bit crass.
I can be both of those things.
And yet, I'm also more than that.
You see, humans are often fond of judging by their first impressions. I cannot count the number of good business opportunities and potential staff workers that have been lost because of my family's inability to break away from this sort of thinking.
For example, when the first thing my parents ask anyone that appears remotely close to me is what they or their parents do for a living. Or when my mother continues to warn me over the phone that I shouldn't form any ties with anyone from America. At least not unless it directly benefits our family.
"Their youth are grotesque and lack understanding of what it means to be filial," she'd say. "I don't know how a country with such high-esteemed schools breeds so many dishonorable children. No wonder their job market is poor." This isn't true—the U.S. offers millions more jobs than South Korea each year. But even though they beat us by a long shot, my mother would say anything to fit her narrative for Americans.
When you're sitting at the top of the economic food chain you don't really concern yourself with trivial things like that.
Growing up, I was always told I looked like my mother but had the disposition of my father. However, they were wrong: the similarities between my mother and I went beyond the physical. Like her, I thought that the only way to be better than everyone else meant having more money, an upper-class family background, and a prolific career.
