Sunset Industry Worker
The place they were heading to by car.
Screech—!
It was a fair distance from Seoul, though still within Gyeonggi Province.
"We've arrived."
"……."
Gapyeong.
It had taken a little over an hour. The ride itself would have been dull enough on its own.
She's putting on a full-blown protest.
An unpleasant aura was pouring off her in waves. This spoiled little princess only ever listened when he handled her a bit roughly.
"You don't like quiet places like this?"
"I don't particularly discriminate."
"Or is it that you just don't care for outdoor play?"
"!!"
Her thighs were thick and solid—the kind that came from steady cardio, firm yet full. The moment he stroked them she startled violently. Clearly her mind had already spun off into wild fantasies.
"I meant exercise."
"……I know."
"It's fine if I put a little strength into it?"
"You needn't concern yourself."
She answered primly, pretending to be unfazed. As if her heart weren't already hammering.
Teasing her is half the fun.
She had to be tense. She still hadn't asked where they were or why they had come.
"Two people, please."
"First-time visitors?"
"Yes."
"Then that'll be twenty-five thousand won."
A rail bike—exactly what it sounded like: a bike that ran on rails. Not a real bicycle shape, more like a tiny car. Powered by pure muscle.
"You prefer hard, or not hard?"
"Either is fine."
"You'll regret that."
"Please don't concern yourself."
These days there were fully automatic versions too. Bring women along and they always started out excited, only to start gasping after a short while.
She's confident, huh?
Those thighs of hers certainly justified it. Right now they were hidden under a skirt, but whenever she wore pants her hip line looked ready to burst the seams.
"Departing now. Please fasten your seatbelts and enjoy your outing~!"
Time to put those muscles to work. One by one the bikes on the tracks rolled out. The moment he and Rachel pressed the pedals—
Oh~!
Smooth. She pushed forward as if this level of effort were nothing at all, still maintaining her blank expression even inside the bike. It wouldn't last long.
"Tired?"
"No."
"I brought water. Want some?"
"Only if you haven't put your mouth on it!"
The course ran over forty minutes. The sun beat down mercilessly; this was nothing like a gym workout.
And that outfit can't be comfortable either.
She had dressed up elaborately. Clothes she never normally wore clung and snagged at every movement of her body.
Gulp! Gulp!
Of course it was hard. She drained the plastic bottle so roughly he could watch her throat work. Even that simple act looked like a page from a fashion magazine. A fussy princess with a face that bordered on unfair.
"I wouldn't mind if it was something you'd already put your mouth on."
"Suit yourself."
"The scenery around here is pretty, isn't it?"
"Well… not bad."
Framed by the surrounding landscape it looked even better. The tracks they rode had once carried real trains. Now the line was abandoned, unused. With people gone, nature had grown lush and magnificent.
"Correction. It's beautiful."
"Right?"
"That forsythia is one of my favorite flowers. I don't know what it's called in Korean."
"In Korean it's gaenari."
"Gaenari."
The exercise had burned off her irritation. The natural surroundings were gorgeous. Holding a conversation in a place like this—
Of course the date goes well.
Humans were creatures of atmosphere. Rachel had already fallen completely into his trap.
"It was the flower I loved most whenever I walked through Central Park."
"Those were brought over from Korea and planted there."
"Really?"
"You doubt me?"
"I can't exactly take your word for things…"
She still hadn't fully dropped her guard. But once the dam was cracked, it was only a matter of time.
Screech—!
They arrived while still talking. Gyeonggang Station. From 1958 to 2010 it had been a real working station; now operations had moved to Gulbongsan Station. With the railway unused, it had been converted for rail bikes.
"So in a way we've been riding through the past."
"Oh……."
"Pretty romantic, don't you think?"
"If only the person I came with weren't you."
She grew embarrassed a beat too late. By now, refusing to talk would only feel more awkward.
Slurp!
Instead of a ticket booth the station had a café. They each bought a café latte to wet their throats, then climbed back on. The rail-bike course looped past Gyeonggang Station and returned to the starting point.
"I didn't notice on the way out."
"Yeah?"
"People are doing something over by that river."
"There's a water park."
"A water park?"
She was talking more. Curious by nature, she had always loved wandering through travel destinations.
I know your tastes inside and out.
They hadn't known each other for just a day or two. For an investor, that kind of knowledge mattered.
"Whew…… this is actual labor."
"Want to hit the water park too?"
"Before that, maybe a little……"
"Hungry?"
"Yes."
Nothing taught you about a country better than traveling it. Direct investment intel came free with the package.
Tap, tap!
To ordinary people it was nothing. Depending on how you read it, though, you could make money—or keep it.
"What are you doing?"
"Ordering delivery."
"Here? There's no address."
"In Korea there's nothing you can't do."
He ordered a whole chicken. After a quick phone explanation the owner simply made it happen.
Later it'll work through the app too.
For now, Korean flexibility was enough. A short wait later, BBC Chicken arrived.
"With the delivery fee the price is a bit steep."
"Korea doesn't have delivery fees?"
"Not until last year."
That golden olive-fried bird. Overpriced, sure, but the taste was impossible to hate on.
It wasn't always expensive.
One day it had become a national villain. That day was early 2018.
Suddenly there was such a thing as a "delivery fee." Until then it had been unimaginable.
"So prices effectively jumped ten percent overnight?"
"Exactly."
"That would hammer the ordinary economy…… what countermeasures did the government prepare?"
"That was the policy from the start."
"?"
Income-led growth. The intention behind the slogan was genuinely good.
But the process is always the problem.
They had been too impatient. Policymakers, desperate for quick results, never saw the side effects coming. Delivery fees were one of them. Product prices rose right along with them. BBC Chicken managed to do both at once and got absolutely roasted for it.
"There were other side effects, weren't there?"
"Specifically: inflation, rising unemployment, shrinking corporate profits."
"So that's why the stock market dropped."
"Right."
The burden on companies was real. Minimum wage had jumped 16.4 percent in a single year.
And it was pure seat-of-the-pants policymaking.
In truth, that alone wouldn't have caused catastrophe. The government hadn't shoved it through with zero basis. The real problem was the lack of fine-grained standards. Minimum wage should have been adjusted by region and occupation; they simply didn't bother.
"I actually checked that part myself……"
"You looked at the economic indicators?"
"Yes."
"That's how they got you."
"?!"
The Korean economy was never what it appeared to be.
The shocking truth.
Housing prices aren't even included in the CPI?
She didn't know the Korean stock market. That didn't mean she had walked in blind. She had combed through every economic indicator. Finding nothing wrong, she had been certain of upside.
"Still, with the Fed's rate-hike cycle, real estate has been falling worldwide, so……"
"This is Korea."
"What?"
There were things she simply didn't know. The more she listened to Chan-uk, the wider her mouth fell open.
Why run policies that go against the global trend?
CPI—the Consumer Price Index. The standard measure of a country's inflation. It had a blind spot she had never noticed. Korea's real inflation had been far higher than the published numbers.
"You thought the unemployment rate looked healthy too?"
"It was sitting right at the natural rate of unemployment……"
"The sharp wage hikes gutted regular employment. They papered over the hole with public-sector jobs and senior make-work programs."
"?!"
That wasn't all. Unemployment was one of the cleanest direct readouts of an economy's health.
So they basically manufactured jobs with tax money.
Even that was all show and no substance. The gap between what the numbers showed and reality was night and day.
Gulp!
Rachel knew the rule. When investing in developing countries you always watched for political games with the data. She had never expected a country of Korea's caliber to cook its own indicators.
"And there was a push to slap double taxation on foreign major shareholders."
"There's more?"
"I could talk about this all day."
She had been thoroughly played. If she had actually invested, the losses would have been astronomical.
Anger. Bewilderment. Yet the emotion that dominated Rachel more than either was a fierce hunger.
"How does that look from a foreigner's perspective?"
"You'd pull your money out of pure spite."
"You know because you are a foreigner. That was my call—foreigners would use this rally as cover to dump everything."
"Something like that……"
Local information was always best known by locals. That was why she had come all the way to Korea to study. She no longer needed to. If she could just hold on to the man in front of her, she would understand Korea better than anyone.
That instinct was clear. Talent like this had to be secured at any price.
"Rachel, I know you're not interested in marriage, but…"
Words her late grandfather had once spoken. She hadn't understood them then, or afterward.
I never imagined someone like this could exist.
Even on Wall Street she had never met anyone like him. Would she ever, in the rest of her life? Perhaps the man sitting right in front of her.
Inside Rachel, her regard for Chan-uk only kept growing.