The Unforeseen Crash
Investment advisory.
The recent market.
"Looks like the bear market's about to start all over again……"
"The economy's shit right now."
"Corporate earnings are tanking too."
"I'm scared. Why does it keep going up?"
Sector rotation was underway. Each sector took its turn throwing a party, and that alone pumped fresh life into the entire market. The stocks I held—maybe them too? Expectation itself was the fuel. Investor sentiment was recovering, and the market was finding its bounce again.
Crashes always arrive when no one expects them. Foreign selling dragged the market down hard. But why? The Nasdaq was still in a bull run. There was no real bad news to speak of.
And that made it even more maddening. They were dumping volume with no bottom and no end in sight.
Something no one saw coming became the spark. Retail investors were left completely dumbfounded. Did it really have to drop this hard? The more they bought, the deeper the swamp pulled them under.
Additional bad news. No—it had been there all along. While prices were rising, no one paid attention. Stock prices rewrite how people think. When they go up, you decide they deserve to go up; when they fall, you decide they deserve to fall.
Foreigners were selling. So maybe the situation really was that serious? The thought was being planted for them. There were still a few optimists, of course.
Events like that don't just happen whenever you want them to. The next summit was at least a year away. What sat right in front of them was reality. The position itself was checkmate. Looking back, that was how it always went.
Those fucking bastards.
Sora had made good money off the sector rotation. She hunted undervalued names inside the hot sectors, using every scrap of know-how she'd absorbed over the past year. She had been confident she could keep finding them.
Unrealized P/L │ −4,260,080 won
Unrealized Return │ −8.32%
The market itself had been smashed to pieces. Once the flow of money dried up, even good stocks stopped attracting capital. She had almost completely given back the profits from Yuhan Corporation. The only comfort was that it still wasn't a realized loss.
When they force it down like this, of course you're going to take damage.
She had wanted to be the smart investor—the sly one who only scooped up the profits the market allowed. Buy low-risk names. Sell the second the industry outlook shifted. She had believed it was a strategy that couldn't lose. Even that had been resting in the palm of someone else's hand.
Growl~!
The market moved according to a much bigger picture. Just like her senior had said—there was no reason. It was the foreigners' playground. They slapped on whatever excuse they liked to push it up, then slapped on another excuse to push it down.
She had spent the entire day digging through news. Her stomach, which she hadn't properly fed, gurgled in protest.
Still, if I think about a year ago…
The version of herself from back then wouldn't even have noticed the market changing. She would have just stared blankly at the monitor wondering why it was falling, a mountain of cup ramen stacked on the table.
Maybe I should just settle for cup ramen for old times' sake……
She had taken a similar-sized hit back then too. It had felt like the sky was collapsing. Now it was different. Rational judgment had kept the damage to a minimum. She was confident she could recover. She had only planned to eat the ramen as a form of self-reflection for the investment mistake.
KakaoTalk!
Her phone buzzed. The person who had messaged her was someone directly connected to the current situation.
What is it?
He had taught her so many things. Some of them weren't good, so she couldn't feel pure gratitude. Even so, she still carried a soft, lingering affection for him. The message from Senior Chanuk read:
She hadn't seen that coming at all. No matter how many times she re-read it, her eyes weren't playing tricks.
Right now? Out of nowhere?
What sudden change of heart had hit this completely oblivious man? Sora couldn't hide her fluster. Thump! Thump! Out of all the places he could have chosen, there had to be a reason he picked a bar. And there would be a reason for whatever happened after they met.
A date invitation. That was the only way she could interpret it. Her pounding heart refused to settle. They hadn't seen each other much lately, so she was even more conscious of him. All she had seen was him appearing on some weird broadcast.
Bom-i or Summer or Winter or whatever……
She felt a little left out. It didn't really matter, but a small part of her had been hurt. Maybe her senior had known that. If that was the reason, she could play along.
The meeting place. A street on the quiet outer edge of downtown, utterly deserted.
"Oh……."
"Whoa~."
"Oof."
There were stretches where you wouldn't even see a single ant. That street was suddenly a little busy.
Crazy bitch.
A lunatic of a woman came into view. One glance was enough to tell she had the body of a sex machine.
"Hey."
"Why are you so late?"
"What are you doing?"
"Huh?"
He had come by car. When he rolled the window down, his idiot junior's dazed face appeared.
Is that the dress I bought her on the trip?
Sora was wearing a dress. He had had it fitted for her during their trip to France. The kind of outfit that put her chest front and center. No wonder men's footsteps were slowing down as they passed.
"Senior! Hey! Hey! Where are you going!!"
Sora's steps quickened. Embarrassed to be seen with her, he hit the gas and drove off. In the side mirror he watched her running after him, her gait awkward because of the dress.
"I-I'm seriously going to die……."
"I saw a crazy bitch walking around in a dress."
"I'm dying here!"
She ran for a long time. Around the time she finished a full hundred-meter dash, he finally stopped the car. The moment she climbed into the passenger seat she was gasping for air. Those already-emphasized breasts of hers—
They're bouncing like crazy.
Extremely fresh. The deep V-cut looked like the perfect place to slip a hand in.
"Who the hell wears a dress just to come out for a quick drink?"
"You said we were going to a bar."
"It's just a bar."
He boldly slid his hand in. Inside the thick mass of flesh that easily exceeded three geun, he felt her racing heartbeat.
Seriously, so lewdly big.
It had suited her just as well last February. You needed a seriously large chest to pull off that outfit. Now it looked like it had been made for Sora alone. Sexier than the ace of any Gangnam ten-pro room salon.
"What kind of comparison is that."
"It means you're that sexy."
"You like it too, Senior."
The contents were still a kid. The way she pouted those lips made them look so temptingly plump he couldn't understand it.
Chuu!
Their lips brushed lightly. When he gently kneaded her breasts and the thighs under the dress, her breathing grew rough. Her mouth was already full of saliva. They sucked and layered their tongues together.
"Your nipples are hard."
"Because you touched them."
"This is hard too."
"You were the one who touched it."
Top-tier even as a female. That hypersensitive body made every touch worthwhile.
About time she starts begging to get fucked.
She couldn't live without a man. He wanted to make her unable to control this lewd body of hers.
"You put on the sexy clothes because you wanted Oppa to fuck you, didn't you."
"I did not."
"Then what is it?"
"You said… we were going to a bar…"
Mentally too. Body and mind both needed to mature for the satisfaction of fucking her to double.
Ugh, she can't even play hard to get.
Her true feelings were completely transparent. The fact that she had worn the dress already showed how much she was looking forward to this.
"Excited?"
"It's my first time going, so of course."
"At this rate that place will be your first time too."
"Of course that would be my first time."
There was definitely that vibe. In Korea, bars were places you only went for special occasions.
Especially famous as a date course.
She had come under a cute misunderstanding. Even if her body was a sex machine, her mind was still practically a virgin.
"Am I not allowed to look forward to it?"
"Well, sure you are."
"If you say 'bar' and then take me somewhere lame, I'm going to get mad."
She whipped her head away and put on a sulky act—while still allowing the hand that was touching her.
Obviously we're going somewhere good.
He had planned that from the start. A bar. The best way to teach her what kind of place it really was… was to take her there.
Screech—!
They arrived while they were still talking. Sora's face, seeing a bar for the first time, lit up brightly.
"Wow!"
"How is it?"
"It's way prettier and cooler than the ones in movies. Thank you, Senior."
It seemed to have met her expectations. There was a certain atmosphere you just couldn't get at an ordinary bar.
Makes sense it'd be good for a date course.
The bartender in a full suit looked sharp too. It was the kind of place women who romanticized high society dreamed about. But that was only the front of the coin. An investor had to understand the reverse side and the actual business details.
"This is a bar."
"Yes."
"A place that makes money through illegal activity and tax evasion."
"……."
He started by teaching her reality.