Named Showdown

"Making money's too hard, you say?"

Summer break. In this precious stretch of days when he could gamble every single morning, Sora had shown ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up to whine at him again.

"Yes. I tried futures the way you taught me, Senior, but…"

"Finally blew it all?"

"I did not!"

She claimed she was doing live trading. Nothing grew a trader faster than real experience.

You lose a lot that way, too, though.

If the trades paid off, great. But the market lately—

"It's harder than I thought."

"Yeah? Lose it and just borrow from Oppa."

"I don't want to be in debt to you, Senior."

"Pay with your body and it's free."

"Hey."

The market wasn't soft enough for beginners to print money. Futures least of all.

People who only stare at charts might not feel it.

In practice the tape whipped up and down with savage violence, scrambling every judgment an investor tried to make. Fortunately she wasn't numb yet. She'd come back having properly learned how terrifying futures could be.

"Foreigners buy and sell tens, hundreds of billions. The money doesn't even feel like money."

"Right? One taste of foreign cock-juice and you're done for."

"Exactly, the cock-juice just— wait, what?"

Some people got addicted to it. Volatility was another word for opportunity, after all.

Buy cheaper, sell higher. In theory.

In practice, the operators—foreigners especially—never let that happen cleanly.

"Every time the foreigners hose the tape with cock-juice, you lose your mind."

"…"

"That's why they say once a girl goes Black, she never comes back."

Sora's cheeks flushed scarlet. Change one letter and she threw a whole fit.

"Don't actually say things like that."

"It's basic knowledge."

"Basic what?!"

"Derivatives all have nicknames. Oil, for example—they call it dino-rot water. Short for dinosaur-rotten water."

This market will drive you insane if you don't lean into it a little.

Talking about it this way took the weight off the conversation. She was still a green kid who found that awkward.

"You'll be saying cock-juice this, cock-juice that someday too, you know."

"I really don't think so."

"Every time the foreigners go splat and shoot their load, you just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠piss yourself."

"You fucking bastard!"

She balled up her fists and punched him—thud, thud. Absolute child.

Sex jokes only work if the other person can take them.

Anyway, Sora had gotten her experience. The foreigners had absolutely wrecked her. She'd dragged herself to his place, drained dry. The whole setup had a deliciously illicit flavor.

"So what. You're not putting out for me, right?"

"I've never put out for anyone."

"Virgin declaration?"

"@^%&@$%!"

She flipped him off, then double-flipped him off. Intellectual face, mature airs, and underneath it she was sneakily childish.

Yeah, fair enough.

She was exhausted. Trading stocks left you wrecked in a way civilians never understood. Even pro traders chain-smoked and sighed like dying men; regular people didn't stand a chance. That was why going a little crazy was easier.

"Making money through investing really does seem hard."

"You honestly think that?"

"Huh?"

"Or is it just that you don't know enough about investing?"

But that was too deep a cut. Investing didn't have to come packaged with risk.

It's not all upgrades.

Diving into futures, FX, those kinds of derivatives—that wasn't the royal road. Even hedge funds mostly ran equities. You could grow capital just fine with low-risk plays.

"Dividend stocks, for example."

"Dividend stocks? I already know about cycle investing, of course, but…"

"No, not that."

Dividend stocks paid shareholders on a schedule. The day after the dividend, the price usually cratered hard.

He happened to have a little on hand. POSCO—Korea's flagship steel name, one of the names that paid quarterly dividends. Today was June 29, 2017.

"It's the ex-dividend date. Once the open hits, that long stone's getting its head stir-fried, right?"

"Where did you even learn to talk like that."

"I don't know, fuck."

He hadn't expected her to laugh that easily. She was right that dividend names cratered on the ex-date—

But there were ways around it.

A small trick. Pre-market trading existed. Current time: 8:19 p.m.—no, 8:19 a.m. He queued the order to land exactly at 08:20:00. Ten minutes later—

—Sell order filled!

Sora's mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped shut. All seventy shares, gone.

"That's the pre-market closing auction…"

"Yeah. Methods like this exist too."

Stocks weren't locked to nine-to-three-thirty. Exception windows existed.

One of them:

The pre-market closing auction. Open from 8:30 to 8:40. Orders could be entered starting at 8:20. First come, first served. He'd gotten in first, and someone out there had wanted to buy POSCO.

"But it's the ex-date. The price has to drop…"

"Not everyone on earth knows that, and some people think the opposite of me."

He dumped the lot. His equity position: zero. At 8:40 the regular session opened. The order book thrashed. Exactly as Sora expected—exactly as common sense dictated—the stock opened at −1.2%.

"So then…"

"Free dividend. That's it."

"How much?"

"A hundred forty thousand won."

It didn't always work. Pre-market volume was thin; you couldn't unload big size.

But a few tens of millions of won?

You could sell like this. Near-zero risk, and he'd pocketed a tidy dividend.

"The person who bought it gets no dividend, and the price drops…"

"What, you feel bad?"

"A little, yeah."

"That's stocks."

Investing. Someone had to lose for someone else to win. He stuck a newly bought Cuban cigar between his teeth.

Hoo~

Cigars tasted best right after you made money. He was already smoking one before the regular session had even started.

"Want one?"

"No. I don't smoke."

"A cigar isn't a cigarette."

"More than that… I want to know more."

When they'd first met she'd fretted over morality and other headaches. Now she was becoming an investor, little by little.

Hunting honey trades like this is basic investor virtue.

High return relative to risk. Even futures, picked as one option among many, didn't have to be that dangerous.

Mastering one field worked. Sometimes dabbling across several paid better. The market was wide. Civilians didn't know half of it. You learned piece by piece through experience. He could at least give her a hand—teaching the girl who'd come to his studio apartment to whine.

"This one's called rotation trading, where you…"

"Senior."

"Hm?"

"When you trade, why do you always have something in your mouth?"

"Usually do."

"Candy too. It's bad for you."

She had a sneaky cute side; he didn't mind that. One thing did annoy him, though.

"Unless you're planning to feed me something, mind your business."

"$^%@$%@!"

"Why the seizure? It's not gonna wear out from a little use."

Studying stocks. Nothing beat asking someone who actually knew.

"Haa…"

That much was true. Economics textbooks. Info scraped off the internet. He fed her practical knowledge more useful than any of it, straight to the source. Going to Chanuk for advice had been the right call, but—

Can he not hold a single conversation without sexual harassment?!

That part she could accept. He'd always been that kind of man. What she couldn't stop noticing was—

Squish.

Her hand slid past smooth thigh into the deep place inside. Come to think of it, that day of the month was almost here.

If you're going to touch me, just touch me properly. Stop manufacturing this weird atmosphere.

She'd given permission. And still all he did was rattle on about milk jugs and cock-juice and other garbage.

Squish.

She knew what it meant. Lurking on communities lately had only made it clearer.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Cock-juice means that. That thing.

A lewd feeling. Her body ran hotter than usual. Hormones. The things Chanuk said only made it worse. Sora checked that the curtains were drawn, then moved her hand.

"Ah— ah…"

Once a month. Release from the stifling everyday. Self-loathing always hit afterward, but—

Squish. Squish.

She wanted that feeling of every torment falling away. That was the mood. Sora's body burned. She was making sounds she herself found obscene when—

Hm?

The monitor. Her usual community was open. Nobody was watching, and she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still felt embarrassed.

No—something about it was turning her on. One hand on the mouse, she kept going.

What is this girl-pic garbage. Show some respect to the Stock Gallery Goddess of Beauty.

Male ratio ran high. Every so often crude photos got posted. She normally ignored them. The filthy mood she was in flipped a switch of mischief.

She leaned forward. The chest she'd set on the desk started taking pressure.

It's just fat. Why do men even like this.

Touching it did nothing. Kneading from above only tickled. They were harassing the photos with every vulgar word in the book. Right as Sora's eyes were about to open to a brand-new kind of pleasure—

Sonik-jwa?

A word that snagged her attention. She knew exactly who that was.

Was that about her?

But the poster was someone else. LeadingDeadCatBounce. One of the gallery's named users.

The bastard who runs a Leading Room.

Leading Rooms—paid Kakao chats that spoon-fed stock tips for a fee. He seemed to call them right often enough. Popular in the community. She still refused to respect it.

It was illegal. Unlicensed amateurs had no business in that space. For Sora, who was aiming to become a professional trader, he was a thorn in the eye. And now one more thing was bothering her.

Once a day he posted his P&L. Stick to the bit long enough and people start calling you Sonik-jwa. Chanuk's recent numbers—compared to March, April, May—were honestly a little thin.

…

Because of her. Just this morning she'd barged in, hounded him, grilled him on methods. He hadn't even realized the hundred-fifty-million he'd made on options. She'd sabotaged her senior's trading.

Guilt welled up. She had no choice but to pull her hand out of that secret place. Sora's worries only deepened.