Stock Market Beauty Goddess

Nine o'clock news.

They were talking about crypto investing.

True to form for the legacy media, the coverage leaned hard into the negatives — people who had lost money on coins, people whose daily lives had fallen apart. The whole point was to put a damper on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crypto's runaway popularity.

They also covered more "rational" approaches to investing. Not many people realized a brokerage's fingerprints were all over the segment.

.

.

.

A reasonable amount of skepticism was fair game. Among the battle-hardened stock traders, the mood was pure here we go again.

When the stock market was in a slump, floating feel-good news to lure in retail investors was a well-worn playbook. Was this just more of the same?

The students in the interview were so good-looking that suspicion was practically inevitable.

The longer you traded stocks, the deeper the paranoia ran. Trust in institutions and financial regulators had evaporated long ago — which was exactly how these misunderstandings took root. Still, the investors' suspicions weren't entirely baseless.

She had been introduced as the student with the biggest returns in the stock club. And with looks that eye-catching to begin with—

The returns alone were absurd. Anyone who actually traded stocks knew exactly how unrealistic those numbers were. Was this just a staged show to reel in retail money?

But from another corner, a different kind of question was starting to surface.

.

.

.

She looked familiar from somewhere. It was only a matter of time before the hive mind put it together.

Even her upper body alone had been enough to set the internet on fire. A figure you almost never saw paired with real intelligence — and now her face was out in the open. The YouTube wrecking crews picked it up and the whole thing spread like wildfire.

"Did you catch the news last night?"

"No, why?"

"Watch it right now! It's blowing up on YouTube too…"

The fallout reached the economics department. One of their own had been on the news. Pride was part of it, sure — but that wasn't all.

"Whoa."

"Holy—"

"They're fucking massive…"

"We had a girl like that in our department?"

"You don't know her? Class of '17, top of the class."

"She's even more insane in person."

They'd been watching her for a while. To anyone in the department, she was a face you couldn't forget — the top freshman, the bold ambitions she'd laid out at the welcome party still vivid in everyone's memory. And beyond all of that, what really stopped people cold was—

Gulp.

That lovely face. And one very particular feature of her body. Looking away was not an option. As men, they wanted to be honest about what they wanted.

"Seniors, what's going on?"

"Well, uh…"

"We're here to join the club!"

"Hajun, you're a junior. Weren't you buried in job prep?"

"I am, but I've gotten kind of interested in stocks."

"Interested in stocks… or interested in something else?"

"……"

"……"

Applications to the stock club ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠poured in. Under normal circumstances it would have been cause for celebration — except the ulterior motives were impossible to miss.

If we hang out in the same club, maybe I can make a move.

I'd be happy just being friends.

Four years younger? Age gaps don't even count!

Hye-ri filtered out every last one of them. The people who remained were more than enough. After the news segment, the stock club entered a second golden age.

"Sora."

"Hm?"

"Ignore the guys."

"They don't even have anything going for them and they're still making a scene."

For the person at the center of it all, though, it was more than a little uncomfortable. She was already well-known — and now the buzz had kicked up all over again. The sidelong glances came more frequently. Her female classmates formed a protective ring around her, but—

Why… why does this feel so good?

The person in question was feeling something else entirely. Sora couldn't keep her clasped hands still.

"Sora made almost twenty million in half a year?"

"That's basically a full salary."

"Is there anything she can't do?"

"I knew she was good at stocks, but…"

The talk floated through the lecture hall from every direction — all of it about her, all of it laced with praise and envy.

Keep your face straight. Face management.

Her heart hammered like it might burst. Sora fought to press down the grin tugging at her lips.

"Sora's definitely going to be a trader."

"I've still got a long way to go."

"She turned eight million into twenty with that little capital — imagine if she had hundreds of millions…"

"Sora, let's be friends~."

"Hey, that's low!"

She had become the object of admiration across the entire department. No — that had always been the atmosphere.

It only got weird because of that guy.

She had almost forgotten. The center of the department. Grades, looks, stocks — top of the board in everything. She was tasting that old, natural order of things all over again.

There was one difference from the first semester, though.

"Can you give me some stock tips?"

"You do crypto!"

"Not anymore — I switched to stocks after seeing Sora. So? Please? Please?"

She knew better now. She wasn't the clueless girl who used to run her mouth without knowing her place.

Back then I really didn't understand how the world worked at all.

She had bluffed her way through paper trading like she knew everything, never grasping how terrifying live capital could be. Frustration. Despair. Self-loathing — there had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been a stretch when her confidence had all but vanished.

"I still think semiconductors have room to run."

"Really?"

"Crypto's been dropping, though…"

"Compared to the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, they haven't even gone up that much yet, and with a ways to go until the Q3 ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠earnings releases, I think there's still room for expectations to get priced in."

"Whoa!"

"That was actually chilling."

"For a second I thought you were an analyst."

Now she could speak with real conviction. She might still end up wrong — but it was the fullest analysis she was capable of.

Foreign capital keeps flowing in, and the KOSPI is more compressed than the Nasdaq…

She could see more than she used to. She was pulling from a wider set of data and producing analysis that actually approached the real thing.

"Crypto's still better than stocks, no question."

"Right, right!"

"What do you think, Sora?"

"Uh, I…"

Stock consultations had spiked. Some students were even looking to convert from crypto. For Sora, who wanted to help Hye-ri, that was rewarding in its own right — but—

Looking at what that guy does…

There might still be something she didn't know. She couldn't casually declare that crypto was a bad idea just yet.

"If you're swinging for a home run, crypto might be the better play."

"So you think crypto's going up?"

"Can I get back to break-even?!"

"That I don't know… I just think of it as taking one step at a time toward my dream, rather than trying to make money right this second."

But she could say at least this much. Stocks helped with more than just landing a job or building wealth — they were useful from all kinds of angles.

That's how it turned out.

Markets didn't move on accounting numbers and outlooks alone. The world they lived in left its fingerprints on everything.

"So a trader really is Sora's dream, huh."

"Yeah."

"You've been taking other classes lately, so I thought…"

"Chaewon!"

"No, it's fine. I've got my own reasons for taking those."

The minor and electives her senior had recommended — there were things you simply couldn't learn from economics textbooks.

They really have been useful.

History and politics in particular had given her a completely different lens. Even her senior's cryptic remarks finally made sense.

"…and for those reasons, Korean auto industry stocks are going to get absolutely wrecked."

The second fight she'd had with her senior. Once she understood the history between the US and Japan, she realized it hadn't been a leap at all.

You have to look at a country's affairs through the eyes of the people who live there.

It was obvious in hindsight. At the time, she hadn't grasped it at all. She might have graduated without ever figuring it out. Meeting her senior had been a stroke of luck. He was a little twisted, sure — but he wasn't a bad person.

Lick.

He taught her all kinds of things. There was a quiet tsundere streak to him, too. Sora thought of Chan-wook and smiled.

"Sora…?"

"Huh?"

"Just now, you kind of…"

"Looked horny."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"You flicked your tongue out."

"I did?"

Her face management had slipped for a moment. She sat up straight again and put her usual expression back on.

If that guy's sneaking another cigarette again, he's in for it…

But no matter what she did, Chan-wook refused to leave her head.