5. The Landlord's Daughter Who Screwed Up Big Time
My supervisor's attitude had changed. That one thing alone turned my working life a literal one-eighty.
Enjoy the work, and efficiency climbed; efficiency climbed, and things got done faster, which made the work even more fun. I was reaping the full rewards of a textbook virtuous cycle. My days filled themselves out naturally, and I even caught myself under the strange illusion that a weekday was actually flying by.
The upshot: with what felt like barely three days gone, there I was, walking out sharp at five on a Friday evening.
"Assistant Manager, then I'll be heading out first."
"Hm?"
The Kim Jiyeon of old—herself nowhere near done for the day—would have asked where the hell I thought I was going, held me hostage at my desk, and lobbed another pile of work my way. But with kindness thoroughly drilled into her, she let me go without a peep.
Smiling, no less, and sending me off warmly.
"You did great today, Junsu. Enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you next week."
"Will do. You have a great weekend too, Assistant Manager."
Just like that, I slipped out of the office without a ripple and was making my happy way toward the bus stop when my phone started wailing in my pocket.
Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt!
Not the short pulse of an incoming text—my phone was rattling nonstop, announcing a call. I fished it out and checked the screen. The landlady, who by all rights should have been in the middle of her cruise, was calling.
"Hello?"
"Junsu, dear?"
"Yes, ma'am, it's me. Is something wrong? Aren't you on your trip?"
"Something came up, so I flew back early. Oh—no, wait, that's not why I'm calling. I checked, and you still haven't transferred this month's rent. You didn't send it to Ayoung separately or hand her cash, did you?"
"No, ma'am. Your daughter did stop by, but she just said she'd have me transfer it on the usual date. I didn't give her anything."
"Really? Oof, thank goodness. All right, Junsu, dear. I've got a lot of other people to call, so I'll hang up now."
"Of course, ma'am."
The landlady cut the call the instant my answer was out of my mouth. That frantic hurry dredged up the same odd unease I'd felt last Saturday, and I knew it in my gut: our landlord's daughter had gone and stepped in something huge.
On the walk home, my eyes usually combed my surroundings for anything that might count as a good deed—second nature ever since I'd gained the Common-Sense Alteration ability. Today was the one day I couldn't manage it. Because the villa's tenant group chat was in an absolute blaze.
The chat was burning white-hot right at quitting time when photos landed in the thread: handwritten apology letters, one from the landlord couple and one from Ryu Ayoung.
Dear tenants, we are truly sorry. We raised our daughter poorly, and we have caused you all this trouble.
First and foremost, we wish to assure everyone worried about this month's rent that no additional payment will be required.
……
We promise to take exceptional measures so that no such misfortune ever happens again, and we bow our heads once more in apology.
— The Landlord
I'm sorry. Blinded by a moment's greed, I did something I should never have done.
……
I am truly, deeply sorry.
The first letter was the landlord couple's—exemplary as ever, the very picture of model landlords. The second was Ryu Ayoung's, blotched here and there where tears had smeared the ink.
Then again, of all the things to get her hands on... it had to be Scam Coin.
I didn't know the details yet. With a small sigh at the words Scam Coin written across the apology, I let myself into my place. I'd changed into something comfortable and was thinking I ought to meet Ryu Ayoung face-to-face today or tomorrow when—
Ding-dong!
The pizza I'd ordered for dinner on the way home had arrived. The warm box breathed golden, toasted cheese, and the instant I took it my mouth flooded and my appetite shot through the roof—which was exactly when it occurred to me how lovely the evening had felt on my walk. A proper spring evening, pleasantly cool, and for once clear of fine dust with genuinely fresh air. Perfect weather for beer and pizza outdoors.
Yeah, no way I'm passing this up.
So I fished a four-pack of canned beer out of the fridge and headed straight for the rooftop, pizza in hand—up to a rooftop with a genuinely decent night view and, better still, a broad wooden deck practically built for drinking outside.
Hm-hm-hm-hmm~
Maybe it was anticipation of the pizza and beer already sweetening my mouth; either way, I was humming without realizing it by the time I reached the top of the stairs and flung open the stubbornly shut rooftop door.
"Huh?"
Someone had beaten me to a rooftop I'd assumed would be empty. That in itself was no problem—the place was a shared facility. The problem was where that someone was standing. A someone whose eyes had gone red and bloodshot. And it was a problem of the gravest fucking order.
"Wh-wha—?!?"
No—no, no, why is that woman standing on the railing...
A sight I'd only ever seen in movies and dramas, or in the news footage of suicide scares—my brain stalled for a split second, and in that instant Ryu Ayoung, turning her head toward the sound of me, wobbled. And at the same moment, my body launched itself forward.
"Ayoung, seriously—if you put money into this, it'll at least double. Guaranteed."
The friend's investment pitch had begun roughly two months earlier. Whenever doubt crept onto Ryu Ayoung's face, the girl would flash her phone screen, full of very real profits, insist this was the last train and there'd be no second one, and call or text practically every single day. Worn down at last by that relentless, tenacious persuasion...
...Ryu Ayoung ended up sinking money into XX Coin without knowing the first thing about it.
And then, would you look at that—
Estimated Assets: ₩6,263,850
Rate of Return: +108.8%
6.26 million won? Th-that's more than double, isn't it? At this rate, I could... start over...
She'd put in 3 million won of her own savings, and in under a month the returns were staggering. A windfall. That vicious greed knocked Ryu Ayoung's reason out in a single blow. It drove her to pour in every last won of her emergency fund—and then, still short on seed money, to lay hands on the rent money for the villa her parents owned.
It's fine. I'll pull the profits out in no time and put every won of it back...
But an investment launched on an I'll-pay-it-back-later mindset—or rather, the endings of nearly every scam ever run—tend to look remarkably alike.
The page you requested could not be found.
"Huh? Why is it..."
The very next day after she'd thrown in the colossal sum of 30 million won, the XX Coin website vanished like dust on the wind.
"The subscriber's phone is switched off. After the beep, you will be connected to voicemail..."
And of course, the friend who'd talked her into it had gone dark as well.
On top of everything, her parents—off enjoying their trip—happened to discover that the rent account had been drained to the very last won. Misfortune after misfortune crashed over her with no gap in which to catch her breath. Like a line of dominoes toppling.
Anyway, with her psyche flayed to the bone, Ryu Ayoung was then put through a merciless dressing-down by her freshly returned parents.
"Mom, Dad, I know I messed up. So just this once—"
"Quiet! You are not setting foot back in this house until you come to your senses. Understand?!"
Along with a fury in her parents' voices she had never once heard in her life, she was thrown out with nothing but her phone and a single suitcase. Not a red cent in hand, and not even a close friend she could impose on—there was exactly one place left for Ryu Ayoung to go...
The rooftop.
Never mind a motel; she didn't even have the 10,000 won it cost to spend the night at a bathhouse.
Ryu Ayoung had spent roughly two hours pacing that rooftop. All the while she racked her brain for a way to thaw her parents' hearts and win her way back home, but—
"God... what the hell do I even do..."
It was the first time in her life she'd faced anything like this, and no solution came. And it didn't stop there. Rage and regret toward her past self—the idiot who'd shoveled money into a stranger's pocket—came boiling up on top of everything else. Her mood, already crawling along rock bottom, burrowed straight down into the basement, which only fed the regret and self-recrimination of having been conned, which sank her lower still. The vicious cycle spun round and round, amplifying her despair with every turn.
Scammed like a total moron by some bitch I wasn't even close with... What's the point of even living like this, goddamn it...
Thud.
Without realizing it, she had drifted right up to the rooftop railing—and then, on pure impulse, she climbed up onto it. One mercy, though: the instant the vertiginous sprawl of the world beneath the railing hit her eyes, Ryu Ayoung's senses came rushing back.
"Oh god, shit... I've actually lost my mind."
In the very next breath, gripped by the gravity of what she had almost done, she began carefully shifting her weight back off the rail. And right then—
CLANG!
"Huh?"
Behind her, an iron door screeched open with tremendous force, and a man's voice—somehow familiar—reached her ears. Ryu Ayoung's head turned toward the sound before she could think. Her body twisted to follow, and...
"Eep?!?"
Of all moments, her right foot chose that one to slip, her balance tipping—and as if that weren't enough, a ferocious gust of wind came barreling in, shoving Ryu Ayoung clean over the railing.
Ah, I'm fuc—