Jeong Hye-yun

Ansan Apartments, near Independence Gate. February 7, 2003, 6:00 a.m.

The moment I woke, I flipped on the light and pulled a sheet of A4 paper from under the desk.

Right after I swallowed that white pearl in that strange space, I blacked out.

I grabbed a pen and started writing down everything I had seen in the dream. It was nothing like an ordinary dream.

Unlike the usual kind that dragged me around with no control, I had been free to move — free even to think.

Everything I had seen came back with perfect clarity.

Just three simple lines.

I had actually forced myself to memorize them. How hard-headed could one person be?

Everything from the dream — except the final scene — began flooding back in meticulous detail. And one by one, I started catching the things I had missed at the time.

Even if something happens? Why did Grandfather hammer so hard on the aliens? And his face — he looked ready to cry when he told me to turn my back on the family.

An alien invasion?

I wrote the words alien invasion beneath the notes, circled them, and sank into thought.

No way. Aliens are actually going to invade?

Even so, the instruction not to sell still felt strange.

Aliens invade — and you still don't sell your stocks?

Why? What's the reason?

My short little brain worked it over.

Being told to hold even through an alien invasion made no common sense. It meant those companies wouldn't lose value — they'd rise.

Either humanity successfully repelled the invasion and society normalized, or those companies thrived even harder by riding the chaos. I couldn't find any other explanation.

I worried at it for a while, then stopped.

Right now, this kind of fretting is useless. Just remember the aliens for now.

After that, I tried to recall the moment that clear, crystalline voice had burned itself into my mind as I swallowed the white pearl.

But it was as if the information had been sealed off. Not a single additional character would surface.

"Hmm. Virility?"

I powered on the laptop.

My number-one possession — a used machine I'd bought for two hundred thousand won while delivering newspapers. Gaming was out of the question, but it was the only thing that killed the boredom in this room.

Wheeeeng.

Even for a laptop, the rattling fan noise was grating.

A long while later, the DoorXP operating system finished booting. I launched the Hangul word processor.

I typed every character from the scrap of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠paper with exact precision, then cross-checked it four or five times.

I can't miss a single letter.

Somehow, even the English spellings of the company names — Googoal and the rest — came back perfectly. I entered them side by side and searched each company online, one by one.

Googoal is unlisted. Tesler has no information at all.

Aple I already knew. I'd been deeply impressed by it in that movie, Rich Boy.

But Amazone was nothing more than an online bookstore, and Nerflix was a fledgling company trying to introduce streaming services to video rental shops.

And these were supposed to actually go up?

If the lottery hit, I was prepared to stop doubting — but right now, I couldn't trust any of it.

No. Just buy and hold. No matter what.

I jotted down each company's current stock price and a brief description, then locked the file with a password.

I spelled my name out in English, crossed it with my date of birth, entered the result, and saved.

"And copy one onto a floppy, too."

Anyway — Virility? The title in front is completely garbled. All that's left is the word "Virility," plus the part about not injuring your partner during sex and reducing their pain? Why would I need that?

Without thinking, I looked down.

Something heavy was there. I pulled down my pants and underwear.

I wasn't even hard — and yet my cock hung thick and long at the size of a full erection from before: eighteen centimeters.

I sat in silence for a moment, lost in thought.

I'm losing my mind.

I had zero experience, and people used to tease me with the nickname "Horse," so I already knew eighteen centimeters was plenty big.

But this…

Rattle.

I opened the drawer, carefully took out a thirty-centimeter ruler, and locked the door.

A few strokes of stimulation, and the thing surged upright.

It looked vicious. Veins. A massive glans.

I laid the ruler against it and read the number caught at the tip of the head: twenty-six centimeters.

Right. So that's why it said pain reduction — no injury.

But was a body even allowed to change this dramatically?

The moment the question formed, my mind started racing.

Who's seen my dick?

My maternal uncle, my cousin Jeong-cheol, and Min-ho — those three were the real problem.

My uncle, too cheap to pay for a bathhouse attendant, dragged me to the public baths every two weeks without fail. I tried refusing. It never worked.

So my ten-year-old cousin Jeong-cheol and my uncle both knew the size of what I was packing.

The one silver lining: at some point they stopped going to the neighborhood bathhouse. They started taking the long way out to one in the suburbs instead.

Of course, once the bath was over, I got bus fare and had to come straight home.

Min-ho had a rough idea ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too — we'd watched porn at his place often enough — but he didn't know for certain.

Guys don't exactly whip it out and jerk off in front of each other.

God, what a life. Carrying around something this magnificent and never even getting to use it.

Eighteen years of never meeting a girl because I was stuck watching two little cousins — ten and eight — rose up, and tears pricked at my eyes.

A few girls had clearly been interested. They'd even asked me out.

If it hadn't been for those cousins, I would have dated several of them by now.

If it hadn't been for the part-time jobs, the academy shuttle duty for the cousins, and the pointed looks from my aunt telling me to watch the two kids left alone at home—

I'm not a babysitter. The second this lottery hits, I'm out. They've been giving me the cold shoulder lately anyway, basically telling me to leave…

I had applied for a dorm, but since it was still within Seoul, the application got rejected.

Even if I wanted independence, five million won scraped together from newspaper routes and side jobs was my entire fortune.

So the plan had been to tutor for a year, eat more dirt if I had to, and tough it out here.

The moment tomorrow's lottery results came in, I was signing a lease on the one-room I'd already scouted and walking out of this house.

The memory of all that persecution rose up, and for a moment my chest ached with a dull, heavy pain.

Grandfather's words — leave immediately — came back to me. I changed clothes in a hurry, threw on a jumper, and headed out.

If I'm not here, they'll just assume ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I went on a delivery run.

I eased the front door open. Cold wind slapped my face and a shiver ran through me for no reason — but unlike usual, even that chill felt welcome.

Beyond the corridor railing of the open-gallery apartment, the mountain came into view.

Ah— so that's what Ansan actually looks like.

Today, the entire shape of the mountain — something I had never once noticed — filled my eyes at a glance, and my chest swelled with a strange grandeur.

So this is why people say you need room in your heart.

Fuck. How do you live somewhere for eight years and only now realize the mountain looks like that?

Everything felt new.

Independence Gate, too — normally just some structure sitting there — I found myself studying it carefully as I passed.

Sensing I was wasting too much time, I hurried toward the subway.

Hmm. Even if I head toward Uijeongbu, better safe than sorry. Might as well go to Gangnam.

I rode Line 3, repeating the numbers in my head the entire way until I got off at Dogok Station. When I came up and the Tower Kingdom apartments filled my vision, I slipped into fantasy again.

Should I buy one of those? Unsold units? No — the Han River. I have to live somewhere with the river facing south.

I was daydreaming about which apartment to buy, about picking up a German SUV and putting a woman in the passenger seat… then I stopped.

Ow. Shouldn't have worn jeans. Just get the job done already.

Fortunately, a lottery token booth sat right in front of me.

I pulled ten blank slips from the stand, shielded them so no one could see, and filled in 09 25 30 33 41 44 across fifty games.

Ten games for a hundred thousand won — two thousand won a game — surprised me. I handed over the slips. The bored-looking owner fed them into the machine one by one.

Zhing. Zhing.

He chatted with someone else in the booth, looking thoroughly put-upon, and paid the numbers no attention at all. He handed back the tickets and the slips.

"Hope you hit it big."

"Thank you."

Right there on the spot, I wrote my name and resident registration number on all ten tickets with a marker pen, slid them into the inner pocket of my jumper, and zipped it shut.

What if the dream was wrong? That's a hundred thousand won down the drain… No. A dream this detailed can't be nothing.

A flicker of unease passed through me, but when I turned my head and stared blankly at the Tower Castle apartments, I felt expectation swelling up again.

A little later, I boarded the subway once more, bound for Sinchon.

Hmm. The bus would be more convenient. I just don't know the routes.

Everything else would have to wait until the money came in — stocks included.

I thought of the room I'd toured before: a one-room split so small it barely fit a bed and a desk, but it had a tiny bathroom with a toilet. I prayed it was still available.

I should have gotten the number…

Deposit one million won, monthly rent two hundred thirty thousand, management fee thirty thousand — utilities included. For Sinchon, it was a steal. I'd been tempted.

The landlady had asked whether I'd only be sleeping there if she gave me the room. It rubbed me the wrong way, so I'd declined politely and left.

But after days of pounding the pavement, it was the only place I could actually live in with five million won.

Only later did I realize the price she'd offered was absurdly good.

If I win, it's just for show — for my uncle's family. Hundreds of billions, and I'm sweating a monthly rent of two hundred thirty thousand? I could even use it as a study room during exam season…

Tuition was already covered. My parents — whose faces I could barely remember now — had deposited the first year's fees into my account, calling it the first tuition payment.

Even if the lottery fell through, tutoring and the rest would keep me afloat.

This is the right call. If I say I signed a lease tomorrow, even in the one-in-a-million chance someone gets suspicious…

I knew I was overthinking it. But once my spending started to grow, there was no telling what might happen.

I had no intention of driving a foreign car anywhere near Independence Gate — but relatives could still spot me circulating around Sinchon and Gangnam.

Worrying over nothing piled up the stress, and the line I'd seen earlier floated back into my mind.

My heart hammered.

I caught myself grinning for no reason, glanced around once, and closed my eyes again.

God, it's actually far.

I'd never noticed on the bus, but from Sinchon Station to Yeonseo University was a serious walk. And from the main gate out to the east gate and Daeshin-dong was another long stretch on foot.

Beyond the east gate, a steeply sloping neighborhood came into view. The good news: the one-room building sat close to the east gate.

I found the villa and dialed again.

It wasn't the landlady's voice from before.

This one sounded younger.

I hadn't been rude to the woman who'd explained everything so diligently a week ago, but I had turned her down once. This was a relief.

"I looked at a room here before. I was wondering if I could still rent it."

"I'm right in front of the villa. It was unit 401 last time."

Click. Thank god.

I watched the building entrance unlock, pushed through the door, and climbed to the fourth floor, sweating hard the whole way.

She's pretty. The landlord's daughter, maybe?

At the fourth-floor landing, turning toward 401, a beautiful woman came into view.

For a second her looks knocked the wind out of me — then I remembered the cheat code sitting against my chest, and walked toward her with my head held high.