The Kingdom Built by a Giant - 3
The employee break room of a convenience store, lit by indirect lighting.
Ye-Ahng, DoDam, and I stared blankly at the TV screen. Ye-Ahng and I sat in separate chairs, while DoDam had wrapped herself in a blanket like a bagworm and was lying on the sofa.
Ever since I gave her permission once, she’s just lain there like she owns the place.
No one here was going to push DoDam out anyway, so in the end she was the one with the final say.
“...”
“...”
“...”
Late at night.
A film was playing on the TV.
It was the one Ye-Ahng had said she wanted to watch with me.
In this movie with a distinctly European feel, two white men were teaching each other how to play guitar. They looked at one another with nothing but affection and smiled softly.
- Now, when you do this, hold the third bar...
- L-like this?
Thump—!
- Too hard. A little more gently...!
- Like this?
Ting—!
- Right!
- Whew...
It was a Swedish independent film. Its main story was a romance between a street artist and an elite opera troupe member who grew close through music.
It was a love story, but there was no conflict and no catastrophe.
It was a music film, yet there were no especially noteworthy performance scenes.
It was just about two people who happened to meet, shared similar tastes, and fell in love.
From the beginning, they were smiling. Until the end, they kept smiling together. It was a story of continuing daily life while dreaming of the smallest divergence from it.
- What should we do tomorrow?
- Well... let's just walk together. Skip rehearsal too.
- Okay.
- Then...
- See you tomorrow.
They loved each other in an ordinary way, and said good-bye while looking forward to tomorrow.
fin
“...”
“...”
And then the movie ended.
The final credits, too, were nothing but white letters on a black background. A film this free of stimulation seemed like something that would be hard to make even if you set out to do it deliberately.
It’s not really a movie... it’s more like a documentary.
A life that might genuinely exist somewhere.
Like a picture drawn in white paint on white paper.
“...”
If Ye-Ahng hadn’t recommended it, it was the kind of thing I never would have watched, not even after hundreds of regressions. In fact, I had never watched it before.
Surprisingly, it really was something I was seeing for the first time. This transcendently bland movie was one of the things I experienced for the first time in this round. That made it precious.
“...”
As a regressor, that made it beyond entertaining.
The corners of my mouth twitched with satisfaction.
“...Heh heh.”
I’ve watched just about every ordinary movie in the rounds where I ran a small theater. How long has it been since I saw a movie I’d truly never seen before?
It had the freshness of the early days of a loop.
It was moving, even.
I felt that emotion fade quickly and looked to the side. DoDam had fallen asleep under the blanket, lying down like she was in a bed, while Ye-Ahng was wiping at tears and clapping timidly.
“Kuaaah, kuuuuh...”
“Hoo...”
What an extreme contrast between the two.
Maybe that’s why they’re especially close among the ABCD members. If people around the same age are only halfway similar, they don’t just bicker. They end up fighting.
As I was watching them, Ye-Ahng met my eyes.
“!”
Then she hurriedly wiped her tears away.
“A-ah... hehe. I got a little teary because it was moving.”
“I understand. It was moving.”
“!”
Her eyes widened.
“R-really? DoDam said my taste in movies was weird.”
“It really was. At first glance, it seems like little more than a sequence of almost unchanged daily life, but to someone, that degree of change can feel safe and moving. I could see the director’s delicacy in sensing that tiny difference.”
“...!”
“And in the end, the two of them do head toward the future, don’t they? There’s hardly a greater kind of emotion in an everyday story than that. If anything, it was an idea most people wouldn’t easily come up with.”
I told her honestly what I’d felt.
Ye-Ahng broke into a bright smile. Then she nodded vigorously. Her yellow hair shimmered as the TV’s white credits reflected off it.
“Yes! Exactly! I liked that part too. That j-jj... point...”
“?”
Ye-Ahng glanced at sleeping DoDam.
As if coughing up fatigue, she was snoring hard.
Her brutal snoring rang out in the dark. It sounded like a dry hide being scraped with a steel blade.
“Krrrgh, kuhuhhhng...!”
“...”
“...”
Maybe because she finished Sunday afternoon streaming and then came straight here. She does look exhausted.
I glanced at the time.
It was already approaching 3 a.m. We had started watching the movie at midnight, so you could call it an absurdly long runtime.
This bland movie is ridiculously long too.
And yet, I hadn’t noticed the time passing at all.
“...”
She must be tired.
I quietly tried to stand.
“Then I’ll be going now...”
“Hey.”
“?”
I turned toward Ye-Ahng.
She had clasped her hands together awkwardly and was sneaking a glance at DoDam, who was snoring in her sleep. Then she lowered her head a little, embarrassed, and said, “I-I’m sorry, oppa.”
“?”
“For bringing DoDam here to the convenience store too. Using the place however I wanted, and begging you to watch a movie with us... um, ah... that was a little much, wasn’t it?”
“...”
“When I actually think about it... even if we’re close, I wonder if it was okay to do this.”
We fell silent for a moment.
“...”
“...”
In that gap, DoDam’s snoring slipped through.
- Rrrrgh...!
“...”
“...”
Come to think of it, didn’t they both say they were staying together at the dorm? Ye-Ahng works part-time even on weekends, so maybe that’s different, but DoDam doesn’t seem to care even if she’s out overnight.
Still, somehow...
the more I watched those antics, the more it felt like worrying would only put me at a loss.
You can’t tell just by looking at what they do, but they’re surprisingly smart. They seem to know exactly where the line is.
I looked at DoDam and said, “It’s fine. Stay as long as you like. I’m the one who said you could use the place comfortably, so there’s no need for guilt.”
“...”
Ye-Ahng nodded.
“Sometimes... when I’m with you, oppa, I get scared of myself.”
“...”
“How far I can go, how far I can cross the line... um. It feels like I’m being too spoiled. Things like this... it’s all too... new.”
“...”
“Without even realizing it, um... I feel like I’ve just become a baby.”
Rustle—
At those words, the ten-thousand-won bill in my pocket answered.
And I asked her in return, “Are you happy?”
“Huh?”
Ye-Ahng hesitated for a moment, then looked back and forth between DoDam and me before shyly nodding. For some reason, that look seemed to carry a great deal of meaning.
“Yes.”
“Then that’s enough.”
I accepted it.
Whatever came, I only had to do what needed doing.
“I’ll head upstairs. Rest comfortably.”
“Okay, oppa too...”
Ye-Ahng started to say something, then stopped.
Her throat bobbed.
What came out again was a late-night farewell.
“...Taek oppa, sleep well too.”
“Yes.”
*
The next morning came around.
The break room was noisy again.
Though the only person making a fuss was one of them.
DoDam was doing somersaults while eating the bread and coffee Seonwoo Taek had brought out. Not literally in the air, of course. She was rolling around on the bed.
Roll
Roll
It was the sort of movement you’d expect from a bugged-out character.
She didn’t care that her clothes had twisted up a little.
“Kiyaaah—!”
Maybe because she’d gone too far wild?
Her phone slipped out of her pocket.
Clack!
The handcrafted case with a picture of a one-billion-won trophy on it was striking.
“!”
DoDam rushed to pick up the phone. Then, checking it over from side to side to see if it had been scratched, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh no! I almost broke the ‘latest American flagship smartphone’ Bigman-sama bestowed upon me. I couldn’t act naturally at all.”
“...”
Seeing that, Seonwoo Taek opened his mouth as if to speak, then gave up. DoDam stopped her rolling, sat on the bed, and calmly resumed eating.
“Wow, this melts in my mouth. Thanks, Mister Hong. I don’t really have anything to give back for this. Should I bring you an all-star box next time? Want to join the madness of the Dodaers?”
“I’m not Mister Hong. And it’s fine, I already have that.”
“Kiyot! Then Mister Sun? Should I call you a man like the sun?”
“...”
At the nickname “Mister Sun,” Seonwoo Taek hesitated for a moment. But then he spoke again in his usual calm voice.
“It’s Seonwoo. My given name is just ‘Taek.’”
“Hey! Taek, sir—!”
“...”
DoDam made a gesture as if hailing a taxi in the middle of New York. But when Seonwoo Taek showed no particular reaction, she immediately turned solemn and sat down on the bed.
“Excuse me. That one was not funny, was it.”
“It wasn’t.”
At that moment.
The door to the bathroom inside the break room flew open.
“DoDam!”
It was Aki, who had come out after washing up.
She already had an embarrassed look on her face from inside the bathroom. She’d heard all of DoDam’s clowning from the beginning.
“You’re making the chief uncomfortable!”
“Oh, sorry.”
The two of them finished eating and left the convenience store. They waved to Seonwoo Taek, who was seeing them off.
“We’ll come again!”
“Ah, just like a natural disaster.”
“DoDam...”
Seonwoo Taek silently waved from far away, then took out a sky hopper from somewhere and started riding it. At first he circled in front of the convenience store, then drifted right into the crowd of people passing by.
Boing
Boing
Boing
His head bobbed up and down into view, then vanished again.
Boing
Boing
Boing
Aki and DoDam watched the scene.
“...”
“...”
DoDam grinned.
“Wow. I like him.”
“?”
“Mister Hong. He’s everywhere at once, isn’t he? It fits him if you call him Father Doesn’t Say Father, too.”
“DoDam...”
The two of them walked all the way to the company. Compared to the noisy morning from before, a fairly quiet mood hung in the air.
“...”
“...”
Then, in the middle of that walk, Aki spoke up.
“DoDam.”
“Yeah?”
“Is it strange?”
“What is.”
“Even though we make enough money from VTubing now, you still work part-time at the convenience store every weekend...”
“No? The convenience store is practically your hideout, and Mister Hong is insanely fun, so I get it. How is a person supposed to live on just food alone? Other streamers work side jobs all the time even when they make good money.”
“...”
Aki asked again in that same quiet tone.
“DoDam.”
“Mm?”
“Does it seem strange?”
“What does.”
“If it feels a little concerning.”
“...”
What.
I didn’t ask it.
“...”
“...”
DoDam spoke quietly.
“Not really? People’s feelings don’t exactly come with conditions attached.”
“I’m being serious.”
“I’m not joking either.”
“...”
At that answer, Aki seemed to hesitate, as if she wanted to say something more.
But DoDam slapped her lightly on the back.
“Eep.”
“If you say it now, I think you’ll regret it. Don’t rush to plant a flag before you’ve even climbed the hill. Don’t head-butt it. Think slowly. You never know what’s waiting even one step ahead in life.”
“...”
Aki nodded.
“...Yeah.”
The two of them headed to the company.
Inside, the atmosphere was peaceful, like the calm before a storm. Even so, the Big Plan project did not stop.
CEO Baek Su-cheol spoke with enthusiasm in the conference room.
“Now that the venue negotiations are almost wrapped up, let’s all keep up the sprint. It looks like we’ll get a final confirmation around the end of July. Let’s push to the end and bring in as many audience members as possible.”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”
But at those words, everyone present, staff and members alike, could not answer.
All of them wore awkward expressions.
In the end, the one who enjoyed Baek Su-cheol’s trust most, Choi Ye-Seo, spoke up directly.
“C-CEO. What are you wearing? Everything from top to bottom is pure white...”
“Ah, this?”
As though he had returned to the Joseon era.
Baek Su-cheol was wearing a blindingly white suit and trousers, white dress shoes, and even a white tie. It looked as if he alone was monopolizing all the sunlight.
He grinned and said, “Didn’t I tell you my older sister is a shaman? Yesterday she told me, ‘Su-cheol, too much fortune has come to you.’”
“What does that have to do with this...?”
“I don’t fully understand it either, but apparently if someone has too much luck, their lifespan gets shortened? So I’m supposed to wear something like funeral clothing and shake some of that fortune off. I can’t go down before the event, can I?”
Choi Ye-Seo tilted her head.
“T-then wouldn’t black be enough?”
“No idea. My sister said white works better for this kind of thing. And white looks stylish, doesn’t it? Very MZ, isn’t it? She even offered to do a ritual for me, but when she said family discount didn’t apply, I gave up.”
“...”
A CEO enthralled by some suspicious religion.
Unease was already creeping in.
Is this damn small company... really okay?
Along with Choi Ye-Seo’s sigh, Aki and DoDam looked at each other and laughed.
“Heh heh...”
“Hee hee...”
Really...
life never let you see what was coming next.
*
Jeong Yu-ri hurried upstairs after being summoned by Executive Director Go Hyeok-su of Arc Network’s production headquarters. It was right after she had submitted the Big Plan risk report.
Not the Big Man report.
The Big Plan risk report.
Even for a small market, it was a warning about signs of a paradigm shift. After all, Arc Network itself had started from a residency that arranged performances for fringe comedians.
The beginning of an empire was always shabby.
But the early stage was similar in any era.
So if you remained ignorant, you would absolutely be devoured.
“...”
Market variables had to be recorded.
Because she had failed to do that, her grandfather had hanged himself.
Because she had pretended not to see the “he” coiling up right beside him.
Jeong Yu-ri shook off those thoughts.
She focused on the work in front of her.
“...”
In the documents she submitted to the executives, she omitted detailed mention of the lottery suspicions and Big Man. In the first place, the correlation was tenuous, and her teammates had urged her not to include it.
- If you submit it like this, they’ll throw you into a psychiatric hospital for grandiose delusions. So please, let’s just mention the flow of capital and the corporation...
Even so, she had received a direct summons from the executive director himself.
This is an unusually strong reaction, but Director Go is someone who normally keeps work and personal life strictly separate inside the company.
With trembling heart, Jeong Yu-ri entered Go Hyeok-su’s office.
Knock, knock.
- Come in.
“!”
And what she witnessed was the scene of the risk report she had submitted being fed into a shredder. Executive Director Go Hyeok-su himself was putting it in.
Whirrrrr—
Crunch—
The document was torn to pieces.
Jeong Yu-ri was left speechless, and Executive Director Go Hyeok-su said with a tired expression, “Team Leader Jeong, stop doing useless things.”
“...”
“It’s only because I know Team Leader Jeong is overreacting over Chairman Jeong’s business that I’ll let this go. If this had gone to the executive meeting, Team Leader Jeong would have been ruined outright. Do you understand? The strategy division head and the office chief knew that, which is why they sent it to me.”
“That...”
Go Hyeok-su spoke heavily.
“Team Leader Jeong.”
“Yes, Executive Director.”
“This isn’t Chairman Jeong’s company anymore. And Team Leader Jeong isn’t the granddaughter of the owner’s house anymore either. Keep your head down, and live by doing only your job.”
“...”
Jeong Yu-ri could not answer.
Still, Go Hyeok-su continued.
“What is it, that... VTuber thing? Just because a self-sustaining market has a new variable pop up, don’t grit your teeth and try to protect everything. Throw away what needs to be thrown away, give up what needs to be given up.”
“...”
“Go. This never happened today.”
“...Yes, understood.”
And so.
The pursuit that had continued for days was crushed by one sentence from the executive director.
Jeong Yu-ri turned away with a hollow feeling.
“...”
Then Go Hyeok-su said quietly, “This is just something in passing.”
“!”
“Alpha has moved. It seems they’re pushing a new bill.”
“Al... pha...”
In the industry, that word meant one person.
The most terrifying and dreadful person of them all.
Jeong Yu-ri’s fist clenched tight.
“...”
With fear and despair in her heart,
Go Hyeok-su pretended not to notice her reaction.
“It looks like they’re going to go after every major company that’s trying to lure in overseas capital and mess with cultural business. Be prepared to clear out all the small fry too. And stop obsessing over that crazy bastard Big Man or whatever.”
“...”
A structure that swallowed vast sums of money whole.
A structure that made conglomerates tremble in fear had begun to move.