Lotto
Lotto
"Haa... what I'm saying is, my income's dropped lately."
The moment class ended, Lee Min-ho turned around and let out a heavy sigh.
I'd heard he was earning over ten million won a month, though.
If it was enough to make him sigh like that, it must have dropped a lot.
"By how much?"
"Around three percent."
Three percent of ten million won... that's only 300,000 won.
It didn't really seem like that huge of a drop...
No, my sense of money has gotten weird lately.
300,000 won is actually quite a lot of money.
But what Lee Min-ho was talking about wasn't the relative decrease, it was the absolute result.
So in the end, it still didn't feel like much.
To someone earning ten million won, 300,000 won or so isn't big money.
"Doesn't seem like that huge a drop, though."
"You might not get it, but the drop in income isn't actually the big deal, okay?"
That didn't really match someone who just sighed over lost income.
Seeing me tilt my head, Lee Min-ho let out another sigh and gave a bitter smile.
Then he flicked me on the top of my head.
"Ow."
As I clutched my head and complained, Jeong Hwan-yi burst out laughing from beside me.
Was what I said so wrong?
"The biggest problem is that growth's stopped, and the number of people coming in is lower than the number dropping off."
"Mm... I see."
So if the incoming viewers are fewer than the ones dropping off the videos,
it meant there was no potential for future growth.
Come to think of it, what Lee Min-ho does
is review content where he tries and rates newly released products every month.
But all he ever does is film mukbangs, say "it's tasty," and end it.
Finding growth potential there would be tough.
"Eugh... what would you know, I'm saying this to a guy with 11 million subscribers and 30 million views per video."
I do know, damn it!
I still make clean videos, from the cooking to the eating.
I might only post one or two a month, but I take quite a bit of pride in them.
"Still, isn't it painful to see your profits shrinking?"
"It hurts, which is why I've prepared a great idea."
For some reason, I had a feeling it wouldn't be a very good idea...
Considering this is a guy who makes weird review videos as his main content...
I chuckled, and Jeong Hwan-yi spoke up.
Hope the production writer steers him in a good direction.
"Like what? Making a secondary channel? Or getting sponsorships?"
"No? Obviously, I've gotta scratch some Lotto tickets."
"Hey."
Jeong Hwan-yi smacked Lee Min-ho on the head with his fist.
And he had every reason to; suddenly bringing up the lottery during a serious talk
had to feel like a betrayal, right?
I wanted to smack him one too, but since Jeong Hwan-yi had already hit him once, I decided to stay still.
And, Lotto winnings might actually make for a pretty decent conversation topic.
"You think it's that easy to hit the jackpot?"
"Seems impossible, right? All the Lotto winners so far thought the exact same thing."
"Yeah, and all the people who've never won the Lotto thought that too."
Quickly cutting off Lee Min-ho, Jeong Hwan-yi fired right back.
It was so evenly matched it was practically a spectacle.
How should I put it...
Would you call it watching elementary school kids fight?
As expected, these two best friends since childhood were on a whole different level.
"Is Lotto enough money to live on for life?"
How much is a Lotto jackpot anyway?
I felt like I'd seen a newspaper article once about someone collecting around 40 billion won.
"That's ancient history. These days, after taxes and deductions, you get around 1.6 billion won?"
"That's not that much, huh?"
It seemed like that 40 billion won jackpot had included rollovers from previous drawings where nobody won,
and back then tickets were 2,000 won each, whereas now they're 1,000 won per drawing.
Apparently now, rollovers only go for about two months' worth and it's 1,000 won per play, so it's been effectively cut in half;
meaning they'd never ever hit 40 billion.
These guys...
are surprisingly knowledgeable about this stuff?
"How much do you make a month?"
This time, Jeong Hwan-yi turned the question on me.
Qtube earnings and... adding in all sorts of other things...
"...Exactly around one-third of a first-place Lotto win??"
It came out of my own mouth, but it was a bit ridiculous.
A monthly income in the hundreds of millions was a laughable matter.
"You're making that much?"
"Well, I mean... that's the total adding together Qtube ads and SNS advertising fees."
"For that kind of money, I've never actually seen you, Seong-hwan, spend it properly."
"I treat for meals and coffee pretty often, don't I?"
Jeong Hwan-yi, Lee Min-ho, and I all took turns treating for meals or coffee.
Of course, the share I covered, as the person who earned well, was probably pretty high.
"Not stuff like that. Like buying a car or a building."
"Nah, I've already got the Cayenne for a car, and A-ra Noona's been buying up tons of buildings."
A-ra had bought another huge building not long ago...
And what was it?
The Bugatti Chiron she ordered back in March last year was supposedly arriving in Korea too.
I hadn't realized, but that car boasted a price tag in the billions of won,
so it involved a ton of procedures. Maybe because it's unheard of in Korea,
A-ra had even said she'd switch on a Qtube stream to receive it.
Anyway, that wasn't what mattered right now.
Classes were over, so we should start heading out so we wouldn't bother the people there for night classes.
"So? You really gonna go buy a Lotto ticket?"
"Of course. While we're at it, why don't you two buy one? You never know."
"I've never even won a 5,000-won coupon from a delivery app, so what Lotto..."
Jeong Hwan-yi had a pretty skeptical reaction.
He was interested, but seemed not to want to waste money on a fantasy that wouldn't come true anyway.
"I kind of want to give it a try, though."
"Why? A guy with plenty of money like you?"
The two of them tilted their heads and asked at the same time.
Did having a lot of money have any correlation with not buying Lotto tickets?
I'd have figured rich people still bought one occasionally as a hobby.
Well, my reason wasn't that, though.
"If I actually won something like the Lotto, it'd give me a good reason to donate to my mother's orphanage, right?"
"You good-hearted kid..."
Both of them wore expressions like a mother looking at a wonderfully filial son.
My ultimate goal was the reconstruction of the orphanage building.
"You're gonna teach me how to do it, right?"
"It's not that hard, so just follow me."
"Got it."
Watching Lee Min-ho and Jeong Hwan-yi get up from their seats,
I also packed my school bag and stood up.
***
Lee Min-ho drove my trusty Cayenne and took us to a Lotto vendor right in front of the school.
The sign saying you could also play Sports Toto there was very striking.
"Is Toto like... odd-even betting, ladder games, stuff like that?"
"That's illegal Toto, you idiot."
"Huh? There's a difference between legal Toto and illegal Toto?"
I tilted my head, and both of them brought their hands to their foreheads.
The gesture of trying to suppress a creeping headache was crystal clear.
"The only Toto allowed in our country is Sports Toto. Sports like soccer or basketball, and a few esports."
"Mm... don't tell me it's about guessing the exact win/loss score, like how many to how many?"
"Exactly... Never, ever go somewhere else and talk about Toto being odd-even or whatever. You'll end up on the news."
Watching Jeong Hwan-yi seriously giving this advice, I nodded.
It was the first time I'd seen him speak that seriously.
Having received the warning from Jeong Hwan-yi, I stepped inside the Lotto shop.
Lee Min-ho immediately looked around once he stepped in, then picked up a sheet of paper lying on the table.
"First off, there's manual and auto for Lotto, see?"
And he held out the paper and what looked like a computer marking pen.
"This is the manual slip."
"It looks like an OMR card."
"Same thing, right? You just check the numbers here and take it to the counter."
So, like marking test answers, you check the boxes and hand it over to the counter.
I thought it was a really fitting item for a place like this that sold multiple Lotto tickets.
"Mmm... 4. 9. 17. 25. 41. 48...."
"You all checked?"
Actually, since it was my very first time trying Lotto,
I'd just roughly checked the first six numbers that popped into my head.
And then, as if both Lee Min-ho and Jeong Hwan-yi had already finished too,
they were flapping their papers and yawning.
"That's it, just like this?"
"Yup, just take it to the counter like that and they'll process it."
Lee Min-ho walked right up to the counter and held out his paper to the lady sitting there.
"One manual, four autos."
"That'll be 5,000 won."
Lee Min-ho took a 5,000 won bill out of his pocket.
He'd told us earlier that they couldn't do card payments and to have cash ready.
"But what's auto?"
"Checking each one is a pain, right? You just leave it totally up to luck."
Was that the idea of leaving everything to heaven after doing your best?
To entrust it all to the heavens... this was more interesting than I'd thought.
*
"A-ra."
"U... uh-huh?"
Since I'd been sick with tonsillitis, I'd started occasionally calling A-ra by her name,
and it seemed like A-ra really liked it.
"Look at this."
"Lotto?"
"I went today with Lee Min-ho and Jeong Hwan-yi and just bought 5,000 won worth and came back."
As I showed the paper to A-ra with a bright smile,
A-ra gave a bitter smile and gently stroked my hair.
"Euhwi... how can our husband be so cute."
"You never know, right?"
"Everyone lives their lives thinking that way, that's Lotto."
"Kkeung..."
Well, I did know it to some extent.
The fact that there was no way this would actually win.
......Back then, I thought so.