Starting a Business (3)
Starting a Business (3)
"This doesn't even look that old."
"Right? Most of these are still perfectly usable."
"Then why aren't you using them?"
"We made a deal to replace the laptops once a year..."
Why did the Director make a weird pledge like that and waste money?
When you buy a laptop, don't you normally use it for about five years?
According to Hojun, there are actually plenty of laptops where you can swap parts in and out like a desktop.
"But this isn't really the kind of thing you'd use for gaming, is it?"
"No, it's strictly for office work. Why? Do you need a computer?"
"I was thinking I'd try getting into games."
"I never imagined Seong-hwan-ssi played games..."
"I happen to like Nintendo games, you know."
Anyone listening would think men don't play games.
Men play mobile games, computer games, all that stuff too, I'm telling you.
"Then why not just buy one decent one? You've got plenty of money."
"I'm planning to have Hojun build one for me later."
"Huh? Didn't you say your brother was running something like a used goods center?"
"I asked him if it might be a good idea to try selling computer parts and things like that."
These days, everything runs on computers.
Not just games — the number of companies running heavy programs had increased too,
and I'd heard that research labs and companies building ultra-high-spec desktops for things like deep learning were popping up.
I didn't really know what deep learning was, but from what I'd vaguely gathered, it was some kind of learning machine.
Anyway, with game graphics advancing practically overnight and demand rising due to high-spec programs,
doing a related business alongside would be a good move.
"In that case, the editing team would probably stop by often when they build their computers too."
"For editing, isn't Mac, or whatever, the best?"
"It is, but in the end, everyone goes back to Windows."
I didn't really get it, but if the Director said so, it must be true.
I'd heard that the cheese-grater-looking thing on the Director's desk — the Mac Pro or whatever — cost about 40 million won.
Come to think of it, the reason I don't use a MacBook is the same: because of games.
"I'd be happy to leave it to my brother's business."
"Then I'll use it often. Trustworthy places have been hard to come by."
I didn't know how well our little brother would handle it, but hadn't I at least managed to save face as his older brother?
Just by sitting quietly, a company to do business with had appeared.
*
"Haaaahm...."
I'd finished handling everything I needed to with the Director, but Hojun and Minji, who'd been summoned away for being cute, were still completely out of contact.
It didn't really matter since I'd be at the agency until five anyway, but I was a little curious about what they were doing.
"Seong-hwan-ssi, if you're tired, go sleep in the nap room upstairs."
"Should I... I do have to be here anyway until A-ra Noona gets back from the broadcasting station."
The Director suggested I go up and get some sleep.
I must have looked pretty exhausted, even to other people.
"Well then, I'll be going."
"Yes, you know there's a shoot next week, right?"
"I know."
This time, I had a solo CF shoot scheduled, so I was going to be busy on my own.
I gave the Director a polite nod goodbye, stepped outside, and pressed the elevator button.
Seriously... every single time I get in this elevator, I wonder whose taste in interior design this is...
The elevator stopped on the 6th floor, at the men's nap room.
I took my employee ID out of my pocket and passed through the security machine that looked like a ticket gate, and went inside.
"There's someone in here."
To think there'd be someone else sleeping in the nap room at this hour besides me.
That took some serious nerve, more than I'd expected.
Maybe because of that, I suddenly felt like getting a look at what they looked like.
"Who on earth could it be.........."
As I slowly approached, I heard nothing except the sound of breathing.
They really were deeply asleep.
"Hm......."
Judging by the look of it, the guy who was crash-sleeping in the nap room at this hour was none other than Jeong Hwan-yi.
This guy, sleeping when he was supposed to be working...
I should wake him up, shouldn't I?
"Hey, Kang Jeong-hwan. Wake up."
"Mmmmrrmrmm......"
He was either talking in his sleep or half-heartedly trying to wake up.
Still, if I didn't wake him, who knew what kind of trouble might unfold...
"Come on, wake up."
"....Seong-hwan, what are you doing here?"
The moment he saw my face, he scrunched up his eyes as if he'd seen a ghost, then, after confirming it was really me, he started blinking rapidly.
Was he really that curious why I was here?
"I came up to take a nap, found you sleeping here, so I woke you up. Don't you have work to do?"
"What time is it now?"
"Two."
As far as I knew, the employee lunch break was from twelve to one.
Which meant this guy had already been AWOL for an hour.
"I... I'm going!"
"Yeah, go slowly... you're going to trip."
He was probably going to get chewed out big time by his supervisor.
Our agency absolutely never gave men any extra leeway or special treatment.
"Phew... well then, shall I get some sleep."
I headed to an appropriately clean-looking bed in the corner and threw myself onto it.
The heater was already on inside, making it warm, so I didn't need a thick blanket, and I pulled over the thin blanket that had been provided.
As soon as I covered myself with the blanket, my eyes began to slowly close.
Warm and cozy — it felt a lot like sleeping at home.
***
A week had passed since I'd checked out the building and visited the agency.
I'd called Hojun and A-ra together to discuss things to some extent, and we'd decided to begin the interior preparations with the goal of opening in March.
They'd said if it went quickly, it could be finished by mid-February.
Since it was January now...
It wouldn't take as long as I'd thought.
"Since it's the first floor, wouldn't it be even faster?"
"Probably, yes."
It would be easy to move construction materials, and the workers wouldn't have to go back and forth to upper floors, so it would be much more efficient.
In that sense, I couldn't thank A-ra enough.
"Hehe, we're family, so isn't that only natural?"
"Noona..."
A-ra smiled as she stroked my head.
I wanted to be held in A-ra's soft chest, but if I did, I wouldn't be able to talk about anything else, so I held it in as hard as I could.
"And the talks with the distributor went well, too."
"Really? Then I guess we can get a good supply of parts and things like that?"
"Yes. We'll probably be able to bring in more than most other places."
We'd paid a premium to secure that contract, so it couldn't be helped.
That was just market economics — the one who pays more inevitably gets to buy more.
Importers and distributors usually handled products from multiple companies.
That was because, in most cases, if a company didn't have a branch inside Korea, things went through an importer.
So, the company called Sowon did a lot of proxy sales for this and that.
"Noona doesn't know much about computers."
"Me neither. That's why I'm planning to have Hojun build one for me."
"Then let's have Noona's built together at the same time."
"Don't you already have one that's crazy over-specced?"
When we had installed the racing game machine before, we'd had to build a computer with an astronomically high spec for it.
I think I'd heard it had four graphics cards put in or something.
"I'll give that one to the kids at the orphanage and build a new one."
"Should we then..."
But were graphics cards really that expensive?
I'd heard something about mining Gold Coins or whatever with those.
"Seong-hwan-a, don't pay any mind to things like Gold Coins."
"Hey, I don't even do stocks."
"Yeah, after seeing that news report about someone who jumped in front of a subway in Busan, Noona got scared of that kind of thing and couldn't do it either."
Right...
She held large amounts of major corporation stock, yet she didn't have a single stock app installed on her phone.
People would seriously faint in shock if they heard it.
I'd heard that people who do day trading or whatever can't take their eyes off the computer screen from the moment the market opens until it closes.
"But how exactly do you mine coins with a graphics card?"
"Hm... Noona only heard about it too, but they said they solve math problems or something with the graphics card, and then they give you coins in proportion to how many you solve."
That sounded awfully familiar.
When I was a kid and went to church, a deacon would give out 'talents' to the kids who studied hard.
It was similar to that.
"But since that turns into money, though..."
"A lot of people did get rich off of that."
"Sigh... a while back, a high school student who'd made money from coins contacted me saying he wanted to buy Noona's building."
Was it really on that kind of scale...
Back when I was a high school student, even 100-won, 500-won coins were precious and I struggled just to get by...
"And then what?"
"Noona told him no, because I have no intention of selling, no matter what."
Other people would think it was strange, but for A-ra, collecting buildings was one of her hobbies.
She cherished her collection items so obsessively that she absolutely refused to resell them.
Of course there was no way A-ra would ever sell.
"But why, where was this building he said he'd buy?"
"One in Gangnam."
"...Isn't that where buildings worth 90 billion won are standing around?"
"Yeah."
Even if I combined all the money I'd earned from Qtube and CF ads so far, it probably wouldn't reach 9 billion...
As I thought, I should never lay a hand on coins.
But I knew that with things like stocks, for every person who profits, there's someone who takes a loss...
Wouldn't the people who lost overwhelmingly outnumber the ones who gained?
"He probably won't be able to buy that building."
"Why?"
"Who knows how coin regulations will turn out. I'll bet there aren't even any taxes on them yet."
"So it's basically money that still feels a bit uneasy to accept then."
Building owners probably wouldn't accept money whose future was completely unpredictable.
But wouldn't things change if there were people who offered enough money to make taking that kind of risk worthwhile?