The Heart of a Beast
"..."
I stared blankly at the two stocks punching through the ceilings of their charts like they'd lost their minds.
Both had stamped out the maximum a stock could climb in a single day, and neither showed the slightest sign of coming back down.
"Wow. That's genuinely astonishing. Astonishing."
Behind me, Deputy Yoo shook his head as he clapped his hands together.
"How are you still holding these? Is this what they call the heart of a beast? No, wait. Maybe you just don't have a heart at all?"
I managed an embarrassed smile, though no one would ever know how my blood ran cold.
If I hadn't trusted my ability, I'd have sold ages ago.
And in that case the return probably wouldn't have cleared 15%. Not that 15% would have been anything to sneeze at, mind you.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it.
When I'd eyed the two surging stocks and reached for the sell button, my sense of smell had warned me off with a foul stench, as if to say: absolutely not. And so I'd left both positions untouched.
"At first I figured some rookie was screwing around, but you're a total market shark. What's your secret, exactly?"
"...That I have a good nose for smells?"
"Heh heh. You're not wrong. They do say in this business the one who smells money best is the one who wins."
That wasn't quite what I'd meant, though.
"Honestly, I'd say holding a while longer is the smarter play. I dug through the materials from the latest research, and the outlooks are all rosy. Barring some new issue, these will keep climbing."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. Steel looks completely unlocked, and word is the shipyard's about to start landing orders. If a major contract drops here, that's another rocket launch. Hmm. Feels a touch late, but should I jump in big right now myself?"
That very anticipation was probably what kept driving the price higher. Listening to all this, I felt my heart settle a little more.
Right. It simply wasn't time to sell yet. Maybe the price would climb even further from here.
And in the very moment I let myself relax—
"!?"
A rotten stench wormed into my nose and jolted my whole body upright.
"Huh? What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"
Having entirely forgotten the deputy at my side, I fumbled for the mouse in a panic. Why now, out of nowhere?
A sudden stench meant I had to do something—now. It was a signal, sent to me alone.
Don't tell me...?
I hovered the mouse pointer over the sell button for Han-seong Steel. The smell thinned, just slightly.
Click.
I pressed it.
"Whoa—wait, wait! Why are you selling?! I'm telling you it climbs higher from here!"
The deputy's voice never reached me. Unless you'd experienced this stench yourself, you could never grasp why I was doing this.
The problem was that the smell refused to vanish even after I'd hit sell-all. As though exactly half of it had lifted?
Then...
I switched to Geum-young Shipbuilding in a flash. The deputy grabbed my shoulder.
"N-no, you don't—?"
But my hand was already sprinting for the sell button.
Click.
Sell-all, again. And in the same instant, the stench that had been crushing me vanished, and at last I could drink the clean air in great gulps.
"Unbelievable."
The deputy beside me clutched his head in both hands.
"They'll climb even higher tomorrow—why would you throw this away...!"
The outlook on Han-seong Steel and Geum-young Shipbuilding was superb. Just as he said, they were certain to rise again tomorrow.
And yet my hypersensitive nose, silent until that very moment, had suddenly hounded me into liquidating every last share.
Part of me ached at the waste, but another part felt clean and light. Hadn't I been tormented all along by the question of when to sell? More than anything, I had faith—faith that when I trusted my gift and followed it, everything would come together. So choosing to sell didn't feel like a pure loss.
"Well, at least we made money. That's what counts, right?"
"Fair enough. Still, it stings a little. Look at that—billions of won in sell orders, and the market swallowed every share in one gulp. With buying power like that, you'd have to call tomorrow another rocket launch, I'd say... huh?"
Beep!
That sound meant only one thing: a stock on my watchlist had shed more than 5 percent. And sure enough—
"Wh-what the—why is it dropping like this?"
The two stocks I had just sold were pouring downward like a waterfall. Anguished shouting soon erupted on all sides.
"Hey! What the hell is this all of a sudden!?"
"Institutions and foreign money are dumping like crazy! Sell, now!"
A so-called flash crash. A chart that touched its peak and then, within minutes, slammed straight down.
A chart imploding with no bad news to speak of could only mean everyone had realized the same thing at once: this was where the madness ended.
The trouble was, when those realizations overlapped in eerie unison, sell orders stacked atop sell orders and the price collapsed—precisely as it had now.
"..."
The deputy's eyes darted between me and the screen. Then he straightened into a deferential posture.
"Intern Kang Suho, sir. Might I brew you a cup of coffee?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'll bring you a generous snack besides, so please, just share your secret—"
Before I could manage a word, he scurried off to the tea room.
"The Trading Division? They sent our Suho there?"
"Yes."
"Hold on. Wasn't he doing perfectly well at the Research Center?"
"I looked into it—company policy, apparently. Interns can't stay parked in a single department; they're required to rotate through several."
Even Director Geum Gaho was hearing of such a rule for the first time.
"And since when were intern rotation rules enforced that scrupulously?"
"They aren't, as a rule. It's largely a formality. But the Head of the Trading Division made an issue of it, so there was apparently no way around it."
"Head of Trading? Who's there these days, again?"
"Division Head Hwang Yu-seong."
"Ah, Hwang Yu-seong. When did he move over there?"
Long absent from the company though he was, Geum Gaho still had every executive's name at his fingertips.
"Does Hwang know I placed Suho personally? Did he poach the boy on purpose?"
"I don't believe so. I checked with HR, and they say the Division Head himself only learned of it after Kang Suho had already arrived at the Trading Division."
The picture came into focus. The Research Center, mistaking Suho for one of the Royal Family, had heaped every bit of credit on him—and the Head of Trading, seeing those numbers, had taken them at face value as Suho's genuine ability.
The Trading Division was always starving for talent, wasn't it? So they'd brandished the rules as a pretext and snatched him away.
"The Division Head must have been in an awkward spot. The last thing he'd want is to be tangled up with me. Well, all the better, really. Varied experience will do Suho good. He'll be permanent staff soon enough, but for now he's still an intern—and even once he's permanent, his position won't let him touch a single won of the firm's money for some time."
It had all sprung from a misunderstanding, but no harm, no foul. Geum Gaho judged there was no need to step in himself.
Cycling through department after department, stacking up broad experience—that mattered enormously for Suho, after all.
"..."
And yet, for some reason, the secretary delivering the report had gone rigid in the face.
"What is it?"
"It's just... the Trading Division has reportedly put Intern Kang Suho straight into live trading."
"What nonsense is this? Are you telling me they handed hundreds of millions of won to a boy who has never made a live trade in his life?"
"Yes."
Geum Gaho's composed face promptly warped into something fearsome.
"What on earth are these people scheming? They actually entrusted investment capital to Suho?"
No company on earth, however dazzling the rookie, handed over money on day one. To become a trader, you studied first, and for a long while you stood beside the veterans, watching how they made their money.
Through that crucible you forged your own nerve and learned, bone-deep, that this business was anything but easy.
But skipping every step of it and marching a man straight onto the battlefield with cash in hand? Under that crushing pressure, he might well suffocate and bolt.
"I've been far too content to stand back and watch. This won't do. Leave it any longer and Suho will strip off his badge and walk out. I'll have to go untangle this mess myself."
"Um, Director... I don't believe you need to worry quite so much."
"No need to worry? Suho knows nothing, and right now he's being jerked around every which way!"
"About that... perhaps you should simply take a look at this."
A single sheet of paper from the secretary. Geum Gaho cocked his head.
"What's this?"
The page held exactly two names. Han-seong Steel and Geum-young Shipbuilding.
He had left the industry, yes, but his eyes hadn't gone blind. He watched the news every morning out of habit, and he knew perfectly well those two had been burning up the headlines lately.
"The figures beside them are the capital committed to each position."
"One billion into Han-seong Steel, two billion into Geum-young Shipbuilding. And the returns on both are enormous. Why are you showing me this?"
"Because the one who succeeded in both trades was Intern Kang Suho."
"...!?"
Geum Gaho checked the paper a second time.
"So you're telling me th-this really is the return Suho generated?"
Three billion won had doubled in a matter of days. A rate of return that beggared belief.
"Could this, too, be credit dumping... something of the sort? Like at the Research Center?"
"No. This is genuinely Intern Kang Suho's own skill. And digging a little deeper, it seems he never had results dumped on him at the Research Center, either."
"Then—at the Research Center, and now with this trade—Suho did it all himself...?"
"Yes. With no one's help. Entirely on his own."
Geum Gaho sank into stunned silence. He'd taken the boy for a simple, honest soul—never dreaming he harbored a genius's gift for finance.
"And above all, what let that talent spread its wings was your help, Director."
"...My help?"
"The Research Center, and the Trading Division alike, both believe Intern Kang Suho is family to you, Director. So whatever he did, they simply left him alone."
Fair enough. Anyone running investments this abnormal should have been yanked off the desk by the risk team ages ago.
And yet—Suho, this boy. So he'd been carrying the heart of a beast all along.
The securities firm had certainly erred, handing three billion won to an intern. But to take that money without a flicker of fear and shove it all in, every last won, on sheer conviction...
"Still, Director. Isn't this far too dangerous? However thin his financial knowledge, however much he's riding on your name—pouring money in like this is reckless."
The secretary had a point. To any eye, this went beyond a beast's heart—it bordered on madness.
"But what matters, in the end, is that he won. Doesn't it?"
"Pardon?"
"Yeouido—and Wall Street too—are places proven by results and nothing else. No one gives a thought to the process. All eyes fix on the outcome alone."
That was the world of finance—cold, and utterly seductive. Whatever a person's character, whatever his philosophy, nobody spares either a glance.
A place measured by results and results alone. Perhaps, in its way, the fairest world there is.
"Suho proved his ability with his own two hands. And knowing his character, he'll have worked himself to the bone to make sure my name lost no honor because of him."
"You believe this is true skill, Director? Not a beginner's luck?"
"You said it yourself just now. Suho's results at the Research Center weren't handed to him—they were genuinely his own."
"That may be so, but..."
"The world is full of extraordinary people. Some start late and still show a genius's edge. And do you think luck alone carried him this far? He'll have sweated over his analysis where no one could see."
The clever rascal. Suho must have striven with everything he had for Geum Gaho, the man who had attached him to the company.
The smallest result would have earned him lavish praise. Instead, the boy had staged this entire surprise.
"Suho is working this hard—how can I keep standing on the sidelines?"
To be sure, Suho's methods were dangerous. That much was true. But when you pushed someone, pushing boldly was how you grew a person of real ability.
"He may have been lucky a few times, but if he keeps going this way, he's bound to make a mistake eventually."
"It's all right. I'm right behind Suho."
If Suho stumbled and fell, then Geum Gaho would reach out a hand and lift him up, saying it was all right.
You can do this. Just try again. That was the comfort he would offer.
Spoken with all the warmth of a father—the warmth he had owed the son who left this world before his good-for-nothing father ever could.