Looking for Someone
Even though he had indulged his carnal appetites all through the previous night, the thirst that dominated Jihoon's mind refused to be quenched.
He had called the hotel to casually announce his resignation over the phone, and now he couldn't even properly recall the voice that had rung out on the other end of the line.
Early the next morning, having rushed through the luxury hotel's breakfast buffet without really tasting it, Jihoon headed straight for the most exclusive international matchmaking agency in South Korea, located in the heart of Gangnam.
The moment he pushed through the glass doors, the female staff in crisp uniforms rose from their seats in unison behind a marble information desk polished to a mirror shine and bowed at the waist.
"Welcome, sir. How may we help you?"
"Hmm... I'm here to look into an international marriage."
At his words, a male branch manager in a sharp suit appeared immediately and courteously escorted him to a VIP consultation room.
Once they were seated across from each other on plush sofas in a soundproofed private room, the manager pulled out a top-of-the-line tablet and put on a pleasant, sales-floor smile.
"Thank you for choosing our agency. With all the issues in the domestic marriage market lately, capable gentlemen have been flocking to our VVIP international matching service. Did you have a particular country in mind? These days, the overwhelming majority of our clients look for brides from Japan — smaller cultural differences, and they're wonderfully devoted to supporting their husbands..."
"Russia."
Jihoon cut him off without ceremony.
"Ah... Russia, you say?"
A flicker of discomfort crossed the manager's face.
Tapping the tablet screen lightly, he spoke with careful deliberation.
"Sir, as you've no doubt seen on the news... Russia is currently several years into a grinding, deadlocked war with its neighbor, the Ukelaistan Republic. The situation on the ground is extremely unstable, so it could be dangerous. Might I suggest somewhere else instead? There are breathtakingly beautiful women in other Eastern European countries, or Central Asia, or Southeast Asia — any of those would be..."
Bringing a bride out of a war zone was a risky, margin-thinning headache for the agency as well.
The manager tried every angle to steer him toward another country, but Jihoon's answer didn't waver by a hair.
"Russia."
Jihoon rested his chin on his hand and let the word out quietly, yet with an air of absolute, crushing finality.
The manager rolled his eyes for a moment as if flustered, then — the seasoned salesman that he was — cleared his throat and adjusted his attitude.
"Ahem, well... if that's what the customer truly wants, it's not impossible. We have solid connections with high-level brokers on the ground. That said, given the wartime circumstances, the matching fee and processing costs could be considerably... a great deal more expensive than usual."
The manager raised the barrier of cost as subtly as he could and watched Jihoon's reaction.
"I don't care what it costs."
"Ah... is that so? Excellent."
A peculiar glint flashed in the manager's eyes.
"In that case, do you have a preferred type in mind? And forgive me, but our VVIP matching service does require prior proof of financial capacity — assets, occupation, and so on..."
"Blonde."
Jihoon cut him off once again and began listing his requirements.
"Early twenties, without exception. She must be a pure virgin who's never so much as touched a man. And..."
Jihoon paused for a moment, summoning the vision of that perfect beauty who had screamed so sweetly beneath him.
"Her name must be Yevgenya."
"...I'm sorry?"
The manager's fingers, transcribing the conditions into his tablet, froze mid-air.
Blonde, twenties, a virgin — fine, he could swallow all that. But singling out a specific name made the manager's brow crease instantly.
He set down his pen, crossed his arms, and shot back in a voice that made no effort to hide his displeasure.
"Sir. Are you playing some kind of joke on us? Or... are you here to track down one specific person in Russia? I'm afraid we are a top-tier VVIP matchmaking firm facilitating legal marriage, not some errand service or PI outfit. If you're here to mess around, then this meeting is—"
"This is not a joke."
With a stone-cold expression, Jihoon pulled his smartphone from his pocket.
"Top-tier matching fee, the Russian broker's fee, tips — the whole thing, add it all up. What's the total? Give me your corporate account number."
The manager, dumbfounded, rattled off the corporate account number printed on the back of his business card.
Jihoon tapped the screen a few times, scanned his security card without a moment's hesitation, and hit the transfer button.
Cha-ching—
At that very instant, a notification chimed on the manager's work phone, which sat on the consultation desk.
The manager glanced down at the screen with an irritated expression. And half a second later, his eyeballs nearly popped out of his skull.
Amount: ₩100,000,000
Depositor: Kim Jihoon
"Oh... OH!! S-sir!!"
The manager's attitude did a complete 180 — the same man who'd been lecturing him with a scowl seconds ago.
He sprang up from his chair and practically threw himself across the floor, bowing at a rigid ninety degrees.
"Forgive me, I failed to recognize a heavenly VVIP client and dared to be rude! No, no — you needn't have wired anything so immediately, without asking a single question...!"
Before money, the manager's face was smeared with pure ecstasy and servility. He rubbed his palms together shamelessly, sweat beading down his face.
"Please don't worry, Chairman! No — sir! For a successful and blessed union, we will scrape together every last scrap of our Russian network, body and soul! Blonde, early twenties, virgin, named Yevgenya — we'll run our local staff ragged without a wink of sleep if that's what it takes to present this perfect woman to you by tomorrow!!"
Jihoon leaned back against the sofa at a slant, looking down at the manager scrambling before him, and smirked.
"Good. I'll pour in as much money as it takes, so skip the methods and formalities and find her fast."
"Do you even need to ask! Just leave it to us!"
As Jihoon left the consultation room, he loosened his tie.
It was a mad move, spraying a fortune into thin air — but the money didn't sting at all.
'Is she a woman who actually exists somewhere in reality, or is she just an imaginary friend — my own little head-buddy — existing only inside the dreams my desires cooked up? I'm genuinely, maddeningly curious, that's why.'
Jihoon's next destination was the VIP center at the main branch of a major securities firm in Yeouido.
To be sure, in this day and age there was nothing stopping him from using a mobile trading app or opening an account online.
But the capital Jihoon intended to move was no pocket change.
Converting a cool 1 billion won and more into dollars in one go and buying foreign stocks was a large-scale operation — and once you factored in a banking app's daily transfer limits and the discounted FX rates, walking into the securities firm's center, meeting a PB face-to-face, and being treated like a VIP was far faster and more profitable than doing it remotely.
A private VIP consultation room.
Across an elegant hardwood desk, a beautiful female PB in an immaculate uniform brought up a tablet screen with a soft, melodic voice.
Having just verified the enormous sum transferred from Jihoon's VIP account, she leaned forward slightly and requested his signature.
"Sir, do you confirm the following, as you've just instructed: the full 1 billion won transferred from your account will be converted entirely into US dollars at the current exchange rate and deposited immediately into your overseas stock margin account? We've applied a 100% VIP special exchange rate discount for you."
"Yes, please proceed."
Jihoon flashed a relaxed smile and scrawled his signature on the electronic pad.
'Heh. No matter how much money you have, letting it rot in a savings account is for idiots. Park 1 billion in solid, high-dividend US stocks and millions of won in dollars come sailing into your account every month just for breathing. This is what real passive income for the wealthy looks like.'
Dollar assets were, at all times, the finest insurance and the safest road.
And then he began scrolling through luxury apartment listings on his smartphone.
"Now, time to seriously go apartment hunting."
He had already contacted a handful of real estate agencies, played the VIP client, and booked viewings of some promising urgent-sale listings.
Originally, he'd planned to go straight for a lavish, brand-new high-rise apartment, no question.
But the grim state of the newly built apartments plastered across the news lately had changed his mind.
'The condition of these new builds is an absolute circus. Reputable brand-name apartments getting mocked as "instant-death apartments" for skimping on rebar, sewage flooding the underground parking garage every time it rains, ceilings caving in — shoddy construction everywhere you look. I'm not dumping my hard-earned money into one of those slapdash builds.'
Jihoon nodded to himself as he swiped through the screen.
'Better to go with a large-floor, solidly built premium complex from around a decade ago — a bit of age on it, but constructed with the finest materials and a rock-solid frame. As long as the bones are good, I can just throw a few hundred million into a full remodel and turn the interior into a five-star hotel suite anyway.'
A spacious living room, a panoramic view, and a master bedroom with an enormous king-size bed that could withstand a night of rolling around like beasts without so much as a creak.
He was browsing the real estate listings, picturing the nights that awaited him in that perfect space, when it happened.
Riiing— Riiing—!
Suddenly his smartphone screen switched from the real estate app to an incoming call and began ringing loudly.
The caller on the screen was none other than the branch manager from the international matchmaking agency he'd visited that morning.
"Huh...? Already? Seriously?"