The Cosmic Lottery and an Old Friend's Wallet
Wow. So that's what it looked like when it came down.
I'd been staying at the abandoned house in Ugok 1-ri, which had no electricity, so I hadn't seen the news in a while. But watching the meteor blaze down now, my jaw dropped right open.
I could see why people called meteorites a cosmic lottery. There was no telling where one would land as it tore across the sky like that — which meant nobody could ever guess whose hands it would fall into.
Luck.
Pure and simple, I was holding the universe's good fortune in my palms.
How does a meteor land right next to where I'm sleeping?
The anchor kept narrating over the repeated footage of the fall.
"In most meteor showers that adorn the night sky so beautifully, the majority turn out to be debris from artificial satellites igniting as they pass through the atmosphere. However, this particular shower has been confirmed to be genuine meteorites."
Well, they certainly reported that fast.
I'd already reported one and sold it, after all. And here was the important part: what I sold was just one of five.
I'd let a 2.3-billion-won piece go for 1.5 billion — my contribution to Korea's aerospace development.
Consider it an act of patriotism.
Let them study the origins of the universe and the planet Mars with it. As for the other four, my lips were sealed. I was going to get their proper price, after all.
The researcher had told me I must never take a meteorite out of the country myself. But whatever the person who bought it from me did with it overseas — that was none of my business, was it?
It sold at auction in Australia for 2.3 billion, so even if someone buys mine from me for 2 billion, that leaves them a tidy 300 million in profit for the trouble.
"Transport fee" was an odd way to put it, sure. Either way, dumping all of them at once for a bargain price felt like a good way to become a chump.
So I gathered up my four meteorites and headed up to Seoul.
What was my old profession, you ask? Banker.
Deposit 1.5 billion in cash, and the bank's treatment of you changes overnight — private safe deposit boxes included. You had to pay storage fees, of course, but there was nowhere on earth safer to keep a priceless Martian meteorite.
I deposited the cash and locked the meteorites away in the private vault. The 1.5 billion I planned to invest, after building a proper portfolio.
Ex-banker, remember? I can put a portfolio together in my sleep.
Once the banking was done, I found myself out drinking with high school classmates for the first time in ages. Apparently, strange rumors had been circulating ever since I'd submitted my resignation at the bank and left for Gangwon Province.
Word was I'd been fired over illegal loans. Someone even claimed I'd gone insane.
So I'd shown up to the gathering partly to prove I was perfectly fine, but here these jackals were, busy bragging about money.
They have no idea I'm the richest one here, and they're all measuring acorns with the same ruler.
My plan was to clear out the moment my closest friend, Ko Min-seok, arrived. I fixed my eyes on the bar's TV instead.
"The meteorites that fell around Mount Odae are believed to be fragments produced when Mars exploded. Since meteorites are traditionally named after the location of their discovery, these have been designated the Ugok Meteorites."
I had specifically begged them to keep my identity out of it when I handed the thing over — and they went and publicized the village name, leaving out only mine.
A quick search online told me there were people all over the world calling themselves meteorite hunters.
They're not going to come tearing up the back mountain making a racket hunting for meteorites, are they?
That was when my brows were still knitted together.
"Yunho, isn't that somewhere near where you moved to? Mount Odae in Gangwon, right?"
Jin-soo, who worked at a public corporation, tapped my arm and struck up conversation.
"Yeah, more or less."
"Hey! Forget the farming or whatever it is you're doing and go hunt meteorites instead. Who knows — maybe you'll find one!"
Already found them and sold them, you punk.
Jin-soo had always harbored a quiet competitiveness toward me. When I'd gotten into the bank back in the day, he'd brushed it off — what good was a big salary? — and puffed himself up about the iron rice bowl of a civil service job. Maybe because that sight annoyed someone else, another friend decided to poke at him.
"And what about you, Jin-soo? You're the one who should be out hunting meteorites. Didn't you blow your entire savings on crypto?"
"Hey, my family's got money, okay?"
"That's your money? That's your father's money."
"Between parents and kids, what's yours and mine even mean?"
This is why I avoid my high school classmates. Every get-together starts with money talk and ends with money talk. Especially the guys who are a little short on cash or down on their luck — they'll pretend to be worried about you just so they can needle you to the very end.
"I'm honestly worried sick about Yunho. He's the worst off out of any of us right now."
So today's main course was going to be me, apparently.
Starting with Jin-soo, everyone chimed in with their piece of advice.
"If you're not rehired within six months of quitting, it's over, period. You really want to slam the door on your life like that?"
"Yunho, you always cooked well. Use your severance to open a restaurant or something. I'll drive customers your way."
"Hey, hey! Leave Yunho alone! He was sick, remember? You guys really have no heart."
Having pretended to take my side, Jin-soo finally went in for the kill.
"I heard ringing in the ears means something's wrong with the brain. Can't that be fixed with surgery? Don't you have to be on psychiatric medication or something?"
"Hahaha."
Funny how wealth makes a man generous.
I burst out laughing and grabbed Jin-soo by the shoulder.
"Jin-soo."
"Huh? What."
"Tonight's tab's on you. You're doing the best out of all of us, after all. Your dad owns property in Gangnam, and like you said — between parents and children, there's no yours and mine, right?"
"W-well, fine. It's not every day you come down from Gangwon."
Just then the door jingled open and Ko Min-seok walked into the bar.
"Hey, sorry. Tried to wrap up work as fast as I could, but I'm late."
"Nah, you're fine. Now that Min-seok's here, let's move to another table. Looks like he hasn't eaten, so let's find a place where we can eat and drink together."
I stood up and casually slid the bill toward Jin-soo.
"Thanks for the meal."
"Huh? Uh— sure."
As I walked out with Min-seok, the others scrambled up from their seats and filed out after us. Glancing back through the window, I saw Jin-soo pulling out several cards, desperately trying to figure out which ones still had credit left on them.
Aigoo, poor thing. Making money off crypto — like that's something just anyone can do, huh?
I smirked and shot Min-seok a look — a signal that I had something to discuss in private.
"Yeah? What's up?"
"It's nothing much. I bought an abandoned house in Gangwon Province. I'm planning to remodel it, and I want you to do the design."
Min-seok worked at an architectural firm, drawing interior blueprints on CAD and placing furniture orders.
"So you bought a house? Congratulations. But you're remodeling instead of tearing it down?"
"Yeah. I took photos and showed them to a carpenter named Master Jang, and he said the pillars and beams are all still sound — better to renovate than tear it down and rebuild from scratch."
"That's going to cost a lot of money."
Min-seok clearly couldn't bring himself to eagerly recommend a project that would run into serious money. I understood why. Knowing Min-seok's personality, he'd never dream of charging me for drawing my house plans and sourcing the furniture.
But I had no intention of bleeding my friend dry, thank you very much.
I pulled out an envelope and tucked it into Min-seok's pocket.
"That's the upfront cost for the blueprints. I put in two million."
The plan was to pay him in stages as the work progressed — blueprints, revisions, furniture orders, all of it.
"Hey, how am I supposed to take your money—"
"Shh!"
Min-seok's mother was battling cancer. He'd come back from his army leave and gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and now he was a father of two — a son, and a daughter born just this year. A household head responsible for his mother, his wife, both children, and his own mouth besides.
"It's just the upfront fee for the drawings. I'll keep depositing as the work adds up."
"Yah, Kim Yunho."
"What? Ko Min-seok?"
Min-seok's house had been close to our school, so I used to skip self-study sessions all the time and go over there to boil ramyeon. And every time, his mother would slip me some pocket money too.
I draped an arm around Min-seok's shoulders.
"I'm asking you because I'd rather not deal with some stranger's attitude. You'll be swamped, but do me this favor."
"Do I really have to take this?"
"Take it. I'm rich."
Very, very rich, as it happens.
I grinned and kept going.
"I want the remodel done so it's warm in winter, cool in summer, and — oh, and built so it stays looking clean even if I slack off on the cleaning. Help me out, come on!"
In the end, Min-seok couldn't refuse me.
"Fine. Write down everything you want and sketch whatever pictures you can, and send it all to my email. I'll go through it and give you feedback. This isn't something that happens in one pass."
"Okay."
After stuffing myself with food and drink alongside my high school classmates for the first time in ages, I crawled back to my parents' place. I'd never actually moved out — I'd always lived with them — but ever since I'd left for Gangwon Province, my parents had been off traveling every other day. So when I woke up in the morning, the house was empty except for me.
In the fridge was a note in my mother's hand: I made side dishes — take them with you.
When I opened it, there sat my favorite soy-braised beef, chestnut kimchi, and braised tofu, each container bearing a sticker that read "Yunho's side dishes."
Mom, honestly.
I packed up the food and, in the empty space left behind, set down envelopes holding a million won each. Then I chuckled to myself and added labels: "Spending money for Yunho's mom" and "Spending money for Yunho's dad."
Please don't fight over it — just spend it. Haha.
Even though I'd only spent a single night in Seoul, my whole body felt stiff and heavy. Desperate to get home and rest properly, I drove straight through to Ugok 1-ri without even stopping at a rest area.
And then—
What on earth? Why is there all this traffic?
Cars were lined up in a long queue from the two-lane road into the village — every single one of them headed for Ugok 1-ri. The road was just wide enough that when one car passed, an oncoming car had to pull over, so the two directions had tangled into a standoff.
"Beep-beeeep, hey there! Stop! I said stop!"
Far down the road, the Village Head was blowing a whistle and directing traffic. I got out of my car and walked over to him.
"Sir, what on earth is going on here?"
"Well, you see, apparently a meteorite fell on the mountain behind our village."
Once the news had aired, the meteorite hunters and the fortune-chasers hoping to strike it lucky had come pouring in — and on top of them, the YouTubers.
"Folks are just setting up their tents and leaving. What if someone wanders into another person's tent and turns it inside out looking for meteorites?"
"Could happen. That's exactly why you need dogs in the countryside."
"Dogs, sir?"
"That's right. They say a dog with white fur chases off ghosts. I know what I'm talking about — you're the one who saw that ghost... no, that person in the Saemaul hat."
A white-furred dog chases off ghosts? Then maybe I should never, ever get one?
Because ever since the old man in the Saemaul hat told me to leave liquor and meat in the kitchen, only good things had been happening. I woke up in the morning with my head clear, and the very next dawn a meteorite landed in my yard and made me rich.
Maybe connecting all of that to the old man didn't hold up logically. But for someone who'd actually lived through it, the gut feeling was unmistakable. The moments in life when you meet a benefactor are few and far between — and I'd already met mine. And that benefactor was none other than that old man in the Saemaul hat.
But wait. Didn't the Village Head say there was no such man when I told him about the Saemaul-hat old man?
And now here he was, all but declaring the man a ghost outright. I'd felt it before, but it really did seem like the Village Head was hiding something.