The Next Investment
I woke up.
“Haaam…”
When I looked beside me, there was Siyun, still sleeping soundly with soft, even breaths.
Even asleep, she was unbearably cute.
That wasn’t because of lust, either. Anyone could see how pretty she was right now.
I stared at her for a while, then slowly lifted my hand.
Siyun flinched. She opened her eyes a slit and looked up at me.
“Don’t stare so hard at me… I’ve just woken up, and my face must be a mess.”
“So what? You’re still beautiful.”
She shot me a sidelong glance, then burrowed back into my arms and let out those soft, sleepy breaths again. A bashful smile played at her lips.
“Hah… you smell nice.”
“Really?”
It was nice to know that using a good body wash had paid off.
“You can talk to me casually, you know.”
“Hmm… I think I’ll keep using honorifics. It’s not uncomfortable or anything. If anything, it feels a lot easier than before.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I mean, all my memories with you, Oppa, are in honorifics too… I kind of want to keep that intact. And if I suddenly started talking casually at home, people might think it was weird.”
“That’s true.”
Siyun had a point.
I could always say we’d just gotten close all of a sudden, but even that might raise eyebrows.
My aunt thought I was busy with work, so when would I have had the chance to meet Siyun and get this close to her?
We’d spent a whole year speaking politely to each other, after all.
We lay there for a while, holding each other.
“We’re late. Mom has a ton of missed calls from me. I told her I was sleeping at a friend’s place, but… I guess it got too late.”
“Shall we get up?”
“Yes.”
We got out of bed. We couldn’t stay there forever.
It was already fairly late in the afternoon. We’d spent most of the night tangled up in each other and only fallen asleep very late.
We headed to the bathroom together.
Standing side by side at the sink, we brushed our teeth in front of the mirror. I’d been with plenty of women before, but…
This was a first.
It wasn’t just lust. I liked Siyun herself, so something as simple as brushing our teeth together made a smile creep onto my face.
We even showered together.
After that, we came out of the bathroom.
My body had recovered enough that I could feel the urge to have her again, but that thought vanished the moment I saw Siyun limping along beside me.
“Um… what should I do? My clothes are way too dirty. If I wear yours, Oppa, people might think it’s weird…”
“I prepared some clothes for you. Just say you borrowed them from a friend.”
“Really? When did you even prepare all this?”
“My secretary stopped by the department store this morning. I bought something simple.”
I showed her the clothes.
The logo wasn’t very large.
It was Dior.
“...How is Dior supposed to be simple?”
“The logo’s small. Your aunt probably won’t notice.”
“Maybe, but… that’s not what I mean. I’m the one who feels burdened.”
“I already took the tags off, so I can’t return it. And like I’ve said before, this isn’t the kind of spending I’d ever feel burdened by. Especially if it’s for you.”
“...What are you saying?”
Siyun looked embarrassed, but my words seemed to help her let go of some of that pressure, and she put the clothes on.
Maybe she was finding meaning in the fact that I’d given them to her.
Once she was dressed, she got ready to leave.
“If you go downstairs, a car will be waiting for you. I’d like to take you myself, but… I’ve got something to do, so I don’t think I can.”
“It’s okay. I’m already grateful you’re taking me this far. I was thinking I might have to take the subway. Usually I’d be fine, but… right now my legs are a little shaky. And my lower stomach still aches.”
I stepped closer and held her tight.
Thinking about the time we’d spent together last night made my chest tighten.
“Siyun, have you ever thought about getting a driver’s license?”
“A license? I’ve never really thought about it…”
“If you get one, you can just drive one of the spare cars. And you can use this card for living expenses.”
“...What is this? It feels way too generous.”
“Nothing. I just wanted to do it. They say that when a man loves someone, he wants to give them everything. Besides… this doesn’t burden me at all.”
“...”
“And it’s better for the car to be driven by someone than to sit and rot in the parking lot every day.”
“Tch. I don’t have anything I can give you, though. Don’t you want anything, Oppa?”
“Not really, but…”
“I guess if there was something you wanted, you would’ve bought it by now… Hmm…”
“If there’s ever a time when I disappoint you, just forgive me once, okay?”
“Huh? You’re already preparing to disappoint me?”
“You never know. I don’t want to drift apart from you over something like that.”
“Of course. I don’t get disappointed over just anything.”
She really had better not.
The problem was that I had a feeling this wouldn’t be “just anything.”
I didn’t know. Let fate take the wheel.
But at least one thing was sincere: my love for Siyun.
Maybe I should move my nationality to the Middle East.
With my assets, it would probably be possible.
It was something I’d think about slowly.
***
After seeing Siyun off to the underground parking lot, I went back up to Signiel and headed to the investment room.
This time, the profit from my extreme investment was around 500 billion won.
Add in the 100 billion I already had, and my total cash assets came to 600 billion won.
That was after I’d already handed out performance bonuses of about 500 million won per employee on average, and as much as 1 billion won to some of them.
It was proof enough of just how successful this investment had been.
“Hmm…”
The results were the results.
Now I had to move on to a new investment.
I had 600 billion won in liquid cash. Even if I just let it sit in a bank account, the monthly return would be in the hundreds of millions.
Leaving that money alone would be no different from throwing money away.
I quickly checked the news and a bunch of charts. It was only now that I was starting to realize something…
I couldn’t deny that I had a talent for investing.
It would be impossible to deny, given that this time it had moved exactly in the direction I wanted.
Someday I might get burned badly, sure…
But by then, I’d probably already have made a ridiculous fortune.
Even my real estate alone was worth about 300 billion won right now.
Still, just in case…
“I should buy 100 billion won in spot Bitcoin.”
About 100 billion won should go into spot Bitcoin.
As my confidence in my own investing ability grew, the long-held hunch I’d had for years—that Bitcoin would break past 100 million won within a few years—was becoming more and more certain.
If I told someone that now, they’d call me crazy.
But then, this latest investment hadn’t been any different.
You had to be a little crazy to make big money.
I still had no intention of settling for this much.
I’d already come this far, so I might as well go all the way.
While I was looking things over, I noticed something.
“The mood is weird…”
Something about the current administration felt off.
It gave me the feeling that they were about to establish a new relationship with North Korea.
Of course, that fit this government’s tendencies to some extent… but this felt like it might go one step further.
Whether that was right or wrong didn’t matter to me.
What mattered was how I could turn it into profit.
That was the only direction that made sense for me.
For now, I drafted a portfolio with the possibility of a new relationship between South and North Korea in mind.
If I didn’t do that, I’d just end up with half-baked results.
“First, since the investment amount is so large, I’ll put about 300 billion won into the KOSPI futures index…”
As the amount of money grew, it became harder to pour huge sums into individual stocks.
Especially for me, since I wasn’t investing over a long period but trying to produce results in the short term.
The futures index was the best fit.
It could bring in massive gains, though if I was wrong, I could get wrecked instantly.
Still, if this guess held up even a little…
At the very least, this administration didn’t seem like it would push inter-Korean relations in an even worse direction.
From the remaining funds, I put about 150 billion won into ten to twenty stocks tied to inter-Korean economic cooperation, and since the won might also rise in the short term…
“Not bad.”
Just like last time, I made an extremely aggressive investment.
As long as you were a man, you had to go for broke and then some.
Even if I couldn’t expect a multi-bagger this time, if things went the way I expected, I could still see returns in the tens of percent.
After I finished organizing everything, I sent the details to the investment firm.
Everyone looked bewildered again, but since they already knew how the last one had turned out, no one voiced any real concern.
I was about to take a rest after wrapping things up when I noticed a missed call from my aunt.
When I called her back, she said,
“Well… I wanted to talk about that house in Seoul I mentioned before. Are you free sometime soon?”
“I’m done with work, so I’m free now too. If you’re available, Aunt…”
“Then can you meet me now?”
“I’ll come to your place.”
“I can come over, you know…”
“I was going to head out soon anyway.”
It seemed she’d reached a conclusion about whatever she’d been thinking over.
After getting ready to go out, I headed to my aunt’s place.
***
I went to her house.
My aunt said she was worried about Siyun’s feelings, so she suggested we talk at a café near the house.
When I got there, she said,
“...I know it’s shameless to ask, but could I rely on you? Since Siyun started college, it seems like commuting from here has gotten hard for her.”
Last night must have had some effect.
At least in part.
“Shameless? It’s not like that at all. When I had nothing, it was you who took me in, Aunt. If anything, I was the one asking you for something because it benefited me… but you accepted me purely for my sake.”
“...Thank you for saying that.”
It really had benefited me a lot.
When my aunt or noona wasn’t around, I could be with Siyun in a comfortable place…
and I could keep seeing my aunt and noona too.
Putting everything else aside…
Even if that hadn’t been the case, I sincerely hoped my aunt could be comfortable.