The Night Our Family Left Poverty Behind
─ ························.
With the whole family gathered in the kitchen, only an odd silence hung in the air.
All of their attention was fixed on the numbers glowing on my laptop screen.
> Deposit Balance: 145,356,412,185 won
The sheer weight of that number was staggering.
To an ordinary person, 145.3 billion won would hardly feel real.
"······."
My father blinked in silence.
His lips trembled, but no sound managed to force its way out.
My mother was the same, and so was Seohee sitting beside me.
With chopsticks frozen in their hands, they looked back and forth between me and the monitor like dolls someone had forgotten to wind up.
They must be in shock.
I swallowed a wry smile.
That was only natural.
It was bad enough that their son, fresh into college, had suddenly declared, "I’m running a business," but now there was an astronomical figure sitting in his bank account.
And this wasn’t even my entire fortune, just a portion of it. For someone with a weak heart, it would hardly have been strange if they’d toppled backward on the spot.
Then, at last:
"W-wait, just what······"
After a long while, my mother found her voice.
The end of it quivered slightly. It was a voice tangled with joy, awe, surprise, and a faint, unavoidable thread of disbelief.
"What on earth are you doing to make this kind of money? This is······ more than you could win even if you hit the lottery a hundred times, isn’t it? Are you sure you’re not doing something dangerous? No, even if it were dangerous, I don’t think you could make this much······"
"It’s not dangerous, Mom."
I cut her off gently, trying to reassure her.
"Honestly, it’s money you’d be hard-pressed to even see from most businesses."
I admitted it calmly and closed the laptop a little.
Only after the screen disappeared did everyone’s gaze finally settle on me.
"To put it simply, I’m selling computer programs."
"Computer programs?"
My mother’s brow furrowed.
"It’s only been a little over a month since you entered college······ and you’re already at the point where you can sell things like that?"
"I was preparing before I got into college. I studied for the CSAT, but I also worked on computer programming and business plans whenever I had time."
"······Before college?"
My father’s eyes widened.
"No, I mean······ studying doesn’t mean you can just turn it into a business. And succeeding this big, too······"
Even now, both my mother and father still looked unconvinced.
I took a sip of water and started explaining in the simplest way I could.
"Dad, Mom. Have you heard of something called a smartphone?"
"A smartphone?"
"Yes. It hasn’t officially arrived in Korea yet, so it’d be unfamiliar. To put it simply, think of it as something halfway between a cellphone and a computer. ...It might be easier if I show you."
I opened the laptop again and searched for the Apple Phone on the internet.
Holding up the image, I said, "This is a smartphone called the Apple Phone. It can make calls, but you can also use it to go on the internet, play games, and do work. In the future, everyone in the world will have one of these. I make the programs that go inside those smartphones and sell them."
My father carefully studied the Apple Phone.
"Who exactly are you selling those programs to that you’re making this much money?"
It was a pointed question.
In moments like this, the best answer was to borrow a little authority.
"Right now, my main client is Apple."
"Apple?"
"Yes. The company that makes this smartphone."
My father tilted his head.
Apple still isn’t all that famous in Korea, so that makes sense.
"Well, Apple is a very famous computer company in the United States. Right now, its market cap is even larger than Seongsam Electronics."
"L-larger than Seongsam?"
"Yes."
My father’s eyes went round.
A company bigger than Seongsam, the heart of the Korean economy.
To my parents, who had lived their whole lives only in Korea, it must have sounded almost impossible.
"Apple isn’t famous here yet, but globally it is. And to be precise, I’m not exactly selling programs directly to Apple······ but since they distribute them to people all over the world, the gist is the same."
"Uh······. I-I see?"
"Yes. And recently, I signed a contract with Seongsam Electronics too."
At that, my mother, who had been listening quietly, suddenly widened her eyes.
"Y-you signed a contract with Seongsam Electronics?"
"Yes."
"The same Seongsam your mom knows? That······ the company that made your dad’s cellphone?"
"Yes, that one."
"My goodness······"
My mother’s pupils shook violently.
More than Apple or anything else from America, the line "He signed a contract with Seongsam Electronics" seemed to have hit home.
"My son······ works with that incredible Seongsam······?"
"Mr. Kang kept bragging that his son got into Seongsam Electronics······ and my son signed a contract with Seongsam Electronics······?"
My parents stared blankly at each other, as if they couldn’t tell whether this was a dream or reality.
Then Seohee, who had been keeping quiet, carefully cut in.
"Th-then······ the program Oppa sells?"
"More precisely, it’s an application. We shorten it to app. Why?"
"What is it that makes that earn so much money? Is it a program I know too······ an app?"
Seohee’s eyes were a mix of pure curiosity and awe.
"You probably don’t know it, because smartphones still aren’t common in Korea. But if I were to tell you what I made······ well, there’s an app that lets you send texts for free."
"Free texts?"
"Yeah. You can chat without paying message fees. And there’s one that makes your photos look prettier by removing blemishes when you take them. There’s also one that connects people who need a taxi with people going in the same direction."
"Oh······ I-I see?"
Seohee nodded.
It probably didn’t mean much to someone who had never used a smartphone, but at the mention of photos turning out pretty, her ears seemed to perk up.
"I’ll probably release a game this weekend, or by next Monday at the latest."
"A game?"
"Yeah. It hasn’t been released yet, so I don’t know exactly how much it’ll make, but I think it’ll sell pretty well."
I mentally calculated the projected revenue for Crazy Bird.
"In a few days, I’ll probably make around ten billion won."
─ ······Ten, ten billion?
The same words burst out of my family’s mouths at once.
They’d already been shocked by the 145 billion, and now I was saying I’d make another ten billion in just a few days.
"Yes, around ten billion."
"N-no, Oppa. How can you be that sure? Ten billion······ I can’t even imagine how much that is."
Seohee asked back, sounding completely unconvinced.
I looked at her and grinned.
"Because I’m confident."
"······Confident?"
"Yeah. Confident."
At my utterly matter-of-fact answer, Seohee could only stare at me with wide eyes, blinking blankly.
I smiled at her, then turned back to my parents.
Now it was time for the most important part.
"Anyway, now you understand, right? Don’t worry about Seohee traveling or about money. And if either of you wants to travel, just say where you want to go."
"······."
"If there’s anything you want to do, don’t hold back. Tell me everything. And Dad."
"W-what?"
My father flinched and looked at me.
I studied his rough hands for a moment, then spoke from the heart.
"You don’t have to keep working so hard anymore. I mean it. You can retire."
"······."
"You spent your whole life supporting the family. You should rest now. Dad, you watch fishing channels on TV all the time, so I’ll buy you a nice boat and you can just go fishing. I’ll even hire you a captain."
My proposal left the table in silence for a moment.
A son telling his father to retire.
For a Korean head of the household, that was the greatest form of filial piety and, at the same time, one of the strangest things he could possibly hear.
A slow smile spread across my father’s face as he listened to me in silence.
The expression that had long been shadowed by poverty brightened completely, and the smile that emerged looked genuinely comfortable, almost startlingly relieved.
"······It means a lot to me that you’d say that to me and to your mother."
My father looked me straight in the eye and said, clasping his hands together.
"But I’m going to keep working."
"What? Why? You don’t have to anymore."
"A person needs work. Especially a man. A man needs work."
It was a refusal, firm but gentle.
There was the pride of a man who had spent his life holding his family up through labor.
"Still······ thank you. Like you said, Dohyun, from now on I’ll live without worrying about money and with a lighter heart. With my back covered like this, I’ll probably be able to work without caring what other people think, too."
My father didn’t choose to stop working completely and live a leisurely life supported by his children.
I felt a little disappointed by that decision, but somewhere deep down, I think I had expected this all along.
Yeah. Father would be the type to say that.
"Understood, Dad. Just tell me anytime you need anything. Change your car, too, and if anything happens at work, let me know."
"Heh-heh, sure. Got it."
"Mom, too. You used to say you wanted to run a little cafe or something, right? If you still want that, you can do it. I can make it happen."
"A cafe?"
"Yes."
My mother’s eyes sparkled at my words.
She seemed like she wanted to open a cafe, or maybe not; I couldn’t really tell.
"Or you can just rest properly and hire someone to help with the housework. Don’t touch water with your hands anymore. From now on."
"Oh······ I-I see. Your mom will have to think over some happy worries."
My mother smiled shyly, like a girl.
She couldn’t decide immediately, but the excitement on her face was more than enough.
After speaking to my parents, I finally turned to Seohee.
"And you too, Seohee. From now on, if there’s something you want to do but money is making you hesitate, call your oppa right away. Got it?"
"Ah, okay!"
Seohee nodded.
Then my mother said in a deliberately stern voice, "Kim Seohee! That doesn’t mean you can just ask your brother to buy you nonsense! And Dohyun, you don’t buy her everything she asks for either. It’s your money, not Seohee’s. She can’t get spoiled."
"Aww······ but Oppa said he’d buy it······"
"Ahem!"
"Ah, okay. I’ll only ask for the things I really need······"
"Tell your mom about the things you really need. I’ll buy those."
"······What about the things I need just a little less?"
"Sigh. Just ask for things that won’t burden your brother, okay?"
"Hehe······"
Without meaning to, a smile slipped onto my face as I watched the two of them.
Ah. This was happiness.
Then, just in case, I asked Seohee something else.
"Seohee, you haven’t been feeling down at school because everyone there’s rich, right? Has anyone ever said anything about money to you?"
If there was someone like that, I’d just make sure they knew their place.
"Nope, no way! Who do you think I am? I’m not the kind of person who gets discouraged!"
Bang bang!
Seohee thumped her own chest with both hands.
The sight of her so spiritedly made me laugh under my breath before I could stop myself.
"Good. You’re the richest one at your school, so don’t get intimidated. Okay?"
"M-me, the richest······? Y-yeah!"
Seohee smiled brightly and picked up her spoon again.
The stew had gone cold, and it was still cold, but the atmosphere around the table was warmer than it had ever been.
And so our family’s cheerful meal went on.
As we ate, we agreed that for the time being, only our family would know about my business and my money.
Seohee seemed curious about why that had to be, but she still nodded right away and decided to follow my lead, saying, "If Oppa says so, I’ll listen!" and my parents seemed to understand without me even needing to explain.
Anyway, that was how it happened.
Today, at last, it truly felt like our family had walked out of the long tunnel of poverty.
And that night, Zero sent me a report.
> Master, the review for Crazy Bird has been completed. It was approved and launched on the app store immediately.
The legendary game Crazy Bird, which would go on to achieve one billion downloads worldwide, had been released into the world.