Dipping Into the World of Coins
In truth, he had taken a catastrophic hit a few years earlier from the Reina Coin crash.
He had maxed out every loan he could get his hands on, so the losses had been devastating.
After making decent money with coins for a while, he had overleveraged hard—only for every single coin to plummet straight to the floor.
He had scraped by for years after that, but recently the market had settled into something resembling stability, and it seemed he was at least managing to pay the interest on time.
“About a hundred million?”
He said it like it was nothing. My jaw dropped.
“You’re insane. Aren’t you unemployed? Who the hell would lend you that kind of money?”
“Everyone did, actually.”
“Ha. Right. Not your fault—the idiots who lent it to you.”
I shook my head and opened the window.
Cold air rushed in, and the stifling atmosphere in the room cleared a little.
Junseok hurriedly pulled on his coat.
“Try living with some ventilation.”
“So what brings you here? You haven’t shown your face in years.”
There was a faint edge of hurt in his voice.
“Don’t even start. Life’s been rough for me too.”
I sat down in the chair and got to the point.
“Anyway, about those coins. I’ve been thinking of giving them a try myself, so I looked around for someone with real experience and you came to mind.”
“You? Doing coins? Since when? You never touched them when I told you to.”
He tilted his head, clearly surprised.
“Well, these days pretty much everyone tries it once, right? Figured I’d come see your face while I was at it. No pressure. Just show me how you normally do things. A little extra explanation wouldn’t hurt. I just want to see the flow.”
“Well… that’s not hard… You seem different somehow.”
When I brushed it off like it was nothing, Junseok tilted his head again.
Of course I’ve changed. My brain has.
“I’m not that college kid anymore. I’m a seventh-year employee at a major corporation.”
“Bragging…”
“Not bragging. Just facts.”
“Do you know anything about coins?”
Junseok pulled a face like I was being insufferable and quickly changed the subject.
“I did some prep. Ran some analysis. Can read charts, understand the algorithms a little—but theory and practice are different, so I need to see it with my own eyes.”
Did he catch the sincerity in that? Junseok’s eyes widened slightly.
“Well, you’re not wrong. The coin market doesn’t move on simple calculations and guesses. Instinct takes up a huge chunk of it. Timing is everything.”
The moment we dove into actual coin talk, his eyes lit up and his voice changed completely.
That was how I began to dip my toes into the world of coins.
I spent the entire afternoon watching Junseok trade.
He mainly pulled profits through short-term trades—scalping. He didn’t win every single time, of course, but his success rate was solid.
According to him, coins still had no taxes unlike stocks, and the fees were cheap enough that scalping carried almost no real burden.
It was basically a legal gambling den someone had opened for free.
The wall of monitors was blasting nonstop footage.
Rapidly shifting order books, the flow of minute charts, global coin news, exchange announcements, community boards, live coin streams, U.S. stock broadcasts—everything.
Junseok’s eyes never stopped darting across the screens.
At the same time, the hand gripping the mouse moved almost reflexively, buying and selling every few seconds.
“It’ll bounce here. Now—timing! If it ticks up 0.002, take profit immediately…”
“No, cut losses now. The candle wick’s gotten way too long. Hesitate and you’re going straight to hell!”
He muttered like a man trapped in his own private world, hands never stopping. A strange madness flickered in his bloodshot eyes.
The addiction’s no joke. One wrong step and you could lose your mind. Gotta be careful.
I engraved every single one of his whispers deep into my brain.
It wasn’t simply listening with my ears.
My mind was patterning every word and every action of his.
The movements of the charts, the numbers, the time gaps between buys and sells, the microscopic shifts in the profit-loss curve after entering a position.
It was less like remembering and more like compressing everything into data.
What my eyes saw turned into formulas on the spot. What my ears heard reshaped itself like logic circuits and reconstructed inside my head. A truly efficient way of remembering.
Of course, only a tiny minority of people could ever do it.
One hour. Two hours. Three hours…
As time passed, Junseok’s scalping patterns became completely mine.
Around sunset.
I casually scanned the monitors covering the wall with an indifferent expression.
They were no longer just charts. I could feel the investment psychology and algorithms hidden inside them—even the stench of whale manipulation.
I never would have noticed any of that before. But now I had eyes that could read the board.
There were still a few anomalous movements I didn’t fully understand, but I figured I could carry that level of risk. As long as the gains outweighed the losses.
And if I layered in the low-risk profit methods I’d already mapped out, it would make for a pretty solid money-maker.
My own way of investing in coins.
Enough time had passed that fatigue was starting to set in. Being cooped up in the tiny room was getting stifling too.
How many hours have I been here?
I decided my brain needed a rest.
Junseok, completely oblivious to any tiredness, still couldn’t tear his gaze from the monitors.
Then his scrawny frame caught my eye.
At this rate he’ll die of malnutrition.
I shook my head and spoke.
“Aren’t you hungry? Let’s take a break.”
“……”
He kept staring at the screen as if he hadn’t heard a word. I shook his shoulder and tried again.
“Hey. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Huh? Huh? No way. This is a crucial timing. Big chance right now.”
Junseok couldn’t take his hand off the mouse.
“You still need to eat. Rest for an hour. You’re really going to starve to death. What are you going to do when you don’t even have the strength left to hold the mouse?”
When I spoke half-forcefully, he finally let go. Or rather, the mouse talk probably hit harder than my tone.
“Wash up roughly and come out. We’re eating outside.”
“Eating out… wastes time, and it’s cold.”
“Your friend shows up after all this time and you want to eat here?”
When Junseok made a reluctant face, I widened my eyes at him.
“Ha, fine. Wait a sec.”
He must have known his place was a dump, so he reluctantly disappeared into the bathroom.
A little later when we stepped outside, the sun had already set and neon signs of every color were flashing along the streets.
The downtown area quickly filled with throngs of college students.
Even in the dead of winter, they hadn’t given up on looking good.
“Must be nice being young.”
“You… seem better now than when you were a student? Back then you were such a loser…”
Junseok, who had been quietly trailing behind me, said.
This little shit, going straight for the facts…
“Is that jjaguli place still around?”
“Hmm… it was two years ago.”
“Stupid of me to ask. Let’s go.”
We wove through the alleys with familiar footsteps.
And we arrived at a kimchi stew house. The shop was the same. The owner was the same.
We’d gone there so often during school, yet the owner didn’t recognize us.
Well, of course he didn’t.
The stew came out quickly, and a generous spread was set on the table.
“Let’s eat.”
“Yeah.”
Even before the first bite, saliva was already pooling in my mouth.
It’s been so long.
I picked up kimchi and green onion together and put them in my mouth. Then a piece of meat with my chopsticks.
The well-fermented kimchi crunched.
The sourness that hit the salivary glands and the deep, rich savoriness of pork fat that had steeped thoroughly wrapped around my tongue.
The acidity from the lactic acid fermentation of aged kimchi, the protein breakdown products from the meat’s fat, and the aroma amplified by the broth’s salt and heat combining… Ah! Stop thinking!
The moment my brain started racing on its own, I quickly began singing the national anthem in my head.
East sea waters and Baekdu…
Just then Junseok, who had been pecking at his rice, looked at me as if something had just occurred to him.
“Oh, did you hear? Joo Eunhye’s getting married.”
“Huh?”
At his words, I stopped singing the anthem.
A few hours later.
On the way home after parting with Junseok.
Riding the subway, I pulled old memories to the surface.
Joo Eunhye had been a junior in college.
Around the time I graduated, we started a modest little relationship.
You could call it youth, of sorts.
But those good times ended quite badly.
I graduated after dating her and soon landed a job at LK.
She went on to graduate school after college to earn her degree, and I devoted myself body and soul to taking care of her for that.
But shockingly, it hadn’t even lasted two full years when I found out she had been with some model for over a year.
To her, I had been nothing more than a wallet and a servant—nothing more, nothing less.
The shock left me unable to live a proper life for a while.
The betrayal cut as deep as the trust I had placed in her. Thanks to that, my company life completely turned into isolated hermit mode.
That was when I decided.
I would never trust a woman again.
“Hmm.”
I soon set the thoughts aside and checked coin-related news.
My current state of mind was pure calm.
Something felt strange.
In the past I would have been sniffling or sunk in gloom, but now I truly felt nothing.
It was just like discovering one broken piece of my life and remaining completely indifferent.
I even thought it was fortunate I had learned early what kind of animal women were.
By the time I got home it was late at night.
My younger brother was watching TV in the living room. Glancing over, it was a cooking variety show. Lately there had been a lot of those.
“Dinner?”
My brother glanced at me and asked.
“Met a friend after a long time and ate. You?”
“I ate something roughly.”
His expression was blank, his voice lacking any energy.
Had the interview today gone badly?
I was curious but held back. The atmosphere wasn’t right for talking now. He would speak when he wanted to.
So I changed the subject.
“Alright. Need anything, or anything inconvenient?”
“No, nothing. By the way, why’s the house so clean? Honestly, I was surprised. It’s gotten super tidy since I last saw it.”
“Well, I only moved in not long ago. I’m gonna wash up.”
I brushed it off roughly and took off my coat.
Then I went into the bathroom and washed with cold water even in the dead of winter. It felt like my mind snapped fully awake.
After a refreshing shower I headed toward the kitchen and asked my brother,
“Want a beer?”
“I’m good.”
“Then I’m heading in first. Work tomorrow.”
I filled a glass with water and headed for my room.
“Yeah, rest. I’ll watch some TV then go up.”
“Alright then.”
“Hyung.”
Just as I was about to enter the room, my brother called me.
When I poked my head out, he continued.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“You’re being weird. Go to sleep.”
I went back into the room and closed the door.
“Hmm…”
Then I stood still for a moment, lost in thought. Looking back to childhood, whenever my lively little brother got down, I used to buy him ice cream to cheer him up.
Ice cream, huh… No. Beomjin’s not a kid anymore.
I quietly opened mobile banking and sent money to my brother. Then I sent a message.
And while I was at it, I sent a little allowance to my younger sister, who had only just started working and was probably struggling.
Then a reply came from my brother.