Lustful Cravings -1
July 2015. At last, summer break for my first year of high school had begun.
"Wooow~ It's summer break~~~"
"I know it's break. You don't have to shout it every single morning."
"But it is summer break!"
"Yeah, and who the hell doesn't know that?"
A few days into the vacation, and Eunsol still came bursting out of her room every morning yelling about summer break. Everyone else had long since decided to treat it as her version of a good morning and simply ignored her. Me? I was the one who kept getting jolted awake by that voice, and it was starting to seriously piss me off.
Clatter-clatter-clatter—
Nothing beats cereal for breakfast.
I dumped a mountain of it into a huge bowl and poured half a carton of milk over the top. That was about the right amount if I wanted to feel full.
Lee Naye, on the other hand, was carefully measuring out a mouse-dropping's worth of cereal into a dish the size of a soy-sauce saucer and filling the rest with milk.
"You actually get full off that?"
"Mind your own business, you pervert."
"Would you stop calling me that already..!!"
"Hmph."
Ever since the whole panty incident with Eunsol, Naye refused to speak to me first and acted like she didn't even know I existed. Whenever she did glance my way, her eyes were pure contempt.
"Naye~ Don't be so hard on Sunwoo. Sol's fine with showing him her panties~"
"How is that fine?! If you keep saying crap like that, this pervert will just—"
"I'm not fine with it either, okay!!"
"Hey! Why are you going into your room?! You're gonna look at something weird in there, aren't you!!"
"Mind your own business!"
"Hiiing.. Sunwoo's leaving...."
I grabbed my cereal bowl and retreated to my room. Even breakfast deserved to be peaceful.
"Shouldn't have said anything..!"
I sat down in front of the computer and shoveled cereal into my mouth with pure irritation.
Most rooms in our orphanage were four-person bunk setups, but mine was a single. No special treatment—I'd just converted an old storage closet into a bedroom. And the reason I needed the privacy was exactly this.
"Hmm... Time to start cleaning things up."
I was still deep in the stock market.
The seven billion won I'd made before turning ten? Gone. All that remained in cash was a measly three hundred million; everything else was tied up in stocks. One of those positions was Omi Science, which I planned to liquidate today.
"Eight hundred sixty-six percent return... Not bad."
Shares I'd bought last February had more than octupled in just five months. At the absolute peak they'd even cracked a thousand percent, but stocks don't sell cleanly at the top, and I'd missed the perfect exit window anyway. So today would do. The profits were already massive.
When I bought in, Omi Science had a market cap of about 830 billion won. Now it sat at nearly ten times that—8.1 trillion. Back then the free float was 28,454,848 shares. I'd scooped up 1,033,247 of them—3.63 percent of the float—for roughly 12.4 billion won. Recalculated at today's price...
119,793,623,933 won.
Almost 120 billion.
After subtracting acquisition cost and the basic deduction, the capital-gains tax came to 23,626,047,265 won. Two hundred thirty-six billion straight to the tax man. That left me with a little under a hundred billion—about 96 billion in my pocket.
Twelve point four billion invested, ninety-six billion returned.
If someone turned ten thousand won into ninety thousand it would feel impressive but abstract. When the zeros start stacking like this, the feeling changes completely.
And Omi Science wasn't my only holding. The money I'd grown from that original seven billion over the past seven years was far more than just 12.4 billion.
There was also Omi Pharma, the subsidiary. Same February, same window: 140,000 shares at 85,836 won each. Current price hovered around 450,000, but I wasn't selling yet. By year-end it would blast past 600,000.
On top of that, the eight billion I'd scattered across the KOSDAQ would come back ten- to twenty-fold by December.
"Making money really is the easiest thing in the world."
Knock-knock-knock—
Who was that? The director?
"Yeah~ Come in~"
"Sunwoo~ You busy??"
"Sol. What's up?"
Eunsol trotted over, smiling even brighter than usual, and shoved her face right into mine.
"What is it this time? Another favor?"
"Huh?? How'd you know I was gonna ask for something?"
"Because you make that exact face every time."
"Hehe~ Do I?"
"So what do you want?"
"Ah! Sunwoo... Aren't we going swimming..?"
"Swimming?"
"Yeah! I wanna go to a water park!"
"Hmm...."
Summer break was water-park season by definition. I'd already lived nearly forty years in my previous life, so the idea didn't exactly set me on fire, but Eunsol and the kids were still full-on middle- and high-schoolers who needed to run around and play.
"We didn't go anywhere last year either! So this time we have to go... Please??"
"You got money?"
"....No.."
"Then stay home."
"But you have tons of money!"
"How do you even know that?"
"Suyeon unnie said so, and the lawyer uncle said you're super rich."
"Ha.. Those people...!"
"Let's gooo.. Please?? Let's gooo~~~"
"Ugh.. Fine. Go round everyone up. We need to pick a place."
"Okay!! Everyone~ Unnie~ Oppa~ Director~~~~~"
Eunsol tore out of the room screaming at the top of her lungs. By the time I shut down the computer and stepped outside, the entire orphanage had already gathered in one spot.
"Hyung! Are we really going somewhere?! Where??"
"That's what we're deciding right now. I already thought of a few options. Pick one of these and nobody should complain."
"Where??"
"Where?"
I pulled out the tablet I'd brought and started flipping through destinations, explaining each one.
"First up: Hawaii. Flight's pretty long, but it's summer break—none of you have anything better to do."
"......"
"......"
"......"
"Not feeling it, huh. Okay, second: Greece. Flight's no joke either, but it's gorgeous enough that you can suck it up."
"......"
"......"
"......"
"This one's no good either? Is it the flight time..? Fine, Southeast Asia then. Da Nang, Vietnam—close enough that nobody can complain, right?"
"......"
"......"
"......"
"You hate this one too? Then where the hell do you want to go? Ah! How about Macau for a hotel vacation? Tons of stuff to see~ While we're there we could hit the casino.. wait, none of you are old enough, are you?"
"......"
"......"
"......"
"What? Don't tell me you hate this one too?? I'm going crazy.. What do you people actually want?"
Seriously, where did they want to go that made them react like this?
Hawaii, Greece, Vietnam, Macau. Any of those would be an absolute dream summer vacation. What on earth were they after?
"Um, Sunwoo.."
"Yes, Director. Got a recommendation? Should we just go to California?"
"I was thinking... maybe just a nearby water park would be better..."
"Yes, Director!"
"Hyung! I wanna go to a water park too!"
"They have a wave pool! I've always wanted to try that!"
"Mega Storm for me! I heard it's insane!"
"......"
A water park..?
So what they wanted was a water park...
To be fair, back in my previous life I'd desperately wanted to go to one myself. Making this much money had clearly started warping my sense of reality.
Right. How many high-school kids actually fly overseas for summer break? Choosing a water park lined up perfectly with the ordinary life I claimed to want.
"But Sunwoo.. why did you bring us here..?"
We were standing inside a shopping mall in Jamsil. If we were going to a water park, the kids needed proper swimwear at least.
"You can't exactly walk into a water park wearing a nun's habit."
"Well, true, but..."
"Hyung! Can I really buy everything??"
"Oppa! I want that one!"
"Buy whatever you want. Just keep it to what you can actually carry. Got it?"
"Okay!"
"Wooow~!!"
I would have loved to take the excited kids straight into the tallest building in Korea next door, but it still wasn't finished. Just shopping like this was more than enough for them anyway.
"Where did those two go, though?"
Eunsol and Naye were nowhere in sight. Don't tell me they expected me to wrangle all these little brats by myself? Absolutely not.
"What's that? You buying it?"
"Kyaa!! Wh-what the hell! Why are you peeking!!"
"Peeking? I'm just looking. This is an open store, in case you hadn't noticed."
"Ssshh..!"
"Pretty bold choice, though. Different from the teddy-bear stuff."
She tried to hide it behind her back, but the thing in Naye's hand was clearly a bikini. Black, with thin strings looping around the neck, the back, and both sides of the bottoms.
"I-I was just looking!"
"Why are you putting it back? Just buy it."
"No way! For whose benefit, exactly?!"
"Yours, if you buy a swimsuit. Who else's?"
"I said no, you pervert. I'm not buying it."
"Ha... Do whatever you want. Just hurry up and buy something so you can help watch the kids. Don't dump everything on me."
"You're the one who dragged us here. You deal with it."
"Hey, where are you going?"
"Don't follow me!!"
"What a goddamn attitude..!"
"N-Naye..? Are you still there..?"
Huh? The moment that foul-tempered Naye stormed out of the store, Eunsol's voice floated over.
"Sol? Where are you?"
"H-here..."
I followed the sound. Fitting room.
"Is Naye gone..? Or maybe a staff member..."
"Naye left, and the staff looks... pretty busy."
Naye had just fled the store, and the clerk was occupied with Park Eunmi—the oldest of the orphanage kids—and the rest of the group.
"What's wrong?"
"Well.. I was wondering if it's supposed to look like this...."
"Like what?"
"Um.. so.... if it's okay, could you take a look..?"
"Can I open the door?"
"W-wait a second!"
A flurry of hurried rustling, then a tiny, shrinking voice.
"Okay... you can open it now..."
"Opening."
"Mm.."
I pulled open the closed fitting-room door.
Eunsol stood there with her face turned slightly aside, eyes lowered. Her left arm was crossed under her chest as if holding it up, right hand gripping the left wrist...
"Sunwoo.... is it supposed to look like this..?"
"Khuh!!!"
"Sunwoo! Are you okay??"
"Don't come any closer!! You little temptress..!"
I shouted on pure instinct and stumbled backward. This was way too dangerous.
"Sunwoo..."
"Holy shit..!"
She was only a first-year high-schooler. So what the hell was that insane size?!
It wasn't just "a little small" or "a bit tight." Her breasts were spilling out over the top of the swimsuit that was supposed to contain them. The moment the supporting arm dropped, they sagged and overflowed downward as well.
"Y-you should've checked the size before putting it on!"
"They said this was the biggest one they had... Does it look really weird..? It's not supposed to be like this, right..?"
"Hoo... It's not weird, exactly.. but it's definitely not normal either..."
"Hiiing... Why am I so uselessly big..? They're just heavy and uncomfortable.."
"They're not useless at all!!"
"Huh??"
"Ah, no.. I mean... everything has its uses somewhere, right..? Something like that..."
"Uuun..?"
"A-anyway, don't buy that one! We'll order yours online."
"Okay.. Got it... Then I probably shouldn't buy this either, right?"
"......"
I'd been so completely overwhelmed by her chest that only now did I notice.
The scrap of fabric clinging to Eunsol's slightly plump backside.
"It keeps riding up.... Hiiing..."
Oh no..! Don't..!!
Don't pull on it like that!!!
Slap!!
The hidden scrap of fabric snapped free and smacked hard against Eunsol's ass. Her flesh rippled like the surface of a still lake after a stone is thrown in.
"Khuh!!!!!"
"Sunwoo!!"
I toppled backward, blood gushing from my nose, both hands clamped over my crotch instead of my face.
That little temptress..!