Kim Sua's Request - 1
I liquidated three of the stocks I held.
Monison had dropped 7% from nine days earlier, still netting a 179% return, while Henos had plunged a full 41% and finished in the red at -7.67%.
Finally, Towung Pharmaceuticals had climbed 8%—the only one of the three to gain value over those nine days—yet its return was a mere 152%.
Even that alone would look like an excellent investment to anyone else.
But it was nothing like what I remembered.
All three should have posted returns of several hundred percent at minimum.
Of course, there was always the chance that the material I’d studied so hard before regressing had simply been wrong.
My memory might have been faulty.
But Henos’s crash—no matter how I turned it over in my mind—was something that should never have happened.
“Is the future changing little by little?”
This wasn’t the first time.
Things like this had cropped up often enough already.
I’d had my suspicions then too, but I’d always shrugged them off as study errors or distorted recollection and moved on.
Not anymore.
I was now certain that my interventions—things that should never have existed—were gradually rewriting the future.
Perhaps this was only the beginning.
Like the tiny flap of a butterfly’s wings somewhere spawning a typhoon, the small distortions I’d created might one day crash down as a massive tidal wave.
“Whoa… I was seriously intense just now. Super sexy, right?? The butterfly effect from me causing a huge disaster…”
“What were you mumbling about all by yourself?”
“A-ahem!! When did I?”
“I heard you grumbling to yourself like a crazy person the whole time.”
Crazy person? The serious me just now was super sexy, you know?
I barely swallowed the words that had risen to my throat.
If I said that out loud, I’d really get called a psycho.
“Move over. I need to dry my hair.”
“Don’t push me..!”
Suddenly shoved away from the vanity, I went and sat on the bed.
Then I watched Lee Naye unwrap the towel she’d come out with and start drying her hair.
Whiiiiiiing!!!!
Lee Naye in a white bathrobe, drying her wet hair, looked completely new to me.
Was it because she was my woman now?
Anyway, yesterday we’d stayed out overnight.
We’d locked ourselves in the hotel room all day and gone at it like animals.
I’d tormented Lee Naye until she passed out, while she cursed me for being a beast, cried, and begged.
Of course I never got to see her sleeping in my arms.
She’d woken earlier than me and was already washing in the bathroom.
“Were you looking at stocks again?”
“How’d you know?”
“Your phone. You’re not calling or texting—just holding it.”
“Smart…”
If the detective profession existed in this country, Lee Naye would have been the best in the field.
She was that sharp—she’d already figured out everything about Eunsol and the landlady too.
“I have something I’m curious about.”
“If I answer, will you answer mine? I’ve got something I’m curious about too.”
“Okay. Let’s answer each other.”
“Yeah, you ask first.”
“When did you find out?”
“About what?”
“About Sol and the landlady.”
“……”
The noisy dryer and the hands casually tousling her hair both stopped.
“Aren’t you being way too shameless asking that? Without even a hint of apology.”
“Sorry. So the answer?”
“……”
At my half-hearted apology, Lee Naye’s eyes reflected in the mirror narrowed sharply.
But she still answered.
“The landlady was yesterday at dawn. Sol was the stir-fried octopus.”
Even though midnight had passed and it was technically a new day, you could say she’d found out on the same day.
But she’d been so surprised she’d even brought me milk—exactly which part had tipped her off?
“Then it’s my turn to ask now?”
“Yeah.”
“Since when have you been in that kind of relationship with Sol and the landlady?”
“With Sol, it was the day after we got drunk and kissed. The day you stayed at the orphanage—that’s when it happened.”
“You made the first move?”
“If you want to get technical, Sol did first. Of course I agreed, so we slept together.”
“…Then the landlady?”
“Not long ago. The help I gave her and various circumstances piled up, plus we’d been drinking, and it just happened.”
“So it was a mistake?”
“A kind of mistake, yeah. Then back to my turn. Knowing that, why did you sleep with me?”
“That’s….”
Trailing off, Lee Naye set down the dryer and stood up.
Then she turned and walked over to me sitting on the bed.
“Because it wouldn’t be fair.”
“What..?”
“If you’re in that kind of relationship with Sol but not with me, your choice would inevitably tip to one side.”
“You slept with me to balance the scales?”
“Yeah. So choose properly. Me or Sol. And cleanly end it with the landlady.”
“But you’re not that mad? I thought you’d kick me out of here.”
“Want me to kick you out right now?”
I calmly shook my head and politely used both hands to move the foot that had been resting between my legs down off the bed.
I didn’t want to become a eunuch.
“I’ll pass. Then you’d be sad.”
“W-why would I be sad!!”
“You know~”
“You bastard..! Don’t get the wrong idea!”
“About what?”
“Until you choose me, there’s no next time.”
“What?! How is that fair! That’s mean!!”
“You’re calling me mean with that mouth of yours..?!!”
“I’m sorry…”
Lee Naye, who had grabbed my neck, barely managed to pry her trembling hands off.
Phew… I almost died.
“And I’m holding it in..”
“Huh?”
“I’m holding it in…”
Muttering with her head turned away, Lee Naye looked at me again and said,
“There’s no way I’d be okay..”
“……”
Yeah… There was no way the girl who had cried like a child yesterday would be okay.
Given her personality, she probably didn’t want to show me any more ugly sides and was deliberately acting nonchalant.
“Then my turn again.. How are you so good at stocks..? You’ve been doing it since you were little..”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“J-just…”
“Do you want to make money?”
“Huh..? Well.. of course..”
“Do you want to be rich?!”
“I-if possible… Kyaa!!”
I pulled Lee Naye’s waist and sat her on my thigh.
Through her spread legs and the open robe, her pubic hair was visible.
“Where are you looking..!!”
“Sorry. Where was I?”
“Up to wanting to be rich..”
“Right. Then I’ll ask again. Do you want to be rich?”
“Yeah…”
“Then stay by my side. You can spend all my money.”
She looked extremely disappointed.
And thinking I was teasing her, her expression turned sulky.
“Who said I wanted to freeload off you for life?!”
“Hey, Lee Naye.”
“Huh..?”
“Do you know why the woodcutter lost the fairy?”
“Because he found her winged clothes..?”
“Right. I’m not a fool like the woodcutter who brings the fairy her winged clothes.”
“…Do you think I like you because of money?”
“Not just that, but wouldn’t that be part of it?”
“Hah.. Let go. If you don’t, I’ll really kick you here.”
“I already let go. You can get up anytime.”
“You bastard..!”
“Ah! Wait!!”
“Let go of this?!”
Lee Naye, whose wrist was grabbed, threw a tantrum, but I pulled her back onto my thigh.
“It’s my turn now, right?”
“I said let go..!”
“Just answer this one thing.”
“Haa… What is it?”
“When I was in middle school, I once helped a girl from another orphanage.”
“There was something like that..?”
“Yeah. But that girl took the side of the trash director who beat and sexually assaulted people instead of me who helped her. Why do you think that was?”
“The story’s too simple to answer. Tell me in more detail.”
I told her in great detail how I’d grown up, what I’d been through, and what the situation had been at the time.
This was still an unresolved question.
Of course, hearing an answer now wouldn’t resolve it.
Listening from a third party’s perspective rather than the person involved is completely different.
But I could at least guess why she’d made that decision.
“Maybe there was something she wanted to protect..?”
“Something to protect? For example?”
“Herself… or the orphanage.”
“The orphanage?”
“When we were little, the orphanage was our whole world. The only place that took in abandoned me. A place where kids in the same situation gathered. She might have thought that protecting that place would protect everyone. I think I would have thought that if it were me. Me as a kid who’d just become a middle schooler.”
She turned her back on me to protect everyone…
I couldn’t have understood it back then, but the me who’d lived quite a long life in the world could understand it now.
“If not that.. she might have been enduring it alone…”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You said the director was beating and sexually assaulting people? She probably wasn’t unscathed either.”
“……”
“She must have struggled. Cried out for help—please help me—to those around her. And then she would have realized.”
“What..?”
“That no one helps.”
“……”
“So she might have endured it alone. She would have thought other orphanages were the same. So she would have wanted to protect it even more. If they scattered, everyone would go through the same things she was going through there….”
Lee Naye stopped mid-sentence and stared at me.
I was stroking her hair.
“What are you doing..?”
“You’ve worked hard.”
“Why, why are you like this…”
“Just remembering the old days. You’ve really worked hard, Naye. And thank you. For growing up so pretty and cool. I’m sorry for being so mean all this time.”
“What are you saying… D-don’t say useless things and hurry up and wash! I told Sol I’d be back soon! And no sneaky skinship like this. Got it?!”
“Then what about this?”
“……”
I untied the robe’s string and bound Lee Naye’s wrists.
And tied my own neck with that string too.
“Gack..! Gaaack..!! I-I surrender..! Surrender..!!!”
“If you do that to me again for real, you’re dead!!!!”
“I said surrender..!!!!!”
I still don’t know exactly what happened then and for what reason she turned her back on me.
The truth is buried in the past of my previous life.
But the answer I heard just now was enough.
Now live happily while choking my neck.
Don’t worry about money.
I’m still making good money.
Monison sale proceeds: 55,806,432,117 won.
Henos sale proceeds: 18,466,531,952 won.
Towung Pharmaceuticals sale proceeds: 50,474,658,831 won.
The aftermath of the overnight stay was considerable.
Eunsol, who had been sulking for a while, wouldn’t even talk to or answer me or Lee Naye.
Even Yun Jiyeon sat me down and grilled me about why we’d stayed out, and for a week after that, breakfast was cereal and ramen.
But having steadfastly endured that difficult trial period, I finally became a university student.
I didn’t attend the freshman orientation, but to keep Eunsol and Lee Naye from going, I had no choice but not to go either.
I couldn’t send Eunsol and Lee Naye, who’d get dead drunk, to a place crawling with beast-like guys.
“Sol’s late! Sol’s going first~!!!”
“Be careful riding! Don’t fall again!!”
“Okay!!!”
“Haa… Then I’ll go first too. I can’t help worrying about Sol.”
“Are you her parent? Just let her go alone.”
“It’s still dangerous!”
“Fine, go first. I still have some time so I’ll go slowly.”
From the boarding house to the school building was about an eleven-minute walk.
Not a long distance, but as a gift for enrollment I bought Eunsol and Lee Naye each an electric bicycle.
Of course I bought one for myself too, and one for Yun Jiyeon who commutes to Seongbuk-dong.
To Kim Sua, who pouted about why she didn’t get one, I was slipping her fifty thousand won allowance once a week instead of an electric bike.
“O-Oppa..! Look at me for a second…”
“I have to go to school?”
“You said you still have time..!”
“You heard that?”
“Yes.”
“Sharp ears.. Fine, I looked. What?”
I set the bicycle I’d been dragging by hand back up and stared at Kim Sua.
“You’re too close!!”
Slap!!
Surely that sound didn’t come from my cheek?
No—the “surely” was right.
“Why’d you hit me?!!”
“O-Oppa came too close..”
“How is this close?! There was a handspan between us!”
“Just a handspan!!”
“Hoo…”
“Are you okay..?”
“Do I look okay?”
Calm down.
What am I doing fighting with a middle schooler first thing in the morning.
But why is my luck today starting like this?
“So what did you want to say? Ow, that hurts..!”
I asked while rubbing my burning cheek, and Kim Sua, who had been flinching as she raised her hands, lowered them and took a step back as she answered.
“Please.. help me a bit…”
“How much?”
“Huh??”
“How much do you need.”
“N-not money, help me!!”
“Huh?? Is there something I can help you with?”
“There is… You’ll help me, right..? Oppa..?”
Don’t look at me with those eyes, you middle schooler!
As expected of Yun Jiyeon’s daughter, she has a talent for charming people..!
But it’s not the feeling of being charmed by the opposite sex.
Just because she’s a kid.
How should I put it… Like an uncle who can’t refuse a nephew asking for a toy?
Of course I’ve never had a nephew, but if I did, it’d probably feel like this.
“I’ll help. But I have to go to school.”
“Then after school in the evening, come pick me up!”
“Where will you be?”
“Obviously the practice room. But you have to come looking cool! Super cool! If you come like this I won’t let it slide..!”
“Is that the attitude of someone asking for help?”
“Ah.. I’m sorry… You’ll come looking cool, right.. Op.pa?”
“If only you wouldn’t do that kind of aegyo.”
“Tsk…! Anyway, I’ll take it as a promise~!!”
“Hey.. hey! That’s my bike!!”
“I have to go to school too~~”
“Hey, you brat! If I catch you you’re dead!!!!”
“Catch me if you can~~~”
“That little..!!”
“Bleh~~!”
“……”
A hard life.
I’ll just give her that bike, and soon I should buy a domestic car.
Riding the car from Seongbuk-dong around is too conspicuous.
But has some guy started hitting on her or something?