A Five-Hundred-Million Gamble, and Foretold Ruin

The next day, one in the afternoon. We were back in the TA Lounge, the same room where we'd torn into each other so violently the day before. The sour smell of semen had been aired out and was gone, but in its place hung a tension drawn taut as a bowstring.

I sat across the table from Shin Nara. Her eyes were locked on the papers between us — specifically, on the notarized document stamped with a law firm's seal, crisp and unmistakable.

"What the hell is this? Nineteen percent interest? Are you insane?"

Her eyes went wide as she shouted.

"And this — acceleration of maturity? If I'm even a day late or I stop answering my phone, the whole principal comes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠due immediately? Hey, Park Dohun! This is straight-up loan-shark shit!"

She was panting with rage, unable to swallow it down. Interest rates scraping the legal ceiling, and a poison-pill clause that would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠close around her throat the instant she so much as stumbled. Anyone looking at it would have called it a modern-day slave contract.

"Calm down, TA. You haven't read the whole thing yet. The real point is on the next page."

I flipped the document over with unhurried ease.

"Look at the amount. The amount."

"What about the amou—"

The rest of the sentence died in her throat. Her pupils snapped to the figure printed dead-center on the page, as if a magnet had seized them.

"Fi… five hundred million…?"

Her mouth fell open. Ten times the fifty million she'd first begged off Yura. Five times the hundred million she'd demanded yesterday. A fortune she had never once touched in her life — a sum that had lived only in her imagination.

"Well? With a number like that, the terms being a little tight isn't such a bad trade, is it? This is the kind of money that flips a life around."

I spun the pen between my fingers and watched her. Her eyes were ticking back and forth. She chewed her lip, and I could almost hear the calculator clattering inside her skull.

Five hundred million… with five hundred million…

Greed lit her gaze until it shone. Lever this up and you're looking at several billion at a minimum. Slam the cash down on a Gangnam apartment, roll a foreign sports car, live loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Nineteen percent interest? Full repayment of principal? Win big and pay it back. Hell — win big, pay it back, and live off what's left for the rest of your life.

Yeah. That's about what she's thinking.

I didn't need to see it. That thin little arithmetic was painted across her face in high definition. A gambler's brain is a simple machine. It looks at the payout before it looks at the risk. And it believes, with religious certainty, that the vague fortune in its head will become real — that everyone else can die but it will be the exception.

How do I know so well? Because I ran the exact same calculation in my last life and watched it torch everything I had. I know in my bones that what she's staring at is a shortcut straight to hell. I walked it myself.

"Ha… but… these terms are too dangerous. If anything goes wrong… I'm dead."

"What could go wrong? I'm handing you the information on top of the money. The same method that made 7.6 billion."

"Information…?"

"I told you I'd give you information. Since I'm lending you five hundred million anyway, I'll throw in one more sure thing. On the house."

She looked at me with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"You… why are you doing this? What do you even get out of going this far? Don't tell me it's just to play with the interest."

"What I get… nothing in particular."

I shrugged.

"But I don't lose anything either."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you make money off my information, I recover the principal and collect the interest. No downside. And as a bonus, I get your 'heartfelt gratitude' and your loyalty."

I leaned forward until our eyes met.

"And if you lose the money, or you can't pay it back? Then I take this notarized document to court. Garnish your wages. Seize your accounts. And if that's still not enough…"

I let my gaze travel down her body.

"You can work it off. You looked pretty useful yesterday. Keep you as a personal slave for the rest of your life and I'd say I break even, wouldn't you?"

It was cruel. It was also, in a strange way, persuasive. From her seat, I would have looked like a thoroughly calculated animal — a creature that had stripped out every emotion and chased nothing but profit. The same species as herself.

"……"

Shin Nara swallowed. This was dangerous. The contract was a poisoned chalice. Drink, and you might die. But five hundred million was shimmering right in front of her face. It was a gamble worth staking a life on.

"And my information is solid. You saw me make 7.6 billion. I opened the account and showed you. Still doubt me?"

I drove the spike home. 7.6 billion in hard evidence. It shattered the last of her hesitation into dust.

"The information… it's certain?"

"It is. Whether you hold to it or not is on you, TA."

"Fine. I'll do it! I'll do it!"

She pressed her thumb down onto the notarized document, hard. Red ink bloomed across the paper. A blood-colored contract, mortgaging her life to me.

"Alright, give me the information. Now!"

"Go in now. It's a long."

"A long? I knew it! I was right! It's the bottom!"

She let out a cheer. She'd been looking at a long herself, and hearing the same call from a man sitting on a fortune turned her hunch into conviction.

"There's a condition, though."

"What?"

"The moment it feels like you've taken enough, get out and switch to a short. Don't get greedy."

"A short? Why?"

"Because it's going to crash. Hard."

"What? Crash?"

Her face twisted.

"What are you talking about? Can't you see it bouncing off the bottom right now? You're saying it drops further from here? That's insane. Do you even know how to read a chart?"

She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Bitcoin had already been cut in half from the high. The comfortable consensus among the retail herd was that it couldn't possibly fall any further.

"That's all the information I have. Whether you trust it is up to you, TA. I warned you."

I didn't explain any further. I knew perfectly well that talking myself hoarse wouldn't change a thing. She wasn't going to hear a word of it anyway. A person blinded by greed sees only what they want to see. The way I had, in my last life.

And even if, by some miracle, she actually listened and booked a profit, that was fine too. It might even be better. I could use that little scrap of trust, that memory of success, as bait — and shove her off a higher, dizzier ledge later, a perfect despair, gift-wrapped.

"Ah, okay. So it's a long for now, right? Okay. Just watch."

She let the second half of what I'd said slide off her and took only the first. I transferred the five hundred million won on the spot.

Her phone chimed. The moment she saw the screen, her eyes went slack, glazed with the same ecstasy as a hit of something chemical. Money. Five hundred million. To her, that number was both religion and salvation.

"Thank you! Dohun! I'll really make this work!!"

She grabbed both my hands and shook them. The memory of yesterday's humiliating service seemed to have already been deleted from her hard drive.

"Give it everything you've got. I'll be cheering for you. Hope you hit it big."

I patted her forearm, encouraging her, barely holding back the sneer that wanted to split my face.

Goodbye, Shin Nara.

I offered the farewell inwardly. She had just boarded, of her own free will and with a smile on her face, an express train to hell with the brakes cut.

That night, in Shin Nara's apartment.

Inside a cramped, dim half-basement room, Shin Nara was curled on the bed, unable to tear her eyes from her phone.

"Insane… this is actually insane… am I dreaming or is this real…"

A moan of wonder slipped out of her. She'd taken the eighty million she already had, added the five hundred million borrowed from Park Dohun, and dumped the entire five hundred and eighty million into a leveraged position. In barely half a day, close to two hundred million won in profit was sitting on the screen. It was the kind of money a TA on a thirty-million-won salary would have to work years to save.

"I knew my gut was right. That bastard Dohun called it — the long was the play! I did it!"

She kicked the blanket off and crowed. Inside her head, the fantasy engine was already running at full throttle.

At this rate, a few billion in a week isn't even a stretch.

A Gangnam apartment? A Mercedes? A Chanel bag? They weren't dreams anymore. She let the pictures unspool. Herself walking into a department store and saying, with magnificent arrogance, "I'll take everything from here to there." Herself slapping a resignation letter onto the desk of every fossil professor who'd ever looked down on her and shouting, "You people have fun rotting here." And herself paying Park Dohun back his five hundred million in cash, right in his face, sneering, "Take it with interest, you broke-ass bastard."

Ah, that's the rush. This is life. This is what living feels like.

She grinned at the chart. Red candles kept punching higher.

And then, unbidden, Park Dohun's last warning surfaced.

A short? You want me to short this? Lunatic.

She snorted.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Look at this momentum. It's punching through."

The chart looked ready to put a hole in the ceiling. Overseas news was pouring out positive headlines — hopes of Chinese deregulation, rumors of institutional inflows, on and on. Every indicator on the board was pointing up.

Did that bastard feed me garbage so I wouldn't be able to pay him back?

The suspicion flickered. Or maybe he was about to short it himself and needed a sucker to take the other side of the size. Either way, it didn't matter. The profit glowing in front of her was the truth.

"I'm not falling for it. Do I look stupid? You want me to get off this golden uptrend. I'm taking more."

She shook her head and wiped Park Dohun's warning out of her mind. There was nowhere left to fall. The bottom had been confirmed. All that remained was to fly.

Hold a little longer and it's a billion… no, hold a bit more and take profit around two billion. After that… I'll see where things stand. First I eat all the way to two billion, no matter what.

She got greedy. There is no such word as "enough" at a gambling table. Win, and you want to win more. Lose, and you can't walk away because you're thinking about getting even. That is a gambler's psychology.

She clutched the phone to her chest and closed her eyes. Sleep wouldn't come. Her heart was slamming too hard. The thought of the number that would be waiting on her account when she opened her eyes in the morning sent a shiver through her whole body.

Tomorrow I'll start at the Chanel store. That bag Yura was carrying — I'm buying it in every color. I'll put that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bitch in her place.

She tossed in a warm fog of happy delusion, and only toward dawn did she finally fall asleep. In the dream, she lived in a castle built of money.

The next morning.

Harsh sunlight pulled Shin Nara's eyes open. It was a good morning. The happy dream from the night before still clung to her like a scent.

"Nnh… what time is it…?"

Half-asleep, she groped for the phone she'd left by the pillow. Out of habit, she opened the exchange app.

"Alright, let's see how fat my money got… heehee, maybe it hit a billion?"

The loading screen passed. The account balance came up.

"……?"

She rubbed her eyes. She had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to have misread it. An app glitch? She looked at the screen again.

"……Huh?"

Time seemed to stop. Her mind went white. She couldn't make sense of it. Last night she'd been up nearly two hundred million. She'd been in the green.

With a shaking hand, she switched to the chart.

While she slept, around four in the morning, the Chinese government had announced a complete shutdown of the exchanges, and Bitcoin had fallen off a cliff. A crash in a matter of hours. Her account, running 2x leverage? It never had a chance. The moment the drop crossed a certain threshold, the exchange's system liquidated her position without mercy.

Entire margin confiscated. Zero. Not a speck of dust left. Gone.

"Ah… aah…!"

An animal sound tore out of her throat. This is a dream. This is a dream. A nightmare. Please wake up. Please…

She flung the phone onto the bed and slapped her own cheeks.

Crack. Crack.

It hurt. It was hideously real.

"No… NO!!!!!"

She screamed and rolled across the mattress. Five hundred and eighty million won. Her own eighty million, and the five hundred million borrowed from Park Dohun. All of it had evaporated overnight.

All that remained was debt. A five-hundred-million-won debt with a devil's terms attached, collateralized by her life.

The wording of the notarized document flashed through her mind. Park Dohun's cold smile rose with it.

He had known. He had known it would crash. That was why he'd warned her to switch to a short. And she had ignored him. Because of greed… because of a stupid call…

"AAAAARGH!!! YOU STUPID BITCH!!"

Shin Nara tore at her hair and wailed. Regret was already too late. There was no taking it back.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

The phone rang.

The ringtone sounded like the footsteps of a reaper. She couldn't answer. She shoved the phone into the blanket.

Terror. A raw, drowning terror swallowed her whole. She had no choices left. Run, or die. Or… crawl to Park Dohun's feet forever, in the most wretched way imaginable.

She pulled her knees to her chest and shook. It was a bright morning, full of sunlight, but a pitch-black dark had settled over her life.