Patience Pays Off?
Kim Siyeon waved the magic wand around in front of me like she was trying to summon a demon.
“W-where did you get that?”
“Hehe, it’s pretty, right? Daddy bought it for me.”
Three months had passed, and all the things I’d half-forgotten about that commercial came creeping back.
The full, proper name of that terrifying little tool was Magic Girl Lucy's Magic Wand.
One of the few glittering Duel King cards I owned was Lucy’s weapon.
Well, it was a toy, so sure.
We were seven years old.
Duel King was all the rage, too.
And Magic Girl Lucy was cute.
So yeah, I guess it’d be fine to buy it… right?
Except the timing was suspicious.
Wait. Don’t tell me the commercial started airing yesterday?
Sure enough—
“Ehehe, Chaewonie was so pretty. I even asked Dad to record it for me.”
“What? Why would you do that!”
“Huh? Because you were cute! I wanted to watch it sometimes.”
“…Huh?”
This girl really did seem to like me an awful lot whenever we saw each other.
Always clinging to me like glue.
Is that just how girls are?
Hmm.
It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, so I didn’t really care, but still.
To go so far as to record it…?
At first I thought she was only teasing me, but with that innocent face, it was hard to keep suspicion pointed at her.
“The twin tails were good, too! Just like Lucy.”
“Really?”
“No, wait. Chaewon was prettier than Lucy.”
“Ahem, ahem. Was I? Did it suit me?”
“Mm-hmm! Totally! You should wear your hair like that all the time.”
“…Hee.”
That was embarrassing.
I scratched my head, awkward under the shower of pure, innocent praise.
If it had only been Siyeon, it would’ve been fine.
“Hey, you brute. Why’re you trying to become an actress just because you copied me? At best, you’re just in a commercial! Ha-ha.”
“The thing you shot was a two-second prop double gig, and I’m the lead in an ad.”
“What’s that even mean? Say it in plain words, idiot.”
“Aw, damn it….”
“Anyway, I’m in a drama, and you’re just in a little commercial! Try harder next time! Ha-ha-ha.”
“So how much did you get paid? Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Answer me! Hey, you little—!”
There was also the idiot who drove me up the wall because we simply couldn’t communicate.
“If you press the button here like this—!”
“Waaah, it got even prettier!”
“No, no, you have to bounce around more. Chaewon jumped higher than that.”
“That’s because she’s just good at jumping.”
There were kids who played by copying my commercial, too.
“Clap, clap, clap. Our Chaewon was on TV! Shall we all watch together?”
““Yeeees!””
Kyahhhhhhh—!!
Even the teacher, who was supposed to protect children’s delicate little minds, had joined in on the public execution of my dark history.
I was avoiding watching my own commercial. I’d even been steering clear of the cartoon channel I liked!
Apparently, for the past three months, it had been airing regularly on multiple animation channels.
I’d already seen the finished cut on set.
I hadn’t even been curious about how it came out.
And yet I got forced to watch it at kindergarten.
『A ray of light guarding the hearts of friends! Magic Girl, Lucy!』
She wore a pink dress and clutched a star-studded magic wand with both hands.
The little girl on screen was smiling so brightly she looked like she might die of happiness.
The kids’ reactions were all over the place.
“Chaewon’s cute!!”
“She doesn’t look like the boss….”
“Right? Um….”
“I want one of those too.”
“Whoa, the boss is on TV!”
『Meet it at a stationery store near you! Lucy’s— Magic Wand!』
Of course, I barely saw any of the fifteen-second commercial because I was covering my face with both hands.
All I could manage was a feeble little scream.
“Turn it offooooo.”
After that, I had to suffer being called things like “that kid is the magic girl” by kids from other kindergarten classes.
For a Bone Dragon, the price was…
kind of…
destructive…….
.
.
.
About two months later, I finally decided to accept my life.
Yes. The life of a superstar.
I was eating ice cream at the playground when a pack of elementary school kids suddenly pointed at me.
Some neighborhood aunties gave me snacks.
The security guard handed me candy, saying I was well-mannered.
Mom kept saying it had nothing to do with my commercial and that I had celebrity syndrome or something, but—
T-this is terrifying. Everyone knows me!
Mom knew absolutely nothing.
This wasn’t how things had been before, okay?
The world had gotten nice!
There was no doubt everyone had seen the commercial and recognized me.
I tried to steal Dad’s sunglasses so I could hide my face, but after that failed because of a size issue, I started making a point of moving as stealthily as possible.
Shashasha— shash—
Ninja tactics, using Mom and Dad’s bodies as cover.
“You’re ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.”
“She’s cute. Let her be. Heh.”
At that blatant ridicule, I almost flipped them the finger like I did to the kids, then stopped myself with a sudden, Wait, those are my parents.
I should endure this. Yep.
Today, we were on our way to the securities firm with Mom and Dad.
“I’m buying what I want! I said that clearly, didn’t I?”
“Oh, of course, of course. Would Princess ever be denied?”
“…How does she even know about stocks? Honey, I told you not to talk about money in front of the kid.”
“Wasn’t me. Our Chaewon is just clever, that’s all.”
Mom was still grumbling, insisting that keeping money in the bank was best, but I’d won with the unbeatable logic of, “It’s my money that I earned! You won’t even let me buy cards, so at least buy me stocks!”
After fees and everything else, my commercial money came out to about 1.5 million won.
Cheap. So cheap.
The commercial only ran for three months, and child actors supposedly didn’t get paid much to begin with.
People said that for a rookie, it was absurdly high pay.
I don’t care. I don’t care.
The psychological damage was worth way more than that.
Instead, about a month after the commercial aired, the toy company came to me with an offer: if I signed an exclusive contract, they’d multiply the payment several times over.
Yeah, no.
I’d already gotten the Bone Dragon I wanted.
And just because I’d made money, Mom wasn’t about to lift the card-buying ban.
Unless money actually went into my own wallet, I wasn’t interested in letting it sit in a bank account I couldn’t even touch.
Filming’s a hassle too… and it doesn’t feel like money I earned by actually working hard, so I just can’t get into it.
For a whole mix of reasons, I’d turned down the commercial deal for now.
I wanted to make money the easy way, dang it.
Yes, stocks. Like this.
The moment I reached the securities firm, my ssalmeok instincts started twitching.
“Should I buy a few shares too, like Chaewon…?”
“You’ll die. Don’t.”
“Y-yes, ma’am.”
Mom had nearly gone under because her own father once nearly ruined the whole family with stocks, so the mere word made her flinch.
Making a stock account for me was allowed only because the amount was small.
“A little loss might be good life experience.”
That was the official reasoning—part of my education in life.
But I’m not about to lose, heh.
I couldn’t guarantee profits.
My memories of the future were pretty hazy, and back then I hadn’t cared about stocks at all, so all I could really do was buy the companies that survived.
At least I won’t lose, right?
With the staff’s help, I opened an account.
“Princess, what do you want to buy? Should Daddy recommend something?”
“Nope.”
I’m buying what I know.
Shoo, shoo.
I was carefully digging through my memories when Dad kept babbling beside me.
“This one’s good. These days, kids are all into decorating mini-homepages? It’s called MiniWorld, I think. People say it’ll grow into something huge globally. It’s backed by a major company, so there’s no way it’ll go under.”
“……”
That thing was going to crash and burn like hell.
“Or this! MP3s! EumRiver! Wow, this is amazing. It might even become the biggest company in our country in a few years. Everyone around me’s buying one.”
MP3s were going to die a spectacular death, too.
From how enthusiastically he was spouting off, Dad seemed to have had a decent amount of interest in stocks all along.
Wow, my dad should not be allowed near stocks. He only picks the most catastrophically doomed ones.
Mom really was the wise one.
I ignored Dad completely and picked CocoaTalk and Ohsung Electronics, both of which would be used by the entire nation someday.
I had no idea how high either one would rise, but—
The fact that they survived means they’re strong!
Let’s go, hold until adulthood.
I bought 1.4 million won’s worth, leaving 100,000 won.
Aw, I’ve got an awkward little bit left over… hmm… ah!
There was something called coin!
I searched hard for it, but I couldn’t find a stock called Coin anywhere.
Was it an abbreviation?
I figured the staff at the securities firm would know, so I asked directly.
“Excuse me! Is there a stock called Coin?”
“Co…in? Just a moment. Uh… I’ve never heard of that, customer.”
“Really? Okay, thank youuu.”
What the heck? Wasn’t it a stock?
I’d have to steal Dad’s phone and look it up later.
Having no computer at home was seriously inconvenient.
Even the simplest things were impossible to search whenever I wanted.
I didn’t care about games, since there wasn’t anything I’d been playing anyway.
But as someone who’d practically lived on a computer before, I just missed the internet itself.
“Princess, should Daddy pick what to do with the leftover 100,000 won?”
While I was hesitating, Dad tried to slip in again.
“Hm….”
Absolutely not.
If I let Dad handle it, my money would vanish.
Then something came to mind, sparked by the internet even without anyone recommending it.
“I want this one.”
“What’s this? Link?”
“Yep.”
Link, the internet broadcasting platform. Back when I played games and ran a shop, I used to go there and watch other players whenever I got curious about what they were doing.
I even had a channel.
I’d done a few no-mic CCTV-style streams under the childish name Merchant Master, then given up on it….
Anyway.
It wasn’t famous yet at this early stage.
But in the future, streamers would become a real profession, too.
So the stock has to go up, right?
That was enough reason for me to buy it.
“Hmm, I know a lot of companies from people I’ve talked to. You really don’t want me to buy any of them?”
“Let Chaewon buy what she wants. It’s all part of life. And honey… I had no idea you were this interested in stocks.”
“Huh? No, no, I was just, you know, hearing things here and there, ha-ha-ha.”
Thanks to Mom’s blazing glare, I was spared from Dad’s annoying sales pitch.
The year Lee Chaewon turned eight, February arrived.
The children who’d seemed like they’d be kindergarteners forever were now singing at graduation ceremonies.
“Sniff, sniff… our daughter is so wonderful. Look how brave she is.”
“Chaewon isn’t even crying, so why are you crying…?”
Lee Jeonghwan captured Chaewon on camera from the very front row as she sang the graduation song with unusual composure.
In just one month, in March, she’d be an elementary school student.
It felt like only yesterday he’d been fretting himself sick over sending her to kindergarten, and now here they were talking about elementary school already.
He watched her happily from a distance, surrounded by other children.
“Chaewon really is popular.”
“Of course she is. Whose daughter do you think she is?”
They’d promised to buy her something delicious as a graduation gift, so on the way to pick Chaewon up—
when they drew near enough to hear the children talking….
“Boss, are you going to Eunha Elementary School too?”
“I told you not to call me boss. I swear, I’m gonna—”
“Aww… if I can’t call the boss boss, then what am I supposed to call her?”
Those doe-like eyes and that bright, innocent smile clearly belonged to an angel, no question.
And yet seeing their daughter play neighborhood boss left them worried about elementary school in an entirely different way.