Golf? Easy Enough
Who did I learn from?
Obviously…
I don't know either.
I could feel it—my athletic sense was on another level. The way my muscles moved was no joke. I was still lean, but the concentrated power packed into that dense muscle registered clearly. When I swung the club, the force slammed through with real authority.
It was nothing like the me who had gone to school in the past. Back then I never even touched sports; I had clung to studying like a corpse. Even right up until enlistment, my stamina had been a disaster.
"Looking at the driver alone, you're semi-pro level."
"Me?"
"Stop joking and be honest. You took lessons from a pro, didn't you?"
"…Yes."
I simply nodded.
"Who was it? Anyone who can lock in fundamentals this solidly… I feel like I'd know them."
"Yes. Someone Teacher knows well too."
"Me?"
Pro An Hyeonju looked thoroughly startled. Did every beautiful person come with pupils that big?
"Pro An Hyeonju. She's incredible."
"What? Me? When did I ever give you a lesson…?"
"You just fixed my posture a second ago."
"Haa… Are you kidding me right now?"
She let out a sigh of pure disbelief. It was the truth. Even when I told it straight, Pro An Hyeonju clearly couldn't process it. I could barely believe it myself.
Out of nowhere a voice had asked whether I wanted to acquire the other person's talent, and I had simply answered. The impossible happened in that instant. Something that felt exactly like real golf talent settled into me. Postures I had never experienced, my body already remembered. The moment my hands closed around the driver, every stance and motion outputted automatically, as natural as breathing.
"Maybe… I'm just a golf prodigy?"
I tried to laugh the awkward air away. This cheat of a buff Grandma must have handed me.
"…I'll give you that. The long game is already pro-level. I'll have to measure the carry distance to be sure, but…"
Pro An Hyeonju kept nodding as if trying to convince herself.
"If I have free time, I can drop by whenever, right?"
I wanted to learn golf properly. Upper-class figures, people with real social standing—most of them treated golf as basic. It was the same overseas. For future business, golf was essential.
And here was Pro An Hyeonju, soon to stand at the absolute top of Korea. Leaving a talent like that in the same space without taking lessons would be a massive waste.
"Sure. Come when you have time."
She agreed. Right now she was a genius golfer who had taken a blow from the world's unfairness and was holding her breath. Young woman or not, her character was excellent. Leaving someone like her buried in the wilderness was a national loss.
"You should start preparing for next year's LPGA Tour."
"Tour?"
"Yes."
"…I want to. But the world isn't that kind."
Her voice grew heavy in an instant. A dark shadow of old pain brushed across her beautiful face. I knew. The filthy underside of this world. Even far into the future, powerless ordinary people kept taking losses under the tyranny of those who had everything.
"I'll sponsor you."
"What—sponsor? You?"
"Yes."
"…You do realize I don't even know who has it out for me, right?"
"Shinyang Finance Group. Correct?"
I mentioned what I knew as if it were nothing.
"Ah… so you already knew."
"When you came to Cheonghwa the rumors spread everywhere."
Back then too, stories that bordered on scandal had circulated among certain students. Some kids had badmouthed her openly—said she got ruined for putting on airs with the Shinyang Group chairman just because she had a pretty face. At the time it had nothing to do with me. They had laughed and casually tossed out lines like "a broke bitch should at least sell her body."
"And you're still offering to sponsor me? Your parents… what do they do?"
Worry and faint expectation mixed in Pro An Hyeonju's gaze.
"My grandfather does business."
"Ah… business."
A flicker of disappointment crossed her eyes.
"And… I'm a sabaeja."
"Ah!"
The single word made her eyes go wide. A short gasp, then her lips pressed tight. As everyone knew, at Cheonghwa High a sabaeja was untouchable. Pro An Hyeonju would understand that much.
"Does being a sabaeja disqualify me from sponsoring?"
"…Taewoong. To even reach the LPGA you have to go through the second-tier Symetra Tour or Q-School. Add overseas living costs and caddy fees and the total is enormous."
"About a billion won a year would cover it?"
"O-one billion?"
"Yes."
"…You said your grandfather does business…"
"Yes. Grandpa sells all sorts of things."
"All sorts?"
"Oil, apartments… and at the shopping malls, pretty much everything else."
"…??"
She clearly wasn't following. Having poured her entire early twenties into golf alone, she wasn't especially worldly.
"Just wait a few months."
"A few months?"
"Before summer arrives, a flower path will open right in front of Noona."
I declared it like some shameless fortune-teller. Pro An stared at me as if I had lost my mind.
"You… are you a psychic or something?"
"Psychic? What are you—"
"Noona! How does that word come out so naturally?"
She was teasing me. A light spring breeze brushed past, pleasant on the skin, carrying the faint mature scent of a woman. A clear light-blue aura wrapped around her.
Good.
I held my hand out toward her.
"Noona. How about trusting your little brother just once?"
"…"
Her jet-black eyes widened. Then she looked straight into mine.
"Alright… then, little brother, want to try pushing this noona forward?"
She still seemed to take the whole thing as a joke and gave a soft laugh. Pro An Hyeonju had unusually long, slender fingers. I closed my hand around them firmly yet gently. Maybe the sincerity got through—she flushed a little, almost shy.
Noona, you know what?
You really hit the jackpot today.
"With this, I could get slapped once and still become a rich man easy. Heh."
Golf practice ended and I headed home. In the past this hour would have found me locked in my room, chained to online lectures.
Thud.
I sat with my legs crossed on the cheap plastic chair. Evening of May 6th. Seoul's sky looked especially beautiful today. Multicolored sunset light flickered through the rooftop room.
Taktadak.
"Thank you, smartphone!"
On the way back I had bought the latest Galaxy in cash. Money had to be spent right if you didn't want problems later.
"The speed is insane."
I went with the unlimited data plan. Latest phone and service locked together and produced ridiculous synergy. On the phone I converted today's earnings into stable Tether.
Then—
"Binance, eat your fill. Hyung just dropped allowance."
Through Upbit and into Binance. A clean 490 million won. I left 10 million as pocket money.
"Time to try bursting a stomach."
Luna still hadn't crashed. If anything it was showing a little upward swagger.
"I'll buy my friend a house too."
I bought Tether for Jiwoong's share as well, then shorted immediately.
"Eat properly and get out."
I planned to grow Jiwoong's account only to a sensible size—enough for him to live as a straight-backed prosecutor.
"I know you and you're still trying to shake me? Hmph."
Luna rode a gentle rising curve. Whatever force was behind it, they were shaking the tree. From tomorrow it would start slipping, then plunge hard. The graph of those days floated crystal-clear in my head.
"You're my meal. Hehehe."
Only a few days left until the big crash. I wasn't a villain, yet the same kind of laugh kept slipping out.
Today had been a solid day. Completely different from the anxious, gloomy stretch of the past. Back then every single day had been hard and painful. Now, one day after returning, I had already started purifying the school.
"If worrying made worries disappear, there wouldn't be any worries left… I never understood what that meant before."
Days when every hour was suffering. School life and family circumstances had loaded even a kid with constant anxiety. No matter how hard I thrashed, nothing ever changed. People say pain grows the soul, but back then I just wanted to die. Only after brushing death a few times in the military did I finally find the courage to keep living.
One small thing I learned the hard way:
Only what I experience with my own body becomes my truth.
After that, whenever anything faced me, I thought it through myself, decided, and acted. With courage. Boldly. That drive had let me hand in my resignation and cut the fox cleanly out of my life. Do your best, but the moment you judge it wrong—don't look back. At the end of that path came this unbelievable stroke of luck…
"Fill every hour productively. First thing—get a driver's license."
There was a mountain of work. Time was moving slowly, yet preparations lay scattered everywhere.
"Regression… interesting."
I was living it, yet no matter how many times I turned it over, it still felt electric. A second high-school life. The list of things to do was overflowing.
"School problems… should be quiet for a while."
After today, people at school would think twice before touching me. At least until my personal family situation came to light. I had put up a decent shield so things could stay calm for now. Perfect cover was impossible, but I had done everything I could.
Tarut-tiriri~♬
The smartphone rang. A name more welcome than anything appeared on the screen.
"Dad…"
The name of the person I had spent years trying to forget was connected to me again. There were no words big enough for this feeling.