Regressor

When I was a kid, I thought I was special.

The reason was simple: I was pretty smart. I studied better than the other kids, and my grades ranked near the top of the whole school.

Teachers and parents praised me, saying I could grow up to be somebody great, and I believed them.

Then came the day I scraped my way into the economics department at Korea University. The school hung a congratulatory banner, my parents bragged about it to everyone in the neighborhood, and I felt like I owned the world.

It was only after starting university that I realized how wrong I'd been.

Exactly two people from my high school had gotten into Korea University. But when I actually arrived on campus, every single person there was a Korea University student. And unlike me — someone who'd barely squeaked in off the waiting list — there were those who'd been admitted at the very top of their class and walked away with full scholarships.

Think about it. Korea University had roughly 27,000 enrolled students, graduate students included. Its world ranking hovered around sixtieth, which meant there were at least sixty more schools like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it scattered across the globe. Add in medical school, law school, and the rest.

The world was full of people smarter than me.

And here was the more important truth: the world was even fuller of people richer than me.

In middle and high school, assigned to schools near home, everyone's standard of living had been more or less the same. University was a different story entirely. Some classmates drove around in Benzes and Porsches; others lived alone in Gangnam apartments overlooking the Han River.

The reason? Their families had money.

The only way to get past that was to work. Hard.

I landed a job at DA Securities the moment I graduated, and as I took my first steps into the working world, I made myself a promise: I might be a rookie now, but in ten years I'd be running this company! After that, I'd build my career, make a dazzling debut on the world stage, and someday — someday — I'd be famous as a world-class investor with my own firm to my name.

To chase that dream, I cut back on sleep, worked relentlessly, learned everything I could, and collected every relevant certification along the way.

Ten years passed like that.

Ten years later, I finally made it. I was a boss.

"Boss! One soy garlic chicken and two draft beers, please!"

"Coming right up!"

"Boss! Someone dropped a fork over here!"

"Yes! I'll be right there!"

……The owner of a chicken joint in some neighborhood.

DA Securities, my first employer, had gone under — rotten from the inside out.

After that, I drifted along picking up odd part-time work. But my family's finances were struggling too, and I couldn't stay unemployed forever.

Then one day, I was eating chicken when my roommate said to me, "Let's open a chicken place together."

The guy's name was Kang Seon-woo. We'd been friends since middle school, and he'd graduated from Heist University with a degree in electronic engineering. He'd worked as a developer at a game company called LD Studio, but when the company collapsed and got swallowed up in an acquisition, he ended up unemployed — same as me.

"A chicken place? Why a chicken place?"

Seon-woo laid it out with total conviction. "Think about it. No matter how much the world changes, people are always going to order chicken, right?"

"I guess so?"

"You went to Korea University for economics, I went to Heist for electronic engineering. If we put our combined brainpower into frying chicken, there is no way it won't taste good."

…….

Was that supposed to be persuasive? Well — Korea University or Heist, humanities or sciences, everybody's final destination is a chicken restaurant anyway.

So we went into business together and opened one.

And Seon-woo's judgment proved dead-on. The world changed, and people kept ordering chicken anyway.

Seon-woo put that brilliant brain of his to work analyzing the local market down to the last detail, and we opened our shop where he figured business would be best. Thanks to that, things actually went pretty well.

Until a problem showed up.

It started with a price hike — on the brined chicken, the frying oil, the sauces, all the materials. Headquarters blamed rising costs, but the real reason was something else ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠entirely.

There was a company called JJ Trading that supplied ingredients to the franchises. It was an unlisted firm run by the CEO's wife, and any product that passed through its hands jumped fifty percent in price. All it did was slap new labels on the packaging — creation out of nothing, in the purest sense. And the only reason it could get away with that was the near-monopoly the company held over a fiercely competitive chicken market.

"Is this for real?"

"If it's not, what are you gonna do about it?"

"What can I do? Expose the truth, that's what."

Seon-woo dove straight into a cost analysis and put it all into a spreadsheet, then posted it on the online forum where the franchise owners gathered. When they saw the numbers, they were furious and stormed headquarters to protest — loudly.

The CEO, far from apologizing, assaulted the franchise owners' representative during the meeting. The recording that went public captured the sound of the blows along with a torrent of the foulest abuse imaginable.

The absurd part? The person who'd recorded it wasn't the victim at all — it was one of the company's own employees. That told you everything about how the CEO normally treated his staff. Listening to the language he used, you had to wonder whether those words had truly come out of a human mouth.

The recording first made the rounds on the internet, then landed squarely on the nine o'clock news. With public opinion turning ugly, the prosecution announced they would open an investigation.

And yet, for all the bowing, not a single word of apology to the actual victim.

I muttered at the news playing on the shop's TV. "He was pulling this exact act ten years ago, and he's still at it. It's honestly impressive how consistent some people are."

A leopard doesn't change its spots. Around ten years back there'd been a similar scandal — and here he was, pulling the same stunt again.

Seon-woo clicked his tongue. "Shouldn't that bastard be getting arrested?"

"Not a chance."

Leniency for rich men's crimes — same then, same now. Best-case scenario, a suspended sentence.

Once the news broke, a massive boycott erupted. Revenue plummeted more than thirty percent overnight. It was a franchise owner who'd been assaulted, yet the damage landed squarely on the franchises.

Then I got a call from a senior of mine — from school, and later from work. True to form, the securities firm's collapse had left him unemployed like me, and he was living on Jeju Island now.

I let out a sigh. You're supposed to call when there's good news — but we were both struggling, so there was rarely a reason to reach out.

Business was already dying on its feet, and then, around closing time, a most unexpected visitor walked in.

Early forties, give or take. Somewhere in the late 170 centimeters, broad shoulders, a squared jaw, a receding hairline leaving his forehead fully exposed, and gold-rimmed glasses.

None other than the franchise CEO who'd been all over the news earlier that evening.

He looked at the two of us, standing there in shock, and said, "You two the ones who posted that cost analysis on the forum?"

Since when did we switch to casual speech? We'd met for all of ten seconds.

Seon-woo nodded. "Yes. That was us."

"If you've got a problem with the prices, you take it up with words. Why post it on a forum?"

"Ah — we did take it up with words. We asked headquarters repeatedly, and every time the answer came back that there was no problem."

At Seon-woo's reply, the man gave an ugly, hollow laugh. "Goddamn it. The bastards who eat off my backstabbing me?"

The absurdity of it made me ask, flatly, "I'm sorry — what did you just say?"

"You're telling I'm the one who has to get dragged back and forth to the prosecutor's office over you two? Fucking unbelievable."

"Are you finished?"

In that instant, something in me snapped. I balled my fist and started to rise — and Seon-woo grabbed my hand. The fist I'd clenched was trembling, hard.

The CEO watched, and sneered. "Ooh! Nice swing there. Go on, if you want to hit me, hit me. Nothing in the contract says a franchise owner can't punch the CEO, right?"

Every fiber of me wanted to lay him out. But if I did, everything was over. He'd transform from perpetrator to victim in a heartbeat, and we'd be closing the shop for good.

I gritted my teeth and swallowed the rage.

The CEO patted me on the shoulder. "There we go. Good boy. No money, no power — what can you do but put up with it, right?"

As if his abuse were simply the natural order of things. That attitude was exactly why he'd beaten the franchise representative and hurled filth at him without a single thought for the consequences.

He flashed a grim, fishy smile. "This is all because of you two, so just you wait. See what I do next."

One month later, we stood staring at the three-story flagship store the company had thrown up directly across the street from ours.

Seon-woo turned to me. "Hey. If the chicken place dies, what do we even live on?"

"……Yeah. Goddamn it."

After the flagship opened, our orders dried up completely, and the wide dining hall sat empty.

Seon-woo, who'd been punching numbers into the calculator, buried his face in both hands. "We can't even make this month's rent properly. Should I go pick up delivery shifts at some other chicken place?"

"A franchise owner's hard work was never going to beat headquarters' stranglehold."

Even with no customers, you couldn't just refuse to do business. So we sat in the empty shop until closing time, staring blankly at the TV — where a game commercial came on.

Ten years is a long time. The world had been through a lot in that span. New products and services launched, whole industries transformed. The game industry in particular had undergone what you could only call a tectonic shift.

Seon-woo spoke like a man exhaling. "Making a VR game like that — that was my dream."

But reality was busy making chicken.

He heaved sigh after sigh, then looked over at me. "Come to think of it, what was your dream?"

"My dream?"

There was a time when I'd dreamed too. My dream was……

I let out a dry little laugh. "Honestly? I can barely remember."

Ding!

The order bell rang. "An order at this hour? We'll have to cancel it."

I checked the ticket, then told Seon-woo, "No — just take it. We'll deliver, then head straight home on the bike."

"Yeah?"

What good was loafing around? Every extra won counted. We still had par-fried chicken left over anyway, and one of the fryers hadn't been shut down yet, just in case.

Seon-woo fried the chicken fresh, quickly tossed it in sauce, and we loaded up the packaged orders and climbed onto the motorcycle — me at the handles, Seon-woo behind.

The bike wound through the back streets of the busy district. Even at this hour, the streets were packed with young men and women. Is everyone but me on a date? When did I break up with my last girlfriend, anyway?

My twenties suddenly felt like a lifetime ago. I found myself thinking back to my first day at DA Securities — back when I was certain I could do anything, become anything.

There was a time when my dream was to become a successful investor.

But DA Securities, my first employer, had collapsed a mere three years after I joined, its name wiped from existence entirely. Every now and then, when the news mentioned "that incident," I'd wonder what had become of the people I'd worked with.

If "that incident" had never happened, DA Securities wouldn't have gone under, and I'd still be working there. Would anything be different now, if so?

The markets are open to everyone, and opportunity lies scattered everywhere — stocks, bonds, real estate, cryptocurrency. Invest well enough, and in a few months you could turn millions into hundreds of billions of won.

But seizing opportunity is itself a talent.

Your odds of winning the lottery jackpot are one in 8,145,060. While a single person collects the grand prize, more than eight million others throw their money away. For every star trader born, hundreds of traders get cut from their firms; while one person detonates a twenty-fold windfall, the vast majority of investors lose their money and swallow their tears.

The time that had been allotted to me was already spent, and somewhere along the way I'd hit my late thirties. It was time to admit it.

I was not special. Not even a little.

Just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as the bike pulled out of the alley, everyone around us stopped in their tracks and looked up at the sky.

"Whoa — a shooting star."

I tilted my head back and saw it: meteors falling with long tails trailing behind them. Not one, but many, stitching themselves across the night sky.

"Come to think of it……"

I vaguely recalled a news report about a meteor shower tonight. The once-in-a-century cosmic show, wasn't that what they'd called it?

"Shooting stars!"

"Wow! They're beautiful!"

"Quick, make a wish!"

People hurriedly clasped their hands together and closed their eyes.

Watching them, I snorted to myself. I'm well past the age for wishing on stars.

The bike cleared the alley and entered the main road.

In that exact moment, a small puppy darted out of a side street onto the road. Its owner, apparently, had let go of the leash while gawking at the meteors.

And from the opposite direction, a massive SUV was bearing down at speed.

"Oh no!"

Even if I ran to save it, I'd never make it in time. One more second and the puppy would be under those tires. A couple nearby shrieked in alarm.

Thankfully, the driver registered the danger, killed the autonomous mode, and grabbed the wheel, wrenching it hard. The enormous SUV shaved past the puppy by a hair, pulling off a maneuver that looked straight out of a stunt show.

"Yes!"

I was mid-cheer when it hit me that this was no time to be cheering.

Why is it coming this way?

Seon-woo screamed, "Look out! Swerve! Turn the handle!"

"W-wait a second—"

The dog lived.

But now I was the one about to die!

CRUNCH!

There was no time to dodge. The SUV slammed straight into us. The motorcycle shattered to pieces and my body was flung into the air.

For one impossible instant, time seemed to slow — and through that frozen moment I saw the meteor shower pouring down the night sky like rain.

The once-in-a-century cosmic show. It truly was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

I felt as if I were floating in open space.

Is this really how it ends? Run over by a car in place of a dog?

Looking back on it, mine had been an utterly unremarkable life. I'd never achieved anything, never become anything.

The years that slipped away, the chances I missed, the relationships that went awry, the things I should have done and the things I never should have done……

I should have lived harder. I should have lived happier. I should have at least gotten married once, like everyone else does.

But it was all too late now.

If I could just have one more chance…… this time, I know I could do it right.

The body that had been flung upward began its long fall toward the ground.