KNC International (2)
I understood Seon-woo’s feelings perfectly.
If my entire fortune had been turned into some unknown garbage stock I’d never even heard of, I would’ve been shocked too.
If I put myself in his shoes, I’d have grabbed me by the collar already. Of the five hundred million won, two hundred million of it was his money. Eighty million of that was borrowed.
Two hundred million sounded impressive, sure, but for an ordinary office worker, it would take years of tightening the belt and doing nothing but work to save that much.
“You should’ve told me if you were buying on margin!”
“And if I had?”
“I would’ve talked you out of it, obviously.”
“Exactly. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“……”
Seon-woo looked as if his soul had just left his body.
He was probably remembering the time in college when he’d used margin the wrong way and gotten burned badly.
One of the things you absolutely shouldn’t do in the stock market was margin trading.
Normally, if you just invested in stocks and failed, you might end up down seventy or eighty percent, but your account wouldn’t go to zero, and it certainly wouldn’t go negative.
Margin trading was different.
Of course the securities firm was never going to run a business that let it lose money.
If the stock price fell and the collateral looked shaky, they’d sell the shares in your account without hesitation and take back the money they’d lent you.
That was called a forced sale.
And if you were hit with a forced sale and still couldn’t pay back the loan? Then the shortfall remained as debt, and before long they’d start calling you to collect.
In fact, there were plenty of cases where one bad stock investment turned someone into a credit delinquent.
“Don’t worry. If it starts looking dangerous, I’ll pull out immediately.”
“What if they force-sell it before then?”
“Come on, stop worrying.”
“How would you even know?”
I knew because I’d seen it firsthand.
But there was no way I could say that.
I spoke with confidence instead.
“It might dip a little for a few days. But a disclosure will come out soon, and by then you won’t even be able to buy it if you wanted to.”
“What disclosure?”
“You’ll see.”
* * *
Kang Seon-woo went to work at LD Studio.
The Fantasia Tales development team he belonged to was busy fixing bugs ahead of the closed beta service.
There was still plenty to do, but since the core development was finished, things were a little easier than before.
Even while his hands were at work, his head was full of worry.
What the hell is that bastard thinking?
He’d gone all in on an unheard-of stock, and not only that, he’d even borrowed money to do it. Han Miru had been so certain it would rise that even after the purchase was finished, the stock fell five percent the very next day.
Then it dropped another three percent the day after that, and this morning it was down seven percent.
What if he really does get forced out?
His entire fortune was on the line, so he was so anxious he could barely sleep. And yet the guy who’d actually bought the stock was acting as if this was all exactly as expected.
It made him angry for no good reason, and yet, strangely enough, it also relieved him.
If Miru wasn’t worried, that meant he was confident.
Has he always been this kind of person?
He’d suddenly gone and confronted the heir apparent, then quit the company; now he was dumping everything into a garbage stock because he supposedly had inside information.
While he was staring blankly in thought, someone tapped his shoulder.
“Seon-woo.”
Kang Seon-woo jumped.
“Ah!”
“Are you all right?”
“Ah, yes.”
The female employee who had called out to him was Cha Soo-yeon.
She was twenty-three, and thanks to her pretty face and bright personality, she was popular with everyone in the office, men and women alike.
She held out a cup of coffee.
“I bought you coffee.”
“Thanks.”
Like Kang Seon-woo, Cha Soo-yeon was on Development Team 3, where she handled character design. But she was interested in development too, and her enthusiasm was such that she studied coding and programming on her own, separately from her main work.
Kang Seon-woo taught her little by little after work and during breaks, and in turn, she naturally grew close to him.
“What were you thinking about? I called you several times and you didn’t answer.”
“I was just focusing on something for a bit…”
Cha Soo-yeon’s eyes widened.
“That character there?”
On his monitor was one of the game’s key characters: a red-haired warrior girl. In keeping with the concept of a desert female fighter, she was dressed in a way that left very little to the imagination.
Though aren’t people who actually live in deserts usually wrapped up tightly because of the sun?
Either way, he’d been staring vacantly in front of that image, so from other people’s point of view it probably looked as though he was fixated on a pretty illustration.
“Actually, it’s because of a friend I live with.”
“Oh! The friend who works at DA Securities?”
“Yeah, well…”
He’d quit recently, but…
It was basically getting fired.
Cha Soo-yeon leaned forward with interest.
“Why? What happened to your friend?”
He’d been feeling frustrated anyway, and he’d wanted someone to talk to.
“He bought some stocks this time…”
After hearing the full story, Cha Soo-yeon looked shocked.
“He put in two hundred million won, even after taking out loans?”
“And on top of that, he used margin.”
“What’s margin?”
“It’s borrowing. If I had two hundred million of my own money, I could borrow around another hundred million and buy more.”
But in this case, eighty million of that two hundred million was already borrowed money. He’d leveraged leverage.
“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”
“Not kind of. Very dangerous.”
While the two of them were talking, someone cut in.
“Are you talking about stocks?”
It was Park Geon-hwi, a manager from the management team.
He was twenty-nine. He’d earned his MBA in the United States and worked at Mirae Investment Securities before transferring to LD Studio half a year ago.
The development team and the management team even worked on different floors. Still, he kept finding excuses to come down to Development Team 3.
The reason stood right in front of him.
From the very first day he’d arrived, Park Geon-hwi had seen Cha Soo-yeon in the lobby and fallen for her at first sight.
Big eyes that looked striking even when she was still, clear skin without a blemish, and dimples that appeared faintly when she smiled. She didn’t wear much makeup, and at work she usually showed up in jeans and a T-shirt, but even so, her natural curves were hard to hide.
With just a little effort, she’d probably have everyone in the place staring.
She really is attractive.
Park Geon-hwi had been aggressively pursuing Cha Soo-yeon.
He had confidence in himself too.
Unlike the other employees who dressed casually, he wore designer brands and drove a Porsche. His face was fairly handsome, and he was popular with women as well.
More importantly, his father was Executive Director Park Hyun-jong, one of LD Studio’s founders.
The reason he’d originally entered the securities firm was to gain practical experience before moving on to formal management training.
Because of that, he’d drawn attention from the moment he was hired.
And yet Cha Soo-yeon showed almost no interest in him. Whenever he tried to make plans, she always used work as an excuse.
In truth, Development Team 3 had been buried under overtime every single day because of Fantasia Tales.
It looked like things had finally calmed down a little, so he’d come over to try talking to her, only to find Kang Seon-woo with her again. Not just today, either. It was always like this.
Damn it! Why the hell is this guy always hanging around Soo-yeon?
Strictly speaking, it was Cha Soo-yeon who had come to Seon-woo’s desk, but that made it no less irritating.
The development team and the management team clashed a lot.
Even if he outranked Seon-woo and was the executive director’s son, it wasn’t easy to treat him carelessly. That was because Kang Seon-woo’s development skills were anything but ordinary.
Setting rank aside, he was said to handle one of the most important roles after the director, and people even said Development Team 3 couldn’t function without him.
I really fucking hate this.
Whenever he tried to join their conversation, incomprehensible programming terms flew back and forth between them.
And then, for once, the topic turned to stocks.
That’s my field.
He cut into the conversation quickly.
“Looks like you’re into stocks too, Seon-woo.”
“Yeah. I used to mess around with them a while back, but I started again recently with a friend.”
“Your friend’s a stock expert?”
“He was an analyst at DA Securities…”
“DA Securities? Oh, right. That kind of securities firm exists too, I guess. Compared to the Mirae Investment Securities where I worked, it’s tiny. Didn’t they get caught up in a mess recently because of the Primus incident?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Kang Seon-woo nodded.
He’s the very bastard who caused that mess.
Park Geon-hwi smirked.
“Stocks aren’t something you just do carelessly without thinking.”
Honestly, he didn’t care whether Kang Seon-woo traded stocks or not. What he cared about was the woman standing next to him.
This was a perfect chance to look good in front of Cha Soo-yeon.
“What stock did you buy?”
Kang Seon-woo answered without much thought.
“KNC International. I didn’t pick it myself; my friend just bought it.”
Park Geon-hwi clicked his tongue with a smile.
“Ah, so you don’t really know much about stocks. Even if it’s a friend, you shouldn’t just hand over that kind of decision carelessly. Why did he buy it, anyway?”
“He said there’d be a huge positive development coming out soon.”
Park Geon-hwi searched the stock on his phone.
“It more than doubled in a month, but it’s been on a downward trend lately. It’s down seven percent today too. For a KOSDAQ stock with a small market cap, that’s risky. One of the mistakes beginners make all the time is chasing only cheap stocks. In fact, experts like me, or seasoned traders, prefer long-term investment in solid blue chips.”
He went on for a long while about stock investing, speaking as if he were teaching a child.
“Are you not interested in stocks, Soo-yeon?”
“I do have an account, but I don’t really know much.”
“Then should I teach you?”
“Well…”
“You absolutely have to invest. As Aaron Baker has shown, long-term investment in strong stocks has proven to earn better returns than savings. If you just follow my advice and get the timing right on buying and selling, you won’t lose money. There are plenty of employees who’ve made money thanks to me.”
Rumor had it that he’d made quite a lot of money through stocks.
These days, it was hard to buy a house on salary alone. Because of that, quite a few employees invested in stocks, and some even came to him for advice.
Cha Soo-yeon nodded halfheartedly.
“If I ever decide to, I’ll let you know.”
“If you’re going to do it anyway, it’s better to start sooner. Should I recommend a few names?”
Park Geon-hwi kept trying to lure her in, but Cha Soo-yeon didn’t seem very interested.