–Clank.
“...?”
When I woke up, my arms and legs were bound.
‘Wait... I fell asleep?’
Why am I here? What happened? I’m sure I took the CSAT...
My head wasn’t working properly.
What the hell...
***
The fog in my brain cleared a little, and I finally rembered—I drank.
“Aha. That’s what it was.”
I’m screwed.
Judging by the fact that soone changed my clothes sowhere in the middle... yeah.
Haah.
–Click.
Just as I was wallowing in self-deprecation, Seo Ji-yeon peeked her face in with a deep sigh and approached.
“...Are you back to your senses now?”
“Probably?”
I wasn’t confident. My mory still hadn’t returned.
Considering I rember the mont I was born, the fact that I can’t rember being drunk is seriously weird. I’d suspected this might happen, but still.
“Whew... I’ll undo your restraints. But really... why did you do it? You’re always so careful with alcohol.”
“...I just thought I’d be fine.”
“Thankfully we’ve got a basent detainnt facility for whatever reason...”
The cuffs fell away with a soft clatter. They were padded with fur, so my wrists weren’t chafed.
Though my body was more comfortable now, my mouth was painfully dry.
“I... I didn’t do anything too crazy, right?”
Seo Ji-yeon’s eyes glazed over. She let out yet another deep sigh.
“Crazy, huh...”
“...Why are you making that face? Don’t tell I actually slept with soone?”
“Thankfully, it didn’t go that far.”
Phew. My lower back was a little sore, which had worried, but I guess I just slept in a weird spot.
“But you really don’t rember? You’ve always had a perfect mory. One sip of wine and it’s all gone? That doesn’t sound right.”
I shut my mouth and quietly changed clothes.
Because... it felt like I did rember—just a little.
But no, it couldn’t be. It’s just the alcohol blurring the line between dream and reality.
I an, there’s no way I would’ve done... that.
***
–Sip.
I sipped my coffee with forced elegance as the heavy mood hung in the air.
“Miss.”
“What? And I’m telling you, I don’t rember anything.”
“...So you do rember. Should we skip work today and stay ho instead? I’m not really into gas, but if it’s for you, I can try to have fun.”
Pfft!
The coffee I spat out ran down my collarbone and chest in a wet streak.
–‘Ha-yeon wants a piggyback ride! Huh? Not a real airplane, a piggyback one like the others get! Or a shoulder ride! I wanted to ride on Dad’s shoulders too!’
–‘Mm... a gift? Oil? Ha-yeon doesn’t get stuff like that. I don’t care. I’m gonna go play. Buy a toy or sothing instead!’
–‘Ugh... I’m tired! I don’t wanna work. I just wanna roll around in bed with a dog or a cat forever. Hmph, I’m mad! Let’s see how the company runs without Ha-yeon!’
...Oh fuck.
I rembered.
“...Delete all the cara footage.”
We have a few security caras installed at ho, and this—this needs to be wiped from existence.
“Already done. I don’t know if you rember everything, but I deleted everything starting from the mont we found you drunk. Only the nanny and I know about it. Haah... Do you have any idea how hard it was to tie you to the bed without a security team?”
“...I see. Yeah, you don’t need to explain.”
My flushed red face reflected in the mirror. The hazy mories started taking shape more clearly in that reflection.
As they sharpened, so did the humiliation. I turned my head to avoid the mirror, but no matter where I looked, there were mirrors—so I just shut my eyes tight. I never thought all the mirrors I installed to admire myself would co back to bite like this.
–Gulp.
“B-But what about how you seduced those kids in the beginning?! Wiggling your butt like that—ugh. What are they supposed to think of now?”
Seo Ji-yeon looked at with a bit of pity in her eyes.
“You’ve always done that, so it’s fine.”
What?
I have?
Even when I’m sober?
“L-Liar! That’s a lie! I was more elegant and graceful before. Yesterday I was just trashy. I was humiliating!”
“Nope. You’ve always been kinda trashy. You’re just not self-aware. How can soone wear such shaless swimsuits to lure in boys and now try to act all innocent?”
“...”
...Was I?
Now that I think about it, it’s not that different from how I usually act.
“W-Well, at least no one else saw like that. That’s a relief.”
“...Honestly, the way you usually act is embarrassing enough.”
In the silence that followed, we quietly resud breakfast. Then Seo Ji-yeon cautiously spoke.
“Miss, if you’re really exhausted, you can take a break. The CSAT’s over, your other plans are running smoothly... I an, it’s all about making a living, right? If you overwork yourself...”
“No. I can’t. I’ve still got a mountain of work to do. I focused on school lately, but that ant I’ve neglected Russia and the Middle East. I also need to crack the Chinese market. And Alpha Fund just contacted —they’ve almost finished building their investnt bank, and I need to claim a seat there too... And then...”
“....”
She probably thinks I’m a workaholic. But it can’t be helped.
Even an average person, if given the chance to go back in ti, would instinctively say they’d invest in Bitcoin. So what do you expect from ?
Over the next ten years, countless once-in-a-lifeti opportunities will pass by. And I’m supposed to just let them go because I’m lazy? That doesn’t make sense.
With the future laid out so clearly in front of , the only people who wouldn’t invest in stocks or crypto are either delusional idealists who hate “making money like that” or believe in so shadowy organization that controls the world behind the scenes.
Sure, maybe a genius novelist who died young from lymphoma wouldn’t care about material wealth. But most people don’t avoid wealth out of principle—they just don’t know how to make it.
‘I hate crypto too, though.’
Still, I can’t let others rake in money while I do nothing. The envy burns hotter than the profits from crypto.
Maybe there’s no shadowy organization running the world behind the scenes... but if there isn’t, then I want to be the one to create it.
–Tap.
“Alright, alright. Even though you were whining earlier about wanting to rest, you’re going back to work now, huh? You say you enjoyed school life while being buried in paperwork in both the classroom and club room?”
“...Don’t twist my words. That’s just how life is. There are tons of people in this country desperate to do any kind of job. What’s harder than having too much work is having none.”
“Then why don’t you dump all that work onto the people who actually want it?”
“Believe , I wish the new hires were as competent as I am. If they were even half as good as Seon-jun oppa, I’d have less to do. At least thanks to Yoo Seon-jun’s competence, I don’t have to touch BBB much.”
“Aha, got it. I’ll tell Si-hyun unnie she’s a little incompetent then.”
“That’s not what I ant. Si-hyun’s just carrying too much weight right now. Why do you always twist everything I say?”
Seo Ji-yeon puffed out her cheeks in protest.
“You might be able to brush this all off as a dream, but I spent ten sleepless hours last night sitting beside you, worrying my head off.”
“...It was a dream. I’ve decided.”
Clinging to people and crying “daddy daddy”—there’s no way that wasn’t a dream.
***
After breakfast, the wine was officially sealed away.
‘Yeah. Alcohol only exists for those who can’t live without it.’
Right, right. Even the Bible says so. Lot, who was considered righteous enough to escape Sodom and Gomorrah, got drunk once and ended up committing incest with both his daughters.
So whatever I did while drunk—it’s void. Totally void.
–Clink.
Though the day after the CSAT was technically a holiday, I still showed up at Daehwa Securities and sipped water as I reviewed the derivatives list.
“And that’s why water is better than wine. A cold glass of water is just superior.”
The weather was starting to turn cold °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° with December around the corner, but hey—if I say it’s good, it’s good.
“You might get a bit cold though...”
“Stop yapping and get more water.”
Sadly, my brain—utterly untouched by the blessing of forgetfulness—kept looping the complete highlight reel of Yoo Ha-yeon’s most shaful monts, or rather, the nightmare from earlier. My face kept burning up, so I had to keep cooling myself with cold water.
–Click.
Seo Ji-yeon cracked open a bottle of spring water and poured it into my glass as she chattered.
“I an, these days even spring water costs money. So weird, right?”
“...You do know I’m the one selling it, right? Cornering the bottled water market is one of the directives I gave to our food subsidiary.”
“Oops. My bad.”
At this point, criticizing any major Korean company at school has beco semi-taboo.
Because odds are, I own most of them now.
“Honestly, I feel like I could sell my bathwater for more than what we pull from Jeju Island.”
“Don’t be gross. That stuff tastes awful.”
“...Why would you drink that?”
“Waterboarding? Not , obviously.”
Why the hell would you even do that?
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