Chapter 8

“Suho. Isn’t it time for you to get up?”

I jolted awake at the sound of Mom’s voice.

So it really was a dream after all!

“You drank alcohol last night because you were so happy. I knew this would happen.”

Ah.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a dream.

I let out a sigh of relief.

When the team leader told me that I would become a full-time employee, I had been so flustered that I didn’t even have time to feel happy.

But on the way home, the reality of it gradually sank in, and eventually I drank some alcohol to celebrate, even though I normally couldn’t handle much.

“Get up quickly. I’ve made some bean sprout soup.”

“Oh. Really?”

Sure enough.

The fragrant, savory smell of bean sprout soup was stimulating my nose from outside.

“Is everyone already awake?”

“Suho has to go to work.”

“Why do securities firms make people start work so early? Thanks to him, I’m getting up ridiculously early too.”

My older sister, who had been sleeping because of all the noise we were making, woke up as well.

“You go to work this early, but you get off work ridiculously late. You said you’re still an intern. Isn’t this a little too much?”

Mom raised the corners of her mouth.

“Suho isn’t an intern anymore.”

“Huh?”

“He called Mom last night, all excited. He said he’s becoming a full-time employee starting next month.”

“Eeeh!?”

My sister immediately gave me a suspicious look.

“Suho. That’s Daesung Securities, right? It’s not Daesang Securities, is it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“No. You haven’t even been working there that long, and you’re already becoming a full-time employee next month. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Even I had to admit that it didn’t make much sense.

“Well…… I got a little lucky.”

“Even if you’re lucky, aren’t you too lucky?”

That was true.

Everything I had been doing lately seemed to be going well.

“Judging by your expression, I guess it’s really true.”

“Would I lie about something like this?”

“No way. So my little brother is really a full-time employee at a major corporation? And not just any company, but Daesung Group?!”

My sister quickly looked me up and down.

“Suho. You look kind of cool today. Is this the aura of a full-time employee at a major corporation?”

“Fine. I’ll buy you something when I get my first paycheck.”

“I knew you were quick on the uptake.”

“Stop bothering your brother and sit down already. Let’s eat breakfast.”

Mom placed a bowl filled with bean sprouts in front of me.

“Looks like the people at Daesung Group know talent when they see it. Our Suho is so talented, just like his father.”

“……”

My memories of Dad were already blurry.

He had passed away before I even became an adult.

From then on, Mom worked through the night at a restaurant every single day to raise the two of us.

And yet, she had still gotten up this early to personally make soup for her son.

“……”

My chest tightened.

“Mom.”

“Yes?”

“I’ll definitely succeed and let you live comfortably.”

“You sound exactly like your father.”

Mom smiled and gently pinched my cheek.

“Suho. Can’t you let your older sister live comfortably too? I practically carried you around on my back while raising you. Sob, sob.”

“I’m…… thinking about it.”

“You little brat.”

My sister punched me in the shoulder, but strangely, it didn’t hurt as much as usual.

I need to work even harder.

I didn’t need anything else.

I just wanted my family to be happier and more prosperous than they were now.

I wanted Mom to be able to rest properly and travel to all the places she had never been able to visit in her life.

I wanted my sister to try new things and pursue her own dreams.

Maybe that’s why I was becoming increasingly ambitious.

Ambitious about one thing.

Success.

---

“Hehe.”

“W-why are you laughing?”

“Why do you think~?”

The assistant manager nudged me with her elbow.

“Because Mr. Suho isn’t getting fired. And on top of that, you’re becoming a full-time employee next month! I’m really happy for you.”

“You kept saying that yesterday too……”

“No matter how many times I say it, it’s not enough! I was so nervous that you might leave!”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

For a moment, a thought crossed my mind.

Could our angel-hearted and beautiful assistant manager perhaps have feelings for me……?

“If Mr. Suho left, all the things I’ve taught you so sincerely would disappear, and I’d have to go back to being the youngest member all by myself, preparing for meetings while feeling depressed, wouldn’t I?”

“……”

Of course.

That brief spring had passed by my cheek.

“Oh! This is a present I prepared~.”

The assistant manager pulled out a small cake.

“I just bought it at the café nearby. It’s really delicious, you know? I’ve wanted to eat it so badly, but I haven’t because I was afraid I’d gain weight. It’s also pretty expensive for its size.”

It looked like a Choco Pie that had been enlarged to about three times its normal size and turned into a cake.

“You bought it to celebrate me, right? Not because you wanted to eat it yourself?”

“Hehe. It’s killing two birds with one stone. Hurry up and eat!”

I gratefully took a few bites.

No.

Maybe two bites.

And the cake was already gone.

“Phew. It’s still disappointing how small it is.”

“You’re so fast that I can’t even see your hand moving when you eat cake, Assistant Manager.”

“It’s just your imagination.”

“……”

Fine.

At least she was willing to share something she could have eaten all by herself.

“Oh. Team Leader, good morning.”

“Yes. Everyone, please pay attention for a moment.”

At the team leader’s words, everyone stopped what they were doing.

“We’ll replace this morning’s meeting with the email I sent. Assistant Manager Kim, I’ve written down which report you should upload, so upload it exactly as instructed. And Kang, the intern.”

“Yes?”

“Come with me right now. I’ll explain on the way.”

“Ah, yes!”

I hurried after her.

“I told you yesterday, didn’t I? That we’d be busy starting today. We need to meet with the semiconductor-sector team right now and discuss things. Quite a few institutions have contacted our securities firm.”

“You mean we need to discuss how to establish an investment strategy?”

“That’s right.”

“Then shouldn’t you be taking someone else with you instead of me……?”

At that, the team leader stopped her brisk footsteps.

Then she quietly looked at me.

“……”

Even though her expression was sharp, it was impossible not to feel uncomfortable when an incredibly beautiful woman stared directly at you like that.

“So that’s your approach?”

“What?”

“I won’t ask what purpose you came to our personnel department with. All I need you to do is make good use of that ability of yours by my side. Let’s just do what we’re best at. I don’t want to get involved in complicated internal politics.”

“……?”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

She seemed to have misunderstood something.

“Let’s go.”

But before I had a chance to sort things out, we headed toward the meeting room.

---

Traders sign contracts with the company as well as individually.

That’s why they receive a certain percentage of the profits they generate as incentives.

In other words, the more money they make by investing the company’s money, the more money they take home.

Research employees, on the other hand, were evaluated differently.

Which reports institutions based their investments on, and how much commission those investments generated—that was the revenue and incentive for the Research Center.

When a particular sector began to heat up, the analysts in charge would smile broadly at the thought of their hefty incentives.

Meanwhile, analysts responsible for quiet sectors could only sit around twiddling their thumbs.

“Some people change their specialization because of that relative sense of deprivation, and plenty of others just leave and become traders.”

There were analysts who chose the right field, rode the trends of the times, appeared on television every day, and raised their own market value.

And then there were traders who made money by boldly betting on the stocks whose rises those analysts had spent all night analyzing and predicting.

Analysts were salaried employees whose annual salaries and bonuses were somewhat predetermined.

Traders, however, received a percentage of their profits, so the scale of the money they could earn was completely different.

“That’s why going from research to trading is called the elite career path.”

Research analysts were closer to service workers, so most of the time, they were the ones in the subordinate position.

Some institutions complained if they didn’t like a report.

And if an analyst wrote something negative about a particular company, the company might retaliate by blocking visits and cutting off access to information.

“So the Research Center ended up becoming a training camp. A place where people study before becoming traders, you could say.”

“Didn’t you say you used to be a trader too, Team Leader?”

“I did. I followed the same path as my colleagues, transferred to trading, and then came back.”

“Why did you come back?”

“Do you know how suffocating it is to be a trader? If your performance is bad, they immediately take away your bonus. I did that for a few months, ended up with depression and insomnia, and ran back here.”

“Oh.”

Plenty of people became traders while dreaming of a rosy future.

But only about one in ten could actually succeed.

There were countless people who gave up trading because they couldn’t withstand the pressure.

“I like it here. If our performance is bad, it’s easy to blame the fact that our sector isn’t receiving attention because money is rotating elsewhere. And when our sector is on fire, at least some crumbs fall our way.”

“That makes sense.”

“But I never imagined we’d get this busy.”

Research was already known for being busy.

But it had been a long time since so much work had been concentrated in a single sector.

“I thought we’d just sit around comfortably for a while, twiddling our thumbs. Then this disaster came out of nowhere.”

The team leader of the Semiconductor Research Team, Lim Dong-geun, complained with his words, but he was smiling.

After all, wasn’t his team’s report receiving attention from institutional investors right now?

“But what were the Operations Team thinking when they uploaded that?”

“That’s exactly what I’m wondering. The other teams all assumed it was a mistake.”

But it hadn’t been a mistake.

The Operations Team had uploaded that hastily scribbled report exactly as it was, and no matter what anyone around them said, they had refused to withdraw it.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out if we ask them directly. Speaking of which, there they are.”

He greeted them first in a playful tone.

“Wow. Team Leader Cheon. Long time no see. How is it that we’re in the same center and yet I hardly ever see you? You didn’t even show your face once at the center dinner.”

“Hello, Team Leader.”

“Yeah. But who’s the person next to you……?”

“My name is Kang Suho. I’m an intern.”

“An intern?”

Team Leader Lim Dong-geun tilted his head.

What is an intern doing here?

Is he here to handle errands?

“Did you prepare the reports?”

“Ah, yeah. I prepared several. It was absolute chaos; I barely slept. I’ve compiled everything into one file here. Pick whichever ones you like, and we’ll send them to the institutions.”

Team Leader Lim handed over a single compilation of reports.

“Give me one more.”

“Huh?”

“Give one to Intern Kang too.”

“……?”

Even if an intern reads this, he won’t know what any of it means.

But faced with Team Leader Cheon’s forceful gaze, he handed a copy of the compiled reports to the intern as well.

“……”

The two of them examined the reports quite seriously.

How much time had passed?

“Intern Kang.”

“Yes.”

“What do you think? Which strategy do you think would be better?”

In the end, Team Leader Lim couldn’t hold back and shouted.

“Team Leader Cheon! What are you doing?”

“Pardon?”

“Why are you asking an intern? If you’re going to ask someone, you should ask an expert like me! Are you ignoring me right now or what?”

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. It’s just that Intern Kang’s opinion is important.”

“What?”

He couldn’t believe his ears.

An intern’s opinion was more important than that of the semiconductor expert sitting right there?

“What was your name again?”

“Kang Suho……sir.”

“Right. Kang Suho, Intern. Let’s hear this brilliant opinion of yours and see just how good it is.”

Team Leader Lim glared viciously at the intern whom Cheon Do-ah seemed to cherish so much.

---

“……”

How did things end up like this?

Everyone had fixed an uncomfortable gaze on me.

Especially Team Leader Lim, who was glaring at me with the furious face of a magistrate ready to punish someone.

But the real problem is……

There was no reaction coming from this compilation of reports.

It contained material about the rise in semiconductor-related stocks, along with investment strategies for how to take advantage of it.

Normally, whenever Team Leader Cheon asked me to choose a report, my switch seemed to turn on, and the smell of something rotten would fill the air, guiding me toward the right choice.

I had already made three correct predictions that way, and I had also begun to realize that I possessed some unusual ability.

Then why isn’t there any reaction this time?

Is this ability only temporary?

Or had everything simply been luck, and was my sense of smell merely unusually sensitive?

“Intern Kang?”

“……Ah. I’m sorry.”

“Is it because you don’t like any of them?”

It wasn’t that I wanted to belittle their efforts.

Just by looking at the contents, I could tell how much work they had put into writing these reports.

It was simply that I wasn’t getting the same reaction as before.

“Do you have anything else?”

“I told you. This is the compilation we barely managed to put together after working through the night.”

“Still. Even rough drafts are fine.”

“No. Seriously, the more I look at this……!”

Team Leader Lim looked back and forth between me and Team Leader Cheon before swallowing down his rising anger.

“These are the things we scrapped or overhauled halfway through. There isn’t much useful information in them. A lot of them are basically fantasies. You really want to look through these too?”

“You never know. Besides, wasn’t the first semiconductor report we uploaded actually something like this too?”

“That’s different. Everyone already knows semiconductor stocks are about to skyrocket, don’t they? That compilation was written based on that expectation. Or what? Are you saying all semiconductor stocks are going to crash instead?”

That was when it happened.

The unfinished reports Team Leader Lim had just handed me all began to emit a foul stench at once.

“!?”

The stench assaulted my nose, and I frowned.

Stay calm.

If they smelled bad, that meant there was something among them I needed to pick.

But I couldn’t take too long.

Even though I was holding my breath, the stench felt as though it were burning the inside of my nose, and my vision was already beginning to blur.

But if I can find the one good one among these……!

I frantically rummaged through the pile of hastily scribbled reports.

Some fell uselessly onto the floor, but I couldn’t stop.

“What the hell are you doing right now……!”

“This one.”

I had found the one that could save me from being surrounded by that horrible stench.

“T-this one?”

“Yes.”

Team Leader Lim checked the report, then looked at me with contempt.

“Are you completely out of your mind?”

---

After the commotion was over,

Team Leader Lim called Cheon Do-ah aside.

“Team Leader Cheon. Are you in your right mind?”

“I’m perfectly fine. Why?”

“Not from where I’m standing. You should have brought at least someone at the manager level to a meeting like this. What kind of disgrace is this, bringing an inexperienced intern who doesn’t know anything? And now you want to proceed based on what that intern picked?”

Team Leader Lim simply couldn’t accept it.

Because—

“All semiconductor-related stocks are on the verge of entering a huge boom, and you’re saying prices are going to fall instead?!”

The report chosen by the intern was practically a fantasy scenario.

It was one of those reports that had merely been drafted as a possibility, taking various circumstances into consideration.

The problem was that it predicted the exact opposite of a semiconductor boom.

It predicted a decline.

“Do you really think this makes sense?”

“……”

Cheon Do-ah let out a short sigh.

It seemed she needed to explain.

She needed to tell him what kind of ability this intern had demonstrated so far, and why she was making such an apparently insane decision from her perspective.

But—

“Team Leader. About that intern.”

There was a saying, wasn’t there?

A bad answer was complicated and boring, and only created unnecessary arguments.

“That intern isn’t ordinary.”

“What? What are you suddenly talking about?”

A good answer, on the other hand, was simple, quick, and powerful.

“He’s someone who was placed here from above.”

“From above?”

The sharpness in Team Leader Lim’s angry eyes quickly disappeared, replaced by bewilderment.

“You mean from the group level?”

“Yes.”

“T-then what does that mean? Is he perhaps a member of the ro……?”

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, overwhelmed by the realization.

“I’ll be going now.”

Cheon Do-ah gave him a polite bow and left the stunned Team Leader Lim behind.

“……”

Team Leader Lim stared blankly into space.

Memories of his encounters with the intern flashed through his mind like scenes from a revolving lantern.

The things he had said to him.

The expressions the intern had shown him.

And everything else.

“What…… what have I done?”