“I’ll kill him. Son of a bitch…”

Choi Hyeok-chan ground his teeth.

A girl he knew who had been at Pizza Hat had called him.

To tell him that the girl Choi Hyeok-chan loved had started going out with Jang Tae-san for real.

He came out of ssireum practice.

He had no drive left.

He was a third-year, and after graduation there was nowhere for him to go.

His form had dropped off badly lately.

Yongin University, the famous school for ssireum, was not something he could even think about applying to.

He had learned nothing at a school that used to be the agricultural high school.

His family wasn’t well off either.

He had lived like a king on his fists all this time, and what was left now was the army and a punk’s life.

He had drawn attention in his first year, but in a sport like ssireum only the winner is remembered.

His muscle mass had dropped from not training, and the cigarettes he smoked over the stress had cut his lung capacity.

To a Choi Hyeok-chan like that, Ye-rin was a dream.

A wish that ached more because he could never have it.

Four years ago Ye-rin had transferred into his middle school.

Choi Hyeok-chan had seen a vision then, as though a goddess had come down again.

He never dared say to her that they should go out.

Her white skin, the air about her that crushed the country girls flat, her grades — all of it was a wall he couldn’t get over.

Even so, Hyeok-chan was happy.

Just seeing her made him happy.

After he started high school, Hyeok-chan kept watching Ye-rin.

Nobody on the school bus spoke to Ye-rin.

Hyeok-chan had put the word out, so nobody dared step up.

He was fine just looking at her from a distance.

He had spread the word all over downtown too.

Every kid who ran with anyone reported to Hyeok-chan when they saw Ye-rin.

And today it had blown up.

“Jang Tae-san…”

Choi Hyeok-chan ground his teeth.

He had gathered information on the guy.

And found out something astonishing.

Whatever the guy had done over the break, he had cleaned out every delinquent at Jangju High School.

There was talk that he had money and someone powerful behind him too.

Hyeok-chan knew about Hong Seong-hyeon of Jangju High.

Good grades, decent enough in a fight, and good backing.

If they ran into each other downtown they gave each other a nod, and that was the extent of it.

And that Hong Seong-hyeon had been wrecked.

“Hyeok-chan.”

A friend of Hyeok-chan’s came into the karaoke room they used as a hideout.

“What?”

Hyeok-chan came back at him prickly.

He looked ready to kill anybody who caught his eye today.

“Boss wants you.”

“Which boss?”

“Boss Gi-dong says bring you in.”

“Boss Gi-dong?”

Choi Hyeok-chan was startled.

The gangster they called Boss Gi-dong was the enforcer chief of the Yeokjeon Gang, which had the city in its grip.

To kids like Choi Hyeok-chan, he was heaven itself.

“What’s it about?”

“No idea. He said bring you.”

“Got it.”

Hyeok-chan got up from his seat.

He didn’t know what it was, but it was an opportunity.

If he gave up the sport there was only one place to go anyway.

Becoming a gangster wasn’t a bad option.

He didn’t want to do his army service either.

Put a knife in somebody on the organization’s orders, do his time inside, come back out, and that was that.

Choi Hyeok-chan, whose resident registration had him down a year younger than the others.

He was still in juvenile-crime territory, where the punishment was light.

“Father, Mother. I’d like to buy a house in town.”

“A house?”

“In town?”

It was a cozy morning.

The pizza business had been settled as of yesterday.

My pig friends had put away a full nine hundred and eighty thousand won of it.

That was with the drinks thrown in on the house.

They had pretty much demolished one pie each.

I didn’t mind.

I swiped my debit card for Ye-rin sunbae’s and Seo-ryeon’s pizza too, no hesitation. And I rang the golden bell for everybody else eating in the place. (TL Note: 골든벨 — from a TV quiz show; to ring the golden bell is to pay for everyone in the room.)

It isn’t as if money is rotting in my pockets, but I wanted to.

It was a party marking the first perfect score I’d gotten since coming back.

There was the joy of holding Ye-rin on the right and Seo-ryeon on the left, too.

Yesterday, for the first time, Ye-rin sunbae texted me first.

A text saying thanks for the pizza and that she would treat me once the entrance exam was over.

I can’t tell you how happy that made me.

Seo-ryeon texted too.

What my hobbies were, whether I had an idol I liked, and that I had better make a good impression now, because she was going to be an entertainer.

The texting levels were on completely different planets.

Seo-ryeon was exactly a kid of her generation.

Ye-rin sunbae, next to that, gave off the feel of a well-bred young lady.

And then it was morning.

A free Saturday. I got up early and finished my training.

My sisters had gone to school for supplementary classes again today.

Thick soybean paste with squash and snails, which I never get tired of, and lettuce and perilla leaves from the kitchen garden to wrap it in.

Mom’s food really is the best.

“I don’t think the twins can commute next year. I’m a boy so it’s one thing for me, but at that hour the girls would be better off going somewhere close by. Having done the commute myself, it wastes a lot of time.”

That was my own experience.

There was nothing to do but listen to music.

Studying with a stack of girls’ bags in front of you doesn’t work either.

There were days the bus ran late.

When it rained or snowed the buses were a mess.

There was plenty of accident risk too.

And the deciding thing is that the twins are girls.

For their dreams, they were going to need a quiet place to study.

“I know what you’re saying, but our family isn’t in that kind of position. We got over the crisis with your royalties, Tae-san, but we can’t keep on living like that, can we?”

By ordinary sense, Dad was right.

But Dad knows the one thing and not the second, third, fourth…

With her full cooperation, I had been building the money up in my mother’s account.

A gift tax applies even between family.

I took the twenty million won I’d sent to Mom’s account as the investment stake and grew it exponentially.

That way there was nothing left for anyone to pick at later about how my assets had grown.

The best part of it was being clear of the tax problem.

That is why rich people invest in solid company stocks.

Of course, having the account didn’t mean my mother could manage it.

Both my parents were soft-hearted.

I love my mother, but on money I couldn’t trust her.

She’s an art student who has only ever kept house.

I intend to manage it.

The old me had never handled money of this size either.

But strangely, I was growing calm about money.

My nerve had grown, no question.

Ever since I began training the Taegeuk Five Elements Dual Intent Mind Art, a coldness had taken me over.

Under normal circumstances my feelings neither lifted nor sank.

“They say it’s been reprinted again.”

The reprint art had struck.

It had sold more than I thought it would.

The benefit of publishing fast, I suppose.

“Mm…”

My father let out a short groan, as if he had nothing to say.

“And I think this house needs work too.”

“Repairs on top of it?”

“The roof tiles are ruined. Mold on the wall of the far room is proof water is getting in. If it goes wrong the whole thing could come down. And it’s time to change Mother’s kitchen. It’s fine for now, but as she gets older a comfortable setup is better. My room has hit its limit too.”

“Tae-san, is this really all right?”

Mother asked in alarm.

Even Mom, who only knows housekeeping, would see this was more than we could carry.

She would probably get a shock if she went to the bank and checked her own account.

“You both have time, don’t you?”

“Now?”

“Yes. It’s Saturday. This kind of thing is better handled fast. I’m looking into the repairs on the internet, so don’t worry about that.”

I had found a firm that specialized in old houses.

I won’t know until I get an estimate, but the price is going to be high.

Even so, it’s less than what lands in my mother’s account in a day.

“Winter is coming. We should get it done before then.”

My room is colder than you would think.

I don’t care, but my sisters are the problem.

The cold air gets all the way inside, and in winter they caught colds often.

“All right. I understand.”

My father nodded.

He is a reasonable man who knows where the lines are.

Any other parent would have asked how much had landed in their son’s account and taken over managing it.

But my father was different.

He knew where he stood, and he wasn’t bitter about it.

That is why I love a father who trusts me.

“Every so often our son seems like a goblin to me~ Jang Tae-san. You are my son, aren’t you?”

Ah, that goblin has nothing on me.

The goblin is more pitiful than you’d think.

Has to walk around with a sword through his heart.

Can’t even love the woman he loves the way he wants to~.

That’s no way to live.

He’s a poor goblin who only has money.

“Yes. Not a goblin — Jang Tae-san, eldest son of Madam Ju Seol-ran!”

“Quiet again today…”

Yu Gil-tae, the owner of Happiness Real Estate, clicked his tongue in an office where not one customer had come by.

The property market in the capital region was in an uproar right now.

Where the subscription frenzy for the Pangyo new town had swept through, housing prices had exploded.

The government had hurriedly designated the Bubble Seven districts and put out one property measure after another.

On top of that there was an outcry over apartments selling above fifteen million won per pyeong. (TL Note: 평, pyeong — the Korean unit of floor area, about 3.3 square meters or 35 square feet. A 65-pyeong apartment is a large one, around 215 square meters.)

But the issue hadn’t reached the provinces yet.

Prices had risen a little, and that was all.

Ding-a-ling.

Just then the door of the agency opened.

Three people came in hesitantly, a middle-aged couple and someone who looked like their son.

“Welcome.”

Yu Gil-tae, thirty years in the property business, could tell the couple didn’t have money.

The middle-aged man’s burned face and his hands and feet said farmer.

Still, better to land even a monthly rental than sit idle.

“We came to look at a house.”

The son, who looked like a high schooler, well built and good-looking, stepped up.

The parents, by contrast, said nothing.

What’s this? Something about this kid.

Yu Gil-tae, who had dealt with a lot of people, felt something odd looking at Tae-san.

There was the ease that comes off a man who has money.

“What sort of house are you after? We have detached houses and apartments both. Listings are scarce these days, but there is plenty on jeonse and on monthly rent. Say the word and I’ll find it for you right away.” (TL Note: 전세, jeonse — a Korean lease with no monthly rent: the tenant hands the landlord one enormous lump sum, lives rent-free for two years, and gets the whole sum back at the end. The landlord keeps whatever he can earn on the money.)

One deal alone brought in a few hundred thousand won in commission.

Yu Gil-tae didn’t miss a single expression on his customers.

“Show us apartments.”

“How many pyeong would suit you? We have a good range in the smaller sizes too.”

The high school son did the talking and the couple stayed quiet.

Yu Gil-tae kept the conversation going with the strangeness of it sitting in him.

“How about that apartment over there? A big supermarket is right next to it and the school is a ten-minute walk.”

“I like it, son.”

“Your dad thinks it’s fine too.”

“Then let’s take this one.”

Tae-san pointed at the apartment building across the road.

Yu Gil-tae was taken aback by what Tae-san said.

The apartment Yu Gil-tae’s agency mainly handled was that very building across from the office, finished recently.

A thousand units, newly built by the Ojeong Group, and even after the presale there was stock left when it was finished.

And it was in the large sizes.

“I heard there are sixty-five pyeong units. Any left?”

“What? S-sixty-five?”

Exactly a hundred units at sixty-five pyeong had gone on sale.

Eight million won per pyeong, the highest presale price in this city in 2006.

A radical offering that had failed to consider what the people here could afford.

“None left?”

“There are! And a full range of them, starting from the top floor!”

Yu Gil-tae’s mind snapped awake.

Selling off unsold stock paid a commission that was no joke.

Unofficially it ran as high as twenty percent.

One deal could leave him close to a hundred million won.

“Is the twenty-fifth floor still open?”

“Of course. You only have to pick, starting from the twenty-fifth floor at the top.”

“How much of a discount can you do?”

“I’m sorry?”

Tae-san grinned.

“Come on, we’re both pros here. I came knowing all of it. Take nineteen percent off the presale price.”

“Hah!”

Yu Gil-tae let out a groan.

The student in front of him was plainly young, and his eyes were the eyes of a pro who had been through fire and water.

Yu Gil-tae had no way of knowing.

That Tae-san was a high schooler in appearance only, one who had scouted the future once already.

(End of Chapter 24)