“Daniel~ did something happen in the night?”

“Oppa? What’s wrong with your face?”

“Tae-san. Are you sick somewhere?”

“Son. Is the summer getting to you?”

My family looked at me when I got up in the morning and every one of them had a word to say.

Last night I burned red till morning.

I’d watched several months of it, and in the real world only a few seconds seemed to have passed.

There was no way I was falling asleep.

That love action, floating through my head over and over!

No! Nova hyungnim! Is that the true technique of love?

The way I saw it, there was nothing there but fierce wrestling technique!

You sent it meaning to kill me, didn’t you?

To a hot-blooded young man, Nova hyungnim’s latest version update was a very dangerous item.

I meant not to watch, and I sat through every bit of three months of Nova hyungnim’s history.

It was enough to drop me into the illusion that I had become Nova hyung.

More than any of the other gods, Nova hyungnim was the most dangerous.

It’s sweeter and more fatal than the devil’s temptation.

I was already counting the days to next month’s version.

“The moonlight was lovely. So I slept badly.”

“Really? Yesterday was the dark of the moon…”

Dad! Last night there was just something round as the moon—

I couldn’t bring myself to say any more.

“Everybody, let’s run for Daecheon! We’ll eat a quick breakfast at a rest stop on the way~.”

“Kyaaaaaah! I love the sea!”

“Dad. What about a place to stay? We’re sleeping over, right?”

“Your oppa has booked a resort~.”

“Whoaaaaaah! Unnie, this isn’t a dream, is it?”

The twins were the happiest of all.

Because of how things were at home, summer vacations until now had been replaced by the breeze of an electric fan.

But this year was different.

Once things at home were comfortable, we could get a taste of a real vacation.

“Clara. Did you sleep well last night?”

“Mm~ Daniel. That’s the most comfortable deep sleep I’ve had in a long while. I woke up to birdsong in the morning and my whole body feels like flying~.”

She really does seem to have slept deeply.

To sleep like that in somebody else’s house, and in a foreign country at that, takes a remarkable state of mind, and Clara had it.

Which is probably why her skin is as good as her nature.

The skin of Clara’s face was soft and clear.

She’s in her mid-twenties, and her skin had about the same spring to it as the twins’.

“Dear. Did you get everything packed?”

“Yes~. Call it luggage, and it’s nothing but clothes. I bought the girls’ swimsuits too.”

Swimsuits!

All at once I had a picture of Clara walking lightly across the sand at Daecheon.

Before I knew it the muscles around my lips shot upward.

“Did you tell Clara?”

“Of course. I told her before bed yesterday and she was enormously pleased.”

In denim shorts with nothing but an orange tank top, Clara is in beach fashion already.

I made an effort to turn my eyes away from where they kept going, toward her chest.

The Hong Kong goddess with sunglasses pushed up on her head is a moving sight.

“The twins will ride in Mom’s car.”

“Yes. I can take a hint too.”

“Aww~ but I like oppa‘s car.”

Ju-hui made a fuss, but a look from Mom put her down easily.

And so the family got into the cars and set out.

My father drove Mom’s Mercedes.

I followed quietly behind them.

Clara, joining a two-day family trip, looked comfortable too.

The latest song by Beyoncé, who is sweeping the Billboard charts in 2007, came out of the speakers, calm and easy.

Back when I was a high schooler I couldn’t listen to it, with school life so full.

There’s a reason it had the Billboard chart lined up behind it.

Beyoncé’s soft voice, sounding in the chest, was good to hear.

It was a breakup song.

It was exactly the story of Ye-rin sunbae and me.

The content is a girlfriend throwing her cheating boyfriend out of the house.

She took his car keys too, because he’d been rolling around in her car.

The woman needles him that he needn’t worry, since she can meet another fine man by tonight even without him.

Like American lyrics, the direct speech landed cleanly in the chest.

Clara hummed along with the words and enjoyed it.

At times like this I felt the cultural difference between us.

“Well? What about my family?”

“I love them! Papa is blunt but he’s cuter than he looks, and Mommy is full of grace, and the twins are sweet and they call me unnie~.”

There was no falsehood in Clara’s face.

My family seems to like that Clara too.

“Clara.”

I wasn’t idling just because it was a vacation.

My head was moving the next plan along, step by step.

“Mm~ Daniel.”

“Is there anybody you can trust among your seniors?”

“University seniors?”

“Yes. Or if not that, among the people working in finance around you.”

Clara is out of the economics department at the University of Chicago, the cradle of the Chicago School.

Her network reaching into the world’s financial firms is no joke.

Now I needed talent that would become my hands and feet.

The time had come to pull the funds in the unofficial accounts out into the world.

“These days there are a lot of people being forced into retirement in the wake of the financial crisis. There’ll be somebody if I look.”

Clara nodded.

The table she plays at is international.

She’s young, but Clara is a trusted permanent member of HSBC Bank’s secretariat.

“I’ll ask you for a favor. I’ll pay the headhunter’s fee at top price.”

“All right~ trust me.”

Just as I was introduced to Team Leader Yu Se-ra through Attorney Jo Yun-tae, it’s a world where a network matters.

Good people always gather beside good people.

The principle that like gathers with like holds everywhere in this world.

Talent recommended by Clara — clean in her nature, proven in her humanity — will be a sure thing.

“Make it management talent rather than profit-earning investment talent. Especially, I’d like a person who will believe and follow the boss’s word ahead of anything else. Somebody older with a wide network is more welcome than somebody young. And better still if there’s a line to American political circles~.”

“Daniel, talent at that level is at manager grade in the financial institutions. The salary will be steep.”

“Top treatment in the industry.”

“Wow! Then hire me instead! Whatever a boss like Daniel says, it’s all okay with me unconditionally!”

Clara, that’s not allowed!

I’m absolutely against office romance and campus couples!

The trauma from my university days in the last life hasn’t disappeared even living this one.

“Above everything, the mouth has to be heavy.”

“The conditions are demanding, but it’ll be quick if I look. These days a typhoon of job cuts is blowing on Wall Street. At a time like this it’s normal to cut the older employees.”

Yes — Clara, thanks to you, let’s make my way onto Wall Street too!

I’m still a high schooler.

It isn’t a time when visa-free entry to America is allowed, either.

Getting to America takes considerable effort.

That kind of time was a waste.

Talking business, my family and Clara and I arrived at Daecheon.

Across both my lives, this is the first summer vacation I get to enjoy for real!

“Yes, this is a vacation!!!”

I was satisfied with the cool Daecheon sea in view outside the resort room.

Now it was time to respect everybody’s privacy.

I took three royal suites at the Ana Resort in Daecheon.

One for my parents, so they could make a mood of it after a long time.

One for the women, the twins and Clara.

And I took one for myself.

It was just before the peak vacation season and rooms were hard to get, but I booked through Team Leader Yu.

When I said it was a family trip, she showed the ability to finish the booking in ten minutes.

All of it free.

Team Leader Yu knew how to use the solid mutual interest the financial institutions have in us.

They owned corporate resort membership rooms kept for entertaining VIPs on their summer vacations.

When I opened the window I could hear the slapping of the waves.

It’s Daecheon beach, showing the sand and the view most worth seeing on the west coast of the Republic of Korea.

Watching the blue waves come rolling in, my chest opened up cool and clear.

On the shore, half-dressed vacationers gathered and threw their bodies at the waves.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

“Oppa! Aren’t you ready yet?”

“Come out quick~ Dad and Mom have already gone down.”

The twins’ voices are high with excitement.

“Yeah! I’m coming now.”

I put on a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks.

I put on the sunglasses I’d bought during the trip to Hong Kong.

I opened the door.

Whoa!

And I stood there with my body frozen for a moment.

Rash-guard swimsuits, which take away a man’s hope, weren’t in fashion in 2007.

One-piece or two-piece swimsuits are the rule.

I felt for the first time how much the twins had grown.

The girls who always seemed like little kids had turned womanly enough now to drag a few men around behind them.

But the overwhelming woman who came into my eyes was Clara!

The twins had covered themselves with beachwear over sky-blue and blue one-piece swimsuits.

On their heads they wore hats with a moderate brim.

Clara was bold.

She had gone daring, in a black two-piece with a faint red tiger-stripe pattern in it.

Over that she had thrown a see-through bikini cover-up cardigan.

She’d have been better off not wearing it.

The see-through cardigan was wide open in every direction and showed Clara’s overwhelming figure just as it was.

It was almost a shame for the twins, who would only get by in Korea.

“Tch! Oppa. Stop drooling, would you?”

“Oppa, could you stop looking at Clara unnie’s chest?”

“Wh-When did I!”

This is a man’s instinct! You little kids!

“Daniel~. I want to get down to the beach quickly.”

Clara came over and linked her arm through mine.

Ugh! This is torture!

That hot kiss we shared in Hong Kong happened because we were soaked in the mood.

Even so, I kept my reason.

Clara is forward today too.

The springy feel of Clara’s chest against my arm set fire to me.

My blood ran so hot it felt like it would take all four verses of the national anthem to finish.

A beautiful woman’s body-to-body assault is the finest mind-destroying weapon there is.

“Oppa~ your face has gone red. Ohhhhhhh~.”

“You like it? You like it that much?”

“Hey! Don’t you tease your oppa!”

“What’s wrong with it, between high schoolers. Kee kee kee.”

The twins have grown a lot.

Come to that, I was only two years their oppa.

But I’m not the oppa of yours you used to know.

“You two should reflect a little.”

“Why?”

“What did we do?”

“Clara eats less than you two and one look tells you the size is different~.”

With my eyes I compared Clara and the twins mercilessly.

I ran over them from height all the way down to chest.

“Waaaah! Our oppa is awful!”

“Pervert! Hmph! Hmph! Hmph, I say!”

The twins’ faces looked like they were about to cry.

That’s what you get for teasing your oppa.

“Daniel. What’s going on?”

Clara, who had no idea what it was about, opened her eyes wide and asked about the situation.

“We were talking about realistic friendship between brother and sister.”

“Realistic friendship?”

Clara, if you want that translated, it’s called fact-violence.

Pwahahahahaha!

“Oppa, I hate you!”

The twins disappeared as if fleeing.

“Clara. Let’s go too.”

“Mm~ Daniel.”

And so Clara and I went down to the sand with our arms linked.

The eyes of men and women turning on us as we went.

The padding in my shoulders danced again.

Today nobody at Daecheon beach could come close to Clara.

That’s exactly how it felt.

The legendary King Uija, are you watching? (TL Note: King Uija — the last king of the ancient kingdom of Baekje, remembered in Korea less for losing his kingdom than for the three thousand court women said to have served him; his name is shorthand for a man surrounded by beautiful women.)

If you’re envious, you lose — you know that, right? Heh heh heh.

(End of Chapter 57)