“Take it.”

“……??”

“Quick, now!”

“…….”

A granny in a deep navy skirt, peonies blooming softly across the fabric.

Her age is anyone’s guess. There’s no telling who she is, and she’s holding out her right hand.

“What’s a big bear cub doing looking so beaten down? Life’s just one big what-the-fuck sometimes.”

“……!!”

My name is Tae-ung. 太熊. Great bear.

Kids had been calling me “bear cub” over that name since I was small.

“Don’t you forget today! No money, and just holding a woman’s hand is a crime!”

“…….”

The truth came at me without warning and my heart flinched.

Right. Today, life is fucking garbage.

Fired from my job. Dumped by my girlfriend. To her I was a worthless nobody with no money and no connections.

“Tsk, tsk. Boy’s due for a windfall and still hasn’t got his wits about him.”

The granny clicks her tongue.

“Haah.”

Nothing comes out of me but sighs.

“My arm’s getting tired. Go on, take it.”

“Sorry?”

“Can’t you tell by looking?”

I can. It’s a passbook. A bank passbook in a vinyl cover, the seal tucked inside and everything.

“Open it.”

Caught off guard, I took it and opened it.

“Ha—!”

It’s in my name. The instant I saw the balance printed there, a groan came out of me.

“Wh—what is this?”

A passbook in my name, and I’ve never known a thing about it. The figure printed inside is staggering.

1,000,000,000 won.

I’m seeing it for the first time in my life, and the account holder is me. Ha Tae-ung.

“From here on, you live however the hell you want! Money? Women? You want it, it’s yours!”

She had come close without my noticing, and she was stroking the back of my head.

It doesn’t put me off. The look in her eyes as she watches me is something close to sorrow.

I’m two years older than everyone in my year.

It had happened in first grade.

I’d been walking down the street when something took me in the back of the head. No reason. None I ever learned. Those were the years of the random assault.

They never did find him.

CCTV wasn’t common back then, and the attack happened in an alley, in a blind spot.

The police worked it, and it petered out.

It cost me two years.

Five months in a near-vegetative state, then half of the following year in rehab.

It made me something unheard of. The legendary second-grader coming back from a leave of absence.

“First off, take this pin money and buy yourself some of that stuff! The one everybody’s on about these days…… ta— what was it.”

Ta— tanghulu?

The balance printed in the passbook is a billion won. Realistically, that gets me one apartment in Seoul. Barely.

“What’s it called, that. The fake money the big-noses are so fond of.”

Fake…… money?

“The stuff you puff up with electricity and eat!”

Puff up…… with electricity?

“Ah! That — there’s a moon in one of the names, and a dance in another…… and a son of a bitch called Shiba in there too!”

Moon? Dance? Shiba……?

The words came flooding up all at once and connected.

“C—coins?!”

(End of Prologue)