Real Man

Chapter 122:

Chapter 122

I drank with him.

The cold drink felt good going down my throat.

Kim Hyun-soo said casually.

“Hey, if you’re worried, I’ll decline. I’m really fine.”

“I know. You’re fine.”

“But why did you come down when you’re so busy?”

“I missed you.”

“Hey, that’s gross. Why are you like this?”

Yoo-hyun shrugged his shoulders at Kim Hyun-soo’s teasing words.

Seeing him in person, all his worries melted away like snow.

It felt like he had returned to his normal life.

Whoosh.

The wind blew.

Kim Hyun-soo, who had been looking at the distance for a moment, said.

“Yoo-hyun, I’ll pay you back for sure.”

“Do as you please. I don’t care.”

“Okay. Then trust me once.”

“Of course. If I don’t trust you, who will?”

“Ha, this kid is really disgusting today.”

Yoo-hyun laughed at Kim Hyun-soo’s disgusted expression.

At that moment, Yoo-hyun completely let go of his intention to persuade him.

At the same time, he remembered his father’s words.

-The biggest regret I have is that I didn’t trust my friend more.

Maybe he judged Kim Hyun-soo’s actions too much by his own standards.

Even though he decided to think of it as money he didn’t have.

Squeeze.

Instead of speaking, Yoo-hyun tightly held Kim Hyun-soo’s hand sitting next to him.

“You’re gross, dude.”

“You don’t have to be shy.”

“No, I’m not. Why are you so strong?”

“I’ll hug you if you let go.”

Only then did Kim Hyun-soo give up and slump his shoulders.

He felt the warmth from the back of his hand.

Kim Hyun-soo muttered.

“Ha, this kid is really drunk.”

Whether he said it or not, Yoo-hyun stayed still for a while.

He just wanted to do that for him.

On the bus back home.

Just as it was about to depart, he got a call from his mother.

Yoo-hyun answered the phone casually.

“Yes, mom.”

-Oh, my. What happened?

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

-No, how could you think of that? You don’t have any money.

“I didn’t spend much. I just told mom and dad to enjoy hiking.”

-Everyone is going crazy right now. Where did you get such a son? Can you hear me?

He heard the noise around him through the phone.

There were so many voices mixed together that it was hard to understand them properly.

One thing was clear: they were all cheering enthusiastically.

He pictured his mother’s proud expression in his head.

A moment later, his mother said.

-Thank you so much.

“What about dad?”

-He’s overjoyed. He doesn’t like socializing, but he’s very excited right now. He’s leading the conversation.

“That’s good. I’ll send you more next time.”

-Yoo-hyun, thank you. I have to go now. I’ll call you later.

“Okay, mom.”

-Son, I love you.

His mother hung up with her last words.

Yoo-hyun looked at the turned off phone screen for a while.

The voice that he heard briefly through the phone still lingered in his chest.

I love you too, mom.

He regretted not being able to say it right away.

Beep beep.

Then a picture came with a message.

There were his mother and father’s affectionate faces in it.

They had drinks and notes in both hands, so someone must have taken it for them.

Yoo-hyun fiddled with the screen and thought.

More in the future.

He wanted to do more for them.

He wanted to feel this happiness more.

His heart raced.

As the weekend ended, the usual routine of the company began again.

Yoo-hyun met Kwon Se-jung after finishing the morning part meeting and walked with him.

Kwon Se-jung looked at the other side of the partition and asked.

“Yoo-hyun, do your team members also do a lot of stocks?”

“They do a little bit.”

“Should I do it too? Look at that. It’s crazy these days.”

He pointed at the monitor screen where a complex graph was displayed.

Then it switched to a work screen right away.

The man sitting in front of the monitor was typing on the keyboard as if he was working hard.

But he was also looking around, which anyone could tell that he was doing stocks with caution.

“That’s not how you make money by looking at it.”

“But my senior made 500 in a few days. One of Jung-hyuk’s team members made millions. Everyone seems to be making money.”

As Kwon Se-jung said, there were more people doing stocks lately.

With the spread of HTS (stock trading program), the accessibility increased, and people who made a fortune with KOSDAQ stocks with large fluctuations appeared one after another.

“There are also many people who lost. They just don’t talk about it.”

“Isn’t it rising again these days? Hansung Electronics stock also went up a lot.”

“It’s going to be hard this year.”

After the dot-com bubble burst, the stock market had been steadily rising for about seven years.

Especially recently, people got greedy as it fell for a while due to the US subprime crisis and then rose again.

They only remembered the price that was 2,000 a month ago, not the price that was 500 seven years ago.

They thought it would naturally rise again if it fell, as if by inertia.

Kwon Se-jung, who had no interest in stocks, was tempted.

“Should I try it?”

“Just do as much as you can afford to lose.”

Yoo-hyun advised him moderately.

“Should I? Think of it as money I don’t have?”

“Yeah. If you do, just focus on the blue-chip companies.”

There’s no such thing as money you can afford to lose, but it’s better to experience it once than to be afraid and not do it.

The problem is when you get addicted and impatient, but it’s not a bad economic activity if you do it healthily.

He sent Kwon Se-jung away and returned to his seat.

“Yoo-hyun, look at this.”

“What is it?”

As soon as Yoo-hyun sat down, Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo called him as if he had something urgent.

On the screen he pointed to, there was a post on a bulletin board.

-Awesome information. Miracle Invest’s super hit pick!

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo was excited.

“They said Se-mun Electronics would go up, and today it hit the upper limit. They say it will go up at least five times…”

“Do you believe internet posts?”

It’s okay to do stocks within a reasonable range, but it’s obvious that you’ll get scammed if you’re greedy.

“Still. They wrote it professionally. It’s not too late, right?”

“Sigh, Assistant Manager, you shouldn’t invest by listening to others.”

“No, everyone was talking about how good it was here and there.”

Maybe Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo relaxed after finishing his report.

He was interested in useless things.

He would have let him experience it, but he couldn’t just leave it alone when he knew it was a scam.

“I told you last time not to invest.”

“Really? It seems like it will go up…”

Should he have left it alone?

He shook his head at his regretful expression.

It wasn’t just Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo.

Buzzing.

Lunchtime at the company cafeteria.

Kim Hyun-min’s sigh was mixed with the conversations of the people.

“Did I tell you I sold the subscription right?”

“Really? Did you lose money?”

“No. That’s not it. I just broke even. But the next morning, the premium went up again.”

“How much?”

Assistant Manager Kim Young-gil perked up his ears and Manager Kim Hyun-min held out one finger.

“A big one.”

Then the part members who were having lunch together exclaimed.

It was understandable that it went up by ten million won overnight.

Manager Kim Hyun-min glanced at Yoo-hyun.

‘I sold it because of what you said.’

He didn’t say anything, but he subtly pressured Yoo-hyun.

“Do you regret it?”

“No? I never regret a choice I made once.”

“I believe you.”

He shook his head vigorously and said no, but he didn’t seem like that at all.

Manager Kim Hyun-min’s weak voice proved it.

“Actually, I don’t have to buy a house right away.”

“You’ll think it was a good thing someday.”

“Well, maybe. Life is like that.”

He spoke calmly, but he flared his nostrils and lowered his eyebrows.

Anyone could see that he was sighing inside.

This is why.

This is why you shouldn’t give investment advice lightly.

Yoo-hyun shook his head and put a spoonful of rice in his mouth.

“Manager, look at that.”

“What is it?”

Assistant Manager Kim Young-gil sitting next to him pointed to the TV on the wall, and people’s eyes moved at the same time.

-Woo-sang Construction declared ‘bankrupt’, fears of domino bankruptcy of construction companies.

There was breaking news on the screen.

“…”

Manager Kim Hyun-min opened his mouth without saying anything.

At that moment, the voices of the people next to him sounded like speakers.

“Those bastards were all corrupt. This subscription was a total scam too.”

“Huh! Then what happens to the people who subscribed to Woo-sang Construction?”

“What do you mean? The construction company went bankrupt, so they went bankrupt too.”

Sloshing.

There were sighs everywhere because such a big company collapsed suddenly.

In between, there was a man who had frozen like ice.

The ice’s head slowly turned around.

Then he looked into the eyes of the people he was facing one by one.

Each time, a word came out.

“Wow… Manager Kim would have lost all his money if he wasn’t careful.”

The ice’s eyebrows lowered and the ice’s eyes became crescent-shaped.

“Why not? If it wasn’t for Yoo-hyun, I would have gone to the portrait gallery today. The day before yesterday was the day I paid the interim payment.”

“You really have to treat him big time, Manager.”

“…”

The ice had no answer.

The ice moved slowly like slow motion with the words of the part members as background.

His hand went over Yoo-hyun’s hand on the table.

The ice lifted his mouth and said.

“Yoo-hyun, you son of a gun.”

“Stop it.”

Yoo-hyun slipped his hand away.

Creaking.

Then the ice got up and turned around the table and came to Yoo-hyun.

Then he suddenly tried to hug him.

“You lucky bastard!”

“Gulp.”

Kim Hyun-min resisted his body, and he knelt down on one knee on the floor and grabbed Yoo-hyun’s hand under the table.

“I told you I did well selling because of what you said.”

“Let go of me and talk.”

“I’m just so grateful.”

Manager Kim Hyun-min blinked his eyes like a gentle lamb, and laughter burst out everywhere.

“Hahahahaha.”

That was the moment.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo’s laughter suddenly stopped.

“Ha, ha, ha…”

-Se-mun Electronics president Han Man-sik, arrested for stock manipulation.

Soon after, a small news passed by at the bottom of the screen.

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo, who stopped laughing, quickly took out his phone.

On the stock window on his phone, blue waves were falling like a waterfall.

“Ha, lower limit.”

Then he looked at Yoo-hyun with a blank expression.

“Huh? Isn’t that where Assistant Manager Park went in?”

“Oh, stocks? The place you’ve been talking about since last time? You said you were going in…”

Then Assistant Manager Kim Young-gil and Lee Chan-ho’s conversation mixed.

Yoo-hyun backed away a little bit.

He tried to pull his hand out, but Manager Kim Hyun-min was holding it with both hands.

He looked like he would have to deal with Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo too.

“Yoo-hyun!”

Wham.

Sure enough, Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo hugged Yoo-hyun.

Oh no!

“Gulp. Let go of me.”

“Thank you so much, my mentee!”

“Our lucky charm!”

Assistant Manager Park Seung-woo and Manager Kim Hyun-min said at the same time in harmony.

One hugged him and one held his hand.

What is this?