4. Securities Crash
"Dongho. I'm sorry..."
"Ah, geez, this punk keeps at it."
To eyes that had lived past forty, the kid looked like a deflated nephew.
I raised my hand to pat Minsu's head.
"Eek!"
Minsu wrapped his arms around his head and cowered.
"...What're you doing?"
"Think I'm gonna hit you?"
"I'm not gonna hit you, you crazy bastard. Cheer up. Do I look like a guy who goes around beating people up?"
"..."
The kid answered with silence instead.
It seemed it would take quite a lot of time and effort to break free of the original delinquent image.
"I've changed. I don't hit people recklessly. And besides, you betrayed me first. I never did anything like that."
"I know... That's why I'm sorry..."
"Don't sniffle. Anyone would think you and I are dating. How much money do you have on you right now?"
"About three hundred thousand hwan."
"You know I earned that for you, right? Don't spend it recklessly. Buy your younger siblings each a bowl of meat soup. Got it?"
"Thank you."
The kid shuffled nervously and stared at my feet for a long while.
"Hey. If you have something to say, say it quickly."
"Do you... forgive me?"
Minsu, who had been hesitating for a long time, finally looked up at my face and spoke.
"Let's just act like strangers. If fate brings us together again, let's have a drink."
A week had passed since Minsu went down to Daegu, crying until the very end.
I had sternly warned the departing kid, telling him to make sure to tell them that I was doing well.
Judging from the memories of the original owner of this body—my eldest maternal uncle—I believed the kid would definitely deliver word of me to my family, including my mother.
In the meantime, I devoted myself to making the memories of this body my own in an inn room.
Clearly, I was Seo Minwook, who had passed forty, yet the memories of I Dongho, who had just turned twenty, coexisted within me.
The neighborhood good-for-nothing.
A delinquent.
I Dongho, a quasi-gangster whose life was filled with savage atrocities.
Truthfully, he hadn't exactly been a full gangster, but the Dongho in my memories was even worse than one.
I Dongho had been uncommonly strong since childhood.
It was a level of strength that couldn't simply be dismissed as being naturally bulky.
"Hiyah!"
He was thirteen when he arm-wrestled and beat Uncle Gwang-sik, who was known for being fairly strong in the neighborhood.
At seventeen, Dongho beat up the village middle schoolers who were playing cruel pranks on his younger sister Gyeong-suk, and when they swarmed over with their uncles.
The uncles who had swarmed over numbered five, and they were thugs and gangsters who roamed around leeching off innocent people.
"S-spare us..."
It hadn't even been thirty minutes since they had swarmed Dongho before the bastards were lying on their backs looking at the sky like frogs.
Though it was an unpaved dirt road that hadn't been properly maintained, there was no way ordinary people who didn't know how to break a fall could survive being thrown by Dongho more than twice.
Among them, the ringleader had charged in recklessly and had his shoulder dislocated by a joint lock, so after that, no one in the neighborhood dared to mess with Dongho carelessly.
He had learned judo from a young age, which was rare in the countryside, and that learning had been extraordinary.
The Dongho in my memories flipped people twice his size without difficulty, and except for a few times in his youth, he had virtually no memories of losing.
This simple-minded, savage, hot-tempered man was, laughably, incredibly diligent.
I thought perhaps he had possessed some sense of responsibility as the eldest son.
I could sense a bit of that.
He wasn't particularly bright, and the family didn't have much wealth, so he decided to succeed through athletics and provide for his family. Something like that.
I clenched my fist tightly.
The strength I felt in my body was clearly different.
The original me hadn't been small either, but he had been completely ordinary; the current body of I Dongho was clearly overflowing with power.
I could feel an energy that seemed capable of crushing an opponent's hand if I gripped it in a contest of strength.
Though only slightly, I began to think that changing my plans might not be so bad.
The single-minded determination to eat the talisman and make my mother happy.
With only that thought, I had been reborn into the past.
Of course, even after actually being reborn, I still couldn't quite believe it.
Anyway, this was reality, and I was not Seo Minwook but I Dongho.
A man with the passionate vigor of twenty.
I would live as I Dongho.
Not Seo Minwook, who had put in moderate effort and been swept along by the tides in his previous life.
I would forge my own life.
And my mother.
From now on, she is my younger sister...
Though the bond of mother and child was severed the moment I ate the talisman, it was reconnected through the bond of siblings.
I wanted to go down to Gunwi right now and meet my mother.
I was also incredibly curious about what my mother had been like in her youth.
They say a person can never see the back of their own head throughout their lifetime, but with mirrors and cameras, that is something perfectly possible.
But the fact that you can never see your parents as they were before you were born, no matter how long you live, is truly a sorrowful truth.
Perhaps there were many who lived their entire lives without ever having such a thought.
I wanted so badly to see my mother in her youth.
I wanted to see her.
I wanted to see her so, so much...
But I had to remain in Seoul for a while longer.
Going down to Gunwi to meet my mother would come after that.
There was still something to do here.
*
For a week, I focused on making Dongho's memories entirely my own.
This bastard's body woke mechanically at the crack of dawn.
The body was overflowing with energy, so I had to run for a full hour before calming down even slightly.
Judging by Dongho's memories, it seemed he had started his mornings with exercise almost every day for nearly ten years.
Today, after finishing his morning exercise as usual, I made my way to Myeongdong.
Myeongdong.
A place that had transformed into a commercial district alongside Chungmuro, which had developed as a commercial area during the Japanese colonial period.
The Midopa Department Store held a massive presence, and the street was lined with signs that each had their own character.
[Coffee Caramel]
"Anyone can tell that's a coffee shop."
I looked around and then entered the shop with the Coffee Caramel sign.
Ding-a-ling—
When I pushed the door, the wind chime hanging on it rang out softly.
The tea house was filled everywhere with people and cigarette smoke.
In this era, cigarettes could be smoked anywhere, so naturally, smoking in a dabang was an ordinary atmosphere.
"Oh my, this young man is quite the looker?"
As I sat in an empty corner seat, the waitress approached me.
"Do you have an Americano?"
"Ah, America?"
Ah.
Coffee at this time was just "coffee." There was no way something like an Americano would exist.
Coffee sweetened with sugar.
I had studied for a year, yet this was what happened when I actually put it into practice.
"Just give me a cup of coffee, please."
"Coffee? Young man, are you a Central Intelligence agent?"
"What are you talking about?"
"No, just a few months ago, the dabangs around here got busted for selling coffee and over seventy of them were shut down. Does it make sense to ask for coffee?"
"Why did they get busted for selling coffee?"
I hadn't studied such detailed matters, so I was a bit flustered.
After the May 16th Coup, the military regime that seized power classified coffee and Western cigarettes as luxury imports under the pretext of rejecting foreign goods.
It may sound absurd now, but a cup of coffee cost more than an average meal, so it was indeed worthy of being called a luxury item at the time.
Considering the prices of the era, it felt astronomically more expensive.
Since coffee had to be entirely imported from abroad, it was somewhat understandable given the times, when they were crying out for exports due to a dollar shortage.
The waitress narrowed her eyes and glared at me.
"Police... no?"
"No."
"Then you came up from the countryside?"
I frowned slightly and pulled out a one-thousand-hwan bill from my pocket.
"One cup of coffee, and don't put in sugar."
A sly grin formed on the waitress's face.
The reason coffee was expensive had a lot to do with sugar being costly, and here I was asking to leave it out.
The waitress laughed inwardly but quickly snatched up the 1,000 hwan and left to get the coffee.
"He looks like a student...?"
From behind, a man in a dark-blue suit suddenly popped out.
"What is it?"
I hid my surprise inwardly. It wasn't because someone had suddenly popped out, but because I was bewildered by my own belligerent tendencies.
'Is it because of the original Dongho's personality?'
"A young person slapping down 1,000 hwan, a hefty sum, for a cup of coffee—I came over because I was curious."
He was short in stature yet wore an oversized suit, and he extended his hand for a handshake.
I simply returned a slight bow instead.
"Ahem. One more coffee here! Put in plenty of sugar for me."
He sat down across from me without a hint of shame.
"Pleased to meet you. I am Park Wan-sik."
I looked into the man's eyes.
He wasn't someone who gave off a murky energy. What is this?
"Don't make such a stern face. A cup of coffee for 1,000 hwan is too expensive, so I thought I'd come over and bum a cup. I'll pay for the coffee."
While listening to the man's chatter, the waitress placed two cups of coffee on the table.
Fortunately, it tasted similar to what I had drunk in my original world.
Coffee at this time was so diluted with water that it was called scorched-rice coffee, but perhaps because I had paid a hefty sum, it tasted rather savory.
"You've invested in Daejeung shares too, right? You don't look like you're from around here. Seeing how you're slapping down even more for expensive coffee, it seems your securities must have risen quite a bit."
"..."
I neither tried to hide nor reveal my inner thoughts.
I simply looked back into the man's eyes once more.
"Don't be so guarded. I'm just paying for the coffee. You must have made quite a bit, but it's not too late even now, so pull your money out quickly and go back to your hometown."
"What do you mean? It seems like it will rise much more; you must be the type who can't stand seeing others do well."
I deliberately decided to test the man once.
At that, Park Wan-sik's eyes narrowed.
"I'm telling you this for your own good, young friend, so don't take it the wrong way."
Park Wan-sik placed his business card on the table with a snap, then gulped down his coffee as if angry and stood up.
"Hot-hot!"
His small back as he turned around looked a bit endearing.
[Reporter Park Wan-sik, Dongsan Ilbo]
Business cards in this era didn't have personal contact numbers, but they had the company's contact information, so if you left a message, you could somehow get connected.
Anyway, someone who would advise a stranger to pull out their investment funds amid the current stock speculation frenzy seemed to have information and a fairly wide, caring streak.
Of course, I had far more accurate and certain information...!
The future.
The certain future that would inevitably come.
'He seems like a decent person.'
Anyway, the very fact that he would stick his nose into a stranger's business like that was proof that he wasn't a bad person.
"A reporter..."
I watched the direction in which the short-statured reporter Park Wan-sik had stormed out in anger.
An unexpected yet interesting person.
I didn't know what would happen later, but I felt there would come a time when I would contact him once.
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