Chapter 34 - Winner Takes All

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

Monday back, it was 8:50 in the morning. I sat a little nervous in front of the computer. I had already put more than $600,000 into Dongbo Construction. Today, I had to respond with great dexterity. I moved my neck from side to side, stretching, crossed my fingers, and then loosened my hands. I opened my mailbox and looked at my watch. When it was 55 minutes, I hit a quick refresh and it arrived.

[S. 12 Hours After]

I quickly moved the mouse cursor and clicked on Politics.

‘Police launched an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Mayor Joo Sung-won.’

I grabbed my head. ‘Why is this side coming up?’

The investigation was being conducted on both sides of Mayor Joo Sung-won and Kim Soo-hyang. However, Mayor Joo Sung-won’s side had emerged. It wasn’t the news I wanted.

‘But I’ll see what I can. If Mayor Joo Sung-won confessed, Dongbo Construction must be sold today.’

I read the article. But there was nothing particularly unusual. To summarize the details, the police investigated the mayor, and he denied the allegations while faithfully helping with the investigation. He had already denied it with an official statement, but the article repeatedly reported it. I did not get anything today, but I now turned on the MTS to check the stock price.

[Dongbo Construction +5%]

Dongbo Construction’s starting price started at around +5% from last time. It seemed to have reflected their alleged connection of Kim Soo-hyang and Lee Hee-chul camp. I thought inside.

‘It is not bad timing.’

It was losing forty cents per share yesterday, but now it was earning sixty cents per share.

‘Can I expect +10% today?’

I wanted to, but I still didn’t know the stock price. What was out was a picture. It served as an excuse for a counterattack of Mayor Joo Sung-won, but that didn’t mean he could change the tide altogether.

That was right. Not yet. It was a little bit hard to lose today, but... it was too much to hope for a surge. When I bought stocks, it was myself who should be most vigilant.

‘Usually, a person who buys a stock has a positive fantasy about it. No one wants to lose their money, and they want to make money, even with a little bit of good news. And they think, “Wow, this is a sense of the upper limit price. It’s going to rise again if I hold it longer.”

‘They think it’s incredibly good, and if there’s a lot of bad news, they often deceive themselves. But at the end of that self-delusion, there is nothing left but ruin. They have to be cool. Losing their cool in the stock market is the same as losing money.

‘Oh, come on. If it’s -10%, I will sell it with a loss.’

I looked at the trading window for a moment, thinking about it. The stock price of Dongbo Construction was fluctuating violently, much like a hot political theme. A few thousand dollars went up and down in a few seconds. I decided to turn off the MTS and concentrated on my work.

——

Twelve hours later, around 9 p.m., I took a shower and came out. I opened the refrigerator door and took out a can of beer.

I opened the cap with my fingers, brought the beer to my mouth, and lifted it at a high angle. The pungent carbonation tickled my throat, and the cool beer came into my mouth.

“Ch…” I sat on the sofa, wiping the foam from my lips with the back of my hand. The beer was better than usual. Maybe it was because I worked late today, and I was tired, or I earned nearly $100,000 today.

Shares of Dongbo Construction closed at $2.89 today, up 15 percent from $2.510. With 241,694 shares up 38 cents per share, I made a profit of $91,843. It wasn’t as awesome as it was when I hit the toilet wall, but it was still a huge sum of money. My total account balance also exceeded $700,000 for the first time.

‘$700,000. Let’s move home after this sale. Should I buy a car first? No, first of all, the computer? No, I’ll change that together when I move.’

I turned on the TV, thinking like that. There was a 9 o’clock news coming out on TV. Maybe it was because I slept watching the news late last night.

“In the Blue House today...”

I watched the news without much thought. By the way, I gazed at the news with my eyes twitching.

“It’s special news time. Not long ago, Kim Soo-hyang, a former secretary to incumbent Seoul Mayor Joo Sung-won, caused a big storm in the political world when she declared Me Too. But this time, there is a rumor that Kim Soo-hyang, the main character of the Me Too, had some sort of deal with Lee Hee-chul’s camp, which is causing a stir. Kang Jin-young reports!”

‘What?’

“Today, five days after Kim Soo-hyang, a former secretary, declared her Me Too, H, who identified himself as her ex-boyfriend, has personally tipped off our station.”

The screen changed and a man with a mosaic on his face appeared.

“So since last summer... we met early this year. February... or March, we certainly met. And then we got into a fight about money and we broke up.

“According to him, Kim hated the Mayor Joo Sung-won for her dismissal seven years ago, not for the sexual harassment.”

In the way of the news, the man’s voice and the reporter’s voice alternated. It was a typical style of TV news.

“She thought that the reason that she didn’t succeed in politics was because Mayor Joo Sung-won fired her. So if she saw the face of Mayor Joo Sung-won on TV, she used to swear.”

“Did you ever hear of sexual harassment or anything like that?”

“No, she didn’t say anything like that. Rather, she said, “He kept me away for no reason. So I tried to do better. The more I did, the more he kept me away, and then he cut me for no reason. That’s why I hate him.”

“He added evidence, along with saying she was directly linked to Lee Hee-chul’s election camp.”

“This is a text message that we shared around January 10th.”

The camera kept an eye on the smartphone he showed. There was a story of a lover’s exchange.

‘I’ve got a chance to get revenge.’

‘What revenge?’

‘Mayor Joo Sung-won. Do you know Lee Hee-chul?’

‘I know him.’

‘He’s running for Seoul Mayor this time. I got a good offer from them.’

‘What’s the offer?’

‘You don’t have to know that... Anyways, I’ll screw him this time for firing me seven years ago.’

I opened my mouth as I was reading the text. My open mouth was not closed for a while until the news was over.

“This Me Too has had a huge social impact, coming at a sensitive time of the Seoul mayoral election. If this testimony is true and this Me Too turns out to be a planned campaign ploy, it is expected to have a bigger impact in the future. I’m Kang Jin Young of KVS.”

—————-

Tuesday morning, I deposited $10,000 into an account with 777. As soon as I deposited the money, I got a reply on my cell phone.

[S. 12 Hours After has been extended.]

When I checked the message, I turned to the monitor with my cell phone on my desk.

[Wow, this is how it works. Although the stock price fell for two days, those who lasted won!]

[Lee Hee-chul, you son of a bitch. I got hit twice by the low limit price because of you.]

[Don’t worry anymore. We are going to have the upper limit price twice for today and tomorrow.]

[Is it going to go twice only? Lee Hee-chul is now over. Joo Sung-won is far ahead of them. It is going to the upper limit price for five or ten days.]

Dongbo Construction’s stock bulletin board was in a mess. Although Kim Soo-hyang and Lee Hee-chul camp did not yet announce their official positions, the game was over now that the news broke out on the public broadcaster’s 9 o’clock news.

At 8:55, I got an email of 12 Hours After for the subscription period left of thirty days. When I clicked on Politics, I finally heard the news of Lee Hee-chul’s resignation.

[Lee Hee-chul, the candidate for mayor, will voluntarily step down from his post. ‘This is my fault as I did not manage my surroundings properly, and I will resign’.]

I read the news. The suspicions turned out to be true. One of them must have confessed to the crime, whether it was a campaign worker or Kim Soo-hyang. Lee Hee-chul resigned himself. However, he insisted that the plot was made by a person in the election camp “on his own account.” He cut off the tail of the lizard and went to America for a political trip.

I dropped by the Endo Biologics’ bulletin board where the tragedy would take place today.

[I’m going to throw up what I ate two days ago. Lee Hee-chul, you’re crazy.]

[What kind of election camp staff he is? How did he get caught? If he is going to do this, he should not be caught.]

[You know this is all a lie, right? How can you trust a guy who’s her boyfriend?]

[That’s right. It’s not decided yet. Just keep holding this stock. We’ll see the light soon.]

Things had changed perfectly. Now it was Dongbo Construction’s turn to go to the upper limit price and Endo Biologics’ turn to the lower limit price. It was a bit gruesome, but it was politics. That was what a political theme was.

‘Winner takes all. The losing side is all gone, and the gainer gets everything.’

I watched the MTS. It was 8:57. Dongbo Construction was already at the upper limit price, although the market wouldn’t open for about three minutes. I felt strange.

An emotion of ‘Ah, the upper limit price, Nice!’ and regret ‘I should have bought more as much as I could on margin.’ intersected with Dongbo Construction. However, I could not afford to buy any more, since there was not a single seller today. It was at the upper limit price.

I tried to turn off the MTS. No matter what would happen today, the upper limit price would not be broken. But in the meantime, there was something in my eyes. It was Yurim Industries of mayor candidate Jung Kwan-soo. There was something going on in my mind.

‘... uh?’

In fact, supporters of Lee Hee-chul or Jung Kwan-soo were no different from the group who did not like Joo Sung-won, split in half. If Lee resigned, the rest of the votes would naturally go to Jung Kwan-soo. I first thought of the poll I had seen. Joo Sung-won 50%. Lee Hee-chul 35%. Jung Kwan-soo 15%. If Lee Hee-chul resigned and Jeong received the vote, it would be a 50-50 fight between Jung Kwan-soo and Joo Sung-won.

‘Then...’

The market opened, and Dongbo Construction went directly to the upper limit price. Endo Biologics went straight to the lower limit price. And Yurim Industries was stranded and remained the same.

People seemed to have the following ideas. ‘If Joo were to resign, we have a chance... Now that he’s back, we’re done.’ ‘If Lee Hee-chul resigns, the vote is ours now, right? Ah, he has not resigned yet.’

I thought myself. ‘These people still don`t know that Lee Hee-chul has resigned. Only I know.’

I realized that I had another ace in my hand. Therefore, before someone bought it first, I bought shares of Yurim Industries by spending $700,000 on margin. Of course, this was a bet, too. There was no 100% scenario in the stock market. But this time, it was as I imagined it would be.

Yurim Industries of Jung Kwan-soo went to the upper limit price around 2 p.m., when the announcement of Lee Hee-chul’s resignation came out. It followed Dongbo Construction, which had already gone to the upper limit price at 9:00 a.m. As a result, there were two stocks left in my account, each of which had increased 30 percent from $700,000 to $910,000. Today alone, I received $420,000 in profits.

Now, the Seoul mayoral election had entered a new phase. It used to be three-man go-stop game. Lee Hee-chul was playing a prank and his hand was cut off and gone. Joo Sung-won and Jung Kwan-soo, the two leading candidates, had come up with a picture to determine whether they would win or not....

—————-

“This station is Gangnam, Gangnam.”

In the subway coming home, I was fiddling with my cell phone and saw the news.

[Lee Hee-chul resigned. A bilateral contest going on between Joo Sung-won and Jung Kwan-soo.]

I looked at the title, then smiled. And I thought, putting my cell phone in my pocket. ‘Whoever wins... I’m not interested anymore. I’ve already won.’