Chapter 32 — The Taste of Happiness

On the way home, my steps felt incredibly light.

Lalalala.

A favorite tune slipped out from my nose.

My hands were heavy with a shopping bag stuffed with burgers and sodas, but my heart felt light as a feather.

There was enough for Grandma and me to eat for three days and still have leftovers.

I lowered my head and looked into the shopping bag.

I could feel my brother's careful touch in the way he’d packed everything.

The smell of meat, cooked warm on the burner, still seemed to linger at the tip of my nose.

‘Really... am I allowed to eat all this?’

Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind.

Until now, I'd never shared anything or done anything together with someone else.

I always ate my lunch quietly by myself, and on days I forgot to bring it, I’d just stand alone on the playground, away from the classroom.

No one ever approached me.

But today was different.

Dahye called out to me, and Arin held my hand.

And then, Seunghyun oppa.

He just smiled and patted my head, without saying a word.

Laughing out loud among those people felt like a first in my life.

I don't think I’ll ever forget today.

What made me happiest of all was that no one looked at me strangely.

They simply treated me as Dahye’s friend.

【Hyein, the ones you made taste the best.】

Taehos oppa had said it like a joke.

I couldn't get that line out of my head.

‘Is it really okay? For me to feel this happy...?’

But that feeling didn’t last long.

Unease soon reared its head inside me.

Until now, I'd always lived cautiously.

No regrets, no wounds.

If you don’t expect anything, you won’t be disappointed.

If you don’t get attached, nothing can be taken from you.

Carefully, I took one of the burgers, wrapped in foil, out of the bag and placed it on my knee.

Warmth seeped into my fingertips.

Without even realizing it, a smile crept onto my lips.

“Grandma, this is... something I made myself.”

I pictured the look on Grandma’s face when she heard those words.

The deep furrows in her forehead relaxing just a little, a faint smile on her lips.

I pressed down firmly on the burger wrapping with my palm.

Through the paper, I could feel the soft texture of the bun.

Ever since I was little, I’d only seen hamburgers on TV.

I’d been so envious when my friends went to burger shops together.

That small wish of mine, to just taste one, had come true at last.

And that tiny thing filled up my whole day.

As the afternoon sunlight filtered through the alleyways, I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky.

The landscape that always seemed so cold now felt warm to me.

---

It still comes back to me. The flickering light from the old fluorescent bulb in the ceiling of the Mideum Publishing office.

I spent years there, clutching my manuscripts beneath that glare every single day, but in the end, I walked out for good.

‘Writers are products. You just crank them out, that’s all there is to it, right?’

‘Lower the royalties. Are we their bank? What, are we volunteering?’

‘Why let them write things that don’t make money? Tell them to wrap it up.’

Those were the things the editor-in-chief used to say all the time.

In every operation, the writer’s feelings were excluded.

Whenever I encountered that editor-in-chief and the CEO, I just lost any fondness for the place.

It wasn’t that their way was wrong.

But it wasn’t the path I wanted.

Even if I couldn’t give writers the best space or environment, I wanted to make it possible for them to write the stories they loved, all the way to the end.

That’s why I left and decided to start my own publishing company.

I scraped together my severance pay, cashed in my savings, and borrowed the rest by maxing out my credit line.

The company I founded that way was called ‘Pantheon.’

Like a place where gods dwell, I wanted it to be a space where writers could be treated like gods.

The office was barely four pyeong.

The wallpaper was stained yellow, the desk bought second-hand for thirty thousand won.

On the desk sat a notebook listing potential authors to contact, and a monitor showing a Hitel screen.

Today, a certain story caught my eye there.

[The Lord of the Smartphone.]

The title gave off this obvious B-list vibe. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much.

“Probably another story about some soap-selling scheme.”

I figured it was just another novel built on tired old tropes.

But as soon as I turned the first page, I was blindsided.

Defying his retainers, the protagonist paved the muddy alleys with stone and lured themed shops into what used to be a ruined marketplace.

The estate, which had been a trash heap, became a stopover packed with tourists.

Unlike other territories, this one enforced strict hygiene; instead of reeking of filth, the air was full of the scent of flowers and grass, making it a haven for adventurers.

Themed streets. A multicultural restaurant district. Attracting outside investment.

And then, by assigning interest rates to that capital and distributing fees, they created a ‘political safety net’ system.

It reminded me of a modern, listed company.

“It’s incredible. How does someone even come up with this?”

What struck me most was how they attracted capital from rival territories, made them invest in the estate, then distributed profits so that nobody could attack them.

A setting grounded in a cold, real-world sensibility.

I got chills.

“The way they connect assets so that not even nobles can touch them—it’s fascinating. It’s basically... a hedge strategy.”

The writer’s craft was solid too.

Even with a structure that demanded lots of explanation, the details hidden in the descriptions and dialogue felt natural.

Every line, every background scene, dripped with economic logic and psychological structure.

┗ If this author ran for office, I’d vote for them.

┗ Other fantasy novels are predictable, but this one—you can’t predict a thing.

┗ First time I’ve been this absorbed in a fantasy without demons.

I immediately opened my notebook and started crunching numbers.

A five-volume run at minimum.

If just the first volume sold over three thousand copies, it would hit the break-even point.

It had every chance to go even higher.

The fact that the hottest author lately, Unreal Oppa, wrote it only added to my excitement.

“This is a must-sign.”

Signing Unreal Oppa would be enough to appeal to other writers too.

Before I knew it, my hands were hammering away at the keyboard.

[Publication Offer] Request to discuss contract for 『The Lord of the Smartphone』.

We will positively review your preferred contract conditions...]

I hit send on the email, then clicked to read the next installment of The Lord of the Smartphone.

---

August 25, 1999.

Weeknight, 9 p.m.

After dinner, Dahye was lying on my lap, sleepy-eyed.

I gently stroked Dahye’s hair and grabbed the remote, turning on the TV.

The news opened on screen, no different from any other day.

Politics, society, celebrity gossip—the usual boring fare dragged on.

Then, one headline hit like a thunderbolt and changed the entire air inside our house.

[Next up is today’s stock market news. Saerom Technology has hit the daily upper limit for 10 days straight on the KOSDAQ, becoming the symbol of the IT boom.]

“Wait... what did they just say?”

Dad, who’d just taken a swig of beer, slammed his cup down with a ‘clack’ and stared blankly at the screen.

Mom froze, beer halfway to her lips, unable to swallow.

[Saerom Technology, listed at the beginning of August, started at 7,800 won on the first day and as of today has soared to 83,300 won. The closing price on August 25th is up 6,900 won from yesterday, at 83,300 won, making it the 10th consecutive trading day to hit the upper limit.]

With a faint smile, I glanced at Mom and Dad’s faces.

Both turned to look at me with dazed expressions.

In their eyes, there was shock, delight, maybe even a little awe.

Even though I knew the future, I was still amazed—how much more so for them?

“Seunghyun, w-we... did we really buy Saerom Technology back then?”

Dad asked, his voice shaking.

He knew the answer, but he needed to hear it from me.

“Yes. On listing day, Mom, Dad, Dahye, and me. We bought in at 7,800 won.”

Mom and Dad had put in two million won, Dahye one million.

I put in thirty million won.

Mom couldn’t close her mouth. Clutching her chest, she searched for the calculator, then punched in the numbers with trembling hands.

“So the two million won investment... what does that come to?”

Dad grabbed his own calculator and hurriedly typed it in.

Two million won ÷ 7,800 won = 256 shares.

256 × 83,300 won = 21,324,800 won.

Two million won became 21 million.

“Oh my god... t-twenty million...”

Their investment had multiplied by about ten.

Their eyes never left the calculator.

“If ours is 20 million, then how much does that make Seunghyun’s?”

That’s when Mom broke the frozen air with a single sentence.

“Oh, right. Seunghyun put in thirty million, didn’t he?”

Only then did Dad lift his head and meet my eyes.

His pupils shook violently.

“About ten times, so that’d be about three hundred million for me.”

I calmly multiplied my investment by ten and said it aloud.

If I hadn’t known the future, I might have gone wild—‘Mom, Dad, it’s a jackpot!’—but I’d already expected this outcome, so I was composed.

“Son, you... you really hit the jackpot.”

Mom kept exclaiming in astonishment.

My thirty million won had become over three hundred million in just a few weeks, so it was only natural.

“How did you know? You didn’t just... guess, right?”

Dad grabbed my shoulder.

He said nothing else, just stared at me, as if to confirm the unbelievable reality.

“Son, let’s sell right away. Before it drops.”

Dad seemed to have made up his mind after thinking for a moment.

For our family, three hundred million was a huge amount, but even twenty million was a big deal.

Dad suggested we sell off our holdings in Saerom Technology.

“Not yet. I want to watch the market a bit longer. There’s a chance it’ll hit the upper limit again. The market’s in an IT frenzy, and the big players haven’t pulled out yet.”

I spoke as coolly as an analyst, sharing my thoughts.

Of course, it wasn’t really my analysis, but memories from my previous life.

Saerom Technology would climb to around 110,000 won in early September.

By next year, it would keep rising, peaking at around 150 times the August 1999 price.

I wanted to tell my parents this, but that was impossible.

So my role here was to stop them from selling too early.

“Let’s just leave it for the rest of this year. Pretend the money doesn’t even exist.”

You have to wait and be patient, thinking of it as not your money.

If you get restless or can’t focus because of a loss, that means you’re gambling, not investing.

But enough rambling.

“Hmm...”

Dad’s worries deepened.

“Trust me and let’s wait a bit longer. I’m sure it’ll go up.”

My goal is at least a hundredfold.

There’s no way I’m stopping for a mere few dozen times gain.

“Hmm, all right. I’ll trust you, son. We’ll leave it in a bit longer.”

After a long deliberation, Dad decided to trust my judgment.

What a relief.

If he’d insisted on selling, I’d have been worried.

‘This life is really going so much better.’

I drew a small smile.

“Dahye, let’s go to your room and get some sleep.”

I woke Dahye and headed upstairs to the second floor.