Chapter 7. Who the Hell Is That Guy?
At a luxury car dealership.
The dealer had been waiting after receiving strict instructions from the team leader that an important customer would be coming.
The team leader had even said that if the customer hadn’t been overseas, he would have personally escorted them.
Anyone worth that much attention was probably a businessman with enormous purchasing power.
Then the customers arrived.
…Stay calm.
For a moment, doubt crossed the dealer’s mind.
Are these really the customers the team leader was talking about?
I didn’t misunderstand, did I?
After all, the two people in front of him looked exactly like a young couple who had just entered their twenties.
Perhaps the man was extremely wealthy and wanted to show off in front of his girlfriend.
But then—
“Yura, are you sure this is okay?”
“It suits you perfectly for commuting.”
“Really…? Isn’t this a little too much?”
“So what? Your first car is important.”
Hmm…
This was genuinely confusing.
Judging from their conversation, it seemed like the woman was going to buy the man a car.
This was the first time he’d ever seen something like this.
Usually, he’d seen men give women expensive gifts.
He’d never seen a woman do this.
And it wasn’t even an older woman giving a gift to a younger man.
An S-Class Mercedes for commuting…?
Ahem.
There was no need for him to understand their relationship.
Still—
“Try this one too.”
“This…?”
“So what?”
“…Hmm.”
Wasn’t this a little too much?
A Ferrari SUV.
The Purosangue.
A car every man dreamed of owning at least once.
She was telling him to try it?
It’s just a test drive, right…?
“How is it? Do you like it?”
“It really is amazing…”
Of course it was amazing.
From the man’s expression, it was obvious he’d already fallen in love with it.
But liking a car and actually buying one were two completely different things.
And yet—
Another unexpected situation unfolded.
“I’ll buy it for you as a job-hunting gift.”
“…This looks incredibly expensive.”
The dealer was dumbfounded.
Of course it was expensive.
But wasn’t the Mercedes S-Class expensive too?
“I feel self-conscious about what people at work will think…”
Doesn’t the S-Class make you self-conscious?
What kind of conversation is this?
“A man should have two cars. One for commuting and one for going out.”
“…”
“It’s okay. I’m giving it to you so you’ll work hard.”
“…Sniff. Yura.”
The dealer quickly looked around.
They’re not filming a YouTube video, are they?
This isn’t some variety show, right?
Or a movie?
The man’s deeply moved expression—
Does that mean he’s really getting the car as a gift…?
The man got out of the car.
The woman approached the dealer and handed him a card.
“Please process the payment.”
“Would you like to pay in installments…?”
“Pay in full.”
“…”
That looks like it costs at least 700 million won.
She’s paying the entire amount at once?
If the payment didn’t go through, he could tell them then.
Wait.
It went through?
Is she a chaebol or something?
Then—
Is that man the boyfriend of a chaebol heiress?
He is handsome, though…
The situation was so far outside common sense that the dealer couldn’t even bring himself to compare himself to the man.
A handsome man and a beautiful woman.
They really looked perfect together.
Still—
I’m so damn jealous.
The dealer was incredibly jealous of the man.
He was handsome.
Tall, too.
He had a beautiful chaebol heiress as his girlfriend.
He had always known the world was unfair.
But today, he felt it more strongly than ever.
After purchasing the cars,
I drove the Mercedes S-Class myself on the way home.
I was so glad that I’d gotten my driver’s license immediately after turning eighteen during my senior year of high school.
And I had two different emotions.
As a man, I was thrilled and grateful that I now owned two foreign luxury cars, including what could be considered a supercar.
At the same time, I felt burdened by the fact that I’d received them from the woman I loved.
I hadn’t even properly done anything for her as her husband yet.
What a useless husband I am.
Even while criticizing myself,
I couldn’t stop smiling.
What am I supposed to do?
Am I really this strange?
Let’s just admit it.
Right.
Would feeling burdened change anything now?
If I’d really felt uncomfortable and didn’t want the cars, I should have refused before she bought them.
So I’d just admit the truth.
I would do the best I could.
And repay her with love.
“I love you.”
“…It’s nice, but you know that’s probably the hundredth time you’ve said it today, right?”
“The only thing I can give you is my love.”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t it difficult enough that you immediately took a leave of absence from Seoul National University and got a job for me? Honestly, if you had graduated, you probably could have even gotten a job on Wall Street overseas.”
“…”
I didn’t know how to respond, but she wasn’t wrong.
Even I didn’t know just how ridiculously overpowered my sixth sense really was.
A perfect CSAT score.
I got that score while playing as much as I wanted, gaming as much as I wanted, and never attending a single academy.
How was that even possible?
The sixth sense didn’t work based on whether I fully understood something.
It simply took everything I had seen,
every experience I’d encountered throughout my life,
and used all of it to produce an answer.
Sometimes it even gave me an answer to something I didn’t think I knew.
In other words,
even if I flipped through a book as quickly as if I were merely looking at pictures,
my sixth sense could still give me the correct answer.
Honestly,
I’d already concluded that with this ability, the limit of my success would simply be the limit of my ambition.
How could I possibly lose against ordinary people while possessing this ability?
Of course, that was only my personal opinion.
“I love you.”
Yura didn’t even know my sixth sense existed.
And despite having such a comfortable position in our relationship, she didn’t use it to gain the upper hand.
Instead, she simply gave to me without hesitation.
That wasn’t easy at all.
Even the most famous ideal wives would have to take a step back when compared to our Yura.
“You don’t have to feel too burdened. If it’s you, Do-jin, you probably could have bought these things yourself in the future. I just brought that future forward a little.”
“…”
While I was driving, she gently patted my thigh.
Pat, pat.
“As your wife, I have to keep my husband’s confidence up. I’ll be a good wife, so you work hard too and become the wonderful husband you are now.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s enough. If you work hard and it still doesn’t work out, then it can’t be helped. What’s admirable is the effort itself.”
“…”
I hated the fact that I was driving right now.
I wanted to kiss her immediately.
How could someone be this lovable?
What kind of luck did I have to get a woman like this as my first love and my wife?
More than discovering the existence of my sixth sense,
meeting Yura felt like an even greater blessing to me.
Sorry, sixth sense.
Of course, that didn’t mean my sixth sense wasn’t important.
It was the greatest reason an utterly ordinary guy like me had managed to get a perfect CSAT score and enter Seoul National University.
And it was thanks to a friend I’d met at Seoul National University that I had been able to meet Yura in the first place.
Before going home,
I stopped by a bookstore.
I bought several books about finance.
“Can you deliver these?”
“Of course.”
If I could carry them all myself, I’d just put them in the trunk.
But there were far too many.
I think I bought almost every book related to finance.
There would certainly be books among them that weren’t very useful.
There would also be plenty of overlapping information.
But I wasn’t going to read them one by one while carefully understanding everything.
I just needed to see the information.
So there was no reason to filter them too much.
Besides, there had been plenty of times when I found something useful in a book I’d initially thought wouldn’t help me.
Even Yura seemed fairly surprised this time.
Perhaps she was wondering if I’d actually be able to read all these books.
Hmm.
This much would take a week at most.
And that was being extremely conservative.
Of course.
I couldn’t spend all my time at home reading books.
I had to enjoy time with our Yura.
And the baby in her belly…
“Does our Dal-i want anything to eat?”
“I don’t think there’s anything in particular yet.”
I also had to spend happy time with our Dal-i.
We were no longer just a couple.
We were a real married couple now.
The only thing we hadn’t done yet was hold the wedding ceremony.
I suddenly felt even more apologetic toward my in-laws.
How much of a thief must I look like to them, after suddenly getting their precious youngest daughter pregnant?
Even so, they had accepted me as part of the family instead of swinging a golf club at me.
I was genuinely grateful for that.
My brother-in-law also seemed to be helping me.
The best way I could repay them
was to not only adapt to the company,
but to make Changseong Investment & Securities, which currently occupied a somewhat ambiguous position among financial companies,
at least one of the top five.
The construction industry, which Changseong Group was currently focusing on, was going through a difficult period.
I’d heard the group was lacking some energy because of it.
I wanted to help, even if only a little.
Over the weekend,
I spent enjoyable time with Yura,
while also immersing myself in my books.
Whenever I had free time, I looked up every piece of economic news I could find.
Geopolitics is important too.
I realized once again that investing wasn’t simply about buying and selling stocks.
Of course—
The more things I can use as references, the more advantageous it is for me.
These barriers to entry only made me happier.
If even I found something difficult,
that meant other people couldn’t even dream of attempting it.
We had a family meal together over the weekend.
As expected, chaebol families really were different.
The atmosphere was still awkward.
Strangely, it wasn’t just me who was uncomfortable.
The rest of the family seemed awkward too.
Could it be Yura…?
For some reason, many of the family members kept sneaking glances at Yura.
Maybe they didn’t know what they were supposed to say about her pregnancy.
I felt unnecessarily sorry.
Yura seemed to notice it too and cleared her throat.
After that, everyone focused on eating.
Once we finished the meal,
Jin Tae-kyung, my brother-in-law, called me over.
“I heard Yura gave you a car.”
“Ah, yes, Brother. That’s right. But I’m worried the employees might feel uncomfortable if I drive this to work…”
“For goodness’ sake. What did I tell you? Your job isn’t to worry about what those people think. Your job is to make them worry about what you think.”
“…”
“If they look at you negatively, so what? Your role is to grow enough that their opinions no longer have any effect on you.”
I understood.
But I’d lived with a certain set of values until now.
Changing them overnight wasn’t easy.
“Let’s go to work together in the car you’re driving, Do-jin. Pick me up on Monday.”
“…Yes, Brother.”
“If you have any trouble at the company, tell me. And don’t even think about running away.”
“Of course.”
“…I’m serious. It’s been a long time since this family has been this peaceful.”
“…What?”
“Never mind.”
Hmm…
Whatever he meant,
I was grateful.
Perhaps having me drive him to work was also connected to the advice he’d given me.
As the days passed,
the number of favors I needed to repay kept increasing.
Changseong Investment & Securities.
The employees had their own opinions about the newly created Special Strategy Team.
It was a team created to handle some personal matter for someone important.
A team designed to take the blame when things went wrong.
A team created to make someone quit voluntarily after getting on the wrong side of an important person.
And so on.
At least there was one opinion they all shared.
There was no way that team could threaten their positions.
The members were clearly thrown together without any real structure.
Individually, they were all good employees.
But putting all of them together into one team was the very definition of chaos.
There weren’t even enough people to properly carry out a project.
And then there was the newly hired intern.
The employees were convinced.
That team is probably just going to handle errands for some important person.
They sacrificed a few people for some ridiculous parachute hire.
That’s what they get for not keeping their heads down and playing office politics.
They really thought being honest and working hard was enough. Serves them right.
They were convinced the team had no future and would spend its time doing errands for a parachute hire.
Then Monday arrived.
A car entered the company parking lot.
A Mercedes S-Class.
“Whose car is that…?”
“Never seen it before.”
“Who would dare…?”
Everyone wondered who had dared to drive an S-Class into the company.
Even among the executives, few drove foreign luxury cars.
And the silhouette in the driver’s seat looked young, so it didn’t appear to be an executive.
The car parked.
The driver’s door opened.
“Tsk, tsk. The parachute hire is already showing off.”
“I actually feel sorry for the team members now.”
“Seriously, how can someone have so little sense…”
“I don’t know whose parachute he is, but he’s really arrogant.”
It was the intern everyone had assumed was a parachute hire.
They thought he wouldn’t last long.
Even if you were a parachute hire, being that openly arrogant would eventually get you punished by someone higher up.
But then—
“…”
The rear door opened.
Someone stepped out and casually put an arm around the intern’s shoulders.
“…The managing director?”
“Am I seeing things…?”
“Ouch… Is this not a dream…?”
“Hmm…”
It felt like the sound of something shattering echoed through the company.
The company’s power structure was turning out to be completely different from what everyone had imagined.
The managing director, who rarely involved himself in company affairs,
was openly treating the intern like this…?
Who the hell is that guy…?
