12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

“Tiriri!” At the alarm, I woke up. There was a strange ceiling before my eyes. It was higher than where I used to live. Too high. I got out of bed. I felt a bit chilly in the studio since it was a 165 square-meter studio, and there was not enough furniture to fill it.

‘Let’s check the news this morning and go shopping again in the afternoon.’

I walked to the kitchen, boiled the water in the coffee pot, then dropped the coffee and came up to the window. As I rolled up the blinder that was covering the window, the scenery outside the window was revealed. 8:10 a.m. The area around Gangnam Station was crowded with cars and people. People going to work, students going to a private educational institute. I watched them over a cup of coffee.

“A week ago, I was one of them…”

I had mixed feelings. Someone once said, ‘labor is sacred,’ but I didn’t have much sympathy for them because I had suffered from it until recently. Of course, I didn’t have any fun working and didn’t feel rewarded. But most of the time had been forced to endure pain, so it was hard to agree with it.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that I saw a video clip about Chris Rock’s “Life Career” on YouTube in the past.

‘Chris Rock is a famous comedian who everyone knows when they look at his face right now, but when he was young, he worked at a local restaurant cleaning dirty dishes.

‘Wipe, wipe, wipe.

‘The money that earned after he wiped all day and held was only $1,000. But the bigger problem was that washing dishes didn’t make more money if he continued doing it, and even if he became more skilled, there was a limit. So he succeeded by having a comedian gig during the day while dishwashing at night. What he has done since then, movies, dramas, and sitcoms, were all built up during his career.’

Although I was forced to resign because I couldn’t stand my last company, I was not averse to working either.

‘Who doesn’t dream of being at the top of a field? If there’s anyone like Chris Rock that can put their life’s passion into their work, if there’s anything that can be praised and valued by others, I want to do it as a lifetime’s work.

‘It’s good to play, but let’s find out what’s new: a new job that can build my career and create value.

‘When I was in school, I couldn’t start my own business because I was stuck with money, but now I don’t have to worry about money. I can challenge myself to do that kind of work. Challenge. It’s a word I never thought of when I was at work, but now I am drinking coffee leisurely in my studio. It’s a great blessing to be able to drink coffee in pajamas at this time.

‘People need to be free, too. Thank you. Thank you for sending me the special fate of 12 Hours After… Thank you to someone I don’t know.’

I thanked the person or God who might or might not exist for a moment. I looked up. Across from my studio was the office building of Susung Group in Gangnam, where Korea’s richest man, Ji Chang-woo, commuted to and from work. It was shining brightly.

‘People live their lives once, and they would prefer to be a person who looks down there, rather than being one of the people who come and go down here. And so do I. Life as a slave is over. I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth and was forced to live for a few pennies before my eyes, but now I don’t have to.

‘Now I’ve broken the shackles that were tying me up. I will now be the master of the world, the chief of the world, like Ji Chang-woo at the top of that building.

‘Let’s go up there. Up there!’

I looked at the building of Susung Group for a moment and turned my head sideways. There was my new desk and chair. As I sat down on the chair, it felt fluffy. The texture was good when I touched the desk. But on top of that was my old laptop, a low-cost laptop for assignments bought during school days. It had seen good use, but it didn’t fit in with the high-end furniture around it.

‘Today, I will do computer shopping first.’

‘Now, if I do stock trading with $4,200,000, tens of thousand dollars will come and go in a second. Saving money here is like a professional soccer player saving money on soccer shoes. In fact, I don’t have a good eye for furniture like a bed or a desk, and it’s good enough to just have proper ones. However, I’ll have to buy a computer at the highest specifications.

‘Once I take the email.’

So it was 8:55 a.m. I got the first article of 12 Hours After in my new home. I felt at ease because I didn’t have any fellow employees to watch out for.

[G. 12 Hours After]

[Politics – Mayoral candidate Jung Kwan-soo – What has Mayor Joo Sung-won been doing for the past four years?]

[Economy – Housing prices in Sejong City are fluctuating even with the regulations.]

[Society – The Nobel Prize for Literature was canceled in the Me Too Movement.]

[IT/Science – Fourth Industrial Revolution just around the corner]

[Life/Culture – Growing Threat of Fine Dust]

[World – Threat Flight of China against Taiwan]

[Entertainment – Park Seung-gi appeared in the entertainment show Unknown Brother.]

[Sports – How far is Hanwha’s sensation going to go this season?]

I looked through the titles. There seemed to be nothing to make money. Still, I looked at the headlines once again. I had to keep trying to find a link between the articles and the money.

‘Did China threaten Taiwan again? So… is the Taiwanese currency going to be a little cheaper? I’ll check it out in the evening.

‘I’ll also have to catch up on what seems to be nothing. I should develop a habit of watching news so that information can be exchanged directly for money.

I looked down on the scroll.

[People Search – Enter name.]

[Ranking News – Use Now (0 times possible)]

Ranking News had already been used, and only People Search remained.

‘If I want to move from Gold to Platinum, I need to make good use of this People Search. But I can’t get it right now.’

‘How do I link money to this?’

I had such a question, but it was almost 9 a.m. and the market opened. I turned on the MTS and watched how the stock market was going. I didn’t watch it because there was something else. When I saw the volatility of the stock prices, I thought I could find the news that would affect them.

I searched for some of my country’s major stocks, such as Susung Electronics, Mirae Motors, and LC Chemistry, and looked at the Entertainment section without much thought as I had made a big profit on Jiwoo Entertainment. However, there was a stock that fell rapidly in real time among the entertainment stocks.

[CKD Entertainment –6%]

But the stock price continued to fall. -6%, -7%, -8%. There was no end.

‘What is it? Did someone at the agency do drugs?’

I entered the portal site on my laptop to find the news. But there was nothing to look for. CKD’s CEO Do Chan-ki was the No. 1 search word in real-time.

‘What is going on?’

Do Chan-ki was a popular ballad singer in the 1990s. He was a top singer who sang many ballad songs in a mournful voice. While continuing his success as a singer, he produced several singers in the 2000s, and it was so great that he set up a company named after him. That was CKD Entertainment. I immediately did a real-time search. There was a news item coming up soon.

‘CKD Entertainment CEO Do Chan-ki is gay.’

It was an unconventional title anyone could click on.

‘Is he gay?’

I also clicked on the article, as if I were bewildered. The contents of the article were rather shocking.

[CEO Do Chan-ki is gay. The marriage he has is a fake one to hide it.]

I searched the portal site for ‘Do Chan-ki marriage.’ An article was published eight years ago. Do Chan-ki married a beautiful model, surnamed Kim. It had been eight years ago.

‘… Is he a gay who’s been married for eight years?’

It was a little hard to believe. I read the article further. The article presented some evidence that Do Chan-ki was gay. It was the story of an entertainment worker who was propositioned by him.

Pictures of him coming and going from gay clubs. There was no corroboration, but the reporter who wrote the article seemed to have written it with conviction. I saw the article and the MTS in turn. The stock price of CKD Entertainment tried to move beyond –10% to -15%.

‘Is there any need for the stock price to go down because he is gay? These days, there’s been a lot of improvement in the perception of homosexuals.’

However, CEO Do Chan-ki was a ballad singer who enjoyed an era of love songs. There were still quite a few people singing his songs in karaoke rooms, and if he turned out to be gay now, some would be a little uncomfortable. In addition, getting married was a problem. Some fans were likely to be disappointed when it turned out that the person who sang the love song had a fake marriage. I thought, scratching my cheek.

‘Is this true?’

But I suddenly had an idea.

‘Ah, People Search.’

If I looked for an article in 12 Hours After, I might find out whether it was true or not. That was what I thought, and I returned to the mailbox. Still, next to the People Search, a cursor was blinking.

[Please enter a name.]

I clicked on it and put Do Chan-ki right away. Soon an article came out.

[CEO Do Chan-ki rejected that he is gay. He will sue the media for making false rumors.]

Here it was. I clicked on the very article.

[Do Chan-ki, CEO of CKD Entertainment, denied his homosexual report. In response to the allegations, CEO Do Chan-ki said, “It is a false fact that is not worth much consideration,” adding, “The reason why I went to a gay club was to meet a gay composer.”]

I was not sure about this alone and I scrolled it down more.

[CEO Do Chan-ki said, “The rumors have caused irreparable damage to him and his family, and have caused financial damage to CKD Entertainment shareholders by plunging company shares,” adding, “We will sue Keystone Media that reported this the first time.” The stock price of CKD Entertainment fell as low as $2.20 (–25%) today, but recovered to $2.90 (–3%) after CEO Do Chan-ki’s rebuttal interview.]

That was it. I bumped my finger as I was reading the article.

‘That’s enough. There is nothing more to see when an article comes up with this exact price. This is because it’s like looking at the correct answer and solving the problem in front of me.’

I turned on the HTS right away to sweep away money.