Translator: SourKimchi
Kim Tae-jun stood in front of the bathroom mirror, smoothing his wet hair neatly back.
Normally he had no reason to be showering at this hour.
He'd have splashed some water on his face and reached for a drink instead.
Or he might have headed out to a club, or sprawled on the couch with some random stream playing, killing time.
But today was different.
He blow-dried his hair, then even put on the toner and lotion he hardly ever touched.
Then he looked at his own face in the mirror.
The pale, neatly groomed face staring back felt strangely unfamiliar.
"Ha."
Letting out a short breath, Tae-jun picked up the cologne by the sink, then set it back down.
"Nah, that's too much. It's all going over Discord anyway."
Muttering to himself, he made his way to the dressing room.
There he pulled out a crisply ironed shirt and put it on.
Sitting around in a wrinkled T-shirt just didn't feel right today, for some reason.
Back in his room, he gave the desk a once-over.
He tossed the lighter that had been lying around into a drawer, and dropped the empty bottle into the trash.
Then he set a glass of water in the middle of the desk.
Looking at it, a dry laugh slipped out of him.
"Am I losing it or what?"
But the laugh didn't last long.
He woke his phone screen and checked the message from his father again.
「One of the three. Decide by next Monday.」
A short message.
His father was always like that.
He only ever threw out the problem.
Finding the answer was always left to him.
"Hoo."
He let out a sigh and walked into the living room.
His head throbbed.
The whiskey bottle on the display shelf kept catching his eye.
Close enough to grab with a single reach.
Normally he'd already have dropped ice into a glass and poured himself a measure.
Tae-jun looked away.
Not today.
At least today, he didn't want to fog up his head.
He sat back down in his chair and checked the time.
7:50 p.m.
About ten minutes left.
Bzzzz–
His phone went off.
He checked it; a message had come in.
[Hey. When are you coming?]
[Lots of hot girls showed up tonight. Get here quick.]
[I'll have everything set up ahead of time.]
Tae-jun frowned.
He deleted the messages right away.
He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth.
His throat was oddly parched.
He picked up the glass and took a sip, but it didn't help much.
「Decide by next Monday.」
His father's words kept echoing in his ears.
And if he got it wrong this time too?
He'd been deliberately not thinking about what came after.
Thinking about it only made things more miserable.
Tae-jun pulled up the Ocean homepage. Then he checked how many Water Drops he had loaded.
[Remaining Water Drops : 10,000]
More than enough.
Next he tapped his bookmarked channel list.
[PerpetualJobSeeker's Broadcast : offline]
The broadcast hadn't come online yet.
Ever since he'd found this channel, he hadn't missed a single day; he tuned in right on time.
'Novagen, and then Han Yu-na too.'
At first he'd written it off as coincidence.
The second time, it left a bad taste in his mouth.
By the third, it was too unsettling to just laugh off.
And now.
Tae-jun steadied his breathing as he stared at PerpetualJobSeeker's still-dark broadcast screen.
"One minute left now."
Today was his turn.
***
Kim Tae-jun hit refresh, unable to pull his eyes from the screen.
Still the same.
[PerpetualJobSeeker's Broadcast : offline]
He checked the time again.
7:59 p.m.
Still a minute to go.
No reason to get antsy.
Even as he told himself that, his fingertips kept drumming against the desk.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
He tried to stop, but it wasn't that easy.
Tae-jun bit down on the inside of his lip.
His gaze drifted from the screen to the clock.
8:00 p.m. on the dot.
He hit refresh immediately.
Still offline.
"The hell."
He frowned and shifted in his seat.
Normally a little delay wouldn't have gotten under his skin like this.
Streams started late all the time; a minute or two of slippage was nothing unusual.
But not today.
Today, even a single minute felt long.
Tae-jun hit refresh again.
Nothing had changed.
8:01.
He picked up the glass, then set it back down.
His throat was dry, but he had no real urge to drink more.
He kept worrying the stream would go live the moment he stepped away.
His fingers started tapping the desk again.
Faster and faster.
Tap-tap.
Tap-tap-tap.
"Don't tell me he's not streaming tonight."
The words came out rougher than he'd meant them to, half to himself.
Just in case, Tae-jun even checked his connection, but there was nothing wrong with it.
8:03.
By now even sitting still felt uncomfortable.
He went to lean back against the chair, then leaned forward again.
Elbows on the desk, he glared at the screen.
The dark broadcast screen looked weirdly infuriating.
"Haah......"
Letting out a short sigh, Tae-jun tipped his head back, then glared at the screen again.
Something inside his chest kept tightening.
「Decide by next Monday.」
His father's short message flickered through his mind again.
Part of him thought it was ridiculous, clinging to one little stream like this.
And yet, laughably, no other option came to mind.
8:05.
Finally Tae-jun slammed the desk.
Bang.
"Damn it, why won't he go live."
His irritated voice rang out loud in the quiet room.
"Just turn it on already!"
The moment he gritted his teeth and glared at the screen again,
the dark screen changed.
[PerpetualJobSeeker's Broadcast : online]
Tae-jun's whole expression shifted.
"He's live."
As if he'd been waiting all along, he tapped into the broadcast at once.
***
The moment Park Ji-hun went live, viewers started pouring in.
-SilentRoom : no way, i thought it was an off-broadcast day today!
-Fallout : waited so long my eyes almost fell out lmaooo
-Carefree : here we go again tonight
"Sorry I'm late."
After apologizing to the viewers who'd been waiting, Park Ji-hun pulled up the Reservation List right away.
The handle at the very top stood out.
[Nathan]
The chat blew up too.
-SseomyeonMaster : oh it's nathan's turn today
-Soljji : ohh nathan's turn at last
-mk912 : kinda curious what he's gonna ask
-LegendDrumBarrel : gold spoon or crypto rich?
The viewers were debating Nathan's identity among themselves when it happened.
[Nathan gifted 500 Water Drops.]
-Nathan : fuck, thought i was gonna die waiting!
Nathan had finally showed up.
The chat stirred at once.
-Soljji : there he is lmaooo
-Kuroae : guess that bastard's turn rolled around after all
-Berserk : didn't he cut in line last time? shouldn't he forfeit the turn?
-ask2311 : lol the kid's gonna cry
Ignoring the chat, Park Ji-hun tapped the desk twice with his fingertips.
Tap-tap.
"Nathan."
The chat went quiet for a moment.
Then a message came up.
-Nathan : yeah, i'm here
Park Ji-hun narrowed his eyes at the message.
"What are you doing? Get on Discord."
A moment later, a connection tone sounded in his earphones.
Nathan had joined the Discord.
"Talk."
Nathan's voice came through from the other end of the call.
The impatience from earlier was still there, but his tone was clearly put-on, deliberately twisted to come off harder than it was.
"My old man showed me three women and told me to pick one. As a marriage partner."
The chat instantly flipped into laughter.
-SilentRoom : a matchmaking consult out of nowhere?
-Fallout : crazy bastard, i'm jealous lol
-SseomyeonMaster : if all three are hot just date all of them
Nathan ignored the chat and answered.
"One of them looked the most respectable on the surface. Good for appearances, too. Even my uncle said she was the best of the three. But if I actually got tied up with her, I'd end up basically a live-in son-in-law."
Nathan caught his breath for a second, then went on.
"Another one's got a temper, and she'd be high-maintenance. Push the wrong button and it's obviously going to be a headache. But she's flashy, and maybe that's why; out of the three, she's the one my eyes keep going to."
He cut himself off there.
After a brief silence, his voice dropped a little lower this time.
"The last one would probably be the easiest to live with. She'd keep a good home, and life would be comfortable. But she's so plain, I don't think she'd suit me."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. Now use that Spirit Reading of yours and tell me which one I should pick."
The chat still seemed convinced this was all about women.
-LegendDrumBarrel : temper or not, i'm into the flashy type
-Berserk : the one with the solid family is the obvious play
-Soljji : for marriage the thrifty one's better
Park Ji-hun stared at the screen for a beat, then said with a smile,
"This isn't about women at all."
For a moment the Discord went silent.
Unfazed, Park Ji-hun kept going.
"This isn't about a marriage partner. You want me to read your way out."
"......"
"Either you lay it all out, or we end it here."
After a short silence, a dry laugh came from Nathan.
He spoke in a tone with a little less force than before.
"......You really are the real deal. The truth is, my father told me to pick one of three subsidiaries."
At that, the chat erupted.
-Fallout : wait it was actually about companies?
-agei : he had to pick one of three subsidiaries??
-SseomyeonMaster : this bastard nathan really is a chaebol heir
-SilentRoom : so the woman talk earlier was companies?!
-Kkoka : boss pls hook me up with a job :(
But Park Ji-hun, without shifting his gaze, asked,
"Are you looking for the one that won't go under."
A faint sound of breath being steadied came through the call.
"Or the one that flips the whole board."
This time Nathan didn't push back.
He took a moment to choose his words, then said carefully,
"Just surviving isn't enough. This time I have to produce a result. A definite one."
That was the moment.
A brief vision flickered before Park Ji-hun's eyes.
A building with a gleaming glass facade.
A tidy conference room.
It looked convincing.
But the next instant, a crack split one of the walls.
At first it looked like a hairline fracture, but it quickly spread inward.
Like something whose surface was fine while the inside had already rotted through.
Then another scene layered over it.
A vast warehouse.
A conveyor belt turning at a steady rhythm.
Goods flowed without a single jam, and the numbers added up steadily.
It wasn't flashy.
But it held the same to the very end.
Good for holding on, but there was no wave big enough to flip the board.
The last thing to surface was a pure white lab coat.
A slick presentation screen wavered, and a graph bent downward.
A test tube shattered on the floor, and someone's face went pale.
An alarm blared, and the air in the conference room froze.
'All three are duds?'
Just as Ji-hun knit his brow, the frozen figures jumped again, and the fallen graph shot steeply upward.
Someone stepped toward the screen as if they couldn't believe it, and then the scene changed all at once.
Flashing cameras.
A downpour of applause.
People cheering.
As the vision lifted, Park Ji-hun spoke without hesitation.
"Go with the one you called the flashiest. That's the biotech."
For a moment the far end of the call went silent.
The chat got rowdy in no time.
-SilentRoom : what?
-Fallout : the biotech one??
-SseomyeonMaster : that's a total gamble though??
-Berserk : drug development is a great way to go bankrupt
A beat late, Nathan's voice came through.
"......Why?"
"The one from the good family, that game's already over. Even if you walk in, there's no seat for you."
Park Ji-hun glanced over the chat and continued.
"The solid, steady one is fine for holding out. But you're not looking for a place to hold out right now, are you."
The breathing on the other end of the call quickened a little.
Park Ji-hun tapped the desk once with his fingertip.
Tap.
"This time you have to show them something, don't you."
The chat fell quiet for a moment.
"So you need one big hit."
After a short silence, Nathan's voice came.
"......Is that why you told me to go with the biotech?"
"That's right."
Park Ji-hun answered shortly.
"If what you want is to flip the whole board, that's the one."
For a while Nathan said nothing.
After a long deliberation, he answered.
"......All right."
But he immediately trailed off and added,
"Oh, there's one more thing I wanted to ask......"
In that instant, a different vision flickered past.
Having seen it, Ji-hun went on.
"Hold on. I'm not finished."
The far end of the call went quiet.
Park Ji-hun stared at the monitor and asked,
"You've done nothing but fail this whole time, haven't you? Kept making one wrong decision after another."
After a short silence, Nathan asked in a startled voice,
"How do you know that......"
Park Ji-hun continued without wavering.
"It's not that you chose wrong."
Nathan asked back carefully,
"......Then what?"
Park Ji-hun answered without hesitation.
"Someone's been making them go wrong all along."