"Hey, Baek Do-jin. Are you all right? Manager Oh's been in a foul mood all morning. Don't take it too much to heart."
Jeong Min-jae, who had joined the company at the same time as me, thrust a can of coffee over the partition.
We had been at the company for a month. He still wore his suit awkwardly, unable to shake the air of a university student.
"Yes. Thanks."
I took the coffee and replied absently.
The aluminum can felt cold against my fingertips.
I was still dazed, but everything was so perfectly real that it sent a chill down my spine.
"Come on. You graduated at the top of your class at Hanguk University and went straight into the Strategic Planning Office. What have you got to feel small about? You're the pride of everyone in our intake, you idiot."
"What pride? You made it in too."
"I barely scraped through."
Jeong Min-jae rambled on with idle chatter.
"Anyway, did you watch the nine o'clock news yesterday? The government was declaring that our economic fundamentals are as solid as ever. The falling share prices are just a temporary market correction, right? Once I get my year-end bonus, I'll buy at the bottom and use the profits to get a new car."
Oblivious to what lay ahead, Jeong Min-jae prattled on about his rosy future.
A job for life, an economy that would only keep growing, the sturdy shelter of a major corporation.
The pride of having beaten fierce competition to enter a core department of the country's largest conglomerate.
October 1997.
It was the foolish, blind faith of an ordinary South Korean office worker.
"I don't know. I'm not sure you'll even see that bonus."
"Huh? What are you talking about? You think Taeseong, the country's biggest conglomerate, is going to collapse?"
Jeong Min-jae snickered as though he had just heard something ridiculous.
I turned back to my monitor.
In exactly one month.
Half the subsidiaries of that lifelong employer you mentioned will be wiped out.
You never even got your year-end bonus. You couldn't hold on, and ended up on the street after signing a voluntary retirement form.
I had fought tooth and nail to stay, even if it meant living as their dog.
I had no intention of warning him about the future.
He would only call me insane if I tried.
There was just one thing on my mind.
How could I scrape together every last won of 'seed money'?
'If I borrow every last won available through a new employee's overdraft account and unsecured loans….'
Twenty million won.
That was the limit of my credit as someone who had only just joined the company.
It was nowhere near enough to tear Taeseong apart from the ground up and devour it.
But that paltry sum would be another matter once the impending 'surge in the exchange rate' hit.
To raise the stakes, I needed more seed money than twenty million won.
As I briefly pondered my options,
"Hey, Assistant Manager Lee! Can't you write a proper proposal? Didn't you see me get chewed out by the department head?!"
Manager Oh's irritable shout rang through the office from beyond the partition.
This time, his target was Assistant Manager Lee, the senior assigned to train me.
As Lee bowed repeatedly and sweated after being struck on the back of the head with an approval folder, the fury immediately spilled over onto me.
"And you, the youngest! Baek Do-jin!"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you finished those corrections?"
"Ah, I am working on them now."
"Do that later! Get over to Taeseong Bank's head office branch right now and have these transaction slips processed before closing. Update all the corporate passbooks Assistant Manager Lee has been keeping, too. And don't crawl along like a slug!"
I inwardly rejoiced.
I had been wondering how to leave my desk without attracting attention.
"Yes, sir. I will take care of it."
I gathered the bundle of documents Manager Oh tossed at me and stood up.
My Taeseong Group employee ID swung against my chest on its blue lanyard.
In 1997, that flimsy scrap of plastic was an all-powerful pass accepted anywhere in the financial sector.
As I stepped outside the office building, the cool October breeze brushed my cheeks.
The streets of Yeouido bustled with life.
People's faces were filled with baseless optimism.
Blue numbers signaling declines cascaded like waterfalls down the electronic boards of the securities firms lining the streets.
Yet everyone firmly believed it was only a temporary market correction.
Even as the country's foreign exchange reserves ran dry, the press trumpeted nonsense day after day about the economy's strength.
'They've all gone mad.'
A runaway locomotive racing at full speed toward an enormous precipice.
That was South Korea's situation, exactly one month before it would shatter to pieces.
I intended to get off that idiotic locomotive and take every useful bundle of cash I could gather with me.
After a ten-minute walk,
I pushed through the revolving doors of Taeseong Bank's head office branch, its entrance adorned with enormous marble pillars.
Inside, the banking hall was a vast marketplace.
Dot-matrix printers rattled as they spat out receipts, and telephones rang without pause.
The greed of those seeking to borrow money mingled with that of those seeking to grow it.
Instead of taking a queue number, I headed straight to the 'Counter Reserved for Group Company Personnel' deep inside the hall.
"What brings you here? If it is ordinary banking business, you need to use the counters out there……."
Assistant Manager Kim Tae-hyung, who handled lending, snapped without lifting his head from a pile of documents.
But when he finally looked up in annoyance and his gaze landed on my chest, he abruptly stiffened.
A blue lanyard.
An employee ID identifying me as a member of the Strategic Planning Office at Taeseong Group headquarters.
Even if I was a raw recruit, he could not casually mistreat someone from the core department that acted as the controlling family's hands and feet.
"Ah, you are from headquarters. Are you running an errand for your department?"
Instead of answering, I took a credit application out of my jacket and tossed it onto the counter.
"Before I attend to the head office's errand, let's take care of my personal business. I want an unsecured loan and an overdraft account."
Assistant Manager Kim picked up the application with a puzzled look.
His brow furrowed as he scanned the documents, and then he let out a short, incredulous laugh.
"Mr. Baek Do-jin? According to this, you only joined the company a little over a month ago."
The faint tension in his voice evaporated.
In its place came unmistakable contempt and irritation.
"Did they not tell you at the training center that the maximum limit for a new employee is twenty million won?"
"……."
"And yet you are requesting a hundred million? Do you think this bank is a place to play games?"
Assistant Manager Kim glared at me, tapping the butt of his pen against the desk.
It was typical of 1997, when getting a foot inside a bank was harder than climbing Everest and bankers' noses were held high enough to pierce the sky.
He must have wanted to throw the documents in my face and drive me out on the spot.
I looked down at him in silence until the tapping stopped.
Then I spoke in a dry voice devoid of emotion.
"I have no time for games."
His shoulders gave a faint twitch at the chill in my voice.
"Forget the standard terms for those paltry sums in the training manual."
"W-what are you talking about……!"
"I mean the 'Special Employee Credit Exception' that the manager of Taeseong Bank's head office branch can approve at his sole discretion. Apply it and give me the maximum amount."
Assistant Manager Kim's mouth fell open.
His face flushed and darkened with an emotion I could not distinguish as disbelief or anger.
"Ha! This is unbelievable. An exception? That is only for executives…… Who is your direct superior? I'll call and check with him myself……."
He was just reaching for the receiver on his desk.
"Go ahead."
I tilted my chin and spoke flatly.
"While you're at it, add this. Our Strategic Planning Office knows all about the three billion won in promissory notes from 'Jinmyeong Textiles' whose maturities you extended without the branch manager's knowledge."
Assistant Manager Kim's hand froze over the receiver.
"And the account held under a borrowed name where you received kickbacks from Jinmyeong Textiles' president. It would be even better if you reported that too."
"H-how do you know about that……!"
"Aren't you going to pick up the phone?"
I leaned against the counter at an angle and smiled faintly.
I remembered how those bad promissory notes had thrown Taeseong Bank into an uproar in my previous life.
It had been a major scandal when I was a new employee. There was no way I would not know about it.
"Or shall I walk into the branch manager's office right now and expose everything? Choose whichever will get your head cut off faster."
I had precise insider information and the cold assurance to drive him to the brink.
On top of that, the 'Strategic Planning Office' title hung against my chest.
The immense power of being the controlling family's hands and feet lent my threat absolute credibility.
Assistant Manager Kim was utterly crushed.
He swallowed hard and forced out a strangled reply.
"W-wait…… Just wait a moment. No, please wait a moment, sir."
He had finally resorted to polite speech with someone far below him in seniority at an affiliated company.
He sprang up as though fleeing, gathered the documents, and hurried into the branch manager's office.
Before long, he returned with beads of cold sweat on his forehead, clutching documents bearing the clear official stamp of 'Branch Manager's Discretionary Approval.'
He must have kept his own dirty secrets out of it and used my department as a pretext to get the stamp somehow.
"……It has been approved. A credit limit of one hundred million won. The interest rate is……."
"Spare me the explanation."
I tapped the counter lightly and tilted my chin arrogantly.
"Disburse the full amount into my account immediately. Every second counts."
A short while later,
"H-here is the hundred-million-won loan you requested. It has been disbursed."
Wiping away his cold sweat, Assistant Manager Kim offered me the passbook and transaction slip with trembling hands.
"Would you like to withdraw the full amount by check?"
"No."
Instead of taking the passbook, I cast a cold gaze across the counter.
"Convert the entire amount into dollars (USD) and deposit it in my foreign currency account."
"……Pardon?"
Assistant Manager Kim's eyes bulged like a frog's.
"A-all one hundred million into dollars? Do you know how high the interest rate on won deposits is right now? Why would you tie it up in foreign currency?! Besides, under the Foreign Exchange Control Act, it is illegal for an individual to exchange such a large sum without supporting documents. The computer system will block it outright!"
October 1997.
He was a frog in a well, blindly believing the country was still sound and prattling on about rigid laws.
I did not feel his objection was even worth answering, so I tapped the counter with my fingers.
"Use the 'Overseas Investment Income' exemption code to put the transaction through."
"Pardon? B-but that would be a clear violation of the Foreign Exchange Control Act……."
"The loan already has the branch manager's discretionary approval, doesn't it? Stop arguing and process it. Or shall we take a look at that account held under a borrowed name first?"
Assistant Manager Kim stared at me as though I had lost my mind.
But crushed beneath my cold threat, he could offer no further objections.
The mechanical clatter of typing mingled with the hurried rustling of transaction slips.
Before long, I held a blue foreign currency passbook in my hand.
The stiff paper pressed against my fingertips.
A mere hundred million won. A pittance, less than Taeseong Group, the country's largest conglomerate, spent on business entertainment in a single day.
But when that insignificant spark met the historic typhoon of 'national default' that would strike a month later, it would grow into an enormous wildfire.
'Of course, this is nowhere near enough on its own. But it is not bad as seed money.'
I tucked the foreign currency passbook into my jacket.
"My personal business is finished. Now let's take care of the head office's business."
I pushed the corporate transaction slips and bundle of documents Manager Oh had entrusted to me across the counter.
Before long, the head office's business was finished too.
I slipped the foreign currency passbook into my inner pocket, gathered the documents, and headed for the bank lobby.
In the middle of the banking hall, an enormous analog display board filling the wall shone brightly.
[Today's Won/Dollar Exchange Rate: 1 Dollar = 914 Won]
I looked up at the board, the corners of my mouth slowly rising.
In exactly one month.
That number will smash straight through the psychological barrier of 1,000 won.
Then it will soar madly toward 2,000 won, plunging this entire country into hell.