“Don’t lie.”
Kang Doyoon couldn’t say a word for a moment.
Han Taesik’s voice wasn’t loud.
If anything, it was quiet.
And yet, strangely, those words seemed to push every other sound around them aside.
The brokerage firm’s busy lobby.
Some people were on the phone, while others sighed in front of their monitors.
A place where countless people had gathered to make money.
Doyoon had never imagined that someone who could see straight through him would appear there.
“Your eyes aren’t the eyes of someone putting money in for the first time.”
Han Taesik looked at Kang Doyoon.
“Most people investing for the first time look pretty similar.”
He tapped the newspaper lying on the table with one finger.
“The expectation that they’re going to make money.”
“Or the anxiety that they might lose it.”
“One or the other is always visible in their eyes.”
Kang Doyoon quietly looked at Han Taesik.
“But you’re different.”
“You look like…”
Han Taesik paused for a moment.
“Someone who’s already died once in the market.”
At that moment, Kang Doyoon’s heart sank.
Someone who’d died once.
The words were accurate in a way that felt strange.
He really had died in the market.
It wasn’t just his money he’d lost.
His confidence.
His time.
His relationships with other people.
In the end, even himself.
But he couldn’t tell this man that.
And even if he did, there was no way Han Taesik would believe him.
“I’ve just done a lot of research.”
Kang Doyoon barely managed to answer.
Han Taesik smiled.
“Your eyes don’t belong to someone who’s studied a lot, either.”
“Then what do they belong to?”
“Someone with experience.”
For a moment, Kang Doyoon remembered the past.
His first life.
The day he first started investing in stocks.
Back then, he’d been full of confidence.
One video he’d watched on YouTube.
A few posts on an internet message board.
Someone’s proof of success.
He’d seen those things and thought he could do it, too.
But the market hadn’t been that easy.
At first, he’d made money through sheer luck.
That had been his biggest mistake.
People mistake their first success for skill.
And sooner or later, that mistake always demands a price.
“So.”
Han Taesik asked,
“What stock did you come to look at?”
Kang Doyoon’s gaze wavered.
For a moment, he almost answered.
Taeseong Electronics.
But he kept his mouth shut.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Liar.”
Han Taesik said it immediately.
Kang Doyoon furrowed his brow.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because you were standing there like someone who already had.”
Han Taesik looked out the window.
“People have their own reasons for coming to put money in.”
“Some come because they heard a rumor.”
“Some come because other people are buying.”
“Some are just hoping for a quick score.”
He looked back at Kang Doyoon.
“But you looked like someone who’d already made his decision.”
Kang Doyoon didn’t answer.
He was right.
Doyoon had already decided.
Because he knew the future.
But at the same time, he was afraid.
‘Is the future I know really correct?’
The thought stayed with him.
From the moment of his time regression, everything had felt inevitable.
But as one day passed, then two, a strange thought began to creep in.
The future might not be fixed.
The events he remembered.
The companies he remembered.
The success he remembered.
All of it could change because of one small choice.
What if that was true?
What about his investment?
His plans?
“Young man.”
At Han Taesik’s voice, Kang Doyoon came back to himself.
“Do you know who the most dangerous person in the stock market is?”
Kang Doyoon thought for a moment.
“Someone who doesn’t know anything?”
“No.”
Han Taesik shook his head.
“Someone who mistakes assumption for knowledge.”
Kang Doyoon fell silent at those words.
“The market is always testing people.”
“The moment you start believing you’re right is when you begin to be wrong.”
Han Taesik held out his business card.
“Call me if you’re curious.”
Kang Doyoon took the card.
Han Taesik
CEO, investment advisory firm.
Former fund manager.
It was a name he had never seen in his first life.
Kang Doyoon stared at the business card.
A person who hadn’t existed in his memories of the future.
That fact bothered him for some reason.
On the way home.
Kang Doyoon kept thinking.
Han Taesik.
A man who hadn’t existed in the future.
And yet he had appeared before Doyoon now.
If so…
Was the future already changing?
Or had Han Taesik simply been someone Doyoon hadn’t known about?
When he got home, Kang Doyoon sat down at his desk.
He opened his notebook.
The first page.
Future Records.
Beneath it were the names of countless companies.
Taeseong Electronics.
Current price: 3,200 won.
Major growth in three years.
Beneath that was a wealth of information he knew.
But even with a pen in hand, he couldn’t write anything right away today.
Han Taesik’s words came back to him.
“Someone who mistakes assumption for knowledge.”
After thinking for a long time, Kang Doyoon wrote a new sentence.
The future is only a reference.
It isn’t the answer.
He let out a sigh.
In his first life, he had trusted information.
In this life, he had to use it.
The two were completely different.
The next morning.
At work.
Kang Doyoon went to work as usual.
But the people around him were beginning to notice, little by little, that he had changed.
“Doyoon.”
Yoon Seoyeon approached him with a cup of coffee.
“What did you do yesterday?”
Kang Doyoon looked at her.
“Why?”
“Just wondering.”
Yoon Seoyeon tilted her head.
“It’s strange that a person can change so much in one day.”
Kang Doyoon smiled.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You always used to look like you were being chased.”
Yoon Seoyeon thought for a moment.
“But today, you look kind of…”
“Like you’re waiting for something.”
Kang Doyoon was speechless for a moment.
Someone who was waiting.
She was exactly right.
He was waiting for the future.
Just then, a voice came from one side of the office.
“Hey, what stocks are you looking at these days?”
It was Choi Minseok.
Several coworkers were gathered around him.
“I hear the semiconductor sector is looking pretty good.”
“Hasn’t it already gone up?”
“Some people say it hasn’t even started yet.”
Kang Doyoon glanced in their direction without thinking.
Choi Minseok.
In Doyoon’s first life, Minseok had already started investing around this time.
And a few years later,
he’d made an enormous amount of money.
But Doyoon knew that Minseok’s success hadn’t been simple luck.
He had always moved earlier than everyone else.
“Doyoon.”
Choi Minseok called out to him.
“You invest in stocks, too?”
Kang Doyoon paused for a moment.
If this had been his first life, he would have answered like this:
“No. They’re dangerous.”
But things were different now.
“A little.”
Choi Minseok grinned.
“Oh?”
“Didn’t expect that from you.”
“Why not?”
“I thought you weren’t interested in this kind of thing.”
Kang Doyoon smiled.
“People change.”
Choi Minseok asked teasingly,
“So what are you thinking of buying?”
For a moment, the noise in the office seemed to disappear.
Kang Doyoon didn’t answer.
The name Taeseong Electronics came to mind.
But he couldn’t say it easily.
The fact that he knew the future was a secret he could tell no one.
After work.
Kang Doyoon opened his stock-trading app again.
And stared at the screen for a long time.
The buy button.
His finger stopped.
This choice wasn’t just an investment.
It was the first decision of his second life.
Kang Doyoon slowly exhaled.
Then he pressed the button.
[Taeseong Electronics]
[Purchase complete]
Nothing happened.
The stock price didn’t move.
There was no breaking news.
The world remained as it had always been.
But for Kang Doyoon, things were different.
The man who had spent ten years regretting his choices
had taken his first step toward the future.
And that night.
Somewhere Kang Doyoon didn’t know existed,
a man was staring at the chart for the same stock.
Han Taesik.
He looked at the screen and muttered to himself.
“Strange.”
“There’s no way someone that young should have eyes like that.”
Han Taesik looked at Kang Doyoon’s business card.
No.
More precisely, he thought of Kang Doyoon himself.
Then he said quietly,
“Someone interesting has appeared.”
Kang Doyoon’s second life.
His first investment had begun.
But he still didn’t know.
From the moment he tried to use the future,
the future had begun testing him, too.