12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

I turned my head around. I could see Gangnam Boulevard out of the window. Countless cars were coming and going, lots of people were coming and going. I liked this landscape. I loved looking down from the high place, looking at people who lived busy.

‘That’s why I moved to this studio.’

Looking out of the window, I suddenly saw myself reflected in the window. I was wearing a neat suit.

‘A suit?’

I tilted my head slightly. I’d never worn a suit since I had left the company.

‘It’s weird, right?’

I looked back at the thought of. But, behind me, there was an office that was not my studio, and it was an open office.

‘What is this?’ I grabbed my head. ‘What happened?’

Far away, I could see Choi scurrying around with a bunch of documents. I approached him.

“Hey, what happened?”

But he looked at me, opened his mouth wide, and said, “Haw… Good morning, boss!”

He folded his back half and greeted me with a folder.

‘Boss?’

“No, what do you mean? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?” I asked him, and after that, the section chief, Heo, appeared. He was looking around with his face full of boredom as usual, and then his eyes met mine.

‘Oh, my God.’ He had a bad face at all times. By the way, Heo’s expression was strange when he saw me.

“Ah… boss?” Boss. Heo now called me boss, too. “Hey, what are you doing here?” He had a startled look on his face. “Here… sit here, boss.”

He gave me his hands with a wry smile.

“What are you doing?” When I asked, suddenly something behind me hit my knee. “Uh…”

I fell back. By the way, there was a soft chair there, a black leather thing, a so-called boss chair. When I sat down in the chair, two women appeared from the side. They appeared with a huge fan, covering their faces with a thin black cloth, as if they were women in the Middle East. They fanned me in the chair and said, “Is it cool, boss?”

I wondered at the faces of the two women. I got up from my seat and tried to lift the cloth covering their faces. But in the meantime, Heo knelt down before me and handed a report.

“Boss. It’s a report. I need your approval.”

‘Approval?’ Now I saw a stamp and a stamp pad beside me. But I didn’t want to give my approval easily.

‘I can’t give you my approval easily. You did that, too.’

I didn’t even look at the report, and said, “Try again!”, picking it up and throwing it over Heo’s head.

“Yes… yes? Why?”

“The size of letters are too big.”

“Yes?”

The documents were scattered over Heo’s head, and after him, the company executives appeared. Those, who were directors or executive directors that had not been seen often at work, suddenly fell on their knees in front of me and said, “Boss, we have a deal in twelve days. What will happen? Should we sign or not?”

“Boss, we are ready for the merger and acquisition in twelve weeks. Just give us an order.”

‘Order? What order?’

When I cocked my head, they asked me to make a decision and give them an order.

“Please make up your mind.”

“Please give us an order.”

‘What is this?’

Suddenly there was a strong wind coming from the side. The women beside me were fanning too hard. I stopped them, “Wait, it’s too cold. Slowly…”

But they didn’t stop fanning.

“Do it slowly.”

“Ho ho! The boss is so…”

With my words, they made the fan even stronger with a smirk. It was cold. It was too cold, so I had to open my eyes.

I woke up, muttering, “It’s cold.”

Something was howling. There was a cold wind blowing overhead. I looked up with my eyes twitching. The ceiling air conditioner kept blowing. I got out of bed, rubbed my eyes, found the remote control and turned off the air conditioner. It was hot when I fell asleep, but it was cold in the morning. I didn’t know which platform to play.

‘But I’m going to sleep with the air conditioner turned off. Oh, I almost caught a cold in the summer.’

I got up with a slight tremor. It was seven o’clock in the morning, looking at my cell phone. I woke up about an hour earlier than usual.

‘Shall I go back to sleep?’

But I didn’t want to sleep again, for some reason or other, because I had a strange dream. I went to the window holding my cell phone. I opened the blinders and looked out the window, and this time I saw myself in my pajamas. It was a contrast to the way I looked in my suit. I recalled the dream I had just had.

‘Why would I dream like that? Perhaps… is that what I saw yesterday?’

I picked up my cell phone. I called up my personal memo pad. There was a Diamond Class promotion condition written down by me.

[What you need to upgrade to Diamond Class is a fixed monthly fee of $10,000,000, and under the conditions of your qualifications, you have to control one listed company in your country.]

When I first saw it, I was surprised, but I could not look away from it again.

‘What? Suddenly, the qualifications… What the hell…’

I watched the sentence for a moment and thought of the Customer Service.

‘I haven’t talked to him in a long time. He doesn’t have much affection, but he answers what I ask.’

I used my cell phone to call that number, ‘919-31413-11721.’

I send a text to him, “I’d like to talk to you. Please send me an email from the Customer Service.”

The reply came at once. “I sent you an email.”

I sat in front of the computer, turned on the power, and got an email.

[Customer Service of 12 Hours After]

When I clicked on it, the chat window appeared.

[Hello, Han Sang-hoon. This is Customer Service. Can I help you with anything?]

I asked a question that it reminded me of.

[About the qualifications, if I control the listed company, is that okay?]

[Yes, it is. We’ll upgrade you to Diamond Class as soon as you meet the terms and conditions of your payment of $10,000,000.]

As expected, I got a reply in 0.1 seconds.

[Are you saying that I am limited to the country I belong to, then, the KOSPI and KOSDAQ limits?]

[Yes, it is.]

The things that I roughly expected were right.

[I don’t have to hand over the listed company to you, do I? Do I just have to own it?]

[Correct. However, please be aware that the qualification conditions will be canceled, and your class will not be maintained, when you lose the right of management, or when you are expelled from the KOSDAQ or KOSPI.]

‘In a word, I have to buy a listed company and make a good deal of it. I should not get kicked out of the market.’

[So what exactly does rule mean? What percentage of shares should I have? Or do I have to run my own business?]

[You need the largest shares for yourself or your company. You don’t have to run the business as long as you have the requirements of the largest shareholder.]

‘Well… yourself or your company…

‘In other words, even if I buy and hold a share in B with my own company A, it will be recognized as my own. But the word ‘dominant’ goes well with it. The nation’s chaebols are “dominating” other companies with a trick like circular shareholding. Korea’s leading company, Susung Electronics, holds less than 5% of shares owned by Ji Chang-woo. Instead, it has only controlled Susung Electronics indirectly, because he has a 70% stake in Susung Life Insurance, and Susung Life Insurance has a 12% stake in the company.

‘It means that I can rule in a chaebol way… But then… What he wants from me…’

I asked the Customer Service with a sudden thought.

[Do I have to dominate more companies to go up any further than Diamond?]

[That’s a secret.]

I frowned a little, but I didn’t get as angry as before. In a way, even the expensive computer that I did this chatting on was bought because of this 12 Hours After. Instead of being annoyed, I thanked him.

[Okay. Thank you.]

[Don’t mention it. Please continue to subscribe.]

‘Okay, please continue to publish.’

I got up from the chair with my head down. I went to the kitchen, filled my coffee, and came to the window with it. It was time for the sun to rise. Outside the window was much brighter than before. Some offices in the Susung Electronics Building also had lights on. I looked at the office light and thought. ‘Do I have to go back? To that place?’

‘But when I think about it, if I go back as the boss instead of going back zx the employee, it won’t be bad, either. If what I receive in the company is not an order and contempt, but a report and respect, it may be worth going around.

‘Yeah… well, the subscription doesn’t go up, and if they give me an upgrade for my company, they actually give me an upgrade for free.

‘Yes, in fact, even if I have more than $10,000,000, there is no place to spend the money. Though I can buy a lot of real estate, what’s the fun of it? Rather, it would be better to do day-trading with stocks.’

‘Yeah, well, shall I just play a boss-game?

‘But when I think about it, it may not be a boss-game since I can get the news of 12 Hours After, 12 Days After, and 12 Weeks After.

I recalled the sight I had seen in my dream.

‘Boss, we have a deal in twelve days. What will happen? Should we sign or not?

‘Boss, we are ready for the merger and acquisition in twelve weeks. Just give us an order.’

Come to think of it, it would be all right.

‘No… I could be a pretty good boss…’

‘I’ve never done business management and never thought about it, but company management in the first place is to predict the future and act accordingly. With the news in 12 Hours After, I could be a tremendously capable CEO.

‘… Yeah… Then… more than a hundred million dollars… No, it’s easy to make billions of dollars. I don’t have to do stock trading… I can just run the company and make money, right?

I had a flash in my mind. I put my hands in my mouth and thought about what company to take over, and whether it was going to be synergistic with 12 Hours After.

‘Architecture company? Pharmaceutical company? Game companies? I have to have luck if I want something good to happen. It’s hard. Well, then, I am going to have to link to Ranking News and People Search… I don’t know what’s going to come out of the Ranking News. People Search… Is there a company I can develop with People Search?’

I had my mind worked. Soon the answer came out.

‘People Search… a company that does business with people… an entertainment company?’