12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I looked at her in amazement. Now I saw teardrops forming on her long eyelashes.

‘Is she crying?’ It made me feel guilty to see her cry. I didn’t do anything, but I had a funny idea. I said to her, “Ah-young, are you awake?”

She was crying without an answer.

‘What the hell… suddenly crying for her mom and dad?’

I looked back. There was a tissue on her dressing table. I headed to the dressing table to get it. But there was a picture there. First to stand out was the young Ah-young, wearing a school uniform. Unlike now, she had no makeup on her face. She looked so innocent.

I had thought she had a little face surgery. She hadn’t.

There were people behind her who looked like her mother and a father. Her father was handsome, and her mother was also a beauty. She was smiling happily between the two, holding a bouquet of flowers. It looked like a high school graduation ceremony.

I caught a few more details in the picture: her father’s watch and her mother’s ring. It made me sulky. This lady was definitely born in a rich family. I looked at it and took some tissues and went to her side. Her face was about to look slightly funny as the mascara spread sideways in tears. I called her name.

“Ah-young.”

She had no words. In the meantime, she seemed to have fallen asleep. I wiped her tears away with a tissue. Then I muttered unknowingly, “Don’t cry… why do you cry? You are super glamorous, a pure beauty, a rich girl with about ten million dollars, but you’re crying so sadly. If you cry, all Korean girls should cry.”

That was how I felt. I’d been rich since I met a strange fate, but my life had been a series of hardships before that. Even if I tried, I couldn’t get out of debt. It wasn’t until high school that I got help from my parents. To face the world alone was the fate of ninety percent of men and women in Korea.

‘Even a rich girl might have a hardship sometimes, but…’

To be honest, if she didn’t have to suffer from money, what else was wrong with her? Having wiped away all her tears, I covered her with a blanket. I was sure she was pretty stuffy in her out-of-the-way suit, but it was her job. I didn’t have the confidence to take it off like her friend before. No, to be exact, I was not confident of taking just that off comfortably.

‘I’ll go then.’ After work, I tried to get up from the seat. But then she grabbed me by the sleeve.

“Don’t go.”

I tried to think as objectively as possible. But no matter how much I thought about it, the woman in the bed was telling me not to go.

Again, a strange scenario was drawn, and then she said one more word, “Daddy.”

The word made me calm down. ‘This time, who are you calling daddy?

She must be mistaking me for her father. I quietly took off her hand that was holding my sleeve.

‘I’m not your father.’ I just turned around and left her alone. I didn’t think what the animal in me would do if I stayed anymore, so I went back into my apartment before I could think of doing anything more strange.

My beer and cookies were still on the shelf. I picked them up. The beer was still cold, as it was just taken out of the fridge. If I thought about it, it took about three minutes to come back from her room. It seemed to be about three hours. It looked like I’d been to a room of time and spirit. Instead of going to my private cinema with that cold beer, I just came over to my couch and opened the cap.

A little foam came out with the sound of carbon dioxide. While drinking, I thought about Lee Ah-young from just minutes ago. It didn’t look so good that a grown woman cried out for her mother and father. I didn’t know the details.

‘Have they divorced? Is that why she told me not to go, because her father abandoned her mother? Or… ‘

Instead of watching a movie today, I spent time drinking beer on my own, thinking up scenarios.

——————————–

The next morning, I received the future news at home without going to work. I filtered out the money-making news quickly, and in the People Search of 12 Hours After, I searched for “Han Joong-gil”, the current head of the Food and Drug Administration. A piece of news popped up.

[Chief of Food and Drug Administration, Han Joong-gil ordered to investigate all of Nature’s Gift Products.]

I screamed, “This is it!”

This was him. He was the key man who could give a reversal to Nature’s Gift. I searched for this person’s name on the news in 12 Days After.

[Chief of Food and Drug Administration, Han Joong-gil, visited Osong Bio Research Center.]

There was other news. It was a little disappointing, but it was not bad because it gave me a clue to the reversal. If I did well, I might be able to paint the stock price before the forces could draw a picture. In the news of 12 Weeks After and 12 Months After, I also searched Han Joong-gil, as systematically, the future news might come in the news of 12 Weeks After and 12 Months After. But nothing important came up. Of course, the probability was low.

‘In the end, this game will be over on the news of 12 Hours After or 12 Days After…!’

I turned on the HTS while thinking about it. With the rhythmic ticking of nine o’clock, Nature’s Gift was at the lower limit price again today. I got hit by -30% twice in a row, so my money invested was cut in half right away. So far, I met only the upper limit price, but as I was with the lower limit price twice in a row, I certainly felt it. Stocks was a scary game.

‘Is my loss roughly seven million dollars?’ But I didn’t do the calculations in detail. Instead, I focused on buying F&M Media, which would go to the upper limit price soon time.

‘I can make it again. I can make… fifty million dollars this month… No, let’s make sixty million dollars.’ I was so enthusiastic about the sale with that mind.

—————————–

I walked into her bedroom with Lee Ah-young in my arms. I felt a strange sense of detachment.

‘What is this? I’ve done this before.’

I tilted my head and put her on the bed. She was smiling in a good mood. I looked at her and thought, ‘Are you laughing because you like it after drinking? You don’t even know I’m suffering because of you?’

Angry, I picked up the quilt and roughly covered her up and tried to leave. But then, Lee Ah-young grabbed my sleeve, “Don’t go.”

I looked down at her coldly at the words. ‘I’m not your father.’

But this time she opened her eyes and told me, “Oppa, don’t go. Play with me.” And then she pulled me into her own bed. I lost my reason and I stripped her of her clothes as her friend had done. She black bra over her pale skin. I took off my coat and tried to run over her. By the way, at that time, I was suddenly hungry.

‘Why am I hungry in this situation?’ But I was really hungry, even with the half-naked Lee Ah-young in front of me. I was so hungry that I opened my eyes. I could see the ceiling.

“Ah.”

‘I’ve done this before, for some reason…’ As I thought about it, I picked up the cell phone sitting at my bedside. It was 5:30 p.m., which was usually dinnertime. After selling out by 3:30 p.m., I fell asleep for a while and slept until now. Somehow, it was a dream that left me with regrets. No, to be precise, yesterday’s regret came out as a dream.

‘Uh… I should forget it. Let’s go get dinner. I’ll look for some Nature’s Gift news while I eat.’

I got out of bed and changed into a light suit. But then my apartment bell rang.

My parents, Secretary Seo, and the owner Lee Ah-young would ring the bell. The first three would call me before they would come. So, it was Lee Ah-young who was pressing the bell. I looked at the door for a moment.

‘Does she remember yesterday?’ Come to think of it, it wasn’t as bad as the last time as she was, because she came to her apartment by herself.

‘Does she remember something very strange?’ If she did not look at the whole story but just put together the short stories, she might have a huge misunderstanding.

‘No way…!’ I opened the door at the same time. Sure enough, Lee Ah-young stood with both hands together.

She greeted me as usual. “Hello.” She didn’t seem to really misunderstand as her voice was calm.

I received her greetings in a dutiful manner. “…Yes, hello.”

She hesitated for a moment and told me, “Well… thank you yesterday.”

I told her, “Ah… do you remember?”

She said, making tongs with her thumb and index finger, “A little bit, frankly, I can hardly remember… I feel like I saw you yesterday, too.”

I laughed inwardly, ‘”You” again? Yesterday you called me your dad.’

Whether I thought that or not, she said, pointing to one side of the hall with her finger. “So I saw the recording of yesterday…”

I glanced over there. Come to think of it, there was a CCTV at the end of the hall, facing the entire corridor. Everything must have been recorded in the CCTV: she pressed my password on my apartment, could not get in, pushed her own password, and fell asleep on the spot.

The CCTV probably kept track of me hesitating and leaving her room quickly. There was nothing to be misunderstood. She bowed her head and said, “I think I’ve given you another excuse.”

I looked at her for a moment and nodded, “It’s okay. Neighbors have to help each other.”

She shook her head and said, “No. This is the second time… I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to say…” she admitted as if she were really sorry.

I drew out my words carefully, “Well, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but try to behave yourself a little bit more. It’s not good for a woman to be walking around drunk on her own. I don’t think it’s going to be good.”

As I said, she said with her hands together, “I’m sorry. I rarely drank alcohol when I was in the United States… I recently came to Korea and made friends.”

‘Aha, Korean-style drinking culture is not adaptable?’ I spoke to her politely in spite of the thought, “Yes, I mean… you should drink as much as you can handle. From now on.”

She said, lowering her head, “Yes.”

I thought it was done at this. I tried to close the door.

But then, before the door was closed, she told me, “Hey, I’d like to ask you something.”

‘What? Does she remember something strange yesterday when I saw her in bed?’

Still, I didn’t do anything wrong yesterday that would have stung me. I replied with my head tilted, “Tell me.”

But she raised an entirely unexpected question. “Do you know a company called Nature’s Gift?”