"Fuck."
I drew the half-burned cigarette down to the very end and muttered low.
Where the hell did my life start going off the rails?
What did I do wrong that, if there is a god, I got handed a trial like this?
I lived normally, but I studied a little harder than most and got into a decently well-known school.
To make a living, I majored in business instead of what I actually wanted.
Even socially, I was remembered as someone reliable, someone with a good heart.
On my days off, I'd lie at home grinding simulation games, making my little joy in life out of screaming, "Why the fuck is Gandhi launching nukes at my house?!"
Then I got talked into starting a business with an engineering buddy, and we ran it straight into the ground.
"Fuck. That's it."
The item was good.
It wasn't some idea you see everywhere, and it wasn't impossible to make.
If it succeeded, it wouldn't be Korea's top-tier conglomerate Samsung or anything, but it could've survived as a promising venture.
Even if I had to struggle a bit, it was the kind of item that could've let my family live well, heads held high, without getting looked down on.
So why did it fail?
"Those big-company bastards will do anything just to touch a little pocket change."
The start with them was good.
"Are you CEO Im Gichan? Hello! It's hard to meet such a young, promising entrepreneur!"
"We really like the item and the business structure. But this distribution side looks like something a venture would have trouble handling."
"Hmm… CEO Im. How about collaborating with our company once? We'll handle the weak distribution portion. We won't touch your business division, so run the business however you want!"
The first principle of management: "Put the right person in fields I don't know shit about."
I knew accounting and taxes, but distribution was a black box to me, so I accepted the offer without thinking.
"Ahh~ If a little hole-in-the-wall shop like us gets to work with a big company like yours, that's like having an army behind us! Distribution was something we couldn't solve on our own, so if you're helping like this, we can't not take it!"
"Fuck. I shouldn't have."
I flung the cigarette—now nothing but a butt—over the railing with all my strength and muttered again.
"Um… Gichan? As we've been handling distribution, we found that, 'inevitably,' there are some inefficient parts on the business side too. Would it be okay if we gave you some 'advice'?"
"Also, it looks like marketing is hard. We'll help you with that too!"
"Staff training seems lacking. Should we take over that once?"
The second principle of management: "Maximize efficiency."
The twenty-three-year-old baby venture CEO accepted that too, just like he'd learned in class, to maximize efficiency.
"Gichan, where'd you go to college? Oh, there? Not bad. Me? Hahaha, I went to 'Yeonryeo University.' No wonder you take so much work. Ha-ha."
"Ha… Gichan? Your business plan was doomed from the start. With this, how are you supposed to carve up the pie?"
"The plan's done and distribution is set up, so why can't we start? Hahaha, I guess our Gichan came straight out of school and doesn't know. Everything has its time. Business starts by burning through capital!"
The third principle of management was: you fucking assholes can shove it up your ass.
The 100 million won of seed money that our twenty-three-year-old duo—one baby engineering student and one baby business major—scraped together by selling even the underwear we didn't wear vanished into thin air within a few months, thanks to the conglomerate dragging things out.
"What? You're out of capital? Wow, seriously. So what, you want us to support you financially?"
"Uh… Gichan. No, we've known each other a while, so I'll call you Gichan. I'm older, so it's fine, right? Yeah. Listen, Gichan. We can't solve that."
"What haven't we done for you? We secured distribution, we structured your business plan, we even gave your staff basic training… If you want money on top of that, you'd be a total bastard. Not saying you are, Gichan…"
Everything we built and planned turned limp like wet paper and finally shattered into pieces. And after that…
"Gichan, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. I'm the idiot. I was stupidly naive."
"Waaah, Gichan!"
"Waaah, my friend!"
Even now, it's ugly to think about. Two grown men clinging to each other in a university bar packed with people—what the hell were we doing? Ugh.
"It's kind of like a shonen manga."
What's the point of regretting it now? I'm already a fool. Did the aftereffects of failure hit too hard? If I'm seeing SpongeBob with a guitar going ding-ding-ding in my head, I'm not in great shape.
Our "investor," out of the kindness of their heart, took pity on our wrecked business and bought our tiny company for a half-price special—fifty million won.
A 25 million won loss, well… If I pay it back at ten million a year, maybe I can clear it before thirty if I work my ass off.
Thinking that way, my mind settles down again.
Accepting what's in front of me and laying out a concrete plan—this is what I'm best at.
"I talked big. What am I supposed to tell Mom?"
Once my head cooled from rage and despair, I started thinking about my family.
My mom, who told me not to do a business because it was risky.
My mom staring like she wanted to kill my dad when he said, since I'd already blown things a few times, failure was experience too.
Just remembering that made my hands start trembling.
Am I getting cut out of the family register? No way. She wouldn't go that far.
"Still, I wanted to send them on a trip at least once with money I earned."
When I was little, Mom said her dream back in her school days was to learn French and become a diplomat.
Some cartoon? Something about Versailles, strawberries, or roses—something like that.
I don't care about that part.
I just wanted her to go to France, the place she longed for, at least once, without worrying about money, with her heart at ease.
That hasn't changed. Even if going without any money worries is basically impossible now.
I stuck my hand back into the cigarette pack and pulled out the last cigarette.
In the summer heat, even lighting a cigarette was a hassle, but my head was already packed with too much to complain about the weather.
Maybe because the typhoon they said was coming soon, at least there was wind. It was still hot and sticky, but it was bearable.
Then, in that moment—
"Ah, it's a mast, for fuck's sake…"
Thanks to that wind, the cigarette flew off—my long cigarette, my mast—and went rolling until it gently landed in the tiny ten-centimeter gap behind the railing.
Thanks a lot. It would've been even better if it hadn't flown away in the first place.
The gap where it rolled was perfect in the worst way: it was about one millimeter too far to reach, and climbing up and over the railing to get it was a little dangerous.
Of course, if you're sane, you wouldn't call climbing over a bridge railing "a little" dangerous.
But I was a hot-blooded, bright twenty-three-year-old venture CEO who'd just torched his business.
And that was a mast! A mast you couldn't even buy with money! I should've called an ambulance and performed CPR on it.
And the moment I climbed over and grabbed it—
"Fuck."
The gust that blew my cigarette away came roaring back again.