CBR 10

A blush surfaced on her face as she asked back in bewilderment. Even that was beautiful, and Min Yerin brought a rose to mind. It was an image completely different from a female lead character, who was generally compared to a wildflower or a forget-me-not.

‘This kind of image is usually a villain or the male lead’s first love, though.’

Jaewon fell deep into thought with his gaze fixed in one spot. Normally, a villain was a role that provoked conflict and induced misunderstandings between the male and female leads, making the audience shake their heads in frustration. Of course, the main characters’ relationship became tighter through such a process and eventually met a happy ending, but Jaewon was of the doctrine that rather than waiting for the ground to harden after rain, one should scatter salt to harden it in the first place.

‘All possibilities must be nipped in the bud.’

The longer the period during which the main characters dug their own graves, the more delayed the time for him to return to reality became. There was no reason for Jaewon to hesitate.

“Don’t like Kim Dojun.”

“Pardon?”

When he spoke point-blank, her eyes—already large—became as big as lantern globes.

Kim Dojun was currently the most promising main character candidate. He couldn’t leave him to fool around with a girl other than the main character.

A mistake ordinary investors commonly committed was doing rainmaker-style investing. It was a behavior where, after buying stock, one left it unattended without any measures and vaguely hoped for the stock price to rise, which was no different than horse racing. Jaewon didn’t want to do the foolish act of sitting quietly in the audience seats, betting everything on luck, and staring anxious-heartedly at the screen alone.

The strategy he chose was Buffett’s method. Warren Buffett, highly renowned as the world’s richest man and an investment genius, was Jaewon’s idol. This Sage of Omaha’s specialty was jumping directly into the management of companies he invested in, and bringing back to life even companies whose business had been delisted, which was precisely the benchmarking point. Jaewon intended to directly intervene in the flow of this novel.

“Ha, what…. Ridiculous.”

Min Yerin was flabbergasted, then snapped venomously.

“What business is it of yours? Whoever I like—.”

“How can I not care when you’re this pretty?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s my business starting now, so don’t like him.”

Not wanting to speak at length, Jaewon warned her in a threatening tone. Whether she was angry, Min Yerin’s face turned red all the way to her neck. Just as he was about to leave her behind as she sputtered, his retreat path was blocked. Students who had gathered before he knew it were blinking their eyes in a group like a swarm of frogs. As if Jaewon had said something he shouldn’t have, each and every one of them had a shocked face.

‘The atmosphere inside the school seems democratic.’

They seemed indignant at the suppression of individual freedom. To Jaewon, a believer in democratic capitalism, it was something quite welcome, but he was in a position where he had to do behind-the-scenes work. Erasing his presence and moving like a shadow was the situation, so there was nothing good about attracting attention. Jaewon quickly fled as the students began to whisper one by one.

It seemed he needed to farm a bit more information. Jaewon returned to his class and looked for Ma Chayun, but he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps because lunch time wasn’t over yet, the classroom was chaotic, making searching difficult. Avoiding a group of female students putting down roots with devilish faces and passing male students heated up with a coin-flipping tournament, a familiar head came into view. Like a lonely island, Ma Chayun was lying face down at his desk alone.

“Hey, Macha. This school’s F4….”

“Don’t talk to me.”

A icy cold voice cut off his words. Jaewon, whose farming had been put to a halt, was flustered. He stood blankly for a moment, then narrowed the space between his brows upon hearing the sound of someone sniffling.

“Are you crying?”

“…”

At his question, the round back of his head—shaped like a peeled chestnut—flinched. Jaewon waited for an answer, but even as time passed, there was no additional reaction. Jaewon bent his waist to align his eye level with Ma Chayun, and inserted his head between his torso and arms. Naturally, when talking to a person, one had to look at their eyes.

“Crying?”

“Ah, seriously.”

When their eyes met, Ma Chayun sat up with disgust. Seeing the guy’s bloodshot eyes, Jaewon was put in a awkward spot. It seemed ill feelings had formed without his knowing, but he had no extraordinary talent for comforting someone. First, he asked what was wrong, but Ma Chayun exercised his right to remain silent. Only after Jaewon coaxed and appeased him with patience did he open his stubbornly shut mouth.

“I didn’t know you were that kind of person, Hyung. How can you just abandon someone you were eating with and leave by yourself?”

“It’s because I’m human trash. You have to understand that part.”

“I left three whole lunchboxes. This is something that shouldn’t happen. They say if you waste food, you go to hell and they mix it all together for you to eat; are you going to eat it for me instead, Hyung?”

“I’ll go to hell instead of you.”

The surface of his unmoistened lips felt rough, but Jaewon focused on the conversation. At this present point, Ma Chayun was an irreplaceable human resource. It would be troublesome if their relationship turned sour. Whether Jaewon’s earnest heart reached him, Ma Chayun, who had been huffing and puffing, stopped his criticism and flopped down onto his chair. Wrapping his face with both hands as if in pain, he mumbled.

“…I’ve never eaten meals alone in my entire life.”

At the unexpected story, Jaewon raised his eyebrows. When eating with others, constraints were placed on time, location, and menu selection. In other words, it meant Ma Chayun had been operating his meal times inefficiently his whole life. Feeling deep sympathy for him, Jaewon’s eyes grew wistful.

“That’s why I don’t know how to eat alone.”

“Oh dear.”

At the sight of him frankly opening up about his disability, Jaewon was inwardly surprised. Rolling his eyes, he resolved to encourage the guy.

“If you make an effort, it will gradually get better. Who would be good at it from the beginning? Even I couldn’t eat meals alone when I was two years old.”

“What are you talking about? Why would anyone make an effort for something like that? I can’t do things like that because my parents raised me gently.”

However, Ma Chayun shot back with a serious face. Jaewon felt his passion, which had been burning like a matchstick fire, die out.

‘Getting soaked in sentimentality, I ended up doing something I wouldn’t normally do.’

Regaining his composure, he asked calmly.

“By any chance, is your father’s name Wang-seo, character Ja?”

“No. Why?”

“Just wondering if he was raising some silkworm offspring instead of a child.”

Simultaneous with the groundless attack on his parents, the class bell rang. Leaving behind Ma Chayun, who asked back saying he couldn’t hear because of the bell, Jaewon returned to his seat. And until the last period, he immersed himself in writing the private tutoring advertisement.

Afterward, he had to leave school without any particular gains. Ma Chayun left without even saying goodbye, perhaps because his pouting hadn’t cleared up, and because of that, there was no further progress in information gathering other than Kim Dojun and Min Yerin. Resolving to make rounds through all grade levels’ classrooms tomorrow, Jaewon headed to a nearby PC room. He transcribed the promotional text into a Word window and maximized readability as much as possible through formatting.

Mathematics Private Tutoring

I will not speak at length. The human brain degenerates as age increases. Is not lettuce freshly picked from the field the freshest? All living organisms ought to be quickly utilized while they are fresh.

Active High School Student 1st Place in Whole School / Mock Exam Nationwide Tier / Motivation & Mentoring Available / Possessing a Brain and Vigorous Stamina Uncomparably Fresh Compared to Aged College Students / Multiple Tutoring Experiences / Unrivaled Curriculum / Future Perfect-Score CSAT Taker

In my life, I have never done anything other than 1st place. Sometimes I want to try 2nd place for the experience, but the world won’t allow it. There’s no royal road to studying? It’s the excuse of losers. Guiding a lost young lamb onto the shortcut is the mission of a shepherd and a teacher. Methods and shortcuts definitely exist.

They say that to become rich, one shouldn’t count income relative to labor hours, but must build a system where capital does the work. Studying is the same. An innovative system that induces the brain to review even during break time. I will gladly share it.

There is no such thing as a free lunch in the world—that is my motto and conviction. I perform as much as I receive.

Lastly, I offer a word to the students as well.

They say, “If you study 10 more minutes, your future spouse’s face changes.” No. Your tutoring teacher’s face changes first. As you look at my face, it will be fun, so studying will become fun. (Irrelevant of student gender) Looking at my face once and solving one problem, a whole workbook will pass in an instant. Contact me.

01X―XXXX―XXXX

A flyer blended with an appropriate amount of clickbait and MSG was completed. Jaewon looked at the screen with pride, then pressed the print button. While the flyer was printing, he went around local mom cafes and tutoring websites on the internet to post the promotional text. Then he searched real estate market prices, organized them in Excel, and turned them into a data map. It was to clearly decide the target audience and lay out routes by district for posting the flyers.