"Death?!" Jun-Hyung screamed in shock when he read this off the golden screen. Before, it was water torture, and now it was death! Jun-Hyung knew that the pentiles that this thing was giving him weren't an illusion. If he were to really fail, then he knew that he might really die.
So taking in a deep breath, he let it all out as he began to think of places where he could get all the furniture he needed.
'No, forget that. The first thing I need is the furniture to get what I need.' Jun-Hyung thought as he took out his wallet from his pocket and began counting. 'I have about 600,000 won... then I'll need about 3 million more won?' (2.7 thousand USD)
"Just where I'm I going to get that much money?" Jun-Hyung's mind was a turbulent sea as he vigorously raked his head back and forth in search of a solution. But the only thought he came up with was loan sharks. His mother definitely wasn't going to allow Jun-Hyung to start a restaurant.
Inhaling a lungful of air, Jun-Hyung fortified his resolve. With no alternatives left, he reluctantly decided to find a loan shark. If he didn't, then he was sure that he would die in twelve hour time.
Jun-Hyung didn't waste any time and hopped onto a bus that took him to the outskirts of Seoul. He finally got off when he had reached his destination.
He looked up towards the clutter of buildings and stepped inside without wasting a single moment. Jun-Hyung moved towards the third floor, where he entered a room. The moment he entered the room, the smell of cigarettes assaulted his nose.
"Who are you?" A man asked with a raised eyebrow. "A high school student?"
It wasn't just this man. At this moment, everyone in the room had focused their attention was focused on the high school boy.
"I need a loan," Jun-Hyung spoke briefly.
As Jun-Hyung's words tumbled from his lips, the room erupted in a symphony of laughter, the sound bouncing off the walls. Their laughter echoed with a tinge of weariness, for they had witnessed countless souls like Jun-Hyung, desperate and pleading for assistance, their presence an all-too-familiar sight in their hallowed sanctuary. Regardless of age, the affliction of financial scarcity knew no bounds, its oppressive grip reaching both the youth and the elderly alike.
"Let me guess. Was sister hospitalized? Or was it your mom?" A man began to speak.
"Or did you lose some kind of bet or lose to gambling? Though you're pretty young to be gambling?"
"Do I have to answer that?" Jun-Hyung asked.
"Of course, this is part of the contract.
"It's stuff for a restaurant..." Jun-Hyung spoke after a long pause.
"Eh...?" The man raised his eyebrow and began laughing out loud again, but this time, it was much louder. "Ah- right~ right~ a restaurant~ how much do you need?"
"Three million won," Jun-Hyung answered.
"Eh...? Are you sure you don't want more?" The man asked.
"No... three million is fine," Jun-Hyung answered while slightly glaring at the man. In his mind, he was cursing the man. Just how many lives had he ruined by scamming people with interest rates?
"What? Three million? Here's five million." The man spoke as he showed Jun-Hyung a stack of cash in the drawer.
"No three million is fine." Jun-Hyung shook his head.
"Hey... you don't make the rules around here." The man's eyes suddenly shifted into a glare.
Jun-Hyung squinted his right eye in disgust as he shook his head with a sigh. "Alright, give it to me."
"That's the spirit!" The man spoke as he took a single paper contract from within his drawer and slammed it down on his desk. Then taking a pen from his pocket, he offered it to Jun-Hyung. "Take it and sign it."
After staring at the man for a second, Jun-Hyung finally leaned in front of the paper contract and began reading it. But after reading the conditions, he wasn't surprised. To put it simply, if he didn't pay back the money and the interest within a month, they would have every right to come to find Jun-Hyung and sell his organs.
This was pretty standard stuff.
Jun-Hyung sighed and handed the man back his pen. He smiled and handed Jun-Hyung his money.
"Make sure to pay us back" The man laughed, flashing his teeth stained with yellow gunk.
'Fuck you.' Jun-Hyung cursed inwardly as he took the money and exited the office.
Stuffing the cash into his pocket, Jun-Hyung boarded a bus that began heading into the heart of Seoul.
After a brief fifteen-minute ride, Jun-Hyung finally stepped off the transport and began walking towards his destination—an esteemed furniture and appliance shop widely regarded as the finest in all of Seoul.
"Hello, how can I help you today?" A friendly female attendant approached Jun-Hyung, her face beaming with hospitality. However, as she took note of Jun-Hyung's youthful appearance in his high school uniform, a tinge of dissatisfaction crept onto her face, a slight frown forming on her brow.
"I need a refrigerator, stove with an oven, eight tables, and five chairs for each table," Jun-Hyung spoke.
'What kind of high school student would need that.' The female attendant thought before speaking. "We can start with one of our high-end refrigerators..."
After a painstaking hour of meticulous selection and negotiation, Jun-Hyung was finally able to sort everything out and buy everything he needed, which cost him about 4 million won. The total cost of his purchases amounted to a substantial 4 million won. Recognizing the impracticality of transporting everything himself, Jun-Hyung wisely arranged for the items to be delivered to the restaurant.
As Jun-Hyung strolled back towards the restaurant, he passed by a lively construction site, where a heap of abandoned wood caught his attention. The discarded materials, remnants of diligent labor, lay in an unruly pile, igniting his curiosity. In that very instant, inspiration struck him like a bolt of lightning. The idea of fashioning a magnificent bar counter for his own establishment materialized before him.
"Are you going to use this?" Jun-Hyung asked a passing-by worker.
"Ah... no, we were about to discard those."
"Then can I take it?" Jun-Hyung asked.
"Sure." The worker agreed, seeing as there was no reason for him to decide.
Lifting two large pillars of wood on each side of his shoulders, Jun-Hyung began walking back towards the restaurant that wasn't too far away.
Once inside, he settled down on the pillars of wood on the floor and walked inside the store room to retrieve a set of tools to use.
Then without wasting a single moment's time, Jun-Hyung began working. Sawing against the wood and hammering the wood to create what he had in mind.