After my friends had all left, I brought Grandma ho.
Grandma’s house, filled with the traces of everyday life, gave a sense of stability that was different from a hotel.
Holding her hand, I sat with her in the living room, chatting warmly together for the first ti in a while.
“Oh my, my baby. When did you grow up so much?”
Even though I was already over thirty, to Grandma’s eyes I still seed like a little child.
“I grew up a long ti ago. You’re not hurting anywhere, are you?”
“I’m fine. At this age, it’s faster to find the parts that aren’t aching, you know.”
I just smiled at Grandma’s joking tone. Seeing my smile, she suddenly threw a sharp question at .
“So. If you’re all grown up, when are you bringing a granddaughter-in-law?”
“Why. Do you want to see your granddaughter-in-law?”
“How much longer do you think Grandma’s got left to live. Shouldn’t I at least get to see my great-grandchild before I go?”
“......Grandma.”
Grandma held my hand tightly and gently patted it.
Feeling the wrinkles that had increased compared to before made my heart feel strangely hollow.
“That doesn’t an you should bring so girl you don’t even like and call her your wife.”
“I have no intention of doing that.”
“Then that’s enough. Of course I want to see a great-grandchild, but my baby’s happiness matters more.”
Suddenly, the look in Grandma’s eyes when she held Hyunseong’s daughter yesterday ca back to .
She tried to pretend otherwise, but her gaze had been overflowing with affection—and full of envy.
“Alright. When I et a good woman, I’ll bring her right away.”
“Good. I should get so rest now.”
Maybe it was because she was sleeping in a different place, or maybe because the celebration had gone on too long.
There was an undeniable fatigue on Grandma’s face.
“I should head back up too. I’ll co down again next ti.”
“You’re leaving already?”
“Yeah. I think I’m going to get busy again. But I’ll co down often.”
When I stood up, Grandma looked up at with clear disappointnt. Then she pushed herself up to her feet.
“Don’t co out. Go inside and get to bed quickly.”
I tried to stop Grandma from following out, but she insisted on seeing off all the way, wanting to make sure I really left.
“I’m going now. I’ll call you when I get to Seoul, so go back inside.”
“Alright. Go on now.”
Worried by the way she lingered, I pulled Grandma into a tight hug.
She felt smaller than I rembered.
“Grandma. You have to live a long, long ti, see get married, and hold your great-grandchild. So if you feel sick, go to the hospital, and if there’s sothing you want to eat, eat it all. Promise.”
“Alright, alright. I promise. Don’t worry about Grandma, and make sure you eat well too, my baby. Got it?”
Only after the long hug did I get into the car. Glancing back, I saw Grandma waving at , telling to hurry and go.
I figured she wouldn’t go back inside until I left.
“Let’s go.”
Grandma stood there like a stone statue, unmoving, until the car carrying was far away.
I too kept turning back, watching her wave until she shrank into a dot and disappeared.
When Grandma finally left my sight, I erased the smile I’d been wearing.
“Let’s go back to the hotel.”
I told Grandma I was heading back up to Seoul, but the place I was actually going was the hotel I had stayed at the night before.
“President Kim Muhyuk. It’s been a while.”
When I went up to the hotel room, Han Jiho greeted .
He had arrived earlier than our agreed ti and was waiting for alone in the empty room.
Proof of how impatient he was, but......
Because I couldn’t read the true intentions of this wily politician, it was too early to jump to conclusions.
When I rely looked down at him in silence without responding, Han Jiho spoke again, putting more force into his voice.
“President Kim Muhyuk. Long ti no see.”
“Yes, Chairman. It has been a while. When did you arrive?”
“Just a mont ago. So, did your grandmother’s seventieth birthday go well?”
Look at that? He knew everything and was still probing. I folded my arms deliberately and let out a snort.
“Thanks to you, it ended well. We almost managed to ruin it properly, thanks to you sending Mayor An Youngsoo as your ssenger.”
“Heh heh, co now. For the mayor of Busan to personally attend a Busan citizen’s seventieth birthday—what greater congratulations could there be? I sent him purely thinking of you.”
Despite my rebuke, Han Jiho just laughed heartily and brushed it off.
“Congratulations? If having a National Assembly mber attend counts as congratulations, then you should’ve invited the President. Not so re Busan mayor. If I’d asked, the President would have found a way to co. Do you really not know why I didn’t do that? Soone of your caliber couldn’t possibly not understand......”
Whether he sent the mayor of Busan to deliberately wreck the birthday, or whether it was genuinely ant as congratulations, wasn’t my concern.
What was clear was that he knew exactly where my reverse scale lay.
“Heh heh. Your confidence hasn’t changed. That youthful audacity only you possess—I find myself envying it now.”
“I have no intention of playing word gas. Did you send that ssenger because you’re confident you can handle my anger?”
“Oh my...... Have a cup of tea first before getting angry.”
Han Jiho pretended to be relaxed as he asked for tea. I wanted nothing more than to smash that mask of his to pieces, but I needed to hear what he had to say.
I let out a deep sigh and instructed Manager Ma to bring coffee.
Manager Ma bowed and left the room. Only then did I sit down facing Han Jiho.
“What exactly was your reason? I thought about it carefully on the way here, but I still don’t understand your intentions. Do you have so kind of grudge against Mayor An Youngsoo?”
The materials on Mayor An Youngsoo that Manager Ma had handed at dawn.
They detailed exactly what kind of man An Youngsoo was.
How he started his political career, whose man he was, from minor corruption to scandals large enough to explode into sothing major—everything was there.
If this material were leaked to the prosecution and the dia, it would be enough to completely ruin An Youngsoo.
“No, of course not. How could that be. Assemblyman An Youngsoo is an important talent. Where else would you find a politician in Busan with as much influence as him?”
Just as Han Jiho said, An Youngsoo’s influence in Busan was far greater than I had thought.
Born in Busan, he attended elentary school, middle school, and high school there before entering Korea National University.
After passing the civil service exam, he worked as a governnt official in Seoul, then ca down to beco Busan’s directly appointed mayor in 1988, beginning his career in Busan.
Even after stepping down as mayor, he served as port authority chief and as president of a Busan regional newspaper, and eventually was elected mayor of Busan twice through local elections.
Despite not being a career civil servant, he rose to a vice-ministerial level that even career officials struggled to reach, and served three terms as mayor of Korea’s second-largest city.
He was openly called the Son of Busan, and was the man who drafted the original plan for Haeundae Centum City.
Far too valuable to be casually used and discarded as a re ssenger.
“Well then. You didn’t orchestrate a ‘kill with a borrowed knife’ sche just because he didn’t support the independent candidates in this election, did you?”
Despite being from the Conservative Party, An Youngsoo didn’t support anyone in this general election.
He neither supported the Centrist Party, nor the independent candidates who had left the Conservative Party to run on their own.
Neutral. In this election, he walked the middle path in the truest sense.
Did that action irritate Han Jiho?
“No. I sent him sincerely to congratulate your grandmother’s seventieth birthday.”
“If you wanted to see , you could have contacted later.”
“And did you have any intention of eting ? Director Lee must have already told you everything in detail, hadn’t he?”
“.......”
“So sending soone directly was the right move. Thanks to that, here we are, facing each other like this, aren’t we?”
That was right. I had had no intention of eting Han Jiho at all.
The only reason I was sitting across from him now was because I was curious why he had sent Mayor An Youngsoo.
“They say that as long as you get to Seoul, it doesn’t matter which road you take.”
Slippery like an eel. Just as I stared at him in silence—
Knock, knock.
Manager Ma ca in and set down the coffee.
“I’d like to speak with you alone after sending that friend out.”
Han Jiho glanced at Manager Ma as he lifted his coffee cup.
“No. He’s the only person who knows everything I do. He’s also the person I trust most, and the one who protects my safety at the very end. If you don’t like it, then leave.”
I had no intention of sending Manager Ma away. Why would I trust Han Jiho enough to speak with him alone?
Han Jiho glanced at Manager Ma again with a curious look and said,
“Having soone you can trust is a blessing. But to , it sounds like if I grab that man, I can grab you.”
I pulled up one corner of my mouth at his words.
If Manager Ma betrayed , I would probably collapse.
He didn’t know everything about who I was, but among everyone besides myself, he knew best.
On top of that, he was the one who had handled all the dirty work I couldn’t do myself.
But sothing like that would never happen, even if the sky fell.
“That could be true.”
Whether he was trying to shake or not, Han Jiho spent his ti sipping coffee while spewing empty words.
It seed he had quite a lot he wanted to say. I set down my empty cup and looked at him.
“I think I’ve given you plenty of ti. Now tell your business. I’m a businessman, not a politician like you. My ti is valuable, and I don’t like pointless conversation with no substance.”
At my blunt words, Han Jiho also set down his cup and smiled.
“For a young man, you’re in quite a hurry.”
It really rubbed the wrong way. I couldn’t help but wonder how long that relaxed attitude of his would last.
“Stop the investigations into the politicians currently being investigated by the prosecution.”
“You’ve co to the wrong address. Shouldn’t you be going to the Prosecutor General or the President?”
“Didn’t you say you had no intention of playing word gas? Do you think I wouldn’t know this was your doing?”
I wiped the smile from my face and replied coldly.
“So you know. Then why break your promise? I know politicians are a breed that speaks with two mouths, but...... I’m deeply disappointed, Chairman. While pushing for the rger of the Conservative Party and the Centrist Party, we clearly guaranteed your share in the TK region and even handed the party leadership to the Conservative side. So why get greedy and cause this ss?”
Perhaps because of the sudden shift in atmosphere, Han Jiho finally lowered the mask he’d been wearing.
“A promise, you say. As you yourself said, aren’t politicians’ promises sothing that can be overturned at any ti? A hollow party leadership position? Who would want sothing like that. What I wanted was a chairman position with real power, like President Yoon Changho. You and President Yoon Changho were the ones who broke the promise first.”
When President Yoon Changho relinquished control over the party, the Centrist Party chose a collective leadership system rather than a single-leader system.
The party decided its direction by majority vote through the party leader and the supre committee.
While the party leader was granted considerable authority, it was naturally weak compared to the old chairman era.
Moreover, more than half of the supre committee was controlled by Yoon Changho’s people.
Which ant they could set party policy in a direction different from what Han Jiho wanted at any ti.
“It’s the flow of the tis. An expression of the will to no longer concentrate power in one person. Didn’t the public welco it as well? What do you think was the key factor behind the overwhelming victory in this general election? Even in districts where candidates who lost the nomination ran as independents, we won most of them. People understand now. That change is necessary.”
“.......”
“The transformation of the Centrist Party was a success. Is it only you who doesn’t understand that, Chairman? Or are you pretending not to?”
Before President Yoon Changho, the President monopolized power by maintaining the role of party chairman.
There was the advantage of the party and governnt moving as one, but the downside was an excessive concentration of power in a single individual.
Even for President Yoon Changho, giving up that power wasn’t easy.
But I had no intention of handing excessive authority to Yoon Changho alone.
If he ever changed his mind, the party would need to restrain him.
Of course, now I was confident he was walking the sa path as .......
But no one can know what soone who has just seized power will think, or how they will change.
“Well, since you already know, there’s no need to hide it. I tipped off the dia about their corruption. That’s why the prosecution moved. But if you think about it another way, the problem is their cris. If they had been clean, no matter what I did, they wouldn’t be standing on the prosecution’s photo line like that.”
“Untainted politicians are rare. Even when administrations change, politicians often stay the sa. Why do you think that is? Because they’re all the sa. They know each other’s dirty secrets all too well. So they reach compromises within a certain line.”
Han Jiho spoke in a tone as if soothing a child.
At the implication that he and I were no different, I let out a hollow laugh.
“You seem to be mistaken. I am not a politician.”
“Of course not. But what about your friend, Lee Myungsoo? If we dig into him, dust will co out too. I have no intention of dying alone, President Kim Muhyuk.”
Han Jiho threatened to drag Lee Myungsoo down with him, like Nongae plunging off a cliff together.
Has he lost his mind? Threatening with my friend?
In that instant, I felt the blood throughout my body turn ice-cold.
I neither got angry nor smiled. In a chilling voice, I simply called his na.
“Chairman.”
Unfazed by my reaction, Han Jiho continued, pulling up one corner of his [N O V E L I G H T] mouth.
“What. You think I can’t do it? Trading my one life to bring down a politician with a promising future isn’t a bad deal.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted to end not just your political life, but your real life as well. Shall I kill you as you wish?”
In this life, what matters to is the safety of my people.
Han Jiho had finally crossed, with ease, the line I had clearly drawn and told him not to cross.
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