Chapter 65

It smelled like fog.

And it reminded me of the old days.

When I was young, every time I visited my uncle’s house with my father.

We’d go out to the breakwater near the house at dawn with the adults, set our fishing rods, and doze off. When I woke up, sea fog would fill the world.

Just like now.

When I opened my eyes, the lakeside was cloaked in white mist.

I exhaled the damp fog filling my lungs and looked around. In front of me was a fishing rod, above me the sky, and beside me was Yang Pan-seok.

“You’re up?”

He spoke to me.

—

I was sitting in a familiar chair. Yang Pan-seok’s fishing chair, the one he always carried back when I was his aide.

I was so confused that a bunch of thoughts ran through my mind.

First of all, I wondered why I was here. This was Yang Pan-seok’s secret fishing spot where I first met Chun Geum-soon.

When I saw the soju bottle by my feet, my memory came back faintly. I drank here last night. With Yang Pan-seok.

Once I cleared away the fog in my memory, the next memories came easier. I took a deep breath and the cold morning mist swept in.

“…Sniff.”

As I sniffled, Yang Pan-seok scolded me.

“Didn’t I tell you not to drink too much?”

“…Did I sleep outside?”

“Can’t you tell with your nose running like that? I told you it’s still too cold out—how many times now…”

I pulled out the handkerchief Yeo Do-yeon gave me as a middle school entrance gift and wiped under my nose. I let out a sheepish laugh.

“And where did you sleep, Assemblyman Yang?”

Where he nodded with indifference, there was a camper van.

“I slept fine. Worry about yourself. You kept whining about how sick you felt last night…”

He shook his head in exasperation, and I was swept away by the wave of memories that came crashing in.

First.

Last night, I got emotional after seeing my aunt and uncle in their glass caskets and stepped out to the veranda. As I was sniffing pathetically under the moon hidden in the clouds, Yang Pan-seok caught me red-handed when he came out to smoke.

Second.

He barged into my room and caught me with a whole stash of antidepressants and sleeping pills. I had been living in the hospital, so I was popping them without prescriptions.

Third.

Yang Pan-seok scolded me harshly. He even threw a pill bottle at me. It didn’t hurt since it was empty.

Fourth.

He dragged me out while I was half-drugged and drove the camper van himself to bring me here.

Fifth.

We cracked open some soju, and I ended up blabbering everything. Thanks to his decades of alcohol interrogation skills from the world of politics.

So.

I spilled it all.

That I didn’t want to die young.

That I missed my sister.

That I didn’t want to do politics.

“……”

The more I thought about it, the more embarrassed I got, and I lowered my head. As I did, snot dripped down, and I plugged my nose with the handkerchief. My face must have been bright red.

“Life’s tough, huh?”

Yang Pan-seok muttered casually.

“Your head hurts every time you breathe, the doctor’s got nothing to say, and you can’t sleep when you get home, so you just keep popping pills.”

He hit the mark.

Yang Pan-seok spoke softly.

“Antidepressants have to be adjusted delicately by doctors to work properly, especially during the latency period. If you just pop them at random, you’ll really mess yourself up.”

“……”

“You took MAOIs before SSRIs, so you got a headache. You didn’t even realize TCAs are sedatives, so now you’re all worn out.”

Yang Pan-seok shook his head again in disgust, and I looked at him in surprise.

He knew antidepressants inside out. I wondered if he had gone through something similar, but I didn’t have the courage to ask and just fumbled with my lips.

But Yang Pan-seok answered my thoughts without even looking at me.

“The youngest.”

I got chills.

Flustered, I dropped my head again.

Yang Pan-seok’s youngest son was an absolute taboo in his office. Even his chief of staff of eight years would go quiet at the mere mention of him.

He’d died by suicide decades ago.

No one knew why.

“……”

Yang Pan-seok wasn’t treated like a father by his children.

People only assumed it had something to do with the youngest’s suicide. No one tried to pry. It was just something you learned by being around him long enough.

In other words, this was the first time he had ever brought up his youngest son directly.

Yang Pan-seok seemed like he was about to say something, but in the end, he swallowed it down and muttered instead. The way someone who sold their life at the gambling table might mutter, hollow and defeated.

“…It’s bad for your health.”

“…Yes, sir.”

We sat by the lake in silence for a while. The sun hadn’t risen yet, so the world was still dim and blue.

Yang Pan-seok fiddled with the fishing rod. Then he suddenly said,

“You’re spinning your wheels.”

“…Excuse me?”

“When you were on trial for treason. If I hadn’t moved the Supreme Court justices, your political career would’ve ended there, right?”

I nodded blankly.

“That was your original plan, wasn’t it? Fix the country and then retire into the shadows.”

“……”

“You figured you wouldn’t live long anyway, so you’d go out with a bang and leave politics for good.”

Yang Pan-seok’s words stabbed at my heart like a blade. His tone was flat, but he seemed slightly angry.

“Your motivation ended there. Even now, you’re just sitting back while Kim Jo-in and Chung Jung-yeop split the National Party in half.”

He protested fiercely, and I didn’t take it lying down either.

“Then what do you expect me to do? Rewrite the constitution and run for president?”

“It’s not impossible. It’s not that you can’t do it—you’re just not doing it.”

Yang Pan-seok spoke with detachment, like it was someone else’s business.

“You’re like an old man just waiting to die.”

“Well, I am set to die before you anyway.”

“A walking corpse.”

“Then what do you expect me to do?”

Tsk tsk. Yang Pan-seok clicked his tongue and glared at me.

“I told you a long time ago. Just try to live. Even that’s too much for people like us.”

It was something I had heard right here before. The memory resurfaced faintly, but I avoided replying and averted my gaze.

An awkward silence followed.

“…Well, that said, watching you made me rethink a few things.”

The 62-year-old man gave a faint smile.

“Even if you try to live, what’s the point, really.”

He looked at me with a gentle smile.

“I’m staying in the National Defense Party—not the Democratic Party.”

He meant he wouldn’t be joining me in the National Party.

I had somewhat guessed that, since he hadn’t mentioned leaving his party. Still, hearing it directly made me feel a bit disappointed.

Leaving a party wasn’t a simple matter.

Yang Pan-seok was deeply entangled with Democratic Party figures. He had more than a truckload of city councilors, mayors, provincial assembly members, and district party chairs under his influence.

I knew firsthand how tightly Yang Pan-seok was connected to Gwangju in Jeolla Province. He was often casually referred to as the strongman of Honam.

And since Gwangju practically was the Democratic Party, it made sense that he would naturally join its successor, the National Defense Party.

But then—

Something unexpected came out of his mouth.

“I’ll resign from my Assemblyman seat in a year.”

“What!?”

I shot up before I realized it. He smiled serenely.

“What are you so surprised about?”

“Ah, no, it’s just…!”

“Next year’s the local election, you know.”

The frail old man smiled like a chubby-cheeked baby as he revealed his true intentions.

“I’m planning to run for Governor of South Jeolla Province.”

It didn’t make sense at first. Sure, a governor was higher than a regular Assemblyman, but Yang Pan-seok was no mere Assemblyman.

He was a faction boss, someone who nearly became the ruling party’s leader. If he stayed in the National Assembly, he could easily become a pillar of strength for Democratic-affiliated lawmakers.

“Why would you do that…?”

Yang Pan-seok quietly looked out over the lake.

“Yeongnam’s Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam region is already overpopulated, and the Taebaek Mountains limit usable land. But Honam, aside from Gwangju, is practically empty. Most of it’s flatland too.”

With a hunched posture, gripping his fishing rod, Yang Pan-seok explained geopolitics.

“With monster defense lines now set up in North Gyeongsang and the Chungcheong area, the largest available province is South Jeolla. Unlike the overpopulated Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam region, there’ll be less political resistance to taking in refugees, and it surrounds Gwangju, a major urban center. Most importantly, it’s an agricultural zone that’s likely to be designated a national strategic project soon.”

There on the misty lakeside,

“Fear of monsters will push people south.”

The aging man looked into the future.

“I’m convinced over ten million of our forty million citizens will gather in South Jeolla.”

And then I understood.

This seasoned politician wasn’t looking at the lake—he was looking at the sky reflected in it.

“Population means votes.”

Said the politician.

“Population becomes industry. Industry turns into achievements. If South Jeolla’s explosive growth can be framed as the governor’s success…”

Said the fisherman.

“If I stay in the National Defense Party and become the leading figure of the moderate wing that cooperates with Assemblyman Han Seung-Moon…

And if I can stand as the perfect centrist in this new two-party system…

And if I can rally the support of both parties’ bases…”

Said the hidden dragon.

“Then who do you think will be president four years from now?”

 

[Even if the National Party’s approval rating is around 80% right now, I predict this general election will end in a 5-to-5 split. If there’s any shift, it’ll lean to a 6-to-4 advantage for the National Party. I don’t see it going beyond that.]

Lying still in bed, I slowly went over Yang Pan-seok’s words in my mind.

[You were involved in operations near North Korea, so you know. This next president—it’s going to be Won Ok-bun. Isn’t that why you backed out of the National Party’s race for the presidency?]

My head was spinning, but it didn’t hurt.

[That’s a foolish choice. Take control of the party. Don’t let Chung Jung-yeop and Kim Jo-in off the leash. Those two will eventually strangle you.]

I didn’t need any pills tonight.

[People from the late President Yoo Jae-kwang’s camp are crawling back out. And all the former district chairs who’d been sulking after losing elections are now flocking to the National Defense Party.

Don’t let your guard down. Losing means they were nominated, which means they had real competitiveness in their regions. There are nearly 200 former Assemblymen.

And how do you think those guys win? By taking down the National Party. So who do you think they’ll go after first?]

Yang Pan-seok had provoked me.

[The hard times are over, and now that you’re burned out and spinning your wheels, I can’t just watch anymore. Wasn’t your father’s condition improving? And that Do-yeon girl—she’s not someone who’d die so easily. Your family wouldn’t want to see you popping pills just to get through each day.]

He had asked me:

[…If you really don’t know what to do, then help me get into the Blue House.]

A man in his sixties was still fighting, and he was asking why I, of all people, was numbing myself with pills.

So what am I supposed to do, then? I’m dying.

That’s the dilemma of a terminal patient.

The world’s a mess, my time’s short, I’m being tossed around left and right, and my family’s down too.

…Even if I try to draw a line to fix this screwed-up world, the waves wash it away. Even if I beat down a villain, I end up unsure whether they were really the villain—or if I became one.

But some things were clear.

Talking with Yang Pan-seok made me realize I had already broken without knowing it.

That I was lost.

That I no longer had passion for life.

That I had become someone who moved not by dreams, but by inertia and obligation.

But even so.

Effort is relative, and justice is relative. No matter how hard I work, it’s a sandcastle. So what exactly am I supposed to do?

…Sure, someone like Gam Ji-yoon might never give up. But isn’t that just because she’s too young to know better?

I wasn’t some steadfast superhuman. I admitted I was worse than an elementary schooler. Still, what else could I do?

Hard things are hard, and messed-up things are messed up.

…But after talking with Yang Pan-seok—

For the first time in a while, I started thinking about what I had to do tomorrow.

I didn’t want to spend what little life I had left just breathing.

Tell Ho-jung and Il-ho to prepare to run for Assemblyman. Help Pi Chae-won and Director Jang find new jobs. Maybe I could even check in on Ji-yoon after so long—

ㅡ!

The phone rang.

Judging by the ringtone, it was Kim Doo-sik.

“Hello—”

[The Seoul Gate has gone out of control.]

“Huh?”

[It’s not exactly a full rampage, but something close. I don’t have all the details yet either. I’m calling you right after getting briefed.]

I gave a dumb response, and Kim Doo-sik calmly and clearly explained, speaking fast and precisely.

“What the…?”

[The situation isn’t fully understood yet. But a giant monster has appeared in Yeouido. A massive wave has begun, centered around Seoul. The defensive line in Chungcheong has been activated, but the northern region—which lacks a clearly established front—is now fully exposed.

Especially in Gangwon Province, where we have barely any troops stationed, there’s a high chance the monsters spreading from Seoul will move into northern Gangwon and parts of North Gyeongsang.

Because of this, a large-scale military operation is needed. An emergency meeting has been convened. The helicopter should be arriving on the hospital rooftop right about now. Please get here quickly.]

My mind went blank. I wedged the phone between my shoulder and cheek as I tightened my tie.

[There’s a group of hunters in the middle of Yeouido currently battling the giant monster. It seems they might be connected to this gate incident.]

“What?”

[Yeo Do-yeon is there too.]