Free Web NovelAfter my friends had all left, I brought Grandma home.
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 time 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 seemed like a little child.
“I grew up a long time 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 me.
“So. If you’re all grown up, when are you bringing me 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?” fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
“......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 mean you should bring some 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 came back to me.
She tried to pretend otherwise, but her gaze had been overflowing with affection—and full of envy.
“Alright. When I meet a good woman, I’ll bring her right away.”
“Good. I should get some 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 come down again next time.”
“You’re leaving already?”
“Yeah. I think I’m going to get busy again. But I’ll come down often.”
When I stood up, Grandma looked up at me with clear disappointment. Then she pushed herself up to her feet.
“Don’t come out. Go inside and get to bed quickly.”
I tried to stop Grandma from following me out, but she insisted on seeing me 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 remembered.
“Grandma. You have to live a long, long time, see me get married, and hold your great-grandchild. So if you feel sick, go to the hospital, and if there’s something you want to eat, eat it all. Promise.” freewёbnoνel.com
“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 me, telling me 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 me 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 me.
He had arrived earlier than our agreed time and was waiting for me 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 merely looked down at him in silence without responding, Han Jiho spoke again, putting more force into his voice.
“President Kim Muhyuk. Long time no see.”
“Yes, Chairman. It has been a while. When did you arrive?”
“Just a moment 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 messenger.”
“Heh heh, come 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 member attend counts as congratulations, then you should’ve invited the President. Not some mere Busan mayor. If I’d asked, the President would have found a way to come. Do you really not know why I didn’t do that? Someone 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 meant 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 games. Did you send that messenger 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 some kind of grudge against Mayor An Youngsoo?”
The materials on Mayor An Youngsoo that Manager Ma had handed me 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 something major—everything was there.
If this material were leaked to the prosecution and the media, 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 elementary school, middle school, and high school there before entering Korea National University.
After passing the civil service exam, he worked as a government official in Seoul, then came down to become 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 mere messenger.
“Well then. You didn’t orchestrate a ‘kill with a borrowed knife’ scheme 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 me, you could have contacted me later.”
“And did you have any intention of meeting me? Director Lee must have already told you everything in detail, hadn’t he?”
“.......”
“So sending someone 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 meeting 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 came 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 someone you can trust is a blessing. But to me, 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 me, I would probably collapse.
He didn’t know everything about who I was, but among everyone besides myself, he knew me best.
On top of that, he was the one who had handled all the dirty work I couldn’t do myself.
But something like that would never happen, even if the sky fell.
“That could be true.”
Whether he was trying to shake me or not, Han Jiho spent his time sipping coffee while spewing empty words.
It seemed 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 time. Now tell me your business. I’m a businessman, not a politician like you. My time 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 me 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 come 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 games? 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 merger 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 mess?”
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 something that can be overturned at any time? A hollow party leadership position? Who would want something 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 supreme 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 supreme committee was controlled by Yoon Changho’s people.
Which meant they could set party policy in a direction different from what Han Jiho wanted at any time.
“It’s the flow of the times. An expression of the will to no longer concentrate power in one person. Didn’t the public welcome 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 government 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 same path as me.......
But no one can know what someone 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 media about their corruption. That’s why the prosecution moved. But if you think about it another way, the problem is their crimes. 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 same. Why do you think that is? Because they’re all the same. 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 come 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 me 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 name.
“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 me 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.
