After the Debate
More conversation followed after that — this, that, and the other. Some of the guys agreed with what I'd said, while others went off on idealistic tangents about how every man should share the same wife and raise the children together.
In the end, though, everyone had to concede the same point: adapt to the situation we'd been thrown into and to a society in the midst of transformation, or be weeded out. Simple as that.
When I was young, I thought life would go something like this: study hard, work hard, and somewhere along the way meet someone who loved me for no reason at all, more than I deserved. Fall in love, get married, have a daughter who took after her mother and a son, raise them well, walk them both down the aisle, and spend the rest of my days with my wife — until at last I died in a hospital bed surrounded by children and grandchildren. On top of that, I hoped to be strong enough to shield my family from the various hardships life scatters along the way, and I wished my children would never feel the loneliness I'd felt as a kid. I'd add to that the small hope of having just a bit more time with them, and take all of those wishes as fuel to work harder, to cherish what I had more.
I thought that was the life I'd live.
Apparently not anymore.
That's not the life I've been handed. My eyes ache — probably from staring at nothing but a monitor in a dark corner of a room with the lights off — and the beer I'd left half-finished on the desk has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
The tick of the clock's second hand, the low hum of a fan spinning inside some white appliance, and nothing else. Honestly, the dark room didn't feel half bad.
Still, it was a debate worth having — in the new vote, we men had won the right to negotiate directly with the government as our own representatives. I owed a lot to the fact that I'd kept putting concrete solutions on the table all this while.
But the moment I fail to point toward the right answer even once — the moment I fail to solve even one problem — that trust evaporates. I can't afford to forget that. That's simply what the bastards called men are.
A call had just come in: the preliminary meeting with the Acting President was set for tomorrow morning.
What do I need to say? What do I need to get out of her? What do I have to give up? What keeps the President up at night? Does she have what I want? Do I have what she wants?
The thoughts kept surfacing in my head unbidden, churning together with the alcohol until everything went hazy. I couldn't even tell anymore whether I was thinking clearly, making sound judgments. Part of me just wanted to throw it all away.
Would've been better if I'd caught the sleeping sickness and died like the rest.
...
But still.
What can you do? It has to be done.
It's all for my own good, in the end. Sleep on it, get up, and try again.
Let's give it a shot.
And with that, I lay back against the wall and closed my eyes.
February 24, 2022 — Russia invades Ukraine.
August 15, 2022 — A peace agreement ends the Russo-Ukrainian War. In the interval, supply shortages and spiraling prices drive countless dictatorships across the Middle East and Africa into default, and a spring of democratization sweeps the regions.
August 16, 2022 — Seeing American strategic assets streaming toward Europe, the People's Republic of China invades Taiwan. But Japan, seizing the moment to push its own normalization into an ordinary nation-state, leads the way, and the alliance of the United States, Taiwan, and Japan successfully defends the island's geopolitical value. The international community christens the conflict World War III.
September 17, 2022 — Allied forces land on and occupy the Chinese mainland, beginning with Fujian and Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai. In response to China's nuclear threats, the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom declare nuclear retaliation. China's fortunes had been doomed by its belated pandemic outbreak under the Zero-COVID policy — public anger, suppressed in the name of containment, had turned decisively toward Taiwan.
September 18, 2022 — Desperate to claw something back, the People's Republic issues a formal request for North Korean troops while declaring total national mobilization.
September 20, 2022 — North Korea signs the Pyongyang Treaty — pledging massive aid and military supplies for the deployed forces — and announces its entry into the war. The Five Eyes, India, and the Philippines follow suit.
September 25, 2022 — North Korea completes the overland deployment of five million soldiers. The first confirmed case of the sleeping sickness is observed within the People's Liberation Army.
October 1, 2022 — Watching all of this, South Korea makes contact with coup factions inside North Korea, backs the coup while carrying out a decapitation operation, declares the armistice agreement null and void, and declares war.
October 5, 2022 — South Korea occupies Pyongyang. As stabilization operations proceed in the North, it announces its entry into World War III and begins supplying military materiel in earnest to the United States, Japan, and Taiwan.
October 7, 2022 — In a dire situation, China proposes a peace agreement and a six-month ceasefire. The allies refuse, and the advance pushes on toward Chongqing and Wuhan.
October 24, 2022 — Beyond the embattled homelands of Taiwan, the United States, and Japan, cases of the sleeping sickness begin appearing worldwide, even in countries settling into post-COVID normalcy.
November 1, 2022 — The WHO declares the sleeping sickness a pandemic.
December 1, 2022 — One billion male deaths confirmed worldwide. The first men to survive the sleeping sickness and wake are discovered.
January 1, 2023 — Two billion men confirmed dead; the number of awakened survivors reaches one hundred million. The UN declares an end to all conflicts and wars.
February 1, 2023 — The male death toll reaches 3.8 billion. Reports begin arriving of the awakened men dying as well.
March 18, 2023 — Every man who contracted the sleeping sickness is confirmed dead. The UN declares itself a supranational authority.
March 25, 2023 — A resolution is adopted to protect the human rights of the 10,927 surviving men and to pledge their sacrifice for the survival of humanity. The 3.25 Resolution passes.
So yes — the world situation before and after the Great Cataclysm was sheer chaos. Thanks to that, my own life had been a rollercoaster too. I never even finished college, got drafted twice, and even got to use the military supplies I'd once wondered when anyone would ever touch.
I went to Pyongyang and smashed the statues of the Kim father and son with my own two hands, and unification — the dream of our people — I achieved with these hands as well.
And what about the domestic situation, you ask? Of course it was chaos too.
Wasn't there some saying about how turbulent times call forth heroes? Out of this Great Cataclysm, four people emerged who could genuinely be called titans in South Korea. One of them — having successfully completed the Northern Expedition and while overseeing the stabilization of the North — spent the roughly six months the sleeping sickness spread across the globe untangling the chaos left behind by dying men, seizing firm control of domestic politics, and preventing the fragmentation of the South, which had served as the logistical base of World War III; the North, still under stabilization; and the Manchurian region, transferred to us by China for reasons of its own.
A colossus of the political world. Acting President of the Republic of Korea, Lee Nayoung.
The woman I was to meet today.
Normally, an occasion like this would call for dressing up, making an impression. But my clothes and hair were roughly what I'd worn for the video address to the UN General Assembly. What can you do when you've got nothing? And even if there were slack in my bank account, there'd be nowhere to spend it in a situation like this.
"Everything is ready, Minister."
"Is that so? Then let's head out."
We left Sejong City in the waiting car and drove toward the Blue House, just beyond Gwanghwamun's First Street in Seoul — now, in every sense, the center of the Republic of Korea. The ride was quiet.
It felt like we each already knew what the other wanted to say, so no words were exchanged. We simply kept the silence. Silence is golden, after all.
Even after arriving in Seoul, we drove inside and then walked for several minutes before we could finally meet her. A permed bob, a face arranged into a look of warm benevolence — but behind it, living, active eyes. Not a bad impression, all things considered.
Exactly the same as she looked on the screen.
"Welcome. Did you miss me that much?"
"It is an honor, Madam Acting President."
Yes. I missed you terribly.
"My, my. A young man with such fine manners. Shall we sit down and talk, then?"
"Of course."
I followed the Acting President as she led the way into the reception room, and we took our seats facing each other.
"So. What could you possibly want to discuss with me badly enough that you asked our Minister Yoon Migang to arrange this meeting?"
"That would be the matter of us men, Madam President."
There was no time or luxury to waste on small talk.
"I'll dispense with the pleasantries. How much mandatory sexual intercourse do you want from us men, Madam President?"
"...Bold, for someone so young. I don't mind it, mind you."
A politician through and through. So the calculation's already done, is it? Not a flicker of change in her expression.
"The data predates the Cataclysm, but everyone here already knows that to maintain our current population, every one of us men would need to have intercourse at least ten times a day."
"That's a figure drawn from a very hopeful calculation."
"It is."
"It's based on the maximum average probability of conception per encounter, with women aged twenty to thirty-four — not the elderly."
"A politician should always calculate for the worst case."
"In that case, twelve or more. Do you believe that number is achievable, Madam President?"
"I've carried a child of my own, you know. I'm well aware that number is absurd."
"Then allow me to make our position clear. We propose three times a day."
Her expression didn't change, but something in those mild eyes shifted slightly.
"Far too little. Is this the 'sacrifice for the survival of humanity' you spoke of at the UN General Assembly?"
"Yes. We believe even three is excessive."
"Why?"
"Because, fundamentally, it's something none of us want to do. We have no desire to shoulder responsibility without pleasure."
"You dislike the pleasure of sex with women?"
"I do. There are men among us who don't even want a single night of pleasure — let alone a pregnancy."
Hearing this, her expression shifted dramatically, as if she wanted to underscore just how incomprehensible my words were to her common sense.
"In a situation like this, where a man cannot possibly attend to a child, a pregnancy with a woman he shares no emotional bond with is, quite literally, a bomb — for both the father and the child. As a politician and as a mother, Madam President, I trust you understand exactly what the problems with single-parent households are."
"Of course I do. But even so, three is far too few. No."
Figured as much. As much of a stopgap as it might be, had she actually accepted three, I'd have been back at the dormitory drawing up emigration plans with the other men before nightfall.
"Then let me make a new proposal. Four times — on the condition of your election as President, Madam President, and the elimination of the risk of domestic fragmentation."