Campaign Promises
Vrooom~
Sunday night. After three straight days on the job site, I was finally heading home.
Sacrificing even the weekend for consecutive overtime was enough to leave anyone exhausted. Yet maybe it was the recent mental pressure from the whole high-school-boy cosplay mess that made the difference.
Having time to focus solely on work hadn’t been half bad. Of course, Eom Chaewon saw things differently.
“Wow, is this for real? What company these days forces three days of overtime straight?!”
She was so furious she hadn’t even bothered pulling out her AirPods, railing against the company nonstop all the way from Incheon Port. I answered with an awkward smile.
“Shipments suddenly piled up that day—we didn’t have a choice, right? And if you look at it, we only worked one morning on a weekday…”
“Easy for you to say, Team Leader. You’ve got nothing better to do on weekends anyway. I couldn’t even meet my friends—what’s the deal with that?”
“I-is that so? What were you planning to do when you met your friends, Ms. Eom Chaewon?”
“Why do you care? Afraid I might hit a nightclub for a one-night stand like you, Team Leader? And who even goes to nightclubs these days? Man, it’s been ages since I heard a word that reeks of middle age.”
“Haa… Ms. Eom Chaewon? Didn’t we already establish that the whole nightclub thing was just your own misunderstanding? And I’ve never even been to one.”
“Then when and how exactly did you meet the baby’s mother?”
“That’s a little hard to explain…”
“Ah, come on… So it wasn’t a normal relationship after all, was it? What are you acting all high and mighty for?”
“…”
I was already the villain in her eyes, and she wasn’t listening to a word I said, so lifelong explanations seemed hopeless. Then Eom Chaewon threw an unexpectedly sharp question my way.
“By the way, Team Leader—who’s looking after your daughter?”
“Huh? What do you mean…”
“You’ve left early every morning and come home late every night since Friday. So who’s taking care of that little kid?”
“…”
She’s probably fine on her own, right? But she had a point.
I’d been neglecting Harin way too much!
I’d been so relieved to escape the double life and focus only on work that I’d forgotten what kind of kid she was.
She was a high-risk factor born with the full genetic jackpot of teenage parents. On top of that, she was still deceiving her dad, meeting some mysterious boyfriend, and thinking of nothing but escaping the house every single day.
What made me leave a kid like that free all weekend? Of course, I’d confirmed she was home as of this morning.
But given my string of rotten luck, it wouldn’t have been strange at all if today was D-Day.
“M-my aunt. You met my aunt before, right? She’s looking after her.”
“Doesn’t that aunt work every day at the pork cutlet place with no time to watch a kid?”
“To be precise, it’s her daughters—my daughter’s aunts—who are watching her. They’re middle schoolers right now. Kind of like babysitters?”
“You’re not even giving them allowance money, are you? I knew you’d be like that, Team Leader.”
“…”
Even now Eom Chaewon was sniping at me. None of it registered.
If I didn’t race home right this second and confirm Harin was there, I might go insane on the spot.
Screeeech…
I was still a novice driver and tried not to push it, but I ended up speeding anyway. Flooring the accelerator like a madman, I dropped Eom Chaewon off and tore home.
Huff… huff…
Thanks to that I made it back a full ten minutes earlier than usual. Panting hard, I climbed the stairs, threw open the front door, and called my precious daughter’s name.
“Harin!”
Silence…
No response at all. Rattle-rattle! I twisted the doorknob of Harin’s double-locked room as if I meant to rip it off, but not even a breath could be heard.
Not in the bathroom. Not in the storage room!
Knowing it was ridiculous, I even checked the fridge and the washing machine. Nowhere could I find any sign of Harin.
Thud…
My legs gave out without me realizing it and I sank to the floor. At the same time a vicious trauma resurfaced as if it had happened only yesterday.
Harin had left.
Just as Yu Jiyeon had left a two-line pregnancy test and eloped with my older brother, Harin too had fallen for some sly boyfriend’s sweet talk and run away from home before even graduating.
How could this happen? I was just starting to try and do better.
I’d finally admitted my mistakes and was ready to move forward—why was the world snatching Kang Harin away right after Yu Jiyeon?
Click…
But then the sound of the front door opening and closing reached me. I sprang up like a coiled spring and rushed to the entryway—only to freeze!
Harin’s eyes widened in surprise at my sudden appearance.
“W-why are you back already?”
“Why am I back already? Where the hell have you been until now? Hey, are you out of your mind for real? What have you been doing? Running around all weekend treating your body like trash—what the hell were you dooooing?!”
Reuniting with the daughter I thought I’d never see again was great and all. But catching her red-handed, I had zero intention of handling it gently.
“I-I was at a friend’s house…”
“Which friend’s house?! And does she not even have parents? What exactly were you doing with her there until this hour?”
“Just… helping out a bit.”
“…”
That single sentence completely severed the last thread of my reason. Helping, huh?
You burned your whole body for your boyfriend’s pleasure—if that’s not helping, what is it?
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I was going to track down that motherfucking bastard who defiled my Kang Harin no matter what.
Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, I would hunt him down and kill him in the most brutal way possible.
“Haa… My friend’s running in the student council election. So I’ve been helping with that.”
“…?”
But apparently the world wasn’t completely out to get me. Just as I was about to plunge into hellfire and become a demon myself, the winged baby-cat goddess threw me a final lifeline of salvation.
Swoosh…
And she even kindly provided evidence. When I opened the small notebook clutched in her hand, a few phrases that anyone could tell were campaign promises came into view.
Casual Clothes Day once a month
“Casual Clothes Day once a month”… no room for doubt—pure high-school-girl mindset. Feeling awkward and sorry, I scratched the back of my neck.
“H-student council election? If it was something like that, you should have told me beforehand.”
“You wouldn’t even listen, would you?”
“…”
Now the initiative of anger had passed to Harin. She glared at me like a bag of moldy food waste left out too long in the summer heat—the guy who’d not only suspected his daughter out of nowhere but also imagined the worst.
“Were you bored being alone all weekend? Need anything these days?”
“I’m gonna rest a bit.”
Bang! Click-click!
That was the end of it. It was good she hadn’t been out causing trouble with a boyfriend all weekend, but in the end my lack of patience had only made our father-daughter relationship even more awkward.
But I never expected things to turn out this way. Who would have thought Harin would step up to help with Eunju’s election?
Had they held a campaign meeting in that huge residential-commercial complex I’d seen before? Well, “meeting” was generous—they’d probably just come up with a few cliché campaign promises with their limited imagination and then chattered away giggling.
Did they talk about Harin’s boyfriend too? They must have gossiped about the teachers—surely she wasn’t getting on Teacher Eunju’s bad side?
Eunju, Wonhui, and Mokhwa would have been there, so maybe my name came up too…
“…!?”
Wait a second! Isn’t this a complete disaster? It’s great that Harin has friends now, but did it have to be Eunju’s group?
I’d already had a deep conversation with Eunju about family matters, so I couldn’t rest easy. Eunju wasn’t the type to go around blabbing about me, but Wonhui was a walking North Korean loudspeaker!
Of course, connecting the A Team impersonator Timo to me—Harin’s dad—was still a stretch. But the longer the tail, the more likely it gets stepped on. If Harin got close with Eunju’s group, they might notice the commonalities between us someday.
So first I needed to check how far the information had leaked. Alright.
Tomorrow I’d head to school for the first time in a while.
Swish-swish…
In the end I snuck into school in my uniform again. Lately it felt like I was going to school more days than to the company.
But I mustn’t forget that all of this was for the greater good. First I’d find Eunju’s group and put a gag order on them about Harin.
If that went well, next step. Since they’d gotten close enough to prepare for the election together, they must have talked about Harin’s boyfriend by now.
A two-birds-with-one-stone intel operation: gag order and info gathering. Before long I arrived under the tree shade in the back courtyard.
“…”
Why had I come here? And what was my ulterior motive for arriving at school more than fifteen minutes before lunch even started and coming here first?
Surely I wasn’t harboring expectations of meeting Teacher Eunju “again”?
Forgetting all shame, harboring base ulterior motives toward my daughter’s homeroom teacher, disguising myself as a student just to listen to her wistful sighs?
Silence…
Fortunately justice still lived—there was no one here today. Even if Teacher Eunju was a first-year teacher with plenty of worries, she wouldn’t be free enough to come out to the back courtyard every day just to sigh.
The moment I’d shown up in uniform, any possibility between us had vanished. Or rather, she might already have a boyfriend—no, a husband.
Of course she wasn’t wearing any ring on her finger…
Anyway, no more lingering attachments. This wasn’t the time for me to thrash around in idle lust, was it?
Besides, Jin-ho hyung had said he’d introduce me to a super beauty my age…
Ding-dong… dang-dong…
The lunch bell rang. Since my goal today wasn’t Harin, there was no need to rush to the cafeteria.
I had a rough sense of the routes Eunju’s group usually took. The problem was that if Harin, their new friend, was with them, today would be a bust…
Thankfully Eunju’s group was moving separately from Harin. After all, she’d only just dipped her toes into election prep—they hadn’t built enough rapport to stick together even at lunch.
Eunju was with Wonhui and Mokhwa as usual. Sitting on a bench at one corner of the playground with serious expressions, they were definitely discussing the election.
“How’ve you been?”
I casually approached them. Surprisingly, Mokhwa spotted me first. Immediately, poke-poke! She jabbed Eunju in the side.
“Ah…”
The moment Eunju saw my face she blushed and averted her gaze. That girl was still hung up on accidentally spilling her family matters last time.
“Oppa, you’re here? But Eunju, why aren’t you greeting him properly?”
Wonhui was sharp in the weirdest places. Sensing the cold current between me and Eunju, her eyes sparkled with suspicion.
“Me? I did greet sunbae.”
“You looked away the second you saw oppa and mumbled! What is it? Why are you two so suspicious?!”
As always, the slightest shift in atmosphere between a guy and a girl and she made a huge fuss. I deliberately ignored it and asked Wonhui.
“Eunju must not be feeling well. Anyway, how are your election preparations going?”
“Going well? It’s a total mess.”
“A m-mess? Wonhui, Eunju’s right here, and the campaigning hasn’t even started yet—saying stuff like that…”
“What good is it if the second-years work hard? The third-years have no will.”
“…?”
Come to think of it, the student council election at Cheonji High was a format where the president and vice president ran as running mates. Eunju had gotten backstabbed by her running mate and had no choice but to find a new one.
Of course, if Eunju’s claim was true…
Anyway, with the new running mate being such a rush job, there seemed to be a bit of friction? Not my business—I should bring up Harin right away.
“So have you roughly drafted the campaign promises?”
“Still working on them. Oppa, got any good ideas?”
Eunju still wasn’t speaking to me, while only Wonhui was excited. Time to dive in.
“I’m way too old-fashioned for any snappy ideas. What about you guys? Thinking of establishing a Casual Clothes Day once a month or something?”
This was it. To naturally steer into Harin’s topic, I had to bring up the proposal she’d made.
“Casual clothes once a month…? Eunju, what do you think?”
“Sounds good?”
“…”
What were these kids saying? Why were they talking like this was the first they’d heard of it?
Poke-poke…
Mokhwa jabbed me in the side in the meantime. Probably thanking me for the good idea, but this was all stuff Harin had already said yesterday!
“Thank you, sunbae. We were all worried because we didn’t have any unique campaign promises, but this might actually be a breakthrough.”
Even Eunju, who’d been distant, beamed and thanked me. But was I really the only one who didn’t get this situation?
“Uh… glad it helped, I guess. Well, I’ll be going.”
“Huh? Sunbae, didn’t you just get here?”
“Yeah, but I just remembered I had something to do. See you later!”
“S-sunbae…”
Tap-tap-tap!
Whatever Eunju said, I just bolted. Then I hurriedly pieced together what had just happened.
Why did this happen? Why were they acting like they didn’t know about that promise?
Suddenly something I’d briefly overlooked came to mind. Come to think of it, Eunju wasn’t the only one from Harin’s class running in the student council election, was she?
That Thuy that Teacher Eunju had mentioned—the mixed-race… no, multicultural student. I’d heard she was also running for vice president.
But most students supported Eunju, so she was having a pretty hard time. So of course I’d assumed Harin was on Eunju’s side too—but what if she was the only one who didn’t belong to that “most”?
“Ah! There you are.”
“Huh? Teacher Eunju?”
In the middle of that I ran into Teacher Eunju too. I should have been free to appreciate her hardworking beauty today, but after what I’d just done I couldn’t even bring myself to.
“Thank you! You stepped up for her, right?”
“W-what?”
“Thuy! Honestly, no one in the class was helping her, so I was so worried. But it seems Harin’s decided to help. It’s all thanks to you!”
“…”
That was the confirmation kill. The election team Harin was helping wasn’t Eunju’s—it was Thuy’s. And what had I just done?
I’d blabbed the campaign promise Harin prepared for Thuy right in front of Eunju’s group. And Eunju, sensing how good it was, was planning to make it her main pledge.
Next week the full election activities would begin. And if it came out that both of them were running with the exact same promise…
It would be clear-cut campaign promise plagiarism.