Navigating the Political Minefield
I met Kim Hak-jin again. We exchanged greetings and nothing more for a while.
Then I leaned forward slightly and lowered my voice.
"So. We intend to purchase Woosoo Bus."
The moment the words left my mouth, his expression froze.
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"We're going to acquire Woosoo Bus. Whether the city operates it directly or restructures it under a new framework, this monopoly can't be allowed to continue as it is."
He stared at me for a long moment, then gave a short laugh.
"Mayor, with all due respect, isn't this far too radical? The city running a bus company itself? Where does that even happen?"
"As you well know, there are already public-operation cases in island regions. And Yeojin City is more than capable of doing the same."
I slid another document across the table.
"Here you'll find the estimated cost of acquiring Woosoo Bus. Roughly ten billion won would be sufficient. Of course, it wouldn't be paid as a lump sum — we could structure it as installment repayment through negotiation."
He forced a hollow laugh.
"You're not actually serious about pushing this through, are you? Last time you talked about bringing in a competitor and nearly sucked the soul out of me — and today you're throwing a bomb on the table."
"That's exactly right," I said firmly. "And I'm going to give you a choice."
He narrowed his eyes at me.
"First: negotiate with the city and sell on reasonable terms, with guaranteed employment for your existing drivers. That way you can wind down the business without undue burden, and your employees keep steady work."
I folded down one finger and went on.
"Second: we introduce a competitive system and break Woosoo Bus's monopoly. We bring in other operators and restructure the routes, steadily shrinking Woosoo Bus's position. In that scenario, your current revenue structure simply doesn't survive."
I folded down another finger and laid out the final option.
"Third: you hold out as you are now and lose the market piece by piece. Once the route restructuring takes effect and citizens start feeling less inconvenience, the monopoly position Woosoo Bus has enjoyed will steadily erode. And if we uncover further problems with the company along the way... your burden could grow far heavier."
The meeting room went silent.
Kim Hak-jin crossed his arms and looked me dead in the eye.
"Mayor, is this a threat?"
I smiled.
"It's not a threat. It's help with a business decision."
His hand clenched into a fist, then relaxed, then clenched again. I waited quietly. It was his turn to choose now.
For a while, Kim Hak-jin said nothing. His fingers on the tabletop slowly balled and unballing, over and over. Emotions flashed across his face — anger, exhaustion, and above all, the unmistakable sting of wounded pride.
He kept silent for a long time. Then, slowly, he began to speak.
"Mayor."
His voice was low and rough.
"I started this business when I was twenty years old."
I regarded him in silence.
"All I had back then was one secondhand bus, an old clunker. I drove a vehicle that barely held together, running routes from before dawn until late at night. Yeojin City was even more of a backwater than it is now. There was no transportation network to speak of — you had to walk a good stretch just to catch a bus. Even so, I never gave up. Because I believed the people of this city needed the service."
He drew a slow breath.
"One bus became two. Two became five. The company took shape... and before I knew it, I was running the transit company for all of Yeojin. That's been my life. I held on through sheer stubbornness — the conviction that the people of this city deserved the right to move freely."
His eyes hardened.
"And now, after all these years... you're going to box me in like this, all at once?"
He let out a bitter, scoffing laugh.
"Is this my reward? After a lifetime of building this company, you mean to take it from me? Mayor, I'm a businessman, yes — but this isn't just a business. It's my entire life."
I met his gaze head-on.
"Representative Kim."
He met my eyes quietly, as if trying to read my expression.
"I respect everything you've built. I know you've dedicated yourself to this city's buses more than anyone. I know what effort it took to get where you are."
I tapped a finger lightly against the table.
"But now, we all have to find a way forward."
His brow twitched.
"Yeojin City is changing. It's not the place it used to be. The population is shrinking, and the old ways simply can't sustain it anymore. Citizens' expectations are changing, and the way the city operates has to change with them. What we need now is a new system."
He exhaled heavily.
"So you're telling me to step aside?"
I shook my head.
"This isn't you giving up. It's you choosing a new path."
He looked at me.
"You have a family, Representative Kim. It's time to think not just of yourself, but of your family and your employees. The terms I've proposed are designed for mutual benefit — you walk away with fair compensation, your drivers keep their jobs, and the citizens get a better transit system."
I drummed my fingertips lightly on the table as I added,
"The longer you stall, the worse your position gets. Right now the city is offering fair market value. But if you hold out until the operation truly becomes unsustainable... there may be no negotiation at all by then. If the city pushes through a forced restructuring, you may find yourself with no options left to choose from."
Kim Hak-jin closed his eyes, then opened them again. Had those few days worn him down more than he cared to admit? His pale face looked utterly drained. He spoke without strength.
"...How much time do I have to decide?"
"I'll give you a few days. But don't deliberate too long — the city has no time to spare either."
I looked him straight in the eye.
"I hope you make a wise decision."
He heaved a long, deep sigh. I rose slowly from my seat and walked toward the door. Just before opening it, I glanced back once more.
Kim Hak-jin was still staring down at the table, lost in thought.
"Representative Kim. There will never be better timing than right now."
With that final remark, I left the meeting room. Now it was his move.
The entire city was turned upside down.
The next morning, the front page of the newspaper carried the headline in enormous print.
The citizens who read the article buzzed with shock.
"Yesterday it was just talk about reorganizing the bus routes — now suddenly the city wants to run the buses itself?"
"So is the city buying up Woosoo Bus, or starting a whole new company from scratch?"
"Then what happens to Woosoo Bus? Aren't all the drivers going to lose their jobs?"
Even as people in the old downtown were still raising their voices over the Car-Free Street, the murmuring spread, and phone calls flooded the government offices. The administrative departments were already in disarray over the organizational restructuring, and with the transit overhaul piled on top, they could barely keep up with the inquiries.
Meanwhile, over at Woosoo Bus headquarters, the situation was being watched with great care.
Kim Hak-jin folded the newspaper and tossed it onto the table.
"Municipalization," he murmured under his breath. "So now they've made it official. They're taking the company from us outright."
No one knew Yeojin's bus system better than he did. The bus business had never been a golden egg-laying goose from the start.
In the beginning, he'd been proud of it. His buses moving Yeojin City — his wheels tied to the daily lives of its citizens.
But little by little, reality had shifted. The city's population declined, and private car ownership spread. Neighborhoods where the bus had once been the only way to get around now belonged to people who drove. Even so, he had held on.
The city's subsidies kept the operation afloat, and he kept his drivers employed. But year after year, the city council and the press began to pile on over the subsidy issue.
"We pour billions in taxes into this every year — what exactly is the return?"
"The deficits keep piling up. Does this bus company even intend to improve its operations?"
Kim Hak-jin stared at the newspaper and sighed.
"Hand it over now, after all this time?"
He was the one who had built this company. It had started with a single bus; now dozens of them ran the city's roads.
But there were realities he could no longer deny.
There was no future in it. This structure couldn't hold together much longer. And his children had no intention of taking over.
They were already settled in Seoul, working as a doctor and a lawyer. He still remembered the answer his son gave the one time he brought up the company.
"Father, I don't want to live off diesel fumes for the rest of my life."
Even then, he had sensed it dimly — that this company wouldn't last. But now that the moment was actually upon him, he couldn't be as calm about it as he'd imagined.
He agonized for days.
Should I hold out?
But as the mayor had pointed out, that would only drive him down a harder road in the end.
Finally, he made his decision.
Kim Hak-jin rose from his seat and pulled out a single document. His secretary asked cautiously,
"Sir... have you decided?"
Kim Hak-jin gave a short nod.
"I have. Call City Hall. Tell them I'm willing to sell."
The secretary looked at him for a moment, then said quietly, "You won't regret it?"
Kim Hak-jin gave a bitter smile.
"Regret... it's far too late for that."
He gazed out the window. In the distance, a single bus was crawling along the road.
"So that bus isn't mine anymore."
He pulled out a cigarette.
"Fine. Time I finally got some rest."
The City Council plenary chamber.
The room was quieter than I had expected. I'd anticipated resistance — no, in truth, there was resistance.
"Mayor, first you announce a bus route restructuring, and now you want to buy the company outright? What exactly is going on?"
Several councilors raised their voices.
"If an acquisition was planned from the beginning, why wasn't it disclosed beforehand? Isn't this administration hopelessly opaque?"
The questions came in a flood, but I handled them calmly, just as I'd planned.
"First, let me apologize to the council members. I understand it may look as though the acquisition was announced abruptly, right on the heels of the route restructuring report. However, the purchase of the bus company was under consideration from the outset. The reason it wasn't disclosed earlier is that doing so risked driving up the price in our negotiations with Woosoo Bus — the matter had to be handled as quietly as possible."
From the chairman's seat, the council speaker gave a small nod. Kim Jin-tae's gesture was enough to quiet the voices of some of the protesting members.
The reason, frankly, was simple: I had already secured his understanding in advance through my father, National Assemblyman Yeo Byeong-guk.
I looked around the room for a moment, then continued.
"But from now on, every step of the process will be made fully transparent. Since the sale of Woosoo Bus has already been decided, I intend to brief the council on the specifics."
The expressions of the questioning members gradually shifted.
"If the sale is already finalized, then I suppose what's left to discuss is what comes after."
Another member raised a hand.
"Then how will you fund the acquisition?"
The question I'd been waiting for.
I flipped to my prepared materials and spoke.
"The city's current budget can cover it amply. We've been allocating seven billion won a year to bus operations, and a portion of that can be redirected toward repayment of the acquisition cost. Furthermore, by introducing new routes and optimizing operations, we can reduce maintenance costs below current levels."
Several members paged through the materials and pressed on.
"So you're saying this can all be resolved within the existing budget?"
"Yes. And on top of that, we plan to secure additional national government funding."