Just Lying There
So... the first time I met this ghost was a month ago, at the Old Man's campaign rally.
Having gotten the answer he'd wanted out of me, the ghost slipped in with a grin stretching from ear to ear.
"That's right. The hospital entrance."
Going around meeting voters ahead of an election was only to be expected. That day had been just another ordinary stop on the schedule — until everything went wrong.
At that needle-sharp cry, I instinctively grabbed the Old Man and rolled. The man who'd been trying to assassinate Representative Choi Giseok tumbled past us across the floor, a massive kitchen knife still clutched in his hand.
After the security team finally subdued the attacker and we'd confirmed that Representative Choi Giseok was unharmed, I looked around. I wanted to thank whoever had shouted the warning.
"I should've just pretended I didn't notice."
Hmm.
He wasn't wrong. If I tallied up the gains and losses so far, I'd been the one receiving all the help.
Thanks to him, we'd stopped the attack on the Old Man. And we'd flipped an election we'd been losing by a landslide.
The ghost, apparently guessing what I was thinking, gave his nose a little swipe.
"I'm not. It was a fair trade."
"Not 'pretty often.'"
"Not often. Frequently. Not a few times — almost every day."
At my deadpan expression, the ghost shook his head, looking faintly exhausted. Which was why I opened my mouth again, quieter this time.
"I am still grateful for that first incident."
"A ghost, you mean."
There were times our conversations felt abnormal. And this, too, wasn't occasional or even frequent. It was, perhaps, constant.
"You're just lying there. Not exactly intact."
The ghost gave a bitter laugh and scuffed at the floor with his foot for no particular reason.
That much was my doing.
Originally, he'd been trapped inside the hospital like a bound spirit. Until he met me. After we met, he'd been able to leave — or more precisely, he'd become able to follow me around.
He's a good person.
Even when I snapped at him, he never really got angry. And it wasn't just that. He'd spent three years as a ghost, circling a hospital, unable to communicate with a single soul — and even then, he'd shouted a warning because it was dangerous. He'd known no one would hear him, and he still hadn't looked away. That was why the Old Man was still alive.
At the ghost's shy confession, I found myself frowning before I could stop it.
Then—
"Chief Aide Lee Jaewook."
People often lumped a politician's entire staff together as "aides," stripping away the ranks and the names — but to actually be addressed as Chief Aide meant you were a Grade 4 Chief Aide.
Grade 6 Secretary Kim Hong-ryeo had appeared at my side at some point, signaling me to look ahead. I turned on reflex, and there he was: a middle-aged gentleman walking toward me.
"Woooah!"
"Congratulations, Representative!"
"Congratulations!"
"We honor you!"
"Choi Giseok! Choi Giseok!"
"Manse!"
Amid the cascade of congratulations, the middle-aged gentleman receiving every last one of them had his eyes fixed on me alone. Honey dripped from his gaze, and as he walked slowly toward me, the crowd between us parted like the Red Sea.
At last Representative Choi Giseok arrived in front of me, a bouquet in one hand, and grinned.
"Aigoo. Sitting around waiting for the race to be called is brutal. I'm going to flare up hemorrhoids I never even had."
"...People are watching, Representative."
"Let 'em watch. These are all our people. So what if they see?"
At Representative Choi Giseok's words, I glanced over my shoulder. On the monitor behind us, a photograph of Representative Choi Giseok floated beside a single line of text.
ELECTION CONFIRMED
Choi Giseok — Jongno
I'd lost track of time chatting with the ghost. I hadn't realized the results were already in.
What Representative Choi Giseok said next carried real weight.
This. This was it. A National Assembly member's words were always better the heavier they landed. Representative Choi Giseok wasn't originally this kind of gravitas-heavy character, but with me at his side, he'd improved a great deal.
"Congratulations, Representative."
As I offered my greeting, the announcer's voice flowed from the speakers connected to the monitor, like background music.
I bowed at the waist, and Representative Choi Giseok — now a four-term assemblyman — wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
This Old Man still had it. Those oversized hands that didn't match his small frame were the same as ever. For all the gentlemanly, polished image, he was honestly a bit of a goofball. And that was his charm.
"Everyone here knows. I, Choi Giseok, won this election. But the one who made it happen was you, Lee Jaewook."
I answered without lifting my head, his low, weighty voice still in my ears.
"I know."
This election had been won because of me.
Let me correct that.
The ghost had contributed enormously. I'd thought even I couldn't do anything about this one — and then this ghost had infiltrated Kim Hwantaek's campaign office and dug up his dirty laundry. That was what let us pull off the last-minute reversal.
And in exchange, I'd agreed to grant the ghost's wish.
A manager...
The wish itself was strange. But a promise was a promise.
The ghost chimed in, glancing at my face.
I would. And if I was going to do it, I'd do it well. That way I could grant the ghost's wish quickly and get back to politics.
I didn't even think of it as a losing deal. I'd saved the life of a representative I liked. I'd even extended his political career.
If anything, I wonder whether that wish is even enough...
Past the accounting of merits in my head, Representative Choi Giseok's voice continued.
"I like you."
I straightened, and now I could see the eyes of the middle-aged gentleman standing just a little shorter than me.
"I know that, too."
"Thank you."
This was his fourth term.
Three of those four, he'd served with me. A man who'd been a proportional-representation figurehead — dumped after his proportional term, then run as an independent and lost, a hat with its strings cut — and I'd stitched him back together into a four-term assemblyman.
I hadn't turned a lump of rock into gold, exactly. But I'd taken a man who was nothing more than a raw stone, cut him into a diamond, and set him before the world.
Representative Choi Giseok pulled me into a fierce embrace, and the applause swelled like thunder. Proof of how brutally difficult this election had been — and proof that everyone around us acknowledged I was the number-one contributor to this victory.
He'd walked out of what should have been an execution ground...
That was how it was supposed to go. Assemblyman Moon Yong-gap, who held the party leadership, had wanted to crush Representative Choi Giseok — his rising rival within the party — and under the pretext of a strategic nomination, had thrown him into the stronghold of the opposition's presidential contender.
He should have been a lamb tossed into a lion's den. Instead, he'd eaten the lion and walked out alive.
No one could predict where the monster called politics would flow, or how — but you could always see what was right in front of your nose.
He'd eaten the opposition's presidential candidate. He'd crushed Moon Yong-gap, who'd tanked this election trying to plant his own people. The next party leadership was as good as his.
The age of Choi Giseok had arrived.
And that same Representative Choi Giseok thrust the bouquet at me.
"Take it."
"...People are watching, Representative."
"Let 'em watch. And you already know this was thanks to you. I'm praising a guy like that — you think I need to worry about who sees?"
I took the bouquet he more or less shoved into my arms, and Representative Choi Giseok stepped up beside me and shouted to everyone.
"You've all worked hard! Thank you! But you won't mind if I have a word with this friend first, will you?"
Even the chair of his support committee was looking at me with honeyed eyes. That said it all.
This wouldn't do. At this rate I was going to miss the timing. Farewells, too, left fewer scars when you made them at the right moment.
I drew a deep breath. And I whispered — very quietly, into the ear of Representative Choi Giseok, who stood shorter than me.
"Representative. I think I need to take some time off."
Representative Choi Giseok's shoulder gave a twitch. Without turning around, he whispered back, just as quietly.
"...You should rest... of course. This election was no joke. About a month and a half until the inauguration, yeah? Don't think about a thing until then. Rest up."
He seemed to have roughly gotten the idea — and was pretending he hadn't. My phrasing hadn't been clean, either; that was part of it. A politician's language should be round, but an aide's language should be precise. I'd ended up talking like a politician. So I said it as cleanly as I possibly could.
"I'm resigning. Not a month and a half. I intend to take a few years off."
A jolt.
Representative Choi Giseok's shoulder shuddered harder than before. Well. Scratch that comment about him becoming a real politician.
Still wearing his feelings this plainly on his sleeve...
That's worrying.
Still, he only read this easily to me. He wouldn't fall on his face out there. The general election had been a catastrophe, and we'd entered a minority-government situation — but he'd actually be free of blame for the party's defeat, so he wouldn't have enemies inside the party for a while. And with his stature grown this large, the opposition wouldn't touch him lightly either. They might not even have the bandwidth. The opposition had swollen enormous — but with Kim Hwantaek, their leading presidential hopeful, knocked out of the race, an internal power struggle was about to catch fire.
I pushed away the hand that had tightened around mine, and disappeared into the crowd.
A man ought to look good from behind when he walks away.
The ghost trotted after me, trailing that reasonably impressive departing back.