Maybe It Was Better Not Knowing

When I assess a situation, I restrain myself from speculation as much as possible.

You could even say I leave too many possibilities on the table.

Because politics is never one-on-one.

Someone who takes Choi Giseok's hand may well be holding someone else's behind his back. Follow those clasped hands far enough, and you eventually arrive at a point where you can no longer tell how things got this tangled. The reverse is just as true.

There is no such thing as this person is the enemy.

A is Choi Giseok's enemy. B is also Choi Giseok's enemy. And yet there are times you take B's hand first, just to take A down. That does not make B an ally, either.

So after hearing the Ghost out, I opened one more possibility. By that measure, you could argue I speculate quite a lot.

After dropping Ha Eun-yul off at home, that evening.

I was at a coffee shop near the National Assembly in Yeouido.

"Congratulations on the promotion."

I was already seated when I offered my hand to Lee Moon-joo as she approached. She took it with a dry, weary smile. Fatigue seemed to travel through the handshake itself.

I found that rather interesting.

"Is it something to congratulate me for?"

"Of course it is. You got promoted."

"Please come back whenever you like. Grade 5 is more than enough for someone like me."

"I'll take that as you saying you're managing."

"I'm twisting myself into knots trying to imitate even the tips of your fingers."

The new staff for Choi Giseok's fourth term in office was, for the most part, the same as before. Everyone from the intern up had climbed one rung — everyone except Jubong, the Grade 7 chauffeur and personal secretary. And they had brought in one new intern. Yoon Myeongtae had become Chief Aide, doubling as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠district manager. Lee Moon-joo, formerly a Grade 5 secretary, was now a Grade 4 Policy Aide. Kim Hong-ryeo had gone from Grade 6 to Grade 5.

It was a little different from what people usually meant by a promotion. They were special-appointment staff anyway — it was more accurate to think of it as a team structure.

I took a sip of the coffee I had ordered ahead, and Lee Moon-joo laughed as if she could not believe me.

"You do know why we're suffering, don't you, Chief Aide?"

"I don't, actually."

"We're holding. Your. Seat. Open."

"I may not even make it back this term. Why bother?"

"You know the assemblyman's style better than anyone."

I smiled lightly at that. I did know.

The man could not push anyone away. He would cling to every neighborhood leftover as if letting go would kill him.

This one and I go back. It's worn thin by now, but the memories matter. That one has his uses. So we can't throw him out. And so on, and so on.

Of course, they had not all been good people. The lantern of power always draws flying insects. I had cleaned out every last one of those dung flies.

After that, he and I struck a compromise.

We would not let people in easily. He was not a man who found it easy to cast someone out once they were in, so he had promised me we would filter them at the door. In return, I would not easily cast out anyone Choi Giseok and I had cross-checked together. In the end, that was what had left my seat sitting empty in Choi Giseok's office to this day.

Lee Moon-joo took a sip of her coffee in what looked like an imitation of me, then straightened her posture the way she used to when she was delivering a briefing. Her back went ramrod-straight, and her tone slipped, before she even seemed to notice, into the register of official business we had once shared.

"The company you asked me to look into is in decent shape, Chief Aide."

"I keep telling you I'm not a chief aide."

"Want to try calling me noona, then?"

"...?"

I could not believe those words had come out of Lee Moon-joo's mouth. My eyes went round, and she nudged her glasses up with a fingertip.

"Or we could just drop the formalities. There's only a year between us."

"Please just call me the way you always have. That just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now was a little terrifying."

"...Anyway. As I was saying."

"No blocked accounts, no frozen vendors — nothing like that?"

"No. If anything, it's been on a slight growth trend recently."

Lee Moon-joo was one of the very few people whose briefings I could trust without seeing and hearing the evidence myself, so I did not bother requesting the files. There was no reason to take them off the premises. A National Assembly office could request and review almost any material it wanted — but leaking that material to an outsider was a different matter. And as of now, I was an outsider.

Not that the people involved seemed to think of me that way.

"And the rest?"

"The Freaks Entertainment CEO's personal account was clean. But his wife's account had an anomaly within the last three months, just as you said."

An anomaly in an account meant one of two things. A sudden withdrawal. Or a sudden deposit.

"How much was the deposit? And from where?"

"Thirty million won. The source was a KSH Entertainment corporate account."

"Hmm. Meaning they dressed it up properly."

"Yes. They processed it as a marketing consulting fee. The Freaks CEO's wife is an ordinary housewife, for what that's worth."

They had handled it smartly. There was always the option of stuffing blind cash into a trunk or an apple box, but money like that became awkward to explain, and it was less practical than people imagined. Dark money can only be spent in the dark. Hit a tax audit and you had no answer — you could not account for it. These days, people sometimes just handed it over in the open, with the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠paperwork to match.

There was no single right answer. The really large sums still moved in the dark.

Case by case.

But this much, at least, was now certain.

"We've got circumstantial evidence, but hard evidence will be difficult to pin down."

"That's correct, Chief Aide."

A record of money changing hands was not, in itself, proof. That was the whole point of dressing it up. It was simply money given and money received, and even if the reality was otherwise, the result on paper was a marketing consulting fee. You would need a recording or a document stating that they had commissioned Ha Eun-yul's scandal.

"It doesn't matter. I'm not the police."

I said it and took another sip of coffee. Lee Moon-joo looked at me steadily.

"You're really not going to drop the formalities?"

"No. I'll see you from time to time. If anything difficult comes up, you can always call me."

"That's a problem."

"What is?"

"If I called you because I was in trouble, I think my pride would take a hit. But I kind of want something difficult to come up?"

"......"

"Do I? ...I'm sorry, Chief Aide."

Lee Moon-joo, who had mustered a reckless little courage, went red to the ears and bowed her head. I shook mine slightly and rose from my seat.

"The new lipstick color suits you better. The suggestion that we drop the formalities, less so."

I pointed out the change, lightly, as I went.

In the car on the way home.

"......"

"What is it?"

I glanced at the Ghost in the passenger seat. He was watching me through narrowed eyes.

"You even remember her lipstick color?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"...That was the obvious part? Since when?"

"From the beginning. Observation is ultimately about catching change. And to do that, you have to remember what was already there."

"You're a dangerous man. You really are."

Dangerous or not, it hardly mattered. I did not think I had lived as a particularly good man, either. You had to be the first to notice a change if you wanted to sense a crisis coming. Remembering small things was a fragment of that process.

And it might not be small at all. The only thing that decided that was the outcome — and by the time you had an outcome, it was already over.

The car stopped at a red light. The Ghost carefully picked at the earlier conversation.

"If Eun-yul's father's business is perfectly fine, then... Sungwook... no, that bastard was playing games in the middle, trying to skim the money for himself."

"Close, but wrong."

"Which part?"

"He was playing games, yes. As her Team Leader, he would already have known that Actress Ha Eun-yul wasn't in contact with her parents. He might have pocketed the money. He might not have. All that's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠opened is a possibility."

"The more I talk to you, the harder you are to follow."

"It's simple. He did something wrong. But it may not have been simply about the money. That's all."

The light changed, and I eased the car forward.

Until the result was in, the direction could swerve anywhere — like a car sitting at a four-way light. But... if you wove it together with what had come before, you could make out a general heading.

I spoke as if thinking aloud, for the Ghost who was worrying at it alone.

"I hit Yoon Jun. Of course, they won't know it was me who hit them. Reporter Ji will grumble to me about it, but he's a man stuffed full of pride. He's not the type to name a source."

"So?"

"There's an old saying — beat the grass, and you startle the snake. Stir the weeds, and a deer lifts its head. Team Leader Baek Sungwook lifted his."

Cause and effect.

Yoon Jun's scandal had slipped the leash that had been around his neck. Whether that meant a fall or a rise, I did not particularly care. The current trajectory was a fall, though.

At the very least, Yoon Jun's girlfriend's side had been relieved of a burden. In any case, Yoon Jun would have thrashed around, hungry for freedom, and the wave that started there would have ridden his agency's CEO toward someone unknown. Ah — I knew now. KSH Entertainment.

Regardless, the wave that rolled all the way to the client had arrived at Baek Sungwook.

And Baek Sungwook had played what he had been saving as his last trump card. But trump cards were like that — when you were desperate, they tended to leave a trail of justification, just like this.

I turned on my phone and called Director Choi Yoona. While it rang, I said this to the Ghost:

At the same hour. The director's office at Nine Entertainment.

Choi Yoona let out a long breath, looking over a printed sheet with General Manager Kim Misook.

"It's awkward."

"It is awkward."

The top box on the chart — the Managing Director's seat — was blank.

It had been that way ever since Uncle Taewoo's accident. They had kept his name there formally for a year or two, but by the third year they had left it empty. Choi Yoona's eyes lingered on the blank for no particular reason, then blinked, slowly.

He's not coming back. Uncle isn't.

Aunt Chaeyoon had left saying she would believe he would. Whether she actually still believed it, Choi Yoona did not know. It did not matter, in any case.

"Aigoo... what kind of heavyweight just drops out of the sky like this... putting us in such a spot."

At Kim Misook's words, Choi Yoona let out a deflated little laugh.

"For someone so put out, you seemed pretty thrilled, Auntie."

"That's how a parent's heart works. A private tutor was out of the question — we didn't have the money. We could barely afford cram school. And the boy takes after his father, head like a rock. He's a good kid, though. That part's his father too."

"Even before you knew he was a chief aide, you knew he was a Korea University graduate. Why didn't you say anything then?"

"Because I didn't know. I just thought he was a game addict. You think I would've kept quiet if I'd known he was a chief aide? I'd have said something immediately."

"Ugh. Such a snob."

Even under Choi Yoona's scolding, Kim Misook grinned once, then pointed at the chart.

"Wait until you're a parent yourself. Anyway, look at this again. What are you going to do?"

The grumbling and the jokes lasted only a moment. Then they were back in the real world.

Three months as a trainee after joining. Then Senior Staff. After two years, Assistant Manager.

Outwardly, though, it was a little different. This industry was a war of business cards. Regardless of the internal hierarchy, everyone started as Assistant Manager on their card the moment they joined.

Which was why Lee Jaewook was an Assistant Manager, too...

"We should at least raise his actual internal rank to Assistant Manager, right?"

"That's the problem? Even in a different field, someone of that caliber would make Department Head look embarrassing."

"It really is... awkward."

"Exactly."

The two Team Leaders were Managers. Not just on their cards — for real. Just because they now knew the other party had been a heavyweight did not mean they could give him a rank above those two. That would not make sense. The company had shrunk so much that the only position above them was the vacant Managing Director seat, and that was impossible — emotionally as much as practically.

Manager and Team Leader would have been the most realistic, but there was no opening. Personnel congestion was a problem everywhere. They could not demote the two Team Leaders who were doing well, and they could not promote them either. Forcing open a new slot and making him Team Leader of a third team made even less sense given the current situation.

Which left Assistant Manager. The business card would stay the same — they would just align his actual internal rank and pay grade.

"Once the company recovers and we expand the teams, giving him Team Leader then would be the best we can do."

"You don't need to worry about it that much. The man himself said he's fine with it. We're the ones overthinking."

"Auntie. He's Grade 4. Grade 4. People look down on special-appointment posts, but your average aide is the one taking orders from a rank like that."

Choi Yoona knew. She had come to the company while preparing for the teacher appointment exam after graduating from a university of education. Even those who passed that exam could not all get into public elementary schools. The same personnel congestion applied there, and with student numbers steadily falling, the openings kept shrinking.

She had, of course, been considering a civil service post in education herself.

Which was why, in any case, she was stuck on this small dilemma.

"Assistant Manager... ah, honestly. I think it was better when I didn't know, Auntie."

"Then my boy would've had to keep living as a rock. Cold, hard Seoul, talentless parents, never even getting a proper tutor."

Choi Yoona shot her a look.

"Cut it out with that weird impression. And thinking as far as a private tutor is overdoing it, Auntie."

"The year 2010, Seoul. 2012, still Seoul. Two children, you see."

"Ugh... you really do milk that old movie for all it's worth."

"I'm an old-fashioned person."

The two women's laughter stopped at a single incoming call on Choi Yoona's phone.

"Oh... it's him. Why at this hour?"

"Just pick up. Since when is a company director afraid of an employee's call?"

At Kim Misook's words, Choi Yoona lifted the phone with a reluctant look on her face.

"Hello?"

"...Yes. But what is this about...?"

Again, that sensation of her heart dropping. It felt as if she were on a roller coaster. The person actually holding the controls, meanwhile, sounded perfectly calm.

An Assistant Manager had just given something resembling an order to a Director. Choi Yoona did not particularly call him on it.

She was only curious why it had to be Team Leader Baek Sungwook.