What Do You Kids Call This?
"You're here?"
The moment he opened the front door, the scene that greeted him drew a hollow laugh.
"...Ha."
"Sit down already. Because of you I had to half-ass the victory congratulations and run off."
Ah... it had been cool, too. He'd been certain he'd left them with a properly dramatic farewell, back turned, walking away. So why was this man in his house?
He stood in the entryway, too bewildered to even take off his shoes, when a familiar string of keypad tones chirped behind him.
Beep-beep-beedie-beep — dee-ree-ree-ring.
The lock on his own front door disengaged with a jaunty little melody. He turned around.
"Oh? You're here early, Chief Aide."
Lee Moon-joo, Grade 5 Secretary, and Kim Hong-ryeo, Grade 6 Secretary.
"What's that you're holding?"
"This? Alcohol, obviously."
"And why is that... obvious?"
"I ordered a few sides through a delivery app, Chief Aide."
The two of them walked right past him, heading for the kitchen with the ease of people who knew the layout, and started pulling out glasses. He felt a twinge of embarrassment for the man he'd been an hour ago.
From the sofa, where he sat half-reclined as if he owned the place, Assemblyman Choi Giseok waved him over.
"Sit."
"Assemblyman."
"Ah, sit down. I'm not gonna grab you. I'm the man of the hour — we ought to have a celebration, don't we?"
"The question is why we're having that celebration at my house."
"Kid, look at the time. Where else are we supposed to throw a party?"
"The campaign—"
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
Election night returns typically wrapped up late. If the count dragged, you were looking at dawn. Same-day dinners usually didn't happen — or if they did, the supporters' association rented a venue in advance. You went if you won. You cancelled if you lost. Spelling all of that out felt unnecessary. The situation in front of him was too easy to read.
They'd just come to plant themselves on his couch. The dinner was an excuse.
He sighed, shuffled over, and sat. No sooner had he done so than the lock on his front door beeped through its little rhythm again and clicked open.
He looked. Staff from the Assembly office — four of them, including Administrative Secretary Na Yoonjeong — came filing in with both hands full.
"Aide Lee, you're here early?"
Yoon Myeongtae. Same rank as him. Quite a few years older. He handled the district, and he treated Jaewook with a certain careful distance. Not dislike — just... difficulty. They were close enough. He simply couldn't quite bring himself to treat Jaewook like a younger brother.
"No. This is my house. Why is everyone telling me I'm early?"
"You dumped ashes on the feast and walked out. The Assemblyman was pretty hurt. We barely talked him into doing the winner's interview."
Jaewook glanced over at Choi Giseok, who was pointedly studying a distant mountain and taking a long sniff through his nose.
Ah... seriously.
Years of painstaking image-making, nearly thrown into the void.
"...Why, exactly, does everyone know my door code?"
It was Na Yoonjeong, the administrative secretary, who answered.
"The Assemblyman said that since you live alone, someone should be able to look in if anything ever happened."
Then Yoon Myeongtae again.
"I sleep here when I come up from the district. You really didn't know?"
"?"
Something flashed through his mind like lightning.
No wonder there had been clumps of hair in the bathroom drain. No wonder he'd been finding strands under the pillow. He'd assumed overwork was finally taking his hairline. It hadn't been him.
Yoon Myeongtae met his stare and flashed a bright, unapologetic smile, talking fast, the way a man does when he's making an excuse.
"I figured the Assemblyman had told you. He said I could stay, so I stayed. Anyway, now that the Assemblyman's district is Seoul... does that make me a Seoulite too...? Housing in Seoul is expensive, though, what am I supposed to do... If I had money like Chief Aide Lee here, I'd buy a nice place like this myself, but I don't even have the cash for a shoebox. And if I move to Seoul, what about the kids' schools..."
His eyes slid, none too subtly, toward the Assemblyman. He wasn't asking Jaewook to hand over the apartment. He was asking Choi Giseok to hand over the old district. A cute little tantrum, as far as it went — you wouldn't give it to me, would you? Winning Jongno had left the Assemblyman's former stronghold up in the air.
Jaewook had been too preoccupied with the ghost to think that far ahead. But whoever had taken the seat this cycle, if Choi Giseok so much as snorted in their direction at the next general election, they could take it back without breaking a sweat. He'd cultivated that district too well for any other outcome.
Consolidate internally from here, and there was a real chance Choi Giseok would be holding the next nomination in his own grip.
Not that any of that mattered at the moment. Four years from now was not his problem. He snapped his head toward Choi Giseok and demanded an explanation. The Assemblyman, still studying that distant mountain, muttered under his breath.
"You... you're always pulling all-nighters at the office. This nice house sitting empty. When Myeongtae comes up he should at least get a proper night's sleep, and there's nowhere decent..."
"......"
He started to retort, then swallowed it. At first it had been absurd. Now he was having a harder time not laughing.
Whatever else this was, these were people who had come because they were worried about him. He'd announced, out of nowhere, that he needed to rest — that he was quitting. Before they tried to stop him, they'd been humanly, genuinely concerned. The result was this sudden invasion of his territory, but still.
And it wasn't just Choi Giseok. Everyone in the Assembly office — people who had started as nothing more than business — had been drawn together, in the end, by the simple humanity of the man named Choi Giseok. They had tried, in their own way, to become something like family for a man who didn't have one.
Before he knew it the drinks were laid out, delivery food that had arrived at some point he hadn't even noticed piled on top of whatever else they'd brought. They set it all down however it fit, and they started knocking their glasses together.
And so... how much time had passed?
He couldn't even smell the alcohol anymore when he lifted his glass. They'd put away a fair amount.
"Jaewook."
"Yes, Assemblyman."
"Our Lee Jaewook."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"I love you. I'll wait, so come back! We've got to go to the Blue House together!"
A voice from somewhere beside them chimed in.
"Assemblyman, it's been years since they moved to Yongsan. You can go to the Blue House whenever you want now."
He glanced around the room. He couldn't even tell who'd said it. Every face was flushed; they'd all slipped well into a state of diminished capacity. Maybe that was why someone had announced you could walk into the Blue House whenever you pleased. As fond of people as Choi Giseok was, that last remark had been a little dangerous. Even if it was technically true, you didn't put it like that.
Everyone's drunk.
He wondered how they'd gotten this far on so little, then looked down. Soju bottles and beer bottles rolled across the floor without end. A few of them had collapsed into postures that could equally have been lying down or simply falling over.
Choi Giseok — newly ascended as a rising dragon of the ruling party — called his name again, eyes half-lidded.
"Lee Jaewook."
"Yes, Assemblyman."
"So. Why are you quitting?"
"To repay a debt of life. That's the fifth time you've asked."
Technically, it wasn't his life that had been saved. It was Choi Giseok's. He left the subject off and answered with the core of it anyway. Yoon Myeongtae caught his eye, and the two of them burst out laughing.
"Heheh! This kid's the real article, no question. How am I not supposed to fall for this?"
"Aide Lee, that— kkh. This, this audacity, I acknowledge! Sense of humor, also acknowledged! Double acknowledged!"
"Jaewook, I know you work yourself to the bone for me. But don't cross the line. Don't even think about taking somebody's life."
"Oh, of course not! Our Aide Lee doesn't know how to do scary stuff like that!"
"You little punks! What am I, chopped liver? I know. I pretend I don't, I let it pass like I don't know — but how would I not know? I've got eyes, that's what I'm saying!"
Yoon Myeongtae clamped his mouth shut at once and dropped his head, back ramrod straight.
"You have to keep not knowing, siiir! There's a war the generals fight in silence behind their lord!"
Jaewook squeezed his eyes shut. He was pretty drunk himself, but he still had enough of his faculties left to feel secondhand embarrassment.
"So? Whose life are you trying to take?"
"I'm not taking anyone's. I made a promise to the person who saved a life."
"Khuhuhuh! Ah, cut it out already! Fine! Where's this life-saver? Bring them here! If they saved our Jaewook's life, it's the same as saving mine!"
"......"
The ghost, looking thoroughly embarrassed, scratched the back of his head, took a step forward, and scooted his hip onto the sofa right beside Choi Giseok.
"That's me. This is embarrassing. And it's not 'the same as' — I actually did save your life, Assemblyman."
"......"
Ghost or no ghost, Yoon Myeongtae couldn't see him. He bellowed anyway.
"Hey! That's not right. Why are you talking this nonsense? It's not like you, Aide Lee! We gathered because we're worried about you, and you're going to joke until the end? If it's a life-saver, who saved Aide Lee's life? Why isn't that person here? There's no way we wouldn't know. Right? We're not talking about some stranger. This is Aide Lee!"
Choi Giseok and Yoon Myeongtae, who had been giggling themselves sick, composed their faces into something resembling seriousness and looked at him again.
"Ahem...! Hmm... Ah, I believe you. Our Jaewook wouldn't talk nonsense. Anyway — what did this life-saver of our Lee Jaewook say? That they saved your life, so now that life belongs to them?"
"Have you been watching historical dramas lately? Why are you talking like that?"
"Never mind that! What did this benefactor demand? Did they say they'd take this Choi Giseok's neck as the price of our Jaewook's life? Then tell them I'll... give it."
Yoon Myeongtae matched the gravity of it, bellowing right on cue.
"You can't, Assemblyman! I'd sooner offer my own neck!"
The two women secretaries, who had been sprawled on the floor like corpses, twitched and stuffed their own hair into their mouths to keep from laughing. He saw that.
Ha... but the Assemblyman had asked, so he answered.
"What would they do with a neck? Why would I become a murderer? They just want me to be a manager."
"Manager? What kind of manager? What's a manager?"
"A celebrity manager. Managing celebrities, following their schedules, assisting them. That kind of thing. Similar to what I do now, I suppose."
They were going to find out anyway. It wasn't something he particularly needed to hide. Better to tell them now, before worry sent them attaching people to him. So he let it all come out.
Everything except that the one who'd helped him was a ghost, not a person. And that the life the ghost had saved was Choi Giseok's — yours — not his.
The smile vanished from Choi Giseok's face. His expression hardened, and he called over Na Yoonjeong, the administrative secretary, who was still more or less upright.
"Yoonjeong."
"Yes, Assemblyman."
"What's this called in you kids' language. That thing you told me about last time. That..."
"Brain rot?"
"That's it! Brain rot."
Brain rot or whatever.
That was a fact.