I Think We Made Eye Contact
Everyone was asleep in the hush of early dawn. Or perhaps it was late enough that some people, somewhere, might already be rising to start their day.
I stepped out onto the veranda with a can of beer in hand.
The ghost had followed me out. He leaned against the veranda railing, watching me with concern.
"Maybe that's why I can't sleep. Too tired."
I cracked the can, wet my lips, and asked,
"Are you always this talkative?"
The way he got flustered looked more human than most humans. It didn't help that he looked perfectly fine on the surface, either. He was identical to a living person — you only confirmed he was a ghost when you looked closely enough to notice his body was faintly translucent.
A brief silence passed before the ghost spoke again.
"With what?"
"......"
I looked at the ghost's apologetic face. He avoided my eyes. I didn't bother forcing him to meet my gaze. Instead I looked through the window, into the living room, at the assembly office family sprawled out and sleeping wherever they'd dropped.
Secretary Kim Hong-ryeo, long hair undone, collapsed in a heap that looked more ghostly than the actual ghost. Chief Aide Lee Moon-joo beside her, in much the same state. Aide Yoon Myeongtae, wedged tight under the sofa, snoring away. And Assemblyman Choi Giseok himself, stretched out on the sofa with his suit jacket for a blanket. The ones I couldn't see had surely found their own spots and were sleeping off the liquor.
I took a slow sip from the can in my hand and spoke.
"It's similar work, isn't it. Making someone else stand out. Not me."
This time, it was the ghost who fell silent.
"You don't need to worry about my career. Even if I take a ten-year break, there'd be a line of assemblymen waiting to take me on."
The ghost still didn't answer, too guilty to speak — but it was the truth.
"And even after ten years, that old man would be first in line."
That was the truth, too.
I cut him off as he stammered.
"If you'd saved me and then demanded something in return, I would have found another way. Whatever it took."
"That man over there. I'm quite fond of him. When he's asleep he looks like a drunk old guy, but he's got a real charm to him. And it's thanks to him that I get to live like this — suit, tie, the whole thing."
I finished speaking over the ghost's small, wounded sound. The reason I'd decided to keep my promise to the ghost was that he and I were remarkably alike — though saying so out loud would have been too embarrassing.
Worrying about someone else instead of yourself...
Plenty of people want to be the light themselves. But every now and then, you run into people like this. People who'd rather support someone else, and watch from behind the light.
I downed the rest of the beer in one go and clapped the ghost on the shoulder. I couldn't feel any actual contact, but it was like interacting with a well-rendered 3D projection.
"Don't worry. I'll do it well."
The sound of soft breathing. In the dim living room, where the only other noise was the snoring of people who'd passed out drunk with their heads jammed into corners, someone spoke — very quietly.
"...Myeongtae... you seeing this too?"
And another voice answered him.
"Yes... Assemblyman... I'm terrified. Ah... I've always thought he was scary, even though he's younger than me. Um, Assemblyman... I'm really sorry, but would you hold my hand?"
From under the sofa, a rough hand came thrusting up onto the cushions. Then the owner of that hand went on, his voice trembling.
"Ghk! Did you see that just now? He was looking at empty air and talking to himself again. He's seeing something that isn't there, right, Assemblyman? That has to be it?"
Was it the alcohol? Or was it because he had always been a tender-hearted man?
Unlike Yoon Myeongtae, who was paralyzed with fear, Assemblyman Choi Giseok's eyes grew wet as he lay there.
"I've been neglecting the people around me, haven't I."
"...Sir?"
"That's how it is... politics gnaws away at a person's heart... Jaewook always seemed like a man of iron, so I leaned on him too much. That was my mistake..."
"No, that's not it... I've always had a weak constitution. Ever since I was a kid I'd get sleep paralysis, and I'd even see ghosts sometimes? Sir... there's definitely something there..."
Then Lee Jaewook turned, and Yoon Myeongtae yanked the hand he'd stretched toward Choi Giseok back under the sofa like a turtle pulling in its head. He spoke in a tiny but utterly shattered voice.
"Look at his eyes! He's clearly looking at about human eye level...! Right now — he's seeing a ghost. I'm certain of it...!"
Whatever fit Yoon Myeongtae was throwing down there, whether he was shaking or not, it made no difference. That night, Assemblyman Choi Giseok made a resolution.
Whenever he looked at Lee Jaewook, Choi Giseok would think of the old tale of fish and water — a bond so complete that one could not survive without the other. A small connection, once, that had become the lake in which a man who was nothing but a fish could swim to his heart's content.
"Please help me."
"What?"
"I want to focus on my studies. So please sponsor me."
It had been volunteer work, done with good intentions — but Choi Giseok had never in his life seen a request made with such unblinking nerve.
"The orphanage feeds you. Houses you... and as I understand it, your tuition is covered through high school graduation?"
"That's nowhere near enough, which is why I'm asking."
"Part-ti—"
He had been about to say the boy could get a part-time job, then closed his mouth. The kid's eyes weren't those of a child; he'd nearly made a careless mistake. You did not tell a boy who looked barely thirteen or fourteen to just go get a part-time job.
So he said something else.
"Are you good at studying?"
"Yes."
"Hahaha. Is that so? Then let's do this. I'm not a wealthy man, but I can sponsor one student. Still, if I single you out, it wouldn't be fair. So — whoever has the best grades at this orphanage. I'll send that student five hundred thousand won every month. How about it?"
That was how it began. He started the sponsorship and kept checking. In all that time, the boy never once failed to receive the scholarship.
And even then, it only came to around forty million won...
Once he went to college, tuition was scholarships, living expenses were tutoring gigs and loans. The kid was so brilliant that once he became an adult, he no longer felt he needed looking after.
Choi had found that admirable, and on some level had let himself forget — until one day the boy came back. And said this:
Vivid as yesterday. A political drifter who'd been used as a proportional-representation figurehead for four years and then discarded like a rag. The kid who got him elected again. Who put his name on the map.
A National Assembly pin that other people couldn't buy for all the money in the world — and the kid had made him one three times over, for a mere forty million won. Forty million won isn't a small sum, but a National Assembly badge for forty million? It's a laughable amount. That kind of money couldn't buy you the first letter of the word assemblyman.
He was watching Lee Jaewook through half-lidded eyes when the kid made a gesture of swinging his arm through empty air and started muttering to himself.
I'm sorry, Jaewook...
Lying on the sofa, Choi Giseok clenched his jaw. If he didn't, he was going to cry.
A Zhuge Liang who had come of his own two feet, without anyone making the three visits to his thatched cottage. And he hadn't even noticed that his Zhuge Liang was so worn down by the work that his mind was starting to slip.
A tear slipped free. In the dim moonlight, it traced down the face of Choi Giseok — the ruling party's rising dragon, a man on the cusp of the presidency.
"Ugh... I think we made eye contact, Assemblyman..."
Yoon Myeongtae was groaning from under the sofa, but the words didn't reach him.