The PR Assistant
“Let's go to City Hall.”
Ji Hye-min made up her mind.
And if possible, she would meet that student.
Only then did it feel like she could get a proper handle on this edit.
Slinging her handbag over her shoulder like a journalist, she headed toward Mir City Hall.
Her home was in Jamsil, and the distance to Mir City was quite substantial. It required transferring between the bus and the subway once, taking about an hour and a half.
Someone might ask:
Why go to such lengths for an unpaid editing gig?
Well.
Ji Hye-min didn't really know either.
But it was the first week of July.
Her university semester had just ended, so she had plenty of free time.
Although the student's identity was kept strictly anonymous as "Student K" on both Yun-hyeok's channel and major networks, there were still two clues to find him.
First, a City Hall official had mentioned in a broadcast interview: “One of the rescued youths is currently working as an assistant cook in the City Hall cafeteria.”
Could that be K?
Second, judging by various broadcasts, online rumors, and Yun-hyeok's videos, K was small-statured. He was in his mid-160s in centimeters, skinny, and as petite as a schoolgirl.
So, she just had to find a high school boy of that size.
Even if she couldn't find him right away, she planned to ask around, since runaway youths seemed to frequent Mir City Hall these days anyway.
And when Ji Hye-min arrived at the City Hall cafeteria...
She spotted Student K instantly.
A boy who looked noticeably small and youthful was cleaning the hall after the lunch rush. It seemed he wasn't attending school yet.
“Excuse me...”
Hye-min cautiously approached the boy.
“Hello. I'm the video editor for politician Lee Yun-hyeok's YouTube channel...”
“Yun-hyeok hyung?”
Kim Si-jun's face lit up at the familiar name. Seeing his expression, Hye-min was certain.
“Are you by any chance Student K?”
“Yes, that's me.”
“Could I trouble you for a moment of your time?”
“What if Ji Hye-min quits!”
That small worry lingered in Yun-hyeok's mind.
Honestly, he felt guilty. He was making her work for free, yet he hadn't even given her all the footage, and he had been stubborn about not including things that had already aired on major networks.
If the editing is too difficult, please don't push yourself too hard.
Yun-hyeok had sent that email, but in truth, his mind was far from at ease.
If Ji Hye-min decided to ghost him right now, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
“Hye-min, please help me!”
But a politician needs competent aides.
Even the most powerful leader cannot play politics alone. A staff is absolutely essential.
Yun-hyeok had none of that right now, and the only person he could lean on was Ji Hye-min. What if she left?
And if this went sideways and ruined his romantic prospects with her, what would happen? What about their future children?
“No, absolutely not!”
Just as he was drowning in worry, racking his brain in the corner of his room...
Ding!
A text message arrived on Yun-hyeok's phone.
It was from Kim Si-jun.
He wanted to meet up briefly.
An hour later.
Meeting Kim Si-jun at a cafe near City Hall, Yun-hyeok nearly spat out his coffee.
“You did an interview with who?”
“With your YouTube editor noona, hyung.”
“To think she would pull off such a shocking move! Ji Hye-min, you have a real talent for politics.”
It seemed Ji Hye-min had met Kim Si-jun to fact-check the information gathered from the major networks and Yun-hyeok's vlogs.
She had also reportedly teared up, deeply empathizing with Si-jun's pain.
But she didn't stop there.
Hye-min had gone a step further, leading into a conversation like this:
“Si-jun, are you happy now?”
“Yes, I'm happy now!”
“Have you ever thought about showing people how happy you've become?”
“Huh?”
“Right now, everyone will only remember what was reported on KBC. Your bruises, your scars, and the tragic story of how you ended up smuggling drugs.”
“...”
“But seeing you in person, I know you're not that kind of kid. You're not bad, and you're not just some pitiful victim—you were brave. You were a responsible oldest brother who protected his younger siblings to the very end despite that horrific home environment. And you're someone who overcomes pain so quickly.”
Her sincerity reached Kim Si-jun.
“I want people to remember you that way.”
Was it for Yun-hyeok's YouTube channel? Yes. But it was also for Kim Si-jun's sake. Si-jun understood that perfectly.
“Si-jun, I won't upload footage of your abuse, scars, or bruises to YouTube. It's too violent and sensational. Yun-hyeok-ssi said he doesn't want to promote himself by putting the pain of the vulnerable on display. That's why he never used your story. I agree with him.”
Ji Hye-min had told him.
“But I do want to show everyone how healthy and well you are now. I want people to know that this is the real you. Of course, I'm not forcing you. You can say no.”
Kim Si-jun had agreed, and Ji Hye-min had interviewed the healthy, recovered version of him.
And now, Kim Si-jun had come to ask Yun-hyeok to let the editor upload that interview to YouTube.
“Please upload it!”
“...”
“I agree with what that noona said. When my younger siblings grow up, they're going to look up old news reports, right?”
Of course, Yun-hyeok had thought about this too. He had thoroughly disliked the way the major networks had handled Kim Si-jun.
However, he had assumed Kim Si-jun was too young and fragile for him to intervene directly. He had judged that the boy wasn't ready to face the public eye again.
But perhaps that judgment had been wrong.
“Kids really do recover fast.”
It was almost miraculous.
How could he have gone through those hellish days and become so healthy just two weeks after being rescued?
“Could a nation recover this quickly too?”
Yun-hyeok found a sliver of hope in Kim Si-jun's resilience.
The hope that, in this lifetime, he might not end up executed by a firing squad.
“But why didn't the editor come with you?”
“She said she was too embarrassed to meet you, hyung.”
He could guess well enough why she was embarrassed.
“She didn't even tell me her name. She said she's anonymous to you too, right? But she was really pretty, hyung. Seriously pretty.”
That was something he couldn't deny.
“Hello. I am Student K, who was recently featured in the KBC broadcast.”
A video akin to a nuclear bomb was uploaded to the "Politician Lee Yun-hyeok" channel.
“The reason my story was barely mentioned on Yun-hyeok hyung's channel until now is because he didn't want to use it. He said he didn't want to promote himself by putting the pain of the vulnerable on display.”
Kim Si-jun showed his face to the camera and explained everything calmly.
“But I didn't want to be remembered as a pitiful kid, so I asked Yun-hyeok hyung to post this interview. How I first met him was...”
Using Kim Si-jun's interview as an opening to capture attention, the video then transitioned into a beautifully edited chronicle of Yun-hyeok's actions.
It clearly laid out the entire process: building trust with the runaway youth groups (Gachul-fam) through outreach programs, meeting Kim Si-jun, and ultimately rescuing him.
However, the video carefully moderated the level of graphic detail to avoid showing traces of violence, choosing instead to highlight the reason Kim Si-jun hadn't been able to report the abuse sooner: the fear of being separated from his younger siblings.
He was not an evil, corrupt villain committing violent drug crimes.
Nor was he just a pitiful boy suffering under a domestic abuser.
Rather, he was heroic. He was a person who had protected his younger siblings to the very end amid hellish persecution.
The same event can be framed entirely differently depending on where you shine the spotlight. That is the art of political media—even if Ji Hye-min hadn't consciously thought that far ahead when creating it.
Countless broadcasts had sold Kim Si-jun's misfortune like tragedy porn, but none cared about his grit, his relentless struggle to survive, or his remarkable resilience.
But Yun-hyeok's channel was different.
The video portrayed Kim Si-jun in the warmest light possible.
The channel's growth rate was terrifyingly steep.
The end of the three-part video series showed Kim Si-jun working in the City Hall cafeteria.
He was trading jokes with the cafeteria ladies, earning his own money to put into savings, paying rent, and living happily with his siblings.
Crash!
Mayor Baek Hyeong-guk of Mir City threw an ashtray in a fit of rage.
Kim Min-cheol, the Planning and Coordination Director, stood with a stiff expression.
“Kim Min-cheol, you tell me. Does this make any sense?”
Baek Hyeong-guk roared in anger.
His aides all stood with their hands behind their backs, walking on eggshells.
“When you were restructuring the transit system, you hung banners all over town talking about Lee Yun-hyeok as a citizen policy proposer, didn't you?”
“...”
“Why the hell are you giving him leverage? Huh? That bastard was in Assemblyman Park Dae-man's camp from our own Hanmin Party! What are you going to do if he tries to join the Hanmin Party and run for nomination in the next local election?!”
“He said himself that he would run as an independent.”
“Independent, my ass!”
Baek Hyeong-guk kicked his desk with a loud bang.
“Does running as an independent make any damn sense, you bastard?!”
He bellowed.
“Nobody cares about electing a local leader in a tiny, insignificant place like Mir City! Why? Because all the heavyweights in the party leave for the National Assembly, metropolitan cities, or governorships! I was the same! None of the citizens here knew who the hell I was either!”
“...”
“But they voted for me simply because I was with the Hanmin Party! That's how a backwater town like Mir City works! The candidates are all the same, so people just vote based on the party!”
That was exactly what made Baek Hyeong-guk even angrier.
Because he realized that bastard might actually run as an independent.
If Yun-hyeok ran with the Hanmin Party's nomination, his victory would be a hundred percent guaranteed.
But even if he ran as an independent, there was no telling what would happen. Even if Baek Hyeong-guk ran with the full backing of the Hanmin Party, he might actually lose to a jobless independent.
If that happened, his political career would be utterly ruined.
“Since you're the one who built him up, you'd better figure out a way to deal with him!”
Baek Hyeong-guk vented his rage unreasonably. The aides remained frozen, terrified of his temper.
“Mayor.”
But Kim Min-cheol spoke up, saying something that only fueled the fire.
“While reviewing the recent budget execution records, I noticed something strange about the subsidy payments for small business owners on the brink of closure.”
“What?”
“Wasn't this a project you personally ran by forming a special task force? But whether the working-level staff made a mistake in executing the budget or something else happened, no matter how I look at it, the total amount disbursed doesn't match the number of recipients.”
“...Haah.”
“Since this could cause problems later on, please hand all those records over to me. I will personally audit them—”
“Hey!”
Baek Hyeong-guk suddenly roared at the top of his lungs.
“Stop talking nonsense and get the hell out! Just do your damn job!”
Baek Hyeong-guk hurled a stack of documents from his desk straight at Kim Min-cheol.
He could feel the wind.
Thanks to Ji Hye-min's unexpected super-play, a strong tailwind had picked up.
Politicians are those who unfurl their sails when the wind is favorable.
“Should I do it now?”
Yun-hyeok was lost in thought.
The money Mir City Mayor Baek Hyeong-guk had embezzled was the government subsidy meant for small business owners on the brink of bankruptcy.
Immediately after his regression, that money had already been funneled overseas, making it impossible to recover right away. But with Yun-hyeok's current political weight, he could find a way to secure relief for the victims.
And at this point, his chances of winning a by-election were quite high.
With powerful backers behind him—including the residents of the massive 3,000-household apartment complex, the local elites of Doma-myeon, the commuters working in Pangyo, and the parent-teacher associations of local schools—and with his excellent media exposure, he had a solid foundation.
“Should I attack now?”
To register as a candidate for the local government head in the by-election held on the first Wednesday of October, he had to bring down Baek Hyeong-guk before the first Wednesday of August.
Today was July 15th.
“I have to bring him down within twenty-two days.”
It was tight, but doable.
That idiot had held the administrative power of an entire city for far too long anyway.
Shall we go take it from him now?