The Congressman Bows Low

Goo Young-jin continued to speak, undeterred by Cha Jae-rim’s cynical expression.

[These days, young people don’t have enough ambition. They’re happy just earning 1.5 million won a month and not getting fired. What a pitiful sight that is.]

“…..”

[A man should always have ambition. Once he’s out in the world, he should draw a sword and walk the emperor’s path. You only live once, so you should live like that.]

– This stop is Yaksu, Yaksu Station. The doors will open on the right. This stop is Yaksu…

As the train arrived at Yaksu Station, Cha Jae-rim stood up.

Ignoring Goo Young-jin’s long-winded speech, he simply continued on his way.

As they left the station and walked towards the bus stop, Goo Young-jin continued to chatter.

[People don’t fail to succeed because they don’t have the ability. They fail to succeed because they don’t even try to climb the trees they think they can’t climb in the first place.]

“Would you please be quiet?”

Cha Jae-rim responded quietly, having escaped the confines of the closed space.

But it was not enough to shut Goo Young-jin up.

[You have to go into politics. I’ll help you. If I help you, there’s nothing you can’t do. I’ll make you a great politician who will lead South Korea. I’ll help you ride the great waves of the coming 21st century and lead this country.]

“Sigh…”

Cha Jae-rim sighed and shook his head feebly.

[Right now, you may think that only old men who can’t cut it anymore go into politics, but that’s not true anymore. Young men like you, with your sharp eyes, could easily wear the lawmaker’s badge and become members of the National Assembly!]

Goo Young-jin didn’t stop talking for a moment until the bus arrived.

Finally, once they were on the bus, Cha Jae-rim took out his Walkman and put on his headphones.

With no way to remove the earphones from Cha Jae-rim’s ears, Goo Young-jin flailed his arms about and yelled, but it was no use.

Only then was Cha Jae-rim able to smile in peace and make his way home.

Goo Young-jin’s incessant noise was blocked out, and in its place, he listened to a stirring song about mountains and rivers.

– Like salmon swimming upstream against the current? For some mysterious reason that only they know…

Cha Jae-rim’s house was located among red brick houses.

His building was also made of red brick.

But the entire building wasn’t his house. Only the rooftop was his.

Once he reached the rooftop, Cha Jae-rim finally took out the earphones that had been blocking his ears.

Immediately, Goo Young-jin’s agitated voice pounded on his eardrums.

[What the hell! Is this a house?]

“Excuse me, but that’s rather rude.”

[No? Are you kidding me right now? Are you messing with me with this?]

A hint of annoyance crept into Cha Jae-rim’s voice.

“…Good grief, you’re so loud.”

[Tell me right now! That this is a joke!]

“Sorry that it looks like a joke of a house. I’m being completely sincere.”

Cha Jae-rim replied indifferently and went inside his rooftop apartment.

Clack, as he turned on the light, the old fluorescent lamp flickered a few times before finally turning on completely, pop.

Cha Jae-rim took off his coat and plopped down on a chair with a sigh.

Goo Young-jin still couldn’t get used to this meager living space.

Everything he saw was pathetic.

Cha Jae-rim chuckled as he watched Goo Young-jin, who couldn’t hide his feelings.

“And yet you think about going into politics? Do you really think people will listen to you when you live like this?”

[Family…]

“I’ll get to those trivial details later. It’s not like it’s urgent.”

[I see.]

From the way he avoided talking about his family, it seemed that he was an orphan.

“For a ghost, what does it matter if you live in a rooftop apartment or a hotel suite? In any case, good night.”

[How long do I have to live like this, a pitiful ghost?]

“You’re already dead, so you’ll live like this forever.”

[No, I mean…!]

“I don’t know much. But from what I’ve seen of other ghosts who came before you.”

[What have you seen?]

“One day, they just disappeared. Like smoke. That thing I said earlier about opening the gates of hell, I was just messing around, so don’t take it seriously.”

[W, where to?]

Cha Jae-rim laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“How would I know? I’m just a regular human being who occasionally sees ghosts.”

[I see. Then just one more thing…]

Cha Jae-rim cut him off before he could finish.

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I’m tired. I went to meet a woman and ended up bringing a ghost home instead. Now I’m even more tired.”

[That… Alright. So while you sleep, I just have to sit here and stare into space?]

Being a ghost who couldn’t sleep was much more agonizing than he had imagined.

The loneliness until dawn was unbearable.

“Don’t worry. I can’t help you much, but I can at least provide you with that small comfort.”

[Small comfort?]

“So that ghosts can sleep too. Just like this, just snap your fingers and you’ll black out.”

[Can you really do that?]

“I can. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t have brought you back with me. I have a private life, you know.”

[I suppose…]

“Okay, then I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

Snap, Cha Jae-rim snapped his fingers, and Goo Young-jin lost consciousness in complete, pitch-black darkness.

When Goo Young-jin opened his eyes again, it was morning.

Cha Jae-rim was already dressed in a neat suit.

Of all the clothes in his flimsy metal wardrobe that occupied one corner of the rooftop, that was the only decent outfit he had.

Cha Jae-rim said to Goo Young-jin with a smile.

“Good morning.”

[Yes, good morning…]

Goo Young-jin found it unbearably awkward to be sharing breakfast with a young man he had just met.

Still, he was reassured that Cha Jae-rim was at least a decent guy.

If he had been a useless bum, it would have been that much harder to take his revenge.

[You have a decent suit like that, so why did you go out dressed like such a slob yesterday?]

“It would have been a little weird to dress up in a suit when I wasn’t going anywhere special, don’t you think? But was it really that bad?”

Cha Jae-rim asked, slipping on his shoes and sounding slightly offended.

[If not for the fact that you’re charming, it would have been a complete disaster.]

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

[But where are you going so early in the morning, dressed like that?]

“Work. I have to make a living too.”

Ah, right.

This punk may be poor and not very well-educated, but he could have a decent job.

Judging by the fact that he wore a suit to work, he must be a white-collar worker.

He might be surprisingly successful.

Goo Young-jin asked, with a hint of anticipation in his voice.

[What do you do for a living?]

“I’m a civil servant.”

[Ah, a civil servant.]

What a boring job.

There’s no better job security than being a civil servant.

Even though the pay is terrible, at least there’s no risk of getting fired unless you really screw up.

Cha Jae-rim, who was clearly struggling financially, would probably do whatever it took to stick it out until retirement.

Of course, if he passed the highly competitive civil service exam and worked his way up the elite bureaucratic ladder while keeping one foot in the political world, it would be a different story.

If that were the case, he would have made his home in Gwacheon or Daejeon, where the government offices are located.

But still, you never know.

[What rank are you?]

“9th.”

As expected.

Goo Young-jin wasn’t particularly disappointed.

Disappointed or not, Cha Jae-rim paid it no mind and hurried off to work.

Goo Young-jin was able to glean a few more pieces of information about Cha Jae-rim.

It was thanks to his relentless questioning even as they walked.

He learned that Cha Jae-rim worked in the contracts division of Seongbuk District Office’s finance department.

He was born in 1974, which made him 25 years old in 1998.

[Well, it’s good to be young. When you’re 25, you can bite through metal and fight a tiger with your bare hands. At that age, politics should be easy for you.]

“Oh, please.”

Having known Cha Jae-rim for less than a day, his incessant political chatter had already started to get on his nerves.

[Maybe you’d be less annoyed if you knew who I was when I was alive. You probably wouldn’t have made that face if you did. So who was I…]

“I’m here. You’re going to get in the way of my work, so could you just go to sleep?”

Snap, Cha Jae-rim lightly snapped his thumb and middle finger together, plunging Goo Young-jin into a deep unconsciousness.

Barely having enjoyed even a few minutes of morning sunlight, he was once again enveloped in darkness.

When Goo Young-jin opened his eyes again, he had a sullen expression on his face.

He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being ordered around by a wet-behind-the-ears punk.

Cha Jae-rim was already back home and changed into casual clothes.

Even seeing Goo Young-jin slumped over weakly, Cha Jae-rim didn’t show an ounce of sympathy.

Cha Jae-rim was polishing off two rolls of gimbap, which he had bought on his way home from work, for dinner.

His gaze was fixed not on Goo Young-jin, but on the old, bulky TV.

Before they knew it, it was already 9 pm, and the news was on TV.

– Good evening, the 9 pm news for September 15th begins. Today, President Kim Dae-jung met with German President Roman Herzog for a summit and discussed the economic partnership between the two countries in depth.

Goo Young-jin voiced his complaints to Cha Jae-rim, who was paying him absolutely no attention.

[Aren’t you being a little inconsiderate?]

“The one being inconsiderate is you.”

[Me? What did I do!]

“Why do you keep pestering a second-year civil servant about useless things like politics?”

[It’s not useless!]

“I have no intention of doing that, so please stop asking.”

[Hmph, just let me finish what I was saying this morning.]

The two continued to argue as the TV news continued.

– With the extreme standoff between the ruling and opposition parties, the National Assembly’s suspension of business is likely to continue for the long term. The situation is becoming entrenched, as both the ruling and opposition parties refuse to back down, and each party is showing little sign of revealing its true intentions.

“What a stubborn person.”

[If you knew who I was, you would see me in a different light. I was…]

Cha Jae-rim’s gaze, which had been glued to the news, flickered for a moment.

He looked back and forth between the TV screen and Goo Young-jin and said,

“Elder, I think I know who you are.”

[What?]

“Congressman Goo Young-jin, is it not?”

[H, how did you…]

Cha Jae-rim pointed his chopsticks at the TV screen.

Goo Young-jin’s gaze followed the chopsticks and landed on the screen.

– During the intraparty negotiations for the normalization of the National Assembly, the ruling party’s Floor Leader Goo Young-jin denounced the opposition party. However, he also emphasized the importance of maintaining channels for dialogue and compromise.

The TV screen showed Goo Young-jin smiling faintly at the other party members.

The smile on the screen was full of confidence.

Cha Jae-rim continued to look back and forth between the Goo Young-jin of 1998 and the Goo Young-jin who had taken his own life in 2008, standing right before his eyes.

Apart from a few wrinkles and strands of white hair, the two montages were not so different.

Cha Jae-rim licked his chopsticks and said to Goo Young-jin.

“It wasn’t for nothing that you kept talking about wanting to go into politics.”

Cha Jae-rim was taken aback to learn his true identity.

It’s not uncommon for middle-aged South Korean men to not have interest in politics.

Politics is a kind of sport for men of that age.

So he hadn’t thought much of Goo Young-jin’s constant political chatter.

But this man was that man.

He wasn’t just any member of the National Assembly. He was a big shot, the floor leader of the ruling party.

Cha Jae-rim found it a little awkward and a little amusing to have been bossing around a VIP like that.

It wasn’t every day that a 9th-rank civil servant got to treat a big-shot Congressman like a neighborhood dog.

But it couldn’t have happened without this unusual set of circumstances.

The Goo Young-jin on the TV screen had reminded Cha Jae-rim of a somewhat surprising fact, but for Goo Young-jin, who had become a ghost, it was a great shock.

[This, this can’t be…]