Just then, Jihun sensed a presence behind him and turned around.
“Mr. Gim Jihun, long time no see.”
“Wh… Who…?”
When Jihun asked back, the man pulled out a cell phone and made a call instead of answering, then held the phone out to Jihun. Jihun hesitated, but upon the man’s repeated gesture of holding it out to him, he took the phone.
“H… Hello?”
—Jihun, why’d you go and do that?
Jihun opened his mouth toward the person who was suddenly asking him this over the receiver.
“Jo Jaeman, what did you do to Junho and Yeongsu!”
—Jihun, I really liked you. A young punk like you scratching where it itched without me even having to say a word—that’s what I liked about you.
“Jo Jaeman! Answer my—!”
—This time too, since I said I wouldn’t run, word’s been going around everywhere asking me to send you over to them. Damn. That’s why I had you run, since I didn’t want to lose you to anyone… But the situation turned out like this, what can ya do?
“Jo Jaeman! Answer wha—.”
—But listen… Gim Jihun, who always picked the pretty things to do, why’d you change like this! Is that gold badge so damn tantalizing? Where’d the Gim Jihun who said he was grateful I made him a man go, I’m asking!
Jo Jaeman showed no intention of answering Jihun’s questions, continuing to say only what he wanted to say.
—Jihun, I truly was grateful all this time. Farewell.
“Jo Jaeman! You son of a—.”
The moment Jihun tried to scream at Jo Jaeman, he felt an indescribable impact on the back of his head. Jihun wanted to get the words out, but they wouldn’t come. The man who had struck him dragged Jihun deep into the alley.
Jihun desperately tried not to lose his fading consciousness.
The man sat Jihun against a wall, and Jihun squeezed out every ounce of strength to look at the man’s face. He was wearing a cap pulled low and a mask.
As if to check whether Jihun had lost consciousness, the man drew closer, and in that moment, Jihun made out the man’s eyes through the faint streetlight.
They were familiar eyes.
“You… You’re… That time….”
Even as his consciousness faded, Jihun spoke toward the man and tried to resist.
The man opened his mouth toward Jihun.
“You did that to Junho too… Then Yeongsu… how…”
“Those two have gone on ahead and will be waiting for you, Mr. Gim Jihun.”
In that instant, Jihun could neither see nor hear anything.
Finally, he heard words about the two men from the stranger’s mouth. Jihun tried to get up and resist, but his body wouldn’t obey.
“The elder asked me to tell you that your hard work until now is appreciated.”
“Jo… Jaeman… you… bastard….”
Feeling another blow after those words, Jihun could no longer hold onto his slipping consciousness.
**
“Hah… Haah….”
Jihun shot up from where he lay as if he had just woken from a nightmare.
He touched the back of his head and rubbed it, checking with his eyes as well. There was no blood, no wound, no pain of any kind.
‘This is my room, my house…’
Realizing that he had woken up in his childhood home’s room in Cheongsan, Jihun opened the door and headed for the living room. Even after searching every corner of the house, his mother was nowhere to be found.
‘I was definitely… attacked in the alley in front of the house…’
Changing direction toward the kitchen, he saw food laid out on the dining table and approached, his eyes catching a note on the table.
[Son, Mom went to work, so eat breakfast. Sorry for getting angry at you about the job hunt yesterday. Don’t stress and take your time looking for work.]
Along with the note, fifty thousand won was placed there.
Confused by his mother’s incomprehensible yet peaceful-sounding note and the déjà vu he felt, Jihun headed for the bathroom.
Because everything felt like a dream.
After running cold water to wash his face, the moment he saw his reflection in the mirror, Jihun froze on the spot like a statue.
‘Wh… What…’
He was startled by his hairstyle and younger face in the mirror. As his confusion deepened, Jihun stared at the mirror for a while, then, as if something had occurred to him, hurried out to the living room and turned on the TV, switching to a news channel.
“Today, the first day of preliminary candidate registration for the 18th National Assembly election….”
Jihun was thrown into confusion once more. The anchor on the TV had said, “The 18th National Assembly election.” Jihun sat down and began to organize his thoughts.
‘The 18th… 2008… The date right now is…’
He raised his head again and stared at the TV. On the screen, it said December 11, 2007.
‘The first day of preliminary candidate registration. The day I first went to see Jo Jaeman. Th… That day…?’
Jihun’s brow furrowed deeply.
Because the succession of incomprehensible situations continued.
‘A dream… Is it a dream? Or…’
Jihun continued to sort through his thoughts, but he simply couldn’t make sense of it. The idea that he had returned to thirteen years ago was something that, if said to anyone, would make them think he was crazy. And if he simply thought everything that had happened was a dream, the memories and information in his head were far too vivid.
And because his mother’s note and the fifty thousand won were exactly the same as the day Jihun first visited Jo Jaeman’s district office. That was the reason for the strange déjà vu he had felt upon seeing the note.
‘If this isn’t a dream… Jo Jaeman had me…’
Jihun began to think hard about why Jo Jaeman had attacked him.
‘It was definitely a face I’d seen somewhere. I was attacked by a man Jo Jaeman hired, and drawn back thirteen years ago by some unknown force… Fuck, who would believe this.’
Jihun got up, went to the kitchen, and gulped down a glass of cold water.
After standing in front of the refrigerator for a long while and organizing his thoughts, Jihun arrived at an answer.
Jang Yeongsu, who had been digging into his own corruption, Choe Junho, who had gone to tell Jo Jaeman to step down, and Jihun himself….
Jihun concluded that Jo Jaeman, rather than backing down, would have first thought of eliminating them all.
Because no one knew Jo Jaeman better than he did.
‘Jo Jaeman… You made a choice more like you than anyone else could….’
The words of the man who had delivered his final goodbye wouldn’t leave Jihun’s head.
‘That bastard… Where had I seen him?’
After chewing over his memories for a while, Jihun felt his mind flash with insight.
‘Right, the bastard who delivered the political funds.’
Once, on Jo Jaeman’s orders, Jihun had gone down to the underground parking garage of the campaign building and received a paper bag full of fifty-thousand-won bills from a deliveryman disguised as a quick-service courier.
‘The eyes I saw through the visor of his helmet that day.’
It was a gaze that had remained in his memory for a long time.
Afraid he would forget what he had recalled, Jihun picked up a ballpoint pen, recorded that man with a question mark in his notebook, and wrote down everything that had happened with Jo Jaeman as well.
‘Son of a bitch….’
No matter how much he mulled it over, he could never forgive Jo Jaeman.
Jo Jaeman had attacked not only him but also Choe Junho and Jang Yeongsu. Jihun felt the difference in power keenly in his bones.
Because of him, Choe Junho, and even Jang Yeongsu, had suffered things they shouldn’t have had to suffer.
‘Then… Junho and Yeongsu…’
If he had truly returned to thirteen years ago, Jihun vowed that this time, he wouldn’t let his hasty judgment drag the two of them into this matter so easily.
He didn’t know who or what had sent him back here, but Jihun settled on the thought that it was to punish a man like Jo Jaeman. Because he was the one who knew Jo Jaeman’s weaknesses best.
‘Thirteen years of enduring nothing but dirty work, and just when I thought life was finally blooming….’
If it was his order, Jihun had done anything and everything, even if it was dirty.
Not only had he used Jihun for such things, but when Jo Jaeman himself couldn’t run, he had put Jihun up as a substitute.
And in the end, Jo Jaeman had taken Jihun’s life for that National Assembly badge.
‘Power… I need to build power, if I’m going to protect myself and everyone around me from Jo Jaeman….’
Jihun steeled his resolve.
And he quickly began to rack his brains.
‘The 18th… the year Jeong Hyeonseok was elected as a freshman.’
Jihun searched his memories and thought of Jeong Hyeonseok.
Jeong Hyeonseok was someone who had been elected to the 18th National Assembly at the relatively young age of forty.
In the future, Jeong Hyeonseok would lead the young reformist faction within the Conservative Party, gaining overwhelming support from party members and the public to become the party leader of the ruling Conservative Party.
At the time of the 18th general election, the Conservative Action Alliance—commonly called the “Conservative Alliance”—was an orthodox conservative party, and he was one of its young figures.
When Jihun was with the Conservative Party, he couldn’t understand why someone like Jeong Hyeonseok maintained his party affiliation with the Conservative Party.
He only took shots at his own party members, yet he didn’t follow the ideology of the different party, the Progressive Party.
As the head of the party’s young reformists, Jeong Hyeonseok was a headache even within the party.
They couldn’t not give him a nomination because, as the son of a local magnate, Jeong Hyeonseok was powerful in his district, and public opinion was on his side. Conversely, if they gave him a nomination and he won, he would once again start sniping at the party’s internals.
‘In the end, that man was right about everything. No, to be precise….’
Looking back, if they had done what Jeong Hyeonseok pointed out, the party’s approval ratings wouldn’t have dropped, and they wouldn’t have lost elections.
Once, when Jihun had investigated Jeong Hyeonseok, Jeong had said his ideology was neither conservative nor progressive. But Jihun recalled an interview where he had answered that he was with the Conservative Party, his current affiliation, to repay the grace of the elder who had first appointed him.
‘Setting aside ideology, he was quite popular and a definite presidential hopeful.’
Jihun went back and sat in front of the computer, searching through several articles.
‘Jeong Hyeonseok’s name isn’t here yet. Did he not even register as a preliminary candidate?’
Jeong Hyeonseok would only begin making a name for himself in the political world seven years from now.
There was a rumor quietly circulating among National Assembly secretaries and aides.
Despite presenting an elite-like appearance, Jeong Hyeonseok was actually a political incompetent with no political sense whatsoever.
Jihun recalled that time.
When trying to verify the truth behind Hyunseok’s rumor, one copywriter (speechwriter) standing behind Jeong Hyeonseok had caught his eye.
From the time that person joined Jeong Hyeonseok’s team, Jeong began to change.
His actions became similar to that of an elite, and his wording (word choice) on political matters became like someone who had been rolling around Yeouido for thirty years.
‘Jo Hyeonlyong, the secret line who controlled everything behind Jeong Hyeonseok… If I take Jo Hyeonlyong’s place….’
Jihun thought about what he could do best.
He concluded that just as he had assisted Jo Jaeman, assisting someone was precisely what he could do best.
‘Let’s think that someone has given me a chance to reflect on the mistakes of my past life and not repeat them.’
For his revenge, and to avoid living the same dirty life as before, Jihun resolved to use Jeong Hyeonseok as a ladder to the pinnacle of power.
‘Jo Jaeman, I’ll destroy your life with my own hands when it’s at its most brilliant.’
< 002. Another Opportunity (Revised) > End
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