The Purpose

Baek Jae-woo stepped into the annex dining room. He had been summoned by a call that arrived early that morning. As he settled at the table, the caretakers working in the kitchen offered their greetings one by one, all of them bustling about in preparation for breakfast.

Breakfast was the meal Chairman Baek Hee-sang regarded as the most important of the three. It had been that way ever since a certain shaman told him that only food eaten fresh, in season, on an empty stomach could grant a long and enduring life.

It wasn't as though he took every word of a peddler who made her living off the political world by trading on spirits at face value — but there was nothing to lose by listening, and so the habit had been followed faithfully and carried on to this day.

The table had been set, and not long after, a stir of movement came from the inner reaches of the annex. The old man walked toward the dining room with his secretary out front. Chief Secretary Park Se-hyun gave Jae-woo a curt bow of the head in greeting.

“You're here.”

Hee-sang returned the greeting in a booming voice. His rough, clipped Gyeongsang dialect had a way of making an octogenarian seem all the more vigorous.

“Sit. Let's eat.”

Hee-sang took the seat of honor — which his secretary had conveniently already pulled out — and shot a glance at Jae-woo, who stood waiting at his right. Without a word, Jae-woo settled into the chair beside his father.

At a table large enough to seat twenty with room to spare, only the two of them faced each other across it. That was Hee-sang's way. He dined alone in the annex and avoided all contact with his family unless the matter was truly exceptional. It occurred to Jae-woo that there could only be one reason the old man had summoned him today.

“The blowfish soup came out well this morning.”

Hee-sang sampled the clear broth served as the morning's dish and delivered his verdict. At the favorable review, the kitchen staff exchanged looks of relief and withdrew.

With the table gone quiet, the only sound left was the clink of chopsticks between father and son. As always, Jae-woo didn't ask why he'd been summoned before his father brought it up himself. Nor did he simply sit back and listen, either. He did what was asked of him, but he had a line he refused to cross — and he knew perfectly well that the old man found that line displeasing. He simply pretended not to. It had been that way for decades now.

That both father and son knew exactly when it had started, and that neither had ever once said it aloud, was an unwritten rule kept between the two of them.

“Ahh, that hit the spot.”

Having eaten barely half his rice, Hee-sang set down his spoon. Jae-woo matched him, rinsing his mouth with a sip of water.

“Aren't you having more?”

“I'm done. Askin' for one more spoonful's how a man gets himself killed, ain't it?”

Hee-sang shook his head as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. On cue, the chief secretary approached the old man with his phone in hand — there was a call holding, it seemed.

Hee-sang accepted the phone without a flicker of ceremony.

“Yes, what is it? …Who? Never mind, then. …Right. Understood.”

When the call ended — with no hint of who had been on the line or what had been said — the chief secretary received a single glance of instruction from Hee-sang and withdrew once more.

On occasions like this, it was plain to see: the secretary understood the old man's mind better than his own flesh and blood. It was only natural, after decades of serving as his hands and feet — but the fact that his father leaned on the secretary more than on him was not, for Jae-woo, an entirely pleasant thing.

There would be only one reason for that. Whose hand held the leash — or rather, whether one could afford to throw the other away. Representative Hee-sang, a five-term veteran of the National Assembly, carried the image of a seasoned master of the craft. He handled people better than anyone, and his hunger to sit at the very summit of that craft had never wavered.

But there was one thing even heaven had not granted him: the people's hearts. Time and again he had slipped and fallen at the doorstep of the Blue House, his final destination. There was something even he could never cross over. No method he tried could remove the obstacle, and no scheme could seize the prize. However deep his political cunning ran, it was something he could not tune to his liking or bend to his will.

He had tried strangling the legal world into compliance — prosecutors, judges, all of it — but what would not be done simply would not be done. The nation's fate, as if on schedule, ran only along the course of destiny, however viciously one clawed at it.

In the end, the politician Baek Hee-sang accepted it. That he could raise others to the highest seat in the land, but never ascend it himself — that was his limit. Once he acknowledged it, there was no second bid for power.

Many chose to interpret it as the greater honor: remaining behind as a teacher of politics, serving the nation as a Kingmaker. A good ending was the only kind that got written into history, after all. His decision was shaped, in the public eye, into something worthy of everyone's respect.

After his retirement ceremony, the sight of Baek Hee-sang spending his twilight years as chairman of his foundation became a model for other discarded politicians. A clean exit and a firm decision. Everyone applauded.

But to his son, Jae-woo, it looked different. Beneath all of it, the ambition still breathed, still lived. Such was human desire. A man whose temperament was only satisfied once he had dragged his son and grandsons into politics and seated each of them in their own chair — that temperament was never going to be mended. He was merely covering it up, pretending otherwise.

Kang-ho had seen through the old man's designs as well, which was why he toyed at the edge of the leash, needling him with power plays, scraping at his insides. But was Kang-ho some pushover like Jae-woo, content to coast along? Hardly. If he were, there'd have been no reason for this drawn-out, exhausting tug-of-war at all.

His son walked the exact opposite path from a father who could never leap past his last shred of conscience. And it was precisely because the old man recognized that that he was staking everything on his grandson.

“So, whadja think of her?”

The old man opened the conversation's real business with that.

“I only saw her briefly, sir.”

He had exchanged greetings with the woman when she came to the main house — that was all. But the clarity in her eyes, the way they never shrank from the moment, had stayed with him. It was plain at a glance that she wasn't the type to flutter and fawn the way Hye-seon did. Which, he thought, was exactly why Hee-sang had matched her with Kang-ho.

“She's got a good head on her, all right. Talked back to me like she had every right.”

Hee-sang recalled the occasion with a smile of deep satisfaction. If she hadn't pleased him, the marriage wouldn't have been pushed forward this fast.

Still, Jae-woo carried one worry. How would Hye-seon accept a daughter-in-law who stood her ground and made her displeasure plain?

“Kang-ho's ma's gonna take it hard, don't ya reckon?”

Reading Jae-woo's concern instantly, Hee-sang added the words in a soothing tone. A man who took in everything at a single glance — surely there was nothing he didn't know.

“I'm simply worried on her behalf.”

Jae-woo spoke carefully, giving voice to Hye-seon's feelings by roundabout means.

“Don't you fret. I brought her into this house with my own two hands, and I'll see her sent off proper with the same two hands. You think I'd let a person into this family without havin' that part planned out already?”

Without so much as a blink, Hee-sang spoke of the cleanup — as if it were already done. In that instant, Jae-woo's expression froze, the hardening of his eyes impossible to hide.

“Father.”

“What's this, dessert's late? Hey!”

As if he had no intention of hearing another word from his son, Hee-sang hurried the kitchen. Startled, the staff noisily brought something out, and with that, breakfast came effectively to an end.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's not really something you need to apologize for…”

Jung-mi mumbled the words, glancing at the frozen look on Hyun-sik's face beside her. When Mu-young had suddenly said there was something she needed to tell them and sat them down at the restaurant, they'd wondered what it could be — but neither of them had expected a shock quite this size.

She was getting married, and they couldn't even decide whether they ought to say congratulations or not. In any case, they had spent years living alongside Mu-young as her uncle and aunt — they couldn't help but feel something complicated about it all.

“Honey, at least say something—”

“She's decided. Who are we to stop her. She'll handle it.”

Without even meeting Mu-young's eyes, Hyun-sik pushed himself up from his seat. Then he disappeared into the kitchen to prepare for the chicken place's opening. There was something in the rough way he hauled things out — swallowed-down anger and hurt seeping through his hands.

Because this was no ordinary marriage. It was, in a sense, an arranged one — and worse, she was marrying into a family that had wielded politics for generations. When Mu-young had given up becoming a university professor and started work as a legislative aide instead, Hyun-sik had been so unsettled he'd lost sleep for weeks.

They were the family who knew better than anyone how Mu-young's mother — his own eldest sister — had left this world. That was why he couldn't simply smile and cheer her on.

The marriage announcement, dropped on them out of nowhere, was the same. He could see plain as day that she'd be taken hostage by that family and used, and yet she was determined to go through with it anyway — and from that, too, Hyun-sik's despair came pouring out.

“Well — congratulations, anyway.”

In the end, it was Jung-mi who took Mu-young's hand, as if to soothe the girl's obvious discomfort.

“Congratulations for what? What is it? Why are you telling me this without me there? Don't tell me you were planning a party and leaving me out of it?”

Just then the restaurant door swung open and a noisy girl made her entrance. Ji-soo, still in her school uniform, slid in beside Mu-young and claimed the seat next to her. The heavy atmosphere turned loud in a single stroke.

“Why are you home so early? Don't you have academy today?”

Jung-mi led with a scolding for her daughter.

“Uh, they said the academy building's under construction today, classes are cancelled. I told you.”

“Did you? I don't remember hearing that.”

Embarrassed, Jung-mi avoided her daughter's gaze and headed toward the kitchen where Hyun-sik was. Right now, she was the only one who could tend to her husband's heart.

“What's going on? What is it? What am I congratulating you for, anyway?”

Having no idea what the mood deeper in was like, Ji-soo latched onto her cousin's arm and searched her eyes, pressing for an answer.

“Unni's getting married.”

It was Jung-mi who called out from the kitchen, beating her to the punch. Ji-soo's eyes went perfectly round. Mu-young managed only an awkward smile before rising from her seat — to help open the restaurant, even a little. She had no way of knowing that getting up without grabbing the phone she'd left on the table would cause such a disaster.

“Huh? Unni? There's a call coming in—”

“Wait—! Ji-soo!”

Mu-young rushed back to her seat as if sprinting, but the situation had already erupted. Ji-soo pressed the answer button and fired off her greeting without so much as a hello.

“Am I speaking with my future brother-in-law?”

Mu-young could do nothing but squeeze her eyes shut.