George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 146

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‘I, I am.’

A long sigh escaped Kim Jong-il’s lips, a sound of life returning after a brief brush with death. It signified that, for the moment, he was still destined to lead North Korea.

‘I cannot die yet.’

The afterlife could wait. He couldn’t bear to go before striking a blow against that century-old enemy, the Yankee. How could he face his father, Kim Il-sung, after ruining North Korea? Of course, Kim Il-sung had indirectly forced his hand and consolidated power against his will, but would Kim Il-sung even care about such nuances?

‘I will plant a Juche [North Korean ideology of self-reliance] ideology cannonball in that arrogant blockhead!’

Kim Jong-il slowly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry from being closed for so long, but it cleared quickly. Human eyes weren’t so weak as to go blind from a day or two of darkness.

‘Is this a hallucination?’

Surely, what he was seeing couldn’t be real. The figure he had been vowing to destroy was standing before him, even more imposing than he remembered.

‘You Yankee bastard! Are you going to torment me even in my hallucinations now!’

Kim Jong-il concluded he was either crazy or still dreaming. If you spent your days seething, thinking, ‘A foe to tear apart and kill! A foe for a thousand years! An eternal, immortal foe!’ and that foe suddenly appeared, what else could you think? It was logical to assume insanity.

He had meticulously checked the President’s schedule and confirmed he would never visit North Korea. So why was the American President standing in front of him? Rationally, logically, it had to be a hallucination. The very fact that he considered it a hallucination proved his sanity. Perhaps it was a side effect of the surgery? He’d heard strong medication could cause such things.

“I’m George W. Bush.”

But hallucinations couldn’t be this vivid.

“Listen, Jong-il. Do you know why I came?”

The problem was the other person’s unusual behavior. Hallucinations didn’t usually talk. Or at least, Kim Jong-il refused to believe he was so far gone that he was hearing voices. When he heard English, a language unfamiliar to his ears, the reality of the situation crashed down on him, fully awakening his consciousness.

“Huk! President! The U.S.! America! Boss!”

He was still disoriented. The words he tried to form became tangled and spilled out haphazardly. Fortunately, he managed to suppress the torrent of unspeakable curses boiling within him.

“Even if I harvest corn and cook three meals, it wouldn’t be enough, you son of a bitch!”

Or maybe not.

“Wow, are North Koreans usually this eloquent?”

“Screw you! What are you babbling about! Don’t you know the saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’? Why are you speaking English in North Korea? If you don’t like it, speak our language!”

Perhaps some reason remained, as Bush spoke as if he assumed Kim Jong-il wouldn’t understand. Bush was clearly aware that the interpreter who was always by his side was absent, so he was babbling as he pleased.

“Really? Then I’ll speak in Korean. North and South Korea are, strictly speaking, one Korean people, so I don’t think it’s necessary to use a different language, do you agree?”

“Huh?”

Blank. A complete blank dominated Kim Jong-il’s mind. Had he ever experienced his vision turning completely white? Never, at least not until now.

Something like a pure white electrical signal slowly crawled up from the lower part of his eyes, and soon a faint light flickered and covered his eyes like fireworks. And then, only completely invisible white dominated his vision.

“Well, I’ll just let this one slide.”

“Uh, uhh?”

“I wondered if you really would, and you actually did it. I’m surprised too. Did you know? If it were 500 years ago, we could have gone to war just for insulting each other.”

Bush said this, resting his arm on the bed and propping up his chin with a confident expression. Kim Jong-il, who initially hoped his ears were deceiving him, widened his eyes in disbelief, shocked that Korean was flowing from that Yankee’s mouth.

It wasn’t even awkward, but fluent like a native, as if he was very familiar with it. He had barely survived, and now he was about to die again.

“Haha! Those are all things of the past. Nowadays, it’s absurd to send promising young people to their deaths just because they were insulted.”

‘Yes! Of course!’ he chuckled, acting like a magnanimous person. However, he was popular enough to actually go to war just for being insulted. The citizens wouldn’t openly call for war, but if he used some tricks to incite them, it was definitely possible.

Of course, he wouldn’t do that.

“Now, I’ll ask you again.”

“W-What do you mean?”

“Do you know why I came, Jong-il?”

That’s right. Why did he come? His head wasn’t fully working yet because it hadn’t been long since he woke up, and it was still paralyzed by the shock of Bush speaking Korean. Even without the brain fog, he couldn’t possibly know.

Still, even in the midst of the chaos, Kim Jong-il’s survival instincts kicked in, desperately trying to formulate a few guesses. The first was the seizure of assets, something he had experienced several times. Since it involved investing in the country’s infrastructure, it was questionable whether it should even be called a seizure. From Kim Jong-il’s perspective, it was an excellent asset grab.

The second was that, taking advantage of Kim Jong-il’s collapse, they might have come to completely punish the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They had come to personally implement the downfall of Korea with the club of capitalism. Since his influence had greatly weakened, this hypothesis was also quite persuasive.

However, if Kim Jong-il answered directly, that disaster would say, ‘That’s a really good idea! Why didn’t I think of that! You’re a really great friend! Hahaha!’ and actually do it, so Kim Jong-il couldn’t easily utter an answer.

Kim Jong-il hesitated a few times, then decided to be vague and opened his mouth.

“I don’t know…”

“Haha. Come on. Isn’t it obvious that I came to visit you?”

Bush grinned and shook a box of drinks in one hand. It seemed unlikely to find it in North Korea, but when he had people look for it, it was surprisingly common, so he could easily get it. One thing was certain: the box of drinks for the sick visit was definitely made in Korea, probably because it had become more active recently.

In the past, it had been secretly circulating in the black market, but now it was no longer the black market; ordinary stores were proudly selling South Korean goods because they were officially importing them.

“I’ll just go back quietly this time. Get some rest.”

‘Bullshit!’

For Kim Jong-il, distrust of Bush was almost a natural law. Just as an apple falls to the ground when thrown and water flows downwards according to the law of gravity, it was a very natural ‘phenomenon’ that something bad happened when Bush visited.

In any case, Kim Jong-il realized that Bush clearly understood his words and began to choose his expressions for the first time in his life, from birth to old age. He frowned as much as possible and trembled his pupils. This was the best Kim Jong-il could do. The upper limit of his anger had already broken down so much that it was beyond his survival instincts.

The only problem was that this man was the best anger management therapist on the planet.

“It doesn’t matter if you think so. But would you dare to get on my nerves like that?”

When Kim Jong-il heard those words, his face completely changed. However, the only difference from before was that the blood had completely drained from his face, which had been filled with all the hatred of humanity.

“Haha! I told you not to worry.”

Having said that, Bush really left the hospital room. However, Kim Jong-il didn’t even trust that and never said it out loud. He just thought about how devilish that man was inside. No, he almost committed a great discourtesy to the devil. He was sure to go to hell when he died, so he had to make a good impression on the devil, didn’t he? How dare he compare the devil to a human that couldn’t be described with such words?

‘Oh, how did I end up like this! I’m going to be completely taken advantage of by the capitalist imperialists!’

Bush said he wouldn’t do anything, but would a human being named Bush really do nothing? Of course, it was a blatant lie. No, he himself really didn’t intend to do anything, but how could his thoughts and the way the world accepted them be the same?

“Please say something!”

Never before had so many reporters gathered in North Korea. Moreover, never before had reporters from all over the world gathered in Pyongyang without exception. Furthermore, a platform had never been prepared for the president of another country.

Honestly, there was nothing to say, but Bush created this opportunity simply because it seemed fun. If he had to attach a solid reason, he could say he had to explain why he had turned the plane heading back to his country around and suddenly come to North Korea. Of course, he didn’t care at all. Attaching such reasons was usually the job of his subordinates. Committing the act was Bush’s job.

Before the speech even began, a barrage of questions poured out. In fact, Bush, who didn’t really intend to recite the prepared speech, had pushed it under the platform long ago. Because there were so many people, the accents and skin colors of the English being heard were truly diverse. It was truly a place of genuine harmony that transcended race.

“You.”

Bush, realizing that his ears might be torn off if he didn’t somehow suppress the barrage of questions, pointed to one of the reporters at the very front. Contrary to what he did, he hated noisy things.

“Tell me if you have any questions.”

“What is your relationship with Kim Jong-il?”

Mysteriously enough, this was exactly the question Bush was hoping for. As Bush’s mouth opened, flashes went off from the cameras. From old to new, there was a wide variety.

“Well, I’d say we’re ‘friends’ for now.”

So close that he would shake down his entire life savings with just one word.

“We have agreed to take a step back for peace.”

Matching each other’s moods no matter how badly they act.

“The nearly completed light-water reactor and the ever-developing North Korea, and the fact that he collapsed from overwork while focusing on national affairs are all proof of that.”

‘Frenemies’ who want to kill each other so much that they never want to see each other again.