2025

Joo Incheol thought he was going places. As a loyal aide to Lee Myeongseon, a rising political figure and contenders for ministers, he was on a secure path – until the rivalries within the campaign began to swallow him whole.

To prove he was worth keeping around and to reestablish himself, Incheol was given an important task: to figure how to diffuse a redevelopment dispute in the problematic Jungang district of Songmun City. The redevelopment plans were politically sensitive, publicly condemned and practically impossible. Incheol was aware that his entire future hinged on this case.

His only real lead? Ahn Pyeonghwa, the owner of a decrepit fitness center, found in the geography of the redevelopment conflict. Also problematic? Ahn Pyeonghwa is his neighbor – but not one he knows very well.

When Incheol reaches out for his support, Pyeonghwa agrees. However:

“Hit me.”

Drawn from every direction by ambition, uncertainty, and baffling request from a neighbor, Incheol is caught in a complex situation in which the very rules of political negotiation no longer apply, and where the distinctions between politics, personal interests, and pain, become fundamentally blurred.