"It is their fate to fail." Chan Cho said while sipping a small bowl of omija cha. He was kneeling in front of a small writing desk with his eyes closed when Park Hyeung arrived.
"How do you know?"
"A young bird will never fly long without his mother around." The old man said. "Ask where our brothers to the north learned to send firecrackers flying to the moon?"
"From the west?" Chan Cho smiled.
"A wise man won't give a war-monger a sword. Even when that war-monger is his friend."
"Hmmm..."
"Come sit with me."
The two men spent hours in the Sarangbang discussing the matters of state - and why their northern brothers would eventually return their lands in the future. They spoke of the scientists and engineers, bound to be sent to the Gulag for embarrassing, not only the young supreme leader but his great ancestors as well. Most important of all, the two men contemplated the next move of the hermit kingdom to save face.
"They wish to draw attention and they got it." Chan Cho said.
"Sadly, it seems the new king didn't get the mandate of heaven. He failed his first test on the 100th birthday of the Suryong."
Meanwhile, in a bunker somewhere in Pyongyang, a charismatic but aging general draws his pistol from his desk drawer. After tearfully looking at the portrait of the Eternal President, he walked out of his office and disappeared into the unlit and damp narrow corridor.