Part 5. There Are Many Shamans Like Lumps of Mud (2)
"What is that brat doing over there?"
Gwak Yeong-ho, who did not like Noh Su-cheol, muttered it in a honed voice unlike him.
"Looks like he's scattering something?"
Namgung Min-a tilted her head and added her piece, while Lee Jin-pyeong just stared blankly.
Among them, Kang Hyeong-seok focused on the motions of Noh Su-cheol's hand.
It was night and there was distance, so he could not see clearly.
But he could tell the man was scattering something.
'Hold on, that is.......'
At first he thought he was throwing out bits of rubbish from his pockets.
But looking closely he could tell they were coins.
"Good timing. Assistant Manager Lee! Go bring him over here!"
It was the moment Lee Jin-pyeong stolidly moved to do as he was told.
"I'll go."
"Y-you will?"
Gwak Yeong-ho's eyes wavered with bewilderment.
Because he knew Kang Hyeong-seok could not help hating the man.
"I'll be right back."
Before anyone could stop him, Kang Hyeong-seok ran toward Noh Su-cheol.
As he receded in an instant, Shin Jeong-a bent her brows and looked at Gwak Yeong-ho.
Her eyes asked why on earth he was running off with a face that grave, and Gwak Yeong-ho explained with gestures alone that the two of them did not get along.
But that was not the only reason.
TAP TAP TAP TAP!
Running at full speed, Kang Hyeong-seok saw something glinting.
The coins Noh Su-cheol had scattered.
KICK!
He kicked them into a storm drain and shouted as he ran on.
"Deputy Manager Noh!"
There was no need to give a former employee polite speech.
Still less to a man toward whom only bad feeling had piled up.
Noh Su-cheol raised his head, saw Kang Hyeong-seok, and went ashen like a child caught doing something wicked.
"Ah, shit!"
He shoved the coins he had been about to scatter into his pocket and started running the other way.
"Huh? Money."
As Kang Hyeong-seok made to chase him, someone coming out of the convenience store bent to pick up a coin.
"Don't pick that up!"
Kang Hyeong-seok stopped him with a sharp shout.
Then he ground his teeth at the back of Noh Su-cheol, who was running frantically with a jingling of coins.
'Crazy bastard! Pulling a stunt like that on innocent people!'
There would be a reason he ran the moment he saw Kang Hyeong-seok.
He had been scattering money.
What man who had quit his job had money to rot, that he could go around scattering it?
There was a reason for all of it, and the problem was that the reason was vicious.
'Misfortune-sharing! The crazy bastard!'
It is a method spread widely across the East.
Sharing with others the misfortune that is coming to you, the misfortune that would be yours.
Being chased by the Tiger Ghost must have frightened him so badly that he wanted to share off whatever misfortune might come to him, but reasons aside, the act itself was vicious.
It could be counted as a kind of folk hex.
Which is to say, a curse.
TAP TAP TAP TAP!
"Hgggh!"
Noh Su-cheol looked back at him, made a choking sound, and ran into a commercial building.
He headed straight for the underground parking and only gave up after fleeing to the second basement level.
There was nowhere further to run, and the level was emptier than expected, brightly lit, with nowhere to hide.
"Haah! Haah! Hgggh!"
Noh Su-cheol gasped for breath in such a state that one had to wonder whether he was the same man who had always sneered at and insulted Kang Hyeong-seok.
"Sh— huk! Hey, hoo, hoo, why are you, haah, following me."
Having said it with several pauses for breath, Noh Su-cheol put on a show of strength.
In contrast to the man gasping as though dying, Kang Hyeong-seok settled his breathing easily and ran his tongue over his dry mouth.
"What have you been doing?"
"You? Why you bast—!"
"You know there's no need for me to be polite."
Kang Hyeong-seok said it while holding down his emotions.
It was a side he had never shown anyone at the office.
Noh Su-cheol flinched, but soon recalled the Kang Hyeong-seok of the office and reached out roughly.
"You insolent bastard!"
Kang Hyeong-seok caught the hand reaching for his collar and kicked his legs out from under him.
CRACK!
A clean sound rang out and Noh Su-cheol went down hard.
"Aaagh! Agh! Hey! This is assault, you bastard!"
"Then report it."
When Kang Hyeong-seok said it coldly, Noh Su-cheol's color went white.
It was the underground parking of a commercial building old enough to make one doubt there were any cameras.
And there were not many cars, so there seemed to be no dashcam to record him either.
"I put up with you because you were my superior. I didn't bow my head because I was afraid of you."
Noh Su-cheol swallowed dry and gave small nods.
Then, still sprawled, he thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.
"Assistant Manager Kang, I'm, I'm sorry. All right?"
RUSTLE.
Noh Su-cheol took all the bills out of his wallet.
The wad looked thick, but most of it was thousand-won notes, so it did not look to be over a hundred and fifty thousand.
"Take this as an apology and put it away. Take it for the sake of my dignity, at least."
Breathing lightly, his breath not yet fully settled, Kang Hyeong-seok looked down at the bills.
JANGLE-JANGLE-JANGLE-JANGLE!
The shaman's bells in his backpack rang as if warning him never to take those bills.
"You still haven't come to your senses."
"...What?"
"You spat on this money, didn't you."
Bills spat on and dried in order to pass along defilement.
His guess must have been exact, because Noh Su-cheol flinched.
"N-no, you punk. What are you......."
The ugly excuses spilling out of him did not enter Kang Hyeong-seok's ears.
This man really was consistent, in the worst direction.
The man himself was repulsive.
At the office, and outside it.
Being so terrified at having seen a ghost that he would pass misfortune to others, and even now trying to shove the largest share of it onto Kang Hyeong-seok.
Every single act of his was consistently repulsive and filthy.
SEIZE!
Kang Hyeong-seok twisted his left hand into the man's collar and shoved him against a parking pillar.
THUD!
Terror spread across his face as he struck the pillar.
"This will hurt."
Kang Hyeong-seok said it shortly and drove his knee up into the man's side.
CRACK!
"Kuh!"
Struck squarely in the liver, Noh Su-cheol could not even scream and only worked his mouth.
Kang Hyeong-seok hauled him back upright as he tried to sink down, clear spit running from his mouth, and curled his fist.
CRACK! THWACK! THUD!
The upper thigh and the shoulder.
Striking only places that were not vital points and would leave no marks was the least courtesy he could offer.
THUD! THWACK! THUD! THUD!
The first place he had been struck hurt so horribly that Noh Su-cheol could only make choked, gagging sounds and could not scream.
Kang Hyeong-seok beat him as mechanically as he could.
He had to hold his emotions down.
Otherwise Noh Su-cheol would spend the rest of his life drooling, a fool who lit up only at the sight of food.
THWACK! CRACK!
"S-stop. Stoooop."
When he let go of the collar, Noh Su-cheol slid down the pillar.
"Hurk. Hueeergh."
Dry-heaving, Noh Su-cheol had the eyes of a man whose pride had been broken.
Kang Hyeong-seok spat out a hot breath and worked his hand, and Noh Su-cheol flinched and covered his head.
'Damn bastard. If a few hits would make him this docile, why did he behave the way he did.......'
HAAAAH.
He let out a long breath to press his anger down, glared at the man, and spoke.
"Stand up."
"Ngh, nnngh."
BOOM!
Kang Hyeong-seok kicked the pillar without a word.
"Ngh! Nnngh!"
Noh Su-cheol got up with a face on the verge of tears, and Kang Hyeong-seok twisted his lips at the wad of bills scattered on the ground.
"Where did you hear it? That doing this shares off the misfortune?"
"O-on the internet......."
It would not be the truth.
The way he watched for a reaction said as much.
When Kang Hyeong-seok twisted his collar again, Noh Su-cheol shuddered and bowed his head.
"You went to a shrine house, didn't you?"
"Ngh, nnngh."
"Deputy Manager Noh. You saw me that day."
Noh Su-cheol struggled to lift his trembling face and met his eyes.
That day meant the day they were chased by the Tiger Ghost.
A mountain thick with fog.
The terror of a Tiger Ghost about to fall on them.
Running frantically on the border between life and death.
It was something he could not forget however much he wanted to.
Including, of course, that he owed his life to Kang Hyeong-seok holding shaman's bells.
"I know without you telling me. You learned at a shrine house how to scatter money and share off misfortune."
Tears now welling at his eyes, Noh Su-cheol nodded slowly.
"You pathetic bastard. It was misfortune you never had to share off in the first place, so why go and block your own road? You brain-dead bastard."
Kang Hyeong-seok said it in a voice packed down with anger.
Noh Su-cheol would not know even in his dreams.
That there had been no misfortune worth sharing to begin with.
So this bastard had done a pointless thing and only grown the karma he had to take.
It would come back as karma large enough to make the beating from Kang Hyeong-seok seem trivial.
"Wh-what are you talking about?"
Noh Su-cheol's face said he knew nothing.
That was pathetic, and stifling.
He had doused himself in oil to put out a fire that was never lit, and he did not even know what he had done.
Now even karma the size of a spark would have to be taken in full by him.
"You got taken by a half-baked shaman, you bastard!"
They say only ten percent of shamans can be called real.
And of those, how many are gifted and true?
If a real shaman is like a pearl hidden in mud, then Noh Su-cheol had been taken by a shaman who was a lump of mud.
"A h-half-baked shaman? No, no! What are you talking about?"
Watching him speak as if refusing to believe, terrified as he was, Kang Hyeong-seok sighed.
Then he took his hand from the man's collar.
"From here it's on you."
"...Huh?"
"I've told you as much as I'm going to."
If Noh Su-cheol had been even slightly a decent man.
If only he had not done the misfortune-sharing.
The effect would not have been great, but if only he had not tried to shove the largest share onto Kang Hyeong-seok.
"It's out of my hands. Go back to that shrine house and hold a rite or have a talisman written, do as you like."
There was no one left to help him now.
Even if he went back to the half-baked shaman, he would only be sucked dry to the marrow.
TRAMP, TRAMP.
When Kang Hyeong-seok turned, Noh Su-cheol reached out by reflex.
He knew the man could help him.
But what little conscience he had, and a pride that would not bend, stopped his mouth.
It was as Noh Su-cheol watched him recede with a vacant face.
BZZZZ!
Kang Hyeong-seok answered the call from Gwak Yeong-ho and brought the phone to his ear.
(Assistant Manager Kang, why aren't you back yet?)
"I'm sorry."
(Did you meet Deputy Manager Noh?)
"Yes. We finished talking and I'm on my way back."
(He didn't do anything to you, did he......?)
"No. There's nothing of the sort."
(Good. It took so long I started to worry. And he didn't say anything about wanting to come back, did he?)
Kang Hyeong-seok knew Noh Su-cheol was watching him.
But he did not bother to look back.
"No, sir, he didn't."
(Well, if he had any shame he couldn't say it! If he calls later and starts talking nonsense, tell him the report went all the way up to the CEO, so he can cling to your trouser legs all he likes, there's no seat to come back to!)
So Noh Su-cheol really had nowhere left that would take him.
Thinking that, Kang Hyeong-seok nodded heavily.
"Understood."
(Come quickly. The coffee's going cold.)
FLING.
Kang Hyeong-seok opened the fire exit door and disappeared.
Noh Su-cheol, who had watched him all the while, hung his head.
An emotion hard to put into words pressed in more painfully than the places he had been struck.