Part 5. There Are Many Shamans Like Lumps of Mud (3)
It was about two weeks after the encounter with Noh Su-cheol.
"I'm moving."
With about five minutes of lunch break left, Shin Jeong-a, whom he met on the roof, threw the conversation wide open.
"Is that so? When?"
"Tomorrow."
It really was abrupt in every way.
Kang Hyeong-seok stopped his hand on the way to his coffee and gave her a look of disbelief.
"Is the landlord all right with it?"
Shin Jeong-a took a deep drag and answered.
"Whew! He said fine. Just as well. More than the creepiness, it was the sheer nerve of it that made the place unlivable."
Shin Jeong-a furrowed her brow and blew out smoke irritably.
Two weeks. Two weeks.
Enough time to settle into the work and, to some degree, into the company.
And enough time that the face hidden behind the mask could start showing through without it being strange.
Naturally Shin Jeong-a showed her feelings more than before, and she was exactly as sharp and prickly as Kang Hyeong-seok had expected.
"Moving is work too, so I meant to just live there if I could, but it was impossible. Every time I go into that small room I think of it. How could I live there?"
"Moving must be hard, then."
"Oh! There's nothing for you to worry about. I'm using a moving company this time."
Shin Jeong-a added it hurriedly, just in case.
She had lost her temper at Namgung Min-a and Lee Jin-pyeong at least once each.
But with Kang Hyeong-seok, far from losing her temper, she gave the impression of being careful.
"Please take it easy with me. If you are too considerate, it becomes a burden."
"Whew! Should I be inconsiderate, then?"
Her face was joking, so Kang Hyeong-seok let out a short laugh.
"I think one difficult superior is enough."
He meant Noh Su-cheol.
Just recalling the man's face was enough to make him shudder.
"I heard roughly what he was like. To be frank I'm not the warm type, but I'm not that bad, am I?"
Kang Hyeong-seok took a mouthful of the coffee in his tumbler and nodded.
Shin Jeong-a was not remotely comparable to Noh Su-cheol.
And the thought had only just occurred to him, but if he had not helped with the move at Shin Chang-yong's request, he probably would not be on these terms with her.
"More to the point, have you found a place?"
"Yes, my family helped out. I'm going to Dongwoo Apartments."
"Dongwoo? Isn't that new construction?"
"I said my family helped out."
He had been asking whether it was not expensive, and what came back was a what's-the-problem.
Shin Jeong-a must come from a well-off family.
Then again, her uncle was Director Shin Chang-yong, a founding member of the company.
And on looks alone she gave off the feel of money.
"Still, aren't you paying the moving costs? It seems a waste when you only just moved in."
"Oh, the current landlord agreed to cover it. I just floated it and he agreed without any fuss."
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded in understanding.
This was a landlord who had hidden that someone was murdered in the house and had sealed the victim's departed spirit as well.
On top of that he knew she was acquainted with the man who had sent the spirit on, so he would have given her whatever she asked.
"In any case, congratulations on moving into a new build."
"The more I think about that landlord the more annoying it gets. What was he thinking?"
"He will get it all back anyway."
"Do you really think so?"
Shin Jeong-a gave him a frustrated look, and Kang Hyeong-seok pulled up the corners of his mouth.
"At the very least there will be problems with his health."
"That's frightening......."
"It is."
Neither the landlord nor the agent was young.
Health problems arising at that age are considerably serious.
They would not reach death, but they would have a fairly hard time of it until the day they left this life.
"And I'm sorry to you. You went to all the trouble of helping me move and I couldn't stay long."
"It worked out well. That's enough."
With regret and gratitude sitting together on her face, Shin Jeong-a smiled awkwardly and took a drag.
"Whew! I hope it all works out well. I really do."
Then, dropping the butt into the ashtray, she added a line in a passing tone.
"This time I won't put you out."
***
VROOOOOM.
The moment he left work, Kang Hyeong-seok put a destination other than home into the navigation.
Lee Geum-gyeong's shrine house.
RING-RING-RING.
(Hello?)
"Yes, Cheong-geum. This is Kang Hyeong-seok."
(Ah! Young master!)
When Cheong-geum greeted him in a surprised voice, Kang Hyeong-seok pulled up the corners of his mouth and drove out of the company lot.
It was rush hour.
The road was packed with cars, and the lights turned red as if they had been waiting to stop him.
He put on his turn signal to show he meant to merge, glanced at his phone, and spoke.
"Is Teacher in today?"
(No. She has gone out on a job.)
A job? A rite, then?
But why had Cheong-geum not gone with her?
No sooner had his brows bent than her explanation followed.
(She went to meet Professor Park Gi-yeol. She said they are preparing a rite.)
"Ah, come to think of it, it is that time of year."
There is a thing called the Dragon King Rite.
A rite that prays to the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas to hold back the wind, and for the safety of the boats and holds full with fish.
It is an important rite for fishing communities, now maintained as traditional culture, and Lee Geum-gyeong had taken part in it for decades.
"She will be busy for a while, then."
(There is nothing to keep me busy. It is not a place where I would be welcome.)
However much its form was that of traditional culture, it was not a rite performed as a formality.
A rite with sailors' lives at stake.
And a great rite, with the Dragon King God himself as its recipient.
It was too large a stage for a disciple like Cheong-geum to join.
"I see."
(What brings you to call......?)
"Ah, it is nothing much."
Just then the light changed and a gap opened.
Kang Hyeong-seok merged into the road and drove slowly.
"I was thinking of asking for counsel."
(Counsel about what?)
Kang Hyeong-seok let out a heavy sigh and spoke.
"I saw someone who had been played by a half-baked shaman."
(.......)
"Hello?"
She said nothing, so he wondered whether the call had dropped.
But soon her voice came, bitter enough that her expression could be drawn from it.
(Teacher said something right before she left.)
"What did she... say?"
(She said it was about time the young master ran into one.)
Kang Hyeong-seok shut his mouth with a face that had nothing to say.
'She truly is Teacher.'
To have left such words at exactly the right time.
Lee Geum-gyeong was certainly one of the few who could be called a real shaman.
"Did she leave anything else?"
(She said getting tangled with the fakes cannot be helped.)
"Is that so......."
(She also said not to hate them.)
It was hard to believe those were Lee Geum-gyeong's words.
The moment Kang Hyeong-seok narrowed the space between his brows and glanced reflexively at his phone, a placid voice came from the call screen marked Cheong-geum.
(She says truly malicious half-baked shamans are not as many as one would think. And that they will all be punished, so there is no need for the young master to pile up karma over them.)
"...So that was what she meant."
(Yes. And the fake fears the real.)
As darkness fears the light that will drive it out.
As a single drop of water fears the wave that will swallow it.
Half-baked shamans hold real shamans in awe.
(The young master is a real shaman. They will fear you, so why concern yourself with them?)
Do not waver.
Believe in yourself and go on steadily.
That was the message he felt in her words.
"Thank you. I did not expect to get help this way."
(Were you on your way here?)
"I was, in fact. But I have already had all the help I needed, so I am not sure it would be all right to visit."
Would he only be causing inconvenience?
That was the thought.
(It's Friday, isn't it? Do stop by.)
"Would that be all right?"
(Yes. Your voice is full of worry. Come and have a cup of tea before you go.)
"It seems like an imposition."
(It is because making tea for you is the only help I can give the young master right now.)
He felt he understood the intent behind her words.
So it was hard to simply refuse.
(And Teacher keeps a list of certain shrine houses. I will look it out, just in case.)
Come if you can and shake off your worries before you go.
That was the feeling of it, so Kang Hyeong-seok nodded as he answered.
"All right. It is rush hour so I will be a little late. I will bring something that goes with tea."
(Ah, no, there's no need for that.)
"It is uncomfortable to be the only one receiving. If there is something you would like, send me a text."
(No, um.)
"Teacher is not there anyway."
(Uh, uh.......)
It was said half in jest, but Cheong-geum was thoroughly flustered.
"Is there any food in particular you would like?"
(Um... yes.)
"Tell me. I will buy it."
(Well, then... fried chicken.)
Kang Hyeong-seok barely swallowed the laugh that nearly burst out of him.
She seemed a proper disciple, and yet seeing this side of her, she was unmistakably a young person.
"Do you have a brand you like?"
(Ah, anything is fine.)
"Understood. I will be there soon. See you shortly."
Kang Hyeong-seok hung up, leaned deep into his seatback, and pulled up the corners of his mouth.
He drove along with the flow of traffic and looked toward the sidewalk.
Signs of every color lit the dark, brightening the street more gaudily than the stars in the night sky.
***
At the same hour.
Arriving at a shrine house in a busy district, Shin Jeong-a set down her bag and sat on a floor cushion.
"Have you been well, Dharma Master?"
SNAP!
The eyes of a man in many-colored shaman's robes thinned as he flung a fan open.
"Oh my, you are full of worry."
"Something happened."
"Let me see. Child God, tell me."
The young practitioner took up bells and shook them with a jangling.
Shin Jeong-a felt something odd.
She came to this shrine house often and had seen this young male shaman shake his bells many times.
At first it had been quite frightening.
But perhaps because she had since seen Kang Hyeong-seok shake his, it did not feel the way it used to.
"There's a move in your reading. Are you relocating?"
Shin Jeong-a marveled silently and nodded.
"Yes. Something bad happened."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. Then you should have called me."
"Ah, well......."
Shin Jeong-a started to explain what had happened at the house, then shook her head.
Even to her it was too long, and it had nothing to do with what she had come to ask for.
"I had it handled through someone I know."
"Hah! Is that person some kind of shaman?"
"Maybe... so?"
It was an answer meant to slide past the question.
But the male shaman's eyes snapped up fiercely and a shrill voice came out.
"A shaman is a shaman. What is this 'maybe'? Do you even know what a shaman is?"
"Sorry?"
When Shin Jeong-a blinked her wide eyes in confusion, one corner of his mouth curled up.
"A shaman is one who overpowers ghosts. A shaman is one a god has marked. Where do you get 'maybe'? The impertinence."
Shin Jeong-a flared for a moment but shut her mouth firmly.
She had heard well enough that showing temper in a shrine house did no good.
Knowing there was no recourse if a bad-tempered shaman came after her, she swallowed her anger as best she could and spoke.
"Please write me a talisman."
It was right after this.
The male shaman suddenly clamped his mouth shut and stared at her for a while with thinned eyes.
Then he drew up one corner of his mouth.
"You have been worn down badly, it seems."
"Well, yes."
"I have told you many times. You have a great many malefics in your Four Pillars. Just right for a ghost to move in."
It was something she had heard many times, so Shin Jeong-a nodded with her lips closed.
"I will write the talisman, but if something happens again, make up your mind and have a rite done. That is the only way you live."
"...Yes."
When she answered with a sigh in it, the shaman took up his brush with one corner of his mouth raised.
SWISH, SWISH.
Then he dipped it in red ink and began writing the talisman.
It was scrawled, and the characters were complex, so Shin Jeong-a could not read it. But one character she could read.
It was 門, the character meaning gate.