The Model Student
“Oh my. It’s been a while. Han-ul’s mom~”
The fish shop lady greeted her with bright enthusiasm. In no time the air around the stall began to warm and sparkle with chatter.
“I know I’ve been scarce. Sorry. Lately I just can’t find a free minute.”
“It’s fine between us. How’s Hyun-su’s mom doing?”
“We saw each other yesterday.”
“That’s right! Ha-ha! Oh, do you know what my husband’s been up to these days?”
The women who had gathered in one place began unpacking every story they had been saving up, talking over one another without pause.
Meanwhile Park Su-hwan struck up a conversation of his own with Choi Hana.
“Shopping for dinner?”
“Yes. Grandfather likes it, so I thought I’d grill some for the first time in a while. What about you, Oppa?”
“Same idea. Trying to put some actual fish in my stomach for once.”
“Honestly… you’re exactly the same.”
His manner was so light it was hard to believe he was a shaman. His speech matched his body language—casual, almost careless.
“Don’t you have something you want to say to me?”
“Something I want to say? Not really. Oh—school going okay these days?”
“Not that.”
“...?”
Su-hwan had not the faintest idea what she was after.
Did I make some kind of promise? No…
No matter how hard he thought, he could not remember promising her anything. Watching his blank, bewildered face, Choi Hana let out a long sigh.
“Why haven’t you come by lately?”
“S-suddenly?”
“Yes. Before, you’d show up all the time, whining and throwing yourself on the floor just to get me to throw away one of my ritual tools. Now that you can receive gongsu yourself, is that the end of it…?”
“Hey—hey—hey. A kid talking like that—”
Startled, Su-hwan cut her off at once and scanned the surroundings.
Fortunately the aunties were still deep in their gossip trance, and no one else was paying them any attention.
“What are you talking about? I was just busy.”
“Lie. It feels like you’ve been avoiding Grandfather and me, like someone with a guilty conscience.”
“M-me? Why would I? I’m busy. These days I’ve been praying to the General until my hands are raw.”
That was a lie. In this heat, prayer was the last thing on his mind.
He still stacked the peach towers meant to drive away ghosts “for the General to eat,” and lately he had even started adding plums on top. He was basically throwing a tantrum, begging the General to keep the reapers away. If any other shaman ever saw his shrine they would have clicked their tongues and called him a lunatic.
“You can’t fool my eyes.”
She narrowed her gaze and fixed it on him, as if trying to weigh every word for truth.
If I’d known it would go like this I would have just walked past quietly. Or better yet, gone for meat instead of fish.
Regret, however, had already arrived far too late.
“Please just be honest. Grandfather is disappointed too.”
“I-I’m telling the truth.”
There was no way he could say the real reason: his own deity had gone completely silent on him.
The Bari Gongju whom Choi Hana served would certainly know that Su-hwan possessed the ledger and was rewriting people’s fates. He had, after all, saved her grandfather’s life. He had rewritten her own fate as well when she nearly died in a fall.
Or wait—has she already received a gongsu and she’s testing me right now because she knows I’m lying?
“More importantly, how’s your deity these days?”
Su-hwan carefully watched her face as he steered the conversation away.
“Ah… she’s fine. I feel a little more distant from her than before, but she still speaks to me and grants gongsu.”
“Really? That’s a relief.”
“Yeah. Probably because I did something wrong.”
She finished with a bitter little smile that trailed off. Feeling an unexpected prick of conscience, Su-hwan tried to lighten the mood with a deliberately playful tone.
“See? I told you. If she was going to ditch you she would have done it ages ago.”
It wasn’t empty talk. According to Hana, Bari Gongju had only ever hovered around her without fully leaving.
“Oppa. You know that’s really blasphemous, right?”
“Don’t care. Our General actually likes a little disrespect.”
Calling a statue of the Jade Emperor “General” was already a massive breach of etiquette.
But Su-hwan insisted the word just sat better on his tongue, so he kept addressing the deity that way without fail.
“So how’s school these days, like I asked?”
“Same as always. No one bothers me, so it’s comfortable. Once I graduate I’m going to focus on the shrine.”
“Your deity will be pleased.”
“Oh, right. Oppa. Did you… already know about this too?”
“About what?”
“That Kwon Ha-sung was going to cross the threshold of the underworld on his own two feet.”
Quite some time had passed since the incident. The only reason she was learning the tragic news so late was that she had no friends, and the school had systematically hushed everything up.
“...”
Sometimes a single silence answered more perfectly than a hundred words.
“I knew it… That’s why you told me to pass on the message that he shouldn’t die.”
Only now did Choi Hana understand what Su-hwan had intended. At the time she had thought it was merely a ritual phrase.
“Why? Does it bother you?”
“...No. It’s just karma. Still, I’m going to light a candle for him. Might as well wish him a safe journey.”
That’s not going to happen.
The Bari Gongju she served was thoroughly furious with that bastard.
Su-hwan still had not forgotten those chilling words written in red ink across Kwon Ha-sung’s page in the ledger.
“Well. If it eases your heart, then go ahead.”
“My, my. Is that your boyfriend?”
The fish shop lady’s exaggerated voice suddenly cut in. Their own gossip session must have just wrapped up.
She looked back and forth between Su-hwan and Choi Hana with open curiosity.
“No. Just a little sister.”
Su-hwan shook his head firmly.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Is that so? I almost felt sorry for our Jin-woo.”
The fish shop lady laughed slyly and waved a hand.
“Jin-woo…?”
It was a name Su-hwan had never heard, so he asked who that was.
“Mm-hm. My son. Our boy has a crush on Hana, you see—oh my! I wasn’t supposed to say that!”
“Oh my, oh my. Jin-woo likes Hana?”
The other ladies’ eyes lit up at once and they began piling on comments.
“Jin-woo’s only a year older, right? They actually look good together.”
“Shush, shush! It’s a secret, everyone. Jin-woo might actually kill me.”
The fish shop lady hastily clamped a hand over her own mouth and added the warning.
“I’m not just saying it—they really would look good. Jin-woo’s handsome and he studies hard, too.”
“Isn’t he retaking the exams to aim for medical school?”
“That’s right. His scores were already enough, but he wants an even better school… I don’t know why he has to put himself through that.”
She heaved a deep sigh and continued.
“I keep telling him not to study all night because it ruins his health, but it goes in one ear and out the other. Aigoo.”
“What a filial son. Everyone says he’s so polite to adults. You raised him well.”
“I’m jealous. Really jealous. I have no idea what my daughter’s going to turn into.”
“It’ll be fine. Our Jin-woo wasn’t always like this either.”
The fish shop lady turned her gaze back to Choi Hana.
“Hana, Jin-woo should be here soon. Want to stick around and say hello? I think my boy would be really happy…”
Choi Hana shot a quick glance at Su-hwan before speaking.
“Ah—no. I’m not feeling well, so I should head home.”
“All of a sudden…?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll see you next time. Oppa, you should stop by the shop.”
With that, Choi Hana fled the scene as if chased. The ladies murmured among themselves at how quickly her face had darkened.
“Is she sick?”
“Right? She looked fine just a second ago…”
What was that?
Su-hwan’s eyes followed her receding back. It looked less like she was simply leaving and more like she was running away.
Not just avoiding the conversation—avoiding the kid named Jin-woo.
“What kind of fish do you want, unnie?”
“I’ll take these.”
“Ah, wait a second. Fresh ones came in this morning. Let me show you those.”
Before Su-hwan could even finish thinking, the ladies’ chatter rolled on again.
“Good heavens, these are huge.”
“Right? Fresh off the boat from down south.”
Su-hwan stood there like a borrowed barley sack, waiting for their conversation to end.
At this rate the sun’s going to set.
He was on the verge of yawning from sheer boredom when—
“Son!”
The fish shop owner suddenly spotted someone and waved with vigorous energy.
Son?
Su-hwan’s head turned naturally in that direction.
A neatly dressed young man was running toward the stall. Just as the lady had said, he looked kind and studious—the classic model-student type.
“Huff, huff. Hello, everyone. You’re all here.”
Only when he reached the front of the shop did he finally let out his rough breaths.
“Jin-woo! You’ve grown so much already.”
“Still handsome~ Ho-ho.”
The surrounding ladies each expressed their delight.
That was the moment. Sweat still on his face, he lifted his head—and their eyes met.
“...!”
In an instant, an extremely old book bound with a red cord appeared before Su-hwan’s eyes.
The ledger.
Shrrrrrrrk!!!
Pages began flipping at terrifying speed, and Su-hwan was dragged straight into the world of the ledger.
By now the space had gone past familiar and become almost comfortable. A world where nothing could be seen and nothing existed.
At least here he could escape the noisy real world.
“Alright. Let’s take a look quickly.”
He brushed aside stray thoughts and began reading the contents of the ledger.
Name: Kim Jin-woo.
Whoooosh!!
The moment he opened his eyes, Su-hwan was being struck by a torrential downpour so heavy he could barely see.
He was deep in the mountains. So deep he could not even guess where he was.
“Hahaha! Die! Die!”
Through the roar of the rain came Kim Jin-woo’s voice, thick with excitement. Su-hwan moved his feet toward the sound.
Thud!
A dull impact, followed by—
Nyaaaaaaak!
—a cat’s scream, torn and raw.
“Nice shot!”
The tone was exactly like a child playing with a toy.
“Hey. You’re supposed to hit the head! Watch!”
Crack!
Nyaaaaaaaaaak!
Together with a friend, the young man stood in the rain and cheerfully hurled stones at a cat that had fled high up into a tree.