A Stroke of Luck
“Is that… really true?”
Han I-ju had barely come to her senses after the colonoscopy when the doctor summoned her the moment she left the recovery room.
“Yes. That’s correct.”
The words that left his mouth were so shocking that the lingering fog of anesthesia vanished from her mind in an instant.
“I’ll explain it to you with the photos.”
He turned his monitor so she could see it clearly.
“Could you take a look here? This is the inside of your large intestine.”
On the screen, something grotesquely odd sat in the middle of the bright-red mucosa—something that looked unpleasantly like a patch of moss.
“What is that?”
She muttered, rubbing the goosebumps that had risen on her arm without her noticing.
“A laterally spreading tumor.”
“A tumor?”
Her voice rose in shock as she repeated the word.
“That can’t be. Two months ago they told me everything was fine.”
The doctor pointed with his pen at the edges of the growth.
“Ordinary polyps stick out like mushrooms, so they’re easy to spot. This one spreads sideways along the mucosa, growing wide and flat.”
He tapped at the keyboard, and a new photo appeared—the same area now stained with a blue dye.
“Ugh…”
The already repulsive tumor looked even more grotesque and spine-chilling.
“That’s a special pigment. Don’t mind it. See how it blends in with the intestinal folds? If you don’t catch the angle just right, even an experienced doctor can miss it. In fact, there’s a good chance it was hiding behind a fold two months ago and simply didn’t show.”
“So the other hospital didn’t make a mistake?”
“I’m not trying to defend a fellow physician, but yes. Finding something like this is pure luck. And a tumor—not even a polyp—in someone in their twenties.”
He moved the mouse and keyboard again. The screen changed, showing the place where the grotesque mass had been.
“A little later and we would have been in real trouble. I’m not just saying you were lucky. This kind grows fast and turns into cancer easily.”
“Cancer…?”
To a woman who had only just entered her mid-twenties, the word still felt impossibly distant.
“Yes. And at this size it was just about the maximum we could still remove by endoscope. Any larger and you would have needed general anesthesia at a university hospital and a section of bowel cut out.”
“···!”
“But don’t worry too much. As you can see, we scraped the tumor clean all the way to the root. Those clips will come out on their own naturally.”
Her lips finally moved in a trembling voice.
“Th-then… what happens to me now?”
“You’ve cleared the biggest hurdle, at least. If the biopsy comes back as an adenoma, you’re cured. Even if it’s early-stage cancer, we simply proceed with the appropriate follow-up procedures and check-ups.”
Even the doctor’s calm reply left Han I-ju uneasy. She clasped her hands together, eyes desperate.
“Really—truly—I can be completely cured, right? Right?”
“That’s right. You don’t need to worry yourself sick. I keep saying you were lucky, but…”
The doctor, who had spoken the entire time with an expressionless face, turned his head and met her eyes.
“You really were lucky. Most people in their twenties never even think of getting a colonoscopy. We’ll call you as soon as the biopsy results come in. Just come back then.”
He swung the monitor back toward himself and gave her a light nod.
“…Yes. Thank you.”
That was the end of the consultation.
Han I-ju walked out of the exam room looking half-dazed. The eyes of the people waiting for their turn brushed across her pale face and then moved on.
“Next—Jeong Kwon-sik. Please come in.”
A nurse called the name of the next patient.
No one comforted her. No one approached. In a place like this, patients who looked exactly like her were far from rare.
She left the hospital and wandered aimlessly until she stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and murmured under her breath.
“Lucky, he said…”
If you wanted to call it luck, then yes, it was luck. But there had been someone who had predicted it with perfect accuracy.
The scene from that day rose vividly in her mind. The male shaman who had been reading her additional fortune—Park Su-hwan.
He had stopped shaking his bells and stared straight through her abdomen. She had been about to ask why he was suddenly acting that way when—
There’s something in your belly. Like a black lump.
He had said it flatly.
In a voice so low and dry it was almost inhuman—an alien tone she had never heard during the entire reading.
From the shaman had poured an uncanny, untouchable pressure, as if some being that transcended the natural order of the world was looking out through his eyes.
The lighthearted man who had brightened at the mention of extra bokchae was nowhere to be found. For a moment the change was so dramatic she wondered whether she had dreamed it.
Crushed by the atmosphere, she had barely been able to open her mouth.
Come to think of it… the shrine had suddenly turned cold, too.
There hadn’t even been an air conditioner. That abrupt drop in temperature had been unmistakably strange.
Then another of the shaman’s words overlapped with the doctor’s dry voice in her head.
Just wait half a year.
This has a higher recurrence rate than ordinary polyps. So in six months you absolutely must get another endoscopy for follow-up observation.
“He got every single thing right…”
Not one of Park Su-hwan’s statements had missed. The accuracy was enough to raise gooseflesh.
— Brrriing-brrriing-brrriing!
“Ah!”
The phone in her pocket blared. Startled, she pressed a hand to her chest and checked the caller.
Her beloved mother. She answered in a hurry.
“…Hello? Mom!”
“Ugh… I really don’t want to go.”
Park Su-hwan kept sighing as he dragged his heavy feet forward.
“It’s seriously hot enough to die.”
Brutal heat poured down from overhead. On a day like this the only sensible thing was to hole up in the shrine and sit under a fan.
But of course today had to be the day.
Choi Young-gam had come to the shrine and hounded him until he agreed to come help out at Mansindang.
Doesn’t even look like business is booming. Why does he keep asking me for help?
Su-hwan grumbled without pause. The steamy heat kept poking at his already foul mood.
Still, there was a reason he was heading to Mansindang even while complaining.
Most of the ritual tools in his shrine—no, every last one of them—had either been sold to him at a discount by Choi Young-gam or simply given away free.
“This time I should ask for a fan and some ritual vessels.”
The fan he had abused in flashy performances had lost half its feathers, and the vessels had snapped clean in two after he got cocky trying to build an impressive peach tower and dropped them on the floor.
“He can at least spare me that much.”
Su-hwan’s eyes gleamed as he muttered.
Obviously the old man was going to put him to heavy labor—folding talismans, hauling crates. And now that his leg was no longer crippled, he couldn’t even use that excuse anymore.
So if he was going to suffer, he might as well pocket something for himself.
In front of Mansindang, Choi Young-gam was talking with a customer. Su-hwan watched him and murmured,
Having a working leg really does make a difference.
Ordinarily the walk would have taken forever. Now he wasn’t even out of breath, and his left leg didn’t hurt at all. Of course his walking speed had picked up.
Health really is the best thing there is.
“Old man. I’m here.”
Su-hwan jerked his chin at Choi Young-gam. The old man waved him inside with a rough gesture and turned straight back to his customer.
“Do you have any idea how precious this is?”
One of the few customers the tool shop ever saw. Choi Young-gam was delivering a longer sales pitch than usual.
Geez. I’m just a total spare tire around here.
Su-hwan walked into the shop and dropped onto a wooden chair.
“You won’t find this easily anywhere else. A wine cup carved from a tree that grew deep in the heart of Seorak Mountain.”
Deep in Seorak Mountain, my ass. That thing was obviously stamped out in a factory.
Look at that glossy, shiny finish. No handmade piece ever came out looking like that.
He had known Choi Young-gam for years. By now he should have been used to the old man’s smooth lies that poured out the moment he opened his mouth.
Unfortunately the customer, who didn’t know any better, was nodding and staring at the cup as if hypnotized.
He’s got himself a sucker. Hook, line, and sinker. Tsk tsk.
Just then a soft voice came from the back.
“Oh? You’re here early.”
It was Choi Hana, carrying boxes. White dust already clung to her cheeks and hair; she must have been working for a while.
“You’re really putting in the work.”
“Why do you say that?”
“What else? You’re the only one left who can do heavy lifting in this falling-down place.”
“That’s not true. Now there’s Oppa too. But…”
Choi Hana pointed at the chair he was sitting on.
“Are you sure it’s all right to sit there?”