A Pearl Necklace on a Pig's Neck
Baek Do-jin had his hair slicked completely back with wax and wore an expensive suit. Just as he flung his phone onto the passenger seat with a look of pure irritation—
“...?”
A pale-faced kid suddenly stuck his head through the open car window and spoke up. And he did it with eyes that made it impossible to tell where he was even looking.
“Don’t drink today.”
“Ha… Seriously.”
He was already fuming, irritation climbing all the way to the top of his head because everything at work had gone sideways.
The contract with the foreign investor who had promised to invest aggressively in the company had completely fallen through.
“Honestly, you’ve been lucky so far.”
But when some crazy bastard came out of nowhere and picked a fight, his exasperation boiled past absurdity into murderous intent.
“Driving while out of your mind. Right?”
“What… Now every psycho’s coming after me.”
Baek Do-jin rolled up his shirt sleeve. A threatening tattoo covering his entire forearm was revealed.
“You really wanna die?”
He looked ready to jump out of the car and start swinging his fists at any second. Normally a threat like this would make anyone lower their tail and back off.
Especially with his rough looks and the tattoos on top of it.
“Hyung. Why are you suddenly like this? Let’s go already.”
The much younger-looking guy next to him was fidgeting and reading the room. Baek Do-jin snapped at him.
“If you’re sick, you should be stuck in a hospital. Who knows what might happen to you out here.”
“S-sorry, hyung. Let’s just go, okay?”
But the psycho didn’t even blink. He just kept staring straight at Baek Do-jin.
“Left.”
Those pitch-black eyes devoid of any emotion grated on him.
“...?”
That was when it happened. Baek Do-jin was suddenly enveloped in a strange, bizarre pressure that made him feel as if he had become a tiny speck of dust.
“Turn the wheel to the left. That way you won’t die?”
It was an unpleasant sensation he had never felt in his life. He forced himself to turn his head and break eye contact. He did not want to meet that weird bastard’s eyes.
Before he knew it, the light had turned green.
“Ugh…”
Baek Do-jin ignored the words and floored the pedal. With a heavy engine roar, the car shot forward.
“Whoa!”
Lee Han-gyeol, watching the car vanish in an instant, quickly turned his gaze to Park Su-hwan, who had collapsed onto the ground.
“Wow. He really just left. Hyung, are you okay?”
If he’d been even a little later, he might have been crushed under the wheels. That was how close it had been—if Lee Han-gyeol hadn’t grabbed Park Su-hwan and yanked him back in time.
“No. Why all of a sudden…”
“Some random people, you know.”
“Huh?”
Lee Han-gyeol looked down at him as if he couldn’t understand. He’d suddenly claimed his mouth was itchy and picked a fight with a driver who was just waiting at the light.
It was behavior that made no sense by any normal standards.
“It’s fine. My mouth doesn’t itch anymore.”
But the one who had caused the ruckus, Park Su-hwan, casually brushed off his backside and stood up.
The day after he went to church with Lee Han-gyeol, Park Su-hwan dressed as usual in his colorful traditional robes with a blue headband around his head.
—Swish!
Then he roughly scattered rice grains across the divination table as if throwing them.
“Hmm…”
And just like always, he glared at the rice with a serious expression. As if he could see something, even though nothing was visible.
“S-so, how is it?”
The middle-aged woman, unable to wait even through that brief silence, leaned in close and asked.
She’s impatient, all right.
“Wait.”
Park Su-hwan raised his eyes and glared fiercely at the woman sitting in front of him.
“Th-that… Yes.”
Overwhelmed by his aura, she closed her mouth hurriedly after starting to say something more.
Park Su-hwan forced down the sigh that threatened to escape. Then he glanced at the male student sitting next to the woman, completely cowed.
Age in her fifties. Said she’d come alone.
She had definitely said so when making the reservation over the phone. But he never expected her to show up without a word, bringing her middle-school-aged son.
Even as a fraudulent shaman, he had a few rules he stuck to. And one of them was: no minors allowed in the shrine.
Like other shamans, he claimed it was because their spirits were still pure and easily attracted evil spirits.
But Park Su-hwan’s true reason was completely different. He simply didn’t want to scam kids out of their pocket money either.
Besides, kids were so gullible.
There was also the reason that a single careless word he blurted out could cause some butterfly effect later on.
Because of that, he’d wanted to kick the two of them out from the start, but seeing them arrive covered in sweat, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Preparing for a special-purpose high school?”
“Yes. My kid is applying this time, and I was curious how it’ll turn out. He absolutely has to get in.”
How it’ll turn out? It’ll turn out according to how much he prepared.
That was always what he thought when reading luck for admissions, but he never once said it out loud.
Clients who came to the shrine didn’t want to hear the obvious.
Park Su-hwan pretended to be deep in thought as he fiddled with the scattered rice.
Info. Not enough info.
To say something that sounded plausible, you needed to know at least a little about the other person.
“A special high school, huh…”
So Park Su-hwan deliberately muttered low enough for her to hear.
“Will he definitely get in? It’s really, really important.”
And she took the bait right away.
“…Why?”
“Because then it’ll be a bit easier for him to become a doctor.”
“A doctor?”
“Yes. I looked it up, and on average, special high school students have an overwhelmingly high rate of getting into medical school. So if he gets in this time, he’ll walk an easy path to success compared to others.”
So in the end, she’s a mom who wants to send her son to med school.
It wasn’t a sight he was seeing for the first or second time, so it wasn’t particularly surprising. Park Su-hwan’s gaze naturally settled on the male student.
Drooping shoulders, a scrawny, emaciated body, and vacant, hollow eyes without focus.
The kid looked like he could pass out and collapse at any moment without it being strange.
Just like a dried-up tree branch.
One with all the moisture completely sucked out and withered.
Looking at the kid, Park Su-hwan noticed one fact. Namely, that he wasn’t the least bit curious about his own admissions results.
How could that be? They’re talking about his future… Normally you’d be at least a little curious.
“There’s a saying that you have to button the first button right. And here, that’s getting into special high school.”
He clicked his tongue as he watched the woman rattle off her son’s plans the moment he set the stage.
I can roughly tell how things work in that household. That’s why the kid’s face looks like that.
“Why a doctor out of all the things there are?”
“Well, of course, because you can get both money and prestige. If that happens, then my son…”
The woman’s eyes went hazy in an instant. He could tell the reason without asking.
She was probably picturing a future where her son became a doctor and succeeded.
It’s not like a child is a trophy. What the hell is this? Couldn’t she see her child’s face, looking like he could drop dead any second?
“But I wonder if the kid understands his parents’ hearts. How we’re sending him to every kind of tutoring and academy we can, even though we don’t have the means, just to make him a doctor. Sigh.”
Park Su-hwan nearly let out a hollow laugh at her shameless words.
Lie. It’s not your son’s dream—it’s yours.
“You should really be grateful to your mom. She’s going to squeeze every last bit she poured into you out of you later, so know that.”
The more he looked, the more ridiculous it was. Was her child an investment product or something?
“This is how I live, Teacher. You just saw, right? How he doesn’t even answer properly.”
What am I supposed to do about this?
Saying what she wanted to hear wasn’t hard. He just had to say he could get into special high school.
But the problem was that son.
A doctor? From the look of him, he really didn’t want to do it. And how thoroughly must she have hounded him for him to be so completely broken?
If he took her side in that situation, the kid’s insides would definitely turn over.
Moreover, Park Su-hwan intuited it.
That any light word he casually tossed out right now might give her a free pass for the violence and obsession she was wielding against her child.
“You’ve raised your son well.”
So he decided to help the child in the only way he could.
“R-really?”
“Yeah.”
Park Su-hwan’s words, tossed out nonchalantly as he looked down at the divination table. As if that single phrase was comfort, she smiled brightly and said,
“As the saying goes, I’m working myself hard.”
“That’s right, Teacher. My husband and I have done every kind of work there is. That’s how we can cover the academy and tutoring fees. It’s not a small amount, so it’s killing us.”
Park Su-hwan nodded as if empathizing with her words.
“Then let me ask just one thing.”
“Yes, Teacher. Anything.”
Build-up. When you want to reel someone in and completely overpower them, you need meticulous groundwork. So up to now, he’d said things that suited her taste.
“Why are you going out of your way to suffer when you don’t have to?”
Now it was time to set fire to the tower he’d built. And make it burn fiercely.
“…Suffer when I don’t have to?”
“Even if you leave him alone, that kid will take care of himself just fine. So why are you wrecking your own body taking on pointless hardship? You get me?”
“What do you mean by that…”
“That kid is this household’s lucky charm. Our General says a very precious lucky charm has arrived, and he’s been raising a ruckus since earlier.”
“Huk. Really? Then my kid…!”
The woman’s eyes instantly gleamed with greed. Seeing that, Park Su-hwan nearly spat out a curse from the disgust.
“Looking at him, the pregnancy dream must have been extraordinary too, right?”
“Th-that’s right! Before I gave birth, I dreamed of a dragon ascending to the heavens!”
As expected.
Park Su-hwan sneered as he watched her excitedly play along. Types like her would invent facts that didn’t exist and boast if you just set the stage.
Of course, she might really have seen a loach or a dragon or whatever before giving birth.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she answered yes.
“So you want to make your son a doctor for money and prestige?”
“That’s right! That’s the best, isn’t it?”
“Your dreams are small. Honestly… The General’s words weren’t wrong at all.”
Park Su-hwan clicked his tongue and shook his head at her.
“W-what words?”
“Well. How should I put this.”
“...?”
He paused for a moment and stared quietly at her. Then, as if a fun idea had struck him, he grinned and said,
“A pearl necklace on a pig’s neck. Yeah. That fits perfectly.”
The corners of her smiling mouth slowly fell.
“Excuse me…?”
“You’re tying down a dragon that should be soaring through the sky and trying to shape it to your own taste. Isn’t that right?”
“To my own taste?”
“That’s right!”
Park Su-hwan’s eyes flashed as he suddenly shouted. Startled, she flinched hard.
“When you should be treating him like gold and jade and doting on him, and it’s still not enough! Ha! What? You stupid woman!”
“St-stupid? Your words are too…”
“Every time this happens, my insides turn over and my chest bursts—I can’t live! Why on earth did Heaven send that great dragon to such a foolish, petty person!”
His fierce scolding thundered through the cramped shrine. Thoroughly cowed, she could barely open and close her mouth.
Park Su-hwan, secretly satisfied with his fully warmed-up acting, glanced at the boy with his head bowed.
Hey. See that? I’m chewing out your mom for you.
He hoped that through his actions, the wounds the boy had received until now would heal even a little.
“…So you’re saying I did wrong?”
She moved her lips with difficulty, looking wronged.
“What have you been listening to so far?”
“How much effort I’ve put in for the child…!”
“Effort? Hey.”
The woman’s actions were nothing more than wrapping her own desires in the packaging of love.
That was why Park Su-hwan could speak firmly.
“Just think about helping him up when he falls.”
Because using your child to fill your own greed could never be love, even if you died and came back to life.
At that moment, he met eyes with the child who raised his head for the first time.
“That’s what a real parent is.”