Fate Written in Gray
"H-hello? Teacher! Teacher!!"
Han Seung-ju's desperate cries burst from the phone lying on the floor. But right now, not a single sound reached Park Su-hwan's ears.
His gaze was locked on the ledger, unmoving.
He couldn't even form words at the unbelievable reality before him. It was a color he had never once seen, never once imagined.
Gray lettering…
And more than that, it was bone-dry, as if decades had already passed. As if it had been written there long, long ago.
"Teacher! Can't you hear me…"
The dropped call vibrated back to life. With a trembling hand, Park Su-hwan fumbled for the phone and managed to answer.
"I'll call you back later. I'm a little busy right now…"
"Ah, understood."
Heavy silence settled over the shrine once more. Carefully, Park Su-hwan traced the gray letters with his finger.
Along with the texture of parched paper came a strangely unpleasant cold. He let out a hollow laugh at the absurd situation.
Harsh fate had come for Oh Seok-ju wearing another mask. And Park Su-hwan had never noticed.
He checked the time of death recorded at the bottom of Oh Seok-ju's entry. The time left in this world was barely an hour.
"…Tsk."
Unfortunately, there was nothing Park Su-hwan could do. The man's fate had already slipped from his hands and fled far away.
Besides, he was no doctor, and he possessed no power to revive the dead.
What the hell is going on?
No matter how he thought about it, this did not look like a natural death. The letter color he had never seen before was proof enough.
…Is this because I twisted fate once?
Yes. As if in retribution, fate had returned to Oh Seok-ju in an even more horrific form.
Originally, he should have died instantly in a fall. Now he was dying slowly, suffering terrible agony from the same accident.
Not even compound interest.
So a second death gets marked in gray? Like some kind of brand.
Park Su-hwan chewed on his fingernail, muttering to himself.
"Kang-kang."
Baekya flailed his front paws and shoved the hand away, as if telling him to stop. Park Su-hwan stroked the puppy's head and focused on the ledger again.
It can't be the Reapers who intervened. Or maybe Princess Bari?
It was a plausible enough theory—trying to restore the twisted heavenly order.
But there was one problem with that hypothesis. Everyone else recorded in the ledger still had blank times and causes of death; their ends had not been fixed.
Even Old Man Choi, who had been on the verge of dying any day now.
"Ah…!"
That was when it hit him. The damp black ink that appeared when fate was changed. The character for empty flashed through his mind.
What if it didn't simply mean the fate had been altered recently, but that it was still unconfirmed?
An unstable state that could flip at any moment, just as the word said.
"That would actually make sense…"
But the same question snagged him again.
Why only Oh Seok-ju?
"Aaaah…"
He could find no certain answer. Only one fact was certain.
Oh Seok-ju, who had fallen because he wasn't wearing a safety harness.
Safety negligence had been the cause—yet even that had ultimately been designed by the vast force called fate.
"Did something happen?"
Seo Da-eun studied Park Su-hwan's face with worried eyes. The deep dark circles and hollow look belonged to a man who clearly hadn't slept.
"No…"
He couldn't admit he'd stayed up all night on the phone with Han Seung-ju.
It had been a long conversation, but the conclusion was one: this too was Oh Seok-ju's fate, the domain of heaven that humans could not touch. He had drawn a firm line.
Honestly, saving the man once already had been enough. For both Park Su-hwan and Han Seung-ju.
Without them, Oh Seok-ju would have died two days ago, as fate had written.
"I stayed up offering prayers."
Park Su-hwan lied without changing expression.
"Aah… Sleep is the most important thing. Good thing I brought this."
Seo Da-eun set a white shopping bag on the divination table.
"What's this?"
"Supplements. I only picked the really effective ones."
A practical yet thoughtful gift, just as one would expect from a nurse. Come to think of it, this might have been the first time in his life he'd received supplements as a present.
Smiling, Park Su-hwan peeked inside the bag. Omega-3, every kind of vitamin—at a glance, nothing was missing. There were even jelly vitamins.
"You didn't have to bring anything like this… I only passed on the General's words."
He said it was fine and tried to draw a line, but his hand was already on the shopping bag.
"Come on. Closing my mouth for a single peach wouldn't sit right with my conscience."
She put on a deliberately stern face and added,
"So please keep reading my fortune a lot, okay?"
What is this? In the end she's saying take the vitamins and live long enough to wipe the wall with your own shit so you can keep reading my fortune?
Of course. Naturally.
He was already thrashing around just to avoid being torn limb from limb by the Samchasa. Longevity had become Park Su-hwan's wish without him noticing.
"…Understood. Looking at how bright your expression is, things must have worked out well."
"Tsk. It's still early to say things worked out, but I think I'll get a conclusion that clears my chest completely."
"You reap what you sow, it seems."
"Right. Do you know how amazing it is every time you say that?"
"What is?"
"The way you talk and act like you see through everything. Like I'm sitting in the Buddha's palm. How did you know?"
"…"
Anyone in Park Su-hwan's position would have noticed easily.
Of course she had come smiling with a bag full of supplements because things had gone well.
"If something bad had happened, you wouldn't have been able to visit. You'd be too busy."
"Oh. You're right."
"I wasn't trying to point that out. More importantly—what happened to that person?"
Park Su-hwan casually asked about the thing he'd been curious about.
The head nurse who had tried to frame Seo Da-eun for a medication error to cover up her own embezzlement.
A woman who had held a patient's life hostage for her own safety. Even the word vicious fell short of describing her.
Seo Da-eun knew at once who he meant.
"She's been removed from all duties, and an internal investigation is underway. All that's left is for her to get fired."
"Oh-ho… That far?"
"Don't play dumb. You told me everything."
Yes. Seo Da-eun had simply repeated what Park Su-hwan had told her.
"She couldn't even move."
She had shoved a recording of the head nurse trying to pin the epinephrine error on her. The woman who had been pretending ignorance shut her mouth in an instant.
Just remembering that ashen face made her want to laugh again. After everything she had endured, the vindication felt thoroughly refreshing.
"Oh, right. When I tried to check the chart, she rushed me, saying she was busy. Like she was trying to stop me from seeing it."
Without Park Su-hwan, she would have dismissed the head nurse's behavior as nothing special.
They had been busy, after all. But if she had, she would have been trapped as the culprit of the medication error with no way out.
"She's a ridiculous woman. Han Jin-ah too."
Han Jin-ah. If another name was coming up besides the head nurse, it had to be the real culprit who had mishandled the epinephrine.
With his sharp instincts, Park Su-hwan realized who she was.
"What happened to her?"
"It might have started as a mistake, but she altered the chart and tried to cover it up. So she'll be punished the same as the head nurse."
"She won't be able to work in medicine anymore."
"Probably. I'm also planning to file a separate lawsuit. I intend to make her pay properly. The hospital is taking its own measures as well."
"Cause and effect. Right makes might in the end, doesn't it? You reap what you sow."
"Exactly. After causing every accident imaginable, asking for mercy now? In a place where you're supposed to save patients' lives? That's absurd."
"It is. I'm glad."
"Really, truly, thank you. Because of you, both the patient and I survived."
Thanks to Park Su-hwan, the patient hadn't missed the golden hour. Otherwise he would have been lying in intensive care by now—or, in the worst case, dead.
It had been that lethal a drug.
"I didn't do much. In the end, it was all you, Da-eun."
Preparing a recorder to capture the head nurse's orders, securing the original chart, informing the doctor of the error so treatment could happen in time—
Every one of those things she had accomplished by running herself ragged. Park Su-hwan had done nothing. He had only pointed the way.
That's right. Fate has to be moved by oneself…
Ah.
In that moment, the reason fate had returned for Oh Seok-ju flashed through his mind.
Oh Seok-ju had possessed no will to defy his cruel fate. He had merely been shoved into survival by Han Seung-ju.
Even without seeing how Han Seung-ju had persuaded him, it was obvious.
He must have clung to the man's pant leg and begged. That was the only way to move someone so stubborn.
But the Seo Da-eun before him was different. She had harbored a powerful will of her own and resisted her harsh fate.
That was the decisive difference between Oh Seok-ju and them.
The old saying went: sincerity moves heaven. With extreme devotion, even fixed fate could be changed, for heaven itself would be moved.
Fate only changed when you moved it yourself. You had to grit your teeth and run so hard that fate itself couldn't catch you.
But Oh Seok-ju had not done that.
"Did you see this?"
Slap!
So-hee, the Monthly Messenger, thrust the ledger at Ganglim Doryeong.
"This bastard changed fate again."
Murderous energy poured from her entire body. If the ledger thief had been standing in front of her, she looked ready to take his head that very second.