Fortune Begets Calamity
"Whew~ I'm stuffed!"
After dinner, we headed home. Like most young newlyweds, we lived in a compact one-room apartment — a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom, one of each.
"Oppa, I'll wash up first!"
Ju-hee had come in ahead of me and was already peeling off her clothes. Whether it sprang from her straightforward nature or not, my wife placed a high premium on cleanliness. After eating something that clung to you the way gopchang did — grilled tripe, her favorite — she liked to get in the shower right away.
I'd quit smoking because of her, too. Ju-hee hated the smell of cigarettes more than anything in the world.
"Sure, go ahead."
I knew this about my wife better than anyone. I nodded and sank onto the sofa — and there, already, was Ju-hee, stripped of everything but her underwear.
...
A pair of pure-white undergarments rested lightly upon her pale skin.
Same as ever.
Ju-hee was thirty-one this year. It wasn't the dewy bloom of first youth, exactly — but that stretch of time when what youth remained was being enriched by a deepening maturity. And her body was so exceptional as to seem almost unreal; the moment the clothes came off, a beauty that had been hidden revealed itself in full.
Has she gotten even more beautiful?
I should say, my wife was rather conservative when it came to matters of the flesh. The present situation was different — we were husband and wife, and she needed to wash quickly, so the underwear was only practical — but day to day she always dressed in clothes that showed as little skin as possible. She knew perfectly well how her body looked to other people.
It really doesn't make any sense.
Still, I'd been so curious that I'd once asked her, very carefully, what size she was. She'd been terribly embarrassed, but in a small voice she'd told me: G-cup. A, B, C, D, E, F — and then G. Between the fabric, her breasts swelled in pale, rolling waves. Slide that scrap of cloth aside even a little, and the hidden pink of her nipples would come into view.
A chest that size, and yet...
The heavens were anything but fair. For all that my wife possessed a chest like that, there wasn't a spare ounce of flesh on her. The line of her waist tapered smoothly inward, then flared at the hips like the curve of a vase. Her taut rear overflowed the white panties that couldn't quite contain it. I knew the spring of those swaying hips firsthand — remarkable. Every time my fingers closed around them, her flesh seemed to melt into the spaces between.
Her long, cleanly extended legs were no less impressive. On days when work left me exhausted, resting my head on her thighs was a heaven all its own. They say a beautiful woman even smells sweet — lie down there, and every worry in the world simply vanished—
"Oppa?"
"Hm?"
The reverie that had been unspooling in my head broke off at Ju-hee's voice. My eyes found my wife in her underwear, her head tipped to one side.
"What are you staring at? Is something on me?"
She twisted, trying to look back over her own shoulder. Of course she couldn't see anything that way. The sight of her trying was so endearing that I answered with a light laugh.
"No, nothing. I was just... looking because you're beautiful."
The head she'd turned away snapped back to face me in an instant. She held my gaze for a moment, then glanced down at her own body.
"Hmm~"
She drew the sound out and walked toward me. Then she perched on the sofa, right at my side.
"What, is that an invitation? You want to do it today?"
She looked at me with a bashful little smile.
...
At the sight of my lovely wife, blood stirred lightly through my lower body. For someone as conservative as she was, the invitation was truly rare. Every instinct I had wanted to throw her down on the bed then and there — but I held myself back.
"Not tonight. Next time."
Tomorrow was the meeting where we would decide which buyer to sell the memory chips we'd been developing. I might well be up all night. I needed to conserve my strength.
"Aww, you're no fun."
Ju-hee gave a small snort of laughter, rose, and walked toward the bathroom. I watched the beautiful line of her back recede, my body still restless with blood — and shook my head. There was important work ahead. Tonight, I would refrain.
And so I sank deeper into the sofa, and stayed there.
Did I leave too early?
The next morning, on my way to work, I drove beneath the deep-blue sky peculiar to the hours before dawn.
I barely slept at all.
Was it because of the important matter ahead? I couldn't sink into any real sleep. After tossing and turning more times than I could count, I gave up on rest entirely and resolved to go in early.
It's still a secret from Ju-hee, after all...
Selling the memory we'd developed was the company's dearest wish, and my own. This was not a hope, not a maybe. It was not a question of whether we could pull it off. We had to. The survival of the company hung on it.
We needed tangible results to show the investors who had backed us, and we needed to compensate, in real money, the employees who had worked for us all this time. If this deal fell through, we would quite literally be out on the street.
If I stay home, I'll only end up worrying her.
That was why I hadn't told my wife, either. Telling her would only make her anxious for nothing. The work had to be done regardless — and if that was the case, wasn't it better to finish everything first, and then tell her with a smile?
Just get to the office and start preparing for the meeting.
And so today's commute was earlier than usual. The empty pre-dawn roads were a pleasure to drive. I arrived at the company building in the small hours, parked on the surface lot, and was about to head upstairs when I noticed someone I didn't recognize standing in front of the building.
Who is that?
Beside the front entrance, an old man sat on a straw mat he had spread on the ground. He wore a grey beanie and shabby monastic robes. His face was aged, his frame thin and frail, as though the strength had gone out of him.
He doesn't look like a vagrant, though.
He seemed merely depleted, not unsavory. If anything, the impression he gave off was one of detachment — a free-spiritedness unbound by the ordinary world.
Even so, spreading a mat and sitting like that in front of the building was unsightly.
I should say something... no. Never mind.
I considered it for a moment, then let it go. Once the sun was up and the building manager arrived, it would be sorted out. There was no need to involve myself.
And so I started to walk past him.
"You look to be a man much burdened by thought."
"...Pardon?"
At the old man's words, my feet stopped. There was no need to look around. The only people here were the two of us.
"When one's thoughts have grown long and tangled upon themselves, it is not always unwise to borrow, now and then, the power of the heavens."
The old man in the beanie went on. His eyes were closed, his face turned downward — and still it felt as though he were speaking directly to me.
"What say you? If you would grant me a moment of your time, I should like to exercise a modest talent of mine and offer you some assistance..."
Having said this, the old man brought his palms together in a gesture of greeting.
I stood there awkwardly, one hand on the door handle. I had meant to go in; I had even gripped the handle. But at the old man's words, the hand that had been pulling lost its strength.
Clunk. The glass door I'd started to open swung back to where it had been. And then my legs were moving.
When I came back to myself, I was already crouched in front of the old man.
Huh.
Realizing what I'd done, I let out a dry little laugh inside my head.
I've really been driven to the edge, haven't I.
On any ordinary day I would never have believed in this kind of superstition. I would have walked right past. But perhaps because of the weight of what lay ahead, some part of me wanted comfort — even from a place like this.
"Help me, you say... in what manner, exactly?"
A fortune? A reading of my luck? He would ask for a little money in return, no doubt.
That much I can spare.
I was fully prepared to pay. I was already reaching into my pocket for my wallet when—
"Ah, I have no need of money. I merely wished to offer a little aid to a young man with much on his mind..."
The old man shook his head, declining. Then he opened the eyes he had kept closed, and from his robes he drew a wooden disc.
Heavenly Flow Board
A wooden disc divided down the center, as though a cake had been cut in two. Upon either side, the characters for Moon and Sun were carved large. A device that gazes upon a person's life as one might gaze upon the heavens.
"This is called the Cheonryu-pan — a device that gazes upon a person's life as one might gaze upon the heavens."
"Would you show me your palm?"
After that, the old man took down the ordinary particulars — my date of birth and the like — and turned the disc left and right a dozen-odd times. And when the motion stopped—
"Ah... this."
The old man's expression hardened, just slightly. Mine tightened with it. I had gotten caught up in the atmosphere, and there was a professionalism in the way he handled himself that made me genuinely curious about the result.
Fortune Begets Calamity
When a great blessing overflows, misfortune is born.
A tremendous stroke of luck will, in turn, become disaster.
"A reading has emerged that warrants the gravest caution. Fortune begets calamity — it means a tremendous stroke of luck will, in turn, become misfortune."
I swallowed. What did it mean, that a great fortune would become a misfortune?
Tap.
Having said this, the old man slipped the disc back into his robes and rose. He tied up the straw mat from the ground, slung it over his back, and, looking at me still frozen in place, offered a kindly smile.
"Heh heh. Do not take what I have just said too much to heart. It was merely the counsel of an old man wandering the world... Remain composed, and make a wise choice, and at the crossroads you will instead grasp good fortune in your hands."
With that, the old man walked off somewhere. The strange encounter I had been given in the small hours, before the day had even broken, ended there.
And that I should have heeded his advice without fail — I would come to understand that far, far too late.