Qualifications of a Parent [2]
The one who picked up the phone was not Assemblyman Choi Sun-woo.
"The Assemblyman is giving a speech at the moment, so I, his secretary, answered in his place."
"A speech? Choi Sun-woo is giving a speech right now?"
"Yes, the general election is only three days away, so this is his busiest period."
Oh, damn it!
The secretary was right—the final three days before a general election were the busiest time for any candidate. It was when they had to seize every last vote, and only slight exaggeration would call it the three most important days of the entire campaign.
And then—
"Secretary Kim, whose call is it?"
"Ah, Assemblyman, it's a call from someone named Kim Yi-yeon. He says he has something he must deliver to you personally..."
"Mr. Kim Dosa!? Put him through right now."
Choi Sun-woo took the phone.
"Mr. Kim Dosa! It's been so long. I trust you've been well? But this thing you said you had to tell me...?"
"It's exactly what you're thinking."
"I knew it! Ahh! Thank you! Honestly, when you turned down my request, I was at a complete loss for what to do... I never dreamed you'd bring me such joyful news out of the blue like this..."
"However, the situation has gotten rather ugly."
"...Has something happened to her?"
"How long are you planning to keep up this speech?"
"..."
"Lee Jin-ah—or rather, Lee Jin-seol—is your daughter, isn't she?"
"...Sharp as ever. When did you figure it out?"
"Saying 'from the very beginning' would be a lie, but I suspected it from the moment we first met. For a man who'd taken a lover into his home, there wasn't a single trace of a sexual relationship in that house, was there? And those books in the study—every last one of them was about the relationship between parents and children, and specifically about communicating with grown children."
"Hahaha... I hid it as best I could, yet you saw through it this easily... My eye for people really was accurate after all... But please, don't misunderstand. I had my own reasons for not telling you the truth, Mr. Kim Dosa..."
"I'll hear those reasons later. Let's get to the point—Lee Jin-seol is dying."
"I'm sorry?"
"She's already lost over a liter of blood from hemorrhaging. If she doesn't get a transfusion immediately, she dies. But..."
I turned around and looked at Lee Jin-seol, who was staring at the phone call with hollow eyes.
"Lee Jin-seol is -D-, isn't she? Just like you, Choi Sun-woo."
-D-, known as "buh-di-buh-di-buh" (reading the minus sign as "buh"), is an extremely rare blood type found in less than 1% of the world's population under the Rh classification system [one method of blood typing].
In the Rh system, blood type is determined by the major antigens in a person's blood—[C, c], D, and [E, e]—and -D- refers to the peculiar case where [C, c] and [E, e] are both absent.
That's why -D- is called buh-di-buh-di-buh or simply D-type. A full explanation would take too long, so let me sum up only what matters right now.
"A person with -D- can only receive blood from another person with -D-."
Tracking down one of those ten people right now and begging for a transfusion was, in practice, impossible. And with high probability, the hospital wouldn't have a -D- blood pack either.
Just in case, I shot a glance at Hwang Young-gyu, who was quick on the uptake and was already calling hospitals—but no luck.
Nothing. As expected.
"...What will you do, Choi Sun-woo?"
In the end, Lee Jin-seol's life rested in his hands.
"..."
Choi Sun-woo fell silent.
Well, it was only natural for him to hesitate—it was his re-election on the line. And in the worst case...
He might not come.
The transfusion itself would be surprisingly quick. The problem was that until barely half an hour ago, Lee Jin-seol had been inside the Inner Space of a high-grade anomaly.
Powerful anomalies draw lesser anomalies to them by their very nature. And people exposed to a powerful anomaly can themselves trigger spiritual disturbances large and small. In a word, they're in a state of spiritual contamination.
The survivors caught in Saerae's Inner Space had been quarantined in a hotel for nearly a week afterward. I was released earlier, being a psychic myself, but the Paranormal Administration Bureau still warned me that I wasn't completely safe and to refrain from going out or contacting others for at least a week.
Of course, Choi Sun-woo meeting Lee Jin-seol would count as secondary exposure rather than primary, so the effect would be comparatively minor. Even so, he would need to maintain some form of isolation for at least a day or two.
The final three days before the general election—the stretch that decides the last shift of the race. I didn't need to explain how fatal it would be to throw those days away.
And frankly, it would be more advantageous for Choi Sun-woo to let Lee Jin-seol die just as she is.
I didn't know what had happened between the two of them, but Lee Jin-seol, who had worked as a psychic mercenary taking on every dirty job imaginable, was nothing but a liability to him. I had no idea what he'd been thinking when he accepted her—a woman who had come to him carrying a curse—into his home. But whether he'd give up his election to save her? Questionable...
"I'm coming. Which hospital should I go to?"
"Assemblyman!?"
His secretary cried out in shock.
"This is absurd!? From this moment on you have district visits, the final campaign rallies, countless places you need to appear! If you suddenly do this now...!"
"Secretary Kim, I'm sorry. But I have to go."
Choi Sun-woo was resolute.
At that point, Hwang Young-gyu stepped forward and provided the optimal hospital, factoring in the helicopter's current flight path and Choi Sun-woo's arrival time.
"Understood. I'll leave at once."
"No need—wait where you are. We've received a great deal of help from you, Assemblyman, so Cosmos will send a helicopter."
...Apparently there was some connection between Choi Sun-woo and Cosmos after all. Well, come to think of it, wasn't that man a hardline supporter of psychics? It would hardly be strange for him to be tied to Cosmos, which was openly trying to reveal the existence of psychics to the world.
And then Lee Jin-seol, who had been watching this entire spectacle with a dumbfounded expression, finally spoke.
"No no no no no... what the hell is all this crap? Choi Sun-woo is my dad? That guy? Why? No, wait, more importantly... what's wrong with your head? If you really were my dad, then why in the hell did you fall for me hitting on you? Why did you play along with the fake-dating act? Why... why didn't you say anything until now?"
"..."
"Hey, you son of a bitch, stop clamming up and answer me! You worthless piece of shit—you never once acted like a father! You never came to see me, not once in my whole life, so why...! Kkhh! Kkhh! Ugh!"
Perhaps from the outburst, Lee Jin-seol coughed up blood. Pale past the point of pallor from all the blood she'd lost, she still forced herself up and screamed with everything she had.
"I don't need it! The blood of a man who never once played father to me—! I don't...!"
Mid-sentence, she swayed and collapsed.
I caught her before her face could hit the floor and asked Choi Sun-woo over the phone, "Knowing she'll say things like that, you're still coming?"
"I'm coming."
Even after being cursed out up one side and down the other, Choi Sun-woo's voice somehow sounded... glad.
"Because I want to be that child's parent."
By the time we reached the hospital, Choi Sun-woo was already there. Word was that this hospital had been built by Cosmos, so everything from personnel control to quarantine was prepared to perfection.
And soon, the transfusion began. Fortunately for everyone, Lee Jin-seol—who would normally have thrown a fit at the mere thought of receiving blood—was unconscious from blood loss, so it went smoothly.
After the transfusion was finished, I met with Choi Sun-woo separately.
"Mr. Kim Dosa... truly...! Thank you, truly...!"
Tears poured from Choi Sun-woo's eyes like a downpour.
"More importantly, are you really alright? I thought you said this was the most critical period of the election? Wouldn't it have been better to at least take the risk and—"
Choi Sun-woo shook his head firmly.
"I couldn't do that. An assemblyman who is supposed to serve the public, endangering the very people he serves just to get himself elected? That must never happen."
"Quite the model student."
"Haha, it's only natural for an elected public official."
Hmm. Somehow I doubt it's all that natural.
Just then, a nurse came over to tell us that Lee Jin-seol had woken up. As expected of a high-grade psychic—her recovery was quick, too.
"Shall we go?"
"..."
"What's the matter?"
"...I'm scared."
"Scared of what?"
"Of going to meet my daughter."
"You've already lived with her for months—what on earth—"
"Back then, I met her as Assemblyman Choi Sun-woo. But now..."
"You're scared of meeting your daughter Lee Jin-seol as her father, Choi Sun-woo?"
He nodded.
"Well then, since you're so scared, why not just run away?"
"Th-that's not it!"
"Then let's go. Late or early, you have to face her eventually."
"...Yes."
And so I led the drooping, head-bowed middle-aged man to Lee Jin-seol's hospital room.
"..."
Lee Jin-seol was sitting up in bed, her face dark as a thundercloud. And the moment she saw Choi Sun-woo's face, she blurted out without preamble:
"I don't believe it. No—I can't believe you're my father."
"Ah, you're coming out swinging, I see? But it's been scientifically proven, you know?"
"Fine, I'll admit I have the rare -D- blood type. But just because that man is -D- doesn't necessarily mean he's my parent!"
With fewer than ten -D- carriers in all of South Korea, the hospital had already run the bloodwork—there was no need for a long, pedantic explanation. Instead, I said:
"Then break the curse you put on Choi Sun-woo."
"What?"
"You said the client stabbed you in the back the moment the job was done, right? Well, that's not what happened. Remember? The curse you placed was..."
"...A curse that travels through blood and spreads to family..."
"Right. Your client didn't betray you. The curse you laid on Choi Sun-woo traveled through the bloodline and came right back around to you."
The reason the curse had failed to take proper effect on Choi Sun-woo was Lee Jin-seol herself. With a high-grade psychic like her blocking the blood-borne curse as it spread, there was no way it could land properly.
Which means the client really was innocent.
Paid a fortune for a job, only for it to go undone—and when they called to complain, they got nothing but insults back, accused of being the backstabber. How aggrieved must they have felt?
It's human nature, after all: when someone hates you for no reason, you find yourself wanting to give them a reason.
"No, seriously—what kind of nonsense is that? Then... then that just makes me the bastard, doesn't it?"
"Did you think someone who curses people for money wouldn't be a bastard to begin with?"
"Hey! In the psychic industry, curse-work is a legitimate specialty!"
Good for you—did being a "specialist" get you anywhere?
"Anyway. If you're so unconvinced, break the curse right now. Then everything becomes crystal clear."
"..."
Lee Jin-seol fell silent for a moment, then rolled up her sleeve. On her forearm, just above the elbow, was a small tattoo shaped like a frog.
"Bring me the lighter from my coat."
Once I handed it over, she burned the tattoo off her own arm with the flame.
"Wh-what are you suddenly—!?"
"Just watch."
I held back the startled Choi Sun-woo and observed closely.
"Uuoooooogh!"
As the tattoo burned away from her flesh, the curse she'd laid on Choi Sun-woo vanished along with it. And the one bound to Lee Jin-seol herself as well.
"Oh? My body feels lighter..."
"..."
Choi Sun-woo marveled; Lee Jin-seol fell silent. With that, the blood relationship between the two was proven—scientifically, and now spiritually as well.
"...You're really my father?"
"Jin-ah... no, Jin-seol..."
"Don't get familiar with me. What the hell were you thinking? Why didn't you say anything when I came sniffing around and seducing you? No—why did you never once look for me all these years? And now, suddenly, you want to play father? What gives you the nerve, when you've never done a single fatherly thing for me?"
"That's not true."
"What?"
"Choi Sun-woo did do fatherly things for you."
And the proof was his title—the lawyer, the Blood Donation King.
"Most people with -D- blood, if they store blood at all, do it for their own transfusions. They almost never donate."
Such an exceptionally rare blood type meant donating carried an extra weight of responsibility. And yet Choi Sun-woo kept donating so persistently that people called him the Blood Donation King.
Why would he do that? Think about when he donated, and the answer falls out.
"Lee Jin-seol, how old are you now?"
"...Twenty-three."
"Choi Sun-woo donated so actively that he earned the nickname Blood Donation King during the years you went from three to twenty. I don't know the details, but I'd guess you and he separated around the time you were three, right?"
"...Yes."
"So what? What does that—... oh."
Lee Jin-seol was catching on to where I was going.
"Exactly. He kept donating because he was terrified that if you, out there somewhere without him, were ever badly hurt, there might not be enough blood to save you."
He'd stopped around twenty, probably due to mundane realities—assemblyman duties, the medications that creep in with age and minor ailments. And he likely assumed that by then, Lee Jin-seol would have noticed her blood was special through company physicals or full check-ups. School health screenings only test the A, B, O classification, so a student might never know—but workplace examinations are a different matter.
Of course, contrary to his expectations, Lee Jin-seol spent her life doing psychic mercenary work and never once had occasion to take a company health check.
"Still, by that age you could've at least gotten a regular full check-up, couldn't you?"
"...Shut up...! You think a psychic bothers with health screenings?"
What kind of bizarre mindset is that?
And yet, judging by how Lee Jin-seol never learned her blood type from her own mother—well, standard screenings test both the A, B, O classification and the Rh classification. Which meant Choi Sun-woo hadn't been lazy about trying to find her, either.
"...Truly, Mr. Kim Dosa, I can't keep up with you. From one to ten, everything you've said is exactly right."
"...Fine. I'll admit it. You're my parent. Okay, fine, granted—you tried to find me, and failing that, you did try to do something as a father, I'll admit that too! But then—then why, in God's name, didn't you say anything when I came clinging to you and hitting on you?"
"...That's..."
"He wanted to keep his pride, is what it was."
"...What?"
"M-Mr. Kim Dosa!?"
"When you came around seducing him, Choi Sun-woo was in the middle of a divorce dispute and his term as assemblyman was nearly over. After decades apart, telling the daughter who'd just waltzed into his life, 'I'm your father!'—that wouldn't have done much for a man's pride, would it?"
"...What kind of reason is that?"
Lee Jin-seol looked at Choi Sun-woo. Choi Sun-woo averted his eyes. And that reaction was all the proof needed that I'd hit the truth dead on.
"No... is that actually true?"
Lee Jin-seol, being a woman, would never understand. But that's simply how men are—the deeper the hole they've dug themselves into, the less they want to see close friends or family. No matter how precious a person may be—precisely because they're precious—men don't want to show them weakness.
Choi Sun-woo had been the same.
He hadn't wanted to reveal the truth while he was Assemblyman Choi Sun-woo—weathering a divorce mediation, a spent force with his term running out. He'd wanted to tell her when he was Assemblyman Choi Sun-woo—divorced cleanly, starting a fresh term with his head held high.
"...I'm sorry... I wanted to tell you I was your father under circumstances where I could stand at least a little bit tall..."
Tears fell from Lee Jin-seol's eyes, drop by drop. Choi Sun-woo wept alongside her.
"Well then, I'll be off..."
I left the room without another word. I'd barged in because the situation demanded it, but from here on, this was a story between father and daughter.
Why Lee Jin-seol's mother had spirited her away so suddenly. Why the girl who'd vanished like that became a psychic. What Lee Jin-seol's mother had to do with Kang So-hwa. There was plenty I was curious about, but prying any further would have been tasteless.
As I left the two of them alone and stepped out of the room, a thought crossed my mind, unbidden.
Was my father like that once, too?
My father hadn't started out that kind of man. He'd been a diligent office worker at first, and when he launched his first business, he actually did decently well—for a while, we lived comfortably. In those days, my father's face was always full of smiles and confidence.
Come to think of it, maybe that smile and confidence hadn't come from business success and money at all. Maybe they came from being able to hold his head up before his wife and son. Maybe that was why he kept throwing himself back into business, over and over even after failing—chasing that feeling of standing tall again.
"Yeah, my ass."
If that had really been his reason, he shouldn't have taken out loans under my name.
Tch. I'd looked at those two and tried to gild my own memories a little—fat chance.
"Well, no point dwelling on it now."
For the simple reason that two billion won would soon be landing in my hands. Ohhh, two billion! What a beautiful, lovely sound that makes!
Grinning ear to ear, I went skipping down the hospital corridor.
"Mr. Kim Dosa, we've been looking for you."
A jolt—the voice of Hwang Young-gyu from behind me. He hadn't just seen the skipping, had he?
The embarrassment flushing my face was short-lived.
"Do you have a moment? On behalf of Cosmos, I'd like to have a word with you, Mr. Kim Dosa."
"...Yes, that's fine."
So the inevitable has finally arrived.