An Empty Place in the Heart
The next morning, Yunchae and I woke at the same time, showered together, and ate breakfast side by side. If this wasn’t what it meant to be a married couple, I didn’t know what was. I kept grinning like an idiot, thoroughly pleased with myself—but Yunchae’s face stayed blank the whole time. Whether she simply wasn’t one for expressions or something was weighing on her mind, I couldn’t tell. Either way, I far preferred the soft smile she’d worn the night before.
Yunchae was busy from the moment she got up. She cleaned the rooms and hung a few decorations on the walls—nothing as gaudy as a shaman’s usual trappings, just things like a Dharma painting and a few pieces of traditional East Asian art. I wondered where she’d even gotten them.
“I used to have a spirit mother,” she said. “She was the one who performed the initiation rite on me, insisting I had to become a shaman. She brought all these sacred objects into my house. Even my first clients after I became a shaman were people she sent over.”
I simply nodded, watching her tell the story with that same expressionless face. After a moment lost in thought, Yunchae turned to look at me.
“I swore I’d never become a shaman, even if it killed me. I told myself it wouldn’t matter if I died because of it… and now here I am, serving a living god.”
I gave a hollow little laugh.
“You make it sound like you regret it.”
Yunchae shook her head firmly.
“No. The vague divine presence I used to feel back then—this feels far more like destiny. That’s why I threw everything I had into it. I don’t regret a thing.”
I took her hand, pulled her close, and drew her into my arms.
“I’m no god, and I’m nothing special either. I’m just a person, the same as you. All I am is someone who likes Yunchae and wants to give her whatever she wants. That’s how it’ll be from now on, too.”
Yunchae stayed quiet in my embrace. We held each other like that until the front gate creaked open, and then the door swung in and Yongjin stepped inside. Wearing an easy smile, he helped us clean and tidy the house without a single word of complaint.
Yunchae said she was going out to buy some simple snacks, and Yongjin rose to go with her. Once the two of them had left, I sat with my phone, jotting notes and browsing the web as I thought about what subject I should speak on today.
We spent the rest of the day in a flurry of preparation, and by late afternoon the appointed hour was drawing near. The aunties arrived about ten minutes early, filing into the yard of Yunchae’s house. Yongjin went out on his own to greet them and guide them inside. They chattered noisily as they came through the gate, but the moment they stepped into the house the small talk cut off at once. They took the seats Yongjin indicated with quiet, demure composure. Yunchae passed around the tea and refreshments she had prepared, and the aunties lifted their cups with thoroughly satisfied faces.
I stepped out in front of them with a smile and began speaking in an easy, relaxed manner. The aunties had already come prepared to hear me out, so there was no need for any special performance to hold their attention. The moment I started talking, the women holding their teacups forgot what was even in their hands and sank into my words.
The story I had prepared for the day centered on the kinds of self-pity and life-complaints the aunties so often shared. To lament your lot means you aren’t satisfied with your life as it is—that you carry a great deal of regret about the past. In short: don’t cling to what’s already gone. Be faithful to the life and the days you have now. Living each day with everything you’ve got is the answer. And when enough time has passed, those ordinary days will look back like precious jewels. That was the gist of it. It wasn’t exactly the kind of talk a young guy should be giving a roomful of middle-aged women—but the aunties weren’t looking at me as just some kid, and they listened with complete devotion. Of course, most of what I said wasn’t drawn from my own experience; it came from the countless books I’d read over the years. I’d always thought those passages were obvious, almost trite—but I never imagined they would prove so useful.
When my story ended, the aunties rose with moved expressions, belatedly draining the tea that had long since gone cold. Yongjin, as if he’d been waiting for the moment, escorted them all the way to the front gate. One of the aunties kept glancing sideways at him as she went—the same woman who had pressed an envelope into Yunchae’s hands last time. Once everyone else had left, she slipped back into the yard, took hold of my wrist, and led me out toward the gate. From her small bag she pulled out another thick envelope and held it out to me.
“This is just a little token of our appreciation…”
I neither accepted nor refused with any fuss; I simply closed my hand around the envelope. Then the auntie spoke in a low voice.
“There’s a young man I haven’t seen before?”
I nodded.
“Yes… he’s my senior. He came to help us out.”
The auntie hesitated, then spoke carefully.
“Are you planning to keep holding these gatherings regularly? Is that why you needed an extra pair of hands?”
I smiled and shook my head.
“I haven’t thought it through in that much detail yet. It’s just that a few more people have started coming…”
She seemed to ponder for a moment, then took her phone out of her bag and held it out to me.
“Could you give me your number? There’s something important I need to talk to you about.”
Something about her manner felt off, but I entered my number without protest. Looking satisfied, she said,
“I’ll be here tomorrow as well. See you then.”
She bowed to me at a full ninety degrees and hurried down the hill. The whole exchange left a strange taste in my mouth. Her eyes had been strange, too, and I couldn’t stop wondering what she’d been on the verge of saying. What had she wanted to tell me?
I went back inside and handed the envelope to Yunchae. She took the money out with complete composure and began to count it. Watching her, Yongjin spoke up.
“The money-to-time ratio on this is actually fantastic. If you do this twice every weekend…”
Then he lowered his head again, sinking into thought. I knew that look—when Yongjin’s eyes lit up like that, he was busy turning some clever scheme over in his head. Yunchae turned to me.
“Why did the auntie call you aside?”
Yunchae had slipped up, and I flinched too. We both looked at Yongjin at almost the same instant, but he was still lost in thought and seemed not to have caught her formal speech.
“I don’t know. It seemed like she had something to say, but she hesitated and just left.”
Yunchae looked like she still had more to ask, but whether out of caution about another slip of the tongue or simply reading the room, she kept glancing at Yongjin and cut her words short. After a long stretch of brooding, Yongjin finally lifted his head and turned toward the two of us.
“No matter how I look at it, everything feels like it’s falling into place as if it were scripted. I can’t just write it off as something that could’ve happened to anyone.”
Yunchae and I simply watched his mouth, neither of us able to guess what he was about to say.
“You, Donghyun. That unexplainable ability of yours. That silver tongue that bewitches people. From the first time I saw it, I thought it was an incredible gift. The funny thing is, the person who actually has that power doesn’t seem to realize just how formidable it is. Watching from the side, I could tell it could be used for something big—but I had no idea where that ‘something’ was supposed to be.”
As the talk stretched on, Yunchae shifted her posture. Yongjin glanced at her.
“And you, Yunchae. I thought you were just some prim rich girl, but it turns out you’re sitting on a terrifying personal history. That shocked me. I’m not exactly a believer in shamanism myself, so I can’t claim to empathize with what you’ve felt and lived through… but when I heard that your body spirit had passed over to Donghyun, it hit me. That was it.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“So? What’s your point?”
But Yongjin kept talking at his own pace.
“Today, being here, I finally became sure. The people who come to this place aren’t coming to listen to your fairy-tale stories.”
“Then what?”
A smile rose at the corner of Yongjin’s mouth, and his eyes sparkled.
“They’re coming to put you in their hearts.”
I leaned back against the sofa.
“What the hell does that mean…”
Yongjin’s face was full of certainty and confidence.
“Those people listen to your stories so they can fill the empty places in their own hearts. They used to come to Yunchae for fortune-telling, right? Fortune-telling works the same way. People who have a hollow, empty space inside them—people who can’t find certainty on their own—come looking for comfort. Whether ghosts actually exist or not is a personal question, but the purpose is always the same. They want someone to lean on.”