Cult Leader
I couldn't find the words. Slowly, I turned to look at Yongjin. He was gazing up at the building with a smile on his face.
"Hyung… don't tell me it's this place…?"
Yongjin looked back at me.
"This is the place. This is where we're going to start the business."
I turned fully toward him, frowning.
"This is a motel. An affair motel."
Yongjin looked back at the building.
"It was. Now that it's shut down, it's just a building. Starting tomorrow, we're going to renovate it, gather people here, and hold meetings."
He turned to me again, wearing a thoroughly satisfied smile.
"You're our boss, so you don't have to do a thing. Just get yourself back in shape. Once the people start gathering, all you have to do is make it so they can't stand not coming back."
After that, I truly did nothing. We held no gatherings for a full week while Yunchae and Yongjin threw themselves into remodeling the motel. Even when I offered to come by, they told me there was no need, and I wasn't particularly eager to set foot in a place like that anyway. I cut myself off from it all and let things take their course. Myeongsuk called once or twice, but I didn't pick up. Part of me found her growing burdensome—yet whenever I turned out the lights and lay down to sleep, I couldn't stop thinking about that incredible body of hers.
A week later, Yongjin told me the first phase of the remodel was done and to come over. I skipped every class and made my way to the motel. Following the route I remembered from when I'd gone with Yongjin, I arrived. The motel sign was gone, and the filthy exterior looked a little cleaner, but the place still carried the air of an abandoned building. The moment I stepped through the entrance, Yongjin and Yunchae were there to greet me.
The first floor had originally been a narrow space with a front desk, storage, a laundry room, and the like—but they'd knocked down the walls, and now there were two fairly large rooms. One of them felt almost like an auditorium.
"We blew the entire budget just tearing down walls. That's why the building still looks like a dump."
I listened as I wandered around. There were signs of cleaning, but it was still unmistakably a filthy building. We were sitting in the lobby talking about one thing and another when Myeongsuk arrived. Having avoided her all week, I felt a little awkward and couldn't quite meet her eyes. Myeongsuk, though, looked completely unbothered as she spoke to us.
"I think we can get started here. The full gatherings should be held in that room over there."
Yongjin's face turned deadly serious.
"Is a space that size going to be enough?"
Myeongsuk nodded.
"It'll do for a start. But it won't be long before we outgrow it…"
I cut in.
"Just how many people are you planning to bring in, exactly…?"
Myeongsuk seized my hand in both of hers.
"From now on, Jisin, please spare your words. We'll handle these practical matters. You have your own work to do."
I blinked at her blankly, and Yunchae stepped in.
"We've discussed this among ourselves. If this gathering is only seen as someone standing in for my body spirit… people will dismiss Jisin as nothing more than superstition. Even if that happens to be true, we need them to see him differently."
Yunchae rarely showed much expression, but today she seemed even more frightening than usual.
"So… then what?"
I asked, and this time Yongjin cut in.
"You can move people's hearts. I saw that in you a long time ago. I've spent years wondering whether there'd ever be a chance to put that ability of yours to real use. If we leave you as you are—barely aware of your own gift, with no interest in using it—you'll just stay an ordinary guy from a third-rate college with a silver tongue, living a thoroughly ordinary life. But if you trust us and do as we say, you and the rest of us will live a life no one on earth would envy."
I started to say something, but Yongjin raised a hand and stopped me.
"I know what you're about to say. Nothing like what you're imagining is going to happen. We will stay absolutely within the bounds of the law."
I looked from one of them to the next. All three stared back at me with their mouths set in a hard line. Clearly, in the week I hadn't been part of things, they had exchanged a great many opinions and reached a great many agreements. And the final piece of that consensus, it seemed, was my cooperation.
"So… what's the conclusion? What am I supposed to do? What is this gathering even supposed to be?"
I asked them straight out, and none of the three rushed to answer. I had a sense of what they wanted, but I needed it stated clearly. Yongjin spoke to me with a grave expression.
"The people who come to hear you speak do it because they can find peace of mind through you. They want someone to lean on, someone to depend on. You give them what they want and become the pillar that holds them up."
I frowned.
"What… are you telling me to become some kind of messiah?"
Yongjin nodded.
"You become their savior. Their god."
I laughed, the expression on my face pure disbelief.
"You're saying you want to start a religious organization? Some kind of cult?"
Myeongsuk stepped forward.
"I've already gathered people. And I've spoken with them a great deal. To them, Jisin is already a god who has descended to earth—a shepherd who can lead them, a master. Even without us intending it, they already think of you as their cult leader."
Looking at the three of them watching me with such earnest faces, I couldn't form an answer. And that hesitation of mine seemed to register with them as agreement. As the atmosphere grew awkward, Yunchae took my hand and led me toward the stairs. Climbing them, she kept her eyes fixed ahead as she spoke.
"There's a room for you on the third floor, Jisin."
"My room?"
"Yes. You'll stay here from now on. Of course, I'll be moving in as well."
When we reached the third floor, Yunchae stopped. The hallway still had the structure of a motel and clearly hadn't been touched yet. For all that we'd managed to scrape a little money together, it still wasn't enough to renovate the entire building. Yunchae pulled me along to the room at the very end and opened the door. Inside was a room with nothing but a round bed sitting alone in the middle—the old-fashioned love-hotel atmosphere intact.
"You're telling me to… live here?"
Yunchae looked at me without a word. Something about that blank face made her feel a little frightening. After staring at me expressionlessly for a long while, she stepped closer. I found myself backing away without thinking. Yunchae came so near she was almost against me, looked me straight in the eyes, and spoke.
"Those two are trying to manufacture you into a savior. Even so, deep down they both still think of you as an ordinary person. Just an ordinary man with a gift for words. But I'm different. Because my body spirit truly designated you as the one to take its place. You can call it superstition if you want. I'm someone who actually received a spirit descent, and my life was decided that way."
Yunchae had been quiet for a long time. She had struggled under the fate of being a shaman and, in the end, had surrendered to it. She had lived as if swept along by the world, having given up on any ordinary social life. But then her god had named a human being she was to serve in its place, and Yunchae had apparently come to see that as her way out. Now, once again, she seemed to have decided her own fate.
"From now on, I'm going to stay by your side. I'm certain that's my destiny. It's a different kind of certainty from everyone else's. I have a spiritual side to me. And I'm going to follow it."
Yunchae took one more step forward. Her chest pressed against my body.
"I'll guard your private life from now on. I received a revelation that I should. It doesn't matter if you sleep with other women. That doesn't change the fact that the place beside you is the place I have to keep."
It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but I was a little thrown—by how suddenly all of them had changed. I had no reason to refuse. If anything, I should have been thanking her. The woman I'd always been so fond of was offering to take charge of my private life from now on; there was no reason to dislike that. Whatever the conditions attached, I found myself thinking they wouldn't matter.
When we came back downstairs, Myeongsuk and Yongjin were deep in serious conversation. They both said they would head home for now.
"I won't be able to live here with you going forward, but I'll try to spend as much time here as I can."
Myeongsuk turned to Yunchae.
"Bosal, please take good care of Jisin."
Yongjin drew me aside and spoke in a low voice.
"From now on, I'll handle everything. So just do as we say. I'll make damn sure you never take a loss or get tangled up in anything troublesome."
I gave him no answer. The truth was, I couldn't fully understand any of what was unfolding—and I didn't particularly want to, either.