A Glass of Beer
Hiss—
When I cracked open the beer can, a frothy white head bubbled up to the top.
I was already thirsty from working out, so I tipped it back and drank more than half in one long gulp.
A moment later, the carbonation scraped down my throat and a sharp fizz prickled through me.
“Ahh···.”
Elena, watching me like that, leisurely tilted her own can.
Orange streetlight spilled softly over her hair.
Through the convenience store’s glass door, I could see an employee idly straightening the shelves.
“Dohyun.”
After a brief pause, she spoke.
“Yeah?”
“You know you’re a really weird person?”
I looked at her in disbelief.
“Wait, did you come all the way out here just to say that I’m weird?”
“I didn’t come here on purpose. It was a coincidence, remember?”
“Oh, sure. Right. Let’s go with that.”
I let the words go in one ear and out the other, then took another swig of beer.
“So that was what you wanted to say today? That I’m weird?”
At my question, Elena hesitated for a second.
Under the streetlight, I saw the tips of her ears go faintly red.
Then she set the can down and got to the point.
“You said you were a doctor.”
“A Korean medicine doctor.”
“Yes, a Korean medicine doctor.”
She sounded irritated at being interrupted so much.
Elena shot me a mild glare, then continued.
“Anyway, that Korean medicine doctor took down trained operatives in Nevada by targeting nothing but their pressure points, subdued Triad members in Hong Kong while shaking off a pursuit, and then, in the end, even recovered the package from mercenaries who used to be special forces. How is that not weird?”
Honestly, it was weird.
Her blue eyes stayed fixed on me.
“I’ll be honest,” Elena said, slowly turning the beer can between her fingers.
“Coming to Korea was partly because I wanted to learn more about you. A mysterious combat specialist. Or maybe a highly trained fighter—something like that. And, well, I won’t lie, I did hope you might help us too.”
She let out a quiet breath and added, “You may have heard it from Marcus, but headquarters is in a pretty chaotic state right now. The East Asia division in particular took a huge hit from this whole mess, and the manpower shortage is severe. We’re at the point where we’d borrow a cat’s paws if we could.”
“So I’m the cat?”
“···It was a metaphor.”
Elena cut me off flatly.
“But.”
She looked me straight in the eye.
“I am sincere about being grateful to you. I wanted to repay the favor first and foremost. Truly.”
There wasn’t the slightest wavering in those blue eyes, nothing that felt like a lie.
At least, that was how it seemed to me.
“I know. At least that much.”
I answered briefly.
Elena looked at me for a moment, then nodded.
“By the way, where on earth did you learn to fight like that?”
Yeah. I supposed it was time for that conversation.
As if I’d been waiting for this, I listened to her calmly, bracing myself.
“I looked through all your records. From what I saw, you didn’t seem to have much of a connection to athletics. I know you graduated from Korean medicine school, of course, but that’s not martial arts.”
Of course, I’d already prepared an answer for this one.
I took a sip of canned beer and answered with complete nonchalance.
“Well, maybe one day I just recovered memories from a previous life. What if I was a grandmaster in my past life?”
Elena gave me a dark-blue sidelong glance.
“I’m asking seriously.”
“I’m answering seriously too.”
Just as I’d expected, she wasn’t going to believe it.
I had no better explanation, so I just shrugged.
Elena looked away first. She seemed to have expected I wouldn’t tell her.
“Right. Let’s just go with that.”
She tossed my own line right back at me.
Then we both snorted and laughed.
Thanks to that, the mood loosened up a little.
“Where are you from, Elena?”
“Annapolis. Maryland.”
“Ah··· I’ve heard of it.”
I had, of course, never heard of it.
The only American cities I knew were the famous ones—New York, LA, Chicago··· that sort of thing.
“My father was in the Navy. My mother was a diplomat.”
Elena tapped the empty can with a finger as she spoke.
“So those things were natural to me from a young age. That was what we talked about at the dinner table—national security, diplomacy, politics··· When I was little, I even wrote ‘spy’ as my dream job.”
“You presented that at school?”
“Yeah. And, naturally, I got chewed out by my dad.”
Remembering it, Elena broke into a soft, snickering laugh.
It was the first time I’d seen her make that kind of face. It was quite different from how she looked on the job.
“Still, it sounds like you came from a good family.”
“I did. They’re amazing, and they’re good people too. If you ask me whether I’m proud of them, then yes, I am. But sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like to grow up in an ordinary house.”
She said it offhandedly, almost under her breath.
Then she looked at me.
“What about you? What are you going to do when your public health stint is over?”
“Hmm, obviously I’ll work. Earn money···.”
I trailed off.
My original plan had been to save up hard and open my own Korean medicine clinic.
But this unexpectedly started contract work wasn’t so bad, either.
A little dangerous, sure, but the pay was solid, wasn’t it?
Besides, if I pulled off a few more big jobs like the last one, I’d have enough money to live off for the rest of my life.
Work for a few years, then spend the remainder of my days at ease—it didn’t sound so bad.
“···Hmph, I’m not really sure right now.”
When I muttered that, Elena tilted her head.
She studied my expression for a moment, then let it go without pressing further.
Instead, she set the empty can on the table and said bluntly, “I’m going to Japan tomorrow. I’ve got something to check in Osaka.”
After a short pause, she added, “That’s part of why I came to tell you. I may need your help.”
That was the real reason she’d come.
With a more serious expression, she said, “Like I told you earlier, all the East Asia branches are short-handed.”
I nodded.
I’d seen Marcus operating alone in Hong Kong. I understood perfectly well.
“I’ll try to assign you only things that won’t put you in danger, but depending on the situation in the field, other risks can still come up. Just like in Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong. For a moment, I thought of that guy Marek holding a blade.
And the stench of fish and blood at the old dock.
“If there’s any foreseeable risk, I’ll tell you clearly. So you can choose. That was our agreement, wasn’t it?”
Elena looked at me.
In her blue-tinged eyes, I could see my own reflection.
“···And if you ever have to take a risk, I’ll carry it with you. I’m the one responsible for you.”
She’d said the same thing before.
As if reaffirming a vow, she gave me the words carefully and clearly.
I looked at her for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay.”
That was enough.
Elena didn’t add anything else.
A brief silence settled between us.
“Well then, I should get going.”
She stood up, slipping her hand into her jacket pocket.
“Oh, and if I have time when I come back, I’ll bring you a souvenir. Look forward to it.”
Her tone was playful.
I smirked and replied, “If you need help, call me. Just make sure the travel expenses and bonus are generous. I’m an expensive man.”
Elena didn’t answer. She just gave a small laugh.
She tossed her empty can into the recycling bin, waved lightly, and headed toward the main road.
Her blonde hair swayed under the streetlights, then vanished into the dark.
Japan, huh.
Alone in front of the convenience store, I stared at the empty can in my hand.
The bitter aftertaste of beer still lingered on my tongue.
***
Then another two weeks passed.
I slept, ate, and worked out.
For the first time since Hong Kong, it really felt like I was resting.
No calls, no trouble, no anything. Just ordinary days, one after another.
After a while, I even called my parents.
I decided to send them a little pocket money often instead of one big lump sum. If I sent too much, they’d only worry.
When my mom told me to come by home sometime, I dodged it with an easy answer.
“I will, if I get the chance.”
Honestly, I didn’t know when I’d be able to leave Seoul again.
I’d have to ask Elena about that next time.
Every so often, I opened social media to check Marcus’s posts.
The man was surprisingly consistent about uploading photos.
Fish stalls in the early morning market, the stone steps of Ladder Street, fried rice steaming in a dai pai dong. They were all slices of the days I’d spent in Hong Kong with him.
Some photos were shot from angles that made me wonder how he’d even managed it.
Probably because he’d lived there for twelve years.
Good.
That single comment was all I ever left.
And his entire response was to tap the heart button on that comment.
That was enough for us to check in on each other.
And Elena···
She hadn’t contacted me much since going to Japan.
I didn’t reach out either. No news probably meant she was fine for now.
Then one day, a text message came in on my phone.
[Leaving it by the door - Courier]
I sprang up and opened the front door.
A wooden box was sitting there.
Finally.
A week had passed since I’d heard from the herbal medicine dealer.
The Cheonjong Wild Ginseng I’d been waiting for had finally arrived.
***
I opened the wooden box carefully.
Inside was a small root wrapped in foil and hanji paper.
Fifty-year Cheonjong Wild Ginseng.
It was smaller than I’d expected, about the length of two adult fingers.
The root branched off into several thin prongs, and its surface was thick with the marks of time.
First I smelled it.
“Oh···.”
It was on a completely different level from the ginseng you’d find on the market.
A deep, heavy fragrance. A smell so rich it felt like it was seeping not into my nose, but all the way into my lungs.
I’d handled a fair amount of medicinal herbs in Korean medicine school, but I’d never seen anything this old before.
In my past life, I’d seen plenty of elixirs in the Tang Clan too.
This smell, this shape, that unmistakable feeling unique to a rare medicinal treasure.
It didn’t feel like some extraordinary divine elixir, but it was definitely something different.
I’m looking forward to this.
First, I washed off the dirt thoroughly.
I had no intention of decocting or processing it.
Unless you had a proper refining method, all you were doing was letting the medicinal properties escape for no reason.
It would be far more effective to take it raw.
“All right, let’s do this.”
I spread a cushion on the living room floor and sat down cross-legged.
Then I took a deep breath and held the ginseng in my hand.
“Huu···.”
I exhaled softly and put the ginseng straight into my mouth.
It was tougher and firmer than I’d expected. I chewed it as slowly as I could.
As I did, a bitter but subtle sweetness spread through my mouth.
Then I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing.
Following the formula of the Soft Mind Method, I began to circulate my breath and regulate my internal energy slowly.
“Huuuuuu.”
At first, I felt nothing.
The same barren emptiness as always, as though I couldn’t even sense qi in the air.
My dantian remained silent and hollow.
So it still won’t work?
Just as discouragement started to rise in me—
...Huh?
I felt something in the area just below my stomach.
Something tiny, but unmistakable.
A warm current was slowly spreading from my abdomen.
True energy.
Much clearer, denser true energy. Clean, soft, and warm.
It was the clearest current I’d ever felt in this life.
My heart began to pound.
Keeping my mind as calm as possible, I started to gather the energy in accordance with the mental method.
I carefully drew in the energy converging in my dantian, almost as if I were cradling it.
There was still plenty leaking away through the meridians.
There was nothing I could do about that. My body was still untrained.
For now, I just had to focus on keeping as much as I could in my dantian.
How long had it been?
I opened my eyes.
The room had grown dark before I knew it.
Streetlights glowed outside the window. I must have been sitting there for quite a while.
“Phew.”
I could feel vitality running through my body.
I clenched and unclenched my hands. Something was flowing all the way to my fingertips. It was faint, but it was there.
The internal energy I’d absorbed from the ginseng was only a tiny amount, really.
But because I’d had so little to begin with, it was still enough for me to notice.
At the very least, it felt like my original internal energy had increased by about half.
The ginseng’s power was still lingering throughout my body.
If I took my time and absorbed it slowly, I might be able to raise it a little more.
But that wasn’t the important part.
It works.
That was the key.
I’d confirmed that, if I had enough money, I could grow my internal energy.
If this was the effect from a fifty-year root, then what about seventy years?
What about a hundred? More than that? What about other elixirs?
I’m going to need to make more money.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, my phone caught my eye.
There was an alert on the screen. One text message.
[Japan business trip schedule confirmed. Further details to follow.]
A short, dry work message. But the meaning behind it was clear enough.
I was about to go on the overseas trip I’d never managed to take before—back to back.
Osaka, Japan.