The Last Cup of Coffee
DOOOOM—! DOOOOM—!
The drumbeat knew no restraint. It rolled out boom after boom, shaking the mountain and setting the very air ringing.
The beomgwi's tail bristled and swelled, and Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze climbed to the sky. In his eyes there was more than the rain pouring down. There was a god.
The god—surely the mountain spirit of this very mountain—was pounding a great drum amid the falling sheets of rain.
“...It has come.”
The god's answer. Given to the one who had prayed.
DOOOOOM—!
The drum sounded again, so immense it bordered on the sacred, and Kang Hyeong-seok pressed his two hands together into one—shaman bells in one palm, the Sinjangkal in the other.
Grrrrrr!
At the same instant the beomgwi made to lunge, but the drumbeat barred its movement.
It is not humans alone who need gods. Gods, too, need humans. That is why the mudang exists—and why a god exists as a god.
Shalalalalang!
The mudang stood under the god's protection, and the god had answered the mudang's call. With his shaman bells, Kang Hyeong-seok lit the road by which the god would descend, and little by little the drumbeat swelled.
And the first thing that drum saved from the tiger was Kang Hyeong-seok's mind.
DOOOOOM!
When the great drum had sounded ten times, and then two more, the darkness the tiger had cast over the world was swept away.
Shaaaaaaa—!
The world around him sank back into an ordinary forest.
Hunched low as though crushed beneath some immense presence, the beomgwi keened. In its slanted, upturned eyes there was something almost human. Bewilderment, and a vast fury.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr! Screech!
All it could do was gouge the earth with hooklike claws; the beomgwi could not rise. The mountain god's drumbeat pinned the tiger down.
And for Kang Hyeong-seok, that drumbeat struck home with an entirely different meaning.
DOOOM—!
The drum was the playing of a master. The muak—the music of the muga, the shaman's sacred song. And more than that: it was the opening of a gut, the great rite of the gods.
DOOOM! DOOOM!
To the drumbeat shaking the mountain, Kang Hyeong-seok breathed out deep, and drank the air back in.
The beomgwi was bound fast, and the chang-gwi enslaved to it were crushed beneath the same weight. The mountain god's gut had opened—and its only mudang was Kang Hyeong-seok.
He looked down at the sacred implements in his hands, the Sinjangkal and the shaman bells. Then he raised his head and looked at the beomgwi, and when the drum rang out once more, he shook the bells.
DOOOM—! Shalalang!
Drum and bells tangled into a single voice. The beomgwi's roar was swallowed whole by the rain, and the wails of the chang-gwi were buried beneath the thunder.
Through it all, Kang Hyeong-seok kept ringing the bells.
He could feel the god coming into him. He raised the Sinjangkal high overhead and waited for his Momjusin to fill every last corner of his being.
“Hyeong-seok! Hyeong-seooooook!”
The beomgwi shrieked in Professor Jang Jun's voice, reaching for his mind, trying to shake it apart. But his heart, sealed in perfect union with his god, was utterly still.
Shaaaaaa!
The driving rain hammered against his body. Water gathered in his hair and dripped from its ends, and the fever heat slowly drained out of him.
I have to save them.
Jang Jun. Kim Jae-sik. Myself.
From that wicked, vicious beomgwi.
He had to.
“Formless in the beginning, self-existing and self-revealing, who holds dominion over all beneath heaven.”
Grrrrrrrr!
“Azure Emperor of the East, Yeongbo; Vermilion Emperor of the South, Munso—”
Screech! Scr-scr-scrreeech!
Raking its claws across the ground, the beomgwi glared with eyes brimming over with hatred. But with the drum sounding and the bells ringing, there was nothing it could do.
“White Emperor of the West, Hyeon-gi; Black Emperor of the North, Hyeondong. Mountain God of the Eastern Peak, Wolsang-yong.”
Fixing his gaze on the thrashing beomgwi, Kang Hyeong-seok stretched out the hand that gripped his shaman bells.
Shalalang!
“Mountain God of the Southern Peak, Danjin-yeong; of the Western Peak, Suil-gwon; of the Northern Peak, Jinso-seong; of the Central Peak, Ho-yeol-su. God of the Eastern Sea, A-myeong; God of the Southern Sea, Chuk-ryu; God of the Western Sea, Geo-seong; God of the Northern Sea, Yong-gang.”
Grrroooaar!
The beomgwi's roar clanged out across the mountain. Yet it was like the last light given off by a candle guttering to its end.
“All things return to their true form—that is the way of Heaven. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom—that is the strength of human nature.”
It was the Pungun Chuksa—the scripture for subduing evil spirits and praying for their annihilation.
Grrk! Grrrrk!
Flat on the ground and glaring up at Kang Hyeong-seok, the beomgwi twisted its body where it lay. Even so, he recited the scripture on.
“When the Heavenly Decree is fulfilled, heaven and earth shall tremble; when the Heavenly Decree is raised, the four quarters shall rock and sway.”
The scripture was nearing its end.
Shalalang! With one long, quiet breath, Kang Hyeong-seok met the beomgwi's eyes.
Then, in a voice serene and utterly calm, he spoke the final verse.
The beomgwi raised its head the very instant the words left him.
It opened its jaws—and no roar came out. Instead, black dust scattered on the air.
The black dust poured from its mouth and spread, little by little, through the rest of its body. Kang Hyeong-seok watched in silence as the beomgwi emptied itself away into ash.
KURURURUNG—!
Lightning fell as though the sky were being torn in two. The sudden flare of brightness laid the beomgwi bare—and like a talisman consumed by fire, it was turning into black ash.
DOOOOOM—!
The great drum boomed. Power drained from the beomgwi's body, and the enslaved souls bound to it began, one by one, to leave this earth.
Those souls were chang-gwi no longer.
Watching them rise—pure spirits once more, climbing into the pouring sky—Kang Hyeong-seok shook his shaman bells.
Shalalang, shalalang. DOOOM—!
May every one of those souls ascend to heaven.
He waited until the last of them had faded, then lifted his palms together toward the sky—once, twice. The courtesy owed to a mountain god.
“Thank you.”
A small voice, carrying all the sincerity he had. Then he turned away, and set off down the mountain through the steadily drumming rain.
The chang-gwi could never bring harm to anyone again. And yet, though he was freed of them utterly, Kang Hyeong-seok's face would not ease. One person still remained in his heart.
“...Rest in peace, Professor.”
Professor Jang Jun.
Shouldering the rain as it thinned to a drizzle, Kang Hyeong-seok trudged his way down the mountain.
Creeeak.
Kim Jae-sik opened the professor's office door just like any other day. It was the morning of a miraculously sunny day—a peaceful, quiet, perfectly ordinary day, a daily round with nothing special in it at all.
“Professor Jang!”
Kim Jae-sik greeted him brightly where Jang Jun sat at his desk. Jang Jun, who had been reading, laughed warmly, and the smile fit the sunny weather so perfectly it felt almost choreographed.
“I was going to come to you first, you know. What's got you in such a hurry?”
“Oh? Should I come back later, then?”
Kim Jae-sik said it with a straight face, and Jang Jun waved him off.
“Never mind, never mind. Sit. Let's have a talk.”
Amused by his friend's reaction, Kim Jae-sik pulled over the student-counseling chair and sat down grinning. Then his eyes drifted to the coffee on the desk—and Jang Jun covered the cup with his palm.
“Sorry. I can't offer you anything today.”
“Hoho, I make one little joke and you pull this?”
“You'll understand later.”
Jang Jun smiled a tangled smile, looking truly sorry.
“What's this? Hoarding coffee now, are we?”
“Haha.”
Bursting into a hearty laugh, Jang Jun leaned far back in his chair and turned to watch the students outside the window. Life seemed to have gotten an awful lot tougher than it used to be. These were students young enough to still be savoring the romance of youth, yet every last one of them wore the haggard face of an office worker steeped in the daily grind. Still—envying that youth, that life—Jang Jun could not take his eyes off them for a long while.
“You'll miss it. It'll stay with you for a long, long time.”
“Retirement already on your mind?”
“Well. Something like that.”
“Must be nice. I'm jealous. When do I ever get to rest?”
“Enjoy where you are, Professor Kim. There's no moment better than the one you're standing in.”
Perhaps because Jang Jun was acting, in some subtle way, unlike himself—the smile slowly drained from Kim Jae-sik's lips.
“Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing of the sort. Say—what do you make of Kang Hyeong-seok?”
“Hm? What about Hyeong-seok?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Kim Jae-sik turned the young man over in his mind for a moment, then waved a hand.
“Don't get me started. He told me you couldn't beat him to death and make a grad student of him. I was so put out I nearly landed a real punch.”
“Look after him well.”
It had been tossed out as a joke, but the reply came back grave. Kim Jae-sik's eyes bent in puzzlement, and Jang Jun took a slow sip of coffee before turning the cup in his hands, his face full of thought.
“That boy does love his coffee, you know.”
“...Professor Jang?”
“Be good to him. Isn't he a student you're fond of?”
Kim Jae-sik could only stare at him, uncomprehending—and then Jang Jun let out a long breath, as though exhaling something held for years, and rubbed a face that looked, somehow, tired.
“Forgive me. It seems my time has run out.”
“Oh? Somewhere urgent you need to be?”
“So it would seem.”
Jang Jun smiled at him, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
Jang Jun was unquestionably strange today. He seemed heavy with thought—and the words he could not say seemed to outnumber even those.
“Off you go, now.”
“Heh. Right. See you again sometime.”
Sheepish, Kim Jae-sik rose and slid the chair back where it belonged. And just as he was about to step out of the office, Jang Jun's voice caught up with him.
“Take your time coming. I'll be waiting.”
“What—anyone would think you're someone I'll never see again.”
“Sorry I couldn't serve you coffee today. The next time we meet, I'll brew you a proper cup myself.”
Maybe it was all the weight beneath the words. A strange feeling seized Kim Jae-sik, sudden and cold.
The feeling that this was the last time. That from now on, however much he might long to see Jang Jun again, he never would.
But it was far too strange a thing to show, so Kim Jae-sik waved with an awkward smile.
“Well then—see you next time, Professor Jang.”
Jang Jun waved back.
And Kim Jae-sik closed the door.
Thud—
The door shut with a dry, hollow sound.
And Kim Jae-sik opened his eyes.
A dark room, unfamiliar. A motel bed.
The dream had been so vivid that it took him a long moment to realize that this—here—was reality.
“Ah...”
It had all been a dream.
He accepted the reality, dark as the room around him, sat staring into nothing for a while, and then let out a long, slow breath. Then, all at once, he laughed.
“That old rascal. He called me a superstitious fool every day of his life...”
All that, over one lousy cup of coffee. And to think he had never believed a word of the old warning—that food offered by the dead in a dream must never be accepted.
Realizing that Jang Jun had worried, even then, lest some small misfortune befall his friend, the smile broke apart on Kim Jae-sik's face.
Hhk! Hhhhhk—
Clutching the blanket tight to his chest, he strangled his sobs as the tears fell.
Jang Jun was dead. He would never see his friend again.
That he had not managed even one proper farewell—not even in a dream—made his heart feel as though it were caving in.
Go well. Go well, my friend.
In the dark room, trembling, Kim Jae-sik wept the way a man does when he is trying not to.
The dead go on ahead; the living remain in this world. It was providence, plain and natural. And yet to feel guilty for the simple fact of being alive—that was because the friend he had lost had been so very dear, and so very close.
Uhp! Uuuuhp. Hhk!
That day, Kim Jae-sik wept for a very, very long time.
Outside, by contrast, the rain had stopped and the sky was clear. As though the heavens meant to receive Jang Jun's soul without a single mishap.
It was night, yet where the torrential rain had ended, the sky shone clean—not one cloud anywhere in its breadth.