A Debt of Gratitude
"Section Chief Kaaaang~"
Arms crossed, Shin Jeong-ah stood there, and Kang Hyeong-seok faced her with the most deferential posture imaginable.
They were in the break room. Out in the office beyond, Namgoong Min-ah and Lee Jin-pyeong were busy at their desks, and the lunch hour had only just come to an end.
"We finally get to catch up after all this time, and you've got nothing to sayyy to me?"
It had been three days since the cult incident. The end of an unexpected long business trip always meant the backlog of work came at you with a knife in its hand, and both of them had spent the past days buried to the neck — which was why only now had Kang Hyeong-seok and Shin Jeong-ah finally found the room for a proper, unhurried conversation.
"Ahem."
Watching the corners of Shin Jeong-ah's mouth tremble with suppressed laughter, Kang Hyeong-seok cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Um... I'm sorry."
"And what, exactly, might you be sorry for...?"
Her voice was perfectly calm — which was precisely what made it so frightening.
"I truly didn't expect things to turn out the way they did."
Shin Jeong-ah had been there to shield Kang Hyeong-seok and Shin Yo-sep. She had drawn off the lethal miasma of the Buddha statue that the two of them had been forced to absorb, and the process had cost her dearly. It had all happened without a word of warning — as far as she was concerned, she'd been broadsided by a car out of nowhere.
"Section Chief, did y—"
Her sentence never got the chance to finish.
The door swung open, and Namgoong Min-ah, tumbler in hand, was about to step inside — then read the atmosphere and immediately backtracked out. It happened in the space of a blink, as though her survival instinct had kicked in all on its own.
With her words briefly cut off, Shin Jeong-ah rubbed her forehead and spoke again.
"What are you, a shaman or not? You've got the spirits in you — you should have seen it coming."
Kang Hyeong-seok had things to say about that, too.
"You've seen it for yourself plenty of times. Even a person who serves a god doesn't know everything."
"...Nnngh."
Watching her groan in misery, Kang Hyeong-seok went on in a tone heavy with genuine apology.
"Still, I absolutely wanted to say thank you."
"...You know I'm grateful too, right?"
"Of course."
There had been no room for a real conversation since the cult case, so Kang Hyeong-seok took this chance to tell her everything that had happened — the cultists' pursuit, their madness, and even the way a vicious miasma had crushed down on him in that corridor.
"I know how hard it was on you as well."
It was not empty talk but sincerity, dripping from every syllable — and the venomous edge in Shin Jeong-ah's eyes softened quickly.
"It can't have been easy. We felt the energy you took in for us, Chief."
Shin Jeong-ah pressed her lips together, and Kang Hyeong-seok looked at her with gratitude in his eyes.
"If it hadn't been for you, I'd probably be dead."
Perhaps that corridor had been a space for offering up living sacrifices. It had been strange enough that only now, looking back, did such a thought occur to him. The virulent miasma, certainly — but the abnormal blanket of mold caking the walls had been wrong, too. Granted, it was the kind of space where damp was inevitable. Yet the more he turned it over in his mind, the more one suspicion kept surging up: that the mold had grown not on moisture, but on blood.
"Thanks to you, I'm still here. Thank you."
The sincerity bleeding through his words made Shin Jeong-ah scrunch up her face and let out a long groan.
"Ah, hell. When you come at me like that, Section Chief, I've got nothing left to say."
Gritting her teeth, Shin Jeong-ah muttered on, her eyes brimming with rueful exasperation.
"It's strange... it feels like every time I get tangled up with you in particular, this is what happens."
Truthfully, it did have something to do with her saju as well. He had once asked Cheong-geum to read Shin Jeong-ah's Four Pillars, and she had turned up several baleful stars among them: Gwimungwansal, the Ghost Gate Barrier Star, and Baekhodaesal, the Great White Tiger Star. Neither was the kind of star that could have left her untouched when it came to being dragged into affairs like this one.
"By the way — did the Grand Shaman happen to give you anything?"
At the question, Shin Jeong-ah's eyes went wide as if an eyebrow had shot up, and she jabbed a hand into her pocket.
"Well, she did hand me something."
With that she fished out of her pocket a small crimson thing, like a lucky charm pouch, and passed it over to Kang Hyeong-seok.
Kang Hyeong-seok loosened the knotted cord sealing the pouch, and from within slid out a small sheet of paper folded in two. It was a talisman inscribed in cinnabar talisman-script.
"The Grand Shaman went to considerable trouble on your behalf."
"Hm?"
"She didn't explain it to you?"
"All she said was not to let it leave my body."
Apparently the explaining had been left to Kang Hyeong-seok. He refolded the talisman as though it were something precious, tucked it back into the pouch, and cinched its mouth tight.
"It's a Seonsinsuhobu — a supreme protective talisman. Keep it on your person at all times."
"Huh? It's a good thing?"
"For you, Chief — very much so."
It was a talisman written by Lee Geum-kyeong's own hand, and the energy radiating from it was anything but ordinary.
"...So as long as I keep this on me, I won't get dragged into any more weirdness?"
"At the very least, possessions and stray spirits won't be able to latch onto you."
Stray spirits exist everywhere. Naturally, they existed here in the break room as well. But just as none dared approach Kang Hyeong-seok, who stood under the protection of a great god, none dared draw near Shin Jeong-ah either.
"No wonder something felt off about you — the Grand Shaman gave you quite the gift."
"Oh..."
"Give her a call one of these days and thank her properly. She'll be delighted."
Realizing she had received a far greater gift than she had imagined, Shin Jeong-ah let out a small gasp of awe. Then, abruptly, like someone suddenly struck by guilt, she knit her brow and fixed Kang Hyeong-seok with a look.
"Hold on — did you get something too, Section Chief?"
"What kind of something, may I ask?"
"I mean, we went through it together. It can't be just me who got something."
Kang Hyeong-seok regarded her with mild surprise, then broke into a short laugh. He had a fair idea of what was weighing on her.
"I'm all right. I'm getting something else, remember?"
He waggled his phone, and understanding dawned — Shin Jeong-ah's lips parted faintly and she nodded.
The very next instant. Bzzt.
As if the timing had been arranged, Kang Hyeong-seok's phone screen lit up to announce an incoming message. The display happened to be angled toward Shin Jeong-ah, so she could read every word.
"A text from Director Shin?"
One line, no more — yet there was nothing light about its contents.
"Hm? One moment."
As he read it, a soft smile spread across Kang Hyeong-seok's lips.
"He says we should get the contract drafted. Perfect timing."
"Go tell the Department Head right away! He's been fretting over it this whole time as it is."
It was a fair point. Days had passed since the long trip ended, and still there had been no word whatsoever from Shin Yo-sep. The Department Head had been wearing the face of a parent who longed to ask but couldn't bring himself to, afraid that the very question might cause hurt.
"Do you happen to know where the Department Head is right now?"
"He headed up to the roof with his cigarettes a little while ago."
Looking pleased with how things had turned out, Kang Hyeong-seok slipped the phone into his pocket.
"Shall we go up together?"
"Why not?"
Shin Jeong-ah grinned at the mental image of Kwak Young-ho's stunned face, and Kang Hyeong-seok — smiling as well, if not quite so broadly — followed her out of the break room. The instant they were gone, Namgoong Min-ah, who had been sitting vacantly with her empty tumbler, came scampering into the break room.
Slurp.
Up on the company rooftop, Kwak Young-ho took a bitter sip from the paper cup of coffee in his hand. Between fingers etched with the traces of the years, a slender cigarette smoldered, while a thin gray cloud drifted forlornly overhead.
Tap. Tap-tap-tap. He opened his message inbox on the phone, exhaled a sigh along with his cigarette smoke, and cocked his head to one side.
A message he could not bring himself to send. He wanted to ask what had become of the promised contract, but he wasn't the only one sweating blood over it. The ones truly having the hardest time of it would be Kang Hyeong-seok and Shin Jeong-ah themselves.
Forget it. Nagging them wouldn't make it happen any faster.
Kwak Young-ho was just moving to pocket the phone when — creak.
The rooftop door swung open, and two young employees came chattering through it.
"Did you hear? About that guy from Sales Team 1."
"What about him — Section Chief Kang?"
"This one's dead in the water, huh? The long business trip."
"No contact this whole time? Then it's toast."
"Serves him right. Our old fart's been ramming the guy down our throats day in, day out — it was getting ridiculous."
"Tsk."
"Brass had enormous expectations riding on this. If it collapses just like that, it's going to hit Department Head Kwak hard, too."
"What the hell happened, anyway?"
"Honestly, I hope a few more of their deals blow up and the whole of Sales Team 1 gets swept out."
Whether it was because Kwak Young-ho was so uncharacteristically silent, or because they were wrapped up in their gossip, the pair seemed convinced they had the rooftop to themselves.
"Hey. Hey."
"What? What's with you all of a sudden?"
Then one of them spotted Kwak Young-ho and, flustered, slapped the other's arm — and only then did the two of them blanch as though they'd seen a ghost.
"Y-you were here, sir?"
"Good afternoon, sir."
Kwak Young-ho answered with a vague wave of his hand, while the two wished a mousehole would open up and swallow them whole. Who could possibly have known? That he would be up here, of all places.
"W-we'll get out of your way, sir."
They stashed away their cigarettes and were slinking toward the door when—
"What? Go on. Light up."
"N-no, sir. It's all right."
"Light up."
Shooting anxious glances at Kwak Young-ho's face, the two reluctantly set cigarettes between their lips—
"Feels nice, talking behind my back?"
"Ptui! Koff, koff!"
The one who had choked mid-drag went white as a sheet, while the other hung his head low, wearing the expression of a man whose life was over.
"I'm sorry, Department Head."
"S-sir, it's not what you think—"
The one scrambling for an excuse took an elbow in the ribs from his friend and bowed his head deep instead.
"...We're sorry, sir."
"Whew—!"
Kwak Young-ho fished out a cigarette, set it between his lips, and lit it with a frown. Then he clicked his tongue at the two employees.
"I don't normally say a word about people from other departments. But let's keep to the line, hm?"
"...Sorry, sir."
"And if you hate being compared to Section Chief Kang, then work harder and get better. What are you doing spitting curses at the man so his work falls apart? Curses, of all things. Love it or hate it, you're all with the same company, aren't you?"
Even with ten mouths apiece they would have had nothing to say; the two heads sank lower and lower.
"Aigoo, tsk."
"...We're sorry, sir."
Kwak Young-ho descended the emergency stairs, pouring the curses boiling up inside him out through his eyes rather than his mouth. It truly chafed. All this over one lousy contract. People run into dry stretches — that's just how life goes. But instead of cheering his own people on, those punks had been circling around, sniffing out where they might sink their teeth in.
"Aigoo!"
Kwak Young-ho had just heaved out a sigh thick with temper when—
"Is something troubling you, Department Head?"
Coming up the stairs with Shin Jeong-ah at his side, Kang Hyeong-seok met him face to face.