The Farmer Who Wanted to Quit
Vrrroooom.
Danyang, North Chungcheong Province.
What a magnificent place.
The scenery was so breathtaking that the area was often featured among the country's top travel destinations, and the way its mountains and rivers harmonized with the small city was simply superb.
"Wow!"
Namgoong Min-ah, gazing from inside the car at the bridge stretching across the crystal-clear river, burst out in admiration.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes! Even seeing it again after all this time, it's stunning."
Kang Hyeong-seok's face had gone stiff from the long drive, but his eyes widened a touch.
"'After all this time'?"
"Huh? You didn't know?"
The road ran straight and empty, so Kang Hyeong-seok turned his head briefly toward her before facing front again.
She was staring back at him with a genuinely startled expression.
"Danyang is my hometown."
"...I had no idea."
With her flawless Seoul accent, he had never once imagined she might be from anywhere else.
"Ah! Well, of course—Assistant Manager, you've never even seen my résumé, have you?"
Having deduced the reason for his surprise all on her own, Namgoong Min-ah flashed a mischievous grin.
"You didn't know because I speak Seoul dialect so well, right?"
"Honestly, that's exactly it."
"We moved when I was little. Third grade of elementary school?"
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded as though the explanation settled things neatly.
If that were true, the way she talked certainly made sense.
"Oh, right! Would it be okay if I told you a scary story?"
"Out of nowhere?"
"We haven't told any scary stories yet, have we?"
The drive down to North Chungcheong had been anything but boring. Namgoong Min-ah chatted more than most radio hosts ever managed, and every time he managed to forget the chocolate existed, she would thrust another piece at him without warning.
Kang Hyeong-seok stole a glance at the time.
There was still a while to go before they arrived.
And letting Min-ah chatter away seemed to help keep the tension down.
"Go ahead."
"Do you know Bunseonsaba?"
At the utterly unexpected question, Kang Hyeong-seok blinked, then let out a hollow laugh.
"The age gap between us isn't that big."
"Oh! Then you must have played it a lot?"
Kang Hyeong-seok's brow creased for an instant.
Because his Yeongan—his spiritual eye—had been open from such an early age, he had never once been able to play games like Bunseonsaba, anything that had to do with ghosts.
To be precise, he couldn't.
He had been too afraid of the stray spirits that gathered around children squatting over a sheet of paper, pencil in hand, chanting Bunseonsaba, Bunseonsaba.
"No."
"You see, I was really good at it. So brave that even the teachers used to look the other way."
Kang Hyeong-seok swallowed his words, lips moving as though something were caught in his throat.
No way.
It was a childhood memory, so it had to be warped by time.
Bunseonsaba wasn't true summoning—just a schoolyard game dressed up as one.
And Namgoong Min-ah showed no sign of carrying divine energy. Her intuition didn't seem particularly sharp either; if anything, she came across as about as perceptive as anyone else, or less. It was hard to believe that someone like her had divined anything through a game like Bunseonsaba.
"Amazing, right? But do you know why that was?"
"No."
"Well, you see, Assistant Manager..."
Namgoong Min-ah dropped her voice, setting the mood as though she were about to confess some tremendous secret.
"The friend I used to play with—turns out she had divine energy."
Kang Hyeong-seok let out a silent, so that's it.
If that was true, everything was explained.
Even without a god choosing you, divine energy alone was enough to guess at things like another person's past.
Not that it was a blessing.
That classmate of hers had probably suffered through a stretch as hard as his own.
An uncontrolled power. A spiritual eye that saw ghosts.
A pain that could hardly earn sympathy from anyone else. It was hell.
"What about that friend? Do you two still keep in touch?"
"No. We lost contact when I transferred schools."
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded, his expression souring.
It was the kind of thing that happened all the time in childhood, after all.
Back then, even elementary schoolers didn't carry cell phones the way they did now.
"But I still remember her name! Yoon Bo-mi. She was such a sweet kid..."
"You never know. If she's still living in Danyang, you might run into her."
"You really think so?"
Namgoong Min-ah grinned and fixed her gaze out the window,
as if searching the passersby for an old friend.
And that was probably exactly what she was doing.
The distance remaining...
Six kilometers now.
Far if you called it far, near if you called it near.
Kang Hyeong-seok turned his eyes to Namgoong Min-ah for a moment.
Her face was hidden as she looked out the window, but the back of her head somehow seemed to brim with nostalgia and old memories.
Fortunately, there was no trace of tension anywhere on her.
"Aigoo! Welcome, welcome!"
The old man spotted Kang Hyeong-seok's car from amid the sprawling garlic field and waved.
The road right beside the field was unpaved, so Kang Hyeong-seok, crawling along slowly, stuck his head out the window before he had even come to a stop.
"Hello!"
"Over there—go on and park over that way!"
Their voices had risen to keep from being drowned out by the engine, and Kang Hyeong-seok pulled into a quiet patch of open ground.
"We're getting out. Both of us."
"Yes, sir!"
As he unfastened his seatbelt, Kang Hyeong-seok glanced at Namgoong Min-ah and let the corners of his mouth lift gently.
"Don't be nervous. Got it?"
"Yes."
With the tension drained out of her, the two of them stood before the farmer.
Ha Jang-seo.
He was in his early sixties, but his brown skin was so weathered and creased—from all the sun he had soaked up working the fields, no doubt—that you would have believed seventy without a second thought.
"How have you been keeping? And how's the work treating you?"
"Aigoo, right off the bat with that. Sometimes you're like one of them government inspectors, I swear."
"An inspector? How could I ever treat you that way, sir?"
"Just pulling your leg, is all. Hahaha."
Long years of doing business together had made Kang Hyeong-seok and Ha Jang-seo thoroughly comfortable with each other.
"And who might this young lady be?"
"She's our newest hire."
Kang Hyeong-seok stepped fully to the side, clearing the stage.
Whereupon Namgoong Min-ah bowed low with motions that had clearly been rehearsed more than once, fished a business card out of her wallet, and offered it up with both hands.
"I'm Namgoong Min-ah! It's a pleasure to meet you!"
"Aigoo, what a spirited little thing. And a pretty one, too."
Ha Jang-seo accepted Namgoong Min-ah's card—and then merely stroked it with his rough fingers.
A strange dissonance crept over Kang Hyeong-seok like an ebbing tide.
What is this? He was never like this before.
The first time Kang Hyeong-seok had met Ha Jang-seo, the man had barely taken his card before whipping out his own in return.
Yet right now, Ha Jang-seo looked to be agonizing over whether to take out his own card at all.
"She's my junior at the office. We'll be coming out to see you often from now on."
"Is that so?"
Even after all that, Ha Jang-seo was still toying with Namgoong Min-ah's card.
Just as Namgoong Min-ah, reading the room, was starting to fidget with the fear that she had somehow blundered—
"Have you eaten yet? If you haven't, come along with us."
Kang Hyeong-seok pointed toward his own car with a bright voice.
"A meal?"
The subject changed, and the awkward air thinned.
"Yes. That place just up the road with the fantastic braised pollack, remember? Your favorite."
When Kang Hyeong-seok laid on the geniality without stinting, an awkward smile bloomed at the corners of Ha Jang-seo's mouth.
"All right then. Let's go get some food in us."
Ha Jang-seo trundled off to gather his things.
Namgoong Min-ah immediately shot Kang Hyeong-seok a look, but he only shook his head: don't worry about it.
Vrrroooom.
The restaurant wasn't far.
Five minutes' drive from the garlic field.
And yet it felt far, far longer than that.
The awkward mood Ha Jang-seo had brewed up over that business card simply refused to clear.
"Boss, one large braised pollack here, please. And some dumplings alongside."
Kang Hyeong-seok asked Ha Jang-seo whether he would like a bottle of soju to go with it, but all he got back was a sideways shake of the head.
Something really was off, no question about it.
"I suppose you're minding your health these days. You never used to turn down a drink with your meals."
"Aigoo, well, it's like this."
Sensing there was something the man wanted to say, Kang Hyeong-seok flicked a glance at Namgoong Min-ah beside him: not a word.
"Take your time. Speak freely."
"Oooh, dear, dear me. Aigoo."
Ha Jang-seo scratched his head and smiled a bitter smile.
Then he brought out words that were truly unexpected—words that should never have had to be spoken.
"I was thinking I'd farm through this year, and then hang it up for good."
"...Pardon?"
The supply line must not be severed.
That was what Kang Hyeong-seok had told Namgoong Min-ah.
Her eyes flew wide open, and she swallowed dryly hard enough that the gulp was audible—while Ha Jang-seo fiddled with the napkin lying beneath his spoon.
"My body just isn't what it used to be lately. And all the hospital says is that it looks like plain old aging."
Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze dropped, unbidden, to Ha Jang-seo's fingers.
Ah. Why had it taken him this long to notice?
The fact that the man's fingers were trembling like a frightened man's.
"Are you doing that poorly?"
Ha Jang-seo gave a rueful smile and rolled up his sleeve.
His forearm was covered in red blotches, like burn scars.
Marks that looked far more serious than heat rash or hives.
"...But you're still hale and hearty, sir. And didn't you used to say you'd farm this land for a thousand years, ten thousand more?"
The air had grown so heavy that Kang Hyeong-seok had forced the words out in a bright voice—and then—
"In my heart, that's just what I'd want, mind. But a man's life don't always go the way he pleases."
Just as Ha Jang-seo lifted his water glass with a trembling hand and drank, the braised pollack arrived at the table.
Glazed in vivid scarlet sauce, it gave off that distinctive fragrance of fish dried to a perfect chew.
From looks alone you could tell this place had earned its reputation.
Clink, clatter.
And yet a strangely heavy air still hung over the meal—because of what Ha Jang-seo had said, of course, about giving up the farm.
"It truly is a shame. Coming out here to eat with you was one of my little pleasures."
In the room where the meal proceeded with careful restraint, Kang Hyeong-seok spoke quietly.
"Won't you think it over just once more?"
Ha Jang-seo set down his chopsticks and gave a small shake of the head.
"I'm sorry to let you down."
"If you could tell me your exact symptoms, I could look around for a good hospital on my end."
"You'd do that...?"
"I'm rather well connected through work, and my manager would throw himself into it for you, too."
"Aigoo, now that's just embarrassing."
"What's there to be embarrassed about?"
Ha Jang-seo let out sigh after sigh, then leaned deep into his chair like a man who had lost his appetite entirely.
Sick he certainly was—more than half the rice sat untouched in his bowl.
"The symptoms themselves, honestly, are nothing much. And that's exactly what's driving me out of my mind."
Arms crossed, Ha Jang-seo stared down at the table with the face of a man who wished that water glass held soju instead.
"I can't sleep at night. My hair stands up on end. My arms and legs go pins and needles. And every so often my legs just give out under me and down I go."
The more of the symptoms he heard, the easier it was to see why the doctors had written it off as old age.
While Namgoong Min-ah, terrified of putting a foot wrong, watched Ha Jang-seo in silence with something like pity on her face, Kang Hyeong-seok quietly ran his tongue along his teeth.
Because Ha Jang-seo's symptoms felt terribly familiar.
"...Sir."
"Hm?"
"Have you, by any chance, brought home anything new lately? Any sort of item?"
Not just Namgoong Min-ah—even Ha Jang-seo now turned to him with a look that plainly said, what on earth are you on about?
"You've always had that hobby of picking up antiques and the like from the markets, haven't you? It just crossed my mind."
"Eh, I've been busy these days, and poorly on top of it, so I haven't managed it at all..."
Under Ha Jang-seo's gaze—why in the world would you ask that?—Kang Hyeong-seok drained a glass of water and opened his mouth.
"I heard it somewhere, some time back. About people buying secondhand goods, the wrong ones, and picking up some kind of germ from them."
"Eh? That sort of thing actually happens?"
"It does. And listening to your symptoms, sir, it doesn't sound like anything a surgeon would treat."
He had said it as a plausible-sounding excuse, but it came out more convincing than he had expected.
"I'm not sure it's quite fair to compare, but an old friend of mine once bought a pair of used shoes by mistake and went through pure hell because of it."
"Hmm."
Ha Jang-seo rubbed his chin, wearing the expression of a man who supposed such a thing could happen, and sank into thought.
In the brief silence that settled over the table, the leftover braised pollack went on drying out, hardening by the minute.
Looking down at it, Kang Hyeong-seok fell deep into thought of his own.
Possession? Or Dongti—divine retribution? Perhaps cursed food, even.
These were the symptoms that commonly appeared in those who had touched something inauspicious, or become entangled with it.
Let it be one of those. Please.
If it was, then there was still something he could do.