The God Who Hides His Name
The sun was setting low behind the mountains, slow and languid.
Vrrrooom...
Driving up the unpaved mountain road, Kang Hyeong-seok sipped at the coffee in his tumbler. From the chicken box riding on the passenger seat, the nutty smell of frying oil kept nudging his empty stomach.
Lee Geum-kyeong's residence. That was where he was headed — the place where Cheong-geum, the old shaman's apprentice, lived.
"Get lost! I have nothing to say to you!"
"Come on, don't be like that! Just hear us out!"
"There's nothing possessed here, so quit pestering people and go!"
He was drawing near his destination when the voices of Cheong-geum and a pack of unfamiliar men cut through the engine noise and reached his ears.
Here we go again.
It was obvious without even looking. People who'd visited the haunted house nearby had evidently spooked themselves silly and come begging to have the ghost they were sure had latched onto them driven out. Back when he'd first met Cheong-geum, she'd mistaken him for one of those very people.
"You fucking bitch, talking like a dog! Hey — you think I won't hit you just because you're a woman?"
At the venom in that voice, Kang Hyeong-seok's brow creased. Then, cursing silently to himself, he pressed down on the accelerator.
Screech! He pulled up before the shrine in mere moments, parked, opened the door, and stepped out.
Early twenties at best. Guys who looked like they hadn't even done their military service yet were gripping Cheong-geum by the collar, fists cocked to swing.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
At his approach, the men faltered and shuffled backward.
"Wh-what the—?"
THWACK!
Kang Hyeong-seok drove his foot into the outer thigh of the man clutching Cheong-geum's collar.
"Argh!"
The man crumpled with an undignified shriek, and the other two scrambled away, eyes wide with fear.
"Wh-who the hell are you, you bastard?"
"Hey, hey! You okay?"
"F-film it! Get video! Film this bastard!"
The fallen man shouted through a voice choked with tears while the others raised their phones in half-crouched stances, eyeballs darting with more swagger than sense. Kang Hyeong-seok let out a sigh that was closer to a lament. Kids these days truly had no fear.
WHAM!
"AAAAARGH!"
A kick to the side of one man's knee, and Kang Hyeong-seok plucked the phone from his grip like he was subduing a child — then hurled it at a tree a good distance off.
Crash! Shatter!
"WAAAH!"
The phone exploded into fragments against the trunk, one of the men froze solid on the spot, and Cheong-geum watched Kang Hyeong-seok with something like surprise.
Kang Hyeong-seok turned his glare on the man who didn't even dare lift his phone.
"Film it."
"Ex-cuse me?"
"Film it. Weren't you recording?"
Phone trembling in his hand, the man darted desperate looks back and forth between his companions. The one on the ground barked something furious — and promptly took another kick.
THWACK!
"AAAAAARGH!"
By now the remaining two were so thoroughly terrified that even the way they stood had turned respectful.
"Hey. Kids."
"Ye-yes?"
"I don't think you know any better, but you really shouldn't go messing with people out here in the mountains."
Kang Hyeong-seok lectured them in a perfectly civil tone, his eyes carved from ice. The men shuddered from head to toe and dropped their gazes to the dirt.
Thump.
When he took a step toward them, the man with the bad knee flailed in panic and went down in a heap.
"Roughing up a shaman you came begging for help — honestly."
To the men, Kang Hyeong-seok now looked like the Grim Reaper himself come walking. The only one still holding a phone stole an involuntary glance at him, then immediately dropped his head and shook it hard.
"N-no! I won't do it!"
"Go on. Do it."
"I won't! Re-really, I won't."
"Try me."
At the quiet warning, every face drained deathly white. That was enough — he'd scared them plenty.
"Go."
"Ex...cuse me?"
"Get down the mountain."
Kang Hyeong-seok tipped his chin toward the bottom of the slope, and the men scrambled off, hauling each other upright as they went. One of them even managed a deep bow on the way out; Kang Hyeong-seok didn't acknowledge it.
"...So you had this side to you, too?"
Once the footsteps had faded entirely, Cheong-geum spoke up. Only then did Kang Hyeong-seok let his expression soften, and he shook his head, sheepish.
"Sorry about that. You didn't need to see that side of me."
"No, no — you did it because of me."
Kang Hyeong-seok smacked his lips like a man who'd bitten into something bitter and gestured toward his car.
"That business with them grabbing your collar, all the screaming — it should've been caught on my dashcam. I'll back the footage up, so tell me if you ever need it."
It would go a lot further with the police than the word of men who hadn't even managed to record anything.
"...It gets that many?"
"They swarm, all right."
Kang Hyeong-seok's brow knit.
"A place that notorious — and Teacher hasn't dealt with it...?"
It made no sense to him. For Lee Geum-kyeong to leave alone a haunted house famous enough to draw riffraff like that.
"It's a site Teacher keeps under her care. There's nothing actually there — it's all rumor — but the stories just won't die down."
"Ah. I see."
So there was a haunted house, all right; the rumors had simply outgrown the reality. Most of them were like that. Visit any online haunted-house forum and you'd find perfectly ordinary abandoned buildings billed as sites of unspeakable horror, or the sort of earthbound spirits and stray ghosts you could find anywhere described like great evil demons.
"Young Master, did you perhaps train in something? Some kind of martial art?"
"Just a little... in the army."
It was an awkward question, and as Kang Hyeong-seok tried to mumble his way past it, the corners of Cheong-geum's mouth quietly curled upward. She was grateful, deep down, for what he'd done for her.
"You look like a schoolteacher, but there's a proper manly side to you as well, isn't there?"
Kang Hyeong-seok waved her off and turned his gaze toward Lee Geum-kyeong's quarters. All this uproar, and the old woman's post stayed utterly silent.
"Teacher must not be back yet."
"She went to perform the Dragon King Gut. She did say she might run late."
"Is something the matter...?"
Cheong-geum smiled thinly and shook her head.
"You needn't concern yourself."
"If something's going on, please tell me. It's not as if I'd go around spreading it."
Cheong-geum's eyes went round, and she shook her head hard.
"No! That's not what I meant. Honestly, I don't know much myself."
"You seemed to know something, though?"
"All I know is that something has happened. Her voice sounded off when she called."
"...I see."
Kang Hyeong-seok asked nothing more. Pressing Cheong-geum would get him nowhere, and he trusted that Lee Geum-kyeong had her reasons.
"Anyway — shall we, then?"
He answered while meeting Cheong-geum's gaze.
"Yes."
Before coming up here, he had made one request over the phone. In Danyang, he had seen a Yeommae — opened it, and freed the soul trapped inside. It hadn't been a complete one, but it had carried more than enough power to rot Ha Jang-seo from within. And he had touched it. He needed to know whether it had left anything behind in him.
"Honestly, Young Master, couldn't you tell just by looking in a mirror?"
Cheong-geum crossed her arms and smiled, sheepish at the request.
"Better safe than sorry. My experience is still shallow."
"And yet your cultivated power runs deep."
"Just take one look, please. That's the only way I'll have peace of mind."
Kang Hyeong-seok stepped back a pace from her. Soon the good humor drained from Cheong-geum's face, and her eyes deepened. A shaman's eyes — piercing straight through a man, so sharp and fierce they hardly seemed human.
Fweeeee—!
Whistling to flush out whatever might be lurking — even that minor art she employed as she picked him apart, inch by inch. Then, at last, her expression eased and her pursed lips loosened.
"You're clean."
"Haaah."
At his long exhale, Cheong-geum smiled as though he amused her.
"What is there to worry over so much, Young Master? Your patron deity would have shielded you from all of it."
"I suppose so."
Kang Hyeong-seok smiled, though the look carried a bitter edge. Would things be easier, he wondered, if his patron deity were like any other?
"...You still haven't heard its name?"
Cheong-geum asked it carefully, her smile gone, and he answered with silence. Her face stiffened at once, as if she regretted ever laughing.
"It's not something you should dwell on."
"Still. It must wear on you."
Kang Hyeong-seok shook his head as if to say it didn't.
"I'm sure there's a reason I'm not meant to know."
Framing it that way was the only thing that made it sit easier in his chest. There had to be some grand design behind it. That had to be why the god hadn't so much as breathed a word — let alone offered a name.
Sometimes it almost feels like he's hiding the very fact that he exists from the world.
The thought surfaced unbidden, and he shook it away at once. To presume and guess at a god's will was no proper thing to do.
"When the time comes, I'm sure he'll tell me everything. I just figure the failing is mine."
For an instant, Cheong-geum's expression shifted into something odd.
"Too much humility is torture for the one listening."
"Sorry — what humility?"
"The kind you're doing right now."
Grinning, as if to sweep away the brief gloom, Cheong-geum gave him a nudge with her words. In her eyes, Kang Hyeong-seok already stood above the run of shamans. Only the world he belonged to was different from theirs.
"You walk a road unlike other people's. So stop measuring yourself against other people."
Kang Hyeong-seok considered that for a moment, then nodded.
"You're right. You're right about that."
Measure himself against others, and all he'd ever harvest was meaningless pain — such was human nature. There was no need to wrap himself in that feeling by choice.
"Anyway — thank you. For entertaining such a sudden request so late in the day, too."
"Not at all! It's you, Young Master. Hardly a stranger."
Watching her nearly leap out of her skin, Kang Hyeong-seok smiled faintly. The expression looked so wholly gentle that her fluster melted into embarrassment.
"Ah — and one more favor, if I may?"
"Of course! Anything at all."
Kang Hyeong-seok drew a slip of paper from his pocket and held it out.
"This is my boss's date of birth. Would you take a look at his saju for me — the four pillars of his fate?"
"Someone else's saju...? Why?"
"He seems to be the sort spirits latch onto easily. I hear he even had a shrine he used to visit regularly."
Watching her expression, Kang Hyeong-seok went on carefully.
"He was hurt badly by a fraud shaman once. I thought if trouble ever found him again, it might be all right to send him here."
"Ah — I understand. But you don't know the hour of his birth?"
"No. I only copied what's registered on the company intranet, so that much I don't have."
Cheong-geum squinted down at the paper and spoke.
"A shame, that. But I can still read most of what matters."
"Teacher isn't here, though. Will that be all right?"
Cheong-geum started, shot him a look, then smiled awkwardly.
"We-well, we use programs these days. There are websites for it, too."
"Oh..."
"...Every shaman knows that much now."
Their worlds really did run on different tracks. Feeling the truth of it in his bones, Kang Hyeong-seok suddenly remembered something and blurted out, "Ah!"
"Wh-what is it?"
"The chicken. Those idiots made me forget all about it."
"Ahhh!"
Cheong-geum mourned, with complete sincerity, the chicken now steadily going cold, while Kang Hyeong-seok hurried to fetch it from the car.
"Good thing I left the engine running."
Cheong-geum stared at him, face full of what on earth that could have to do with chicken — and then,
"I'd turned on the heated seat. On the passenger side. That keeps it warm."
This time it was Cheong-geum who'd been caught off guard — though neither the situation nor their relationship called for keeping score like that.
"You haven't had dinner yet, have you?"
"Truth be told, I was getting hungry."
"Then let's eat together. I remembered how much you enjoyed it last time, so I bought extra."
Cheong-geum broke into a bright smile and walked with him toward her quarters. The sun had already dropped away, and the world around them had gone dark as ink spilled across paper.
And as Kang Hyeong-seok and Cheong-geum stepped inside, a single crow settled on the branch of a tree far off.
An abnormally, unnaturally black crow.
Its body hidden within the darkness, it stared and stared at Lee Geum-kyeong's shrine.
For a very, very long time.