A Good Day
Everyone bolted upright. The managing director rose first, followed in quick succession by the other executives — and Kang Hyeong-seok.
Then a middle-aged man, black hair streaked with silver, swept aside the red curtain and strode into the room.
"Sir! You're here!"
The managing director shouted it almost like a salute and bowed his head.
This was Lee Beom-seok, CEO of Daejeong Mulsan.
His brows were heavy for his age, and there was real force in his face — a man who looked every inch the businessman, right down to his features.
"Started without me, did you?"
"We only just arrived ourselves, sir."
Lee Beom-seok handed his overcoat to the managing director and settled into the chair that was plainly the seat of honor. As though they had been waiting for exactly that, the servers began bringing out the food.
Clatter, clink.
Ask anyone to picture Chinese food, and they would summon up black-bean noodles, spicy seafood soup, sweet and sour pork, maybe a bubbling pot of mala. But among the dishes spreading across the round table, there was not a single one of those. Platters of nameless dishes crowded in one after another — the only things he could identify were the ingredients themselves.
"Assistant Manager Kang Hyeong-seok."
No sooner had the last server set down the food and slipped out than Lee Beom-seok addressed him.
"Yes, sir."
Kang Hyeong-seok straightened in his seat, and Lee Beom-seok took a sip of the jasmine tea the managing director had poured for him before he spoke.
"Is the company treating you well?"
Kang Hyeong-seok stole a glance at Department Head Jo Tae-sik — Im Jin-gil's superior. The man's face had, by now, gone the color of charcoal.
Harsh-tempered and quick to flare though he was, Jo Tae-sik was no bad man. But the moment he set foot back in the office, wouldn't he grind Im Jin-gil down until there was nothing left?
"There's much I still lack, but Department Head Kwak Young-ho takes good care of me, so I'm getting along well."
"Is that so?"
"Have you known the professor a long time, sir?"
"We've been close since high school. Didn't Kim ever tell you?"
"No, sir. He rarely speaks of himself."
The way the executives looked at Kang Hyeong-seok began to shift. He had joined the company on Professor Kim Jae-sik's recommendation — and that professor, they now learned, was a friend of the CEO's. In their minds he was quietly recast: from an employee who had once done the company a good turn, to a man connected to the very top.
"No one giving you trouble, are they?"
He could tell without looking that Jo Tae-sik had gone pale as ash, so he didn't bother to check.
"Not particularly, sir."
"There may be talk around the company. Wretched little men who envy anyone who's rendered a service — you find them everywhere."
Lee Beom-seok's eyes made it plain he was remembering old times.
"Don't let the likes of them sway you. The small ones are never satisfied until they've dragged the capable down to their own level. That's just how they are."
It was life advice anyone might offer. Yet coming from Lee Beom-seok's mouth, it landed with enough weight to demand real reflection. Perhaps that was the difference between a man who had lived such things and one who hadn't.
"I'll keep it in mind, sir."
"Which reminds me — you've done the company a great service. In business, momentum is everything. You cut things off cleanly right at the starting point, and I'm grateful."
Something hot surged up inside him.
That Lee Jin-pyeong was lying in a hospital bed. That Kang Hyeong-seok's role in the warehouse re-contract had been no small one. Lee Beom-seok seemed to have read the entire situation so thoroughly that the thoughts came charging in unbidden.
He probably doesn't know about the vengeful spirit, though... Still. It's good to be thanked.
The CEO knew what had happened at the company — and he was saying thank you for it. For the first time in his life, Kang Hyeong-seok experienced just how much comfort and strength that could carry, more than he had ever imagined.
"Sir, the food is getting cold."
"Ah — right. A toast first, then."
The managing director poured liquor into the CEO's glass as though he had been waiting for the cue. For a moment Kang Hyeong-seok tensed, half expecting a formal toast speech, but the CEO simply clinked glasses, drank, and that was that.
Man, we really do work for a good company.
Marveling anew, Kang Hyeong-seok waited until the executives had lifted their chopsticks before finally moving food onto the small plate before him.
"Eat plenty. This whole thing is for you, after all."
The managing director said it heartily, clapping him on the back — and it truly did feel that way. Everywhere he turned, he could sense the executives looking out for him. It showed from the very start: the way the round table's tray kept whirling around, and the best dishes kept coming to rest in front of him, too.
"By the way — folklore, was it? Does that mean you'd know shamans and the like?"
The managing director, his face flushed with drink, sidled up to the question with studied casualness, and Kwak Young-ho hurriedly answered in his place.
"Of course he does! Managing Director, sir, this fellow here — they say he used to go around meeting shamans even back in his university days!"
"Oh? Then he must know a truly powerful one."
The executives, warming to the topic, sent expectant looks sliding his way.
Poke!
Kwak Young-ho jabbed him in the ribs — a signal to say something, and quickly.
Agonizing. Strangely so. He had no wish to let on that his life was tangled up with shamanism, and Kwak Young-ho hadn't the faintest clue.
Poke.
When Kwak jabbed him again, Kang Hyeong-seok let out a soundless sigh and opened his mouth.
"There's only one I know."
"You really do know one?"
The managing director laughed as though it were a fine joke — and then, at the answer that followed, the corners of his mouth fell away.
"Her name is Lee Geum-kyeong..."
Clatter.
The managing director's dropped chopsticks bounced several times on the table before lying still.
"L-Lee Geum-kyeong the shaman?"
"You know her?"
"Know her? Of course I do. She's the most famous one in this whole area. To see her even once, don't you have to book at least three years in advance?"
Theirs was an acquaintance he called on whenever the mood took him, so he had never imagined that simply meeting Lee Geum-kyeong would take that kind of waiting.
"Incredible — this fellow really is somebody. Wait. Hold on. Could we commission a gut from her? One of those proper shamanic rites?"
"Wh-why do you ask, sir?"
The managing director's reaction had exceeded all expectation; before Kang Hyeong-seok could even finish his flustered counter-question, the answer came.
"It's what one does in business — you hold rituals, that sort of thing. What do you think, sir?"
"No harm in having one done."
"Yes, sir!"
From then on the managing director planted himself at Kang Hyeong-seok's side with earnest pleas — please, take good care of this; put in a good word with Teacher Lee Geum-kyeong; before any new venture got underway, he simply had to have her preside over one, he urged, again and again.
The meal, which stretched on until two in the afternoon, carried on in exactly this fashion from beginning to end.
"Thank you for the wonderful meal!"
"Off you go!"
"Take care, sir!"
Outside the restaurant, the executives climbed one by one into the cars they had come in.
So this is what executives really are, huh.
Daejeong Mulsan was no corporate giant, but the company had thoroughly made its place, and it showed: every single executive's car was a luxury sedan.
In the rapidly emptying parking lot, Kwak Young-ho studied Kang Hyeong-seok with a peculiar smile.
"Feels a little unreal, doesn't it?"
"I honestly couldn't say, sir. Truly."
It all felt like someone else's story — a mere employee sharing a warm, harmonious lunch with the executives themselves.
"Aigoo, come off it. Oh — right. I've got something for you. The managing director caught me by the restroom earlier and told me to hand it over."
"What?"
Kwak Young-ho fished a manila envelope from inside his jacket and pressed it firmly into Kang Hyeong-seok's hand.
"He said if it showed up in the books, it might stir up gossip at the office for no reason — so he'd prepared it in cash from the start. And he said he'll be counting on you in all sorts of ways."
"Ah..."
Clutching the thick envelope, Kang Hyeong-seok watched the managing director's car pull away — and then he burst out laughing.
Because an arm was stretched out of the car window, and the managing director's hand was waving for all it was worth.
Hsssssss.
The humidifier billowed out pure white vapor. This was the hospital room where Lee Jin-pyeong lay.
Scritch, scritch.
A middle-aged man who was the very image of Lee Jin-pyeong peeled an apple with clumsy, unpracticed hands. The peel came away thick, the fruit beneath ragged. Bleary-eyed and scowling, he piled the haphazardly cut slices onto a small tray and passed it to his wife seated beside him.
"Honey, have some."
She said nothing.
"Hey. Is staring at him going to open his eyes? The doctor said so, didn't he? Said he's through the worst of it — said he'll be fine."
Though he had offered her the tray, his wife took not a single slice. Instead she pushed the whole thing away and pressed a wrinkled hand to the tears welling at the corners of her eyes.
"I don't want to eat."
"Still..."
"I said I don't want to eat."
"Aigoo."
Lee Jin-pyeong's father crossed his arms and glared up at the blameless ceiling. Then his gaze drifted to the window.
To hell with it all — the weather was beautiful, and the sky a flawless blue. Looking at it, he even caught himself wondering whether God truly existed. Because if He didn't, there was no way the heavens could look so serene while a father's and a mother's insides rotted away like this.
"Could you delay the flight?"
"Huh?"
Lee Jin-pyeong's father frowned at his wife.
"No — come on, that's not possible. How would I even delay it?"
"He hasn't opened his eyes. What if Jin-pyeong still hasn't opened them by the time we fly back?"
It was no ordinary thing to see his wife wear so desperate a face. Lee Jin-pyeong had inherited his temperament from his mother — the proverbial bear of a wife was this very woman — and now her eyes churned with such raw emotion that it felt as if his chest were being torn open.
"One week. Just push it back one week, somehow."
"...You know it's not that simple."
"I don't ask you for things like this. Not ever."
Lee Jin-pyeong's mother took her husband's hand in both of hers. Then she curled in on herself, her small shoulders trembling hard enough to be seen across the room.
"What if he wakes up and we're not here? What if there's no one by his side..."
Stifled, Lee Jin-pyeong's father sighed at the indifferent view beyond the glass. His feelings were tangled and knotted through, yet he couldn't bring himself to shake off her hand — because he wanted the same thing, just as badly.
It was their son. Not some stranger's child — their own son, hurt in an accident.
Yip!
It was at that moment that the Spitz spirit lying on Lee Jin-pyeong's chest began to cry. The little spirit — once a member of the same household — wagged her tail as she looked from Lee Jin-pyeong's mother, silently sobbing, to his father, sighing again and again out the window.
Yip-yip! Yip! Yiiip!
The Spitz spirit knew her voice could not reach them. She knew, too, that even if it did, they would not understand. And still she kept barking — as if to tell them not to grieve, not to worry; as if to insist with all her might: I'm here. So rest easy.
Yip-yip! Yiiip!
So it was: two people bowed beneath the weight of their feelings, and one small spirit crying out as if to comfort them —
"...Nnh."
A faint moan slipped from Lee Jin-pyeong's lips. It was so soft that even his parents — who wished for nothing in this world so much as his waking — could not hear it.
Yip! Yip-yip!
But the spirit heard it, clear as day. She wagged her tail furiously, licked Lee Jin-pyeong's face, and her own eyes went damp.
"...Nnh... ah."
A second moan. This time, his mother heard it.
"J-Jin-pyeong? Jin-pyeong!"
Calling to her son in desperation, his mother did not dare reach out to him — did not even lay a hand on his body, for fear he might slip back into unconsciousness.
"M... Mom."
"O-oh! Oh heavens — it's Mom, sweetheart! Do you recognize Mom?"
Lee Jin-pyeong blinked his glimmering eyes, and his father hurriedly seized his son's shoulders.
"Hey! Oi! Stay with me here! Don't you drift off!"
"Honey! What do you think you're doing!"
"He— his eyes— he's—"
"Call the doctor first! What are you standing there for! Quickly!"
"R-right. Hey, hey, Jin-pyeong. You've got to hold on tight to your senses, you hear me? Don't let go! Got it? Yeah!"
"Honey! I said hurry!"
Lee Jin-pyeong's father was shoved toward the door by his wife — and before he left the room, he turned back to look at his son.
"Jin-pyeong... aigoo... Jin-pyeong."
Yip-yip-yip-yip!
His wife wept as she clutched Lee Jin-pyeong's hand tight, and the Spitz spirit wagged her tail as if it might fall off, yipping and yipping without pause. The father's gaze flicked to the window that had caught his eye earlier — that blue, indifferent sky at which, in his bitterness, he had chosen to believe there was no God.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you.
Offering God both his apology and his gratitude, he sprinted down the hospital corridor.
Today was a good day.
Such a very, very good day.