A Gift Best Left Unopened

Bzzt—! The phone went off after dinner, once the meal was finished and every last dish had been washed and put away.

Lying in the spare room he always used when he stayed over, phone in hand, Kang Hyeong-seok checked the message.

So that was why she'd said nothing in the car.

The problem hadn't been one that words could settle at the time — she must have decided there was no sense in fanning his unease over it.

Ping. Ping-ping. Ping-ping.

At the emoji tacked onto the end, Hyeong-seok smothered a laugh.

Right then—

"Seok-ah! Your uncle's here!"

At Park Jeong-im's call, Hyeong-seok slipped his phone into his pocket and stepped out to the living room. There, in front of the shoe rack, Park Ji-hoon — his uncle on his mother's side, someone he hadn't seen in far too long — was bent over, untying the laces of his hiking boots.

"It's been a while, Uncle. You've been well?"

"Hey, look who it is. Hyeong-seok."

Park Ji-hoon was five years younger than Kang Doo-seok, and when he grinned, sun-darkened face creasing, his teeth looked remarkably white.

"You're the lucky one today, I see. What are the odds you'd turn up on the very day some good liquor came into this house?"

Hyeong-seok's gaze slid to the jar sitting beside Park Ji-hoon. A brown jar a touch smaller than a basketball — and nothing about it felt ordinary. Not with a thick wad of paper serving in place of a lid, lashed down with brown twine.

"Where did this liquor come from?"

"You know I work in construction, right? A laborer I met on the job gave it to me. Said his father brewed it with his own hands."

"Ah. I see."

Hyeong-seok answered without taking his eyes off the jar. Whatever energy he was picking up from that jar, it was hard to pin down in words.

"Hey — you sure that stuff's drinkable?"

"Would he hand me something you can't drink, hyung?"

Even with Kang Doo-seok looking less than convinced, Park Ji-hoon radiated confidence.

"Noona! Toss me a ladle!"

"Then get in here and open it!"

Park Jeong-im raised her voice from inside, where she was laying out the drinking table, and Park Ji-hoon shuffled in, grumbling under his breath.

Slosh. Slosh.

The sound of liquor swaying inside the jar trailed after him, from the entryway all the way into the living room.

"Man, how am I even supposed to open this thing?"

Park Ji-hoon took a seat — not on a chair at the dining table but on the living-room floor, perhaps because the jar didn't strike anyone as a clean thing to bring to a table — and Kang Doo-seok settled in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠across from him. Between the two men, Hyeong-seok addressed his uncle, who was picking at the brown twine with a fingernail.

"Uncle, I really think it'd be better not to open this."

"Eh? Why not?"

"It doesn't feel like an ordinary liquor."

That was when Kang Doo-seok's and Park Jeong-im's expressions changed — everyone's but Park Ji-hoon's. The two of them knew what it meant that Hyeong-seok had received the gods. Merely bearing the gods was enough to break a person down to nothing, and whatever Lee Geum-kyeong had once said about Hyeong-seok as a boy, the two of them would surely remember it until the day they died.

And that same man was now trying to keep the lid from coming off.

"Honey — we've still got beer in the fridge, right?"

"Yeah. We do."

"Good, let's just have that. And you — keep that thing shut and drink your beer."

"Aw, come on, give me a minute, hyung."

Tick. Tick!

While Park Ji-hoon's fingernail kept scraping at the twine, Kang Doo-seok and Kang Hyeong-seok traded glances.

Then it came.

"Got it!"

Park Ji-hoon had worked the twine loose — and before anyone could stop him, he peeled the paper away.

"Uegh!"

In the same breath he clamped a hand over his nose and twisted his face aside. Before anyone could ask why, Kang Doo-seok, closest to him, reacted exactly the same — and a heartbeat later, so did Hyeong-seok.

A fierce blast of raw liquor — and beneath it, a stench far more foul.

"Hey! I told you not to open that!"

"It's only the liquor being strong, that's all. The fellow said the same thing. Rough at first meeting, he told me, but it tastes wonderful."

"Aigoo, honey! Open the window over there. I'll get the balcony."

Hyeong-seok couldn't just sit there either, and opened the bathroom window. The wind came barreling in, gathered up the stench, and hauled it back out — enough, at least, that no one had to keep wincing.

Then Kang Doo-seok and Park Ji-hoon drew close to the jar and peered inside.

"What's with this color?"

"It looks like a grain liquor to me."

"You don't even know what kind it is?"

"I only took it because he was giving it away."

"Let's not drink it. Just throw the whole thing out — that'd be better for everyone."

"Aw, hyung... Hey, Hyeong-seok. Don't tell me hyung's like this because of the strange things you said."

The sparks had landed on Hyeong-seok, and all he could do was take his father's side.

"I think you'd best do as Father says. Going by the color and the smell, that shouldn't be drunk."

"Hey!"

At Park Ji-hoon's wounded outburst, Park Jeong-im piled on as well.

"Listen to Hyeong-seok! It's not as if liquor is good for you!"

"Oh, come on, even you, noona..."

"Are you going to listen, or not?"

Fire flickered in Park Jeong-im's eyes, and Park Ji-hoon could want no more; he smacked his lips, looking thoroughly torn.

"Fine, fine. I won't drink it. But at least let's find out what it is."

"Just throw it out!"

"It was a gift, you know. I have to at least learn what it was, or how am I supposed to tell the man I drank it down nicely?"

He wasn't wrong, exactly.

Kang Doo-seok sent him a glance — you sure about this? — and Hyeong-seok, lips pressed together, nodded.

The bells haven't rung.

The mudang bang-ul — the sacred shaman's bells — sat in the spare room. But if they had rung, he would have heard it, and so far they had not, which meant there was no great danger here. It did not mean, however, that the liquor was safe to drink. The bells could shriek as though they would split apart the moment that liquor touched a tongue, or the instant it was poured into a cup.

"Whew. There — take it."

Park Jeong-im dug an old ladle out of the corner of a drawer and handed it over, and Park Ji-hoon drove it deep into the jar.

Skrrreech.

The ladle's tip scraped along the bottom of the jar, and the foul smell thickened. At the same time a murky foam came boiling up, and Kang Doo-seok recoiled, wrinkling his nose.

"Ugh!"

"It really is spoiled."

"He told me it was yakju. Medicinal rice wine."

Park Ji-hoon kept stirring, a look of lingering longing on his face. If some medicinal herb turned up down there, maybe the sting of humiliation would ease a little. But what the churning liquor dragged up was no herb.

"Hold on — what is that?"

Kang Doo-seok pointed at the surface, where something had flashed up for an instant and sunk again.

"One moment."

Park Ji-hoon, too, had caught that this was no ordinary thing; he said it quietly and stirred with care. Soon he found it again and lifted it out on the ladle.

Beast hair.

A clump of pitch-black fur — so black it might have passed for human hair at a glance.

Plop. Plop. Plop.

The sound of liquor droplets sliding down the strands and dripping to the floor spread through the living room.

What on earth did you bring into this house?

Kang Doo-seok's eyes asked exactly that — but Park Ji-hoon had no answer to give.

Rustle. Rustle.

Home again after a long stretch away, Lee Geum-kyeong shed her shaman's robe before anything else. Her hair sat neatly in place, but her face wore no makeup at all — and so the exhaustion that nothing could hide showed all too plainly.

"Teacher, are you all right?"

Cheong-geum asked with concern as she took the robe from her hands, and Lee Geum-kyeong answered, her voice cracked and worn.

"The work ran bigger than I'd expected. I'm worn out today — unless a guest is urgent, turn them all away."

Which was as good as saying: admit no one unless it was serious. But Cheong-geum made no answer, and Lee Geum-kyeong's gaze drifted, naturally enough, to her.

"There is one, isn't there?"

"...Yes, Teacher."

Lee Geum-kyeong stopped midway out of her robe, sighed, then retied the knot she had loosened and spoke.

"Have them come at once. If they can't manage the trip, I'll go to them."

"Their guardian says they'll bring them."

"Is it a possession — or sal clinging to him?"

Lee Geum-kyeong's question was no simple one. It sought to grasp both the urgent guest's symptoms and their purpose in coming to the shrine — and, at the same time, to hear how Cheong-geum herself would read the case. Cheong-geum knew this well; her eyes flitted this way and that in thought before she spoke.

"He was fed it, Teacher."

Even Lee Geum-kyeong's hands stilled on the robe she was smoothing. She pressed her lips shut until they went white, and then she opened them.

"And the symptoms?"

"By my reading, it looked like gu poison."

"Good heavens."

A groan of dismay broke from Lee Geum-kyeong.

Gu poison was known by another name as well: godok. Venomous creatures were herded together in one great vessel and left to destroy one another with their own venom, and in the single survivor at the end, all of that poison condensed at once — enough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to kill a person outright. It was one species of fed curse, and the method itself was every bit as vicious.

"It looks as though we may have no choice but to hold a gut."

"Shall I send word around to the exorcists?"

"If it truly is gu poison, we shall need no fewer than five of genuine skill. Don't go calling anyone in haste — simply make ready and stand by."

"As you say, Teacher."

Cheong-geum herself might have to stand within the gut as well. It was exactly that potent, exactly that dangerous — and so she hurried to make ready. She swept the courtyard to drive off every trace of impurity, scattered salt and sweet-rice flour in a dense ring around the shrine, and worked her way through the phones of the mudang nearby, asking their indulgence.

Five such calls in all. Thankfully, not one shaman refused — partly because gu poison was too dangerous to take lightly, and partly because of the sheer weight of Lee Geum-kyeong's standing and name.

Vrrooom!

The growl of a car pulling into the courtyard snatched Cheong-geum's gaze. What was due had arrived. Changed into her shaman's robes, she hurried out into the yard — and the middle-aged man in the driver's seat hauled a figure from the back seat, bundling the body under a blanket.

For one instant, a rank, spectral miasma shivered through the air.

"Is—is the Teacher..."

"Follow me."

Before the man's words could even finish, Cheong-geum was leading him toward Lee Geum-kyeong's quarters.

"You — kindly wait outside."

The altar already spread out, Lee Geum-kyeong sent the guardian on his way. Cheong-geum, Lee Geum-kyeong, and the one who needed their help. Three remained in the room, and the door slid shut behind them with a soft shhhk.

Lee Geum-kyeong regarded the man crouched under the blanket, fanning at the air before her face as though to push it back.

"How long have you been like this?"

"Uhhh... uhhh."

Clutching the blanket tight about himself, the man hung his head and moaned. What in the world had been done to him? A turbid grime, a putrid reek shivered in his very voice. Yet Cheong-geum watched him without so much as a twitch, and Lee Geum-kyeong's stare was no less fierce.

"Cheong-geum."

"Yes, Teacher."

"Your reading was spot-on. Send word to the exorcists."

The man had not yet managed a single word of his own. And still, Lee Geum-kyeong had seen through everything about him.

"I won't tell you that you should have come sooner. But you should never have gone snatching up and swallowing whatever other people handed you."

"Hnngh... uuuuh."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"A pity, that's what it is. Say none of it is your fault — it's still you who must suffer like this."

"Hk— hnnk! Hnnnnghk!"

Inside the blanket he had wrapped himself in, the man wept like a small child. Lee Geum-kyeong clicked her tongue at the sight and turned to Cheong-geum.

"Take that off him first."

"Yes, Teacher."

Cheong-geum swallowed drily and moved to draw the blanket from the man — but he clutched it hard and refused.

"It's all right. This is to help you. What is there to fear so?"

"Uhhh... hnnngh."

The moment the strength left the man's hands, Cheong-geum stripped the blanket away — and though she knew better, she stopped breathing for a moment.

The blanket had not been there merely to hide his appearance.

Drip. Drop. Driiip.

The way liquor drips from soaked strands of hair — thick, fat beads of blood were falling from the man's mouth, his nose, his eyes.

"S-save me. P-please, save meee."

At the slurred, mangled voice, Cheong-geum swallowed again before she could help it. Because the man's mouth was grotesquely twisted — exactly the way a person's mouth moves when they do ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an impression of a cat.