One Who Serves a God
Shwaaaaaah!Shwak.Shwak.
The rain that had been falling a few drops at a time had swelled into a full-blown deluge. Gloomy weather — and gloomy in more ways than one.
Watching the wipers sweep the water away, Kang Hyeong-seok let his hand drift, without thinking, toward the cup holder beside the gear stick. The coffee he'd been craving, however, wasn't there.
Should have grabbed one on the way out.
Never mind. It hadn't been the kind of situation that allowed for it. If he'd detoured to the office pantry in the middle of that emergency, Kwak Young-ho would have tried to yank his hair out instead of pouring him a cup.
The pointless thought wrung a dry chuckle out of him, and he glanced at the navigation screen. The destination was close now.
Big, all right.
Looking at the towering building rising in the distance, Kang Hyeong-seok's eyes took on a shade of envy. Daejeong Mulsan wasn't a bad company — but held against a true major corporation, the difference announced itself with the headquarters alone. An exterior sheathed in reinforced glass, a design bold without ever tipping into excess. Anyone could tell at a glance that it belonged to a giant of the construction world, and neither the leaden sky nor the pouring rain could dim its presence.
"You have arrived at your destination. Ending route guidance."
Clunk. He brought the car to rest in a nearby lot and went straight into the Shinjin Construction headquarters.
"What business brings you here?"
Naturally, a building like this had to have men like this. A powerfully built guard in a uniform that radiated exactly that air stepped squarely into Kang Hyeong-seok's path.
"Kang Hyeong-seok, Section Chief at Daejeong Mulsan. I received a call and came to visit."
"Ah."
The man, evidently some kind of reception guide, thumbed his walkie-talkie and traded a few short transmissions with someone. When the reply crackled back, his brows bent in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry. Owing to internal circumstances, could you wait outside?"
"Excuse me?"
Not the reception you show a guest you summoned yourself.
"I'm truly sorry. He'll be down within ten minutes, so I'd be grateful if you could wait in the smoking area just ahead."
The man fumbled through it as though he were the one being treated unfairly. A bitter taste crept through Kang Hyeong-seok's mouth, but there was nothing he could reasonably say, so he put on the practiced smile of a working man and headed in the direction the guard had indicated.
So this is what a major corporation looks like, huh? The one who'd come up short here wasn't that side — it was Daejeong Mulsan. Still, since he was the one left smarting, Kang Hyeong-seok at least bought himself the coffee he'd been craving on the way to the smoking area.
Click.
It was an outdoor smoking area in name only; it did have a roof. Beneath it he sipped the warm coffee and gazed idly at the rain sliding down the eaves.
What could the reason be, anyway? There had to be some reason the man had asked to meet here — didn't there? He was still stacking those thoughts one on top of another in his head when—
Thud, thud. A young man had begun walking over from the Shinjin Construction building. He wasn't a conspicuous figure. He was alone, for one thing, dressed in a black dress shirt and black slacks.
Ping!Fwoosh! Only when the man, close now, flipped open a premium lighter — the kind you lit by rolling the flint wheel under your thumb — did Kang Hyeong-seok register his presence at all. He'd given him a brief look and was raising his coffee back to his lips when—
"Mr. Kang Hyeong-seok?"
The young man had spoken to him. Kang Hyeong-seok set the coffee down at once and offered a courteous bow.
"A pleasure to meet you. Kang Hyeong-seok, Section Chief at Daejeong Mulsan."
"Please, relax. I'm Shin Yo-sep, an Executive Director here."
The man looked to be about Kang Hyeong-seok's age, yet the gap between their titles was a chasm. And studied more closely, he had the air of a young master born into a fine house — a touch taller than Kang Hyeong-seok, his dress shirt open two buttons down, a silver necklace glinting at his throat. At first glance the outfit bordered on delinquent; his bearing was what kept it from reading that way.
What is this? His eyes...
For a man who seemed to have everything there was to have, his eyes were as damp and deep as the rain itself.
Business cards changed hands with a smooth slide, and Kang Hyeong-seok opened with light talk, half courtesy and half earnest.
"You're a strikingly handsome man, I must say. You took me by surprise."
"Ah. Yes."
And there the awkward exchange snipped off dead. A discomfort the rain couldn't drown hung between them, until Shin Yo-sep, who had been nursing his cigarette, finally spoke.
"I've heard a lot about you."
"Rumors?"
"Yes. That you helped people who'd gotten into trouble over drink at a work site."
"It was nothing. It was a site where my uncle works."
"How did you do it?"
Kang Hyeong-seok shifted his gaze to Shin Yo-sep and his burning cigarette. The conversation felt as though it were careening off in some strange direction. What should have come out here was a word of thanks — measured, appropriate, and nothing more.
"Pardon?"
"Are you a shaman?"
Shin Yo-sep asked it again, curiosity saturating his tone, while the sodden roar of the rain echoed around them as though to swallow the world whole.
Shwaaaaaah!
With the rain loud enough to sting his ears through the silence, Kang Hyeong-seok pressed his lips together — then reached for the coffee he'd set down.
"You seem rather interested in that side of things."
"I asked you how you did it, didn't I?"
Kang Hyeong-seok let the corners of his mouth curl upward and met Shin Yo-sep's eyes.
"I asked an acquaintance for help, and handled the rest in my own way."
"This acquaintance. Who?"
"I know a shaman. Quite a famous one."
Shin Yo-sep's eyes narrowed to slits, and Kang Hyeong-seok, watching him, brought the coffee to his lips. It had been warm until moments ago; now, whether from the strangely chill air, it had gone tepid. Much like the air currently passing between Shin Yo-sep and Kang Hyeong-seok.
"Though I don't quite see why you're asking all this."
"Do you sense nothing from me?"
Shin Yo-sep tilted his head, his phrasing sliding to the very edge of informality. On the surface it resembled the particular arrogance of a man born with a golden spoon in his mouth — but before any displeasure could rise, puzzlement got there first.
...What is this?
As Kang Hyeong-seok saw it, Shin Yo-sep looked like a man conducting an interrogation — and, at the same time, like a man desperate. It was those eyes, somehow earnest beneath it all, that made it doubly so.
"Go on, then. Tell me."
The urging came again. Kang Hyeong-seok shut his lips hard and pushed a slow breath out through his nose. The rich scent of coffee brushed past, then dissolved into air thick with the smell of rain. And then, swirling the can in his hand this way and that, he spoke.
"I am Kang Hyeong-seok, Section Chief of Daejeong Mulsan."
Then, holding Shin Yo-sep's gaze, he continued in an even voice.
"Did you ask to see a Daejeong Mulsan employee? Or did you ask to see me?"
Shin Yo-sep stared at him without a word — then his lips twisted, and he let out a loud heh of a laugh. He drew deep on his cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke as thick as fog.
"Because it's you, the shaman, I wanted to see."
The words had barely landed.
"Who are you?"
Kang Hyeong-seok — the Daejeong Mulsan employee's mask cast aside — said it in a low voice, and a brief spark flashed through Shin Yo-sep's eyes.
By any professional measure, these were two men who should never have been trading words like this. Yet far from taking offense, Shin Yo-sep looked almost glad of the change. And Kang Hyeong-seok thought he understood: why the man had asked to meet not inside the Shinjin Construction building, but here, where not a single passerby would come.
"I asked first. What do I look like — to your eyes?"
For a long moment, Kang Hyeong-seok simply observed him, saying nothing. His gaze was cold and still: the look peculiar to a man who had received a god, and at the same time the eyes of a salesman who had spent years peering into what people kept hidden inside.
Shwaaaaaah—!
As the rain redoubled its fury, Kang Hyeong-seok broke the silence.
"One of ours."
"'Ours' meaning?"
"A shaman."
For an instant, Shin Yo-sep's expression turned strange — admiration and disappointment coexisting in his eyes. It was the look of a man whose answer, the kind nearly impossible to guess, had come back only half right.
"Though you're not one who has received a god."
At the words that followed without pause, the disappointment began to ebb.
"...Then?"
"One who serves a god."
Shin Yo-sep stared back with a face that seemed to feel an actual shiver. The expectation welling in his eyes swelled, and a curiosity he could no longer contain even broke through onto his face. Watching it, Kang Hyeong-seok went on.
"I can't say exactly what you are. But you're no ordinary man."
The Shin Yo-sep that Kang Hyeong-seok beheld was a familiar presence, and an utterly alien one. A man clad in black, a censer breathing white smoke held in one hand, wandering the depths of a dark forest — that was the image that had risen in his mind's eye, and it was too strange a thing to name with any certainty.
"A religious man, then?"
At the question Kang Hyeong-seok tossed out, Shin Yo-sep's lips split upward toward his ears in a grin.
"Right."
"Catholic?"
This time Shin Yo-sep answered with a nod. Armed with that considerable hint, Kang Hyeong-seok rubbed the space between his brows, coffee can still in hand.
"A priest, then."
"How could you tell?"
"Because I saw it."
Kang Hyeong-seok was a man who had received a Momjusin, a Body-Governing Patron Deity — and one who receives a god in this manner is called a gangseungmu, a spirit-descended shaman. A gangseungmu, through the god, sometimes glimpses shapes beyond the ordinary. Lee Geum-kyeong was one herself, reading her divinations through the images her god deigned to show her. Such an image had simply shown itself to Kang Hyeong-seok as well.
"I don't understand it. Why would a man who could live wanting for nothing choose the road of a priest?"
Gazing at Shin Yo-sep — who looked more worldly than any man alive — Kang Hyeong-seok arched a single eyebrow. A priest was not a mudang. A priest did not suffer the god-sickness. The priesthood was no road assigned from above; a man who ignored a god's will brought harm to neither himself nor anyone near him. And yet this man had walked the priest's road, and though a priest, remained rooted in the secular world. None of it added up.
"Is that connected to why you're looking for a shaman?"
At the question, Shin Yo-sep's brows stirred — for only an instant. Then he smoothed his face blank and turned toward Kang Hyeong-seok eyes gone heavy with effort.
"How capable are you? Have you driven out many ghosts?"
Kang Hyeong-seok held his gaze for a moment, breathed a soundless sigh, and sipped his coffee. Apparently this was a man with a story — and a terrible one, even by the standards of men with stories. He had any number of things he wanted to ask; instead of asking, he gave an answer.
"Not long. I received my god only recently."
"Good. I hear that with your kind, the fresher the god, the greater the power."
"It doesn't always work that way."
"Which are you, then?"
Kang Hyeong-seok scratched his head and tipped his face up toward the Shinjin Construction building. Who could ever have imagined he'd end up having this kind of conversation with an executive director of a tower like that?
"Why are you even asking me all this? It's not as if a priest is looking to get a spirit reading or have his fortune told."
Shin Yo-sep fell silent. The steady patter of rain filled the hush, and as the night wore on, the lights of the Shinjin Construction building began to go out, one by one. People were trickling out for the evening — but they recognized Shin Yo-sep even from a distance, and rather than approach the smoking area, made a show of circling wide around it.
Shwaaaaaah—!
The world went on existing and time went on flowing, and yet an awkward air had settled between the two men, as though they alone remained in a hollow universe. And then Shin Yo-sep opened his lips — heavily, at that.
"There's something I have to do. I need a shaman's help."
"Hah."
"If you truly are a potent shaman, then I want your help."
Kang Hyeong-seok studied him, brow drawn tight, and then spoke.
"Is there a ghost that needs driving out?"
Shin Yo-sep nodded — eyes heavy with all they had seen.
