Chapter 31: My Knife Will Give Me the Answer

TL: LittlePeach

There are days like this sometimes.

The kind of day when I want someone to pat me on the back, when I find myself wanting a little comfort.

On days like that, most people probably go see their parents or meet up with a friend.

Seeking out somewhere that feels like a home for the heart.

Fortunately, I still had exactly one place like that left.

"Pardon the late-night intrusion. I've come to bow before a memorial tablet."

A place called Bomunsa, in Eunpyeong District.

A temple of an order whose clergy are all bhikkhunis. [TL Note: A bhikkhuni is a fully ordained Buddhist nun.]

"...Oh my? Is that you, Hae-chan?"

"That's right, seunim. Have you been well?" [TL Note: Seunim is a respectful Korean term of address for a Buddhist monk or nun.]

"Goodness, you've changed so much in just a few years, I hardly recognized you."

The chief abbess here, Deokun seunim, was an old friend of my grandmother's.

Even after years without a single word from me, seunim greeted me with a beaming smile.

"Wow. You haven't changed a bit, seunim. You'd think you'd have picked up at least one wrinkle by now."

"Hoho, such flattery."

"No, I mean it. It's been five years, hasn't it? And I never once thought to come by. Thoughtless of me."

"Don't trouble yourself over it. Everyone is busy living their own share of life. My, you were always mature for your age, and now you've gone and turned practically middle-aged, haven't you?"

"I've been through a bit of a rough stretch."

"So I can see."

The last time we'd seen each other face to face was when my grandmother passed away.

After that, I ground through years in the Defense Intelligence Command's Special Task Force, then transferred to the NIS, which brings me to today.

Buddhism being a path of leaving the secular world behind, she probably shouldn't cling to worldly ties. Even so, next to my grandmother, she was the person I looked up to most.

"Nothing's happened here, I hope?"

"Same as always for me. What could possibly happen?"

"That's a relief."

"And you? Nothing's happened with you either?"

"Me? No, nothing at all."

"I'm glad. They say those who meet must part, those who part will surely meet again.... Seeing such a welcome face walk in truly sets my heart aflutter."

"Doesn't that mean your training still has a long way to go, then?"

"Hoho. Why, you cheeky thing."

She smiled benevolently and gave my shoulder a light pat.

Then she naturally led me along and opened the door to a small room off to one side of the temple.

"You've come to see your grandmother, haven't you? Go on in. I'll bring you some warm tea."

"Any chance of food instead of tea? I haven't eaten yet."

"What on earth have you been doing out there that you're skipping meals?"

"Obviously I starved myself on purpose so I could mooch a temple meal."

"Oh, honestly. That silver tongue of yours hasn't changed one bit. All right, wait just a little."

"Thank you. Pardon me, then."

"Nothing to pardon."

It was a cramped, musty space, but ever since I was young, this was the one place that always put my mind at ease.

The temple's countless memorial tablets were stacked in layers along one side of the room, like the tiled roof of an old house.

Among all those tablets was my grandmother's.

I settled onto the floor, faintly chilled with yin energy, and gazed steadily at her memorial tablet.

"Grandma. I'm here."

My grandmother was a shaman.

I don't quite remember which god she served, but in my memory she was always bold and dignified, like a general.

Thanks to her, growing up under a shaman grandmother, I had a childhood I could hold my head high about, envying no one.

"How is it you never once visit me, not even in a dream...? Is this your way of making me come to you? Come see me now and then. Come smack me on the back and tell me to quit walking into dangerous places on my own two feet."

Right around the time I'd pinned on my First Lieutenant's insignia, my grandmother passed away, senselessly, in a car accident.

Maybe that's why.

My superior happened to put an offer in front of me right then, and I accepted it on impulse, stepping into the selection course for the Defense Intelligence Command's Special Task Force.

"But Grandma, do you have any idea what's happened to me? Don't tell me you cast some spell to make me live to a hundred? All this time I thought you were joking.... But even so, isn't a hundred years a bit much?"

For years after that, I kept volunteering for the dangerous operations and hellholes everyone else avoided, and now I'd even transferred over to become an NIS black agent.

Honestly, back then, I wanted to see my grandmother again, even if it meant dying.

Now that I knew that wasn't an option, I'd finally found it in me to make my way back here.

Step by step, time proved to be the medicine, and it brought me to now.

"Anyway, I was just rambling. I'm doing well these days, enjoying myself, so don't you worry too much."

Grandma always used to say.

The living have to go on living.

And that I'd live to a hundred, easy.

My grandmother's divination readings had never once been wrong.

So what could I do?

"It's nice seeing your grandson's face after so long, right? I'll come back next time, alive and in one piece."

If dying isn't an option.

Then living is the only one left.

*****

Ever since I was little, tagging along everywhere with my grandmother, I'd eaten more than my share of this temple's food.

Not a speck of seasoning in it, they said, yet somehow it was bursting with savory flavor.

Which is why I'd always loved temple meals.

Nom, nom.

"It's been so long. This is really good."

"Is it? Now that I look, that boyish face of yours has gone all gaunt. Eat plenty and put some flesh back on."

Steaming oat rice, wild mountain greens, and a mild, gently simmered soybean-paste soup.

Watching me stuff my mouth to bursting, Deokun seunim smiled contentedly.

"I'd heard you were a soldier before we lost touch. Is that still so?"

"No, I was discharged. I work for a trading company now. I've been overseas the whole time and only just got back."

"Is that right? Where have you been all this while? Nowhere dangerous, I hope?"

"Russia for a few years, and now I'm in China."

"Oh, dear me. It must have been such a hardship, all that time in foreign lands."

Discharged from the military, straight into a trading company?

It's the well-known NIS career pipeline, the kind anyone would immediately be suspicious of.

But our Deokun seunim, innocent of worldly affairs.

She nodded along to my glib lie with pure, guileless trust, not a shred of doubt in her.

"I don't have anywhere to stay for a while. Would it be all right if I spent a few days here?"

"Of course. We have plenty of rooms to spare. But the temple postulants will be coming and going during the day, so it might get a bit hectic for you."

"That's fine. Once the sun's up, I'll be out and about running errands anyway."

"All right, then. Do as you please."

"If there's anything you need done, don't hesitate to put me to work. I should earn my keep."

"As it happens, we were planning to lay the devotees' wish tiles onto the Daeungjeon roof. Would you help with just that tomorrow?"

"Of course."

When I'd scraped my bowl clean and polished off the entire spread, Deokun seunim smiled softly.

"If your grandmother could see how fine and sturdy you've grown, she would have been so pleased."

"Heh. Or she might have keeled over from sheer horror."

"Oh? Why do you think that?"

"It's a secret."

Shrugging off bullets, getting showered head to toe with explosives, and so on.

Given every reckless stunt I'd pulled over the past few days, her blood pressure would have shot through the roof and kept on climbing.

I gave a sheepish laugh and left it at that.

"Can I sleep in this room tonight?"

"Of course. Rest well."

Maybe it was the temple food filling my belly for the first time in ages.

That night, sleep came pouring down on me like never before.

"Zzzz...."

And that's how, after a deep night's sleep, I came to greet the next day. Which brings us to now.

"Seunim! I finished writing my wish!"

"Oh my, did you? Did you write it out nice and carefully?"

"Yes!"

Just as seunim had said, the temple courtyard grew quite busy from morning on.

Maybe because Children's Day was coming up soon?

An unusually large number of devotees had brought their little ones along to write wishes.

Family health, university admissions, passing the civil-service exams, business prosperity, and so on.

People's earnest wishes were being carefully inscribed, one after another, onto those thin roof tiles.

"Oh, oh my goodness! That young man is going to fall!"

"Goodness, seunim! Look at that, look.... Sh-shouldn't someone at least set up a ladder for him?"

In the courtyard, where the scent of incense drifted faintly, I rolled up my sleeves and climbed onto the Daeungjeon roof.

With a backpack loaded full of heavy tiles slung on my shoulders, I scaled a log pillar without any ladder and strode back and forth along the eaves.

"Let him be. If there's one thing that boy can boast of, it's a sturdy body, and it seems he's so restless he simply can't help himself. Might as well put it to use at times like this, don't you think?"

"Oh dear, oh dear...."

"Oh my, good heavens. Look at him, flying around on that roof."

Down in the courtyard, all of this caused quite the commotion.

While I hopped lightly back and forth across the roof without so much as a ladder, the people watching from below fretted and stamped their feet in worry.

"Young man! Careful, careful! Stay toward the middle!"

"Yes, ma'am. I'm fiiine."

Leaving the chorus of worried voices below behind me, I laid tile after tile neatly into the empty spots.

And once I'd pressed the very last tile snugly into the final gap in the eaves.

"Whew!"

With that, the wish-tile roof repair was cleanly finished.

I dusted off my hands and looked down from the roof.

It was just high enough that asking someone to fetch a ladder felt like more trouble than it was worth.

"Young man! Wait right there! I'll bring you a ladder!"

"No! I'm fine. Alley-oop!"

I pushed off lightly from the edge of the eaves and threw myself into the empty air without hesitation.

Whoosh!

"Eeeeeeek!"

"Oh, merciful Buddha!"

The screams had barely rung out across the temple courtyard when, thud.

"There. All done."

I landed lightly on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

When I straightened my back as if nothing had happened, having just dropped from the height of a third-story apartment, the people who'd been screaming gaped at me like they'd seen a ghost.

Thanks to that hair-raising stunt, I became the temple's superstar for the day.

"You rascal, you! You scared everyone half to death!"

"Ow! Ow!"

Smack, smack!

Though I did have to put on a show of pain under the stinging back-smacks of Deokun seunim, who'd been just as startled as everyone else.

"Goodness, young man. My heart nearly stopped back there."

"Here, have some nice cold sweet rice punch."

"Thank you. It's not even properly summer yet, and it's already hot out."

"Is it? For someone saying that, you're not sweating at all."

"I've always been a terrible ham."

"My goodness. Aren't you funny. Hoho."

After that, snacking on the Korean melon and tomatoes brought out as refreshments, I lounged lazily in the sunshine beneath the eaves.

I downed the sweet rice punch I'd been handed in one go.

Slushy ice floated on top, and it was wonderfully cold.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, for some reason, a whole crowd of middle-aged lady devotees came flocking around me.

"So how old are you, young man?"

"Me? Just turned thirty."

"My, so young. Earlier, seunim introduced you as someone who's like a grandson to her. Are you actually family?"

"No, not real family. Seunim and my grandmother were friends."

"I see. The way you move, you're quick as a cat. What do you do for a living?"

"I work at a trading company. I've been overseas a long time and came back on a short vacation."

"Oh my, how wonderful. Do you have a girlfriend? If not, I'd love to introduce you to my daughter. She teaches at the kindergarten just down the road, and she's a real sweetheart, you know?"

"Ahaha...."

Is this what visiting relatives over the holidays feels like?

Under the interrogation into my personal life pouring in from every direction, a cold sweat trickled down my back for reasons I couldn't quite name.

Awkwardly laughing off the questions raining down from all sides, I made quick work of the Korean melon in front of me first.

"Mmf, mmf."

"Look at you eat. Shall I cut you some more?"

"No, no. I actually have a quick errand to run outside, so I need to get going. If there's another chance, I'll see you all next time."

"Wait, young man, hold on! Just look at a photo of my daughter! She's really pretty, I promise!"

"There's somewhere I have to be, so n-next time...."

"Where do you think you're going! You're not going anywhere! Meet my daughter!"

"Ngghhh."

And so, having wriggled free of the ladies clutching at my trouser legs, I'd just barely escaped the temple. Which brings us to now.

A lap around the small hill out back seemed like a good way to catch my breath for a while.

"Whew. I don't know why everyone's so desperate to set me up these days."

It happened just as I left the temple entrance and stepped down toward a deserted stretch of paved road.

"Hm?"

An odd feeling made my eyes flick sideways almost on their own.

Close to the temple, a black sedan sat parked on the shaded shoulder.

A man was perched on the hood.

For some reason, he flashed me a pleasant smile.

"Excuse me. You're Agent Kang Hae-chan, correct?"

"...."

At that impeccably courteous greeting, I swept my eyes quickly over the surroundings.

No Bomunsa temple postulants or devotees anywhere in sight.

'Whoever this man is, my knife will give me the answer.'

The moment my read on the situation was done, my right hand rose and casually scratched at my waist.

Just as I'd snatched hold of the knife handle hidden in the back of my waistband...

"W-wait a moment! I, I apologize if I startled you. But I'm not anyone suspicious!"

Startled by my lightning-fast reaction, the man hurriedly raised his empty hands.

Then, with careful movements, he pulled open the front of his shirt.

A civil servant ID card strung on a lanyard peeked into view.

"I work at the same place you do, Agent Kang."

"...."

Only when I took my hand off my waist did the man exhale in amazement and smile awkwardly.

Then he casually opened the sedan's door.

"Do you happen to enjoy day drinking? It seems like just the right hour to share a drink...."

Someone who works at the same place I do.

'How did someone from a domestic division know who I am, and how did he track me all the way here?'

That fact alone meant there were a few things I needed to verify for myself.

*****

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