Chương 11: You Shouldn't Have Dragged My Parents Into This

Kichan decided he wasn't going to name it. The moment he gave an iron rod a name, he felt like he would officially become a very strange person. That said, people could get attached to things without naming them. Every morning, he left the iron rod standing behind the wardrobe. At night, he took it out and worked over the metal a little at a time. Less rust. A grip that wouldn't slip. A blunted end instead of a sharp one. It wasn't a knife. It wasn't a spear.

He had no intention of turning it into something meant to kill people. Just something to block. Something to shove with. Something that made the words don't come any closer a little more persuasive. That should have been enough. But the world had no respect for what Kichan considered enough. It started on Friday afternoon. His mother called. Kichan was in a meeting.

A sales trend graph was up on the screen, and his team leader was taking a long time to explain why it looked like that for reasons everybody in the room already knew. His phone vibrated. Mom. At first, Kichan didn't answer. He was in a meeting, and if it wasn't urgent, his mother usually left a text. The call ended. Then came right back. Kichan stood. His team leader looked at him in question.

"Sorry. It's a call from home." He stepped out of the conference room and answered.

"Mom?" He could hear her breathing on the other end.

"Kichan." Her voice was shaking. Kichan's fingertips went cold.

"What is it? What happened?"

"No one got seriously hurt, but—" I'm fine. It's nothing. Those words sounded like warning sirens to Kichan now.

"Tell me."

"Your dad slipped on the main road near home while coming back from work. Some men helped him and walked him over here, but..." Kichan braced a hand against the wall.

"How far?"

"To the building. Right to the front door. They kept saying they needed to talk to you, and I didn't open the door... your dad didn't invite them in, either." Kichan closed his eyes. I didn't open the door. Somehow that only made it sound more precarious.

"Are they still there?"

"Yes. Your dad's talking to them downstairs." Through the receiver came an unfamiliar male voice.

"We would like to speak with Mr. Han Kichan." Kichan felt his teeth lock together.

"Put him on." A moment later, the man's voice came through clearly.

"Mr. Han Kichan. This is Golden Dawn."

"Get away from my family's door."

"There appears to be a misunderstanding. Our personnel saw your father fall and offered assistance—" Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"And that got you all the way to my doorstep?"

"We made only the minimum contact necessary to open a conversation—""That minimum crossed a line." The other side went quiet for a moment.

"We understand your concern for your parents." That was the last thing they should have said. Kichan spoke in a very low voice.

"You shouldn't have dragged my parents into this." The man failed to answer for a beat. Kichan went on.

"I'm heading home right now. If you're still anywhere near my door when I get there, this won't end well."

"Violence will only worsen the situation."

"It already got worse." He hung up. Inside the meeting room, they were still talking about the graph. He didn't go back in. He told his team leader he had an urgent family matter, grabbed his bag, and left. He couldn't wait for the subway. He took a taxi. Normally he would have hesitated three times over the fare. Today his hand hit the app before he'd even thought it through. Outside the window, the day was clear. The sky was blue, and sunlight glinted off the ginkgo leaves along the road.

The world looked perfectly peaceful. That peacefulness only made Kichan angrier. When he reached the alley by home, he saw two black sedans. He paid the driver and got out. He had his bag in hand. Inside the bag was the iron rod. His father stood below the steps outside the apartment entrance. There was a small bruise on his knee, but he didn't look seriously injured. His mother was on the other side of the open screen door, still watching from inside. And below the steps stood two men in suits with Lee Seoyoon.

The moment she saw Kichan, Lee Seoyoon bowed her head.

"Mr. Han Kichan. Let me explain." Kichan took the stairs two at a time. He stopped right in front of the threshold, squarely between his father and the suited men.

"Don't explain. Step back."

"Our personnel witnessed your father fall while he was alone—""So you spoke to him, followed him home, and waited at my front door." Lee Seoyoon closed her mouth for a moment. The silence sounded like an admission. His father spoke quietly.

"Kichan." At that voice, Kichan paused. His father looked at him and slowly shook his head. Don't fight. That was what he meant. Kichan drew a breath. He didn't want to swing the iron rod in front of his parents. He didn't want them to see him like that. But he also couldn't stand these people inserting themselves into his parents' walk home. Lee Seoyoon said, "We were discourteous. However, the situation has become urgent. Raon Bio is also moving.

Your family is already within the sightline of multiple parties—""Sightline." Kichan repeated the word.

"Whenever you talk about people, you always make them sound like objects." Lee Seoyoon's face tightened.

"That was not my intent."

"It's how it sounded." Kichan set his bag down. When he opened the zipper a little, the tip of the iron rod became visible. One of the suited men tensed. Seeing that, Kichan couldn't even manage a laugh.

"Scared?" The man didn't answer.

"My parents were a lot more scared than that." He didn't pull the rod all the way out. Instead, he gripped only the handle and planted it on the ground while it still sat halfway inside the bag. Thunk. The low sound carried through the tiles in front of the entrance. The grain inside the metal connected to his fingertips. The air below the stairs seemed to grow just a little heavier. Lee Seoyoon narrowed her eyes. It seemed she felt it too.

Standing in front of the threshold, Kichan said,"This thing doesn't even have a name yet. It's just an iron rod." He looked at the suited men.

"But if you interfere with my parents again—on their way home, at my door, anywhere—then next time I really will push back." Even Kichan didn't know how absurd that warning sounded. But it worked. The suited men looked to Lee Seoyoon. She let out a slow breath.

"We'll withdraw."

"Now."

"Yes." She started to take out a business card, then looked at Kichan's face and put it away again. As they stepped back down and walked toward the cars, Kichan didn't move from the threshold once. Only after both black sedans had left the alley did he finally loosen his grip on the bag handle. His mother was the first to come outside.

"Why were you standing out here like that instead of coming in?" Her voice held more worry than anger. His father flexed his knee once and said,"It's barely anything. Not worth making a fuss over." Kichan couldn't answer right away. Barely anything. Not worth making a fuss over. Lately, every phrase like that sounded upside down to him.

"No," he said quietly.

"This is exactly the kind of thing worth making a fuss over." Even after they went inside, it stayed quiet for a while. His mother brought water, and his father, seeing that Kichan hadn't even properly taken off his shoes, gestured for him to go to the dining table instead of the sofa.

"Sit." Kichan sat. His mother took his face in both hands.

"What have you gotten yourself mixed up in?" Her voice held more worry than anger. Kichan tried to answer. The antiquarian bookstore. The sprout-mark on his fingertips. The medicine. Golden Dawn. He didn't know where to begin. His father spoke.

"Tell us everything. We may not understand it, but we'll listen." At those words, Kichan lowered his head. He couldn't tell them everything. But he couldn't keep saying nothing, either. So he told them about Italy. He said he'd seen a strange book. He said that after that, something had gone wrong with his fingertips, and now he could sense people's injuries a little. He said he hadn't made medicine himself, but he had helped with it, and that because of that, strange people had come looking for him.

He left out words like angelic script and Voynich and tried as hard as he could to sound like someone at least slightly less insane. Even so, it was strange enough. His mother pressed her lips together and steadied her breathing. His father picked up his water glass, then set it back down. Both of them wore the expression of people trying to figure out what to say first. His father asked the first question.

"Are you okay?" Kichan couldn't answer immediately. Are you okay? He realized no one had properly asked him that in a while. The pharmaceutical company wanted a sample. Golden Dawn wanted a contact case. The voice in his dream wanted whatever came next. Only his parents had asked whether he was okay. Kichan shook his head.

"Not really." His mother took his hand. He didn't know whether she'd noticed the sprout-mark on his fingertips or not.

"Then let's eat first and think after." That loosened some of the tension in him. And suddenly, he was starving. Dinner was quieter than usual. His mother reheated the stew, and his father pushed the stir-fried anchovies toward Kichan again. Kichan ate. It was good. Good enough that he felt like he might cry. That night, the voice from the dream didn't appear. Instead, in the darkness, Kichan looked at his own fingertips. The sprout-mark had spread into four branches.

One was straight like the grain of metal, one curved like a plant root, one was soft like a vein inside the body. The last one trembled as if it still hadn't decided where it wanted to go. Kichan said quietly,"Leave my parents out of it." This time he wasn't saying it to the voice in the dream. He was saying it to himself. And somewhere very far away in the dark, someone gave a small clap.