Chương 14: Wake-Up Rod

It couldn't be something that cut like a blade. It had to be the kind of thing that made someone understand, with their body, that they should not come any closer. Something that could knock a person down without tearing them open. Something that could stop them without ending them. Something that stayed within the line his father had drawn. The sprout-mark on his fingertips burned. The cracks inside the metal moved slowly. Empty places compressed and fused together, while the rust remained only as surface stains.

The grip sank by tiny degrees to match the calluses on his palm and the joints of his fingers. Kichan clenched his teeth. Sweat fell from his forehead, making small dark dots on the towel. Strangely, this took a lot out of him. More than making gold had. Turning metal into money had been easier than making an iron rod that would not kill someone. That was a little funny. It also annoyed him even more.

"What an unbelievably inefficient ability." The moment the words left his mouth, the darkness in the room deepened slightly.

"The efficiency seems fine to me." Kichan closed his eyes. He was sitting in his room, but at the same time he was also sitting in the corner of the dream café. An old wooden table, a cup of coffee slowly going cold, a window with the same sort of people passing by outside. Across from him sat that thing wearing Suyeon's face. It didn't smile like Suyeon. It didn't talk like Suyeon either.

But every now and then the tilt of its head or the shape of its brow looked so much like her that Kichan got angry every single time.

"You again?"

"You're making something."

"You don't even help pay my rent. Why do you keep butting in?" The thing looked down at the iron rod. Somehow it was lying on the café table now. The towel and the floor from reality were gone, but the smell of rust remained.

"Give it a name."

"No."

"That is how it becomes yours."

"That makes me want to do it even less." The thing picked up its coffee cup. It didn't drink. It just held it near its lips and looked at him.

"Then I suppose it will be taken from you." Kichan couldn't answer. Because it sounded a little too close to true. The rod was supposed to be just an object. But whenever he thought about stopping someone in front of the house, watching for unfamiliar cars, or the people who might lay a hand on his parents, his own hand reached for it on instinct. Even without a name, he was already getting attached.

"People who name weapons are never normal." Kichan said it flatly.

"If you wanted to stay normal, you should have thrown away the envelope." The thing answered in the same calm tone. Grinding his teeth, Kichan pressed on the end of the rod. His fingertips in reality and his fingertips in the dream moved at the same time. The sharper sections died into roundness. Instead, the weight gathered inward. It would not cut if he swung it. But if it hit someone, they would spend a while thinking very seriously about both the world and their life choices. Kichan let out a long breath.

"As long as it wakes them up a little, that's enough." The thing across from him smiled.

"Oh? There's the name." Kichan froze.

"No."

"Wake-up rod."

"No."

"Wake-up rod."

"Don't call it that."

"You said it first." Kichan opened his eyes. He was back in his room. The thing wearing Suyeon's face was gone. In its place, the rod across his knees had changed a little. Outwardly, it was still crude. The rust marks were still there, and there was nothing decorative about it. But the moment he gripped it, the center of balance settled right into his palm. It fit so well it was almost irritating. Kichan stood in the middle of the room with it in his hand.

He barely turned his wrist, and the end of the rod pushed at the air. He didn't even need to swing it. His shoulder and elbow naturally understood how far they should move. Outside his door, he heard his father drinking water. The kitchen faucet opened and shut for a second, followed by the sound of a cup touching the sink. Kichan looked down at the rod. It wasn't sharp. But it was heavy, solid, and unwilling to yield.

"Wake-up rod, seriously?" He muttered it under his breath, and Dust, perched above the front door, twitched one of its wire legs as if in agreement. Kichan glared at it.

"You don't laugh either." There was no answer. But from that day on, he couldn't call it anything else, even in his own head. Wake-up rod. A truly awful name that sounded far too capable of living up to itself. The word London had never meant much to Kichan. Red buses. Rain. Ridiculous prices. English. And far away from Korea. That was about it. But whenever he searched for the Golden Dawn, London kept appearing.

An old reading society, a private antiquarian group, a members-only document room, a research patronage foundation. On the surface, every term was respectable. The kind of words that made you picture people in ties quietly turning the pages of old books in a silent room, paying annual dues and drinking tea. But the torn flyer Dust had brought back, the symbol inside the envelope, the text messages from the Golden Dawn, and the sensation of Rohonc lingering in his throat were all pointing in the same direction.

London. Kichan looked up plane ticket prices, then closed the window. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Then he opened it again. The price had not changed. The third time he closed and reopened it, the number still sat there with the same rude lack of shame.

"If it's in another country, shouldn't the number at least get smaller too?" Muttering to himself, he opened his savings app. His account had already thinned out after Italy. Then came the extra door lock, the materials for making the little things, and the miscellaneous costs that piled up when you couldn't trust anyone. Looking at what was left only annoyed him more. If he went all the way to London now, this month's credit card bill was definitely going to beat him to death.

The problem was that not going felt like it would hit harder. Every night, a sheet of paper appeared on the table in the dream café. It never unfolded. The thing with Suyeon's face sat there with a cup of coffee in front of it, tapping the paper with its fingertips.

"You're not going to look?"

"I don't want to."

"But the next page is already open."

"It should have asked my permission first."

"You're the one who gets read without permission." Every time Kichan heard that line, he woke up. And every time he woke, some unsaid sound remained in the back of his throat. He still didn't know what it was supposed to say, but the direction was obvious. Somewhere, there was a document. Whether he pretended not to know and went to work, whether he was choosing lunch, whether he was opening the front door at home—his throat lurched before anything else did. His body kept signaling that this wasn't over.

That was what he hated most. If someone simply threatened him for money, he could say he didn't have any. If some foreign institute told him to come over, he could say no. But the feeling that the next page was opening inside his own body was not something he could control. In the end, Kichan took a full day off instead of a half day. His team lead messaged him. `Family stuff again? ` Kichan rested his hands on the keyboard and stayed still for a while. Family stuff wasn't wrong.

It was just that the scope of family stuff had expanded from the apartment entrance all the way to an old document room in London. `Something came up that I need to travel pretty far for. ` Looking at it after he sent it, even he thought it sounded more suspicious. Telling his mother was harder. That evening, there was soybean paste stew on the table.

The zucchini had softened just enough, the corners of the tofu were chipped a little, stir-fried anchovies had slices of garlic mixed in, and the kimchi looked freshly taken out, with clear red brine pooled at the edge of the plate. Normally he would have picked up his spoon without thinking, but today even the bits of green onion floating on top of the stew held his eyes too long. That day, Kichan learned for the first time that even a warm smell could feel heavy.

"Another foreign country?" His mother asked. Kichan started to lift a spoonful of rice, then set it back down. A few grains clung to the tip of the spoon before dropping back into the bowl.

"Yeah."

"Why?" It was only one word, but there was too much worry in it. Kichan picked up his water glass. The droplets on the outside dampened his fingers. He leaned on that cold sensation while he chose his words. This time, he decided he would not hide everything. That did not mean he could tell them everything either.

How was he supposed to explain to his parents that the Voynich manuscript had read him, that something in his dreams wore his ex-girlfriend's face and spoke to him, or that he could feel the grain of metal and plants through his fingertips? So he chose only the parts that could be said. He told them there was a lead in London. That it was connected to the envelope left in their mailbox, and that the people on the other side seemed to already know the area around their home.

He said that pretending not to know would not make them safer. If anything, it might let those people come deeper into their lives. As he talked, his mother's face steadily worsened. First worry, then fear. By the end, there was hostility in it. Quiet, sharp hostility toward the existence of something that might harm her son. His father did not interrupt once. By the time Kichan finished, the soybean paste stew had gone cold.

Only then did he realize he had not managed to properly swallow even a single spoonful of rice. His mother set down her chopsticks.

"If I tell you not to go, will you stay?" In the end, Kichan couldn't answer. That was answer enough. The rims of his mother's eyes reddened just slightly. She didn't cry. Kichan almost wished she would. If she had, maybe he could have said he was sorry. But she didn't cry. She only looked at the hand he had resting on the table. The sprout-mark on his fingertips. It looked like an ordinary scar. But it was no longer ordinary. His father spoke first.

"If you have to go, then go." His mother looked at him. His father slid the plate of anchovies toward Kichan. The dish made a small sound against the table.

"But call every day. Video call too. If you don't answer, your mother will come looking for you before the police do." Kichan nodded.

"Okay."

"And that rod." Kichan stiffened. His father continued.

"I told you not to make it sharp." Kichan thought of the wake-up rod.

"I didn't make it sharp." That much was true. It was just that if it hit you, you'd be doing some long, serious thinking afterward. His mother asked in a low voice,"Do you have to take that with you?" Kichan couldn't answer right away. Saying he would take the wake-up rod meant admitting that something might happen there. But saying he would leave it behind would have been a lie. In the end, he nodded. His mother sighed, then nudged the bowl of cold soybean paste stew a little closer to him.

"Then eat before you go."

"Right now?"

"Right now." Kichan picked up his spoon. The stew wasn't hot anymore. Even so, the zucchini was soft and the tofu broke apart easily in his mouth. His throat tightened a little, but he forced himself to swallow. His mother didn't say a word until he managed to finish the second spoonful. The real problem was the airport. The wake-up rod was one solid piece. Kichan didn't try to fold it or take it apart. The thought crossed his mind briefly at first.

But the moment his fingertips touched it, the grain of the metal pushed back hard. The wake-up rod had been compressed into one mass from the beginning. If he forced it into pieces, the balance would collapse and the inside would go flimsy. If that happened, he might as well not take it at all. Of course, the option of not taking it didn't last long. So he picked another route. He shortened it a little and pressed the density inward even harder.

On the outside, he deliberately left the surface shabby so it might pass for old camping equipment or aged camera gear. He even preserved some of the rust marks. If it looked too new, it would only be harder to explain. But the inside remained a single mass. A solid iron rod. Shorter, heavier, and much more difficult to explain.

"Doesn't this just look even more suspicious?" Kichan opened the equipment bag and set it on the floor. Clothes, charger, toiletries, passport copy, overseas payment card, medicine packets—he put them in one by one. He packed, took things out, put them back, changed their positions. It felt less like packing luggage and more like folding up his anxiety and stuffing it into a bag. Just as he was about to zip it closed, Dust crawled into the inside pocket. Kichan picked it up between two fingers.

"No. You're not going." Dust didn't move.

"What, you're planning to follow me all the way to England?" Dust still didn't move. Kichan couldn't tell whether it was playing dead or pretending not to understand the command. He set Dust back down on the desk.

"Guard the house. If anything happens around Mom or Dad, tell me." Only then did Dust twitch its wire legs. Even that tiny movement wasn't enough to reassure him, so in the end Kichan hid one even smaller piece inside the seam of the bag. A minuscule shard of metal that could serve as Dust's eyes and ears. It couldn't move, but it could at least pass along the resonance of nearby metal. He told himself that didn't count as smuggling. The next day, the airport was packed.

Rolling suitcase wheels scraped over the floor. Announcements echoed overhead. A child cried somewhere. The smell of coffee mixed with perfume. Kichan stood in line with one hand on the handle of the equipment bag. His palm was slick with sweat. At the checked baggage counter, the employee told him to place the bag on the conveyor. Kichan lifted it onto the belt. The weight flashed onto the screen. The employee looked at the monitor, looked at the bag, then looked back at Kichan.

"Do you have equipment in here?"

"Yes. Something like old filming equipment." It wasn't technically a lie. The phrase something like did a lot of work. The employee asked him to open the bag. For a second, Kichan thought his heart had stopped. The zipper opened, revealing the wake-up rod wedged between his clothes. The employee tapped it lightly with a finger. The metal, made to look like some old pole, gave off a faint ring. Kichan felt that vibration in his fingertips too. Stay quiet. He said it inwardly.

The employee, with no real interest, closed the bag again.

"I'll mark it fragile for you."

"Thank you." The gratitude in his voice came out far too sincere. Once he made it past the departure gate, the strength went out of his legs a little. People were moving around as if nothing in the world were strange. Someone choosing perfume in front of a duty-free display. Someone dragging a suitcase while checking the gate number. Someone holding a paper cup of coffee while talking on the phone. Nobody knew that an iron rod had just passed inspection without incident.

Nobody knew he had left instructions with a tiny metal bug to guard the house. Kichan sat down and took out his phone. There was a message from his mother. `Did you get to the airport? ` `Yeah. Checked the bag. ` The reply came immediately. `Make sure you eat` Kichan smiled a little when he read that. It echoed what she'd said at the dinner table the night before, when she'd pushed the cold stew toward him. Then eat before you go. He stared at the screen for a while.

Make sure you eat was such a small, ordinary thing to say that it became impossible to dodge. London, Rohonc, the Golden Dawn—none of that came first for his mother. What mattered to her, in the end, was whether her son had eaten. Inside the airport there were overpriced sandwiches and lukewarm coffee. He bought both anyway. The sandwich bread was dry, and the coffee was too bitter. Every bite brought back the memory of yesterday's cold soybean paste stew. The zucchini had been soft.

The tofu had fallen apart easily. His mother hadn't said a word until he'd swallowed the second spoonful. Kichan folded the sandwich wrapper halfway down and took a picture. `I'm eating. ` Only after sending it did he realize he had been looking for a moment where he didn't have to lie. At least that much was true. The plane rose toward a gray sky. Kichan looked out the window, then closed his eyes. London. Rohonc. The Golden Dawn. The farther he got from home, the clearer home became in his mind.

The smell of soybean paste stew. The dish of stir-fried anchovies on the table. His father leaning against the doorframe. Dust twitching its wire legs above the front door. Just before switching his phone to airplane mode, he sent one last message to his mother. `I'll call as soon as I land. ` The sent mark appeared, then vanished. Kichan set his phone down.

"So I just have to finish this fast and come back." The words were quiet, but this time they didn't sound like an excuse. Below the clouds outside, his home was already out of sight. Even so, Kichan knew. He still hadn't lost where he needed to return to.