Chương 7: I'll Only Charge You the Cost of a Meal

Kichan had no intention of making medicine. More precisely, the word medicine itself felt burdensome. People put it inside their bodies. If you got it wrong, someone got sick. If you got it really wrong, you ended up on the news. Kichan had no desire to live the kind of life that appeared on the news. A life where payday came on schedule, dinner was home-cooked, and once in a while he could order fried chicken was more than enough for him. But the dream did not ask for his consent.

That night, he stood in a market alley. It was the neighborhood market where he'd followed his mother around as a child. The air smelled of fish, fried food, and wet cardboard. The people, as dream-people do, had blurred faces, but their voices were clear.

"It's something that's good for the body." Something wearing Sooyeon's face stood in front of a herbal medicine shop. Behind her shoulders, lines too faint to be called flowers and too thin to be called sprouts overlapped for a moment. Inside the shop were dried roots, leaves, and seeds in glass jars. There were far more of them than in any real market herbal stall, and they were much stranger too. Even in the dream, Kichan folded his arms.

"Nope."

"I haven't even said what it is yet."

"You said medicine. So no."

"Why?"

"Because people eat it." It laughed. Kichan did not like that lately, the laugh had started bothering him a little less.

"That's a good answer."

"Don't praise me."

"You still have to learn." The glass jars in the shop opened one by one. Dried leaves. Roots. Seeds. Kichan smelled them. Bitter. Sweet. Earthy. The smell of something dried a long time in sunlight. But the smells didn't stop at being smells. The way the plant had once lived. The place where it stored water. The force it used to close wounds. The thin line between poison and medicine. He recognized all of it.

"This is dangerous."

"Yes."

"Then why are you teaching me dangerous things?"

"Because you know they're dangerous." Kichan couldn't answer that. The thing held out a small mortar.

"You can't make the kind of medicine that saves a dying person yet. You'd ruin it because you'd be afraid."

"Nice to know you understand me."

"That's why we're starting with something less frightening." Inside the mortar were a few dried leaves and pieces of root. Kichan ground them. His fingertips grew hot, and he felt the plant's internal pathways mixing without breaking apart. Instinctively, he added a little water. Not too much. Not too little. The powder thickened, and the bitter smell softened.

"What is this?"

"Something that keeps a wound from festering as badly."

"An ointment?"

"In your terms, yes."

"Then why not just buy ointment?" The thing tilted its head very slowly.

"What about people who can't?" The dream ended. Kichan woke in bed. Morning light filtered through the curtain. The smell of herbs from the dream should have been gone. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. But it lingered on his palms. Bitter. Earthy. He washed his hands for a long time at the sink. The smell faded a little, but not completely. On the way to work, he stopped in front of the neighborhood pharmacy. They sold ointment there.

Obviously. People put ointment on cuts, swallowed medicine when they were sick, went to hospitals, and filed insurance claims. That was the normal world. Kichan wanted to stay on the side of the normal world. He went inside and bought the most ordinary wound ointment they had. The pharmacist kindly explained how to use it.

"Apply a thin layer two or three times a day."

"Okay."

"If the wound is deep, go to a hospital."

"Okay." These were normal words. Kichan liked them enough that he nodded one extra time for no reason. After paying, he stepped outside and looked in the pharmacy bag. One tube of ointment, a pack of gauze, and a few small bandages. Altogether, it cost less than one fried chicken order. About the same as two convenience-store lunchboxes. When life worked on that scale, at least he could do the math. That evening, he came across a small incident in the alley near his house.

An elementary school kid had fallen off a bicycle and was crying. His knee was scraped and bleeding a little. The boy's mother wasn't there yet. Two adults were nearby, but both had that helpless expression people get when they want to help and don't know how. Kichan tried to walk past. The ointment was in his bag. He'd only bought it by coincidence. It was normal ointment. He let out a breath and stepped over.

"You okay?" The kid shook his head through tears. Fair enough. He clearly was not okay. Kichan took out a handkerchief and cleaned around the blood with a wet wipe. His fingertips reacted. The depth of the wound. The torn edges of skin. The small pathways where inflammation might spread. Deliberately, he pushed the sensation away. Just put on the ointment. He spread a thin layer of the pharmacy ointment. Then the lines at the tip of his index finger turned hot.

The moment the ointment touched skin, he could sense its ingredients through his fingertips. The way ordinary medicine worked. The thin layer it left over the wound. The small fight it waged against bacteria. He gave it the smallest push. No, not even a push. It was closer to helping the ointment find its way with less wandering. The boy's crying eased a little.

"Huh?" He looked down at his own knee. The bleeding stopped a little faster than it should have. Kichan pulled his hand away at once.

"There. Go home, tell your mom, and if it hurts a lot, go to the hospital."

"Mister, are you a doctor?" That hurt Kichan more than the scraped knee.

"Hyung."

"Huh?"

"I'm not a doctor, but I'm old enough to be hyung, not mister." The boy laughed through his tears. That laugh made Kichan flee into his building even faster. But rumors move faster than minor injuries. A few days later, the boy's mother called out to him in the same alley.

"Excuse me, are you the one who helped my son that day?"

"Ah, yes."

"I wanted to thank you. He got better really quickly."

"Maybe it was good ointment."

"Could you maybe... take a look at something like this too?" She held out her wrist. The skin was red and irritated. Too minor to justify a hospital visit, maybe, but irritating enough that you couldn't just ignore it. Kichan tried to refuse. His mouth was already opening.

"You should probably go to a hos—" Then he saw her expression. Sorry to ask. Careful. Still hoping anyway. He knew that face. It looked a little too much like his own when he'd gone digging through old forum posts about a weird book. The face of someone wondering if, just maybe, something might help. He sighed.

"Just a second." He went home and brought back the ointment and clean gauze he'd bought. Normal supplies. A normal procedure. And one very abnormal set of fingertips. He applied the ointment as carefully as he could. He didn't change the wound directly. He only opened the way within what the medicine could already do. The woman's eyes widened.

"It feels warm."

"Ointment does that sometimes." That was a lie. She reached for her wallet. Kichan waved both hands immediately.

"No, it's fine."

"But still."

"Really, it's okay. This stuff doesn't even cost much."

"Then at least let me buy you a meal." Kichan paused. A meal. The word was much less frightening than money.

"Then maybe a roll of kimbap sometime." She smiled.

"A roll of kimbap is enough?"

"I'll only charge you the cost of a meal for the medicine." He meant it as a joke, but oddly enough, saying it made him feel much more at ease. After that, a few more people from the alley came looking for him. Nothing major. Scraped skin, a sprained wrist, small inflammations that took too long to settle down. Every time, Kichan said the same things.

"If it's serious, go to a hospital."

"I'm not a doctor."

"This is just regular ointment." And every time he came home, he wrote down how much he'd spent on pharmacy supplies. Ointment: this much. Gauze: this much. Bandages: this much. What he received in return was two rolls of kimbap, one bag of tangerines, three rice cakes, one container of stir-fried fish cake, and six boiled eggs. In money terms, it wasn't much. But weirdly enough, it helped right away. One weekend lunch was taken care of.

If he ate two boiled eggs before work, he didn't need to buy convenience-store triangle kimbap. There were even days when his mother opened a returned side-dish container and muttered, "What in the world did this house give us this time?" Whenever that happened, Kichan found himself staring into the fridge for no reason. He wasn't making money. He wasn't doing anything grand. But something about getting repaid in a way that fed daily life loosened something in him.

One day, after noticing unfamiliar side dishes multiplying in the refrigerator, his mother asked,"What exactly have you been doing outside?" Kichan chose his answer carefully.

"Maybe I've gotten friendly with the neighborhood."

"You?" Her suspicion was entirely justified. Kichan avoided her eyes and kept eating. Come to think of it, dinner had been a little richer these past few days. There'd be a side of braised anchovies, and then one extra dish of soy-braised beef. The day after kimchi stew, some marinated perilla leaves someone had given them would appear at the table. His mother stayed busy washing returned containers to send back, and his father quietly slid one extra piece of rolled omelet toward Kichan without saying a word.

As he ate, Kichan thought: What even is this? It wasn't a side job, and yet there was more home food. Saying he liked it felt strange. Saying he disliked it felt even stranger. That night, the dream-voice said,"You like it." Kichan denied it instantly.

"No, I don't."

"People thanking you."

"I like the food, that's all."

"Liar." Kichan shut his mouth. This time, the thing wearing Sooyeon's face didn't tease him further. It simply rested a hand on top of an old botanical illustration and said,"Once rumors spread, other people will come too." A bad feeling crawled up Kichan's spine.

"What kind of people?"

"People who are sick." After a beat, it added:"And people who make money from the sick." Kichan woke up. There was one missed call from an unknown number on his phone. The time was four in the morning. No text. He stared at the screen for a long moment, then turned the phone face down. His fingertips were quietly heating up.