The Vessel of a God

"Cha-mu."

He was seventeen, and the old man's voice calling his name was heavy with sorrow. It seemed the grief for the grandson who would survive him was a greater pain than the agony tearing through his own failing body.

"Grandfather."

"Cha-mu, don't listen."

With a spotted, trembling hand he could barely lift, he pressed it over one ear of his only grandson, Cha-mu. He no longer had the strength to raise both hands and block them both.

"Cha-mu. Live the life you want."

It took more than ten minutes for that single sentence to leave his lips. With his intestines twisting in agony, Cha-mu's grandfather left those words behind for the only blood he had in this world.

He knew. He knew that Cha-mu's life would never be an easy one, that he would suffer in every waking moment beneath the whispers of gods — and still, he told him to live the life he wanted.

Do not be swayed by the countless gods who covet your vessel. Walk the thorned road to its very end if you must, but live the life you want. That was all he could say, a dying man to the grandson he was leaving behind.

The life I want.

Even after his grandfather died, Cha-mu kept vigil beside the body for three days.

Not because he held some absurd belief that the old man would rise again.

He simply committed to memory, one by one, each of the gods that came to look upon his dead grandfather.

Far to the south, in Namhae, lay the ancestral home of Cha-mu's family — a line that, for hundreds of years, had been both hereditary shamans and possessed shamans at once. The men of the family inherited the mantle of the baksu, and every one of them had clasped hands with a god that could fit inside their vessel, lending that god their voice as its mouthpiece.

And the one born into this family carrying the greatest vessel it had seen in centuries was Cha-mu.

"I will live the life I want."

Cha-mu watched in silence as the gods came seeking his dead grandfather, stealing only a single glance at the body before fixing their gaze on him instead — staring, unblinking, as if they'd finally stumbled upon a vessel worth the taking.

So the gods are without greed, are they?

Who was it that spouted such empty nonsense?

The gods that lingered on this peninsula were, after all, humans once — people who lived as mortals, ascended to heaven, and returned as gods. And their desires burned larger than any human's ever could.

Toward Cha-mu, born with a vessel so vast it could cradle them all with room to spare, they made no effort to hide their hunger.

No — it would be more accurate to say they couldn't.

Cha-mu remembered them.

He remembered, and remembered, and remembered.

And he made his vow.

This life, he would end his family's line. No matter what happened, he would never receive a god. He would leave his vessel — the one every god lusted after — empty to the last. And on the day he died, he would shatter that vessel and sever this family's filthy bloodline for good. That, he swore.

"Yu-yeong."

The voice that had once called itself jagi — mine — drifted past his ear, and remembering it made it almost impossible for Cha-mu to bear.

My flower. My Yu-yeong.

Cha-mu's gaze turned to the window of the hospital room.

Now, at last, he understood. His father, his grandfather, the generations above them — he finally understood why they had, in the end, received a god after all. Why they had carried the vessel instead of shattering it.

Yu-yeong. If it means saving you, what couldn't I do? So my vessel holds a god. So you, spent and used up, might leave me. Even then, the single fact that you're alive somewhere in this world would be enough for me to go on living. What couldn't I do for that?

In the end, even if you throw me away — I will have no choice but to save you.

God after god looked upon Yu-yeong's face, and then fixed their gaze on Cha-mu's, staring as if to bore straight through him.

It was the same feeling from fifteen years ago. The weight of gods' eyes upon him. The measuring gazes, gauging the vessel that might hold them.

And Cha-mu made his decision. Instead of shattering his vessel in death, he would fill it with a god — and save Yu-yeong.

"I will live as the god's vessel."

The words finally left Cha-mu's mouth. On the day that sealed his fate.

Even in that moment, Cha-mu's hand was holding Yu-yeong's.

I will save you.

A flash of light.

The moment her eyes opened, what greeted them was the ceiling of a hotel that reeked of money. A familiar sight — it was the very hotel she used to escape to whenever home became unbearable.

One more place where she could go to breathe easy, lost. How many hotels were left in central Seoul where she could actually rest?

"Ah."

Yu-yeong slowly rolled only her eyes, checking who belonged to the presence she felt beside her. The face glimpsed at the edge of her vision — no, the shock of bright yellow hair — announced exactly who it was.

"...I'm losing my mind. Genuinely."

She murmured it like a whisper to herself, then turned her body, slowly, soundlessly, with the practiced ease of someone who had done this before. Every movement spoke of a single, iron resolve: do not wake him. Even her glances were careful, wary that the mere weight of her gaze might stir him.

It was night and day from the girl who, after wrapping her arm around the man who'd flopped down beside her all grins the night before, had clung to him coquettishly when the shoot ended.

'But Yu-won, when did you get this handsome? How are you prettier than the actors?'

'Really? Ah, no one's ever said that to me before.'

'Come on, you have tons of fans out there. Are you going to keep acting? I'd love to work with you as a partner sometime.'

'That would be an honor for me, Sunbaenim. You're the most successful idol-turned-actor there is, after all.'

'Not the most. Ah, wait — come to think of it, our names are so similar. Yu-won, Yu-yeong.'

And with that, Yu-yeong had given Yu-won's cheek a playful little poke. In that instant, his face flared scarlet.

Watching him, Yu-yeong had burst out laughing like she was cooing over a cute baby — and the two of them had headed straight for the hotel.

The memory was vivid.

They'd come into the hotel, shared a glass of wine...

Yu-yeong turned her head fully now, confirmed the face beside her, and screwed her eyes shut. It was Yu-won, all right.

"God, I want to just die."

She muttered it, then carefully lifted the heavy blanket pressing her down.

"Haaah."

Thankfully, they were both still fully dressed.

The memory was hazy. They'd come in, talked, drunk wine... Had she showered? No — she didn't think so. At least, she hadn't.

Yu-won was in a shower robe.

'Noona, I'm gonna shower first.'

Right, that was it. While Yu-won went into the bathroom to wash up first, she had admired the night view. Yu-yeong's face — wearing some silly, doe-eyed expression — had been reflected in the window paned with the Seoul skyline. And then, layered over that face, another: one she'd never seen in her life, somehow younger, softer.

It wasn't Yu-yeong.

Soon enough, a bright, bubbly voice chimed in her ear — a voice completely unlike Yu-yeong's, famous among women for how low it could go.

'Wow, I just checked something off my bucket list!'

'...'

'But I hate the idea of Yu-won sleeping with some other woman! I know I'm inside your body right now, but at the end of the day, you're not me, are you?'

'That's not exactly something you get to say, is it?'

You stole my body and pulled this stunt, and now you're telling me you were satisfied?

Yu-yeong tried to spit the words out, but instead held her breath and glared at the face superimposed over her own in the glass. She couldn't say whether this counted as a mercy, but her irritation was beyond containing. The thing used her as long as it pleased, and now it was prattling about how she wasn't you... It only confirmed, in the most literal way possible, that her body had been seized and exploited like a piece of rented property — and that made her furious.

'Anyway, I drank with Yu-won, so now I'm satisfied!'

'...'

'And also... I'm a little scared, honestly.'

Whether the thing hadn't heard Yu-yeong's muttered grievance, or heard it and simply ignored her, there came a sudden moment when her throat clenched with a raw, aching tightness.

She should have been used to it by now, but she never was — and alongside that perpetually alien sensation, a short retch rose up in her.

It was the thing that had seized her body and caused this whole mess forcing its way back out of it.

Through that unspeakably strange sensation, Yu-yeong felt whatever had been occupying her body slip away and leave.

Only then did her mind clear, like fog lifting. It was one endless string of things she could never get used to.

"Ah."

Her head, clear for a single instant, began to spin as if someone had seized it and wrenched it around. Yu-yeong hadn't drunk so much as a glass of alcohol.

I shouldn't fall asleep here.

That thought was the last thing she remembered before the world blurred — she must have passed out right then.

"..."

Well. At least he wasn't enough of an animal to force himself on a sleeping woman.

With that thought, Yu-yeong slowly pushed herself upright. He'd been a victim in all this too, so she knew it wasn't fair to feel this way — but if she didn't frame it to herself somehow, she was going to burst into tears on the spot.

Yu-yeong knew better than anyone how agonizing it was when things happened against your will. To have your body stolen from you, to stand helpless while events unfolded without your consent, able only to watch — for Yu-yeong, that helplessness was its own particular torment.

"..."

She slipped out of the bed without a sound, then looked around the room. She remembered Yu-won wearing a black ball cap when they'd come in the night before.

I'll be taking this, thank you.

Yu-yeong picked up the fallen cap, put it on, gave a quick glance to Yu-won, dead asleep in the bed, grabbed her bag, and slipped quietly out of the hotel room.

Even with the cap pulled down low, hers was not a face made for hiding. The jaw far too small for an ordinary person, the skin white as fresh snow — none of it could be concealed.

When the elevator arrived, Yu-yeong boarded and tucked herself into the farthest corner. A few more people got on; a few of them stole glances at her, again and again.

Ding. The elevator stopped, and Yu-yeong, last one out, passed through the crowd and crossed the hotel lobby.

It being morning, the lobby was fairly busy. The creeping paranoia that every single one of them was looking at her made her breath come short, and she quickened her pace.

If even one photo got snapped here, by tomorrow the ugliest rumor imaginable would be spreading from every mouth in the country. She was certain of it.

"...Yeonhui-dong, please."

Only once she was inside the taxi did Yu-yeong finally gulp down a deep breath and pull off the cap.

The taxi pulled away, and she took out her phone.

"Power's off. Of course it is. Unbelievable."

She muttered to herself, but no sooner had she powered the phone on than the notifications came flooding in — so many of them the battery could have died on the spot.

Half were from her manager. The other half were threatening messages from Yu-won's fans.

Instagram, Twitter, even her private messenger — the messages poured in like a deluge.

"..."

Last night, word was spreading like wildfire across the internet that someone had seen Yu-yeong and Yu-won leaving the broadcasting station together in the same car after a variety shoot. And on top of that, rumors that Yu-won's expensive foreign car had been spotted pulling into a hotel...

Well. It wasn't even really a rumor. There was nothing she could say in her defense — it was all true.

Staring down headline after headline so lurid they barely qualified as journalism, Yu-yeong let her head sink. How did they manage to produce titles this relentlessly cheap, every single time? All that came out was a sigh.

It was an article built to milk clicks, destined to sink without a trace within days. But for the people who hated her, there couldn't have been a better piece of material.

She deliberately didn't read the comments. She knew all too well that there wouldn't be a single kind word among them.

The abuse had long since passed from painful into merely tiresome. Though of course, tiresome didn't mean it didn't hurt.

But even if she wept and screamed that it wasn't all right — that it hurt — not one soul in this world would believe her. And so there was nothing else she could say.