God's Vessel – Episode 16

At Cha-mu's words, the child who had been playing with a red ball looked up at him with wide eyes.

As if to ask whether he meant it.

Cha-mu nodded and met the child's gaze.

"Want to go see her?"

'Really?'

"Yeah."

The child bounced up and down in delight, and Cha-mu went to the wardrobe to pick out the least conspicuous clothes he could find.

No amount of ordinary clothing could make him blend into a crowd, but—put simply—it was the least he could do out of courtesy.

"Come here."

Cha-mu lifted the child up and set him astride his shoulder.

Alone, the child could never leave Wolryeongsa, but with Cha-mu, it was fine.

Utterly thrilled at the mere prospect of seeing Yu-yeong, the child clung to Cha-mu's head for dear life.

'What are we going to do when we see our unni?'

"Good question."

Even as Cha-mu stepped out of Wolryeongsa with the child perched on his shoulder, he couldn't say for certain what he himself intended to do.

"Kid."

'Yeah?'

"Not 'yeah.' It's 'yes.'"

'Yesss!'

The outside world was clearly a novelty to him, and even Cha-mu's icy voice drew nothing but a bright, guileless answer.

"A friend has fallen down."

'Where? Where? We have to help!'

The child shouted it instantly, without a flicker of hesitation. Not a moment's consideration. He spoke it as if it were obvious—because to him, it was.

Cha-mu, a full-grown adult, needed a hundred reasons and more just to help another human being. The child needed none. A boy who had died at six years old gave no thought at all to the act of helping someone else.

Every so often, children who had barely begun to grow seemed far more human than grown men with grown bodies but stunted souls.

No—more often than not, they did.

"Then let's go help your friend."

'My friend!'

Whether the person he was going to help was the wicked thing that had planted malice in the hat, or Yu-yeong, who had been caught in its wake, even Cha-mu couldn't say for sure. But one thing was certain: it had to be done.

Whoever it was, someone needed help.

It was late in the night when Yu-yeong regained consciousness, with Seul-a keeping vigil at her side.

"Seul-a unni⋯⋯."

Eyes opening, Yu-yeong took in the hospital room and quietly called out to Seul-a, who sat dozing on the sofa across from the bed, head nodding.

She had clearly been assaulted and collapsed, lying unconscious for more than half a day—yet somehow, her voice seemed strangely, inexplicably buoyant.

"Unni, Seul-a unni."

"Huh? Oh—Yu-yeong!"

At the repeated calls, Seul-a jolted upright, and Yu-yeong beamed a shy smile at the sight of her.

"Unni⋯⋯."

Still smiling, Yu-yeong winced as if the bruise on her cheek throbbed, then pushed out her lips in a pout.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot? You must be exhausted."

As Seul-a fretted and hurried over, Yu-yeong shook her head. Then she looked up at Seul-a with clear, limpid eyes.

Something about it was just a little off from her usual self.

Seul-a had fully expected her to burst into tears from the shock. Even if she didn't know yet that the entire internet had exploded, surely anyone attacked like that in broad daylight would cry⋯⋯.

"I don't hurt one bit. Unni, don't just sit there—go home and sleep, okay?"

"How am I supposed to go home? You don't even have a caregiver. I have to stay."

"Noooo⋯⋯."

Yu-yeong shook her head back and forth.

Her gaze was strangely pleading, as though she desperately wanted to be alone.

"I want grapes, unni⋯⋯."

"Oh, right—you wouldn't believe how many fruit baskets have come in. I'll wash some for you."

"Okay."

Yu-yeong answered like a child, nodding eagerly. Seul-a hesitated a moment, nagged by some inexplicable sense that something wasn't right, then took a bunch of grapes from the fruit basket the agency's CEO had sent and washed them.

Yu-yeong accepted them—black, elongated grapes, a slightly different shape from the kind she usually ate—and looked up at Seul-a again.

She plucked a single grape free and popped it gently into Seul-a's mouth.

"Unni, go home and sleep, okay? I want to be alone. It's more comfortable that way⋯⋯."

Seul-a refused again and again, insisting she couldn't possibly leave, but in the end, the victor was Yu-yeong.

Worn down by Yu-yeong's stubbornness, Seul-a finally nodded, out of options.

"Fine, but I'll be back first thing in the morning."

"Okay."

"If a stranger comes in, you know what to do, right?"

"Yep yep, don't worry! I'll scream my head off!"

"Unni⋯⋯ unnniii⋯⋯."

After Seul-a had gone entirely, Yu-yeong counted slowly to one hundred before cautiously calling out to her again.

Her scheme, of course, was to check whether Seul-a was still lingering outside the door.

When the door failed to open despite several calls, Yu-yeong curved her lips into a bashful grin. Even with her face swollen with bruises, that smiling expression was as bright and innocent as a child's.

"Phoneee⋯⋯."

Now alone, Yu-yeong hopped down from the bed and began rummaging for her phone.

"Found it!"

She soon fished it out of the bag left on one end of the sofa—the one with the little bell charm dangling from it—and flashed a bashful smile.

"Mister! Everyone's gone! You can come now!"

Yu-yeong's lively voice spilled through the receiver, and from the other end of the line came a curt reply: I know.

Cha-mu had parked in the hospital lot, waiting for the child's call, when Seul-a's figure crossed his field of vision.

Looks like it worked.

He thought so as he recalled the look in Seul-a's eyes—glaring at him as if he were some pervert—while she'd spirited Yu-yeong away. She hardly seemed the type to leave a client who'd just been attacked alone in a hospital bed and go home⋯⋯.

Before long, his phone began to ring.

"Yes."

Undeterred by Cha-mu's frosty voice, the call brimmed over with an excited, buzzing rendition of Yu-yeong's tone.

That it wasn't truly Yu-yeong, Cha-mu knew better than anyone. Sending the child to take over her body had been his own doing.

"Understood. Sit there like a good kid and eat your grapes."

With that, Cha-mu hung up and stepped out of the car. A faint sweetness, like the scent of grapes, curled at the tip of his nose.

By the time Cha-mu set foot in the hospital lobby, Seul-a's car was already pulling out of the lot. Sensing her energy receding into the distance, he stepped into the elevator.

Ding.

The elevator climbed for a long while before stopping at the VIP ward, where Cha-mu strode out on his long legs. Thanks to the child having called ahead, the moment he gave Yu-yeong's name, the nurse gave him a brief once-over and led him to her room without a word of protest. He'd been braced for a hassle at the desk wasting his energy for nothing, but no such thing happened.

Click.

The heavy door closed behind him, and his gaze settled on Yu-yeong, perched on the bed eating the long, slender grapes.

It was the child, not Yu-yeong.

Every time she pushed a grape into her mouth, the child let out a pained whimper—the split lip and bruised cheek clearly protesting—and yet kept popping grape after grape in regardless.

"Owww."

"Open your mouth smaller. Then it won't hurt as much."

So saying, Cha-mu walked right up in front of her. Yu-yeong, housing the child's soul, showed no sign of gladness at his arrival—she simply opened her mouth a little smaller, as told, and ate. Watching her do it, Cha-mu let out a small sigh.

"Finish the grapes and come out."

"No!"

"Kid, don't make me say the same thing twice."

At Cha-mu's firm tone, Yu-yeong pouted her lips, then nodded.

Any other time, the child would have whined and pitched a fit, but the grapes were so sweet that he was in far too good a mood to argue.

Like a mischievous little glutton, he crammed the remaining grapes into his mouth until both cheeks bulged. The sweet fragrance of grapes filled the entire hospital room, and Cha-mu simply stood there watching. He didn't seem to mind the sight of the child happily eating.

On the way back to Wolryeongsa, Cha-mu thought he should buy a few bunches of the same grapes the child had been eating and let Seong-min try them too.

"I'm sleepy now."

Having eaten his fill of grapes in high spirits, the child murmured low and drowsy. At once, Yu-yeong clutched at her own throat as if it were constricted and hacked out a rough, rattling cough.

And then the child slipped out of Yu-yeong's body.

Cha-mu watched in silence. The child circled him once or twice, then flopped face-down onto the sofa in the hospital room.

"Are you all right?"

"Ah."

At Cha-mu's question, Yu-yeong finally seemed to come back to herself, blinking up at him.

She had watched the whole time—watched herself lend her body to the child, send Seul-a home, gorge on grapes—and now she gave a small, dazed nod.

"I—I didn't know you were coming."

"How's the body?"

"Ah."

"It's going to hurt. You couldn't feel it until now, but from here on, it will."

Before Cha-mu could even finish speaking, Yu-yeong let out a groan as the pain arrived in full, vivid force. Her back and lower spine ached, and above all, her face—the face that had taken the blows of fists—throbbed mercilessly.

"It hurts⋯⋯."

Looking at Yu-yeong, on the verge of tears, mumbling sullenly with her face all scrunched up, Cha-mu nodded silently.

Now that the child had left her, it was bound to hurt—a great deal.