The Sixth Doctor
Gayoung’s bizarre appearance refused to leave my mind. Even in the past, the child had occasionally spouted nonsense—that everyone was out to hurt her, that Uncle was a terrifying man, that her own sister had abandoned her. Incomprehensible babble. But she had never poured out such absurd, bone-chilling words so incoherently as she had this time. Her condition, peaceful for a few days only to whip around without warning, filled me with dread.
I had secretly hidden the home cameras I’d received through Han Jun-seok—one in the second-floor hallway, another on the first. Part of me wanted to know who had killed the rat; another part desperately did not.
If the culprit turned out to be Gayoung…
What was I supposed to do then?
Was it time to accept the truth that I could no longer handle Baek Gayoung alone?
“Did you know you’re exactly the sixth one, Doctor?”
While Baek Gaon remained lost in thought, Jun-seok and Gil-ho carried on with ordinary conversation.
“The sixth?”
“Yes. The doctors who’ve come to this Baekam Island. Doesn’t Baek Jeong-hak say anything about the number six being unlucky? He’s such a superstitious man. He must have been uneasy.”
Listening with one ear and letting it drift out the other, Gaon guessed at the reason Jeong-hak had plastered talismans all over his ceiling. Was it because of that ridiculous notion—that the sixth doctor had arrived on Baekam Island?
“H-he didn’t really say anything particular…”
Cha Gil-ho wiped at his sweat as he answered. His discomfort with the conversation was plain.
He’s so cowardly.
Gaon regarded Cha Gil-ho with indifferent eyes. She didn’t know about anyone else, but she knew his unease stemmed from fear. If he was this frightened, how did he plan to face Gayoung later? Even she, the girl’s own sister, sometimes felt her blood run cold when confronted with Gayoung’s abnormal side. Cha Gil-ho would clearly be unable to handle it. The situation was nothing but worry from every angle.
As Gaon let out a faint sigh, she felt a piercing gaze and looked toward Cha Taekyung. The man who had been observing only the orchids was now staring straight at Baek Gaon.
Why is he looking at me like that again? The thought rose, only for the incident from a few days ago to claw its way back into her brain, stealing her breath. That thick, vivid sensation still lingered vividly in her right hand. Cha Taekyung’s eyes, slowly appraising her, somehow felt stifling. Her throat went dry. Gaon avoided his gaze and drank some water. Lukewarm liquid slid down her esophagus.
“By the way, then your nephew doesn’t have a job? He’s not exactly young. Seeing as he’s come all the way to Baekam Island.”
Han Jun-seok cut into their standoff. The question carried clear intent. Even to Gaon’s ears, the tone was unmistakably meant to check and belittle Cha Taekyung, and she felt embarrassed on his behalf.
For a moment, looking at Jun-seok, she nearly took Taekyung’s side with a Isn’t that a bit rude?
No matter how strange and unsettling the man was, he had helped her before.
That is, if Cha Gil-ho hadn’t opened his mouth first and launched into a long explanation.
“Ah, Taekyung is a doctor as well. He’s taking a short break, but he completed his residency training at Daehan University Hospital. He’s so brilliant he makes people like me look like ordinary fools. He was even selected as a fellow at the main hospital and was about to be appointed as an assistant professor at a young age… but something came up… so he’s resting for a while.”
In a tone thick with bitterness, Cha Gil-ho had instantly become a doting uncle, speaking up for Cha Taekyung.
A brief silence settled over the dining room.
Until just now, hadn’t he looked like an uncle who’d given up on his socially inept nephew? Or had he simply been afraid of Cha Taekyung?
More than anything, Gaon was shocked by the fact that Cha Taekyung was a doctor.
That man with the personality disorder—that madman—was a doctor? She couldn’t believe it. She’d thought he was just some unemployed guy who grew orchids with nothing better to do.
“……A doctor?”
Han Jun-seok, who seemed to have grasped within mere minutes of meeting him that Cha Taekyung was no ordinary person, spoke in a voice full of suspicion.
“Yes. Not just any doctor—his clinical skills and research abilities are outstanding. He swept medical society awards. He even has papers published in international journals. If you’d like, I can show you. The title is…”
“Ah, I’m not interested enough to read medical papers. And I don’t have the time.”
Han Jun-seok refused with a neat smile. Cha Gil-ho’s face flushed with embarrassment. He had gotten carried away boasting about his nephew only to be cut off cold.
Meanwhile, Cha Taekyung remained indifferent, as if the conversation had nothing to do with him. He had stopped watching Baek Gaon and now sat with his arms crossed, staring idly down at the table. No matter what anyone around him was saying, he looked as though he alone existed in another world. Perhaps the reason he’d quit being a doctor was because his mind had gone strange. Gaon found herself making a fairly well-grounded guess.
“I’m interested. In Cha Taekyung’s papers.”
Breaking the silence, Gaon cut in. Every gaze gathered on her—including Cha Taekyung’s. At first she thought her purpose was to help the flustered Cha Gil-ho. But Gaon could look into her own heart with precision. She was not a particularly compassionate person. She genuinely wanted to know about the papers Cha Taekyung had written.
“Ah, Taekyung specialized in psychiatry, and he wrote particularly well on cognitive distortions and defense mechanisms in patients with persecutory delusions—paranoia. He was also exceptional regarding dissociative amnesia. He researched in depth the memory gaps that occur as a form of PTSD right after a traumatic experience, and the formation of new memories.”
As if he’d seized a lifeline, Cha Gil-ho wiped his sweat and rattled off the explanation in a jumble.
Among it all, Gaon latched onto the words memory gaps.
“Looks like the whole family’s doctors. That’s usually how it is. But why are they all psychiatrists? Was there a patient in the family who needed looking after?”
Jun-seok asked. He wasn’t like himself today. He wasn’t sociable or warm as usual. Instead he was aggressive and rude.
“Ah, no. Just Taekyung and I are doctors…”
“Is that so? What about Cha Taekyung’s father? Does he have any siblings?”
Cha Gil-ho was sweating buckets again. His handkerchief was soaked through, and what little hair he had clung to his scalp, making him look like a drowned rat.
“Why? Looking to arrange a match?”
Then Cha Taekyung drawled the question. The man who had shown zero interest in the unfolding situation tossed out the remark, and Han Jun-seok went blank for a moment. Then he laughed hollowly.
“What?”
“Nothing. You were running a background check, so I figured you must be in a hurry to get married.”
Jun-seok’s mouth worked open and shut in disbelief. Gaon suddenly felt an urgent need to escape this place. Cha Gil-ho, Cha Taekyung, Han Jun-seok—none of them seemed normal. Cha Gil-ho appeared to suffer from severe hyperhidrosis and anxiety disorder; Cha Taekyung from a personality disorder and sociopathy; Han Jun-seok from inferiority and narcissism.
And of course Baek Gaon herself was not free of it. What diagnosis would suit her? Obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety over her sister?
“Baek Gaon!!!”
At that moment Baek Jeong-hak came charging into the dining room with a great shout.
Gaon realized without difficulty that something had gone badly wrong. Jeong-hak’s face was flushed red. His breathing was ragged with excitement, the veins at his temples stood out blue, and the whites of his eyes were shot with burst capillaries. Another abnormal person had appeared.
“You! Explain this right now!”
In his thick hand dangled a camera. Embarrassment flickered across Gaon’s eyes.
“Why! Why can’t you speak! Why is this thing in the first-floor hallway! Without my permission!”
Baek Jeong-hak had discovered the camera she’d installed to catch the culprit. How had he known? She had placed it inside an old clock in the corner near the entrance to the hall—a spot not easily noticed, yet useful enough to capture people’s movements at a glance.
“I knew long ago that you, Baek Gaon, were strange. But you dare pull a stunt like this? What were you planning to do by recording video? What possible reason is there to put cameras in this mansion!”
Baek Jeong-hak was in a state of excessive agitation. Even with all the guests gathered in the dining room, he couldn’t contain his rage. It was unlike her uncle, who was usually so sensitive to people’s gazes and opinions.
“M-Mr. Baek, please calm down a little…”
Unable to watch any longer, Jun-seok rose from his seat to intervene.
“I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about! No sins! I devoted my whole life, working myself to the bone for those pitiful kids abandoned by their parents! I poured my youth into running an orphanage that made next to no money! And yet you dare—in my own mansion—do this behind my back?! Spying on me?”
Baek Jeong-hak was not calming down at all. Gaon had never seen her uncle explode like this.
She simply froze in shock.
The more closely she looked, the stranger Baek Jeong-hak’s appearance seemed. Dark circles had risen black beneath his eyes, and he had lost so much weight that his cheeks looked hollow. His hair was matted and greasy, tangled into a mess, and his gaze kept darting anxiously.
In the few days they hadn’t crossed paths inside the mansion, Baek Jeong-hak had completely fallen apart into a wreck of a man.