The Gift of Seokgok

People fear ghosts. One look at Baek Jeong-hak, the nearest example at hand, was proof enough. The moment he decided Gayoung was possessed, he threw himself at the mercy of shamans without hesitation.

The second doctor had been no different.

Back then, hearing a diagnosis of "possession" come from the mouth of a doctor trained in modern medicine had been so absurd it left her speechless. So when she drove him out, she used the existence of ghosts against him. It hadn't been difficult. All she had to do was leave Lucy—the doll Gayoung always carried—sitting alone in the study, or play a recording of ghostly weeping down the mansion corridor.

The effect had been almost too good. Within a week, the second doctor was seeing things.

Only then had Baek Jeong-hak taken the lead in chasing out the babbling doctor. That was her uncle—never acting until Gaon moved first.

How is someone that spineless supposed to practice medicine?

Gaon had genuinely worried about the second doctor's mental state.

Unfortunately, this sixth doctor seemed to be cut from the same cloth. What was there to be so afraid of?

Gayoung is just hurting. That's all.

If the sixth doctor neglected treatment and started spouting nonsense, Gaon would have no choice but to drive him out the same way.

Gaon wasn't afraid of ghosts. She didn't particularly believe they existed, either. Better to spend that time on Gayoung than waste it fretting over something so unreal.

If there was anything to fear, it was people.

She had come to Baekam Island at fourteen, and her circle of human contact had been painfully narrow ever since—yet Gaon knew this truth by instinct: people were terrifying.

Like the human standing in front of her now.

"……"

"……"

Carrying a flowerpot through the front entrance, Cha Taekyung collided with her head-on.

Their eyes met with such precise timing that Gaon stopped in her tracks without meaning to. It had been nearly five days since the cigarette incident. Of course, Gaon had been watching his every move, every minute of every hour, all along.

Taekyung neither offered a greeting nor stepped aside. He simply stood there, staring at her blankly. With that large man blocking the doorway, the entrance itself looked absurdly small.

That damn flowerpot…

The pot he cradled as carefully as a child was a blue ceramic piece she had seen a few times before. Relative to the long container, the orchid itself was small and plump, with short leaves.

"It's a seokgok."

The sudden voice startled Gaon into looking up at him. Seokgok? What was that supposed to mean? Confusion flickered across her face.

"The orchid's name. Seokgok."

Gaon could only stare at him, at a loss for words. He really was a peculiar man. She had no interest whatsoever in the orchid he was raising, and no desire to know its name.

"Weren't you interested?"

"……Not in the slightest."

"You were always watching, so I assumed you were interested in the orchid."

It was absurd. The reason she kept watching was that Cha Taekyung was a person of interest—a threat. She had assumed her pressure and silent warnings were getting through, but the man himself hadn't caught on at all.

"Or were you interested in me?"

Taekyung asked it with a completely impassive face. Gaon turned the question over carefully in her mind.

Then she studied him, checking whether he was joking. There wasn't the faintest trace of humor. And that, in its own way, was serious.

"I'm monitoring whether you smoke or not, Mr. Cha Taekyung. I told you—if you're going to stay in this mansion, you have to follow the rules."

"Ah."

Taekyung answered in a tone of mild realization. That was all. The face that nodded held neither wariness nor offense. Flat. Flavorless.

In the end, the more she chewed over this entire exchange, the more it was Baek Gaon alone who grew increasingly furious.

He really, truly is a strange man.

"How does someone's thought process even work like that? Thinking I was interested in you. You're pathologically self-centered."

"……Please don't get too angry."

That attitude—exactly that. The languid, composed, impossibly calm demeanor. The indifferent manner that paid no mind whatsoever to whether the other person was angry or not. The cool eyes behind his glasses, even the flowerpot held so demurely in his arms—all of it grated on her.

"Pink flowers bloom in spring, and the fragrance is excellent. Since the roots grow in moss or on rock rather than soil, you only need to water it when the moss dries out—so it's fairly easy to care for."

Without warning, mid-explanation about the orchid, the man took a step closer.

Gaon missed the timing to step back. He had thrust the flowerpot straight into her arms. He released it so cleanly, so without hesitation, that she found herself clutching the blue ceramic before she knew what she was doing. If she hadn't, the pot would certainly have shattered against the wooden floor.

The cool touch of the ceramic. Lush green moss blanketed the soil completely, and atop it sat a small orchid with bamboo-like nodes and a few broad leaves.

"It's a gift."

"What… I don't need it. Take it back."

"If you don't want it, you can throw it away. But even neglected, this one doesn't die easily. It's got a strong will to live."

Gaon glared at Cha Taekyung. The man was thoroughly, intolerably willful.

"You think an unwanted gift like this is going to make me see you differently…"

"The reason I asked if you were interested in me is because I'm very interested in you, Miss Baek Gaon."

The lips that had been ready to resume the argument snapped shut. His words didn't quite make sense at first.

Interested in her? What kind of interest was he talking about?

Cha Taekyung's pitch-black eyes curved as he smiled. It was that alien smile Gaon hated.

Gift. Interest. Misunderstanding.

String those three words together and they almost sound romantic—as if the interest he spoke of meant the secret, tender kind that passes between a man and a woman.

Of course, factoring in that bizarre smile, those cool eyes, and that stiff, blunt-to-a-fault demeanor, the odds of sweet romance hovered near zero percent. A thriller with something hidden underneath, maybe. What he was scheming, she couldn't begin to guess.

Cha Taekyung's sudden gift had given Gaon nothing but confusion and irritation.

She shoved the flowerpot into a corner of her room. She had wanted to tip it over in the garden for him to see, but couldn't quite bring herself to do it—so this was the next best option.

Whether the moss dried out or not, she had no intention of caring for it. Plants that fell into Gaon's hands always died anyway; she expected no different ending. She even nursed a petty plan to hand the withered thing back into Cha Taekyung's arms and tell him, Its will to live wasn't strong at all.

She left the pot neglected for three straight days. Her observation and documentation of him never paused, either.

Does it… really grow fine on its own?

And over those three days, the thing called seokgok survived perfectly well alone in the corner of her room. No—it almost looked more vivid than when she had first received it. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, those broad orchid leaves kept catching at the edge of her vision.

Why did he have to give me something like that.

In the end, just before leaving her room, Gaon reached down and brushed the moss beneath the orchid. It was bone-dry. All the way up to Gayoung's room, the dry moss nagged at her. Eventually a spineless thought crept in: Should I water it? Unlike its owner, the plant itself was innocent.

But the moment she opened the door, every complicated thought stopped cold.

"Gayoung. Why is the room this cold? Aren't you freezing?"

The inside of the room was an icebox.

Gaon hurried in and checked the child sitting on the bed first. Gayoung had woken at some point and was playing with the blanket wrapped around her.

"Mm. I'm not cold."

The child's hands, setting a puzzle together with the doll propped in front of her, were red.

"Lucy says she's not cold either."

Spring had come, but this year's lingering cold snap meant the temperature dropped the instant the heating wasn't properly maintained. The wooden building, perched on a hill in the middle of the island, stayed cool year-round. Inside a room that felt colder than the outdoors, a child and a doll sat motionless on a bed thick with chill.

"How long has it been like this?"

Gaon seethed in silence.