The Real Poppy and the Fake
It had completely slipped her mind. Sera had had a friend, too.
Her personality was so foul that nobody had wanted to stay anywhere near her. And yet one friend had remained at her side regardless.
What was her name again… Hee… Heesu. Right, Heesu.
Sojin remembered the name flashing briefly across the screen. Jang Heesu, if she wasn't mistaken.
Sera put that friend through the wringer, didn't she.
It wasn't as if she'd hit her or stolen her money. Sera, oddly enough, considered those things barbaric.
Instead, she treated Heesu like her personal servant. Whenever Sera called, Heesu had to come running and wait on her hand and foot. If Sera told her to carry her bag, she carried it. If Sera told her to buy bread, she bought it.
And even so, for certain reasons, Heesu had been obliged to remain her friend, tolerating every one of Sera's cruel whims.
What were those certain reasons? I can't remember.
Sojin stepped out of her room. When she reached the living room, she spotted Heesu on the sofa — petite, with a bob cut. Heesu lifted her head and looked over, and a warm smile spread across her face.
"It's been a while, Sojin."
Sojin sat down across from her with an awkward smile.
"Oh, um. Yeah, it has."
"You stopped calling lately, so I came to see if something was wrong. What's going on these days?"
Something wrong? How about the fact that I'm not Sera?
She couldn't say that, so Sojin only laughed.
"Nothing much. Just been busy with work."
"I see… Call me when you're bored, then. You always said I was fun."
Why did that sound so unbearably sad? It came out like, ring for me whenever you need a clown.
A stone settled onto Sojin's chest for no good reason. One thing was certain: she would never summon Heesu out of boredom again.
Heesu gestured toward the window, far across the room.
"Summer must be on its way. The flowers are falling and the leaves are turning green."
"You like flowers?"
"Mm. I studied them, too."
Sojin winced inwardly and hurried to add, "Ah, sorry. I think I heard that once, but it slipped my mind for a second."
"It's fine. You always forgot. The fact that you remember now is more than enough."
Sojin found herself at a loss for words.
Always forgot. She said it like it was nothing.
Heesu was smiling as if she'd long since made peace with it, but Sojin couldn't bring herself to smile back.
…Wretched Sera.
Calling herself someone's friend while racking up every manner of cruelty — she'd done it all.
Flushing with embarrassment, Sojin looked away.
"…Well, at least I know now. That you like flowers."
Heesu blinked at her for a moment, then let out a small laugh. Then, without warning, Sojin's gaze dropped to her own wrist.
Someone who knows flowers well — if I showed her this flower, wouldn't she be able to tell me what it is?
"Hey, Heesu — if I show you a flower pattern or something, could you tell what kind it is?"
"Sure, most of the time? Patterns usually carry the main features of the flower. Is there a flower you're trying to find?"
Sojin hesitated, then held out her wrist.
"This flower here — do you know what kind it is?"
"…You mean on your wrist?"
"Yeah, right here…"
Sojin pointed to where the pattern sat. Heesu tilted her head and studied the wrist closely, then blinked with a look of mild embarrassment.
"…There's nothing there?"
Sojin's eyes wavered.
Nothing? There's nothing there?
In that instant, a chill swept up her spine.
Don't tell me only I can see it?
Reflexively, Sojin hid her wrist. Heesu couldn't see it — and yet her heart was pounding as though she'd been caught with something she should never have been caught with.
I assumed it was like a tattoo. Something everyone could see…
Heesu looked at her, puzzled.
"Did you get some kind of tattoo?"
"No, no, it's not that…"
What do I do? Should I just brush past it like nothing happened?
But letting it go didn't sit right with her. She needed to know, precisely, what this flower was. The problem was that explaining it aloud would fall hopelessly short — a clumsy string of descriptions would only muddy things further.
Sojin chewed her lip for a moment, then abruptly sprang to her feet.
"Hold on. I'll draw it and show you."
She went straight back to her room, flipped open the notebook on her desk, and traced the pattern with her pen as faithfully as she could. Then she returned, stood before Heesu again, and opened the page.
"Here. What do you think? Can you tell what it is?"
Heesu studied the notebook in silence for a while. Then she tilted her head slightly.
"Hmm… so you don't know the exact color?"
"Right, I don't know the color."
"Then I can't say for certain, but…"
Heesu traced the lines on the page with her fingertip, carefully.
"Judging by the shape alone, it looks like a poppy."
Sojin blinked.
"A poppy?"
Heesu nodded.
"Mm. The rounded petals spreading wide — the form matches. Of course, from a drawing alone, I can't swear to it."
The poppy? The flower they make opium from?
No wonder it looked familiar. I suppose that's because it's famous.
Just then, Heesu seemed to remember something, and tapped the corner of the notebook with her finger.
"But there's a flower people mix up with the poppy."
"A flower it gets confused with?"
"The corn poppy."
Heesu kept her eyes on the notebook as she spoke.
"It's like the poppy's counterfeit. Even the name says so — it's just a copycat 'poppy.' It looks like the real thing, but it's actually a different flower altogether."
"…A fake?"
"Yeah. The two look so much alike that they're hard to tell apart. They even come in the same colors."
Heesu closed the notebook and went on.
"Normally you'd distinguish them by color, the stem, the shape of the seed pod… but with just a simple sketch, I can't say for sure."
Having said her piece, she smiled faintly.
"Still, the petals are showy and large, so I'd say it leans toward the real poppy. Just my personal opinion."
The real poppy. And a fake that only resembles one.
Somehow, the words rang in Sojin's ears like they were being spoken about her, right here and now. She stared blankly down at her wrist.
It looked like some ordinary wildflower to me…
So does that mean the flower on my wrist really is a poppy?
Just then, Madam Jeong settled into the seat beside her and turned to Heesu.
"Stay and have a meal. I'll make something delicious today."
"Thank you, it's kind of you to even offer. But the flower shop is busy, so I should head back early today. Sojin seems fine, so I'll be going."
"All right then, dinner another time. And how is your mother keeping?"
"She's well, thank you. Oh — right. She's been receiving an ominous reading lately, so she says you'd best come in for a talisman."
"There you have it. I have been meaning to go — I'll have to stop by."
A talisman? A reading?
And then, quite suddenly, a memory surfaced in Sojin's mind. There had been a passing mention in the drama — a single brief scene — that Madam Jeong visited Heesu's mother's place of business regularly.
So that was a shaman-and-client relationship all along…
Apparently this was one of the drama's hidden settings.
"Sojin, dear, would you like to come along?"
Sojin, deep in her own thoughts, flinched at Madam Jeong's words.
"Yes, come with us. My shaman mother's been curious about you — how you've been doing these days."
Ah, so she's inviting me to the shaman's place.
"Um… I…"
Sojin let her eyes drift evasively aside.
Strange things had certainly been happening to her, but she had never put much stock in shamanism to begin with. And more to the point — I'm a viewer who knows how this drama ends.
I could probably moonlight as a shaman and outdo her. Do I really have to go?
"I'd rather not…"
"Sojin is coming too. Set a date for us, won't you?"
Madam Jeong cut her off, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Sojin turned to stare at her, dumbfounded.
"I'm sorry — what?!"