Five Million Won

“If you ask me, your mother may never have truly believed you had schizophrenia,” the man said. “She might have simply blurted it out in a fit of anger, or thought that frightening you would make her daughter a little more obedient. But when you hear something like that over and over from childhood, of course you end up believing it yourself.”

Woo-yeon was so stunned she couldn’t get a word out. The greatest reason she had been dragged all the way to Mapo Bridge was the bleakness of her future—and a large part of that bleakness was the word schizophrenia. That can’t be right. If it were true I’d be so, so happy, but there’s no way.

The man lifted her sketchbook.

“These drawings—did you draw them from life, or from memory?”

“F-from memory……”

“Then you do recognize that the scenes you’re recalling aren’t actually in front of your eyes—that they’re memories?”

Woo-yeon stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. But there wasn’t a trace of humor on his face; he was entirely serious.

“Of course. I’m not that much of an idiot.”

“Aside from recalling memories—have you ever seen objects that weren’t really there? Or people who weren’t there?”

“No. Never.”

“What about auditory hallucinations? Voices of your mom or dad or friends cursing at you when no one’s around?”

“Nothing like that…… I get cursed out for real. I’d rather those curses were hallucinations.”

The man furrowed his brows and let out a long breath. For reasons she couldn’t name, she felt a deep anger radiating from him.

“Woo-yeon, from what I can see, you don’t have schizophrenia. You have an exceptional memory for scenes. I’m not a psychiatrist, of course, but either way—this doesn’t look like schizophrenia to me.”

“What? ……How would you even know that?”

Her voice trembled as she asked. Could it be? Is it possible?

“People with schizophrenia can’t distinguish hallucination from reality. They can’t hold a coherent conversation like this, and they certainly can’t draw properly. Hyperrealistic painting, of all things—that’s absurd.”

“B-but sometimes the kids I see every day suddenly feel weird, and it’s like I’ve fallen into another world—”

“I’ve had moments like that too,” he said. “Familiar places and people suddenly feeling strange and alien. Sometimes they felt like old black-and-white photographs. As if I’d dropped into another world. But I was told that isn’t hallucination—it’s derealization.”

“……What? You too? Really? For real?”

He gave a bitter smile and nodded.

“The counselor I saw said it can happen temporarily because of stress. Derealization isn’t a pleasant symptom, of course, but it isn’t as severe as schizophrenia, and it isn’t incurable. It improves when the stress goes away. When I asked around, I found that a surprising number of people have gone through something like this when they were struggling.”

She blinked blankly. Derealization? So it wasn’t schizophrenia or whatever that was?

It was hard to take the word of someone who wasn’t even a doctor—but by that logic, her mother hadn’t been a doctor either. And hearing that the perfectly composed man standing in front of her had experienced it, that other people often did too, brought a sudden wash of relief.

“Wh-what……?”

Tears surged without warning. A boulder that had been crushing her back had suddenly vanished; she ought to have been laughing with relief, and instead tears poured down in a mad flood.

Without a sound, without any warning of movement, a handkerchief appeared before her eyes. It was folded with blade-sharp precision into four corners—a black-and-white fractal pattern. So there really were men who carried handkerchiefs. Don’t tell me he even color-coordinates this with his clothes. The fact that she could think something so stupid in a moment like this made her feel pathetic. The instant she buried her face in the cloth, the faint scent that had clung to his scarf rushed straight into her head.

“If you’re that worried, you can get tested. If you’d like, I can introduce you to a specialist in this field. I doubt they’ll find anything seriously wrong. You’re still so young—you can’t keep suffering like this all alone on the inside. How hard it must have been for you all this time.”

Woo-yeon sobbed for a long while, and the man patted her shoulder in silence. He seemed accustomed to quiet waiting; he had a mysterious gift for making silence feel comfortable.

When her sobs finally began to subside, he hesitated a little before speaking.

“Ah—there’s one more thing I’d like to ask.”

“……Yes.”

“This ‘sex education’ from your father…… could you tell me what that was?”

Her mind went blank. Earlier he’d seemed to flip through the sketchbook in a rush, but he must have read every word she’d written. Was he going to report it? As Woo-yeon floundered, the man frowned as if troubled and exhaled a short sigh.

“……I’m sorry. You don’t have to say anything if it makes you uncomfortable.”

She looked up at his face. The shadows under his eyes were deep, and the burst capillaries made him look exhausted, but those deep, dark brown irises were still soft and warm. For a moment—just a brief moment—Woo-yeon wanted to give in to that warmth.

“It’s nothing special.”

But she didn’t give in. The last scrap of reason she had left clamped her mouth shut. Even with a stranger, she didn’t want to be degraded that far.

Those deep brown irises regarded her quietly. They were eyes that had a great deal to say. But he asked nothing. He only reached out and gently patted the hand that was clenched around her cup of hot chocolate. It’s all right. It’s all right. The touch was so careful that Woo-yeon understood at once: he didn’t believe a word of what she’d just said.

“I know I shouldn’t interfere in someone else’s family affairs, but it pains me, so I’ll say just a little.”

“Okay.”

“Jin Woo-yeon, you have a gift for painting. Of course I can guess why people dislike those drawings. When the private feelings you yourself didn’t want to acknowledge are suddenly laid bare in front of everyone—wouldn’t you feel ashamed? Angry, even?”

“Is it a bad gift?”

“No. It’s a magnificent gift. A gift from God. In art, there are realms that human effort alone can never reach.”

He stated it without a trace of a smile.

“I think you should go to art school as planned. There, your ability will be properly recognized. You’ll be able to paint as much as you want, and if you get counseling as well, your heart will settle considerably. And since there’s a dormitory, it would be a good chance to get away from home.”

Pain throbbed again behind her eyes. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known it was a good opportunity—that wasn’t why she’d gone to Mapo Bridge.

“But today’s the registration deadline. Dad said…… he won’t give me a single won…… And they say it’s a school that doesn’t even qualify for national scholarships, and just the tuition and dorm fees alone are four million nine hundred eighty thousand won……”

At her sobbing words, the man nodded, then drew from an inner pocket a small slip of paper about the size of his palm. What’s that? A memo? Is he going to write something down? While Woo-yeon tilted her head in confusion, he set the paper on the table and began writing.

A moment later, a small, thin sheet of paper came toward her.

“Here. Take this for now.”

“Wh-what is this?”

She received it with both hands. As she read the writing, her hands shook violently. Wh-what is this? It was so absurd that no matter how many times she reread the characters, she still couldn’t grasp what she was looking at.

It was a check with the amount field left blank, and what he had filled in were the words “five million won” and the corresponding number. Below that, the name Han Lee-won trailed like a signature in a flowing hand.

“I know this is presumptuous of me,” he said. “But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Jin Woo-yeon somehow has to be given a chance.”

It was strange. Everything felt dazed and unreal. Had she slipped into another dimension again? The hot chocolate in front of her, the wooden table, the fogged glass window, the forest of buildings beyond it, the old glass door with its hanging landscape, and the man himself—all of it felt terrifyingly unfamiliar.

“This…… this is money, right?”

“It is. You can deposit it straight into the account for the enrollment fee.”

“Mister…… are you rich?”

The idiotic words tumbled out, and he let out a short huff of laughter. The thought that she shouldn’t have said that arrived a beat too late.

But Woo-yeon couldn’t manage a thank-you, or even ask why he was giving it to her. Tears were cascading down again like a waterfall. Mouth open, she looked up at him and wept without end.

Why? Why, why are you giving this to me? You only met me today. You only know my name—you don’t know where I live, what kind of person I am. This isn’t five hundred won, or five thousand, or even fifty thousand. Isn’t this way too much money to just hand over because you feel sorry for someone?

Mister, what are you, really? Did you receive some mission to save people in crisis? Why are you throwing money around on something this pointless?

To the silent avalanche of her questions, he answered in an even tone.

“As you live, there are moments when you’re certain—‘This is something I absolutely must do right now.’ And in this world, people who don’t know each other at all sometimes end up helping one another. Of course, what Jin Woo-yeon needs more than five million won right now is courage.”

The two hands gripping the check trembled beyond her control. This man was sincere. Without a shred of cheap pity or superiority, he was doing everything he could to keep her from feeling degraded.

“I’m not forcing courage on you. Just think of it as having been given the chance to choose whichever path you want. It’s all right if you don’t take it and go home instead. I’ll take you there.”

The instant she heard the word home, a chill raced down her spine.

No. Absolutely not.

If she went home now, she would die for certain. In one form or another. If she were lucky, her body would die first. If she were unlucky, her mind would die first. And if she were catastrophically unlucky, she would spend decades slowly dying while watching her own life rot away while she was still alive.

An opportunity like this would probably never come again.