POV: Ryu Ha Joon
Sunwoo was right about Park Siwoo not looking like a shaman. He has short hair, shaved to a buzz cut on both sides and longer on the top of his head. The slightly longer tendrils on his temple have violet streaks. A handphone is wrapped around his neck, emitting some English song faintly.
He steps forward and bows with respect. "Your Majesty!" The silver chains dangling from his neck rustle. Over white highneck shirt and trousers, he is wearing a stiff silvery coat, long enough to touch his ankles. It gleams under the light. The sneakers on his feet are a bright violet, the kind that digs in your eyes.
This is whom Shaman Su left in charge? Hajoon can tell Mrs. Kang isn't too satisfied with this either.
"My secretary here tells me you know quite a lot about me." Hajoon continues working on the documents, acting like this whole affair is not that significant for him.
"Only as much as Shaman Su told me," his voice is smooth. He couldn't be older than Hajoon. Maybe even younger than Hae Nari.
"How old are you?" Hajoon asks.
"I will be turning 26 the next month."
He looks younger than that.
"Then Shaman Su must have told you about the whole bad luck will follow you if you travel again business?" He looks at the shaman sharply. Usually people get nervous under his glance. A king who can't daunt people with his gaze can't be a king.
However, Park Siwoo looks at ease, even walking around and examining his surroundings with keen interest. "First of all, Your Majesty, I am a freelancer. And my consultation fee is 2 million Won per hour."
"Do you want to die?" Sunwoo takes a menacing step, but Hajoon holds up a hand.
"You will be paid higher than that."
"All in cash?"
"All in cash."
The shaman seems satisfied with that. Without permission, he pulls out a book from the shelf. "You travelled again, and misfortune has followed you. In the form of a mysterious woman."
The room is stunned into silence. Sunwoo even takes a small, almost unnoticeable step back. She acts all rational and logical, with her degree in physics, but Hajoon knows she believes in supernatural phenomena and fears anything unnatural. Perhaps that's why she has immediately disliked Hae Nari.
"Why is she a misfortune?" Hajoon asks. "She is just an ordinary woman."
"She followed you here, didn't she? How's she an ordinary woman then?" Park Siwoo counters, and he is right. "Shaman Su had warned you that if you continued to travel a lot, you would cause the collapse of your lineage. And once your bloodline is removed from the throne and someone else sits on it, Korea will descend into chaos."
There would be wars, bloodshed, poverty and oppression all over Korea. Korea would break into pieces and a tyrant would rule over it. That had been Shaman Su's prediction.
That is why Nari is considered a misfortune. Because when he used his ability again, she followed him here.
"So we should send her back now, right?" Mrs. Kang asks, giving Hajoon a meaningful dark glance. "Can we thwart this misfortune this way?"
Park Siwoo shakes his head, flipping through the book. It's the constitutional law. "I want this included in my fee."
'Take it," Hajoon says.
He grins, closing the book and plopping it on his desk like a customer having decided on a product. "She is fated to be here. You became the reason, but something else could have brought her here. However, since you did something unnatural; Crossing the worlds, it is natural for you to be punished for that. You went against nature."
Hajoon leaves his chair and approaches Park Siwoo. His form towers over the shaman by some inches. "And what is that punishment?"
"Only God knows."
Hajoon glares at him darkly. "Then what are we consulting you for?"
"Can you consult God then?" The young shaman shrugs his shoulder, answering his own question.
Hajoon patiently ignores the retort. "Why is she fated to be here? And she also did something unnatural, crossing the world. Would she also get punished?"
"Bingo! Right on spot!" Park Siwoo holds up a thumb, an outdated gesture for a youth like him. "Fated or not, she will also get punished for doing something unnatural. In other words, like she is bad news for you, you are also bad news for her." He holds out his arms and announces it like a good news. "You two are misfortune for each other!"
Hajoon notes he didn't answer Hajoon's first question.
"Then we must send her back," Sunwoo says. "Why did you shake your head on that before?"
The shaman gets distracted by another thing and leaves his spot. "Nothing can be done about whatever bad things these two will go through because of each other. No talisman or prayer will fix this," he pauses, momentarily fascinated by a statue of a lion on a table. He picks it up, examines it and peers into its eyes.
"Shaman Park," Mrs. Kang tries to catch hi attention again.
"What was I saying? Yes, nothing can fix that bad luck. However, sending her back right now will only worsen things for both of them." He places the statue on the desk with the book. "You have to be patient and wait."
"How long?" Sunwoo asks.
Park Siwoo closes his eyes at that question, then suddenly opens them and glances at the door. "She is awake." He turns to Hajoon. "Three months. You have to wait for three months. Then you can send her back."
Despite all the bad news he has received from this shaman, something inside him feels delighted–and even relieved at this. He had no other excuse to keep her here.
But now, it's not upto him. It's something the circumstances demand. A demand no one else in the room seem pleased with, though.
Except for the shaman. He picks up a boat shaped paper wait from his desk and adds it to his little pile of products before grinning brightly at Hajoon. It's a child-like grin.
After Park Siwoo leaves, Hajoon asks, "Why didn't anyone take his headphone?" Electronic gadgets of the guests are confiscated at the main door of the palace and returned later when they are leaving,
Jae Hyuk looks startled at that. "I don't- it completely missed my mind. It's the job of the main door security. But we passed through that and… no one checked him. Not even his clothes." He sounds dumbfounded, which is very unlike him. Jae Hyuk is responsible and meticulous when it comes to things like this.
"How could you be so careless?' Sunwoo scolds him, then falters. "But I didn't notice it either."
"Mind confusion," Mrs. Kang says grimly. "I didn't remember it either. It's the work of an incredibly skilled shaman. Sunwoo'sshi, be respectful the next time you see him."
He really is Shaman Su's disciple. Even Mrs. Kang and Sunwoo's initial bad impression of him has changed.
There was something else that he needed to discuss with Shaman Su. He was not sure about revealing it to Shaman Park, but now he feels the young shaman probably already knows it. Perhaps this is the reason Shaman Su has been in the prayer for so long.
His gaze meets Jae Hyuk's and he can tell the other man is also thinking along the same lines.