Chapter Text
The river rushes by, black and restless, flowing from the watchful northern mountains before it fractures into tributaries miles downstream and empties finally, inexorably into the sea.
Gilyoung isn’t sure why they are here.
She had pulled into the parish parking lot as the anticipated mass ended, the thin weekday assembly trickling out of the church. Choi Yoon had walked over, strapped in, and asked: “Where to?”
They picked up a six-pack of beer and some gimbap at a convenience store and Gilyoung drove through the brightly lit streets of Sangyong, past the city hospital and the downtown apartments, past the night buses waiting for passengers, down the highway skirting brush and pine and the beginnings of forested slopes.
Yoon glanced at her every few minutes as she drove in dead silence, her face stony, hands gripping the wheel. Not stopping, not turning right nor left. Just onwards east to Gyeyangjin.
“Here,” Yoon said calmly, as if not to spook her. “I think there’s a good spot to stop near here.”
And despite wanting to continue eastward, something in his tone compelled Gilyoung to slow down and exit into a narrower road. She parked beside the river, not far from where the asphalt ended and a dirt path began.
They're leaning against the car hood still warm from the drive, having cracked open a can each. Yoon, tall and taciturn as ever but never imposing, has his black wool coat buttoned up to his chin, his clerical collar not visible for once. Gilyoung remarked on it while they were still in Sangyong. “I run cold,” he said.
“Thank you for the dumplings,” Gilyoung begins. “I don’t know that you should be buying me food this often though.”
“It’s because you forget to eat,” Yoon chides.
“I make more money than you, Sinbu-nim.”
“I don’t spend it on anything and the church feeds me.” He takes a gulp of his beer. “And besides, you don’t listen to Detective Go hounding you to take care of yourself.”
“I take care of myself just fine.”
Yoon tears open a packet of gimbap and offers it to her. Gilyoung takes two and stuffs them into her mouth, chewing theatrically. Yoon’s face breaks into a grin and he makes the sign of the cross over her. “Bless this food, O Lord.”
Gilyoung takes in where they are, at the edge of the river, its banks littered with early autumn foliage, slivers of red and gold occasionally caught in the moonlight filtering through the trees. The mountain ridges hold back most of the northwesterly winds, though an occasional cold gust tugs at their coats.
“Have you been here before?” Gilyoung asks.
Yoon nods. “Eighteen years ago. I took a bus from the orphanage.” He sets down his can on the car roof and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I was running away and I stopped here. I was going to drown myself.”
It’s not cold enough that their breaths should be visible, but his words hang in the air almost as if they were solid things.
“I was going all the way to Gyeyangjin, but it was taking too long. I heard the river and asked the bus driver to let me down at the turnoff.” He points to a cluster of rocks around which the water tumbles and churns. “I was going to jump from there. I thought, it will carry me to the sea, I might as well do it from here.”
His voice is hushed. “I didn’t know that Father Yang had followed me. He fasted and kept vigil over me for days until I promised I wouldn’t do it again. It was the third time.”
It dawns on Gilyoung what Yoon knows, what she dares not even acknowledge herself. She feels the familiar clawing in her throat and swallows. “I’m too angry for that.”
“So was I. So was Hwapyung. Anger isn’t a sin, Gilyoung-ssi. But sometimes it’s a longer path the enemy is patient enough to lead us down.”
Drifting leaves spin around with the current, disappearing and reappearing, before being carried away out of their sight, to the East Sea that devours everything. That has devoured everything.
Choi Yoon looks at her, his eyes searching. “So call me whenever —” He gestures to the river “— something like this happens. All right? I’ll go to you. I’ll go with you.”
The wind whips around them and Gilyoung nods, drawing her coat tighter around herself. “I will.”