Horangi

From: Issue 4

“I wanted to be darker,” I said in Korean.

My grandfather let the unlit cigarette in his lips droop as he squinted at me. I remember him sitting on the cement steps outside of the Kalihi house, tucking the cigarette behind his ear while he looked me over.

My skin was raw from lying out in the sun all morning, my face already glowing like a tomato. I removed my sweaty shirt and shorts, and there were still pale patches of skin where my clothes had been and bright lines on my feet left from the straps of my slippers, little parts of my original coloring that I’d never quite erase.

My grandfather made me turn around, and he opened a bottle of aloe, filling the cradle of his palm with a big dollop before spreading the cool gel on my shoulders and back. His large, callused hands covered me in several sweeps, then he spread the last of the aloe with his thumbs across the crest of my cheeks and on my nose before letting me get dressed again.

I held up my skinny wrist next to his, a thin strip of pink next to his golden-brown forearm, to see whether I’d made any progress. I couldn’t know it then, but darkening my skin wouldn’t make much difference. My Korean cousins would go on calling me ‘the Haole’ for most of my childhood, because I resembled my white father, and there wasn’t anything I could do to change that.

“You know,” my grandfather said, wiping his hands clean. “In Korea, everyone wants pale skin like yours.” He put his cigarette back in his lips and rested his elbows on the top step, staring out at the shadowy jungle at the end of the backyard that led into the valley. When I was older, he would tell me that it reminded him of the mountain forests in his hometown, of a time when people were few and far between, in their little villages, and beasts moved freely wherever they wished.

“But we’re not in Korea,” I sat next to him.

“No…we’re not.” He rested his hand on top of my head, running his fingers through my light brown hair.

Those early years when we lived with my grandparents, long before my grandfather ever got sick, are more flashes than filmstrips when I look back on them now—fragments of sensations, like the smell of fresh, hot rice and the click of the cooker going off when it was ready. My grandfather’s aftershave mixed with cigarettes in the bathroom. Dewy grass in the mornings as low clouds passed through the valley, dropping light showers in the summer, or heavy rain in the winter.

But there were some days, like this one, that stood out in sharp relief from the rest.

I don’t remember exactly when I noticed the black car sliding to a stop at the side of the Kalihi house, but I do remember the well-dressed young man who got out and stood for a second at the chain link fence. He looked at me, perplexed, as if he’d arrived at the wrong place, then relaxed when he saw my grandfather sitting in the yard. He turned back to the car and opened a door, helping an older gentleman up to the sidewalk.

Everything about the gentleman struck me as funny at first. He wore a dark, pressed suit, which was impractical and overly formal for Hawai‘i. His chin was raised, like he was resting his head on an invisible bar and peering down at everything. His eyebrows, like his hair and beard, were a bright white, but just a little too wispy, like he’d forgotten to give them a trim. Before he even spoke, I knew he was one of the old beings, like my grandfather.

“Horangi-sshi.” The gentleman used my grandfather’s other name, Tiger. “Can we talk?”

My grandfather leaned forward. The sleeveless undershirt he wore was dingy compared to our visitor’s clothes, but he liked it because he could make a show of his bare arms, and he did so then, resting them purposefully on his knees.

“Of course. How can I help, Mr. Yong?”

The gentleman glanced momentarily at my pink face. “It’d be better if we spoke alone.”

“It’s fine. He can’t understand,” my grandfather said. He could see that I wanted to correct him, but he shook his head at me slightly. “Play,” he said in English, waving his hand. I shuffled over to another part of the yard, kicking a soccer ball around as I stayed within earshot.

The older gentleman dismissed his driver, who walked further down the block, then he looked back at my grandfather when he seemed satisfied that they could talk.

“Something’s come up,” the man said. “It’s Mr. Kim.”

My grandfather laughed and removed the unlit cigarette from his lips, rolling it around with his fingers.

The old man cleared his throat. “He has something that doesn’t belong to him, and it’s going to cause problems if he doesn’t give it back. Problems for everyone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” my grandfather responded politely, and he gave a smile that I’d often seen him give to the customers in his shoe repair shop, respectful, but with a little firmness to it. “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this. My family doesn’t work for yours anymore, Mr. Yong.”

It only lasted a second, but I saw the gentleman’s eyes harden and their color change to an icy blue. What little I knew of the old beings from Korea mostly came from folktales and songs, centuries-old stories about animals and monsters that were vague representations of what they were. But some of what I learned came from living with my grandfather, and I knew that his true appearance sometimes surfaced when he was overcome by emotion. A sharpened tooth here, fur forming there, little bits of his Tiger body bleeding through when he wasn’t careful.

This visitor’s expression, and the change in his eyes, were similar, like he’d lost control. But he quickly buried whatever it was that he was feeling, and his eyes returned to a neutral black.

“Of course,” the man replied. “But we all need things from time to time.” The gentleman’s gaze passed over the Kalihi house and lingered on the weathered parts of the fascia, and the areas where the stucco was warped and cracked. “If you do happen to see him and…set things straight,” he gestured vaguely, “I’m sure I could help you with something.”

My grandfather tucked the cigarette behind his ear. He ran his hand over the smooth skin of his head, an old habit, he said, from when he used to have hair. “Well, I’m honored you’d come here, if just to tell me that.” He was quiet for a bit longer, indicating that he had nothing else to discuss. “Thank you for the visit.”

The gentleman pursed his lips, restraining himself from going further. He nodded slightly as a farewell, then turned around as his driver opened the car door for him and got back inside.

The black car pulled away quietly, then disappeared down the street.

My grandfather looked over at me after they were well out of sight.

I kicked the soccer ball to him, and he stopped it with his foot before standing up, looking around, and scratching at his throat. I could tell that he was turning things over in his head. I had a dozen questions, but I knew it was better not to rush him. He’d tell me what he wanted to, when he wanted to, and I just had to wait.

“What’d you think of him?” he asked, kicking the ball back to me.

“He doesn’t seem very nice,” I answered. “And I didn’t like the way he looked at our house.”

“I didn’t like it either.”

“You don’t want to help him, do you?”

“Not really.”

“But you didn’t tell him no.” I kicked the ball.

He stopped it. “You don’t ever say ‘no’ to people like that. But you don’t say ‘yes’ either. It’s tricky, but you got to leave it open, you know?”

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

We continued to kick the ball back and forth until my grandmother called us from inside the house, just as it was beginning to get too dark to keep playing. My grandfather picked me up and put me on one shoulder, like I was a light basket, holding me securely with one arm as he walked through the narrow hallways of the Kalihi house, his footsteps booming on the wooden floors with every stride. I always liked it when he did that, because I could see everything he could from up there.

— # —

The next day, after my parents went to work and my grandmother went to meet with her church group, I found my grandfather in the driveway, stooped over his car and pushing rubbish off the seats and onto the floor—a sure sign that he was planning a trip into town. Without a word, I hopped into the passenger seat and buckled up, waiting patiently until he eventually got behind the wheel, adjusted his mirrors and started the car.

He pulled off our street and onto the highway, and I kept my eyes on the windows, watching the deep green blur of the forests and mountains as we passed the edge of Kalihi Valley.

There were only a few places we’d go to on trips like these. The main one was Ke‘eaumoku, a street not too far from the heart of downtown, sometimes jokingly called ‘Korea-moku’ by people because of the stores and restaurants clustered together in one small strip. As an adult, I realized some parts of it were a bit darker and stranger than I remembered, but back then, it was an exciting place to visit, if only because my grandfather was the one taking me there.

He pulled into a familiar parking lot, and I immediately sat up and leaned on the dashboard. “Are we stopping at…”

“Yeah,” he turned off the engine.

I was already out of the car, slamming the door closed and heading into a small storefront that set off a chime as I went in.

“Usuhohsaey—Oh.” The woman at the counter stopped her greeting and lowered her glasses. “Your face. You got burned real bad this time.”

Tokki Ajumma, also known to me as Aunt Rabbit, clucked her tongue and wiped her hands on her apron. She squeezed my red cheeks. “Sunscreen, boy. Sunscreen. Skin cancer is serious.”

“I’m fine,” I replied, staring at the different bins of food she had set out for the day in the glass display. Tokki Ajumma’s store sold banchan of all types—from spicy pickled cucumbers and Korean style macaroni salad to crispy seafood pancakes and little salty anchovies. If there was a side dish I could think of, her store had it. And every time we visited, I knew I was bound to leave disappointed, because my grandfather would only let us get two or three things.

As if on cue, my grandfather entered, telling me to back away from the display. “Easy,” he said. “We’ll take some pajeon and oi kimchi, please.”

“Really, Beom?” Aunt Rabbit replied, using one of his other names. “That’s it?” Because she was an old being, like him, she carried herself differently than the other Korean ajummas; she could be elbow deep in spices and fermented cabbage and she would still have a regal authority about her. I assumed it was one of the few reasons she could get away with speaking to my grandfather like that.

“That’s it,” he replied sternly.

She proceeded to fill plastic containers with food as she talked with my grandfather, ordinary chit chat about how business was going and how their families were. When she bent to get a bag for our banchan, I saw the smallest flash of movement, the only sign that she had used her power to move objects around faster than any human could, and I noticed an extra container of spicy rice cakes that she snuck into our shopping bag as she gave me a small wink. I only learned, much later, that my grandfather could always see her do this, but at the time, I enjoyed thinking Aunt Rabbit and I shared some kind of secret.

“I was wondering,” my grandfather said, as Aunt Rabbit finished wrapping our food. “If you’ve heard from Mr. Kim lately. You know, our Mr. Kim.”

Aunt Rabbit paused. “It’s funny you should mention it. He’s been by a lot next door at the…” She looked at me and chose her words carefully. “Adult…bar. Can’t tell if he’s celebrating something or mourning with the way he’s going.”

I looked at my grandfather at the mention of Mr. Kim, wondering if it was the same one Mr. Yong was looking for, but he did not meet my eyes.

“Is he there now?”

She shook her head. “Heard there was an incident a couple of days ago. Some disagreement with another customer, and Mr. Kim ended up breaking the other guy’s arm.” Aunt Rabbit tsked and tied off our shopping bag. “It reminds me of how he was in the old days, getting into trouble, if he wasn’t already starting it himself.”

My grandfather went quiet, scratching his throat. After standing like that a little longer, he looked back at Aunt Rabbit and took out a few bills and put them on the counter. “On second thought, let me get a couple bottles of soju.”

Aunt Rabbit opened a cooler behind her and took two green bottles. She held them and gave him a funny look. “You working again?”

My grandfather snorted. “Like I would.”

She put the bottles in another bag and narrowed her eyes. “Your grandpa was a lot of things in the old days,” she said to me in English. “Handsome, strong. But not very clever. And not a good liar.”

“Thank you,” he said flatly.

Aunt Rabbit handed me our bags. “You’re just lucky I never let you get too full of yourself back then.” She smiled slyly. “Your grandpa ever tell you about the time I set him on fire?”

My grandfather cleared his throat loudly. “So funny, Tokki. Always. So funny,” he said as he began ushering me out.

“What?” She put her glasses back on and waved her hand dismissively. “Just a joke! Okay okay. Bye bye then, Tiger—I’ll tell you next time,” she whispered to me.

“Anyoung hee gyeseyo.” I said in farewell, bowing on my way out.

— # —

We walked for a couple of minutes to the far side of the shopping complex, and I already had a sense where we were headed before we stopped in front of the bar. The building was covered in neon signs, and the entranceway was open but completely dark, like a cave.

A heavyset Korean man in a black t-shirt emerged and stood in front of the doorway.

“Is your boss in today?” my grandfather asked in English.

The man shook his head. “He doesn’t want to see you, Tiger.” His eyes drifted down to my face, and he furrowed his brow. “That’s a serious burn, kid.”

“I’m okay,” I replied in Korean, which I made a point to use in front of strangers like this.

“But he’s there,” my grandfather said. He began to walk forward, and the large man pressed a hand to my grandfather’s chest to stop him. The large man didn’t notice it, but I saw my grandfather’s arm twitch. His fingernails grew longer into claws, and the veins in his forearm became more pronounced.

My grandfather took a long, slow breath, like he did whenever this happened, and his arm gradually returned to normal.

“Listen,” he started over. “I heard about Mr. Kim. Tell Kkachi, I only want to help. It’s in his interest, after all.”

The large man seemed conflicted at first, but after a little consideration, he withdrew into the shadowy hallway. When he returned, he was with someone else, a short, lean man with salt and pepper hair who marched up to us, almost pushing his long, hook-shaped nose in my grandfather’s face.

“You were always thick-headed, Tiger, but this is a new level of stupid. What the hell do you want?”

My grandfather raised his hands and nodded his head toward me. This man, who I assumed was Kkachi, noticed me and his face softened for just a second before he turned back to my grandfather with a stern grimace.

“So what? You shouldn’t be bringing kids here to begin with. Spit it out.”

My grandfather cleared his throat. “Rabbit told me about what Mr. Kim has been up to. I’m concerned, and I was thinking of checking in on him.”

The little man gritted his teeth. “So why the hell are you bothering me?”

“I’m sure you guys have to call him cabs when he’s had a few too many. If you could just give me the address, it’d be a big help. Then I’ll be out of your way. I promise.”

Kkachi squinted. “Are you working?”

“No,” my grandfather said adamantly. “Why does everyone—no.”

Kkachi looked around and muttered curses under his breath, words in Korean I didn’t know but had an unmistakable gist. He pulled out a pen and an old business card from his pocket, then made his employee turn his back and lean forward so he had a surface to write on. After he scribbled the address, he held up the card. “Mr. Kim’s a steady customer, so you better not be working him.”

“I’m not,” my grandfather said, taking the card. “I really appreciate this. I know it’s been a while, but you seem like you’re doing—”

“Oh, eat shit.” The little man turned around and was gone.

My grandfather nodded to the bar employee and steered me away by the shoulders. When we were back to our car on the other side of the parking lot, he let out a long sigh. “That went as well as could be expected,” he said.

We both got in the car and sat as the AC started to blow, cooling the stiflingly hot interior. “That man. Kkachi,” I said while we waited, unsure of the best way to put it. “He was really mad at you, huh?”

“It’s complicated,” my grandfather said with a faraway look. “When you live as long as we do, relationships tend to change. Sometimes, you’re close with people, maybe even the best of friends. Later, you do things, and then maybe you’re not. Eh. I don’t know.” He shrugged.

“I just don’t understand how anyone couldn’t be friends with you.”

My grandfather looked at me funnily. He patted the top of my head and told me to buckle my seatbelt. It seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so I didn’t say anything else.

— # —

We drove east and north from Ke‘eaumoku to a place I recognized as Mānoa Valley. My grandfather seemed to have a general sense of where we needed to go, taking us up narrow, curvy roads along one of the mountainsides.

As we got closer to the address where Mr. Kim lived, the streets were suddenly blanketed in a drifting fog. Our car was sprinkled with a sheen of not-quite-rain as we drove through curtains of gray, and the sun grew dimmer, blocked out by the heavier foliage of the rain forest.

We turned down a dirt road that was marked only by a crooked mailbox, and the car shuddered over rocks and potholes as we pulled up to a small, blue house with peeling paint, surrounded by towering banyan trees, like a wall of gnarled roots.

My grandfather turned off the engine and looked at me. “Why don’t you crack open a window. I shouldn’t be long.”

“You’re leaving me?” I looked out at the dark forest.

My grandfather squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll be okay. This is better. Mr. Kim is…He’s a good guy. But, sometimes, out of control.” He took the shopping bags we got from Aunt Rabbit’s and pinched my cheek. “Won’t be long.”

I watched him walk up to the house and open a creaking screen door. He knocked, and the door seemed to slide open on its own. My grandfather gave me a nod and went into the house.

A few minutes went by, my eyes fixed on the small house and my mouth as dry as my hands were moist, when I saw something in the forest that made me draw back from the windshield. Between the long trunks of the banyan trees, a large, grey figure slouched slowly toward the back of the home.

I gripped my seatbelt and shut my eyes; when I opened them, the thing was gone.

My first thought was to warn my grandfather, to run and find him, but I knew he’d be angry if I disobeyed him. After fighting with myself over it, I unlocked the car and sprinted toward the house.

“Grandpa! Grandpa! There’s something—”

I ran through the front door into a living room, where my grandfather was seated on the floor at a low table.

“My grandson,” he said to another man, seated across from him.

This man, who I assumed was Mr. Kim, seemed to be my grandfather’s age, but with a tan face that was more heavily creased and flushed with a tinge of red. His eyes were bloodshot and watery, and when he smiled, I could see that he was missing a few teeth.

“There’s…something?” he asked.

I looked at my grandfather, who was stone-faced. He gave the smallest shake of his head, indicating I should stop.

“I just…wanted to join, if that’s okay.” I pointed to the table where my grandfather had set out the banchan we had gotten from Aunt Rabbit’s.

“Of course,” Mr. Kim said. “No need to wait outside. Sit! Sit!”

I tried whispering to my grandfather, but he looked away from me and cleared his throat. He opened a bottle of soju and poured some in a paper cup for Mr. Kim, then handed the bottle to Mr. Kim to have a drink poured in turn, since no one was supposed to pour for themselves.

As I sat down at the table, I looked around the inside of the house. There was really only one room and a bathroom as far as I could see, a kitchenette in the corner, a television on the ground, and a small couch with a blanket and pillow, where I assumed Mr. Kim slept. The paint was as peeled in the room as it had been on the outside, and there was a heavy, salty odor in the air, like fish.

“This is something,” Mr. Kim said, looking down at the banchan spread on the table. “Still, I feel like we could use a little something more. Don’t you think? Is there anything else you want? Anything at all?”

“I’m fine,” my grandfather said.

“What about you, kid?” he forced a smile and reached under the table, picking up a long, black cane. “Craving anything? Come on. I know.” Mr. Kim waved the cane over the table. There were suddenly several wrapped burgers piled together on a plate that hadn’t been there before. He waved the cane the other way, and another plate of hot fries appeared among the other dishes, filling the house with a more pleasant smell.

There was only one Korean creature I knew of that could summon things like that, and if Mr. Kim was one of those, then things could turn very bad, very quickly.

I was beginning to understand why my grandfather told me to wait in the car.

“I’m okay,” I said quietly.

“Suit yourself,” Mr. Kim replied, waving the cane one more time and making the burgers and fries disappear. He looked back at my grandfather. “My daughter is all about that junk food now. Real American, I guess.”

“How’s she doing?” my grandfather asked, swallowing the soju in his cup.

Mr. Kim took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He removed one and handed it to my grandfather, but he shook his head and declined. Mr. Kim seemed surprised and kept the cigarette for himself.

“She’s living with her mother now.” Mr. Kim lit the cigarette and took a drag. “Applying for college soon too. Hard to believe.”

“She takes after her mother more than you, then.”

Mr. Kim laughed loudly, puffing smoke, and he shifted over like he was off-balance. He’d clearly been drinking for some time before we came with the soju. “She’s going to study business, she says. Can you imagine that?”

My grandfather refilled Mr. Kim’s cup. “I hear college gets pretty expensive.”

“That’s true. But we’ll be okay.” Mr. Kim smirked, like there was a joke only he was in on. “Anyway,” he inhaled slowly and blew smoke as he stared at my grandfather. “Enough about me. What’s going on with you? Not every day you get a visit from the Tiger, after all.”

My grandfather sipped his drink. “Well, to be honest. Mr. Yong came by my house yesterday.”

Mr. Kim’s hand holding his cup stopped before he brought it to his mouth.

“He thinks—” my grandfather locked eyes with Mr. Kim, “—that you have something that belongs to him.”

Mr. Kim’s face darkened, and he put his cup back down. He tapped the ash from his cigarette into the cup. “Not sure what you…” He stopped when my grandfather held up a hand, making it clear he didn’t care to hear it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” my grandfather said. “But I’m not working,” he continued calmly. “And I wouldn’t have brought my grandson if that’s what I was after.”

Mr. Kim looked over at me.

“I just thought I should tell you that they were coming and give you some advice.” My grandfather finished his drink. “The only way out of this is to return whatever it is you took, before it’s too late. That’s all.”

Mr. Kim gripped his cane tightly and looked around the room. I could see the sweat forming at his cheeks along the creases near his eyes as he stubbed the cigarette out. “Of course you’d say that,” he muttered. “But I don’t see why—I mean, I don’t know why…” he trailed off. It was clear he knew that he could not maintain pretenses with my grandfather.

“What if,” Mr. Kim touched his chin. “What if you tell Mr. Yong you looked into it, and you didn’t find anything? He’d believe you. I know it.”

Mr. Kim waved his cane over the table, and a large stack of bills bound by a rubber band appeared next to the soju bottle, more money than I had ever seen in one place in my entire life. “Anything you want.” He moved the cane a few more times, and gold and bronze coins clattered on the surface of the table.

My grandfather paused and looked down at the money. “I haven’t seen you summon so many things since the old days,” he noted in English. “You must have a lot of power in that cane.”

When he said those last words, my grandfather tapped my leg twice under the low table. He would always tap my leg like that whenever he wanted me to get things from around the house—his cigarettes, a beer from the kitchen—so I knew what he was telling me.

“This is impressive, but…” My grandfather picked up some of the coins from the table and shuffled them between his fingers, as if he were testing them. “I still can’t do what you’re asking.”

“Why the hell not?” Mr. Kim raised his voice.

“Because the Yongs will know. They always do.”

Mr. Kim grunted with frustration and scratched at his scalp, trying to think. After a few seconds of muttering, Mr. Kim struggled to get to his feet, then he walked over to a mini-fridge and pulled out a small paper bag.

He brought it to the table, and tilted the opening toward us, showing my grandfather and me what was inside—an oval ball about the size of a grapefruit and off-white in color.

“Is that…?”

“Yes,” Mr. Kim said in English. “Gyeryong.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but I could tell my grandfather was so surprised that he could not speak.

“The Yongs sent me looking for it, and I thought it was a joke. All the gyeryong died so long ago in Korea, right? So how could there possibly be any of their eggs still out there?” Mr. Kim folded down the edges of the bag to open it more. “For years, I kept an eye out, but never came close. Then a few months ago I met a group of mul gwishin that were moving goods back and forth from home to the U.S.. The one that had this thought it was some kind of Silla dynasty pearl. He had no idea.”

My grandfather studied the white shape more closely.

While they were both focused on the egg, I reached under the table toward Mr. Kim’s cane.

“I was going to hand it over,” Mr. Kim scratched his scalp. “But the moment I touched it, I knew there was something different about it,” he said. “I felt my old power returning. No more weak little tricks or watered down spells. See for yourself. Touch it. Go on.”

My grandfather stretched out his hand toward the bag, but then stopped.

“That’s okay,” he said.

Mr. Kim’s eyes flared into a deep, red color, while the skin on his face faded into a scaly grey. His teeth grew sharper, covered in dripping spit, and his true form, the dokkaebi, was beginning to surface. It was just as terrifying as I imagined based on the folktales and storybooks I remembered, and I gripped my grandfather’s leg as Mr. Kim continued to change.

“Why?” He growled at my grandfather. “Why the Yongs? You and I could keep it, Tiger. Couldn’t we?”

It seemed like Mr. Kim was feeling the floor for his cane. He had tried negotiating with my grandfather, then bribing him, and since neither seemed to be working, he was going to try something more desperate, maybe even violent. Only he was now realizing that the cane was no longer by his side—that I had pulled it from under the table and put it behind my grandfather, far from his reach.

“Sorry,” my grandfather said to him with complete calm. “But I’m not interested.”

Before I understood what was happening, Mr. Kim kicked the low table in front of us in a panic. The food and drinks went flying to the other side of the room, and I instinctively ducked my head and scrambled a few feet away.

Mr. Kim was almost fully changed, appearing more like a hunched, demonic animal than the shrinking man he was seconds ago. He loomed above us, almost touching the ceiling, just like the tall grey shape I had seen outside, stalking the forest.

He clutched the paper bag under one arm, his sharp teeth bared as he looked wildly around for a way out. Then he charged suddenly for the front door, not realizing, I think, that I was in his path and likely to be trampled.

Mr. Kim came crashing to the ground before he got to me, knocked aside by my grandfather who leapt forward between us.

There was a roar so loud that it reverberated through the house. My grandfather stood in front of me, his back swollen to almost twice its usual size, and his arms covered in black lines that looked like tattoos, growing across his shoulders and neck and up to his face. My grandfather looked back at me, and his eyes were a bright, golden color. The nails on both his hands had lengthened into claws, and his mouth was filled with glistening, white fangs.

I had never seen my grandfather turn this far before.

“Just let me leave!” Mr. Kim, the dokkaebi, screeched, and I realized he was shaking at the sight of my grandfather. “Stand back! If anything happens, everyone will know it was you, Tiger!”

My grandfather held up his hands.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he replied, his voice deep and calm. He took a long, slow breath, and his claws began to retract, sliding back into his fingers. “That’s not…who I am anymore,” he said, a strange note of disappointment in his voice.

Mr. Kim gripped the paper bag in his arm tightly and moved around the side of the room toward the door.

“But,” my grandfather cautioned. “If you go, I won’t be able to help you. And when they come looking—and they will—they’re not going to stop with just you. Think about what that means…for your family.”

Mr. Kim stopped, and the scaly grey color on his body began to recede. His glowing red eyes darkened back to black. His shoulders sank, and his face turned to the way it was before, but more frightened than I’d ever seen any adult.

At the same time, the black lines on my grandfather’s body thinned and retreated under his clothing, and his body relaxed and returned to its previous size.

Mr. Kim sat on the couch, looking down at the paper and the gyeryong egg inside it for a minute. “In the old days, I was nothing and had nothing, until I willed myself into being. My form, my power. I gave myself that strength. And I became something that people feared and respected, you know?”

Mr. Kim folded up the edges of the paper bag to close it. “But everything’s different now. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be here, in this place, if I’m not that. Just getting weaker and weaker until…what? I’m nothing again?”

My grandfather took a breath. “I know,” he said quietly, then sat on the ground in front of Mr. Kim. “Sometimes, part of me still misses what we had. What we were. Our place in things before.” He went quiet, as if he felt embarrassed to say anything further.

“But,” he continued and looked at Mr. Kim. “If you just wanted to be a dokkaebi, and I wanted to be Horangi, you and I would have stayed there. And you’d still be a monster, and I’d still be a servant, and nothing would change. But we all decided to leave to try something else, right?” He nodded his head toward me. “Because sometimes, for something better, you have to give up something good. I think you know that.”

Mr. Kim did not answer. He seemed very tired all of a sudden, and he covered his eyes with his hand. It was very quiet until he held up the paper bag, waiting for my grandfather to take it from him.

“It will be okay. I’ll make sure,” my grandfather said, patting him on the shoulder and grabbing the paper bag from him, then looked back at me once he had it.

“Let’s go.”

Mr. Kim continued to cover his face and did not turn to look at us as we left.

Outside of the house, when we made it back to the car, my grandfather let out a long sigh and held up the paper bag. “That didn’t go how I thought it would, but—”

I didn’t know why, but I clutched his side and began to sob.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” He picked me up with one arm and held me while I cried into his undershirt. I remember being embarrassed that I couldn’t control myself, and somehow, that just made me cry harder.

“I’ll never let anything happen to you. You know that,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”

It took a while, but he waited with me until I was done crying, then he quietly put me in my seat, buckled my seatbelt and drove us back home.

— # —

I don’t remember how many days passed before the black car came to us again, but I remember going out the back door to the yard one afternoon and seeing my grandfather at the fence, holding the paper bag with the gyeryong egg.

Mr. Yong was standing at the sidewalk again, black suit and all, and stopped speaking when he saw me.

“It’s fine. He can hear this,” my grandfather said, this time making it a point to speak English. “Before I give this back, I want to know what you’re going to do with Mr. Kim.”

Mr. Yong kept his eyes on me and spoke quietly. “I can’t let people break their promises.”

My grandfather rubbed the top of his head. “I’ve been thinking. About the way we used to do things, and how we do them now,” he said. “What about something else? What if you rewarded him instead?”

Mr. Yong blinked.

“If this is a joke, Tiger, I don’t understand it.”

My grandfather took the unlit cigarette he had behind his ear and moved it around through his fingers. “If you punish Mr. Kim, people will know that a dokkaebi fooled you somehow. And you’re going to look weak, very weak. It’s Mr. Kim after all. But if you help him?” my grandfather continued. “Then it only looks like he did a job for you and was…a little late at most. And you could even come out looking better, if you do it the right way.”

“And what is the right way?” There was a flicker of blue in Mr. Yong’s eyes.

“I hear his daughter is going to college, and those aren’t cheap. I mean, nothing to you, and not as valuable as this,” my grandfather held up the egg. “But a scholarship from the Yongs would probably go a long way for that family. Besides,” my grandfather squeezed the paper bag slightly so that it made a crinkling sound. “I don’t care what you do with this, personally. But if others learn the gyeryong are still alive and can give them power like the old days? They might get ideas of their own. Better to act like everything’s normal so they don’t wonder too much. Don’t you think?”

Mr. Yong stared silently at my grandfather for a long time.

My grandfather, in turn, held up the paper bag.

Mr. Yong took it reluctantly and glanced around with a grimace, once again resting his eyes on our house. “And I assume you’ll want something out of this too?”

My grandfather put the unlit cigarette to his lips again, and he looked at the house briefly, then at Mr. Yong, and he gave him the smile, the one he gave to customers in the shoe repair shop. “No,” he replied. “As long as everyone gets along, I’m just fine.”

Mr. Yong seemed suspicious, like he thought he was being made a fool of somehow. But it didn’t matter much, in the end. He had what he wanted, and he clutched the paper bag closely to his chest.

“Goodbye, Horangi-sshi,” he said as he walked back to his car.

“Goodbye, Yong-sshi.”

We waited until they left, the black car turning the corner and disappearing from the street, and I thought about asking my grandfather more questions, but I think I understood.

My grandfather, meanwhile, looked up at the sun and shaded his eyes. He asked if I was going to play outside, and I told him that I was. So he walked over to the cement steps and pulled out a tube of sunscreen from his back pocket. He told me to stand in front of him as he squeezed the white gunk into his hand and then rubbed some of it on my arms, then my legs, and then across my forehead and cheeks.

“You have to take care of yourself in the sun, not worry so much about how you look,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

He dabbed his fingers in sunscreen and tapped my chin and my nose. “In Korea, during the old days, when I served the high families, I was…very tough on people, you understand? Mean and cruel, because that’s what others saw in me, and I thought that was what I was supposed to be,” he said softly. “But then, I came here, and I realized that’s not who I was. And it’s taken a long time to undo those ways. A lot of us old beings, I think, are trying to undo those ways still.”

He made me sit down at the bottom of the steps as he covered the back of my neck. “This will probably make more sense when you’re older, but you’re never going to be what people think you are, no matter how hard you try.” He closed the sunscreen and put it away. “So you just have to be what you are, whatever that is, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, though I didn’t fully understand. He was right that it would take years before I knew what he meant, let alone believe it. And only then would I realize, long after he was gone, that the thing I actually wanted was to be more like him.

“Okay. Go play,” my grandfather said, rubbing in the last bit of sunscreen letting me run off through the yard.

He leaned back and rested his elbows on the top step and clamped his unlit cigarette in his lips, staring out at the trees that led up to the mountains, remembering, perhaps, the forests near his hometown and what it was like when people were few and far between, in their little villages, and beasts moved freely wherever they wished. Or maybe he was thinking of what it was like before, when he had more power and a better sense of his place in things, I don’t know.

But after a while, he lost interest in the mountains, I think, his eyes drifting down and focusing on his grandson kicking the soccer ball instead. He stretched comfortably under the warm sunlight of the sleepy afternoon, while I ran back and forth on the grass until, eventually, my grandmother called for us as it began to grow dark. Then he picked me up and carried me carefully on his shoulder, into the house, through the narrow hallways and toward the kitchen, where we knew we’d find the smell of fresh, hot rice and the click of a cooker going off when it was ready, just in time for all of us to gather for dinner in that small Kalihi house.

© 2021 Thomas Ha

From: Issue 4

About the Author

Thomas Ha is a former attorney turned stay-at-home father who enjoys writing speculative fiction during the rare moments when both of his kids are napping at the same time. Thomas grew up in Honolulu and, after a decade plus of living in the northeast, now resides in Los Angeles. You can find his ramblings and news about his latest work on Twitter at @ThomasHaWrites and at https://www.thomashawrites.com/.