Reason for Marriage

Chapter 29

Kind Dr. Kim

A taxi carrying Minju stood in the middle of the busy night streets.

Drunken young people roamed the streets between the flashing neon signs and thumping music. Some could not control their overflowing energy, and there were occasional quarrels here and there.

How long had it been since she felt the night air? Minju could not believe it was the same country of the same era because the free scenery here and the house she lived in were so different.

Dr. Kim’s appointment place was a small izakaya located in a back alley a little past the main street. It was a place without a sign, so Minju almost just passed by the shop.

When she opened the sliding door and entered the shop, the spicy charcoal scent of the skewers and the steam of the hot fish cake soup stimulated her sense of smell. It was a perfect place to talk with the low red lights, warm heat, and the voices of people who were not loud.

Minju passed the bar seats and went inside the room with tables.

Dr. Kim had come in advance and was sitting in the most remote corner. He was not drinking anything and had not touched the peas served as side dishes.

“Do you want a beer?”

“It’s surprising that you’re recommending alcohol to a psychiatric patient.”

“It’s something that can be difficult to hear with a bare mind.”

Minju thought for a while and raised her hand toward a waiter.

“I’d like a bottle of soju, please.”

After a while, she received soju along with a small glass. Minju left the glass on the side and filled the glass supposed to contain water next to her with soju and emptied it in one shot.

“I’m ready to listen.”

“Have you heard of schizophrenia? It’s the disease commonly referred to as schizophrenia.”

“Yes, I think I’ve seen it a lot in murder cases.”

“That’s right. People speak a lot about schizophrenia when talking about murderers’ mental emotions. If translated in Chinese, it literally means ‘a string picked out of a string instrument’. It’s like an untuned string instrument, disorganized and chaotic, which simply means that the person has lost their mind. The word schizophrenia is something more terrifying.”

When nervous Minju lifted a soju bottle to drink more, Dr. Kim held out the soju glass, not the water glass.

“Drink slowly. Should we order some food?”

“No, I’m fine. Keep talking.”

Dr. Kim looked at Minju’s face and started talking again.

“Patient Seo Hye-ryeong was suffering from paranoia, a type of schizophrenia. She believed that she was being followed by someone, monitored, and tracked down.”

“By whom?”

“Her husband.”

“…”

“Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi wanted a divorce. But she was afraid that her husband wouldn’t allow it. She often said that her husband would kill her someday, and that it would never end without someone dying.”

A relationship that ended only with death… Minju recalled her mother and father.

“But isn’t what Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi said just what most patients with paranoia say?”

“That’s right. These are very typical symptoms. So I just prescribed her medicine. I thought of the patient’s words only as delusions, not facts. When I’m in the hospital, I fall into a kind of mannerism. I am a doctor but also a human being, and it was too difficult to determine the authenticity by responding to every word spoken by insane patients.”

Dr. Kim drank a glass while blaming himself.

“In addition, I didn’t think that her husband could do such a thing because he was a public figure that everyone knew. I couldn’t judge the conductor Park Sang-yeon, who I hadn’t met, by believing her words. Rather, I thought it was better to diagnose her in front of me with paranoia. It was my mistake. I made a huge mistake.”

“Then are you saying that Sang-yeon is capable of such a thing?”

“Yes, as a result, I now believe everything Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi said was true. She felt her life threatened by her husband.”

“No way. It’s ridiculous. I’ll meet Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi and ask her in person.”

“That won’t be possible. It’s been more than two months since she went missing.”

“Is she really missing? She could have gone on a long trip somewhere or just disappeared. She might have wanted to disappear on her own. To escape from him?”

“You are also using the word ‘escape’ now.”

As expected, it was a sharp point made by a psychiatrist. Dr. Kim picked up the vague fear of Sang-yeon that Minju unconsciously felt.

“Why did you call me today? What were you curious about Sang-yeon?”

Minju avoided Dr. Kim’s gaze and looked at the empty soju bottle with an anxious face.

“What I wanted to say, uh… Sorry, I’m going to the bathroom for a moment.”

Did she need time to think? Minju suddenly stood up as she cut off the conversation. For a moment, Minju stumbled, unable to control herself, as if the alcohol she drank in a hurry had suddenly risen.

“Are you okay? Can you go alone?”

Dr. Kim quickly assisted Minju and asked in a worried voice.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

Minju went to the bathroom, touching the wall of the narrow hallway. She washed her face with cold water, but did not sober up. Drunk, her face was already red and her heart pounded as if it were going to explode. It was fear. The time to face the real Park Sang-yeon was approaching.

When she returned to her seat, the table was newly set. Along with warm fish cake soup, new soju was placed in front of Minju.

“I saw you shaking earlier, so I ordered some warm soup. If you’re cold, wear my coat.”

Dr. Kim’s coat was neatly placed on Minju’s chair. Minju put it on without rejecting Dr. Kim’s favor. Thanks to this, she felt like the chill had subsided a little.

“Now it’s my turn to talk.”

Minju emptied the soju glass again to be courageous. The alcohol was too bitter.

“I couldn’t think he killed Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi. I really couldn’t, until my cat died. But now I think maybe that’s what happened.”

“Did he kill your cat? What happened?”

“You said that last time. If you get caught secretly going out, there would be punishment accordingly.”

“Yes, everything I said was on the patient chart that I wrote down when I was treating Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi.”

“I went out without my husband knowing to find out about Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi. That day when I was filmed on CCTV at the hospital. But I guess he came home while I was away that day. He knew I was lying. When I returned home, my cat had disappeared. I found the cat today. In the garden. Dead.”

“Ah… You must have had a hard time. If it was a cat, it would have been like family to you.”

“Yes, Jerry was my only family.”

When Minju could not stand it and started crying, Dr. Kim quietly put out his handkerchief. It was really appropriate kindness.

“You think your husband killed Jerry. I think anyone who can kill Jerry might have killed Seo Hye-ryeong enough. But you can’t accept it, so you’re having a hard time right now. I understand.”

“Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi may be alive, right?”

At that moment, Minju also fully hoped that Seo Hye-ryeong was alive. If Seo Hye-ryeong was dead, that meant that Sang-yeon was also likely to be a murderer.

“I’m sorry to say this as a doctor, but it’s unlikely. In the case of severe schizophrenic patients like Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi, it is impossible to stop taking the medicine. It’s been more than two months since she left the hospital. There are no records of prescriptions from other hospitals. I’m sure something went wrong.”

‘But maybe not? I hope not… It has to be.’

The words of Dr. Kim, who saved her from the infinite routine of groundless presumption that started from an unwelcome family and the clumsy self-hypnosis that followed, were not very sweet to Minju.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Maybe it’s better not to listen to you. At first, you said you couldn’t tell me because it was Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi’s personal information, but why are you suddenly telling me everything? Why?”

It was resentment against Dr. Kim, but in fact, it was regret for Minju herself.

“Calm down, Minju-ssi. If you are living with Park Sang-yeon now, that means you may also become a second Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi. You are my patient, and I couldn’t stand to see a patient in danger once more. Is it a good enough answer?”

Why did she think she would be an exception? She thought that she was different from Seo Hye-ryeong, and that this was a problem between Sang-yeon and Seo Hye-ryeong, not between her and Sang-yeon. She misjudged that if she closed her eyes, she would only have to pretend that she did not know. No, it would be more accurate to say that she was arrogant.

But now Dr. Kim was telling her that the essence of the problem was not with her and Seo Hye-ryeong. The key was Park Sang-yeon, and he was warning her that he was a dangerous person. He was also saying that after her sacrifice, a third and fourth Seo Hye-ryeong may come out.

“This time it was my cat, but it means it could be me next time.”

Minju’s body trembled like a leaf. She lost her mind as if the words that came out of her mouth became a curse and burned her soul black.

* * *

Ding dong ding dong-

She heard a loud doorbell. Minju barely opened her eyes and looked around with her arms wrapped around her head that was hurting as if it were splitting. It was not her home.

‘Where am I? The smell of bleach from the white bedding, the noise of the streets from the window, and the dark room without sunlight… Is this a motel room?’

She remembered drinking and talking with Dr. Kim last night in an izakaya, but she really did not remember how she got here after that. It felt as if fragments of a film of memories that had been cut out were floating around in her head and coming out of her mouth. It was an awful hangover.

Ding dong ding dong-

Unable to overcome the increasingly intense doorbell sound, Minju opened the door.

Park Sang-yeon was standing just in front of it.

“How did you get here?”

Ignoring Minju’s question, Sang-yeon looked at the room suspiciously. Like a spouse who came to attack the scene of an affair…

“Who were you with?”

“What do you mean? As you can see, I’m alone.”

Sang-yeon looked up and down at Minju’s clothes. It was only then that Minju noticed what she was wearing.

“You went out in the middle of the night and slept alone in a motel?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, so I came out. No matter how hard I try, the house is uncomfortable. Like there’s a separate owner.”

“…”

“How did you know that I was here? Are you watching me?”

‘Were you doing monitoring, surveillance, and location tracking to me as Seo Hye-ryeong-ssi said?’

“You texted me to pick you up.”

“I did?”

When Minju responded as if she was amazed, Sang-yeon called Minju’s cell phone. The phone rang at the bottom of the bed. A phone that had been thrown away with clothes.

Minju picked up her phone and checked the messages. It was true. Minju’s text message to Sang-yeon was there on her phone.

‘Ghosts are making fun of me. I don’t remember at all…’

“I think I know who you were with last night.”

Sang-yeon left the room without giving Minju an opportunity to make an excuse.