Moreover, the most absurd thing of all was the form of god they spoke of.
“Society has fallen ill, and because of that our family has suffered. If we can get our hands on the very cause of that illness, we won’t have to suffer any longer. If we learn to control the evil in this world tainted by malice, won’t we be free from pain?!”
The idea of being liberated through handling evil sounded far too strange. If they were searching for a messiah who could save this ruined world, that would at least make some sense — but what on earth was this supposed to mean?
Sim Seowoo felt an enormous wall between himself and his parents during their conversation. They had always invested in dangerous places, and now they had fallen into a cult — and not just any ordinary cult, either. He had sensed long ago that their judgment had become clouded, yet he had overlooked the fact that they had gotten tangled up in strange religious activities. The realization that it was his own fault for not paying closer attention settled over him like a weight.
Reflecting on his tardiness, he decided that instead of trying to persuade them, he would be firm.
“No, I want to keep going to school. My internal grades and mock exam rankings have all been decent so far, and I enjoy school life, so I don’t want to quit. Honestly, the teachings — the religion you’re talking about doesn’t resonate with me at all.”
In reality, Sim Seowoo’s grades were quite impressive. He had cut off hagwons and private tutoring since middle school, yet through studying on his own, he had climbed to the top ranks school-wide. Teachers who had picked up on his difficult home situation quietly slipped him workbooks from time to time.
“Son. The teachings, little by little……”
“Even in middle school, I have hardly any memories of spending time with friends because I was always tagging along to Mom and Dad’s gatherings. Are you saying I have to do that again this time too? Miss out on making memories with my friends and just follow you somewhere?”
Sim Seowoo sincerely hoped that his parents had at least a shred of conscience left. And thankfully, his firm refusal seemed to work — they nodded reluctantly.
“If our Seowoo really wants to study that badly, I suppose there’s nothing we can do……”
Although there was a look of sadness on their faces, as though it pained them to watch their child walk into a world of suffering, Sim Seowoo felt relieved at the fact that they had taken a step back. In truth, he was even a little happy. At least we can still communicate, he thought.
From the next day on, visitors to the house increased even more, but Sim Seowoo made full use of his high school’s evening self-study sessions. The weekend visitors he avoided by heading out to the neighborhood library early in the morning.
But the trouble lay in a place he hadn’t anticipated.
One weekend, while looking for a seat in the library’s reading room, he bumped into someone and they exchanged greetings, eventually becoming acquaintances. They even ate meals together. Sim Seowoo brought his own packed lunch every day, and as it happened, the other person did the same — so they sat on an outdoor bench and ate together.
The other person was a university student four years his senior, and to Sim Seowoo, who was still in high school, the mere fact that he was a college student made him seem impressive. He kindly offered advice about university entrance exams, and having caught a glimpse of Sim Seowoo’s meager packed lunches, he took him to proper restaurants and even gave him various gifts. It was because he found it admirable that Seowoo worked so hard at studying.
Sim Seowoo gradually began to follow after that hyung. To someone who had been quietly suffering inside over his parents, hyung was the only adult he could lean on, and the always-composed hyung felt cool and admirable to him.
But that kind of admiration was shattered to pieces one day by a book he found in hyung’s bag. Standing beside him as he pulled out his lunch, Sim Seowoo’s eyes happened to land on a thick, dark book……
It was the book from the “gathering” — the very one his parents clung to at home day after day.
There was nothing left to confront him about; the truth was painfully clear. Sim Seowoo was engulfed by an overwhelming sense of betrayal, but soon every emotion burned itself out entirely. The bitter laugh that escaped him came from the realization that he, someone who had seen all manner of con artists over the past few years, had been foolish enough to trust a person.
A conversation from before floated up in his mind.
“Hyung is always so composed, it’s really cool. I wonder if I can be like that when I grow up?”
“I’m not always calm, you know. But I have ‘faith,’ so I’m just finding my way.”
He never could have imagined that the “faith” meant something like that.
Back then, he had simply taken it to mean believing in oneself, and had even felt a quiet admiration — a person with self-confidence really does seem mature. It was his own fault for mistaking it for simple encouragement when, now that he thought about it, hyung had been gently raising the topic of how hard life had been getting for a while now.
And once one suspicious person caught his eye, others did too. The ahjumma who had come to volunteer at the library. The shop owner on the way home who always greeted him first. Even the old man who had started working as a janitor at his school.
Having tracked down the dark scripture tucked near each of them, Sim Seowoo sank into a weary, exhausted disillusionment. Since his parents couldn’t convince him, the group itself must have stepped in. They planted people all around just to evangelize to a single young student — did that organization have that much money? Perhaps the neighborhood itself was a cult nest from the very beginning.
Sim Seowoo held his ground out of stubbornness. He gradually became guarded toward others and even began to suspect the goodwill of fellow students at his own school, but he made sure none of it showed on the outside.
And then one day, his parents made a suggestion.
“Seowoo-ya. How about the three of us go on a trip this vacation?”
At nineteen, in that winter, when his parents brought up a “family trip,” Sim Seowoo was genuinely surprised — and suspicious of their intentions in equal measure. It had been a trip they hadn’t even dared to dream of since their business had begun to crumble, and it had been a long time since any real conversation had passed between them.
But his parents said they wanted to go, just the three of them, to the mountain they used to visit when he was young. The very mountain where, long ago, a commotion had erupted because they thought little Sim Seowoo had gotten lost and called the police.
That place held deep significance for Sim Seowoo. The warmth of his parents’ embrace as they held young him close after he had wandered lost through the forest — the way they kept murmuring thank goodness, thank goodness over and over — that memory was etched into him as something precious. Perhaps his parents were remembering that feeling too, he thought, and so he accepted the trip.
But……
“……Where is this?”
“Seowoo-ya. I just told you. The place we’ve come to is very meaningful and sacred——”
“Did you… drug me? Did you give me something?”
His trembling voice cracked and splintered. He was too shaken to even gather himself enough to clear his throat.
On the day of the trip he had been looking forward to with quiet excitement, while riding in the car, he had grown inexplicably drowsy and closed his eyes. He recalled the memory of often falling asleep in the car as a child, and even felt a faint, nostalgic warmth.
But when Sim Seowoo opened his eyes again, he was inside a dark building deep in the mountains. A shackle was fastened around one of his ankles, and through the iron-barred window, people could be seen glancing over, watching him. His phone, naturally, was gone from his pocket.
More than the shock of being dragged to a strange place and locked away, what hit him hardest was the fact that his parents had deceived him. Could the barley tea his parents had handed him the moment he got into the car have been laced with sleeping pills? He had thought they were sharing in a nostalgic moment together — “We used to always pack barley tea like this whenever we went on trips back in the day,” they had said, chatting warmly.
It was then, for the first time, that Sim Seowoo shed tears.
He didn’t even register that he was crying. The effects of the sleeping pills left his head foggy, and it was only when his eyes burned with a rush of emotion that tears began to fall — one stream trailing down his cheek, and then, as though a dam had burst, they poured out.
“Don’t cry, Seowoo-ya. It hurts Mom’s heart too, you know.”
“This is all for our Seowoo, you know. People always said they felt sorry for you whenever they saw you. They worried that a child with such a pure soul like yours would become tainted if he went out into the world, that a kind heart like yours might get hurt — they fretted so much——”
“How is this… for me in any way……”
It felt as though everything inside him had shattered. In the midst of that awful feeling, he squeezed his eyes shut, and his parents each grabbed one of his hands and pleaded with him. The warmth clinging to his hands felt sickening.
“The Cult Leader has said that a Circulation Rite is to be held. It’s a ritual to purify the world — to cleanse this world filled with murky, festering malice — and while the ritual preparations are underway, if you rest here, you won’t suffer when you go back out into the world later.”
“We begged and pleaded for this answer in agony ourselves, you know. We know you want to keep studying, so how could we, as your parents, stop you? You just have to hold out for 100 days until the Circulation Rite is performed. After that, you can go anywhere you want! Right? Just 100 days!”
“But I’m already in my third year of high school……”
“Something like that doesn’t matter!!”
Sim Seowoo felt like he was going to lose his mind. His parents had suddenly kidnapped him and now wanted him to pray for 100 days — what about school? What about the college entrance exam? His classmates complained to their parents endlessly about how grueling the exam prep was, and all he could think was that he desperately wished he had that kind of problem instead.
Some parents pray for 100 days for their child’s college entrance exam — so why did he have to do 100 days of prayer like this?
“Haha……”
In the end, Sim Seowoo buried his face in his hands and laughed. Along with the tears dripping between his fingers, he felt the last shred of affection he had for his parents fall away too. They kept saying this was all for him, but he had come to understand — too late — that there was no “him” in their minds at all.
Call the police.
They had committed kidnapping of a minor. Even if they were his parents, they could be detained for it. At the very least, a separation order.
First, Sim Seowoo began to think of ways to get out of here. His phone had been taken, but could he not retrieve it by watching for a moment when the adults let their guard down? Being deep in the mountains, he wasn’t sure if there would even be a signal — but if not, he would just have to escape somehow and keep heading down the mountain……
But just as he was beginning to rack his brain, something stopped him.
“Hi, hi-ik.”
“Be quiet!”
“If you interfere with what the adults are doing, you’ll get in trouble……!”
He had thought only he and his parents were in this room, but a presence made itself known from the other side of what seemed to be a partition wall. Looking down, he noticed a small opening — barely large enough to pass a hand through. It was like a room designed to monitor each other’s sounds.
Sim Seowoo paused at the realization that the voice coming from the other side of the partition was that of a young child.
