The wind on the hill was cold but Kai didn't move. He looked down at Muraki. From up here the houses looked like small grey boxes huddled together for warmth. He could see the smoke from chimneys. The mud paths he'd walked all his life. But his mind wasn't in the present. The anger had opened a door in his memory and he was stepping through it.
It happened five years ago. That winter was the coldest he could remember. The sky was flat and heavy and white. Ice gripped the windows of their small house. His father Sungho Jinho had been coughing for weeks. At first it was a dry sound like paper rubbing together. Then it got wet and heavy.
Kai remembered sitting in the kitchen at night listening. His father in the next room. The sound was constant. A man trying to catch something slipping away. His breath. His mother Yoonhee would sit by the bed with a bowl of warm water and a cloth. Wiping sweat from Jinho's face even when the room was freezing.
Then one Tuesday night the sound changed. It wasn't a cough anymore. It was a gasp. Kai ran into the room. His father was lying on the thin mattress. His face was a strange shade of blue under the dim candlelight. His eyes were wide and full of a terror Kai had never seen before. The look of a man drowning in open air.
Kai we must take him to the hospital. He can't breathe.
The town clinic is closed. The doctor went to the city for the week.
Then we go to the District Hospital. We go now.
Kai looked at his father. The District Hospital was an hour away by car. They didn't have a car. None of their neighbors had one that worked in snow. Kai ran out into the freezing night and knocked on the door of a man named Mr. Park who owned a small rusted truck for hauling wood.
Please Mr. Park. My father is dying. He needs the hospital.
Mr. Park looked at the snow then at his old truck. He looked at Kai with pity but also fear.
The roads are dangerous Kai. And gasoline costs more than I earned this week. I can't risk the truck for nothing.
Kai reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. The only thing he owned that had any value. A gift from his grandfather. Silver. Still kept perfect time. He put it in Mr. Park's rough hand.
Take this. Just get us to the hospital.
Mr. Park looked at the watch and sighed. He nodded. Kai and his mother wrapped Jinho in every blanket they had and carried him to the truck. Every movement made Jinho groan. The air going into his throat made a whistling sound.
The journey was slow. The truck slid on the ice. The heater didn't work and wind blew through the cracks in the doors. Kai sat in the back holding his father's head in his lap. Feeling the fever through the blankets. He kept talking to keep him awake.
We're almost there father. Just hold on. The doctors will give you medicine. You'll be back in the garden by spring.
Jinho didn't speak. He just gripped Kai's hand with a strength that felt like a goodbye.
They arrived after midnight. The District Hospital was a large building made of white stone. It looked like a palace compared to the houses in Muraki. Bright lights. Clean windows. A tall black iron fence around it. A guard at the gate looked at the old truck with disgust.
You can't park here. This is for ambulances and official visitors.
Kai jumped out. Shaking from cold and fear.
My father is dying. He can't breathe. Please let us in.
The guard looked at Jinho in the back. He saw the poor clothes and old blankets. He pointed to a small door at the side of the building.
Use the service entrance. Emergency room is through there.
Kai and Mr. Park carried Jinho inside. The air smelled of chemicals and floor wax. Warm but somehow cold. Bright unfriendly white walls. They reached a desk where a woman sat behind glass. Crisp blue uniform. Typing on a computer. She didn't look up.
Please. My father needs help. He's very sick.
She typed for a long minute. Then she looked at them. Tired eyes. Bored face. She looked at Jinho's blue face and didn't move any faster. She pushed papers through a slot in the glass.
Fill these out. I need his identity card and his insurance papers.
Kai took the papers. His hands were trembling so hard he could barely hold them.
I have his card but we don't have insurance papers. We're workers from Muraki. The factory doesn't give us papers.
She stopped typing and looked at Kai like he was a child who didn't understand a simple game.
This is a Category Two hospital. To be admitted to emergency you must have Level A insurance or pay a deposit.
How much is the deposit.
Five thousand gold pieces.
Kai felt the world stop. Five thousand gold pieces. More money than his family saw in a year.
I don't have that much. I have fifty pieces in my pocket. But he's dying. Look at him. He's a person. He's lived and worked in this country for fifty years.
The rules are the rules. I don't make them. Without the deposit or insurance I can't open a file. Without a file the doctor won't see him.
Yoonhee grabbed the edge of the glass window. She was crying.
Please have mercy. We'll pay you back. I'll work every day. I'll clean this hospital for free. Just help my husband.
The woman looked at the wall behind her.
There are many people waiting. Please move to the side. You're blocking the line.
Kai looked around. A man in an expensive wool coat holding a crying child. A woman with a silk scarf. They looked at Kai's family with fear and annoyance. They didn't want to see what Muraki looked like in their clean hospital.
Kai spotted a doctor standing near a door. White coat. Stethoscope. Clipboard. He walked over.
Doctor please. My father is in the truck. He can't breathe. The woman at the desk says we need money first but he doesn't have time.
The doctor looked at Kai. For just a second there was something in his eyes. Sadness maybe. Or guilt. But it disappeared behind a hard professional face.
I'm sorry young man. The administration is very strict. If I treat patients without payment the hospital loses its funding. I could lose my job. There's a public clinic in Kojin. You should take him there.
Kojin is three hours away. He won't last one hour.
I can't help you. I have patients who have already paid.
The doctor turned and walked through the door. The lock clicked. A small sound. But it felt like a gunshot to Kai. The sound of a door closing on a life.
They took Jinho back to the truck. Mr. Park didn't say a word. He drove back toward Muraki. The snow was falling harder. It covered the windshield and hid the world.
In the back of the truck Jinho's breathing got slower. Each breath was a struggle. Like a dry leaf scratching against stone.
Halfway back to town the scratching stopped.
Kai waited for the next breath. He held his own breath listening. One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds. He leaned his ear against his father's chest. Nothing. No whistle. No struggle. No heartbeat. Just the wind and the engine.
Father.
No answer. Jinho's hand went loose and fell to the floor of the truck.
Yoonhee let out a scream Kai would never forget. Pure breaking. A sound that didn't belong in a human throat. She threw herself over her husband and called his name over and over. She begged him to wake up. She promised things that could never happen.
Kai didn't scream. Didn't cry. A strange cold emptiness spread through his body. He looked at his father's face. The blue color was fading into a pale waxen grey. The terror was gone. Jinho looked tired. Like a man who had finally stopped running a race he could never win.
They brought the body back to Muraki. The neighbors came out of their houses and stood in the snow watching. They didn't speak because they all knew the story. They'd all seen it before. In Muraki death wasn't a mystery. It was a bill you couldn't pay.
The next day the factory sent a man to their house. Small man. Thin mustache. Clipboard. He didn't say he was sorry. Didn't ask how they were doing.
I'm here from the factory office. We heard about Jinho. Since he's no longer working you must return his work boots and safety vest by end of day. The factory will provide fifty gold pieces for the burial. You just need to sign this paper saying the factory is not responsible for his illness.
Kai looked at the paper. A simple document. A way for the company to protect its money.
Get out.
Excuse me.
Get out of my house. Keep your fifty pieces. Keep the boots. Get out before I kill you.
The man saw Kai's eyes and left fast. He left the paper on the table.
They buried Jinho at the small cemetery on the edge of town. The ground was frozen and it took the men of the town hours to dig the grave. No flowers. No music. Just the wind and the priest's thin cold voice.
After the funeral Kai went back to work. He had to. Debts to pay. Minji's school. Food for his mother. Same warehouse. Same boxes. Same news on the radio.
He watched politicians on television talking about the greatness of the Kingdom. New laws that would help the economy. He realized they lived in a different world. In their world hospitals were places you went to get better. In his world hospitals were fortresses that kept the poor outside to die in the mud.
The memory faded. Kai was back on the hill. His hands were clenched into fists. Nails digging into his palms. He looked at Muraki and didn't see home. He saw a cage.
His father didn't die of a sickness. He died of a price tag. He died because he wasn't worth five thousand gold pieces to the men who ran the country. To the doctor he was a risk. To the woman at the desk he was a problem. To the factory he was a used tool.
He thought about the stadium in Kojin. Millions of gold pieces. How many lives would that save. How many fathers could breathe again if that glass and gold became medicine and beds.
They think we are nothing, he said out loud. They think we're just the dirt they walk on.
He looked at his hands. Rough and scarred. Just like his father's. But his hands were young. He had time his father didn't have.
The path was becoming clear in his mind. A dangerous path. One that led toward the Black Prison or the cemetery. But as he looked at the grey horizon he knew he had no choice. The memory of that night in the back of the truck was a ghost that would never leave him. The only way to find peace was to make sure no other son in Muraki had to hold his father's head and listen to the silence.
He walked down the hill. Not home. He went to the small shop where his friend Park Dohyun would be. Park was a man of numbers. He worked as an accountant for a local company. He saw the money flowing in and out of the district. He knew the secrets of the ledgers.
Kai walked in. Park was sitting at a small table drinking bitter tea. He looked up and saw Kai's face. He put down the cup.
You look different Kai. You look like a man who just decided to jump off a cliff.
Kai sat down and leaned forward.
I'm tired of being the dirt Park. I'm tired of watching people die because they're poor.
We're all tired Kai. But what can we do. The world runs on money and power. We have neither.
Then we take them. Not with stones and fire. Not yet. We take them from the inside.
Park looked around to make sure no one was listening and lowered his voice.
What are you talking about.
I want to start a party. A political party for the people who've been forgotten. I want to go to Kojin and sit in the seats where they sit. I want to change the laws that say a life has a price.
Park stared at him for a long time. He didn't laugh. He saw the seriousness in Kai's face. He knew about the father. Everyone did.
They'll crush you Kai. They'll find a reason to lock you away before you finish your first speech. They own the police and the judges.
They own the buildings and the money. But they don't own the people. There are more of us than there are of them. They just need someone to show them they can stand up.
Park looked at his tea. He thought about the numbers he saw every day. Millions flowing to the capital while schools in Muraki had no heat. He thought about his own fear.
It's suicide.
It's already death Park. We're just waiting for the day they stop our hearts. I'd rather die trying to breathe than die gasping in the back of a truck.
Park looked up. He saw the fire in Kai. Small fire. But in the darkness of Muraki it was the only light.
What do we do first.
We write it down. We write what we believe. A plan for the hospitals and the schools. We show people there's a different way to live.
Kai took a piece of paper and a pencil from his pocket and laid it on the old scarred table.
Title the page. Call it the Liberation Party.
Park picked up the pencil. His hand shook slightly. But he began to write.
The price of sickness had been paid by Kai's father. But the debt wasn't settled. As the two men sat in that small shop in the middle of a poor town the first lines of a new history were being written. The ash was no longer silent. It was becoming a flame. And the Kingdom of Hakoran had no idea the fire was coming.