The doctor asked with a look of curiosity as he pulled off his latex gloves. Over the decades he had served as Hyosung’s personal physician, he had witnessed all manner of things — but this heir was something else entirely. Whether it was innate temperament or the product of a strict upbringing, he had never shown his emotions easily, even from childhood. When his father had taken his own life, he hadn’t wavered in the slightest. Everyone had been utterly speechless watching a boy that young carry out the duties of chief mourner without a single crack.
At the man’s question, Gyohyun drew the corner of his lips up quietly. It wasn’t mockery or derision. Something willing and warm lived in that expression, and the man’s eyes widened.
“Could it be….”
The man turned quickly to look at Siyun lying on the bed. As Hyosung’s personal physician — and a distant collateral relative besides — he too knew the secrets of the main family line.
“It isn’t certain yet.”
And yet there was weight behind Gyohyun’s voice. Unlike the other Spirit Eyes holders, this time felt different. For some strange reason, he felt sure.
Gyohyun lifted his gaze to look at the man.
“I hope it’s him this time.”
There was a faint tremor of something wet in his voice. As Gyohyun’s physician, he had carried it with him his whole life — that he had not been able to do more for Gyohyun’s father.
The man smiled warmly and gave Gyohyun’s shoulder a few gentle pats.
Gyohyun stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, his gaze not leaving the figure on the bed for even a single moment. That was how some time passed.
“Executive Director.”
Seo Juhyeong finally spoke.
“Is it real? …Is this person really….”
The subject was left unspoken, but Gyohyun knew perfectly well what Seo Juhyeong’s question was asking.
“Who knows.”
The short answer came with a subtle curve of his lips.
“But the possibility is high.”
Seo Juhyeong’s eyes wavered visibly.
Countless Spirit Eyes holders had passed through until now. Each time, Gyohyun had shaken his head without hesitation, never once faltering. And yet that same man had just spoken the word “possibility.”
Seo Juhyeong’s gaze shifted to Siyun. If this man truly was the Noble One they had been searching for, it would be nothing short of a miracle.
He turned his mind back to what had happened a few hours ago. He had wondered what was going on ever since he received the instruction to stop the car in front of a worn-down alley and wait, but he hadn’t dared ask. He had simply watched Gyohyun’s back as it disappeared into the alley.
Had it been about thirty minutes? Gyohyun reappeared with someone held against him. Seo Juhyeong had been taken aback, but he kept it off his face. He opened the rear door immediately, and the hands with which Gyohyun laid the man down were uncommonly careful. Gyohyun had sat beside him and stayed.
“Where shall we go?”
When Seo Juhyeong caught his eye in the rearview mirror, Gyohyun answered briefly.
“Myeonghui-dong.”
His penthouse was there. It had better security than the townhouse he was currently staying in. The car moved quietly through the dark. Every time Seo Juhyeong glanced into the rearview mirror, Gyohyun’s gaze was fixed on the unconscious man. It never shifted. Relentlessly so, to the point of seeming obsessive.
He had been at Gyohyun’s side for many years, but he had never seen him like this. Gyohyun had always been a person of few emotional ripples. Since inheriting the evil spirit, he had grown even more expressionless — but now was different. If anything, he seemed almost satisfied, stroking the unconscious man’s hair or brushing his cheek.
“But that person….”
Seo Juhyeong had finally been unable to hold back and parted his lips. The hand stroking the hair paused briefly.
“Noble One?”
“Pardon?”
He had nearly hit the brakes. He looked to the rearview mirror in flustered alarm. The heterochromatic eyes reflected in the mirror looked straight back at him.
Seo Juhyeong unconsciously tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“Perhaps.”
Gyohyun curved his eyes in a way that looked almost pleased.
After Seo Juhyeong had also gone, leaving Gyohyun alone with Siyun, Gyohyun settled onto the stool beside the bed. His gaze remained fixed on Siyun as ever.
Out of habit, he took a cigarette from his pocket and brought it to his lips — but before he could light it, Siyun’s face caught his eye.
Sleeping soundly with a pale face, Siyun looked more fragile and helpless than Gyohyun had expected. He observed him closely.
Long, dark lashes cast faint shadows across pale cheeks. The lips that had been trembling before were now quietly closed, and a few strands of brown hair had fallen loose across his forehead. Asleep, he looked even younger.
His head, which should have been throbbing with its usual headache by now, was remarkably clear. In his hand, Gyohyun held the keyring Siyun had made. He could no longer feel any energy from it at all. And yet, when he came back to himself, he would find himself taking it out and turning it over in his fingers. Because somehow, his condition seemed to improve when he did.
He couldn’t remember how many years it had been. Gyohyun had inherited the evil spirit earlier than most heirs in his line — because of his father’s death.
The Lee family had lived alongside the evil spirit for a very long time. The evil spirit passed down through the main family line was extraordinarily effective at eliminating enemies — but the side effects were too great. Most of the heirs had died young, and some, unable to endure the effects, had taken their own lives.
As these tragedies continued, the people of the Lee family traveled all across the country seeking out shamans and asking for a solution. Then, for the first time in the great-grandfather’s generation, they encountered someone who spoke of the existence of ghosts.
A hereditary shaman performing a village ritual in a certain village in North Hwanghae Province took one look at the great-grandfather and clicked his tongue.
“It’s karma. This is karma.”
The shaman, who wouldn’t even let him past the front gate for fear of ritual defilement, shook his head.
“There’s absolutely no way to exorcise this. You’ll carry it your whole life.”
Unable to turn away from the great-grandfather, who clung desperately asking if there was no way at all, the shaman finally spoke.
Find someone who can take the evil energy accumulated in the body and carry it away, or purify it. When asked if it was a kind of curse-absorber, the shaman gave an ambiguous answer — that it could be that, and it might not be. It was frustrating, but there was no room to press further. By that point, the great-grandfather could already feel that his life was hanging by a thread. From then on, whenever an heir of the Lee family was conceived, they searched for one among Spirit Eyes holders whose spirit was especially pure. It had never been an easy task.
And Gyohyun, too, had been treading the same path as his father. There had seemed to be no hope at all. Until not long ago, that was.
Gyohyun tossed the cigarette carelessly onto the nightstand and reached toward Siyun. And just as he had done in the car, he slowly brushed back the hair falling over his forehead. The texture beneath his hand was better than expected. Cool and soft — the kind of softness that could become addictive. Gyohyun’s hand moved downward slowly, like fingertips drifting across piano keys.
He carefully traced the fine lashes and the gentle curve of the eyelids. The thought of those unusually large, clear eyes that lay beneath the closed lids brought the corner of his mouth upward.
It hadn’t been fully decided yet whether Siyun was the Noble One who would purify him. And yet….
“Feels like I might actually live.”
One thread of hope had opened a way to breathe.
Naturally, a number of strategies took shape in Gyohyun’s mind. Through fear if need be, through debt, or by dangling something sweet — only the approach would differ, but there were certainly ways to keep him close. Yet all those calculations felt beside the point. Because he had not the slightest intention of letting go of what had already fallen into his hands.
He had a rough idea of how Siyun might react once he woke up — but whatever it might be, he had no intention of accommodating it. Had he never noticed, that would have been one thing. But now that Siyun had caught his eye, he would not be letting him go.
“What kind of fool would throw away his own lifeline.”
Isn’t that right. Cha Siyun.
A languid laugh drifted through the room.
* * *
“The kid’s fate itself is a mess. His birth chart is riddled with clashes and breaks — all his energy is tangled up, so even when fortune comes, it can’t settle where it belongs. And on top of that, his Spirit Eyes opened too. Tsk tsk.”
The shaman who had offered Siyun at least some guidance fanned herself with an air of displeasure.
“Trouble won’t stop chasing you until your early twenties — no, at least your mid-twenties. Be especially careful around your mid-twenties. Just as the outgoing cycle of misfortune is harsher than the incoming one, your mid-twenties will be your hardest trial.”
Looking back now, not a single word of that had been wrong. After the incident when he had nearly died, he had managed to avoid major disasters — but minor injuries had followed him constantly. Most were the work of ghosts, though not always. He would fall in situations where there was no reason to fall. Wounds would appear with no explanation. As though something invisible was relentlessly attacking Siyun.
