When someone’s asking you like this and you still say no.
What’s so hard about going once.
You’re really too much.
Fine. Whatever.
With each continued refusal, it seemed his feelings were hurt, and no more messages came through. Under most circumstances, Siyun would have wanted to give in when a friend asked this persistently — but a haunted house was absolutely out of the question.
He was absentmindedly swiping at his phone screen with his thumb, the matter weighing on him, when the phone rang. He glanced at the screen thinking it might be Jinwoong — and Siyun’s expression hardened.
「Father」
Trrr-.
The ringtone rang on relentlessly. Siyun reluctantly tapped the answer button.
“Yes.”
— Are you at the shop?
“…Yes.”
A note of displeasure had already crept into his voice. Siyun’s throat went dry with tension. Ever since he had opened the workshop with the inheritance his grandmother had left him, his father had disapproved of Siyun’s choice of work. As expected, a sigh came through from the other end of the phone, and the scolding began.
— Are you really going to keep living like this?
Unlike Siyun, who was perfectly satisfied with his work, his father found it suffocating that his only son had skipped university entirely and spent his days working with leather.
— It’s not too late. At least get into a university and study business.
His father was an executive at a large corporation. Filled with ambition to succeed in society, he wanted his son to walk the same path he had. Or failing that, at the very least to have a career he could introduce his son with some dignity. This kept putting him at odds with Siyun.
Siyun thought about answering back, then stopped himself. He knew that no matter what he said, his father wouldn’t hear it.
“I’ll handle it myself.”
— Handle it yourself, he says. A kid who handles himself goes and suddenly quits a school he was doing perfectly fine in?
In the year he became a second-year in high school, Siyun had made the decision to drop out. Since he had been doing reasonably well in school, his father had naturally opposed it. But at the time, Siyun was barely half in his right mind. His Spirit Eyes, which had been partially open, had fully opened after he turned fifteen, and at all hours, things that shouldn’t be visible flickered before his eyes. Keeping up with his studies was out of the question — even getting through daily life was a struggle.
Not only could he see ghosts, but he could also feel the han, the resentment, and the lingering attachments of the dead. A shaman had described it as receiving jigi, and said that Siyun was absorbing jigi. On days like that, his body was particularly drained. But his father couldn’t understand any of it.
When his son had lost half his grip on his senses, his father had reluctantly permitted him to drop out — but he had chalked it all up to Siyun being weak.
— Don’t tell me you’re still seeing things these days.
His father did not believe what Siyun saw and heard. He dismissed it all as delusion — a mental problem.
Siyun rubbed a hand over his face.
“It’s gotten clearer, actually.”
A sound of uncomfortable displeasure came through from the other end.
A hollow laugh escaped him, tinged with bitterness. If his own blood — the one person who should believe in him and support him most — was like this, what could he expect from anyone else. It was enough to drive him mad as it was.
“So please just leave me alone. I need to let it out somehow like this, or else I’m going to completely lose my mind.”
— Pathetic.
The sharp rebuke landed like a blade, and Siyun was left with a bitter taste. His father was already in an uproar over the ghost-seeing — if he ever found out his son had dated a man, even briefly, he’d probably have him committed to a psychiatric facility that very day. His father, a corporate executive, was particularly sensitive to the eyes of others.
“Right, so please leave me alone.”
Siyun ran a palm over his face. Calls with his father always went like this. He’d only been on the phone for a few minutes, yet he felt exhausted, as if every last bit of his energy had been wrung out of him.
“I never said anything when you and mom divorced, either.”
A silence followed those words.
From the time he was young, his parents had fought nearly every day. Then, when Siyun was fifteen, they had decided it was truly hopeless and separated for good. His father had taken custody. But his father, who had been swamped with work at the time, had no capacity to look after Siyun at his side. So his paternal grandmother had inevitably taken on raising him.
At that point, Siyun’s Spirit Eyes were almost fully open. Having nightmares every night, getting hurt, startling at every little thing — his grandmother took him to a shaman.
The shaman looked at Siyun and said:
“The little one’s Spirit Eyes have opened?”
That she recognized it at once was already remarkable, but the shaman then asked his grandmother:
“He came close to death a few times when he was young, didn’t he?”
A chill ran down his spine. Just as the shaman said, Siyun had faced death multiple times as a child. The most notable were the time the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck at birth, nearly killing him before he could even see the light of the world — and the serious traffic accident he had been in during the spring of his tenth year.
“His Spirit Eyes were already open to begin with — that accident seems to have opened them even further. There’s nothing to be done about this. No one who comes along will be able to do anything.”
The shaman had been right. After that, his grandmother tracked down shamans here and there after hearing of them by word of mouth, but all of them shook their heads. Until one shaman finally said:
“Make a living with your hands. Leather, metal, things like that.”
She had clicked her tongue and said that even if what he saw couldn’t be helped, making things with his hands would bring some stability to a twisted fate.
That was how he had started leather crafting. And unexpectedly, it turned out to suit him.
His father still didn’t understand Siyun’s choices, but said nothing more. The mention of the divorce seemed to have thrown his father off.
After ending the call, Siyun set his phone down and let out a sigh.
Siyun headed to the break room. Calling it a break room was almost embarrassing given how bare it was. The space barely concealed behind two partitions held nothing more than a miniature sink that felt full with just three or four cups inside, a coffee machine, and a few teabags and loose tea leaves. The shop itself was so cramped, there was no helping it.
Siyun tore open a chamomile teabag — his drink of choice lately — dropped it into a cup, and poured hot water over it. Warm steam rose up, and a soft herbal scent drifted to his nose.
He picked up the teacup and moved to the window.
Rain was falling. By the thickness and volume of the drops, it didn’t look like it would let up any time soon.
Siyun furrowed his brow at a late heavy rain warning arriving on the threshold of early winter.
* * *
By the time Gyohyun arrived at the funeral hall, rain was still falling from the sky.
As the car came to a stop, Chief Manager Seo quickly stepped out and opened a black umbrella. The moment Gyohyun stepped out of the car, Chief Manager Seo raised it over his head. Dressed head to toe in black — suit, tie, and shoes — Gyohyun walked toward the entrance of the funeral hall.
The viewing room was on basement level one.
When the elevator doors opened, a row of floral wreaths stood lined up along the walls. The screen at the entrance of the memorial space displayed the words: The Late Yoon Hoseong. The moment he stepped inside, he was met with the sight of people murmuring and stirring.
“Let go of me!”
A woman with disheveled hair was screaming, and two men were hauling her away. It was Yoon Hoseong’s mistress.
“I’m Hoseong’s wife now. I have every right to stand as chief mourner!”
“What are you all doing? Get her out of here now!”
Lady Ko, who had been Yoon Hoseong’s mother-in-law, called out with biting sharpness. Cradled at her side was a boy who appeared to be around middle school age, his eyes swollen red from crying. He was the child of Yoon Hoseong and his late wife.
What a circus.
Gyohyun clicked his tongue, placed his condolence money into the offering box, and turned to leave. Once he was back above ground, the heavy air lifted slightly.
Gyohyun pulled a cigarette case from inside his jacket. Chief Manager Seo produced a lighter and respectfully lit the cigarette before stepping back.
Gyohyun drew deeply on the cigarette until his cheeks hollowed. He repeated this a few times. Then, with a faint smirk, he fixed his gaze steadily on one spot and spoke.
“Why did you follow me?”
At that, Chief Manager Seo looked up as if unsure what he meant. Gyohyun’s gaze was directed slightly to the left. Quickly grasping the situation, Chief Manager Seo lowered his eyes again.
“Did I look like better company for the road than your own son?”
Footnotes:
Jigi — Term used by the shaman to describe the spiritual energy of the dead that Siyun absorbs; causes physical exhaustion on particularly intense days
Han — The deep-seated sorrow, grief, and resentment carried by the dead that Siyun can feel
