“Is this kind of question, what, rude in the Afterlife?”
“Even those who were human, the moment they belong to the Afterlife, escape from all relationships continued from the Living World and inevitably become alone. Where would a Grim Reaper have a younger sibling?”
And whether Jieon’s intuition was right, Mua’s mouth, which seemed like it would remain clamped shut forever, began to open.
“Then… you just dreamed while you were unconscious…?”
Jieon continued speaking in a way that wasn’t heavy but looked as indifferent as possible. He found himself ridiculous for being careful with every single word like someone terrified of offending Mua, but right now it was important to continue the conversation with Shin Mua.
This is all just to satisfy my curiosity. I’ve been someone who can’t sleep since childhood if I have something I’m curious about. This is all just effort to hear Shin Mua’s answer.
Jieon persuaded himself like that and focused on Mua’s words.
“A dream? Well…”
Mua’s pupils became hazy for a moment. He seemed to be looking somewhere beyond, not at the world before his eyes.
“Right. It would be closer to a dream, I suppose.”
“……”
“I must have had a nightmare for a moment. It’s nothing, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
With an expression that didn’t look like nothing at all, Shin Mua shamelessly told him not to worry about it.
“Okay. If you say so, then it must be so.”
But Jieon couldn’t ask Mua further. He couldn’t ask if it really was nothing, if there was something weighing on his mind, if there was something that wasn’t a dream.
Because Shin Mua isn’t an important person to Cheon Jieon. Just as before the accident, even after the accident, Mua is just a crazy lunatic.
Because I don’t believe his nonsense about being a Grim Reaper. Because I must not believe it.
So Jieon had no choice but to bury the many things he wanted to say in his heart and pass it off pretending he had no more interest.
“Do you have more to say?”
Mua asked Jieon, who was glaring with his mouth clamped shut, feeling somehow frustrated and wronged.
“Don’t you have anything to say?”
Instead of answering, Jieon returned the same question. The deeply sunken atmosphere, eyes full of thoughts. Even though it was visible that he too had words buried in his chest right now, Shin Mua didn’t seem to have any intention of opening his mouth.
He was probably the same. Because Cheon Jieon and Shin Mua were nothing to each other. Because to Shin Mua, Cheon Jieon was just a human scrap he’d gotten entangled with by chance, who would fall into a completely different world before long.
Even if he had things he wanted to say, he too couldn’t easily open his mouth.
“…I have nothing like that. Don’t bother me for no reason, and if you have nothing to say, get out.”
In the end, it was Mua who ended the conversation first. The frustrating emotion whose identity he still couldn’t know kept boiling up, but fortunately he could still hide it well without revealing it all outwardly. For now.
“Fine. I’m going, going. Sleep well or don’t.”
Still, frustration was frustration, so Jieon spitefully acted petulant once and slammed the door hard as he left.
Mua, left alone and abandoned, looked at the closed door with a gaze wondering why is he acting like that, then soon burst into a chuckle.
“What a frivolous fellow.”
What was strange was that the depressing emotion that had been slowly choking him until just moments ago had somewhat retreated with Cheon Jieon’s appearance. Mua looked at the door with a faintly smiling face for quite a while before finally lying back down on the bed.
Actually, a very long time ago, I too had a young sibling. I loved that child so much that there was nothing I couldn’t do for them. If I could, I really wanted to make that young and kind sibling happy.
That he’d actually wanted to tell such a story when Jieon asked was something no one noticed now.
***
“……”
“……”
A strange silence continued at the dining table where Cheon Jieon and Shin Mua sat. Eating while facing each other like this was awkward in itself, but the atmosphere was even stranger because of what happened last night.
Jieon was so busy secretly stealing glances at Shin Mua, who was gradually pushing food into his mouth before him, that he himself didn’t know whether he was putting food in his mouth or his nose.
Jieon hadn’t slept a wink last night. When he closed his eyes, the images of Shin Mua pitifully searching for his sibling and his somehow sad-looking appearance from earlier kept alternating in his mind, making it impossible for his heart to find sleep.
He was curious about Shin Mua’s last night. Whether he too had tossed and turned unable to sleep, whether he kept thinking about himself asking if he had something to say.
Most of all, the most curious thing was who exactly the Shin Mua before him right now was.
Rationally, he knew. That the Shin Mua from before the accident and the current Shin Mua were fundamentally the same person. But Jieon’s emotions kept separating the two like different people.
The days when he naturally thought of the Afterlife and such had increased. At first, the feeling that he was just going along with nonsense because he was tired was strong, but now there were many times when even that awareness didn’t come.
He was starting to seriously worry whether he too was going crazy.
“Cheon Jieon?”
“Huh? Huh huh?”
“……? Why are you so surprised? You’re spacing out.”
“Spacing out, what do you mean, why did you call me?”
Jieon, who’d been startled when he suddenly called out while he was only thinking about Shin Mua, coughed in embarrassment and retorted. Mua put down the chopsticks he was holding and looked straight at Jieon and said.
“My health seems to have completely recovered now.”
“Ah…”
“We should go looking for a shaman, shouldn’t we? You wouldn’t be pleased if this kind of life goes on long either.”
Wouldn’t be pleased.
Hearing those words, he strangely felt hurt. There wasn’t a single wrong word, and he’d wanted so badly to shake off Shin Mua from his life, so it was right to escape as quickly as possible before he came back to his senses.
Seeing him act like that with a tone without an inch of regret made his heart feel prickly for no reason. The thought naturally came that he was truly a shameless bastard, receiving help from start to finish.
“Right. Being with you is really terrible, so let’s go today. Let’s go right now!”
“I’m not saying I won’t go, so why are you getting angry? Anyway, that temper of yours, tsk tsk.”
The sight of him even clicking his tongue as if pathetic made his irritation grow. Really, the one who’s arrogant and has a bad temper is him, yet the nature of blaming others seems to remain the same even with memory gone.
“……”
Getting angry and spitefully considering the past Shin Mua and the current Shin Mua the same person, he was rather the one more damaged by that thought.
Thinking that the Shin Mua before his eyes, the Shin Mua who was a Grim Reaper who seemed to be a lunatic, crazy bastard, and even have old-fashioned tendencies, would eventually return to his appearance from before the accident made his stomach hurt and even made him afraid.
“Why are you like that again?”
Mua, who had been looking with a puzzled face at Jieon who’d shouted loudly but became gloomy in an instant, asked.
“What about me?”
“You suddenly look depressed again.”
“……”
“Is there something wrong?”
What is he trying to do? This time he treats him kindly again. In the end, feeling self-loathing at the thought that he alone kept being emotional, Jieon let out a deep sigh and opened his mouth.
“No. I just… I tossed and turned last night, so I guess I’m a bit sensitive.”
“I see. If you’re not feeling well, well, we can go tomorrow.”
Honestly, from Mua’s perspective, he wanted to go as soon as possible, but it wasn’t urgent enough to forcibly drag someone who was unwell. However, Jieon shook his head.
“It’s not that bad, so let’s go today. I really want to resolve this quickly too.”
This time Jieon was sincere too. If they stayed like this any longer, he’d have to go to a mental hospital before Shin Mua. Whether it was a shaman or anyone else, it didn’t matter as long as they could quickly resolve this situation.
“Let’s really see the end this time.”
Making a resolution to no one in particular, Jieon continued his meal with a determined face. He was determined not to recall Shin Mua’s pitiful face anymore.
***
“Cheongung… Manbok… Bosal…”
Jieon’s voice reading the sign before him with a dazed face trembled pathetically. Though the name seemed to have been on the list Suchan made, he hadn’t paid much attention except for the address, so he didn’t know it was such a grand name.
“Is the shaman here really good?”
“That’s what they say, but I wouldn’t know. There are a lot of people though.”
Jieon shrugged his shoulders. Suchan wasn’t someone who did things carelessly, so he would have found a famous place well. However, since Suchan also didn’t truly believe Mua’s words, he didn’t know if he’d sincerely investigated a truly verified person.
“Please come this way.”
Meanwhile, someone neatly dressed in a simple modernized hanbok approached and guided the two. Mua slowly followed behind while looking around.
Actually, Mua didn’t really trust those called shamans. Though there were those with abilities and missions, the majority of today’s shamans believed in half-baked spiritual senses and were desperate for money, and there were also plenty of frauds who didn’t even have that half-baked spiritual sense.
If even a tiny bit of a Grim Reaper’s abilities had returned, there would never have been a need for a human shaman.
But now was a situation where he had no choice but to grasp at straws. Mua let out a long breath as if calming his mind and body and entered the room where the one with the grand name ‘Cheongung Manbok Bosal’ was.
“Tsk tsk…”
Cheongung Manbok Bosal, sitting before a large altar, looked alternately at Jieon and Mua sitting before him and exaggeratedly clicked his tongue. An inexplicable anxiety tickled Mua’s chest.
And before the two could say anything, the stern-faced Cheongung Manbok Bosal spoke.
“What good is physical compatibility if your hearts don’t align—heaven won’t grant you a child either. Tell me straight! No matter what you do, you can’t conceive, right?”
Into the shrine thick with the smell of incense, a heavy sigh flowed from the one who had been a Grim Reaper but was possessed in a human body.
Cheongung Manbok or whatever the hell his name is—eliminated.
