“Have you regained your senses?”
“When was I ever out of my mind?”
“Seeing your manners have disappeared again, you finally seem like Cheon Jieon.”
“Seriously.”
Jieon let out an empty laugh and pouted his lips. Honestly, it was true that he had been slightly out of it, so it was embarrassing. Now that he had calmed down and reflected, the shameful behavior he’d shown last night was more than just a little humiliating.
Even if he had been flustered, he could have handled it more maturely and calmly. It hurt his pride that he seemed to have given weight to Shin Mua’s judgment of him as some inexperienced greenhorn.
It was also Shin Mua who had suggested getting some fresh air when he couldn’t properly collect himself even by morning. Thanks to that, the two were now sitting side by side on a bench in the apartment complex park.
Indeed, as he breathed in the refreshing air and looked at the quiet morning scenery, his turbulent emotions settled down calmly.
“That memory you said came back yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“Besides you switching out the pillow, is there anything else that came back?”
Jieon finally began asking the truly necessary questions. Mua opened his mouth calmly as if he had been waiting for that question.
“It seems Shin Mua had hatred as strong as his love for you. He was hoping you would be ruined.”
“Well, that’s not particularly surprising.”
“And judging from how the person who was plotting with Shin Mua earnestly urged him that there was only one chance and he absolutely must not fail, that person must be the one who led the ritual that made me like this.”
Having said that much, Mua closed his eyes and repeatedly took deep breaths and exhaled. The morning air savored in a human body was annoyingly pleasant.
“The important thing is…”
How much more will I come to like the sensations I feel as a human from now on? Deliberately ignoring such thoughts, Mua continued speaking.
“Now that I look at it, it seems what they wanted wasn’t me.”
“If not you…”
“My possession of Shin Mua’s body seems to have been an entirely unexpected accident. It appears that what they were truly after was actually you, Cheon Jieon.”
Mua couldn’t sleep all night either. He thought and thought again to figure out the reason for the malice that filled Cheon Jieon’s pillow.
“Before the accident, weren’t you feeling unwell?”
Jieon was about to ask how he knew, but shut his mouth. He recalled the talismans that exuded malice even to someone who knew nothing about shamanism.
“Is that because of the talismans?”
“That’s right. Even if you went to hospitals, they wouldn’t have been able to find the reason.”
“…Yeah.”
Jieon answered obediently. Truth be told, there wasn’t a single hospital in Korea known for good treatment that he hadn’t been to. He kept losing weight even when he ate, had constant nosebleeds he’d never had before in his life, and collapsed for no reason, yet when they ran tests they said there was nothing wrong—it was enough to drive him crazy.
“My uncle gave me a talisman back then, saying he’d grasp at straws.”
“……”
“He knew I didn’t believe in this kind of thing, but he was worried and wanted to try something. He told me to just think of it as good fortune from an elder and keep it in my wallet. But it was useless. My health only got worse after that… I never once thought it was because of the talisman.”
“…Do you still have that talisman?”
“No. My wallet was a mess when I had the accident, so I threw it away. If I still had it, we could have known more accurately.”
It didn’t matter whether the talisman had actually ruined his health or could have killed him. What mattered was uncovering the identity of the person who did this to him.
“You’re absolutely certain it’s not that Suchan or whatever, your nanny. If someone intended to plant something around you, they would have tried to recruit him first.”
“Hey, I said secretary, not nanny.”
“Secretary or nanny. What’s the difference?”
Shameless Shin Mua’s tone was still irritatingly cocky as ever, but honestly, right now that tone was both comfort and refuge for Jieon.
“Anyway, it’s not Suchan hyung. I can trust Suchan hyung as much as I trust my grandfather.”
“But you can’t trust that uncle of yours, who supposedly looked after you like a father, as much.”
Jieon bit his lip. The guilt that rose again stabbed his heart painfully.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it? When did I say he was like a real father, and now I’m doubting him.”
At the self-deprecating question, Mua turned his head slightly to look at Jieon. Seeing his gaunt face with his eyes drooping gloomily, he seemed to know what he was thinking.
“Humans are truly stupid but at the same time cunning.”
“Hey, why are you suddenly insulting humans?”
“So sometimes they recognize with uncanny accuracy what threatens them. Even if their head doesn’t know, their body and soul desperately warn to protect themselves from danger. That’s what people commonly call intuition.”
Yangseon’s gaze, gestures, and the subtle rejection that couldn’t be completely hidden by kind words that occasionally made Jieon shrink back. Jieon had thought it was only natural that his uncle sometimes found him bothersome since he wasn’t his real son after all, and let it pass.
But what if that wasn’t it? What if he had actually been hating him from some point? What if he wanted to make him disappear from the world entirely?
“But he’s been so good to me since I was very young…”
However, what held Jieon’s heart to the very end was his sincerity, which had been too vivid to easily condemn as a lie. Not just one or two years, but close to twenty years—could it make sense that everything he’d given him during that time was all a lie?
“Humans are originally like that.”
“……”
“They’re beings who can trample and destroy others at any time for their own benefit. Unfortunately, that is the truth. Of course, not everything he showed you was a lie. On some days, he probably truly felt pity for you and genuinely wanted to be good to you.”
Mua knows. How shallow human compassion is.
In the past, when Mua was human, there were such humans too. They felt sorry for Mua, saying the young one worked so hard to feed his younger sibling. They shared expensive fruit for him and his sibling to eat, and took him off the harder jobs.
But when their own lives were in danger, humans were the kind of species who could pretend not to see even when a young child was dying, bleeding on the cold floor.
“Betraying someone who isn’t even your real child in the face of your own gain is an easy thing. Do you understand what I mean?”
“But we still don’t know yet. It’s not certain that my uncle is the culprit… at least until we find more definite evidence… we don’t know.”
“Tsk… If that makes you feel better, do as you please.”
Mua was about to scold him, calling him a foolish bastard, but clicked his tongue instead. Though his mentality was stupid and weak, considering that he was still immature and young, it wasn’t incomprehensible.
If he had lost both parents at a young age and relied on that family member instead, it would be even harder to accept reality. Nevertheless, Mua knew what it meant that suspicion kept sprouting, but it wasn’t something he could accept by force.
It would be better to quickly find more accurate evidence instead.
“Does that uncle of yours come and go from your house often?”
“Not often, just when there’s something special happening in the family, or during holidays?”
“If you asked him to have a meal together, it wouldn’t be an awkward relationship, right?”
“Of course not. We eat out together often. Why? You want me to eat with my uncle?”
Jieon asked with wide eyes. Mua nodded with that characteristically indifferent expression.
“I’d like to see that bastard one more time… but it absolutely must be natural. If that bastard is really behind this, we can’t let him catch on that we’re suspicious.”
“Why are you talking so scary?”
“Keep this in mind. Stealing the life force of a perfectly healthy person who isn’t sick is absolutely not an easy thing. Moreover, hiding one’s energy so well that even a grim reaper can’t pinpoint it precisely is even more so.”
“……”
“He’s a frightening and vicious bastard, so from now on you must be careful, very careful with every single word and action.”
Mua’s voice was extremely heavy and serious. Jieon unconsciously swallowed hard. Fear arose as if an invisible energy would immediately strangle his neck and take his life.
“From now on, don’t easily accept anything others give you, whatever it may be, and if you do receive something, make sure to bring it to me for inspection. It would be best if you don’t go around alone without me in the first place.”
However, the following nagging was exactly like dealing with a five-year-old child, so he let out an empty laugh as if there had never been any fear.
“Shin Mua, you’re really funny. Are you, what, better than me right now?”
“……?”
“You don’t have any power right now. What, you can’t even communicate with your colleagues so you’re going around looking for shamans, and yet you’re acting like you’ll solve everything yourself? How absurd.”
This time it was Mua who shut his mouth. It was so true that he momentarily lost his words. The pride of a hundred-year-old grim reaper crumbled just a tiny bit.
“Ahem, even if I don’t have power! Would I have less than you!”
“When you can’t even go anywhere by yourself.”
“Huh, look at this rude bastard.”
“Oh my, yes yes. Sorry, old-timer Reaper-nim who can’t even ride in a car alone!”
Jieon, who had been teasingly mocking Mua playfully, soon burst out laughing. He hadn’t been in the mood to laugh at all, but strangely once laughter burst out, it wouldn’t stop easily.
Mua just let this impudent human bastard be. Because he knew he wasn’t laughing because he really wanted to. He was probably laughing because this situation, his circumstances, were so complicated and confusing that he couldn’t muster the courage to look at the truth, feeling overwhelmed and finding it absurd.
Mua waited until Cheon Jieon stopped laughing like crying, then got up from the bench. And looking back at Cheon Jieon, whose face had turned red from laughing, he said:
“Let me tell you one piece of good news.”
“Good news?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“That shaman has agreed to help us.”
“The shaman? The one we met before?”
A shadow fell on Mua’s face as he stood with his back to the sun. The corners of his mouth, darkened by shadow, rose slightly.
“Yes. We’ll probably be able to find a clue.”
Jieon’s heart pounded for an instant. Whether it was because of the tension of facing the truth or because of Mua’s smile was unknowable.
