“You bastard, why does your face look like that?”
Mua, who had come out of his room to drink water, discovered Jieon sprawled carelessly on the living room sofa and asked with a puzzled expression. Jieon, who had been attacked out of nowhere, answered while lying down and rubbing his cheeks with his palms.
“Why are you suddenly picking a fight? What about my face!”
“No, your face is so red, you look like someone who ate something wrong.”
“Even when you talk… what do you mean ate something wrong?”
Even as he retorted, Jieon felt his forehead with his hand. His palm was burning hot.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s from the shock, or maybe it’s because the tension released. I have a bit of a fever.”
“Tsk, to have such a small liver.”
I want to argue that my liver isn’t small, but since he had acted too embarrassingly when they discovered the talismans, the words didn’t come out easily.
“My head is already pounding, so don’t talk nonsense.”
“…Is it that bad? Shouldn’t you take some medicine?”
Though he said that, Mua, who was somewhat worried, asked again. Considering what Cheon Jieon had been through recently, it wouldn’t be strange if he had come down with something.
“Forget it, what medicine for a slight fever? I’ll just sleep well for a day and wake up fine.”
Jieon, who said this, seemed too bothered to even respond. Though his condition didn’t look very good, he wasn’t a one or two-year-old child, so thinking he would take care of himself, Mua was about to go back to his room when Cheon Jieon opened his mouth.
“Hey.”
Mua silently turned his head to look at him. Jieon, who had been sprawled on the sofa, slowly sat up.
“I have something I’m curious about…”
From his lowered voice, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be a light question. Mua turned back from heading to his room, approached Jieon, and sat down on the opposite sofa.
“What are you curious about?”
“Um, so…”
Uncharacteristically, Jieon hesitated and couldn’t easily begin.
“You’re a grim reaper, right? So like, you’d mostly be in the Afterlife, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then… you can talk with dead people and stuff, right?”
And when he had stumbled through saying that much, Mua could figure out what story he wanted to tell.
“You want to talk about your deceased parents.”
“Wow… you’re rude as naturally as breathing, aren’t you?”
Flustered that the other party had come out too directly when he was having difficulty unfolding the story, Jieon muttered. Normally wouldn’t people be a bit careful about talk of deceased parents? Is there no etiquette in the Afterlife? He had such thoughts.
Regardless, Shin Mua, who always had ‘manners’ on his lips, said calmly:
“What’s rude about calling your deceased parents your deceased parents?”
But when you think about it, it wasn’t wrong. Jieon, who let out a chuckle, nodded. When Mua came out like that, his heart became much more comfortable instead. It seemed okay to ask a bit more lightly.
“Yeah, you’re so great. Anyway… my parents passed away when I was young.”
Seeming to know what sentence would follow, Mua quietly waited for the next words. Jieon shrugged his shoulders lightly as if not wanting to make the atmosphere too heavy and continued speaking.
“No, well, so what I’m curious about is this. If you solve this case and become a grim reaper again and return to the Afterlife…”
“……”
“Then I was wondering if you could maybe find my parents and talk to them.”
Though he tried to act like it was no big deal, in the end his last words trembled. Hoping Mua hadn’t noticed that trembling, Jieon deliberately widened his eyes more.
He was already always being called young and immature, so at this age he didn’t want to be seen as someone whining that he still missed his parents.
“Do you want an honest answer?”
Mua asked. Jieon nodded vigorously.
“Of course. Just tell me as it is, the truth.”
“The possibility isn’t entirely zero, but it would be right to see that the probability of it not happening is higher.”
Mua spoke directly without beating around the bush. Even if he lied here, Cheon Jieon would never be able to know it was a lie, but he didn’t want to give such shallow comfort.
Because he knew better than anyone what it was like to lose family, to miss them. Even I wouldn’t have wanted such half-hearted comfort filled with lies.
Mua answered calmly, but without adorning anything.
“If they’ve already been reincarnated, meeting them would be impossible, and if they’re preparing for reincarnation, even if you meet them, no memories would remain.”
“Ah…”
“If they’re in the Afterlife in a state where their memories haven’t been erased, I could go find them and meet them, but… for a grim reaper to arbitrarily convey words from the Living World to the dead goes against the rules.”
As Mua’s words continued, Jieon’s expression became gloomier. Still, this was the truth, so it couldn’t be helped.
“In very special cases, you can get permission from the higher-ups, but… isn’t it the same in the Living World? Most of those in higher positions are inflexible.”
This time Mua shrugged. Human circumstances are pitiful and sorrowful only to humans; to those who have spent such long periods of time in the Afterlife that counting days is meaningless, they’re just stories in overabundance.
There’s a pitiful human who lost both parents when young and wants to ask the parents just one thing.
Such a story would actually dissipate and disappear before even reaching the higher-ups. To put it more coldly, among the humans who come to the Afterlife, it would be harder to find one who didn’t have such a story.
However, the corners of Mua’s mouth, conveying that obvious fact, drooped gloomily as well. He also knew better than anyone that just because it was a common story didn’t mean the wound hurt any less.
‘Do you think your sibling dying unjustly is such a big deal? If you lined up souls with such stories, what would the Afterlife be—you’d have to line them up all the way to the Living World, punk. Making such a fuss when you’re just a young one left full of nothing but resentment. Tsk tsk.’
The old-timer among old-timers, the god of old-timers, the great demon king of old-timers, the Afterlife’s strongest old-timer Lord Yeomra’s words to him when he died and came to receive punishment were remembered vividly without a single word forgotten even after a hundred years.
He didn’t know how much those words had hurt his young heart. So even while speaking without lies, Mua chose his words. Because there was no need to sprinkle salt on Cheon Jieon’s wounds when he would already be sufficiently hurt and upset.
“Wow, are the people in the Afterlife’s higher-ups even more old-timers than you?”
However, instead of becoming gloomy, Jieon lightened the mood with a joke. Though it was a bit disappointing, he hadn’t had high expectations from the start, so he wasn’t particularly upset or disappointed.
On the other hand, the fact that the Afterlife existed was also a strange comfort. He had thought that when you die, everything that existed disappears, but still, his parents would someday be reincarnated and live another life.
Even though that didn’t mean he could meet his parents again or that his parents would remember him, Jieon still felt good. He felt comforted.
Another thing that surprised Jieon a bit was that Shin Mua, who was annoyingly good at talking back, was actually choosing his words quite carefully. He hadn’t given any particularly warm comfort, nor had he fabricated and planted hope, but he felt that Mua was considering his feelings.
Was it because he had gone through such a tremendous incident? Or was it because he said he wasn’t feeling well? Either way, it seemed that grim reapers weren’t beings entirely without emotion.
“What do you want to say?”
Shin Mua asked. At the unexpected question, Jieon’s eyes widened. Mua quietly gazed at Jieon and added:
“I’m asking what you would want to convey if you could talk with your parents. If, hypothetically, you could.”
That question was, for Mua, unusually and somewhat impulsively asked. Even though the probability of being able to convey it to Cheon Jieon’s parents was slim, he wanted to hear it. So if by any chance an opportunity arose after the entire case was resolved, he felt willing to gladly convey it.
Mua thought. This absolutely isn’t because I sympathize with Cheon Jieon or care about him; anyway, since I’m receiving help, I just want to repay the debt I owe. Returning what I’ve received is completely natural.
“Let’s hear it. Who knows? If we resolve this matter well, Lord Yeomra might look upon you favorably.”
It was something he said to make excuses, but thinking about it, it didn’t seem entirely impossible. Since even the Afterlife was viewing this case as a serious problem, if they resolved it well, obtaining permission didn’t seem like it would be difficult.
“Um, so I…”
It was Jieon who hesitated instead at those words. Now that he was actually asked the question, the words didn’t come out readily. Rather than not having words to say, it was because he wasn’t sure if they were words he could ask.
“You can think about it slowly and tell me later. If it’s really like that, you can even write it down.”
When Mua, who thought the reason for hesitation was embarrassment to say it in front of him, stepped back, Jieon opened his mouth in a very small voice.
“So first… I… I… to say I’m sorry…”
Once again his heart ached—Mua bit his lip.
“Tell them I’m sorry. Because my parents… passed away because of me.”
“What do you…”
“It rained a lot that day, it was a day we were supposed to go out, but it rained a lot, so my parents said let’s go another day, let’s go when the rain stops.”
“Ah…”
“But I threw a huge tantrum crying. That it absolutely had to be today. That we had to go today. No matter how much Mom tried to soothe me, I wouldn’t stop crying.”
At the predictable story, Mua unconsciously clenched his fists tightly.
“I wasn’t usually a child who threw tantrums like that… but that day, when I threw a tantrum I’d never thrown before, my parents must have thought, how much must this kid want this…”
Mua’s younger sibling had always wanted to see where their older brother worked. Can’t I come visit where you work, hyung? Though the sibling always asked that, since he couldn’t keep watching over them, he didn’t want to bring his sibling to the perilous construction site. So he had only said no.
“So… so they drove in that rain. My parents.”
Jieon’s voice began to tremble pitifully.
