Eun Seonmyeong, who had returned to his room, closed the window. Only embers remained in the incense burner.
“I should quit using sleeping herb from now on.”
Eun Seonmyeong muttered as he poured water to completely extinguish the incense burner’s embers. Thinking it was better to force himself to sleep than writhe in pain, he’d occasionally used sleeping herb. However, sleeping herb develops tolerance if used often. Moreover, since there was a slight hallucinogenic component in sleeping herb, he’d been careful and only used it for about a day or two rather than throughout the entire curse period.
But from now on, he thought he should absolutely never use it. Because of a dream.
While sleeping intoxicated by sleeping herb earlier, he’d dreamed of undressing a woman. In the dream, Eun Seonmyeong stripped the clothes of the woman lying beside him, leaving not a single thread. Having always looked at women like stones, he’d sneered and ignored them even when they came on to him completely naked, so it was truly strange. He wanted to undress the woman in the dream, wanted to embrace her.
If the resolution ‘I will absolutely never take a woman or marry’ hadn’t struck him like lightning when he’d completely undressed her, he might have taken her.
The Imugi’s curse is passed from father to child through the blood. The moment of conception is when the curse is also passed on. Perhaps because they carried a child full of strong curses in the womb for ten months, or because they mixed bodies with a man bearing the curse, women who married men of the Eun family also didn’t live long. In other words, both husband and wife died young. Shim Iyul’s father died at forty-two, and his mother at thirty-five. When his mother passed away, Eun Seonmyeong was ten years old. He remembered the sorrowful winter rain pouring down as if understanding young Eun Seonmyeong’s grief at losing his mother at such a young age.
Eun Seonmyeong resolved while burying his mother in the ground in the rain. That he would live alone for his entire life and not have children. That he would end the Eun family with his generation. He didn’t want to pass the curse to a child, nor did he want the child to live their life bearing guilt that they’d killed their mother.
When he declared he wouldn’t marry, Han Seolju pleaded that while he understood his heart, he should marry and continue the lineage, and Ban Hanseong had said ‘Since you have such a fine body anyway, shouldn’t you use it freely? If you don’t want children, just get surgery and tie it off, right?’ Ban Hanseong, who told him to get surgery and play around promiscuously, was actually a virgin himself. His body belongs to ghosts, he says. Anyway, he’s not in his right mind. In terms of being crazy, he’s neck and neck with the fox…
“You really don’t hurt anywhere? To be precise, I mean the back. Your anus, that is.”
Eun Seonmyeong frowned, recalling Shim Iyul’s question.
“Crazy fox bastard, why the hell would he ask something like that as a question?”
How unsettling.
Eun Seonmyeong, who had been about to get up thinking he needed to check directly to settle this unsettled feeling, sat back down.
“Damn curse.”
Eun Seonmyeong, who had poured out curses, resentment, and profanity toward the Imugi as he always did when suffering the curse, lay down on the bedding.
***
The morning of December 19th. Upon opening his eyes, Eun Seonmyeong felt that this curse had ended. His body felt light and vitality had returned. Opening the door with a relieved heart, he saw Han Seolju just climbing onto the main hall veranda.
“Has it ended?”
Han Seolju, who had grasped from his complexion that the curse had ended, asked for confirmation.
“It’s ended.”
“You’ve worked hard this time too.”
“Do you know what that fox brat has been doing all this time?”
Eun Seonmyeong, who hadn’t seen Shim Iyul since the day Ban Hanseong came, asked. Though he’d been confined to his room because of the curse, he was suspicious of the fox’s whereabouts who hadn’t shown even a glimpse for the past several days.
“According to Seungjin, aside from going out in the morning to buy coffee, he hasn’t budged from the annex at all.”
“Who’s Seungjin?”
“The little ghost.”
Little ghost Lee Seungjin had sulked and complained to Han Seolju saying ‘Fox-nim won’t play with me.’ So for the past few days, Han Seolju had been busy playing with the little one after coming home from work.
“Come to think of it, where’s Ban Hanseong?”
Only then did he realize he hadn’t seen Ban Hanseong since the first day either.
“I don’t know.”
Han Seolju answered with a deep sigh.
“He’s not answering his phone?”
“Isn’t that bastard’s phone only for outgoing calls?”
Of course, both incoming and outgoing worked. It was just that Ban Hanseong, finding it bothersome, only used it for outgoing calls when he needed it.
“What the hell is he doing?”
The moment he shook his head and stepped down to the yard, he saw Shim Iyul coming out of the annex, and his face looked haggard. He looked exactly like someone who had been severely ill.
“Is your curse over?”
“Why do you look so wretched? Anyone would think you were the one suffering.”
I’m the one who worked hard suffering the curse.
At Eun Seonmyeong’s sarcastic question, Shim Iyul scowled and shouted.
“What do you know!”
Heat had come three times over the past three days. Once a day. He’d gritted his teeth so hard, worried he might lose his reason and run to the main house.
“Hey, your curse is definitely over, right?”
Shim Iyul confirmed with a pale complexion.
“Why are you so interested in my curse? You said you have nothing to do until the White Fox’s yokai energy shows itself again. What are you scheming?”
“Scheming what? I’m relieved now.”
Even if he ran to the main house, now that Eun Seonmyeong was fine, wouldn’t he drive him away if he lost his reason to heat? He’d wondered if he should give up everything and return to the mountain, but if this was fortunate, it was fortunate. Shim Iyul trudged to the main hall and pushed Eun Seonmyeong aside to sit down.
“Buy me a cup of coffee. Einspänner. I have to have that in the morning.”
Eun Seonmyeong looked down at Shim Iyul, who was drooping his shoulders and acting pitiful. Then he wrinkled his nose. From Shim Iyul came the smell he’d encountered in the car when they were heading to the Seonjin estate several days ago. At an unknown feeling, Eun Seonmyeong took a step back and crossed his arms.
“I’ll lend you one instant coffee mix.”
“I don’t drink instant coffee! It has to be Einspänner with lots of cream, okay? And if you’re giving it, you give it—what’s this about lending?”
“Because you and I aren’t in a relationship where we give and receive things without compensation.”
At Eun Seonmyeong’s indifferent retort, Shim Iyul raised his eyebrows.
“I won’t take it! I absolutely won’t take it! Just try offering me anything. I’ll refuse mercilessly, so don’t get hurt, okay?”
When he was fuming that it was absurd to talk about lending or not lending a measly instant coffee, not even a whole container but just one packet, the gate opened. The person entering even more drooped and trudging weakly than Shim Iyul from before was Ban Hanseong.
“Haah, family head. You need to help me.”
“Where have you been all this time?”
“My goddess Seo Junhee won’t listen to me.”
“Won’t listen to you?”
“She’s absolutely determined to kill the Seonjin son or whatever, and I’m exhausted from trying to stop her. It’s been a while since I’ve had a ghost who won’t listen to me.”
Ban Hanseong sat down weakly in the yard.
***
“Her energy has grown even stronger. She’ll become an evil ghost.”
Shim Iyul muttered in an intrigued tone while slurping his Einspänner. Seo Junhee, whom he saw after several days, had grown much stronger in energy and was closer to becoming an evil ghost. The grudge layered upon layers in her eyes shedding blood-red tears was so deep he could even feel a chill. With the winter cold, the vengeful ghost’s chill, and cold coffee added together, Shim Iyul’s body was shivering.
“Why did you follow?”
Eun Seonmyeong, who had been forcibly dragged along by Ban Hanseong to save his goddess, looked back at Shim Iyul as if it was absurd. Shim Iyul, who had bought coffee and chased after them in a taxi, shrugged his shoulders.
“Because it seemed like it would be fun.”
Originally, watching other people’s fights is fun. Moreover, it wouldn’t be an ordinary fight but a fight between a Hunter and a ghost, so how interesting and fun would that be? Shim Iyul wasn’t one to miss such big entertainment.
“What terrible taste.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
When Shim Iyul grinned, Eun Seonmyeong frowned as if thinking ‘That crazy fox.’
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“If it sounds like a compliment to my ears, it’s a compliment, you know.”
It was when Shim Iyul answered leisurely.
“Let go! Why are you stopping me!!!!”
Seo Junhee was furious, as if resentful of being blocked by the ghosts Ban Hanseong commanded. Her long hair flew in all directions, and the floor froze. His ears hurt from the screams she was letting out. If an ordinary human passed by, their eardrums would burst from Seo Junhee’s wailing.
Tsk, Eun Seonmyeong clicked his tongue and pulled out a gun from his chest and shot at Seo Junhee. The silently flying bullet hit Seo Junhee’s chest.
“Ahhhhhhh!!!”
Seo Junhee collapsed while letting out a scream full of pain.
“What are you doing! I asked you to save her, not eliminate her! She almost got eliminated!”
Ban Hanseong threw a fit. He immediately ran to Seo Junhee and asked worriedly “Are you okay?”
“She won’t be eliminated. It’s an exorcism bullet without my blood.”
A bullet made by removing the blood full of spiritual energy and mixing only the ashes of burned talismans and peach branches with purified water, so it just dealt a bit of damage.
“Even so, what kind of behavior is this! Use words, use words!”
“You use words. I have no intention of talking with ghosts, especially evil ghosts.”
“Who’s an evil ghost? Not yet!”
