While going around filling the empty shelves with products, Yugeon came to the daily necessities corner and stopped walking.
“?”
A woman was standing in front of a shelf. Since it was a mart where customers came and went, it was natural for someone to be standing in front of a shelf, but what made Yugeon stop was the customer’s clothing. Even though it was midsummer when you’d sweat just standing still, she was wearing clothes you’d wear in winter.
Yugeon frowned with puzzlement, but soon relaxed his face and passed by the woman. After all, there are all kinds of people. As he passed by, he looked back once more, but the woman was still standing motionless in front of the shelf.
Yugeon busily went around the mart filling shelves, checking first-in-first-out, checking expiration dates in the open cases, and exchanging greetings with familiar customers who came and went. That strange customer caught his eye here and there, but since she wasn’t doing anything particularly suspicious, he just kept watch. Looking at how she wandered around here and there, it seemed like she was looking for something, but he was reluctant to speak to her first. If she asked for help first, he would help her though.
After filling the last empty shelf, Yugeon straightened his back and stretched while groaning. Just then, he saw a logistics truck entering the mart’s parking lot. Following with his gaze the route of the logistics truck passing through the parking lot and heading toward the warehouse and loading dock at the back of the mart, Yugeon rolled his shoulders thinking he had work to do and headed to the warehouse.
Instead of going outside, Yugeon was about to move through the door inside the mart that connected to the warehouse when he turned his gaze as if remembering something. Far away, he could see the woman wearing winter clothes standing in front of an open case.
“She’s still here….”
Muttering vacantly, Yugeon soon withdrew his interest and headed to the warehouse.
When he arrived at the warehouse, they were in the middle of unloading goods from the logistics truck. Yugeon rushed over and started lending a hand. As he concentrated on unloading and inspection, time flew by, and soon only a mountain of piled goods remained.
Now that inspection was finished, what remained was organizing. Yugeon began organizing the goods with his coworkers, and as he concentrated for a while, his spine suddenly went cold. Goosebumps rose on his forearm exposed below his short sleeves. Yugeon brushed down his forearm and shivered as he raised his head.
“Ugh, why is it so cold?”
It was strange. The warehouse didn’t have air conditioning, so it was like a steamer in midsummer. Yugeon stood up and looked around. He wondered if the other people were cold too. But the other coworkers were fanning themselves with their hands as if hot while walking around. It seemed like only he was cold.
He kept saying he was fine, he was fine, but he wondered if there really was something wrong somewhere. As he turned around wondering if he should go to the hospital, he saw a person right in front of him. Startled, Yugeon let out a suppressed scream and fell backward. But there was a shelf behind him, so he only bumped into the shelf and didn’t fall.
After barely calming his startled heart, Yugeon looked at the woman standing in front of him. Though she had her long hair disheveled and her head deeply bowed, just from her clothing he could tell well enough who it was. The woman wearing winter clothes.
Wondering why this woman was here, Yugeon alternately looked at the woman and the warehouse entrance, then said in a trembling voice.
“Cu-customer? You can’t come in here.”
“……”
The woman still had her head bowed with no answer. Suddenly, the woman’s deeply bowed head felt ominously foreboding. He had a premonition that something very scary was hidden in the concealed face. Yugeon straightened his posture and cautiously stepped aside.
“Or are you, are you looking for something?”
The woman finally slowly raised her head. Bloodshot eyes, a pale face, and haggard lips were revealed in turn. It was a face with no warmth or vitality at all, but the ominous feeling he’d felt until just moments ago dissipated like smoke. It seemed to be because he had faced the hidden face. Though pale, no matter how you looked at it, it was a human face. Yugeon stopped retreating and swallowed his dry saliva, then spoke kindly once more.
“You can’t come in here. If there’s something you’re looking for, I’ll find it for you, so let’s go out together.”
The woman stared up at Yugeon, then only her eyes grinned. Then she moved her lips and raised her hand to point at Yugeon.
– You.
The moment the woman opened her mouth to answer, her entire face cracked open like a dried rice paddy and blood dripped down between the cracks.
The surroundings were filled with pitch-black fog. Between the fog that repeatedly rose like clouds and scattered, black scales writhed. Swish, swish. He could also hear the sound of something crawling on the floor. Yugeon slowly looked around. It was the mart’s warehouse. Why am I here?
Suddenly he felt a gaze from above his head. When he looked up, vertical bright yellow pupils were looking down at him. As if bound by the gaze, he couldn’t move a muscle. It felt like something was squeezing him from the bottom of his body and climbing up. His throat was being choked and he couldn’t breathe. Yet he couldn’t say anything or do anything. There was nothing he could do except stare at the bright yellow pupils.
He heard an urgent voice calling him from behind. Distant and remote, but definitely a voice calling him. He wanted to answer, he wanted to turn around, but still the bright yellow pupils wouldn’t release him.
Then at some point, the distant voice gradually grew closer, and all the senses that had grown distant were sucked toward him as his eyes opened. A huge breath burst out all at once. The surroundings were noisy. His breathing was ragged as if he’d sprinted at full speed, and his vision swam.
“*Cough!* *Cough, cough!*”
His chest hurt as if burning. Yugeon clutched his chest and rolled over, coughing violently.
“Hey, Lee Yugeon!”
“Are you okay?”
Voices and hands poured out from all sides. His mind was so scattered that those things felt bothersome instead. Batting away the hands reaching toward him while coughing frantically and struggling to breathe, Yugeon finally raised his head with a disheveled face after a long while. Pale faces were looking down at him. Some were even crying.
He couldn’t understand what situation this was at all. Why was he collapsed on the floor, and why was everyone looking at him as if they’d seen a corpse?
“*Cough!* Wha… what happened?”
When Yugeon barely sat up and asked, Choi Jacheol pulled Yugeon up to sit him down and answered.
“You don’t remember?”
“?”
“You suddenly collapsed and we were so shocked, man! You weren’t even breathing, you crazy bastard!”
“I collapsed?”
Yugeon asked back as if he couldn’t believe it, then suddenly remembered the woman in winter clothes and examined everyone’s faces. But the woman in winter clothes he was looking for wasn’t anywhere.
“Tha-that woman, where is she?”
“What? What woman…?”
“The woman wearing winter clothes!”
“What? He almost dies and comes back to life and now he’s gone crazy…. What winter clothes nonsense in midsummer!”
“You didn’t see her? No one saw her?”
Yugeon looked at everyone with a desperate face as if seeking agreement, and unable to bear the incomprehensible words, Park Seongjoo shouted angrily.
“Stop it! Why are you being so scary, constantly!”
As Park Seongjoo said, some were looking at Yugeon with frightened faces. Yugeon pointed to where the woman in winter clothes had been standing as if it couldn’t be.
“She was there! A woman wearing winter clothes…! She was standing right there!”
Everyone looked at the spot Yugeon’s fingertip was pointing to. But that place was empty, and several people cautiously backed away from Yugeon.
Then Han Yunyeong approached desperately and helped Yugeon stand up.
“You, you’re going to the hospital. We called 119. Go to the hospital and get tested for something!”
Her face was drenched with tear marks. Yugeon tried to shake off Han Yunyeong’s hand with a frustrated face, but Park Seongjoo blocked him from doing so and shook her head.
“You collapsed and weren’t breathing, so unnie cried while giving you CPR. If it weren’t for unnie, you would have died.”
Only then could he fully feel Han Yunyeong’s trembling fingertips. Yugeon looked back and forth between Han Yunyeong and Park Seongjoo as if flustered, then bowed his head and apologized to Han Yunyeong in a small voice. Shortly after, with the sound of sirens, an ambulance arrived. Unable to even refuse, Yugeon had to be pushed onto the ambulance with Han Yunyeong accompanying him as a guardian.
They did every test that could be done at a rural hospital, but the results were, as expected, normal. Except that his bronchial tubes were weak and his nutritional state was a bit poor. But because the results were normal, Han Yunyeong’s face was filled with even deeper worry instead. Why would a perfectly fine kid keep collapsing and talking as if he’d seen things that weren’t there? The comment about poor nutritional state also bothered her.
Han Yunyeong grabbed Yugeon and entered a nearby restaurant to order a meal. Dragged in without knowing why, Yugeon stuck out his tongue at the food laid out enough to break the table legs.
“Unnie, I can’t eat this much….”
“Eat it even if you have to force it. Your body gets weak because you always eat only as much as a bird.”
Han Yunyeong stubbornly put a spoon and chopsticks in Yugeon’s hands. She added that he couldn’t get up until he finished eating.
“……”
Yugeon let out a deep sigh once, then began eating. Relieved at the sight of Yugeon eating well, taking small bites of everything, Han Yunyeong was about to pick up her spoon when she stopped her hand and carefully asked.
“Earlier… what you said in the warehouse, what was that about? You said there was a woman wearing winter clothes.”
“……”
When Yugeon fell silent, Han Yunyeong called him as if pressing.
“Yugeon-ah.”
Yugeon looked at Han Yunyeong, then put down his spoon and opened his mouth while hesitating a bit.
“I think I saw a ghost….”
“What?”
“Since drinking the snake liquor… a giant snake appeared in my dreams. I dreamed that the snake burned the talisman I had, and when I woke up, the talisman was really burned.”
“…Wha, what?”
“Whether it’s because the talisman burned or a coincidence, I don’t know, but since then I’ve been seeing ghosts. While watching TV, the screen suddenly turned off, and I saw someone else’s legs in the screen.”
“What is that….”
“Today I saw some woman wandering around the store, and strangely she was wearing winter clothes. But that woman followed me all the way to the warehouse. I really thought she was just a customer and told her she couldn’t come in here and asked if there was something she was looking for…. But that woman pointed at me and said ‘You.’…”
“You? She was looking for you?”
“I’m not sure. Anyway, when she said ‘you,’ her whole face cracked open and blood dripped down….”
“Aaah! Stop, stop it!”
Han Yunyeong blocked her ears in horror.
“I think I collapsed after that…. While I was collapsed, I had another dream where the snake appeared.”
“You… isn’t this really serious?”
“I don’t know. I’m just… scared and anxious.”
“This doesn’t seem like an ordinary matter….”
“I shouldn’t have drunk the snake liquor…. The snake definitely opened its eyes and stared at me….”
Han Yunyeong felt sorry for Yugeon because it seemed this trouble really was because of that snake liquor. When he said he didn’t want it, they shouldn’t have forced him to drink it.
“First… eat. Starving yourself only hurts you. I’ll talk with Ahjussi Jacheol tomorrow and look into whether there’s a skilled shaman or a spiritually powerful temple. Don’t worry.”
Though he had no appetite at all, seeing Han Yunyeong’s face worrying about him, he couldn’t bring himself to say he wanted to stop eating. Yugeon nodded with effort and picked up his spoon, forcibly pushing food into his mouth.
