Jin Gwangmin’s mouth gaped in a shocked face. The Young Master’s personality had always been difficult to deal with, but this was the first time he’d committed something close to such outrageous behavior.
“You know the first condition of purification is ‘you must see it accurately,’ don’t you? The library doll must have just been picked up when the curse happened to disappear. Sometimes curses naturally dissipate over time.”
“B-but the elder purifier clearly said purification power was imbued in the doll……!”
“Who? They must have gone senile. Bring them here. I’ll verify it together.”
“……You know they won’t come if the Young Master summons them.”
When he nodded and told them to bring the elder, Jin Gwangmin had no choice but to back down. If he conveyed this to the elder, it was obvious he’d be the only one getting scolded instead.
Now Do Seonhwa stepped forward in his place.
“Maybe his spiritual sight just hasn’t opened yet but he has tremendous potential!”
“I wonder. If he harbored high purification power, ghosts would have been drawn to him long ago.”
At Cheon Yijae’s indifferent remark, Do Seonhwa sighed.
Right, purification was directly connected to the purity of the soul. The clearer and cleaner the soul, the stronger the purification power, and such souls were especially envied and coveted by evil spirits.
She immediately turned to Seowoo with shining eyes.
“Honored one! Have ghosts never chased after you until now? Or have you felt strange presences at home! You’re most vulnerable when sleeping, so they would have approached targeting your dreams!”
At the questions asking whether he’d heard suspicious sounds at home or had nightmares, Seowoo only blinked dazedly.
Actually, he didn’t have many experiences worth calling ‘seeing strange things,’ and there was only one answer he could give to Do Seonhwa’s earnest questions.
“No. I’ve never seen anything like that at home……”
Seowoo didn’t even have nightmares often. Especially since he started living alone at nineteen, he’d never once had a troubled sleep.
The only dream he remembered was that one he’d been having repeatedly for several years……
‘Live outside.’
While he mulled over the voice from the dream that suddenly came to mind, Do Seonhwa and Jin Gwangmin staggered as if in great shock. But Cheon Yijae smirked as if he’d expected as much.
“See. You say his spiritual sight has opened?”
“But he said he saw strange things at school recently……!”
“It must have just been a few coincidental sightings. In summer, ghostly energy strengthens so even ordinary people easily witness ghosts, plus when you’re tired you originally see a lot of hallucinations.”
“……That’s, true……”
Jin Gwangmin was discouraged. During exam period, lack of sleep and stress combined to create the perfect state for witnessing hallucinations. If you’re a university senior, the burden of graduation piles on top of that.
Do Seonhwa clutched the doll with a confused face. The doll that had clearly been pitch black, covered in blotchy curses, had been washed this white……
Soon Do Seonhwa burst out with an ah! of exclamation.
“Right, let’s just verify it directly! Rather than arguing back and forth here among ourselves, we can just see with our eyes whether the honored one’s purification power is real!”
Though they said they witnessed it at the library, they hadn’t seen it accurately from the beginning, so they were uncertain. Honestly, they were also confused whether it was really possible to eliminate a curse with just a few touches. There had never been a purifier of that level in Heun’s history.
Jin Gwangmin also nodded excitedly.
“Oh oh, good! I’ll contact the purification team right now and ask for some materials—”
“I said I don’t want to receive purification, so why do you keep ignoring that……”
At Cheon Yijae’s low murmur, Jin Gwangmin froze while taking out his phone, and Do Seonhwa also flinched and hunched her shoulders. The suddenly arrived silence seemed to tautly pull the tension in the space.
No, precisely from the moment he fiddled with his rings.
Seowoo became bewildered. Come to think of it, the two had seemed startled even a little earlier when Cheon Yijae extended his index finger toward him……
Do Seonhwa barely shook her head and shouted.
“Purification is to keep the Young Master from being in pain, you know? How long can you endure and hold out? You’re getting more and more filled with hyung!”
“R-right! Recently the evil spirits have gotten ‘that,’ so their offensive is becoming unusual, which means we also need to prepare! If you get badly stained with hyung by mistake, you could lose your reason……!”
Jin Gwangmin quickly agreed and raised his voice, but somehow his voice trembled toward the end. His complexion even turned pale as if just imagining it was frightening, and he seemed not simply worried about the case of collapsing from hyung, but afraid of something beyond that.
Do Seonhwa also shouted with momentum.
“Right! The elders are all watching the Young Master’s condition—”
“Haha, you think they’re worried about me?”
Thud, Cheon Yijae cut off Do Seonhwa’s outcry while tilting his head obliquely. While he shrugged his shoulders slightly and laughed as if he’d heard something very amusing, the two couldn’t say anything.
Soon he muttered quietly.
“And you two also keep saying it’s for my sake……”
The rings filling the fingers that swept back the jet-black hair flowing forward glinted gloomily. The pale fingers, pale enough for veins to show through, momentarily struck him as alien.
“To put it bluntly, you’re saying you wish there were more leashes to bind me with?”
The eyes quietly looking down at the two were chilly.
“Are you scared of being around me?”
“……”
“Because you don’t know when I might turn violent.”
At the coldly poured out questions, the office atmosphere became precariously tense in an instant, as if walking on thin ice.
Seowoo examined the three with curiosity while organizing the situation in his head. Actually, after Cheon Yijae entered this place, the conversation seemed to rush along rapidly, so he’d been picking up bits of information. Since he had no knowledge whatsoever about spiritual ability users, it was difficult to understand properly, but he roughly pieced together the fragments.
Probably because Cheon Yijae, the successor of the organization, frequently became filled with hyung while hunting evil spirits, Do Seonhwa and Jin Gwangmin who followed him had worked hard to find a purifier. He didn’t know what ‘that’ was, but it was a situation where the evil spirits’ offensive was growing stronger and they needed to be careful, and the elders were also watching him closely.
However, the reason the organization watched Cheon Yijae wasn’t simply to regard him preciously as the successor, but felt more like monitoring him as a person requiring caution.
Above all, that expression ‘leash’……
Seowoo’s gaze turned to the black cord situated at Cheon Yijae’s neck. As his eyes subsequently turned to his earrings, rings, and bracelets in turn, the silence continued heavily.
Finally, Do Seonhwa barely shook her head.
“What are you saying? Why would I be scared of you?”
“R-ri-right. Me too……!”
“Gwangmin-ah, first you need to calm your voice.”
Pointing to the table telling him to drink water or something, Do Seonhwa smacked her lips. Just as the tension that made it difficult to move rashly was about to settle heavily again.
Ring ring ring—
“Ah.”
Seowoo’s phone rang. With the face of a person completely detached from the serious conversation happening right in front of him, he calmly took out his phone. It was a call from Park Dongju.
— Hey, Sim Seowoo! Where are you? You said you were going for a walk, so why aren’t you back yet?
“I came out of school for a bit……”
— What? The exam’s coming up soon!
“……Ah.”
Belatedly, Seowoo checked the time and sighed. The afternoon exam time had already approached, and it seemed he’d arrive just barely in time if he left immediately now.
Thanks to Park Dongju’s loud outcry, the others also seemed to have heard the situation as the atmosphere broke listlessly. Do Seonhwa and Jin Gwangmin gasped in surprise, and Cheon Yijae chuckled as if it were absurd.
“You really tried to recruit such a human?”
“H-his soul is clear, unmuddied by idle thoughts!”
“Isn’t that kind of like an insult, Gwangmin-ah……”
Jin Gwangmin shouted as if wanting to wrap it up nicely, but Do Seonhwa shook her head. Restraining him saying it was a statement with room for misinterpretation, she first led Seowoo outside.
Going outside the building together, Do Seonhwa apologized.
“I’m sorry for showing you an uncomfortable scene for no reason, honored one. The Young Master acted savagely, so you must have been scared.”
“No, not particularly……”
Seowoo answered calmly. He’d only observed as a third party the conversation exchanged between the three, and Cheon Yijae’s attitude didn’t feel threatening at all. The stories about Heun, evil spirits, spiritual ability users, and so on still approached him without any sense of reality……
Also, perhaps there was influence from hearing his concern when he first met Cheon Yijae last night.
‘It’s dangerous to come to a place like this alone late at night.’
Mm, after that he’d said not to come to a place like this if you’re sane, so his mouth wasn’t nice then either.
Anyway, when Seowoo shook his head to convey it was fine, Do Seonhwa quietly admired it, and Jin Gwangmin, who had also followed them out, was amazed.
“Usually people get goosebumps just looking at the Young Master……”
He muttered that he’d felt it from when they saw him at school, but he was truly extraordinary. Was it possible because he had the courage to give a double thumbs-up even after seeing a ghost?
