It was an absurd emotion, but at this point, he even felt a bit sorry for the ghost that only cried all the time. To the point where he thought it wouldn’t be bad if his departure from this world meant it wouldn’t cry like that anymore.
Of course, Seoho was aware that having such thoughts itself wasn’t normal. Seoho smiled bitterly.
“I don’t know why you keep crying like that.”
If it had cried this much, whether it was resentment or sadness, shouldn’t it be time for it to leave? Seoho imagined the crying that echoed in his ears every night disappearing.
What if the crying suddenly stopped being heard from tomorrow?
Seoho hesitantly opened his mouth.
“…Actually, I’ve gotten used to you now, so I think I’d feel a bit disappointed if you disappeared.”
At first, he was scared. Then he was fed up, and when he got a bit used to it, he moderately ignored it.
But once that crying settled as part of his daily life, now it seemed like it would be strange if he didn’t hear the crying.
‘I really must be out of my mind.’
Was it because he’d been sinking alone, just guarding the house without friends or anything, when suddenly someone to talk to named Oh Yuri appeared?
‘I’m lonely.’
Now that there was someone to talk to, even if awkwardly, it seemed like he missed people even more.
Thinking absurd thoughts alone and talking to eyes drawn on the wall. No matter how he thought about it, he really wasn’t in his right mind.
Seoho let out a small laugh and said:
“It is strange. But still, if you disappear, I’ll be alone in this house again, right?”
Seoho, who let out a hollow laugh at his own mental state for having such thoughts, soon shook his head.
“To say such things to you who might be a ghost. I really must be crazy.”
Just as Seoho sighed softly and was about to get up from his seat, his body froze while looking at the drawing.
The drawing… had changed.
Seoho put his bottom back on the bed and reached his hand toward the drawing.
“Blue…”
Color had appeared in the pupils. Just a little, but there was a blue tint.
“Why did the color suddenly change?”
He touched the wall with his hand, but nothing rubbed off. Seoho, who had been capturing the blue color in his eyes, asked stupidly:
“Are your eyes really blue?”
Blue eyes—then did that mean this ghost wasn’t Korean? At this tremendous realization, Seoho’s eyes widened.
“Were you a foreigner?”
Seoho fell into contemplation. It was troublesome that the ghost was a foreigner. Seoho asked toward the eyes:
“Then you couldn’t understand what I was saying?”
Of course, no answer came from the eyes.
“Should I do it in English? Ah, but I’m not good at English.”
After hesitating for a while and looking at the eyes on the wall, Seoho looked around the empty room and carefully opened his mouth.
“Uh, hello?”
At the voice that echoed lowly in the answerless wall and peopleless room, Seoho’s face gradually began to turn red.
Seoho let out a silent scream and rolled around on the bed.
After rolling around on the bed for a while, Seoho bolted up from his seat. Since the embarrassment wasn’t subsiding, he felt like he should go out and get some air for a bit. Seoho hurriedly left the room.
***
Two weeks had passed since the day he embarrassingly rolled around on the bed, on an afternoon as the sun was setting.
“Seoho-ya!”
At Oh Yuri’s voice calling him, Seoho approached her and asked:
“Didn’t you say it was exam period?”
He’d definitely heard that Oh Yuri had exams all this week. But just a moment ago, he’d received a contact asking if he could come out to the front of the cafe they usually frequented.
Wondering if something had happened, he’d rushed out, but Oh Yuri’s face was very bright.
At Seoho’s question, Oh Yuri nodded slightly and said:
“That’s right. I have an exam tomorrow too.”
Seoho knew that Oh Yuri felt quite a bit of pressure about the exams wrapping up the first semester. But why had she come to find him during such an important time?
“Why did you come here? Your house is far from here.”
Then Oh Yuri turned her body and handed Seoho a box that had been hidden behind her body, saying:
“To give you this.”
It was a box he’d seen occasionally. That is, a cake box.
“Cake?”
Oh Yuri squinted her eyes and said:
“It’s your birthday, right?”
“Today?”
Seoho took out his phone and checked the date. Today really was Seoho’s birthday.
“Ah. Is it?”
At Seoho’s slightly dazed reaction, Oh Yuri pouted her lips with a face full of dissatisfaction and said:
“What? You don’t even know your own birthday. Didn’t you eat miyeok-guk today?”
Seoho laughed awkwardly.
“Ah, no.”
He wasn’t the type to really pay attention to birthdays. Even at home, they didn’t particularly do anything special just because it was a birthday.
Still, on birthday mornings, he always ate miyeok-guk.
His mother, who didn’t particularly like miyeok-guk, would still make it whenever it was Seoho’s or his father’s birthday. So even if Seoho forgot it was his birthday, when miyeok-guk appeared on the table during breakfast, he would realize that today was his birthday.
As Seoho quietly looked at the cake box, Oh Yuri said:
“Aw, your family doesn’t celebrate birthdays either? My family’s like that too, so I like it when friends buy me cake as a birthday present.”
Oh Yuri pushed the box a bit more toward Seoho and said:
“Hurry and take it.”
Seoho hesitantly accepted the box.
“Thank you.”
Oh Yuri pointed at the box Seoho was holding and said:
“I noticed you seem to like chocolate cake, so I bought that. Is it okay?”
“Huh?”
When Seoho was surprised, Oh Yuri asked in confusion:
“Whenever we go to the cafe, you always order that kind when you get cake, right?”
Seoho laughed awkwardly. Seoho had never paid attention to what kind of cake Oh Yuri ordered.
“I’ll enjoy it.”
Oh Yuri shrugged her shoulders brazenly and then handed him a small shopping bag with the same brand logo as the cake.
“And this.”
Seoho, who casually looked inside the shopping bag, burst into laughter.
“Why a party hat?”
A party hat. He never thought he’d receive a party hat as a gift at this age. Oh Yuri looked at Seoho with determined eyes and said:
“If you’re grateful, you put that on your head, light the candles on the cake, take a picture, and send it to me, okay?”
“Huh?”
As Seoho was flustered, Oh Yuri waved her hand and started moving away.
“You have to do it, okay? I’m going now.”
Surprised at Oh Yuri who was about to leave as soon as she handed over the gift, Seoho asked:
“You’re going?”
“I have an exam tomorrow, didn’t I say? I’m leaving.”
Seoho greeted Oh Yuri’s departing back.
“…Take care, Yuri-ya.”
He hadn’t particularly expected an answer, but Oh Yuri answered without even looking back:
“Okay. Let’s meet after exams are over.”
“Yeah.”
As Oh Yuri moved away and Seoho was left alone, he looked at the cake in his arms and muttered softly:
“…This is what my mom liked.”
Because his mother didn’t like miyeok-guk, Seoho and his father would always buy cake when it was mother’s birthday.
Some days Seoho would buy it, other days his father would buy it, but the cake the two brought was always cake with chocolate.
Because it was the cake his mother liked. Actually, Seoho neither particularly liked nor disliked chocolate cake.
‘I guess I kept buying and eating it without even being conscious of it.’
Seoho smiled bitterly and headed home.
And that late night, Oh Yuri received a photo of Seoho smiling awkwardly with candles lit on the cake and a party hat on his head.
The area around Seoho’s eyes in the photo seemed slightly red.
***
Rosetta observed the man all day. Thanks to the mirror that showed all of the man’s daily life, now Rosetta could always see him.
The man was beautiful when sleeping, but he was also beautiful when awake.
The regrettable part was that when the man went outside, he couldn’t watch him. The space allowed to Rosetta was still only that small house.
Rosetta let out a sound of regret as he watched the man go outside again. At that moment, Puti, who had been observing Rosetta from the side, tactfully pushed documents toward Rosetta.
“You can’t see him now, right?”
Rosetta looked at Puti with a sunken face, but he didn’t back down. Since hearing last time that he was useless, he was in a state of full preparation to become a capable attendant.
First, to eliminate false rumors related to Rosetta, he was finding the main culprits who had spread the absurd rumors, and he made efforts so that Rosetta could be faithful to his own work so that other false rumors wouldn’t arise.
Of course, Rosetta used most of the day watching the man in the mirror, but still, occasionally like this when the man went out, he would look at the mirror wistfully with regret.
Puti aimed for that gap. Puti pointed at the documents once more and said:
“If you handle urgent matters quickly, you’ll have a lot of time to spend together when he comes here in the future.”
Puti continued with shining eyes:
“A man faithful to his own work is truly the model of a cool man.”
Rosetta snorted.
“Childish words.”
As Puti carefully pushed Rosetta toward the desk, he said:
“Of course, Your Majesty is someone who cannot help but be loved just by existing, but if you excellently handle your work as well, he will surely fall even more for Your Majesty.”
As Rosetta sat in the chair Puti pulled out, he answered:
“Do you think I’d fall for such words?”
He fell for them well.
