Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
⟨Chapter 24⟩
“That’s a school uniform shirt’s button, correct? If you’re selling it, I want to buy it.”
The woman stood holding a parasol. Her face wasn’t visible.
“I wanted to see my son wear the school uniform, but I couldn’t. But if a button fell off like this, I would sew it back.”
She picked up the cracked button. In the light of dusk, she mumbled:
“I’m sorry I can’t be there for you.”
Yu Dan stared at her blankly. He could just stare, not being able to say a word.
“Anyhow, I’ll buy it.”
She took out a coin from her pocket and placed it down. In the instant, she disappeared between the ghosts leaving the market, no longer visible.
“Wait!”
He suddenly stood up and ran.
His non-beating heart seemed to be pounding. He mindlessly pushed through the ghosts in front of him and ran, when his arms were suddenly grabbed up.
“Found you!”
“You were here!”
The twins shouted at the same time.
“What are You doing right now? Even we were so…”
The fox yokai stopped his rebuke. He intently stared at his face.
“What did You see?”
“…”
“Who did You meet?”
“… Mom.”
He barely replied.
“She bought something a moment ago. I was robbed from everything and only had a button left, but she came to me and…”
The silence followed. Baek Ran spoke up again.
“Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying!”
“Then please wipe them off or put them back in. We can’t let the wolf catch wind of it.”
He turned around.
Behind the last group of ghosts escaping the market. He saw a red dopo[1] flutter, as a half-beast half-human ran. It at last discovered Yu Dan and the werewolf’s eyes turned bright red.
“Don’t you remember what happens to the kids who lie?”
A terrifying roar shook the sky.
Its shadow grew in size. No. It wasn’t a shadow. The shadow couldn’t move at such speed.
It couldn’t be anything. No such thing exists in this world.
His heart sunk with a thud.
An ominously wriggling darkness formed into a shape. In the middle of the speeding up whirl, as if dancing around, bright red fireballs appeared.
Two, four, six, eight.
Eight eyes.
Yu Dan froze.
He recalled the last buried memory.
The thing the old stationery store’s owner showed to him was right there.
The terrifying thing he met when he was seven. The thing which caused a horrible incident and killed his mom and numerous other people. That devilish—.
— If you don’t keep a promise, it will find you.
The werewolf whispered into young Yu Dan’s ears as it grinned.
His mind turned pure white.
“That’s what it was, eh? How it broke the barrier and entered? You were connected to each other. Through Your deepest rooted fear.”
He heard Baek Ran’s voice.
“That’s a hallucination. It caught wind of it when You met in the past. Right now it’s manipulating You through that memory.”
He blankly turned around.
The fox yokai’s white profile was dyed red. The devil’s eyes. Because of the eight bright red eyes were burning fiercely.
That thing had come.
His mind that turned white flashed. One thought, no, rather an instinct to do something completely seized him.
“… Die!”
“Yes?”
“You have to run! Everyone will die!”
“It’s a hallucination. Calm down.”
“No! You will die! Everyone will die! Everyone but me will die!”
The endless chunks of memories, as if they were chopped to pieces. He clearly remembered one of the many incoherently mingled pieces. In the blazing light, numerous corpses laid upon each other.
We died because of you.
Everyone were saying that.
“Come back to Your senses! How many times do I have to say it’s a hallucination?”
“Everyone will die! Die!”
“No!”
Someone suddenly grabbed him and turned him around.
“Not everyone died! Because I was also there that day!”
… Who?
Ah, a memory resurfaced.
A fox. A white fox, who stepped on the darkness and came down to block the terrifying monster. He had nine tails, but he said he wasn’t a nine-tailed fox. He said he was Cheon-ho, who came down from Heaven.
That’s right…
The hallucination covering his eyes at last vanished.
When he came back to his senses, the twins were dragging him back with all their might.
Why back?
At last Yu Dan realized. At some point he changed the directions and tried to enter the market again.
“Are You back to Your senses now?”
When he blankly looked and nodded to the fox yokai, Heuk-yo swiftly grabbed him.
“Then run!”
Now they were the only ones remaining in the market.
They shot out like an arrow towards the door where a white cloth fluttered. The werewolf leaped in rage.
“You promised! Brat!”
It’s done. This is your end.
The werewolf hit an invisible wall and bounced off. As if surprised by the unexpected obstruction, he showed his teeth and rushed at it again.
But it was useless.
Behind the struggling to come out werewolf, another silhouette appeared.
A white silhouette.
It was the Spider Ghost.
He moved even though he didn’t move his enormous spider legs. But it didn’t seem strange at all. Because in this world, not the law of physics, but the Spider Ghost was the absolute law.
The werewolf looked back.
The moment his hungry bloodshot eyes reflected this strange figure, he stiffened.
The spider monster’s simple eyes made from minerals looked down at their much smaller prey. One front leg stretched out without a sound and grabbed the werewolf.
The werewolf screamed.
It swung its claws, but cut nothing but air. Until the very moment he was swallowed by the mouth that without any teeth looked like a pit of hell, his animalistic face was full of questions.
It was over in a flash.
After achieving his goal, Spider Ghost disappeared in the ground. Not with an attitude as if he satisfied his hunger, but as if he fulfilled some kind of duty. A powerful man who was rejected by the people in the distant past, returned to his original place once again.
“It’s over…”
The twins mumbled.
Yu Dan also wanted to say the same thing. But he couldn’t let out a sound. There was not even a bit of energy remaining in his whole body.
“Let’s escape quickly first.”
Baek Ran took the lead.
The boat they sailed was tied by the river’s bank. Now there were no musicians, or dancers or boatmen, as if the party on the entertainment boat ended.
After everyone climbed up, the boat started to move. The Spider Ghost’s market with just the lonely white banners, because the market closed, quickly became distant.
“My earring…”
Heuk-yo suddenly mumbled.
“I planned to fix it. But I lost it because of you, huh? You will have to repay me. For a reference, it was five hundred years old pure-gold earring.”
“That’s a lie. She got it because She took out the insurance. She isn’t one to wear jewelry anyway.”
Chaeu said. As if at last they let go of their worries, the twins met eyes and giggled.
“Even so, it’s good to repay for things. How about ten cakes? To celebrate getting rid of an old bad relationship.”
Chaeseol’s eyes were smiling. Baek Ran, who was leaning against the railing and examining the strange doll he bought in the market, mumbled.
“What was gotten rid of?”
The straw doll wriggled and changed into the monster with eight eyes. Even though he knew it was fake, Yu Dan was startled. Something that bothered him since before suddenly jumped out of his mouth.
“I knew there was something.”
“What?”
“You were there at the time. I thought that you somehow felt strangely familiar from the first time I saw you.”
Then the doll flew and hit his head.
“What are you hitting me for?”
“Please come back to your senses. That was a lie.”
“A lie?”
“I wasn’t there at the time. Because You were manipulated by the werewolf, You tried to go in its direction again and again, so I said anything to try to stop You. Did You forget? A fraud can turn all ones, twos, threes, fours and fives into six. You can’t completely trust anything we say.”
Is that so?
He tried to understand it and turned to the fox yokai again.
“If so, then does it mean that the words about lying can also be a lie?”
“That’s right.”
“Those words also can be a lie.”
“That’s correct.”
“And those words…”
“Can we stop?”
He was starting to have a thought that he was picking on his words in vain anyway. Yu Dan obediently closed his mouth. Even though he wanted to think more, his head wasn’t operating, and he didn’t have the energy to question anything anymore.
“In the end, the most important things should be found out by oneself.”
He stared blankly at the river flowing quickly behind the boat.
“However if someone from the past comes back again…”
“They will come back.”
Baek Ran said back.
“They will certainly come back. The history rarely ends just as history. Especially for us in this world. Anything from Your younger days, like the promises You unknowingly made, will suddenly appear one day, even though You completely forgot about them. What kind of answer will we present at that time?”
“It’s difficult…”
“Of course it’s not easy. However, we can at least think that it’s better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than today”
“That’s right.”
Chaeu, who was seriously listening, nodded his head.
“Now that I think about it, there is something You always say. I think now it’s the moment to say it.”
It seemed he knew what it was.
The bad dream is over.
Those words had a subtle magic. The horrible nightmare was truly over, and he felt he was returning to the boring, but peaceful reality. Heuk-yo and the twins also looked out with expectant gazes, but Baek Ran was apathetic.
“No. Not yet.”
“It’s not over yet?”
Yu Dan asked in surprise.
“Of course, the scary wolf is dead, but aren’t you laying tattered in the backyard?”
“Ah, right.”
Suddenly everyone’s complexions changed. They looked at Yu Dan with pitying faces.
“What? What is the matter?”
“When you open your eyes, it’s going to hurt. A lot.”
Heuk-yo replied.
“The kids will go first and treat you with their miraculous medicine arts, but even so, the pain will be enormous. As your heart was almost plucked out.”
“What should we do? I’m afraid. I don’t think I can look.”
“Me too. We should close our eyes and ears beforehand.”
Looking at the twins’ white faces, he shivered.
“Is it a joke?”
“It would be better as a joke, but… What do I do? I can’t open my eyes.”
Baek Ran looked across him and said.
“Then please prepare.”
Thud. The boat docked.
Yu Dan tightly closed his eyes.
They were really liars.
The bad dream never ends. It pretends to be over and then continues.
He thought that while dreaming about being endlessly chased by someone. But he just opened his eyes as usual.
After his eyes accustomed to darkness, he saw things around him.
The room looked like always. The window was tightly shut and curtains were drawn.
Did he sleep for about ten hours and suddenly wake up?
Yu Dan touched his chest.
The bandages twins wrapped around him became loose. Now it didn’t hurt so horribly. It was just like a weak muscle pain.
He tied the bandages again and buttoned up, when he suddenly turned his head.
He saw his school uniform hanging on a hanger on the other side.
It was ripped to shreds by the werewolf’s claws, so the yokai said ‘tsk, tsk, it will have to be thrown away’. But for some reason it was cleaned and put aside.
He stood up and walked up to the uniform.
He didn’t know why he thought he wanted to do that, but…
He examined the left sleeve of the shirt.
His hands suddenly stopped.
The sleeve was illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the window gap.
It wasn’t an illusion. A plastic button, cracked on one side was neatly sewed there.
Yu Dan stared at it as if he lost his soul for a while.
The connection with this world was already severed. He knew now how difficult it would be to find a way back again. It was probably really the last time, right?
Really, the last…
His vision blurred.
But he didn’t cry. Because he promised before. Just like always, he opened his eyes wide and waited.
All of them evaporated in the dry air.
His vision became clear again.
He remembered the fox yokai’s words. He said that he couldn’t trust even one of his words, but even so, he wanted to trust that one.
It was better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than today…
“I really want to believe that.”
Yu Dan mumbled.
He put the shredded school uniform back and returned to bed. He carefully laid down not to open his wounds.
Soon, he came back to sleep without any dreams.
*~*~*
[1] dopo — hanbok’s outer garment.
Translator’s note: Yes, sleep Yu Dan. Get some rest, you unlucky brat ㅠㅠ
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