Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
⟨Chapter 36⟩
***
Night wind entered through an open window.
Since he turned on the desk lamp and laid down on his belly in bed, Yu Dan was thinking. However, what he came up with were just incoherent thoughts and doodles littering the papers.
He put down the pen and laid down.
Schrödinger’s cat, the monster a child turns into… the words of the fox yokai still lingered in his head.
What was inside of the box?
As he stared blankly, the room turned into a dark box.
Yu Dan abruptly stood up.
At some point even the bed disappeared and only darkness remained. He stretched out his hand, but it didn’t touch anything. He fumbled around, when his fingertips abruptly touched something.
He grabbed it.
Cold metal. Covered in a sticky liquid.
Yu Dan looked down at his hand.
He saw a golden dagger, drenched in blood.
The instant he was filled with terror, he heard an animal cry in his ears.
He abruptly opened his eyes.
At some point Yu Dan laid down on his belly on the bed. One arm dropped outside of the bed and touched the floor.
… It was a dream, huh?
Then he heard the cry again. He looked in that direction.
The bedroom door was slightly opened. In that doorstep’s gap stood a thing of unknown shape.
It was a small fox, folded and made out of paper.
After he met its eyes, it wagged its tail. It seemed to mean to follow it.
Ah, that sound was a fox cry, huh?
Seeing how he sent it to wake him up, it seemed that he at least found that abandon house. Didn’t he say it would take a long time because he was too bad at drawing?
Yu Dan followed the fox outside.
He hesitated at the entrance door. The wind was cold. He took a thin jumper and stepped out again.
The paper fox took the lead and guided him. Even though he only descended the apartment stairs, he had no idea where he was, and soon everything became blurry.
As if moving at an extremely fast speed, the surrounding scenery blended into one lump and flashed past him. Like in the star trail pictures, everything drew straight line trajectories while shining. When looking closely, he seemed to recognize where he was, but before that the location changed to another straight away.
Where the hell did it try to bring him?
The paper fox walked for quite a while and then stopped. With a thud, the scenery quickly stopped.
The distorted lights found their original positions and took on familiar forms. Black sky. Moon. Faint street lamps. In the night that couldn’t be described as nothing else but silent, he abruptly found an abandon house standing there.
In front of it stood the fox yokai, and he looked back, sensing the presence.
The ears were originally brown, but because of the lights, they looked almost white. In contrast, the eyes that turned to look at him, bloomed with dark brilliance as if ignited by sucking all the dim light from the surrounding.
Even though the wind blew, his hair didn’t move. This place, which lost all of its vitality, because it was already dead, couldn’t bare that wicked energy[1]. The darkness knew who they came to find. As the air shook, the rumors spread. As expected, this case wasn’t an advantageous fight for the fox yokai, who lived for a thousand years.
“Then shall we start tonight’s play?”
Beak Ran spoke like that and smiled.
“No, before we start. You can still turn back right now.”
“I don’t like it.”
He once again had a hallucination of the cogwheels clicking into place.
Yu Dan walked up closer.
In the lonely dark corner of the alley. There was a two-story western style house, which seemed to be pretty good for its time, but now was ruined.
The glass in the windows was all completely broken. The shrubs of ivy and tangles of thick veins made him think of worms feeding on a rotting animal corpse. A corpse that no one found, and which didn’t rot away.
“How there can be such a house among ordinary mansions? Is it because it’s supernatural?”
“Yes. Because people unconsciously try to cover their eyes. It’s as if this house doesn’t exist right now. Even when passersby directly look at it with their own eyes, it just passes them by, and in all documents it would be recorded just as a blurry text.”
While pushing weeds away, he crossed the garden to enter.
The entrance door let out a scream-like sound, as he pulled it open.
The inside of the house was much more eerie and cold than the outside. A sour smell brushed his nose. An evil smell. Was it the energy of a monster? The furniture couldn’t endure that energy and broke down.
Yu Dan looked around the room.
Somewhere in that house was a child caught by a monster and locked in a different space, but he didn’t feel any trace of her. Wasn’t she perhaps shouting for help? He perked up his ears, but he heard nothing.
Baek Ran sat down in front of a broken TV.
He followed him to sit down, but suddenly something cold and gruesome touched his leg. He stepped back in terror, but it was just a greasy glass bead.
The fox yokai laughed without a sound.
“You react well, so You’re a good playmate, eh?”
“Is it fun for you? Because it isn’t for me.”
Yu Dan grumbled.
“Shouldn’t we play now?”
“What should we play?”
“You chose. Is there a game the Gokdugi would like?”
“There is.”
Baek Ran took out an old book from his sleeve. Looking at the pages he was flipping through, it was a play book, showing drawings of children playing.
“To match this Gokdugi’s taste, the game similar to a hide-and-seek would be best. Let’s see… How about Bogsanol (봉사놀 Old blind man play)?”
“What kind of play is volunteering work (봉사하다 Bongsan-hada)?”
“Not that bonsan. Eommokui. A play where You cover Your eyes. An old man game, or in others words, blind man’s bluff[2]. The tagger has to catch an opponent and guess their name.”
Baek Ran turned the play book around and showed it to him. A child with eyes covered by a blindfold was trying to catch other children.
“There are many points to be wary of in children’s games. They watch a blind man with an unclear mind and laugh. And if one is captured by a blind man’s hands, the person with eyes open is no better than a person with eyes closed. This is the blind man’s bluff game. Please remember that.”
Saying that, he swiftly took out a towel.
“Please be a tagger. Because this way the game will be more fun. It has to be fun for Gokdugi to come.”
Yu Dan covered his eyes with a cloth and tied it.
Not being able to see, he felt even stranger. Even without it, everything was unrealistic. Now it felt completely surrealistic.
“Then shall we lure out the Gokdugi? As I said, the game has to proceed naturally. You can’t spoil the fun later. Even if it suddenly appears, don’t be surprised and calmly continue the enjoyable game.”
“Got it.”
“This way.”
The fox clapped.
With the mindset of getting rid of the tagger position quickly, he moved first to hastily grab him. What he caught into his hands was a soft and fluffy fur bundle.
“What is it? A fox tail? I caught you!”
“That’s not my tail.”
“Then?”
“Please try again.”
He just felt dizzy, as he was possessed. He lost a grip on the thing he assumed was a fox tail and when he turned back and forth, he collided with someone.
“Ah, sorry—“
He was about to drowsily apologize, when he stiffened.
… Who?
“This way.”
Baek Ran’s clapping summoned him to the other side. But in that moment. He heard clapping just right at his side.
“Who?”
Not one. Two, three, four…? He heard clapping sound from all around. As he stretched out his hands, his fingertips brushed against something unbelievably cold and smooth. Some cackling laughter burst out.
“What? Strange.”
“It’s fine. You’re doing very well.”
Yu Dan stretched out his hand towards the direction of the voice. But what he caught in his hand was rough hair. As he roughly felt it out, it seemed to be a bundle of disheveled hair. There was nothing under the neck.
“What is that?!”
Laughter burst out around him.
Together with the sound of clapping coming from all directions, he heard messy footsteps. For how long was he playing? His eyes were closed, but he felt numerous shadows fly around him. As he couldn’t make them out, he stretched out his hand at random. Everything just narrowly escaped his hands.
The laughter grew louder. Then a woman’s cold hand brushed his forehead.
“Who?”
“It’s nothing. Please continue.”
Could he really believe the fox’s words?
No, was it really the fox?
Everything spiraled around him. The clapping spiraled. The footsteps spiraled. Numerous shadows mindlessly spun, blending together. As he tottered, he bumped into something again. Furniture. It was that television from a moment ago.
The broken TV turned on. A bright and cheerful, but which he couldn’t hear well, because it was muffed by the footsteps, advertisement music rang out—
It changed to the children’s voices.
「There are many points to be wary of in children’s games.
They watch a blind man with an unclear mind and laugh.
And if one is captured by a blind man’s hands,
the person with eyes open is no better than a person with eyes closed.」
He suddenly snapped back to his senses.
Blind man song. Gokdugi’s song. Gokdugi was said to sing a song to lure children.
Don’t spoil the fun, be calm, enjoyable.
He worked hard to remember what Baek Ran said, while he waved his hands in all directions. The sound of clapping and footsteps gradually increased. Everything spun around, blending into a mess…
Then, he felt goosebumps on his arms.
Came.
He unknowingly opened his eyes covered by the towel.
In the corner, beyond the numerous shadows, stood a child.
Short hair with neat bangs. White tights under a dress. But its face was of a color of rotten soil. In the middle of its chest was an enormous bloodstain, and as if it was a long time ago, it was dark red, rather than fresh red. It observed everyone playing without the slightest movement, and its eyes were red, without white, as if only filled with blood vessels.
That was the hide-and-seek-playing monster.
At last, Gokdugi appeared.
“What are You doing? Please pretend not to know.”
He heard the fox yokai’s voice in his ears. He hastily closed his eyes.
Yu Dan moved again, searching for the dizzying clapping. Although it was just darkness, he could feel it. Feeling a mix of wariness and curiosity, it approached like an animal, slowly drawing near.
“Once again You have a road to choose, eh? How will You do it?”
Yu Dan thought about it for a moment.
He had no idea when would Gokdugi draw the two of them into its game. It seemed better to move first, before that.
“I have to catch it first.”
Midst the footsteps blending and circling around him, he stretched out his hand.
As numerous hems of clothes brushed his fingertips, and one moment, he briefly touched something ice-cold. He grabbed that hem straight away.
“Caught. Gokdugi.”
Everything halted.
All kinds of shadows, that flashed around, disappeared in the instant. He pulled back the blindfold and removed it.
Dim streetlight entered through the broken mirror. Furniture debris casted long shadows, like a tombstone of the graveyard. The space was filled with eerie silence once again, as if the clapping, footsteps and laughter never echoed here.
In that place, the small monster stood high.
Even though it wasn’t a figure that could be described as human, it had bangs, dress on suspenders and white tights with chicks drawings. So it felt even more inhuman and horrible. What kind of things occurred for such begins to be born into the world? What the hell happened in this house?
“You were caught, so please be a tagger now.”
The fox met the completely bloodshot eyes of the monster with a gentle gaze and stretched out a hand holding a blindfold. But the Gokdugi didn’t accept it. With no expression on its face and with no movement, it just stood quietly.
“Why is it like that?”
“I guess it doesn’t want to play blind man’s bluff.”
“Then? What does it want? A hide-and-seek game perhaps?”
Gokdugi didn’t respond like before.
Did it not hear them? When he was about to open his mouth again, the child’s arm twitched. It slowly moved the sleeve of the blood-stained blouse, and pointed to Baek Ran with a rotten-black finger.
“What does it mean?”
Baek Ran’s expression turned serious.
“It wants me to throw it out, eh?”
“What?”
The fox yokai worried for a moment, and then swiftly shook his sleeve.
Blinding light burst out, and something big hit the wall with a loud noise and fell down. It was the fox’s weapon, gushing with golden brilliance, nine prong spear.
“Will that do?”
No reply.
After a moment, Gokdugi raised its hand again. It again pointed at the fox yokai, and then at the blindfold.
“I’m to use that?”
It also received no reply.
Gokdugi didn’t even twitch. It seemed it wouldn’t make the slightest move until Baek Ran put on the blindfold.
“What are you going to do?”
“It can’t be helped.”
Baek Ran covered his face with the blindfold he was holding and tied it up.
“Is it okay now?”
At last Gokdugi turned around. It slowly crossed the living room, raised its arms to a wall and buried its face in them. It seemed to be counting.
“What? It started without a word?”
“And don’t forget this fact. From now on, I’m useless. I don’t have a weapon and can’t see.”
Choice and result.
Looking at the fox yokai with covered eyes, Yu Dan remembered those words once again.
In the meantime, Baek Ran took apart some of the broken wall without a sound, and entered inside.
“Let’s go together.”
He quickly raised the plywood and followed after him.
He had no idea what Baek Ran was thinking. Because of the blindfold, it was even more difficult to read his expression than usual.
“How troublesome. I really tried to have fun, but it didn’t believe me?”
“’Really’ you say, isn’t that a lie?”
“Of course. It’s a lie, but it didn’t believe me?”
“Did it become even weirder because you tampered with it?”
“That’s not an important thing right now.”
“Right. It’s not. We’re stuck playing hide-and-seek with Gokdugi. Originally we were supposed to play the blind man game. Why is it so obsessed with the game of hide-and-seek?”
“I don’t know. But I know that the situation is no good. Hey, do You have any expert’s opinion? How to stop this game of hide-and-seek?”
Yu Dan bit his lip.
“We can’t become a seeker. Hide and not be captured? We have to first hit that wall, Gokdugi is counting against. If we keep doing that, Gokdugi will keep becoming a seeker. Then we will ask to change the game.”
“In such a case…”
The fox stop talking, and raised his ears. Almost at the same time, something flashed in front of their eyes in the hole.
Looking through the hole, the whole room was full of red footprints. It seemed like Gokdugi already circled the entire room.
“It went away, but will come back.”
He was about to say they should come out, but the fox’s ears perked up and moved again. Quiet footsteps were heard after that. Yu Dan was startled.
“It already came back? That’s too fast!”
“Naturally. It circled around once, and then left, but it will just look around the suspicious places again.”
He thought he had a good plan just now, but before he could even try, he met with a hurdle. He had a bad hunch.
Didn’t he take a wrong turn in the maze?
*~*~*
[1] wicked energy — energy of the yokai
[2] Blind Man’s Bluff — Baek Ran just used all possible names, so in order that he said them: 볼사놀 (bolsanol) , 엄목희 (eommokui), 소경놀 (sogyeongnol) and 까막잡기 (kkamakjapgi). Besides the last one, all of them are derogatory terms for blind people, so I would recommend avoiding them.
Translator’s note: Creepy, creepy hallucinations~
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