BBS (35)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
⟨Chapter 35⟩
 
 

… Abandoned house?

A vision of a covered in weeds two-story house flashed very quickly but clearly.

Then, a sound of a bell sharply pierced his ears.

Yu Dan came back to his senses.

The bell outside of the curtain was ringing wildly. When startled, he grabbed the string to make it stop, a loud ‘bang’ sound came out from the inside.

Everyone rushed up in a surprise.

“Can’t You be a bit more gentle?”

Baek Ran opened the curtain in annoyance.

“I saw it! I heard children singing and then some sort of a house. An abandoned house!”

At Yu Dan’s words, everyone’s complexions changed.

“Children’s singing?”

“’Once the bell rings, can’t wander around. To play, children grab a stick, until moon’s shadow sets, don’t come back.”

When he sang the pieces of the strange song he heard, Baek Ran’s expression changed again.

“Once the bell rings, sunrakkun scatter and people can’t wander around. To play, children grab the watchman’s stick, and until moon’s shadow sets don’t come back to the yard.”

He was surprised by the recited lines.

“You know this song?”

“It’s a poem from the book 『Haedongjukji[1]』. As it was a song sang with children’s voices…”

Baek Ran stared right at him.

“It seems you heard Gokdugi’s song.”

“Gokdugi?”

Everyone flinched.

“Look at that! I said it was a conspiracy!”

The frog jumped, shouting. Baek Ran ignored him.

“That is the reason why we couldn’t find her neither in the world of the living nor the world of the dead, eh? We have to start with finding that abandoned house.”

He abruptly stood up from the bed, but staggered and seeing it, the yokai were startled. Chaeseol rushed to him to catch him.

“Cheonho-nim! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s just that I woke up too suddenly…”

“Sorry.”

“No need.”

Baek Ran pressed his hand against his forehead as if he was dizzy.

“We will move immediately, please bring some paper from the study. He has to draw that abandoned house.”

Most people were rattled, but the twins just stood there blankly. Their faces were extremely pale.

“Please go bring some.”

After the fox repeated himself again, they at last came back to their senses.

“Ah, yes.”

Everyone turned around.
Do-ssi and Heuk-yo climbed down to the first floor. He heard them whisper to each other with uneasy tones. Yu Dan looked at the twins.

“What’s wrong? What is Gokdugi?”

“Um…”

The twins hesitated. Their expressions were filled with fear.

“It’s an opponent Cheon-ho faced before.”

The frog answered instead.

“So? What happened then?”

At that question, even the frog didn’t readily answer.

Finally, Chaeu carefully opened his mouth.

“At that time…”
 

***
 
A tense atmosphere haunted the study.

Baek Ran looked through all kinds of books on the bookshelf. He would take a book and read through it for a while, then shake his head, and Chaeseol, who was helping at the side, would quickly pick up another book and bring it to him.

“This? Won’t this one help?”

“『Writings on Strategy[2]』? It doesn’t seem like it will be of particular help here.”

Yu Dan kept glancing at them, and finally put down a brush and asked.

“What the hell is that Gokdugi?”

Baek Ran picked up another book.

“A child who died playing.”

A chill went down his spine at the simple reply.

“It’s a monster that’s neither a ghost nor a yokai. Its name is assumed to come from a mix of ‘Gokdo’, meaning an illusion, and ‘mokdugi’, meaning a ghost of unknown name. Singing is heard when Gokdugi appears. The songs that were sung by the children while playing in the old days. Gokdugi sings those songs to lure the children of its age and bring them with it.”

“What is it bringing them with it for?”

“To make them its playmates.”

“A monster plays together with a human child?”

Baek Ran nodded.

“Even so, there are all sorts of games. Through the song you can judge what kind of game the gukdogi is currently playing. ‘Once the bell rings, sunrakkun scatter and people can’t wander around. To play, children grab the watchman’s stick, and until moon’s shadow sets don’t come back to the yard.’ It’s a hide and seek game.”

“What is sunrakkun?”

“The correct name is sunrakun, You can think of them as a night police. In the old days, when the bell rang, the night curfew would start, and they would arrest people, who broke that order. The original form of the hide and seek game was the ‘sunrajapgi’ play that imitated that.”

“Hide and seek game… In that abandoned house?”

At Yu Dan’s mumbled words, a glimpse of helplessness skimmed past the fox yokai’s face, who had been explaining calmly.

“What?”

“It’s just a bit complicated. Do You perhaps know about Schrödinger’s cat?”

He seemed to have heard something about it before…

Abruptly, he recalled a gray puppy with a bushy beard. Wasn’t that a schnauzer? Then what is Schrödinger? What…?

Silence continued.

Chaeseol, who was only watching before, cut in.

“Schrödinger-ssi was a lovely old man. Then one day on the road, which he walked to receive his pension, he discovered a small cat quivering in the rain under a car. It was an orange-spotted cat, who someone threw out when moving—.”

“No.”

Baek Ran giggled in surprise.

“That’s not the story.”

“I know. Because it’s a story I came up with. But I wish it was like my Schrödinger’s cat story.”

“It’s a pity, but it’s completely not that. It’s a thought experiment, where you place a cat into a box with a poison.”

“What? Schrödinger-ssi, I didn’t take you for a such man!”

The door abruptly opened. Chaeu hurriedly entered.

“I apologize, I apologize.”

After apologizing left and right, he firmly grabbed his noona to sit her down.

“You can’t interrupt!”

“Anyhow—.”

Yu Dan looked at Baek Ran again.

“Why do yokai know such a thing?”

“Just a simple interest in ‘stories’. The cat is placed in a sealed box together with poison. Before opening and looking inside the box, you wouldn’t be able to know if the cat is alive or dead. Between numerous stories of the east and west, this one is the most similar to the Gokdugi’s world.”

No way, was ‘Schrödinger’s cat’ some kind of western supernatural? If so, it didn’t seem like they were talking about a complicated exam test. Yu Dan was relieved.

“It’s a promise of one game. The instant one makes a promise, they become a guard, a thief or a strongman. From that moment, the place becomes a different world. In other words, it’s a closed box.”

Baek Ran walked up to him and sat down at the desk. He picked up a brush and drew a square box on a paper.

“A person can’t endure without eating or drinking for a month. But even so, the child would be playing a hide and seek game somewhere even now. They’re in the box called ‘game’. So is the child alive or dead? We can’t know under what influence of the supernatural is the child. Even Gokdugi doesn’t know. In such a case, can You forcibly stop the game? In other words, can You open the box?”

Yu Dan thought for a moment.

“I can’t. It would be good if she was alive, but what if she is dead?”

“That’s correct.”

“But we can’t leave it alone. We have to rescue her, but how the hell do you do that if you can’t open a box?”

Baek Ran moved the brush instead of answering.

As he erased the box he painted a moment ago, an orange-spotted cat, which was hiding inside, appeared. It was so vivid as if alive. No, it really was alive. The cat scratched its painted ear, and yawned.

“You can do this.”

“Erase the box?”

“Yes. When the game starts, a world is formed, and when the game ends, it disappears, and You return to the reality again. So we also start a game. A more fun game than Gokdugi’s game. Because Gokdugi will be attracted there, the never-ending game will have to end.”

He thought he understood what he was saying, but he didn’t.

“So I’m doing a research now. About the games itself, because I’m completely unfamiliar.”

“Understandable. Because you’re always only looking at books. But have you never played, even when you were young?”

“Hmm. If we’re talking about my early young days, I remember being formally dressed and people kowtowing to me. Or people coming to ask about something. Or coming to request something, only things like that.

It really seemed like he didn’t experience any games.

“Well, even so, I had experience before, so… Anyway, is the drawing done?”

The fox glanced at him from the other side of the desk.

“It’s a pretty good drawing.”

“Unbelievable. I’m being given a lip-service?”

“This painting is a representative example of deconstructivism or surrealism.”

“As expected, you wouldn’t give me even a lip-service.”

“I want to give a good lip-service, so it can be of some help, but I don’t understand modern art very well, so it’s difficult. Please make it in the ordinary landscape next time.”

“If I say it’s a landscape…”

“Please draw it again. So I can at least recognize it’s a house.”

He said that and left.

Yu Dan grumbled.

“Even in such a situation, he is truly the same.”

Chaeu glanced at him.

“That’s right. You drew it well, so why is He like that? Then I’ll get rid of it.”

“If I drew well, why are you getting rid of it?”

Ignoring him, Chaeu quickly got rid of the paper.

“It’s okay. If you draw again, something will come out.”

Chaeu brought a box of fresh paper.

“Cheer up.”

“I’m losing my strength faster, because the majority of people think that an entire box of paper will be needed. Are you guys joking right now?”

“No. We said that already. We’re really serious.”

The twins squeezed at the side of the desk and looked at him with serious expressions.

“We’re really thankful, because You didn’t give up and found a clue for us. You were of great help. We didn’t get the wrong person. I’m glad.”

“If not for Yu Dan, we would really be stumped. We would have to watch Cheonho-nim work hard alone, while our insides exploded.”

“So, we’re really thankful, but…”

Chaeu’s words trailed off as he looked at his noona. Chaeseol gathered her courage to speak.

“Can you go with him?”

“Uh?”

Yu Dan looked at the twins with suspicion.

“When we went to get back the child caught by Gokdugi the previous time, we all proven ourselves to be no help at all. But Yu Dan seems different. You might be of help.”

At Chaeseol’s words, Yu Dan put down the brush with a ‘tak’.

The twins flinched. Yu Dan also flinched. It wasn’t his intention. The sound was much louder than he expected.

“I too… think that rather than sitting here worrying how things will turn out, it’s better to move even if I’m being bullied.”

While saying it, he unconsciously turned his gaze and noticed the shadows behind the study door. Heuk-yo and Do-ssi. It seemed they were eavesdropping.

Then the two shadows were startled.

“What are You doing here?”

He heard Baek Ran’s voice.

“Ah, nothing.”

Heuk-yo and Do-ssi left.

Baek Ran opened the door and entered. He was holding a dagger. It was made out of gold and a work of fine art, but when he pulled it out to check, the blade sparkled like ice.

Everyone flinched.

“I’m going too.”

Yu Dan spat out.

Baek Ran stared at him with an absurd face.

“What did you hear from who?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

Yu Dan pointed at the books Baek Ran piled up.

“You’re mistaken here. You can’t learn how to play by studying.”

“Ah, are you an expert?”

“This an area I can confidently say I’m better in than you. The previous time…”

Yu Dan abruptly swallowed his words and glanced at the dagger.

“… Wasn’t it difficult?”

The fox didn’t reply. He had no expression.

“So if you learn where that abandoned house is, I’ll go with you. Didn’t you bring someone the previous time? You’re right, it’s more advantageous if you go with someone.”

“…”

“What do you have to do? Can you be careful and even more careful? Think only about things you want to think about and just brush over the really important things… Can you not do that?”

“…”

“If I hate it in the middle, then I can go back straight away. Then I won’t annoy you any longer.”

Baek Ran still didn’t say anything and stared at him. Then he abruptly said:

“You aren’t making a request to me, so depend on Yourself.”

“Depend on myself?”

“Didn’t Daegwangboguksungnokdaebu[3] told you that story before?”

“Daegwang… who?”

“The frog.”

“Ah. What did he say?”

“As it’s his own choice, You can only leave it alone. I heard those words and had a thought. Are You aware that You’re always making choices?”

“… Uh?”

Yu Dan tilted his head. Baek Ran continued.

“You were making choices from the beginning. Even though the supernatural returned to its origin, You didn’t forget me and kept coming back to this place. Instead of ignoring the people possessed by the supernatural, you decided to solve it. And after that, didn’t numerous things happen?”

“They did.”

“I told You this world is like a maze. You have no idea what will appear behind the next corner. The only things You see is the way straight forward. You chose to go this way or that way and then chose again. The instant You chose, the cogs of fate clicked into place. You can’t come back. Because of one wrong choice You made, Your fate goes somewhat wrong, You brought a unfortunate result, and You can do nothing but watch it helplessly.”

The fox yokai spoke smoothly with a soft tone and a smile on his face, but Yu Dan felt a chill creep up his spine.

“Isn’t that a scary story?”

Baek Ran asked as if he read his mind.

“Originally the things called ‘yokai’ were like that. Even if in the younger days, You peacefully played together, if You abruptly turned around, You would see a different face. I was playing with such a thing until now? It would be such a shivering thought.”

The fox’s lip corner rose again, and he was smiling like on a painting again.

“How is it? Do You still think I have no idea how to play at all?”

“…”

Yu Dan just stared at the fox.

“As I said, when You make a choice, You can’t turn back. But I’ll ask again. What are You going to do?”

The silence flowed. No one even breathed and everyone observed.

“I’m going with you.”

In that instant, he had an auditory hallucination of cogs sliding into place with a ‘click’ in the silence.
 

*~*~*
 

[1] Haedongjukji — 해동죽지(海東竹枝), sorry I have no idea how to translate this title. It’s a collection of jukjisa (sung poems) poetry written by Choi Yeongnyeon.

[2] Writings on Strategy — 진법언해 陣法諺解, a strategy book, most notably talking about fireman formations.

[3] Daegwangboguksungnokdaebu — 대광보국숭록대부 (大匡輔國常祿大夫). This name feels so nonsensical and is so long it must be a joke, I’m not even sure what I’m reading. As far as this translator is concerned it means ‘Very official’s official position of high official’.
 

Translator’s note:… Oh, it’s not like that at all, Baek Ran…. Do you want a hug?
 

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