Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
⟨Chapter 40⟩
But there was no way.
He circled around, but he didn’t see anything like before. The strange things were nowhere to be seen.
Yu Dan sat down on the bench again and raised his hand and touched his left eye.
Was that the end?
As expected, that blindfold was a problem, right? Before entering the abandoned house, didn’t the fox yokai see a powerful wicked energy emitted from the darkness? If a cloth completely soaked in such thing touched an eye…
This Heavenly Eye, that was more sensitive than any other, could have been damaged.
Just before parting with the twins, he suffered such a shock, sparks flew out. If it was so much that even a machine would be damaged, it would surely damage a delicate organ like an eye.
So it ended like this.
But what were the last moments like?
He thought about it calmly.
Twins? They parted so ambiguously at that road. Heuk-yo? His last memory was bumping into her on a way out and getting angry at each other. Do-ssi? He was reading a newspaper in the same place as always, so under mutual silent agreement, they passed each other as if they were strangers. Baek Ran? He shut himself on the upper floor and didn’t come down. The last time he saw him was before fainting at the abandoned house.
What a fool.
Just like others said, it was exactly like him.
Yu Dan sighed.
His life was saved a few times, but in the end he couldn’t pay it back. He ended up in debt.
What was that? They were yokai. He didn’t bother with humans, but he worried about yokai from some point. May each of You live well now.
The wind blew.
It was chilly for some reason. Wasn’t it spring?
As he buttoned up his collar, he absentmindedly raised his head and was shocked.
A guardian spirit[1] stood in front of his eyes. With his white beard hanging down and dopo[2] sleeves fluttering, he was an extremely archetypical spirit.
“…uh?”
Yu Dan abruptly stood up.
“It returned! My eye returned to normal!”
The spirit looked at him with a questioning face.
“What are you talking about?”
“Because my eye broke, I couldn’t see ghosts and yokai, but seeing You means that it recovered. Because spirits aren’t visible in other people’s eyes.”
And then he realized.
People were whispering.
“Hey, look at that grandpa!”
“He is here today too? I saw him the last time too!”
“Don’t you know? That grandpa is famous!”
“He truly has a personality! Why is he wandering around like this?”
Yu Dan sunk into despair.
This spirit was visible in everyone’s eyes, huh?
He dropped at the bench again.
He became certain from the reaction he showed a moment ago. The moment he thought his eye recovered, he felt relief and sense of victory.
There was no way he could expect this.
That left eye, which he hated so much, was something he needed in fact. Even though he hated, he needed it.
His heart throbbed. Yu Dan let out another deep sigh.
The spirit approached and sat down beside him.
“Today the Han River temperature is at 9.8 degree Celsius.”
“Yes?”
“Rather cold, not a warm temperature.”
“What do You mean?”
“You’re making an expression as if you want to check if Han River is warm[3].”
“I’m not.”
“Uhu. Lying while trying to confirm it with your body.”
The spirit cackled.
What? This elder-nim.
Yu Dan frowned.
“You’re clearly not human. What are you doing just wandering around without hiding your appearance in a place with so many people? What is your identity grandpa?”
“Uh?”
“Who are you…sir?”
“Uh? Me? Who am I? Um…”
The spirit tilted his head. It seemed he really didn’t remember.
Old man with dementia? Are there also spirits with dementia?
Anyhow, he didn’t feel wicked. But his eye was broken right now, so that feeling perhaps shouldn’t be trusted.
“You don’t seem like a yokai, are You this river’s spirit?”
“A spirit? It seems I was also called that, huh? Anyhow, I’m not a bad grandpa. Since some time ago, I just kept observing our cute dungi[4].”
“What? Which twins (dungi)?”
“Isn’t that what children from your house are usually called? If not, I’m sorry. But why are you wandering around like this? Did you run away from home? Is that right?”
“No.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry and speak freely. Because this grandpa wanders around this Han River every day helping others. From all people, animals, ghost, yokai and things of unknown identities, you look the most pitiful today.”
“I’m honored.”
Yu Dan abruptly stood up.
He didn’t want to talk with this strange spirit any longer. His head was complicated regardless of that.
But there was nowhere to go. He finally went up to the next bench and sat down. The river spirit kept following him.
“Don’t do that and just speak your mind. This grandpa isn’t staying anywhere, and even if someone tells him anything, he immediately forgets. So everyone talks to me about their worries. They say it makes them feel relieved, huh?”
He laughed deeply with a benevolent face.
He looked at him, and then turned his gaze to the flowing river.
Should he speak just because of that?
But his mouth moved on its own.
“Since I was young, I saw ghosts with my left eye, but I had a headache because I saw too much, and so I thought I would be happy if I didn’t see them…”
“Huhu. You realized it’s not true, huh?”
“No matter what, because I thought it was foolish, I … Ah, I really hate this eye!”
At that moment, bushes in the corner of his eye shook. When he stared at it, they moved strangely. He glared at that place, but didn’t see anything.
“Look at that! That’s the problem! I’m even more bothered because I don’t see!”
“Calm down. It’s just a puppy. Pitiful. It seems it was often coming to play here with its owner during its life, huh?”
The spirit stroked the air.
“But seeing so much your head hurts? I guess it’s an amazing eye?”
“Heavenly Eye… or so they said.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why I have something like this and…”
“Anyhow, some tail was given and doesn’t everything have a meaning?”
“Tail?”
“Ah, darn it. I said an eye.”
The spirit laughed awkwardly.
“So did you do a lot of good work with that eye?”
“Not really. Because I didn’t know why I should do good things. Why should I put myself in danger, see unpleasant and hateful things, and take responsibility for the results, because of others… So I don’t know why I should do such things.”
“Ok, there, there. Of course, you don’t have to do anything.”
“But the problem is that I did. At the beginning I just tried to inform them, because I saw those things, but when I came back to my senses, I was already in. Finding out a ghost’s full story, sending them back so they couldn’t harm, or finding a lost child, or…”
The spirit was surprised.
“No, that’s pretty impressive, you know?”
“Is it?”
Hearing those words, he felt pissed. Even the strange ghost he met by chance recognized that, but…
“But isn’t that too much? I’ll lose my memory of it. Then it will really end. Before that, shouldn’t someone come to try to find me? But because I was pretty blunt, impolite, suddenly got angry often…”
His voice gradually grew smaller.
“I was blunt, impolite and often suddenly got angry, so there is no way they would want to find me, right?”
“What nonsense is that?”
The spirit stretched his hand out and patted him on the back.
“You did so much and what? If you just didn’t bite or scratch, then it’s okay.”
“I didn’t use violence! How can you say such things so confidently?”
“Okay, well done. Don’t get disheartened. They would be looking for you very diligently by now.”
“No. Because I’m no useless.”
“It’s not true.”
The spirit, who was laughing ‘huhu’, suddenly stood up.
“Dangerous!”
He hastily ran somewhere. He disappeared instantly with a ‘swish’, at such amazing speed it was difficult to believe it was a spirit with dementia.
Why was he like this.
As he carefully looked around, he saw a racing bicycle driving at the full speed in the distance. The bicycle owner urgently twisted its handle to avoid people crossing the road, but didn’t see a person in the wheelchair on the side and was rushing at them.
“Careful!”
When the spirit raised one hand, a powerful wind blew. The bicycle was blown away and fell over on the lawn.
Yu Dan was shocked.
The person and bicycle would weigh over a hundred kilograms together. But it was blow away with one hit?
He opened his eyes wide and looked at it again.
The spirit ran to the bench again.
“If I turn my eyes away even for a moment, something like this happens. It’s probably about to become a very busy time, eh? Just wait a moment…”
But when he looked at Yu Dan’s face, he hesitated.
“But who are you?”
“Who am I…?”
“Ah, right! That kid! Don’t go! It’s too dangerous for you to wander alone here. Go with grandpa. Got it?”
After the spirit patted Yu Dan’s head, he ran off again.
And an odd spectacle began.
The strange spirit flashed from the east to the west of Han River.
It wasn’t that he did anything great. He kicked the soccer ball that was about to hit a straw mat, held up a puppy that freed itself from the leash and was running away, caught a drunken woman, who was crossing the stepping stones and staggered, etc…
He appeared in the place that needed help fast like lightning, solved a problem and then disappeared. When people looked around in surprise, he was already gone.
“Eeh. I’m so busy I’m dying.”
He thought he returned to catch a breath, but he urgently flew somewhere again. Looking where he went, this time he was getting rid off a dirt pile left by the park management vehicle with his hands.
For some reason, he was very clumsy with it. Every time he fluttered his sleeves, dirt flew in all directions.
He couldn’t stand watching it any longer.
Yu Dan tightly clenched his fists.
The feeling of not being able to stay still. The feeling of having to step forward no matter how annoying it was. It was the problem with this personality. He thought that his personality would also be fixed if his left eye returned to normal, but it didn’t happen.
In addition, he noticed something there. Shovels were quietly lying there, as if anyone could take them.
Finally, he went over to grab one and handed it to the spirit.
“Oh my! Thank you!”
The spirit was very happy.
“A shovel is so good?”
“That’s not it. When a child I thought isn’t a bad child, really isn’t a bad child, I can’t say no to happiness!”
He excitedly dug into the dirt with a shovel. Yu Dan also shoveled beside him and asked:
“You do those things every day?”
“Yeah. Everyday.”
“Isn’t it annoying? I don’t understand. Because I can’t be so kind. Once I notice, I can’t help, but going this far for the sake of others…”
At that, the spirit shook his head.
“It isn’t for others’ sake.”
“Then?
“Here is a thing. This grandpa died in this river.”
“Then you aren’t a guardian spirit-nim but a ghost?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. If I try to remember, it hurts here. Even though I received a good treatment, it somehow hurts.”
The spirit rubbed his neck.
“But here is a thing. If I go around like this every day, helping others, I feel better. ‘I didn’t make a mistake this time. Even though it was small, I did something good’. If I think like this, it hurts less here. So I do that. It’s not for others. It’s for myself.”
Yu Dan flinched.
Why does this spirit speak exactly like the fox yokai? Is that really possible? It looks like helping others, but in reality one is doing it for oneself?
“Something that can’t be exchanged for any kind of treasure. Something anyone ultimately wants. If not for that, we’re no different from the dead, but there is actually nothing special about a person, who gets it. Something no one can obtain it for you, and you can only search for it on your own. You may struggle your entire life to get it, but if you can just obtain it, you may call it your greatest blessing… Do you know what is it perhaps?”
“Well.”
The river spirit thought while shoveling.
“Ah, got it!”
“What is it?”
“A bowl of makgeolli[5] with steamed rice cakes and pork head meat! It’s been so long since I have been treated to it, huh?”
As expected, it seemed he was right about the spirit with dementia. Yu Dan gave up on a conversation and started shoveling again.
Ground was soon revealed under the heapy dirt pile.
“Thanks to you, it was finished quickly.”
The spirit stretched his back, while looking around with a face full of pride.
“This is the best time. When everything is over.”
Yu Dan followed him and looked around.
At some point the sun set.
The artificial lights sparkled all around the vast lawn. Glowing pinwheels spun around and small fireworks exploded. He heard a sound of someone singing and playing a guitar on the lawn. A motorboat crossed the river in front of his eyes. A long trail of joyful screams disappeared with it.
“We protected the Han River once again today, huh?”
The spirit laughed clearly.
At that moment.
In the middle of people sitting on the law, someone especially drew his gaze.
The man he saw before. A man, who by sitting with a tearful face and holding a soju bottle, was advertising in all directions that he was dumped.
But as he looked closely, he had a strange feeling. He seemed to hear something from behind of that man’s back over and over.
Yu Dan put a hand to his ear.
Rattle, rattle.
It was a sound of a heavy wooden cart rolling.
But looking around, there wasn’t anything like a handcart around. But he continued to hear that sound.
What?
He approached the man as if possessed.
*~*~*
[1] guardian spirit — 신령 (sinryeong), referring to the small gods/spirits protecting mountains and rivers.
[2] dopo — an outer garment of a hanbok.
[3] You’re making an expression as if you want to check if Han River is warm — Han River is a popular suicide spot, but because talking about suicide is a taboo, people often refer to it as ‘checking the water’s temperature’.
[4] dungi — coupled with ‘cute’ it would mean cuties, but dungi itself could mean ‘twins’.
[5] makgeolli — thick rice wine.
Translator’s note: Sorry Yu Dan, the spirit with dementia saw through your fursona.
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