BBS (53)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
⟨Chapter 53⟩
 

At that moment, the shed door creaked opened and Do-ssi and Heuk-yo entered. Baek Ran looked at them in surprise.

“What’s the matter?”

“We too tried to leave it in the care of the two children and just ignore it, but…”

“It kept crying and then suddenly became quiet, so we guessed that Cheonho-nim had to come. Let’s do this together.”

Then the two spotted Yu Dan and the two’s eyes shook. The dokkaebi asked:

“When did you come?”

“A moment ago. I suddenly became curious.”

“Didn’t you say that you hated birds?”

“It really seems so. He said to give it a bath.”

At Baek Ran’s snitching, Do-ssi and Heuk-yo jumped in fright.

“What? Give it a bath? Don’t you see that we turned on the electricity and hung a light bulb to keep it warm?”

“If the chick’s body temperature drops, it will die right away. Don’t you know that? Punk who can’t raise anything.”

The two glared at him and rebuked, but when the baby bird turned its head and looked at them, they suddenly changed their expressions as if they planned it.

“It’s not the time. Look here! Porridge for you!”

“Here is a rattle! A rattle!”

The two curt and prudish yokai acted as if they were going to give up their heart and soul for the baby bird. Baek Ran also smiled brightly every time he locked eyes with the bird. Yu Dan couldn’t adapt to such an atmosphere.

“Everyone is busy trying to get its favor.”

“Yeah. We’re busy, so get out.”

“Why are you saying to get out so often?”

“If You hate to get out, please do as You please. But if You’re staying here, there is a condition. You have to play with the Peng chick.”

He tilted his head at Baek Ran’s words.

“Play with a bird? How do you play with it?”

“It likes wind, so act like a swing.”

That was nothing hard, right?

Yu Dan swiftly picked up the baby bird.

Because it was heavier than it looked, he held it like a dumbbell. As he shook it in front of the wide open window, the bird very happily unfolded its wings wide. The city wind was weak, but as if even that was exciting, it opened its beak and chirped. The breathing cavity, touched by the wind, kept moving.

“Uh? You’re doing well? Huhu, good job!”

“I was wrong, huh? This punk doesn’t know anything, but it’s not like he can’t be taught.”

“Thanks to that, we can relax, eh? I was trying to chase him out for no reason.”

The three yokai had fun watching. See? He said he would do it and did it. He swayed it around for a moment, but his arms soon began to hurt. Because he swung a heavy dumbbell without rest.

Yu Dan delicately put down the bird.

“I should go now.”

“Already? It has been barely over fifty minutes.”

“It’s okay if you play just a bit more. Rather, it will be good.”

“Can’t you go in just another hour? When on it, you should smile.”

The fox, dokkaebi and the serpent spoke as if picking a fight. What? An hour? Yu Dan quickly shuffled his feet.

“My arms won’t move. My face also won’t move. Hey, you! Don’t forget I did you a favor. You have to give me a ride later.”

He firmly told that to the bird and fled right away. He heard the chatter and laughter of the yokai inside.
 
 

Yu Dan then forgot about the Peng bird. No, he had no chance to think about it. How many things he had to submit to school? He was kept busy for a few days.

He was scrolling through the internet to interpret the English news article, he abruptly heard the sound of rain. He stood up and closed the window.

Then, he all of a sudden had a thought.

The side window of the shack was always open. The bird house was placed close to the window. If it rains like this, it will quickly become soaking wet. Of course, twins or Baek Ran, or if not them, the passing Do-ssi or Heuk-yo, someone among them would quickly close the shack’s window, but… if it was one of those days again, when they passed out from exhaustion, or, there probably was no way, but, if they completely forgot, because they were busy with guests?

He couldn’t help but worry. It seemed better to quickly go and take a look.

Yu Dan went out, then returned and took out a raincoat from the wardrobe. He thought that it was time to get off the work, so there would be a traffic jam. He took his bicycle and then went down.

It didn’t rain for a moment, when he dashed. The ground was dry. Did it stop at some point? He stopped for a while and looked up at the sky, but a drop or two fell on his face. He dashed again.

As if he was a bit faster than the rain clouds, he arrived at Banwoldang just before the rain started. First of all, he quickly entered the shack.

“I’m here.”

The lights were on, but it was quiet.

“Sleeping?”

He stretched out his hand to the opened window, as he looked into the box.

The bird laid stretched out, with two of its legs sticking out. The blue eyes, which lost their light, did not blink.

Yu Dan stiffened.

The rain poured down. He heard someone outside, and the twins hurriedly came in, but they stopped in surprise.

“Yu Dan? I didn’t see you.”

“When did You come?”

They looked at him, and he unknowingly blocked them.

The silence fell. Only the sound of the rain was heard loudly.

The twins looked at each other, and then started to approach him again. They looked into the box, their shoulders slumped.

“Ah, in the end…”

“When I came, it was already dead. You were raising it so diligently. I guess it was just bad luck.”

Another silence fell. Yu Dan thought that the expressions of the twins, illuminated by the light of the shack, were strange.

Finally, Chaeseol spoke up.

“No.”

“No?”

The twins looked down at the bird instead of replying.

“It was really tough. When we fed it, it ate well and did it best to somehow live. So we thought that perhaps this time it would be able to survive…”

“We thought so, but as expected, it couldn’t.”

There was truly something strange about what the two wild ginseng yokai said.

“’As expected’?”

“Mhmm. Because the winds are too different, the breathing cavity couldn’t mature. It was like this with Cheonho-nim too, when He obtained Peng’s egg before. It broke out of the egg, and came out, but it was able to live just a few days. Slowly suffocated.”

He was so shocked by Chaeseol’s answer, he couldn’t get a word out for a while.

“It wouldn’t be able to live longer than a few days, anyway?”

“Uhu…”

“But then why? Why was everyone raising it so diligently? It was going to die anyway, so why?”

“Then what should we have done? That short moment was everything that kid had.”

Chaeseol spoke, her eyes unable to leave the bird.

“Yu Dan-yi saw it too right? It tried to survive. So we also couldn’t give up. We hoped it would be happy for a few days, from the moment it opened its eyes to the moment it closed them. And it will remember. That we didn’t abandon this kid. That we tried everything to try to make it survive.”

Hearing the wild ginseng girl’s choked words, he understood it little by little. But it was chaotic just like before.

“Why did you give it a name and made it a house, even though you knew that it would die? Why did you make such a fuss that you would raise it, even though you knew everything?”

“We couldn’t help it.”

Chaeu replied.

“Cheonho-nim did it when He brought the chick last time. He took care of it with all His heart until it took its last breath. To speak precisely, it lived and died in exactly three days. Cheonho-nim just buried it without any care. And we also didn’t care. But then, in the evening that day, I found a fluffy feather in the corner of the study, when I was cleaning. I felt very strange at that moment.”

“We didn’t say anything and just watched it. After a while, I asked ‘Did you really hate it?’, Cheonho-nim said he did, he did really hate it. Even so, it couldn’t be helped. When he meets the next one again, he will have to keep smiling from the beginning to the end. However, we thought ‘wouldn’t it be difficult even for Cheonho-nim?’.”

“We have our lives thanks to Cheonho-nim. But even though we’re eternally thankful, there are nothing in particular we can help with. Even a bit is better, so in our hearts, we promised that we would share the difficulties. So the next…”

“So we decided that the next…”

The twins said that and closed their mouths.

He at last understood. Why everyone reacted like this when they saw the Peng bird’s egg. He now understood things he thought were strange before.

“I didn’t know any of it.”

The twins looked at Yu Dan.

“Sorry. Really sorry. We didn’t expect you to come so suddenly. We didn’t mean to deceive Yu Dan-yi. Trust us.”

“We thought it was better that You don’t like birds. So we would take care of it, and You would just forget, and in the end, it would be fine when You heard that it couldn’t live and died….”

“Uuh, um….”

He should have said something, but he had no idea what. Yu Dan looked down at the bird again. With its eyes open, legs stretched out.

The twins also followed him and looked down.

“It’s the first time You see it after that day, correct? It grew a lot, right?”

“Uh. Yeah. I only saw it for just a moment. It would be different for you. You stuck to its side for a few days.”

“We’re okay. We knew the time would come someday. We mentally prepared ourselves, so…”

The twins grabbed each other’s hands. And stood quietly for a while. Then Chaeseol spoke up again.

“You were the first one to discover its death, how are you? Were you surprised? Sorry.”

“No, well. Like I said, I saw it just a few times.”

“We also prepared ourselves mentally…”

They said it a moment ago. He realized that they kept saying it over and over. The twins were clearly flustered. It was the first time he saw them like this.

Even though they prepared, it couldn’t be easy.

He wanted to tell them something to comfort them, but he couldn’t come up with what to say. He thought of the female students he saw in the bus. You didn’t do anything wrong, you did well. Even if it was just a few days, it was happy. It went to Heaven first and is waiting. It was a skill to say such words. Yu Dan couldn’t open his mouth at all.

He barely spoke up after a while.

“Let’s bury it together when the rain stops.”

At his uncaring tone, the twins looked at him.

“Ah, You could do that for us?”

“Then we would be truly grateful.”

The two smiled slightly and nodded.
 

***
 

He acted so tough in front of the twins, but…

Aftershock turned him upside down.

He couldn’t shake off that strange feeling. He kept thinking about the breathing cavity on the baby bird’s crown. Even though he was completely healthy, he would often stand blankly.

He decided to ride a bicycle to forget. As he thought of clearing his mind, he abruptly recalled something again.

Come to think of it, there was a foreshadowing from the beginning. The old man, who governs lifetimes couldn’t do anything about it. Even the old man failed. He knew that, and brought it to him. To make it happy for just a few days. Everyone knew, and only he didn’t.

Yu Dan clenched his teeth, and sharply stomped on the pedal.

Thinking about that night in the shack, he was dumbfounded.

Wasn’t he trying to carry out a favor? Everyone expressly came to make it enjoy that short moment a bit more. Because it would soon die anyway. Was that why they kept telling him to go home? Was that why they told him not to get attached? That was just like the wicked yokai. They should have told him it straight, without deceiving and avoiding the subject. They are people, who are shocked even when a cat, which you don’t know what a long way it came, dies. What’s more a bird one brought personally. The one they saw being born in person. Isn’t a male highschooler also a human? You should have told him about such important things beforehand, right?

Even though angry and resentful…

When he thought about how everyone hid it inside and smiled that night, his heart became complicated.

The bird wasn’t guilty. So it was probably better if he played at that time. Should he have stayed just one more hour? Two more hours would be fine. Should he have come the next day too? Should he have come a few more times? His heart was at a loss. He couldn’t let go of the image of the raising and falling breathing cavity.

It tried to survive like this.

Birds flew out of the bushes.

Human mind was truly strange. If you tried not to care, you could not care at all, but even a small thing could greatly shake it.

That thing called life was also truly strange. Sometimes it’s so persistent, but when it’s about to snap, it just snaps. It was truly strange…

Suddenly everything became very strange.

At that moment, something abruptly entered his vision. A mama duck and her ducklings were crossing the road. In surprise, Yu Dan twisted the handle, and fell heavily to the ground with the bicycle.

“Are you crazy? This is a bicycle road!”

He shouted angrily, but the duck family didn’t bother and just occupied the entire road. The ducklings were getting out of the bushes one after another.

“Ah, really, what.”

His knee throbbed. He was glad that he didn’t break anything, but it seemed like he would have a big bruise. His palms were grazed and sore. He roughly wiped off the blood, and was about to pick up the bicycle, but a tandem bicycle came running fast towards him.

“For the…”

Yu Dan just let go of the handle again.

The man and the woman riding the bicycle looked his way and slowed down. What? Why aren’t you standing up? They whispered among themselves, when to their surprise, they discovered the family of ducks.

“Ducks!”

“I guess they came out for a trip! Cute!”

They quickly distanced themselves.

The bicycles that came after that slowed down, and circled around to avoid them. There were uninterested people, who passed them by, and there were people who looked back a few times. A puppy, which was carried by some grandpa, leaned against the basket and barked.

Whatever they did or didn’t do, the duck family was wobbly crossing the bicycle road, entering the opposite side of the forest.

The wind blew and the trees swayed. The branches slowly moved up and down, butterflies unfolded and folded their wings. Everyone was breathing. All of the sudden, he became aware of his own breathing. Inhale and exhale. Inhale again and exhale again. The wind was passing through his body somewhere.

Finally, the last duckling disappeared.

Yu Dan stood up and picked up his bicycle.

He grumbled when he saw its frame bent, and kicked it. After roughly unbending it, he raised his head.

The wind brushed his face. Over gently swaying trees and peaks of high buildings, a white cumulus drifted past like a breath.

Looking at that scene he abruptly realized something. Yu Dan mumbled all of a sudden:

“It’s summer.”
 

*~*~*
 
Translator’s note: End of the story ‘Breathing Cavity’… *hands tissues to whoever needs it*

 

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