BBS (57)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 

⟨Chapter 57⟩
 

He didn’t want to pick up, but when he checked the number, the back of it was familiar. Wasn’t that Na Mia? Yu Dan picked up the call with his heart sinking.

“Noona?”

「What me? Why aren’t you picking up? Did you lose it again? Huh?」

It was a hangover tongue twisted voice.

“No. I didn’t lose it…”

He looked at the bag that he left at the entrance. The last time he checked his phone it was yesterday morning. Before he laid down in Banwoldang.

“I didn’t know you were calling. What’s the matter?”

「Where are you right now?」

“Where? At home.”

「Really? You didn’t come to my house perhaps?」

“No, why?”

「Someone knocked at the door a moment ago. Even when I asked who was it, they didn’t answer, and just kept knocking at the door, as if trying to break it. Mom went to work, and Su-hyeon is at school for a night, so I’m alone. It was too suspicious, so I just pretended that no one was home, right? After a while I thought they just went away, and when I peeked out, they looked quite like you from the back.」

He felt chills down his spine. He could just listen to Mia’s mumbling without complaining. Why did it come to his aunt’s house? What was it trying to do?

「Well it wasn’t you, then good that I didn’t open.」

“Yeah, that’s good. Never open the door when a strange person comes.”

「Naturally. I always say it, but aren’t humans scarier than ghosts? But did something happen to you? Why is your voice like that?」

“I just caught a cold.”

「Why won’t you go to the twins and ask for some medicine? Make sure to take those kids’ medicine.」

As she spoke with the voice full of drowsiness, she ended up abruptly hanging up.

Yu Dan stared at the telephone for a while.

It came to Mia, but she didn’t open the door, then the next…

He abruptly stood up, but just when he was about to go out, he remembered the dagger. He couldn’t just wander around holding it, right? After a moment of deliberation, he took out the leather bag, which could be hung on the shoulder from the wardrobe, put the blade in it and ran out.

He left the apartment and sprinted to the bus station, but there was a commotion in front of the mart. Just as he was trying to pass by, the employee wearing a black suit, quickly walked out. He glared right at him.

The customer, who came out with the shopping carts, whispered.

“It’s that kid, that one! The kid from the moment ago!”

“Was he trying to steal something?”

“I think it was a game console, no?”

“What did he do? What happened?”

“That kid over there. He was caught taking things out, so he dropped them on the floor and caused a commotion. It wasn’t such a mess before.”

Yu Dan’s face turned white.

This couldn’t be happening. How was it happening to him? It was a crazy and ridiculous situation. He waved his hands towards the worker, who was approaching him with a stern face.

“I- I didn’t do such…”

He couldn’t say anything more and fled.

The employee didn’t chase him as if he was just trying to admonish him. He was happy about it, but thinking about theft false charges was killing him. It was really supernatural, right? If he solves it, everyone will forget, right? Please be so.

Yu Dan hurried to ride the bus.

The moment he got out on the bus stop and ran, but stopped in front of a small animal clinic, plastered with the lost animal pamphlets. It was the clinic where his maternal cousin hyung, who specialized in veterinary, worked part-time.

When panting, he opened the door, the nurse at the front desk, abruptly stood up. Looking at her expression, he had a thought:

It came here too, huh?

Yu Dan asked with bloodless face.

“Wha-what did I do a moment ago?”

The rage on the nurse’s face turned into confusion.

“What’s up with you? I thought you came back right away to apologize, but are you playing a prank right now?”

“That’s because I really don’t remember…”

His words trailed off, as he looked around.

Behind the iron fence, puppies were slowly crawling. The mum was inside the doghouse, and only the butt was sticking out. The butt was trembling.

“What? Did I harass the dog?”

“Wow, that’s really absurd. Are you practicing acting right now? Or are you really experiencing memory loss? As you are Su-hyeong’s younger cousin, I let you in without thinking. Do you really not remember shaking the puppies, pulling their tails, treating them roughly? When I wanted to stop you, you pushed me away and tried to steal a puppy! Because you pulled their tails like that and held them upside down, the puppies screamed, and the mom is so scared now that she can’t come out! When the dogs in the pet hotel here started to howl in surprise, you got angry and kicked the door with your foot!”

He tried to listen, but that was horrible. The puppies and the dogs locked behind the glass. They were all weak targets that had no power to resist. It was so horrible that it only acted like this against those targets, he felt bad.

“I truly apologize. It wasn’t me who did it…”

“What?”

He couldn’t stand it anymore, and ran out of the clinic. He felt like he was going crazy.

I’ll catch you somehow, no matter what.

While moving, he looked around, and noticed a shopping mall behind the building with the huge movie banner. Somehow he had a feeling it went in that direction. As it was his own feeling, it would be certain, right?

He was about to hastily cross the crossing, but the car owner, who parked on the roadside for a moment, looked at Yu Dan and honked at him loudly.

Disoriented, he looked at her. He didn’t do anything?

But she was already completely pissed at Yu Dan. Every time she pointed a finger, the silver earrings shook roughly. He heard all grumbling and curses she hurdled at him from behind the window.

“My apologies!”

He apologized and jumped.

Darn it. It wasn’t even his own wrongdoing. Even so, the apology came out smoother than before. But that was good. Because it wasn’t the end.

While he was running past the shopping mall, a woman, who has parked the stroller and was wiping the baby with wet tissues, glanced at him. Her eyes lit up right away.

“Hey! What are you doing here again? Do you live in this apartment? Which school are you attending?”

“My apologies!”

He hurriedly escaped, but a big woman, who was sitting on the road bench, suddenly stood up, and grabbed him by the shoulder without saying a word. Her eyes were blazing.

“I didn’t…”

“Should I call the police?”

“I was wrong! I was really wrong!”

Yu Dan bowed his head, apologizing and fled. A mineral water bottle flew and hit him square in the back. It hurt so much he was about to cry. He hated to even imagine what occurred. Everywhere, the people were looking at him with unkind eyes.

“Apologies! Apologies!”

He had a really dirty feeling, while he wasn’t even a fraction at fault. But what made him feel even worse was that the monster only harassed weak people like women and children.

Despicable punk. He had to eliminate it somehow.

He sprinted with a breath stuck in his throat and gritting his teeth.

The instant he turned around the corner, Yu Dan halted in his tracks.

Among the people, there was a familiar back of the head. Usually one would never see the back of their head, but somehow he could recognize it right away. Just when it was about to enter the shopping mall building, he shouted with all his might.

“Hey! You! Stop right there!”

The thing abruptly halted in its tracks. As if it knew who was calling it, without even tuning around, it suddenly changed the direction and ran.

“Where are you going!? You punk worse than a dog!”

Opportunely, the green light turned on and he chased after it, while shouting. The people turned to look at them, and then glanced again, dumbfounded by two exactly same looking children.

As he ran until it felt like his heart was about to explode, he reached a construction site behind the shopping mall. It looked like the monster hid there. Yu Dan looked around.

“Come out right now!”

A pipe dropped and rolled somewhere on the other side. He sprinted in that direction, but suddenly felt creeps. The moment he instinctively leaned his body back, a huge brick brushed past his nose and fell down.

Startled, he looked up.

He saw a shadow swiftly disappear over the construction site’s scaffold. From somewhere, he heard a cackling laughter. It was his own voice.

He looked at the ground again.

He felt a murderous feeling from the brick stuck in the muddy ground. It wasn’t a joke. It really tried to kill him.

I have enough of this punk!

His blood shot up. But he heard a cold voice in the other side of his mind. You can’t blindly chase it. The construction site was full of all kinds of dangerous things. In other words, it was an enormous trap.

Yu Dan left the place, stepping backwards.

What should he do now?

He felt that bastard was hovering around. Where was it hiding? He walked, while examining the surrounding.

At some point noon drew closer. He realized that he didn’t eat anything, but strangely he didn’t feel hungry.

Was it because his shadow was stolen?

The sunlight was hot. He felt dizzy because he kept wandering around, so instead of main streets, he kept entering back alleys. The sloped road lined up with the row houses lead to the murals that he couldn’t help but think were grotesque. He hesitated for a moment in front of the stone stairs thickly covered with ivy, when suddenly a sound pierced his ears.

「Hello. Hello.」

Yu Dan turned around.

The sound was coming out of the whack-a-mole game console at the side of an old grocery store. As he tried to take a look, the voice, that simply repeated「Hello. 」, changed. Phone bell sound rang out.

He approached it.

The hammer to hit moles was vibrating softly. Though he thought it was strange, he picked it up and put it to his ear.

He heard static. As it continued, it gradually grew louder, and then abruptly someone’s voice clearly jumped out.

「How is it going?」

It was Baek Ran.

Yu Dan’s shoulders, which stiffened in worry, slumped.

“What?! Don’t you feel bad about such a method? It gave me creeps!”

「Yokai can’t sign up for wireless communication networks.」

“Did you even try for you to say you can’t? Fabricate documents, bewitch the employee and…”

「Actually it’s because I’m avoiding electromagnetic waves. Nevertheless, didn’t I ask how is it going?」

“No. At all. You?”

「We’re almost finished, but we will have to go again at any moment. Just now the old mask combined and Ninety-nine face ghost was born. As its name suggests, it’s a ghost with ninety-nine faces. We will be a bit later than expected.」

“Okay. Don’t bother. I’m going to kill it.”

「Yes? It seems that You gained some fighting spirit?」

“What do you think? Every place it goes to turns into chaos. I barely followed it, but it lured me to the construction site and attacked. If I dodged even a little bit later, I would have been hit by a brick and died.”

「As expected, it’s not a usual cunningness, eh? It played to its heart’s content, so I guess it’s now slowly getting bored. The thing those things ultimately want is always the same. You already know it. It’s to kill the real one and become the real one themselves.」

His heart froze. The dizziness he forgot for a moment flooded him again, and he sunk to his knees beside the mole game console.

He had to get rid off that thing before that.

Because of the throbbing headache, he wanted to just hang up, but suddenly he had a thought. Didn’t he call him about exactly about that? Yu Dan tapped at the mole hammer as he asked.

“So what should I do in such a situation?”

「Don’t You have to turn it around?」

The answer flew back as if he was just waiting.

「You can’t go on like this. Isn’t it holding the initiative right now? Because You’re chasing it, You can never catch up with it. You’ll fall into a trap sooner or later. If it was me, I wouldn’t do such a dangerous race. The fleeing and the chasing. You have to turn it back around to make the monster take Your place for Your advantage.」

“Turn it back around…”

Because his head hurt, he couldn’t think very well. Yu Dan picked up a branch and started to draw on the ground. The one who is fleeing. The one who is chasing. A path to turn it back around?

Thinking back, when he was fleeing with boiled eggs, Baek Ran suddenly teleported behind him. He said something about movement direction and counter direction. He was talking about direction, right? If he wanted to reverse the direction, the chaser would land at the front and the fleeing at the back.

He drew a straight line, and came up with an idea, as if a light bulb lit up in his head. From one end of the straight line, he drew it back, connecting it with the beginning point.

“A circle? If the gap is too big, the person at the front will become the person at the back. The front and the back will be reversed!”

「That’s right. I don’t know why, but You’re thinking well, eh?」

“I think it’s because it hurts.”

「It appears so, eh? Anyways, that’s good. Like the geureumae tried to lure You into the construction site and kill You, You have to use Yourself as bait and lure it into the circular structure. Isn’t there any place similar to the circle? It’s good whether it’s inside a building or outside a building. Or a circular wall.」

Hearing this, he had an idea.

“There is. But it’s…”

「What?」

“Ah, no…”

Yu Dan was seriously at a loss.
 

*~*~*
 
Translator’s note: Ah, yes. Baek Ran’s fear of electromagnetic waves.
 

 

Patron thank you note:

Thank you patron, Nobody, please accept this Otiophora calycophylla’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Al, please accept this Posoqueria latifolia’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Dust, please accept this Eumachia frutescens’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Maru, please accept this Arcytophyllum lavarum’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, kamisonk, please accept this Mitracarpus maxwelliae’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Kasimir Ilmonen, please accept this Psydrax odorata’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Tara Hess, please accept this Atractocarpus fitzalanii’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Ice, please accept this Pentas lanceolata’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, anonymous Kofi-supporter, please accept this Knoxia hookeriana’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Hematite, please accept this Ixora chinensis’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Deflubs, please accept this Discospermum sphaerocarpum’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Thank you patron, Rose Marie, please accept this Isertia haenkeana’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.

Links to support this translation and access to 8 advanced chapter (Patreon & Kofi)

> Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LibraryKeyTranslations

> Kofi-Euro: https://ko-fi.com/wanthetranslator

> Kofi-USD: https://ko-fi.com/wanthetranslatorusd

 

Did you see a mistake? 🐞