BBS (76)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
 

〈Chapter 76〉
 

Banwoldang’s Bizarre Story Volume 4
 

First story

〈Summer Guest〉

There lived a person of surname Song in Gyeongnam Yangsan. Each time his young daughter cried, he would say that he’d marry her off to a reaper if she kept on it. When that daughter grew up and became eligible for marriage, a groom in wedding clothes suddenly appeared at their doorstep and said he would take the daughter. Realizing that it wasn’t a human, they tried to chase it away in fear, but all who blocked the person’s way stiffened and collapsed. The daughter followed the groom crying. He never saw his daughter again since.
 

『Strange Tales 』
 
 

The curtains fluttered in the wind.

The hardwood dresser in his aunt’s living room was decorated with stencil patterns. Three baby bear siblings took a picnic basket and went on a picnic, but the youngest at the tail fell to the ground.

The baby bear would never be able to stand up.

When he was discharged from the hospital after that incident ten years ago, Yu Dan sat in that very spot, looking at the bears.

The memory of that time was all blurry and fragmented.

When he came back to his senses, he was in a hospital. No one talked about the incident, but he thought that obviously everyone knew. However, for the first time he thought he might have been wrong.

There were no traces of the train incident in the records.

Realizing that fact, the first thing that came to mind were his maternal relatives. They were the ones who Yu Dan was closer to than anyone else in the family, and the ones, who prepared the funeral and were with him in the aftermath. Did they not know? Did they just remember it as some traffic incident?

Yu Dan turned his gaze.

Mia was laying on a sofa, yawning and staring at her phone, while his aunt was organizing bowls in a kitchen.

I must talk about that incident…

He came here thinking he should ask, but words didn’t readily come out. He felt isolated in that comfortable atmosphere. The others were people, while he alone seemed to be a balloon doll.

He really hated it. That feeling.

No matter how much he tried to shake it off, it never came off. The hard and smooth touch under his fingertips was the only comfort.

Wait. Hard and smooth?

Startled, he looked down at his hand. The horn of ancient dokkaebi Baek Ran gave him came out at some point.

The thing seemed to react particularly sensitively when Yu Dan felt emotions like anxiety, fear and hatred. He was thankful if it meant it wanted to help, but it was complicated right now. He didn’t know about others, but the horn may be visible in the aunt and Mia’s eyes.

Come back. Come back in.

After he put it in his pocket, the thing soon disappeared. Yu Dan leaned against the sofa like nothing had happened.

The aunt entered the living room, wiping her hands with a towel.

“What for did you come all the way here on the morning of first day of summer break? I guess you’re really bored. Don’t you have supplementary classes at school?”

“They said we don’t have to apply, so…”

“So you really didn’t apply? Everyone did, but you didn’t? You’re a highschooler now, you have to change from how you were conducting middleschool. There is a bunk bed in Hyeon’s room, so you can come to live here until your third year. Hyung will teach you from morning till evening, how good will that be?”

“No! I’m all good right now! I’m doing very well!”

Yu Dan urgently shouted. He hated to even imagine living with anyone. If he shares a room with a model student like Su-hyeon, he might end up going crazy.

“You’re sure doing very well.”

The aunt scrutinized Yu Dan with a dissatisfied face. She felt like she was going to nag him more, but luckily she seemed to be busy at the moment.

“Take good care of the kid. I’m going to the post office and then going to visit the market. I’ll bring pork cutlets.”

“Woah. Mom is the best.”

Mia clapped with a gloomy face.

The aunt packed her parasol and left. The moment the front door closed, Mia’s face changed and she interrogated him right away.

“What?”

“What what?”

“Do you think I don’t know? You have something to say, but can’t bring it up and are only glancing this way?”

Na Mia was usually dull, but at times like this, her senses were very good. In front of his maternal older cousin’s sharp eyes, Yu Dan struggled to hide his embarrassment.

“When was I looking like that?”

“Just speak frankly.”

Mia stabbed him with her feet.

“I know all of it. You got a report card, right? You came here for a parents stamp, didn’t you?”

He was startled at those words.

He completely forgot about the report card.

Yu Dan rummaged through his backpack he brought out of habit, and took out a crumpled report card. He didn’t even look at it and just roughly stuffed it. Now that he unfolded it, he was really in trouble. Mia, who looked at it with him, was at a loss for words.

“It’s fine. I planned to bring it on the start of new term.”

“What is fine? Will your grades change at the start of new term? Give it here.”

Mia snatched the report card and stood up.

“My mom can’t see it or she will collapse. I’ll just secretly stamp it. I’m such a filial daughter.”

She entered the master bedroom right away and threw open the make-up table drawer. She looked very familiar with it.

“Not a day or two you practiced filial piety, huh?”

“Here it is.”

Mia quickly found a stamp pouch. But it was empty.

“Uh? Where is it?”

“Did aunt perhaps expect it and hid it?”

“Mom isn’t so immaculate. Right. Last time Suhyeon-i took it to take out tuition.”

Mia entered her younger brother’s room.

Speaking of that maternal cousin hyung, in a way he was more mysterious than monsters. He saw countless monsters since he was young, but there was only one Seoul University’s student around[1]. Su-hyeon wore glasses since he was five and only read books. So even in his room, books piled up, like in a second-hand bookstore.

Mia turned over the messy pile of books.

“Where did he put it after using it?”

“Won’t aunt come back at his rate?”

Yu Dan rummaged with her. He opened the desk’s drawers one after another, when his eyes were drawn to a certain box, like he was lured to it.

“What is it?”

Opening it, he found an old toy inside. A policeman wearing a helmet and goggles, riding a motorcycle with a mark ‘POLICE’.

Yu Dan went blank.

“Found it!”

Mia, who at last found a seal, turned towards him with an excited face, and her eyes turned round.

“Uh? This is…”

Making a face that said ‘I can’t believe it’, she quickly approached on her knees.

“This thing! This is it, right?! I got goosebumps! This thing is still here! I’ve completely forgotten about it!”

The two felt the motorcycle toy with their hands. With the sensation of worn down plastic, old memories returned.

“Right. We ran away when you were young…”

Mia mumbled. Yu Dan quickly changed the topic, because he felt awkward.

“You still have it? Hyung must have really cherished it. Does it still make a sound?”

He pressed the button on the policeman’s back, but no sound came out.

“Is it broken?”

“I think it ran out of battery. I saw batteries somewhere before.”

Mia stood up, searched the desk and once she found the batteries, she opened the lid on the motorbike’s bottom and replaced them. Yu Dan pressed the button again.

「Hands up!」

Familiar voice shouted out.

「Everyone is under arrest! Invincible Special Force is here! Hands up! Everyone is under arrest!」

“It still works!”

“Right! It’s all good!”

The two put their heads together, and continued to press the button in amazement. Mia was twelve. Su-hyeon was eleven. Yu Dan was seven at that time. The memories of those days he completely forgot came back vividly together with the voice. For a moment, he felt like he returned to the time ten years ago.

They were absorbed into it for a while, when Mia suddenly spoke up.

“But now that I think of it, it had to be supernatural, right?”

“Yeah. It seems it was a supernatural thing.”

“Then did the three of us won against a supernatural thing by combining our powers?”

“Seems so. But…”

It all already ended. However, as he was calmly thinking about it now, ten years later, there was not just one or two things that he was quizzical about.

Yu Dan fell into thoughts with the motorbike policeman in hand.
 

***

 

The middle-aged dokkaebi was watering the lawn. The water droplets sprayed in all directions, following the movement of a hose.

Yu Dan looked at the small stone stairs surrounding a pond.

Didn’t the saying go that shadows become darker the stronger the light? The more blazing the sunlight pouring down, the more freshly green and healthy the leaves, the more he felt summer from the shadows of lonely bushes wrapping around the mossy stone steps. The deep and dreary shadows that couldn’t be seen in spring, fall or winter. It really seemed that some unknowable things could be born from them.

The twins approached.

“Do You know what Cheonho-nim is doing right now?”

“Are you asking me?”

“We’re not asking. Before you start the conversation in a full-swing, you must set off a conversation. Isn’t that called a Q&A?”

“I don’t think you know what that means.”

“Is Yu Dan-yi like this when he talks with humans too?”

“Um, I think I was just wrong. Cheonho-nim is currently making talismans.”

“He also has a side-job, huh?”

“No. It’s almost Dàshǔ. It’s the hottest day of the year, isn’t it? They say that even goat horns melt during Dàshǔ.”

“There are many yokai, who are having a difficult time. So He is preparing talismans to distribute them.”

“Then he is probably busy.”

“But He is almost finished. You can go up.”

“No, I’m okay. I wanted to just ask something I was curious about. I’ll ask when he is on a break later, or something.”

“Then do you want to play with us inside. Play watching over the shop.”

“Is air conditioner turned on?”

“No. The talismans are cooler than the air conditioner.”

“You don’t have air conditioner, huh?”

The twins looked at each other, and went inside. Do-ssi approached him, while he kept watering.

“Hey, you were given a report card, right? Please show it me.”

“No.”

“I’ll give you one hundred won.”

“You expect me to make a spectacle out of myself?”

“How cheap.”

Water stream came towards him. Yu Dan quickly avoided it, while glancing around. Perhaps because it was summer, a bench was placed under a huge tree, so he went there and sat down.

He complained about air conditioning a moment ago, but it wasn’t hot. When he just entered, he though he was going to go crazy from heat, but at some point, the heat died down.

This place was also strange. Even though he crossed just one gate, it felt like it was completely separate from the outside world. Usually, if he was idle for just half an hour, he would browse his phone, but he didn’t feel like taking it out. All the things that haunted his head felt trivial in this moment. It was strangely comfortable.

Then he abruptly felt a gaze on him.

Yu Dan turned around.

Someone was staring at him from behind a shed. The main body was carefully hidden and only a head was timidly sticking out — it was a siberian husky, which resembled a wolf. It was one of the various monsters summoned by Baek Ran, the transformed Furious Thunder.

“Ah, who is it?”

When he showed recognition, Thunder wagged her tail like crazy.

He helped her a few months ago. Seeing she still didn’t forget about it and was thankful, she was a yokai, who knew what gratitude means. As he gestured for her to come closer, she pressed her ears close to her head, and she was so grateful that she couldn’t properly control her body, pressing against Yu Dan’s legs.

“I didn’t ask you to come this close.”

He felt the warmth of the dog through the fur. He abruptly remembered the Jindo dog at his grandparents’ house, which he completely forgot. Jinsuni was so clever, he wondered if there wasn’t a person hidden behind that fur.

And thinking about it, there was such a bench in his grandparents’ house too.

Yu Dan laid down on a bench.

That summer…

The family was turned upside down because of the incident. The funeral hadn’t end yet. Everything after that was chaotic.

His father left Yu Dan with his maternal grandmother at the countryside, until the things were somewhat solved. Not long after that, the summer break began and his aunt brought his cousins. The memories before that were dim, but the memories after were very clear.

There was noting in particular for children to play with at the countryside. They explored a house, and found a box filled with video tapes in the attic. At first they didn’t know what it was. They asked a neighborhood hyung or uncle, who studied for civil servant exam, he told him how to play films on the tv in a small room.

Everything in the box were foreign films with dubbing. As they were very old, the quality was not great, and there was little sound, but in boredom, they watched each one of them.

Because Yu Dan was young, he watched all of them without giving them any particular thought, but Mia and Su-hyeon had extremely different tastes. The only foreign movie they both liked was 〈S. W. A. T〉. It was a drama about special force, formed from five Vietnam War veterans, who carried enormous guns and beat up criminals. The three were absorbed in watching the sparkling screen for a long time.

Because of that drama, the motorcycle policeman toy Su-hyeon brought from Seoul skyrocketed in value. It was thanks to the ‘POLICE’ written on its side, like on the black van the S.W.A.T team used.

Su-hyeon called that toy ‘Boss’ and brought it everywhere. He would wander around with it and play during the day, watch the old foreign movies at night, and nap with it during the hottest hours.

One of such days.

Mia and Su-hyeon went to buy books in town, and Yu Dan laid on his grandmother’s lap. The neighbor grandmas, who came to chat everyday, came that day too. In a half-sleep, he faintly overhead their whispered conversation.

Suddenly the atmosphere became agitated.

“Eunsil was in a big trouble.”

“What to do? The summer guests[2] are scarier than the tigers.”

Even in his hazy consciousness, he heard his grandmother’s worried voice clearly. He thought that the grandmas were fearfully telling a story of a monster.

Summer guests?

There was a very ominous ring to those words. What the hell was that? How scary of a monster was it? Yu Dan was also afraid. His whole body was soaked in cold sweat.

His grandmother had no idea how much she scared her grandson. She conversed for a while, and then delicately raised Yu Dan’s head and placed it on the ground to go outside with other grandmas.

Where are you going? A monster is coming. Where are you going, leaving me alone?

He tried to stand up, but he couldn’t even move a finger, as if he was paralyzed. He must not stay here. Yu Dan desperately tried to move his fingers.

After a while, he barely manged to release himself from the paralysis clutches. When he quickly stood up…

Bang bang bang!

A sound of knocking echoed at the front door.

Yu Dan’s face turned pale. No one opened it, but the green door to his grandma’s house opened by itself with a ‘kieek’ and someone strode in.

The summer guest.

Yu Dan’s heart raced ‘thud, thud, thud’.

Scared to his wits, Yu Dan looked up. Black face wrapped in bandages under a fedora hat. Black sunglasses that looked like hollowed-out eye sockets. Trench coat. Gloved hands. The tightly wrapped bizarre appearance, that exposed nothing, not suiting a summer. His hair stood on its ends.

“Aaack!”

Yu Dan turned around right away and fled.
 

*~*~*
 

[1] Seoul University — Is the most prestigious university in South Korea.

[2] summer guests — to be precise ‘May and June’ guests. (I don’t think there is a one-word name for this period in English, right?’)
 

Translator’s note: Ah, rummaging through old video tapes give me a pang of nostalgia.

The ‘Summer Guest’ story is three chapters long.
 

 

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3 responses

  1. Anonymous

    Thank you for translation, I will happily wait for the next but don’t so rush and feels burden, again, thank you so much

    1. Thank you very much for reading and waiting for the next then~

  2. Wohoo! I came just by chance I’m so glad it updated!! Thank you translators!! 💕💕

    Yu Dan trying to remember but can’t, relatable 😔

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