BBS (77)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
 

〈Chapter 77〉
 

Then he had a thought.

Mia once told him that when chased by a monster, he has to wear his shoes backwards and run. Yu Dan quickly took off his sport boots, put them backwards, and mindlessly ran into his room and hid under a blanket.

It was quiet outside. But he couldn’t let go of his guard, so he curled up under a blanket, without being able to breathe properly. How much time has passed? He unknowingly fell asleep.

“What are you doing all alone?”

“Why are you sleeping here? Isn’t it hot?”

When Mia and Su-hyeon returned from the town and shook him awake, the summer guest was already gone. However, he could come to visit again at any time. No, he will visit. That was certain.

He wasn’t able to tell anyone about it. He could speak about scary things, but that thing was so scary, he couldn’t talk about it. Yu Dan was brooding alone. He was nothing but careful not to be left alone at the house.

A few days passed like this. Even though children were supposed to sleep early, he spread blankets and covered the door gap, and watched movies late into the night with Mia and Su-hyeon. One day, he fell asleep, and when he woke up, it was already noon.

“Grandma…”

There was no answer. The house was quiet like a temple. The moment he realized there was no one around, his heart sunk with a thud.

Bang bang bang!

Someone knocked at the door at that every moment.

The summer guest. It must have waited for this moment.

Yu Dan fled, terrified. But this time, he was so shocked and flustered that he completely forgot to put his shoes on backwards. He realized it too late, the pitch-black shadow already covered his vision…

“Woof!”

The dog barking snapped him back to reality.

Furious Thunder, who was laying under the bench, stood up and wagged her tail. Yu Dan abruptly stood up.

The twins were walking over, both holding trays. The dog ran up to them in excitement.

“Okay. We like you too. But a sled dog in summer? I feel hot when I look at you. Hot.”

After Chaeseol petted Thunder’s head, she shook her head. And handed over an item on the tray.

“Yu Dan, we brought one for you too.”

It was a round paper fan. He tried to wave it without any particular thought. Hit by a cold wind, like an air of North Pole, he looked down at it again in surprise. Only one big pictogram ‘凉’which he couldn’t’ understand was written on it.

“It’s 량(rang), character for cold.”

He heard the fox yokai’s voice from the other side.

Because Baek Ran was avoiding sunlight, he was only walking in shadows. Because of that, he fell far behind the twins.

“You didn’t believe it was much colder than air conditioner, did You?”

“So in a fit of rage you brought one right away, huh?”

“I just happened to finish them all. You have to use them sparingly. After three hundred fans, the writing will disappear.”

After Baek Ran came over to the bench, the twins stood up and yielded the shadow.

Cool wind blew under the tree. The wild ginseng twins looked at the swaying tree shadows, and then looked at each other and smiled. Once they held up their fans and sat down, it just felt peaceful. Why did he come here again…?

As if he read his thoughts, the fox yokai asked:

“Is there something You’re curious about?”

“Ah, right.”

“What a shocking incident.”

“You know even without listening.”

“I was talking about the fact that You’re curious about something.”

“What’s wrong with that? I was plenty curious when I was young. It’s because the life is difficult, the thinking becomes a struggle too. Anyway, the thing I wanted to ask about is something that happened to me in childhood. I found an old toy when I was at my aunt’s house.”

Yu Dan picked up a branch laying under the bench and started to draw.

“It looked roughly like this. A policeman riding a motorcycle, with a button on the back that makes a sound when pressed. 「Hands up! Everyone is under arrest! Invincible Special Force is here!」, things like that. I remember an old event that I’ve forgotten about for a long time when I saw that toy. When I was young I met a monster at my grandparents’ house in a rural area. Now that I thought about it, it had to be a supernatural thing.”

“Aha. One of the bad relationships you got completely entangled with when You were young came to visit You again, and You came running here with a pale face.”

“Hey, if that was it, would I just be leisurely sitting here? It’s already all over. Mia noona, Su-hyeon hyung and me — the three of use defeated the supernatural.”

The eyes of the twins, who were listening intently grew round.

“Three children? Really?”

“Amazing!”

“But when I thought about it again, there were still a few riddles. It already all ended anyway, so it won’t matter, but…”

“I have to cancel the thought I had before. Looking now, Yu Dan-yi also knows how to start a conversation.”

“That’s right. You know how to get yokai hooked.”

The twins smiled widely and sat down close. The fox also perked up his ears, and prepared to earnestly listen.

Yu Dan started to tell the tale of what happened to them ten years ago.

It was summer he spent with his grandparents at their home in the countryside. The monster feared by his grandma and other neighbor grandpas, ‘Summer Guest’ visited their home. First time he got lucky, but when it came the second time — he ended up captured…
 

***

 

“Su-summer guest…”

The young Yu Dan looked up in fear.

The face under a fedora was tightly wrapped in bandages. A man wearing a trench coat. It was scary. Too scary. But he worked hard to pluck his courage and act like nothing was wrong.

“The-there is no one here right now.”

Instead of two eyes, black sunglasses stared down at him. From under the bandages, he slowly heard an inflectionless voice.

“I came to take you.”

He already guessed it, but he felt tears welling up.

“Why?”

“Because everyone want you to disappear.”

He had guessed that too, and finally tears started to fall.

“Why…?”

“You know it too. Every time they see you, they remember your mom. They remember the incident. They want to quickly forget, but they keep thinking about it and become depressed. So they hope you will get out of their sight. They hope that you will disappear forever.”

It stretched out a gloved hand.

“Let’s go then.”

He couldn’t refuse. Because all the time, when he woke up, when he ate, when he played with his cousins, when he slept, he heard that voice in his ears — constantly.

‘Your mum is dead, but you’re alive?’

Because he couldn’t get rid of that voice, even though it was so scary, he couldn’t help but follow it.

The Summer Guest left his grandparents house and quickly walked down the road beside a paddy field. Yu Dan followed like he was dragged. He hoped someone would help him. He desperately looked at the passing people, but it seemed like no one could see Yu Dan. Or perhaps they saw him, but pretended not to.

Because the summer guests are scarier than tigers.

They left the town and climbed a hill covered in grass well over his height. The tough grass kept catching on his clothes, like ghostly clutches. The day instantly became dark. The Summer Guests liked night. It stopped in a very secluded stop where no one passed by.

He snapped back to his senses. An enormous fear, that couldn’t even compare to a moment ago, pounced at him. He tried to turn around to flee, but he was tightly caught by the shoulder.

“Everyone dies.”

He saw a vision. Drainage covered by withered vines and dry leaves. His corpse displayed in dirty mud water. The corpse twisted like a broken doll. His eyes murky like cheap marbles looking towards the sky.

He couldn’t even scream. The skinny gloved hand dig deeper into his shoulder.

But in that moment.

He heard a familiar sound from somewhere.

「Hands up! Everyone is under arrest!」

He focused all on his ears. Yu Dan sharply turned his head. It wasn’t far way. He heard it just around a corner.

「Invincible Special Force is here!」

“Here! Here!”

He shouted with all his might and threw off the hand on his shoulder.

A dazzling light of flashlights illuminated him. Mia and Su-hyeon were holding flashlights and running, while shouting. He was safe now. The young Yu Dan thought. The Summer Guest was very scary, but even then they would win. Because the Special Force was with them.

“Bad bastard! Die!”

“Get out of here!”

Mia and Su-hyeon punched the man in a fedora and a trench coat with sticks. Yu Dan also gathered courage and attacked with them, throwing stones.

The Summer Guest couldn’t even move a finger and was just taking all of the children’s attacks. Something surprising happened. That thing that was so enormous, gradually grew smaller, until…
 
 

“… It disappeared like a lie.”

He ended the story.

Everyone were listening with rapid attention. Even Heuk-yo, who came holding a tray in the middle, just put it down and sat down. The ice in four green plum tea glasses all melted and soaked the tray. Do-ssi was watering the grass just to the side, but because he fixed it in just one place, the soil all turned into mud.

As much as humans liked stories about yokai, yokai liked stories about humans. They especially were obsessed with ghost stories about humans facing scary things.

Yu Dan shrugged.

“Like this, we dealt with a monster and safely returned to reality. But, like I said a moment ago…”

“Now that You thought about it, there were more than one or two unresolved mysteries?”

“Yeeah.”

He nodded.

“What kind of supernatural is that ‘Summer Guest’? ‘Summer guests are scarier than tigers’. Did such a saying arose because they were so scary? Even though they’re also guests, they’re different from afterlife guests, who just visit without any ill intentions. It has to be a really scary supernatural. But then how such a powerful thing can be defeated by three children? Is that supernatural perhaps weak to children? No. I felt it directly. It was really powerful and wicked.”

Baek Ran replied with a serious face.

“That’s correct. Even if I was there, I don’t know what result it would be.”

“Is that so? It’s a really powerful supernatural, right?”

“Yes. The summer guests. Based on the legends, those things are very wicked and powerful, so…”

But he didn’t finish and burst out laughing. Yu Dan who was listening seriously was dumbfounded.

“What? What is it?”

Looking around, Do-ssi, Heuk-yo and the twins were holding back their laughter. He had no idea what was the cause.

“Why are you like this?”

“Ah, I can’t laugh.”

Chaeu quickly erased his expression.

“It’s correct that it was a powerful and scary supernatural. But on the other hand, it’s funny.”

“Did you really never think to ask your grandma what the saying ‘Summer guests are scarier than tigers’ really means?”

At Heuk-yo’s critique, Yu Dan was dumbfounded again.

“There is some other meaning? What is it?”

“Aren’t May and July really hot summer months? What if guests visit in the peak of hot summer? You will have to clean the house, take out things to moisten the throat, and if it’s mealtime, you have to make a meal, set the table and then even bring alcohol and snacks. It’s so sweltering you don’t have any energy to move, so the thought of receiving guests, while drenched in sweat, would be terrifying, wouldn’t it be? Therefore the saying ‘Summer guests are scarier than tigers’. It’s an idiom, which contains struggles of a housekeeper.”

“What?”

No way. Those yokai were surely all playing with him, right? He took out a phone out of his pocket and looked it up.

It was true. The ‘Summer guests are scarier than tigers’ was an idiom, which meant that it was difficult to receive guests in hot summer. Thinking that not knowing that, he heard what the grandmas said and trembled in fear, he felt embarrassed and empty.

“How could it be. There was no monster.”

“That’s not it.”

The face of the fox, who was smiling widely, turned serious again.

“There was a monster. A monster created by a child, who didn’t know anything, based on his comprehension of a saying. Have You never tried to analyze this thing? First the truth of the name ‘summer guest’ was revealed, so now…”

Baek Ran flapped the fan once.

“Didn’t You say that during the summer in Your mother’s hometown, You’ve found a box full of videotapes with Your noona and hyung, and watched old movies and dramas late into the night? You must’ve had a lot of fun, right?”

“I didn’t know what they were at the time and just watched them.”

“Because You didn’t know what they were, they must’ve left an even deeper impression. Each one of them were completely engraved in the mind of a seven years old child. It appears that You’ve all forgotten them now, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it was still clear in your unconsciousness. Wasn’t the first film born in the late 18th century? Compared to other art forms, it’s still very young, but… Fedora and sunglasses. Face covered in bandages. Trench coat and gloved hands? I seem to recall a very famous classic movie. Wasn’t there one like that?”

“I think so too.”

Chaeseol jumped up, as if she was waiting. She hopped and run, immediately bringing a few volumes of books. He was quick to notice 『Annals of Past and Present Bizarre Occurrences』, which recorded all supernatural things in the world. All books other than that were scrapbooks and materials related to movies.

Now that he thought about it, those yokai really liked movies. He recalled that in the past, when he brought Eunbi, who was overwhelmed by hungry ghosts, when they were dragged into the Gyeongseong[1] of the past, Heuk-yo ordered to bring a flier from in front of a movie theater.

The yokai’s scrapbook was densely packed with movie posters and theater tickets. But as if they were gathering them without any kind of system, Chaeseol flipped pages back and forth, and finally after a frantic search, she barely found what she wanted.

“Look at this.”

What? He glanced at it, and was shocked.

That thing was a movie poster. It was a man. His face under a fedora was tightly wrapped in bandages. Sunglasses looked like empty eye sockets. Gloves and trench coat that covered him up to a neck.

“That’s the Summer Guests! But how can it be here…”

Yu Dan looked at the title in English. ‘THE INVISIBLE MAN’. The word in front was long, but he often saw it in games, so it was familiar.

“A not visible… man?”

“The invisible man. English movie ‘The Invisible Man’ 1933 directed by James Whale. Original was a science fiction novel by Herbert George Wells. It’s a real masterpiece. A certain eccentric scientist invents an elixir to become transparent and uses it on his body. With this, he commits all kinds of crimes and even randomly kills people, gradually going mad. Finally he dies in front of the woman he loves.”

Chaeu diligently explained. Baek Ran spoke after him.

“I guess a videotape with that Invisible Man was in the box You found in the attic. You watched that movie with Your noona and hyung, but was still too young to fully understand its plot. You probably just thought that the invisible man’s appearance was very scary. Perhaps because of that impression, the ‘Summer Guest’ borrowed its appearance from there.”

Yu Dan was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t say a word and just stared at the poster for a while. That name was an old saying of a completely different meaning, and its appearance was borrowed from an old movie?! It was a monster made up with his imagination?

“But it can’t be just in my imagination. Noona and hyung saw it too. We fought it together. The Summer Guest really existed in reality.”

“Yes.”

Baek Ran nodded.

“That’s why it’s scary. Didn’t You ask what kind of supernatural was it? It was a language curse.”

“Language curse.”

“To speak precisely, language sorcery.”
 

*~*~*
 

[1] Gyeongseong — old name for Seoul, during the Japanese occupation.
 

Translator’s note: Yu Dan is learning so much ‘language’ this story.

 

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One response

  1. Oh…poor Yu Dan💀

    Thanks for translating!!💕💕

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