Taking a step back, Jaegyeom stared blankly at Cho Youngwoo.
What… Was this guy a gwijae?
There was a strange anticipation in Cho Youngwoo’s eyes as he waited for an answer. Jaegyeom, who was estimating him, was lost in thought for a moment. Jaegyeom had no intention of revealing that he was a gwijae. It was the same regardless of whether the other person was an ordinary human being or a gwijae like him. Jaegyeom knew very well what would happen if the fact that he was a gwijae was known. He decided to intervene first.
“Didn’t you just say…”
As Cho Youngwoo hesitated and was about to add,
“What butterfly? Where’s the butterfly?”
Jaegyeom cut off Cho Youngwoo’s words and replied indifferently.
When he feigned ignorance, sure enough, Cho Youngwoo’s eyes shook for a moment. He seemed relieved, but also slightly disappointed. Jaegyeom kept his eyes fixed on him and followed the movement of the butterfly fluttering out of the corner of his eyes.
“Oh, no. No. Sorry. I must have been slightly mistaken.”
“Mistaken?”
“Yeah, I keep seeing things these days… Have I been lethargic? Haha, I’m sorry for saying something strange all of a sudden. Never mind what I just said.”
Cho Youngwoo hurriedly evaded his words and waved his hand. The butterfly had landed lightly on his shoulder. However, Cho Youngwoo was completely unaware of the butterfly’s presence. It seemed like the butterfly was invisible to his eyes.
Maybe it’s a case of seeing it and not seeing it…
Jaegyeom was puzzled.
***
Jaegyeom looked around the noisy cafeteria.
The butterfly sitting on his shoulder disappeared on its own at some point. Cho Youngwoo took the plate and spoon familiarly and gestured to Jaegyeom. Jaegyeom, who was standing bewildered, followed him and picked up the tableware. As he followed him, the plate quickly became heavy.
He took a careful look at the food on the plate.
The menu consisted of steaming multigrain rice, seaweed soup with clam meat, sweet pork bulgogi, and glossy japchae and radish kimchi. Jaegyeom, who sat across from Cho Youngwoo, picked up a spoon and rummaged through the side dishes. He slurped the soup first. Jaegyeom, who tasted the lunch for the first time, raised his head.
The meals at Daeryung High School had a reputation for being tasteless even in the local area. Everyone was complaining about wanting to transfer schools because of the tasteless school lunches. The children would eat only the most delicious side dishes and pour the rest into the trash. Thanks to this, the snack bar was always crowded with students, and many teachers even brought packed lunches.
Cho Youngwoo, who confirmed Jaegyeom’s shocking expression, smiled awkwardly. He thought he was surprised that it had no taste. Jaegyeom scooped up his rice and poured it into seaweed soup.
“It’s a bit bad, isn’t it? Still, it’s a lot better than before…”
Cho Youngwoo, who was muttering shyly, mumbled. He thought he was trying to gather the food in one place to make it easier to throw away, but Jaegyeom put one of his arms up next to the plate and began to spoon eagerly. Cho Youngwoo stared at Jaegyeom eating.
“Why?”
Jaegyeom, who was eating radish kimchi with chopsticks, felt Cho Youngwoo’s gaze and raised his head.
“Ah, you ate so well…”
“Because it is so delicious.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ajfusfbw gfqilfv klat j nfgs rfglber ojmf.
“P- P rff…”
Ajfusfbw vlilufcais jaf atf wfji klatbea rjslcu j kbgv. Jtb Tbecukbb yfujc ab qijmf atf wfja bc atf rqbbc bcf ys bcf. Pc atja kjs, Jtb Tbecukbb wbnfv jii bo atf yeiubul ogbw tlr qijaf ab Ajfusfbw’r qijaf. Llr fsfr klvfcfv ja atf wfja rlvf vlrtfr atja revvfcis lcmgfjrfv.
“What?”
“Do you like meat? I didn’t touch it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like meat.”
He looked at Cho Youngwoo suspiciously, wondering if there was such a person in the world, but he was secretly pleased. The food must be really good. Cho Youngwoo suppressed the laughter that was about to leak out. When he gestured, “Eat quickly,” Jaegyeom nodded his head suspiciously.
In fact, he was still bothered by the useless words that he saw earlier. He was worried that Jaegyeom might look at him strangely. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to care. Cho Youngwoo, who was proudly looking at Jaegyeom eating, smiled and asked a question.
“Jaegyeom. Do you like fortune-telling?”
Jaegyeom, who was playing with chopsticks, raised his eyes.
“If you like fortune-telling, I’ll give it to you later.”
“You will be doing the fortune-telling?”
“My hobby is fortune-telling with yut. Haha, do I sound like a grandfather? Ah. If you don’t know what fortune-telling with yut is, you have to throw the yut three times to tell your fortune for the day, it’s nothing much, but it’s kind of fun.
Cho Youngwoo giggled and continued his words.
“I’ve been doing it for fun since before, but these days I think it suits me pretty well. Today’s fortune tells me that there would be good news today. And today, Jaegyeom, you transferred in. How is it? Aren’t you curious?”
Jaegyeom, who had been carelessly playing with chopsticks, suddenly stopped.
“What came out?”
“Huh?”
“What did you get out of throwing yut three times?”
Cho Youngwoo looked back at his memory with a troubled expression.
“Ah… um, at first, a ‘do’. The second is ‘mo’. What was the last… ah! ‘Geol’. It was a ‘geol’.”
“Do, mo, geol…”
As Jaegyeom muttered to himself, Cho Youngwoo nodded his head.
“Mhm. Domogeol. Interpretations can be found by searching the Internet. It’s in Chinese, so I can’t remember exactly, but I think it meant that something good would happen.”
“…”
“Ah! You can search on your phone now…”
Jaegyeom, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, put down his chopsticks to make a thud.
“Hey.”
Cho Youngwoo, who was about to take his phone out of his pocket, hesitated and looked at Jaegyeom.
“Are you not eating?”
It was a cold voice he had never heard before. Cho Youngwoo was taken aback by Jaegyeom’s sudden cold attitude. Oh, did he talk too much in his excitement? Cho Youngwoo opened his mouth with a slightly red face.
“Ah… s- sorry…”
When Cho Youngwoo apologised a little, Jaegyeom muttered dryly.
“You’re seeing things because you’re getting engrossed in things like that.”
“…”
“Keep your mind straight.”
“…”
Cho Youngwoo was speechless. Jaegyeom’s words were perfectly correct, but strangely, it felt like he was being sharp. Jaegyeom started eating again as if nothing had happened.
Jaegyeom left all the meat side dishes that Cho Youngwoo gave him.
***
Cho Youngwoo had been a weak child since childhood. He was afflicted with so many ailments that he was often hospitalised, and his days of good health were numbered on the fingers of his hand. Although he had improved a lot since he became a high school student, he was often sick once or twice a month or left early.
Because he often missed school, he couldn’t make many friends.
And then. When Cho Youngwoo heard that a transfer student was coming, he decided that this time he would not miss out and would make friends with him. Moreover, it turned out that their houses were in the same direction, and there was even the amazing coincidence that they rode the same bus.
And now…
He was walking towards the bus stop alone.
***
While returning from the cafeteria to the classroom, Jaegyeom and Cho Youngwoo did not say a word to each other. It had been the same since. After the bell rang, he went to the bathroom for a while, and Jaegyeom was already gone. He asked him to go home with him after school, but he hadn’t shown up. He tried not to get his hopes up, but he still couldn’t help feeling upset.
Cho Youngwoo sighed.
“Oh really… I shouldn’t have said something so weird…”
It wasn’t enough that he’d told him that he could see things within a few hours of meeting him, but he’d also told him a pathetic story about his fortune-telling skills, so Jaegyeom definitely did not like it.
It was a year ago that Cho Youngwoo started playing yut after watching a broadcast program that gave lifestyle tips. It seemed to be simple and systematic, so he decided to try it out since there was nothing to lose, and somehow it felt right. Of course, there were many times when he was confused. However, after doing it a few times for fun, the fortune-telling became more and more accurate over time. He thought that the more he did it, the more he got better.
Then one day. Cho Youngwoo was walking down the street and inadvertently saw his reflection in the show window. A butterfly was flying around his ear. He thoughtlessly turned his head to look at the butterfly. But no matter how much he looked around, he couldn’t find it. He looked at the show window again with a strange feeling, and the butterfly was still flapping its wings next to him reflected in the glass.
He could see the butterfly over there, but there was no butterfly here.
‘Wh- what…’
Startled, Cho Youngwoo hurriedly returned home, and nothing else happened after that. Everyday life went on as usual. A few days passed after that, and the incident seemed to be forgotten. But before he could really forget, Cho Youngwoo found a butterfly again. This time, not through a show window, but with his own eyes.
At that time, Cho Youngwoo was suffering from a fever. While dreaming, he stared blankly at it without much thought. But as he watched it, he suddenly felt uncomfortable. The body of the butterfly was transparent, so objects were reflected behind its wings. At the same time, Cho Youngwoo quickly remembered that the current season was winter.
‘…’
He eventually passed out that day. Perhaps it was from then. Butterflies began to appear in Cho Youngwoo’s eyes. Sometimes he could see them, sometimes he couldn’t, but they appeared out of nowhere. And it was around that time that he began to receive fortune-telling readings that perfectly predicted his day.
Butterflies and yut fortune-telling. Cho Youngwoo did not know what was happening to him.
‘You’re seeing things because you’re getting engrossed in things like that.’
Was it? Really, maybe…
Jaegyeom’s cold words kept ringing in his ears. Cho Youngwoo, with a confused face, picked up the bag he was carrying on his shoulder. Today, the road to the bus stop felt far away.
“Excuse me, student?”
As he was walking only looking at the ground, he raised his head at the sound of someone calling. A few steps away, a strange woman was looking at him.
“Yes?”
“You dropped something.”
“M- Me?”
“Yes.”
Cho Youngwoo looked around under his feet. He circled around to check where he was standing, but there was nothing in particular on the sidewalk block. Only a tattered bag of bread rolling around in the wind.
“T- There is nothing…”
“I just picked it up.”
“… Yes?”
Cho Youngwoo showed a puzzled expression. So why not just give it to him? The woman who was standing a few steps away approached him as he tilted his head. She seemed like an ordinary woman at first glance. The woman who came close to Cho Youngwoo held out her hand.
“Here, take it.”
The woman’s hand was clenched as if she was holding an egg. She seemed to be wrapping it carefully so that it wouldn’t break. Cho Youngwoo spread his palm near the woman’s fist with a bewildered expression.
“Uh… th- this…”
When Cho Youngwoo opened his eyes wide, the woman smiled.
“It’s yours, right?”
A transparent butterfly fluttered out of the woman’s hand.
This is so interesting, looking forward to the next chapters.
Is the butterfly a sign of a bad omen? The woman’s creepy.
Seems like something would happen to him.
Thanks for the chapter
🧐🧐