“Ah, you said to go home together!”
Cho Youngwoo looked up at Jaegyeom blankly with a half-stunned expression on his face.
“Uh? O- Oh…”
In his head, the whole situation before and after was tangled up in a jumbled mess. What? He was obviously on his way home. Why was he here? Didn’t Jaegyeom go back first? Why did the back of his head hurt so much…
Cho Youngwoo, who was distractedly looking around, took in a shaky breath.
The woman who had retreated to a corner was glaring at Jaegyeom and Cho Youngwoo as if she was going to kill them. Cho Youngwoo, who noticed the woman, began to tremble with a pale face. It wasn’t until he saw the bizarre black eyes without whites that his sense of reality returned. Cho Youngwoo pointed at the woman with a finger.
“Jae- Jaegyeom! O- O- Over there…”
In a moment of bewilderment at Jaegyeom’s sudden approach, the woman had a face full of malice.
“Who are you?”
Jaegyeom, who was standing there, glanced at the woman and then cast his gaze at Cho Youngwoo. When the woman opened her mouth, Cho Youngwoo was about to run out of breath. When Jaegyeom did not answer, the woman asked again in a ghastly voice.
“Who are you?”
“If you don’t know who I am, why don’t you, you, stay away?”
Jaegyeom replied plainly without giving the woman a glance.
“I’m not someone you can make me listen to.”
Jaegyeom bent down to check Cho Youngwoo’s face. This one came first. It must have been quite painful since he hit the back of his head not with his bare hands, but with his hands loaded with spiritual energy. Still, seeing that his eyes came back into focus, he seemed to have regained consciousness.
“Hey, look at me.”
“Y- You have to run away, you have to run away!”
With a tear-stained face, Cho Youngwoo hurriedly pulled Jaegyeom by the collar. It’s only been a few hours since he told him to get his mind straight, but he got bewitched… This was all because his heart was unsteeled and he fell for it. Jaegyeom grumbled internally. If there was Jeongju next to him, he would have scolded him too, saying, “You ran all the way here because you were weak since he shared a side dish of meat.”
“You have to run away, Jaegyeom-ah… That woman, her eyes are strange… And the butterfly, butterfly… she said I had to kill the butterfly, but suddenly my body didn’t listen…”
Jaegyeom covered Cho Youngwoo’s eyes with his palm. At his unknown behaviour, Cho Youngwoo struggled and grabbed his wrist. His palms were wet with his tears.
“Calm down. Close your eyes until I say otherwise.”
“Jaegyeom! What are you doing, you have to run away…”
“Oh, shut up! Close your mouth too. Just stay still.”
“B- But…”
Jaegyeom sucked in a breath sharply, giving him an unspoken warning. Cho Youngwoo flinched and shut his mouth. After a few seconds, strangely, Jaegyeom’s palms covering his eyes began to feel cool. The centre of his brow tickled, and he felt something slipping out of him.
And strangely, from the moment his palm touched his eyes, no sound was heard. It was a strange feeling. Cho Youngwoo wanted to ask what he was doing, but for some reason, Jaegyeom’s was rough, so he was reluctant to speak.
“Haven’t you left yet?”
Suddenly, Jaegyeom opened his mouth. Then, the woman who had been observing Jaegyeom all the time, standing a few steps away, tilted her head and asked again.
“Why are you interrupting me?”
Jaegyeom frowned at the woman’s words and glared at her.
“You’re the one who interrupted first.”
“What do you mean?”
Jaegyeom pointed at Cho Youngwoo with his chin.
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.
“You grabbed an innocent person who was passing by.”
Jtb Tbecukbb tjv yffc alialcu tlr tfjv ogbw j ktlif jub. Qts mbeivc;a tf tfjg jcsatlcu jii bo j revvfc… ? Lf kjr cba jkjgf bo la, yea yfobgf tf xcfk la, tlr agfwyilcu tjv mbwqifafis rabqqfv. Llr mibevfv wlcv jirb yfmjwf mifjg. Cii bo atlr kjr ogbw atf wbwfca Ajfusfbw’r tjcv abemtfv tlw.
“It’s better to joke around in moderation.”
The woman muttered sullenly.
“Joke? Me?”
Jaegyeom glanced sideways at the woman. When her eyes met Jaegyeom’s, the woman’s expression changed. A sharp spiritual energy that flowed momentarily from his clear eyes seemed to be aiming at his neck.
“You don’t seem to be able to grasp the situation, I guess your rationale is getting blurred after all?”
“… What?”
“You know, right? It’s just the eyes for now, but gradually the state of other places will start to fall apart.”
“…”
“You haven’t even achieved what you wanted yet, and you’re getting nervous about becoming a ghost. right?”
The expression gradually disappeared from the woman’s face.
“Seeing you reach out to such an insignificant guy, you must have been very impatient. I don’t know what the purpose is. Judging from the lack of strength left to get rid of the butterflies, it looks like you’ve been getting it wrong in the evening. Why don’t we just give up?”
“Shut up.”
The woman gnawed her teeth. Anger overflowed from her black eyes. Jaegyeom had seen those eyes before. Eyes consumed by resentment and hatred. From the moment he entered the alley following the voice, he could feel it without even looking at the woman’s feet. A sad and heavy resentment.
The woman was a vengeful ghost.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. If it weren’t for you… if it weren’t for you…”
“Yeah, you must have thought of stealing the body.”
The moment Jaegyeom looked at Cho Youngwoo’s back, he knew that he was possessed by the woman. At the same time, the source of the voice called him anxiously.
‘Youngwoo-ya, Youngwoo-ya…’
The voice that sounded like a plea came from within Cho Youngwoo’s grasp. The owner of the voice was the butterfly. It was only then that Jaegyeom was able to notice the identity of the butterfly he had put aside.
Transparent and warm aura, fragrant smell, chasing around Cho Youngwoo was ‘wish’. The reason why Jaegyeom could hear that voice must have been due to him briefly touching it to chase it away. Someone’s desperate wish remained in the world and could not leave Cho Youngwoo’s side. Unbeknownst to Jaegyeom, they must have prayed for him countless times in their life.
Youngwoo, you must be healthy. Youngwoo, you should be safe, our precious Youngwoo. Always, always…
“Since the butterfly was guarding this guy, he must have been untouchable. However, you were afraid that if you tried to get rid of them, you’d get the opposite effect. You must have been thinking of somehow coaxing the butterfly away.”
The butterfly that escaped from Cho Youngwoo’s hand was hovering around him again. To overcome his difficulties with the help of a precious person. While staring at the butterfly, Jaegyeom suddenly thought. That precious person was not Jaegyeom himself, but maybe that butterfly. If he hadn’t heard the butterfly’s voice, he wouldn’t have made it this far.
In the end, he was played by fortune-tellers again…
It was when Jaegyeom let out a small sigh, the woman gritted her teeth and glared at him.
“Yes, you are right. Day by day, my thoughts are clouded, and eventually I will lose all my memories. But I, I… There is still work to be done.”
The woman’s voice was trembling. Even though her malicious energy was overflowing, she felt somewhat pitiful rather than threatening. It must be because her strength had weakened. It was clear that she would become a miscellaneous ghost in no time. Tears flowed from the woman’s eyes as black as ink.
“It’s the same longing, but… Why, someone has to become a butterfly, and someone has to wander the ninth heaven without dying even after death?”
It might be cruel that the strong feelings of a vengeful spirit were diluted over time. However, Jaegyeom thought differently. It might be one of the few twisted kindnesses the world offers. Forgetting the memories and mistakes of the past life means that you could become that much freer.
Jaegyeom, who was staring at the woman with an insensitive gaze, said quietly.
“Originally, the world is malicious for no reason.”
It was a line that felt lonely even though it was determined. After saying that, Jaegyeom raised one hand and began to loosen his tie. It was a tie made of expensive fabric, which Jeongju had given him this morning. Jaegyeom put his tie on his mouth, bit it lightly, and let it go. Then, he roughly rolled it up and threw it at the woman. The woman who took the necktie, which was flying in the air, blinked her bloody eyes.
“Do it if you can.”
***
“J- Jaegyeom…”
Cho Youngwoo, who had been immobilised for a long time, pursed his lips. As Jaegyeom said, he stayed still with his eyes and mouth closed. It was as if time had stopped. He was in the dark, so he was frustrated because he couldn’t understand the situation. But somehow, he had a hunch that it would be okay to open his mouth by now.
“Uh- uhm. Jaegyeom… ?”
At that time, the lukewarm warmth that had covered the area around his eyes slipped away. When the palms that had been touching for a long time disappeared, the area around his eyes felt empty. At the same time, he felt like his ears were being pierced.
Could he open his eyes now? After hesitating for a moment, Cho Youngwoo opened his eyes with a frown on his face.
As soon as he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Jaegyeom’s face who was squatting. Jaegyeom kept his gaze in the distance with an expression as if he was lost in thought. The sidelines of his well-groomed face looked troubled.
Cho Youngwoo looked around with an uneasy expression.
“That woman… where…”
“I don’t know. She left right away.”
“J- Jaegyeom-ah, did you see her black eyes too?”
“Black eyes? They Looked normal to me.”
Jaegyeom’s expression implicitly asked what nonsense he was talking about.
“What?”
Confused, Cho Youngwoo hurriedly recalled his memory. Come to think of it, Jaegyeom had a calm face from the moment he saw the woman. If he had seen the same thing, there’s no way he wouldn’t feel anything like that, but what the hell happened…
It was when Cho Youngwoo touched his forehead with a confused face.
“Do you have a grandmother? No, did you?”
Jaegyeom asked a random question.
“Um? W- Why all of a sudden…”
In the midst of the absence of circumstances, Cho Youngwoo made a puzzled face.
“Answer me. Do you have a grandmother?”
“Uh? Ah… I have a paternal grandmother, but not a maternal grandmother.”
“When did she die?”
It was a question others would ask cautiously, but Jaegyeom had no hesitation. Rather, it was Cho Youngwoo who was startled. He stuttered and answered.
“Ah, oh… that’s, not too long ago. Was it when I was about to enter high school?”
Jaegyeom nodded his head. He seemed to want to keep talking.
“She usually worried a lot about me, but then she became sick… In the end, she passed. Even now, it still doesn’t feel real to me. She adored me… B- But why is that all of a sudden… ?”
Jaegyeom, who was silent for a moment, got up and replied in a dry voice.
“Nothing much. I don’t have a grandmother.”
Jaegyeom lifted the bag he had slackly slung over one shoulder. If Cho Youngwoo’s eyes were fully opened, then he would know everything, but now it was cumbersome to explain one by one. For now, he was going to look around until I could look around. When Jaegyeom was covering Cho Youngwoo’s eyes, he used his hand.
One was to remove the unclean energy of the ghost that clung to him when he was possessed, and the other was to pour Jaegyeom’s own spiritual energy instead and mess with Cho Youngwoo’s head. To put it simply, he was possessed by the ghost, and then he was possessed by Jaegyeom. When possessed by a ghost, there were restrictions on seeing, hearing, and even moving. Jaegyeom similarly interrupted the sound that would enter Cho Youngwoo’s ears.
“Jaegyeom, didn’t she say something strange by any chance?”
Cho Youngwoo spoke gibberish and told the story.
“She was so weird. Something about dropping something. Then she suddenly asked me to come along and said something weird. The butterfly brings misfortune…”
Cho Youngwoo, who had been talking about him, suddenly shut his mouth.
“Why aren’t you speaking?”
“Oh, no. Nothing…”
Cho Youngwoo shook his head in a low voice.
“I’m sorry I kept saying weird things earlier.”
Come to think of it, he said that he could see a butterfly, that the yut fortune was accurate, and that he was the one who said strange things to Jaegyeom, whom he met for the first time today. Just as the woman did to him, he might seem like a strange person to Jaegyeom. So, to bring up the topic of the butterfly again… In the middle of the conversation, he was afraid of what Jaegyeom would think of him.
“It’s not strange.”
At that time, Jaegyeom replied with a plaintive face.
“I guess that would be normal for you.”
Cho Youngwoo paused and looked at Jaegyeom. Jaegyeom added with a rough tone.
“So don’t worry about how you look in other people’s eyes, just care about your life.”
“Uh? Oh…”
Jaegyeom got up and walked out of the alley. Cho Youngwoo stood there blankly for a moment. Suddenly, something like sadness struck him. Cho Youngwoo liked Jaegyeom. His words seemed to have special power. He wasn’t sure if he had been seeing things, but he was scared out of his mind, and he was just grateful that Jaegyeom had come to him instead of going first. The luckiest thing for him was that he ended up going home with Jaegyeom anyway. He thought he would either hate him or push him away, but when he found out that wasn’t the case, his heart felt kind of moved. He suddenly seemed able to confide in him about anything.
I guess that would be normal for you.
Cho Youngwoo, who followed Jaegyeom for a few steps, suddenly stopped.
“Jaegyeom-ah… Actually…”
Cho Youngwoo, who hesitated, took a deep breath and opened his mouth.
“Actually, butterflies follow me.”
Jaegyeom glanced back at Cho Youngwoo with a nonchalant face.
“Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t see it…”
“Okay.”
Jaegyeom replied dryly.
“I don’t know why they follow me… To be honest, it’s a bit scary.”
“…”
Suddenly, Jaegyeom lifted his head and looked blankly up at the sky. Before he knew it, the sun was going down in the sky. The straight forehead and finely falling facial lines matched very well with the sky at dusk.
“Scary my head.”
Jaegyeom, who was looking up at the sky, turned his head and looked back at Cho Youngwoo. To be precise, the transparent butterfly sitting on Cho Youngwoo’s shoulder.
“In its eyes, maybe you look like a flower.”
Jaegyeom said in a non-trivial tone.
“Ah…”
Jaegyeom, who was walking ahead, gestured Cho Youngwoo with his chin. “What are you doing, let’s go.” Cho Youngwoo, who was standing with a blank face, hurriedly caught up with him. Wearing his school uniform, the two shoulders side by side left the entrance of his alley. A small bunting bird, which had been sitting on the fence of an alleyway watching it, soared into the sky.
It was late afternoon.
I am sure that bird was someone’s spying bird 😀
was taehee spying??
Was that teehee black bird??
I wonder if my grandma also follow me around… But maybe not cuz she has so many grandkids hahaha this is reminding me of her.. miss grandma ♥️
*Me remembering that butterflies can drink blood * … Yeah, it doesn’t have to be a flower .. bag of blood is good enough
I’m guessing this is edited MTL? Some sentences don’t make any sense.
Which sentences don’t make sense? You’ve commented that you’re confused before and you didn’t reply to my comment then. I can’t help you if you don’t clarify what you’re talking about.