The burning evening light that filled the wide window hung into the room like a picture frame. Between the regular ticking of the clock, Jaegyeom could hear the heavy sound of his heart pounding.
“You, just now… What did you say?”
A sharp and clear gaze stared at him.
“You want to die. I will help you.”
In the soaking sunset, the two’s gazes were tightly locked.
“…”
Jaegyeom, who was silent for a while, spoke up after a long time.
“No, you can’t. I won’t die no matter what.”
There was nothing he hadn’t tried to do to die. The conclusion of countless attempts was that no matter what he did, he would not die. But what, Yoon Taehee was going to kill him? It was unbelievable.
It was clear that Yoon Taehee was trying to deceive him with outrageous words. Even though he knew that, Jaegyeom’s eyes were shaking aimlessly because his face was completely expressionless.
His smile was quite effortless, and he always wore a faint smile. Maybe that’s why, at first, he had a strong friendly and kind impression. But ever since the day he ran into him at the bookstore, he knew that behind that smile were sharp eyes that didn’t show even a single ounce of emotion.
Yoon Taehee sometimes had a cold face, like a bird of prey sitting on top of a tree and looking down at the vast land. And Jaegyeom knew that this was his true nature.
“You, I don’t know what kind of tricks you’re playing this time…”
As Jaegyeom moved his lips, Yoon Taehee cut him off.
“Have you ever heard of Bangsangsi?”
“… What?”
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.
“Bangsangsi was the owner of Naryecheong in the past. It was him who first established Naryecheong, and he served as the head until it collapsed.”
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“The modern Commissioner of Naryecheong is the head of the Naryecheong, but Bangsangsi and the Commissioner are different. The Commissioner of Naryecheong is just a title, and they are just as human as the other exorcists. But Bangsangsi was the name of a god who chased away malicious spirits. He wasn’t human in the first place.”
Even within Naryecheong, what was known about Bangsangsi was extremely rare, and it was treated as confidential, other than already disclosed information. So it was natural that Jaegyeom did not know anything about Bangsangsi. The man hid his past as an exorcist, and at that time, it was an area that was difficult to approach in many ways after the previous Naryecheong collapsed.
“Bangsangsi had a special power that no human being could surpass, and that power was hidden in the mask he wore. If you put on that mask and call the name engraved on your soul three times, the object that was called, whether it’s a ghost or a human…”
Yoon Taehee stared into Jaegyeom’s eyes and added slowly.
“Will disappear from this land.”
Jaegyeom’s eyes widened at the words that came out slowly. At the same time, his hand, which was on Yoon Taehee’s shoulder, tightened and grabbed the hem of his shirt violently. He glanced at the hand holding his shoulder, then looked at him. The boy was quick to understand. Yoon Taehee raised the corner of his mouth.
“That’s right. That mask, the Commissioner has it.”
The corner of Jaegyeom’s eye twitched. It felt like a huge spear had pierced through his head.
Yoon Taehee wanted to take revenge on the Commissioner. And in their hands, there was the mask of Bangsangsi that could end this life. If all these stories that came out of Yoon Taehee’s mouth were true…
“I will take that mask and kill you. I don’t know what curse you’re under, but anyway, if you’re a being with a soul, the mask of Bangsangsi will definitely work.”
Every life has a soul. It’s not just humans, even if they’re mere insignificant creatures without reason, living beings always have a soul. The end of life meant that this soul would become a soul fire and leave the body.
In other words, it was a clear death sentence for the soul to become a soul fire. If the body was weak or the vitality was lacking, the soul could come out of the body, or the soul could be separated from the body, but it was only a “living soul,” and a soul in which its soul fire was dead.
Therefore, once the soul fire escaped from the body of the living being, it could never be brought back to life. Either ascend to heaven and leave this world, or stick to the earth and remain in this world. The latter was what a ghost was. Ghosts were born from soul fires that had already died. And Bangsangsi was a being with the power to return the soul fires to heaven.
Wearing the mask of Bangsangsi, you could see the name engraved on your soul through the Golden Four Eyes. If you called that name three times, you could make all souls disappear from this world, including the souls of living beings and even ghosts. Absolute power to rule the providence. It was a power worthy of the modifier of a god who casts out malicious spirits.
“Why… Why are you telling me this now?”
Bones bulged on the back of Jaegyeom’s hand as he gripped the hem of his clothes. He was struggling with doubts now. Cruelly, he had only one option. That’s why he was confused.
Even if he couldn’t believe it, he had to believe it, he wanted to believe it, and he had no choice but to believe it.
On that day, Jaegyeom gave up his weakness. In that way, the threat was nullified and the justification for becoming an exorcist also disappeared. And Yoon Taehee picked up and returned the secret that Jaegyeom had thrown away by erasing the memories of the other exorcists. Eventually, it was back to square one. And Yoon Taehee was still persistent. This time it was neither a threat nor a conciliation.
‘Help me.’
Yoon Taehee asked for help in his revenge. ‘As a reward, I will kill you’, he was saying. This offer was dizzyingly sweet.
“Why… Why are you saying this now? You deceived and threatened me, and then nothing worked, so now… only now?”
One day, Yoon Taehee asked. ‘How does it feel to be stuffed?’ He didn’t ask out of curiosity. He already knew the answer correctly at that point. However, he opened his mouth only now. Sowing all kinds of distrust, making it impossible to believe, and then bringing up something that he had to believe.
Yoon Taehee stared down at the boy’s face.
“That’s right. The threats didn’t work, and the weakness was stolen away, and now I’m talking about this. With this, there’s nothing else to lose.”
In fact, Yoon Taehee had no intention of revealing his plan to destroy Naryecheong. That is, if he succeeded in getting a successor loyal to him, and not Naryecheong. He would do whatever he was told to do anyway, so there was no need to risk sharing the plan.
Yoon Taehee meticulously calculated the possibilities as if playing Sudoku.
The mere fact that Jaegyeom despised exorcists was a tenuous and precarious foundation on which to build this whole plan. In any case, Yoon Taehee himself was once an exorcist. He wasn’t sure if he would listen to him. Besides, the reason Jaegyeom hates exorcists was because exorcists were his enemy. It was different from him, who was all of the exorcists’ enemy. Therefore, it was unknown whether he would cooperate with the plan to destroy Naryecheong.
“I’ve been planning for a long time to destroy Naryecheong.”
Yoon Taehee opened his mouth with an expressionless face.
“It could all be for naught. Exorcists are on all four sides. You might go outside right away and say that Yoon Taehee will destroy Naryecheong, but I couldn’t offer my neck in a situation where I had no collateral.”
Just as Jaegyeom did not trust Yoon Taehee, and it was the same the other way around. Yoon Taehee also did not trust Jaegyeom. Originally, he intended to involve him without revealing the plan. But all previous attempts had failed.
“I know you don’t trust me. You don’t have to. You just have to trust what you’re holding in your hands. I will trust what I hold in my hands. Now we have each other’s weaknesses.”
Then, there was only one thing left.
“It’s hopeless to be friends. Even if we don’t have a relationship where we eat at the same table, let’s just hold each other’s neck.”
A friendly hand gently wrapped around the back of Jaegyeom’s neck.
“If I live, you die, and if you die, I live. How about it? Isn’t it quite special and romantic?”
Yoon Taehee lowered his head and looked at Jaegyeom. The vibration of the living pulse was transmitted through the palm of the hand wrapped around the nape of the neck. The skin he touched was much softer and hotter than he had expected.
“…”
Jaegyeom slowly closed his eyes.
Yoon Taehee said that he did not regret the past. That even if he apologized, it would do him no good, so he would rather give him something tangible to gain. He did not deny anything and did not regret his choice. He just stood in front of Jaegyeom again, holding on to the accumulated failures.
With a new card in hand, which would be the last.
‘You just have to trust what you’re holding in your hand.’
‘I will kill you, for you.’
Breaking the long silence, Jaegyeom opened his mouth after a long time.
“I…”
He strengthened his gaze and glared at Yoon Taehee.
“What do I have to do?”
Yoon Taehee’s fingertips, which had been clinging to the boy’s warmth, trembled.
Jaegyeom yearning for death is still so sad. We all want to live forever but doing so is always portrayed as being hopeless. Kinda like a romance bw the 2 feels hopeless. Tyfc
Awesome
Thanks for d chap
S-should I consider this as progress? Cuz all I feel rn is pain for Jaegyeom 😭
Aaaaaaah, this is so conflicting actually. It is quite romantic hahaha but It’ll probably make me suffer in the future