“Ghost… you mean?”
“Evil spirit! Yes, an evil spirit.”
“Evil… an evil spirit?!”
Bear’s face turned pale with shock.
‘He believes this nonsense.’
Encouraged by his strong reaction, I began to embellish the story. I suggested that Lee Hyunwoo might be haunted by a demon and that something unfortunate might happen soon. Knowing the severity of this, I mentioned that I had given him a talisman, warning Bear to keep an eye on him because revealing the fact that I gave him the talisman could lead to a big problem. As I rambled on with meaningful gibberish, Bear nodded solemnly and hugged the box I had given him protectively.
“Um, earlier when I provoked him… I was just curious how the evil spirit would react, so don’t take it too personally.”
“Senior… must be going through a lot.”
“Huh?”
“Being so kind, yet misunderstood by people…”
Oh? Uh huh? I was embarrassed and speechless, the brown bear nodded his head once. His expression was firm, as if saying, ‘Even if others misunderstand, I will trust you, senior.’ Beyond simply believing my words, why was he willing to go so far as to misunderstand? Before I could express my bewilderment, Bear gave a formal 90-degree bow and dashed towards the bench where his friends were seated on the opposite side.
“Is he crazy?”
I shuddered as if bugs were crawling all over my body. I never expected to utter such nonsense. I felt incredulous and embarrassed because Bear believed everything so naively. After struggling for a while, I turned my head absentmindedly, and I locked eyes with Bear in the distance. He looked at me with what seemed like deep pity, then clenched his fist slightly and assumed a fighting stance.
Fighting…? Why ‘fighting’…? Does he really think my flailing was because of spiritual possession?
“Qtja xlcv bo lvlba lr atja?!”
Ct, P tbqf bcis Off Lseckbb regnlnfr, jcv atja ues pera vlfr.
*
In a hillside neighborhood in Seoul, on a night illuminated by dim moonlight, a boy in a school uniform walked into a narrow alley. The streetlights failed to properly illuminate the uneven, sloped steps, but the boy, who had walked this path for ten years, was familiar with it. However, familiarity did not breed affection. No one could like this alley, filled with filthy phlegm, cigarette butts, and broken liquor bottles. Beyond all that, it was the memory of his first visit that made the boy despise everything about this neighborhood.
The boy would often touch his neck when he walked down this path. His smooth nape, once marked by something that seemed like it would never disappear, was now clear.
The boy stood in front of the old iron gate after passing through the winding alleyway, narrowing his eyes as he glanced at scattered bills on the ground. Whenever he left home, he deliberately wedged bills between the door. Finding them scattered on the ground meant an unwelcome visitor had come. Stepping on the bills, he opened the gate and went inside. Within, there was a door patched with broken glass with box tape. Seeing no light through the glass, the intruder had already left or might be sleeping drunk. Since encountering anyone would be troublesome, the boy opened the door with some relief.
“Oh.”
In the darkness, the boy couldn’t avoid the bowl flying towards him. Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the kitchen and spotted a middle-aged man drinking alcohol. Smiling, the boy greeted him.
“You’re here.”
The middle-aged man, impressed by the boy’s casual greeting, gripped his soju glass tightly with a surprised, Huh! It seemed like this time he might even throw the glass.
“…Who are you trying to ruin someone’s life this time?”
His voice carried a deep emotional resonance. Once, there seemed to be something akin to affection in his gaze upon himself, but now it overflowed with dark emotions like hatred, anger, fear, disgust, and despair. Without avoiding his gaze, the boy walked into his room.
“Trying to ruin someone’s life!”
The middle-aged man threw a gray box at the boy as he was about to enter the room. The lid of the box came off, scattering over a hundred photos at the boy’s feet. They were all pictures of the same person.
“You crazy bastard…”
“You still have a hobby of rummaging through other people’s rooms, uncle.”
The boy smiled. Despite being caught in his flaw, his expression was unexpectedly nonchalant. The middle-aged man muttered, ‘Yeah, you’re not the type to react just to this,’ as he shook a photo flipped upside down beside him. The photo the middle-aged man was holding wasn’t taken from a distance like the scattered ones on the floor; it was a selfie of him and the boy together. The recent date was written on the back of the photo.
“What are you planning to do with him? Kidnapping? Rape? Or… murder?”
As the middle-aged man sneered, the smile faded from the boy’s face. Bathed in moonlight streaming through the window, the boy’s pale face appeared expressionless like a wax doll. When the boy’s real face was revealed, the middle-aged man crumpled and tossed the photo he held in his hand. Thud… The photo disappeared into a dark corner where it couldn’t be seen.
“Still lacking in creativity”
The boy lifted his chin and tilted his head slightly, as if gesturing for another attempt. In the darkness, the middle-aged man’s pupils gleamed distinctly. Rising to his feet, the middle-aged man approached the boy. He was tall, much like the boy. In the past, he had been robust, but relying on alcohol and gambling had made him lean. The boy scrutinized the man standing before him as if measuring him up. Similarly, the middle-aged man was also sizing up the nephew who had suddenly grown taller than him.
“You’ve grown a lot.”
“You’ve grown quite a bit for someone I starved to death by not feeding.”
“You little monster. I should’ve killed you back then.”
Despite the slander directed at himself, the boy picked up the crumpled photo expressionlessly as he passed the middle-aged man. He stood still for a moment, looking at the photo before putting it into the pocket of his school uniform and turning his gaze back to the middle-aged man.
“Just because we wear the same uniform, do you think I’m as innocent as the other kids?”
“No way.”
The boy laugh softly again. It was a beautiful smile reminiscent of the person most precious to the middle-aged man. Flames sparked anew in the middle-aged man’s eyes. The boy’s deliberate attitude, as if mocking past failures, felt like turning a polished shell to deceive a primitive human, almost like a devil.
“Don’t smile with that face!”
The middle-aged man’s fist flew towards the boy’s face. With a thud, the boy’s head turned. In the past, the boy would have likely been knocked back, but with his taller stature now, his legs rooted firmly to the ground, he didn’t budge. As the middle-aged man cursed roughly and raised his fist again, the boy intercepted his arm with his hand. The middle-aged man realized he couldn’t overpower the boy with force anymore, and everything before him seemed distant. Since when? But why had he stayed silent until now? His mind was filled with questions.
“Go to sleep, uncle.”
“Let go!”
The boy forcibly dragged the middle-aged man into the bedroom. After tossing him onto a haphazard pile of blankets on the floor, the boy glanced briefly at the calendar hanging on the wall, then quickly closed the door and left. The middle-aged man, coughing due to the dust, looked down at his right wrist, feeling pain, and noticed a dark bruise shaped like a handprint.
Is he seriously going to leave me like this, without doing anything? The thought of being mocked infuriated him. And he feared that the boy, who had ruined everyone’s lives, would end up living an ordinary life alone.
“This can’t happen. Absolutely not…!”
He couldn’t stand by and watch that sight. Countless days of failure flashed through his mind like a flickering lamp in the brief moments before dawn. He had waited a very long time for this moment. To expose the monster disguised in his nephew’s guise. To prove himself right. As he sensed the impending end to the tedious fight that had dragged on for ten years, he felt exhilaration. The middle-aged man opened the kitchen cupboard, took out a kitchen knife, and swung open the boy’s door.
“You despicable bastard!”
The middle-aged man thought the boy would be sitting at the desk when the door opened, so he swung the kitchen knife from top to bottom. However, the end of the blade landed on the backrest of the chair. Inside the brightly lit room, not a single soul was present, not even a tiny ant. As the middle-aged man realized the boy’s absence and began to turn around, something cold touched the back of his neck.
“Uncle, why are you doing this…?”
As a bleak, chilling voice brushed past his ear, the middle-aged man jerked in surprise. It was the boy he had expected to find hiding behind the door, like a fox. Frozen stiff from the cold touch on his neck, the middle-aged man couldn’t even turn around, but he managed to speak sternly.
“That darn uncle, uncle… Today’s the last day you’ll treat me like trash, you murderer!”
The boy watched silently as the middle-aged man, driven by rage, shouted from behind. What kind of existence were my parents to him, exactly? What did their deaths cost him to be so blindly consumed by hatred? Ten years ago, after the funeral of his parents, no relatives were willing to take responsibility for him, so he eventually ended up in an orphanage. Despite his age, his charming exterior quickly found him a foster family. It was then that the uncle, who had disappeared since the funeral, reappeared. ‘This child is a murderer who killed my parents. Will you still adopt him?’ Eventually, the adoption was canceled, and the boy followed him into this house.
TL/N: The next chapter will likely be released tomorrow afternoon or at midnight as a token of apology because it’s been many weeks since the last update of this novel, and I’m sorry, guys. Real life has been really busy, but I’m trying to adjust. So, starting next month (July), this novel will follow a release schedule: Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday will be the release days, meaning there will be three chapters released every week.
Thank you for translating this novel💕
I’m glad you’re enjoying it 🥰
Thank you for the update 🖤💯
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Thank you for the update😊💝
What‘s happening?? That’s jaeyoung right?
Thanks for the up dates and so continuing to translate