NTH 25

“Wow, you’re even holding my hand? I might just fall for you at this rate.”

“You’re fooling around.”

“Your hands are really big and thick. Is it because you’re big?”

“I suppose so.”

“I saw at home that your feet are huge too. You’re tall, your hands are big, and your feet are big, so your thing must be huge too… Ouch!”

Frowning, Jeha pulled Nana’s white, soft cheek and then let it go.

“I told you not to fool around.”

“It was a compliment, why?”

“How is that a compliment? It’s sexual harassment.”

“Don’t be like that, tell me. Did your ex-girlfriends like how big you were? Do you use extra-large condoms when you do it?”

“Is that something to talk about at a highway rest stop in broad daylight? Why on earth did you want to come here anyway?”

“Oh, right! I have to go buy walnut cakes!”

Nana pressed Jeha’s hand with his thumb and pulled him along. Perhaps because he hadn’t eaten well while growing up, his fingers were thin and his wrists were slender, looking like they would snap if Jeha used even a little bit of force.

His heart softening, Jeha bought the walnut cakes, tteokbokki, potato balls, and iced chocolate latte that Nana pointed at with sparkling eyes, one after another. He waited, drinking a cool Americano, until Nana had devoured all of them.

Making his talk about motion sickness seem pointless, less than ten minutes after they set off again, Nana was fast asleep, breathing softly.

Feeling like he was taking care of a pet that ate well, slept well, and scurried around well, Jeha smiled silently to himself.

After driving for quite some time, they arrived at the base of a rather large mountain. Jeha gently shook Nana’s shoulder to wake him up.

“Hey, wake up.”

“Mmm…, I want to sleep…”

“Nana, we have to go. We’re here.”

At that, Nana opened his eyes drowsily and rubbed them, washing his face with his palms. It seemed the motion sickness medicine had made him even sleepier. Getting out of the car and following Jeha, Nana asked.

“Where is this?”

“A mountain.”

“I can see it’s a mountain. Why did we come to a mountain? Does your friend live on a mountain?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“He’s probably not a mountain spirit. Is he a shaman?”

“Well, something similar.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Arriving in a forest full of trees and bushes, where a mist like water fog blurred their vision, Jeha looked around and found a stone lantern. Seeing him put his hand into the hole of the stone lantern and feel around, Nana asked again.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for a toad. That’s the doorbell. Here it is.”

Jeha found a jade toad inside the stone lantern and stroked its back seven times. Presently, the fog began to clear slowly, and the silhouette of a person appeared before them.

“Hey, you’re here?”

“Yes. You’ve been well?”

“I’m always the same. Is this the person you said you were bringing?”

“That’s right. His name is Nana. Please understand that he has a bad habit of not using polite speech with anyone.”

As Nana looked at Gu Minho with curious eyes, Gu Minho stared back at him just as intensely. Nana was nonchalant, showing no signs of being self-conscious even in front of a stranger.

“I’m Nana, I work at Jeha’s house.”

Gu Minho looked at Nana, who was speaking informally right away, with a look of amusement.

“What, a house? Whose house do you work at?”

“Jeha’s. I mean, this person’s.”

When Nana pointed at Jeha, Gu Minho turned to Jeha and asked with curiosity.

“His name is Jeha? What’s his last name?”

Nana tilted his head with a puzzled expression.

“You’re old friends but you don’t even know his name?”

“Well, this person’s name changes every time he is reborn, so it’s confu…”

“You have foxes in your house, don’t you?”

Jeha interrupted Gu Minho by speaking loudly, and Gu Minho narrowed his eyes and gave a bewitching smile.

“Hmm, yes. As you know, there are always foxes here.”

“Nana, don’t you want to see the foxes? There should be some very young fox cubs too.”

At Jeha’s words, Nana, who had been looking at Gu Minho with a suspicious gaze, brightened up and exclaimed.

“I’ll see them! I want to see them!”

“Minho, it’s been a while since I came, are you going to keep us standing here? We can talk about the details inside.”

Only then did Gu Minho lead them away.

Passing through a large gate that had been invisible before the fog cleared, they saw a hanok with a wide courtyard. It was the residence where Gu Minho had lived for a very long time.

As they entered, the foxes that had been lying on their bellies here and there in the courtyard lifted their heads and looked at them. Among them, about five or six cubs, small in size and clearly young at a glance, cautiously approached Nana.

“Wow, real foxes! Jeha, look at them.”

“I see.”

“They’re so cute. Can I play with the foxes here?”

Nana asked, looking directly at Gu Minho. He had a look on his face that showed he was not at all curious about where this place was, what Gu Minho did for a living, how a house had suddenly appeared out of the fog, or why there were so many foxes that should have been in a zoo.

“Go ahead.”

Gu Minho replied readily and walked towards the main wooden floor of the house. As Jeha also took a seat, a young man brought a small table set with refreshments.

“Hwon. It’s been a long time.”

The man called ‘Hwon’ placed the table in front of Jeha, bowed politely, and then withdrew. Jeha picked up a teacup from the table.

“Hwon is still so quiet.”

“That’s why I keep him around. By the way, is that kid the human you were worried about? He’s very peculiar.”

“Can you see something? What’s peculiar about him?”

“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”

“What would I know. I’ve just been reborn several times, I don’t have any spiritual abilities. That’s why I came all the way here to ask for your advice.”

A look of anxiety even appeared on Jeha’s face. Gu Minho stared at Nana, who was playing with the fox cubs, for a long time with sharp eyes, as if piercing through him.

“It’s like all his energy has been sucked out by something, and he’s barely hanging onto his life. At this rate, he must have been weak from birth. I bet he’s not healthy at all right now either.”

“I think so too.”

Jeha once again recalled the image of Nana coughing up blood. He hadn’t thought much of it then, but if he were to see such a sight again now, it felt like his stomach would churn quite a bit.

“But it’s strange. That someone with such unimpressive energy has the power to attract animals.”

“Can you tell something like that too? I have seen cats and even birds all gather around him.”

“You can tell just by watching him play with the foxes. Those foxes don’t even snort at most humans. It’s been hundreds of years since you started visiting me here, but have they ever approached you first even once?”

Just as he said, although he had visited the place for hundreds of years, the foxes had never once approached Jeha first. To Gu Minho, who was biting into a macaron bought from a famous hotel bakery in Seoul, Jeha said.

“Actually, he’s a guy I happened to meet a while ago, and after that, on the days we ran into each other, I had dreams about my past lives at night.”

Jeha briefly told the story of his past lives he had seen in his dreams, the various figures presumed to be Nana, and the exploiter with sanpaku eyes who had always been by his side.

Gu Minho, who had eaten a whole box of a 12-piece macaron set by himself while listening to the story, blinked his eyes.

“So, what are you curious about from me?”

“First, I want to know if you feel anything from Nana’s soul, and why Nana and I always had such brief encounters. And also, whether a being that exploits the same soul in every reincarnation really exists.”

“Is this all the macarons you brought?”

“There should still be five sets left. If Hwon didn’t secretly eat them.”

“If that raccoon dog had that much nerve, he would have been eaten by me long ago.”

The names of Gu Minho and Hwon had been given by Jeha so long ago that he could not even remember when.

Gu Minho’s was randomly chosen because its pronunciation was the most similar to ‘Gumiho’ and sounded like a man’s name, and Hwon’s was even more carelessly taken from the Hanja character for ‘raccoon dog, Hwon (貆)’. This was because he was originally a raccoon dog spirit.

They were names Jeha had made up on the spot because he needed something to call them, but since Gu Minho and Hwon seemed to like them, they always used those names whenever they had to interact with people.