SATURDAY 76

“Aack…!”

Strangely, even though it was so dark beneath the blanket, Inha’s form was clearly visible. It was as if Inha’s body was faintly glowing with its own light.

Inha paused for a moment, placing both hands on the edge of the bed. As Inha entered, drip, drip, moisture fell onto the bed, and cold air filled the space under the blanket like a fog.

In that state, we faced each other as if in a standoff. No, standoff is the wrong word. I was stiff and frozen, unable to do anything, while only Inha stared at me with a wide grin.

Soon, Inha, with a swollen face and a body covered in wounds, draped himself over the bed, moved his limbs like a giant spider to crawl quickly toward me, and climbed on top of me. I thought he was smiling, but he wasn’t. With only his mouth split into a grin, his eyes were chillingly cold.

I couldn’t even breathe, only shiver. Cold raindrops and lukewarm blood fell onto my body, and the fishy stench of rain and blood mingled unpleasantly, wafting through the air.

Inha originally had the same pheromone scent as I did, but I felt that if I didn’t smell my own scent, I would forget what kind of smell had ever come from Inha.

Inha, who had been smiling brightly only with his mouth, opened his torn lips.

「That’s a shame, isn’t it?」

“….”

I could immediately tell those words were about Mr. Taeseon. About Mr. Taeseon returning safely.

Inha chuckled… hee-hee-hee… for a long time before bringing his face even closer to mine. The inside of his mouth, filled with blood, was vividly visible.

「But do you think this is the end?」

“…Ugh, hngh….”

「With you around, do you really think Lee Taeseon can survive safely like this? Hee-hee-hee….」

Then, his expression suddenly stiffened. An eerily fast voice flowed from his mouth.

「It’s all because of you that our family ended up like this, you unlucky Yeok-gwi. This is all because you were born. Why did it have to be our house? Why did you have to show up in our house? If it weren’t for you, the three of us—Mom, Dad, and me—could have been happy, so why did you show up?」

“….”

I struggled to think of Mr. Taeseon’s words.

One person cannot cause misfortune for another. Mr. Taeseon had said that. Those words echoed loudly within me, but….

They could not immediately change thoughts that had accumulated over twenty-two years.

I was originally a ghost who could not be born as a human. As I was born, bad things followed one after another in the household. Successive injuries or illnesses of the domestic staff, even deaths in severe cases, as well as fires and collapses of company buildings, warehouses, and the family villa. The experience of the whole family nearly dying due to a car malfunction.

Whenever such bad things occurred that even the Shaman’s exorcism rituals could not block, I had to be punished. Because it was something I had caused unconsciously.

Being hit with a peach tree branch was quite painful. While being hit, I was told to constantly reflect, that it was because of me, that I had brought this misfortune; upon hearing such things, at some point, the will to resist disappears.

To begin with, was there ever a time when such a will existed? From the moment I was born, I was a Yeok-gwi ruining the family, and that was only natural.

Then Inha came closer to me. A cheek where the bone was exposed from being scraped against asphalt touched my cheek. I felt like I was going to vomit.

「Mom and Dad are dead. You didn’t know, did you?」

“…What?”

「Uncle left earlier, didn’t he? He left because Mom and Dad are dead. He said he didn’t tell you because he was afraid you’d be shocked. Wow, Uncle really loves Inyoung sooooo much, doesn’t he?」

“….”

「Hee-hee-it’s-funny-you-idiot-he’ll-be-dead-soon-too-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee」

Inha’s face, whose original appearance was now difficult to discern, tilted back and forth. Every time it did, the texture of the wounds was felt on my cheek, and goosebumps broke out over my whole body.

The hospital gown I was wearing was becoming soaked with the blood and rainwater dripping from Inha’s body, and a broken, dangling hand was suddenly wrapping around my neck.

「Hey, corpse.」

The words You’re the corpse rose to the tip of my throat, but I was too scared to let them out. I could do nothing but shiver with my whole body. Outside the window, torrential rain hammered against the glass along with thunder and lightning. In an instant, I was standing at the scene of that accident on that day.

A series of events plays out again before my eyes. Inha grabbing my sleeve as he jumped toward the car, floating into the air with eyes that realized something was wrong, glaring at me as if he couldn’t believe it. Eyes that seemed to say it was your fault.

The roar of tires scraping wet asphalt and the boisterous sound of collision, the old domestic sedan with smoke rising, the snapped roadside tree, the driver’s seat of the car crushed so much that one couldn’t possibly think a person was inside.

I don’t know who reported it on that deserted road with no CCTV. Perhaps someone witnessed the accident from an unseen place. While I, who had collapsed, was slowly getting up, sirens were already wailing from all directions, and Inha, who was being carried away in an ambulance, said this to the paramedic asking for his name.

‘Patient, can you say your name?’

‘Yoon Inyoung….’

Until the very last moment….

‘Inha, why did you push me?’

Until the very last moment, those eyes full of malice, working his brain to drive me into a corner. Suddenly, something surged up from inside me with a whoosh. Why was he like that until the very end?

Hating me is natural. Just as I naturally accepted myself as a monster, Inha also saw me as a monster and loathed me.

Even so, there were times when Inha treated me like a brother. When he acted a little bit kind, or shielded me from the bullying of others. Perhaps that is why I harbored a glimmer of expectation for Inha.

That expectation was shattered into pieces as Inha drove me into a corner until the last moment. He didn’t have to do that. If Inha hadn’t done that, I might have lived my whole life without ever knowing the cruel and cold side of Mr. Taeseon.

If I had known that Inha wanted to kill me, I would have given up all expectations from the start.

“….”

Suddenly, I was angry…. The emotion of being angry was unfamiliar to me. I have never once in my life been angry at anyone. I didn’t even show irritation. Because I wasn’t in a position to do so. But now, I was so enraged I couldn’t bear it.

An unfamiliar and burdensome emotion dominated me. A nauseating lump, something sticky like black tar, formed in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I would die if I didn’t spit this out right now. I opened my mouth and shouted.

“Get lost, Yoon Inha…! Don’t you ever appear before me again!”

Once I raised my voice, it could not be controlled. Get lost, I said get lost, disappear; while I was struggling, repeating the same words like a madman, at some point.

Inha, who had been staring at me, vanished with a poof. And the surroundings became as bright as if the lights had been turned on. Panting, I looked around. The blanket and pillow had somehow fallen to the floor, and the IV needle was all torn out as if I had been in a physical struggle.

Blood was welling up from my arm, and from the tip of the needle, the IV medication was dripping in beads like the rainwater that had soaked my body.

“Haah, haah….”

I couldn’t control my body. I was shivering so much my teeth chattered as if I had been in and out of ice water, my vision was red, and I was short of breath. Was it the aftermath of shouting in anger at someone for the first time? My head spun. I collapsed just like that.

As I collapsed, I faintly heard an unfamiliar voice.

“The patient has regained consciousness!”

When I came to my senses—it was a dazed state that made it ambiguous to even say I had come to my senses—but regardless, the surroundings were in a shambles. Doctors and nurses kept shouting unintelligible words and adding some kind of medication to the IV.

I felt a stifling sensation on my face. A familiar feeling; I know what this is. I was wearing an oxygen mask. Through my strangely fluctuating vision over there, I could see Mr. Taeseon and my uncle standing restlessly with grave expressions.

Belatedly, I realized that my body was shaking convulsively. As if someone were picking up my body and dropping it.

Was it because of that? My vision was strange. It repeated a cycle of seeing Mr. Taeseon and my uncle clearly, as if I were standing at the foot of the bed looking at them, and then seeing the ceiling.

Then my vision finally became fixed, and the bright light of the ceiling entered my eyes. Perhaps thanks to the injected medication, my body found stability after a while. I realized that the medical staff had been holding me down as I had been thrashing about just moments before as if possessed by a ghost.

Once the convulsions stopped, all the strength drained from my body. Extreme fatigue washed over my entire frame.

The oxygen flowing through the mask was barely maintaining my breath. It was a familiar sensation since I had been at the mercy of an oxygen mask several times since I was a child.

Cold sweat formed on my forehead and soaked my back. Why am I suddenly like this? There was no need to ask. I must have collapsed again suddenly….

However, no matter how much I think, I can’t remember what happened before I lost consciousness. It hasn’t been like this since the time I collapsed in front of my parents and was left there to wake up alone… ah.

“Hee-eup…!”

“Patient, patient! It’s okay, please calm down!”

Because of the suddenly soaring heart rate, a warning sound blared boisterously. My uncle and Mr. Taeseon hurried close to the bed. The warning sound piercing sharply into my ears was to the point of being noisy. On the machine screen I caught a glimpse of, the heart rate was exceeding 200.

The moment I thought of Inha, my heart began to beat as if having a seizure. As I fell into a state of panic, the doctors and nurses comforted me and added another injection. A few minutes later, as if by magic, my pulse stabilized and the panic vanished.

As I breathed while leaning half on the oxygen mask, I could see Mr. Taeseon and my uncle even without my vision changing or flipping at will. The two were standing at a distance that wouldn’t interfere with the medical staff, watching me. They had worried faces.

I tried to look at those faces as closely as possible. Because otherwise, every time I blinked, the image of Inha burrowing under the blanket was drawn behind my eyelids like an afterimage.

It was several hours later that all the treatment was finished.