SATURDAY 93

One’s birth is something that cannot be helped.

Yoon Inha did not fully believe in the Shaman, but since he had heard it since childhood as if being brainwashed, things like fate and destiny had naturally taken root in his mind.

Yoon Inyoung was born on the same day and at the same hour as him, but he came to live a different fate by a difference of a mere few minutes.

Everyone thinks people are born equal, but in reality, that is not the case. It was the reason the word “destiny” existed. A brief moment divides a fate of being exploited from a fate of exploiting.

It was the same no matter how good a family one was born into. Any household needs one “misfortune-absorber” for the family to be at peace. It meant a public enemy was necessary.

Regrettably, Yoon Inyoung was born into a family that believed the words of such a person and was designated as a “ghost.”

That is Yoon Inyoung’s fate. The fact that the family members worshipped an abnormal fortune-teller, the fact that he was designated as a calamity for someone else’s benefit as soon as he was born, all of it was fate… even down to being born that way and having to live for the sake of his brother.

To make a flower bloom, nutrients are required. If one is born with the fate of being nutrients, is it not impossible to defy that?

Of course, being human, one might harbor complaints. Therefore, from the start, he had to be broken and trampled upon so he could not voice those complaints and would know his place. Yoon Inha had acted accordingly. Along with his family.

Yoon Inha slowly told this story to the two people sitting before him. Thinking about how he could make them feel worse, and what way of speaking would be more hurtful.

However, neither Song Sihyeon nor Lee Taeseon reacted strongly to Yoon Inha’s words. This wasn’t the reaction he wanted. Did they not love Yoon Inyoung as much as he thought? Why was no one saying anything? Yoon Inha narrowed his eyes.

Just then, Lee Taeseon checked his wristwatch. Simultaneously, Yoon Inha felt a strange sensation. A dizzying feeling as if his body were wavering. It was the sensation of being ejected from Yoon Inyoung’s body. He gritted his teeth and tried to endure it.

“It won’t work. Whatever it is Shin Myeonghwa used to tether you to this world… I don’t know what it is, but it must be burning right now.”

“Burning?”

“Yeah.”

As he said that, Lee Taeseon glanced at Song Sihyeon. As if asking, “Is it really working?” Song Sihyeon merely shrugged her shoulders.

Soon, a familiar old building shimmered before Yoon Inha’s eyes. It was the ritual house in the valley of Mount Jiri where the Shaman went most frequently.

The place, which looked like a large one-story brick building at a glance, was burning fiercely, spewing pitch-black smoke into the sky.

Inside, people rushed out in total chaos. Sirens wailed loudly, and several fire trucks barely managed to squeeze through the narrow unpaved road. Firefighters, having immediately formed a line, sprayed white liquid toward the blazing flames.

The scenery passed quickly before his eyes. He heard a voice screaming that there was still someone inside. Firefighters in fire-resistant suits finished their preparations and entered the flames, and before long, two people were carried out on their backs.

One person was in a state that one could not bear to see with open eyes. Yoon Inha gagged, urgh, with pure disgust. Seeing that, Lee Taeseon tilted his head, and Song Sihyeon spoke.

“It seems the scene is visible to him right now.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Considering the situation has come to this, what wouldn’t be possible?”

“Hmm….”

Fury surged for no reason at their voices, which felt almost leisurely. No, it wasn’t for no reason. The reason was, anyway… he didn’t feel good.

Just then, a phone rang. Yoon Inha felt a dizzying sensation and blankly looked around. Before he knew it, both the staff member behind the coffee bar and the men in suits had vanished, and the lounge was empty. Lee Taeseon pulled a phone out of his inner pocket and answered the call.

“Yes.”

Simultaneously, the ritual house swallowed by the flickering flames shimmered again in Yoon Inha’s eyes. In a spot slightly away from there, out of reach of the busy firefighters’ gazes, someone was making a phone call. Yoon Inha looked up. The person on the other end of the call was….

“Shin Myeonghwa and Jang Sehyeon have just been rescued from inside the ritual house.”

— Shin Myeonghwa and Jang Sehyeon have just been rescued from inside the ritual house.

A single voice was heard overlapping with a slight time difference. Perhaps thinking the sound coming from the phone was too loud, Lee Taeseon lightly pressed a button. Still, “that voice” continued to be heard.

“Jang Sehyeon is critically injured. It is uncertain whether he will survive. Shin Myeonghwa… has no visible major wounds to the eye.”

Yoon Inha’s eyes widened. That nauseating, horrific figure. Did that mean the person whose whole body was burnt black, whose hair had all melted away, and who had charred remnants of clothing stuck to various parts of the body was Professor Jang?

“Don’t tell me you….”

“I understand. Leave the area for now, and the conversation is all finished, right?”

“Yes, everything has been taken care of. It will be concluded as an accidental fire.”

“Good work. Move Jang Sehyeon to the provincial hospital and completely cut off contact with the outside.”

Yoon Inha stared blankly at Lee Taeseon as he hung up the phone with those words. As the fluster faded, a creeping laugh emerged.

“In a place with so many people, you set a fire? Did you intend to kill everyone? Ha-ha, you’re no different from me, are you?”

It was a comment meant to get under his skin, but Lee Taeseon didn’t even give him a glance. The fact that his words didn’t land a blow grated on his nerves.

“Anyway, he’s holding on tenaciously.”

The one who spoke instead was Song Sihyeon. She gazed at Yoon Inha fixedly and then tilted her head.

“It must have definitely burned up. The medium.”

“…!”

Yoon Inha recalled the sight he had seen once more. Shin Myeonghwa, the Shaman, had been holding only two blades, one in each hand, without anything else.

What would she have been doing there…?

What else is there to do in a ritual house besides a ritual? The Shaman had been performing some nameless ritual there, placing some “medium” to allow Yoon Inha to completely seize Yoon Inyoung’s body. And Jang Sehyeon had been with her.

If so, that something he needed inside those blazing flames.

Could it have burned away?

In an instant, the scenery of the vision spread before him changed. Inside the bright red blazing flames, among the objects knocked over here and there, an altar engulfed in fire appeared. Placed in the center of the altar was a doll stuffed with straw, wearing a black hanbok.

The shapes of the eyes, nose, and mouth were ridiculous. However, now was not the time to examine such things. A spark fell onto the doll with a flick. The straw doll began to burn up all too easily from that tiny flame.

“No…!”

Then Song Sihyeon jumped up, approached him, sat Yoon Inha on her lap, and firmly gagged his mouth.

“My, my, you should be quiet in a public place.”

“Mmph… mmph, mmmph!”

“Not that anyone is here, anyway.”

Yoon Inha desperately turned his head. At the lounge entrance, a sign with some notice written on it had been placed. It was likely a message saying the lounge could not be used.

Standing next to it was a staff member who merely remained silent, looking toward the lobby as if no sound could be heard from the inside.

Following that, a burning pain surged through his entire body. Yoon Inha began to tremble violently. Lee Taeseon was looking at Yoon Inha with his posture straightened. His eyes were cold as could be.

He always hated those eyes. The pupils that grew cold only when directed at him. The gaze that looked at him and his family as if looking at bugs. Yoon Inyoung, just because of that thing.

That was why whether he tormented or killed Yoon Inyoung, he wanted to do something about it. As he shook his head wildly, Song Sihyeon let go of her hand. Yoon Inha said with a giggle.

“Do you know the reason why I tried to bury Yoon Inyoung?”

“Do I need to know.”

“You should know! It’s because of you.”

Lee Taeseon tilted his head and then let out a smirk.

“Fine. I’ll at least hear what you have to say.”

“Yoon Inyoung was a fate that should not have been happy. He was born that way.”

The words came out strangely like a child’s. It was because some component that allowed him to think properly was breaking down. Before his eyes, the image of the burning ritual house was still unfolding in patches.

Gradually, he began to suffocate. Black smoke leaked from his throat. His eyes grew hot and glowed red.

As he grabbed his neck and made kuck, kuck sounds, Lee Taeseon looked at Yoon Inha and then at Song Sihyeon, appearing a bit surprised. Song Sihyeon lightly shook her head.

Yoon Inha continued to speak.

“But because you… because you said you would marry Yoon Inyoung. That shouldn’t happen, that isn’t Yoon Inyoung’s fate.”

At those words, Lee Taeseon calmed down.

With chilly eyes, he looked at the tear-streaming Yoon Inha and said.

“Your words sound exactly….”

Yoon Inha reeled heavily.

“Like you did that because you were jealous of Inyoung becoming happy.”