Boy Monster Chapter 30

Crumbled expectations, resentment towards his wavering self. All the emotions that had been boiling up converged and then evaporated in an instant. Everything that constituted Jae Eunho’s mind shattered. Jae Eunho, lifting his head, wore his usual impassive expression.

The feeling of having nothing left inside was just like back then. Jae Eunho of the late 1940s was marred by refusing food and water, and several suicide attempts. After accidentally discovering that a mysterious connection remained, he had started living again, but Jae Eunho back then was young. He was like a child who knew nothing.

Like a tape rewound in an instant, Jae Eunho’s state of mind returned to that time.

Shi Taehyun had disappeared. All hopes that Sa Hwelju might be alive remained as Eunho’s blunder.

Blood seeped from his broken toenail again. Jae Eunho walked to the window, letting the drops of blood fall to the floor.

Because that was the only door he could open.

“Monk, I have to go to the world that child belonged to. I don’t belong in the human realm of this world.”

Jae Eunho, flinging open the window, was suspended in the distant darkness. The distant mountains, tall buildings, Seoul’s roads and lights that never went out, even at night.

We lived within it all.

The cursed Jae Eunho, the mature Choi Jungkyung, the troublemaker Hyeon Jaewoong, the dependable Monk Chogwang, his most understanding friend Monk Jiguk, Ji Hwelju and Ji Yeonri, the other members who trusted Eunho and worked across the country, Choi Jungkyung’s child, the colleagues who drank with him, cheering for his escape from singledom, and….

Remembering the irezumi on his chest that heaved with each breath, Eunho squeezed his eyes shut.

It’s time.

It was time to break free from the endless circles within the mandala. Jae Eunho gripped the railing with both hands.

There was a path he could only take if it was the last one.

Something he could only attempt if he was prepared to lose everything. A rebellion where everyone might die or lose their souls if it failed.

Jae Eunho had failed this rebellion in the year the boy died.

And he had lost everything, arriving at this day.

Using the curse of reincarnation as a stepping stone, could he try one last time?

A war to break free from oppression and control, to live a life that resembled a real life.

To plant elaborate hallucinations in the minds of all who know us, erasing our spiritual existence.

Lim Geonhwi, the president, the ministers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ministers, even those trying to kidnap him now… planting false thoughts in everyone’s minds. That the Hwelju who protected this land thousands of years ago and their Yeonri partners were all annihilated in the war. That it’s a story like a myth, no longer existing.

Our ancient souls would remain only as records and tales in numerous historical documents.

And we would find freedom.

No need to forcibly maintain the sensory gauge, no need to live in dens of blood and evil. If we wanted to, we could serve the nation’s security and public order, but it would be a choice. Living among ordinary people, keeping our abilities a secret.

It was the world Eunho’s father and mother had dreamed of.

However, this required life-threatening sacrifices and determination. Everyone could die with a single failure. The government already possessed superior control devices. They already held vascular bombs in their hands. To penetrate their defenses and plant hallucinations, the lives of numerous Hwelju and Yeonri had to be risked. It was a rebellion that could only be attempted by betting everyone’s fate.

“Can I do it? I failed back then. I lost him like that.”

The young Jae Eunho wondered why he was born into this world as such a being. He searched for the reason he had the terrible misfortune of being born a Yeonri, but for over thirty years, he couldn’t find an answer.

He found the reason one day while with the boy.

When the boy’s lips touched his skin, Jae Eunho understood everything. That boy was the very reason he was born into this world.

If he had succeeded in erasing their existence from those in power and lived an ordinary life, if that child were alive, Jae Eunho would have lived and died like anyone else. Eating together, bickering over food seasoning, having sex like any other couple, growing old.

That boy was the only one who made him understand that an unremarkable future was the very reason for living.

His only romantic love. The moment that phrase reached his heart, Jae Eunho let out a small cry.

“Ah.”

It was hard to believe. Looking at his bleeding toenail, pain and sorrow welled up belatedly.

Tears that hadn’t come no matter how much it hurt, even when electricity coursed through him during his encounters with Lim Geonhwi, even when he suffered the pain of his left leg being twisted.

Jae Eunho crouched down by the railing, tears falling. On the one hand, it felt absurd. That crying could be so easy.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t cry while the boy’s body still breathed.

“It hurts.”

That it could be so easy. Had Lim Geonhwi not stabbed him with his words countless times? Had he not lived without the boy for days, for years? Was bleeding from an injury something special? It didn’t make sense that he was crouching here, shedding tears over something like this. Eunho thought as he cried.

What words were piercing his heart right now.

―Shi Taehyun escaped.

―It’s time to let go of some of that foolishness, Eunho.

“It hurts.”

Looking at his oozing toenail, Jae Eunho muttered to himself. Thinking in his mind.

Take me away. Eunwoo, I…

I didn’t want to kill you. My decision back then was the best I could do. I did my best to protect you.

I tried to do the same this time… but I failed again.

I only fail in front of you.

“I said it hurts…!”

Jae Eunho yelled, covering his face with both hands.

“Sob…, sob, ugh….”

The sky lantern keyring he always carried and relied on wasn’t there. His prayer beads weren’t there either. Instead, Jae Eunho took out a photo album. He tightly clutched the photos of the scene where Sa Hwelju exploded.

After 1941, having lost the reason for his existence, Jae Eunho tried to give up on the embers of life, but the curse of reincarnation wouldn’t let him. But now, even while crying, Jae Eunho had no intention of giving up on life. At this moment, he had this thought.

That he would defy the fate that drove him and the boy to death. That extinguishing the embers of life wouldn’t be too late after he’d given that fate a good beating, after he’d knocked it down.

Eunwoo’s voice whispered to him, ‘Avenge me. It won’t be too late to come to me after that.’

“Will I be forgiven then? By you?”

‘Of course. It wasn’t entirely your fault that you killed me, Teacher. If you correct the rebellion that went wrong 100 years ago… if you unravel the twisted fate… you can be with me here.’

Jae Eunho stood up again and grabbed the railing. Now that the hope of Sa Hwelju being alive in Seoul was gone, there was nowhere left to retreat.

“I’ll erase thousands of years of history from everyone’s consciousness. From all those who don’t need to remember us.”

When I leave here, I’ll fight alone.

After freeing everyone, on the day the moon disappears from the sky, I too will disappear from this world.

It was then, as he muttered a vow no one would hear to the high-hanging daytime moon, that a feather drifted down from the sky. A large bird’s feather caught his eye.

It was a huge feather, seemingly not from any existing bird. The dark gray feather swayed back and forth in the wind, falling downwards.

It wasn’t a coincidence that he looked far below, following the direction the feather was falling.

The gaze of the electrical repairman standing dozens of floors below was also fixed directly on Jae Eunho.

Even from such a tiny figure, he could tell. Who possessed such an intense gaze.

From his position, his eyes, fixed on Jae Eunho standing on the railing of the impossibly high house, drew Eunho’s gaze. It was a power possessed only by the man who had deceived him.

He was standing at the entrance of the apartment building, looking at Jae Eunho, having somehow bypassed the residence’s security and entered the complex.

Their gazes locked for a long time, even from a distance where they couldn’t see each other clearly. It was as good as an agreement between the two. Shi Taehyun started walking towards the building entrance.

Jae Eunho quickly went to the front door. The electrical repairman, his hat pulled low, rang the bell on the first floor. After confirming the jawline and lips on the screen, Jae Eunho pressed the accept button. The automatic door opened and the screen turned off.

Soon, the elevator arrived. Shi Taehyun didn’t ring the doorbell this time. There was no need. Jae Eunho pressed the button to activate the screen and checked what was happening at the door.

The electrical repairman walked over and put down a large bag. What he pulled out from the bag was a metal cutting saw.

“Where did he even get that….”

Whiiirrr— The deafening sound of the saw cutting through the metal lock pierced his ears.

It didn’t take long for the saw to cut through the metal. The wall vibrated. Jae Eunho paced anxiously in front of the door. There were CCTV cameras in the entrance hallway. Lim Geonhwi was undoubtedly watching all of this.

The pungent smell of burning metal filled the air, and then the terrifying noise stopped. Shi Taehyun, putting down the saw and throwing open the door, tilted the brim of his hat. Jae Eunho shouted urgently.

“There are CCTV cameras, be careful…!”

“I know, Meerkat Teacher.”

“I was planning on leaving anyway, and it’s good that you released me quickly, but Lim Geonhwi must have seen all of this….”

“You have people on your side, the NIS Deputy Director, Choi Jungkyung, and so on. They said they sent someone to get you out. Just by looking at the CCTV, he won’t know it’s me.”

Intense eyes appeared beneath the gray hat with the power company logo. His gaze quickly traveled up Jae Eunho’s body, stopping at his face.

“You’ve been crying.”

“I got hurt.”

The hat, lowered towards Jae Eunho’s broken big toenail, remained silent for a moment.