Boy Monster Chapter 46

“A guest in the suite room of the 00 Hotel smashed a window and disappeared at dawn. The identities of the two people who booked the room are both fake, and after checking their footprints, they are a man of 190cm and a man of 178cm. A gun that appears to belong to the police was found, and it seems one shot was fired, but the bullet and bloodstains couldn’t be found as they were washed away by the wind and rain. We are currently analyzing the CCTV, but the elevator and hallway CCTV footage from the time of the incident until now cannot be found, making it difficult to trace their movements.”

“Don’t let this get on the news, ever. I’ll contact the hotel myself. Scour through any other CCTVs you can find.”

Deputy Director Oh Jigeun gave the order in a hoarse voice. He hadn’t slept a wink all night, hounded by calls from the media and government departments. The country was in an uproar. Following the train terror incident, Lim Geonhwi was unconscious, and now Jae Eunho was missing as well.

Hyeon Jaewoong was making a scene, crying and wailing that he would go find Jae Eunho. He was protesting to be included in the special intelligence team to be dispatched to various countries. Having also stayed up all night, Choi Jungkyung finally broke down in tears.

“Ah… I should have just kept him under guard in the reception room yesterday, I made the wrong call!”

His wife and children stayed by Choi Jungkyung’s side as he cried out, wiping his wet face. The S.E.T.U. headquarters, without Captain Jae Eunho, felt like a funeral home.

Amidst this, something of mixed joy and sorrow occurred. Due to this incident, Hyeon Jaewoong’s abilities had greatly increased, and the power of spatial penetration, a Su Hwelju 1st Poom ability, had manifested. A Hwelju had appeared to fill the vacant Su Hwelju 1st Poom position.

Hyeon Jaewoong, with a swollen face, came to see Chogwang. Even in the midst of the chaos, one couldn’t help but laugh at Hyeon Jaewoong’s puffy eyes. Chogwang barely suppressed his laughter.

“Please put me on the intelligence team going to the UK, Monk Chogwang. Please.”

So this kid finally surpassed his rank. A Su Hwelju 1st Poom.

It was a formidable spirit and innate power. He had recognized it from the first moment he took in the kid who had been abandoned at the temple. Hyeon Jaewoong was a vessel of potential. What triggered it must have been his affection and admiration for Jae Eunho.

Chogwang coldly stopped the clamoring Hyeon Jaewoong.

“Su Hwelju 1st Poom. The scale of your power is now on a different dimension than before. It’s absolutely impossible to be dispatched without a Yeonri. The only one who can control a rampaging 1st Poom Hwelju is Eunho, and he’s not here right now. Maybe if dozens of Yeonri all gathered and focused on you alone it might work, but you know we’re in an emergency with no capacity for that.”

“Still… but if I just sit still, I feel like I’m going to go crazy!”

“You do what you can here. Stop whining. We need more hands here in the operations room, not just field agents. Eavesdropping analysis, field support, code collection, decryption. Go help with that. Do something you can pour all your energy into!”

“…I understand. I’ll help the Deputy Director.”

Hyeon Jaewoong slapped his dry, tear-stained face with both hands to wake himself up. Where on earth was Jae Eunho? His stomach churned at the thought of him being captured by the group behind the terror attack.

Chogwang got into the car with a face full of worry. National decision-makers, accompanied by their aides and protocol officers, were flocking to the National Security Office.

:･⚜️⊹.️

Looking around, it seemed he was on the mid-slope of Mt. Inwang. The fortress wall trail continued down to Naksan Park below. Jae Eunho got up and brushed off his clothes. The reason he had woken up under a rock on the mountainside was clear.

The gigantic body that had smashed the hotel window last night and flown into the pouring rain. It must have known that leaving Jae Eunho, who had collapsed from the rampage, would be like advertising for him to be captured without any protection. It, his partner, must have carried Jae Eunho to a secluded spot under a rock, then descended underground to hide its own grotesque body. Into the darkness beneath the darkness, deep under the ground of Seoul.

The NIS and the government were surely in an uproar, but Jae Eunho couldn’t go to them now. Before he could reassure them and make up a story about last night, there was someone he had to find first.

His leg was impaired, and he had no glasses. Coming down the wet mountain with limited vision and movement was not easy. Sweat trickled down Eunho’s face and neck.

“Hah… phew… hoo…”

It was hard labor, but not impossible. Whenever it got tough, he recalled the body that had enveloped him last night. The sweet and ferocious power still seemed to embrace Eunho’s bare body. He gained strength by reliving their interrupted lovemaking.

He was a mess from having slept outside in the rain. Stepping onto a street bustling with people, Jae Eunho straightened his shirt and quickly entered a drugstore. He sprayed perfume samples wildly and dried his wet hair at the styling zone.

Feeling bad about just leaving, he bought a few yakgwa from the health snack corner. Looking outside, it was still drizzling. As he stole an umbrella from the umbrella stand, Eunho muttered quietly.

“Yuwi1) is that which is either created, or abides, or disappears. Your umbrella, as a type of yuwi, also sometimes disappears. Please don’t be too angry.”

Jae Eunho habitually pushed up his glasses and properly apologized again.

“I’m sorry. You will win the 10,000x lottery next time.”

But when he brushed his nose, he realized his glasses were gone. They were his old square-framed glasses, but they had snapped in two at the hotel last night. Eunho pushed through the rain to a nearby optician. The few ten-thousand won he had stolen from Shi Taehyun’s house yesterday were already gone. He had no choice but to find the cheapest frames, which turned out to be horn-rimmed glasses with a bright yellow frame.

Wearing the ridiculous glasses, Jae Eunho looked for a nearby payphone. After walking for a few minutes, he entered a residential neighborhood. He stuffed a yakgwa into his mouth, hungry, and walked up the slope. A payphone booth was attached to the wall of an old supermarket.

After filling it with a good number of coins, he called Monk Jiguk. Eunho tapped the ground impatiently with the tip of his shoe. After a long ring, the monk answered the phone.

— Who is this.

“Monk Jiguk, it’s me.”

— You…!

“Monk, please don’t tell anyone right now and just do me one favor.”

Monk Jiguk, who had been lashing out asking if he was okay, blurted out.

— Jaewoong is a complete wreck, an absolute mess. He’s lost his mind, like a man who’s lost everything. It’s like he’s aged ten years!

Jae Eunho spoke firmly to the frantic Monk Jiguk. He understood their worried pain, but it was not the priority.

“No. Don’t tell anyone this phone number or the contents of this call. It’s an order and a request.”

Monk Jiguk, sensing Eunho’s urgency, stopped talking.

“I’m fine. So calm down. I’ll make up an excuse and go to the government myself. But not now. There’s something I have to take care of first.”

To the now-calm Monk Jiguk, Jae Eunho continued in a much lower voice.

“Monk. You’ve never seen it yourself, have you? Someone who became a terrible monster by receiving the power of a Sa Hwelju without a talisman… You never saw it yourself. Because back in the old days, you weren’t here in this world.”

— …….

“I saw it. It was inside the palace. The child’s blood splattered on the folding screen. His twisted skeleton, breaking and forming and fusing, pierced through the ceiling. His skin became black armor, and his fair face… was covered by an incomparably hideous shell. Even as he transformed into that hideous form, that child, until the very end… he looked at me.”

Monk Jiguk listened quietly to Eunho’s explanation before replying.

— You received a curse at that distant time. They said the family head cast this curse on that monster. ‘You shall possess the power of a Sa Hwelju without a talisman and be immortal, but you will never be able to have or touch what you desire most.’

Until now, Eunho had thought the curse was aimed at Hwonwoo’s superior physique. The tall, lanky build that had grown to overwhelm Eunho, the deep and masculine features that had captured the affections of many young girls since he was young, the low and composed voice like black silk. He thought it meant he could never regain all the things that made his body superior, that is, the body of the boy.

But Jae Eunho, despite having lived for so long, had failed to grasp the depth of his resentment. What the boy had obsessed over and desired most during those dreadful years was the man he had held in bed yesterday.

He had wanted Jae Eunho more than his own original body.

That was why, last night when he touched what he desired most, his transformation broke, and he went on a rampage.

A wave of sadness washed over him as he recalled Shi Taehyun before he turned into a monster. It would have been easy to shed tears. But Jae Eunho did not cry. He clenched his teeth as hard as the force with which he had been held by him yesterday.

“Now I understand. The fact that I’ve been suffering from sleep paralysis was proof that I was connected to him. You were right. The Sa Hwelju is calling me. …There’s something I need your help with.”

The monk asked with due respect.

— What does the Sa Yeonri wish for me to do now?

“I command that no one but you shall know of the Sa Hwelju.”

— I will not speak of it to anyone. I pledge not to let it pass my lips. I swear upon the path of Buddha.

The rustling sound of clothes, as if he were bowing, could be heard. The faint sound of a wooden fish also echoed.

“Can you record my voice right now? Don’t explain anything to Deputy Director Oh Jigeun, just let him hear my voice, and investigate the epicenter together. Let me know of any places within the Seoul area where there was an earthquake or a sinkhole last night. There’s no time. I don’t know when they’ll find me.”

Footnotes:

1. ‘Yuwi’ (有爲) — A Buddhist term referring to all phenomena created by the combination of causes and conditions, i.e., things that are artificially manipulated or conditioned.