Boy Monster Chapter 80

After entering a warehouse in a secluded corner of the harbor, the shaman, who had been trembling violently, finally spoke the words she had been holding back.

“I am the only shaman who can use the Sa Hwelju sealing talisman. If you harm me, the General will be enraged….”

“Yes, I’m sure he will. And since you’re such a great shaman, I suppose you can divine why I’m trying to kidnap you.”

“……”

“You strut around like you know everything in the world, yet you couldn’t even get close to Sa Hwelju and Sa Yeonri. All you do is spout vague messages given to you by the gods, but you were completely blind to the fact that a knife was about to be put to your own son’s throat.”

“……”

“All this time, you all have treated me as the family head’s possession, an essential weapon for the military, and a Sa Yeonri to be offered to the country. How about you start showing me some proper respect now? For your information, I’m sensitive about polite language.”

The speechless manshin let the fury drain from her contorted face. Her spirit greatly diminished, she watched as Jae Eunho approached her and said.

“Earlier, you said the futures of both family heads were pitch black. I’d like to hear what you mean by that.”

“Your… no, Sa Yeonri-nim’s future is not visible to me, but… the prestige of this Sashimcheon clan, the king’s secret unit, will face a calamity! The smell of evaporating blood… from the smoke… the smell of blood… even a gut won’t do any good…,”

“Ah, I get it. That’s enough.”

As expected, it sounded to Jae Eunho like a recitation of baseless fantasies. Not worth paying attention to. Thinking he should quickly deal with the ability-suppressing talisman, he undid the buttons of his shirt with the hand not holding the child. The manshin asked in alarm.

“I said your fate was pitch black, yet how can you be so unfazed?”

“I don’t believe in superstitions.”

“You yourself are a divine being, Sa Yeonri-nim, and you have personally witnessed the supernatural abilities of the Hweljus, yet you don’t believe in shamanism?”

“The Hweljus’ abilities are clearly visible to the eye. I don’t believe in unproven predictions or fortunes. Oh, something you just said contradicts something else, so I have one more question. You said Jang Hwonwoo is not the type to be defeated, but to swallow the world whole. And yet his future is pitch black? Isn’t that a contradiction?”

The manshin answered with her head bowed.

“That man is not a wind that flows with the world. He is a headwind, one who confronts and collides. He will not be eaten by the storm, so he will swallow it! His fortune is one of slaughter that could cause countless lives to wander the netherworld. But if you flip that…? He could also destroy countless enemies and evils and send them to hell…! ‘Life is the fleeting rise of a cloud, death is the fleeting dissipation of a cloud.’ Fate is like the nature of a cloud, which vanishes into water only to rise again; with proper guidance, one’s innate destiny and fortune can be changed and overturned. Jang Hwonwoo was a suitable man to be the family head! ……Until he was exactly thirteen.”

“……”

“Until he was thirteen, my fate was to live comfortably behind Jang Hwonwoo after the family head’s fortune waned, but right after he turned thirteen! Poof! It became as pitch black as the sun hidden by a lunar eclipse… Oh dear… oh dear! Did some kind of ghost possess him, huh? A gut did no good….”

Thirteen. Wasn’t that when he had returned the navy-blue notebook to the boy and asked him to be on his side?

“I… I…! I was certain that ghost was our Sa Yeonri-nim!”

The manshin slowly raised her head, her eyes rolling back to show the whites.

“If that terrible misfortune, that ghost, wasn’t you, then who could it have been!”

“……”

“Sa Yeonri-nim—!!!! When Sa Yeonri-nim started skipping the pills and doing things you never did, and finally got close to the family head’s son, that’s when everything turned pitch black! It started from then!”

It was a scream that seemed to claw and tear through the air.

The unconscious hostility the manshin had shown all this time had not been Jae Eunho’s imagination.

Yes, to use his words, I am the ghost who drove that boy’s future into darkness.

So that was it. The manshin couldn’t divine anything about me, so she couldn’t use a fortune as proof, but she must have been convinced her suspicion that I was the one who had affected Jang Hwonwoo’s fate was correct. But she couldn’t drive Sa Yeonri out, and she didn’t have the courage to reveal a heavenly secret to plot against me… So that’s why she showed me such venomous animosity.

However, would a fate where Jang Hwonwoo followed in the previous family head’s footsteps, living in luxury, have truly been a bright future? No. Jae Eunho absolutely did not think so. Jae Eunho had conviction in the will he had long harbored. If the person in question hadn’t been Jang Hwonwoo, Jae Eunho would have coolly rationalized it as having guided him onto the righteous path of the independence movement. But the other person was Jang Hwonwoo, whom Eunho cherished so dearly.

I led you to a dark destiny…?

Stop. I should stop thinking like this. These are unhelpful, distracting thoughts. Eunho coldly pulled himself out of his reverie. The manshin crawled over on her knees, knelt at Jae Eunho’s feet, and began to beg, rubbing her palms together.

“Let’s flee together, Sa Yeonri-nim… You must run, I see blood, blood. A folding screen. Fire. Smoke. I don’t know what kind of chaos you’re planning, but it’s wrong, so call it all off and at least preserve your life… Preserve it, please preserve your life…! This family is bound to have its line severed! Not a trace of the estate, or the plum blossom tree that bloomed every year, will remain! No matter who struggles and fights, what’s not meant to be, is not meant to be!”

“I seem to recall you just said with your own mouth that fate is something you change. Fate isn’t some unknown fortune; it’s a thread connecting the past to the future. Cause and effect can be changed.”

“But the variable of coincidence also exists! There are fates that are difficult to change no matter how hard you try! It’s so difficult to defy that even I have given up!”

“So you give up if it’s difficult. I am not like that.”

Jae Eunho looked down expressionlessly at the kneeling manshin.

“Yes, it seems that’s why you all have been living as parasites on easy power. And that’s why our country and our family have ended up like this.”

“……”

“Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible. What I want to change is the thread of cause and effect that exists here and now, in the present, and coincidence is just a slim possibility; it can’t sever that thread. Yuwi (有爲)…… all things have a cause and effect, so one lives by changing them. What is your yuwi?”

The manshin’s shoulders slumped as she gave up on answering. Jae Eunho continued speaking in a neat tone, as if reading a letter.

“My wish is to live. Just like you, I wish to live. I cannot die having wasted my life as the enemy country’s dog, tied to a leash. You, who have wielded your innate abilities merely to fill your family’s bellies, have no right to lecture me in this fight.”

“……”

“I too have one person I cherish. The happiness I wish to give that person is not a glory that vanishes in an instant like a dream, dew, or lightning. It is my very best, the freedom of Joseon’s land, a clear and bright family name. I will give that person all of it.”

“I wonder who this one person is, cherished so much by Sa Yeonri-nim that you wish to give them liberation and the family name….”

The manshin muttered with a faint smile. Jae Eunho didn’t answer. It was time to stop the interrogation and finish what he had to do.

“Take the talisman off my back.”

“……!”

It was an ability that could only be released with the family head’s permission. The manshin’s unfocused eyes stared as her red lips trembled. The shaman, who had been attempting to channel a spirit without any tools, began to speak rapidly.

“A great power, unknown whether it is a blessing from the heavens or a curse, if you… if you were to use it at will….”

Jae Eunho ignored the shaman’s increasingly rapid muttering and took off his shirt. The manshin, who had been slowly rolling her eyes back to summon a spirit, frowned upon seeing Jae Eunho’s torso. From his shoulders to his waist, his clear skin, which boasted a well-proportioned frame and smooth lines, was covered in reddish marks of passion. They were rough marks, enough to evoke images of hot passion and moans. Could it be…? Sa Yeonri was confined to Jang Hwonwoo’s room, so could it be…?

Eunho guessed what the manshin was thinking, but it didn’t matter. He could just erase her memory. Having finished channeling, the shaman’s eyes diverged to either side. When the shaman opened her mouth with a grotesque expression, her voice had changed to that of a thick-voiced adult man.

“Don’t tell me, you love that man…?”

“No.”

Jae Eunho denied it flatly. After much contemplation, he had concluded that his feelings for him were not love, but a unique sense of responsibility, so in Eunho’s mind, that answer was the truth. Jae Eunho turned around, showing the talisman stuck firmly to his back. The manshin scoffed loudly.

“That man whom Sa Yeonri-nim harbors lust for cannot survive either. Even if all of Sa Yeonri-nim’s powers are unlocked, you cannot change fate, hahaha…! Even the gods are laughing! The darkness that lies before that Jang Hwonwoo is an endlessly long time! His fate is ruined, so what could there be? He must be dead!”

“Damn it, shut up.”

“Jang Hwonwoo. I died, so it’s dark. It’s damp, and dark. Underground. I see butterflies too… I see guns, swords, axes, and blood too… so even after dying and being buried, he’s shooting guns and swinging swords, living in hell. A gray box! It’s a gray box! Whose coffin is it? Gray box! Gray box! Gray box! Gray box! Gray box! Gray box! Gray box! One, two, three… seven of them! Who is inside them? Gray box! It’s a gray box!”

“I said shut up!”

At the nonsense mentioning Jang Hwonwoo, Jae Eunho’s reason snapped. Jae Eunho laid his knife against the manshin’s cheek. The manshin, who had been trembling rapidly in her possessed state, came to her senses. Seeing Eunho gripping her pinned-up hair and pressing the blade against her face, the manshin broke out in a cold sweat. She felt her life was in danger before Jae Eunho’s murderous rage.

Eunho once again pressed the blade against the child’s neck. As the dagger dug deep into the tender skin, the manshin quickly received the spirit again. Jae Eunho’s hand trembled at this first attempt at a criminal act. But Eunho had no regrets.

“Remove the talisman.”

“Yes… Sa Yeonri-nim….”

The manshin, speaking with the deep male voice, began to chant submissively. The moment the manshin’s long fingernails, who had been spewing words without taking a breath, peeled off the talisman, Jae Eunho’s eyes shot wide open.

“…Hk!”

Spiritual energy surged up from the tips of his toes, pulsing and circulating throughout his body. A fierce excitement swirled in Jae Eunho’s pitch-black eyes.

This is the power I possess.

All controls had been released. Jae Eunho glared at the manshin, who was backing away while dripping cold sweat.

“Go to sleep.”

The manshin, who had been spouting possessed words, instantly collapsed into sleep. It was the first time Jae Eunho had controlled someone by his own will.

He had moved people at will and planted hallucinations countless times before, but it had all been under the family head’s orders. Today was the first time he had done so of his own volition.

Eunho put on his shirt and placed the dagger in his pocket. Looking at the sleeping manshin and her unconscious five-year-old son, Jae Eunho lifted his shoe over the manshin’s face. He wanted to pay her back for everything she had done, but when it came to actually using violence, it wasn’t easy. The moment he regretfully lowered his foot, a better idea flashed in his mind. There were several thick pens in the manshin’s pocket.

“Have a taste of this. This is revenge.”

From far across the harbor, a wind mixed with the smell of the sea and iron blew in. Jae Eunho came out of the warehouse and gave an order to the two Hweljus and the attendant standing guard.

“Let’s take them both away quickly. Cover them well with a durumagi.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Hweljus who lifted the manshin and her son onto their backs wore puzzled expressions upon seeing the drawings on their faces. Red bruises were drawn around their eyes, snot and nose hairs on their noses, and childish scribbles were scrawled on their cheeks. Hmph hmph, Jae Eunho let out a dry cough, looking perfectly relaxed as if he knew nothing about it.

After returning to the estate, Jae Eunho fed the pill to the manshin and her son, whose faces were now covered in doodles, tied them up, and hid them in the attic. Looking at them again, he felt it served them right.

Seated properly in the spacious tatami room, confusion flickered in Jae Eunho’s jet-black eyes. The moon was now heading from its first quarter to full. The future of the country and the family, freedom, and the boy’s life. All of it overwhelmed his heart. Jae Eunho broke his formal posture and hugged his knees.

No, I am not the man who ruined your future.

Night fell, and Jang Hwonwoo returned. The sound of his polite yet firm steps on the wooden floor grew closer, thud, thud. The strange light of a paper lantern cast a tall shadow on the paper-screen door. A tall silhouette flickered in the light.

Jang Hwonwoo slid open the door and took off his hat with a gentle smile.

“I’m back.”

Hwonwoo, please leave me, even now. In a few years, no, even in just one year, you’ll realize your feelings were an illusion. You shouldn’t devote everything to me like this right now.

With his full abilities in his grasp, a tempestuous conflict erupted in Jae Eunho’s heart.

I can’t abandon you, so you must abandon me. If you leave me, there will be no danger, no death. I will protect you no matter what… you must abandon me… then I will let you go without any lingering feelings. Please, leave me.

At the end of it all, Jae Eunho thought.

Should I rummage through your head right now and plant a hallucination to make you back out of the great undertaking? By controlling you….

As Jae Eunho gazed silently at Jang Hwonwoo, the latter held out a box neatly wrapped in a cloth. It was a cold lunch box.

“I’m a little late because I had to stop by the telephone office again on the way. I’m sorry. The preparations for the arson are all set. And… you haven’t been able to go out at all, so I thought you might be missing your favorite jajangmyeon, so I bought this. You don’t like sweets, but you like this, don’t you? It’s already cold. Just a moment, I’ll go warm it up.”

Leave me. Tell me you’re afraid of failure and death, even now. Say you’ll back out now. Then you’ll live.

It must have been very hot during the day, as his hair was still filled with a stuffy scent and heat. The lunch box, neatly wrapped in cloth, smelled of Western-style steak sauce. When Jae Eunho’s gaze shifted to the bloodstain on his sock, Jang Hwonwoo scratched his head and smiled.

“Ah, this was from when I was carrying the coffin and tripped because I wasn’t paying attention. Even monkeys fall from trees, as they say, haha.”

You foolish fool.

The tidal wave that crashed over Jae Eunho’s heart washed away all his thoughts and silent pleas.

“Teacher? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Eunho stood up and pulled Jang Hwonwoo into an embrace by his shoulders.

“You idiot.”

“…Pardon?”

“You world-class lecher, you world-class pitiful fool. A world-class childish idiot. You pathetic guy.”

Jang Hwonwoo felt a sudden unease at the strange feeling he sensed from Jae Eunho.

An idiot…? Did he finally find out about all the crazy shit I’ve done!

Damn it! Who snitched? Or did he read my mind? I didn’t want Jae Eunho, of all people, to find out my dog-like true nature! Has the unavoidable moment come! Is the image I’ve built up all this time going to crumble here…!

Unaware that Jang Hwonwoo, with his guilty conscience, was mentally recounting all his past eccentricities and fabricating excuses at the speed of light, Jae Eunho buried his face deeper into his uniform.