Chapter 79
“Yeo Moon-beom…?”
“What is it, Eun-hwi.”
“Is it really you, Yeo Moon-beom?”
“Do I look fake to you?”
His eyes, which were blinking slowly as if he had just woken up, curved into an arc and widened.
Unable to believe it, the half-dokkaebi rubbed his eyes several times. As the back of his hand cleared his vision, a beautifully sculpted face came into clear view.
It wasn’t an illusion.
He was there, right in front of him, with a definite form.
“It was pitch black everywhere and I was lost, wandering around. But someone kept calling out so loudly it hurt my ears, so I was able to come here. You have quite a loud voice, don’t you?”
“I’m so glad… that you could hear my voice. I called out for Yeo Moon-beom with all my might, trying to find you.”
As soon as Eun-hwi recognized Yeo Moon-beom’s presence, he hugged him tightly, as if to keep him from disappearing somewhere and to hold him by his side forever.
Although he couldn’t feel any warmth because Moon-beom didn’t have a physical body, just having him trapped within his arms was reassuring.
“Yeo Moon-beom… Yeo Moon-beom.”
It felt like he had finally found the light he had been searching for so desperately.
He was cold and cool, but like the moon that absorbs darkness and bathes the whole world in warm light. Like the moon that, even when waning, never disappears and continues to shine, filling the empty heart.
“Why did you come to such a dangerous place?”
Yeo Moon-beom, who had been briefly surveying the surroundings, asked in a low, hushed voice. At first glance, his tone seemed scolding, but his expression was gentle, so Eun-hwi answered honestly.
“I came to save you, Yeo Moon-beom.”
“I told you to go back home and stay there. Did you disobey me again because you want to be scolded? Hm?”
“Well, the mountain god gave me light…”
“Mountain god?”
Remembering that he wasn’t particularly fond of the mountain god, Eun-hwi closed his mouth tightly instead of explaining and just pulled at Moon-beom’s clothes.
As if pleading to let it slide just this once, considering how desperately he had wanted to come.
“Don’t get involved in fights again. It’s dangerous.”
“Mm. I won’t.”
As if his plea had worked, Yeo Moon-beom gently stroked Eun-hwi’s head with a soft smile on his lips.
“But thanks to you, I was able to regain my strength. Thank you.”
He had always been on the receiving end from Moon-beom. He was glad he could be of help at such a crucial moment, standing on the boundary between life and death. Relief washed over the half-dokkaebi’s face, which had been tense and anxious all along.
Wiping away the tears that had welled up in his eyes while nuzzling Moon-beom’s chest like a spoiled child, Eun-hwi spoke to him in a somewhat calmer tone.
“Let’s get out of here quickly, Yeo Moon-beom.”
“Just a little longer.”
“But if we linger, the Eodukseoni might absorb all our souls.”
If one stays trapped for too long in this world of unconsciousness filled only with darkness, they might lose the ability to distinguish between reality and dreams, becoming food for the Eodukseoni.
Eun-hwi turned his head to look at the young Yeo Moon-beom who was in danger. Although he was hiding with his hand over his mouth to avoid making any sound, he looked precariously close to being discovered and harmed at any moment.
“It’s still okay. The nightmare is just beginning.”
Just beginning, he says.
As if all the sadness and pain felt until now were nothing, he smiled calmly while gazing at his past self.
In his eyes, filled with melancholy as if looking at a world on the brink of destruction, emotions like self-blame, self-loathing, longing, and regret were chaotically mixed.
What kind of experiences could have led to such a look in his eyes?
Unable to even guess at the feelings he held in his heart, Eun-hwi tightened his grip on Moon-beom’s clothes as he stood there resolutely.
Smiling softly at the attempt at comfort, Yeo Moon-beom spoke.
“There’s a scene I must see again.”
He shifted his gaze to his biological father, who had stopped briefly to put a cigarette in his mouth and light it, then continued speaking.
“I came here of my own will to see that scene.”
As if feeling sorry for involving Eun-hwi in danger due to his own desires, Yeo Moon-beom buried his lips in Eun-hwi’s hair and whispered softly.
“We’ll definitely leave together. When we get out, we need to apply medicine to your legs.”
“…Okay.”
What could be the reason for willingly jumping into a nightmare that everyone wants to escape from?
There were many things he wanted to ask, but the half-dokkaebi quietly watched Yeo Moon-beom’s memories while hugging him.
To give him strength to endure in this terrible dream.
Fortunately, the man didn’t see the child hiding behind the trash can and passed by. The strong smell of cigarettes filled the corridor.
‘Open the door.’
The man ordered the humanized black fox standing in front of the last door at the end of the corridor. The fox monster, carrying an unconscious woman on its back, took out a key from her pocket and opened the rusty red door, letting the man in.
‘Wake her up.’
As soon as the words fell, there was the sound of slaps, smack, smack. Involuntarily flinching at the one-sided violence, Yeo Moon-beom covered Eun-hwi’s eyes with his palm.
“Close your eyes. It’s better not to see things like this.”
“But still…”
“There’s nothing good to see.”
It felt like a distant memory now, but it was something he had experienced to the point of nausea once. As Eun-hwi closed his eyelids as instructed, Moon-beom moved his hands to cover his ears, blocking out the sound as well.
‘No matter how bored you are, how could you? A mother, of all people. Did you hit it off with your father-in-law? Even for a mess, there’s a limit, you bitch.’
‘Don’t misunderstand. We never hit it off.’
‘What do you mean you didn’t? You went to see him behind my back today too, didn’t you? Not knowing the old man’s already dead by my hands.’
Yeo Moon-beom watched as Chairman Jang Gitae extinguished his cigarette on Yeo In-gyeong’s body. The smile he had been wearing disappeared at the acrid smell of burning skin, and only silent resentment floated across his face.
‘How can you call yourself human? How could you kill your own father? I’ll never give our Moon-beom to human trash like you. Don’t you dare taint my son… Ugh!’
Jang Gitae grabbed Yeo In-gyeong’s hair and continued to slap her face. Yeo Moon-beom, who had been watching the scene without blinking, turned his gaze to his younger self who was trembling in shock.
To himself who hesitated, unable to find the courage to grab the broken soju bottle lying nearby.
At the time, Chairman Jang Myeong-gil had planned to use his grandson Yeo Moon-beom to prevent discord within the organization in an attempt to stop Jang Gitae’s rampage to swallow the organization.
However, Yeo In-gyeong did not agree with this plan. She had lived as a single mother all along, unable to pass on a blood-stained life to her child.
She had given up her performance to go to the chairman’s office for a final negotiation, but Jang Myeong-gil had already been killed by his own son. In the end, she was captured by Jang Gitae and brought here without achieving anything.
On the pretext of committing the same crime as Jang Myeong-gil.
‘Hurry up and pack. We need to show traces of you carrying luggage to your son. No, my son.’
Jang Gitae was someone who knew how to thoroughly use others. If Yeo Moon-beom had just been playing games at Jang Gitae’s house, he would have lived his whole life resenting his mother, believing she had been deceived and disappeared somewhere.
But he came to know everything.
His molars ground together, filled with strength, and sparks flew from his heavily sunken eyes. Even though he was looking back on the past fully prepared, he couldn’t suppress the hatred welling up from deep within.
If Eun-hwi hadn’t been by his side, he might have lost his reason and fallen prey to the Eodukseoni’s machinations.
All his efforts to steel himself might have been in vain.
He exhaled a long breath to calm his boiling insides. Then he took Eun-hwi’s hands and made him cover his own ears before pulling out a Zippo lighter from his pants pocket.
It was time to return to reality with the half-dokkaebi who had willingly come through the darkness to find him.
“Come out, you bastard Eodukseoni.”
In response to Yeo Moon-beom’s angry shout, a low and gloomy laughter echoed, so sinister it made one’s insides churn.
“Have you already given up? If you wait just a little longer, the scene you’ve been waiting for will come.”
The Eodukseoni, taking the form of Jang Gitae, stopped kicking the mother’s stomach and turned its gaze to the child hiding in the trash can.
As expected, the Eodukseoni hadn’t noticed that Eun-hwi had invaded its domain and that Yeo Moon-beom’s consciousness had fully awakened.
‘Black Tiger. Take care of it.’
The Eodukseoni, who had finally withdrawn its fist from the lifeless, limp body, called out to the fox monster in Jang Gitae’s voice, as if to show off.
The black fox with glowing red eyes undid its transformation and began to devour the corpse in its original form of a black fox. An unspeakably horrific scene unfolded before Yeo Moon-beom’s eyes.
“Don’t you want to escape from this insufferable nightmare? Come on, beg. Say you’ll offer up your entire soul.”
“It’s not me who should be begging, but you. Don’t you realize it yet? You’re the only one who’s screwed here.”
Click.
Yeo Moon-beom opened the lighter’s lid and turned the wheel with his thumb to light it. A small flame flickered, shining a light in the darkness.
“What do you think you can do with that tiny spark? It’s useless no matter what you try. In this world of unconsciousness, only I, the creator, can use abilities.”
“For a parasite that can only leech off others’ memories due to lack of creativity, you’re quite delusional.”
Yeo Moon-beom twisted his lips.
“I am the creator of this world.”
He gripped the lighter tightly. A blue fireball resembling dokkaebi fire began to grow, blazing fiercely.
“I’ll help too, Yeo Moon-beom!”
Eun-hwi, who had opened his eyes at some point, overlapped his hand with Yeo Moon-beom’s, infusing it with dokkaebi power.
“Arrrrrrghhhh!”
The radiance, changing from blue to green, and from green to yellow, spread in all directions, eventually shining brilliantly through the darkness as heavy as a deep swamp.
