YHP 49

As soon as they stepped inside, he felt suffocated. The newly appeared room had a familiar yet endlessly unpleasant smell.

As he patted his stuffy chest, Yoo Ho-jin, who immediately noticed him, approached Jeong-in with worried eyes. It was then.

“Waaaaaah!”

Someone grabbed Jeong-in’s shoulder with a rough hand.

“Huff…”

At the same time, things he had forgotten flooded back, filling his vision.

The damp air, the rough texture of the concrete against his back, the moment when he was helpless and could do nothing.

‘You, you haven’t manifested for long, have you?’

A sharp ringing pierced his head. Screaming, Jeong-in curled up as if collapsing.

His eyes and ears went numb for a moment, and his thought process stopped. Vivid fear rose like a tsunami, engulfing his entire body. Ah, heu, euk, he struggled to hold onto his breath, which wouldn’t come easily. Someone seemed to be saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear anything. All his senses were fading away.

“Heueuk… Ah, eu….”

He was scared. So, so scared. It felt like his whole body would be shattered into pieces at any moment. Trembling, he barely swallowed his breath. Then, suddenly, the surroundings brightened. Jeong-in, terrified by the overwhelming fear, twisted his body, trying to escape in shock. But the arm that wrapped around his shoulder didn’t budge.

After enduring for a little longer in that state, his back and head touched a smooth floor. He felt warmth gently stroking his chest.

“Hyung. Can you hang in there a little longer?”

“…Ah, euk.”

“Breathe out hard, just once.”

A gentle voice poured into his consciousness, which was starting to return clumsily. Inevitably, Jeong-in clung to it. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force open his blocked airway. But it was as if he had forgotten how to breathe altogether, and it felt hopeless. Just regaining his senses was becoming difficult.

“This won’t do.”

He was only making strange noises, but soon his body was lifted again. As he leaned his face against something solid, a large hand patted Jeong-in’s back hard. Thump, thump. After a few pats, a fit of coughing erupted, and his airway cleared. Huffing and puffing, Jeong-in finally opened his eyes. Tears that had been welling up fell in a stream, and a calm and clear landscape came into view.

“Haa, haa….”

“Just slowly, as you are. Inhale on one, exhale on two.”

One, two. Following the slow, continuous sound, he slowly calmed his breathing. Yoo Ho-jin slightly moved away and checked Jeong-in’s face.

“Are you okay now?”

He had tensed up so much in an instant that he had no strength left in his body. He leaned limply into Yoo Ho-jin’s arms and barely nodded.

“The nearest infirmary is about 300 meters from here. Can you walk?”

“…I’m fine.”

Residual tremors still ran down his spine. Jeong-in tried to get up, breathing shakily. Then, Yoo Ho-jin simply used his strength to pull Jeong-in back into his arms.

The hand that gently stroked his back without a word gradually calmed his mind. Leaning completely on him, Jeong-in began to regain his senses.

To have a flashback suddenly in a place like this. It was so unexpected that he was a little flustered. He also felt sorry for Yoo Ho-jin, who must have been very surprised by the sudden situation after coming to have fun in a good mood.

“…Bad memories, that’s.”

He stammered out an excuse. Then, his nerves, which had been on edge, were stimulated, and anxiety rose again. Inevitably, his limbs tensed, and his fingertips began to tremble. Still, he felt like he had to finish what he was saying, so he forced his mouth open.

“It was a long time ago, but just…”

At that moment, Yoo Ho-jin pulled Jeong-in closer and hugged him tighter.

“Don’t keep thinking about it.”

He didn’t ask anything. Instead, he started talking about something completely unrelated.

“The weather is really nice today.”

“……”

“It felt a bit cold until recently, but it feels like summer will come right away.”

He was grateful that Yoo Ho-jin seemed to be deliberately changing the subject. Jeong-in stopped moving his lips and buried his nose in Yoo Ho-jin’s shoulder.

The scent emanating from Yoo Ho-jin was as calm and gentle as his personality. It was completely different from the musty and unpleasant smell from before. Whether it was because of the scent or because of the hand that kept stroking his back, he felt his mind calming down as he remained buried there.

Jeong-in weakly raised his eyes and looked around. A large tree shade was cast over the bench facing the emergency exit. He slowly took in the peaceful and clear appearance of the world, which was no different from usual. He felt the pounding of his heart gradually subside.

“…I’m okay now. Thank you.”

He pushed himself up, supporting himself on Yoo Ho-jin’s shoulder with one hand. Yoo Ho-jin looked at him with worried eyes and asked.

“Shall we go straight home, or stop by the hospital?”

“We came all the way here, are you saying we should leave already?”

“I don’t think you should overdo it. If you really don’t like the hospital, let’s at least go to the infirmary for a while.”

Jeong-in shook his head. This place was literally in his youngest uncle’s palm. If it was revealed that he had collapsed because of a flashback of trauma, the haunted house that had been standing in this spot for 20 years would be immediately demolished. He didn’t want to be the starting point of such a huge event. Of course, he also didn’t want to be the first blemish on the theme park, which had a slogan of zero safety accidents.

“I’m okay. It’s occasionally like this.”

“……”

“I’m really fine, I tell you?”

Yoo Ho-jin’s face was still clouded. Jeong-in sighed and grabbed his arm.

“Let’s go eat. I’m hungry.”

“Hyung. Let me ask you just one thing.”

Yoo Ho-jin suddenly asked.

“Was it the darkness, or the enclosed space? Which one was it?”

“……”

“I want to know exactly what you were scared of.”

He looked like he wouldn’t get up until he got an answer.

“I don’t like it when they come all at once.”

Jeong-in counted the elements he had encountered a little while ago.

“Dark, dirty, humid, an enclosed space, and a stranger suddenly touching my body. All of these have to overlap.”

Now that he thought about it, he really couldn’t have been any more unlucky. If even one of those elements had been missing, it wouldn’t have been this difficult.

“It’s unlikely that that will happen. It’s really nothing, so get up.”

“…Okay.”

Only then did Yoo Ho-jin follow Jeong-in and get up.

Knowing that the more he dwelled on it, the harder it would be to shake off, Jeong-in consciously tried to think bright thoughts. Fortunately, he felt better as soon as he stepped out into the open square.

They walked along the outskirts of the square and entered the staff passage. The shortcut to the restaurant area was in the basement of another attraction building. Without much thought, he opened the door of the building, and stairs leading straight down to the basement appeared.

“Just a moment.”

Yoo Ho-jin suddenly grabbed Jeong-in’s wrist.

“Let’s go another way.”

“We can get there in 5 minutes if we go this way?”

“Still. There are a lot of pretty things outside.”

At the touch of Yoo Ho-jin’s hand pulling him as if he was sulking, Jeong-in had no choice but to close the door and turn around. The two soon returned to the theme park. Walking leisurely among the people passing under the pretty buildings, Jeong-in pointed to a certain spot.

“Shall we ride that on the way?”

It was an indoor ride where you shoot at ghosts with a laser gun inside a vehicle that follows a rail.

“Isn’t that also going into a dark place?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I don’t want to.”

Jeong-in stopped abruptly and turned to look at Yoo Ho-jin.

Behind the mask, eyes as gentle as a cow blinked.

“……”

He approached him and lowered his mask slightly. As expected, Yoo Ho-jin’s expression was sullenly drooping.

Putting the mask back on, Jeong-in smiled softly.

“I’m really okay.”

He seemed to know why Yoo Ho-jin was acting like this. He was still worried about what had happened a little while ago.

“I was flustered earlier. I don’t always act like that when I go to dark places, so don’t worry about it.”

He tried hard to soothe him, but Yoo Ho-jin’s face didn’t improve easily.

He felt so sorry that he seemed to have ruined Yoo Ho-jin’s mood on a day off that he had made with much effort. He was wondering how to comfort him for a moment when a child and his mother passed by Jeong-in.

“Mom, I want Prince’s sword.”

“No. You almost hurt Soo-jeong with it last time when you were playing around.”

“I won’t do that anymore…. Please?”

The child, who had found a large sword hanging in the window of the souvenir shop—it didn’t even seem to be a product for sale in the first place—began to whine and beg his mother. His mother grabbed his hand several times, telling him to go ride the cable car, but after a little more time, he simply sat down on the floor as if he wouldn’t move from that spot.

Jeong-in looked back and forth between the child and Yoo Ho-jin. Yoo Ho-jin was also stubbornly refusing to move, standing tall like a totem pole. Only the size of their bodies was different, but in fact, what they were doing was the same, whether it was that child or Yoo Ho-jin.

Then maybe the solution would be similar.

“I’ll buy you a penguin.”

“…Yes?”

With an idea flashing through his mind, Jeong-in abruptly grabbed Yoo Ho-jin’s wrist and entered the souvenir shop.

Passing through the stalls filled with colorful items tailored to the tastes of young children, they came to a space where only animal dolls were gathered. He was going to buy the most popular penguin as he had initially thought, when he said, “This one looks just like you.”

He picked up a sky-blue dolphin right next to it and held it up next to Yoo Ho-jin’s face.

“…Hyung.”

“Just stay still.”

He pressed the soft doll against his cheek as if squashing it. The round, black eyes looked very similar.

“I’ll buy you this.”

Now that he looked at it, he didn’t look like a dog, but a fish.

Seeing his cheek being pressed by a doll that looked just like him, he felt strangely amused. Jeong-in smiled and said to him.

“So stop sulking now, Ho-jin-ah.”