RPPL C16

“I see. You must be deeply grieved.”

Bipa offered his condolences slowly. As if spurred by his words, the lamentations continued.

“He is a good child. He has never done anything to earn anyone’s resentment. How could such a tragedy occur? And my child is not the first. As you must have heard on your way here, half the village is filled with the sounds of wailing. It’s not just the children who are disappearing. An elderly mother, a wife, a husband, it doesn’t discriminate, hiccup. Who will be next.”

“What did the government office say?”

“They have no interest in this matter!”

Ahn Gyeomho exclaimed, grinding his teeth. The despair of a parent who had lost a child blazed in his eyes.

“They just lock the gates of the government office and prevent anyone from entering!”

“When did the child become like this?”

“This morning, I went into his room to see, and, and!”

Ahn Gyeomho cried out again.

People die for all sorts of reasons. It was even easier for a child. Sometimes there were parents who felt it a loss, and sometimes there were those who, accustomed to it, went to plow the fields with hollowed faces.

In any case, it was not a pleasant sight. Out of distress and discomfort, Bipa turned his head to the side.

And he saw Muyun’s profile. His face, where the wound had almost healed, was smooth and indifferent.

In that moment, Bipa unknowingly parted his lips, but before he could even figure out what he was about to say, the words that had surfaced in his mind vanished because of Ahn Gyeomho, who grabbed him and fell to his knees.

This is not the time for that. Bipa collected himself and composed his expression.

“Young Master.”

Bipa called to Muyun in a soft voice.

At that, as if the unfeeling expression from a moment ago belonged to someone else, Muyun’s face lit up with life as he turned to Bipa. His eyes sparkled and his ears perked up as if he would listen to any command. Feeling a strange sense of déjà vu, Bipa tilted his head but spoke anyway.

“You should go and check. His forehead.”

At those words, Muyun nodded and headed towards the wooden floor. When he opened the child’s mouth, the tongue was indeed deathly pale blue.

However, Muyun snapped his head up at a strange, unpleasant feeling emanating not from the child, but from elsewhere.

“……”

Then he saw a woman crouched in a shadowed corner, looking completely dazed. He saw three red dots on her neck, which was tilted in a detached manner, and she looked just like the child.

Bipa followed Muyun’s gaze and looked at the woman. But Muyun had already turned back a step ahead, pulled Bipa closer, made him lean his head in, and whispered.

“There were three red dots on her neck.”

Bipa frowned. Then he let out a low sigh. It was a good thing that could be called bad, and a bad thing that could be called good. Bipa gave a faint smile and comforted Ahn Gyeomho.

“The Young Master says he’s discovered something. But dear me, it seems this is not a matter we can simply pass by, so it looks like we’ll have to stay for a day. I apologize, but would it be possible to impose on you?”

Ahn Gyeomho, sniffling, nodded. He staggered as he led the way to guide them to a room. Bipa stopped him as he was about to head to a nearby guest room.

“No. It would be best if it’s the furthest place from here.”

“I understand…. This way, please.”

They moved along the long wooden porch. Muyun, walking behind Bipa, suddenly looked up at a flower petal tickling his face. It was a petal from a late-blooming sweet olive tree. As soon as he realized it, a dizzyingly enchanting fragrance assailed him. In that instant, Muyun forgot to walk and stood stock-still.

“Young Master?”

Bipa, who had turned around when he no longer heard footsteps behind him, called out. At Bipa’s voice, Muyun flinched and came to his senses. But while his eyes took in Bipa, his whole body was taking in the scent of the sweet olive.

“Why? Did you see something?”

Muyun shook his head at the question from Bipa, who had approached him. For some reason, he felt shy and embarrassed. The soles of his feet tingled. Unaware of the reason, he simply hurried his steps.

Seeing this, Ahn Gyeomho arbitrarily interpreted it as the two having found a clue to this bizarre and heinous affair and continued speaking.

“I hope that whatever is happening will be brought to light. I don’t understand why such terrible tragedies are happening one after another. The village is a sea of tears, and everyone has become helpless…. It’s not a poor harvest, nor pirates, nor bandits, so what in the world is this…. If there is anything you need, please ask for it.”

“Thank you.”

Bipa put an arm around Muyun’s shoulder as they walked, lest he fall behind again. Even so, his gaze was fixed somewhere over the wall. The fingers wrapped around Muyun’s shoulder twitched, as if lost in thought. It was terribly ticklish.

Muyun turned his head, following Bipa’s line of sight. But no matter how he tried to follow his gaze, he could only see the wall.

I want to follow that gaze…. At the sudden thought, Muyun clenched his fists.

❀࿐

The room Ahn Gyeomho guided them to was in a pavilion near a small side gate that the servants could use. On the wall built next to it, he could also see a doggy door, dug out so that the dogs they raised could escape if a tiger came down.

Although it was a remote place, the inside of the room was neat and clean, as if a person’s hand had frequently touched it. Their now-collapsed home used to let in a chilly breeze because Bipa had clumsily papered the sliding doors, but it wasn’t like that here. The door, meticulously coated even with oil, looked sturdy.

Bipa untied his bundle. Come to think of it, this was the first time Muyun had seen Bipa’s bundle completely unpacked. In the few years they had lived together, the furthest Bipa ever went was to the next village, and he wasn’t the type to unpack his bundle just because he was staying home.

He always acted like someone ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Sometimes like a fugitive, sometimes like a wanderer.

Inside the bundle was filled only with old and worn-out items that seemed fit to be thrown away. After rummaging through what looked for all the world like trivial odds and ends, Bipa took out a smoking pipe. It was exceptionally long and had a large bowl. It was a wonder it hadn’t broken.

After that, he spent a good while more sweeping through his things and sniffing this and that, before finally finding a paper bundle the size of a baby’s fist. When he opened it, he saw dried tobacco leaves.

“Found it.”

Muyun, who had moved up close beside the grinning Bipa, tidied up the mess that had been made. Bipa, finding Muyun admirable, stroked his head once and then firmly tapped the tobacco ashes on the bottom of the bowl.

At that moment, Muyun felt a creepy sensation. It was a chill, like a very thin twig brushing against the nape of his neck. As he grabbed his neck and whipped his head around, Bipa, who had been filling the pipe bowl, gave a faint smile.

“You really have good instincts. You possess an outstanding quality. It would have been better if your talent lay in something else, though…. You know, talents like tanning hides or ranching, things where you make good things with your hands and are thanked for it.”

Cutting off Bipa’s chattering, Muyun asked. The nape of his neck still felt creepy. From the feel of it, it seemed he had gotten a scratch.

“What was that just now?”

“What did it feel like?”

“…Like a thin twig.”

“A thin twig. It could feel that way.”

Bipa nodded, putting the pipe in his mouth. However, after taking a plausible-looking drag, he quickly spat, “Ptooey, ptooey,” and shook his head vehemently. Seeing this, Muyun figured he was out of luck getting a detailed explanation this time as well. Swallowing a sigh, he instead picked up a gourd bottle rolling by his side.

One of the truly few things he had learned from Bipa so far was how to make a bonggwiham. A bonggwiham was a bottle said to trap particularly wicked and harmful ghosts should they appear, and it was made by mixing ash and clay to seal the opening and wrapping it tightly with a straw rope. The rope, in particular, had to be twisted with two strands, unlike ordinary ones.

He had completed several bonggwiham before, both at Bipa’s instruction and through his own efforts. As a result, Muyun could now twist a two-stranded rope with his eyes closed, but he had never actually seen Bipa use one.

“We’ll soon find out who it was that scratched the nape of your neck, but I don’t know if you’ll manage not to faint.”

Bipa’s tone was full of teasing. As if he himself were hoping Muyun would faint. Just as his lips pouted and he was about to retort, Bipa threw down the pipe he was holding, got up, and spread out the bedding.

“Then shall we get some sleep in the meantime? We won’t have a moment to sleep at night.”

❀࿐

Although they said they were embarrassed by the poor hospitality and that it was barely a meal, the spread was the most luxurious one Muyun had ever received in his life.

Watching Muyun eat heartily, Bipa even gave him some of his own rice. Muyun, who had briefly averted his gaze, mumbled his thanks.

After lunch, Bipa fell asleep. He had thrown homework at Muyun, telling him to learn his characters, while the teacher himself just took a nap. It was doubtful he would even check it.

Muyun, writing characters with great difficulty using a stiff and coarse brush, glanced at Bipa each time he wrote one. Bipa, who was sleeping with his eyes closed and without a sound, was in a fully curled-up position.

Wondering if he was cold, Muyun went to him and tucked the blanket in, but his posture didn’t change. And his brow was furrowed, too. He usually seemed to have not a single worry, and sometimes even seemed thoughtless… He had no idea what kind of dream he was having.

“Master.”

Worried it might be a terrible nightmare, he called out cautiously at first. It wasn’t without a reason. Muyun’s pretext was to ask him to check his homework.

After a long moment, Bipa woke up with a groan and asked.

“Why….”

“I was wondering if you were sleeping uncomfortably.”

“No… no….”

Bipa, mumbling a few more times in a voice not yet fully awake, tossed and turned before lying with his back to Muyun. Muyun thought, Oops. He had woken him up for nothing, only to be met with his back.

Clutching the paper densely filled with characters, he plopped back down in his spot. On Bipa’s exposed neck, he saw moles on the skin visible between his hairs. There were exactly two, lined up vertically. They were probably moles that even Bipa didn’t know about. Muyun stayed still for a moment, then bit his lip and smiled.