RPPL C12
by soapa“Hah…”
Only then did Bipa flop down onto the ground. The pain was indescribable. The children seemed to be slowly waking up, but he didn’t have the luxury of explaining to each one, sending them home, and comforting them.
However, as soon as the children came to their senses, they staggered off somewhere and disappeared, whether it was their own home or not. Only Muyun, who was the last one left, stood tall in his spot.
He looked at Bipa with a pale face, and when Bipa was about to collapse backward, he rushed over. The hand supporting his body was urgent.
“Why are you here. You’re sick, and you could still hear the fox’s bewitching call? You’re pale as a ghost….”
“You’re even more so.”
Muyun mumbled as if he were about to cry. Then he lifted Bipa’s upper body and rested it on his own thigh.
I need to go back… but my vision is growing dim.
“Help me.”
He barely managed to say. Muyun, who somehow understood the fading voice, slung Bipa’s arm over his shoulder and helped him up.
“To the physician…,”
“No. Let’s go home. Don’t want any misunderstandings.”
“……”
“It’s fine. I won’t die.”
Muyun looked at him with disbelieving eyes. Bipa let out a faint laugh.
“It’s true, I’m telling you….”
Bipa mumbled and forced himself to turn. He then staggered along the path that seemed to split into many before his eyes. The blades of grass rustled loudly. Blood dripped with every step.
“I’m going to die.”
He found it amusing even as he muttered it. How nice it would be if he actually died.
The tall, wide blades of grass swayed back and forth, making his vision dizzy. The way back home felt very far.
“Don’t die.”
Muyun said in a raspy voice. It was from not speaking for a long time.
“Don’t you use informal speech with me.”
“If you don’t die.”
“And don’t call me ‘you’….”
“I’m saying, if you don’t die.”
It was an adult’s body, too heavy for a child to support. Bipa clung to his fading consciousness and mumbled.
“If I don’t die… don’t call me ‘you’, and don’t use informal speech.”
“Then, then what should I call you.”
Hoping he wouldn’t pass out, at least not until they got home, Muyun kept latching onto the end of his sentences.
Bipa, with his head hung low, couldn’t tell if this was a dream or reality. His own voice sounded faint, as if coming from a great distance.
“I don’t know. Call me Master, or something….”
He laughed even as he said it. Master, what master…. Truly, in my position, what master…. What disciple…. Things that are not in my destiny, am I saying this nonsense because it hurts like hell? Even though I won’t die.
Bipa’s eyes began to close. He could faintly hear Muyun’s urgent voice. Don’t die, don’t die… a plea. Come to think of it, this is the first time someone hasn’t wished for my death. With that last thought, Bipa fainted.
❀࿐
After the day broke and set twice, Bipa finally woke up. He frowned at the terrible smell. It was a bitter scent, so strong it made the bridge of his nose ache.
He tried to sit up, but the pain that felt like his limbs were being torn apart made him lie flat on his back again. The ceiling looked familiar. Bipa muttered blankly.
“This is a room….”
Someone had clearly moved him. Could it be Haesol? Bipa let out a groan, eung, and tossed in his bed. Even that was no easy task.
A moment later, he heard a presence outside. The footsteps were lighter than Haesol’s. Bipa, still not fully conscious, stared at the door with tense eyes.
Soon, the door opened and the figure was revealed.
The first thing that caught his eye was a small pair of feet covered in scratches. Bipa slowly raised his gaze from the feet. Shins, knees, thighs, and upper body. And what was revealed was Muyun’s face.
Bipa frowned. The memories of that night were slowly coming back to him.
“You… you could speak.”
“I never said I couldn’t.”
Muyun answered calmly. Then he put down the basin he was holding and changed the wet towel on Bipa’s forehead.
For two days, Bipa’s fever had been intense. Muyun had mashed mugwort, rubbed it on a cloth, and applied it to the wound time and time again. Each time, Bipa would groan in pain and twist his body. It was difficult for Muyun, with his still-immature strength, to hold him down. But he had managed.
“You think that’s all you have to say? Ugh….”
He tried to get up and say something at the dumbfounding reply, but there was no way he could move his injured body right away. Muyun shook his head.
“That’s not the problem, the wound will open up, so please stay still.”
“…You’re quite the talker.”
Muyun, even with his small hands, meticulously nursed him back to health. He wiped Bipa’s face and cleaned his neck. A brief silence flowed between them.
“You weren’t possessed by the fox, were you.”
“No.”
Muyun admitted calmly. His attitude was so composed that Bipa didn’t even feel angry.
“Then why did you come out.”
“You were planning on leaving me behind.”
“……”
“I thought it would be better to have my liver eaten by a fox than to be abandoned.”
“Do you know how much that hurts.”
“Still, we met again because of it.”
“You sure have a lot of guts. No wonder the fox liked you.”
“So if you’re going to abandon me, you might as well put me in the grave you dug to bury me and leave. I have nowhere to return to and nowhere I want to go.”
He’s persistent, too. Bipa was reminded of the story of a newly hatched duckling. How it follows the first thing it sees, be it a dog or a cat, thinking it’s its mother.
After a long while, Bipa spoke.
“You… if I find you parents here, will you live with them?”
“No.”
“Not even a hint of hesitation.”
“Why do you keep trying to send me somewhere? Aren’t you actually trying to get rid of me for your own convenience, not for my own good?”
He was quite audacious, too. Bipa finally decided to bring up the difficult topic he had been trying to avoid until the very end. It didn’t matter whether Muyun believed him or not.
“The large man who carried you on his back is a Dokkaebi, and I see monsters, spirits, and souls.”
“…Are you a shaman?”
Perhaps recalling the shaman who tried to create a Saetani, Muyun’s voice was suddenly filled with fear. Bipa chuckled.
“Why, if I’m a shaman, are you thinking, ‘Oh, this isn’t the one,’ and planning to leave? Will you?”
“That’s… that’s not it.”
A shaman refers to those who enshrine a god in their body, and in that sense, Bipa was not a shaman. He didn’t know how to perform rituals, had no inherited sacred objects, and was too scared of the blade stilts to even look at them.
“I’m not a shaman. But since the things I see are what they are, I have no friends or family around me, and I live as a wanderer without a family register, dealing with strange things.”
“……”
“In short, it’s the life of a rootless drifter floating like a buoy. A drifter is putting it mildly. I can’t easily make friends and have to leave at a moment’s notice. So if you want, I can find you a family…,”
“No.”
Muyun cut him off firmly.
“I’ll still follow you.”
“What?”
Normally, children would burst into tears at a scary story, but Muyun was different. He placed his small fists on his knelt knees and spoke in a tone that was grave and gentle, belying his age.
“If that’s the case, I must follow you all the more. Monsters, spirits, and souls, you said. Which of the three did the fox I saw yesterday fall under?”
“You…”
Bipa, who had never imagined Muyun could have seen the fox, gaped in shock for a moment.
“If we saw the same thing, can’t I follow you?”
“…How did you keep your mouth shut all this time. You’re… quite eloquent.”
“……”
“And fearless.”
Having no more energy and also being flabbergasted, Bipa pressed his head firmly against the pillow. A long silence flowed again.
He knew that children weren’t good at staying still, but Muyun waited very quietly for Bipa’s next response. However, when Bipa even turned his head away and maintained his silence, he finally said a word.
“Master.”
At the sudden title, Bipa whipped his head around. Seeing his wide, surprised eyes, Muyun shamelessly added.
“You told me to use honorifics and call you Master if you survived.”
“I…!”
“Don’t ask me when I said that. You definitely did.”
So that he wouldn’t feel wronged by not remembering. The memory of his own voice saying those words came back clearly.
I was crazy. I must have been crazy. It seems I wasn’t just scratched by the fox’s claw, but I was possessed by the fox myself. What Master. He didn’t know if he was in any position to teach anyone. He had no talent for teaching, either.
“You can’t… take back those words.”
He was about to say something, his temper flaring at the threatening tone, but when he looked into Muyun’s eyes, he saw a subtle look of distress. Noticing the look of someone afraid of being abandoned, Bipa shut his mouth tight.
He was weak to that kind of sad, like-a-stray-dog-in-the-rain expression.
Bipa put an arm over his forehead and bit his lip. After letting out a long, deep sigh, he opened his mouth. It was his last attempt at persuasion. Just as his talent for teaching was lacking, so was his talent for persuasion.
“You’d be better off not expecting meat side dishes or silk clothes. Think about it again. This is really the last time. I’ll find you good parents who can provide you with those things….”
But Muyun was firm.
“My mind will not change. I don’t want to go back to my parents. I don’t want to meet new parents either. I just want to be by the side of the person who saved me. I have to repay the favor.”
“Who repays a favor in such a threatening way.”
“To me, parents are people who abandon.”
Muyun said, grinding his teeth. Bipa felt a little sorry that a child harbored such hatred. And so, after a moment of hesitation, he took Muyun’s hand.
“Then I’ll take you in, so stop feeling that way.”
“What feeling are you talking about?”
“The feeling of hatred.”
Bipa smiled faintly. His pale, sickly face, from being injured, somehow looked transcendent, like someone who had been chiseled and cut by a very long passage of time.
“That feeling is very, very empty.”
“……”
“And sometimes, malice really does harm people. It could build up as karma for you.”
“I understand.”
“So you really, really aren’t going?”
Even to the question asked repeatedly in a cautious tone, Muyun nodded his head. There was no reason to hesitate. If anything, the one who seemed to be hesitating and afraid was Bipa.
What was it that made him so cautious? From Muyun’s perspective, there was no reason at all for Bipa to belittle himself so much. Even if Bipa had suggested they become master and servant instead of master and disciple, he would have stayed.
“I am not going.”
“……”
Bipa, who had been staring into Muyun’s unwavering eyes, finally let out a big sigh and put on a mock-fearsome warning.
“Alright, let’s just see. How long it takes for you to give up.”