Chapter 13: CH 13

After finally returning to the studio, Hyehyun was angry, as I had expected. He frowned when he saw Woorim returning to the studio with me, then handed me the now lukewarm americano with melted ice. I took the drink and my wallet without a word of thanks.

I only asked him to buy me an americano as an excuse to send him away, and also, I didn’t feel like drinking something with all the ice melted. My mouth that felt gritty from smoking rejected the bitterness of the coffee. I merely chewed on the end of my straw and pretended to sip at my drink.

“You really can’t continue to work like this,” Hyehyun said, sounding annoyed. I had already tuned him out, my gaze fixed on Seohang and Woorim as they discussed something instead. It looked like there was a minor dispute on their side because neither of them looked very calm.

Seohang looked like he was repressing his anger because he was worried about the eyes of others. He was probably telling off Woorim Eun for his careless actions.

Hyehyun continued, “Do you know how much of a hard time I had while you were gone? I got a spot for you on this show on the condition that you would tell the story about seeing the ghost in the recording room. They’re probably going to make the teaser about this being the first reveal of your personal account of this famous ghost witness story, or something like that, but you—”

“I never said that I wanted to be on this show,” I cut Hyehyun off mid-sentence. I didn’t want to hear it anymore. I then turned my head to see Hyehyun’s crumpled face. After our eyes met, Hyehyun promptly looked at the ground.

“Geez, Haeseo. You’re doing that again. What did I do to make you look at me like that?” he begged, trying to appease me somehow, unlike just a moment ago. In times like this, Hyehyun was like a timid and weak younger sibling, which made it difficult for me to say mean things to him. But I didn’t fall for that face anymore.

I continued to ignore him and said, “I said that the only show I wanted to be on was the one next week. You were the one who scheduled this appearance without my opinion in exchange for talking about my recording room story. I only found out when I came here. You didn’t even let me know in advance, so I found out through the script.”

Hyehyun closed his mouth. I swirled the drink in my hand and looked at the floor. The floor was a tangle of human shadows, cast by the studio lights, mixed with inhuman things.

I frowned as I watched the things that looked human but walked like something foreign. Instead, they crawled on the floor like snails or cave crickets. I felt like they would jump and cling to me after hearing my voice at any moment. They were looking at me even now.

…I missed Yeonseon.

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After a long silence, Hyehyun asked me in a small voice. “When you contacted me, wasn’t it because you wanted to go on shows?”

I understood what he was trying to get at. If I wanted to continue appearing on television, wouldn’t it be better if I appeared in as many programs as possible? He wanted to say that he did this for my sake.

Hyehyun was always like that. Although I was never close enough with him, Yeonseon often vented about how his brother went ahead with things as he wished. When Yeonseon got mad after keeping it in, his brother got upset that Yeonseon was getting mad instead of complimenting him for his efforts.

“No,” I replied curtly and shook my head. “I only wanted to appear just once, on next week’s show.”

Because that was about the mansion with 101 doors.

That was why I had to go no matter what, even if that meant contacting Hyehyun, who I was out of touch with since Yeonseon died, for help. I wanted to know the identity of the Child with whom I had a trade when I was a child. I could only find the resolve to do that after Yeonseon died.

Act 2

When I heard that Yeonseon’s face was crushed by the truck’s tire, the first thought I had was bland. Would I never be able to see Yeonseon’s face again?

There were some exceptions, but most ghosts retained their image of when they died, especially those who died suddenly from an accident. So even if Yeonseon appeared before me, I wouldn’t be able to recognize him by looking at his face. That conjecture made me awfully depressed.

I couldn’t believe that was my first thought when I heard that the person I loved died.

It was as awful as I imagined. For a while, I spent my time tainted with longing for Yeonseon and self-hate. I couldn’t attend his funeral. I didn’t want my monstrous thoughts to be discovered by the dead Yeonseon. After he was gone, the thoughts that I had were all beyond average.

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