Honbul: Flame of the Soul

In the dim blue light before dawn, after a sleepless night, Jaegyeom lay buried beneath his blanket before finally dragging himself out of bed with hollow eyes. The house was silent. Jeongju and Mesan were probably still asleep.

Outside, dawn had not yet fully broken. Jaegyeom quietly slipped on his sneakers and eased the front gate shut behind him. He climbed the steep alleyways toward the foothills of Mount Bukhan and soon reached a park connected to one of the hiking trails.

It had been a long time since he had gone up a mountain of his own accord.

After tightening his shoelaces, he started climbing in earnest. The damp, crisp mountain air wrapped around him. At that hour, the trail was nearly empty. Every now and then he stopped and looked back. The city below gradually shrank away, while the colors spreading across the sky deepened.

By the time he reached the summit, the sun had fully risen.

Clear blue morning light stretched overhead.

There were more people at the top than he expected. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Jaegyeom dropped onto a broad flat rock and closed his eyes for a moment, quietly breathing in the mountain air.

After sitting there for a while, he opened his eyes again.

As he made his way back down, he noticed the trail had become much busier than before. Strangely, every hiker who passed seemed to stare at him.

Even Jaegyeom, who normally paid little attention to other people’s eyes on him, began to feel uncomfortable under it.

What the hell? Am I imagining things...?

Then, a few steps later, he heard whispering nearby.

“What is that? Is it real?”

“Did he raise it himself?”

“No way. It’s probably fake...”

A group of hikers were pointing at his shoulder.

Confused, Jaegyeom glanced sideways—

—and nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Oh, fuck! Wh-what the hell is this?!”

A turtle the size of a palm was clinging tightly to his shoulder.

It was Yoo Namsaeng.

Several days had passed since the cave incident. Back then, after hearing a pitiful cry for help, Jaegyeom had rushed into the collapsing cave and found Yoo Namsaeng trapped between fallen rocks. Thinking the turtle would be crushed to death otherwise, he had pulled him free and left him outside before departing.

He had assumed that was the end of it.

So why was he here now?

Jaegyeom peeled Yoo Namsaeng off his shoulder and held him up close to his face.

“What...? ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ How did you even get here...?”

Startled, he nearly continued, then abruptly shut his mouth and glanced around.

People were still nearby.

If Yoo Namsaeng started talking here, it would cause a complete scene.

Jaegyeom immediately stepped off the trail and moved behind a large tree.

“Hey,” he whispered. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

“Achoo! ...Good morning, Master!”

“Forget the greeting. I asked why you’re here.”

“Well, you see, I, Yoo Namsaeng, came to this mountain to absorb spiritual force and happened to run into you by chance...”

Yoo Namsaeng blinked innocently, smiling brightly.

Jaegyeom cut him off at once.

“Bullshit. You waddled all the way here on those tiny legs? It’d take you a month to get down from that mountain. What do you think I am?”

Narrowing his eyes, he added,

“You gonna keep lying? Because this time I really will leave you flipped upside down somewhere.”

“I-I’m telling the truth...”

Swallowing nervously, Yoo Namsaeng darted his eyes around before speaking again.

“Did you know?”

“Huh?”

“I really hate repeating myself two or three times.”

Jaegyeom set Yoo Namsaeng down on the ground and turned to leave.

“H-Hey! Fine! I’ll tell you!”

The truth was this:

Yoo Namsaeng had secretly bitten onto the hem of Jaegyeom’s pants after they left the cave and clung there all the way to the Seoul house where the three of them lived.

Over the past several days, he had hidden among the rocks in the backyard, disguising himself as an ordinary stone. Late at night, he quietly wandered around the house by himself, observing the household to determine whether it seemed like a suitable place to live.

And after several days of careful consideration, he had finally decided to reveal himself.

“...What?”

After hearing the whole story, Jaegyeom looked genuinely dumbfounded.

“This is insane. Seriously...”

Sneaking into someone else’s house and secretly evaluating whether it was comfortable enough to live in—Yoo Namsaeng said all of it with such shameless confidence that Jaegyeom almost lost words entirely.

At the same time, he was baffled with himself for not noticing the turtle tagging along in the first place.

Still... considering how distracted he had been ever since returning from the cave, maybe it wasn’t that strange.

“Who told you you could just move into somebody else’s house?”

He rubbed hard at his forehead.

“Thanks to Master’s kindness, I, Yoo Namsaeng, finally obtained freedom. But now I have nowhere to go. So I was wondering if perhaps I might stay at your house for a while...”

Yoo Namsaeng looked up at him with watery eyes.

Jaegyeom stared back with a conflicted expression.

The image of Yoo Namsaeng wandering homeless through the mountains after the cave collapse tugged unpleasantly at his conscience. Besides, he couldn’t exactly abandon him here with so many hikers around, nor could he shove him back into the ruined cave.

After a long moment, Jaegyeom let out a deep sigh.

“...Fine. We’ll talk after we get down.”

And in the end, he brought Yoo Namsaeng back down the mountain with him.

***

By the time they got home, the kitchen was filled with the smell of food.

“Oh? Jaegyeom, where did you go?”

Jeongju, who was cooking breakfast, looked over in surprise. He must have assumed Jaegyeom was still asleep upstairs.

Jaegyeom vaguely answered that he had gone up the mountain to clear his head, then headed straight for the bathroom with Yoo Namsaeng in hand.

A little later, he emerged holding an old toothbrush.

“Uh? Wh-what are you doing...?”

Jaegyeom scrubbed Yoo Namsaeng clean without mercy.

For someone who looked rough around the edges, he was unexpectedly particular about cleanliness.

“Hey, are you really some kind of spiritual creature? Look at all this grime.”

“...”

After washing up himself, Jaegyeom finally came out of the bathroom with a freshly cleaned Yoo Namsaeng sitting in his palm.

“Jaegyeom, hurry up, the soup’s almost rea—oh.”

Mesan, who had been sitting at the dining table, abruptly shot to his feet.

“W-what is that? A turtle?!”

Both the fox and the ginseng child reacted dramatically the moment they saw Yoo Namsaeng.

Jaegyeom briefly explained what had happened and why he had brought him home.

After hearing the story, Jeongju’s expression darkened with obvious disapproval.

Of course he knew Jaegyeom well. Better than anyone, in fact. No matter how indifferent Jaegyeom acted, he was soft-hearted by nature.

That was exactly why Jeongju and Mesan had been able to stay with him this entire time.

But as someone already living in the house, Jeongju was not thrilled about this sudden new addition.

Who even knows what that thing is? Bringing him home so casually... what if he causes trouble?

He did feel sorry for Yoo Namsaeng’s circumstances.

Still, if he were being honest, he wanted the turtle gone immediately.

The problem was that he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud.

“Oh—hello!”

Mesan, meanwhile, was staring at Yoo Namsaeng with sparkling eyes.

From the moment he saw him, he looked as excited as a child who had just received a Christmas present. He hovered around Yoo Namsaeng restlessly, practically vibrating with delight.

When Jaegyeom handed the turtle over, Mesan accepted him as carefully as if he had been given something precious. Raising Yoo Namsaeng to eye level, he greeted him nervously.

“N-Nice to meet you! I-I’m Mesan!”

He was so excited he was stammering.

“Yes, pleased to meet you. I am Yoo Namsaeng, born and raised in Deoksatgol.”

“Oh? Deoksatgol? Where’s that?”

Jeongju watched the two exchange introductions with a sour expression.

Just like Jaegyeom, Mesan also lacked caution. He seemed genuinely thrilled simply to have a new friend.

Is he really that happy?

Well... until now, Mesan’s only companions had been raccoons and wild birds.

“...”

At some point, Jeongju’s expression shifted slightly.

He had recently confirmed that he would be joining Director Kwon Suncheol’s new film next month. Jaegyeom was already going to headquarters every day.

Once Jeongju also returned to work, Mesan would often end up alone in the large house.

“...Fine. You can stay here for now. At least until you find somewhere else to go.”

Jeongju deliberately emphasized for now.

“Oh my, thank you very much. May I ask your name?”

“I’m Jeongju. Fox Clan. And no matter how long you’ve lived, Mesan’s basically ancient by mountain standards, so let’s all speak comfortably.”

As Jeongju casually laid down the household rules, Yoo Namsaeng nodded obediently.

Over the past several days of observation, he had already realized exactly whose favor he needed to stay on to live peacefully here.

At first, he had assumed the young man he called “Master” was the head of the household.

But after watching for a while, he realized the one truly running the house was Jeongju.

“Hey. Let’s eat first.”

Jaegyeom pulled out a large tray usually used for fruit and scooped a small mound of rice onto it, adding a few side dishes with his chopsticks before setting Yoo Namsaeng down beside it.

“Is this truly alright?”

After thanking him repeatedly, Yoo Namsaeng eagerly crawled toward the food and began eating with his face practically buried in the rice.

He devoured everything so enthusiastically that the other three unconsciously stopped eating and simply stared at him.

Watching the turtle inhale food at terrifying speed, Jaegyeom finally asked,

“...Hey. Were you starving?”

Yoo Namsaeng nodded vigorously, cheeks stuffed full.

“Yes, yes! For a very long time!”

“...”

Right.

That made sense.

He had been trapped inside that cave for ages.

“...Yeah. Eat a lot.”

After muttering the half-hearted encouragement, Jaegyeom also resumed eating, shoveling spoonfuls into his mouth.

“But Jaegyeom, why’d you suddenly go up the mountain?”

At Jeongju’s casual question, Jaegyeom’s hand paused slightly.

“Just... wanted some air.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

“What could possibly happen?”

Jaegyeom brushed the question aside and picked at his side dishes as if nothing was wrong.

But something had happened.

At what point had his once uneventful life started twisting into something this strange?

Yoon Taehee loves me.