Honbul: Flame of the Soul

After bringing the mermaid and Jaegyeom home the night before, Yoon Taehee was in an exceptionally good mood from the moment morning came.

“Did you sleep well...?”

Overnight, flowers had bloomed across the barren territory Yoon Taehee had carried inside him for years. Successfully capturing the mermaid as planned had certainly played a part in thawing that frozen wasteland, but the greatest reason was the merciful master now lying in his bed.

Thanks to the one who could be kinder than anyone in the world and crueler than anyone in the world, the land that had long remained frozen solid had finally begun to melt. Just seeing Jaegyeom asleep in his house, in his room, in his bed, filled Yoon Taehee with an emotion too overwhelming to put into words. He had spent the entire night quietly watching him sleep with his face buried in the pillow, and at some point, after briefly dozing off himself, dawn had already arrived.

“Huh...? Ah...”

Jaegyeom, meanwhile, remembered nothing past a certain point and looked utterly confused by the situation.

“How’s your stomach?”

“It’s... fine.”

“And your head?”

“My head doesn’t hurt either.”

A few days earlier, the two of them had fought in front of the house. After that, Yoon Taehee hadn’t contacted him even once. Even when he appeared at the bar yesterday, he had acted cold and distant, pretending not to know him.

But now Yoon Taehee was clinging to him affectionately as if none of that had ever happened.

“...”

Jaegyeom lightly pushed away the forehead Yoon Taehee kept rubbing against his shoulder and unconsciously glanced toward Shin Jihye.

At the bar yesterday, Yoon Taehee and Shin Jihye had looked extremely close. But strangely enough, Shin Jihye now paid absolutely no attention to Yoon Taehee. As though she couldn’t care less what he was doing, she quietly finished putting away the hair dryer before crouching to pick strands of fallen hair off the floor.

Jaegyeom had too many questions. Why was she here? Why were her legs covered in scales? What exactly had happened yesterday?

After staring at her for a while, he awkwardly tugged on the hem of Yoon Taehee’s shirt and whispered under his breath.

“Hey. That person’s legs are weird.”

At the serious whisper, Yoon Taehee briefly glanced toward Shin Jihye.

“She’s a mermaid.”

Jaegyeom’s eyes widened.

Even after living as long as he had, this was his first time seeing a mermaid.

At that exact moment, Shin Jihye frowned as if she had overheard them.

“What? You seriously didn’t know?”

Then she muttered a curse under her breath.

“Ah, fuck. I thought... I thought he brought you here to keep an eye on me. If I’d known you didn’t know anything, I would’ve run away.”

Jaegyeom lowered his voice even further.

“Why is there a mermaid here?”

Yoon Taehee looked at him silently.

“......”

After a brief pause, he gently cupped Jaegyeom’s cheek.

“To break your curse.”

Jaegyeom’s eyes slowly widened.

“...What?”

“Your curse may be connected to mermaids.”

Yoon Taehee briefly explained everything that had happened over the past several days. He had been tracking a mermaid and eventually crossed paths with Shin Jihye, who was suspected of being one. To confirm it, he had deliberately stayed close to her for days.

“......”

Once he heard the explanation, Jaegyeom found himself speechless.

His thoughts tangled together chaotically.

He had never once imagined that the curse of immortality could have anything to do with mermaids. More than that, he hadn’t realized Yoon Taehee had genuinely been searching for a way to break the curse all this time.

The words about postponing death hadn’t been empty at all.

I didn’t want to like you either.

Just a few days ago, Jaegyeom had gotten angry hearing him say he wanted to postpone his death.

Meanwhile, Yoon Taehee had been desperately searching for a way to make those words reality.

“...”

Jaegyeom still felt irritated that Yoon Taehee had gone looking for a solution without caring what he wanted. But at the same time, another indescribable emotion welled up inside him.

His chest felt strangely tight. Something hot seemed to rise inside him.

Without understanding why, Jaegyeom suddenly snapped.

“You’re always like this. You should’ve told me beforehand. You wouldn’t answer my calls and kept ignoring me, so I thought maybe you’d finally gotten tired of me and I was seriously about to give up on revenge and everything because I thought you...”

He cut himself off midsentence.

Yoon Taehee slowly lifted one eyebrow.

“Thought I what?”

Jaegyeom unconsciously lowered his gaze.

“...”

I thought you were trying not to like me anymore.

The moment the words nearly slipped out, Jaegyeom panicked.

Even to himself, that sounded bizarre.

Because it sounded like he wanted Yoon Taehee to keep liking him.

“Well... I mean...”

As Jaegyeom fumbled awkwardly while playing with the brim of the cap he was wearing, Shin ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ Jihye suddenly cut in sharply.

“Hey. Am I invisible to you two or something?” 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

She sat cross-legged on the sofa, sounding thoroughly annoyed.

“What have you two been whispering about this whole time right in front of me?”

Thanks to the interruption, Jaegyeom hurriedly grabbed onto the change in topic.

“Did you buy this outside?”

Pretending to stay calm, he began rummaging through the paper bag.

Fortunately, Yoon Taehee didn’t press him further and instead suggested they eat before talking anymore.

Inside the bag was porridge.

Since Jaegyeom had been dead drunk the night before, Yoon Taehee had deliberately bought something gentle on the stomach in case he woke up hungover. But despite repeatedly drinking alcohol strong enough to knock most people unconscious, Jaegyeom looked perfectly fine.

“What kind is it?”

Shin Jihye asked as she wandered over to the table and peeked inside.

“Abalone porridge.”

Even though she had claimed she never ate breakfast, Shin Jihye somehow naturally ended up seated at the table with them.

Feeling awkward around her, Jaegyeom deliberately sat beside Yoon Taehee.

“Oh. You bought something expensive.”

As she nodded and picked up her spoon, Yoon Taehee rested his chin against one hand and asked lazily,

“Can mermaids eat seafood?”

Shin Jihye shot him a glare.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m only half-mermaid anyway.”

“What?”

Yoon Taehee paused.

He stared at her properly for the first time.

“Why are you so surprised?”

Shin Jihye scooped up another spoonful of porridge.

“What do you mean by half-mermaid?”

“I mean exactly what it sounds like. I was born between a human and a mermaid.”

She answered casually.

“My mother’s a mermaid. My father’s human.”

Then, in a flat voice, she continued.

“When I was little, I didn’t know I was a mermaid. My parents never told me. We were just a normal family.

But when I was ten, I realized I was different from everyone else.

One summer, I went to a valley with my dad’s relatives. My cousins and I competed to see who could stay underwater the longest. But while I was underwater, I could breathe normally.

I was so shocked that I immediately ran to tell my mother. And that’s when she told me.

‘Jihye, you’re actually a mermaid.’

My mother originally lived in the sea. Then she fell in love with my father, who was a sailor. Dad proposed to her by offering up his own gallbladder. Mom ate it and became human.”

Jaegyeom’s brows twitched slightly.

“That’s when I realized why my family had never once taken me to the beach. My mother hated the ocean. At least, that’s what they always told me. But really, they were afraid I’d notice something was different about me if I ever entered the sea.

They figured a valley would be safe since it wasn’t the ocean.

Anyway, after that, I just accepted it. Nothing really changed. They told me never to tell anyone, so I kept it hidden.

Then several years passed, and when I was nineteen, I woke up one morning and found scales covering my legs.”

Her expression stiffened slightly.

“I was terrified. I immediately went to my mother, but she didn’t know why it was happening either. So even in the middle of summer, I wore black stockings to school.”

Shin Jihye lowered her eyes briefly.

“That part doesn’t matter.

Anyway, my mother eventually found someone who brought her a human gallbladder. She thought eating it would turn me back to normal. I believed it too back then.

That was the first time I ate one.”

Her face twisted faintly with disgust.

“I really didn’t want to. It was revolting. But they told me I could go back to living normally, so I forced myself to swallow it anyway.

And after I ate it, the scales actually disappeared completely.

I thought everything was finally over.

But after a few days, the scales came back.”

Her voice gradually cooled.

“That’s when I realized it.

This was a chain I could never escape from.”

Then suddenly, she stopped speaking altogether.

“...Fuck. This is so fucking miserable.”

Her eyes abruptly reddened with tears.

A moment later, she started crying.

Jaegyeom flinched and glanced awkwardly at Yoon Taehee.

Without saying anything, Yoon Taehee quietly slid the tissue box across the table toward Shin Jihye.

Neither of them asked why she was crying.

“Anyway...”

Sniffling loudly, Shin Jihye yanked out several tissues and blew her nose before continuing.

“...I wanted to become a model ever since I was little. I started working properly when I was seventeen, but when the scales first appeared, it honestly felt like the sky had collapsed on top of me.

At first I thought I could manage somehow. I kept eating gallbladders whenever I could get them, but it was pointless. A few days later, the scales would always come back.

I can keep normal legs for maybe three days at most. After that, scales start spreading upward from my feet to my calves, then my knees, then my thighs.

And after about a week, once my entire legs are covered...”

Her voice faltered slightly.

“...both legs fuse together into a tail.”

The room fell silent.

“In other words, if I don’t eat a gallbladder at least once a week, eventually I can’t walk on two legs anymore. My entire lower body turns into a fish.”

Shin Jihye gave a bitter laugh.

“I quit modeling a few years later. Realistically, there’s no way to keep eating gallbladders every three days just to stop scales from appearing.

And once the only thing I’d ever wanted disappeared...”

She lowered her head.

“...I just ended up drinking every day and wasting my life.”

Then, quietly, she murmured,

“You were born with normal legs, so you probably can’t understand how this feels.”

Bits of tissue clung messily around her damp eyes.

“I wanted to live normally too...”