Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“The phone is turned off. You will now be connected to voicemail...”

Jaegyeom’s phone was off.

Yoon Taehee rubbed at his dry, cracked lips as he scrolled through his contacts. For some reason, anxiety crawled up inside him. He dialed Jeongju’s number, which he had saved at some point.

“Hello? Taehee?”

After a few rings, the call connected quickly. The voice on the other end sounded flustered, clearly startled. Jeongju knew that Yoon Taehee had been seriously injured and hospitalized.

“Yes. It’s me.”

“You... you’re awake?”

Jeongju’s voice trembled faintly as he asked.

Through Jaegyeom, Jeongju had learned that Yoon Taehee was gravely injured and in the hospital. He had disguised himself to avoid being noticed and gone to the hospital with Mesan. But the ward where Yoon Taehee was staying was different from an ordinary ward, so outside visits were restricted, and people who looked like Naja seemed to be coming and going constantly. There was a risk that both Jeongju and Mesan might be discovered. In the end, Jeongju had no choice but to turn back from the hospital entrance.

Yoon Taehee briefly told him he was all right. He said his injuries had healed a great deal and that he would likely be discharged soon. Jeongju asked if it would be all right for him to come by the hospital now. He wanted Mesan to heal him.

After a moment of hesitation, Yoon Taehee politely refused.

“They’re still monitoring my condition here. It would be strange if I suddenly recovered completely.”

Jeongju answered weakly that he understood.

“Um, but Taehee...”

“Yes?”

“You must still be disoriented since you only just woke up, so I feel bad asking this, but...”

“Go ahead.”

“What exactly happened on the island?”

Yoon Taehee’s hand, holding the phone, paused slightly.

Jeongju seemed not to know the details.

For a moment, Yoon Taehee could not answer. Then Jeongju added hesitantly,

“Jaegyeom said it was his fault...”

The moment he heard those words, something rose in his throat.

“...”

Yoon Taehee closed his eyes without realizing it.

His chest hurt.

“Is he there? Can you put him on the phone?”

“Ah, just a moment.”

Jeongju’s voice grew distant for a while. Faintly, voices could be heard talking in the background.

“Um, Taehee. Jaegyeom says he wants to meet and talk in person...”

But after the wait, it was Jeongju’s voice that returned.

Instead of taking the phone himself, Jaegyeom had passed the message through Jeongju. Yoon Taehee thought for a moment, then said he understood. It would be difficult to discuss what had happened on the island with Jeongju there, and Yoon Taehee also wanted to see Jaegyeom face-to-face.

“All right. Please tell him I’ll be waiting.”

With that, Yoon Taehee ended the call.

Not long afterward, a nurse came in to give him painkillers. While waiting for Jaegyeom, Yoon Taehee drifted into a light sleep under the effect of the medication.

It had not even been an hour when he sensed movement beyond the door.

The hospital where Yoon Taehee was staying was not far from Jaegyeom’s house. Lying in bed with his eyes closed, Yoon Taehee immediately sat up the moment he felt someone outside the door.

The door opened silently.

Jaegyeom entered without knocking. He closed the door behind him and stood facing Yoon Taehee.

He was dressed casually in a hoodie and cotton pants, and he held a paper shopping bag in one hand.

Seeing each other again after two weeks, they stared at each other in silence.

It was as if time had stopped.

They only looked at each other, as though waiting to see who would speak first, or as though neither could quite believe the other was really there.

“Hi.”

Yoon Taehee was the one who broke the long silence.

Sitting on the hospital bed, he greeted him quietly, almost in a murmur. Jaegyeom nodded and answered,

“Yeah.”

Jaegyeom, whom he was seeing for the first time in two weeks, looked surprisingly calm. But his face had thinned noticeably. He also seemed strangely subdued.

Almost withered.

“...”

“...”

A heavy silence settled between them.

Neither knew where to begin or what to say. What had happened that day was too painful for both of them. Inevitably, their conversation circled uselessly for a while.

“How did you get here?”

“Jeongju drove me.”

“Did Jeongju come with you?”

“Yeah.”

They exchanged words as if nothing had happened and they had only parted yesterday.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I couldn’t be bothered to charge it, so I left it.”

“I see.”

The conversation stopped again.

Jaegyeom, who had remained standing by the door until then, slowly turned his head and looked around the hospital room. It was his first time coming inside. Jaegyeom had never visited Yoon Taehee in the hospital.

“You can come closer and sit.”

Seeing him stand there in silence, Yoon Taehee let out a quiet laugh.

At that, Jaegyeom sat down in a chair beside the bed.

After a brief silence, Yoon Taehee spoke in a low voice.

“I heard you haven’t been coming to the Office of Narye.”

Jaegyeom neither confirmed nor denied it. He only lowered his gaze in silence.

“...”

Yoon Taehee stared at him for a moment, then suddenly tilted his head slightly and pretended to peer at Jaegyeom’s face.

His eyes curved faintly as he asked in a sly tone,

“Were you worried about me?”

It was a teasing remark meant to lighten the mood.

“...”

But Jaegyeom could not answer.

He could not toss something back properly or brush it off casually. If it had been any other day, he might have answered, “Yeah,” without thinking.

But today, his throat felt blocked, and no answer would come out.

“You look pretty awful.”

Yoon Taehee reached out as if to cup Jaegyeom’s cheek.

Before his hand could touch him, Jaegyeom drew his head back slightly.

As Jaegyeom avoided his touch, Yoon Taehee’s fingertips stopped in midair.

“...”

Yoon Taehee tilted his head at an angle.

The fingertips suspended in the air trembled faintly.

Then he withdrew his hand.

That lukewarm attitude. That oddly evasive gaze.

Somehow, he could feel a distance between them.

“Are you angry?”

At Yoon Taehee’s question, Jaegyeom slowly raised his head.

“...”

Eyes of unreadable depth studied Jaegyeom closely.

Yoon Taehee’s face had gone expressionless. With his frighteningly sharp perception, he seemed to have sensed the change in Jaegyeom’s mood.

“No.”

After a moment of silence, Jaegyeom answered briefly and held out the paper bag in his hand.

Yoon Taehee accepted it and checked inside. There was a large thermos.

Looking at its contents, Yoon Taehee raised his head and asked,

“What’s this?”

“Mesan made medicine.”

“Medicine?”

“Yeah. He said it heals internal injuries quickly. Even if the visible wounds have healed, the internal injuries will still remain, so moving around will be hard for a while. He said if you take this, it’ll be much easier.”

Jaegyeom continued explaining calmly, his gaze fixed on the thermos.

“If you drink it all at once, you’ll recover completely. If you want to heal gradually so it isn’t too obvious, pour it into a cup and drink it three times a day for two days. And Mesan said to stop by after you’re discharged. He said he’ll heal you himself.”

When Jaegyeom finished explaining, Yoon Taehee asked quietly,

“Did I do something wrong?”

It was a completely unrelated question, one that had nothing to do with the conversation so far.

“...”

After a moment of silence, Jaegyeom lifted his eyes and looked at Yoon Taehee.

“No.”

At Jaegyeom’s answer, Yoon Taehee immediately asked,

“Then why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“No. You’re angry right now.”

Speaking as if stating a fact, Yoon Taehee tilted his head crookedly and asked,

“Why? Are you angry because I almost died?”

Jaegyeom found himself momentarily at a loss for words.

“...”

Strangely, only after hearing those words did Jaegyeom realize that he really was angry.

“Because I ignored you, spat out the talisman, and because of that—”

“Yeah, I’m angry.”

Jaegyeom cut him off and spoke in a subdued voice.

“But I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at myself.”

“What?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all my fault.”

“Jaegyeom.”

Yoon Taehee caught Jaegyeom by the wrist and spoke in a low voice.

“The fact that I was hurt wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

“...”

“I don’t know what’s inside you, but you were taken over by it—”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

At that moment, Jaegyeom lowered his head and interrupted him.

“I was taken over by something...”

At the quiet murmur, Yoon Taehee paused slightly.

“But in the end, that’s my fault too. Because I’m the one who got swallowed by it.”

After a moment of silence, Yoon Taehee narrowed his eyes slightly and asked,

“...What do you mean?”

“Don’t you feel anything after going through something like that?”

Jaegyeom, who had been hanging his head, looked straight at Yoon Taehee.

“You have eyes. You can see the state you’re in.”

Jaegyeom continued in a flat, dry voice.

“The elixir of life never existed in the first place, and my curse had nothing to do with mermaids. But you nearly died after going all the way to that far-off island. Don’t you think something is wrong?”

The words were painful, but Yoon Taehee looked at Jaegyeom without moving a muscle.

“I’ll find a way to break the curse.”

At Yoon Taehee’s words, Jaegyeom slowly closed his eyes.

Then he cast his gaze somewhere far away before looking back at Yoon Taehee.

His face, thinner than before, looked sharper and more sensitive.

“No. There’s no need.”

Twisting the wrist Yoon Taehee was holding, Jaegyeom said,

“I’ll die in two months, exactly as we originally promised.”