Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“Don’t act like you’ve really decided to cut me off. It feels fucking awful.”

Yoon Taehee recognized immediately that Jaegyeom truly intended to show him no mercy. Jaegyeom had become cold again, just like when they first met. His heart was tightly shut, and he was deliberately acting cruel.

“You’re the one acting like a child.”

Even after being seen through so completely, Jaegyeom did not so much as blink. There was no sign of hesitation or wavering in him.

This version of Jaegyeom was the calmest, coldest, most rational Jaegyeom Yoon Taehee had ever seen.

Still, none of this was anything new.

Yoon Taehee had always been this kind of person. Things had merely been quiet for a while. He was someone who could suddenly change without warning, pry into people’s weaknesses, and use them to hurt them. There was nothing surprising about that anymore.

Jaegyeom had simply decided to push him away with everything he had.

The moment Yoon Taehee said he would throw himself out the window without hesitation, despite having lived solely for revenge until now, Jaegyeom made up his mind.

“I told you clearly. If you won’t keep your promise, then I have no reason to stay by your side. If you have something to say to me, restore the promise you made in the beginning first. Until then, I’m not talking to you.”

After saying that, Jaegyeom turned away.

He figured he could find his way home somehow. First, he just needed to leave this place.

But as he tried to walk away without another word, Yoon Taehee grabbed his wrist.

“Let go.”

Jaegyeom’s expression hardened viciously.

Yoon Taehee had seen those eyes before.

Back when they had circled each other as librarian and student.

Back when Jaegyeom first discovered that Yoon Taehee was a Naja.

Eyes that had completely bolted shut the doors to his heart.

“Aren’t you being too harsh on me?”

For once, it was Yoon Taehee who had lost his composure.

Jaegyeom, who had sealed himself off completely, looked as though he were wrapped inside an impenetrable shell.

And the fear that no matter what he did, he might never be able to break through that shell was making Yoon Taehee increasingly impatient.

“I said let go.”

“I can’t.”

“Then say you’ll keep your promise.”

“I can’t do that either.”

Slowly, Jaegyeom turned his head toward him.

Ah.

So this was punishment.

He was being punished now.

Punished for letting his feelings grow.

For listening when Taehee said he liked him.

For failing to throw those feelings away and continuing to hold onto them.

This was the price for eating meals together, drinking tea together, riding in Taehee’s car, accepting the flowers he gave him.

All those small moments had piled up until they became each other’s weakness.

In the end, this was all his fault.

He should have been colder toward Yoon Taehee from the start.

He should have pushed him away more cruelly.

The emotion he experienced for the first time in his life had been too intense. Too overwhelming.

And so he had been dragged along helplessly.

Like someone intoxicated, unable to regain his senses.

And by the time he finally came to himself, he had already fallen far too deeply for Yoon Taehee to turn back.

So now he had to sever it.

For both their sakes.

And eventually, Jaegyeom arrived at an answer.

If you can’t throw something away, then protect it.

And if you can’t protect it, then throw it away.

If a weakness has appeared, then all you have to do is discard that weakness.

If you become my weakness on the path toward death, and I become your weakness on the path toward revenge, then all we have to do is cut each other off completely.

That was the only way for either of them to survive.

“Fine. Then let’s see how long you can keep this up.”

Coldly, Jaegyeom shook off Taehee’s hand.

Then he grabbed him by the collar and drove a merciless fist into him.

After only a few blows, Yoon Taehee’s face was already a mess.

Jaegyeom hit him relentlessly, like a man carrying a deep grudge.

As though he were punishing himself for falling for Yoon Taehee.

As though he were ripping his own heart out.

As though he were struggling desperately to tear himself free.

He kept throwing punches.

Again and again.

Only after thoroughly beating him did Jaegyeom finally seize Taehee by the collar.

Their faces drew so close their noses nearly touched.

His breathing had grown ragged from striking with full force.

Panting harshly, he glared fiercely into Taehee’s ruined face.

“Do you still want to crawl back to me?”

Jaegyeom asked in a dangerously low voice.

“...”

Despite his battered face, Yoon Taehee let out a faint laugh.

The quiet chuckle slowly spread wider.

The sight of him laughing weakly through blood somehow looked pitiful.

“Jaegyeom. Don’t try so hard.”

Yoon Taehee moved his split lips slowly.

“I’ll get rid of it for you.”

At those unexpected words, Jaegyeom faltered.

“...What?”

“There was never any curse of immortality in the first place.”

For the first time since this conversation began, emotion crossed Jaegyeom’s face.

“It wasn’t because of a mermaid or some elixir of life. But you don’t heal properly, you don’t age, and you can’t die. That only leaves one possibility.”

Yoon Taehee looked straight at him.

“It’s because of the evil god inside you.”

Nothing had been confirmed yet.

And yet Yoon Taehee was certain.

The Jaegyeom he saw that day in Geoyeo had not been Jaegyeom.

Thinking back on it now, every time Jaegyeom had been driven to a dangerous limit, crimson spiritual force exploded from his body as though trying to protect him.

Yoon Taehee had seen that red spiritual force several times before.

Until now, he believed it belonged to Jaegyeom himself, because it had always been mixed together with Jaegyeom’s own energy.

But the red spiritual force he encountered that day had been completely different.

Pure.

Overwhelming.

Untainted by Jaegyeom’s presence.

Within that terrifying spiritual force existed something entirely separate from Jaegyeom.

The documents called it an “evil god,” though nobody knew exactly what kind of being it truly was.

Yoon Taehee did not know when it had entered Jaegyeom’s body, or why, or how.

But he was certain of one thing.

Because of that being, Jaegyeom’s body had stopped changing.

He had been trapped in a state where he neither aged nor died.

“Jaegyeom.”

Yoon Taehee gripped the wrist clutching his collar.

“The reason you’re suffering like this is because something terrible is attached to you.”

At that moment, something hot surged violently through Jaegyeom’s chest.

“So give me time.”

At last, the cold expression on Jaegyeom’s face shattered.

“Then I’ll return everything to the way it was.”

Jaegyeom lowered his head sharply, his face twisting with pain.

“...” 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He desperately tried to swallow down the emotion rising inside him.

But the burning feeling lodged in his throat refused to go away.

His breathing began trembling faintly.

“Yoon Taehee.”

The hand gripping Taehee’s collar started shaking.

“I told you clearly back at the hospital.”

Grinding his teeth, Jaegyeom glared at him.

“I’m not interested anymore in breaking the curse.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“...”

“I’ll remove it for you somehow.”

“Shut up. This has °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° nothing to do with you!”

By now, Jaegyeom had completely lost control.

“What do you even know?”

“...”

You don’t even know what’s really inside me.

“You don’t know anything.”

“...”

Jaegyeom looked furious.

And unbearably sad.

“There’s no reason to keep living day after day. I’m alive without even knowing why I’m alive anymore. I’m still here, but every time I come back to myself and look around...”

His voice shook.

“There’s nobody left. Nobody.”

Do you know what that feels like?”

There was nothing he needed to do anymore.

Nothing he wanted to do.

Time gnawed away at longing and memory alike.

Everything that once shone eventually dulled.

And in the endless current of time, everything was washed away in the end.

Everything except himself.

Only the fact that he was left alone in this world remained.

“Answer me, you bastard. What do you know?”

Jaegyeom tightened his grip on Taehee’s collar.

“Do you know what this feels like?”

“...”

“I asked if you know.”

For a long while, Yoon Taehee said nothing.

Then, slowly—

“...No. I don’t.”

Yoon Taehee had watched his grandfather die before his eyes.

He had lost the ghosts who stayed by his side.

But unlike Jaegyeom, he had never been left behind in helpless emptiness.

He had not even had time to grieve.

What kept Yoon Taehee standing was revenge.

Hatred.

The thing that tore him apart was not loneliness, but rage at losing everything.

He thought he could never truly understand Jaegyeom unless he experienced the same thing himself.

And yet—

“But you do.”

Yoon Taehee lifted his bloodied face and met Jaegyeom’s eyes.

“You know exactly what it feels like, don’t you?”

At that moment, it felt as though Jaegyeom’s heart had sunk straight to the bottom of a lake.

It was an answer that said:

You’ve already experienced this yourself. So you know what it means to leave someone behind like that, don’t you?

The words pierced him like a blade.

Yoon Taehee would follow the same path he had.

Just as Myojeong had remained inside Jaegyeom’s heart even after death, Jaegyeom would remain inside Yoon Taehee’s heart after he died.

Yoon Taehee would continue living while carrying all the moments they shared together like a burden.

Unable to forget him.

Unable to hate him.

“...”

Jaegyeom clenched his teeth hard.

For some reason, he could barely breathe.

The emotion swelling in his throat burned behind his eyes and made the bridge of his nose sting sharply.

His shoulders rose and fell unevenly as he struggled for breath.

Then slowly, he lifted his head.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“...What?”

Jaegyeom desperately wanted the lush forest growing inside his heart to be nothing more than a mirage.

“Whether you get left behind or not, what does that have to do with me?”

His reddened eyes glared straight at Yoon Taehee.

“I don’t care about you.”