Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Finding a new place to live was not especially difficult. Halfway up a mountain far from the village, there was an old thatched house standing empty. With a little repair, it seemed it would not be a bad place to spend the winter.

By chance, Myojeong ended up beginning a life in the mountains with the child.

He had never even thought of taking a child in. But it was a bitterly cold winter. He needed somewhere to stay at once, and there was no time to think too deeply about it. For the first day or two, he was busy sweeping and cleaning the house.

By the time it was barely fit to be called a house, night had already fallen.

Outside, heavy snow was falling, covering everything in white. It was such a quiet, peaceful winter night that, if one listened closely, it seemed possible to hear the snow piling up. Myojeong sat to one side, reading a book, while the child lay sprawled on his stomach near the small brazier where the embers had been gathered, nodding off.

Worried the child might hurt himself if left alone by the brazier, Myojeong spread a blanket over the warmer part of the floor and carefully lifted him. The moment he laid him properly on the bedding, the child mumbled something and fell asleep. Myojeong put out the lamp and lay down after him.

Just as sleep was beginning to take him, Myojeong heard a small voice behind him.

“What’s your name...?”

Blinking drowsily, Myojeong turned to look at the child. The child was lying some distance away, curled up with his back turned. Myojeong wondered if he had heard wrong, but answered just in case.

“Myojeong.”

He was about to close his eyes again, thinking it had only been sleep talk.

“Good night.”

At the small voice from behind him, Myojeong thought.

It is too cold.

It may be all right to stay like this until spring.

Once they began living together, Myojeong and the child grew closer little by little, slowly.

Perhaps because of the environment he had grown up in, the child could not be called quiet or obedient even as a compliment. He was quick-witted by nature and prickly besides. Whenever someone said anything to him, he would bristle and snap things like, “So what?” “I don’t care,” “Mind your own business,” “Worry about yourself,” or “Why should I?”

When Myojeong walked down the mountain path with his hands clasped behind his back, the child would fidget with his fingers and follow slowly at a distance. From afar, they looked like strangers. Yet whenever Myojeong turned around, the child would pretend to be looking at a stone on the ground or glance away as though nothing had happened.

Myojeong did not particularly scold him. He simply left him be. Gradually, the child lowered his guard. The child who had always been bristling began to play little pranks on Myojeong and giggle. At last, he had found a place where he could stretch out his legs. He would even throw his legs over Myojeong in his sleep and behave with astonishing rudeness. It was proof that he felt safe with Myojeong.

Life with the child was a series of unexpected incidents. Myojeong had once been a child himself, yet he found he did not understand children at all.

Several times a day, the child would sit in a corner of the yard and stare at the ground. At first, Myojeong vaguely assumed he was watching bugs crawl by, but one day he went closer.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating dirt.”

“...What?”

Myojeong’s eyes widened.

“No, why are you eating dirt?”

“Are you not supposed to eat dirt?”

“......”

“Why? You don’t eat it? I’ve eaten it sometimes before.”

“There are things in this world you can eat, and things you cannot...”

Another time, something like this happened. Myojeong told him to go to the stream and fetch water. Half a day later, a voice came from outside.

“Myojeong, I’m back.”

Myojeong opened the door.

The child was soaked like a drowned rat, stripped bare from the waist up, and holding a large live fish in his hand.

“Look at this.”

Before Myojeong could stop him, the child let the fish loose inside the room. As the arm-sized cherry salmon thrashed across the floor, the room turned into a mess in an instant. Horrified, Myojeong jumped up.

“Why would you let it go in here!”

“Kyahaha!”

As Myojeong clumsily chased the cherry salmon flopping around the room, the child burst out laughing.

“Why did you catch a fish when I told you to fetch water?”

“I went to the stream to get water, and there was a fish. So I caught it.”

“What about the water jar?”

“Ah. Uh. It floated away down the stream.”

“......”

“Why? Should I go get it?”

“No, it’s fine...”

It was an extraordinary sort of daily life. The child was a troublemaker. Every day was noisy. When Myojeong could not see him and searched everywhere, he would be up a tree. Or he would make a commotion with a fire poker, trying to catch a rat, and nearly burn the house down. Myojeong was always the one who had to clean up the aftermath. He wondered where on earth this child had come from, though later he would simply laugh, press a hand to his forehead, and give up in disbelief.

When mealtime came, he cooked rice and lit the stove. When the firewood ran out, he went into the mountains to gather more. When there was no drinking water, he fetched clear mountain water. The more diligently he moved his body, the richer the day became. It was a monotonous and plain life, yet it was as clear and wholesome as morning dew.

Perhaps one did not need grand dreams or great missions in order to live. At least, that was true for Myojeong. This freedom might have been daunting and frightening to someone else, but for Myojeong, who had lived within the confines of the Office of Narye, the daily work of tending a garden was rather enjoyable.

“What is this?”

“It is called cinnabar paste.”

“What do you use it for?”

“To write talismans.”

“What kind of talisman?”

“A talisman to keep stray ghosts from entering.”

“How do you do it? I want to try too.”

The child was curious. Myojeong began teaching him everything a gifted needed to know: how to distinguish ghosts, how to handle spiritual force, how to write talismans, how to cast spells, and more.

On the other hand, he wondered what use any of it was, when the child would soon die anyway. As spring drew nearer and the time he had spent with the child accumulated, Myojeong grew more and more anxious.

As time passed, the soul of the sealed god of calamity would gradually swallow the child’s life force and expand its territory. Once that life force was entirely consumed and fused with the god of calamity’s soul, the god of calamity would regain its full power. The child, who was the vessel of the seal, would vanish, and the god of calamity would be released. The essential point was that the death of the child who had become the seal’s subject could not be avoided, no matter what.

That meant it was better to end the child’s life before he became one with the god of calamity’s soul. If the child was going to die regardless, then eliminating him together with the god of calamity would ensure that his use did not go to waste.

Myojeong knew this perfectly well, and the longer he spent with the child, the more impatient his heart became. He thought he had to get rid of the child as soon as possible, before it was too late. But whenever he met the child’s eyes looking at him, he pretended not to know the reality he had to face and turned his gaze away.

The greatest problem was that Myojeong himself could not find a path for his own life. The task before him was to eliminate the god of calamity. But whenever he thought about what he was supposed to do after that, his mind went blank at once. It was the first time he had ever lived as an ordinary human being, neither Bangsangsi nor Naja. For Myojeong, who had spent his entire life following the destiny given to him, there was nothing he could do except live through each day.

And so, without realizing it, Myojeong was pouring affection into the child. Each time he became aware of that fact, he tried to harden his heart, telling himself it was only guilt.

Then, in the midst of it all, an unexpected opportunity came.

“Are you all right, child?”

Myojeong looked down at the child’s face with a worried expression.

“Open your eyes.”

The child had fallen ill. Myojeong did not know what was wrong with him. It was his first time nursing a sick child, and he was badly flustered. At first, he thought it was only a mild stomachache, but the symptoms worsened. The child’s whole body burned like fire, and his fever climbed so high that he could no longer understand what was being said to him and began babbling nonsense.

Myojeong stayed by his side and nursed him. All he could do was change the wet cloth and wipe away the sweat. It was the middle of winter, so there were no medicinal herbs to gather, and he had no medicine on hand. The house was far from the village, and with night already deep, there was no way to get any.

As Myojeong looked down at the child, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

He wished the child would not open his eyes again.

The moment that thought came to him, Myojeong stopped wringing out the wet cloth.

“......”

Myojeong sincerely wished it.

If the child never opened his eyes again, Myojeong would not have to kill him with his own hands. He hoped the child would succumb to this insignificant illness and never return. He wished that all trials would end here, that all the world’s anger and the sorrow of the child’s short life would be buried beneath the deep snow, and that he would leave this world as though sinking into a long sleep.

Looking at the face covered in fever blisters, Myojeong closed his eyes.

Why am I keeping this child alive?

At last, a cold hand wrapped around the child’s neck.

He is not human. He is a vessel containing an evil god.

The child’s feverish neck was terribly hot. If Myojeong put strength into his hand like this, he could easily break that fragile neck.

But in the end, Myojeong could not kill the child.

“......”

His fingertips trembled. Myojeong lowered his head.

At last, Myojeong had no choice but to face the trivial truth he had ignored all this time.

The reason he had not killed the child, the reason he had kept him at his side, was not because he felt sorry for him or pitied him.

It was because Myojeong was such a lonely human being.