Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Now, walk.

Walk.

Keep walking.

Jaegyeom took his first step like a child learning to walk for the first time.

In reality, only a brief moment had passed between Jaegyeom losing consciousness and collapsing. Yet the world before his eyes had changed completely. Jaegyeom opened his eyes wide and looked up at the magnificent night sky.

He could see things happening thousands of miles away, far in the distance. As if he were looking through countless documents stored inside a cabinet all at once, an immense number of scenes overlapped before him with a rushing sound.

In one fleeting instant, a vast amount of information poured in from every direction through his five senses. From somewhere far away, he heard something like the faint groan of a person on the verge of death. He understood the language of the insects crying in the grass, and he could hear children laughing in bright, giggling bursts.

At first, it seemed like a hallucination, but the sounds shifted as though he were tuning the frequency of a radio.

Jaegyeom realized this was what the boy had called the Enlightened Vision.

This vision was not limited to what the eyes could see. It was an entirely new sense. The moment he put his will into his body and managed to stand on his own two feet, a new world unfolded before him.

Jaegyeom knew that he had finally become one with the boy. It was something he simply understood. Even before his mind could recognize that a change had taken place, all his senses had already been altered by that union.

Nameless joy and ecstasy, despair, loneliness, and countless feelings drifting in the air without names yet came flooding endlessly through his wide-open senses, like water bursting through a broken dam.

It felt as though he had come to understand the truths of the world and all the laws surrounding this land. Why he was here. What had led him to this point.

With a single breath, Jaegyeom experienced all the secrets and history of the years that had passed in vivid detail. It was an impossibly strange sensation, one that could not be described in words.

It felt as if he belonged to a very strange dimension. Countless times that were neither past, present, nor future lay layered together, intricately intertwined like a spiderweb. He felt connected to everything in the world.

All creation and his own existence felt foreign to him, and yet he felt strangely good. He felt like laughing out loud, and he also felt like wailing at the top of his lungs.

Meanwhile, mysterious occult formulas written in an unknown language, twisting like earthworms, floated transparently before his eyes. They were things only Jaegyeom could see.

On this land, mysterious rules of unknown origin existed.

For example, the shapes and characters that formed a talisman’s formula. The act of offering fresh beast blood to drive away foulness. The act of offering prayers at a fixed time during the Hour of the Rat. Such things could only exert influence when specific conditions—when, where, and what—were fulfilled. That knowledge and power had been granted only to a select few. These things had come to prevail in the world under the name of superstition, and they served as the source and foundation for the incantations, spells, and rituals performed by great shamans or those with spiritual power.

Existing incantations and rituals had been passed down by word of mouth or through books from some distant age, but Jaegyeom did not know what lay at their very beginning.

Myojeong had once said that most incantations were revealed by ghosts or gods.

He had said that countless causes and laws, invisible to human eyes like pollen drifting through the air, floated throughout this world. Ghosts or divine beings passed them on to humans, and through those who could see and hear the divine, those causes and laws were brought into the world.

And Jaegyeom knew that he was now seeing the world through the eyes of a god.

The unknown shapes drifting like earthworms and the unique force of all things were visible to him in their true forms. What he saw now was the essence of the world, hidden from human sight.

And so Jaegyeom was no longer curious about anything.

As if he had attained enlightenment.

At last, he knew how to end all of this. How to oppose Suhyang, who wore the Bangsangsi mask, and how to break free from the being that had fused with him and reclaim this body.

“.......”

At some point, as Jaegyeom stood on his own two feet, his lips parted.

“Taehee.”

Yoon Taehee, who was standing some distance away, turned his head and looked at Jaegyeom.

“I have a way.”

Jaegyeom raised his arm and wiped his eyes. Tears, sweat, and blood tangled together, leaving a blurred trail like a wake. Revenge no longer mattered.

The anger and hatred of all those years had vanished like melting snow. It was not that he had made some deliberate decision to forgive everything. He had simply realized that there were things more important than that now.

There was only one thing that mattered to Jaegyeom now.

To keep living, despite it all.

He felt as if he finally understood.

What Myojeong had wanted to say in the final moment before leaving this world. How deeply Myojeong had loved him. What a tremendous joy it was to have received such immense love from someone who had lived in this world. It was the moment when Jaegyeom finally encountered the magnificent wonder of life, enough to make him shudder.

Gyeom, keep this in mind.

The master of your life...

Is you.

Jaegyeom realized it.

The meaning of life was terribly humble, and at the same time, great. He had come to this land to learn what love was. He had come to this land to meet someone, to be hurt, to say goodbye, and for all those small, trivial moments. It was fine not to become a hero or something grand like a god. It was fine not to achieve great feats or accomplishments.

To know the preciousness of a single flower blooming by the roadside, to live out each given day, and then to wither radiantly—that was why he was awake in such agony.

Now, he did not want to make it as though none of it had ever happened. That was only a meaningless hypothetical anyway. What mattered was the fact that the “me” of now existed through all those moments. If even one thing were erased from a life built up like carefully stacked branches, it would collapse in an instant.

Therefore, Jaegyeom did not want to forget a single memory.

And so Jaegyeom walked.

He strode toward Yoon Taehee.

“Yoon Taehee, listen carefully.”

Jaegyeom grabbed Yoon Taehee’s shoulder and told him the way to end everything. Yoon Taehee, who had been staring blankly ahead before leaning in to hear him, slowly turned his head and looked at Jaegyeom. His eyes seemed to be asking if that was really true. In response, Jaegyeom tried to walk past Yoon Taehee. He still had business with Suhyang.

“What do you mean?”

Yoon Taehee hurriedly blocked Jaegyeom’s path.

“Are you saying you’re going to die with it now?”

But Jaegyeom did not stop walking.

“No. No, Jaegyeom!”

Yoon Taehee’s plea gradually turned into a desperate struggle.

“Jaegyeom, if that happens, I’ll... I’ll die...”

Yoon Taehee wailed, almost out of his mind. Only then did he realize for the first time that he was a human being who could break down this completely and beg for mercy. He almost wanted to laugh. If he could, he wanted to go back to the very beginning. If that was impossible, then it should be him who died instead of you.

“I’ll die and become an intelligent ghost.”

As he held Jaegyeom and lowered his head, tears fell in heavy drops.

“So please, please... Let’s stop now.”

Jaegyeom, I’ll die and become an intelligent ghost. I’ll forget every grudge and every sad memory and become a ghost who remembers nothing. Even if I become a ghost, I’m sure I would fall for you again.

Without fail, I would fall in love at first sight and hover around you like a butterfly. I might follow you around without even knowing why, and perhaps, beneath the shade of a lush tree, get kicked in the shins by you like before.

That would be fine.

Even if a day came when I could no longer be seen by your eyes and my voice could no longer be heard, I would still follow you. Even as a ghost, I might remain a pathetic bastard who envies and resents even the shadow at your feet, but that would not matter, as long as I could linger by your side forever...

“So please... please, let’s stop.”

Yoon Taehee wept, his brow furrowed as if he had swallowed something bitter. Tears poured out endlessly every time he blinked. Yet Yoon Taehee did not even realize how wretchedly he was crying. If only he could hold Jaegyeom back, he wanted to sink to his knees, grovel, and bow his head.

“Let’s run away, Jaegyeom. Let’s stop everything...”

Yoon Taehee did not seem to know what he was saying anymore. Even Yoon Taehee must have known there was nowhere to run. Jaegyeom laid his hand over the back of Yoon Taehee’s.

His unwavering eyes looked straight at Yoon Taehee.

“No. This is something only I can do. Move.”

Jaegyeom had spent a very long time nailed to one place. He had despaired of life, blamed the world, and struggled to turn his resentment toward someone else. But in the end, the one who had chosen that life was Jaegyeom himself.

Jaegyeom had long been used to that stillness. That place was peaceful and quiet. There, he could exist in this world as no one at all. But now he knew.

If you do nothing, nothing happens.