Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Jaegyeom had long been accustomed to that peace. That place was peaceful and quiet. There, he could exist as a being of no consequence. Nothing happened. But now he knew.

If you do nothing, nothing happens.

Amid that truth, which struck him like a bolt of lightning, Jaegyeom finally realized the method.

Jaegyeom slowly began to approach Suhyang and Yoon Taehee, who were standing far away. Tears of blood streamed from his eyes, and his legs trembled violently. Even so, Jaegyeom did not stop. With every step he took, the grass growing at his feet withered, and the earth dried out.

The power of the god of calamity, now completely unleashed, was seizing Suhyang’s territory.

It was then that Suhyang and Yoon Taehee noticed Jaegyeom and turned around at the same time. Suhyang, who was holding Yoon Taehee’s wooden tag in her hand, froze in place, her expression hardening.

What is this...

The moment Suhyang’s eyes met Jaegyeom’s, she stiffened like a stone statue. Red spiritual force was erupting around the boy’s body like an explosion. At the same time, an overwhelming authority pressed down on her.

It felt as if an immense gravity had crushed her entire body all at once. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

She could not fathom how this had happened. She could not move, as if her limbs had been bound. Standing there as though nailed to the spot, Suhyang showed clear agitation for the first time.

“W-what trickery have you pulled?”

Having become one with the boy, Jaegyeom could use the authority of the god of calamity as if it were his own. But Jaegyeom did not answer. Staring at Suhyang, he moved his lips without taking his eyes off her.

“Yoon Taehee.”

Jaegyeom strode toward Yoon Taehee.

“Listen carefully.”

It was the way to oppose Suhyang, who possessed the Bangsangsi mask. The way to break free from the being he had become one with and seize his complete “self.” And therefore, the way to return everything to how it had been.

Jaegyeom gripped Yoon Taehee by the shoulders and told him the way to end everything.

“I’m probably going to die here today with Suhyang.”

Right now, Jaegyeom’s soul and the soul of the god of calamity were tangled together as one.

Long ago, in order to prevent the god of calamity from further eroding Jaegyeom’s soul, Myojeong had pressed the sealed god of calamity even deeper down and bound it with a ritual implement—the taboo rope.

But because Jaegyeom himself had severed that taboo rope, the god of calamity, which had been confined to a space consisting only of a single thatched house and a yard, could once again move freely. Having gained freedom inside Jaegyeom’s body, the god of calamity began gradually regaining its power, and as time passed, the two souls were becoming one.

The two souls, which had remained fixed for ages in a state where they could no longer fully adhere, were now connected like intertwined branches. It had become impossible to tell where Jaegyeom ended and where the boy began. There was no way to perfectly divide a soul in half as cleanly as cutting a radish with a knife.

Connected to the boy, Jaegyeom had reached a realm humans could not attain. Worldly rules and vast quantities of information that no human could ever see poured in through his wide-open five senses, and Jaegyeom synthesized them all into a method to end everything, as though forming a formula from immense amounts of data. It was similar to choosing several pieces of cloth and stitching them together into a patchwork quilt.

Suhyang had prolonged her life until now by extorting the life force of the gifted through the forbidden art of human sacrifice. If a spell could be activated, then there had to be a way to offset or break it.

Jaegyeom intended to break the very spell that had allowed Suhyang to maintain her life until now.

If the forbidden art were broken, Suhyang’s body would age into its original state in an instant, and her flesh would no longer be able to hold her soul. Since this meant breaking a spell that had used dozens of lives as its material, it would be an incredibly powerful ritual. And a powerful ritual required a sacrifice to match.

“...A sacrifice?”

Yoon Taehee’s eyes shook violently as he listened to Jaegyeom’s explanation.

Surely...

The condition required to perform the ritual that would break Suhyang’s forbidden art.

One soul had to be offered as the sacrifice.

“You know it too.”

And Jaegyeom happened to have two souls.

“That the god of calamity is inside my body.”

Jaegyeom stopped for a moment and clutched the left side of his chest.

“So I’ll be the sacrifice.”

It was something only he could do. No one else.

The odds were half and half because neither side could be certain. In effect, it was a gamble.

Which of the two souls would be used, and which would remain behind?

If he turned that to his advantage, this might be a chance to separate the being from himself. What was needed to break Suhyang’s forbidden art was one soul. One soul would depart with Suhyang, and one soul would remain on this earth.

He might return, or he might not. It might become a battle between the will to live and the will to die. He no longer knew where “he” ended and where “the creature” began. Since becoming one with it, he saw the world through its eyes and had reached the point where he could use its authority. The one saving grace was that he had not completely lost himself. At least not yet.

In truth, Jaegyeom had an intuition. He had barely managed to push the creature back and reclaim control of his body, but perhaps this moment was his last chance to exist as “himself.”

If so, Jaegyeom decided to stake everything on this one chance he had been given.

“I’ll definitely come back. I promise.”

When the explanation ended, Yoon Taehee hurriedly blocked Jaegyeom’s path.

“What do you mean by that?”

He could not understand what Jaegyeom was saying right now.

“Are you saying you’re going to die together?”

Yoon Taehee asked in a trembling voice.

“Together with Suhyang?”

The only thought in his mind was that he had to stop him somehow.

No. No, Jaegyeom. If that’s the case, I... I’ll die. I’ll die and become an intelligent ghost. So please, let’s stop now. Let’s run away. You said we would run away together. Let’s stop everything and...

Yoon Taehee pleaded. He tried shouting as though angry and spat out whatever words came to him, no longer knowing what he was saying. Even so, Jaegyeom did not bend in the end. Yoon Taehee knew it too. Once Jaegyeom made a decision, he never backed down. He also knew that Jaegyeom had never once moved according to his wishes. Yoon Taehee hugged Jaegyeom as if clinging to him.

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

Yoon Taehee bowed his head low while holding Jaegyeom.

“Should I just wait for you?”

“No. Don’t wait.”

Jaegyeom shook his head without hesitation.

“.......”

Yoon Taehee was silent for a moment, then suddenly let out a small laugh.

“You’re coming back, but I shouldn’t wait?”

“Yeah. Don’t wait.”

Yoon Taehee bit hard into his lip and looked into the distance. As if trying to hold back his emotions, as if holding back tears, Yoon Taehee closed his eyes with his brow furrowed. His long eyelashes trembled faintly.

“.......”

Yoon Taehee gritted his teeth and glared at Jaegyeom with reddened eyes. His look seemed to say, How does that make any sense? To Yoon Taehee, the idea that Jaegyeom would return was already difficult to believe in the first place. And now Jaegyeom was telling him not to wait on top of that. But Jaegyeom was completely sincere.

Jaegyeom hoped Yoon Taehee would not wait for him. Because Jaegyeom had spent his entire life waiting. He had lived waiting for something that never came, no matter how long he waited. Without even knowing what he was waiting for, like a person trapped in pitch darkness, he had wasted his life waiting for something that did not arrive.

“Even if, by some chance, I don’t come back, it’s okay.”

“What... what do you mean, it’s okay...”

Yoon Taehee let out a hollow laugh, his brow twisting. As if he had heard something truly absurd, Yoon Taehee laughed in shallow breaths, his shoulders shaking. It was a desolate laugh, almost like sobbing.

“Does that make any sense?”

Yoon Taehee finally lowered his head.

“Does that make any sense...?”

Jaegyeom knew those were irresponsible words. Even so, he could say nothing except not to wait. Because a life spent waiting for something that has not yet arrived is like punishment.

“Are you telling me to live forgetting you now?”

“No. No, that’s not what I mean.”

Jaegyeom wanted Yoon Taehee to cherish their precious moments as he lived. But he must not wait for him. He wanted to explain what this feeling was, yet no matter how much he thought, he could not find the right words. Suddenly, he thought about how vain a heart was.

A heart could not be seen, nor could it be touched by hand. If he could, he thought he would like to take his heart out whole and place it in Yoon Taehee’s palm. Even if that heart happened to be the physical one inside his chest.

“Taehee.”

“Yeah.”

“When today passes, tomorrow comes.”

“Right.”

“That’s all we need to know.”

Even if you do not wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes anyway.

“Even if I’m not here, you can just keep living.”

Therefore, they only had to live “today” well.

The tears clinging to Yoon Taehee’s lashes were beautiful. Jaegyeom had once thought he wanted to suck those tears away. He cupped Yoon Taehee’s cheeks and slowly pressed his lips to the tear-damp lashes. At that, Yoon Taehee closed his eyes for a moment. The tears seeping between Jaegyeom’s lips tasted lukewarm and salty.

“Taehee.”

At Jaegyeom’s call, Yoon Taehee opened his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Jaegyeom said it after tasting those tears.

“I don’t think I can live for you.”

I have decided to live solely for myself.

Solely for myself, I will live while wishing for you to be by my side. You can call it greed, or resent me for being selfish. But it cannot be helped. This is my love.

Jaegyeom only came to know it today. A person cannot love another without loving himself. So, in order to love the things he held dear, Jaegyeom decided to love this life first. To cherish and love oneself, to love the life one had been given, probably meant to “keep living.”

Being awake was exhausting.

So there had been a time when he wanted to rest. Jaegyeom had already been exhausted enough simply by being awake. There had been times when he fled into sleep, and times when he lived as though dead even while awake.

He knew that even as soon as tomorrow, he might be separated from Yoon Taehee by some unforeseen event. He also knew that Jeongju and Mesan could not remain by his side forever. The moment would surely come when the precious things in life disappeared and he had to say goodbye to everything. Even so, Jaegyeom decided to stay awake. Even if the experience of being left alone in this vast and lonely world repeated itself countless times, Jaegyeom decided to stay awake on this earth until the things that remained with him reached the ends of their own lives.

And so, I intend to try loving this life.

“So, Taehee.”

Jaegyeom held Yoon Taehee’s cheeks and met his eyes.

“You live for yourself too.”