Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Jeongju suspended all his schedules indefinitely.

Speculative articles about the top star who had suddenly bolted from a filming set and then vanished without a trace filled the front pages of the portals. His panicked agency scrambled to track down his whereabouts while trying to contain the situation by citing deteriorating health, but it was useless.

The keyword “Jeongju disappears” climbed up and down the top search rankings day after day, and reporters and paparazzi formed long lines outside the residence where Jeongju supposedly lived.

Not one of them caught so much as a glimpse of a single hair on his head.

Because Jeongju was not at the residence.

He was staying in the two-story house at the foot of the mountain.

After hearing from Mesan what had happened before and after the incident, Jeongju blamed himself mercilessly and cried his eyes out.

The people precious to him, people who were family in all but blood, had fallen into danger, and he had not even been free to go save them. He had been filming, getting makeup done, memorizing lines.

This was not the ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) life Jeongju had wanted.

When he returned home the night before, the sight of the living room, full of the rude footprints left by the intruders, had drained all color from his face. Now that the house had been targeted once, it was no longer safe.

A sense of crisis washed over him.

They had to move.

Jeongju decided that the moment Jaegyeom woke up, they would leave this house at once.

Until Jaegyeom opened his eyes on his own, Jeongju and Mesan had no choice but to endure hard days of their own.

Worse, even while unconscious, Jaegyeom tossed and turned and groaned every night, tormented by nightmares. Jeongju and Mesan stayed quietly at his side. They spoke to him. They carefully wiped down the body drenched in sweat. They watched him struggle in his nightmares and mutter nonsense, and they cried and hurt alongside him.

The two of them counted down the days, waiting desperately for the three days promised to Bima to pass as quickly as possible.

And so a day as long as a year passed.

They still had two more nights to endure.

When evening came, Jeongju covered his face and prepared to go out. He meant to at least make some rice porridge for Jaegyeom, who had not been able to eat a thing.

Mesan, insisting he would stay by his lord’s side and there was nothing to worry about, bravely saw Jeongju off as he went out to buy ingredients.

Then he went into the room and sat staring endlessly at his lord.

Perhaps the nightmares had not started yet.

Jaegyeom lay there with a peaceful expression, perfectly still.

How much time passed after that?

Knock knock...

A faint knocking sound came from somewhere.

Mesan froze and pricked up his ears.

Had he come back already?

Mesan darted out of the room and hurried to the front door.

Maybe his hands were full and he could not open it?

Standing before the door, Mesan reached to open it as usual, then flinched and stopped.

If it were Jeongju, he would have called out and asked for the door to be opened.

Maybe because he had already been tricked once, suspicion suddenly crept over him.

What if he opened it and the Naja came rushing in again like last time...?

The moment that thought occurred to him, fear seized him whole.

Mesan held his breath and stared at the front door.

Even after a long wait, there came no further knocking.

At last, all the color drained from Mesan’s face.

See? It wasn’t Jeongju.

That settled it.

The Naja had definitely come again.

Mesan’s legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

He clapped a hand over his mouth and backed away.

Still keeping his eyes fixed on the door, he retreated down the entry hall and reached the living room.

Then suddenly, a strange chill ran over his skin.

As though someone were watching him.

Mesan slowly turned his head with the stiffness of rusted hinges.

The moment he looked toward the large sliding window along one wall of the living room that opened into the yard, he froze on the spot.

Someone was standing outside.

Their eyes met.

The other person mouthed, Hello, then tapped lightly on the window with his fingertips.

It’s me.

It was Yoon Taehee, his arm in a half cast.

Dressed in a white V-neck T-shirt with a black blazer thrown over his shoulders, Yoon Taehee looked gaunt at a glance. He raised his uninjured hand and waved in greeting.

His face, all sharp edges now, looked far more sensitive than usual.

Mesan was so startled his heart pounded wildly.

He edged uncertainly toward the sliding window.

He pressed himself right up against the glass and cast wary looks all over the yard.

Realizing why, Yoon Taehee said something, but Mesan could not hear him well.

When Mesan pressed his ear hard to the crack in the window frame, Yoon Taehee gave a small laugh.

Then, copying him, he brought his lips close to the frame too, as though whispering directly into Mesan’s ear through it.

“They can’t come here. Not for a while. They’ll be stuck flat on their backs. They won’t be able to move for at least a month, so you can relax.”

Only then did the tension begin to drain from Mesan.

He did not know why, but somehow the words reassured him.

Thinking back on what had happened that day, he had already come to feel that, whatever else, this was probably not a bad person.

And besides, his lord of all people had deliberately shot wide of him, so maybe it was all right...

Open it.

Standing on the other side of the glass, facing Mesan, Yoon Taehee smiled and mouthed the words.

After hesitating for a long time, Mesan cautiously slid the window open.

Yoon Taehee took off his shoes and stepped up into the living room.

“Have you been well?”

Yoon Taehee greeted him gently.

Then he turned his head as though nothing were amiss and looked around the interior of the house.

Mesan swallowed hard and asked,

“W-what are you doing here...?”

“There’s something I want to check.”

With that answer, Yoon Taehee brought a hand to the blazer draped over his shoulders.

He pulled it aside slightly, then tugged the deeply cut V-neck shirt open to one side.

A firm shoulder appeared next to the long line of his collarbone.

It was the side where Jaegyeom’s arrow had struck him.

Mesan blinked, bewildered.

The injured shoulder had been bandaged in white, probably after treatment, so the pierced wound itself was not visible.

“Look carefully.”

Yoon Taehee tipped his chin toward his shoulder.

“It should have been blighted. But it’s clean, isn’t it?”

Mesan’s eyes went round at his words.

It really was.

Looking closely, the skin around it, which should have been stained black, was perfectly clean.

Yoon Taehee let the blazer slide back into place over his exposed shoulder.

“Did the little master cleanse it for me, by any chance? No, right?”

“Wh-what? I-I didn’t do anything....”

“Exactly. Which makes it stranger. We were hit by the same arrow, but I’m the only one who’s fine.”

Two days earlier, after barely managing to clean up the situation, Yoon Taehee had returned to the temporary place he kept for commuting to and from school.

His body hurt so badly he could hardly understand how he had made it home at all.

He was in awful shape.

Three of his fingers were broken, and his forehead was split open.

But the biggest problem was his shoulder.

Never mind the wound from the arrow itself. The blight should have been washed away first.

Since he could not ask for help from the Purification Unit, he had been considering whether to beg a shaman he knew instead. Then, when he laboriously took off his clothes to inspect the wound, he found that the shoulder—which should have been stained black—was spotless.

Just like the other Naja, who were all groaning in pain from being blighted, Yoon Taehee had also been enduring ruthless pain as the price of breaking the taboo, so until he checked the shoulder he had not realized it.

Since he had been struck by the same arrow, he had naturally assumed he would have suffered backlash just like the others.

So then why?

Leaving that question unanswered for the time being, Yoon Taehee spent the entire next day sick in bed.

When he opened his eyes, dusk had already fallen.

The atrocious pain had finally withdrawn.

Yoon Taehee stopped by a hospital for basic treatment, then came straight to see the boy.

He had thought that perhaps, while he had collapsed unconscious the night before, the ginseng child had cleansed him before leaving.

But the ginseng child looked as if he knew nothing about it.

“Then I just have to ask the person who shot the arrow directly. Why it didn’t work on me.”

Yoon Taehee said it with a soft smile.

Mesan turned to glance at the closed bedroom door, then hurriedly shook his head.

“N-no.”

“Why not?”

“M-my lord isn’t well right now.”

Yoon Taehee paused and cast a look toward the closed door.

“You didn’t heal him?”

Mesan’s face immediately fell, and he mumbled weakly,

“I-I did heal him, but he hasn’t regained consciousness.”

“Why?”

Mesan fumbled through the explanation, and Yoon Taehee listened quietly.

When he finished, Mesan said with a gloomy face,

“S-so when my lord wakes up later, then...”

“All right. Then.”

Yoon Taehee nodded once and added,

“A sick visit.”

“Y-yes... what?”

Mesan looked up, startled.

“Let’s say I came to visit your lord while he’s ill.”

“B-but....”

Mesan was left speechless.

Because Yoon Taehee looked even sicker.

“I’ll just look at his face and go today.”

As Yoon Taehee took several steps toward the closed bedroom door, Mesan panicked and hurriedly darted in front of him to block the way.

He had let him into the house for now, but the thought of letting him face his unconscious lord filled him with unease.

He worried something awful might happen, especially with Jeongju away.

As Mesan stood there anxiously blocking him, Yoon Taehee suddenly lifted a hand.

Mesan flinched and squeezed his eyes shut without thinking.

But instead of being shoved aside, he felt a soft hand stroke the back of his head.

He had thought the man was going to push him away.

Mesan looked up at Yoon Taehee, dazed.

Yoon Taehee smiled gently, then bent his knees as he had the other time, lowering himself to Mesan’s eye level.

“I came all the way here. It feels like a waste to leave without seeing him.”

Mesan fidgeted with his hands and lowered his gaze.

“If it really can’t be helped, then fine.”

His voice was gentle.

After struggling with it for a long while, Mesan finally nodded.

“Y-you have to come right back out....”

As he stepped back a few paces with that anxious warning, Yoon Taehee smiled.

“Thank you.”

He carefully opened the door and entered the room.

Inside, with the lights off, it was dark.

Yoon Taehee closed the door behind him and stood still for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

Then he began to move slowly.

When he reached the bed, he saw the boy lying there neatly on his back.

Yoon Taehee listened to the sound of the boy’s steady breathing.

Faint moonlight slipped through the gap in the curtains half-covering the window.

In the shallow darkness, Yoon Taehee stared down at the boy.

The boy looked young.

He looked peaceful.

All at once, Taehee remembered the expression on his face when he had drawn the bowstring tight.

That unbreakable strength even when cornered.

That brazen resolve that said if he could not protect what was his, then he would throw it away and come back for it later.

Those unwavering, lucid eyes.

They had sent a thrill through Yoon Taehee.

But seeing that face now, loosened in sleep and utterly defenseless, gave him a strange feeling.

“......”

Yoon Taehee quietly studied Jaegyeom’s still face.

Then, without realizing it, he reached out.

Long, straight fingers touched the boy’s face as lightly as feathers.

His fingertips moved slowly downward, following the line of the boy’s face.

Starting from the rounded forehead, then the curve descending from the space between his brows.

Past the straight bridge of his nose.

Over the philtrum, with its curious sense of structure.

And when he reached the lips, he felt a faint warmth of breath.

The fingertips tracing the line of the boy’s face gave a slight tremor.

Yoon Taehee suddenly held his breath.

Bringing his hand to the boy’s face had been a moment’s impulse.

Before he had even consciously thought that he wanted to touch him, his hand had moved first.

Come to think of it, it had been the same when he used the Black Oblivion Birds on Lee Youngshin.

Yoon Taehee was always the type to think ahead.

He kept every possibility in mind, and only after finishing the calculations did he act.

But sending the Black Oblivion Birds after Lee Youngshin had been a gamble that moved one beat ahead of calculation, action taken before the reckoning was complete.

Of course, he had done it because he believed the aftermath could still be managed.

But that was separate from the fact that, in that moment, he could very well have lost his life at the boy’s hands.

If there was a desire that sustained his life, it was this alone:

To destroy the Office of Narye.

That was his only goal.

He had only needed someone to draw in for that purpose.

And yet Yoon Taehee could not make sense of his own action, of sending the Black Oblivion Birds at Lee Youngshin even while knowing he might die at the boy’s hands, even while knowing that if he died then every plan he had laid would be reduced to nothing.

Then why?

To Yoon Taehee, impulse was an unfamiliar sensation.

He found it strange, himself, that he kept feeling impulses he had never felt before.

This incomprehensible impulse that so openly betrayed the mind of the architect irritated him.

And the source of that impulse was wholly, entirely the boy.

The boy, just as incomprehensible.

And then Yoon Taehee suddenly understood.

There had been no reason it specifically had to be the boy.

And yet the fact that he specifically wanted it to be the boy had created the impulse.

He had suddenly wanted to trace the line of the boy’s face, and in that single instant he had been swept away by it.

If that was so, then what should he call this feeling that gave birth to impulse?

“Ugh...”

At that moment, Jaegyeom suddenly knit his brows and let out a groan.