Honbul: Flame of the Soul

The long-haired man, Paehyeon, remembered the moment he first met Yoon Taehee.

Back then, before Yoon Taehee became a Naja, he had been much smaller than he was now, with a face that still looked almost childishly young. But even after their eyes met, he did not run.

Gifted children usually made the same mistake at first. They assumed Paehyeon was human, then looked down, saw the ground at his feet, and fled in terror. But Yoon Taehee had looked there and still remained standing blankly where he was.

Paehyeon was an old spirit.

Ghosts fell into one of three kinds.

The first were ghosts with grudges, called vengeful ghosts, or evil ghosts. They were cases in which attachment to life and deep resentment lingered so strongly that the dead could not leave this world behind. They moved with a clear purpose and bore malice toward the living, harming human beings whenever they could. Most of the damage that appeared among ordinary people came from ghosts of that type. But the longer they remained in this world, the weaker their ghostly force became, and as that force weakened, their resentment gradually thinned as well. In the end, many of them lost their reason altogether and forgot everything, leaving behind nothing but raw emotion.

Once they became beings that wandered this world with no purpose at all, no longer knowing whether they had once lived or died, they were called stray ghosts. That was the second kind. Stray ghosts not only lacked reason, but often possessed damaged, broken appearances as well. For that reason, they were easy to identify at a glance. Since they had no reason, they naturally had no sense of self either, and their behavior was closer to that of beasts. Unlike vengeful ghosts, they held no malice, but they were full of idle curiosity and often passed the time with petty mischief.

The last kind was one like Paehyeon himself: a spirit. Spirits were the rarest of the three by far, and their numbers were correspondingly few. Unlike the others, spirits possessed clear intelligence and perfectly intact appearances no different from those of ordinary humans. But unlike vengeful ghosts, they had forgotten all attachment to their former human lives and all memory of them, existing instead as powerful ghosts with fully formed identities of their own. Spirits were beings who had once been humans with exceptionally strong ghostly force in life and remained in this world after death. What set them apart from stray ghosts and vengeful ghosts was that they had not failed to leave this world. They had chosen not to leave.

And if there was one thing all three had in common, it was this.

They cast no shadow.

Naja, who crossed paths with ghosts several times a day, had a habit of looking at a person’s feet first whenever they met someone for the first time. A stray ghost could usually be identified by appearance alone, but vengeful ghosts and spirits were often difficult to distinguish from humans.

Most Naja hated ghosts with a hostility that ran all the way into their bones.

It was something close to trauma. Their wretched pasts, lives spent tormented by ghosts, had remained with them like scars. That was why Naja tried to annihilate or drive off every ghost they encountered with such burning intensity. Older Naja had grown looser with age and experience, sometimes letting one pass if it was not worth the trouble, but the young ones, for the most part, loathed ghosts and treated them as enemies.

Yoon Taehee, however, was an exception.

He had never seemed particularly interested in drawing a hard line between humans and ghosts in the first place. In °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° that respect, he could only be called an oddity. There was also the irony of a man who served as chief of the Spirit Suppression Unit, the very division known for beating ghosts into submission, while remaining close to a spirit like Paehyeon. True, it was a bond they had formed before Yoon Taehee became a Naja. But even after he entered the Office, Yoon Taehee’s attitude toward Paehyeon had never changed.

The fact that Yoon Taehee kept company with ghosts was something none of the other Naja, including Director Seok, knew.

“Where’s the young master?”

Which was why this entire affair, using a ghost as part of the scheme, was only possible because it was Yoon Taehee. Only Yoon Taehee could have carried it out this way.

After slipping out of Kim Seonghun’s body, Paehyeon handed over the rabbit doll he had stolen from the child’s hospital room. The child’s soul was inside it. Over the course of the boy’s short life, it had been an object he had deeply bonded with and cherished. That made it more than suitable to serve as a vessel for his soul.

“I’ll put the young master back the way he was. You should go get some rest.”

Yoon Taehee said it while absently turning the worn doll over in his hands.

That was the end of the matter, as far as the official story went. Jugyeong Construction had disturbed a sacred rock, and the child’s soul had been stolen as a result.

Of course, the one who had stolen the soul was not an enraged spirit of the mountain. It had been Paehyeon.

Since Paehyeon, a ghost, had acted at Yoon Taehee’s instigation, Yoon Taehee was both the culprit and the one who resolved the case. But since the person handling it was none other than a chief Naja, the Office of Narye would have no reason to doubt anything.

Running his fingers down the length of his hair, Paehyeon spoke.

“Did Director Seok say anything?”

Yoon Taehee let out a small laugh.

“Oh, she had plenty to say. She made a whole scene about how it was absurd to take two full months off just to track down one junior. Said she’d assign me a new junior herself.”

“And what did you say to that?”

Yoon Taehee slipped one hand into his trouser pocket and muttered,

“You know me. I like things rare and precious.”

“Yes. You do.”

“And untouched by anyone else’s hands.”

Those who became Naja after passing through the apprentice stage all shared the same trait: their loyalty to the Office of Narye ran sky-high. Their pride in being Naja went without saying. Whoever Director Seok chose to send him would surely be the same.

“I’m not interested in just any junior.”

“Then what kind do you want?”

“Someone who would willingly follow me anywhere.”

Yoon Taehee slowly stroked the doll in his hand.

“Even if the place I led them to was a pit of fire.”

*****

The boy lay there like a corpse.

Whether his eyes were closed or open, he saw the same thing. A deep, heavy darkness. It felt as though time itself had stopped. He wanted to stay buried in that darkness forever. He did not dislike the lonely, silent isolation of the moment. If anything, he wanted it never to end.

Cheep, cheep...

The boy, who had lain there without the slightest movement, frowned.

Noisy birdsong pushed its way into the darkness. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore it, but as though mocking him, the birds only grew louder, crying out in bright, relentless bursts.

“Fuck.”

Finally unable to endure it any longer, the boy jerked upright.

“Hey! Mesan!”

At his shout, there came the sound of hurried footsteps from the distance, then the bedroom door flew open. The room, black as pitch an instant before, suddenly filled with light as a small child appeared in the doorway. Smiling brightly, the child bowed to the boy sitting on the bed.

“My lord, did you call for me?”

“Go chase those goddamn birds away.”

The boy irritably shoved back his half-grown hair. It slid softly down the long line of his neck. His face was delicate enough to draw the eye at once, but right now it was twisted with pure ill temper. He added in a sharp, peevish voice,

“You’re friends with them, aren’t you? Go tell them to shut up. Tell them I won’t let it slide.”

“Huh? B-but... what if I say that and they get frightened and leave this place? They’re good children... Yesterday they even brought us wild raspberries...”

Mesan mumbled with a crestfallen expression.

“Then tell them to cry at night. Why the hell are they pulling this crap outside my window every morning?”

Mesan looked at a loss over what to do.

“It’s natural for birds to sing in the morning.”

At that moment, another voice suddenly cut in from beyond the door. Thanks to the man’s perfectly timed interruption, the troubled look on Mesan’s face brightened at once.

“Jeongju!”

Jeongju patted Mesan on the head. The man who had appeared out of nowhere had an expensive-looking shopping bag slung over one arm. Striding into the room without waiting for permission, he threw open the heavy blackout curtains. Brilliant morning sunlight came flooding in through the wide window. The boy scowled fiercely and raised a hand to shield his eyes.

“Close the curtains while I’m still asking nicely.”

“When have you ever asked nicely? You do nothing but swear all day. Right, Mesan?”

Jeongju snorted at the boy’s words. It was a very attractive smile, but to the boy it only looked irritating.

Jeongju was the kind of man who carried an oddly seductive air with him wherever he went. Even at this early hour, he looked impeccably put together, as if he had already been styled before coming over. His hair had been done to perfection, and it looked as though he had even finished his makeup.

“Stop picking fights with innocent birds and get up already.”

The boy only narrowed his eyes and glared at him, his expression even sharper than before.

“Why are you here?”

“I figured I’d find you like this. Get ready.”

“Get ready for what?”

Instead of answering, Jeongju pulled a top out of the shopping bag draped over his arm and held it up. It was the one he had commissioned from the tailor a month ago. Raised in luxury, Jeongju preferred expensive custom-made clothes to ready-made ones, and the boy mocked him for it every chance he got, saying he was wasting obscene amounts of money on nonsense.

“Did you forget?”

Jeongju lightly tossed the neatly pressed top toward him. Caught off guard, the boy caught it in both hands. On the left side of the chest, his name had been embroidered in thread.

Kim Jaegyeom.

“You said you were going to school.”