Honbul: Flame of the Soul

There were all kinds of things waiting beyond the walls of the house. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Countless humans. And things that had once been human but were no longer. Or things that had never been human to begin with. No matter who or what they were, Kim Jaegyeom hated getting entangled with them. Human or ghost, it made no difference to him. He disliked both sides equally. After all, where there were humans, there were ghosts, and where there were ghosts, there were humans.

Which meant that places crawling with people ranked first on his list of places to avoid.

Kim Jaegyeom was an extreme shut-in.

To begin with, he spent half his day asleep. When he was awake, he filled the other half playing games or watching television. Even the games he played were not online games with other people, but console games he could play alone. If he was hungry, he ate. If he was sleepy, he slept. That was the full extent of his daily routine.

For a long time, Jaegyeom had lived a life as meaningless as dust drifting in the air.

Alive, but almost as if dead.

He wanted to stay holed up in his room forever, undisturbed by anyone, wasting this eternal, sickening youth.

“Starting tomorrow, you need to take Bus 17. Got it? Jaegyeom, are you even listening to me?”

Jeongju rapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He was currently driving Jaegyeom to school. Slumped in the back seat, Jaegyeom answered only then, slowly and without interest.

“No. I’m not listening.”

As if he had expected exactly that, Jeongju let out a sigh. Jaegyeom had looked deeply unsettled from the moment he was told to get ready for school. He was obviously regretting the decision he had made.

“No backsies. You can’t take it back now.”

Just in case, Jeongju got ahead of him.

“Who said anything? I didn’t say a word. You just keep your promise.”

“Anyway, the bus number is 17. Seventeen. Make sure you remember it.”

Jeongju had a packed schedule, so after dropping Jaegyeom off, he had to head straight back up to Seoul. Jeongju, who lived in Seoul, had adapted to society quickly and had plenty of people around him. Jaegyeom, on the other hand, lived alone with Mesan in a run-down house at the foot of a mountain in a small provincial city that was practically the countryside. The house was far from downtown, and it took a solid twenty minutes by car just to reach the city where the school was.

As the person who had taken it upon himself to act as Jaegyeom’s guardian, Jeongju had every reason to worry. According to his original plan, he had intended to assign him a bodyguard who would also act as his driver. But Jaegyeom had cut that suggestion off at once. He said that if the alternative was being trapped in a cramped space alone with some human he did not even know, he would rather walk.

In the end, Jeongju had no choice but to look up the bus route himself. Starting tomorrow, Jaegyeom would have to ride the bus to school alone, yet no matter how carefully he explained everything, Jaegyeom only half listened. It made him impossible to trust.

Seeing Jaegyeom step outside at all was something Jeongju himself had wanted for years. But now that he was actually sending him to school, he could not help feeling like a parent setting a child loose by the water’s edge. Usually, it was some comfort that Mesan was with him. But Mesan was afraid of every human other than Jaegyeom. There was no way he could follow him all the way to school.

Whenever he had a day off, Jeongju always came to see him. In place of Jaegyeom, who never left the house, he carried over groceries and household necessities, or told him stories about things that had happened outside. Of course, Jaegyeom had never once asked for any of it. Jeongju did it all entirely of his own accord.

“This won’t do. You need to get a cell phone.”

Other than Jeongju and Mesan, Jaegyeom had no dealings with anyone. He had no reason to leave the house, no one to contact, so naturally he did not own a cell phone.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? Because I’m worried.”

“Then stop worrying.”

With a look of utter disbelief, Jeongju glared at Jaegyeom in the rearview mirror.

Forget it. Talking was pointless.

Jaegyeom was unbelievably stubborn, and once he made up his mind, there was almost no talking him out of it. Just getting him this far, on the way to school, was an achievement in itself.

Before long, they were close to their destination. The school’s front gate was only a little farther ahead. But instead of pulling up in front of the school, Jeongju stopped the car near an intersection some distance away.

“You know, right? I can’t go where there are too many people.”

The car Jeongju was driving had windows tinted so dark that anyone would find it suspicious. This close to a school, it might easily draw attention. Jeongju was someone who had settled perfectly into the outside world Jaegyeom avoided so desperately.

His job was that of a famous celebrity.

The “famous” part was a modifier Jeongju always made sure to add himself.

As he set the parking brake, Jeongju glanced into the rearview mirror.

“Oh, right. Jaegyeom, I passed two million followers.”

Slipping his backpack over one shoulder, Jaegyeom asked dully,

“What’s that.”

Jeongju’s eyes lit up as he launched into a boast disguised as an explanation, but Jaegyeom only half listened.

“And do you know what people have been calling me lately?”

Leaning in as though sharing a secret, Jeongju lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Fairy Jeongju. They call me Fairy Jeongju.”

Jaegyeom, who had looked indifferent up until that moment, immediately twisted his face into a scowl.

“A fairy? Give me a break. You’re an animal.”

“Hey. What kind of thing is that to say?”

Jeongju’s eyes drooped in wounded complaint.

“Did I say anything wrong? If you’re a fox, then live like a fox. What are you doing out here charming people?”

“Jaegyeom. You really don’t know anything. Foxes live for charming people. A life like this is exactly the kind of life a fox should live.”

“Bullshit.”

“Seriously. Watch your mouth.”

At Jeongju’s reproach, Jaegyeom absently dug at one ear with a bored expression.

He was not like this when he was little.

Now that he had grown up a bit, he nagged and acted like he had the right to lecture him. Back then he had at least been cute...

Jeongju came from the Fox Clan. He was both human and fox. The Fox Clan were beings born between humans and ancient foxes that had lived long enough to become spiritual creatures. Jaegyeom liked to mock Jeongju by calling him an animal. The existence of the Fox Clan was shrouded in secrecy, so even among the gifted, very few people knew of them. Jaegyeom himself had known only rumors before meeting Jeongju, which said enough.

Jeongju was one of those who had chosen to live as a human instead of as a fox.

The foxes of the Fox Clan lived together in their own community. Their village, their ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) fortress, existed slightly apart from the human world. By means of the foxes’ mysterious arts, no one but the Fox Clan themselves could enter it. To get inside, one had to open the Fox Gate. Back when Jeongju had still been a young fox, Jaegyeom had entered through that gate exactly once, the first and last time.

Most of the Fox Clan took immense pride in being foxes. Because of that, they considered humans lesser beings and looked down on them with contempt. So for one of them to abandon that splendid fortress of his own will and declare he would live among such pitiful humans...

It was enough to make the lofty Fox Clan clutch the backs of their necks and collapse.

Leaving the uproar he had caused behind him, Jeongju had come down into the human world and was now living as a perfectly respectable citizen of modern society.

“If anything happens, or if you need anything, call me right away. Don’t worry about the school. I’ve already taken care of all the paperwork. There’s a wallet in your bag, so use the money in there. Here, and this is a card.”

Jeongju held out a glossy credit card. Jaegyeom took it and turned it over in his hand. He had no idea how Jeongju had managed to put the documents together, but somehow he had solved even the problem of his identity cleanly. The day Jeongju got his resident registration card, he had practically bounced up and down with excitement, bragging about it to Jaegyeom until his mouth nearly wore out.

If it had not been for Jeongju, Jaegyeom could never have spent so many years shut away in his room.

The country house where he lived with Mesan, the electricity coming into it, the water, even the television cable—all of it was under Jeongju’s name. So yes, in a lot of ways he was reliable. His only flaw was that sometimes he meddled far too much...

After putting the card away, Jaegyeom slung his book bag over his shoulder.

“I’m going. See you.”

Leaving behind the stiff farewell, he got out of the car. Around the school, after the rush of students heading in, only a few pedestrians remained on the street. From inside the car, Jeongju watched Jaegyeom’s retreating back for a long time.

Whenever they had to part, even briefly, Jaegyeom was always like that. He said goodbye as if he were never coming back, as if they might never see each other again. And every time, Jeongju felt a strange loneliness somewhere deep inside.

Jeongju, the fox, had spent a long time wishing that this human with the eternally youthful face would try a little harder to live.

Even when Jeongju had been a young fox, Jaegyeom had looked exactly the same.