Chapter 61

Driving back toward Seoul, Seo Mu-yeong wiped his face with wet wipes. He disposed of the straw cutter and nitrile gloves, and once he had committed the numbers to memory, tore the sticky note into shreds and threw it away.

With that finished, there was nothing left to keep him busy. He sat alone in the driver’s seat, turning the steering wheel with mechanical detachment.

The car, usually a sanctuary of safety, felt unbearable in its stillness. A bout of motion sickness he had never experienced before seized him, leaving his head throbbing and his stomach churning.

Seo Mu-yeong rolled down the window. A blast of wind thick with exhaust fumes whipped against his face.

“Let us go cleanse, let us go cleanse…” Seo Mu-yeong murmured the shamanic chant under his breath.

The words of the sitgimgut chant slipped repeatedly past his lips. The reason he had chosen a cleansing gut out of all the possible rituals was because he wanted to show that fraud to Grandmother.

Look at this, Grandmother. Doesn’t it make you feel vindicated? Look how ridiculous it is. The man who claimed to be your disciple—who acted so high and mighty, living in luxury while looking down on you—was reduced to putting on such a pathetic, hollow imitation. Isn’t it hilarious?

Chuckling dryly, Seo Mu-yeong shook with laughter. But the amusement soon faded, dying out almost as quickly as it had begun. There was no one around to share the laugh with.

After parking beneath his apartment building, Seo Mu-yeong gripped the steering wheel and drew a deep breath. If there are no living people, I can always invite the ghosts. That’s what an ancestral rite is for.

Still, how did one even perform a memorial service? Seo Mu-yeong tried to conjure a vague recollection before brushing the thought aside. Even if he scrambled to prepare some grand ritual table in the dead of night, it would amount to nothing more than a cheap, degraded imitation of the Choi family altar he had witnessed today.

Stepping into a convenience store, Seo Mu-yeong picked out a can of beer. He had drunk so much sake lately that the thought of buying cheongju or soju turned his stomach. He also purchased cream-filled rice cakes and a plastic cup of pre-cut pineapple. Clutching the plastic bag loosely in one hand, he headed back outside.

Above the path leading to his building, a pale yellow crescent moon hung small as a fingernail sliver in the sky. The rest of the expanse was swallowed in pitch-black darkness. Curiously, that very darkness felt like it allowed him to breathe.

On a night this dark, others failing to notice him became entirely ordinary. It wasn’t because he was bizarre or defective; in such blackness, anyone could easily overlook a person and pass them by.

As he walked on in a daze, his phone rang. It was Choi Yook. A glance at his watch showed that more than ten minutes had passed since the top of the hour.

Ah, I missed my report. He had broken the rule he had so meticulously observed until now.

It was a disastrous blunder, yet strangely, he felt neither frightened nor rattled. His head seemed slightly broken. He swiped to answer the call.

—“Where are you?”

“I’m on my way home right now,” Seo Mu-yeong replied softly.

—“Then you should have said so. You’ve kept in touch like clockwork until now, so what made you lose your damn mind all of a sudden?”

His tone sounded as though he were wringing the life out of Seo Mu-yeong.

—“Do I really need to babysit you to this extent, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi? It’s hardly difficult work. If I gave you a job, do it properly. Why are you making me waste extra effort tracking you down? Can’t you do your job right?”

Freezing in his tracks, Seo Mu-yeong lowered his head and stared blankly at the plastic bag in his hand. His vision kept blurring out of focus.

His voice barely rose above a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

Seo Mu-yeong lowered his head in remorse.

“I’m sorry, it was my fault,” he murmured contritely. “I won’t do it again.”

Though he repeated the apology several times, no answer returned. The call abruptly went dead, ending just as suddenly as it had begun.

Seo Mu-yeong trudged back toward his apartment. In the dim studio, where even the refrigerator was unplugged, only the faint rhythm of his own shallow breathing echoed.

He had no desire to turn on the overhead lights. Seo Mu-yeong roughly stuffed his cap and zip-up hoodie into the closet. Pulling out the folding table attached to the kitchen counter, he propped his phone against the wall with a photo of a lit candle displayed on the screen. The faint glow of the smartphone screen barely illuminated the table.

He arranged his convenience store purchases across the table. Adding an unopened box of okchundang candies and a ceramic mug, the cramped tabletop was filled to capacity.

Standing a spoon upright inside the cup of pineapple, he watched the sweet juice swirl, releasing a sugary aroma. Cracking open the can of beer, he poured half of it into the mug. He bowed his head slightly toward the spread. “Grandmother, please enjoy the food.”

He gently clinked the beer can against the ceramic mug.

“Mom and Dad, you too,” he whispered softly.

A bitter tang drifted up with the faint fizz of bursting carbonation. Crouching on the chair, Seo Mu-yeong drank the remaining beer straight from the can. Just then, the lit-candle display vanished from the screen as an incoming call overtook his phone. It was Choi Yook.

Was there still more to interrogate him about? Seo Mu-yeong answered the phone.

“Yes?” Seo Mu-yeong responded cautiously. Through the receiver, a thick, raspy baritone broke in, —“Where are you right now?” Seo Mu-yeong blinked slowly in the dimness.

“At home,” Seo Mu-yeong replied, staring around the darkened room.

—“Home?” A scoffing chuckle rattled over the speaker. —“You’re home. Bethel Villa, Room 218. Are you sure?”

Seo Mu-yeong blinked in confusion. “Yes.”

Strangely, the voice seemed to carry an echo. Just then—thud, thud—came the sound of knocking on his front door. Simultaneously over the receiver and from right outside in the corridor, Choi Yook’s chilling voice rang out.

—“Then open it. Right now.”

Seo Mu-yeong went to the entryway and opened the door. There stood Choi Yook, the sleeves of his black dress shirt rolled up to his forearms. With the top buttons undone, the tattoo snaking up the side of his neck was plainly exposed.

Meeting his gaze, Choi Yook knitted his brows. He seemed genuinely taken aback, as if he hadn’t truly expected Seo Mu-yeong to be inside.

“Why don’t you have any lights on?” Choi Yook demanded coldly.

Ending the call, he stepped past him. Belatedly fumbling along the wall, Seo Mu-yeong switched on the light over the kitchen area.

“I was holding a memorial service,” Seo Mu-yeong explained meekly. “It felt wrong to have the bright lights on.”

Choi Yook’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “A memorial service?”

Pushing the door wide, he strode right into the entryway. Seo Mu-yeong made no effort to stop him.

Following after him, Seo Mu-yeong murmured, “You asked me last time why I never look for my parents.”

Seo Mu-yeong kept his voice calm and steady.

“Whether my parents chose not to find me or couldn’t find me, either way, it feels the same as if they’re dead,” he added softly. “So I set out a memorial table for them every once in a while.”

The lie flowed effortlessly from his lips without a hitch. Staring intently at Seo Mu-yeong, Choi Yook took a long stride deeper into the apartment. Heading into the kitchen, he caught sight of the pitiful spread laid bare upon the table and seemed momentarily lost for words.

Looking down at the table, Choi Yook observed, “The only thing you managed to do right was sticking the spoon upright into the food.”

“It doesn’t strictly have to be proper,” Seo Mu-yeong replied softly. “My whole situation is a complete mess anyway.”

Seo Mu-yeong pulled out a chair and sat at the table, while Choi Yook remained standing beside him. He shifted his weight. “Just because a family is neatly lined up and filling every seat doesn’t mean it’s any good.”

“Isn’t that easy for you to say because you actually have one, Section Chief?” Seo Mu-yeong challenged quietly.

Knowing how fiercely the man loved his younger brother, Seo Mu-yeong’s words had slipped out with a sharp bite. Yet not a single flicker of emotion rippled across Choi Yook’s features.

“Eldest sons burdened with a dying brother are all destined to be starved of love and work like dogs,” Choi Yook said flatly.

He tossed the words out casually. Seo Mu-yeong fell silent for a brief moment. He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, since you seem to have suffered like a dog and grown up like a stray beggar without a brother like that, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi,” Choi Yook remarked coolly, “I suppose you wouldn’t understand.”

It was impossible to tell whether the remark was an insult or a strange form of comfort. Resting his elbows on the table, Seo Mu-yeong turned back to look at him.

“Even so, Section Chief,” Seo Mu-yeong asked gently, “do you still care for Sijin that much?”

Choi Yook’s gaze turned distant. “I live with my eyes fixed solely on my brother. Ever since I was a little kid, I couldn’t endure life without him.”

“I can’t picture you as a child, Section Chief,” Seo Mu-yeong confessed with a faint smile.

Choi Yook gave a dry snort. “I can’t imagine you as a kid either, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi.”

He tossed the phone he held onto the table. Resting one hand atop the backrest of Seo Mu-yeong’s chair, he peered down at Mu-yeong with his eyes alone, bending neither his waist nor his neck.

“It means you were even shorter than you are now,” Choi Yook murmured.

Seo Mu-yeong offered no retort, merely blinking up at him. “…”

Choi Yook looked down at him with a faint scoff. “Because I suspect you’ve been scurrying around looking to stab people in the back ever since the day you were born, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi. Guarding your own bowl like your life depended on it, and snatching other people’s spoons whenever you needed them.”

“I’m actually someone who had his food snatched away constantly and grew up getting beaten with other people’s spoons,” Seo Mu-yeong replied, letting out a soft, wry chuckle. “I really did get hit with a spoon, you know. I tried to sit next to a kid in the cafeteria, but they said they didn’t like me and smacked me with it. I just wanted to be friends.”

Seo Mu-yeong pulled out the spoon he had lodged inside the plastic cup of pineapple. Peeling back the clear film seal, he looked up at Choi Yook. He offered the spoon toward him. “Would you like some?”

“I don’t eat food meant for the dead,” Choi Yook grunted flatly.

So he was willing to acknowledge it as an ancestral rite after all. While Seo Mu-yeong scooped up a chunk of pineapple, Choi Yook glanced around the adjoining kitchenette. His expression instantly soured into a fierce scowl.

“Why the hell is your gas stove like that?” Choi Yook demanded.

Wondering what caught his attention, Seo Mu-yeong realized he had spotted the box of cup ramen stacked right on top of the gas burners. In this apartment, the stove served as nothing more than an extra storage shelf.

Seo Mu-yeong swallowed his pineapple. “I turned off the main valve. I never use the stove anyway.”

“Cut the bullshit,” Choi Yook snapped, his eyes flashing. “What happens if the weight breaks the burners and triggers a problem? How can you leave it like this? If a fire starts and blows up this entire building, are you going to take responsibility?”

Striding over to the stove, he snatched the box and slammed it onto the floor. Seo Mu-yeong’s downcast eyes widened in surprise. The rigid stillness around his mouth broke, giving way to a soft, bashful smile.