Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

We all have a given time to die. Mine was on a cold spring night, trapped alone in the lobby of an ugly mansion with the icy, black claws of a Demon King closing around my neck.

There were several reasons it had come to this.

Firstly, we should have realized the entity lurking in this house was beyond our pay grade: that part was on me. Secondarily, Yoo Joonghyuk’s overconfidence had prevented us from pausing to gather more information that could have saved our lives.

But I know where to place the ultimate blame, because entering this whole line of work was Han Sooyoung’s idea.

That thought did not give me much comfort as the Demon King laughed, the sound echoing under the mansion’s high ceilings as the claws around my neck began to squeeze.

Han Sooyoung was a writer, and a pretty good one, before she decided to drop it all to become a paranormal investigator.

Han Sooyoung and I became friends as we exchanged many comments—and arguments—in the comments of her early work online. I often made suggestions from my own experiences: Author-nim, in my experience, ghosts with this tendency are often not hostile, that sort of thing. Our conversations took us from webnovel comments sections to chat clients and, across many years, we somehow became friends in real life.

Friends or not, however, I was very quick to refuse her offer. “Absolutely not.”

“Kim Dokja,” she sighed, clearly debating whether turning on the charm or getting aggressive would be the best way to convince me. She settled on the latter. “What exactly are you doing with your life right now that’s so important? Your job sucks, and it hardly pays anything!”

“You’re right,” I said. We had been eating lunch together at the time, so I added, “the famous author Han Sooyoung should generously cover lunch for a poor guy like me.”

“Shut up!” she said, though I caught the flash of a smile. The look faded into a pensive expression. “Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you actually took the offer seriously.”

I leaned back in my chair. “You know better than anyone that that sort of work can be dangerous. Why would you want to quit writing for that?”

“Hey, I’m not quitting writing,” she said, jabbing a finger at me. “I just… want to do something different, and I feel like I could be good at this. Not that you even care.”

Watching her scowl and pick at her food, I could tell that this was important to her. Still, it was a crazy request for her to make of me. “Writing about something and doing it are pretty different.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She pulled a face. “I just… do you realize what the paranormal scene is like these days?”

“I've only read novels about it, so not really.”

“It’s awful,” she said shortly. “Most agencies are shoddy, and there’s no humane treatment of spirits or ghosts. They just exterminate them like fleas. The root causes are never addressed, so they can earn money when the ghosts come back.”

This, I admit, caught my attention. “I'm pretty sure that isn’t how you write about them.”

“Maybe I write what I want to be true,” she said, “but at this point I’m just giving them an undeserved popularity boost.”

“They can’t all be like that.”

“Yeah, there are some good ones. My contacts are generally great… but I hear it from them, how dismal most of the field is. Even you can’t be fully ignorant.”

She was right—I was well aware of the way most people viewed ghosts and spirits. My interest in hauntings had marked me as an oddity from an early age.

“Anyway, if it doesn’t work out, there’s no harm in going back to writing,” Han Sooyoung shrugged. “But… I would need someone like you, who can see ghosts.”

“I can’t see ghosts,” I replied automatically. I have no idea how many times I’ve told her this, but it never sinks in.

“Okay, I need someone who can do whatever it is that you can do that is basically the same as seeing ghosts,” she amended with a dismissive handwave. “So, will you help me out?”

I refused again, but eventually she needled me into accompanying her on one case—just the one single case, she promised—only to get in ahead of some of the “ghost hunting” types we both disliked.

On that case, I found a presence reaching into a child’s bedroom, its agony seeping out through the peeling yellow paint. Han Sooyoung trailed silently behind me as I stood in the room for a bit, then went to the backyard, following a hunch.

After that, I approached the child who owned that room and stooped to her eye level to tell her: “There’s a friend of yours who needs your help to move on to where she can be comfortable. Will you help?”

Ghost stories are like that sometimes: sad and small, when what you expect is malevolence. A dog who left her master before it was time, the pain of the sudden parting too much for either of them to bear. A theme that tied the two of them together across the threshold of life and death.

The girl agreed to help. We took a memento of the dog to all the creature’s favorite spots one last time, then buried it. The paint stopped peeling and the phantom howls that had prompted the call were silenced.

Here is what I know about hauntings: Ghosts are unfinished stories. Silver and charms and spiritual weapons disperse their manifestations, but in order to have a ghost move on of its own volition, all you have to do is ask: what was the ending that you wanted? The answer is often simpler than people expect. It’s just that no one thinks to ask.

Han Sooyoung and I left our first case together in contemplative silence. Eventually, she said what we were both thinking: “If you hadn’t come to help me with that, they would have called a hunter to vaporize that ghost without a second thought.”

I didn’t look at her. “It happens every day, all the time.”

“So what? Haven’t you been helping ghosts your whole life anyway?”

Through our conversations online, Han Sooyoung was the only person in the world to listen to my theories about ghosts. Nobody cares about them, these abandoned stories of the living. Most would rather ignore, disregard, and erase them.

“…Fine,” I said. I was surprised at myself, but helping that canine ghost move on had shifted something inside me, generating a spark of feeling that had laid dormant for a long time. “I’ll help you out once in awhile. Don’t expect this to become a habit, though.”

By the time we showed up to that mansion to deal with the entity that would end my life, it had become a habit.

The mansion in question was located in Gangwon Province, just north of Seoul. We had traveled a little over an hour by train to get there, arriving just as the sun set. The house was oddly isolated from the rest of the city, confined to its own little patch of countryside.

“I didn’t think this would involve so much walking,” Han Sooyoung griped, struggling with her bag of equipment.

“There it is,” I said, finally spotting the property up ahead. The mansion was brand-new and soulless, a bleach-white imposition on the landscape built Western-style with lots of needless columns and buttresses. It looked like it had been eyedropped in, fully formed, from a garish celebrity estate in Pyeongchang.

It really did look odd standing out there in the middle of nowhere, but evidently real estate here was expensive, so maybe that was reason enough. Due to some trick of the elevation, it was very difficult to see the rest of the neighbourhood once you neared the mansion. It was just foliage, sky, and that massive home.

“Finally. Wow, it’s even uglier in person,” Han Sooyoung said conversationally. “Well, the client said it was likely just a low-grade dokkaebi causing trouble, so I doubt we’ll have to look at it too long, at least.”

She slowed, trying to reposition her bag. “Speaking of driving away a dokkaebi, though, where the hell is our muscle?”

“Took off as soon as we got off the train,” I said mildly. “Said he was scouting the area.”

“Oh, great. Watch that idiot get lost, leaving us to…”

Gravel crunched on the road behind us, and I turned to see the very subject of her ire approaching: black clothes and a black coat, a silver sword sheathed at his side, and a customarily flat expression on his face. His eyes slid right over me, as if he had barely noticed I was present, and then he addressed Han Sooyoung: “There is nothing of interest in the surrounding area.”

The first time I met the spirit hunter Yoo Joonghyuk went like this: while I was trying to buy lunch in a convenience store, the most good-looking man I had ever seen walked up to me out of the blue and announced, “I found you.”

“Uh…” I had slept in that morning and was still only half-awake, though even on the best of days I didn’t exactly have a script for this kind of situation. “Sorry, do I know you?”

Something flashed across his face. Back then, I didn’t know how to interpret Yoo Joonghyuk’s facial expressions at all, so I had assumed it was surprise and embarrassment at having so confidently misidentified a stranger.

The man in front of me bit out a quick “no,” then turned and left the store without buying anything. It had struck me as a bit of a cute overreaction, but I’d just gone right back to buying lunch and put the encounter out of my mind.

Recently, though, I’ve been thinking. Just what was that expression he made at me? Yoo Joonghyuk, I have learned, does not give two shits how strangers perceive him, and things like ‘surprise’ and ‘embarrassment’ do very different things to his face. But back then…

I honestly think I must just misremember it.

The second time I met him was months later, when Han Sooyoung wanted to introduce me to one of her spirit hunter contacts.

“The guy’s basically fearless,” she told me by way of recommendation. “A while back, he had a run-in with a really nasty spirit, one of the time-bending types. When he came out of that he was definitely a bit weird, but he developed a talent for dealing with hostile spirits. He’s useful if you can get past the horrible personality.”

“Is it not rude to call someone ‘weird’ after they’ve undergone something like a spirit attack?” I pointed out.

The two of us had been sitting in our brand-new office, the rent for which Han Sooyoung had generously sprung for while we got our fledgling agency off the ground. Han Sooyoung had insisted she could not name the business after herself, though she wanted to—it would cause too much confusion with her also being an author—and so, had asked me for ideas.

I wrote down ‘Kim Dokja’s Paranormal Investigations Company’. At first, she laughed me out of the room, but she couldn’t think of anything else before we had to submit the paperwork, so it stuck.

When the spirit hunter in question did finally arrive and Han Sooyoung opened the door to admit him, I was shocked to see the awkward convenience store man standing there. It had been a while since that encounter, but he has a face that’s difficult to forget. His eyes met mine and he froze in the doorway.

Han Sooyoung noticed, of course. “What, do you two know each other or something? Er, this is Yoo Joonghyuk, spirit killing expert. And this is—”

“I’m not working with him,” Yoo Joonghyuk said flatly.

I sat up, shocked. “What do you mean? Hey, what did I ever do to you? We don’t even know each other.”

“Find someone else,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, turning to leave.

“Hey! Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk,” Han Sooyoung interjected, rushing to put herself between him and the exit. “Sorry, but get over yourself. I don’t have anyone else I can call on this short notice and this spirit situation is going to get out of hand if we don’t deal with it immediately. People could die.”

Yoo Joonghyuk glared at her, but didn’t brush past her to leave.

Han Sooyoung glanced at me. “How do you know Kim Dokja, anyway? Seriously, he’s just my employee, and he’s an annoyance who barely does anything on investigations.”

“My name is literally on the door. I’m the co-owner, not your employee.”

“And whose money is paying for that door?”

“Forget that,” I said, frowning at Yoo Joonghyuk. “We’ve met before, but we only ran into each other at a convenience store, so what’s the problem here?”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face settled into an impenetrable scowl. “I don’t need a reason.”

“You do need a reason if you suddenly say you won’t work with me!” I exclaimed.

Han Sooyoung was watching the two of us carefully, and the corner of her mouth slowly turned up. “I think he’s just offended by your face. Maybe he only works with beautiful people, like myself.”

“Han Sooyoung,” I said flatly.

“In any case,” she continued, deftly ignoring the fact that we were now both glaring at her, “we have a spirit to deal with and not a ton of time to waste, so if you don’t mind, let’s go earn a paycheck for once.”

Despite his mysterious assertion that he would not work with me, Yoo Joonghyuk did accompany us on the case, and was even willing to return when Han Sooyoung called him the next time. The first time I hesitantly said something like, “You did a good job, Joonghyuk-ssi,” he shot back with “Kim Dokja. Do not patronize me.” As a result, we spoke rather rudely to each other from then on.

What went on in the mind of Yoo Joonghyuk remained a mystery to me, but he was undeniably very skilled at his work, efficient and sharp-witted despite his rough manners. He agreed to help us enough times that Han Sooyoung suggested he join the company on a trial basis, an offer he shocked both of us by accepting.

So, that’s how it happened. Kim Dokja’s Paranormal Investigations Company, a three-person team comprising myself, a guy who claims to understand ghosts; Han Sooyoung, a research-minded ex-writer; and Yoo Joonghyuk, a fearless guy who can go toe-to-toe with any hostile spirit that glances his way.

I gazed up at the vast white façade of the mansion that was our current case. “We are getting a good fee for this, right?”

“Obviously,” Han Sooyoung snapped. “This house is worth a lot of money, and we’re providing expedient service so the seller doesn’t have to wait on the public list for spirit infestation. I made sure we’re getting compensated appropriately.”

“…It’s weird,” I said after a moment. The house was so new I could still smell the lumber and paint. “How did such a new building attract a spirit? If it really is a low-grade dokkaebi that only wants to play pranks, it would pick a house that actually had people in it.”

Han Sooyoung flipped through her notes. “It’s unusual, sure, but it’s not like the signs point to anything else. I guess something like this could be a poltergeist, too…”

“That would also be odd without a history of human habitation,” I pointed out. “There would be nothing to attract a ghost to an empty house, unless…”

“Unless the land itself has the history,” Yoo Joonghyuk supplied.

Han Sooyoung gave us both a flat look. “Hey, I’m a professional, you know. The first thing I checked for was the history of the land, and guess what? No battles, no murders, no weird rumours. The only thing I found was some protest letters from when a dilapidated shrine was destroyed nearby.”

I tilted my head a little at that. “That could cause some resentment.”

“They took the shrine down twenty years ago,” Han Sooyoung said. “And it wasn’t even on the property, it was all the way down the hill. That’s a huge reach. It’s got to be an unusually lonesome dokkaebi, that’s all.”

Yoo Joonghyuk, evidently done with the talking, moved toward the entrance. The heavy wooden door swung open once Han Sooyoung inserted the key to reveal a wide, dim lobby.

Han Sooyoung clicked on the light, illuminating high windows, a huge crystal chandelier, and a sweeping, carpeted staircase leading up to the second floor. Though impressively built, the house lacked furniture, making the space feel cavernous and empty.

“Tacky,” Han Sooyoung muttered. “Who would want to live in a place like this?”

“At least one dokkaebi,” I pointed out mildly. I slowly turned around, taking in every corner of the lobby.

“Well?” Han Sooyoung asked me. “See any ghosts?”

Yoo Joonghyuk, to my utter surprise, spoke up before I could. “He does not see ghosts. He only reads their stories.”

I turned around to look at him, caught entirely off guard. He wasn’t even looking at me—he was just idly walking around the room, inspecting the walls.

Finally, I managed to string some words together. “How… did you know that?” Up until this point, I hadn’t corrected Han Sooyoung in his presence, figuring that letting the misunderstanding continue was less complicated than trying to explain.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes flashed to mine, though his expression betrayed nothing. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Well, it had always felt obvious to me, but even Han Sooyoung had never really understood the way I “read” ghosts. Nobody else cared enough to even ask. For someone to realize it on their own without even being told was…

Actually, I almost felt offended. Of course, the only one to understand would be this guy who hated me. He was weirdly perceptive at times.

“Okay, whatever, do you read anything?” Han Sooyoung prompted me, glancing with narrowed eyes between myself and Yoo Joonghyuk.

I let out a sigh and took in the empty lobby again. A building this new should be lifeless and still, but I was definitely picking up on something. There was an anger in the shadows collecting in the corners, a faintly buzzing oppressiveness to the silence.

“…There’s resentment of some sort,” I said after a moment. “Can you feel it?”

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded stiffly. “Something’s watching.”

Han Sooyoung, the least spiritually sensitive of us, just shook her head. “I mean, I resent the architect who designed this eyesore, but I guess that doesn’t count.”

We moved through the rest of the house as the sun set outside, the windows darkening into planes of solid black as we explored. We passed through a dining room and living room, empty except for the most basic furniture. The sensation of lurking resentment didn’t grow worse, but it didn’t dissipate, either.

This wasn’t right. A low-grade dokkaebi that played pranks on humans was a spiteful, impulsive sort of spirit. The anger here was so quiet, so patient. It was like the walls of this house had been waiting eons to swallow us. I kept having to remind myself the building was brand-new.

The kitchen, when we poked our heads inside, was undergoing renovations, with cabinets only half-built. Equipment was still lying around including a ladder, a messy toolbox, and a collection of floodlights pinning down corners of a tarp. It looked as if the workers had departed in a hurry.

“Apparently the renovators were getting the worst of the pranks,” Han Sooyoung said. “That’s how they knew there was something going on.”

“Pranks like…?”

“Things falling on their heads, equipment failures, weird noises… that kind of thing.”

“Hmm.” I glanced around the kitchen again. Something about the half-finished room was bothering me, but I couldn’t tell what… maybe it was just the incongruousness of it, of how clearly brand-new the building was despite the old anger I was sensing.

“I don’t think it’s a dokkaebi,” I finally said as we completed our round of the first floor and started to climb the staircase to the second. “No one’s dropped anything on our heads or pulled the rugs out from under our feet. The feeling I’m getting is more like a ghost haunting.”

Han Sooyoung held up a thermometer device, which beeped evenly. “Well, no drops in temperature. And the builders were getting pranked, so maybe it’s just intimidated by us.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was gliding up the steps ahead of us, eyes trained on the darkness.

“What do you think, Yoo Joonghyuk?” I found myself asking.

“Spirit,” he said without elaboration.

I sighed. “Well, thanks for picking the broadest category of paranormal entity, and also for disagreeing with me. I just feel like lurking resentment is more of a ghostly trait than one of spirits.”

“You’re just guessing,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied, which pissed me off, because he was correct.

The general rule is that a spirit is a paranormal entity from another world, and a ghost is an entity derived from the death of a human or animal. Dokkaebis are spirits, which Yoo Joonghyuk specializes in dealing with. Something like the shade left behind by a loyal dog is a ghost, which is more along the lines of my own interest.

All initial signs had pointed to a minor spirit, but I felt like we were still missing something. I felt a light prickle on the back of my neck, raising gooseflesh.

For some reason, I thought: it’s an ancient story. Interminably ancient.

“Maybe we should take a break and regroup...” I suggested hesitantly.

“Oh, don’t get spooked, we’re already here,” Han Sooyoung said. At the top of the staircase, she flicked a light switch several times, but the second-floor lights remained dark. “Oh, what the hell? Can someone who paid for a house this big not even spring for functioning light bulbs?”

My premonition was only strengthening. “Han Sooyoung, I’m really not sure about this.”

She frowned, glancing at my expression. “Well, I guess we could—Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk!”

Yoo Joonghyuk had clicked on a flashlight and was moving ahead into the hallway. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No, wait, don’t just go on your own!” Han Sooyoung’s words fell on deaf ears as Yoo Joonghyuk swiftly vanished around the corner.  “Ugh. What do I even pay that guy for? Useless employee…”

“He’s not your employee either,” I pointed out. “He said he’d only join if he was classified as a consultant.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “If you can still crack wise at me, I guess you’re not really that freaked out.”

I was still pretty freaked out, actually, but seeing Yoo Joonghyuk march ahead so confidently did ease my mind a little. If that guy didn’t think it was anything to worry about, I might be overreacting. “…Well, if he’s going on ahead, we should at least stick around and check out the second floor.”

“Right.” Han Sooyoung pulled out her own flashlight and illuminated the hallway in front of us. “Let’s see what we can find, then.”

The bathroom was empty. The master bedroom and accompanying en-suite were also empty. Twice, I thought I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but as soon as I turned to look, the house was still and silent again.

“Well,” Han Sooyoung said, “Looks like the only place left is—”

Something clattered loudly down the hall, followed by a low thump resonating through the walls, like a body hitting the floor. Han Sooyoung and I instantly started moving, jogging toward the bedrooms at the far end of the hall—in the direction Yoo Joonghyuk had gone.

As we turned the corner, Han Sooyoung's flashlight darted over a jumbled shape tumbling out of one of the bedrooms: a man in a black coat wrestling with a smaller, snarling entity. The light reflected off the creature's eyes like a pair of coins as it drew back its lips in a sharp-toothed snarl.

“Shit!” Han Sooyoung exclaimed, groping for equipment. “Dokkaebi?”

The creature turned to us with its sharp-toothed mouth hanging open, but a moment later, Yoo Joonghyuk deftly caught it by the neck and flipped it over, pinning it to the ground. The halo of light cast by Han Sooyoung's flashlight glinted off Yoo Joonghuk’s sword as he drew it.

Spirit hunter swords are made of silver and warded with charms, crafted for maximum effectiveness in killing the greatest variety of supernatural entities. “Killing” is a bit of a misnomer for spirits, though—their real selves exist in the spirit world, and the bodies they project here are a bit like clones or game avatars. Once it felt the bite of that sword, the dokkaebi's earthly presence would be destroyed, but its true self would eventually recover, given a couple of decades.

Before the blade could touch its throat, however, the dokkaebi started to melt away. Its body collapsed into a dark, smoky liquid, passing right through Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands. The creature laughed, a hoarse and high-pitched sound. “Oh, aren’t you three lucky…!”

Yoo Joonghyuk made another stab, but by then the creature was gone. Its laughter resonated from somewhere back down on the first floor.

“Uh, are you okay?” I asked Yoo Joonghyuk. He just sneered and got back to his feet, sheathing the sword without a word.

 “Congratulations!” the dokkaebi called, now audibly from a different side of the house. Its tone had turned oddly… presentational. “You three lucky humans been chosen to play a game… and to get the chance to win a fantastic prize!”

The three of us just looked at each other, mystified. “Game show host” dokkaebi had certainly not been on our radar of possibilities for this case.

“Incidentally, the one judging this game will be my exalted Master!” the dokkaebi continued cheerfully. “Work hard to please him, because only one of you will be winning this game. The losers only get a measly consolation prize... that is, they will have the honor losing their lives to the Master's blood sacrifice!”

“This is stupid!” Han Sooyoung called out, unimpressed. She had pulled out a keyring of charms from her pocket. “Nice try, but we're not going to fall for such an obvious bluff, and we're not playing your game.”

“Oh, you silly little humans,” the dokkaebi chuckled. “As if you have a choice!”

A shiver ran down my spine. I snatched Han Sooyoung's flashlight, ignoring her indignant “Hey!”, and swung the light towards the wall. Thick rivulets of black liquid were seeping down the white.

Han Sooyoung stared. “What… is that?”

“First game!” The dokkaebi announced. “I will test your agility. Try to reach the front door before time runs out! Oh… and try not to let the liquid touch you!”

Yoo Joonghyuk moved to the front of the group instantly and headed for the lobby. “Go. Quickly.”

Han Sooyoung and I scampered after him, still confused. As we ran, the black liquid began to drip faster and faster, accumulating in ominous puddles at our feet.

We made for the staircase, hopping around puddles and sidling walls. This was... a spirit world distortion. This was far beyond the skills of a prankster dokkaebi.

Yoo Joonghyuk effortlessly pulled ahead, Han Sooyoung close behind. Naturally, my exercise-averse self brought up the rear, the black puddles oozing close on my tail. When one touched the corner of my shoe heel, the fake leather let out a hiss and released a burst of smoke as the material instantly burned up.

“Ah!” I yelped, wiggling out of the shoe and trying not to lose my balance. “Seriously, don't touch it!”

Han Sooyoung reached back and grabbed my collar to steady me. “Would you be careful!” As an afterthought she snatched back her flashlight, realizing I was not to be trusted with it.

“This way,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, wasting several precious seconds waiting for us to reach him.

Somehow, we made it to the staircase landing. Black liquid was flowing out of the chandelier like a waterfall, forming a pool in the center of the lobby below. There wasn't a spot of white left on the walls, and standing space was getting perilously sparse.

Han Sooyoung grimly threw a charm into the nearest puddle. The charm instantly burst into flames and dissolved; the puddle was left unharmed. “What the hell...”

“No cheating!” The dokkaebi's singsong voice echoed from ahead. “Play the game properly. Just get to the door first and you win!”

“The stairs are too dangerous,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, crawling up on the banister.

I exclaimed in shock as he started to scoot down, a serious scowl on his face. At any other time, it would have been a hilarious sight. Han Sooyoung clambered up on the banister after him, sticking her hand towards me. “Hurry up!”

I took her hand, but I could instantly feel my balance wavering. I was just not as agile as these two. “I don't know if I can...!”

Han Sooyoung managed to steady me. “Just come on, it's not that hard!”

With little other choice, we began scooting grimly down. My heart pounded in my throat, and my hands were shaking hard enough to make staying upright on the stupid banister even harder.

Up ahead, I saw Yoo Joonghyuk swing over to cling on the banister by his hands, carefully aim himself at a free section of the floor, then drop down a good ten feet.

“Almost there!” The dokkaebi called. “Just get to the front door, and you win!”

A huge drop of liquid fell from the ceiling and hit the banister in front of Han Sooyoung, making her yelp and lean back to avoid the splash. Her shoulder hit mine and I completely lost my balance, tipping toward the floor of the lobby far below.

“Fuck!” she snapped, reaching back too late to catch me. In a mad scramble, I somehow caught the edge of the staircase itself, but black liquid pooling on the stairs was reaching toward my fingers.

“Kim Dokja!” Yoo Joonghyuk snapped from below. “Let go!”

“But—”

“I'll catch you, let go!”

I was left with little choice as the faintest brush of the liquid touched my gripping fingers, causing instant, caustic pain. I let go, flailing awkwardly, only to bodily slam into the man waiting below a moment later.

He let out a hiss like I'd depressed the air from his lungs. Still, he somehow managed to not only keep me from hitting the ground, but also keep his feet planted so that he didn't stagger back into the pool of black that was just inches behind his boots.

He set me down with a quiet wheeze, then choked out, “Go hit the door. The distortion might stop when one of us ‘wins’.”

I looked with dread at the few remaining visible pieces of the lobby's floor, but Yoo Joonghyuk barked, “Go!”, startling me into action. At Han Sooyoung, whose path was still blocked by a splotch of liquid coating the banister, he yelled, “you next! Drop down!”

While Han Sooyoung groused and tried to lower herself into a good position, I hopped inelegantly across the room, skirting the expanding puddles. I lost the other shoe along the way but, panting for breath, managed to reach the door and slap my hand to its surface.

“Congratulations, contestant in white!” The dokkaebi’s voice rang out. “...Well, it was a cheap method, but the Master commends you for cunningly exploiting your teammates' goodwill to defeat them! Don't be so generous in the next round, humans... remember, only one of you gets the prize!”

The black liquid all drained away in the space of an eyeblink, the white paint and floors almost blinding in its sudden absence. Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk were frozen in a ridiculous position with her dangling off the stairs and him reaching up to grab her calves.

As soon as Han Sooyoung realized the floor was safe, she barked, “let go of me!”, kicked Yoo Joonghyuk away, and hauled herself up onto the stairs to walk down as normal.

I stared at the silent room. Whatever ‘story’ the presence in this mansion wanted to tell, it was beyond me. “What exactly is the meaning of this? Who runs a haunting like it's a game show?”

“I do.” The dokkaebi's voice came suddenly from right behind my ear. I swung around to see his face forming out of the door, but it melted away almost immediately. Its voice next reappeared from the ceiling. “All at the will of my Master, of course... he only wants the best candidate to receive his prize. My job is to make that entertaining.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, his tone bone-chilling. I made a mental note to try and not get on his bad side any more than I had already.

The dokkaebi laughed. “Oh, good luck! This is my Master’s domain, so you can’t harm me if he doesn’t desire it.”

As the adrenaline rush evened out, I started to feel the pain from my fingers and looked down, grimacing. Just the lightest touch of that acid had burned away the skin on my fingertips, leaving blackened blisters. This game of his was deadly—We needed to get out of here.

I tried to open the front door but, naturally, it didn’t so much as budge.

Han Sooyoung rushed up beside me, slapped an array of charms across the surface of the door, then tried to open it using the key, also to no effect.

“You can’t leave before the game’s over,” the dokkaebi admonished us. “Now, for the next challenge… oh, yes, why don’t I test your strength! Whoever defeats the most enemies wins!”

“Enemies?” I said, already sweating. The three of us moved together, standing back-to-back in the center of the lobby. The lights had dimmed significantly, and our darting flashlight beams picked out dark shapes rising from the shadows.

“We need to find a way out,” Han Sooyoung hissed. “If we just keep playing these stupid games, we’re playing right into this thing’s hands.”

“I know,” I muttered. If I could just figure out what this thing was, I was sure I could devise an exit strategy, but nothing was adding up to a complete story just yet. A dokkaebi that melted into shadows, a spirit world distortion, and a deadly competition styled like a game show. Maybe this was actually a very high-grade dokkaebi, but then—why was it here in this mansion? And who was the ‘master’?

Yoo Joonghyuk’s blade gleamed in the light of the flashlight beam, neatly bisecting three lurching, humanoid figures that had risen up out of the darkness. The halves instantly dissolved away.

“We’ve got a top contender right away,” the dokkaebi declared, its voice hovering somewhere above us in space. “Let’s see if the others can catch up!”

“Let me take care of it,” Yoo Joonghyuk grunted, taking a stance.

“Like I’ll just let you win,” Han Sooyoung complained, retrieving a small silver dagger from her bag. I couldn’t tell if she was only playing along or was actually getting competitive. “Didn’t you hear him? The losers get killed in a blood sacrifice. Kim Dokja, hold this.”

Without asking, she shoved the flashlight back into my hands. Since I was the only one without a weapon—and to be honest, even if I had one, I probably couldn’t do much with it—I tried to hold the light steady, tracking the shuddering movements of the shadow creatures.

Come to think, when the light was shined directly on them, they tended to slow down. I managed to pin a few in place to make them easy pickings for Han Sooyoung, but whichever ones I wasn’t illuminating moved much faster, trying to sneak up behind us. Their vague, armlike appendages ended in long, curved claws, which swiped at us relentlessly.

“That’s ten to the contestant in black, and three to the contestant in purple!” The Dokkaebi called.

Yoo Joonghyuk growled as he beheaded another line of shadows. “I refuse to do this for a spirit’s amusement. We must escape.”

Before we could escape, though, we needed to survive the throng of shadows closing in on us. If only my flashlight had wider coverage, I could slow them all down... suddenly, an idea occurred to me.

“We need to get to the kitchen,” I said, trying to orient myself in the darkness. “Now.”

To my companions’ credit, they did not waste time arguing with me. Yoo Joonghyuk turned his own flashlight in the direction of the kitchen, holding out his sword. “I’ll make a path. You behind me, you in the back. We’ll push through now.”

We moved on his mark, following the wide swipes of his sword. Han Sooyoung made disgusted noises as she flailed her dagger at the shadows pursuing us, and from between the two of them, I swung the light wherever I sensed the creatures nearing.

We burst into the kitchen and I immediately identified what I was looking for: the small circle of floodlights the builders had left behind. They were not currently turned on, but the electricity in the house was clearly still working—the overhead lights still glowed faintly, though they were choked by the encroaching darkness. A strong enough light, I hoped, would cut through that aura.

“Whatever you’re doing, do it!” Han Sooyoung snapped at me, struggling to fend off the shadows leering in the entrance. Yoo Joonghyuk stepped up beside her, making short work of the first few, but more quickly flooded in. Claws began to wriggle up from the corners of the kitchen, as well.

Trying to catch my breath, I slid to my knees beside the floodlights and groped for the power cords. The ends on the lights themselves were plugged in, but the other end of the cord was coiled halfway across the room.

I made a dash for it, swinging the flashlight in the faces of the shadows that leered from the walls. My shaking hands found the plug, but as I staggered back to my feet, I realized I didn’t know where the actual outlet was.

The shivering beam of my flashlight darted over the walls, barely holding steady enough for me to get a good enough look to check. The shapes of the shadow creatures multiplied by the second.

“Kim Dokja!” Han Sooyoung yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I need the outlet!” I called. “I’m plugging in the lights!”

“Well, where the fuck is—ah!”

She staggered back. I couldn’t tell if she’d been hit or had leaned back in time to avoid the strike.

“The contestant in black is still keeping his early lead!” the dokkaebi narrated. “Contestant in white, you’ve still got zero kills! Better step it up!”

In a spot of incredible luck, Yoo Joonghyuk’s flashlight darted across the room as he stepped up to fill the space Han Sooyoung had left. In the momentary illumination, I caught a glimpse of both the wall outlet and an extension cord that was currently plugged into it.

I dove for the extension cord. I hit the ground as shadowy claws swung toward me, found the plug, and slammed the power cord in.

The flood lights turned on with a gentle click and the room was bathed in blinding white. I squeezed my eyes shut, then forced them back open, arms up to defend my face from the claws that were surely descending.

There was… nothing. I sat up and looked around in shock. The lights had burned away every spot of darkness in the room, and with it, the creatures had evaporated.

I instantly looked to Han Sooyoung, but she was on her feet, grimacing at what seemed to be a shallow scratch on her shoulder. “Ugh. All right, I’ll admit it, this isn’t a normal dokkaebi… I am going to rinse this client for providing us with false information.”

“…Well, that appears to be thirty-four kills to white, twenty-nine to black, and eleven to purple,” the dokkaebi said, sounding hesitant. “Once again, it seems the contestant in white has won on a technicality… Let me just consult with the exalted judge for a moment.”

Han Sooyoung shuffled towards me, scowling with her hand planted on her shoulder. “Any idea what we’re dealing with yet?”

I closed my eyes, trying to focus. Everything we had seen would make sense if I could just arrange the information in its proper order. “The dokkaebi isn’t working alone. He really does have a master whose power is causing the spirit world distortion. The master must have been here all along, but only the dokkaebi has been making moves until now, harassing the builders and whatnot. Something about us coming here triggered the master to wake up.”

“More guessing,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, shooting me a glare.

“It’s trapped in the house,” I snapped back. “There’s absolutely no reason for an entity of this strength to be living in a brand-new, empty house if it was able to move somewhere else. Dokkaebis aren’t bound to specific locations; if it’s a high-grade dokkaebi running this game to mess with us, I can’t think of any reason why it would be here.”

“We must have been lied to about the land,” Han Sooyoung said. “Something happened here, something big, that trapped a high-grade spirit here.”

“The shrine,” I said. “You said it was destroyed twenty years ago—were any other houses built near that shrine in the time since?”

Han Sooyoung groped awkwardly for her notebook. “I don’t think so—”

“Contestants!” The dokkaebi called. “After discussing the matter with the exalted judge of this game, we have concluded that the previous two challenges have not been a true test of skill. As a result, the next round will be a special, all-or-nothing round!”

I didn’t want to be playing the game, but somehow, having my victories made meaningless still stung. “This is a really unfair game you’re running, you know.”

“It doesn’t have to be fair, so long as it’s entertaining!” the dokkaebi said. “Now then—come along, round three is about to begin.”

The whole house tilted. I cried out in alarm as we slid uncontrollably towards the exit of the kitchen and back into the adjoining hallway. Like marbles caught in a maze, we fell helplessly as gravity directed until we were deposited back in the lobby. There, the floor evened out, letting us clamber back to our feet and brush off the dust.

That struck me as odd—it was the first time he’d directly moved us out of a room. That must have taken a lot of power. There was something about that kitchen…

“The final challenge,” the dokkaebi said, “is cunning. The rules are incredibly simple. All you must do is hide! If you can avoid being found by the master the longest, you win the prize! But if he finds you… well, we will start the blood sacrifices right away!”

Right, the blood sacrifice. What types of spirits demanded blood sacrifices? It was not a long list.

“May I introduce you to your game master and judge,” the dokkaebi continued, “the exalted, the undefeated, the sleepless power… the Demon King, dialing in straight from the 73^rd circle of Hell!”

Another voice rose from the lobby—a voice of pure vibration, thrumming in my bones. It laughed softly, and even that subtle noise caused shooting pain in both ears. It said, in the tones of tectonic plates scraping in the depths of the Earth: “TWENTY.”

My blood ran cold. The final piece of the puzzle snapped into place and the severity of our situation became horrifically apparent.

“Run and hide!” the dokkaebi advised. “Quickly, quickly! Whoever avoids my Master the longest wins our wonderful prize!”

Again, the eldritch intonation of the Demon King assaulted my eardrums: “NINETEEN.”

I grabbed the shoulders of both Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung, knowing I had only seconds to communicate my plan. I kept my voice to a whisper. “If that catches us, it will kill us. We need to scatter, then regroup in the kitchen.”

Han Sooyoung’s eyebrow twitched. “Why the kitchen again...?”

“EIGHTEEN.”

I grimaced through the pain of the Demon King’s voice. “Spirit world distortions work by projecting ‘themes’. But the kitchen is still under construction, which means it won’t fully adhere to the theme yet. His distortion is weaker there. If you use your charms on the kitchen window, we can get out.”

“SEVENTEEN.”

“But we have to make it look good,” I hissed. “Go one at a time. Han Sooyoung first and, once you make the doorway, leave. If we all go at once or sit there waiting for each other, it will find us immediately. Okay, let’s go!”

I didn’t give them time to disagree, rushing off. Han Sooyoung let out a startled “Hey!”, but Yoo Joonghyuk silently followed my instructions and headed off in a different direction. With a string of muttered curses, Han Sooyoung disappeared towards the kitchen.

I dashed up the stairs to the second-floor landing, then turned the hallway corner and waited in an area where I could still see the lobby. Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk were long gone, so the only thing I could see was the dokkaebi, which had formed out of the darkness in the center of the room and seemed to be contentedly waiting for its master to arrive.

Whether it was a curse or a blessing, I wasn’t sure, but the Demon King counted slowly. My ears rang painfully, and as he finally started to approach zero, I felt a warm trickle run from my left ear. When I touched my face and brought it up to my eyes in the low light, I saw a bright smudge of blood.

Yes—this thing was a King among spirits, an entity so powerful that its avatars could influence the very fabric of the world, imposing the spirit world on our reality. The three of us, with our meager skills and weapons, could never do anything more than run from it.

To tell the truth, even escaping alive was borderline impossible. I had sent Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk off with a plan, but it was still missing a vital piece. There was simply no way the Demon King wouldn’t notice someone escaping his domain and immediately close in on the source—not if he wasn’t thoroughly distracted.

“ZERO,” the Demon King’s voice shuddered from the lobby. I watched a huge shape form out of the darkness: long claws, a pair of horns, and dark, sweeping wings. The dokkaebi, still crouched in the middle of the lobby, immediately prostrated itself.

The Demon King chuckled at a pitch so low it was barely audible. “HERE I COME.”

I hissed in a breath. The house was silent; I had no idea whether Han Sooyoung had succeeded in making her doorway and whether Yoo Joonghyuk was also on his way to escape. Still, I had no choice but to act right away if I wanted to give them their opening.

I stood and walked out into the open. The dokkaebi, seeing me, leapt to its feet with a startled yelp.

Somehow, in the moment, my fear all drained away. I felt weightless as I moved onto the landing. “Great Demon King. According to the rules of your game, I have already won. Honor your contract with us and give me your prize.”

“OH?” the great head of the Demon King, vaguely deerlike in shape, swung towards me. I was on the second level and it on the first, still our eyes were nearly level. “I SPOKE NO CONTRACT WITH YOU.”

I grit my teeth to keep my voice even through the pain throbbing in my ears. “You staked your name on your game, and by the words of your servant, I was the victor. A pact cannot be so easily broken.”

To be honest, I knew well enough this thing had spoken no binding contract. It had used its servant to deliver the rules of the game; thus it didn’t have to be bound by the normal laws of the demonic, though only on a technicality. Nonetheless, I hoped that by targeting its pride I could compel its attention.

The Demon King laughed, making the floor and ceiling shudder. “SO WILLING TO LET THE OTHERS DIE. IT AMUSES ME.”

“I don’t care if I amuse you,” I replied. “I’m demanding you honor your word. I’ve already won two out of three challenges, so if this is the final challenge, there’s no way I can lose. Declare me the winner.”

“MAKING DEMANDS… OF A DEMON KING…” The strength of its voice, to my surprise, seemed to be fading somewhat. Projecting itself in such a fearsome form would be a significant power drain. The more I could get it to speak, the better the chance the others had of getting out. “VERY, VERY FOOLISH. BIHYUNG. BRING HIM.”

“Right away, Master!” the dokkaebi squeaked. His presence appeared suddenly on the wall behind me, and before I could react, he wrapped one small but rock-hard arm around my neck and yanked me backwards.

For a second it felt like I was falling through a pitch-black waterfall, and then I hit the floor, gasping for air. As I tried to get back to my feet, I realized that the dokkaebi had pulled me through the shadows of the wall, then brought me out of the floor of the lobby—right at the feet of the Demon King.

“How long were you trapped in that shrine?” I asked, forcing the words out. Focus on me for just a little longer.

“HUNDREDS… THOUSANDS…” The massive form of the Demon King loomed towards me. I lurched away on instinct, but couldn’t escape its claws closing around my neck. “YOU MORTALS… YOU THOUGHT TO SEAL ME AWAY… BUT FOOLS THAT YOU ARE… YOU ALWAYS, EVENTUALLY, FORGET.”

And there, with that final puzzle piece, the ‘story’ that had been whispering to me began to speak in a low hum.

You have forgotten the name of the story, but you know it still, it seemed to say. There were ordinary people who tried to live in peace, and there was an evil demon king who reigned over them from his infernal palace. The demon king freely slaughtered the people to gain more power, and caused them to fight each other for his amusement.

A cruel king and a beaten-down populace. Yes, it was a familiar tale. Han Sooyoung might have called it cliché.

Through great sacrifice and effort, the people gathered their strength and all their clever arts to create a seal. Though many were lost in the fight, the seal was finished, the Demon King overthrown, his palace destroyed. He was locked in the earth for as long as memory endured.

And how long did memory endure?

Memory fades. This story was disrupted as it was passed along, and eventually, forgotten. The seal was inherited by others, who made it into an ordinary shrine. Then even that began to crumble. Then the evil king felt a faint breeze on his face and knew that his time would soon come again.

No doubt the dilapidated building had become dangerous, and as modern society encroached, some official had decided it needed to be destroyed. This followed Han Sooyoung’s research. I encouraged the story to finish its conclusion.

Too weak to yet move, the Demon King slept. The story’s strength faded, conveyed to me in the vaguest of touches. For ten, then twenty years it slept… until its theme once again began to resonate. The Demon King’s destroyed palace was being rebuilt. Now its power could dwell in this world once again.

It was down to bad timing. Of all the places to build such an ostentatious mansion, of course it had been within reach of the dilapidated seal. Ugly Western mansion worth more money than you’ll ever see at once and Palace of a Demon King were certainly two thematically resonant ideas.

After a time, the story whispered, people came. First, ordinary people, whose fear was used to fuel the Demon King’s powers. Then, you. From now on, the story is yours. The touch on my mind lifted; its message complete. Unfinished, for now… but I knew how this story ended.

My only comfort, as the Demon King lifted me off my feet and tightened its grip around my neck, was that my measly sacrifice should only provide it with a handful of spiritual calories. Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk would escape, report a high-grade spirit manifestation, and the government would send in a whole team… that would end it for good.

My body fought back automatically. I kicked my feet and clawed at the Demon King’s hands as my vision blurred, no longer able to draw breath.

“FOOL.” The Demon King said. Inches from its face, its voice was unbearable. Dark smoke poured from the blank spaces where its eyes should be, flooding over my head and blocking my eyes.

And then—suddenly, I was falling.

For the second time that day, my falling body struck someone trying to catch me, though this time it was a smaller and less muscular body. I took her down with me.

“You idiot!” she seethed at me as we both went sprawling. “What is wrong with you!”

My heart jumped in my chest—why was Han Sooyoung still here? As my vision cleared and oxygen re-entered my lungs, I looked up and saw the reason that the Demon King had dropped me. Yoo Joonghyuk had run up the stairs, leapt off them, and sliced through the Demon King’s neck on his arc through the air. Now, he was hanging onto the second-floor landing by one arm.

The Demon King stood silently, its head floating detached from its neck, for just a moment. Then, the shadows of its body knitted back together as it emitted another gravelly chuckle. “GOOD. MY SACRIFICES. BIHYUNG, HOLD THEM DOWN. I WAS NOT FINISHED.”

I staggered back to my feet, but there was little I could do as multiple dokkaebi arms reached from the shadows around the room, hooking around the wrists and ankles of my teammates. Damn it, why the hell hadn’t they left? They squandered their only chance of escape. Now all three of us…

Wait. He had called those two his sacrifices, which meant…

“CONGRATULATIONS,” The Demon King hissed. Its body began to collapse into billowing smoke, rushing towards me. I felt my body stiffen, paralyzed.

As the Demon King’s body completely vanished, its voice resonated once more: “YOU HAVE WON THE PRIZE OF BECOMING MY INCARNATION.”

The smoke reached me, blanketing my vision and funneling into my mouth and nose. My body jerked as if on puppet-strings, then slumped.

When the Demon King next spoke, it was not in the sepulchral tones which had been buzzing throughout the room. Instead, he straightened my body, flexed my hands, and spoke through my mouth: “Ah, here we are. Embodied at last. Needs a little work, though…”

I was trapped in my own body, unable to move or speak. I could still feel it—vaguely—when shadows extended from my forehead and back, forming into the Demon King’s horns and wings.

This… was the worst-case scenario. Now that he was possessing me, he could walk out of here whenever he liked. Once he had a couple of high-value blood sacrifices under his belt like Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk, his power would be considerable.

Please run, I tried to beg them, but I had zero means of conveying my thoughts. The Demon King cast my eyes around the room and I saw Yoo Joonghyuk, with a flash of his blade, break free from the dokkaebi’s arms. Han Sooyoung, too, wriggled out of their grip and rolled to her feet.

“Kim Dokja…” Han Sooyoung said hesitantly, searching my face. She was gripping her silver dagger in both hands. “You are such a moron for letting it come to this.”

Is this the time for that? I wanted to demand. I tried desperately to exert any control over my body, but it was useless.

I felt my mouth curve into a grin. More shadows formed at my hand, solidifying into a black sword. “Now this is entertainment. Bihyung. Exits.”

Darkness curled across the exits to the room, trapping us all in the lobby. When Han Sooyoung’s eyes flicked towards the rising shadows, the Demon King used the opening to dart towards her, sword aimed at her throat.

Stop! I tried with all my might to slow the strike and failed. Luckily, someone else stepped in—Yoo Joonghyuk dropped in from above and effortlessly blocked my strike with his blade, expression dark.

“Don’t lose focus,” he snapped at Han Sooyoung. “Do something about the possession.”

“What the hell do you think I can do?” Han Sooyoung demanded, but I saw the faint spark of an idea coming into her eyes even as she complained. She backed up, reaching into her bag.

The Demon King tried to pursue but was blocked again by Yoo Joonghyuk.

“I am your opponent,” Yoo Joonghyuk bit out. “Strike me down first, if you can.”

When the Demon King laughed through my mouth, it was a bit of a pathetic-sounding, wheezing noise. “Such confidence! I like it. You’re spirit-touched, aren’t you? I can sense it even from here. Your blood is quite valuable.”

Yoo Joonghyuk pressed his attack, ignoring the provocation. The Demon King’s power was strengthening my body, making it possible for me to effortlessly push back against his assault. The blades clashed several times in movements so swift I could not track them, despite my arms literally being the ones to move.

The Demon King grit my teeth. “Your level of skill outpaces your apparent age. Interesting.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was silent, turning the Demon King’s blade away. For a second, he had an opening with which to stab, but instead used it to kick me center-mass, forcing the Demon King to stagger back.

The Demon King chuckled and straightened up. A dull throb of pain went through my stomach. “Holding back because my incarnation is your friend, are you?”

Yoo Joonghyuk rushed forward, pressing his advantage, but the Demon King defended without much effort. The swords met, their grapple only broken when one of the Demon King’s wings flashed in to knock Yoo Joonghyuk off-balance.

Once again my heart jumped to my throat, but Yoo Joonghyuk avoided the following sword strike, coming back up with murder in his eyes.

Just kill me, I thought helplessly. It’s better for everyone. You have to destroy the Demon King while he’s weak, before he’s absorbed any sacrifices.

The Demon King chuckled. “He says he wants you to kill him. Isn’t that sweet?”

“He’s an idiot,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied steadily. His stance was solid, but I could see he was out of breath.

“He volunteered for this, you know. Left you behind to become a sacrifice. There’s no sense in saving him.”

Although the words stung, I hoped for half a second that Yoo Joonghyuk would believe them, if it would make it more likely for him to kill me. He, however, registered no visual response and just said, “I will save him anyway.”

What… the hell was this guy’s deal? Trying to play the hero. This was a Demon King—it was way above either of our pay grades. We’d need a whole team just to subdue him, and Yoo Joonghyuk thought he could take him on without fighting to kill? This guy didn’t even like me. What was happening here?

“Hah—even he knows you’re doomed,” the Demon King chuckled. “Well, the more agony I can pack into this, the better quality the sacrifice. Keep trying, little incarnation! Maybe you can stop me from killing him if you try really, really hard. I’ll even relinquish my control just a little to help you out.”

I suddenly found myself with the ability to twitch my fingertips. I knew the Demon King was toying with me, but I couldn’t stop myself from fighting back with renewed intensity, trying to force him to let go of the sword. I felt my face twitching with the effort.

Yoo Joonghyuk darted in again and my tiny allowance of control vanished, the Demon King slapping the blade away and dancing back. “Oh, he did really try there! I was surprised. You know, the full concentration of a mortal almost has the same effect on me as that of a fruit fly.”

“Shut up,” Yoo Joonghyuk grunted. I had to agree. As soon as it didn’t cost him a huge amount of power to speak, this guy had a lot of stupid stuff to say with my mouth.

“Something has occurred to me,” the Demon King continued, sizing up Yoo Joonghyuk. “It’s almost a shame to waste someone like you on a blood sacrifice. If we’re speaking in terms of skill, not technicalities, it was really you who won my little competition.”

Dread curled in my gut. Be careful, Yoo Joonghyuk…

“I let this guy convince me, but…” the Demon King let out a little cackle as it made a quick darting movement with the sword, leaving a slice on Yoo Joonghyuk’s arm. “I didn’t write up a contract. I’ve got a banquet to choose from here. Why limit myself?”

The Demon King stepped back and I felt it suddenly exert power, something it had evidently been avoiding throughout the fight thus far. The difference was instantly noticeable. The shadows grew tall around us, writhing over my skin, cold and sharp.

Yoo Joonghyuk moved like a whirlwind, slicing the rising shadows into shreds before they could touch him. I watched him in shock. Maybe I had underestimated him. Maybe we had never even approached Yoo Joonghyuk’s limits in our limited casework so far. Maybe he could really…

He was suddenly in front of me, sword at my chest. At the last second, he pulled back and raised his fist instead.

But the shadows writhing off my skin snapped out. Some wound back around my throat, some hooked around his fist to hold it back, and the rest curled around his sword arm and the hilt of the silver spirit-hunter’s blade.

“Oh, don’t bore me,” the Demon King hissed. “You never finish what you start, you mortals. That’s what I hate about you the most.”

With a single swift, inexorable motion, the shadows snapped together, driving Yoo Joonhyuk’s sword straight through my ribs and into my heart.

Chapter Text

Right as it forced Yoo Joonghyuk to stab me through the heart, the Demon King released the possession, flooding out of my body in a pool of shadows.

I heard myself make a horrible noise, strength instantly vanishing from my legs. Damn it… it would leave my body before I died, escaping unharmed and moving into Yoo Joonghyuk. My plan had fallen completely to pieces.

“Kim Dokja. Kim Dokja.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword was still lodged in my ribs, and he caught me as I slumped over, lowering me to the ground. “No, I…”

As I faded, I caught a glimpse of his face. Something about his pale, drawn expression seemed almost familiar. It’s okay, just run, Yoo Joonghyuk… if this thing possesses you…

In my last moments of consciousness, I heard a familiar voice ring out at full volume: “Get him in the circle, right the fuck now!”

I was moved suddenly across the room. I could taste blood in my mouth, perhaps from a punctured lung. The floor rose to meet me again and I leaned into it, eyes open but unseeing. I was so very tired.

“I seal you,” Han Sooyoung shouted as I drifted off. Her voice was so faint I could barely make it out. “I seal you, ancient demon, in this place of power!”

I felt something… stop. Cold shadows had been pouring from my skin this whole time, but now I felt them jerk back towards me, flowing in reverse.

The Demon King’s voice resonated in my head. What… is this…?

“I seal you in your incarnation!” Han Sooyoung’s voice continued. My failing vision picked up lines of red power rising from the floor, burning in the containment array she had etched on the lobby tiles while the Demon King and Yoo Joonghyuk had been fighting. “You’re stuck in there now, you bastard! Fix him or you’ll die together!”

No, the Demon King said. I felt its power return to my body, horns and wings reforming, ice filling my veins. No, no, no! This is over! You forgot! No one alive remembers the ritual!

The tiniest smile twitched the muscle at the corner of my mouth. No one alive remembers… but if someone dead remembered, they may have left a record. And if there was a record, Han Sooyoung could find it. Even if she could only find a piece… she could write the rest herself.

I slipped out of consciousness and, with my heart speared through with silver, died. There was a brief stretch of nothingness in my mind.

A few moments later, I woke up gasping at the sudden lurch of my heart restarting. The sword was slowly exiting my body.

You utter fools, the Demon King’s voice rang in my head. As if this means anything. I’ll just sacrifice the other two and walk out of here all the same.

Cold shadows squeezed my heart again and again until it kept pumping. Then, the Demon King resumed full control and stopped my undignified thrashing, moving me smoothly to my feet and grabbing the hilt of the sword that was still partially embedded in my chest.

It pulled the blade out with one swift motion, flicking blood and shadows off its edge. The Demon King locked eyes with Han Sooyoung, who was standing in front of me with her phone inches from her face, evidently casting the ritual from something she had saved on it.

The Demon King rushed towards her, but as soon as it tried to step outside the burning red array etched on the lobby floor, it was stopped by a thrumming force.

It hissed through my mouth, an inhuman noise not helped by the blood I was apparently gurgling. “I will peel the blood vessels from your eyes, you idiotic wench.”

Han Sooyoung raised an eyebrow. She looked frazzled and her hair was stuck across her forehead in sweat, but when she looked at the Demon King behind my eyes, her expression was confident and cruel. “I’m sorry, did you just call me a wench? Did you update your vocabulary at all over the past thousand years? I’m never going to let Kim Dokja forget he said the word wench at me.”

“It’s not like you can do anything more than make me angry,” the Demon King said. “You’ve sealed me in the body of your friend, so I suppose you could attempt to kill me, though that negates all your effort in getting me to fix his broken little body.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Han Sooyoung said, “did you not notice who is still in that circle with you?”

The Demon King actually flinched, which was novel. A presence had risen up behind us, and in that moment the Demon King must also have been feeling the imposing height difference between myself and Yoo Joonghyuk.

“As I said,” the Demon King repeated, brandishing Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword in one hand and his own shadowy blade in the other, “Trying to kill me is pointless.”

Yoo Joonghyuk wordlessly punched me in the stomach.

The air gasped out of my lungs, and as my body automatically doubled over, Yoo Joonghyuk grabbed me and threw me back to the floor. Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword slid out of my grasp, which he quickly grabbed and then stepped back out of the circle.

The Demon King attempted to stand, but my body had taken too much damage to make that easy. He was weak, I realized, too weak to effectively fight. We were never going to have a better chance to deal with him, but how did those two expect to…?

Something shattered in the lobby. One of the tall, fancy windows suddenly had a massive hole in it, and beneath it, showered by the falling shards, stood Yoo Joonghyuk. He’d broken it with a targeted, forceful hit with the hilt of his sword.

As the Demon King panted air back into my lungs and tried to stand, Han Sooyoung made a face at what she was reading on her phone. “Ugh, do I really have to say all this? It’s so…”

Yoo Joonghyuk broke another window. Shadows coiled in the frames, blocking the way outside. “Hurry up.”

“Great Demon King,” Han Sooyoung said, nose wrinkling. “I call on the powers of the heavens to smite you. Be banished, be banished."

The red array thrummed, and I felt something pass through me and attack the shadows that were dwelling in my body. The Demon King hissed out in pain, spitting up blood. “You’ll regret having begun this. Bihyung, stop them.”

“I… I’ll try, Master!” the dokkaebi said, rising up from the shadows in the corner. It moved sluggishly, the greater part of its power sealed away along with the Demon King.

Yoo Joonghyuk took a break from breaking windows to slice the dokkaebi in half. The two parts dissolved with a startled shriek. Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his eyes, waiting to see if it was gone for good, then returned to his work.

With every broken window, the Demon King flinched. Of course—Yoo Joonghyuk was weakening the Demon King’s ‘theme’. The less grand and palatial the mansion, the less resonance it would have with the Demon King, and the thinner his hold on this world became.

Han Sooyoung continued chanting, the look on her face making it clear that she would very much rather have Yoo Joonghyuk’s job. The red circle etched on the floor glowed brighter and brighter, and the humming energy passing through me intensified.

Worryingly, the Demon King laughed under my breath as the ritual continued. With a sudden effort of will, he got my body back on its feet and shuffled to the edge of the circle where he could stare at Han Sooyoung eye-to-eye.

“Banishment,” the Demon King chuckled. “Even your ancestors weren’t so bold. Go ahead and try it. You’ll not like what happens.”

Han Sooyoung ignored him and continued her chant, attempting to project her voice around the room. The scale of Yoo Joonghyuk’s destruction quickly became awe-inspiring. I had never seen such an expensive home be so utterly ruined with such brutal efficiency. Every piece of exposed wood was slashed and splintered, the walls were scratched to shreds, and he kicked out chunks of the banister as he mounted the stairs.

If we somehow managed to get out of this alive, were we going to be sued within an inch of our lives?

The Demon King stood steady as another wave of power rose from the circle. Once again it passed straight through me without causing any harm, but I could feel it burning him away. “Go on… you’ll soon realize… the pointlessness of this.”

Han Sooyoung’s eyebrow twitched as she continued the ritual. She seemed to be nearing the end, and she dialed in a little extra volume as she repeated: “Be banished, be banished!”

At that moment, there was a terrific crash as Yoo Joonghyuk cut down the crystal chandelier and it fell to the floor about ten feet away from me, exploding into sparks, glass, and prismatic light. Bits of crystal shot all over the room, and I saw several roll down the hallway. Hey, that meant—the shadows were no longer blocking the hallway. The spirit world distortion was gone.

There was a great pulling sensation from the circle, and the shadows clinging to me were sucked down as if into a vacuum. The Demon King gritted my teeth and remained steady. The force of the circle was strong, but even in his weakened state, the Demon King could resist with a small effort of concentration. The effect would only last for a limited time, after which he could escape both the circle and my body, resuming the blood sacrifice.

However, it’s surprisingly easy to break someone’s concentration if the distraction comes from a place they don’t expect. By then, the Demon King had tuned out Han Sooyoung’s voice and Yoo Joonghyuk’s terrifying whirlwind of destruction, but there was one person he seemed to have forgotten about.

Sure, I apparently only had the capacity to annoy him, but getting annoyed at the wrong moment can prove fatal.

I tried to seize control of my body with every ounce of strength that remained in me. The Demon King had been so focused on resisting the circle that I actually managed to lurch to the side before he caught his balance, snarling. Useless fool. You know there’s nothing you can do.

I kept fighting anyway, focusing all my intent on my left hand, which was still clutching the Demon King’s shadowy blade. The hand jerked back and forth as I attempted to raise it to my throat. He would easily realize if I was bluffing, so I didn’t bluff. I really went for it with everything I had.

Stop it! He snapped. He pulled his attention back to me just long enough for the seal to rip a chunk of his shadows out of me, making him roar in pain. The more he focused on the circle, the higher my left hand raised, and the more he focused on me, the more the circle ate of him.

I felt strangely… pleased. The Demon King was panicking, and I was calm. I could feel the cold edge of the blade nearing my skin and the vein beating hard beneath it. Almost there.

He fell to his knees and grabbed my left hand with my right, trying to physically wrestle me into place. At that moment his concentration broke and the circle blazed completely to life, hellfire leaping off its surface. He screamed, all the shadows suddenly eaten up and consumed by flames and light.

You—he thought at me, fury in his voice as he evaporated. You, also—

And then, his presence completely vanished. I was kneeling on the lobby floor, gasping for breath in the sudden silence. I let go of my own wrist and stared dumbly at my hands for a moment, having forgotten what it felt like to move my own body.

With a pathetic flicker, the lights in the house turned back on—sans chandelier, of course— and revealed an absolute disaster zone. Han Sooyoung’s sealing array was scorched into the floor all around me, covered in shattered crystals. The windows were broken, and every surface Yoo Joonghyuk had been able to reach had been thoroughly dismantled and destroyed. Pools of blood, mostly from me, now scattered the once pristine tiles.

Han Sooyoung dropped to her knees in front of me and grabbed my face. “Hey. Kim Dokja. I swear to God, if you’re not in there, I’m going to—”

“I’m here,” I said shakily. There was not a single part of my body that was free of pain. “Did you just… banish a Demon King?”

“We just banished a Demon King,” Han Sooyoung declared, suddenly grinning with pride. “What do you think? Not too bad for a writer, huh? I figured out exactly what happened, that the shrine used to be a seal—improvised a ritual based on what records I had from the previous—Hey!”

I did not get to hear the rest of her self-commendation as black spots filled my vision, whisking me away into a dead faint.

Several things, I am told, happened while I was unconscious. An ambulance was called while Han Sooyoung confirmed my pulse was still beating. Afterwards, Han Sooyoung had an interesting conversation with our client. We had, after all, not only destroyed the lobby of his expensive mansion, but also planted a seal on it that was currently ensuring the 73^rd Demon King stayed in Hell. It was now totally unfit for human habitation.

I believe we only got out of being sued due to Han Sooyoung threatening to counter-sue about us being subject to deadly hazards on the job. We did not get paid.

I woke up some time later in a hospital bed feeling oddly well-rested. After receiving a blood transfusion to replace what was currently being steam-cleaned off the mansion floor, I found myself recovering almost immediately.

Han Sooyoung, somewhat surprisingly, had hardly left my side, though when I asked her about it, she scoffed and insisted she wasn’t worried, she was just curious. Because—well, we’d all seen me get stabbed through the literal heart and die. That seemed likely to have left some kind of damage.

The prognosis, though, was that I had hit a brilliant spot of good luck for perhaps the first time in my life. The specialist for paranormal injuries the hospital had in, a foreigner called Dr.  Aileen Makersfield, was fascinated by my situation.

“You sustained a deadly injury,” she said, “but as of right now, your heart is beating just fine. Very healthy, strong, like someone who has been cardio training for years.”

Han Sooyoung snorted at that, but I ignored her. “So, everything’s fine…?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dr. Makersfield cautioned me. “Our instruments still can’t detect these things with any specificity, but there is certainly some force that is keeping your heart going. It seems to be fully self-sustaining, from what I can tell, but if that were to change…”

Somehow, I didn’t need her to tell me this. If I concentrated, I could feel that there was still a demonic power inside me, persistently pressing my heart into each beat. It didn’t hurt or anything, but it was definitely there.

“Well—can’t you guys do anything about that?” Han Sooyoung demanded.

The doctor let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “I’m sorry. Even specialists like myself… when it comes to the paranormal, there’s just so much we don’t understand. Anything we try is likely to only make things worse. All we can do now is keep an eye on it.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” I said. “I’m still alive, so I’ll take it.”

The doctor left, intending to start the process to officially discharge me. Han Sooyoung and I sat in silence for a moment.

“Getting possessed is a really stupid look for you,” she said.

I had been waiting for this. “Okay, well…”

“You’re lucky it was too dark to take a video, or you’d see yourself running around without shoes on while cackling, and, by the way, calling me a wench?”

“That wasn’t me…”

She smirked. “It was your mouth that insulted me, so I expect some kind of reparations for that.”

I wasn’t sure what accounted for a normal apology for this sort of thing, never mind an apology for something said while possessed. “Uh, I’ll buy you lunch?”

“That’s the least you could do,” she declared, but let up, apparently satisfied.

I, however, still had questions. “After I told you to escape… Why did you come back?”

“Are you stupid?” she asked. She leaned on the palm of her hand, staring at me like I really was an idiot. “Why am I just doing whatever you say? Your plans are terrible.”

“It almost resulted in all three of us dying.”

“It did not. I knew I could pull off a sealing ritual—you should have just relied on me instead of pulling that stunt.”

“You didn’t seem that confident at the time.”

“I was confident. You’re just dense.” She let out a harsh sigh. “Anyway… that Demon King had a loud voice, you know. We could hear him talking to you. Obviously, we were going to come back and help.”

I frowned at her. “I still don’t get it…”

She smacked me on the head. “Don’t hurt yourself trying to make those gears turn then, just talk to me first next time. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly like I could leave after Yoo Joonghyuk rushed back for you…”

“Speaking of which,” I muttered. A shadow had eclipsed the doorway while we talked and had stopped dead in it.

I had fully been planning to give Yoo Joonghyuk shit for stabbing me through the heart and then beating me up afterwards, but when I saw his face, the reprimands suddenly died on my tongue. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his expression seemed oddly… fragile. This was not a word I would have ever expected to use anywhere near the vicinity of Yoo Joonghyuk, so it left me somewhat speechless.

“There you are,” Han Sooyoung said, slamming through the tense atmosphere with the grace of a freight train. “Good news, this guy’s a medical freak with a demonic pacemaker. Clean bill of health, just lightly cursed.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s throat worked for a second, and then his face utterly emptied of expression. “I’m quitting your company.”

“What?” Han Sooyoung said, startled. “No, you’re not. You can’t quit.”

“You are quitting too,” he said, then he glanced over at me. “Both of you. After an experience like that, you can’t possibly still be going along with that woman’s money-making scheme.”

“Hey, it’s not a money-making scheme, I just…”

“I don’t intend to quit,” I said calmly.

Both of them turned to look at me in surprise. Even Han Sooyoung seemed sheepish, muttering, “Well, if you did want to quit to after something like this, I…”

“I don’t. I’ll keep taking cases with you.” I looked at Yoo Joonghyuk next. “Why are you quitting?”

His fists clenched and unclenched. “I made critical mistakes. Mistakes you almost paid for with your life.”

“Well, from my perspective, you actually saved us multiple times,” I pointed out. “Actually, I’m sure that if Han Sooyoung and I had gone in alone, we’d both be dead.”

Han Sooyoung scowled and muttered something about how she wasn’t so sure about that, though she had to know I was correct.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes sought mine and his expression darkened. “Kim Dokja. You have a death wish.”

I tried to form a smile against the blunt accusation. “I do?”

“I did not enjoy watching you attempt to get yourself killed multiple times last night,” he said, voice flat. It occurred to me that this might be the most words I had ever heard this man speak at once. “Given the choice, I would prefer not to be a part of that again.”

“It’s not a death wish,” I insisted, waving a hand dismissively. “It was the only viable plan I could think of that let any of us get out alive. You’re the one with the death wish, rushing back in to fight a Demon King when you had a perfectly viable means of escaping.”

He glared at me wordlessly, and I shrugged. “Okay, it’s not like I can force you. I understand. You said you didn’t want to work with me to begin with, so I can’t exactly complain if you quit. It’s been, uh. Nice working with you.”

The conclusion of my statement was so lame I saw both of their faces briefly contract. Finally, Yoo Joonghyuk said, “you don’t intend to quit.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’ll keep getting yourself into these situations.”

I scratched at the back of my head. “Well—ideally, I’d like to stick to entities within our actual pay grade…”

“Fine. I won’t quit. But I don’t want to end up in this situation again.” He turned to leave.

Suddenly, I was struck by the need to say something. “Uh, Yoo Joonghyuk? You realize—the uh, stabbing me through the heart. That wasn’t your fault, right?”

“You’re an idiot,” he snapped, whisking out of the room with a flap of the black coat.

Han Sooyoung let out a long sigh through her nose. “…Well, dodged a bullet there. He’s like ninety-nine percent of our spirit hunting capability. I can’t afford for him to quit.”

“Yeah,” I said, lying back in my hospital bed and looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. “He’s … I mean, he went toe-to-toe with a Demon King. He’s actually way above our pay grade. How did you even get him on board?”

“I charmed him,” Han Sooyoung said with a straight face.

Despite being given a clean bill of health by Dr. Makersfield, the hospital insisted I be kept for one more night on observation, just in case the demonic energy in my heart gave off anything that was harmful to myself or others. I found the situation annoying, but couldn’t exactly argue with their logic, and so tried to settle in for an uncomfortable night.

Han Sooyoung left as darkness settled. I tossed and turned in the bed for a bit, still rotating the events of the previous night in my mind. The experiences were jumbled in my head as if being shaken in a jar, keeping me too on edge to sleep.

As I shifted and tried to get comfortable, something was gathering in the top corner of my hospital room. In a spot of blackness where the dim lights of the hallway didn’t reach, a small, almost childlike arm formed and reached partway down the wall. Soon, the rest of the creature pulled itself from the shadows, crawling on all fours, its eyes catching the faint light like twin coins.

It reached the floor and silently crept up on me. Its mouth opened around curved fangs, its eyes set in a deep scowl. One hand lifted towards the hospital bed, moving for my neck.

I sat up. “Bihyung.”

The dokkaebi scrambled back with a hiss, flattening itself into a defensive posture on the floor before rising back on two feet. “Human. You’ll die for your arrogance in banishing my Master.”

I looked at him quizzically. My heart beat slow. In the darkness of the hospital room, I felt shadows form at my forehead and back, blocking out the suggestion of horns and wings.

“Your master’s gone,” I told him. “He’s in Hell and he’s never coming back. But you want to kill me?”

I slid out of the bed and stood in front of him, my wings extending to full length. The creature before me shuddered, realization coming into his gleaming eyes, before he shakily lowered himself into a bow.

I couldn’t help but smile as I asked him the question: “Just which of us still has the power of the Demon King?”

Chapter Text

Though she had admittedly taken a bit of a pay cut when changing occupations, Han Sooyoung still had a few luxuries she held on to. One was the membership fee for her favourite gym.

It was an upscale gym representing a significant monthly investment, but its advantages firmly outweighed the costs: it was well-kept, somewhat private, and attended by enough influencers and borderline celebrities that no one there knew or cared who Han Sooyoung was. It had a great view of the city, too, perched on the third floor of a glass-walled building in a ritzy neighbourhood.

She did, if she was being honest, often enjoy the attention of being a popular author, but the gym was a place she went to obliterate her ego through endorphins. In this place, she did not care to be reminded that she existed as anything other than a body which, through some inscrutable natural law, existed to run on treadmills and lift weights with no extant obligations.

This was also a key part of her writing process. When she finally returned to full consciousness post-workout, it was often with the answer to a tough plot problem she had been chewing on all morning. That was when she had been actively writing, though. Nowadays… well, she had other problems to chew on.

Han Sooyoung was far enough into the usual ego disintegration as she stepped into the elevator that she hardly registered that someone else was already inside, going to the same floor. She generally preferred to pretend that the gym’s other clientele did not exist, which was lucky, because the influencers paid her the exact same courtesy.

The person in the elevator, however, said her name. “Sooyoung-ssi?”

The ego-less body that was Han Sooyoung took a moment to remember it was a person, after which Han Sooyoung took an actual look at who she had stepped into the elevator with. She stared, caught fully off guard. “Jung Heewon.”

Jung Heewon flashed her teeth in an unfriendly smile. She was dressed in anticipation of a workout, in a form-fitting athletic tank top that revealed sculpted, muscular shoulders. Damn it, Han Sooyoung could totally have shoulders like that too, if she wanted to do more strength training. “So, this is your gym. Maybe I should find another one.”

“I’m surprised you’d consider this one,” Han Sooyoung said dryly. “The cost is pretty high.”

“Our agency has been doing very well lately,” Jung Heewon said. The elevator began its smooth ascent. “I decided I could afford to visit some of the rich-people gyms. This one has a spa attached. Do you make use of that?”

Snapping you’re ruining my ego death! at her didn’t seem like it would solve anything, so Han Sooyoung just sighed. “Well, do what you want. It’s not like I can stop you.”

They rode the elevator in silence for a moment, after which Jung Heewon said, “Hey. How is Dokja-ssi? I heard about what happened.”

“He’s fine,” Han Sooyoung said with a shrug. “Annoyingly fine, actually. For all the worry he caused us, he’s right back on his feet like nothing happened… Hey, why are you asking me, anyway?”

Jung Heewon’s expression flickered. “He’s not been answering my texts lately.”

Han Sooyoung shifted. “Uh, yeah, he’s been… like that recently. Maybe he’s still recovering.”

“It’s been happening since before that whole fiasco with the Demon King,” Jung Heewon said. Her tone was light, though her eyes were sharp on Han Sooyoung’s expression. “I don’t suppose you’re aware of anything that happened?”

“What, am I the resident Kim Dokja expert?” she snapped. “How should I know why he’s not talking to you?”

“Sangah-ssi mentioned he is not talking to her either. You just seem to be the one who sees the most of him lately, because of your work.”

“Yeah, well, please go ask him yourself instead of bothering me about it.” The elevator arrived and emitted a soft ding.

To Han Sooyoung’s great affront, Jung Heewon stepped out first, then turned to block Han Sooyoung’s way.

“Just a suggestion for you,” Jung Heewon said. She had a way of standing that was not visibly threatening, but intimidatingly solid. “You’re a writer, not an expert on the supernatural. That last case of yours was one bad call away from killing my friend and becoming a national incident.”

“That’s rich coming from a bartender,” Han Sooyoung muttered. “And in any case, we handled it. I’d like to see how your team would have dealt with a surprise Demon King when you were only booked to clear out a dokkaebi.”

Jung Heewon just raised an eyebrow. “My team would have noticed early on that we were dealing with a high-grade spirit. Han Sooyoung, you are putting people at risk.”

“I’m doing this for a reason,” Han Sooyoung said, glaring up at Jung Heewon. “Look, you’re not the arbiter of who gets to investigate what, all right? Sorry if you’re mad that our company is outdoing yours, but we’re not giving up any time soon, so you’ll have to get over it.”

Han Sooyoung started to brush past Jung Heewon, but Jung Heewon shifted to block her. “Han Sooyoung. Quit this business before you get yourself or someone else killed.”

“I’ll think about it!” Han Sooyoung said brightly, darting around her. As she reached the other end of the hall, nearing the entrance to the gym, she called back, “I thought about it! I’m not doing that!”

Jung Heewon let out a harsh sigh, glanced consideringly back at the elevator, then looked down at her duffel bag. “…Well, I guess I can’t waste my entrance fee.”

Ego death was postponed indefinitely for the duration of Han Sooyoung’s gym visit, since now she had to be constantly on guard for the presence of Jung Heewon somewhere in the building. Seriously—what the hell did that woman think she was up to, anyway? This stupid rivalry of hers was entirely one-sided. Han Sooyoung did not care what Jung Heewon and the rest of her team did—not even a little—so long as they didn’t get in her way.

She took out her frustrations on the treadmill as best she could, but was distracted from moving on to punching bags when her phone buzzed. Sighing, she paused her music and picked up the call. It was coming through the company line, so she put on a professional voice: “Kim Dokja’s Paranormal Investigations Company.” She regretted that stupid name daily.

“Oh, hello, Sooyoung-ssi.” Han Sooyoung recognized the caller as none other than Yoo Sangah, the mutual acquaintance who Jung Heewon had referenced just a brief time ago. “Is it a bad time? I wanted to discuss something with you.”

“This better not be about Kim Dokja again,” Han Sooyoung muttered, reaching for her water bottle.

“Again?” Yoo Sangah prompted, tone innocent.

“Ugh, nothing. Just getting the third degree from people about that guy lately.”

“Well, it’s not about Dokja-ssi specifically. I had actually hoped to consult your company about a haunting.”

“Oh?” Han Sooyoung perked up. Considering that Yoo Sangah was familiar with both Han Sooyoung and Jung Heewon’s agencies, the fact that she had called Han Sooyoung first was satisfying. “Well, give me the details, then.”

The story was brief: Yoo Sangah’s aunt was living in an old Seoul apartment that had been declared officially free of hauntings, but that residents insisted was causing supernatural experiences.

It seemed that, when someone returned home after the sun had set, there was a small chance that they would become disoriented as they climbed the steps toward their unit. The building suddenly appeared longer and its apartments more numerous. If they allowed their muscle memory to take them to their apartment door and open it, they would end up in what had been colloquially labeled as “the wrong room”.

“And what is the ‘wrong room’, exactly?” Han Sooyoung prompted.

“Even my aunt can’t convey many details…” Yoo Sangah admitted. “All I have understood so far is that they end up in an apartment that isn’t theirs, but that doesn’t belong to anyone else in the building, either. So far, all cases have resolved when the person exits the building property. If they return the next day, they can enter their apartment as normal.”

“And it’s really been declared free of hauntings?”

“Yes. They had specialists in and everything, but no one can confirm whether there is an actual entity. Thus, management will do nothing more to resolve the issue.”

It wasn’t a lot of information, but then again, eyewitness accounts for this sort of thing were notoriously unreliable. Manifestations tended to change a lot depending on who was looking and why, so it really took an expert to hone in on the root causes.

“I’ll have to come by for a consultation, in that case,” Han Sooyoung suggested.

“Certainly. Let’s work out a time—and I do appreciate it, Sooyoung-ssi.”

Han Sooyoung paused. She had never really trusted Yoo Sangah’s whole ‘oh-so-kind-and-helpful’ schtick, and something about Yoo Sangah’s current tone was making her extra suspicious. Still, she didn’t want the job to go to the competition, so… “Okay then, let’s sort it out.”

Han Sooyoung’s paranoia was proven justified when she arrived at the apartment and locked eyes with a familiar woman stepping out of a taxi. She wore her hair in a ponytail, had unfairly sculpted shoulders, and wore a slim spirit-hunter’s blade on her hip.

“Why are you everywhere I go?” Han Sooyoung demanded.

Jung Heewon stopped and glanced at Han Sooyoung with something like dismay. “… I’m here to consult about a haunting for Sangah-ssi.”

“What a coincidence. Me, too.”

Approximately two minutes later, Yoo Sangah smiled serenely as she was glared down by both Han Sooyoung and Jung Heewon. “Is it so unusual that I would want to consult with multiple agencies?” she asked.

“It is when it’s these two agencies,” Han Sooyoung muttered.

“Well,” Jung Heewon hummed, “your little company can hardly be called an agency, so…”

“Right, like you and that huge gym bro of yours passing yourselves off as experts is really—”

“So,” Yoo Sangah interjected, “is it just the two of you for now?”

Han Sooyoung narrowed her eyes. Yoo Sangah secretly loved this sort of chaos, didn’t she? “… Just me. I don’t need tweedle-dumb and dumber just for consultations.”

“It’s just me from UA for now as well,” Jung Heewon added. For a moment, the three of them stood in silence while the sun set behind the building, casting them one by one in shade.

“Well then,” Yoo Sangah continued, “why don’t you two investigate together for now?”

“Okay, that’s not happening,” Han Sooyoung said. “Yoo Sangah, you have to give this job to one of us and send the other home.”

“In that case, once you’ve investigated, I can decide whose skillset best suits the job.”

Han Sooyoung bristled, unused to being outsmarted. Yoo Sangah, who had clearly planned for this outcome from the beginning, just kept smiling, untroubled.

“Fine,” Jung Heewon sighed. “I have my own techniques for investigating, though, so why don’t we meet up here later to deliver our findings? Sangah-ssi, are we able to talk to your aunt for a direct eyewitness account?”

“She’s staying elsewhere at the moment,” Yoo Sangah admitted. “It seems she’s afraid to come back here while the issue is still unresolved. I will see if I can give her a call.”

“You do that then,” Han Sooyoung said dismissively, “and I’ll start actually investigating. I’ll be back once I’ve identified the issue.”

“Sooyoung-ssi—”

She did not leave room for objections, heading toward the building with a notebook in one hand and her trusty keyring of charms on the other.

The apartment complex comprised two buildings packed with five floors each of outward-facing apartments. As Han Sooyoung made a circuit around the property, she idly took the opportunity to snoop a bit on the residents. The apartments were relatively cheap. The demographic skewed older, though there was also a small handful of young families and single parents.

She didn’t pass by too many people, and those she did were moving quickly with their eyes down. Now that the sun had set, no one wanted to wander.

Han Sooyoung had to admit, she was not certain that this was a haunting. A spirit world distortion powerful enough to create a whole fake room should be detectable even by the laziest investigators in Korea, and would make the property owners legally liable enough to want to deal with it. This, to her, sounded like an open and shut case of an urban legend paired with a little too much soju.

She could see how someone stumbling home drunk could easily get turned around in this place, too. The deceptively simple layout, once you had climbed a staircase or two, became oddly difficult to parse in the dark. The exterior lighting only seemed to illuminate three or so apartments at a time, leaving the rest obscured by darkness.

None of Han Sooyoung’s tests, from detecting temperature fluctuations to energy traces, came up with anything useful, so she turned around with a soft sigh to head back to Yoo Sangah.

Han Sooyoung couldn’t simply admit that she had found nothing—that wouldn’t get her any points over Jung Heewon—but, she could spin this as a proposal to discover the origins of the urban legend. After a bit of light research, she could confirm a legend as the cause and prove that there was no actual haunting.

Now, Yoo Sangah’s aunt lived in the other building in apartment 23, which…

Han Sooyoung paused. Where… exactly was she?

Somehow, the apartment numbers no longer seemed to square with where she thought she had been moments before. The damn lights were to blame—solving the ‘haunting’ was almost certainly just going to involve bullying management into installing better lightbulbs.

Grumbling to herself, Han Sooyoung started for the nearest staircase down, certain she could at least reorient herself at ground level. She hadn’t seen any residents for a while now, even though it wasn’t yet past nine.

Though she was aware it was going to make her look like a weirdo, Han Sooyoung pulled out her flashlight so she could at least see the whole balcony hallway. Even then, somehow, her flashlight beam was swallowed by the dark just a few apartments ahead.

The next apartment door she passed was ajar, which made her pause. Maybe someone was about to come out. For some reason, seeing another human seemed like a good idea at that moment, even if it was just another dour-faced auntie who would brush past Han Sooyoung and ignore her.

But no one came out of the door, and nobody shut it, either. Han Sooyoung moved hesitantly closer, then blinked when she read the unit number: 23. Yoo Sangah’s aunt’s apartment.

So—Han Sooyoung was not only on a different floor than she had thought, but she was somehow on the wrong building? Yoo Sangah’s aunt was not home, so it must have been Yoo Sangah herself who had left the door ajar.

Han Sooyoung eased the door open and peered in. It was an ordinary apartment with a narrow entrance hallway that opened up into a joint living room and kitchen, though at her present angle she couldn’t see very far inside. Only the kitchen light appeared to be turned on.

“Yoo Sangah?” she asked, taking a half step inside to get a better look.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Briefly, she shut her eyes, deeply annoyed. Something wasn’t adding up here. There should have been signs if this was really a haunting. Someone had to be messing with her.

She turned around to open the door and find out who, but was greeted by a blank wall behind her. The door itself had completely vanished.

Her mouth went dry. Now, this… This went beyond what Yoo Sangah’s aunt and the other residents had reported. None of them had ended up trapped in the distortion.

Well, maybe some people had been trapped. It was just that only the ones who made it back out got to tell the stories.

Han Sooyoung briefly regretted deciding to take on the consultation alone, but dismissed this impulse after a moment. What, like she couldn’t handle something like this without Kim Dokja staring dull-eyed at ghosts or Yoo Joonghyuk stomping around uselessly until there was something to attack? She was easily the most competent member of the team, and thus she could handle this.

She turned her flashlight around the apartment and noticed a few discrepancies. Though there was a mat near the front door for shoes, there were no actual shoes on it. A few picture frames hung in the hallway, but the pictures themselves were just blank white.

Since she couldn’t turn around and leave, she had little choice but to keep going. She moved towards the kitchen where the light was on.

 Here, things became even stranger. The kitchen was bigger than any room in the apartment had a right to be, stretching ahead into the space that should have been occupied by unit 24. Again, any items that indicated actual human habitation, like personal effects, photos, or clothing, were conspicuously absent. The kitchen had a stove, countertop, and small table, but no kitchenware or decorations.

There was also a door on the far end of the kitchen in the exact same style as the front door, including the unit number “23”.

Han Sooyoung grimaced, then swung the flashlight behind her again to check if the actual front door had reappeared. No such luck. Well, it wasn’t impossible that this door would take her back outside, so…

She opened it, but what awaited beyond was certainly not the outside balcony. Instead, blank, white-yellow walls bifurcated into endless rooms and hallways as far as the eye could see, all at perplexing and narrow angles. It was like peering into a maze constructed by a toddler.

“Not going in there,” Han Sooyoung muttered, turning around to leave. The halo of her flashlight stopped just a few feet from her head, confronted by the back wall of the kitchen. The wall had advanced right up behind her, now blocking her in towards the maze.

What the hell… The walls were literally closing in on her.

“This is stupid!” She announced to no one. “Really uncreative haunting, you know! I don’t even have claustrophobia!”

The walls did not answer her, nor did they move. They only seemed to change shape when she wasn’t watching.

That was interesting. And… vaguely familiar?

Han Sooyoung pulled out her cell phone and checked briefly for reception—nothing, as expected—then turned on the reverse camera and held the phone in front of her, aimed over her shoulder. This way, she could keep an eye on what was happening behind her as she walked.

Experimentally, she pulled out a charm designed to ward against household curses and placed it on the wall. Absolutely nothing happened. The wall was not affected, but neither was the charm, though it should have burnt up or fluttered to the ground if an entity had overpowered it. It behaved exactly as if she were applying a charm to a normal, uncursed wall.

With little else to try, she started ahead into the maze.

It was clearly not built for any manner of human comfort. The ceilings randomly dipped low or soared high, and some of the hallways and corners were uncomfortably narrow, forcing her to squeeze through. The twisty corridors had many open doorways leading to rooms, but the rooms were empty except for the occasional mismatched piece of furniture. In one room, Han Sooyoung spotted half a bed, which was right up against the wall as if it had been partially absorbed by it.

She tried a few more types of charms, but nothing seemed to affect the space at all. Now that she was keeping an eye out both ahead and behind, the walls stopped sneaking up on her, but Han Sooyoung could not deny she was beginning to panic a little.

And yet… this situation. The closing-in walls, the maze-like space, the ‘glitchy’ furniture. She recognized it.

She had written this exact scenario into a novel the previous year.

She’d come up with this very idea, using the phone’s reverse camera to watch the walls behind her, when she was writing about her protagonist doing it. There were a handful of chapters in book four of her most popular series about the Cursed Apartment Complex: a building with a severe, maze-like spirit world distortion caused by a sinister spirit that fed off people’s fear and panic as they were lost forever in its labyrinth.

She hadn’t come up with the idea whole-cloth, though. Her novelisation was based on a real supernatural incident that had occurred in an Incheon apartment complex in 2011. That haunting, however, had been taken care of by-the-books—an agency had come in, detected the spirit, and exterminated it. The apartments had gone back to normal and no one else went missing in the spirit world distortion, though two residents had already lost their lives in the maze.

Could this be… the same spirit? Had it recovered from its banishment so quickly? It should have been at least a century before a spirit of that strength could manifest again.

The next hallway was the narrowest one yet, and Han Sooyoung scowled as she sidled through, phone held awkwardly in front of her. She was still missing some puzzle pieces here, but if it really was the fault of that same spirit from the Incheon apartments, she at least had some idea of…

“Sooyoung-ssi.”

She was far more startled than she would like to admit upon hearing someone say her name, and snapped her eyes up from her phone camera to see that Jung Heewon was waiting for her in the next room. Jung Heewon’s silver spirit-hunter’s blade was clutched in one hand, and Han Sooyoung could see some telltale slashes in the wall.

Han Sooyoung slowed. “Jung Heewon. Are you trying to break out of a maze using a sword?”

Jung Heewon gave her a dark look, then sheathed the blade. “I thought it was worth a try. Sooyoung-ssi, don’t you feel uncouth for not using the correct honorifics with your colleagues? I’m technically your senior in this line of work.”

“Is now really the time for that?” Han Sooyoung demanded. “How did you end up in here, anyway?”

“I got turned around.” Jung Heewon smiled ruefully. “I’m really not sure how, but I entered what I thought was Sangah-ssi’s aunt’s apartment and then was funnelled in here. It’s very strange… somehow, I can’t sense the spirit that’s doing this.”

“I’m not detecting it either,” Han Sooyoung admitted. She took a half-step back and yelped when she realized that the wall had advanced behind her—she had taken her eyes off the phone to look at Jung Heewon. “Oh, shit. Great, you distracted me enough to make the walls close in again!”

“There’s a way back—” Jung Heewon made a half turn behind her, but her face paled when all she saw was a blank wall. “There… there was a way back just behind me.”

“When you stop looking at it, it changes,” Han Sooyoung said, seething. “Did you not realize that, being such a senior-level expert?”

“I was more focused on making progress towards the core.”

“What, on your own? In the Incheon apartment case—”

She took another step back to try and swing her flashlight around the room, only to find that the walls were even closer. The flashlight was suddenly darting around a space the size of a small bedroom instead of the roomy lobby it had been just moments before.

“The core,” Jung Heewon repeated through her teeth, “is where the spirit causing this would be, so dealing with it is the fastest way out.”

“I know that, but a spirit this strong—”

The pace of the room shrinking had advanced significantly. It might have been scooting closer even in the tiniest breaks of observation caused by blinking.

Han Sooyoung turned around to face the wall behind her. “Never mind! Turn around and watch the walls behind you while I watch these ones. We’ve got to figure something out before it gets any smaller.”

Surprisingly, Jung Heewon did as she said. The two women were now standing back-to-back in the dim room, staring at opposite walls.

“You mentioned an Incheon case,” Jung Heewon said.

“…Yes. This exact distortion happened years ago in Incheon, right down to the moving walls,” Han Sooyoung said, eyes beginning to water as she attempted not to blink. “It really wasn’t that well-known of a case, but I researched it a bit because it seemed, uh. Like it would make a popular story, if written a certain way.”

“Ah. Your paperbacks,” Jung Heewon said in a tone that made Han Sooyoung want to strangle her.

“Bestselling novels, thank you. But in the Incheon case, they used charms to force a path through the maze. When I try that…”

She stuck her last ‘household curse’ charm on the wall and watched as it did absolutely nothing.

“How odd.” Jung Heewon backed fully into Han Sooyoung, their shoulder blades now touching. The walls were still slowly advancing on them, and soon they’d be in a space the size of a closet. “We’ll need to come up with an actual strategy, now.”

“I’m thinking.”

Suddenly, Jung Heewon turned towards Han Sooyoung and drew her sword. Han Sooyoung let out a surprised yelp, only for Jung Heewon to hold the sword out overtop the two of them. A moment later the walls were close enough that they were touching the sword on both sides, braced against the tip and the hilt. It appeared to be the only thing preventing the walls from crushing them.

“Don’t turn around!” Han Sooyoung gasped, turning so that she could look over Jung Heewon’s shoulder.

“Your theory about watching the walls doesn’t seem to be panning out.”

“So, you just abandoned it without a second thought!?”

“Spirit world distortions do react to silver, so I think this will be more effective.”

“Swords don’t solve everything!” Han Sooyoung snapped. She was suddenly weirdly conscious of the fact that she was trapped in a room the size of a closet with Jung Heewon, and worse, they were now practically pressed up against each other chest-to-chest. This was not conducive to thinking of a solution. “Just shut up for five seconds, I’ll think of something.”

Jung Heewon did shut up, but the silence was worse, as it was just the two of them breathing in the scant light of Han Sooyoung’s flashlight. Why the hell was Jung Heewon so tall, anyway? It made it hard to keep the opposite wall in full view…

Okay, okay, forget about Jung Heewon. Easier said than done, but Han Sooyoung was normally a pro at disengaging from what her body was feeling. Just like she did at the gym, she needed to forget who she was and where she was for a moment. If she could manage that, the solution would certainly come to her.

She stared so hard at the opposite wall that the shadows began to morph. Gradually, this darkness overtook her, and she felt a sensation almost of floating. The cortisol and adrenaline pumping through her system seemed to fade, letting her mind clear. She recalled the feeling of sitting in her apartment, sucking on a lemon candy while she reviewed the article about the apartment complex in Incheon.

To be honest, she had really sensationalized her version of the story. The actual case had been open-and-shut, so unremarkable that even the news article about it hardly got any attention. Only Han Sooyoung had spotted that article online and thought, a distortion that turns an apartment into a maze, that could be an interesting setting for this part of the novel.

A quote from one of the spirit-hunters had read: The spirit-world distortion, though appearing to be infinite, was actually a fairly weak distortion sustained by clever trickery. Han Sooyoung had of course rewritten this as an impossibly powerful, recursive distortion, because she had needed to up the stakes in the scene. The manifestation relied on illusions to create the impression of vast distances, and about one wall in four was actually a thin façade. Thus, it was not as dangerous as it appeared.

Of course. In that case, using a sword might actually…

Han Sooyoung went to snap her head up and inform Jung Heewon that it was time to begin stabbing again, but for some reason, she was not able to.

That was… deeply concerning. It wasn’t like Han Sooyoung had actually left her body—She was just focusing so intensely she wasn’t paying attention to it. Surely, she could just look up and tell Jung Heewon what she’d remembered.

But somehow, her body remained out of reach.

Han Sooyoung’s consciousness was floating in the dark. Vague shapes and colours shifted around her in dusty beige and dim grey. She couldn’t tell exactly where she was, but when she tried to move forward, she felt herself glide ahead.

What is going on? She tried not to panic, but this was a first. She was not aware of any supernatural effect that caused this. As she looked around in confusion, something finally caught her gaze in the formless void around her: there was a flat, white box floating in the distance, as if cut out from the surrounding amorphous colours.

With nothing else to try, she floated toward the box. She reached it uncannily fast, almost like she just blinked across the distance, and found it quite large, about seven feet tall.

Instinctively, she reached out to touch the giant box. She was shocked to see her hand was misty and transparent. Almost… ghostly.

Oh, no. No way. She wasn’t seeing this because she had died in that stupid tin can with Jung Heewon, was she?

The thought made her incandescently furious. There was no possible way she could die in a situation like this. She had things to take care of, for god’s sake! She had novels to write again someday, and before she could get back to them, she had the stupidly-named Kim Dokja’s Company to babysit. After all the trouble she had gone through to set the agency up, for her sole goal of…

Her fist, which she had aimed at the white box, phased straight through it. This surprised her enough to curtail her train of thought. What… was this box, anyway?

She drifted around it in a slow circle. It was a three-dimensional cube, a little taller than it was wide. While most of it seemed to be made of a sturdy, thick material, one small section on one of the walls appeared thin and flimsy, like plywood.

She pressed her hand against the flimsy section and again, it phased through effortlessly. Next, she tried to take a deep breath—though concerningly, it no longer seemed as if she had lungs with which to do so—and phased her head through.

What she saw inside was momentarily very disorienting. She finally saw Jung Heewon again—the woman was currently holding her sword up with one hand while propping up someone’s unconscious body in the other. Okay, that was Han Sooyoung’s unconscious body, slumped against Jung Heewon’s arm. The mysteriousness of this whole situation aside, that was really embarrassing.

“Hey, Jung Heewon!” Han Sooyoung’s consciousness called out. Despite having no lungs, her voice came out audibly, and Jung Heewon’s face snapped towards her. She looked sweaty and stressed, strands of hair escaping from her ponytail, but even in this situation her expression was steady.

Jung Heewon looked at where the ghostly apparition of Han Sooyoung was sticking its face in through the wall, then down at Han Sooyoung’s senseless body in her arms. “I… Sooyoung-ssi, what’s going on?”

“You say that like I’m supposed to have any idea,” Han Sooyoung snapped. Despite her tone of voice, she was deeply grateful that Jung Heewon was able to see and respond to her in this state. “Anyway, listen, this section of the wall where I am is really thin. I think it’s a façade—if you can break through here, we can get out.”

Jung Heewon instantly kicked the wall as hard as she could, which made Han Sooyoung flinch, since she was, at that moment, phasing through that very wall. “Hey, give me a little warning next time!”

To both their relief, a crack appeared. Jung Heewon propped Han Sooyoung’s body against the opposite wall and then went in for a few more kicks, but in the tight quarters, she couldn’t really get enough momentum to do serious damage.

“Silver,” Jung Heewon realized after a second. “My initial strategy was right, I just didn’t hit the right area.”

Unfortunately, Jung Heewon’s silver sword was still wedged against the room’s walls, stopping the two of them from being crushed.

“My dagger!” Han Sooyoung said. “That might help. It’s in my bag.”

Jung Heewon, businesslike, turned Han Sooyoung’s slumped body around so she could reach the bag strapped to her side. Han Sooyoung’s body’s eyes were partially open, but glazed over, and she seemed to be drooling a little. Great. Who needs dignity! Not Han Sooyoung, apparently!

Jung Heewon efficiently ruined the bag’s organization, then finally found the dagger and slid it partially out of its sheath, squinting at the glinting blade. “Not terrible craftsmanship, where’d you get it?”

“Pawn shop,” Han Sooyoung lied. “All right, go ahead and stab the wall, then.”

“You back up first,” Jung Heewon said, wielding the blade with more aggression than was typically employed by its owner. “Silver has the potential to damage your soul projection. Would have been nice to get a warning that you could use that technique, by the way.”

Han Sooyoung mostly wanted to demand, Soul projection? What? But the sight of that dagger headed her way made her slip back out of the room immediately. Once again, she floated in the indeterminate void, shadowed colours shifting as far as she could perceive.

The tip of the dagger suddenly pierced out from inside the box. When it sliced downward, the wall opened like a sheet of paper. With a few more slashes, Jung Heewon opened the way completely.

Immediately, Han Sooyoung watched as a new hallway unfolded around where Jung Heewon was breaking out. The shifting void was instantly papered over with white walls and laminate flooring, corridors and rooms unfurling around them like sheets of fabric.

Interesting. The distortion was literally building out the maze around them.

Jung Heewon emerged from the room after a moment, carrying Han Sooyoung’s body on her back. “Okay, I presume you can use the soul projection to find the way out of here, right?”

“Obviously,” Han Sooyoung said, though this had not occurred to her. “Just give me a second.”

“Don’t stay out there too long. Risky,” Jung Heewon said, ominously.

Ignoring her, Han Sooyoung phased through another wall and again found herself “out of bounds”. From there, it was actually quite easy to see where the walls were thin. In the distance, hovering in the void, she could also see what appeared to be a dingy white wall with the front door of an apartment on it: apartment 23. That had to be their way back home.

She phased back through the wall and began relaying instructions to Jung Heewon, indicating which walls to cut through. Bit by bit, they neared the apartment door, until finally a hallway unfolded that bridged them right over to it.

Jung Heewon hurried over to the door and tried the handle, looking surprised when it actually opened. Beyond was a perfectly normal apartment, containing the actual debris of human life: photographs, clothes, decorations.

“Get back in your body, then,” Jung Heewon said, rudely jostling the Han Sooyoung on her back. “We have… a lot to report to Sangah-ssi.”

Right. Yes. All Han Sooyoung had to do was get back into her body—how hard could it be? Was there a way to subtly ask Jung Heewon to explain how so-called ‘soul projection’ worked without making herself look like an idiot? Probably not. Best to live in ignorance rather than lose face.

 She again instinctively tried to take a deep breath as she neared her own body, then phased through it. For a second it seemed like nothing was about to happen, but she felt a familiar sense of dissociation creeping up on her and relaxed into it.

When she next opened her eyes, she was in her body again, still draped over Jung Heewon’s shoulder.

“All right, put me down,” she snapped.

“Oh, thank goodness,” someone else said. Once Han Sooyoung was back on her feet—somewhat unsteadily—she blinked until her bleary eyes focused on Yoo Sangah, who was standing in front of them. “You were unconscious for a while there, Sooyoung-ssi… Heewon-ssi said you would wake up soon, but…”

“I was just resting my eyes.”

Han Sooyoung took a second to orient herself. She, Jung Heewon, and Yoo Sangah were inside a quaint but tidy apartment—the one belonging to Yoo Sangah’s aunt, almost certainly. There was no longer any sign of distortion.

“I was just telling Sangah-ssi that the distortion is quite serious,” Jung Heewon said. “In fact, to deal with this… well, I’ll need Hyunsung-ssi’s help at the very least, perhaps also Hayoung-ssi if she is available.”

“Backup might be… advisable,” Han Sooyoung reluctantly agreed. At the very least, having Yoo Joonghyuk on hand to slice through walls would be effective. He had certainly revealed a talent for it when he single-handedly destroyed the Demon King’s mansion.

“It does sound quite serious, so why don’t your teams work together on this one?” Yoo Sangah suggested.

Han Sooyoung instantly wanted to say, that’s not necessary, but when she thought about how close she had come to being crushed in a closet, the words seemed to die on her tongue. Jung Heewon also made a slight movement as if to object, but then remained silent, her eyes flashing consideringly to Han Sooyoung.

“I’ll admit that Han Sooyoung’s soul projection ability is well-matched to dealing with this distortion,” Jung Heewon finally said. “But, you’ll also want experienced spirit-hunters on hand.”

“Fine, fine. We can work together this once,” Han Sooyoung snapped.

“Is it too dangerous?” Yoo Sangah asked hesitantly.

“No, no,” Han Sooyoung waved a hand dismissively. “With a full team, it’ll be easy. I know all about the spirit causing this, too, since it showed up in Incheon a few years ago. With a bit of extra research, it will be a cinch.”

They agreed on a date to meet up again with their full teams. Han Sooyoung, though she was exhausted by the time she got home, immediately opened her computer and started looking up ‘soul projection’.

Unfortunately, that phrase didn’t pull much of anything up. It wasn’t so surprising—accurate knowledge of supernatural phenomena tended to be insular trade knowledge, shared among hunters and investigators but not typically available to the public. These techniques, after all, were really not the sort of thing you wanted random teenagers trying out at a sleepover.

Still, was it so hard for anyone to post a blog or a study about it? If there really was nothing online, she was going to have to ask Jung Heewon about it, and that was simply not an outcome she was willing to entertain.

Han Sooyoung spent a little longer researching the Incheon case, just to make sure she had her facts straight, and then went to bed. After a day like that, it was unusually easy to drop off into sleep.

Her breathing evened and darkness embraced her. The usual empty, dreamless sleep awaited, but as her body stilled, a faint white, misty light began to curl from her skin. A ghostly projection slowly rose from her body until an exact copy of Han Sooyoung was hovering several feet above her bed in the darkness.

The projection looked down at its sleeping body and scowled. “Getting ideas, are we, my other self? Clumsy as ever in working towards your goals. Just do me a favor and don’t get us killed.”

The projection drifted down so that her feet appeared to touch the ground. The misty trails that formed her body swept out behind her like a wake splitting through water, or the tails of an ephemeral coat, as she moved through the wall of Han Sooyoung’s bedroom and vanished beyond it into the night.

Chapter Text

“Isn’t it nice to have everyone together for once?”

Yoo Sangah’s comment did little to affect the uncomfortable atmosphere. The two competing agencies belonging to Han Sooyoung and Jung Heewon continued to stare each other down in front of the cursed apartments.

Well, Han Sooyoung was staring down Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung, at least. Yoo Joonghyuk was ignoring everyone. Kim Dokja, inoffensive as ever, had exchanged polite greetings with the competition. Lee Hyunsung returned these greetings eagerly, though Jung Heewon’s expression had been guarded.

“So… where’s the rest of your team?” Han Sooyoung prompted after a moment. Despite talking a big game about the strength of their agency, only Jung Heewon and her pet gym bro had shown up.

Jung Heewon let out a short sigh. “We have a lot of things on the go at once, you know, unlike you. Hayoung-ssi and Seolhwa-ssi are out of town on another job for the next few days.”

Was Han Sooyoung imagining it, or did Yoo Joonghyuk stiffen slightly from the corner of her eye? She filed that away for future consideration. “Noted. I guess you must be confident that the two of you are sufficient, huh?”

“Of course,” Jung Heewon said. “In any case, I read up about that Incheon case of yours as well. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s the same spirit in both cases.”

“What,” Han Sooyoung said flatly. “Of course it is. It’s the same distortion, right down to one out of four walls being fake. How can it not be the same one?”

“So,” Yoo Sangah interrupted—somehow she always managed to pierce through an argument without really raising her voice—“is there going to be a big problem? I actually thought I might assist you, if you need an extra set of hands.”

“Are you sure about that, Yoo Sangah-ssi?” Kim Dokja spoke up first, glancing at Yoo Sangah in surprise. Those two had been coworkers, Han Sooyoung recalled, though she wouldn’t have called them close friends. There was always a certain distance between not only Yoo Sangah and Kim Dokja, but everyone and Kim Dokja, really.

“Certainly. I’ve picked up a few things, you know,” she pointed out.

“You have?” Han Sooyoung interjected. “Really, does everyone in the world think they’re an expert on this stuff once they’ve read a few books?”

“I mean, coming from you, Sooyoung-ssi…”

“All right!” Han Sooyoung snapped, raising a hand. “You know what, who cares? Let’s just go.”

Once again, they had met at sunset, right at the beginning of the manifestation’s active hours. They swiftly split into their teams, with Yoo Sangah accompanying Jung Heewon’s to make the numbers even, and began to wander the balconies.

As usual, Han Sooyoung glanced to Kim Dokja first. “Hey. See any ghosts?”

“I can’t see ghosts,” he replied, as expected. His gaze was a little distant as it wandered over the dingy walls and dim circles of lighting. “And no, I don’t think anything’s here. If you and Heewon-ssi didn’t both say you’d experienced a distortion, I probably wouldn’t believe it.”

“What—you’re saying if it was just me, you’d call me a liar?” Han Sooyoung snapped, whacking him on the shoulder.

“Not necessarily,” he lied.

“You’re so full of shit.” She let out a short sigh through her nose. “Hey, have either of you ever heard of something called soul projection?”

Kim Dokja shook his head, though Yoo Joonghyuk, who was walking ahead of them as usual, shot her a glance.

“Well? Is that a yes?” she prompted.

“It’s a high-level technique,” Yoo Joonghyuk said shortly. “Very uncommon here, but more common in the school that Uriel teaches.”

Uriel, the person who taught Jung Heewon. Not helpful. “What else do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, predictably. “It is not of interest to me.”

“Hang on,” Kim Dokja suddenly interjected, tilting his head like a cat that’s detected a mouse running in the walls. Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk slowed. “There is something. Not a ghost. This way.”

He headed off with unusual focus toward a specific set of apartments.

Han Sooyoung stared for a moment. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her, but for a second, the shadows stretching out from Kim Dokja’s back looked off… And anyway, since when was he a walking spirit distortion detector? He could ‘see’ ghosts, sure, but this was a different situation.

Han Sooyoung shot Yoo Joonghyuk a look that said, ‘do you know what the hell’s going on right now?’, but her silent question was ignored. Yoo Joonghyuk simply placed a hand on the hilt of his sword, his expression dark, and followed Kim Dokja. With a muttered curse, Han Sooyoung went after them.

Kim Dokja walked along the line of apartments and then stopped in front of one that, for some reason, didn’t have a unit number attached. “It’s in there, whatever it is.”

Han Sooyoung elbowed her way in front of the other two, trying the doorknob with some suspicion. “You seem really confident for—”

The door opened straight into the maze. The tight hallways, inexplicable ceilings, and mismatched furniture stretched into infinity from where they were standing.

It was way more of an actual threshold than it had been before—behind them was the real world, dark but blisteringly normal, and beyond them was the distortion.

“Okay,” Han Sooyoung sighed, turning to Kim Dokja. “How did you do that?”

“Oh,” he said, scratching at one cheek with a sheepish expression. “It’s not really important…”

The excuses trailed off as Yoo Joonghyuk loomed closer. “Kim Dokja.”

Kim Dokja wilted slightly, though didn’t back away. “All right, well. It’s not a problem or anything, but ever since I was possessed by the Demon King, I seem to have held on to some of his abilities. See?”

Kim Dokja stretched out his hand and cold night shadows seemed to drip down into his palm, solidifying momentarily into the curved sword wielded by the Demon King. He waved it around a couple of times, then dismissed it away with a movement.

“When did you intend to tell us about this?” Yoo Joonghyuk growled.

“That’s my line,” Han Sooyoung interjected, trying to elbow Yoo Joonghyuk aside. It was like elbowing a brick wall. “Don’t you think something like that is important to mention ahead of time? And that’s really not normal, isn’t it harmful or something?”

“It’s not harmful,” Kim Dokja said easily, not that he’d care if it was, bastard. “And it only makes sense, right? The demonic energy that’s keeping my heart going has to come from somewhere. Apparently, with the Demon King banished to hell, it comes from me now.”

They stared at each other in silence for a bit while Han Sooyoung tried to come up with some additional arguments that weren’t just calling Kim Dokja stupid. After a while, Kim Dokja smiled and gestured ahead into the apartment. “In any case, I found the spirit world distortion. We should head inside and deal with it. The others might already be inside.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shot Kim Dokja another glare, but went ahead into the apartment, leaving the other two with no choice but to follow.

“So,” Han Sooyoung said as they sidled their way through. Watching someone as tall as Yoo Joonghyuk try to squeeze through the tight corridors was amusing, but they had work to do. “The spirit responsible for this is called the ‘Labyrinth Spirit’, which is a dramatic-sounding name for something that isn’t actually that strong.”

Kim Dokja frowned. “This distortion, though…”

“Yeah, yeah, it looks impressive, but it’s mostly just an illusion. Anyway, like the labyrinth of the Greek myth, there is a center to the maze where its ‘monster’ lives. Getting there was how they killed the spirit originally in 2011. It’s just a matter of following the flow of the energy.”

Yoo Joonghyuk paused to press a hand to a wall. After a moment, he looked down a hallway to their left. “That way.”

“I’m also sensing it that way,” Kim Dokja agreed mildly.

“Wow, I guess we have a consensus then,” Han Sooyoung muttered, slightly bitter at being the only remaining person unable to magically ‘sense’ spirit energy. She now knew why Kim Dokja could suddenly do it, but Yoo Joonghyuk’s ability remained a mystery. “Anyway, I did mention this to Jung Heewon, so they’ll be heading for the core, too.”

With two overgrown compasses leading the way, progress was much swifter and easier than the first time she had been in here. Nonetheless, she still pulled out her camera and employed the same trick as before to keep the walls behind her in sight. The last thing she wanted was to end up in another closet. She wasn’t sure she could pull off the same ‘soul projection’ trick twice.

Several times, they reached what appeared to be a dead end, but rather than needing to rely on Han Sooyoung's technique to find the false walls, Yoo Joonghyuk simply attacked everything in reach until something folded away. In this manner, they made quick progress through the labyrinth.

As they neared the core, they heard someone calling out their names and found the other team waiting for them. Jung Heewon looked at ease with her hand resting on her sword hilt, though Lee Hyunsung seemed a bit antsy, glancing at the walls—was he claustrophobic or something? Yoo Sangah also seemed a bit nervous, but was taking pictures with her phone as if interested by her surroundings.

“The core will be close,” Jung Heewon said by way of greeting. “You three okay?”

“We’re fine,” Han Sooyoung sighed. “Now that we know where we’re going, this place is not that big of a deal. Let’s just go face this spirit and get it over with.”

The group was now too large to comfortably fit in the narrow hallways, so they ended up squeezing through one by one. Han Sooyoung found herself with Jung Heewon ahead of her and Yoo Joonghyuk behind, which made her feel especially short.

“Hey, tell me something,” Jung Heewon muttered as she shuffled ahead. “Learning soul projection… who was your teacher?”

“None of your business.”

“It is my business. I asked Uriel, actually, and she wasn’t aware there were any masters of that technique in this country at the moment.”

Some part of Han Sooyoung thought to herself, just come clean and ask her about it, or you’ll just dig yourself in deeper! The rest of her responded rather strongly: absolutely not. Jung Heewon already thinks I’m incompetent, there is no way I’m giving her more ammo.

Han Sooyoung struggled momentarily to come up with the most advantageous response. “Maybe I’m self-taught.” She was a self-taught writer, after all.

“I should hope not,” Jung Heewon said fervently, then glanced back at Han Sooyoung. “Wait, you can’t be serious…?”

“Stop harassing me and just go, we have a spirit to kill,” Han Sooyoung snapped.

Jung Heewon let out a low, derisive laugh. “Forget getting someone else killed, you’ll remove yourself from the equation long before that happens.”

Han Sooyoung had an odd sensation of feeling less claustrophobic, then realized with dread that it was because she could no longer sense Yoo Joonghyuk looming behind her. A glance at her phone’s reverse camera confirmed it: he had vanished. “Yoo Joonghyuk?”

For a second, she heard a muffled noise like someone calling out, but then the maze behind her was silent. They had been fine up until this point—was the distortion suddenly getting stronger?

“Shit,” Jung Heewon hissed. She managed to draw her sword despite the tight confines and started slashing, but none of the walls she hit were false. “What’s going on? Hyunsung-ssi?”

There was no response from Lee Hyunsung, either, who had just been walking ahead of Jung Heewon.

Jung Heewon reached back and grabbed Han Sooyoung’s wrist, ignoring her affronted noise. “All right, self-taught soul-projector. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you need to do your thing. Find me a path into the core and I’ll end this now.”

“Okay, okay, relax!” Han Sooyoung said. “I can’t do it while you’re grabbing me like that.”

“So, you want me to abandon your body in the maze while you project? If I let go, it will probably box you off and crush you. It’s the same either way to me.”

“Just shut up!” Han Sooyoung hissed.

Her heart was pounding, but she closed her eyes to make an attempt. She had practiced her new ability several times earlier in the day and had gotten a pretty good handle on phasing in and out of her body while it slumped over in her desk chair.

Doing it under pressure was different, though…

No, she could do this. She pictured walking up to visit the gym, how she pretty much stopped thinking as she pushed the doors open, water bottle in hand. The way the glass walls of the building cast her reflection in hundreds of recursive shapes, fading away into infinite planes.

Sometimes, it almost seemed like some of those reflections were looking right back at her.

The feeling of her body faded. Han Sooyoung found herself once more in a dim, shifting void of colors, though this time, she could see a collection of ten or so white boxes hovering around. Stray walls and hallways also hung at odd angles throughout the void, and the beiges and greys of the background were cut by brighter blues and reds. It really seemed like the distortion might be getting stronger.

The nearest box, when she poked her head in, was the tiny stretch of hallway containing her own body and Jung Heewon.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s a little hard to see out here, so I’m going to scout ahead and find you a way to the core.”

“Hurry up,” Jung Heewon said stiffly. “The others will be in danger.”

Yeah, yeah, obviously she was going to hurry.

Grumbling to herself, Han Sooyoung pulled back out of the wall and reviewed her options. The core should have been nearby, so if she just popped inside all the rooms she saw, no doubt she’d find it.

The next box she checked was quite small and contained one visibly panicking and stressed-out Lee Hyunsung, crushed down to a space nearly the size of a coffin.

“Hey!” she snapped at him. He whipped his head over to stare at her in shock. “Dipshit, use your sword! It won’t close on you if you’ve got silver against the wall!”

“Uh,” Lee Hyunsung hesitated, then pulled up one of his sweater sleeves to reveal some sort of silver gauntlet. “This is all I have…”

Of all the…! “Then punch the walls! Right here,” Han Sooyoung said, identifying the weak point. It was way smaller than the weak points she had been finding for Jung Heewon last time, so Lee Hyunsung might not even be able to escape using it… still, opening up a small section should at least prevent him from being crushed. “I have to run, so just sit tight until Jung Heewon and I kill the spirit.”

Lee Hyunsung said, “Heewon-ssi—” with a worried expression, but Han Sooyoung withdrew.

Yoo Sangah was in the next room. She had, apparently with great efficiency, placed silver items at all four corners of the room and was standing with a pensive expression in the center. The items in question included a tiny knife and a bracelet, like she had scrounged around for silver belongings before coming here.

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung said, but Yoo Sangah didn’t even flinch. When Han Sooyoung waved a hand in front of her face, she didn’t react. Huh… was it because Yoo Sangah wasn’t sensitive to spirits, whereas Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung were? Either way, she seemed to have things under control, so Han Sooyoung left her to it.

The void around her started to get a little bright, giving her a headache, but she soldiered on to check the next room. As soon as she slid her head through the wall, the silence was immediately broken by a shouting argument.

“If you would listen to what I’m saying, you would clearly understand—”

“As if I need to listen to that nonsense, when I can see—”

“I don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn, just let me—”

Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk were practically sitting in each other’s laps in a swiftly shrinking room, reaching over shoulders and legs as they held back the walls with absolutely zero coordination, each one apparently trying to do it on their own. Kim Dokja’s Demon King wings were propping up one side of the room whereas Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword braced the other. Han Sooyoung stared at this ridiculous spectacle, then decided that they deserved to suffer for a bit and left without a word.

She pressed a ghostly hand to her temple for a moment in the silence of the void, grimacing at the mounting pain. Unfortunately, since she had neither a physical hand, temple, nor head, it didn’t seem to do much.

All she had to do was focus and track down that damn core. As she looked out at the shifting colours, she finally spotted something that had been difficult to see before—it easily faded into the background, but there was a large, greyish box behind all the white ones. The void around it seemed a little brighter, too.

Han Sooyoung approached the grey box and experimentally stuck her hand in. Nothing went terribly wrong, so she steeled herself and dipped her head inside to look around.

The “core” was a featureless cube of about twenty square feet. The walls were the same dusty grey colour as the outside and of indeterminate, almost soft-looking texture.

Also, it was completely empty: there was no sign whatsoever of the Labyrinth Spirit.

That couldn’t be right. This case was identical to the Incheon apartment case, and in that case, the spirit had been waiting in the core where it could feed off the energy siphoned from its victims. Without a spirit to sustain it, how could this distortion be occurring at all?

Han Sooyoung chewed on this in confusion for a few minutes before the solution crept up on her.

Her charms had not reacted to any supernatural presence, and none of their walking spirit or ghost detectors had felt or seen anything. There was no way the spirit which had been killed in the Incheon case could have revived so soon, in any case.

This, then, was not a haunting. There had never been a spirit here. This effect could only be thematic resonance.

The human imagination puts things in certain patterns. Stories, Kim Dokja would call them. For instance—there is an apartment complex, and it looks confusing and ominous at night, making it difficult to find one’s apartment. Wouldn’t it be scary if the door you opened wasn’t yours, and you were lost forever in that place which was supposed to be safe?

Spirits love stories like that. They can twist them to their advantage. In the case of this apartment, a spirit arrived to pick up the role of the villain. It engineered the labyrinth to feed on that very fear, of the familiar growing hostile and unknown. Later on, heroes arrived… really just salarymen with swords, but a role was a role. They killed the spirit, ended the terror, and the story was over.

Now, here in Seoul, there was another apartment complex that looked a little spooky at night. They had actually brought greater strength to this manifestation themselves, Han Sooyoung realized—when their teams showed up with swords in hand, they took on the roles of the “heroes”. Reacting to the arrival of its main characters, the resonance had grown stronger, and thus the maze had become even more formidable.

Still, there were hundreds of apartments that must have had similar stories. Thematic resonance didn’t just manifest because of a few common fears. Something was tying this apartment directly back to the one in Incheon—and to resolve the haunting and get everyone out alive, Han Sooyoung was going to need to find out what exactly that was.

She drifted fully inside the core to poke around. It was a relief not to have the headache-inducing lights glaring at her, but the core replaced them with an ominous, humming darkness she also didn’t much enjoy.

The room had, at first glance, seemed fully empty, but as Han Sooyoung drifted toward the center, she noticed what seemed to be a thin, black, almost impossible-to-spot thread hanging from the ceiling. Almost on instinct, she reached out to touch it.

The thread instantly whipped around her spirit-hand, tying her in place.

She yelped and tried to pull back, but the thread was knotted tight. It was wire-thin and nearly bladelike, cutting into her flesh when she moved. She didn’t even have flesh, but she could still feel it. The blood that dripped from her wrist looked more like mist.

Shit, shit! She forced herself to calm down and stop moving. Thankfully, though the thread was tight, it didn’t knot any tighter or try to wrap up any additional limbs.

Floating there in a featureless, grey room with her soul caught on the end of a line like a particularly stupid fish, it occurred to Han Sooyoung that Jung Heewon might have been ever-so-slightly correct in thinking that Han Sooyoung was in a little over her head.

Jung Heewon might have been annoying, self-righteous, and bossy, but Han Sooyoung had to admit that she knew her stuff. If Han Sooyoung managed to get out of this alive, she’d swallow her pride and ask Jung Heewon about soul projection.

Actually—Jung Heewon, before Han Sooyoung had started her own agency, had been a pretty reliable research source. They hadn’t been close friends, but they’d gotten along fine. Grabbed coffee a few times, laughed together. Han Sooyoung had thought of Jung Heewon as a surprisingly tolerable person. What had happened since then?

A weird sense of dizziness came over her. She tried to blink her eyes back into focus as her vision doubled. The grey walls and black thread tied around her hand faded slightly, overlaid by the another scene: the sight of close, white corridor walls and the serious expression on Jung Heewon’s face.

“Jung Heewon,” Han Sooyoung tried to say. Everything felt sluggish and distant, but she realized that she was now simultaneously aware of both her soul projection and her real, actual body. If she focused, she could move her body a little bit, but not much.

“Now you’re soul splitting,” Jung Heewon observed. “Please tell me that’s not self-taught, too.”

All this stupid internal terminology was going to drive Han Sooyoung up the wall. “Slight issue,” she said, getting to the point because it was difficult to get too many words across at once. “Got to the core, but there’s no spirit. It’s thematic resonance.”

Recognition instantly came into Jung Heewon’s face. “Of course…! That would explain everything. I’ve been saying the whole time I didn’t think it was the same spirit—”

“Listen,” Han Sooyoung continued, worried she wouldn’t be able to hold onto this strange split perspective for long. Her vision wavered back and forth from her bleeding spirit-hand to Jung Heewon. “I’m in the core, but there was a thread in there that attacked me. I’m stuck.”

“A thread…” Jung Heewon considered this. “That has to be what’s tying the spirit world distortion here. You’ll have to be careful, but if you follow that thread to its source, you can break it by…”

Han Sooyoung’s consciousness faded back toward her other self before she could hear the end of the sentence.

Damn it! She tried to split her perception again, but only managed to worsen her headache. I can break it by doing what? Would it kill her to be a little more efficient in delivering information?

She looked up at the dangling thread and gave it a light tug. It felt taut, like it was tied to the ceiling. Hesitantly, she drifted up toward where it was dangling from.

Her head phased right up through the ceiling. Beyond it, she saw a vast, empty space filled with bright prismatic lights. The various hallways and boxes she had seen scattered throughout the void before were gone. After a moment, her eyes focused on the black thread, which spiralled seemingly endlessly into the distance.

Muttering to herself about how stupid this all was, she began to follow it.

With one end of the thread wrapped securely around her hand, she traced a disorienting, winding path through the void. Her sense of distance was completely warped—it felt like she could have been floating over an incredible distance, or just a few meters that she progressed across with aching slowness.

Finally, though, she found the source. Floating in the middle of the void, completely detached from any surface, was an ordinary-looking table lamp.

Han Sooyoung gave the thread another tug and ascertained that it, indeed, was coming from the lamp. It was an old, cheap-looking lamp with a scuffed base and a dusty lampshade. With nothing else to try, she reached out to touch it.

Instantly, her perception split again. She saw the lamp on someone’s bedside table, clicked on and off every night with clockwork regularity as they read in bed and then went to sleep. This carried on for several years: a comfortable, familiar ritual.

Eventually, though, the ritual came to end. One night, she watched the lamp’s owner come home to an apartment that was not theirs. This person vanished forever into the labyrinth, turning around a corner and vanishing forever. The lamp remained dark and unused for some time.

The lamp was cleared off the table and put into a box along with the rest of the previous inhabitant’s belongings. The box went to a shop and the lamp passed through several sets of hands, making its way from Incheon to Seoul. Someone new placed the lamp on their bedside table and used it, nightly, while they read before they went to sleep.

The resonance issuing from the lamp was incredibly strong. Han Sooyoung felt it tug her consciousness in two different directions: the apartment in Incheon and the apartment in Seoul, tied together through this single object. It almost seemed like the lamp was remembering. Like it mourned.

Han Sooyoung’s mind reeled, her head pulsing with pain. With an effort of will, she pulled away from the lamp, gasping for breath she didn’t need to take.

She was back in the colorful void. The thread was still tied around one hand, connected to the lamp floating at a slight angle in front of her. This close to the source, the thread was a lot thicker. It was more like a power cord.

Well, there was her answer. The cause of all of this was this ugly old lamp.

She yanked at her wrist and remained unreleased. “Okay, is this necessary? Is this whole thing necessary? As if causing this whole distortion isn’t enough, you have to grab onto me for no reason, too?”

The lamp, of course said nothing—it was a lamp. Briefly, Han Sooyoung closed her eyes and wondered what sins she’d committed that could have earned her this punishment. Then, she set her shoulders and glared at the lamp.

“Well,” she said, “Sorry, but I’m breaking off this thread now. I guess you’re a sad lamp or whatever, but there are actual human beings in this maze I’d rather didn’t die, so I’m ending this distortion.”

She didn’t have to justify herself to anyone, much less an inanimate object. The “thread” that was tying the spirit world to the apartment building was right in front of her… all she had to do was break it. Han Sooyoung wrapped both hands around the base of the power cord, then twisted with all her strength.

Sparks popped around her hands, but the cord clung on. Grimacing, Han Sooyoung tried to brace her knee against the lamp to get better traction, but this just fractured her perception again with even greater intensity. The lamp related to her every time it had ever been switched on and off, the passage of time marked by the soft flipping of pages by its side. Days and years of dusk in comfortable, quiet melancholy.

“I don’t care!” she snapped at it, wrenching her consciousness back as she made another attempt on the cord’s life. What she really needed was her dagger, but of course, that was back with her body.

Her efforts only earned her additional pain; the lamp remained unchanged. Han Sooyoung gritted her teeth. If she really was incapable of breaking this connection, then they would all be trapped here. She was going to be stuck here, tied to a stupid lamp, while her companions got trash-compacted by various closets.

… Maybe she was going about this the wrong way.

If she had written this story herself, she wouldn’t have made the solution to be mindlessly attacking the lamp. It wasn’t emotionally satisfying. She would have written a proper resolution, something that tied in with the themes of the story.

For some reason, she remembered a message that Kim Dokja had once sent her. At the time, she had been posting her genre fiction online and the final chapters were meandering, clearly struggling to bring the story to a conclusion. It really stemmed from the fact that the motivations of her villain weren’t very clear.

Kim Dokja had commented something like: Author-nim, this is a theory of mine: Ghosts are unfinished stories. To let them move on on their own, all you have to do is ask—what is the ending you want?

Damn it, communing with haunted lamps was really not her job. The lengths she was willing to go for that one person…

She sighed, released her grip on the cord, and then crossed her legs as if she were seated next to the lamp. Thus settled, she reached out once more to touch it.

This time, she watched the scenes unfolding in her split consciousness carefully. She observed them for as long as she could before the pain got to be too much, trying to get an idea of the type of “story” this really was.

She was a writer, so in order to find an ending, she’d need to write it. Instinctively, she reached into her pocket for her phone, and was shocked to find that it was there—a ghostly, indistinct clone of her phone was, anyway. Did phones have spirits, too? That was a disturbing thought, and one she did not currently have time to dissect.

Instead, she opened up her word processing app and started typing.

There was a reader, she wrote, leaning next to the faint yellowish light of the lamp, who read several chapters a night before going to sleep. She liked to read a wide variety of books, from autobiographies to creative non-fiction to crime thrillers.

Was she imagining it, or did the grip of the wire on her wrist relax slightly?

One day, a cruel spirit decided to take hold of this reader, and she found herself in an endless labyrinth from which there was no escape. It would be weeks before the spirit-hunters arrived to end the evil, so the reader was nothing but a victim in this story. She could do nothing to affect her fate at all.

She was not a fighter, so she couldn’t fight. She wasn’t a creative person, and couldn’t come up with any clever strategies. It wasn’t long before she realized her role in the story was to die, and nothing more. Such was the fate of a person who only reads.

The words flowed from her fingers automatically, filling the blank space of the page with ease.

The reader accepted her fate and found a comfortable place in the labyrinth where she could wait. In her bag were the books she had been reading, so she decided to kill her remaining time by finishing every last one.

The pages flew past her fingertips. She immersed herself completely in the worlds she read about and forgot about the labyrinth squeezing in around her. The walls of the labyrinth, designed to feed on suffering, were weakened by the reader’s contentment.

As a result, the walls never closed in. The spirit never ensnared fully her. In the spirit world, time runs on different rules. Even now, the reader remains—engrossed in her books, she may never flip that final page, and she may continue reading happily to herself forever.

The End.

Han Sooyoung jerked upright, as if snapping out of a trance. A story like this… aside from being far from her best work, was this really the ending that was wanted? There was no way. It wasn’t even a real ending.

The power cord, with another burst of sparks, snapped right off.

She stared in amazement, snatching the broken cord. The other end, which had been tied around her wrist, went completely slack and fell away.

“Hah!” she exclaimed in victory. She’d done it—she’d broken the connection!

Then, everything went pitch-dark.

Han Sooyoung froze. The shifting colors of the void were gone—when she raised a hand in front of her face, she could see the ghostly white imprint of her own body, but nothing else.

She reached out again for the stupid lamp so she could use its position to orient herself, but only groped empty-handed. As far as she could tell, she was all alone in the pitch-black void.

She had no idea how to find her way back.

Han Sooyoung swallowed back the panic, replacing it with fury. Of all the stupid ways to die! She must have some way to sense her way back to her own body, right? Jung Heewon had told her to find her way to the source. Would she really have recommended that if Han Sooyoung had no way to get back?

Well, maybe.

“Hey,” she said into the dark. Her voice fell totally flat into the void. “Is anyone… can anyone hear me? Jung Heewon. Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk.”

Nothing. She could start moving in a random direction, but that felt dangerous… she had no way to orient herself, and it felt like she could easily just put herself further and further from her body.

Her headache was only getting steadily worse. Mist rose from her body like air warping over hot pavement, like she was evaporating. The pain and mounting dizziness made it difficult to stay conscious.

As her vision wavered, something seemed to solidify out of the darkness in front of her.

A… mirror? Her own misty, white reflection was looking back at her. It was too blurry to make out any details, but the expression on her reflection’s face seemed somehow unfamiliar.

Very, very faintly, she heard her own voice say: “Stupid.”

Then, all sensation departed from her, replaced by a powerful, unpleasant burn in her nose and throat.

She jerked upright, coughing, her eyes stinging with tears. Dimly, she registered that this meant she had a torso, lungs, and eyes, which was a delightful change from what she’d been experiencing just moments ago.

“Easy. Relax. Breathe,” someone said in front of her, like Han Sooyoung’s sinuses weren’t on fire.

Han Sooyoung hacked inelegantly for a few more moments, elbow over her face, then finally recovered enough to blink away the tears and look up. She was on the floor of a normal-looking apartment building, and Jung Heewon was looming on top of her with what appeared to be smelling salts in one hand.

“Stop it, I’m fine,” she said, slapping away the salts.

Jung Heewon let out a terse sigh and leaned back slightly. As Han Sooyoung’s eyes fully focused, she saw the rest of their merry band all gathered around. Kim Dokja was near her side, Yoo Sangah appeared to have had Han Sooyoung’s head on her lap, and Yoo Joonghyuk and Lee Hyunsung were standing uselessly nearby.

Okay, this was extremely embarrassing. “I said I’m fine! Back off, give me a bit of air.”

She took another coughing break and was relieved when Kim Dokja and Yoo Sangah shuffled away to give her space, though Jung Heewon did not do the same.

“So,” Jung Heewon said, “I’m taking you to meet with Uriel at the earliest opportunity for actual training.”

“What are you talking about,” Han Sooyoung said, too tired to manage the usual mindgames.

“Your soul projection abilities are powerful, but you clearly have no idea how to keep yourself safe,” Jung Heewon continued. The lecture almost seemed rehearsed, like she’d been going over it in the hallway while she watched over Han Sooyoung’s unconscious body. “If that hadn’t worked, you realize you’d have been permanently disconnected from your body, right? You would be trapped in a different dimension forever.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Han Sooyoung muttered, though she was well aware of how close she’d come to that fate.

“Training,” Jung Heewon repeated. “With Uriel. I insist on it. I can’t let you loose in the world otherwise. You’re a danger to yourself and others.”

“Han Sooyoung,” Kim Dokja said. “Just how long have you been able to do that? Why didn’t I know about it?”

“Uh…” All the confusion and exhaustion was affecting her ability to come up with competent excuses. “I may have just discovered it yesterday.”

There was a moment of shocked silence.

Jung Heewon narrowed her eyes. “Well, there’s no way that’s true. Soul projection takes years to refine to the point where you can form an actual projection. Not to mention soul-splitting…”

“It’s true!” Han Sooyoung said, indignant, forgetting for a moment that she was defending her own uselessness. “Yesterday was the first time I managed it.”

“As far as I know, that’s not possible, but…” Jung Heewon let out a harsh sigh, then stood and offered Han Sooyoung a hand. “We’ll ask Uriel about it. This isn’t an offer, by the way, it’s something that’s happening regardless of what you want.”

“Okay, okay, relax.” Han Sooyoung took the hand and was pleased when she was able to get to her feet without falling over. “No harm done anyway, see? I solved the haunting. Spirit world distortion, over.”

Everyone exchanged surprised or worried looks, which Han Sooyoung waved away. “If you all stop harassing me, I’ll explain. But first, I am getting out of this horrible apartment.”

They exited the apartment and went back out into the night—except that, enough time had passed while they were in the labyrinth that it was now morning. Pink sunrise touched the horizon, slowly erasing the shadows that clung to the balconies.

Han Sooyoung explained the situation as they walked, from how she’d realized that there was no spirit in the labyrinth to how she’d managed to resolve the haunting by snapping the thread.

“Speaking of which,” Yoo Sangah said, “The physical lamp still exists somewhere in this apartment, right? Do we need to find it and remove it? If it was powerful enough to cause a distortion like that…”

Han Sooyoung recalled that the lamp was currently on someone’s bedside table, lighting their book as they read every night. “Actually… I think it’s best for this particular haunting if we leave that thing exactly where it is. I cut off the thematic resonance myself, so it’s not dangerous.”

The others agreed with varying degrees of reluctance. Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk were too busy not looking at each other to have much of an opinion. Han Sooyoung, happy that she had gotten her way, headed back towards where she’d parked her car. “Well, that’s that, then, another case done. I’m going to go get some sleep before I keel over.”

“Sooyoung-ssi,” Jung Heewon said suddenly, dropping a solid hand down on her shoulder. “Can we talk for just another second?”

“Is this more about the training?” Han Sooyoung sighed, turning back around to look at Jung Heewon as the others headed out towards the street.

“That’s happening regardless,” Jung Heewon repeated, stubborn as stone. “I just want to suggest to you one more time that you throw in the towel here and give up on this line of work.”

Before Han Sooyoung could immediately object, Jung Heewon held up a hand. “I know you’re going to bite my head off on principle, but just listen. I’m only making this suggestion because I know what a tough job this is. If you’re not serious about it, you’re putting everyone in serious danger… your teammates, your clients, and yourself.”

Han Sooyoung hissed in a slow breath to stay calm. “I’m serious about it, okay?”

“If that’s true, what the hell is motivating you?” Jung Heewon’s eyes were sharp. “People don’t just drop their comfortable jobs and sign up for this. This job is for people with nowhere else to go, for people who are haunted and spirit-touched and can’t go back to living normally. You and Kim Dokja… you have no reason to do this to yourselves.”

Han Sooyoung chewed on her lip. “What is motivating you, Jung Heewon?”

Jung Heewon breathed out a short, bitter laugh. “You know, if I hadn’t met you and Kim Dokja when I did, I wouldn’t be around right now. Even though I survived, I could never really go back to my old self after being haunted. I thought I could at least use that to help others. To stop it from happening to anyone else, even if it was too late for me.”

Before Jung Heewon had been a source for Han Sooyoung’s writing research, before she had even had the faintest interest in the supernatural, Kim Dokja had saved Jung Heewon’s life.

They didn’t talk about it much, but Han Sooyoung clearly remembered the day. She had cajoled Kim Dokja into going out for a drink to celebrate some stupid publishing milestone, and the two of them had ended up at the tiny bar where Jung Heewon was working.

No one else had noticed the resentful ghost that had been haunting Jung Heewon for months, perhaps years. Not her coworkers, friends, or family, not her customers, not Han Sooyoung—only Kim Dokja saw Jung Heewon’s empty eyes behind the bar and realized what was happening. Without his intervention, Jung Heewon would not have made it much longer.

Of course, Jung Heewon was a strong and resilient person. She could go through something like that and come out the other side still thinking of helping other people. Han Sooyoung had not, until this moment, realized that her choice of profession had to do with being somehow unable to return to normal life rather than just being unwilling to.

Han Sooyoung stepped back and considered, her anger flagging. “I know it’s dangerous,” she said, “and I know it doesn’t make sense from the outside—why I decided to do this, and why I dragged Kim Dokja into it. All I can really tell you is that there is something extremely important I need to find, and this is my only way to do it.”

Jung Heewon watched her face. “If that’s true, why not let me help? I assume whatever you are missing is related to the supernatural. You don’t need to do it all by yourself, if you would just tell me what you need.”

Even now, Jung Heewon wanted to help others. It was almost as admirable as it was annoying.

“No, that’s not possible. It’s something only I can do.”

Jung Heewon’s face shuttered. She took it as a rejection, which Han Sooyoung would accept as the price of doing business—She’d say whatever she needed to say to ensure Jung Heewon walked away. “You’re a very selfish person, Han Sooyoung.”

Han Sooyoung smiled, trying her best to show that she could not care less about Jung Heewon’s opinion of her. “I’m aware.”

“The training is still non-negotiable. I will be in contact.”

With that, Jung Heewon turned and headed over to Lee Hyunsung, who was waiting for her at the sidewalk. Jung Heewon moved with even, confident strides, the picture of independence and strength. The current Jung Heewon could not be more different than the empty-eyed soul they had first met at that bar.

She was strong. If it were only about her strength and her abilities as a spirit-hunter, her help would be an undeniable asset.

Jung Heewon had one critical weakness, however, that Han Sooyoung could not afford: her strong sense of justice.

In order to accomplish her goal, Han Sooyoung was prepared to use any means necessary. Whether it put herself, others, or everyone in the world in danger, she was going to accomplish it. That was why Jung Heewon could not be trusted with Han Sooyonug’s plans—Jung Heewon would swiftly realize what a “villain” Han Sooyoung truly was, and act accordingly.

That could not be allowed to happen.

Han Sooyoung headed towards her own team, who were waiting for her in the faint golden light of the sunrise, and turned her back once more on Jung Heewon.

Chapter Text

“Tell me, human,” a sinister voice hissed, rattling like a branch in the wind. “What is it that you desire?”

I sighed, set down my phone, and looked at the office window. An ugly face was plastered up against it with its wide, staring eyes and grimacing fangs nearly touching the glass. It was ten A.M, and the view was otherwise pleasant, the dokkaebi wedged into a tiny scrap of shade cast by the building’s roof.

“Would you give it a rest?” I asked.

“You have need of my services, human.”

“Not at the moment, no…”

“You’re not fully aware of your situation yet, so it makes sense you would believe that.” Bihyung squinted at the window frame. He could easily have slipped inside through the gaps, but I had forbidden him from entering. “Let me in and we can talk.”

“Not happening.” I picked up my phone again to ignore him.

“Do you think the dark powers of this world will allow this to continue?” he sighed, resting his head on a clawed but disturbingly babylike hand. “A human, wielding the power of a Demon King? It’s just not acceptable. Someone will come along to kill you and take it.”

“I assume if that happens, you’ll help protect me, since you are sworn to my service and all.”

“Hmm.” The dokkaebi tapped his chin, eyes sharpening. “Of course, I’ll try, but… have you considered that my power might not be sufficient? I can guide you in obtaining endless power. I can make you the King of humans.”

“We already have a prime minister.”

“Political power, then, does not interest you… but what about immortality?”

I scratched at my neck. “I feel like I’m already past my prime, so prolonging this forever…”

“Wealth, then,” Bihyung suggested with a faint note of panic. “Wealth and fame, to be respected by all, with beautiful women throwing themselves at your feet!”

“Sounds like a hassle.”

“You must,” Bihyung growled, “have some desire that is unmet. Humans can’t exist in this world without wanting. You are in a unique position to obtain what you want, so just tell me. What is it?”

I opened my mouth and, for a second, I felt like I might have an answer. Something I cared about, something I wanted to achieve. But when I looked inside myself to name that thing, I came up empty.

I summoned the shadow blade and pointed it at the dokkaebi. “Using this power to protect the things I choose to protect is enough. Stop bothering me.”

Bihyung grumbled and complained but, unable to disregard a direct order, melted into the sharp morning shade and vanished. I would have loved nothing more than to permanently banish him, but he was right that at some point, I could end up requiring his assistance.

Now that I could actually focus on my thoughts, I was free to resume being preoccupied by the text message I had received just an hour ago by none other than Yoo Joonghyuk.

It was the first message in our conversation history, and simply read: I have a job. I am bringing the client in this morning.

Funnily enough, I could not remember ever giving Yoo Joonghyuk my cell number, which made the message unusual on several levels. It was also weird for him to interface with clients at all—Han Sooyoung always insisted on taking care of that, even though I thought she was a little pushy for customer service. She, in turn, told me I was too awkward for customer service. I resented that, but didn’t want the job enough to argue the point.

But Han Sooyoung was busy elsewhere today, so whatever this was, it was up to me to deal with it. As I waited, I shot a few glances at the window to make sure Bihyung was definitely gone.

I heard the client long before I saw them in the form of a cackling, childlike laugh rising from the building stairwell down the hall. When Yoo Joonghyuk entered the office alongside an elementary schooler, I was momentarily mystified.

Clearly, they knew each other. In fact, the family resemblance was strong in the face, despite how comically different they were otherwise. Yoo Joonghyuk in his usual all-black look, combat boots, and scarred-up skin loomed over a girl dressed in bright and slightly mismatched colors. Her hair was divided into two neat pigtails via flower-shaped scrunchies, and her nose was buried in a cell phone with a chunky, pink case and an array of dangling phone charms.

The girl looked up from her phone and gave me a withering stare that gave even Yoo Joonghyuk’s glare a run for its money. The laughter I had heard coming from the stairwell had apparently evaporated in my presence. “That’s him? Really?”

“Yoo Joonghyuk,” I said with a pointed smile, “what exactly have you been saying about me?”

Yoo Joonghyuk said nothing. I tried to be polite and introduce myself. “Well, um, I’m Kim Dokja. I don’t suppose you’re this guy’s kid…?”

I said this mostly to annoy him, since I was pretty sure Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t had a child as a teenager. My suspicions were confirmed when the kid cried, “Ugh, obviously not! I’m Yoo Mia, his sister. Oppa said you could help us get rid of ghosts but, um, well…”

She cast a deeply critical look around our admittedly fairly cheap and mostly empty office.

“Your brother works here too, you know,” I pointed out.

Yoo Mia turned her critical look towards her brother without missing a beat. Yoo Joonghyuk just raised an eyebrow at her with an uncharacteristic lack of grumpiness, at which Yoo Mia rolled her eyes.

I had to admit, I was kind of fascinated. I didn’t know anything about Yoo Joonghyuk’s family, and it was novel to see how much his demeanor changed around his sister. I wondered how they had become so close, considering the age difference.

“You said you have a ghost problem?” I prompted Yoo Mia. “In that case, you must be our client.”

Han Sooyoung would certainly have something to say about taking a job like this, but I figured we owed Yoo Joonghyuk a favour or two at this point. Besides, it was pretty unusual for that guy to openly ask us for help. It was worth looking into.

“Not me,” Yoo Mia said with a hesitant glance in her brother’s direction. “But… a friend, and other people at school. No one is taking us seriously about it, though…”

I gestured at the chairs on the other side of the desk. “Well, let’s talk, then. What happened?”

Yoo Mia clambered into a chair to sit cross-legged in it while Yoo Joonghyuk remained standing, his gaze lingering almost suspiciously on the window. Shit, he wasn’t still sensing Bihyung, was he? I was going to have to be careful about that.

Yoo Mia tapped a few things on her phone and then slid it across the desk towards me. I looked down to see the loading screen for an app I didn’t recognize. Colourful starbursts spun on a navy-blue background around the game’s logo in a bright yellow font: Starstream!

“This is a popular app right now, ahjussi,” Yoo Mia said, ruthlessly aging me about twenty years in one blow. “It’s part chat client but also part game. You make an avatar and then you can have group chats, do question and answers, and play minigames. See?”

It was tricky to parse all the information as she flipped past a bunch of different screens at high speeds, but I caught the gist of it. It definitely seemed like something that would be popular with kids.

“But, there’s this rumour.” Yoo Mia hesitated. “It says you can get added into a chat with a ‘blank’ avatar. It has no face or eyes—even though that’s not possible to create with the avatar maker in the game. It sends you a blank message, and if you delete the message, you’ll be fine. But if you respond… you get cursed in real life.”

“I… see,” I said. This sounded more like a spooky chain email than a ghost. “Then, have you seen that blank avatar?”

“Ah!” Yoo Mia sat up. “Your eyes are glazing over, you don’t believe me either! Oppa, you said he’d help!”

“Just finish your story, Mia,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

Yoo Mia pouted, but sank back down in her chair. “… I haven’t seen the blank avatar, but a high school girl I know, Lee Jihye, talked back to it. The next day, she had a crazy accident and broke her leg!”

“Oh,” I said, shooting a glance at Yoo Joonghyuk. His face was inscrutable, so I couldn’t tell which part of this he thought was credible enough to require investigation. “Was anyone else hurt after talking with the avatar?”

“Two others were also hospitalized after claiming to have exchanged messages with it,” Yoo Joonghyuk supplied.

“They could be mistaken, or lying,” I pointed out. “If it’s a school legend…”

“I do not believe Lee Jihye is lying,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, glowering. Yoo Mia turned a twin glare on me as well, at which point I was surprised I didn’t burst into flames.

“Uh… and how can you be certain of that?”

“I am certain,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, in the tone to end the conversation.

“Anyway,” Yoo Mia continued, “The app is popular now, so it’s kind of dangerous if you can get cursed on it, right? And it almost seems like it’s getting worse. The first kid sprained an ankle, the second hit her head, and then Jihye unni got in a car accident. She could have died. So…”

“So,” I said, “in that case, the next one could be the most dangerous yet.”

I saw a spark of hope come back into Yoo Mia’s eyes. “Yes, exactly. Most people act like it’s a silly ghost story, but I know hauntings can be seriously dangerous.”

“We should look into it to make sure,” I said. To be honest, I probably would have dismissed this as a schoolyard rumour, but Yoo Joonghyuk was entertaining it, and he certainly wasn’t a stupid guy when it came to hauntings. Digital ghosts aren’t unheard of, either—I was pretty sure Han Sooyoung had written a novel on them some years previous. “What else do you know about it? Is there anything that the kids who got hurt had in common?”

“None of them knew each other, and they went to different schools,” Yoo Mia said. “But all three of them used the app all the time and chatted every day. They had platinum stars.”

This went over my head. “Platinum…?”

“You are slow on the uptake.” She tapped through the game screens again and pulled up a rating screen. “The app evaluates your group chat on how many questions you answer, minigames you play, and if the chat stays active every day. If you keep it up for seven days, you get a platinum star.” Yoo Mia’s rating showed a 20% progress toward the star.

“What does the star get you?” I frowned.

“A really cool outfit,” Yoo Mia said, visibly burning with envy. “And you can customize the color…”

“Mia,” Yoo Joonghyuk warned, “don’t use the app.”

“Okay, I’m not, I was just showing ahjussi,” Yoo Mia complained. “Anyway, if I got a message from the blank avatar, I would just delete it and I would be fine.”

“We don’t know if that’s how it works,” said Yoo Joonghyuk.

“That’s why I’m hiring experts,” she said, with a dubious look towards me as if to say, if you can call this guy an expert. I wasn’t sure whether I had an aura that made kids want to bully me, if Yoo Joonghyuk had been actively badmouthing me to his sister for weeks, or which of these options was worse.

“Well,” I said, choosing to ignore her rudeness, “Do you think we can talk to your friend, Lee Jihye, for more information about the curse?”

Lee Jihye was still in the hospital after her accident, but via a quick phone call from Yoo Mia, said that she could have visitors.

Lee Jihye turned out to be a bright-eyed and energetic-looking girl, despite currently being confined to bed with one leg in a massive cast. When we entered the room, her eyes immediately found Yoo Joonghyuk, and her face brightened. “Master, you came to visit!”

This threw me for an utter loop. “Uh, why…”

Yoo Mia shot me a look that proclaimed I was stupid. “Oppa is teaching Jihye unni sword fighting, so obviously he is ‘Master’.”

I looked to Yoo Joonghyuk. “You teach sword fighting to teenagers?” Did this guy have a secret day job as a kendo instructor this whole time?

“He used to,” Yoo Mia continued, “but then he dropped all his students except for Jihye unni, who made herself a huge annoyance until he agreed to keep teaching her.”

“Hey, Mia, don’t exaggerate.” Lee Jihye’s gaze now flicked suspiciously towards me. “Is this that ugly ghost hunting ahjussi you told me about?”

Wait, how was I ugly? It was true that I didn’t think much about my looks these days, but to immediately call me ugly seemed wrong. Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t react, apparently content to let his child minions bully me.

“… it’s Kim Dokja,” I corrected her.

“Yeah, whatever.” Lee Jihye seemed not to hear me. “Check it out, a ghost broke my leg. I would guess that you don’t see that much when you’re out killing ghosts!”

I wanted to tell her that I didn’t ‘kill’ ghosts, but Yoo Mia interrupted me as she dropped into one of the two chairs by Lee Jihye’s bedside, saying, “a car broke your leg.”

“Yeah, and a ghost made the car break my leg,” Lee Jihye shot back.

“That… does sound pretty serious,” I said.

“Whatever, I’ll heal fast and get right back to sword training,” Lee Jihye said dismissively. She groped for her phone at her bedside table. “Hey, ahjussi, I’ll show you proof of the ghost in Starstream!. Then, you have to let me help fight it.”

“You might have a bit of a misunderstanding—” I had a phone shoved in my face before I could explain.

“There it is, see? The chat is still there.”

I took the phone so I could hold it far away enough from my nose to read it. The screen showed a conversation in the Starstream! chat system. As promised, the first message came from a character with a blank, completely featureless face. Its name was also blank, and the message it had sent was empty. It really was a bit uncanny, especially against the bright and cheery colours of the app.

Below that, a message with an avatar that looked like Lee Jihye had replied: Oh hey, it’s the curse! Come on, I dare you to try and curse me. I train with a super strong spirit-hunter and I can kill any ghost.

Slowly, I lowered the phone. “So, you provoked it?”

“I wanted to see if it was real or not.”

 “Provoking spirits is a good way to be killed,” Yoo Joonghyuk observed.

“Okay, okay.” Lee Jihye deflated instantly at Yoo Joonghyuk’s words. “I thought it was just some kid messing around with a glitched avatar, anyway. How could I know it was actually dangerous?”

“Maybe because two other kids already got hurt?” Yoo Mia suggested innocently.

“Yeah right, like random kids are a trustworthy source.”

I frowned, glancing at the cast. It was a serious injury for a haunting. “Can I ask what exactly happened? How can you be sure that this is related to the blank avatar?”

“Of course it’s related,” Lee Jihye sighed. “Mia, is this guy really supposed to be an expert?”

“That’s what I said, too…”

“I need to gather information so I can investigate,” I said, feeling an eyebrow twitch. Given that these two seemed to actually respect Yoo Joonghyuk, he could have made my life easier by telling them to listen to me, but he did not seem inclined to do so. “Please just tell me what happened during the car accident.”

“…You are so insensitive!” Yoo Mia exclaimed after a moment. “What if she was really upset about it, and you just ask about it directly like that?”

“Ah, well…”

“I’m not upset because I’ve undergone training,” Lee Jihye said, nodding sagely, “but if you do that to your other clients, everyone will hate you.”

Truly, it seemed there was nothing I could do right. With a sigh, I settled into a chair and took out my phone to take notes. “My question still stands.”

Though they made me fight for it, the story itself was pretty straightforward. Lee Jihye had been at a crosswalk on her way home from school when a car swerved into the road, tagging her. In a way, she was very lucky—if she had been hit dead on, her injuries would have been much more serious.

“What can you tell me about the person who hit you?”

“I didn’t see him,” Lee Jihye admitted. “I guess I hit my head on the road. But my parents said he is being charged for unsafe driving.”

“Were the other kids who talked to this avatar hurt in similar ways?”

“One slipped on a mop and fell, and the other had a heavy box fall on her,” Yoo Mia said. “It’s a bad luck curse or something like that.”

So far, there was no way to confirm if any of this really had been caused by a curse. I found it a little odd that the first two events involved inanimate objects, but Lee Jihye’s involved another human being. I would have to look into that.

Before long, we were chased out of Lee Jihye’s room by a nurse, and we ended up outside the hospital without much more information than we started with.

“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “What is your plan?”

I was a little surprised he asked, since I had assumed he’d want to go off and do his own thing as usual. “Well, we still need to prove that this is a curse and not a coincidence. Someone needs to talk to this guy who hit Lee Jihye with his car and find out what he thinks happened. We should also get more details about the rumour itself, though you and I can’t exactly go around asking random kids questions like that…”

Yoo Mia let out a theatrical sigh. “If you really need my help that bad, I will ask my classmates.”

“That would be good. We need to get an idea of where the rumour started. Sound like a job you can take on?”

“Of course. That’s easy,” Yoo Mia scoffed. I wondered if we would be able to trust her information, though I had a feeling saying so out loud was going to get me called ugly again.

“Finally,” I said, taking out my phone and tapping to the app store, “we should also get accounts and try to lure out this ‘blank avatar’. Yoo Joonghyuk, how good are you with mobile games?”

***

As I had predicted, Han Sooyoung threw a fit when she realized what sort of a case Yoo Joonghyuk and I had arbitrarily decided to take in her absence. She returned to the office to find us both bent over our phones. Yoo Mia, by that point, had gotten bored of us and headed off.

“This isn’t a charity!” Han Sooyoung declared. “We don’t run a volunteer service for every haunted child who walks in off the street!”

I wanted to object and say that Yoo Mia wasn’t exactly off the street, nor was she haunted, but Yoo Joonghyuk spoke: “I will pay the fee.”

“You are not my target clientele,” Han Sooyoung said with a critical look up and down Yoo Joonghyuk. “I want rich clients, but after that Demon King fiasco, we got blacklisted from the real estate industry… I don’t know how we’re ever supposed to earn a decent paycheque again.”

She griped and complained but, surprisingly, seemed to resign herself to it once I caught her up on the situation and showed her the app.

 “This is really… we have to stay active on it all the time?” she asked, skeptically watching the stars spin around the Starstream! logo.

“Just for a week, I’m told. We need a platinum star.”

“I hate these games. They use cheap tactics to become addictive and steal your money.” Despite her complaints, Han Sooyoung downloaded the app and quickly set up an account. I saw her pop up as a contact a few moments later. “All right, why don’t you two work on playing this stupid game while I try to find us a case that isn’t from an actual child?”

She pulled out a laptop and a pair of blue-light blocking glasses that made her look very studious, or at least like a stock photo model of a librarian. She had refined the art of ignoring me and Yoo Joonghyuk despite the fact that our office was so small that we all had to be in the same room.

I looked over the Starstream! app interface and sighed. This was going to bring me back to my QA testing days… days that might just return if we didn’t get have any decently paying cases in our future.

Bihyung had asked me earlier what I most desired. At the moment, the most I could think of saying was: don’t make me go back to MinoSoft… Not that I planned to sell my soul for anything that stupid.

To set up a Starstream! account and get a group chat started, I needed to create a profile and an avatar. The avatar came with a bunch of basic options, so I idly picked whatever looked similar to my face and haircut.

The game also had a question-and-answer feature required for the profile. Apparently, answering these sorts of questions daily would earn a few points toward the platinum star.

I was presented with the following two questions to add to my profile: What is your favourite food? And What are you most looking forward to in the future?

Somehow, they were both questions I didn’t really have an answer to. Well, it wasn’t like I had to answer these honestly. I put down some random answers to finish up the profile, then created the group chat where we could work towards earning that stupid platinum star. This was my idea, but now that I saw all the point requirements starting to pile up, I was already getting a headache.

I added Han Sooyoung, who approved the invite while barely looking at her phone.

It was just him, then. “Yoo Joonghyuk, give me your user ID so I can add you.”

 “Is it necessary.”

“Yes, it’s necessary,” I sighed. “I know it’s silly, but two people doesn’t count as a group chat, so you have to join. How else could we lure out the blank avatar? I don’t see the problem.”

“I don’t know where the user ID is.”

“Oh, it’s…” I leaned over to point it out and discovered that his app was throwing up ‘incomplete profile’ warnings left and right. “Uh… you have to complete the profile or it won’t let you do anything.”

“I can see that.”

“Then… complete the profile?”

He frowned, tapped around a few random screens, then seemingly accidentally rediscovered the avatar maker by swiping. He had kept it as the default.

“Hey, you should at least choose options that look like you,” I said, taking a quick jab at a wavy hair option that looked like it belonged on a pop idol.

He snatched his phone away, though my selection remained. “Stop it. I am working on it.”

He moved through the rest of the profile very slowly, as if to annoy me. The profile questions he received were different—What have you been into lately? and Do you ever want to get married?

Somewhat perplexingly, he responded to the first with steamed dumplings. The second, with a very decisive no.

“Wow, not a romantic person, I see. I guess I know why you’re single.” I felt the urge to needle him, but he just ignored me. Eventually, he completed the profile and sent me the code so that I could let him into the chat.

“Okay,” I said, glancing back at my own device. “I guess we’ll have to send messages frequently and earn points. You too, Han Sooyoung.”

She picked up her phone. The first message that popped up on our chat was hers: This is a waste of time!

Really helpful, thanks, I replied, then downvoted her message. She downvoted mine instantly in return.

“If you think using the app is a waste of time,” I suggested out loud, “maybe you can help us look into the car accident? Ideally, we need to talk to the driver.”

She typed in the chat again.

HSY: Yeah, yeah, I’ll take care of it. How many messages do I have to send?

KDJ: We’ll have to keep at it until the “active” light on top stays green.

She typed the word Message several times in a row and was promptly banned for spamming. She cursed at the app and smacked her phone back down. “What the hell? Unban me.”

I pressed a hand against my temple as I undid the automatic ban. “You can’t just cheat. Just put in whatever comes to mind, it doesn’t have to be interesting, as long as it’s not spam. Yoo Joonghyuk, would you type something already?”

“I am.” He was leaning over his phone, eyes narrowed, and it finally occurred to me what was happening.

This guy… was really bad with technology.

Yoo Joonghyuk was about the same age as me, but he squinted at the phone screen with what I could only describe as short-sightedness. He tapped buttons clumsily and with more force than necessary, and navigating screens took him way too long. It was the sort if thing I felt an instinctive millennial pity for, like, here, ahjussi, let me attach the photo to the email for you.

It was too funny, and kind of cute? How did this guy exist in the modern age?

He glared at me and asked, “What?”, after which point I realized I had been staring. I would have to turn my impulse to help the technologically deficient ahjussi into a reason for that. “Don’t you need assistance? You seem like you’re having trouble.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re typing in the wrong chat,” I observed. He had somehow ended up in a DM with me after accepting me as a contact. “The group chat is… oh.”

Before I could advise him to copy and paste his message, he erased it character by character and then navigated to the correct chat to begin the whole torturous process over again. Suddenly, instead of dwelling on how little I wanted to go back to QA testing, I began to enjoy myself.

After we had all sent a handful of messages and played some minigames, the light on the group chat turned green. A timer showed up next to it, indicating that if we didn’t keep the chat active tomorrow, we’d lose our progress toward the platinum star. Han Sooyoung was right; these were some cheap engagement farming tactics.

Han Sooyoung insisted she would look into the car accident for us, which left me with one last avenue to check for information.

As I was walking home in the evening, I sent the following message to Yoo Sangah: are you familiar with the mobile game called Starstream?

To my shock, instead of responding back by text, she called me. It was weird, since we weren’t close—that we even had each others’ numbers in our phone was more of a coincidence than anything else, since she had needed it for something work related back at MinoSoft.

After a moment’s apprehension I picked up the call. “Yoo Sangah-ssi? Did you mean to call?”

“Hello, Dokja-ssi. I did mean to speak with you, yes.”

Well, maybe she was just the sort of person who preferred calls over texts. I put the phone to my ear as I made my way down the street towards my apartment.

“I’m sorry to bother you, I just wanted to ask you something about work.”

“I saw that,” she said, sounding pensive. “Are you asking because you wanted to return to working for a mobile game company?”

“Oh, no, not at all.”

“Good.”

I frowned. “Why is it good?”

She seemed to get flustered. “Oh, it’s nothing, I shouldn’t have said it like that. I just… Dokja-ssi seems more like himself when he is helping people with hauntings, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Starstream, is it? I’ve heard a lot about it lately. It’s very popular,” Yoo Sangah continued after a moment. “It was released by a major developer. Are you playing that game, Dokja-ssi?”

“…Not willingly,” I said, then gave her a quick overview of the case. “I thought I’d ask and see if you had any contacts with the company who made the game. Maybe they would be familiar with the ‘blank avatar’ situation, or something else weird that happened during development.”

“You know, I do have someone I could ask,” Yoo Sangah said after a moment. “I met one of developers at that company some time ago at a conference.”

“Could you? It would be a great help.”

“Certainly. I’ll look into it and get back to you.”

An awkward silence stretched between us. I was trying to ignore it, but talking on the phone with Yoo Sangah was definitely weird.

“Dokja-ssi,” she said after a moment. “This will sound odd, but do you remember your last day at MinoSoft? The conversation we had?”

“Uh…” The tail-end of my employment at that company was a haze in my mind. I was pretty sure I’d spent most of my time huddled away stealing time to read novels. “Sorry, I’m sure what you mean.”

“Your final day. The day before you stopped showing up,” she said. Her speech was as polite as ever, but there was a subtle intensity to her words. “You remember it, right?”

I scraped my brain for anything she could possibly be fishing for. “Did I forget something that happened? I’m sorry, it’s not coming to me.”

“… It is fine, don’t worry about it.” There was a definite note of disappointment in her voice. I felt bad, but I had no idea what she was talking about. “Good luck with your investigation, Dokja-ssi—I’ll contact that developer and let you know if I find out anything interesting.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I frowned momentarily at my phone, then tucked it back in my pocket as I entered the stairwell to my apartment.

As I put my foot on the first step, an uneasy sensation, like a cold wind, went through my body.

I stopped, peering in the direction of the ground floor apartments.

The thing people don’t really tell you about haunted houses is that pretty much every home, apartment, and dwelling encased by four walls is haunted to some degree. Wherever human life is found, things like sorrow, anger, and resentment pile up in the corners. It’s rarely strong enough to result in a full manifestation, but I’ve always been able to feel it, even if it’s faint.

Ever since I’d moved into my current apartment, I’d been aware of a presence on the bottom floor of the building. At first, I had tried to communicate with it, but it was the sort of indistinct haunting that was less of a story and more of a collection of sentence fragments. Because of that, there wasn’t really anything I could do.

Maybe I was imagining it, but these sorts of mindless fragments seemed to be more interested in me lately. I could only assume it had to do with the Demon King’s powers.

As I peered down the dark, silent apartment hallway, the presence I was sensing vanished, as if shrinking from my attention.

I waited an extra moment, but couldn’t see or sense anything more. With a shrug, I headed up to get some rest.

***

              
Over the next few days, we fell into a rhythm with the Starstream! app. Han Sooyoung and I mostly just chatted—argued, really—just like we had in the old days online. Recently, we had stopped texting as much, but with case-related motivation to check and respond, we could come up with a good deal to disagree about.

When the chat was empty for too long, Han Sooyoung sometimes typed up plot points or ideas for new novels. I couldn’t really think of much to respond with, so I would just upvote them, which I assumed also counted as “activity”.

Yoo Joonghyuk, for some reason, started using it as a grocery list, and for various idle thoughts that seemed to have no relevance to anything, such as, Microwaveable mug cakes are an insult. If I tried to respond to these thoughts in the way of “conversation”, he ignored my contributions. He also tended to tap wrong buttons and accidentally send things like random emojis, stray characters, or stickers, which I always upvoted to annoy him.

There was also, of course, the daily questions. These swiftly started to annoy me, because for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to come up with an actual answer to half of them. The app ensured I saw everyone else’s questions and answers, too.

User “Han Sooyoung” has answered the question: “What’s the most painful injury you’ve ever experienced?”

HSY: Having to look at Kim Dokja’s face.

Han Sooyoung’s answers were all like this.

User “Yoo Joonghyuk” has answered the question: “What would be your ideal way to spend your retirement?”

YJH: Sword

Yoo Joonghyuk’s tended towards the incomprehensible.

When my own question for the day popped up, I frowned.

Your daily question is: What do you think is cute about Han Sooyoung?

…Okay, the questions sometimes involved other members of the group chat, and they could be like this.

If Han Sooyoung had gotten this question about me, no doubt she would have said something insulting, but it occurred to me that the best way to mess with her was to put something that sounded more honest.

KDJ: The way she looks wearing glasses.

To be honest, I did find it cute, though I would deny this if asked outright. Predictably, because of her miserable personality, she downvoted the message the moment she saw it.

With our efforts combined, we kept our “active” button in the green for the next few days, slowly gaining progress towards the coveted platinum star.

HSY: Okay, I found a way to meet the driver from that car accident.

HSY: The press release said he was in the hospital for treatment, and I think I found out which one. I’ll be able to confirm it soon.

Messages of that nature seemed out of place when delivered by a cute caricature of Han Sooyoung’s face in the app, but moving our case-related conversations to the group chat was helping us stay active.

KDJ: Send me the details once you have them, and I’ll go visit him.

YJH: I will also go.

KDJ: How is that a good idea? You’ll scare him half to death before I can get any information out of him.

YJH: He hit my student with his car.

KDJ: Yeah, you’re definitely staying out of this one.

YJH: I will not be.

Somehow, the vacant default expression of Yoo Joonghyuk’s avatar beneath the fluffy pop idol hair managed to look threatening. His next message changed the subject.

YJH: Mia has informed me she has updates regarding the rumours at school. I will bring her by the office after school today.

To my surprise, however, Yoo Mia walked into the office earlier than expected and all on her own. She threw open the door and announced: “Ahjussi, you are slacking.”

I’ll admit that sitting hunched over on the agency’s sole desk shovelling noodles into my mouth did not exactly disprove this accusation, but I had forgotten to eat lunch earlier. I placed my chopsticks back in the takeout container and sighed, looking up at her. “Where’s your brother?”

“Oppa is busy working on the case,” Yoo Mia informed me, a touch of accusation in her words.

Is he? I squinted at the messages in my phone. He had better not have gone to that hospital on his own. “…I’m also working on the case. I’m making sure our chat stays active.”

“Let me see,” she demanded, holding out a hand.

I shrugged and handed her my phone to evaluate our chat activity. It wasn’t like there was anything weird in there, and it gave me five minutes of peace to finish eating.

“Not going to cut it,” she declared after awhile. “You didn’t play any minigames today.”

“I was getting to those.”

“You won’t earn enough points if you slack off…”

“Hey, Mia, listen,” I said as I took my phone back. “Don’t worry too much—we’ll definitely solve the case. I promise I’ll keep on top of the chat and the minigames.”

“I helped you out,” she said flatly. I observed that the chat was now filled with heart, sparkle, and an assortment of random animal emojis sent from my account, surrounding the message “I am ugly”. She had also changed my username to the squid emoji, for some reason. After a moment, Han Sooyoung responded with “??”.

“Thank you.” I set the phone down.

“Also, you should play a game with me.” She pulled out her own phone and, after a second, the invite for the Starstream! racing minigame appeared.

“Are you supposed to be using the app?” I pointed out. “It could be dangerous.”

“It’s fine! I’m using a side account, see?” She swiped to show me a blank profile. “It’s pretty easy to get in and out of burner accounts, you know. People use it all the time to cheat on the games. This way I won’t get points towards a platinum star.”

“… Even so, I don’t think playing games with you counts toward my group chat activity.”

“How do you know? I heard at school it does,” Yoo Mia countered as she slouched over the chair reserved for clients. “Also, the racing minigame keeps the active button green for longer. Who is the expert here anyway? I only told you about the app this week.”

This sounded like a schoolyard myth, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point, so I accepted her invite and promptly got my ass absolutely handed to me.

She cackled madly as her avatar spun around the screen in a victory screen. “Yay, I won! Let’s play again.”

“And to think, you accuse me of slacking,” I pointed out, though accepted the second invite. “One more and that’s it.”

“Okay, try to win this time!”

I did my best, but was once again soundly defeated. She laughed again, and the app notified me she had screenshotted her victory screen, which showed her avatar kicking mine out of the frame. Hey, wasn’t that a bit violent…?

I sighed, lowering the phone. “Happy?”

“Yes,” Yoo Mia said blithely. “Oppa always lets me win games, which is no fun. But ugly ahjussi actually tries to win and still loses!”

Seriously, did this kid have some kind of grudge against me? “Happy to help.”

“What do I win?”

I had to smile at her boldness. “If you want to win something from playing, you have to agree on it before you play the game.”

“No fair,” she pouted. “Oppa gets me a snack or something when I win.”

“Does he really, or are you just trying to get free stuff out of me?”

The mischievous glint in her eye didn’t tell me either way.

“Well—are you saying you’re hungry?” I realized after a moment that I was caught in a dilemma. Actually, if Yoo Joonghyuk had been delayed, wouldn’t he kill if me if I didn’t make sure his sister was taken care of? “There’s a little market just down the street if you want some—”

I was interrupted by what sounded like an argument right outside the office door. Someone’s muffled voice rose in a tone of surprise or alarm.

Concerned, I stood up, only for the door to open and reveal Yoo Joonghyuk standing next to a sheepish-looking girl about Yoo Mia’s age.

Yoo Joonghyuk, apparently having just arrived, glanced from the girl to us and said, “You appear to have an eavesdropper.”

“You!” Yoo Mia burst out as soon as she saw the other girl. “Did you follow me here? I told you to back off!”

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I recognized the other girl. The previous year, I had helped the ghost of her pet dog move on from this world—the very first case I had ever taken. “Is that… Shin Yoosung?”

Both Yoo Mia and Shin Yoosung seemed surprised. Shin Yoosung spoke first: “Dokja ahjussi, you remember me?”

“Of course. I helped you resolve a haunting while ago, didn’t I?” I looked between the two of them. “What exactly is going on here?”

“She,” Yoo Mia said sharply, “wouldn’t stop bothering me about this case when I started asking around about the rumour at school. When I mentioned I hired this ugly ghost hunting ahjussi to solve it, she just kept pestering me.”

“I can help with the case!” Shin Yoosung insisted, now looking to me. “I really can help, Dokja ahjussi, just give me a chance. You have to believe me.”

“I, uh…” Both of them were glaring at me somewhat intensely, while Yoo Joonghyuk also seemed to be giving me an unhappy look. I wasn’t sure how I had become the villain. “Maybe we can all just sit down and talk? Mia, weren’t you going to give me updates on what you found out about the rumour?”

The two girls shot each other looks—Yoo Mia openly hostile and Shin Yoosung quietly resentful—then dropped into the two chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

“The app only came out this year,” Yoo Mia reported first, speaking quickly as if to get in ahead of Shin Yoosung. “From the people I talked to, it seems like the rumour started right when the game started becoming popular, like it was haunted from the very start.”

“Is the rumour taken seriously?”

“People like to scare each other with the story, but I don’t think most kids really believe it. I think the overall opinion is that it’s scary, but also kind of stupid.”

“Actually,” Shin Yoosung interjected, “among certain kids, the blank avatar also has a bit of a fan club.”

Both myself and Yoo Mia turned to her in surprise.

“How could that be, when it’s hurting other students?” I asked.

“It’s hurting popular students,” Shin Yoosung clarified. “People with a lot of friends, who are always talking on the app. A lot of kids who are popular can be bullies. So, the kids who are victims of bullying cheer on the blank avatar. It seems like it’s taking revenge for them.”

Now this was an interesting train of thought. “Has Lee Jihye been bullying other kids or something?”

“Of course she hasn’t!” Mia announced, though a moment later a pensive look came into her face. “Not on purpose, anyway. Sometimes she can come off as a little pushy, so…”

“Maybe that’s something else that’s tying all the victims together,” I mused. “Is there a particular person that all three bullied?”

 Yoo Mia shook her head. “I don’t really know of anyone…”

“I can find out,” Shin Yoosung said, sitting up straight. “Yoo Mia doesn’t know the right people at school, but I do. I can find out if there’s anyone like that.”

“Can you stop it?” Yoo Mia demanded. “I didn’t invite you here, and this has nothing to do with you. You don’t even know anyone who got cursed.”

“I don’t see why someone I know has to be targeted for me to care,” Shin Yoosung replied. “Everyone around our age is using this app, so we need to get to the bottom of this.”

My phone buzzed with a notification, and I glanced down to see that Han Sooyoung had sent me the information for the hospital where the person who had hit Lee Jihye was staying.

I tucked the phone into my pocket and looked at the girls. “Can you two look into it, and find out if there really was someone who was bullied by all three victims?”

“Ahjussi,” Yoo Mia said, dismayed, “are you really going to let her join the case? She has nothing to do with it.”

“I’m going to think about it,” I said. “Did you find out anything else about the rumour?”

“… No,” Yoo Mia admitted darkly. “Why do I feel like if you were any good at this, you would have solved the case already…?”

“Isn’t that rude to say to someone who is helping you?” Shin Yoosung said primly. It was nice that there was at least one kid that didn’t immediately insult me, but at the moment I was mostly wishing they would stop arguing.

Yoo Mia glared. “What would you know, anyway?”

“Yoo Mia,” Yoo Joonghyuk spoke for the first time since he’d entered the room, giving his little sister a look. Yoo Mia turned her glare on him defiantly, at which point he said, “I would appreciate if you didn’t run off on your own. I told you I would pick you up after school today.”

Oh, so that is what happened.

Yoo Mia waved a hand around. “I had no choice, this girl was following me around, so I had to shake her off… not that I succeeded.”

“If you are finished discussing the rumours, I will take you home now.”

Watching them go back and forth like this, it occurred to me that they behaved far more like a parent and child than they did siblings. Yoo Joonghyuk must have had a big hand in raising her. My earlier joke about her being his daughter could be a little closer to the truth than I realized.

Yoo Mia was pouting again, so I suggested, “Your brother’s probably right, you wouldn’t want to keep your parents waiting.”

The room froze. Yoo Mia flinched, while Yoo Joonghyuk and Shin Yoosung looked awkward.

After a moment, Yoo Joonghyuk said, “Our parents aren’t living.”

“I—Oh.” Their relationship suddenly made a lot of sense. There was no good way to remove both feet from my mouth now. “Er… Sorry, I had no idea.”

Yoo Mia shot me another glare, which I couldn’t blame her for. Shin Yoosung politely looked down at her own hands.

Yoo Joonghyuk eventually put me out my misery by saying, “They were in an accident a long time ago. It’s not relevant. Mia, let’s go.”

“Fine.” Yoo Mia shot Shin Yoosung and I one last look before whirling to leave the room. “Don’t let her join the case, ahjussi, she’ll just get in the way.”

As the door closed behind her, Shin Yoosung let out a frustrated sigh, then seemed to shake herself out of it. “Oh—I should go too, I’m sorry for taking up your time, Dokja ahjussi.”

“Actually,” I said, “I was hoping to ask you one quick question before you go. I still have to decide whether or not I’ll let you work with us on this. Please, tell me—why did you involve yourself in this case when you heard Yoo Mia talking about it?”

“I just…” Shin Yoosung twisted her hands nervously in her lap. “You know, I… I’ve always been able to sense ghosts.”

That surprised me. “You have?”

“Yes. Ever since I was very young, I would always know when there was a presence nearby. Sometimes they’re sad, or angry, or bitter, but they always… want something. It scared me, and no one ever understood what I was talking about.”

For a moment we sat in silence. She was telling me a familiar story, but I found it difficult to respond to.

Shin Yoosung looked up at me with bright eyes. “But when you helped me last year… that was the first time I ever realized that you could help ghosts. You don’t just have to sit by and ignore them, and listen to them suffer. I… Dokja ahjussi, please teach me.”

 “Teach you? About ghosts?”

“About ghosts and how to help them,” Shin Yoosung clarified. “With my situation… I can’t stop thinking about how if it had been another person my parents called, that person probably would have just destroyed the ghost of my dog without a second thought.”

“That’s commonly how it’s done, yes,” I admitted.

“So, will you teach me?” she asked, eyes wide.

How was I qualified to teach anyone about ghosts? All I had were my own theories, years of reading serialized supernatural fiction, and a handful of months of experience under my belt—a handful of months which had already seen me die once. “Shin Yoosung, I’m sorry. I don’t know if I can.”

She immediately looked crestfallen. “But… why not? I’m reliable, I promise. I won’t annoy you or slow you down. I’ll work hard.”

“It’s not because you’re not capable,” I assured her. I knew she was a resilient kid; she had been willing to do whatever it took to help her friend move on to the next world even in her grief. “I just don’t know if I’m really the best teacher for you.”

“Dokja ahjussi is the best teacher,” she declared immediately. “Aren’t you like me? Didn’t you also grow up hearing ghosts, and not being able to help them?”

“Yes, but…” I couldn’t seem to come up with the words I needed to convince her, so instead I took a coward’s path by leaving the decision to another time. “Why don’t we investigate this case first, and then I’ll think about it?”

She stood up with fiery eyes, as if this admission had given her a new purpose. “Yes! Okay, I won’t let you down. I’ll definitely figure out if there’s a person who could be causing the haunting and get back to you. Then you’ll teach me for sure.”

“Um…” I tried to correct her, but she said her goodbyes and hurried out of the office so quickly that I didn’t get the chance.

With a sigh, I leaned back in my chair in the sudden silence and checked Han Sooyoung’s message in my phone again.

There was the address to the hospital where the driver was currently staying, as well as their name and room number. How had Han Sooyoung managed to track down this information, anyway? When she turned her research contacts into people across Seoul she could call for “favors”, the results could be a little scary.

Luckily enough, right at this second, Yoo Joonghyuk was occupied with taking Yoo Mia home. That meant I had the opportunity to sneak out on my own and meet this person without that guy getting in the way.

I quickly gathered my things and locked the office door behind me, for the moment putting all thoughts of teaching Shin Yoosung out of my head.

The man who had hit Lee Jihye with his car was called Lee Sungkook. Evidently, after he’d hit her, he had swerved into a pole and given himself whiplash, which was why he was receiving treatment. After lying about being his friend and sneaking around a bit, I found Lee Sungkook in a hospital bed with a neck brace, trying to read while sitting in an awkward position.

He shot me a suspicious look as I walked in. “Who are you supposed to be…?”

“I’m not anyone important,” I said. “You are Lee Sungkook, right? I was hoping I could ask you about the accident you were in.”

Lee Sungkook stared at me. “Why do you want to know that? If you’re with the police, they’ve already questioned the hell out of me… it really wasn’t my fault, okay?”

“I’m not with the police,” I assured him.

“Then…” he paled. “You’re not with that girl’s family, are you? I’m telling you, it wasn’t…”

I held up a hand. I had definitely made the correct choice in leaving Yoo Joonghyuk behind for this one. “No, I’m not her family. I’m not here to accuse you of anything. I just want to know what really happened.”

He placed his book down and peered at me closer. “A reporter?”

It would not be a terrible idea if that’s what he thought, so I didn’t correct him. “You said the accident wasn’t your fault—so what was the cause, if it wasn’t reckless driving?”

“You have to report on it accurately,” Lee Sungkook insisted. He tried to lean forward a little bit, then grimaced and had to return to his original position. “They’re going to charge me for reckless driving, but if you look into it, you’ll find out it wasn’t my fault. If you just explain that to them, if you find evidence, you can help me.”

“Maybe,” I said, taking a seat next to his bed. “Can you explain to me what happened?”

He had seemed excited at first, but then he gave me a cautious look. “What do you usually report on? Have you ever covered… supernatural cases?”

That was an interesting thing to lead with, given the circumstances. “I’m familiar with a few supernatural cases, yes.”

“Good. You see, the only reason I swerved into that crosswalk…” He shuddered briefly. “I don’t know how to explain it. I normally have a slight sensitivity to these things, but I’ve never seen anything like what was happening around that girl.”

“Try to explain anyway,” I said, taking out my phone to take notes. “Are you claiming to have experienced a visual or auditory manifestation?”

“Yes, that exactly.” My use of appropriate terms seemed to assure him somewhat. “I noticed what seemed like this… dark cloud, spiralling in front of me. There was this awful sensation coming off of it… fear, anger, desperation, or something. I hardly even saw the girl, I just…”

“So, when you saw this cloud surrounding a girl, what did you do?”

“Well, I… I thought I was in danger, so of course I…”

“You hit the cloud on purpose?” I suggested, somewhat weakly. My sympathy for this guy was starting to fade.

“If you aren’t sensitive to spiritual energy, you wouldn’t understand,” Lee Sungkook replied stiffly. “For all I knew, it was going to attack me next.”

“All you did was see this cloud?”

“No, it wasn’t sight exactly…” A pensive look came into Lee Sungkook’s eyes. “Actually, the cloud, it almost seemed like…”

There was a noise at the door and Lee Sungkook looked over my shoulder, alarmed. I turned and felt a flash of frustration when I saw Yoo Joonghyuk looming in the door. That guy was way too fast.

“Can you leave?” I asked him. “I’m speaking with the victim about the accident.”

I was hoping he’d take the hint and go away without complicating anything, but if course, he heard me say the word victim and took several threatening steps inside. “So, you are the one who nearly killed Lee Jihye.”

“Um, I…” Lee Sungkook flinched, then turned an accusatory gaze toward me. “Wait, just who are you people? You lied to me, you are with that girl!”

I stood up to block Yoo Joonghyuk’s way. “We’re not. This man is just leaving, isn’t he?”

“Shut up, Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk growled under his breath, then made to push past me towards Lee Sungkook. “You. Explain yourself now or I will kill you.”

I caught Yoo Joonghyuk by the arm. Normally, this would have done less than nothing, but since my possession by the Demon King, my strength had increased by several degrees. It felt a bit like cheating, but the main point was I could hold my own against even Yoo Joonghyuk if I had to. He flashed a disbelieving glare at me that turned murderous when he could not immediately shake off my grip.

Lee Sungkook squirmed back in terror. “H-Hey! Someone help, there are people in my room threatening me!”

Shit. Someone called out from down the hallway, and a door slammed open. I started to run, trying to drag Yoo Joonghyuk along with me. “Let’s go, now.”

If Yoo Joonghyuk had really wanted to resist, he could have fought me off, but he let me pull him out of the hospital room and down the hall before anyone could rush to Lee Sungkook’s aid. We hurried out of the building as casually as possible and didn’t stop until we were fully down the street.

The moment I felt we were safe, I whirled on Yoo Joonghyuk. “What the hell was that, you bastard? I was getting important information.”

“You fool decided to sneak around behind my back,” he said, glowering.

“Of course, because I knew that was likely to happen!” I gestured at the placid face if the hospital down the road behind us. “I just confirmed that there was a supernatural cause to Lee Jihye’s accident, but you stomped in before I could get the details.”

“I could have gotten him to talk,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, “if you had not gotten in my way.”

“You were threatening an injured man in a hospital!” I exclaimed. “That’s assault, you could easily get arrested for that. We don’t live in a jungle, you know.”

To my surprise, he glanced away with a somewhat bitter expression and didn’t respond.

“Your problem-solving skills leave something to be desired,” I concluded, lamely. “Now I’ll just have to hope our other leads end up going somewhere useful… I don’t know how someone like you lives in this society.”

He glowered silently for a few moments and then said, “Only recently I did return to… living in this society.”

My mind momentarily conjured strange images of Yoo Joonghyuk living off on his own in an actual jungle, wrestling tigers, but of course, that wasn’t what he meant. Han Sooyoung had told me herself when she had suggested bringing Yoo Joonghyuk on board with our company: he had an encounter with a really nasty spirit, one of the time-bending ones… when he came out of that, he was a bit weird.

“You mean… the spirit world distortion?”

He eyed me warily. “You know about that.”

“Han Sooyoung mentioned it in passing,” I shrugged. “But what you’re saying is that, in the distortion you were trapped in, threatening an injured man would have been acceptable?”

“It would have been the correct choice in order to move forward.”

“Even if that’s true, that was months ago,” I pointed out. “Haven’t you adjusted to the real world by now?”

“As if it would be that quick, you fool,” he snapped. “A few months is nothing compared to how long I lived in the distortion.”

“How… how long was that?”

“That is not your business.”

I was getting a headache. “Well, I’m sure it’s hard, but to threaten someone in a hospital…”

“It would have worked. He is clearly a worm, he will cave in front of whoever shows strength.”

I looked at Yoo Joonghyuk’s face with some apprehension. This guy… just what had he been doing in that distortion, and for how long? I felt a twist of sympathy despite myself. Spirit world distortions were no joke. Before being trapped there, he had probably lived a normal life.

“If you get yourself arrested for assault,” I observed, voice light, “we are going to be in a tricky situation when it comes time for us to face the entity causing this.”

“I will not be arrested.”

“Because you’re not going to assault anyone, correct?” I prompted him. “Not because you think you can fight cops or something else equally stupid?”

“I am not an idiot, Kim Dokja,” he snapped at me.

“Great, then next time try using your brain a little bit. I have to go check up on my other leads. Stay out of jail until then.” I patted him somewhat aggressively on the shoulder as I walked past, and he shook me off angrily. I shot one glance behind me to make sure he didn’t head back towards the hospital, but he was just standing on the sidewalk with a dark look in his eye.

… Seriously, he had better not get himself arrested.

“Bihyung,” I muttered.

The grudging answer came a few moments later from the shade cast by a nearby tree. “…Human.”

“Keep an eye on him and notify me if he goes back into that hospital, all right?”

“Am I your personal errand runner?” The dokkaebi complained.

“That was my understanding, yes,” I said, momentarily letting the shadows gather at my forehead.

“All right, all right, relax. I’ll watch him.”

“He’s got sharp senses. Don’t get too close, or you’ll be strangled again.”

“Spirit-touched humans are all freaks,” Bihyung commented rudely before melting away into the shadows to do his job. Hey, now that I had the powers of the Demon King, I was also spirit-touched…

Well, I couldn’t exactly expect a dokkaebi in the service of a Demon King to be polite. I resisted the urge to shoot another glance over my shoulder at Yoo Joonghyuk and got to work checking up on all my remaining leads.

Unfortunately, there turned out to be nothing more I could do for the day. Yoo Sangah still had to meet with the developer, Shin Yoosung would need time to look into the bullying situation, and we had already gotten all the information that Lee Jihye knew. Until I could follow up on these, I was stuck with my only task being to open up the Starstream! app and play some stupid minigames.

As I returned home that night, after shooting another wary glance down the hall at the questing ghost fragments on the ground floor, Bihyung melted out of my apartment door. If it weren’t for the fact that I could sense him ahead of time, he would probably be giving me heart attacks every time he appeared. “Your task was useless, that spirit-hunter did not return to the hospital.”

“Good.” I opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind me to lock Bihyung out. Unfazed, he melted up from under the door and looked around my apartment derisively.

“If you used the true power of a Demon King, you could live in luxury rather than a rat hole like this,” he said.

“It’s not necessary to insult my apartment.” I wish I could have said he was wrong, but my willpower to clean my apartment had been at an all-time low for several months. No other human being had visited for a long time, at least. “If that’s all, get out and stop bothering me.”

“You are an unusual human,” Bihyung muttered. “You want something, I know it, but you’ve buried whatever it is deep. Someday you’ll realize it and come crawling to me to help you.”

“I said get out.”

With a low snicker, he melted into the shadows under my front door and I felt his presence vanish.

Chapter Text

Three days later, three kids showed up at our office with their phones out.

…Whenever this case progressed, somehow more of children appeared. Yoo Mia and Shin Yoosung I expected—they were still shooting annoyed glances at each other—but the third kid was unfamiliar, a skinny boy with a bug-catching net slung over one shoulder.

Han Sooyoung took one look at the group of visitors and got up to leave. “This is your stupid case, Kim Dokja. I’m not babysitting a bunch of kids. I have actual work to do.”

“Han Sooyoung—” I started, but she left before I could say anything else.

I sighed, looking at my guests. “…Sorry about her. Do you guys have news about the rumour?”

The boy glanced around nervously, gaze flicking towards me and then away. “Um, I don’t really think…”

“We found the only person who is connected to all three people who were hurt,” Shin Yoosung declared. “It’s him—his name is Lee Gilyoung. But Dokja ahjussi, he definitely isn’t the one causing it.”

The kid relaxed slightly at Shin Yoosung’s words, but still seemed antsy. His eyes dropped down to his phone and he held it out to me after a second. “She’s right, I… See? My avatar is normal.”

Through a faint crack on his phone screen, I saw a perfectly normal Starstream! account. Now that I was familiar with the app, I could tell that Lee Gilyoung’s account had a lot of activity points from playing minigames, but wasn’t in any group chats and thus was far from a platinum star. The only unusual thing I noticed was that his User ID was on the lower side, meaning he must have been among the first to sign up for the game.

“It’s okay, I wasn’t going to accuse you,” I assured him. “Shin Yoosung and Yoo Mia were just looking into possibilities for me. Do you… know anything about the blank avatar?”

“Um, well, I…”

“Tell him,” Yoo Mia said, voice threatening. Once again, I was reminded of her brother. Yoo Mia was probably going to be equally terrifying as an adult.

“Do you have to bully him?” Shin Yoosung interjected.

“Let’s not fight,” I told them, also beginning to regret my decision to take this case on. “Um, Lee Gilyoung, right? We are just trying to solve the haunting so we can make sure no one else gets hurt. If you have any information, it could be really helpful.”

“Okay,” Lee Gilyoung said, looking at me with something like surprise. He hesitantly sat down in one of the chairs, nervously passing his beat-up phone from hand to hand. “I can tell you a few things. Like… The blank avatar is only sticking up for kids who get picked on, that’s all.”

“So, you’re a fan?”

Yoo Mia turned a glare on Lee Gilyoung and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Not really. I just get it, that’s all. Those kids who got hurt, they were the worst.”

“Lee Jihye isn’t the worst,” Yoo Mia snapped. “You don’t even know her.”

“She pushed me over and didn’t apologize.”

“That wasn’t on purpose.”

“How do you know?” Lee Gilyoung glared. “I bet she was in on it along with the others, just laughing and messing around like it’s all one big game. I hate people like that.”

“Okay,” I interjected, worried that they were about to escalate things to blows. “Let’s just take it easy. We’re just gathering information…”

“So, what, you’re going to kill the blank avatar?” Lee Gilyoung said, turning to me now. “Maybe it’s just trying to defend itself, too.”

“Well, somebody was hospitalized,” I tried to say, but Lee Gilyoung got up, his face falling. When he moved to put his phone back in his pocket, I caught a glimpse of a purple-green bruise on his shoulder, mostly hidden by his shirtsleeve.

“Never mind. This was a bad idea. None of you understand.”

“Wait—” Shin Yoosung started to say, but Lee Gilyoung swung his bug net over his shoulder and dashed out.

“What a brat,” Yoo Mia scowled after him. “That wasn’t helpful at all. Maybe it really is him.”

“It’s not,” Shin Yoosung said stiffly, shooting me a look. “Dokja ahjussi… Lee Gilyoung is annoying, but he just has a hard time. The older kids are always messing with him. When I went to talk to him about Starstream! he was really happy, it’s his favorite game and he didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it.”

I frowned at the door. “Maybe it’s not him, but I have to wonder if he really doesn’t have anything to do with it. Ghosts can sometimes… get attached to certain people, you know.”

“How so?” Shin Yoosung asked immediately, eyes snapping to me.

“… I’ll explain it, but not because I’m agreeing to teach you,” I sighed, figuring that this much knowledge would be a good idea for her to have. “Just like ghosts can get stuck in rooms, buildings, or objects, they occasionally latch onto a person. Sometimes it’s because they knew that person when they were alive, but it’s equally common for that person to be completely unrelated, and to just happen to have something in common with the ghost.”

The worst part of that situation was that most people weren’t spiritually sensitive at all, and would never notice if there was a ghost pouring resentful energy into them all the time. They would just feel tired, sluggish, angry, or scared for no discernable reason.

“How do you get rid of that?” Yoo Mia demanded.

“The same way as any other haunting. You can remove the ghost with a ritual that destroys it, or you can find out what the ghost wants to help it move on,” I explained. “These types of ghosts tend to be really dangerous, though. Shin Yoosung, if you ever sense something like that, tell me instead of trying to deal with it yourself.”

She nodded seriously. I realized I was only getting her hopes up further by telling her to come to me specifically if she found a haunted person, but I had little other choice. Bringing the problem to someone else was likely to result in them disbelieving her or, at best, hiring someone to exorcise the ghost in the most traumatic way possible. Neither Shin Yoosung, the victim, nor the ghost should have to go through that situation.

“I don’t sense anything haunting Lee Gilyoung, though,” Shin Yoosung said consideringly. “Do you, Dokja ahjussi?”

“No, I didn’t,” I agreed. “Still, is it possible to keep an eye on him?”

Shin Yoosung held up her phone, showing me that Lee Gilyoung had been added to her friends list on Starstream!. “I can check up on him and make sure he’s not up to anything weird.”

“Thanks.”

“Ahjussi,” Yoo Mia suddenly piped up, “are you slacking on your minigames again?”

After obligingly letting her kick my ass at a cake-decorating minigame I wasn’t even sure how it was possible to lose, the girls took off, still arguing with each other, and left me to my own devices.

I idly checked the group chat to see if I needed to boost its activity. It had been a full week since we started it, so we would be getting our platinum star that very afternoon if we didn’t manage to mess it up before then.

The fact that it had been a full week without much real progress on the case, though, was making me a bit antsy. We needed to figure this out before the blank avatar chose another victim.

User “Yoo Joonghyuk” has answered the daily question: “What do you and 🦑 have in common?”

…My name was still the squid emoji because it turned out you could only change your username once every fifteen days.

YJH: Nothing at all.

🦑: Hey, that’s a little rude. I’m sure we have at least one or two things in common.

🦑: We work at the same company?

YJH: Shut up, Kim Dokja .

🦑: I could ban you from the chat for insulting me.

YJH: You will not. You need the platinum star.

YJH: D

As was my habit now, I upvoted his accidental character to annoy him. It wasn’t really his fault, anyway—the Starstream! app had an annoying design with the “send message” button too big and easy to brush with your thumb while typing—but it amused me that Yoo Joonghyuk was the one who hit the button by accident most often.

YJH: I will kill you.

🦑: You already did, remember?

HSY: Can you two shut up

HSY: The activity is already in the green and the notifications are driving me crazy.

I downvoted her, then set the phone down with a sigh.

I spent my afternoon going through forums and FAQ’s, trying to track down any additional information about the blank avatar, the rumour, or the curse. Despite focusing on my phone screen until my eyes started to itch, I only found a single forum post that referenced the blank avatar, and only in passing.

Though the Starstream! app was popular worldwide, no one outside of Seoul had posted about the blank avatar. I checked a few foreign-language pages to the best of my ability as well, running the posts through an online translator. The complete lack of information suggested to me that this curse was a local one.

I had intended to continue looking for information after I returned home, but Yoo Sangah gave me a call that evening before I could get back to work.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” she said, apologetic. “It’s not easy to fit a meeting into both of our schedules, so I was only able to talk with the developer today.”

“That’s okay,” I said. I was at home by that point, putting together a somewhat pathetic meal of takeout leftovers. “Did you discover anything useful? I keep hitting dead ends no matter what I look into.”

“Well,” Yoo Sangah replied, “I did find out a few things. First of all, the developer was very cooperative. You asked about anything strange that could have happened during development, but she seemed to be honestly unaware of any dark secrets of the variety that lead to hauntings.”

“I was kind of hoping for a dark secret,” I admitted. It would have led to a confirmed source of the haunting.

“Well, I’m afraid the information I have for you is somewhat the opposite. I can confirm that the blank avatar is not a supernatural occurrence.”

I blinked, frozen with my hand hovering above the microwave buttons. “How could you say that for sure?”

“It’s actually a known glitch from version 1 of the app.”

“A glitch?”

“It was just an oversight with the avatar maker,” Yoo Sangah explained. “Users could cause it by moving quickly between different screens and saving their avatar at the right moment. It was later patched out, but users who downloaded version 1 could still have access to glitched avatars.”

“Is there any way to know which users have them?”

“The developer couldn’t give out users’ personal information, but she was able to let me know that version 1 was only active up until user ID 11253. That means that any user with an ID of 11252 or below could potentially have access to a blank avatar. It’s a small percentage of the currently active users.”

“I see.” It didn’t lead us directly to the cause, but we could still use this. “I really appreciate you looking into it, Yoo Sangah-ssi.”

As I put the phone down, it occurred to me that I had recently seen someone with a user ID well below the number Yoo Sangah had given me. That certainly wasn’t proof of anything—I had seen for myself that that person had a normal, non-blank avatar—but it did make me pause.

I had barely released the phone before it buzzed with another notification, and the Starstream! app threw up a sparkling banner across my screen: Congratulations on earning your platinum star! Work hard to stay active so you can keep your special ranking!

…The game was seriously going to take away the star if we didn’t continue to be active? I sighed, annoyed, but flipped the app open to make sure everything looked correct. The platinum star was shining next to all three of our usernames, and the game informed me that I now had access to an exclusive outfit.

My avatar put it on automatically—it was a sparkling, ridiculous-looking suit with long coattails and a top hat. I was mildly annoyed, but smirked when I saw that Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk’s avatars had also been forced into wearing it.

🦑: Looking good, everyone. Hey, we finally got the star.

HSY: Can we please be done with this case yet? Didn’t you find anything out?

I reported my findings of the day, though I left out my suspicion about Lee Gilyoung. If he really did have something to do with it, I would have to deal with that carefully.

YJH: We need to solve the problem soon. The haunting will choose another victim before long.

YJH: %

I automatically upvoted his mistake before getting back to the conversation.

🦑: I have a lead. I’ll look into it first thing tomorrow.

🦑: Until then let’s stay active. The star goes away if we don’t keep it in the green.

HSY: I hate these mobile games so much.

I turned the problem over in my head all evening, considering what my next steps would be. I found it difficult to fall asleep, so I was still semi-awake to check my phone when a notification went off near midnight.

It was just another stupid mistake from Yoo Joonghyuk, which I blearily upvoted and then ignored. As I tried to settle back in to sleep, though, a strange sense of uneasiness crept up on me.

That guy didn’t send mistakes absent of other messages, it just happened when he was already typing and accidentally swiped the “send” button with his thumb. The faint uneasiness was enough to get me to check the message again, at which point I actually woke up.

I hadn’t been in the group chat at all—I was in a DM with the blank avatar, and I had upvoted its blank message.

I stared at the chat in silence for a minute. Just like I had seen in Lee Jihye’s phone, the blank avatar had no name or facial features and it was wearing a plain, black outfit. Its empty message hovered in the chat field, now stupidly upvoted by me.

…Did an upvote count as a reply? My sense of uneasiness continued to grow as the phone became unusually cold in my hand.

Well, I’d already responded, so I might as well see if it was possible to communicate. I got out of bed, pacing my bedroom as I texted.

🦑: Hello? I don’t want to hurt you.

🦑: I was hoping we could talk. I want to know what the problem is.

🦑: Why are you angry? What happened to you?

🦑: Why are you using the Starstream app?

I did not receive a response, but I felt a dark power begin to rise from the phone screen. The energy had a chattering, buzzing quality; Lee Sookyung had been correct when he described it like a cloud. It could not be clearly seen, but it could be felt rising to slowly fill my room, thrumming with blatant hostility.

Instead of messaging, I tried to reach out to the dense cloud, but it seemed to divide around me like a school of fish avoiding a predator. The cloud was not a single entity—it was a swarm of ghost fragments, just the tiniest sparks of concepts all twisted together.

Getting a little nervous, I summoned the Demon King’s sword to one hand as I continued to type into the chat with the other.

🦑: What exactly have I done to piss you off, anyway?

🦑: I only got this star today. You messaged me almost immediately.

To my surprise, this got a response, though it was only another blank message. I decided to try something.

🦑: Is that you, Lee Gilyoung?

The cloud of energy instantly started buzzing ferociously, like a swarm of bees. The force of the resentment was electric, stinging my skin as I instinctively staggered back.

It seemed to be gathering strength—moreover, it was pulling other fragments towards it, gathering a miasma centered on my room. I felt the faint resentment from the bottom floor of the apartment start to rise, drawn towards the expanding cloud. It was like there was a gravity well forming around my phone, pulling in negative energy from all directions.

      :

      : everybody just leave me alone

🦑: Please, Gilyoung, just hear me out!

The floorboards shook. Objects on different surfaces started to vibrate off and hit the ground, glasses and plates shattering. In the darkness, my apartment seemed to warp strangely—tracks of dark liquid appeared on the walls and ceilings; printed faces on the covers of my books developed blank eyes and too-wide smiles; a clinging layer of what looked like insects crowded on the outside of the windows.

None of this had any clear theme, it was just the mess of a hundred tiny pieces of hauntings  colliding together.

I waved my sword through the cloud as I tried to back out of my bedroom, but the fragments just divided around the blade unharmed. I… didn’t really have a way to deal with something like this, something that could neither be attacked nor reasoned with.

I drew deep into the power of the Demon King, manifesting wings and horns from the shadows and trying to clear away the mess by force. A burst of shadows flew from my blade, cutting through the air.

Instead of clearing out, the energy only seemed to draw denser in around me. It pushed up against me painfully, making me automatically step back—at which point the room’s shaking increased, and my bookshelf fell over right on top of me.

The impact against the back of my head stunned me momentarily, and I found myself pinned under the bookshelf, more annoyed than I was injured. A quick flare of the Demon King’s wings split the cheap bookshelf on half, scattering books everywhere. Some thing prickled in the back of my mind—there was a book in there that was important to me; hopefully it wasn’t damaged.

“What do you want?” I snapped at the buzzing cloud. “I’ll figure it out, I just need to be able to communicate with you.”

The cloud attempted to envelop me again, pricking at my skin like biting insects. As it did, I could sense fragmented desires, just the tiniest pieces of hauntings: love—escape—dark—falling—away…

Almost like they were… calling to me, reaching for me. I had been wondering, hadn’t I, if the fragments were drawn to the power of the Demon King? Every time I tried to attack it, it only flooded closer to me. Rather than fighting, maybe I could…

I dismissed the sword and reached into the cloud with my bare hand.

If I could describe the fragments with a word, it would be “sad”. Desperately sad. Their agitation sprang from the fact that they were only fragments which craved to belong to a larger story, a larger story that simply didn’t exist. It wasn’t a desire that could be understood or acted upon, but the fragments rushed automatically toward whatever they thought could make them complete, like ferrous liquid rushing to a magnet.

And right now, they were rushing towards me.

I’m not the thing called a “good person”. It’s true that I have helped others, but it’s always an impulse born of selfishness. If I had wanted to save other people for their own sakes, I would have become an investigator long before Han Sooyoung asked. I would have studied to become a spirit-hunter and fought against their corrupt practices, like Jung Heewon.

But, I had no interest in that. I lived a normal life, more or less comfortable, and only helped when I wanted to.

The fact is that other people don’t really interest me. I don’t understand them or connect with them the way that human beings are supposed to understand and connect with each other. People do not need me in that way.

But ghosts? Nobody at all understands them, nobody at all connects with them. The unloved detritus of human existence, helpless with their own suffering… they are the only thing in the world that needs me.

No matter what I try to tell myself, I can’t reject them. I closed my eyes and breathed the stinging, angry fragments into my body.

It hurt, of course, but not as much as I was braced for. The fragments calmed as I absorbed them, rushing eagerly towards the power thrumming in my heart, like there was an empty space there they aimed to fill.

I couldn’t read their nonexistent stories, but I could bear witness to those brief glimpses of feeling that they could express. I held back nothing from them, letting the whole agitated cloud flow through me. Seeking—Heartbreak—Abandoned—Temporary… the cacophony seemed endless, throwing up images and sounds and scents in erratic bursts.

It didn’t feel like I had been listening to their mindless entreaties for very long, but when they finally calmed down, I felt disoriented and bleary.

Also, somebody was… shaking me violently back and forth? I lurched back and attempted to shove them away.

“Kim Dokja,” said a now-familiar, low voice. My blurry sight resolved on an unexpected sight: Yoo Joonghyuk, kneeling in front of me with a pinched expression on his face.

I began to tell him to either back off or explain what he was doing here, but was cut off by a violent coughing fit, forced to double over with my face in my elbow. Black smoke briefly pooled from my nose, mouth, and eyes, but it dispersed as I recovered my breath.

Maybe I had absorbed a little too much. Wiping the cough-induced tears from my eyes, I tried to get my bearings.

I was still in my room, next to the destroyed bookshelf. The manifestations had ended once I absorbed all the fragments, leaving the walls, windows, and books in their normal state. Well, it was difficult to confirm the books, since they were scattered across the floor, many with torn or damaged pages and covered with shards of broken glass and splinters.

And Yoo Joonghyuk was here for some reason? Alarm bells rang in my head. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He had been gripping my shoulders to shake me, and only then let me go. “The dokkaebi you have apparently been keeping alive told me where to find you.”

Ah, great. I put a hand on the wall and staggered to my feet, casting around for the little traitor. “Bihyung, did I order you to interfere?”

The dokkaebi’s face emerged from my dim ceiling, scowling at me. “I can’t allow you to die, remember? I didn’t think your weak human body could withstand all the negative energy you were absorbing.”

“It’s fine.” When I pressed a hand to my heart, I could feel all the ghost fragments safely tucked away in there, still telling their broken stories in stilted gasps. Their desperate agitation, however, had calmed. “It’s not a problem. Yoo Joonghyuk, how did you get in here?”

He gestured behind him, at which point I discovered that my front door was swinging off its hinges.

I opened and closed my mouth. “Are you serious?”

“You are asking me that question,” Yoo Joonghyuk observed, a dangerous aura rising from him as he looked from me to Bihyung.

“What, the dokkaebi? Do I have to consult you about every little thing? It’s fine, he—” I heard a faint notification buzz from somewhere on the floor and remembered my phone. “Forget this for now, I think I know who the blank avatar is.”

I paused to cough one final time, expelling a final puff of oily smoke, then rustled around in the trash heap that had become my floor until I recovered my phone. My conversation with the blank avatar was still on the screen, with one additional message:

     : i’m sorry

I also had several other group chat notifications blinking. After a moment, I realized I had been added to a new group chat containing Yoo Mia and Shin Yoosung—they had my account information from when we had played minigames that afternoon.

Feeling uneasy, I quickly scrolled to the top of the group chat.

SYS: Dokja ahjussi please answer your phone I found out who the blank avatar is

SYS: It’s Lee Gilyoung but he’s not doing it on purpose

SYS: I don’t know what to do, but I know where he is so I’ll go try to help.

YMA: Well where is he!!! I’m coming too!

SYS: It’s a PC Bang he goes to when he doesn’t want to go home

SYS: I’ll type the address

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

🦑: Don’t go on your own.

🦑: You two stay put, don’t go to him right now. I’ll take care of it.

🦑: Can you see this?

🦑: I’m serious, don’t go.

…Nothing. Shin Yoosung’s last message was from five minutes ago.

I moved quickly towards Yoo Joonghyuk to show him my screen, forgetting all about our argument. “We have a situation.”

I scrolled back up to read the address to the PC Bang and was relieved to see it wasn’t terribly far. As soon as Yoo Joonghyuk saw his sister’s name in the chat window, he went pale. We rushed out of my apartment together, leaving the busted door swinging behind us.

The PC Bang may not have been on the other side of Seoul, but it was still going to take us too long to get there on foot. A thought occurred to me, and I re-summoned the Demon King’s wings, shadows gluing to my back as we reached the street.

“I’ll go on ahead and check out the situation,” I told Yoo Joonghyuk. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

A strange expression went across his face as he started to say “Kim Dokja—” but I left before he could finish his sentence, letting the full power of the Demon King surge through me as I leapt up to the nearest rooftop.

How was this the first time I had ever considered using my wings to fly? It seemed like something any normal person would have tested right away, now that I thought about it.

I felt off-balance at first, but it wasn’t long before I caught the right rhythm. The wings almost seemed to have a mind of their own—as long as I was pointing myself in the correct direction, I barely had to expend any effort. They carried me over the dark midnight streets, roofs passing below in a blur. As I flew, I quickly took out my phone and texted Han Sooyoung about the situation, though she was probably asleep.

I did not have to worry about having trouble finding the building, because I could sense it from a good kilometer or two away: A buzzing cloud of resentment was spiralling up from the squat storefront containing the PC Bang. It spun like a black tornado, the greatest concentration of ghost fragments I had ever felt in my life, towering easily fifty feet into the air.

The fragments in my heart grew agitated in response, also pulled toward the spiral, but I managed to calm them back down. You’re part of my story, now, don’t go flying away to a different one. After a moment, they settled.

Where the hell were Yoo Mia and Shin Yoosung? I could not see them outside. The only person I could see nearby appeared to be an employee of the PC Bang, leaning on the wall a few stores down the street.

I swooped down to land just around the corner, then jogged towards him. “What’s happening in the building?”

The guy—barely older than a teenager himself—looked up at me, disheveled and pale. “I—I don’t know! Something’s seriously wrong. The walls, the computers…”

“Were there two girls inside? One with short hair, one with pigtails?”

“There were…” the guy had trouble getting his words out, but managed, “there were three kids inside, yeah… I didn’t see them when I ran out, though, I thought they got out, I…”

I ignored him and rushed straight for the storefront.

The front door, pasted over with various posters and advertisements, was blocked by a veritable wall of ghost fragments. Rather than try to fight them off, I simply set my shoulders, forced the door open, and walked straight through.

The fragments bristled furiously against my skin, making progress like wading through mud. While the pull of the cyclone surrounding the building was the greater force, a small percentage funneled to me instead.

I breathed them in as I walked, letting them babble their broken phrases. As I did, the density gradually reduced, letting me break through the worst of it and look around the room.

It was a pretty small and dingy-looking place, with a low ceiling and exposed piping. Half-formed hauntings were manifesting all over the place. The rows of computer screens were off, but they flashed faint, pixelated faces in my peripheral vision, which vanished when I looked at the monitors head on. Indistinct shapes swirled on the dim ceiling, and frost formed on the walls and desks.

I coughed a little more smoke out of my lungs, peering around the room. Fragments continued to harry me like a cloud of mosquitos, flinging themselves at my face and hands. “Shin Yoosung, Yoo Mia, Lee Gilyoung!”

I had figured out this much about the blank avatar: its messages were like magnets for spiritual energy. It wasn’t that Lee Gilyoung was generating these fragments—they were drawn in by him somehow, not dissimilar to how they were drawn to me, just different in scale and strength. Ghost fragments were lightly interested in me, but the blank avatar drew them in like a black hole, utterly inescapable.

This concentration of fragments was dangerous enough, but what really worried me was that that the current whirlwind was likely strong enough to draw in actively hostile, fully manifested entities. If that happened, everyone in the building was in immediate mortal danger.

To my deep relief, I heard a voice call back to me, “Ahjussi!”

I found Shin Yoosung and Yoo Mia hunkered down behind a row of computers. Luckily, no one seemed hurt, but I was not happy with all the ghost fragments flying around them.

As I kneeled down beside them, I spread the Demon King’s wings to their full size, sheltering them from the worst of it.

Shin Yoosung blinked up at the wings with wonder in her eyes. “Ahjussi, you…?”

Yoo Mia also shot a look at the shadowy wings, but quickly said, “Lame. It doesn’t make you look cool. Are you wearing pajamas right now?”

I felt my eyebrow twitch, but the situation was too serious to waste time being annoyed. “Why did you two come here? It’s dangerous.”

Shin Yoosung pointed over the divider that we were huddled against, towards another row of computers against the far wall. “Just look.”

I peeked over and finally spotted the eye of the whirlwind.

Lee Gilyoung was slumped over the keyboard of a computer like he had fallen asleep there after playing games, head pillowed on one arm. His back rose and fell in the even rhythm of sleep, but his phone was lying alongside his face and his free hand was aimlessly tapping on the screen.

Ghost fragments locked in all around him like a physical wall, visible as buzzing, black specks. Through gaps in the cloud, I could just about make out the colorful chat window of Starstream! on his phone screen, and could guess the content of his messages, too, since I could see how short they were.

He was sending blank message after blank message in his sleep, thumb twitching on the big, misplaced “send” button. His closed eyes flicked back in forth in rapid movements.

“He sleepwalks,” Shin Yoosung hissed as the gaps closed, sealing Lee Gilyoung off from sight. “I don’t know how exactly he’s doing this, but it’s not on purpose.”

“Who cares, we have to stop him!” Yoo Mia said.

I found myself stuck in place. If I went to go wake up Lee Gilyoung, I’d leave the girls unprotected, but if I stayed hunkered down here, the hauntings were only going to intensify. One of those hauntings manifested a small, ghostly hand on the wall next to my shoulder and I quickly vaporized it with a slap from my wing.

“Lee Gilyoung!” I tried shouting to him. “Wake up!”

Another voice spoke, but it was not the one I’d been hoping to hear. It was a high-pitched, shivering sort of voice, icy and breathless. “Hunger… oh, I hunger…”

Small, childlike hands, transparent and bluish, were now reaching out of every visible surface. Something was manifesting near the centre of the room in a glitter of icy particles, long black hair and a ragged dress.

I stepped in front of the girls and summoned my sword.

“Bihyung, get over here!”

But the dokkaebi did not appear. It occurred to me that, as the whirlwind gained strength, he might not even be able to get in the building.

“I hunger still,” the ghost in the middle of the room whined, then slowly turned to look at me, the dirty strands of its hair parting in front of smooth indents where its eyes should be.

I didn’t know anything about this ghost. A visual manifestation meant it was very strong—Lee Gilyoung had pulled it here outside of its context, which made trying to understand its story impossible.

With little other choice, I decided to go on the offensive. “This isn’t your haunt, lost soul. Go home or I’ll have to destroy you.”

“Home,” the ghost sighed, then blinked suddenly in front of me, reaching for my face. “I hunger…”

One of the girls screamed. I brought my sword up just in time to slice through the ghost’s hand, dispersing it before it touched my skin. But more hands reached up from the floor, walls and computer desks—I kept my wings wrapped tightly around the kids and tried to destroy the hands with just my sword, but the dim light made it hard to see—

And then another blade, brilliantly silver, slashed through the ghost from behind like it was so much steam. The hands all instantly evaporated, and the ghost let out a whistling, faint shriek as it dispersed, reaching for me one more time.

This time, I reached back.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, feeling its frigid touch on my skin, its suffering and fury. Starved to death in the cold. Never shown a word of kindness. I encased its indistinct blue hand in both of mine. “I’m sorry. Please rest.”

Its grip tightened momentarily, then vanished from this world. Yoo Joonghyuk was standing in front of me with frost forming on his lapels and along the edge of his sword.

How did he get here so quickly? He had only taken a few minutes longer than I had, and I flew here.

It didn’t matter, though, because we had other things to worry about. I withdrew my wings and gestured behind me. “Get them out safe, I’ll deal with the manifestation.”

“Oppa!” Yoo Mia cried, while Shin Yoosung said to me, “Dokja ahjussi, I can help!”

I briefly kneeled in front of Shin Yoosung. “Shin Yoosung, I will need your help later, but please leave this part to me. Just go with Yoo Joonghyuk for now.”

“Kim Dokja, do not do anything foolish,” Yoo Joonghyuk said behind me.

I straightened and flashed him a smile, readying the Demon King’s wings once again. “When have I done that? Just make sure you take care of any more entities that show up before I’m done here.”

With that, I hopped over the divider and plunged into the cloud of fragments surrounding Lee Gilyoung.

Come on, I urged the raging wall of fragments, letting the Demon King’s power radiate out of me. Leave him alone, I’ll take care of you instead.

The fragments came screaming towards me and I breathed in as much as I could, ignoring the resulting jolt of discomfort from my heart. I could take more than this if necessary. Lee Gilyoung would have it worse in the center of the cyclone, so it was up to me to ease the burden. This was the best method.

I took one more slow step, and then the wall broke suddenly as the wave of fragments settled in my chest. Coughing into my elbow, I leaned down next to Lee Gilyoung and shook his shoulder.

“Hey, Lee Gilyoung,” I said. The boy was completely dead to the world. “Time to get up, all right?”

He mumbled something in his sleep, but didn’t move. His thumb continued tapping on the phone, this time moving across the keyboard.

I felt a buzz in my pocket and took out my own phone to find another message from the blank avatar.

  : people like you can’t understand

The situation wasn’t totally clear, but I could tell two things: Lee Gilyoung was doing this unintentionally, in his sleep, and he was an incredibly lonely kid. All this desperation, anger, and loneliness that was drawing in the fragments like flies to honey… it was all his.

🦑: what do you mean?

     : platinum star means lots of friends

     : tried to get one this whole time but no one would play with me

     : not fair

     : they should suffer too.

I pulled over a chair from the next computer and sat down, tapping on my screen. The next moment, I saw the invite I had sent show up on Lee Gilyoung’s phone.

🦑: Hey. Play a minigame with me.

I wasn’t sure if this version of Lee Gilyoung would do it, but to my surprise, his thumb jumped immediately towards the accept button.

For a few minutes, we silently played the racing minigame. I came to the conclusion that I really was bad at games after I Iost to a kid who was literally asleep. It was difficult to tell, but I thought that the fragments calmed down slightly, the buzzing losing some of its intensity.

🦑: Can you try to wake up?

When he only sent me another blank message, I sent him an invite to another game.

As we continued to play, the cyclone calmed even more, until its gravitational pull dwindled to nothing. The fragments it had already pulled in were still swirling all around, but no more were being drawn in.

     : one more game?

🦑: we can play more games, but it’s not safe for us to stay here.

🦑: if you relax and wake up, we can play again in the future, okay?

     : promise?

🦑: promise.

I watched Lee Gilyoung’s thumb tap out of the chat and then switch back from the blank avatar’s account to his main account. Maybe he had even created that account in his sleep. The phone fell slack from his hands as he groaned, starting to wake back up.

Unfortunately, ghost fragments were still rattling through the PC Bang, still agitated even though the energy that had drawn them here was gone. I flared my wings out for additional protection as I asked, “Lee Gilyoung?”

He blinked sleepily up at me, then his eyes widened as he looked around and took in his surroundings. “What… what’s happening?”

“There is a severe haunting here,” I said. “I’m going to get you back outside, all right?”

“All… right…” Lee Gilyoung looked uncertainly at the spiralling fragments and then at me. “I… is this my fault?”

“No, it’s not,” I told him, placing a hand on his head. Considering the adults in his life, his bullies, and a society which had made him so lonely his subconscious manifested like this, he was low on the list of people to blame. “You’ve got a special gift when it comes to ghosts, Lee Gilyoung. If you want, I can teach you how about it later, okay? We can make sure this doesn't harm anyone.”

“I…” his eyes seemed to fill with tears. “Okay…”

“I’m going to get you out of this building for now, just hold tight.”

I scooped the kid up and pushed through the fragments in a burst of speed, letting them bounce off my wings. Without a central source of energy to draw them elsewhere, they were even more intent on me.

We reached the front door in just a few moments. A thick stream of fragments was still blocking the way, so I stretched one of my wings out in front of me to part it like a curtain.

“Go on, I’m just going to clean up in here and then I’ll join you outside.”

“Hyung,” Lee Gilyoung said uncertainly, “Can’t I help? If I have a gift…”

“Not right now, you haven’t had any training yet. Shin Yoosung and Yoo Mia are outside, can you make sure they’re safe?”

“I’ll make sure!” Lee Gulyoung said, evidently thrilled to be given a job, and darted out.

I let out a relieved sigh, folding my wings away and letting the fragments close back in. For a second, all I could hear was silence and the faint buzzing sound of their agitation.

Then, they all flooded down towards me.

I opened both hands and let them come. It was almost like these fragments recognized something in me, and I in them… we were both of us deficient in some way, incomplete stories that didn’t understand their own past or future. They reached out to me in a blind effort to fill out their own context, but I reached out to them with much the same impulse, tucking them all away into a blank space in my heart that would never be filled.

I lost myself somewhat in the fragments, but before too long I felt the flow change, split between myself and something else.

I opened my eyes, coughing smoke, and saw Yoo Joonghyuk walking towards me through the storm of fragments.

His sword was sheathed; he walked through the dark with both hands open. The fragments were pulled to him just as strongly as they were to me, circling above his head like a black storm cloud, forming an enormous crown or halo. For a second, I was enraptured by the sight.

He reached me a moment later, his expression falling into a scowl. “I told you not to do anything stupid.”

“How is it stupid?” I complained. Fragments continued to pepper my skin and I took them in almost absently. “I have to clear away all the fragments somehow.”

He shook his head. “You’ll leave that to me.”

“Will I?” I replied dryly, but my candor withered as I saw how serious the look on his face was. “No, listen, Yoo Joonghyuk…”

To my surprise, he did listen, waiting patiently for my words. I swallowed and continued, “Don’t destroy them. I know they’re not alive, they’re not even proper ghosts, but this isn’t their fault, all right? I’ll take them in myself and they won’t bother anyone.”

Yoo Joonghyuk gazed at me and at the dark smoke still leaking from my lungs. “Kim Dokja. I know you think of me as some sort of psychopath who is only good for killing and destruction.”

“I, uh—?”

“But I can also understand them, too, in my own way.” he continued. The storm of fragments turned slowly above his head, reaching for him. “I can help them if I choose to.”

He raised a hand and a few fragments flew down into his palm, sinking into his skin much like they did into mine.

“Wait,” I said, alarmed, reaching to slap his wrist away by instinct. “To absorb ghost fragments with a normal human body—”

“Is it normal?”

Yoo Joonghyuk grabbed my wrist instead, and then placed my hand on his chest over his heart.

My protests at this situation died when I sensed all the power that was thrumming under his skin. He was spirit-touched to some degree, I had known that much… but with the Demon King’s powers focused on it, I could sense the many layers of it. I could feel hundreds—maybe thousands, even though that made no sense?—of touches of spirit power, of all different varieties, crisscrossing his soul in all directions like scar tissue.

I snatched my hand back in shock. “What is all that? What the hell happened to you?”

His arm warded me off as he turned to face the storm. “Just stand back.”

Yoo Joonghyuk embraced the enormous cloud of ghost fragments like it was nothing. In turn, they embraced him like he was the beginning and ending of their broken sentences, the only thing in this world that could save them. Even the fragments in my own heart became restless, wanting to reach out for him.

In just a few minutes, it was over. We were standing in a PC Bang with a low ceiling and exposed piping. There was barely even any damage, just a few objects that had fallen to the floor in the chaos. The clamoring, broken voices of the fragments were all silent.

I let out a slow breath. “…Thank you.”

When Yoo Joonghyuk looked at me, a gold light seemed to pass through his eyes and then vanish. “If this is what I have to do to prevent you from foolishly sacrificing yourself, then I have no choice.”

“Hey,” I protested, “who said anything about sacrificing myself? I can handle a few ghost fragments.”

The door burst open before we could continue, admitting a small crowd of agitated onlookers. Yoo Mia went instantly to her brother while Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung ran to me. To my surprise, a tired-looking Han Sooyoung also walked inside.

“I guess I was stupid for worrying!” She snapped at us, crossing her arms at the door. “You guys really know how to turn a small problem into a gigantic one, you know.”

“Sorry,” I said, though was quickly distracted by the kids grabbing at me.

“So, you’ll teach me, right?” Shin Yoosung demanded, her normally reserved demeanor forgotten in her excitement. “You said you would, right Dokja ahjussi?”

“Hyung said he would teach me!” Lee Gilyoujg declared, throwing out his chest proudly. It was tough to imagine that just minutes ago he’d been at the locus of a terrible haunting—his eyes were bright. “You have to get in line.”

“I asked him first, you brat!”

I rested my hands on both their heads. “I’ll teach both of you about ghosts, okay? But only so you can protect yourselves if something like this happens again.”

They instantly began arguing over each other again, fighting over whose training was more important. I still didn’t feel very qualified to help these kids, but I was starting to realize that if I didn’t, no one else in the world would. Hopefully, what knowledge I had would be better than nothing. When I looked up, Han Sooyoung was giving me a pensive look, which she quickly turned into a scowl.

We cleared out of the building after making sure everything really was resolved. Han Sooyoung was sure to ingratiate herself to the PC Bang employee by bragging that our company had just cleared away his haunting for free, and to tell his boss.

I used the moment of distraction to duck into the alley alongside the building, checking for any fragments we had missed. A handful were scattered in the darkness behind the building, and once I absorbed them, the place appeared fully ghost-free.

I heard a scuff of movement behind me and startled, but when I turned it was only Yoo Mia, evidently having snuck away from her brother out front.

Something about her expression seemed strange. After a moment, she said, “I guess even an ugly investigator can solve a case.”

I subtly cleared my throat of the last bit of clinging smoke. “I’m not ugly.”

“You are very ugly,” Yoo Mia said confidently. “And anyway, did you really solve the case, or did you just let my oppa take care of everything in the end?”

“Either way, it’s over,” I assured her. “If the blank avatar shows up again, we will know to deal with it… but I think Starstream! should be safe from it now.” I had a feeling Lee Gilyoung wasn’t going to have to be so lonely anymore. If there were further problems, we would figure out a solution.

Yoo Mia kept watching me. “I don’t get it. You aren’t anything special.”

“I… I’m sorry?”

“You don’t know anything, and I don’t trust you,” she added, crossing her arms.

I was still confused, but a thought occurred to me. This situation had really caught me on the back foot, so she must have a low opinion of how capable I was as an investigator. “Are you afraid I’ll let your brother get hurt?”

Then, Yoo Mia said something unexpected.

“I’m afraid you’ll hurt him. Again.”

I stared at her for a moment. “I haven’t hurt him. How could I? He’s Yoo Joonghyuk.”

“He has feelings, too, you know…”

Now I was especially lost. “I’ve hurt his feelings? You know, he and I aren’t that close. He doesn’t like me much.”

“You actually think that?” Yoo Mia demanded, stomping towards me. “That’s really what you think? Did you get hit on the head by too many ghosts, or what?”

“Uh…”

“You’re stupid!” she snapped, suddenly vicious. “You’re stupid and you should stop making him feel bad. I don’t want you to be friends with him anymore.”

“Whoa, wait. I’m sorry,” I said helplessly as she scrubbed at her angry tears. What sort of situation did she think was going on here? I felt like the villain, but I had no idea what I had done wrong.

I was rescued from the situation when Yoo Joonghyuk appeared from the alleyway, coming after his sister. I was a little worried it would look like I was making her cry, but he didn’t even look at me. “Mia.”

She slapped him away. “You’re being stupid too, you’re both stupid. That ugly ahjussi broke your heart or something and he won’t even admit it, and you won’t even get mad at him.”

… So, this was a big misunderstanding. How on Earth had she put something like that together?

Yoo Joonghyuk got a hand onto Yoo Mia’s shoulder that was not slapped away. “I’m sorry, Mia-yah, but you are misinterpreting what happened. You do not have the whole story. It isn’t his fault.”

“Who can know the whole story if you never tell anyone!” Yoo Mia snapped. “I’m going back to tell Shin Yoosung everything she did wrong, and you’re not going to follow me!”

She dashed off and Yoo Joonghyuk straightened with a sigh.

I had to fill the silence somehow. “… What isn’t my fault, exactly? How on Earth did she get an idea like that, anyways?”

Yoo Joonghyuk silently approached me, a peculiar expression in his eyes, and I ran out of words. For some reason, he came close, then reached up for my face.

At that point, I also ran out of thoughts. I could have smacked him away or tried to say something to diffuse the tension, but instead I just let him cup the side of my face. His hand was warm and his skin a bit rough.

He said, “▪▪ ▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪?”

I blinked. He had spoken clear words, yet the meanings of them completely slid off my mind like static.

“I… what did you say?” I asked, my voice oddly faint. “I couldn’t hear it.”

He looked at me for another moment, his eyes dark, then dropped his hand. “It is nothing. Good night, Kim Dokja.”

He turned and left without another word. I raised my hand to my own cheek, tracing where his thumb had touched my jawbone.

I had the sensation that, as he glided off into the dark, a heavy door slammed shut behind him—something impassible and permanent that would stand between us forever.

Chapter Text

“S… star. Wavy lines.”

“You’re slowing down, Han Sooyoung. Are you getting tired?”

A burst of pure spite gave Han Sooyoung enough energy to snap, “As if. Square.”

Han Sooyoung’s perception was currently divided in two. One half of her brain sat in a chair across from Jung Heewon, who was writing little checkmarks on a clipboard that Han Sooyoung had grown to detest with all her might. The other half of her brain was in a different room, watching flashcards pass through the meaty hands of Lee Hyunsung.

“Fifteen minutes so far. That’s a new record.”

The headache splitting Han Sooyoung’s skull was also record-breaking, but she was determined not to show any weakness in this situation. “Circle. Star. Have I mentioned how stupid this is, yet?”

“Heewon-ah, let’s call it here,” a voice spoke up from the computer screen next to Jung Heewon. The face of a petite woman with long, flowing blonde hair was looking out of a video call window, concerned. “It can be dangerous to push yourself too hard.”

“Well, if you think so, Uriel,” Jung Heewon conceded, which was all the excuse Han Sooyoung needed to let her soul flood back into her body.

Han Sooyoung slumped over in her chair for a moment, then popped awake as everything settled back in. After weeks of this, returning to her body was nearly automatic. Her headache pulsed once more and then, thankfully, began to fade.

“Your progress is honestly astounding,” Uriel said from the screen, flashing her a smile. “Lots of people spend years and years and never reach the point where they can soul-split so cleanly.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Somehow, Han Sooyoung could never escape the feeling that she was on trial during these training sessions. They had all been underwhelming so far, too—when Jung Heewon had first mentioned training, Han Sooyoung had pictured something strenuous and possibly sword-related.

Instead, the training was focused on improving her split perception and on getting used to returning to her body more easily. They had done nothing more adventurous than read flash cards.

Uriel frowned, leaning toward her screen. Behind her, the plane of a hotel window revealed the shining cityscape of New York at night. The time difference meant that though it was still early in Seoul, Uriel had to call in late if she wanted to join in on these sessions.

There were few people in supernatural-related industries who didn’t know the woman who went by the mononym “Uriel”. She was considered one of the world’s most feared spirit-hunters, a pioneer of modern investigative techniques. Though often operating in Seoul, she spent a lot of her time overseas doing consultations and taking international cases.

In another life that had ended for her last year, Han Sooyoung would have been thrilled at the opportunity to pick Uriel’s brain. Uriel was the closest thing you got to a real-life protagonist of serial novels.

“You know,” Uriel said after a moment, “I have been thinking. I know that you insist that you only used this technique for the first time during that apartment distortion, but…”

“I insist that because it’s true,” Han Sooyoung sighed. Being called out for lying was one thing, but it really annoyed her to be disbelieved when she was telling the truth.

“Right, yes. As I said, I was thinking… maybe it’s not that you haven’t used the technique before, but that you haven’t been aware of using the technique.”

“How would that work?” Jung Heewon asked.

“Well, what we call the subconscious can be a pretty powerful thing,” Uriel said, fiddling with a dove-shaped golden earring. “I actually heard that you guys solved a case just like that recently.”

“That kid in the PC Bang, yeah,” Han Sooyoung admitted grudgingly. “… Hey, how did you know about that?”

“Oh, I’ve been following your agency’s cases,” Uriel said, flashing an excited grin. “You always find such interesting situations. Heewon-ah keeps me updated.”

“Great.” Han Sooyoung’s follow-up question was going to be how Jung Heewon was staying so familiar with their cases, but the first part of Uriel’s statement caught up with her. “Sorry, you’re saying you think I subconsciously soul project?”

“Just that that would explain a few things if it were true,” Uriel hummed. “Although… it would also be dangerous. A subconscious soul projection can’t protect itself like a conscious mind can.”

“I really doubt that’s what’s happening,” Han Sooyoung began, then hesitated. During the Wrong Room case, she had glimpsed what had looked like her own reflection, its face inscrutable…

What if some part of her really was wandering around without her knowledge? The thought sent an uneasy shiver down her spine.

“She would have had to have been doing that for a long time though, right?” Jung Heewon pointed out. “With a projection as strong as hers is, probably since she was a kid.”

“Hmm. Sooyoung-ah, when you were a child… were you a daydreaming type, always imagining being somewhere else?”

“I guess so,” Han Sooyoung muttered. Less imagining and more desperately wishing. “What does it matter? I can do it now, so I’ll just improve my skills at it from here.”

“Of course,” Uriel said. “It’s just, if there was a subconscious element… well, it makes the technique impossible to fully control. It could lead to complications later.”

“Well, this has been fun,” Han Sooyoung said, getting to her feet. “I do have other stuff to do, so can we pick this back up later?”

“You do love to weasel out of this at the first opportunity, don’t you?” Jung Heewon observed.

“I’ve got actual work to do.”

“Well, it was great to see you,” Uriel said, indefatigably chipper as always. Han Sooyoung wondered if demons often saw that cheerful smile before they died, or if this was a side of her seen only by her protégée, Jung Heewon. “I’ll check back in next session. Say hi to Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk, will you? And keep working hard and practicing.”

Jung Heewon escorted Han Sooyoung out of the building in silence. As they emerged into the street outside the small storefront office, Han Sooyoung shot a glance at the fancy sign hanging above the door, which read: Uriel’s Angels: Paranormal Investigations Agency.

“You know,” Han Sooyoung commented, something flagging in her memory, “isn’t that a reference to that stupid British movie about female spies or whatever? Did you know that when you let Uriel name the company?”

Jung Heewon pulled a face. “I did not. A client told me only a few months ago and I gave Uriel shit for it. It’s too late to change it now.”

“Ha.” Han Sooyoung pulled her bag over her shoulder. “Guess I’ll see you next week.”

“You will,” Jung Heewon said, with the air of a threat. “Watch yourself. You know, you can call me if you need assistance on a case.”

“From the competition? Please. I have my pride. Goodbye, Jung Heewon.”

It was a grey morning, though the weather thankfully held back from raining as Han Sooyoung drove from Jung Heewon’s office back to her own. As she approached the front door to the office complex that contained Kim Dokja’s Paranormal Investigations Company, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She had a momentary flashback to the ridiculous Starstream! app, but of course, she’d uninstalled that weeks ago. This was a call coming through from a familiar number—one she had been avoiding.

Han Sooyoung sighed and reluctantly put the phone to her ear as she shouldered open the building’s front door.

“Sooyoung-nim,” her agent said immediately, voice sounding thin and desperate. “What can I do? What do you need from me?”

“Nothing,” Han Sooyoung snapped, trudging her way up the staircase. They rented space in an unremarkable building with dozens of other offices, sharing the complex with advertising agencies and insurance brokers. No one’s business seemed to be particularly booming, which at least made the building quiet. “It has nothing to do with you, so please don’t worry about it.”

“I’m worried!” her agent continued. “We promised the publisher a new series pitch soon, and you suddenly decided to take a break for no reason. In this industry…”

“They can wait a little longer. My brand is too popular to fade that quickly.”

“In this industry,” her agent repeated, “people have very short memories. And our marketing budget is pretty time-limited, too. You have to offer me something, or I don’t know if I can stay on as your agent.”

“Because I took a few months off?” Han Sooyoung sighed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Youngki-ssi. I’ll return to writing as soon I’m done my current work.”

“What is the timeline for that?”

“… I’ll get back to you.” She could hear further protests even as she hit the end call button, but he did not call her back. Han Sooyoung wasn’t sure whether to consider that a good or a bad thing.

Well, now that she’d reached their rental on the third floor, she could at least settle down in some peace and quiet to look over her research…

She heard voices on the other side of the door and frowned. When she eased it open, Kim Dokja was sitting in the client-facing desk with a member of his annoying child posse seated in the chair opposite.

“Are you doing a ghost lesson?” Han Sooyoung asked, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice. So much for peace and quiet.

“Not exactly,” Kim Dokja said, eyes flicking from the kid back to Han Sooyoung consideringly. “Han Sooyoung, I think I might have another case for us.”

Han Sooyoung sighed, looking from Kim Dokja to the uncomfortable looking kid squirming in her chair. “Another pro bono case for a random kid, huh? Are you collecting those on purpose to bankrupt me?”

“We’ve done other cases that paid money over the last few weeks,” Kim Dokja observed, voice mild. “We can afford one more on the side. It seems important.”

“Hm.” Han Sooyoung observed Kim Dokja’s face. That subtle spark of interest currently in his eyes was so rare that she couldn’t let herself extinguish it—not unless she wanted to risk letting her plans to fall apart. Not to mention, he’d definitely do it anyway even without her help. “Fine. Fill me in, we’re in a slow period anyway.”

The little kid—Shin Yoosung, Han Sooyoung recalled after a moment—was clearly less comfortable with Han Sooyoung than she was with Kim Dokja, but she managed to collect herself and get through her explanation without too much mumbling.

“So, um…. Somebody disappeared,” she began. “He was a student from Cheongil High School. I think it’s ghost-related.”

“… Did he move away?” Han Sooyoung said dryly, ignoring the look Kim Dokja shot at her. “Oh, hey. Case solved.”

“He didn’t just move away,” Shin Yoosung insisted, giving Han Sooyoung a defiant stare. “He vanished. One day he was there and the next he wasn’t—and nobody seems to remember that he ever existed except for me.”

“Maybe he just didn’t make much of an impression on people?”

“He asked Lee Jihye out once, and she kicked him in the head so hard he had to go to the hospital. Then, apparently, he said he was even more in love.”

Han Sooyoung snorted despite herself. “I guess that is an impression that’s hard to forget.”

“But Lee Jihye doesn’t remember this boy either?” Kim Dokja asked.

“No. Not her, not the teachers, and not the other kids. I only noticed because I asked Jihye unni if that boy was still bothering her, but she had no idea what I was talking about. I got freaked out and started asking around, and no one else remembers him, either.”

“Ghost-related disappearances are not unheard of,” Kim Dokja said, glancing at Han Sooyoung.

“Not unheard of, sure, but they’re also pretty rare.” Mundane disappearances were far, far more common. “This kid, what was he like? Seem like he was haunted?”

“Well,” Shin Yoosung said, then paused as if unsure how to phrase her words. “Actually, he is… the sort of person who likes to pretend to be haunted, if that makes sense? He likes to act like a villain and threaten others, but he just spends all his time slacking off. I could never sense even a hint of a real haunting. He just seemed like kind of a weird jerk.”

Han Sooyoung raised an eyebrow. “And this is the guy you want to save?”

“Even if he’s a jerk, can we really just let him get eaten by a ghost?” Shin Yoosung asked, now looking to Kim Dokja. “If we don’t look into it, no one else will. It just doesn’t seem right. Maybe he pretended so much that he ended up getting caught up in something really dangerous.”

“I agree,” Kim Dokja said after a moment. “Even if we were to act like it’s okay if one guy gets eaten, the ghost would move on to different victims next anyways. We should do what we can.”

“Fine,” Han Sooyoung waved a hand. “You bleeding heart, we’ll look into it. What’s this kid’s name?”

Shin Yoosung said, with her eyes on the floor, “Kim Namwoon.”

When they brought up the case to Yoo Joonghyuk later, he seemed surprisingly inclined to take it seriously.

“There are certain spirits that specialize in luring young people into the spirit world, then erasing all memory of them,” he said. “I thought I killed all of the spirits of that type in Seoul already, but I will check for ones I may have missed.”

There were several reasons this was an absurd thing to say, but Yoo Joonghyuk just got up to leave as if this had been a normal exchange about the weather.

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung snapped, “where do you think you’re going? Kim Dokja and I are going to look into the case.”

“You can do that while I hunt down and kill any child-luring spirits,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, implacable.

“Throughout the whole city, on your own? Isn’t that crazy?”

“No.”

“This type of spirit,” Kim Dokja interjected. “What are its weaknesses?”

Yoo Joonghyuk paused, turning to look at him. “Their avatars are weak, so they rely on trickery. They can be weakened further if those who knew the lost child can regain their memories of them.”

“Huh. You know a lot.”

“It is the type of spirit I hate the most.”

Without offering any further information, Yoo Joonghyuk headed out to hunt spirits on his own, leaving Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja to actually try to solve the case.

“So, if this type of spirit is responsible, we can weaken its influence if we can encourage anyone else to remember Kim Namwoon,” Kim Dokja mused as he, Han Sooyoung, and Shin Yoosung left the office to begin gathering information. “Who was close to him?”

Shin Yoosung screwed up her face in thought. “I… really don’t know.”

“He must have friends and family. If we can track them down, it will be a good start.”

“I just don’t know much about him except for his reputation,” Shin Yoosung admitted. “Maybe we can ask Lee Jihye? She just got out of the hospital from her car accident.”

‘Kicked him in the head once’ didn’t really seem to be the type of connection they were after, but as it was their only lead, they agreed to meet up with Lee Jihye.

Apparently, Kim Dokja’s whole child ghost hunting squad was in contact with each other now, including Lee Jihye as an ancillary member. That was why Lee Jihye agreed to meet them, though her face fell when she realized it was only Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja.

She was perched on a bench with a pair of crutches beside her, one leg still imprisoned in an enormous cast. “Master’s not with you?”

“He’s out hunting spirits,” Kim Dokja said.

“Oh, what? That’s way cooler, he should have taken me. I can still swing a sword like this.”

She demonstrated as well as she could with one crutch, nearly clotheslining a disgruntled passerby, who Kim Dokja then apologized to. “Anyway, what exactly do you want? I don’t really get why Yoosung texted me.”

“Jihye unni, do you know anyone called Kim Namwoon?” Shin Yoosung asked.

Lee Jihye’s face remained blank. “Um… no? Who is that?”

“Wasn’t there a boy who asked you out last year, and you kicked him in the head?”

Lee Jihye’s confident expression wavered somewhat. “There was… huh, I do kind of remember kicking someone in the head, but… I don’t remember being asked out.”

“Then why’d you kick someone in the head for no reason?” Han Sooyoung prompted.

“What, I don’t know, I just…” Lee Jihye frowned, touching a hand to her temple. “What were we talking about just now? Sword fighting?”

Shin Yoosung shot a significant look at Kim Dokja. Even Han Sooyoung had to admit that this was pretty weird.

“There was a delinquent at Cheongil High School called Kim Namwoon,” Kim Dokja said. “He disappeared, and we are looking into it. Can you remember anything at all about him?”

“Huh? I’ve never even heard that name before,” Lee Jihye said, apparently even forgetting that Shin Yoosung had just said it. “What, you think I hang out with the delinquents? They’re really not cool. They’re always hanging around that gross bridge near the school and messing around.”

This, it turned out, was everything they could get out of Lee Jihye. Any information about Kim Namwoon seemed to slide right out of her head the instant it went in.

“I guess we could check that bridge,” Han Sooyoung reluctantly suggested as they watched Lee Jihye swing herself down the road on her crutches. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was talk to high school delinquents. “Or maybe we could call it here? We’re probably not going to be able to track this guy down.”

“No, let’s take a look,” Kim Dokja said, predictably.

“Are you sure, Dokja ahjussi?” Shin Yoosung said, looking antsy. “They can be kind of dangerous, especially if they’re like Kim Namwoon. He used to carry a knife around and everything. I don’t think he ever actually used it on anyone, but…”

“We’re adults, Shin Yoosung, we’ll be fine,” Kim Dokja assured her. “Actually, why don’t Han Sooyoung and I check out the bridge while you see if you can dig up anyone else who might remember him? That way, we can take care of two things at once.”

“… Okay,” Shin Yoosung said, clearly a bit relieved to have an important job not related to confronting knife-wielding high school kids. “Actually, I can see if Lee Gilyoung remembers, or knows anyone.”

“That would be very helpful. We can meet up later and discuss our progress.”

Shin Yoosung took off, leaving Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung to trudge toward a greasy-looking underpass that was apparently the favored haunt of the local knife-wielding delinquents from Cheongil. Somehow, the cases that Kim Dokja decided to take on his own always became extremely unpleasant and annoying.

“It’s a boring setting,” Han Sooyoung said suddenly, in response to an unasked question. “If I were writing it, I’d make it gang members instead of high school slackers, which would lead to more dramatic conflicts.”

“It seems excessive.”

“No, it’s about increasing the stakes,” Han Sooyoung said, lightly shoving Kim Dokja on the shoulder. “If you have enough buy-in from readers, you can add a lot of drama, even if it sounds unrealistic from an outside perspective. Once you’re absorbed in the world of the story, you stop thinking about that stuff so much.”

“I might still think about it.”

“That’s because you’re uniquely annoying.” It was true that where every other reader would simply enjoy the story, Kim Dokja felt the need to pick it apart, and say things like, It seems excessive… but, this was also the great appeal of a reader like him. He took even serial genre fiction seriously enough to pick apart its plot and structure.

“Right, there was a story…” Kim Dokja began, and then hesitated.

Han Sooyoung tried not to let on that she was suddenly vibrating, laser focused on whatever words he was about to say next. “A story…?”

“Yes, you wrote one where…” A struggle passed visibly through his face for a moment, then vanished. “Ah, maybe I’m thinking of something else.”

No, you’re thinking of the third book of the Spirit Detectives series. Your favorite one. There was a plot point in there that you absolutely hated, though, where I had the protagonist’s assistant be kidnapped by gang members. You called it ‘needless drama’ and ‘unrealistic’, and literally wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks. I kept it in the final draft out of spite.

Han Sooyoung fished two candies out of her pocket, forced him to take one, and stuck the other in her own mouth, muttering, “your memory is terrible.”

“It’s really not,” Kim Dokja said around the candy. “I just haven’t been in a reading mood lately, so I forget the details.”

“Just hang in there.”

Kim Dokja looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean by that?”

“Shut up. Here’s the bridge. Let’s go get bullied by high school students.”

The underpass, though, was empty, no doubt because it wasn’t a school day and no one was here to skip class. The evidence of their passage, though, was still clear in the scattering of empty energy drink cans and food packages on the ground, as well as a modest collection of ugly graffiti scrawled on the concrete columns.

“This is going to be a wild goose chase,” Han Sooyoung sighed, making a half-hearted attempt to look around the area. “How can you track somebody down if nobody even remembers him?”

“Even if those memories are gone,” Kim Dokja said thoughtfully, “They will certainly have left traces on the world that can’t be so easily erased. Like that.”

He was pointing to a patch of graffiti that appeared to be scrawled in permanent marker. The characters spelling Kim Namwoon were in the bottom corner, radiating scrawled bursts of flame and bolts of electricity.

Han Sooyoung sighed. “Is he stupid? Signing his own graffiti with his name?”

The same jagged hand that had scrawled Kim Namwoon had clearly been hard at work for months decorating the rest of the column. Barely-legible doodles filled the bottom corner, most almost completely faded away, with fresher layers of marker on top. The doodles included a lot of robots, what could have been soldiers and military equipment, and dragons. Some of it was actually fairly detailed.

“This guy,” Kim Dokja said after a moment. “I guess he’s some kind of otaku.”

“Well, if his only friends are TV shows, we’re going to have even more trouble tracking him down.”

Kim Dokja frowned, reaching a hand towards the graffiti. “Actually, I think I’m sensing something here. Kind of like fingerprints, or footsteps.”

Once again feeling a little bitter at her lack of an inexplicable ghost sense, Han Sooyoung looked at him. “What’s it feel like?”

“It’s like… the feeling you get when a word is on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite get it,” Kim Dokja mused. “Just a slight uneasy feeling. I think more people can sense this kind of thing than we realize, they just ignore it.”

Han Sooyoung momentarily attempted to separate her own feelings from whatever might be emanating from the graffiti, but failed to make a distinction. “I don’t get it.”

“Well, some people like you are really hopeless, so…”

She smacked him. “Okay, well—if they’re like footsteps, do they… go anywhere?”

Tilting his head slightly, Kim Dokja started to walk away. “I think so.”

Kim Dokja became uncharacteristically silent, eyes focused on the ground as they walked. They ended up outside of Cheongil High School, which Han Sooyoung was about to get annoyed about, but Kim Dokja took them further down the road, pausing to point out another spot of permanent marker graffiti on a wall. It was even more faded than the first patch had been, almost like the drawings were losing color by the hour.

From there, they walked a good thirty minutes until they reached a residential area, coming upon a collection of small housing units jammed in and around each other, the upper units accessible by rough concrete stairs. Kim Dokja stopped in front of one of the units on street level.

“The traces go here,” he said. “They’re already fading, so it’s good we looked into this when we  did.”

“Huh. Do you think this was his house?”

“I think that’s likely.” As they stood there, a woman cracked open the door to sweep off the front step, not even glancing in their direction. “In which case, that could be a family member.”

“Then we need to see if we can get her to remember the kid,” Han Sooyoung said. “Why don’t you do that while I check the house to see if I can find any other traces of him?”

Kim Dokja frowned at her. “How are you going to that? Climb into the window like a monkey while I’m distracting her? I guess you’re the size for it—”

“Obviously not, idiot,” Han Sooyoung snapped. “What do you think I’ve been working on with Jung Heewon all this time? I can project into the house and look around. When I’m doing that, only spirit-touched or otherwise spiritually sensitive people will be able to see me.”

“Doesn’t that leave your body completely defenseless? You’ll be lying on the road.”

“Nope, I can perfectly split my perception now, so it’s not a problem.” The sidewalk nearby had a ramp with a railing attached, so Han Sooyoung found a place she could lean. “My body will stay right here.”

“All right, if you’re sure. Look for photographs, possessions, and anything written down.”

“Don’t boss me around,” Han Sooyoung said, closing her eyes. “Go bother that lady, already. If you mess everything up and need me to take over, just say something, and I’ll pop back in my body.”

“I don’t know why I’d need that,” Kim Dokja was saying, but Han Sooyoung was already in the process of projecting.

It was always a little disorienting at first, but after a moment of dizziness, her projection appeared a meter or so away from her body. Kim Dokja saw it right away and startled, glancing from the projection back to Han Sooyoung’s body, which was casually leaning on the railing with a vacant expression.

“Stop staring, or I’ll possess you and make you punch yourself in the face.”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t do that,” Kim Dokja sighed. “Hey, I need to borrow your notebook for a moment.”

“Excuse me?” Han Sooyoung demanded as he rudely reached towards her bag. With a moment of concentration, she split her perception enough to reach her own physical hand inside and grudgingly hand him the notebook. “Do you really think it’s acceptable just to reach into a woman’s handbag on your own? And what do you need this for?”

“This is a bit creepy,” Kim Dokja said, ignoring her question to wave a hand in front of the still-vacant expression on her body.

“Shut up and mind your own business!”

He shrugged, then turned towards the house to catch the attention of the sweeping woman, holding the notebook like a clipboard. His register switched on a dime to be exceedingly polite. “Um, excuse me…”

“You’re the creepy one, not me,” Han Sooyoung hissed in his ear as she floated past, going by the woman and phasing through the front door.

The inside was dingy and cluttered, with empty soju bottles piled on the tables. It was a home that suggested constant attempts to clean it being constantly undone, with some corners organized and others clearly showing where possessions had been thoughtlessly tossed down.

At the front door, she faintly heard Kim Dokja say, “I’m handing out information packets for prospective college students. Do you have a high school student who is looking into attending college in your family?”

What the hell. He’s such a bold-faced liar. Han Sooyoung drifted toward the clutter on top of the furniture, searching for anything interesting.

“No,” the woman said shortly, either not buying Kim Dokja’s spiel or else utterly uninterested in it.

“Maybe in your extended family, then? The admissions these days can be tough, but…”

There were a few sun-bleached, framed photographs scattered around. Several of them showed younger versions of the woman, smiling towards the camera, but the photos were framed awkwardly, like someone else was supposed to be in the frame.

“I don’t care about college.” The woman’s voice carried over as Han Sooyoung spotted a framed photograph that had clearly recently fallen off the wall, now lying cracked in the corner.

“There’s really no high school student who lives here?” Kim Dokja said. “If that’s true, whose bicycle is that against the wall?”

“I… it’s just some junk.”

Han Sooyoung kneeled in front of the photograph and reached a ghostly hand towards it, even though she knew that her projection was not able to affect the physical world.

It was a graduation photo of some sort, showing a small figure in center frame clutching a diploma with the banner of a local middle school hanging from it. The graduate’s face, however, was dyed in shadows, which made their features impossible to discern.

When Han Sooyoung’s ghostly hand brushed the photo frame, to her shock, she seemed to disturb a puff of dust or ash from its surface. As the particles dispersed, she saw that the graduation photo had become even darker, the diploma and school banner also now obscured in black.

“Isn’t there someone else who lived here?” Kim Dokja urged. “Try to remember, are you really here alone?”

“Of course I’m not alone. My husband lives here.” The woman’s voice, however, was starting to sound befuddled.

Han Sooyoung left the portrait and moved through the rest of the house, checking the other rooms. The master bedroom where this woman and her husband slept was obvious, containing both a woman’s and a man’s work clothes and a scattering of additional bottles at the foot of the bed.

There was also a second bedroom, this one cramped and messy. Posters covered the walls and scuffed figurines were piled on the shelves. The bed was unmade with the covers half thrown off, and a boy’s high school uniform had been left on the mattress with its name tag intact.

Here it was, undeniable evidence of Kim Namwoon. How could his parents see this every day and not remember the existence of their son?

As Han Sooyoung watched, an almost imperceptible gust of black particles drifted over the abandoned uniform. When they dispersed, the name tag, which had clearly read Kim Namwoon moments before, was blank.

Han Sooyoung retreated into the hallway, growing antsy. The spirit was erasing more of Kim Namwoon by the second. If that woman couldn’t remember her kid, there wasn’t going to be much more they could do to stop this.

“Uhm…” the woman was saying at the front door, leaning on her broom for support. “I don’t… know.”

“He liked Gundams, and military stuff,” Kim Dokja insisted. “That bicycle was his, he went to Cheongil High School; he was in the hospital for a concussion after being kicked last year. You must remember.”

The woman wavered, then suddenly straightened, regaining her confidence. “I… I don’t have a child.”

“But—”

“I don’t,” she snapped. “Why would I want a child? More trouble than they are worth, especially if it’s a bad child, a disrespectful child who won’t study and won’t keep his mouth in check.”

Kim Dokja caught on to this angle immediately. “Why would that child be bad?”

“A child who doesn’t listen to his parents is worth nothing at all,” the woman continued, a note of viciousness creeping into her tone. “Just trouble, trouble, trouble. You can’t hit sense into a child like that, though heaven knows my husband will keep trying. He just gets angry when he drinks, is all.”

Han Sooyoung, not liking this turn, edged back toward the front door. As she passed the graduation photo on the ground, she noticed that its surface had been totally eaten up by darkness.

Kim Dokja kept at it. “However, this child…”

The woman spoke over Kim Dokja like he wasn’t even there. “If I had a child, I tell you, I’d want him gone anyway. I’d want him good and gone.”

“Isn't that a terrible thing to say?” Kim Dokja interrupted, voice sharp.

“What do you care? Just who are you to say that to me?” The woman paused, as if looking at Kim Dokja for the first time. “Don’t you look… a little familiar?”

Kim Dokja’s expression did not change. “I don’t believe we know each other.”

“Tell me your name.”

For some reason, Kim Dokja gave it to her. The woman snapped her fingers together, her face lighting with recognition. “Ah—Lee Sookyung!”

Okay, that’s it, we’re giving up on this, Han Sooyoung decided, moving back towards her body. Progress felt slower than usual, and when she looked down at her feet, she found black particles of ash clinging to her projection body. What the hell?

“I don’t know who that is,” Kim Dokja said coolly.

Unfortunately, the woman was apparently just as determined to remember Kim Dokja as she was to forget her son. “No, no, I have her book! I watched the interviews back in the day. I knew I recognized that squirrely little smile. You’re the son of a murderer, and you’re coming to my home to insult my parenting?”

Han Sooyoung, with a burst of effort, shook off the clinging particles and headed back for her body. The fluttering ashes that flew from her projection settled on Kim Namwoon’s mother’s shoulders instead. They seemed to be coming down from the ceiling, falling like black snowdrifts.

“I followed that news story religiously, you know! It was so shocking, such a brutal murder. Stories like that, you know, that’s how social order falls apart, that’s how this world gets haunted. I told my husband, I did.”

Kim Dokja had fallen silent.

“You don’t have to listen to this,” Han Sooyoung snapped at him as she floated past, though he did not so much as glance in the direction of her projection. “Let’s just go. Someone like her won’t remember.”

After a second, Kim Dokja said, “you still bought the book, though.”

“Of course I did, I had to know all the details.”

“You then, think you have contributed nothing to this so-called haunting.”

“What on earth does that have to do with me? The woman stabbed her own husband with a kitchen knife. I’m just saying what’s obvious.”

Han Sooyoung swiftly merged back into her body, staggering back toward the house before her double vision had even resolved.

As she approached, she heard Kim Dokja say, “I don’t care about this. Tell me—where is Kim Namwoon?”

A light of near clarity seemed to come into the woman’s eyes. She said, “Gone, and good riddance.”

Even though she spoke dismissively, her words acknowledging Kim Namwoon’s existence seemed, for just a moment, to slow the rain of black ashes falling in her home. As Han Sooyoung’s vision fully resolved, her ability to see the ashes vanished. The open front door revealed only a glimpse of a normal, cluttered room.

“You can bring him back,” Kim Dokja said. “If you just remember him, he can come back.”

The woman’s face fought with itself, then resolved into a scowl. “Bring who back? Stop going on and on about there being a kid here. You’re screwy in the head because of witnessing a murder, aren’t you?”

Han Sooyoung finally reached the door and glared at the woman. “Honestly, you must be just about the most miserable and unpleasant person I’ve heard string sentences together. Do you stew around all day in your disgusting house trying to think up more ways to offend those around you?”

Kim Dokja put a hand on her arm to hold her away. “Han Sooyoung.”

“What, like you’re enjoying just letting her bitch and whine about the past like it matters. Lady, you are about to be responsible for your own child disappearing from this world. I hope you’ll feel really content as you drink yourself to sleep for the rest of your life.”

The woman’s face had turned beet red with fury. “How dare you—”

Kim Dokja gave her a quick bow, then grabbed Han Sooyoung’s arm to pull her into a retreat. “My apologies. We’ll go.”

Han Sooyoung let Kim Dokja tug her away, but did not miss the opportunity for a parting shot. “Don’t have a kid if you’re just going to pretend they don’t exist, all right! You better remember his damn face! It better haunt you!”

The anger in the woman’s face gained a slightly pinched, distressed quality, but Han Sooyoung saw nothing more as Kim Dokja pulled her away down the street.

She shook him off with an annoyed growl. “You really just let people walk all over you. It’s hard to watch.”

“I was trying to get her to remember. There’s really no need to rush to my rescue like that.”

“Wh—that’s not what I was doing, okay? She just pissed me off! No wonder that kid went off and vanished, I’d do the same if I had to live with her and her shitty husband.”

“Hm.” Kim Dokja had a distant look in his eye.

“Are you, uh. Good?”

“…Yeah?” he said, looking at her quizzically. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Isn’t it kind of traumatic for someone to bring up all that stuff out of the blue?”

His eyes were like a black void absent of stars. “No. I honestly don’t remember it, so it isn’t traumatic.” After a second, he added, “what about you?”

Han Sooyoung bristled. “What about me?”

“I just feel like this might be ringing some bells.”

“Psychoanalyze someone else,” she snapped, then kicked a nearby rock as hard as she could, watching it skid away down the sidewalk and out of sight.

Kim Dokja mutely watched this display of maturity until Han Sooyoung finally said, returning to walk at his side, “I can’t help it, I think willingly forgetting all about your child like they aren’t their own independent person is one of the worst things you can do as a parent.”

“I think she might actually be the only thing keeping his memory from vanishing entirely. She remembers a bit, deep down.”

“Yeah, because she hates him!”

“I’m not sure that’s true. It’s more complicated than hate.” He hesitated. “If her child had died, rather than vanished, I think it would devastate her.”

“There’s no functional difference,” Han Sooyoung grumbled. “If she feels that way, but never expresses it, it’s worthless. It’s almost worse than honestly admitting she doesn’t want her damn kid, if the only single thing they matters is that they aren’t dead, regardless if they’re suffering or not.”

“Yeah,” Kim Dokja said simply. “I know.”

Han Sooyoung shook her head, trying to pull herself back together. “Whatever. This Kim Namwoon kid’s in serious trouble if that’s the best we can do. I saw definite evidence of him inside—his clothes, toys, photos—but even as I was watching, it was being eaten up by something.”

“Something sort of ash-like, right?” Kim Dokja said. “I was sensing something like that.”

“Right. It’s blotting out his faces on the photos and stuff, whatever it is.”

“We might not have long, then.”

“So… what do we do?”

“Yoo Joonghyuk will track down the spirit,” Kim Dokja said after a moment. “At that point, Kim Namwoon can be brought back. Until then, those of us who are able to remember the name Kim Namwoon have to hold onto it.”

“Great, so we subjected ourselves to all of this for no reason.”

“Not no reason. We never knew Kim Namwoon to begin with, but since we were able to learn a bit about him, I think we can also weaken the spirit if we remember what we learned.”

“Yeah, but… there should be something more we can try.”

Kim Dokja raised an eyebrow. “Do you care about this all of a sudden?”

“No,” Han Sooyoung declared immediately. “But I have to protect your delicate heart, since I know you’ll be crushed if we don’t find this kid. Nobody wants to deal with that.”

“I wouldn’t say delicate.”

“No, you’ll cry like a baby. I’ve seen it happen.”

“We were younger,” Kim Dokja said, somewhat defensively. The fact that he remembered gave her a little flush of satisfaction.

They ran around the city some more, chasing ghost traces and checking back in with Shin Yoosung. She had not uncovered any additional information, Lee Gilyoung’s memory being much the same as Lee Jihye’s, but she promised not to forget about Kim Namwoon, writing a note in her phone that shone out with loud letters: Kim Namwoon is a jerk! That... certainly was one way to do it.

They were forced to return home for the night empty-handed. As Han Sooyoung parted ways with Kim Dokja at his apartment and made her way back home, a nameless anxiety grew steadily in her gut. When she opened her front door and kicked off her shoes, she finally put her finger on what was bothering her.

… He had given up on this too easily.

As she shrugged out of her coat, she received an unfortunate message in the company group chat.

YJH: I have checked all possible haunts, but there are no child luring spirits in Seoul at this time.

HSY: How can you possibly be sure?

YJH: I know this city well. That type of spirit has a distinct presence, which I did not detect.

YJH: The disappearance was caused by something else.

Even more perplexing, Kim Dokja’s response to this last scrap of his plan falling away was simply: Understood.

Han Sooyoung stared at that message for awhile. Before long, she texted him directly.

HSY: You’re plotting something, aren’t you?

HSY: You aren’t surprised at all.

HSY: why do I get the feeling you already knew it wasn’t a luring spirit when you said we’d solve the case by relying on Yoo Joonghyuk?

HSY: as if you would willingly leave it all to him without sticking your nose in…

Her inquiries received no answer. Annoyed, she called, but it rang through to a full answering machine.

Yes, she had made a mistake here. She should have noticed from the start that that conniving, ghost obsessed weirdo was up to something. And every single time Kim Dokja got up to something, he went off to do it on his own.

Though she had barely taken her shoes off, she quickly stepped back into them, pulled her coat back around her shoulders, and dashed out the door, headed back for Kim Dokja’s apartment.

Chapter Text

The first time Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja met in real life, she didn’t recognize him.

The person she chatted to online through comments and instant messenger, after all, didn’t use his photo as an avatar. What Kim Dokja looked like had not even been something that Han Sooyoung had ever considered—in a way they were both ghosts to each other, only hints of another person revealed through the wall of a messaging system. Sometimes, it made communication more difficult, but in other ways, it actually made things easier.

After she sold her first book and it became a bestseller, he told her—I went to your book signing.

Twenty-year-old Han Sooyoung had been shocked, trying to mentally scan back through all the faces she had seen at the event. It had been an overwhelming day, to say the least.

HSY: You went to my book signing and didn’t say anything to me????

HSY: You looked me in the eyes and said nothing??? What is wrong with you?

KDJ: It was a big accomplishment. You didn’t need me ruining the mood.

HSY: Are you so ugly that you would ruin the mood? You are a moron. This book wouldn’t even exist if not for you, you idiot.

KDJ: that can’t be true. All I did was annoy you about it.

HSY: Yeah, you sure have been an annoyance in my side.

HSY: have you read the dedication?

KDJ: No? I actually just flipped to the demon scene, I wanted to see how the final edits shook out. Then I got absorbed rereading it from there.

HSY: is that any way to appreciate a story? Read the dedication first.

KDJ: Okay, fine.

KDJ: … Wait.

KDJ: Han Sooyoung, this is….

HSY: Next time you come to one of my signings, you tell me who you are!!!

HSY: Idiot. Moron.

KDJ: Somehow, I don’t feel very welcome?

People said online friendships could be awkward when they turned into real life friendships, but that had not been the case with them. Somehow, the wall of the chat window between them had let them both see parts of each other that they hid from the rest of the world.

Kim Dokja was the only one who knew about Han Sooyoung’s childhood as an unwanted kid in a lonely house, tucked away by parents who found her existence inconvenient. Han Sooyoung was the only one who knew about Kim Dokja’s own traumas, as well as his theory of ghosts.

Han Sooyoung started posting stories online at the age of thirteen, and Kim Dokja was the only one to read them and encourage her. In a way, they grew up together. Somehow, they became people who understood each other a little, in defiance of a world that refused to understand them.

But back then and now, this guy… his go-to solution for everything that caused him concern was to think of a way he could “protect” others by removing himself from the equation.

Han Sooyoung, once she caught up to him, would strangle him to death.

She got to Kim Dokja’s apartment in record time, pausing only long enough to shoot a text off to Yoo Joonghyuk that said: meet me at Kim Dokja’s apartment before he does something stupid.

Pounding on the door and yelling produced no results, so, swearing under her breath, she started digging around in her bag for her old copy of Kim Dokja’s apartment key. She still had it, but to her surprise, it didn’t fit in the lock.

…Right. Apparently, Yoo Joonghyuk had broken down this door three weeks ago during the PC Bang incident. It was a new lock.

“Fuck,” she muttered, tossing down the useless key. “Fine, whatever, you gave up your right to call this an invasion of privacy when you ghosted me just now.”

She put a hand on the door and projected inside.

Believe it or not (and most of the time she did not believe it), Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja had tried dating for a brief, uneasy period as young adults. It hadn’t worked out for multiple reasons, most of which were Kim Dokja’s fault.

Kim Dokja just couldn’t let his guard down no matter what. Couldn’t connect with others and didn’t want to, couldn’t make himself be vulnerable in any way. What was the point in trying to push past that barrier?

For someone like that, being friends who sniped at each other all day was better.

Han Sooyoung had called it off, and Kim Dokja had almost seemed relieved, the bastard. Sometimes she regretted certain things in life, but, well. Han Sooyoung had had enough of being unwanted in her life. She only needed, and was needed by, herself.

Regardless, Han Sooyoung had seen Kim Dokja’s apartment on several occasions, but what she saw when she phased through the door was…

One big, horrifying mess.

“What the hell?” she said out loud. “Did you forget how to clean? Hey, are you even still in here, or what?”

Silence greeted her. Dishes were piled in the sink, several cracked, and the countertops were scattered with takeout containers. The floor had been swept, but because of the accumulation of clutter, shards of glass spotted the corners where a broom could not reach. The curtains were drawn and dusty, like he hadn’t opened them for sunlight in months.

“Do you not know how to take care of yourself anymore?” Uneasily, she moved toward his bedroom to peek inside.

She knew she wouldn’t find him in there, but what she did find was the epicentre of the destruction. His bookshelf had been shattered, and the pieces were piled to the side half sticking out of a garbage bag, alongside dozens of ruined books. Everything that had been on the walls had fallen off, most of it broken.

“What the hell,” she muttered again. Regarding the blank avatar, Kim Dokja had only said, “it made a bit of a mess in my apartment.”

Only one book had been salvaged from the disaster, currently set up on a wall shelf that had once held headphones and other computer equipment. It was her first ever bestseller, The Unseen World, its torn cover carefully taped back together. Since it didn’t close quite right anymore, it hung open in front of the dedication page, which read: Dedicated to my first and only reader.

The only, only explanation for how her eyes seemed to fill with tears was that she must have been affected by some previously undiscovered ghost allergy.

Instinctively she reached for the book—as if to fix the hanging cover—and saw that her ghostly, white hand was scattered with particles of black ash.

She jerked back and tried to shake them off. The particles were clingy, but eventually they fluttered away to the ground. Had those been stuck on her this whole time? Those were the ashes that were erasing…

That were erasing… what the hell was his name again?

The ashes that had fallen to the floor rested there for a moment, then began to burn with a candle-sized, pitch-black flame.

Suddenly, she became dimly aware of someone shaking her body by the shoulders. While still keeping an eye on the ghostly flames, she managed to split her perception enough to find Yoo Joonghyuk rudely jostling her body.

“What happened,” Yoo Joonghyuk growled. “Where is he.”

“Relax!” Han Sooyoung said, weakly attempting to dislodge his grip. While soul splitting, her ability to move her body was drastically reduced. “I’m trying to find out. Stop that.”

Yoo Joonghyuk did stop, with apparent reluctance, then glanced at Kim Dokja’s front door.

“Don’t break it down again, you animal, he’s not there. Hey, how the hell did you even get here so fast? I texted you barely ten minutes ago.”

While her main body told off Yoo Joonghyuk, her spirit backed out of Kim Dokja’s bedroom, only to find licks of black spirit flames sparking up all over the place. Small spots of flame lead out of the apartment in alternating patches, burning in oblong shapes not unlike footsteps.

The flames reached hungrily towards her as she passed, but she darted around them, shaking herself free of additional ash particles, then phased back out the front door to escape the apartment.

Outside, the sky was alight with trails of black fire.

“What the hell is this?” She whispered, gazing up. Her projection drifted to a stop right next to her blank-faced body.

Yoo Joonghyuk glanced between the two Han Sooyoungs. “What is what?”

“Can’t you see it?” Han Sooyoung demanded, gesturing above them at the arcs of flame. “There’s fire!”

“I can sense something, but it is very faint.”

The walking spirit detector couldn’t see it? A few more ashes drifted towards Han Sooyoung on the wind and she backed away with a grimace. “Maybe… maybe it’s because I still remember that kid, just a little. Ugh, what was his name?”

“The traces you’re seeing. Are they coming from a particular location?”

Han Sooyoung drifted up higher into the air so she could get a better look. The lights of the city spread out below her, its roads tracing veins of gold, silver and red into the distance. From up there, she could see a definite focal point of the flames.

They were emanating like roots from some point to the north, more or less in the direction of Cheongil High School.

Once she descended back down to report back to Yoo Joonghyuk, he said, “he will certainly be wherever the danger is worst.”

“Yeah, I don’t need you to tell me that.” She tried to return to her body, but if she did, she was no longer able to see the trails of flames against the cloudy night sky. “…I can track the source, but I’ll have to keep projecting, or I won’t be able to see the flames. Let’s go.”

She made an attempt to get her body to run while projecting alongside it, but she could only manage a zombie-like shamble. Her training with Jung Heewon had not covered this.

Yoo Joonghyuk, without asking, scooped her onto his back and rushed off down the staircase.

“What the hell?” she snapped at him, using the voice of her projection floating along in front of him. Her body stayed slumped lifelessly on his back.

“This is faster. Just tell me where to go.”

“Just because I’m busy projecting doesn’t mean you can feel free to manhandle me!”

“If you are so determined to fall down the stairs, I can drop you,” he growled.

“Is that any way to treat your employer?”

“You are not my employer.”

“How about the only reason you didn’t land yourself straight in prison after you escaped the time distortion?”

There was a moment of stiff silence. By unspoken agreement, neither of them had spoken of this since it happened.

Finally, Yoo Joonghyuk said: “Give directions. Don’t say pointless things.”

They reached the street in record time. The back supporting her was a solid plane of muscle that her chin bounced against distractingly, though it admittedly wasn’t uncomfortable. It was easy to put all her focus into the projection, trusting Yoo Joonghyuk to carry her body while she followed the path of black flames in the sky.

“It’s still far off,” she said. “We might have to get a cab—”

Yoo Joonghyuk sucked in a breath and there was a sudden burst of red light across his body. A second later, he was moving so quickly that Han Sooyoung’s projection was nearly left in the dust.

She put on a burst of speed herself, leaving trails of ghostly mist in the wake of her projection. “How are you doing that!?”

“I absorbed this ability from a spirit,” he said, barely out of breath. “Focus and give directions.”

While not satisfied with that explanation and annoyed at being bossed around, Han Sooyoung was intent enough on reaching Kim Dokja that she decided to table the argument for now.

She put her full attention into guiding Yoo Joonghyuk—and at the speed he was going, it was no small task. The people they passed on the street seemed almost not to see them, though the sight of a full-grown man barrelling past like a freight train should have been startling.

As they neared the source of the black flames, ashes billowed through the air in a solid, unavoidable wall. Han Sooyoung got the best look at the source that she could—it looked like the central point was the top of the gross bridge under which they had found the graffiti—then sank back into her body to avoid her projection making contact with the ashes.

“It’s at the bridge,” she said, suddenly alarmingly aware of clinging to Yoo Joonghyuk’s back while he dashed at incredible speed. It would be quite bad if he dropped her. “The center point, I think it’s on top of the bridge.”

The bridge itself was a seldom-used concrete footbridge, rising a good eight meters or more above the underpass below. The sight of the black flames should have vanished when Han Sooyoung re-entered her body, but as soon as Yoo Joonghyuk set foot on the edge of the bridge, flickering darkness set in all around them, blocking out the city lights.

Yoo Joonghyuk deposited her back on the ground, then quickly went for the sword strapped to his side. “A distortion.”

“Kim Dokja!” Han Sooyoung shouted. The darkness made it incredibly difficult to see even a short distance ahead. “Get over here so I can kick your ass!”

No doubt this fucking idiot would have known the bridge was haunted from the moment they first visited it, yet he’d taken Han Sooyoung all over the city on the stupid wild goose chase to the missing kid’s house. What was the point of it? Did he really think she wasn’t capable of dealing with something like this, too?

Or was it that… the method he wanted to use to deal with this was something she’d disagree with?

Yoo Joonghyuk moved ahead without another word, slicing his blade through the air. The darkness parted around the silver, curling like disturbed flames, but reformed only moments later.

Actually, the flames were reforming into more than a wall of darkness. The licks of black fire disturbed by Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword swept upward, gathering into the shape of a huge, batlike wing, which was soon joined by a reptilian head.

Shit, this was… it looked like the kid’s graffiti, right down to jagged flames that imitated the scribbled outlines of permanent marker. The dragon began to grow clearer and more detailed, its eyes lighting like embers beneath a spiky brow. Then it snarled with a low, vibrating voice, and pounced.

A quick flash of Yoo Joonghyuk’s blade severed the dragon’s head from its neck. The dragon instantly dispersed, the red lights of its eyes vanishing.

A moment later, though, additional shapes formed from the darkness all around them: another dragon; shambling, poorly proportioned human figures; the geometric legs of what appeared to be a massive robot.

“What kind of distortion is this…?” Han Sooyoung snapped, backing away. With flames swirling on all sides, though, there wasn’t any where for her to go.

“I am not sure,” Yoo Joonghyuk growled under his breath. “This is not a spirit I recognize.”

Since Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword had seemed at least temporarily effective, Han Sooyoung dug out her dagger and prepared to defend herself. “Regardless, Kim Dokja’s got to be somewhere in this mess.”

Yoo Joonghyuk briefly closed his eyes, then turned to his left. “The core is this way.”

Of course, the path was blocked by a wall of badly-drawn soldiers and tanks, as well as a robot that had to be about six meters tall. Han Sooyoung grimaced, raising her dagger as Yoo Joonghyuk repositioned his sword.

They pushed their way through, the flames parting at the touch of their silver blades. The soldiers were easy enough to disperse, but the giant robot seemed to just shake off their attacks. One of its feet slammed down nearby, missing Yoo Joonghyuk by bare inches and tagging Han Sooyoung on the leg.

There was a flash of pain, but not the sort of crushing injury that Han Sooyoung would have expected from being stomped on by a giant robot. Instead, the attack only left what looked like a black burn mark on her jeans—the figures in the flame, while intimidating in size, had no physical weight to them.

And moreover, she was suddenly struck by the feeling that she was forgetting something important.

Just moments ago, hadn’t she been certain that she recognized this strange collection of figures? The robots, the soldiers, the dragons? Hadn’t she seen those somewhere before?

“Ah, fuck this!” she snapped, slashing with prejudice through more figures in the flames. “Let’s hurry this up, where is that core?”

In response, Yoo Joonghyuk moved suddenly and with impossible speed, slashing through every manifestation still blocking their way at once. They both rushed ahead, weapons at the ready, to find a wide, circular area enclosed by whipping flames, like they were in the center of a huge, swirling black cyclone.

Dozens of objects were being spun around them: Picture frames; action figures; a beat-up bicycle. Though coated with ash, they were still recognizable, tumbling helplessly about in the firestorm.

Something small came sailing out of the cyclone towards Han Sooyoung’s head and she caught it on instinct, feeling the cool, sharp corners of some kind of rectangular plate. When she glanced down at her hand, she saw an ash-stained nametag—and, smudging her thumb across its surface, revealed the name Kim Namwoon.

Right. That kid’s name…

Yoo Joonghyuk stiffened beside her. “There.”

He was looking up at the very peak of the swirling flames that formed the eye of the cyclone.

Two figures were hanging there in the air, half-hidden in the swirling ash. One was an unfamiliar kid whose body flickered indistinctly as black flames ate at his skin and face. Though his features were difficult to discern, Han Sooyoung could see a shock of dyed white hair and eyes that burned like red embers. Hovering over him was another massive flame dragon, its wings nearly wrapping him up as the flames chewed away at his skin.

And the other figure was, of course, Kim Dokja. He was wearing the Demon King’s horns and wings, but one horn appeared to be broken and the wings were drooping behind him in a tattered, burned-up mass. He was caught in the grip of the huge dragon, its claws wrapped around his torso.

A track of blood ran down the left side of Kim Dokja’s face, but he was conscious enough to glance down at Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk with a look of reproach, as if he were annoyed to see them there.

What an absolute bastard, Han Sooyoung thought, quite charitably.

The kid floating opposite to him—Kim Namwoon, it had to be—let out a cackling laugh. “What, those two your friends? They come to save you? Great, I’ll burn all three of you to a crisp.”

Without saying a word, Yoo Joonghyuk took a running leap. In another superhuman feat, he got enough height to reach the peak of the cyclone and slash through the wrist of the dragon, releasing Kim Dokja.

Han Sooyoung did not miss Yoo Joonghyuk’s aborted movement to reach out and catch Kim Dokja as he fell, but Kim Dokja leaned away, flaring his damaged wings so he could land on his own power. As Yoo Joonghyuk hit the ground in a crouch a short distance away, Kim Dokja drew a black sword from the shadows and glanced at the two of them.

“Can you two stay out of this for now?” he asked.

“Stay out of—!” Han Sooyoung stomped towards him still brandishing her dagger, which Kim Dokja eyed warily. “Are you completely stupid? You were just getting your ass kicked.”

Before he could get out whatever asinine excuse he was reaching for, the dragon descended on them, its jaw open to reveal lines of bristling teeth. From above, Kim Namwoon crowed delightedly, “Now, die!”

Three blades, two silver and one made of solid shadow, swept through the neck of the dragon, dispersing it before it could strike. The dispersed flames swirled out, but before Han Sooyoung could get scorched and lose any more memories, they were swept away by one of Kim Dokja’s wings.

“Just stay back for now,” he repeated, giving the wings a sharp flap to put out the newly-smouldering edges. They were already so eaten up with scorch marks that they looked more like a tattered pair of curtains than wings.

Nonetheless, they seemed capable of flight—though just barely—as Kim Dokja proceeded to ignore Han Sooyoung and flap back up into the air, leaving smoking shreds of shadowy feathers in his wake.

“Idiot,” Han Sooyoung muttered, edging back towards Yoo Joonghyuk. More sketchy soldiers and robots were forming out of the surrounding cyclone, boxing in those of them unblessed with the power of flight. “You’ve got to have some idea of what this spirit is now, right? It’s eating that kid. Maybe possessing him? Is it the dragon?”

Han Sooyoung shot a quick look to the top of the cyclone and saw that the dragon they had just dispersed was reforming around Kim Namwoon, its wings curled protectively around him. The black scorch marks consuming the kid’s skin looked painful, but he was grinning madly as he turned to face Kim Dokja, the dragon brandishing its claws.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was oddly blank as he slashed through the first wave of attackers in front of them. “We were mistaken.”

“What do you mean we were mistaken?” Han Sooyoung took her own stab at the nearest figure in the flames. “Some kind of spirit is eating up the memory of the kid, so we’ve got to kill it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk cleared the area of flames with a wide swipe, then looked back up at the boy and the dragon. “No. We’re too late for that. Kim Namwoon is already dead.”

Han Sooyoung froze up momentarily. “No, but that can’t—”

Kim Namwoon laughed as his dragon batted Kim Dokja out of the sky, like swatting a fly. “Hey, I’m getting a little sick of everyone telling me how dead I am! I may be a ghost, but I’m way stronger now than I ever was alive. This is so much better. I'll show you."

Kim Dokja hit the ground hard, but jumped right back into flight, dodging the bicycle that was still tumbling around in the cyclone. “Kim Namwoon—you have to stop this.”

“Why do you even fucking care, man?” Kim Namwoon snarled. The dragon readied itself once more behind him. On closer observation, Han Sooyoung realized that Kim Namwoon’s movements slightly preceded those of the dragon—he was the one controlling it, not the other way around. “You’re a ghost-killer, so you can’t even sit back and let me hang out here for a few days, is that it? You gotta kill me yourself to be happy?”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Kim Dokja snapped, barely managing to avoid the dragon’s blows. “I’m trying to help. You shouldn’t erase yourself from this world.”

The dragon instantly flared larger, the red embers in Kim Namwoon’s eyes blazing with rage. Dark flames burst from his mouth as he shouted, “WHO ASKED YOU!?”

The cyclone broke. All the spiralling, dark flames flooded towards Kim Namwoon and into in the body of the dragon, which ballooned suddenly to four times its former size, Kim Namwoon hovering at its heart. The action figures, bicycle and other junk now rattled around in the dragon’s wings.

With the cyclone lifted, the concrete footbridge and its rusted, black handrail were revealed around them. The ash still billowing through the air, though, made it impossible to see very far beyond the bridge itself. It was like it looked out onto the edge of the world.

“I… I know life hasn’t been good to you,” Kim Dokja called a little awkwardly, heedless of the size of the manifestation now staring him down.

“That’s a fucking understatement.” The dragon reared back its head, red light glowing in its throat.

“I knew you were haunting this bridge from the moment I first visited it,” Kim Dokja said. “To become a ghost this powerful, you must have died angry, alone, and very suddenly.”

The dragon breathed a burst of fire at Kim Dokja, which he avoided.

“This bridge,” Kim Dokja finished, flapping around to face Kim Namwoon again. “You… jumped off of it, didn’t you?”

“I DIDN’T!” Kim Namwoon roared. The dragon struck again, wings, tails and claws slicing for Kim Dokja in an unavoidable whirlwind.

Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk moved at the same time. Yoo Joonghyuk made another superhuman leap and sliced through the dragon’s reaching limbs, dispersing them into flames. Han Sooyoung’s projection appeared in the air next to Kim Namwoon, the cool, white edge of her dagger held in a backwards grip.

This was one of the things Uriel had explained to Han Sooyoung about spirit projection: objects that carried significance to her could be duplicated, much like she had duplicated her phone during the Wrong Room case. She couldn’t yet pull it off reliably, but imminent danger seemed to help.

Kim Namwoon’s face was right in front of her: a monstrous mask of snarling teeth and blazing red eyes that was clearly beyond the human. He was past saving, at this point—this was nothing but a furious ghost, an echo of a kid that was ignored and failed by the world.

Han Sooyoung did not feel good about it, but… at this point, it was either the three of them, or this ghost.

Her dagger darted for the angry spirit’s neck, but a black blade appeared to block hers.

Kim Dokja put himself in between her and Kim Namwoon, tattered wings barely keeping him in flight. “If he has to die, I’ll kill him myself.”

Han Sooyoung floated away, caught between shock and fury. “Are you crazy? I’m trying to save your life here!”

 She struck again, but Kim Dokja moved with a foreign speed and strength to divert the blow. Both of them were too absorbed in the knife fight to keep a close eye on Yoo Joonghyuk, but a flash of red from the corner of her eye made Han Sooyoung turn her head.

Yoo Joonghyuk had leapt up a third time, now intent on the massive dragon curled around Kim Namwoon. He spun the silver spirit-hunter’s blade in an overhand arc, putting his full weight into a slash aimed at the massive, horned skull.

Kim Dokja threw up a hand. “Wait—!”

The blow connected and black flames burst out everywhere.

Han Sooyoung came back into her body with a gasp, lurching up from where it had fallen down. She had managed to end the projection quickly enough to avoid it getting scorched to a crisp, but the fast transition had her head spinning and dark spots dancing in front of her eyes.

Crouching on the cold concrete, she tried to get her bearings. Clouds of ash filled the air. The flames had evaporated, and the bridge was scattered with broken figurines and bicycle parts, trails of smoke rising from them.

At the other end of the bridge, near the railing, was a concerning tableau. Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword was frozen above Kim Namwoon’s head, inches from landing the finishing blow. The reason he stood paralyzed instead of striking was that the angry ghost had Kim Dokja by the neck, flaming dragon claws that extended from his hands digging into Kim Dokja’s skin.

“Think you can kill me before I crush his skull?” Kim Namwoon challenged, glaring up at the silver blade. Only licks of flame remained of the dragon, forming around his hands and head. “Just try it.”

“It’s fine. Back off,” Kim Dokja wheezed. The wings and horns were gone, though Han Sooyoung did not know if they had been intentionally or forcibly dismissed.

Han Sooyoung knew well the speed with which Yoo Joonghyuk could move, when necessary. it seemed to her that he could easily have freed Kim Dokja, but instead, he lowered the sword and stepped away.

In fact, Yoo Joonghyuk had never once directly attacked Kim Namwoon throughout this whole exchange. He may put on a good show, but he was another useless bleeding heart, wasn’t he?

“I didn’t jump,” Kim Namwoon said, panting for breath. His body wavered at the edges, like paper eaten up by burns. “You’re wrong.”

“But you died here.” Kim Dokja’s voice seemed to gain a little strength as the claws clutching at his skull relaxed their grip. “What happened?”

There was a long moment of silence. Kim Namwoon looked at the bridge railing and out at the blank, ash-filled void beyond. “You know, in manga and stuff, when you die, you just come back with cool powers. I wish it was really like that.”

Kim Namwoon sighed and dropped his hand. No one moved to attack him. “What really happened was lame. I had another fight with my dad and got really upset, so I came here to cool off.”

He turned to rest his elbows on the railing, looking down. Kim Dokja did the same, keeping an eye on the ghost.

“I was looking off the edge, I was thinking, man, what if that shit really is true and when you die you can go to another world and have a life that actually matters? But I think I had this moment where I realized that wasn’t real. And it was just going to be like this forever.”

Kim Namwoon took a half step back and his heel hit an empty bottle that suddenly appeared, manifesting out of the falling ashes, making him stumble. He caught himself a second later, but Han Sooyoung saw that the railing next to where he was standing appeared to be loose.

“But I wasn’t trying to… I just slipped. It was a fucking accident.”

Kim Dokja asked, “Why erase all memory of yourself from the world?”

“Well… thing is… dying did give me powers,” Kim Namwoon’s ghost said, raising his hands while flames fluttered in his palms, “I realized, if I got mad enough, I could burn anything. So, why not? My life was just such a shitty fucking story, from start to end. It’s fun to burn it all up.”

“It’s still your story,” Kim Dokja said. “It’s too important just to destroy. It deserves to exist in this world. If it could have a proper ending—what would it be?”

The flames and darkness had almost fully dispersed from Kim Namwoon’s face. He looked very pale, young, and dead. As his anger faded, so did his presence. He was becoming see-through.

“I just… want to be alive,” the kid admitted. “I want it to be better next time. Actually… I can see it in you, man. You were looking over an edge thinking the same kinda thing once, right? Did it get better for you? Or is it just the same old shit even if you get to keep on living?”

Kim Dokja’s eyes grew blank and far away, like a sheet was drawn over them. “I don’t…”

Seeing the lack of comprehension, Kim Namwoon glared. Flames re-emerged from his skin. “Fuck, okay, go ahead and pretend you’re better than me, I don’t care. It’s just not fair. How come you got to keep living and I had to die like this? Why you and not me?”

Han Sooyoung launched unsteadily back to her feet, rushing for them. Yoo Joonghyuk also moved, too late.

With a wordless scream of rage, Kim Namwoon slammed into Kim Dokja. They both tumbled backwards over the broken railing and off the bridge.

Han Sooyoung’s heart pounded in her throat. She and Yoo Joonghyuk both started running, skidding down the ramp that led down to the underpass below. The ashes in the air dispersed like they had never been there, revealing the unsympathetic glare of the city lights above.

Suddenly, it was all so horrifically normal—not a Demon King fighting a ghost, but a man who had just fallen off a bridge. Han Sooyoung’s feet kicked litter aside as she dashed to the bottom of the underpass. The same hard, unforgiving concrete where Kim Namwoon had met his end…

Kim Dokja was sitting on it, alive and well, looking up at the busted railing above.

When he heard Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk skid up behind him, panting for breath, he turned with an almost quizzical expression, flaring the tattered remains of the Demon King’s wings on his back. “What? I can fly, remember?”

“You’re a bastard. I hate you,” Han Sooyoung said, reduced to inarticulate insults. Her legs ran suddenly out of strength and she slumped to the ground as well, glaring up at the bridge.

Yoo Joonghyuk said, “Though the distortion has ended, the haunting has not dispersed.”

“He’s still there,” Kim Dokja said in agreement. “But, you know, he’s… really present for a ghost. He’s capable of moving on himself, on his own time, once he decides on the ending of his story. I think the best thing we can do for him is to leave him to it.”

“Seriously?” Han Sooyoung asked. “He tried to kill all three of us.”

“Can you really blame him for being angry?” Kim Dokja pointed out. “I think he, on some level, just wanted someone to understand what happened to him. Look.”

He was pointing towards the column where Kim Namwoon’s graffiti was still scrawled. It was suddenly vibrant and fresh, the black ink stark against the rough concrete. At the top of the column was a drawing of a boy on fire, grinning with sharp teeth as flames leapt from his arms.

“He listened to you,” Yoo Joonghyuk observed. “He decided not to erase his story.”

Throughout the city, memories would be returning to those who had forgotten the name Kim Namwoon. Ghostly ashes would clear from the surfaces of name plates and photographs. A woman Han Sooyoung had insulted would come to a terrible realization in the quiet of her home, the same realization they had come to on this bridge: It was too late.

“Why risk your life for something like that?” Han Sooyoung demanded.

“… I don’t know,” Kim Dokja admitted. He rubbed at the side of his face, then looked down at his hand, surprised to see that it was bloody. “This way, the world has to reckon with what they did to him. Maybe they’ll care. Maybe they’ll ignore the ghosts they created, like they usually do. But the story should get to exist. That’s all.”

This was a highly unusual glimpse of honesty from Kim Dokja, and it worried her. “Hey, why is your face bleeding? Are you concussed? Don’t you need a hospital?”

She shuffled over to him and tried to get a look at the wound while he tried to bat her away. “It’s fine, it’s just a forehead cut. It’s already sealed up.”

She wrestled with him until she could determine that the cut had, in fact, sealed up—freaky Demon King powers were at play, no doubt—then stood up with an annoyed sigh. The burn on her leg stung with the movement. “Whatever. I don’t feel like exorcising that kid either, so. Let’s get out of here.”

“I will keep an eye on the bridge,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “With those abilities, he will likely be able to defend himself against spirits which are hostile to ghosts, but I will observe the area regardless. I can also ensure he doesn’t attack anyone else.”

Kim Dokja watched him carefully. “You’d do that for a ghost?”

When Yoo Joonghyuk did not respond, Kim Dokja sighed, tried to get up, and immediately fell.

Han Sooyoung managed to catch him and haul him back to his feet. “Hey, what the hell! Did you not just say you were fine and not concussed?”

“I am fine,” Kim Dokja insisted, leaning too much of his weight on her for this to be true. “I just pushed myself a bit. I didn’t realize the Demon King’s powers had limits.”

“Of course it has limits, idiot! You’re not actually the Demon King, you know!”

Having found an outlet to let out her frustration, she proceeded to berate Kim Dokja for his stupidity as she and Yoo Joonghyuk hauled him away from the bridge, into a cab, and back towards his apartment.

Strictly speaking, either Han Sooyoung or Yoo Joonghyuk could have headed off and left dragging the world’s stupidest man home to the other party, but neither seemed willing to yield this responsibility. Thus, Kim Dokja got to sit jammed in between them in the taxi as Han Sooyoung told him off and the strength of Yoo Joonghyuk’s silent glare gave off sparks.

They reached his apartment and helped him back up the stairs. As he dug around for his key, Han Sooyoung remembered the chaos of what was inside and narrowed her eyes.

“Hey. Kim Dokja. I’m angry with you.”

He looked at her tiredly. “Yes, I gathered that when you insulted me the whole way here.”

“Well, go ahead and explain yourself then, and I’ll stop bitching. Why did you go off on your own? If all three of us had gone from the start, we probably could have dealt with that way easier.”

Kim Dokja paused, key in the lock. “I thought the best method would be to deal with it myself. That’s all.”

“And why is it the best method?”

“Communicating with a ghost is easier alone. All the swords and daggers would scare it.” He hesitated. “And there was less potential for collateral damage.”

“If you do that to me again,” Han Sooyoung said, voice cool, “I’m dissolving the company. Got it?”

“Fine,” Kim Dokja said, far too easily, as if he didn’t care at all. “It’s your company, do what you want with it. Good night, you two.” With a quick, unfriendly nod at both of them, he opened the door and slipped inside.

The door closed behind him with a click and Han Sooyoung stared at its blank, white surface. “Nothing gets through to him.”

Yoo Joonghyuk turned to leave, and Han Sooyoung quickly matched his pace.

“I mean,” she continued, “I still don’t even get it, why he feels the need to pull shit like this.”

After a moment, Yoo Joonghyuk said: “He is a person who cares more for ghosts than for humans. It’s not something about him that can be changed.”

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung said. “Yoo Joonghyuk. That’s a really deep observation to make about someone you’ve only known for a few months.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shut up and kept walking, but Han Sooyoung moved to block his way, standing in front of the staircase. He stopped and glared at her.

“I have a question to ask you,” she said.

“I don’t care about your question.”

“I’ll explain to you why you should care.” She paused, fiddling with a candy in her pocket. “Why do you think I started up this stupid ghost hunting agency, Yoo Joonghyuk?”

“Money,” he said immediately, though with an uneasy glint in his eyes that suggested he knew this was not entirely true.

“Money,” she said, flashing him a mocking smile. “Did you know, I’m a pretty famous author? My royalty payments from previous bestsellers are enough to live a comfortable life, and I get advances from new books, as well. There isn’t an airport or a bookstore in this country that doesn’t have my books on display.”

Though clearly unhappy at being boxed into the hallway, Yoo Joonghyuk did not simply move her aside, which meant he was at least semi-interested in what she had to say. “Your point?”

“My point is that I’m losing money running this company,” she sighed. “Independent paranormal investigation isn’t lucrative, especially with all the sob story cases we take on where no one pays us. I’m not stupid enough to think this is some kind of money-making scheme, and I am not in need of cash.”

“You convinced Kim Dokja to join out of a sense of idealism.”

Han Sooyoung barked a laugh. “Me, idealistic? All that stuff I told him about improving the world, about the humane treatment of ghosts… that was all for his benefit. I don’t care about any of it.”

“I’m still waiting on a point to this.”

“I started this company,” she said, “because there is something very, very wrong with Kim Dokja. You must have noticed.”

She had caught his attention, but he said nothing.

“Five months ago, he changed.” On automatic impulse, Han Sooyoung took the candy she had been playing with in her pocket and popped it in her mouth. It was nice to have something to sink her canines into. “First thing I noticed: he used to be obsessed with paranormal mystery novels. But after that point in time five months ago, he suddenly lost all interest. Couldn’t be bothered to read anything, and couldn’t seem to remember anything he’d read in the past that was important to him, either.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shifted. “His losing interest in your books hardly means something is wrong.”

“How about forgetting his childhood?” Han Sooyoung asked. “You know—I had to remind him why his mother was in prison. He forgot. Even now, he only knows what I told him, he doesn’t actually remember it. Is that normal?”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes narrowed marginally. “I would not imagine that would be a subject he felt like chatting about.”

“What the hell do you know? I’ve known him for thirteen years. He’s already told me all about it. He wasn’t being cagey—he forgot. His memory is full of other holes, too. All kinds of stuff, from his favorite foods to his relationships with friends.”

“Hm.”

“It’s like there’s a wall,” Han Sooyoung said. Though she had been chewing on the problem for months, it was surprisingly difficult to put into words. “There’s a wall between him and the real world. I haven’t seen him laugh or cry even once in five months. He stopped caring about anything. Something’s missing. I can tell. You can tell too, can’t you? You’re just ignoring it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Yoo Joonghyuk growled.

“I’m sure you don’t.” Han Sooyoung took out the lollipop and used it to point at him. “I couldn’t figure out what to do—I thought he was just depressed or something at first, but then I realized he literally couldn’t hear certain things I said to him. That’s either some undiscovered psychosis with a seriously sudden onset… or the work of a spirit.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s glare faded, moving into something that resembled concern. “He is the one who is not affected by a spirit. That is why…”

“So, here’s why I started up this agency,” Han Sooyoung said when Yoo Joonghyuk seemed unwilling to finish his thought. “I noticed that the only thing that Kim Dokja still cared about, that he had retained any amount of passion for, was ghosts. I thought: maybe I can get him back if I get him into contact with a lot of hauntings. I quit writing and set up the agency for that sole purpose.

“I also started researching every single incident of a spirit sighting or attack that occurred five months ago, around the time when the change occurred. I came up with a lot of useless stuff, but also, this fascinating story about a professional gamer who got sucked into a time-altering spirit world distortion. You’re probably familiar.”

“You...”

“I discovered that this crazy bastard had escaped the spirit world distortion and become a vigilante, going around on his own killing every spirit in Seoul with uncanny accuracy, as if he already knew exactly where to find each and every one.” She shrugged. “We both know that’s illegal, of course. You have to be licensed to go around with a sword and dispose of spirits in this country. So, if no one stepped in to advocate for you, you were going to be arrested.”

Yoo Joonghyuk looked away.

“Good to know you remember this part. Since I have a lot of contacts from my work before, and I was already in the process of getting my own agency authorized, I decided I could vouch for you. I paid a lot of money and pulled a lot of strings to get you licensed for spirit hunting and prevent your arrest, because, as I said a minute ago, I had a question for you. But before I could ask it, I needed to investigate a few things.”

“And are you satisfied with what you discovered?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked. His tone was resentful, but calm. It seemed he had accepted where this conversation was going.

“Of course not, but I have all the evidence I could ever want. The way you behaved the first time you saw Kim Dokja—the fact that you know so much about him, things that no one who has only known him for a few months in a work environment should ever know—not to mention Yoo Mia’s evaluation of the situation. She’s pretty sharp.”

“When did you talk to Mia.”

“Shut up, I’m asking the questions here.” Han Sooyoung glared up at him, hoping that it was anger that came across and not desperation. “I’ve figured it out, all right, so you better come clean. Tell me yes, or no: Five months ago, you were trapped in a time loop—and Kim Dokja was in there with you.”

Chapter Text

There was a child who had been given the name Joonghyuk.

Joonghyuk’s life was a mundane sort of tragedy: a story that was tiring both to tell and to hear. His parents had been so distant that it seemed, as a child, that he hardly knew them at all. Then, an accident had taken their lives. He and his baby sister were left behind, a situation that was mainly seen as an inconvenience to the adults in his life.

Joonghyuk learned to become self-sufficient. He detested the aura that adults gave off which informed him that he was a burden—a quiet resentment that they should not have to deal with more mouths to feed, that Joonghyuk’s parents had really done everyone a disservice by their deaths. It was never spoken out loud, but Joonghyuk was sensitive to these things, so he understood it without the need for words.

He took his sister the very moment it was possible, leaving to find his own way in the world. Joonghyuk had, after all, been cooking, cleaning, working, and caring for his younger sister for years already. In that way, not much would change.

Things were difficult on his own, at first, but Joonghyuk found some unexpected fortune. A hand-me-down game console became a hobby and then, in a stroke of luck, a career. He began to earn enough to support himself and his sister in comfort, letting her focus on school.

What might have happened to the person called Joonghyuk after that, had his life continued like this uninterrupted, is a mystery.

He must have had goals for his life. Maybe his only real goal was to support his sister to adulthood, and then keep working until he was old, finding something new to do when he aged out of gaming. An unremarkable, common life just like those of many others, to be lived out and then forgotten—Was that what he had aimed for?

To be honest, Yoo Joonghyuk could no longer remember what that person had thought about or wanted at all.

“Tell me yes, or no: Five months ago, you were trapped in a time loop—and Kim Dokja was in there with you.”

Han Sooyoung’s gaze was sharp and accusatory. Yoo Joonghyuk felt, for just a moment, frozen and exposed.

You were trapped in a time loop. Kim Dokja was in there with you.

To phrase it so simply made it sound trivial.

“Why,” he growled, instantly overtaken by fury, “is that anything you should concern yourself with?”

Unfazed, Han Sooyoung just grinned at him from around a candy. “So, what you’re telling me is that I’m right.”

“Get out of my way.”

“No,” Han Sooyoung said, feet planted in between him and the stairwell. “I’m not leaving you alone until I get my answers. Something happened to Kim Dokja in that loop, and I need to know what it is. You’re going to tell me.”

Yoo Joonghyuk felt his hand try to dart up towards the breast pocket of his coat, but halted the impulse with an effort of will. “There is no point.”

“There is a point!” Han Sooyoung exclaimed. “If I don’t know what happened, how the hell can I fix it? You’re really just content to leave him like this?”

Her words hit a sore point. “I am not convinced there is anything wrong.”

“You’re a bad liar!” Han Sooyoung snapped. “I didn’t think you were the type to just willingly ignore reality like this. You know, I asked him point blank like fifty times—Kim Dokja, were you in the time loop with Yoo Joonghyuk? And every single time, it bounced right off his stupid thick skull, like he couldn’t hear me at all. If you’re only going to answer one thing, answer this: why can’t he remember?”

Yoo Joonghyuk felt his shoulders slump, the fury abruptly subsiding. “I don’t know.”

“You—” Han Sooyoung seemed to be about to continue scolding, but paused at the look on his face. “You really don’t know?”

“I was in a time loop,” he said. He felt a sense of vast disconnect; he had never spoken of this plainly to anyone. “The nature of a time loop is that everyone—or at least, some version of everyone, is ‘in it’—including Kim Dokja.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if that was all I meant,” Han Sooyoung sighed. “By in the loop, I obviously mean aware of the loop, like you must have been. Was Kim Dokja also aware of the loop?”

“Not at first,” Yoo Joonghyuk admitted, through an increasing sense of vertigo. “But eventually. After hundreds, maybe thousands, of loops had passed. Yes.”

“And you remember everything without any problems.”

He did not answer, which she took as an affirmative response.

“So,” Han Sooyoung continued, “what the hell happened in there? Why did he forget, and what happened that made him so weird?”

“It doesn’t matter. It is likely for the best.”

Han Sooyoung stared at him in plain disbelief. “Are you kidding me? What do you mean it’s for the best?”

“It is for the best that he forgot,” Yoo Joonghyuk clarified. “To live in the loop is to perpetually re-experience the worst possible day of one’s life. It is hell. Even if you caused him to regain those memories, he would not be the Kim Dokja you remember. Perhaps he would prefer it this way.”

“So what?” Han Sooyoung snapped. “It’s fine to just leave him like this, with so much of himself missing? He’s not happy, Yoo Joonghyuk. He’s barely taking care of himself. He’s still traumatized, he just doesn’t remember why. I can’t accept he’d prefer it that way.”

“Just stay out of it,” he snapped at her, now angry with himself for giving away too much information. Even if what she said was true—what could possibly be done, with the loop destroyed? “The loop and what happened inside of it does not concern you. I will not speak of this again.”

“Yoo Joonghyuk—”

He moved her aside, since she weighed next to nothing, and left, descending the stairs and going out into the night.

Later, he considered quitting their stupid company for what had to be the hundredth time, but settled on the same old excuses as to why he couldn’t do that just yet.

Primarily: Kim Dokja’s death wish was as bad as it had ever been, probably worse. If Yoo Joonghyuk quit without convincing Kim Dokja to follow suit, he would be unable to sleep at night thinking about whatever idiotic situation Kim Dokja was putting himself in next.

Even if it still hurt somewhat to see the way Kim Dokja looked at him now—blank, inscrutable, a stranger—Yoo Joonghyuk owed him that much.

There was also the slight matter that Han Sooyoung, though her reasons were selfish, had in fact been responsible for getting him licensed as a spirit hunter. The only thing that Yoo Joonghyuk remembered how to do in this world was to kill spirits, and Han Sooyoung was likely the only person in Seoul willing to play the part of “employer” and leave him alone while he went around killing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Yoo Joonghyuk hated being indebted to anyone, and yet, he had found himself with two debts he could not easily repay.

He must have still been dwelling on it the next morning, as when he sat down for breakfast with Mia, she immediately declared: “If your job sucks, you should just quit.”

Yoo Joonghyuk sighed. Mia could be incredibly perceptive when the mood struck, and often chose the most inconvenient times for this mood. “My job is fine.”

“It’s not,” Mia informed him as she ate. “Oppa is grumpy in the mornings because he doesn’t want to go to work. Actually, I don’t want to go to school either. I should also quit.”

“You’re going to school.”

“Worth a shot,” she muttered under her breath. “Well, I’m not an adult, so I guess I have to go to school, but you don’t have to keep working at a job you hate, right? You used to be happy with gaming.”

If only Yoo Joonghyuk remembered a version of himself which had been happy, he could have put on a better front for Mia. She had suffered from all of this as well. From her perspective, her brother had become a haunted stranger overnight.

Despite that, though, she had never once treated him like a different person. No matter the weight of the time that now separated them, Yoo Joonghyuk remained fundamentally her brother, so much so that she could read his expressions the same way that she always had. Though he couldn’t say as much out loud, it was a great comfort.

“You should at least work at a different company than that ugly ahjussi Kim Dokja, that would make you happier for sure.”

At times, it was also inconvenient. “There is no need to call him ugly.”

“You are in so much denial,” Mia muttered.

Once Mia was off to school, Yoo Joonghyuk was considering what next to do with his day when a series of messages appeared in the company group chat.

HSY: So, I realize we’re just coming off of a pretty big case

HSY: And Kim Dokja may or may not still be concussed

KDJ: I was never concussed.

HSY: Results inconclusive, is what I’m hearing.

HSY: Anyway, I got a special request for us to look into something. It’s pretty big, so I don’t think we should put it off.

HSY: You remember Aileen Makersfield?

HSY: The doctor who told us about your weird demonic pacemaker situation.

KDJ: I recall.

HSY: Well, she was hoping we could come take a look at a case at her hospital.

HSY: It seems there’s a spirit that’s causing people to enter comas.

Yoo Joonghyuk was not aware of any spirits of that type in Seoul, which worried him. The more time that passed since escaping the loop, the more unpredictable the world around him, and its hauntings, became.

Nonetheless, he read Han Sooyoung’s message about the time and place of the meeting and showed up, ignoring both Han Sooyoung’s pointed stare and Kim Dokja’s annoying dithering conversation.

Dr. Makersfield was curt and businesslike as she brought them inside. It was impossible to miss the dark circles under her eyes and the many flying strands of brown hair that had escaped her ponytail—it seemed she hadn’t gone home in some time.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you in instead of going through official government sources,” she said as she led them through the halls, though no one had raised the question. “The fact is, I tried that already. They were useless, simply because their protocols couldn’t point to a specific spiritual cause. But I’ve been doing this long enough to know the difference between mundane and supernatural cases.”

“And so, you came to us because of our exceptional skills,” Han Sooyoung added.

“No,” Makersfield replied without missing a beat, “I came to you because you three are scientifically improbable, spirit-touched medical marvels, and at this point I will try anything.”

“Whoah, hey,” Han Sooyoung protested. “One of us is a normal human being.”

Yoo Joonghyuk would have to keep an eye on Makersfield—she was clearly quite sharp if she could identify that he and Han Sooyoung also had paranormal abilities when Kim Dokja was the only one she had examined.

Makersfield did not waste time arguing. She brought them straight to a quarantine unit with an observation window, then gestured for them to look inside.

Within, six people slept like the dead in six beds, each hooked up with an oxygen mask. The ages and genders of the patients were varied; the youngest appeared to be in his late teens and the oldest in her fifties.

“All of these patients were healthy,” Makersfield said, “before suddenly falling into a coma over the past week, one after the other, one victim per night. Though they do not seem to be in immediate danger of dying, we have been completely unable to trace the cause of the coma to any medical source. For all intents and purposes, they are simply sleeping.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stared into the room. It was dim and quiet. If there was any spiritual energy coming from the patients, it was extremely faint.

“And yet,” Makersfield continued, “They also appear to be caught mainly in the REM cycle of sleep, which I can assure you is not typical. Despite how peaceful they may look from the outside, they are experiencing elevated stress, with concerningly high levels of cortisol. If we can’t find a way to wake them up, the constant stress will eventually kill them.”

“They are having nightmares,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“One would assume so.” Makersfield’s voice was tired. “Well? Any ideas?”

“Can we examine them closer?” Kim Dokja asked, one hand on the glass that separated them from the patients.

“I’ll allow it,” Makersfield said, in a tone that suggested she was overruling protocol and did not care. “This unit is under quarantine, so I will need you to mask up and avoid direct contact with the patients. Understood?”

With little other choice, the four of them employed masks, face shields, and gloves before entering. A deathly stillness laid over the room, a silence so complete it was almost a physical pressure.

Now that they had entered the room, there was certainly something in the air. The sense of something vast and inscrutable, lying in wait in the darkness, reminded Yoo Joonghyuk of the mansion which had held the Demon King. Perhaps it reminded Kim Dokja of this as well, as he was idly working small circles on his chest above his heart while he looked around the room and its patients, frowning.

“I’ll leave this one to you two,” Han Sooyoung muttered. Even if she could not sense spirit traces, on some level she must have felt the pressure, since she kept her voice low. “What do you think?”

“I would guess that a demon is responsible,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “As we found in the case with the Demon King, their sheer strength makes them difficult to immediately identify.”

“…I agree,” Kim Dokja said after a moment. “I’m feeling some kind of reaction. Can I get closer to the patients?”

Though her eyes were wary, Makersfield said, “be my guest.”

Kim Dokja inched closer to the nearest bed, reaching a gloved hand to hover above the forehead of a middle-aged man. The patient’s body and face were perfectly still, except for his eyes, which moved back and forth behind his eyelids.

Yoo Joonghyuk followed, keeping as close an eye on Kim Dokja as he did on the patient. It had only been a day since he’d been too weak to walk home after facing the ghost of Kim Namwoon, the red mark of a closed wound still visible on his forehead.

After a moment, Kim Dokja shot him a look. “Can I get a bit of space here?”

“No.”

“Great, thanks.” Kim Dokja closed his eyes for a moment, focusing, then took his hand away. “I think something is feeding on him. Can you sense the direction this energy is going?”

Yoo Joonghyuk also extended a hand. If he focused, he could indeed feel a very slight pull of energy rising out of the man and away, though the trail ended abruptly in midair. “It could be going to the spirit world.”

“Were these victims in physical vicinity to one another when they fell ill?” Kim Dokja asked, directing the question back towards Makersfield.

“No,” she replied. “They were all brought to this hospital owing to the similarities of their symptoms, but they came in from all over the city.”

“Which rules out a localized spirit world distortion, like a haunted building,” Kim Dokja muttered. “This is definitely unusual.”

A knock came at the door, and Makersfield quickly turned to open it. “Ah, and here’s my other consultant. Perhaps you could exchange notes.”

 Given the sort of week he had been having, Yoo Joonghyuk should perhaps not been surprised to see Lee Seolhwa brush inside a moment later, expression hidden behind the medical mask. She had, after all, worked at this hospital before quitting to join the same agency as Jung Heewon.

Lee Seolhwa’s eyes only glanced over Yoo Joonghyuk before turning to the matter at hand, examining the patients and asking Makersfield a series of technical medical questions.

Now that Kim Dokja’s Company were only getting in the way of actual medical professionals, they stepped outside to let Lee Seolhwa and Makersfield to their discussion. Yoo Joonghyuk peeled off the mask and gloves, somewhat grateful to have an easy exit.

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung said, looking pointedly at Yoo Joonghyuk. “You and Lee Seolhwa. What’s the story?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Han Sooyoung sighed. “You two used to be in a relationship, right?”

“You did?” Kim Dokja said, looking shocked.

“That was a long time ago,” Yoo Joonghyuk growled. He and Lee Seolhwa had broken up on mutual terms roughly six months previous, only a few weeks before he had been caught up in the loop. In terms of experienced time, it was so long ago he could barely recall how he had felt about it. “Why is my personal life of such interest to you?”

“I just thought it was interesting,” Han Sooyoung said innocently, as if she had not dug up this information on purpose.

He had no more time to threaten her into leaving these matters alone, because Lee Seolhwa emerged from the room herself a moment later, swiftly removing her protective equipment. Once more, her eyes slid right off Yoo Joonghyuk as if barely registering his presence. “Well… I have some theories, but I’m told you three have some unique powers of perception. Can you tell me what you think?”

As far as Yoo Joonghyuk could recall, their breakup had been amicable enough. Lee Seolhwa was currently angry with Yoo Joonghyuk because of how he had behaved post-loop: Lee Seolhwa had learned that he had been the victim of a spirit attack, had tried to help him, and Yoo Joonghyuk had completely and relentlessly shut her out.

In retrospect, it had not been elegantly done. Then and now, Yoo Joonghyuk had no intention on letting anyone in on the details of what exactly had transpired in the loop, nor on the nature of the layers of damage permanently inlaid on his soul, but there were less boorish ways communicate that than the one he had chosen. If his emotions had not been running so high back then, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble.

If only Dokja…

Yoo Joonghyuk deliberately discarded and crushed this selfish thought. If only Kim Dokja nothing. It was better this way.

It had to be.

“We suspect it could be demonic in origin,” Kim Dokja was saying. His eyes flicked briefly between Yoo Joonghyuk and Lee Seolhwa. “It’s undeniably similar to the Demon King we encountered earlier this year. There’s also the matter of something feeding on their fear.”

“That spirit will strike again tonight,” Lee Seolhwa said. “It’s struck every night this week and this will be its seventh victim, a number which carries significance for certain spirits. It makes me concerned for the safety of the first six. The spirit needs to be tracked town before then.”

Han Sooyoung frowned from where she was leaning against the wall. “Tracking it down, if it’s not tied to a specific location, seems like it would be impossible—why not lure it out instead?”

“Lure it?” Lee Seolhwa repeated thoughtfully. “How would you accomplish such a feat?”

“Well, if it’s a spirit that’s feeding on nightmares or something similar, it’s basically a predator, and it’s looking for a certain type of prey, right?” Han Sooyoung asked. “If we can get it to target that prey in a specific location, where we happen to have a sealing array set up, destroying it would be easy.”

“It isn’t a bad plan,” Yoo Joonghyuk admitted grudgingly. They would need to get the spirit to manifest anyways in order to kill it, and though the sealing array was a bit of a cheap trick, it was the fastest way to ensure that manifestation would be weak enough to quickly dispose of.

Kim Dokja frowned. “To lure it out, we would need to know how it’s choosing its victims.”

“… Night terrors,” Lee Seolhwa spoke up. “All the victims were sufferers of night terrors. It’s notable, however, that night terrors are experienced mainly by children, and all of the spirit’s victims have thus far been adults.”

“Out of curiosity,” Han Sooyoung said, looking directly at Yoo Joonghyuk, “does anyone here experience that kind of thing?”

“Not me,” said Lee Seolhwa.

“I never remember my dreams,” Kim Dokja reported, predictably.

“I have a lot of weird dreams, but not an unusual amount of nightmares, myself,” Han Sooyoung said. “Yoo Joonghyuk?”

“Why do I feel like you already know the answer to the question you are asking?”

The fact that he now knew that Han Sooyoung had talked to Mia explained a lot, though he was going to have a few words to say to his sister for casually relating all details of his personal life to someone like Han Sooyoung. The matters of who his ex-girlfriend was and whether nightmares sent him springing out of bed early in the morning were entirely private.

“Sleepwalking, as well?” Lee Seolhwa asked instantly, giving Yoo Joonghyuk her sharp I am a doctor look.

“It isn’t relevant,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “In any case, I have not yet been targeted, so how would you propose to coerce the demon into targeting me, if that is what you are suggesting?”

The threat in his question went unnoticed.

“We just need to catch its attention. Spirits like this feed on fear, right?” Kim Dokja said, a faint smile darting across his face. “Do you have any phobias, Yoo Joonghyuk? Spiders, snakes?”

Yoo Joonghyuk glowered silently.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding—You couldn’t fall asleep while covered in snakes anyway. I have all the fear I could ever want right here.” He tapped on his heart, indicating, Yoo Joonghyuk realized after a moment, the improbable quantity of ghost fragments that were dwelling within.

For lack of a better idea, they decided to lay their trap for the nightmare-devouring demon that night. Lee Seolhwa called in the rest of Uriel’s Angels to try and track down the demon through the usual channels, evidently hoping that they could destroy the spirit before Han Sooyoung’s ridiculous plan had to be relied upon.

Nonetheless, as the sun set that evening, Jung Heewon reported that her team had had no luck: the demon was still at large, and it would certainly choose its next victim soon.

“I guess we’re up,” Han Sooyoung said, hanging up the phone and tossing it down on the desk. They had elected to try summoning the demon in their office, as none of them was willing to risk it coming through into their homes, but…

Yoo Joonghyuk was not happy with the solution they had come up with. They had pushed all the furniture in the already-sparse office up against the walls, creating the largest possible open space in the centre. An intricate circle was scrawled on the floor in red ink, similar in composition to the one that Han Sooyoung had used to trap the Demon King. In the centre of the circle was a dingy-looking, bare mattress.

“I am not laying on that,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“Oh, yes you are,” Han Sooyoung informed him, busy triple-checking her work on the circle. “It’s too late to back out now. We have to lure the demon here or it’s going to pick someone else. Are you really just going to let some random person take the fall for you, Yoo Joonghyuk? Plus, I already voided our rental deposit with this circle.”

Yoo Joonghyuk did not answer, though he couldn’t help but wonder that if he stared at the mattress long enough, the force of his barely-constrained rage might cause it to spontaneously combust.

“I guess we could have at least gotten him a blanket,” Kim Dokja said in the tones of one who couldn’t care less about getting Yoo Joonghyuk a blanket. “Regardless, the sun’s just about down. We should get started.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stiffly maneuvered himself onto the mattress and gazed hatefully at the ceiling. Kim Dokja’s face encroached on his line of sight a moment later, ghost fragments already beginning to swirl around him.

“Should we… turn off the lights? Be quiet for a few minutes?” Kim Dokja asked, frowning. “I guess we didn’t consider how difficult it would be to fall asleep under circumstances like this.”

“There is no need,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. He closed his eyes, neatly severed the knot of anger and grief he carried in his chest, and began to meditate.

The ability to stop perceiving what was around him and force his mind to rest, regardless of his surroundings, had become of the utmost necessity in the loop. He had trained himself to fall asleep within minutes, when he could make the time for it. It was all in the body; an act of acknowledging and then releasing all the tension it was carrying for him, his heart rate slowing in response. His thoughts all drifted through his head like faint, lonely stars, quieting as he drifted off.

After an unknown amount of time spent drifting, Yoo Joonghyuk became aware of a sense of anxiety.

Where was he right now? He couldn’t remember. Something wasn’t right. He was supposed to be somewhere else. He was supposed to…

Someone was screaming. Someone was dying, or about to die. The spirits were coming for everyone—they were even coming for Mia—but no matter how hard he pushed himself, he could not save them. He could never save anyone.

You don’t have to fight alone anymore, all right?

Somebody had said those words to him…

Uh. Sorry, do I know you?

“Yoo Joonghyuk, wake up!”

His world tilted wildly as rough hands pulled him up from the mattress. He automatically lashed out, striking at whoever was attacking him—it was only Kim Dokja, who slapped the punch away with a shadowy wing. “Hey, get a grip and get out of the circle, now!”

Yoo Joonghyuk staggered blearily as Kim Dokja dragged him to his feet. They were in the company office and the circle was glowing blood-red around the mattress, but something wasn’t right. Tendrils of darkness reached outside of the circle, over the circle, as the sheer power contained within overloaded and superseded the array.

Even the Demon King had not been able to break through this array. It should have been able to trap the avatar of any spirit, no matter how powerful. A chill settled in Yoo Joonghyuk when he realized the reason.

There was no avatar.

Impossibly, the demon itself—the demon’s true self—was reaching right into their office from the spirit world.

Yoo Joonghyuk found his bearings and grabbed his sword from where it was lying outside the circle, whirling to face the nightmare unfurling over the abandoned mattress.

Its true shape was headache-inducing, impossible to define—all Yoo Joonghyuk could perceive of it was writhing tendrils. They reached out towards him from what seemed like a tear in the very fabric of reality, an infinite darkness beyond.

He readied his blade to slash through as many tentacles as was necessary—assuming silver would even damage such a being—but his eyes caught on that black tear in the world. Against his will, his muscles went slack.

In there. In the dark. They were screaming at him.

You let me die. I died in horrible pain. You let the spirits drink my blood and eat my bones.

“I… I’m sorry.” The sword was no longer in his hand. He could not remember holding a sword. “I tried. I tried.”

We died and suffered so many times, they called. All because of you, because of your failures. Why, why can’t you end this hell?

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ll try again. I’ll go back to the start.”

And does that erase our suffering? Does that mean we never died? Or do you leave a mountain of corpses behind you so high that they would blot out the very sun?

There was no way out. No matter how many times he went back. And the loop would never let him die.

I’ll let you die, the dark whispered. I promise. I’ll devour you so completely there isn’t a scrap of consciousness left.

Yoo Joonghyuk let himself fall in.

***

We had been unprepared: that much was clear.

In my defense—how could I ever have known that Yoo Joonghyuk, who had faced down the Demon King without blinking, would fold like a house of cards at the mere sight of the nightmare demon?

Even while it happened, my mind couldn’t make sense of it. I had never seen fear on this guy’s face before, but the expression Yoo Joonghyuk had when he looked into the swirling darkness was more than fear… it looked like utter despair.

Muttering to himself, face pale, he dropped his sword.

“Hey,” I said, alarmed. “Yoo Joonghyuk?”

All at once, the demon lost interest in us. It simply slashed the circle open with one of its tendrils, wrapped itself back up into the darkness, and vanished.

We were left in abrupt, complete silence, at which point Yoo Joonghyuk slumped into a dead faint.

I caught him before he hit the ground, but he was completely limp in my arms. The only movement in him was the slight rise and fall of his chest and the frantic back-and-forth movement of his eyes.

When slapping him on the cheeks failed to rouse him, our only option was to bring him to the hospital, back to Dr. Makersfield and Lee Seolhwa.

After a brief flurry of panicked activity, Han Sooyoung and I found ourselves once more in the quarantine room, which now contained seven beds.

“Well,” Dr. Makersfield said, her eye bags another six hours deep, “He’s got identical symptoms to the rest. You three certainly were successful in luring the demon.”

She kindly refrained from adding that we had failed miserably at disposing of it.

“The problem is…” I started, then tried to find the words. The demonic energy in my heart had reacted strongly to the nightmare demon, growing cold and heavy in my veins. When we were only investigating the traces left on the victims, I had assumed that this meant that the energies were of a similar type. Now, though…

I had to wonder that sensation wasn’t the Demon King shrinking back in fear.

“The problem is that it’s orders of magnitude stronger than anything else we’ve ever encountered,” Han Sooyoung completed the thought for me, scowling down at Yoo Joonghyuk. “The Demon King is a small fry compared to this thing. It burst through the containment array like it was nothing. Defeating it… who even could? Uriel, maybe?”

I had the thought that if anyone could have, if not defeated it, at least damaged it, it would have been Yoo Joonghyuk. Yet here he lay without having landed a single blow.

“I’m afraid don’t have time for that,” Lee Seolhwa interjected as she swept suddenly into the room. Her bright eyes lighted on me. “You can sense the flow of energy, right? Tell me what you feel happening to him right now.”

Hesitantly, I stretched a hand overtop Yoo Joonghyuk’s pale forehead. The demonic energy in my heart grew chill and sluggish at the touch of the intense current that was flowing through him.

I snatched my hand back, surprised. “It’s… way stronger than it was with the others.”

“It’s fully concentrated on feeding off of his despair now,” Lee Seolhwa said. “I can’t help but feel that we’ve just handed it a full-course buffet when all it had before were table scraps.”

Despair was not a word I would have paired with Yoo Joonghyuk before that very night, but I could not shake the feeling that she was right.

“We don’t have time to wait for Uriel to get here,” Lee Seolhwa continued, “even if she is able to get away from her work overseas, with this accelerated pace, the demon will consume him along with the other six before she gets here. At this rate, I give it five hours.”

“Five hours?” Han Sooyoung exclaimed. “How… how do we stop it?”

Lee Seolhwa stood. “I have only one suggestion. The demon is committing all its resources into Yoo Joonghyuk right now—while that is likely giving it more power, it also gives it a significant weakness. If we can sever the link between Joonghyuk and the demon, we’ll severely weaken it—possibly even enough to banish it back to the spirit world.”

I examined the current that was passing through Yoo Joonghyuk again, ignoring the resultant discomfort in my heart. I could feel the nightmare demon nearby, its power lurking in the spirit world just outside of our perceived reality. It leaned close, intent, over Yoo Joonghyuk. Lee Seolhwa was right—breaking this link was sure to deeply harm the demon. “But how do we break the connection?”

Lee Seolhwa was looking at me with burning eyes. “From the inside.”

Lee Seolhwa’s plan, in terms of sheer riskiness, made our plan to summon a demon in our office look quaint in comparison.

Lee Seolhwa and I had passed each other by on a handful of occasions due to her working at the same agency as Jung Heewon, but this was the first time we had properly spoken. She turned out to be a person with a curious mix of medical knowledge and knowledge of the supernatural, essentially creating her own whole new field of study where the two intersected.

While we had been busy messing with the furniture in our office, Lee Seolhwa had been studying the demon through its effects on the patients. Her conclusions matched up with what we had discovered: the demon was not interacting with our world by way of an avatar. It seemed to be capable of acting directly.

This should not have been possible—but the key, Lee Seolhwa explained, was that it was using peoples’ nightmares as a bridge between the spirit world and ours. Its spirit world distortion was, essentially, within the dreams of its victims.

Lee Seolhwa believed that, by putting someone under anaesthesia, she could use this connection to send them into the distortion. And once someone had been sent in this way, it should be possible to sabotage the distortion from within.

There weren’t many people actually capable of performing such a feat, however. Naturally, it was myself, with the Demon King’s powers, and Han Sooyoung, with her projection ability, who met the stringent requirements of being both nearby and capable of surviving such a crazy plan.

“I can’t even guarantee it would work,” Lee Seolhwa finished. Though her explanation had been swift and professional, her pale face made it clear that her nerves were frayed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested this—It’s too risky. I believe that if you enter the distortion this way, you won’t be immediately under its influence, but it’s possible you could become trapped once the demon notices.”

“No,” I said, looking thoughtfully down at Yoo Joonghyuk and the line of other victims, all frozen in their nightmares. Facing the demon head-on was not possible, but clever sabotage from within, a backstab while it was focused on devouring Yoo Joonghyuk—that was the only way to do this. We had at most five hours, and this was the best and most efficient method. “I’ll do it. Let’s get started.”

Chapter Text

▪

He can no longer remember the first time he died.

Was it a slit throat? A blow to the head? A strike so swift that he barely felt it? After a long enough period of time, they all start to blur together.

When he dies, time turns backwards, and he wakes up on the subway.

▪ 3

The supernatural used to be a matter of the theoretical for Yoo Joonghyuk.

Ghosts had never bothered him—He had never even seen one. They were entities that, if they existed, did so in the night, while he existed in the day.

So, why? Suddenly, he exists in a perpetual night. Whatever barrier that had stood between himself and those creeping, dark things is gone, if it had even ever been there at all.

Something in the shadows, all claws and fangs. Something dripping green liquid. Something covered in rusty chains. With each repetition, a different spirit appears to hunt him down and kill him.

He can’t escape the spirits, but he gradually learns how to sense them coming for him. They feel something like oil separating from water, or like spots of black mold.

Many of them seem to find his helplessness funny. They laugh while he dies.

He doesn’t understand why or how this is happening to him, but there must be a way to stop it.

2 ▪

Nobody else is aware of the time loop, and most people can’t see the spirits at all. The first time that Yoo Joonghyuk finds a spirit-hunter and tries to explain what’s happening, the strength of the spirit chasing him suddenly multiplies. It manifests as a spiderlike thing with eight reaching limbs, then tears the hunter apart before he can even raise his blade. It does the same to Yoo Joonghyuk immediately afterward.

The message seems clear: He must deal with this on his own.

But the fact that he has received this message is important. It means that this loop, whatever it is, has rules. If he can figure out those rules, he can start to strategize—and he can figure out how to rip the whole thing apart.

When he wakes up on the subway, it is always seven P.M. The latest he has made it in the day is ten.

▪ 4

The silver blade he stole from the spirit-hunter is awkward in his hand. It has an unfamiliar weight, both too light and too heavy.

A tiger-like spirit with an upside-down head stalks him in the halos of light cast by streetlights. Yoo Joonghyuk strikes first, but it kills him anyway. He dies in sickening fury at his own weakness, choking on blood with fangs in his throat.

3 ▪

Finally, he kills his first spirit. It is ten P.M., and a humanoid spirit clothed in bloody grasses lies at his feet, dissolving.

As he staggers away, blood in his eyes, the streets are quiet.

He has the tentative thought: maybe killing one of them was the solution. Maybe it is over.

When he finally gets back home, in pain and on edge, he waits until he thinks it is safe before he opens the door.

He missed something: A second spirit was masking its presence above his doorframe, hiding deep in the shadows.

It snaps his wrist to make him drop the sword, and then strangles him to death in his own doorway.

He fights back with everything he has, but can’t break free—and with the last of his consciousness, realizes Mia has appeared at the end of the hallway to see the end of it.

Even if time is reset—even if she won’t remember this, even if the spirit never gets to go for her once it’s finished with him—he resolves to never, ever let this happen again.

But that is a promise he will not be able to keep.

▪ 3

Whatever force or being is responsible for this will die by his hand. Just the thought that he is going through this for someone’s twisted amusement makes his stomach turn. He will escape this. He must escape this.

He has killed five spirits, and the latest he has made it is eleven P.M.

? ?

There is… something he is forgetting. A silver ring, the flash of a smile.

No, that hasn’t happened yet.

5 ▪

The more spirits he kills, the stronger they get on the subsequent loop. As the strength and the numbers of the spirits increase, he stops being their only target. They attack random people on the streets, cutting their way towards him.

Yoo Joonghyuk is by now familiar with the sight of blood, but he thinks: I should try to save them.

He dies thinking this many times, until the deaths of innocent passersby lose their novelty, their sting, and then their meaning.

▪ ▪ 1

Despite his earlier assumptions, it is no longer possible to survive the spirit attacks on his own. Their sheer numbers preclude that—though his skill with the blade is improving, there is only so much he can do if ten or fifteen of them attack at once.

Through a long process of trial and error, he identifies those nearby with the skills to survive and convinces them to band together. With this strategy, he makes it further into the loop. A full twenty-four hours. A full three days.

The more days that pass, the further the city descends into abject chaos. Now he has to worry about Mia, about Lee Seolhwa, about his students like Lee Jihye, and find ways to protect them as the world falls apart.

The spirits begin to unleash distortions on the city, making killing them a vastly more complicated endeavour. He is hunted down in labyrinths; the streets fill with water as he is transported to an endless, frigid ocean; a dark forest springs up where contact with the leaves and foliage burns the skin.

He fights harder, smarter, and more efficiently than he ever has before, and still can’t make the progress he needs to make.

He can get further with others by his side than he can alone. But he can never win—and now, when he fails, he watches those allies die with him.

If he can just manage to stay alive for long enough, he can reach the end of this loop—there must be such an end, even if he does not know where it is.

But it must be perfect. Not only must he reach that end alive, he must do so while protecting those he decides to protect. To accomplish this, he must be stronger. Much stronger.

Everyone else’s memories are reset at the beginning of the loop, so only he can figure out the correct sequence of actions that will lead him to that end.

5 ▪ ▪

The spirit is red. It is heat incarnate, all wings and talons of molten metal. Its strength is equal to that of an army of lesser demons. It eats through city streets and dissolves buildings from the ground up, distorting the world into a slag furnace.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s companions voice what he can’t.

“How can this be real?” That is Lee Jihye. She has a silver blade, and in these loops has learned over and over again how to kill, how to survive. “How can spirits like that exist?”

Its great, beaked head turns toward Yoo Joonghyuk, beads of bright liquid iron dripping from its eyes.

It says, “W▪ke ▪p, Yoo Joonghyuk.”

He stares, his head pounding, unable to shake the conviction that he is forgetting something.

The spirit opens its mouth again, but no more words emerge, only red-hot flames.

Burning to death is one of the worst ways to go, but he can endure it. Next time, he’ll succeed. He will certainly figure out the correct sequence of actions to take in the next round. The end is close. He must…

? ▪ 4

Did he ever really have that much conviction?

▪ 2 ▪

He can’t protect anyone. There’s no point in trying. His first tactic was correct—he has to do this on his own. Relying on others only brings suffering.

6 3 ▪

Whenever he gets seven days into the loop, the molten iron spirit returns. The spirits are starting to repeat, which should be useful in learning of their weaknesses.

But the molten iron spirit has no weaknesses. It burns the world away like it’s nothing, just a paper cut-out of a world. Maybe that’s really what this loop really is: Just a bad pop-up storybook version of reality.

Whether it is real or only a facsimile—Yoo Joonghyuk could not say which is worse.

▪ ▪ ?

…

▪ ▪ ▪ 9

Losing his mind is not productive. He must focus on solutions.

He can now reliably make it to the seventh day with ease. There must be a path past that, too.

▪ ? 5 ▪

Long since having abandoned his hope of protecting the city itself, he only retains a single-minded desire to get Mia to safety first before the worst of it sets in, out of range of the distortions.

Is he supposed to learn something from this? Is that why time is repeating? What possible thing, after all these years, has he not yet learned about this hellish span of seven days?

? 3 ▪ ▪

Some loops are better than others. At times he is cold and emotionless. At times he is furious and determined. At times he swiftly loses hope and dies early so that he can try again on the next round. But mostly…

? 6 ? ▪

He is just getting very, very…

? ▪ ▪ 8

Tired.

▪ 6 ? ?

…

1 ? ▪ ▪ ▪

…

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

…

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

The subway car hums under his feet. The taste of iron in his mouth fades. It is the first time he lets himself have the thought:

Maybe there is no way out.

There is no safe place to rest. There is no sequence of actions he can take that prevents himself and his loved ones from being slaughtered. The seventh day is an impassible barrier that has loomed before him for…

For a long time.

It seems possible that it always will.

A struggling flame in his heart that has burned hot all this time abruptly gutters and goes out.

Despite the utter absence of intention, his body moves on automatic impulse through the usual sequence of events.

He has perfected the first day through thousands of loops and at this point, it is all rote muscle memory. First, he disembarks the subway and steals a silver spirit-hunter’s blade from a small agency’s storefront office. At 7:15, it is left briefly unattended near the front of the shop while its owner puts away their coat.

This particular blade has been his choice of weapon for the past six hundred or so rounds because it is well-made, and the collection of charms hanging from its hilt are effective against a wide variety of spirits. Of the swords which are of acceptable quality, it is also conveniently nearby and easy to take without causing a scene, which would translate to deadly delays.

At some point, when spirits he had already encountered started reappearing, he realized something: The loop did not create spirits from nothing. All of the spirits which rose to murder him and everyone he cared about already existed in Seoul, but the loop seemed to choose different ones to ‘feature’ with each round, giving them the strength to unleash city-wide distortions.

Thus, the most efficient method was to visit the haunts of as many of these spirits as possible and kill them before they could properly manifest. This made getting past the first two days far more efficient. He has spent what amounts to several years searching for the haunt of the molten iron spirit, but he has never been able to track it down. Perhaps it is an exception.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind is blank. He goes to the ramshackle house, covered in overgrown vines, where the upside-down tiger spirit lives and kills it the instant its face emerges from the wall. The tiger spirit’s distortion is a nasty one, so at some point he decided to prioritize killing it first.

Next is the spirit of dead grass hiding in a nearby park. The memory-erasing spirits, which once took Lee Jihye before he knew enough to prevent it from happening, die next.

After this, it is over Dongho Bridge. The spirits in Han River can be drawn out here, and dealing with them before they can deploy their city-drowning distortions is a necessity.

Yoo Joonghyuk can no longer remember his reasoning for creating this sequence of events, but his body moves on its own. He holds his sword over the railing of the bridge and lets spirit blood drip down to the waters far, far below.

This catches the attention of three water spirits, clothed in plastic bags and reeds. They are ancient and strong, but their arrogance makes it possible to kill them efficiently—they don’t realize the threat he poses until it is too late. They always move the same way, too, so he knows the exact places to land his strikes. He has the fight down to fifteen seconds.

He starts walking towards the subway station and stops—because for the first time in all of the loops, there is someone standing there, blocking his way.

An unfamiliar, unremarkable-looking man, roughly his own age, is looking at him with a wary expression. In all previous loops, the walkway of this bridge was empty.

The perfect, dark calm of Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind is disturbed by ringing alarm bells, shocking his thoughts back alive. He crosses the distance in a moment and grabs the man around the neck, blade at the ready to pierce his heart at the first sign of suspicious movement.

“You. Who are you? Why are you here?”

He can only think of three possibilities.

First, this man is the ‘featured’ spirit of this round, a spirit with a human-like form that Yoo Joonghyuk has not yet encountered.

Second, it is possible that this man has something to do with the loop itself. His grip tightens as he considers the possibility.

If the man caught in his grip is a spirit, he cannot sense it. That eliminates his first option. The ‘featured’ spirit’s energy is always distinct.

“Wait,” the man wheezes out. He wisely does not struggle, feeling the tip of the sword close by.

“I asked who you were. Name.”

“… Kim Dokja.”

“A strange name.” It would be an unusual thing for a spirit to call itself, but Yoo Joonghyuk can afford to make no assumptions.

As if they were having a normal conversation, the man replies: “I hear that a lot.”

He is too calm. Yoo Joonghyuk slams him into the tall concrete railing of the bridge walkway, not holding back at all and feeling the light, telltale crunch of a breaking rib. The man lets out a choked gasp of air.

Would the spirit responsible for all of this really create such a weak avatar to face Yoo Joonghyuk? Maybe to get his guard down—he can’t be sure of anything.

“Are you responsible for this?” he growls. Cars move past on the bridge behind them, but Yoo Joonghyuk is unconcerned with any potential intervention. Once the distortions set it, law and order will quickly fall apart. “Answer me. Why are you here?”

“I came… to talk to you,” Kim Dokja hisses. Sweat beads on his forehead. “I’m not responsible for this. Time is repeating. You—you’re the only other person aware of it, aren’t you?”

The third possibility for Kim Dokja’s identity: another human who is aware of the time loop.

But if that’s true, how come they haven’t met until now? If there had been another person taking actions to affect the loops, Yoo Joonghyuk would have noticed long ago.

And in this situation, was he really speaking to Yoo Joonghyuk so casually?

“Answer my questions directly. Use honorifics.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

The man’s eyes are oddly calm. Yoo Joonghyuk recognizes that bleak acceptance of pain and death.

The dead flame in the depths of Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart gives off a tiny glow, like stirred embers. This is the first time something in the loop has changed so significantly.

It must mean something.

“Let’s just skip the theatrics. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and kill me,” Kim Dokja says. “Kill me and I’ll come find you next round.”

It is almost certainly a bluff, but Yoo Joonghyuk follows through without another word, shoving Kim Dokja back over the railing and dropping him into the river below.

1 8 6 5

“I can’t believe you actually killed me.”

“You asked me to.”

“I didn’t ask you to kill me, Yoo Joonghyuk. You could have chosen to just take me at my word.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stares warily at the man once again blocking his way on the footpath of Dongho Bridge. The place where Yoo Joonghyuk killed him in the last round is only a short distance away. “How do you know my name?”

“A few days into this loop, everyone knows it,” Kim Dokja says. “If you’re wondering why I haven’t approached you sooner, it’s because your methods are a bit scary. Naturally, I watched you from afar at first.”

Yoo Joonghyuk feels off-balance for the first time in a long time that he can recall. “How many loops have you seen?”

“This will be thirteen,” Kim Dokja says with confidence. He must see something in Yoo Joonghyuk’s face, because he pauses. “I… assume you’ve experienced more loops than that? How many more?”

The number does not come easily to him. There was a period where he stopped counting. Even his general estimate does not feel accurate, though he may as well begin counting again from his best guess. “It is one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-five.”

The alarm in Kim Dokja’s eyes seems genuine. “One thousand eight hundred loops?”

“… At least.”

“And you still can’t get past the seventh day?”

As Yoo Joonghyuk takes a threatening step forward, Kim Dokja takes a very quick step back.

“Ah, it’s only—Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi, it seems that you cannot break past the seventh day on your own. But I can help.”

“How could you possibly help?” Yoo Joonghyuk looks coldly down on the inscrutable stranger. After experiencing a mere thirteen loops, how could this man think he has anything to offer Yoo Joonghyuk, who knows this small seven-day world inside and out?

The side of Kim Dokja’s mouth darts up in a smile. “I know where the haunt of the molten iron spirit is.”

This is, unfortunately, the only thing that Kim Dokja could have said that would make Yoo Joonghyuk hear him out. It feels like a trap—how, after so long, could someone else just suddenly become aware of the loop, and offer him the solution to one of his greatest problems?—but the possibility of stopping the molten iron spirit before it manifests on the seventh day is too tempting to pass up.

Kim Dokja takes them northward, and they end up traversing the crowded concrete walkways and manicured trees of Cheonggyecheon, the downtown skyscrapers looming high above them.

Kim Dokja talks a lot. “I’m not sure if you realize this, but the spirits that are showing up in these loops aren’t just spirits that are in Seoul in the present day. You’re fighting spirits from all across time.”

If this is true, he did not know it. “You are familiar with the history of spirit manifestations, then.”

For some reason, this question seems to catch Kim Dokja off guard. After a moment, the fool says, “I know a bit. For instance, the one you call the molten iron spirit… it matches the description of a spirit from the early industrial age.

“The story goes like this: there was a beautiful grove of trees not too far where this stream was built, and a relatively benign nature spirit guarded it, which the locals knew to leave alone. But back in 1910 or so, Japanese troops knocked over the trees to build some kind of metalworks. The spirit took on aspects of the furnaces, then burned a hundred or so builders to death before finally being banished.”

Yoo Joonghyuk watches Kim Dokja very carefully from the corner of his eye. “And?”

“…And then everyone got back to business, pretending it never happened. The building, though, was viewed as cursed, and fell into disrepair soon after being completed. This story was based on a footnote in some old records, but I actually wouldn’t call it historically accurate, since there’s no proof that there was any metalworks here. Ah, here we are.”

Yoo Joonghyuk looks around. They are in an area lined with trees, tasteless and touristy. There is a lot of foot traffic streaming by, including quite a few couples on dates, and the path is well-lit by intermittent colourful lights. People give Yoo Joonghyuk and his spirit-hunter’s sword a wide berth.

“You’re saying the spirit is here?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks, preparing to murder Kim Dokja again if this is some kind of asinine prank. Didn’t he just say that the whole story he had been going on about wasn’t even true? That made this a complete waste of time.

“It has to be,” Kim Dokja says. “I think its presence must be very subtle, but this is the exact area where that spirit was said to manifest over a hundred years ago, when you account for the stream being paved over and then restored. For the record, it’s not actually the historical truth of the matter that’s important—it’s the story that gets told which makes the haunting resonate.”

Before he kills Kim Dokja, Yoo Joonghyuk takes a moment to focus and see if he can sense any traces of spirit energy.

To his surprise, there is… something. Extremely faint, and not hostile. If he had walked by this area before, he would not have identified it as anything resembling the molten iron spirit, and yet…

He follows the faint trace, moving off the footpath and crashing through bushes.

In the boughs of what looks like the oldest of the carefully manicured trees, nestled in the Y-curve of its lowest branches, rests a dense orb of spirit energy in the shape of a red bird. The bird is curled around itself, its wings folded and its long tail feathers circling its body like a nest.

It looks and feels different, but once Yoo Joonghyuk locks eyes with it, he knows: this is the same spirit which has burned him to death hundreds of times.

Kim Dokja emerges from the bushes behind him, shaking leaves off his clothes. “Well? Do you believe me now?”

Yoo Joonghyuk gazes down at the helpless bird, trying and failing to make easy sense of this sequence of events. The chance remains that Kim Dokja, if that really is his name, is only another part of the loop, something else crafted to make him suffer.

“It’s too bad,” Kim Dokja says. His eyes have fallen to the bird spirit. “It manifested as such a harmless avatar. Almost like it’s just waiting for us to kill it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk raises his sword. The bird lifts its head, bright yellow eyes trained on his.

“Or maybe it’s just too weak to do much of anything to stop us, until it gets that power boost on the seventh day,” Kim Dokja muses. “Bird spirit—what do you think? Do you realize that we’re trapped in a loop? Why don’t you help us out instead of burning up this hapless guy so many times? I’m sure it was entertaining the first few rounds, but you must be wishing for some nicer candles by now.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shoots a look at Kim Dokja, unsure whether he’s more shocked at how casually Kim Dokja is addressing the spirit, or how rudely he is addressing Yoo Joonghyuk.

The bird unfurls slightly, as if it is listening. Its delicate, red wings extend on either side of it as it bows its head.

“Well?” Kim Dokja says after a moment.

Yoo Joonghyuk did not get this far by hesitating. He brings the sword down in a swift motion, piercing the delicate bird in two.

But instead of dispersing, the indistinct remains of the spirit suddenly shoot towards him. Yoo Joonghyuk moves away, but it happens so swiftly and unexpectedly that the twin ruby-red arrows pierce straight into his chest.

There is a second of pure, incandescent agony. He staggers back with a strangled grunt, then falls over as the strength abruptly leaves his limbs.

Is he… dying?

Unexpectedly, hands catch him and lower him to the ground, though seem content to leave him facedown in the grass. “Relax—it’ll be over soon.”

Anger makes him black out for a second. He should have known this was some kind of setup. Whoever, or whatever this Kim Dokja is… he cannot be trusted…

“We’ll get out of this loop, I promise.”

I’ll kill you for this, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks indistinctly, and then dies.

1 8 6 6

“It’s a phenomenon called being spirit-touched. You can’t tell me you haven’t heard that phrase.”

Yoo Joonghyuk is once again holding Kim Dokja by the neck over the Han River and Kim Dokja is once again being insolent.

“Explain faster,” he threatens, tipping Kim Dokja a little further off the guard rail.

“If you kill me again, you’re just going to have to wait for the next round to get information from me. This really isn’t useful for either of us.”

It may not be useful, but considering that stunt, Kim Dokja deserves whatever he gets. Yoo Joonghyuk does not budge an inch.

“Fine.” Kim Dokja tries to dislodge the hand from his neck and fails. “Certain encounters with spirits can leave traces on a human soul. Possession and near-death experiences are the most common ways, but it can also happen if you have a strong connection with a spirit… or if a spirit creates that connection voluntarily.”

“The point.”

“The point is,” Kim Dokja snaps, “I’m helping you. You need this ability in order to survive past day seven.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Kim Dokja suddenly vanishes from his grasp. Yoo Joonghyuk lurches ahead—did the idiot throw himself off the bridge?—but whirls around to see Kim Dokja suddenly behind him, wind whipping around him.

That wind—it’s caused by spirit power. He can sense it, clear and cold.

“Ah—to be clear,” he says, holding up his hands in defense. “This isn’t because I’m a spirit. It’s an ability that I was given by a spirit.”

“What,” Yoo Joonghyuk growls.

“You’ve been doing this too. It’s why you can sense spirits so well—whenever one of these things kills you, it leaves the slightest amount of damage. Like a paper cut. But that is going to take too long to show useful effects, so instead of a paper cut, I stepped it up to a proper laceration wound. Ah, hypothetically speaking, I mean.”

“And was there any particular reason you chose to do this without explaining it first.”

“I really can’t imagine you having been receptive to me saying ‘I need you to let a spirit kill you’,” Kim Dokja shrugs, keeping a careful eye on Yoo Joonghyuk. “This was faster.”

Impossible that someone who is asking Yoo Joonghyuk to trust him would choose to behave like this. “Where are you getting this information?”

“It’s just background knowledge I have about spirits.”

“Hm.”

“I realize this is probably difficult to believe,” Kim Dokja admits. He takes a small, hesitant step in Yoo Joonghyuk’s direction, hands open to imply non-aggression. “But the fact of the matter is: we’re both stuck here, and I don’t think either of us is capable of ending this loop alone. You don’t have to fight alone anymore, all right? I’ll help.”

Yoo Joonghyuk would be an idiot to accept such an unknown variable without first verifying that he could be trusted. He turns away, intent on continuing this round of pre-emptive spirit killings, and leaves Kim Dokja behind. “I can end it alone. Stay out of my way.”

“Fine,” Kim Dokja says from behind him. “In that case, I’ll do things my own way.”

Yoo Joonghyuk is angry and annoyed. But he can’t deny it—underneath his frustration is a kernel of excitement.

He will keep fighting a little longer.

***

The seventh day arrives as it has hundreds of times, but since he has killed the molten iron spirit in advance, it does not rise to incinerate him.

Instead, a distortion appears from a spirit he has never seen before: a corpselike spirit in rotted armour, distorting the world into rock formations and green water. Unfamiliarity this late in the loop tends to be a death sentence, but Yoo Joonghyuk has not and will not ever go down easily.

As loathe as he is to admit it, Kim Dokja’s scheme has worked out in Yoo Joonghyuk’s favor. The power of the bird spirit thrums in his veins, increasing his speed by factors of scale. With this ability, he can hold his own against the sheer strength of this new arrival.

Even so, the fight is difficult. His body is already covered in wounds when the spirit reveals a new technique: rusty blades slice up from the pools of green water, arcing toward Yoo Joonghyuk from every direction. He feels a flash of anger as the blades converge on him—he was so close this time, he doesn’t want to throw away this round just yet…

And then, the spirit world distortion abruptly disperses. The pools of water, the blades, and the rock formations all vanish, leaving the corpse spirit suddenly exposed in the middle of an ordinary Seoul city street.

Yoo Joonghyuk does not miss the opportunity. He dashes ahead and beheads it, the silver sword sliding through its skeletal neck with no resistance.

It collapses into a pile of rust and bones, already beginning to dissolve. Yoo Joonghyuk lowers his sword, breathing heavily. The cuts across his body sting as the adrenaline rush of combat fades.

Rushing towards him from behind the dissolving body is Kim Dokja. He is also cut and bloody, but he is wearing a triumphant smile, and he is holding what looks like two halves of a crumbling bronze spear in one hand.

Later, Yoo Joonghyuk will learn that the spear is an item that ties the corpse spirit to this world. Destroying that spear instantly disperses the distortion. There will turn out to be many such tricks—shortcuts, even—that will let him improve his progress through the loops.

He will learn… how does he know what happens in the future?

“Wake up, Yoo Joonghyuk,” says Kim Dokja.

Yoo Joonghyuk startles. “What?”

“I said,” Kim Dokja says, backlit by the brilliant golden glow of the eighth day’s sunrise, “I told you, we’re getting out of this loop.”

It will not be on that particular round, however. Yoo Joonghyuk meets his end at nine A.M. on the eighth day to a swarm of insect spirits. The last thing he sees is Kim Dokja, his expression grim but unafraid. When Kim Dokja looks at the spirits surging forward to kill him, he seems to be calculating something.

1 8 7 0

Kim Dokja’s methods are questionable, but get results. He communicates with spirits and brutally exploits their weaknesses, often completely reversing fights that should have been one-sidedly against him.

They end up working together out of pure necessity. Seoul is vast, but the spirit attacks happen in concentrated areas, so they end up in the same locations regardless of Yoo Joonghyuk’s intentions.

Yoo Joonghyuk had privately thought that the seventh day could be the end of the loop, but he was mistaken. The eighth day; the ninth day… even if he dies then, the loop still restarts upon his death.

“So, the loop is longer than we assumed,” Kim Dokja muses as the day’s featured spirit dies at their feet. “We’ll have to keep pushing forward and find out how many days we need to survive. We should also find out if it’s possible to kill every single spirit before they start getting power boosts.”

These are things Yoo Joonghyuk has already been thinking for hundreds of loops. It should frustrate him to no end to watch Kim Dokja hitting his head against the same problems as if no one has ever thought about them before, but somehow the fresh perspective is not unwelcome.

Kim Dokja’s knowledge of spirits is surprisingly—suspiciously—in-depth. He doesn’t seem to be a spirit-hunter and claims his interest in spirits is only a hobby. How is it, then, that he seems to know so much about the specific manifestations in the loop? Seoul has seen thousands upon thousands of spirits over its long history; it is steeply improbable that Kim Dokja would be familiar with all of them.

If only he could be trusted, he would prove a useful ally.

1 8 8 8

Up until now, Yoo Joonghyuk has always died first; it is an undeniable fact that the spirits seem intent on him specifically. This round, however, Kim Dokja unexpectedly takes a bad hit from the claws of a bearlike spirit.

Yoo Joonghyuk should be long since desensitized to those around him being brutally killed, but somehow this still shocks him. Kim Dokja’s ability to manipulate wind, which has sent him dancing away from the spirit’s attacks time and time again, is not enough to avoid this blow.

His torso is rent open and he is thrown back directly into Yoo Joonghyuk, who automatically catches and lowers him to the ground. Kim Dokja’s blood stains him up to his forearms.

The fool mutters, “don’t get distracted,” through the blood leaking from his mouth, then dies.

Yoo Joonghyuk does not get distracted—he kills the spirit without wasting another second. When he looks back at Kim Dokja’s crumpled corpse, small and ragged, it occurs to Yoo Joonghyuk to wonder: if he reaches the end of the loop this round, doesn’t that mean Kim Dokja will stay dead?

It isn’t something he can let stop him, but the thought gets stuck somewhere in his mind like a nagging itch. When, on the next loop, Kim Dokja reappears as his usual annoying self, the itch disperses.

1 8 9 0

Kim Dokja does not have many people he cares for—or if he does, he keeps those cards close to his chest. It is mainly just his co-worker, who happens to be riding the same subway car as him when the loop begins, who he tells to get to safety when things get bad.

One day, though, after staring at his phone for a few minutes, he says: “Yoo Joonghyuk. Is it possible for someone to not be inside of the time loop, even if they were in Seoul when it started?”

This round has not gone well. They have failed to contain the spirits before the situation became nigh apocalyptic, and Yoo Joonghyuk is busy considering where he could possibly bring Mia that would be safe before he goes to confront the spirit that is responsible. It’s a lost cause, but he must try.

It takes Yoo Joonghyuk some time to realize that not only has Kim Dokja asked him a question, he is silently waiting for the answer with uncharacteristic focus.

“I am not sure,” Yoo Joonghyuk admits, keeping a close eye on Kim Dokja. “Why?”

Yoo Joonghyuk can practically hear it in the silent pause that follows his question as Kim Dokja debates whether to lie or tell the truth.

“There is someone I’m looking for,” he finally admits. “She was in Seoul before the loop started. I was even texting her not twenty minutes beforehand. When I first realized time was looping, I looked for her, but she just isn’t here. And messages… well.”

He leans over to show Yoo Joonghyuk his phone. The tail end of a recent conversation rests at the top of the screen, timestamped at 6:45 P.M.

As he tries to read it, the characters of the topmost message seem to dance blurrily in his vision. A dull pain pulses in his temple.

HSY: WAKE UP WAKE UP FUCK YOU WAKE UP ALREADY

He blinks away the pain and the text resolves itself into something that makes more sense.

HSY: Complete garbage don’t even tell me you liked it

HSY: Your taste is so bad it makes ME look bad by association

KDJ: I’m just saying it had some decent parts.

Followed by:

KDJ: Han Sooyoung, where are you?

(undelivered)

KDJ: If you see this, get your ass to Chungmuro Station, it’ll be safe there for the time being.

(undelivered)

“My messages never go through,” he concludes, swiftly pocketing the phone and its tiny, rare glimpse of his personal life. “So, what do you think? Have you seen anything like it in the past thousand loops?”

“I have not,” Yoo Joonghyuk admits. He feels uneasy. “This woman—you’re together?”

“Oh. No,” Kim Dokja says after a moment. “We just know each other.”

It’s clearly an understatement of some degree. Kim Dokja does tend to vanish for long stretches of the occasional loop—it seems likely he could be using that time to search for this mysterious missing person. “But you care for her.”

“She’s a demon wearing human skin,” Kim Dokja says immediately, “and you would not say that if you met her. But… I’m just a bit concerned. It is an aspect of the loop I don’t understand.”

 “If she is not here, then there is nothing that can be done about it.” He pins Kim Dokja with a look. “We cannot afford such distractions. Your efforts would be better spent attempting to resolve the loop.”

“Okay, relax. I’m working on that, too.” He fiddles idly with his phone again. “Still, I have to wonder—if we resolve the loop and escape, what if she doesn’t come back?”

Yoo Joonghyuk says, “if it concerns you, then go search for her, while I work on resolving the loop on my own.”

“That’s not happening. Do I look like I’m so distracted that it’s a problem?”

Yoo Joonghyuk glares, offended at his offer being so thoughtlessly rejected. “How can you focus on resolving the loop if your loved one is missing?”

“Again with loved one… you have the wrong idea.”

Perhaps the greatest challenge of the loop is having to work with someone as disingenuous as Kim Dokja. “I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t get in my way.”

“I’m not getting in your way,” Kim Dokja sighs, as if Yoo Joonghyuk is the one being unreasonable. “Like you, I’m working to find the end of this loop. I’ll see that end through at any cost. You don’t have to worry about that.”

There is something in Kim Dokja’s eyes, normally so carefully blank, that makes Yoo Joonghyuk want to believe him.

1 9 2 0

Yoo Joonghyuk is bleeding out from where his right arm has been ripped off his body.

The spirit that injured him is dead, but there is very little chance of Yoo Joonghyuk surviving long after this—even if he goes to a hospital and has his life saved, he will be too helpless in the hospital bed to survive further attacks.

It is a shame. They are on the cusp of reaching Day Ten, and thus far they have minimized collateral damage to a great extent. This would have been a good round to finish it off with. If only he had been a little faster and stronger. The spirits seem to always have just enough strength to outpace him, no matter how much he improves.

“Hey, easy,” Kim Dokja mutters. He is supporting Yoo Joonghyuk as they limp out of the destruction caused by the fight with the spirit, trying to find a place to set him down.

“I will not survive this round,” Yoo Joonghyuk informs him, his vision swimming. “I made a misstep. You… if you can reach the end after this… you should do so.”

“Well, then you would be permanently dead,” Kim Dokja says.

He lowers Yoo Joonghyuk into a seated position against the crumbled wall of a store. The area has been abandoned, leaving them alone in the rubble.

“It is okay,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, managing to grip Kim Dokja’s elbow with his remaining hand. “More important that… Mia and the others… Survive.”

Kim Dokja kneels in front of him with an odd look on his face. His hand hesitantly settles overtop Yoo Joonghyuk’s grip on his elbow. “…Not that I don’t understand the sentiment, but it isn’t possible.”

Strength leaves Yoo Joonghyuk’s body as he watches that inscrutable face. “Why… is it not… possible…?”

“Because I die when you die,” Kim Dokja says. His face blurs and Yoo Joonghyuk’s vision is eaten up by darkness.

1 9 2 1

He wakes up on the subway and makes his way over to Kim Dokja’s car to continue their conversation. “You die when I die?”

Kim Dokja looks up and so does the woman seated beside him, his co-worker.

She looks at Yoo Joonghyuk, mystified. “Um, I’m sorry…?”

“Ah, sorry, Yoo Sangah-ssi. I just have to talk to this person for a second,” Kim Dokja says somewhat awkwardly. “Excuse me.”

It isn’t possible for them to have a private conversation in a crowded subway car, so Kim Dokja just turns toward Yoo Joonghyuk, who squeezes himself into a seat on the opposite side of Yoo Sangah. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t care what others think about anything he does anymore, so he ignores Yoo Sangah still peering his way with a confused expression.

Yoo Joonghyuk says: “Explain.”

“What is there to explain? It’s just what I said. The second you die, I also die.”

“How?”

“It’s been a lot of things.” Kim Dokja ticks off points on his fingers. “A wall falls on me, a spirit kills me, once I got struck by lightning… But mostly it’s just chest pains and then instant death. Like a heart attack.”

Yoo Joonghyuk chews on this for a moment. “But the reverse is not true. When you die, I continue the loop as normal until my own death.”

“It is interesting, isn’t it?” Kim Dokja asks. “I guess the loop must only be tied to restart on your death. It views me as… something like a non-vital NPC.”

“I’m sorry,” Yoo Sangah finally interrupts them, looking increasingly concerned, “but what on earth are you two talking about right now?”

“… Video games,” Kim Dokja says as the subway slides into Geumho Station.

Yoo Joonghyuk stands and leaves to go kill spirits.

2 0 2 4

Loops pass. They grow stronger—much stronger. Over a hundred shared deaths, something builds between them that is not unlike trust.

“Here’s my theory,” Kim Dokja tells him. They are moving across rooftops to kill an owl spirit that has begun appearing there. Their strategy to attempt to kill every spirit before the power boost has not seen results, simply because they are not able to move through the entire city fast enough. They need to prioritize which spirits to kill and strategize to deal with the rest. “The loop restarts time, but there are some things that carry over between each loop, right? The most obvious being memory.”

“Only our memories,” Yoo Joonghyuk points out.

“Yes. But in addition to memory, there’s… I guess I would have to call it the soul,” Kim Dokja continues. “Otherwise, if we were spirit-touched in one loop, it wouldn’t carry over to the next. But our souls persist in an accumulative state, affected by every loop we experience. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to gather abilities like this.”

The more they die, the more of the spirits they take into themselves. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t particularly like it—absorbing the very powers that are killing him and his companions, integrating them into a self that eventually starts to feel less and less human—but it is both unavoidable and useful.

“The loop must have been… I don’t know if programmed is the right word, but at the very least, moulded to produce this effect,” Kim Dokja continues. “It’s intentional. Something wants this to happen to us. The soul is a vital aspect of this, but I don’t understand why just yet.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stares out at the cityscape before them. “Somebody created this loop. Designed it.”

“That’s what I think,” Kim Dokja agrees. “Why that is, I don’t know…”

“Before I kill them, I will ask.”

“Well, to kill them, we’ll have to find them.” Kim Dokja says with the flash of a smile. “I think our only way of doing that is to reach the end of this loop.”

2 0 2 9

Another never-before-seen spirit rises suddenly on the eighth day. Yoo Joonghyuk is preparing to throw himself against it in his usual aggressive assault—uncovering its weaknesses by way of attacking it from every possible angle—but Kim Dokja grabs him by the arm.

Yoo Joonghyuk rounds on him, but stops when he sees that Kim Dokja’s face has gone uncharacteristically pale.

“We need to get out of here now,” Kim Dokja says.

Yoo Joonghyuk looks back at the spirit that is currently manifesting up out of a construction site. Its head is an amalgamation of white animal skulls, pinpoints of green light burning within the many sockets. Its long limbs are semitransparent and tipped with talons.

It looks strong enough, but they all look strong. At a glance… a demon with an undead aspect, not quite as strong as the molten iron spirit, though probably approaching it. “Get off.”

“Are you stupid!?” Kim Dokja snaps. “That’s a soul-eater. It can kill us permanently.”

This convinces Yoo Joonghyuk to at least back off and observe the spirit from a distance. They stand on a rooftop and watch as the construction site melts into a distortion of black, spindly trees and green fungus.

“Soul-eater,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeats. He is deeply familiar with every spirit he has seen in the loop so far, but when new ones appear, he has precious little information to go on.

Thankfully, or perhaps worryingly, Kim Dokja’s knowledge of new spirits is always in-depth. “It’s a demonic spirit that mainly feeds on ghosts, only occasionally living humans. Technically they tend towards being docile, so I always thought using one of them as an ultimate villain was a bit of a cop-out…”

His babbling is making even less sense than usual. “What?”

“Nothing, just…” Kim Dokja shakes his head. “Our souls are what persist over the different loops. That spirit has the ability to consume souls. If we let that happen, I can only assume we would actually die. Or at least suffer permanent damage.”

There was a time not so many loops ago where Yoo Joonghyuk would have been grateful for the opportunity for a permanent end. Now, he feels uneasy. Kim Dokja also seems uncharacteristically nervous, staring unblinking at the dark shape of the soul-eater in the distance.

“What are its attacks?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks.

The corner of Kim Dokja’s mouth twitches. “Oh, now you’re asking my advice?”

“Tell me or don’t.”

Together, they devise a plan for taking down the soul-eater demon.

The real danger is its head—once it digs its jaws into someone, it is certain to inflict damage on the soul. According to Kim Dokja, a partially consumed soul can be regenerated over time, but results in either permanent loss of memory or a comatose state. A fully consumed soul is an instant death sentence.

“… Doesn’t this feel like it might be a final boss, though?” Kim Dokja asks in the cool tension just before they execute their plan. “This is the first time anything has been permanent. Maybe this is how we end it.”

Because of that possibility, they absolutely must face the soul-eater. Neither of them is willing to run away from it and intentionally die in some other manner to reset the loop.

“Then do not get in my way,” Yoo Joonghyuk warns Kim Dokja.

Kim Dokja thoughtfully spins his own stolen spirit-hunter’s blade in one hand. He has no great skill with the sword, but something among his reckless accumulation of spirit-touches has given him the ability to wield it sufficiently. “Maybe I should warn you not to get in mine.”

Yoo Joonghyuk scowls. “… Your friend. You did not find her?”

“I’ve exhausted every other possibility but that she will reappear once we end it,” Kim Dokja says. “I’ll find her then. In any case, we can’t pass up this chance.”

And so, they don’t hesitate. They enter the soul-eater’s spirit world distortion and attack it with everything they have, with all their accumulated skills and abilities and hard-earned knowledge. Yoo Joonghyuk has been fighting constantly for thirty (fifty? A hundred?) years, so facing a single demon in combat hardly poses a significant challenge for him.

The problem is… this spirit is capable of mental attacks as well as physical.

It regurgitates pieces of the souls and ghosts it has consumed. These pieces manifest in slimy, reaching arms, thousands of them squirming up from the surface of what used to be the construction site.

Kim Dokja’s face instantly darkens when he sees them. “This isn’t… it didn’t have this ability originally.”

The arms reach up from all directions. At the lightest brush of their fingers against his skin or clothing, vivid memories flash before Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes. He shakes them off at first, more annoyed than distressed, but the soul-eater’s strategy seems to be to tangle him and Kim Dokja up in these arms while it lurks just out of range of their attacks.

Even with the bird spirit’s abilities hastening his steps, he can’t avoid occasional contact with the arms. The memories get specific—he sees a flash of Mia’s horrified face from loop ▪ 2 and is unable to stop himself from stumbling. Kim Dokja is also getting caught up in the arms, face pale at whatever he is seeing in their mental assault.

After a moment, though, Kim Dokja breaks away. “Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk, stay focused.”

How stupid, of course he is focused.

Yoo Joonghyuk resumes his pursuit of the spirit, but the constant tags of mental attacks are starting to get under his skin. He is used to unpleasant memories, but the more that hit him, the more difficult it becomes to remember where he is in the present moment. They wrench his mind back to the past, and he must force himself back to the present each time. This is loop 2029, isn’t it? Or is it 999? 7456?

One of them is so vivid. Confusingly, it shows Kim Dokja, even though he is a recent addition to Yoo Joonghyuk’s memory. Kim Dokja is holding Yoo Joonghyuk by the shoulders.

He is shouting: Wake up, Yoo Joonghyuk!

That never happened. Wait, this battle… is it even really happening…?

The present time is actually—

“I said stay focused!”

Kim Dokja—the real, present Kim Dokja of loop 2029 who is fighting the soul-eater—lets out a sharp shout that grounds Yoo Joonghyuk back in the moment.

Despite Yoo Joonghyuk’s best efforts, he momentarily lost track of the spirit. Now it is directly in front of him. An ambush predator that has seen its moment, it surged straight towards him from its hiding place the moment he faltered, its many skull-like mouths hanging open.

No, he will not die like this.

Yoo Joonghyuk raises his blade. The ghostly hands grasp his feet and legs, memories shocking his brain like bursts of electricity. It is relentlessly targeting him with his own thoughts from previous loops.

Maybe there is no way out.

This will go on forever.

I want to die.

That’s right—he is in here for eternity.

If he thought he would escape, it was only the briefest of dreams.

He will always be alone in this place.

You don’t have to fight alone anymore, all right?

Except…

Yoo Joonghyuk is shoved aside. He recovers himself just in time to watch the soul-eater’s jaws rip Kim Dokja to shreds.

There is no time for parting words or inane Kim Dokja comments—just a human existence removed in a burst of effortless violence. Yoo Joonghyuk reaches for him, but his destroyed body evaporates into green smoke, which is breathed in by the grimacing skull of the demon.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s thoughts cease to turn until the demon is dead.

His mind does start back up again, eventually. The soul-eater’s dissolving remains lie at his feet, beheaded by silver and then sliced into several pieces for good measure. The air of the eighth night is bitterly cold on the cuts across his skin.

Yoo Joonghyuk abruptly realizes a few things, but there is nothing he can do about them anymore.

Is it the end? Kim Dokja had called the soul-eater the final boss. So, maybe… this is the reality in which Yoo Joonghyuk must continue living. There could be no more resets.

He walks through the rest of the loop stupid and dull-witted, fighting automatically. He cannot waste the opportunity. If Kim Dokja is gone for good—if this is the final loop, the one that will set the course of the world he must live in afterward—he cannot waste it. He must move forward.

Day Nine. The spirits can hardly touch him. He does everything perfectly, like a practiced dance. No more surprises.

Day Ten. The casualty count is high, but the city struggles on. Mia is safe.

Day Eleven. The first he’s ever lived this long. Strangely quiet. Those spirits which do show their faces die swiftly.

Day Twelve. He is almost starting to believe that the loop is over. That this is real time. The permanent world he must continue living in. It’s no longer possible, but he wanted to ask Kim Dokja…

On Day Thirteen, the world ends.

2 0 3 0

Yoo Joonghyuk wakes up on the subway.

Before he can string coherent thoughts together, he is already up and moving down the train cars. He shoves everyone and everything in his path aside, ignoring affronted noises and accusations.

As soon as he exits his car, he bowls straight into someone who is moving the opposite way with the same degree of urgency. Both parties are sent sprawling, and Yoo Joonghyuk springs to his feet to see Kim Dokja also picking himself up off the floor.

So, he didn’t die.

The tight fist of panic in his chest abruptly releases.

Actually, Yoo Joonghyuk will kill him.

The force of his anger, however, falters a moment later when Kim Dokja looks up at him, pale and visibly shaken.

“Oh.” Kim Dokja reaches as if unconsciously for Yoo Joonghyuk’s arm, ascertaining his solidity. “You’re fine. Of course you’re fine, I survived and so did you. As always.”

“The soul-eater killed you,” Yoo Joonghyuk says. The anger sparks back up, though with less teeth than usual. “How did you survive? And why would you leap in front of it like that?”

Kim Dokja licks his lips nervously, no doubt searching for a lie, and then glances around at the other people on the subway. They are getting pointed looks for causing a disturbance. “…Let’s continue this conversation elsewhere.”

“I asked you why you leapt in front of it.”

“I’ll tell you in a little bit. How is this the place?” Kim Dokja seems to startle when he realizes he is still gripping Yoo Joonghyuk’s arm, then releases it with an awkward pat. “Well. We’re both here. That’s good. I guess it wasn’t permanent.”

In addition to avoiding the stares of the commuters, the other thing that delaying his explanation accomplishes is giving Kim Dokja enough time to collect himself. By the time they find themselves on a nearby rooftop overlooking Dongho Bridge, Kim Dokja is as calm and placid as if he planned this whole series of events.

He says, “I was testing a theory.”

“A theory.”

“Yes. We’ve discussed that this loop was likely created by someone—and I suspect its challenges are tailor-made for you. It’s like a story someone’s writing, with you as the main character.”

“What does that have to do with the soul-eater?”

Kim Dokja waves a hand. “Listen—it’s not like I went in there expecting to get eaten.”

“Hm.”

“But I’ve been thinking about this. The loop’s invested in you—it almost seems like it’s trying to make you stronger, doesn’t it? The loop started a bit simple with only one or two spirits, and now we have city-devouring spirits on the regular. They mainly go after you, and the loop only resets when you die.”

“So, you’re saying that you still think the key to escaping is strength.” He had thought that too, for a long time, but now…

“I don’t know yet,” Kim Dokja frowns. “Anyway, the fact that the loop is designed around you made me think that there’s no way it would actually employ a spirit that could permanently destroy your soul.”

“So, you determined that it was a fake.”

“I thought there was a good chance it was a fake, yes—or that the loop itself would protect us from an actual soul devouring.”

Yoo Joonghyuk narrows his eyes. “If there was no risk, why not let it just kill me? Why leap in front?”

“Well… there wasn’t no risk,” Kim Dokja admits. His eyes slide past Yoo Joonghyuk and to the horizon. “There was also a chance that it had every bit of the strength of a regular soul-eater. If that was true, it had to be me who took the hit and not you.”

“Why?” Yoo Joonghyuk bites out.

“I’m not essential to the loop,” Kim Dokja shrugs. “So, what happens to me if you get permanently erased? Would I be able to resolve the loop if its central piece was gone? Would it keep restarting automatically without you, leaving me no means of escape? Or would it lock real time into this apocalyptic scenario?”

He pauses. “In any case, we both know you can carry on perfectly well without me here, but I unfortunately need you to stay alive if I’m going to find out what makes this loop tick.”

Yoo Joonghyuk glares. The thorny jumble of thoughts he had when Kim Dokja was ‘dead’ remains jammed somewhere in his mind, impossible to pick apart. “… You are a fool.”

“Even so, I was right.” Kim Dokja suddenly looks at him with interest. “After I died, what happened? How far did you get?”

Yoo Joonghyuk feels a coldness settle in him. “To the end.”

 “The end?” Kim Dokja repeats. “Then… why are we still here? Shouldn’t the loop be resolved?”

Yoo Joonghyuk looks out at the evening cityscape and the wide, grey vein of the Han River bisecting Seoul. “… I thought that it would be. I defeated each and every spirit while protecting the city. I reached midnight on the thirteenth day. At that point, everything burned. The world was eaten up by silver flames.”

“Silver flames.” Yoo Joonghyuk sees the thing he had least wanted to see: a dull lack of recognition on Kim Dokja’s face. “A… spirit world distortion of some kind? One that uses silver flames.”

“It was no distortion,” Yoo Joonghyuk says. “There was no spirit to fight. In fact, it killed all the remaining spirits as well. The flames ate everything living, dead, and spirit.”

Like the Earth itself had simply been erased. Someone had seen all his hard-earned progress and laughed: I don’t think so. Back to the start.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Kim Dokja mutters.

“It makes sense.”

Kim Dokja looks sharply at him. “How?”

“There is no end,” Yoo Joonghyuk explains. “The loop cannot be resolved, nor escaped. It is perpetual.”

Kim Dokja’s face looks especially stupid as he stammers, “Hey, what—”

“For thousands of loops I worked toward that end. I believed that if I caused enough damage to this world, I could escape it. I believed there was a wall I could break through.”

He believed that—but he was wrong.

The thousands of loops he has lived, the thousands of times he’s died or watched loved ones die or watched the whole city in throes of conflagration. The times he gave up early on loops, thinking that he would do better on the next one. The progress he thought he had made, the many sacrifices, watching his own humanity fall through his fingers like water.

Truly, it was all meaningless.

“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja says. “Would you really give up on this world so easily?”

 “How can you say that to me?” Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice drops as he takes a threatening step towards Kim Dokja. For once the fool does not cringe away.

“For a thousand loops—or two or five thousand loops, however many it’s really been,” Kim Dokja says. “You never gave up on this world, did you? But now, at the smallest setback…”

“A small setback?” Yoo Joonghyuk repeats. “I finally reached my goal—the end of the loop, and there was nothing there.”

“I understand. I do,” Kim Dokja says.

How can he possibly? But those words make Yoo Joonghyuk’s argument die on his tongue.

“I also thought it would end if you reached Day Thirteen,” Kim Dokja continues. “But… it didn’t. That means that this loop isn’t as straightforward as we thought. There’s no point in time we have to reach… but there will be another way to end it, some other path we can take. We must discover how this loop really works, who or what is responsible for it, and unravel it from the inside.”

So—he must start it all again from scratch. The thought makes Yoo Joonghyuk somewhat dizzy.

Going through this many loops has already changed him irrevocably; it has worn down his soul and filed his personality down to sharp points. He can withstand it, but he has to wonder—what sort of person will come out the other side?

If he can even believe that there is another side.

“Don’t give up,” Kim Dokja insists. “We can escape—I told you before that we would escape. Don’t you want to live, Yoo Joonghyuk?”

It is a dangerous thing, to let himself hope, especially if those hopes rely on someone like Kim Dokja.

Yoo Joonghyuk saw it with his own two eyes: the “end” he was fighting for all this time does not exist.

He is still so tired. Some part of him is so desperate for rest from this perpetual loop, from all the hoping and the dashing of hopes, that it will take any means of escape. That part wants to stop feeling anything at all, wants to abandon everything, wants to die.

But that’s not the part of him that is strongest right now.

“I… want to live,” he admits.

“Me, too,” Kim Dokja says. He almost seems surprised to hear his own words. “I also want to live, more than ever.”

And they do. In the space of the same thirteen days, experienced over and over. They live.

2 0 4 ▪

They try a lot of different things, testing the limits of the loop. Yoo Joonghyuk is unable to leave Seoul, as trying to do so causes multiple spirits to instantly converge on him, the loop diverting all its power into murdering him instantly.

Once, they manage to get Kim Dokja outside of the city. He later reports back that there were no spirits, and things seemed normal. But when he had travelled as far as he could, even getting onto a plane to travel overseas, all was still consumed by white-silver flames on the thirteenth day.

2 ▪ 5 ▪

They die together many times. In the mind’s last moments, it throws up a haze of endorphins, resulting in a feeling of dreaminess. They often have conversations in that haze that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

2 ▪ ▪ ▪

Yoo Joonghyuk talks about his life before the loop happened. For some asinine reason, Kim Dokja finds the idea that Yoo Joonghyuk used to be a professional gamer so funny that he dies laughing. Seeing that stupid smile frozen on his corpse gives Yoo Joonghyuk chest pains.

2 0 9 ▪

It takes a little longer, but Kim Dokja opens up to Yoo Joonghyuk in return.

They both lived somewhat unremarkable lives before this, shaped by personal tragedies the world carried no sympathy for.

The people they are becoming look back on those days with mixed feelings. Sometimes, they even look back with a little sympathy of their own.

There are times when it seems like Kim Dokja wants to say something more. He seems to almost begin to explain it—the reason why he knows so much about the spirits, the source behind the surprising depth of his knowledge and competence.

But he doesn’t.

2 0 ▪ 5

“I have a new strategy we can try.”

They test the limits of the loop. They try different sequences of killing spirits, they try teaming up with spirits, they try letting multiple distortions converge at once to test the power limit of the loop.

▪ 1 ▪ 7

Their new strategies continuously hit dead ends. The master of the loop eludes them.

Nothing “new” has happened in the loop for a long time, and so they can easily reach the thirteenth day by rote behaviour, perfect loops with few casualties—At least until the silver flames start burning at midnight.

It should feel hopeless.

2 ▪ ▪ 0

“We are on to something with this path. The loop is a spirit world distortion—it must follow the rules of one. There must be a core, and the creator of the loop will certainly be there. We just have to find a way to make it reveal itself.”

2 ▪ ▪ 6

The second time around, it is not as difficult.

They live in a present that extends forever. Once, Yoo Joonghyuk had drowned in the loneliness of that eternity, but now…

▪ 1 ▪ 6

It seems he can bear it.

▪ 1 5 ▪

Kim Dokja is a person who hides his true feelings even from himself, but Yoo Joonghyuk eventually loses patience for this.

On the thirteenth day, as the first licks of silver flame begin to eat at the corners of the world, Kim Dokja turns and looks at Yoo Joonghyuk, something odd in his eye.

Yoo Joonghyuk is sitting at the edge of a rooftop, watching the city. Lately, he has been trying to see if there is a point from which the silver fire originates—but it seems to come from all directions at once. Now it is curling on the street pavement and at the edges of the clouds in the dark midnight sky.

“What is it?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks.

Kim Dokja looks quickly away. “… Nothing. When we finally end this loop, Yoo Joonghyuk, what is it you want to do?”

“What is it you want to do?” he asks in return.

“Me?” Kim Dokja repeats with a weak laugh. “What does that matter? I was asking you the question, don’t just turn it around on me.”

Yoo Joonghyuk silently watches the flames grow. Most people don’t get the chance to scream or suffer in this ending. By the time they realize what’s happening, it is already too late.

“I guess you want to go back to your normal life?” Kim Dokja tries, unable to let the silence rest. “Then again, I have trouble seeing you just going back to gaming as if nothing happened. Maybe you’ll become a spirit-hunter… I had a friend who did that, Jung Heewon, and she seems to like it. She’s not in Seoul at the moment, or I’d introduce you one of these loops. A lot of travel involved with a job like that.”

Yoo Joonghyuk lets him ramble for a bit, then stands up. “But what will you do?”

Kim Dokja watches him with an expression not unlike a rabbit caught in headlights, despite the fact that Yoo Joonghyuk has not threatened him with violence for some time. “Well… I guess I don’t know. That’s why I was curious about your plans once we… go our separate ways.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stops in front of him. “So, you want to go our separate ways after this.”

“I, well… Isn’t that what you want?”

In response, as the silver flames begin to rise towards them, Yoo Joonghyuk pulls Kim Dokja close.

Kim Dokja instantly tenses in his arms, but gradually relaxes. Yoo Joonghyuk can understand—tenderness is not a thing that the loop has offered either of them. It feels foreign, unfamiliar, like something that is disallowed.

“I would like to know what you want to do,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, “because after the loop, I would like to find you again.”

“I… but…”

Because words are apparently still too difficult, Yoo Joonghyuk takes it a step further and kisses Kim Dokja just before they are consumed by the flames. In the moment before they both evaporate, Kim Dokja seems to lose his reservations. He moves into Yoo Joonghyuk and kisses back, awkwardly but with intention.

Later, they will steal time together in these loops. They will spend what amount to years of experienced time learning to be together like this, forging a strange but resilient connection against the force which demands they struggle and die for eternity.

But in that moment, as Yoo Joonghyuk rests a hand on Kim Dokja’s face, coaxing him into another kiss, he remembers something.

This isn’t really happening.

This already happened, a long time ago.

The flames that consume their bodies seem to scream in his ears, a voice in a pitch just barely within the range of hearing: Yoo Joonghyuk, wake up!

▪ ? ▪ ?

That’s right.

He and Kim Dokja—they lived their own version of a life together inside that loop.

▪ ? 6 ▪

Every day they killed spirits, searched for an exit, and died together in the silver flames on Day Thirteen.

2 ▪ 8 ▪

It went on like that for a long time.

They were trapped together in a time loop they gradually learned every minute of by heart.

Sometimes, they even used it to mess around. At some point Kim Dokja got it in his head that Yoo Joonghyuk should relax and spend some quality time with Mia. He found the exact right place to be standing on Day One to be handed a pair of tickets to a performance by a group that she liked and practically forced Yoo Joonghyuk to go make use of them—Go have a normal day, I’ll kill the spirits on this one.

Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but oblige. Maybe Mia didn’t remember it, but he hadn’t spent any actual time with her for years—it was long overdue.

Kim Dokja showed up afterward, clearly exhausted after fighting nonstop for the day. His eyes danced when he saw that Mia had plastered Yoo Joonghyuk all over in sparkly band merch. “You look happy.”

“I’d like for days like this to return soon,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, removing a bright pink bandanna from his forehead. “But for now, we need to get back to work.”

Mia, who was still with him, picked up on something between the two of them immediately. She spent the rest of the loop in affronted shock, trying to figure out who Kim Dokja was and when Yoo Joonghyuk had had the time to develop a secret relationship.

Another time, roughly nine years in, the two of them even got ‘married’—for fun. They went and killed all the evil spirits in Seoul while wearing a matching pair of silver rings. Kim Dokja seemed to treat it mostly as a joke, but Yoo Joonghyuk was quietly fond of the idea, even if it was repeatedly ‘undone’ every thirteen days. He made a habit of either stealing or buying the silver rings again whenever he passed by the shop they had first gotten them.

Those were bright spots in an otherwise long period of struggle. Mostly, they put all their efforts into survival, efforts which saw little results.

No matter how hard they tried or how desperately they fought, an escape never revealed itself.

If Yoo Joonghyuk could have described the situation in a word…

It would be “unwinnable”. An unfinished game with no programmed win condition, soft locked into the same sequence of events. They could reach the “end” as many times as they wanted, but they could never actually complete the game.

2 3 ▪ ▪

At some point, Kim Dokja had started to behave strangely, vanishing for periods on his own and not being able to explain why.

During one loop, he finally sat Yoo Joonghyuk down and said, “I have something I need to admit to you. Don’t get angry at me for not telling you sooner, all right?”

“That depends on what it is,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, very much disliking that as an opener.

“Hah.” Kim Dokja struggled silently for a bit, then said, “The reason I know so much about all the spirits in this time loop… The truth is, ▪▪ ▪▪ ▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪ ▪ ▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪.”

His words seemed to whine and pop in Yoo Joonghyuk’s ears. “…What? Say it again.”

Unfortunately, no matter what Kim Dokja said on this particular subject, Yoo Joonghyuk was not able to hear it. Kim Dokja tried writing his words down, speaking in riddles or codes, and brought Yoo Joonghyuk books that he insisted were important—but to Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes, the pages were filled with censored lines of black.

“This is so annoying,” Kim Dokja snapped, throwing down one of the books. They were in his apartment, and he had been going through books on his shelf one by one, trying to see if Yoo Joonghyuk could read any of them. Several were fine, but the greatest part of his collection—the ones that were important—were an unreadable mess. “I just don’t understand why this is happening. Why can I understand this, but you can’t? It seems like something’s blocking you.”

“Dokja, just calm down.” Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t seen Kim Dokja this agitated for a long time. “This information you can’t communicate to me—it has something to do with the nature of the loop?”

Kim Dokja snapped his fingers. “Yes. Yes, that’s right. The loop is ▪▪▪▪ ▪▪ ▪ ▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head helplessly. “I am not hearing it.”

“Damn it. Okay. I’ll have to deal with this part on my own then,” he said. “Maybe I can try to keep it extremely vague. You have probably realized by now that I have special knowledge of the spirits and hauntings that show up in this loop.”

“I am aware.”

“Through this knowledge, I believe I am picking up on clues that I think will finally get me to the distortion’s core.”

“Why are you only trying to tell me this now?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, hurt despite himself. Maybe after all these years he should stop being surprised by Kim Dokja’s capacity for callousness. Had he planned to simply never speak of this, no matter how many years they spent together in the loop? “You must have had this knowledge all along. From the beginning, you seemed very familiar with all the spirits we encountered.”

“I… yes,” Kim Dokja admitted, looking pained. “It’s only because I… well, I thought it would be better not to tell you.”

“You are avoiding explaining it directly. Why is it better not to tell me?”

“Because you’re—you’re you,” Kim Dokja said, gesturing helplessly. His face closed like a mask. “And I thought that you saw me as… I don’t know. Someone strong. Someone worth… this.”

Of course Yoo Joonghyuk thought Kim Dokja was strong. Yoo Joonghyuk had crumbled under the impossible weight of the loop on his own. Kim Dokja, on the other hand, seemed to thrive here. “So, you are concerned that this information makes you appear weak? And you decided to conceal it and deal with it on your own, even though it is information I could have used to escape the loop.”

“Well. Yes,” Kim Dokja said. “I guess that about explains it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk took a slow breath in and out. This man held onto such foolish ideas like his life depended on it. “Then, tell me this. What changed, that you suddenly tried to tell me now?”

“I’m seeing patterns in the spirits that are appearing,” Kim Dokja said. Now that he could talk pure loop mechanics, he regained his confidence, happy to sweep the developing argument under the rug. “I think someone is trying to guide me somewhere. ▪▪▪ ▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪—”

Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head again and Kim Dokja cursed under his breath. “Damn. No wonder you never found out about this yourself. I thought after several hundred loops you would certainly have put it together on your own, but if you can’t even see it...”

Every part of Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to demand ‘see what!?’, though it was clear that this would accomplish nothing.

He briefly closed his eyes, momentarily furious with this new aspect of the loop. Hidden information—so if he was alone in here, he wouldn’t even be capable of escaping. The information of how to do so was being actively blocked from his mind.

Luckily, he had Kim Dokja… he hoped.

After a moment, Yoo Joonghyuk opened his eyes. “Then, I will trust you to use this information as you see fit.”

“Yoo Joonghyuk…”

“We don’t seem to have another choice. Just tell me what you need me to do, and I will do it.”

“…Okay.”

“But, you must still try to make me understand.” Yoo Joonghyuk insisted, leaning into Kim Dokja’s space. “I am sick of your secrets. If I trust you, you must trust me in turn. How can it be otherwise?”

But as the loops went on…

2 ▪ ▪ ▪

Kim Dokja grew more and more distant, unable to share information with Yoo Joonghyuk—and soon, it seemed, also unwilling to try.

 2 4 ▪ 2

There came a time when Kim Dokja came to him and said: “I figured it out. I know how we are getting out of here.”

He was not able to fully communicate his plan. What he did say to Yoo Joonghyuk was this: it was very important that Yoo Joonghyuk put his complete and total effort into killing all of the most dangerous spirits in Seoul, following the precise order that they had developed together.

While Yoo Joonghyuk was doing that, Kim Dokja was going to perform some unspecified action that should permanently unravel the loop. To Yoo Joonghyuk’s great annoyance, he made no effort to communicate what that action was through the censoring—simply said, “Real time will resume.”

“How can you be certain?” Yoo Joonghyuk said. There was a look in Kim Dokja’s expression that he very much did not like, and he scowled. “This thing your doing… I assume it carries risk.”

“Ah, well,” Kim Dokja said. “Can anything really be said to carry much of a risk for us anymore? I’ve been in here dying repeatedly for… well, it must be a good fifteen years at least. And you for a lot longer. It’s time we end this.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was liking this idea less and less, especially given the attitude Kim Dokja seemed to be taking. “Even if the censoring won’t let me understand, bring me with you.”

“Yoo Joonghyuk.” Kim Dokja said his full name and then smiled thinly. “I can’t. This isn’t something you can do.”

“I fail to understand why you must go alone.”

“I’m going to end the loop on the first day,” Kim Dokja said. “The world we create on this next round is going to be the permanent one we live in forever. Of the two of us, you remain the most skilled fighter. You need to kill the spirits as quickly as possible to protect everyone, so that when real time kicks in, the people we care about are still alive. You have to make sure Mia and everyone else is safe—you’re the only one capable of doing that.”

“There is another I care about,” Yoo Joonghyuk said quietly.

Kim Dokja just shrugged. His eyes were so distant—when did that happen? “There isn’t another method. We have to do this. Please, just trust me.”

But there were times Kim Dokja could not be trusted.

When it came to others, he would move the ground itself to protect them. But when it came to his own safety…

“Promise me,” Yoo Joonghyuk had said, “that when the loop ends, you will also be there. Promise me that your plan involves you also escaping the loop.”

And Kim Dokja had smiled his liar’s smile. “Of course it does. When the loop is over, I will be there.”

“When the spirits are all dead, I will come and find you.”

I found you.

A perfectly blank expression looking back at him: I’m sorry, do I know you?

So, it was like this.

Ultimately, it was for the best. Now, Kim Dokja could live without the weight of the loop on his conscience, could be a normal human being who hadn’t been gutted by spirits a thousand times over, and made decisions along with Yoo Joonghyuk that had resulted in countless other deaths.

Foolish sentimental creature that he had become in the wake of all this, Yoo Joonghyuk had gone and purchased those two silver rings, tucking them into the breast pocket of his coat. He would let himself keep a memento, but that was all.

For someone who had lived so many years with the memories of everyone he knew resetting after thirteen days, it should be easy to readjust to being the only one to carry those memories.

It should be easy.

Easier if that woman had not decided she needed to…

“Oh, it’s about time you remembered me!” A voice snapped, and then he felt something ripping painfully out of his chest.

Suddenly, everything was dark. He staggered back, lost his balance, and fell, shoulder blades impacting pavement.

A mass of darkness was clinging to him, hovering above his chest. Before he could even register what it was or why it was there, it lurched at him, clawing its way back towards his heart.

Yoo Joonghyuk reached for his sword, but could not find it. He had no idea where he was or if he even had his sword nearby.

The mass of darkness, now inches from his face, began to scream. In the terrible noise, he could hear once more the layered voices of people he had failed. He could feel them trying to pull him back under. You never left. They are still suffering. There is no escape from the loop.

No, this… it was a demon. A spirit. The loop had been over for some time now.

Even though he knew that, it seemed impossible to resist falling under its power. He heard the voices, and then he was there again—the present day suddenly seemed so far away, so unlikely to be real, that he couldn’t hold onto it. It fell through his fingers like smoke. What had he just been thinking about? Something about… demons…

Before he could either fall completely under its spell or manage to break away, a silver dagger slashed through the dark mass from behind.

The human screams abruptly stopped. The demon writhed and shrieked in its own voice, a terrible eardrum-piercing, almost static-like noise felt in the base of the neck. As black blood dripped from its tentacles, it reached once again for Yoo Joonghyuk.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand finally found the hilt of his sword lying beside him. He sliced up at the clump of shadows, his attack meeting a second stab from the dagger.

Thus skewered, the writhing shape let out one last terrible cry, then suddenly withdrew—vanishing as if into a crack in the world. The two silver blades were left hovering in the air, slick with spirit blood.

Yoo Joonghyuk slumped back to the ground, gasping for breath. Han Sooyoung, still gripping her dagger in both hands, looked down at him with a pale face.

Yoo Joonghyuk remembered his present reality. The last thing he clearly recalled was lying down on the disgusting mattress in their office to try and lure out the nightmare demon.

But… he wasn’t in the office anymore. Around them, shadows formed an indistinct facsimile of city streets, streetlights and cars and buildings all shaped from the same black substance. He and Han Sooyoung appeared to be utterly alone in this uncanny landscape.

“You!” Han Sooyoung panted, eyes flashing. She finally dropped the dagger with shaking hands. “You, are you that completely useless to get so taken in by that? None of that was real, do you realize that?”

“I know,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. His head was swimming and his body felt unusually weak. “It was… the past.”

“Well, I’m glad you realize that now!” she snapped. “You and Kim Dokja both, I swear—I was barely settled to back him up when he went completely under! I can’t leave you two alone for three seconds.”

“Where… is he?”

“He’s right—” Han Sooyoung made a half-turn, and then startled. “He was just here. Kim Dokja? You idiot, get back here!”

Yoo Joonghyuk attempted to get back to his feet, but his body seemed unwilling to listen to his demands. He was shaky and exhausted, as if he’d just been pushed to his absolute physical limit. When he saw his own hand gripping the hilt of the spirit-hunter’s sword, it gave him pause—the edges of his body seemed somehow frayed, like a torn cloth cut out.

“Here. Up,” Han Sooyoung said, mercilessly forcing him to his feet. “He’ll be around here somewhere, it’s fine. Since we broke the demon’s connection with you, the distortion should disperse any second now.”

Yoo Joonghyuk glowered unhappily, forced to lean on her to stay upright. “This is… the demon’s spirit world distortion.”

“Yep. Its distortion happens in peoples’ dreams, so I guess you could say we’re in a dream world right now. You folded like a house of cards, so Kim Dokja and I had to go in and save you.”

He chose not to respond to this, while Han Sooyoung started hauling him in what seemed to be a random direction. Han Sooyoung commented: “A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”

“I did not ask you to do this.”

“You wouldn’t.” Han Sooyoung quietly bristled for a few seconds, then burst out, “You, you… you were just not going to say anything about all that?”

“About all what.”

“What the hell do you think!?” Though her face showed nothing but anger, Yoo Joonghyuk could feel her still shaking. “You were trapped in a time loop for ages, and then you and Kim Dokja…”

“As you just reminded me, it is the past,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered.

“Don’t try to ‘it is not relevant’ me again,” Han Sooyoung warned him. “It’s relevant. I told you I needed to know what—what happened in there. I mean, I didn’t need so much detail on the whole relationship you two had in there, but…”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “How much of that did you see?”

“I saw more of that then what I really needed answers to.” She gave an incredulous laugh. “We found out pretty quickly that us entering the nightmare affected what was happening in it… but in Kim Dokja’s case, it seemed to just trigger all your memories of him. I couldn’t do a thing until you remembered I existed. For the record, I cannot believe how long that took.”

“You weren’t the loop—I wouldn’t remember you.”

“Right,” Han Sooyoung muttered, then shook her head. “How come I only have even more questions, Yoo Joonghyuk? What actually caused the time loop? What stupid scheme did Kim Dokja pull to end it? And most importantly—why the hell was the time loop based on my books?”

That brought him up short. “Your books.”

“Yes. That stupid story about the bird spirit Kim Dokja told you… I wrote that. It’s not real. I mean, it’s based on some vague old record, but all the details about it taking on the aspect of the forges and burning up the workers… I definitely made that up.”

“You made it up.”

“Yes, I got the idea from some dumb dream I had when I was a kid, then I reused it in a novel!” Han Sooyoung jostled him rudely. “That’s how Kim Dokja knew so much about it, by the way. That idiot used to memorize all the hauntings in my books and harass me about the stupidest stuff like realistic power levels…”

Then, this… was the thing that Kim Dokja had been trying to hide from him all that time? The source of all his knowledge in the loop?

What an unbelievably stupid reason.

“And why is the loop based on something you made up?” Yoo Joonghyuk spoke slowly.

Han Sooyoung… could she really be trusted? She was the only person who had mysteriously been missing from the loop, after all. The identity of the loop’s designer…

“I just said I don’t know!” she snapped at him. “Don’t look at me like that. Maybe the spirit who designed the loop is a fan.”

“I doubt that.”

“Shut up… Ugh, where is Kim Dokja!? Seeing all of this must have jogged his memory.”

The vague uneasiness growing in Yoo Joonghyuk intensified. The facsimile streets were entirely empty of all human life. There was only one abnormality he could spot in the endless darkness: In the far distance, hovering above the empty street, was a tiny pinprick of white light.

“I think that’s our way out,” Han Sooyoung said warily, also spotting it. “Like I said, the distortion should be collapsing any moment now. Kim Dokja must have gone ahead.”

The distortion seemed far from collapsing, and there was still no sign of Kim Dokja. With little other choice, they shuffled in the direction of the white light. The distance seemed to close much more swiftly than it should have, given their slow pace.

Suddenly, they found themselves facing two figures. One was the missing Kim Dokja, but the other…

Hovering in the darkness, her skin and clothing a misty, searing white against the shadows, was another Han Sooyoung. She had both hands locked around Kim Dokja’s head as he stared sightlessly ahead, on his feet but looking completely out of it.

Yoo Joonghyuk shook off the Han Sooyoung who had been supporting him, keeping her in his sights while he levelled his blade towards the new, ghostly arrival. “Let go of him.”

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing!?” the original Han Sooyoung demanded, also brandishing her dagger at her own projection.

“Oh, come on,” the projection snapped. “Do you really think I’m the villain here? This guy is bluescreening because you two idiots have been pumping his brain full of information he’s literally incapable of processing. I’m removing the block.”

“You’re doing what?” Han Sooyoung demanded, only for the projection to abruptly rip her hands from Kim Dokja’s head.

A burst of dark shapes like ghost fragments followed the arc of her hands, exploding out from Kim Dokja’s head. Yoo Joonghyuk instinctively lurched for him, but Kim Dokja recovered himself and backed away, a hand to his temple.

For just a second, they all stood frozen. Han Sooyoung pointed her dagger at where her projection floated with its arms crossed. Yoo Joonghyuk struggled to remain standing on weak legs. Kim Dokja just stared back at them all, expression unreadable.

Kim Dokja spoke first, gaze flickering between Han Sooyoung and her projection. “Han Sooyoung, explain to me what the hell is going on here.”

“How should I know?” Han Sooyoung demanded. She only sounded angry, but her grip on the dagger was visibly trembling. “That thing there, it isn’t me. I’m not doing that.”

Kim Dokja glanced at Yoo Joonghyuk, though his eyes immediately bounced away, as if embarrassed. “Not to mention, we… we successfully banished the demon, so why hasn’t the distortion collapsed?”

“That would be my fault,” the projection said, unperturbed. “I’m holding it closed for a little longer.”

“You,” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded stiffly. “Who are you?”

“Who do you think?” the projection shrugged. “I’m Han Sooyoung. A part of her she doesn’t like too much.”

“Seriously?” Han Sooyoung demanded, taking a step closer to the projection. The two had an identical appearance, but in addition to being ghostly and transparent, the projection’s expression seemed to carry an extra weight to it—an exhaustion, almost. “You’ll have to think of a better excuse than that. You’re clearly just a spirit who’s trying to fool me?”

“Sorry, but we don’t have time for you to be stupid,” the projection said, ignoring Han Sooyoung’s offended noises. “I can’t hold this distortion closed forever, and I’m only able to communicate with you properly from the spirit world. Before you leave, I need to tell you about the true nature of the time loop. About what really happened to Kim Dokja.”

“What did you do to him just now?” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded. Kim Dokja seemed perfectly fine, though was still artfully avoiding Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes.

“As I said, I removed the ‘block’,” the projection explained, sweeping a hand towards Kim Dokja. “Previously, if you tried to tell him anything about the loop or something he experienced in there, he couldn’t understand it. But now that block is gone. Kim Dokja: you experienced over ten years in a time loop. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Of course I understand,” Kim Dokja replied sharply. “I just saw a pretty good summary through this guy’s dreams. That doesn’t mean I remember it.”

“If this ‘block’ is gone, why is he still missing his memories?” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded.

The projection dropped her head with a short sigh. Rather than sounding annoyed, the sigh seemed almost… resigned.

“The time loop,” she said, glancing back up at Yoo Joonghyuk. “You must have assumed that it ‘ended’ when you escaped.”

Yoo Joonghyuk felt suddenly very cold. “Of course it ended.”

“I’m sorry.” It was strange to hear such a deep, exhausted note of sorrow spoken in Han Sooyoung’s voice. “It didn’t, not really. It was moved to another place—another reality—but the time loop distortion is still active. It never actually stopped.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Han Sooyoung interjected. “What does it matter if time is looping in some other reality?”

“It matters,” said the projection, “because the Kim Dokja who escaped the loop is only part of Kim Dokja.”

“Part,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated.

“Yes.” The projection hesitated, glancing at the perplexed-looking Kim Dokja and then back at Yoo Joonghyuk. “The other part of Kim Dokja—the one that has the memories this one is missing—is still trapped in the loop.”

Chapter Text

The Kim Dokja who escaped the loop is only part of Kim Dokja.

The other part is still trapped in the loop.

This is what the projection of Han Sooyoung said while floating right in front of me.

My first instinct was to consider it a lie. After all—how can a human being only be part of a person? Were the memories that I had apparently lost that fundamental? How could I believe that anything I had seen in this dream world, dredged up from the confused, demon-induced nightmares of Yoo Joonghyuk, had actually happened?

The problem was that… ever since the projection of Han Sooyoung had removed the so-called ‘block’, I could feel something.

There were empty spaces in my mind. Up until that moment, I had simply not thought about them at all… or to be more accurate, I had not been able to think about them.

Do you remember your last day at MinoSoft? Yoo Sangah had asked me some weeks ago over the phone. The conversation we had.

For some reason, back then, I had taken it as an inconsequential question. I didn’t remember our conversation, but it wasn’t like I could remember everything that happened on every workday.

But the thing was… I didn’t remember quitting my job, or even deciding to. I remembered showing up to work feeling a bit depressed, wondering when my poor performance was going to get me fired, and then…

And then what? I didn’t remember actually quitting or getting fired. My memories restarted with what I thought could be the next day, with me running into Yoo Joonghyuk in the convenience store. After that it didn’t even occur to me to go in to work, for some reason.

Speaking of which…

What was I supposed to do about that guy now?

Whether it had really happened that way or not, the fact was that I had just watched what amounted to an elaborate stage play recounting our romantic relationship in the time loop.

I’m not even interested in men, so…

It was definitely best to pretend that it didn’t happen and not think about it at all.

“I don’t see how we can trust anything you’re saying,” I said, “given that I have no way to verify you are actually Han Sooyoung.”

“That’s—that’s right,” said the real Han Sooyoung. “Like I said, you’re probably a spirit.”

“The first time you turned a dream you had into a story, you were eight years old,” the projection said. “It was about a spirit that lived in a field of flowers, and would catch animals in the roots of those flowers for sustenance. You could never figure out an ending, so you scrapped it without ever showing anyone. Not even this guy.”

I had to assume that was directed at me. Han Sooyoung opened her mouth and closed it. “You…”

“I am you,” the projection said, “a part of you who wanders independent of the rest. You’ve been projecting when you sleep since you were a child, but you never held onto many of the memories from it—you thought you were dreaming. It was me who wandered through spirit worlds at night, encountering spirits and hauntings that you’d later steal as inspiration.”

Unfortunately, I could see it on Han Sooyoung’s face that she was becoming convinced. “But, that’s…”

“And it’s because I’m only part of a person that I can say it with confidence… Kim Dokja, you are missing major pieces of yourself. In fact, now that the block is gone…”

She gestured at my torso. I glanced down, confused, only to see that my body appeared to be… dissolving.

No—only the area around the left shoulder, eating into the chest. A massive, frayed hole appeared in the space that should have contained my heart and half my ribcage.

It looked bad, but it felt completely normal. Like something I was very used to.

“Watch it,” Han Sooyoung snapped at her own projection, moving to put herself between me and her.

“I didn’t cause that damage—I only stopped what was hiding it from view,” the projection said, obligingly drifting a short distance from myself and Han Sooyoung. “I need you three to get over yourselves and listen. I am going to tell you about the nature of the time loop—about the Endless Cycle.”

This phrase meant nothing to me, and I could tell by the looks on the others’ faces that it was the same for them. Yoo Joonghyuk, after a moment, moved closer to myself and Han Sooyoung. I noticed that his body was also a bit frayed-looking, but only around the edges—He didn’t have any missing pieces.

“There are spirits in this world that are more powerful than the three of you can conceive of,” the projection began, speaking stiffly. “The spirits that you fight every day are on the lowest tier of strength. The Demon King would also be placed at that level. They are beings who live in the spirit world and project here through avatars.

“Above them, there are spirits like the one you faced just now: the Devourer of Dreams. These spirits are as old as time itself, overseeing massive spirit world domains with the ability to reach into our world directly. Consider yourselves lucky for surviving this encounter, by the way. One wrong move and you would have all been devoured.”

I couldn’t deny it. Had the demon not expended so much focus on feeding on Yoo Joonghyuk, there would have been absolutely nothing we could have done to harm it.

“And above even that level,” the projection of Han Sooyoung continued, “there are spirits so large that they are completely without ego. They are forces—beings that simply are, unkillable and impossible to injure. Independent spirit worlds unto themselves. It is at this level that the spirit known as the Endless Cycle—or the Unending Dream, or Moebius, among its other names—operates.”

“The Endless Cycle?” I repeated. This didn’t match up at all with my own knowledge of spirits. If one were to really try and divide spirits on strength-based tiers, there would have to be a lot more than three—and I’d never heard of a spirit that was also its own spirit world.

“Be careful of invoking its name,” the projection warned. “Spirits of this level may not have an ego, but they do have effects on the world. And in the case of this spirit, that effect is the time loop.”

“Why?” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded. “Why does it create time loops?”

“Oh, Yoo Joonghyuk—There is no why,” the projection sighed. “It’s like gravity, or the weather. It is its own self-sustaining system. Though as for why you, in particular, were selected… that would be a matter determined by the Endless Cycle’s avatar.”

“Hang on,” I interjected, relieved to spot a loophole. “Your explanation is starting to fall apart. You described three tiers of strength, and the middle tier was a spirit strong enough to not need an avatar. But now you’re saying this ‘Endless Cycle’ has one?”

A tiny smirk flickered across the projection’s face. “Well, it’s not as if the tiers divide so neatly. When spirits get to be that size, avatars seem to happen rather accidentally.

“The spirit itself has no personality or goals—nothing to direct its unfathomable power. But the Endless Cycle, at least, has the capacity for symbiotic relationships. Some of those who wander its loops for long enough begin to resonate with it and become vessels for its power. It doesn’t create its own avatars… it acquires them.”

“This is all a fascinating story,” I said, “but it seems like conjecture.”

“What does it have to do with Kim Dokja?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, to my annoyance.

“I’m getting to that,” the projection said. A small tear suddenly darted across her upper arm, scattering the white mists. “Ugh—I really don’t have much time… just listen.”

The dark shapes of the false Seoul around us shivered briefly. It seemed the distortion was trying to collapse. “The loop was going to continue indefinitely. But Kim Dokja thought he could cut some sort of deal with the avatar to end it… That’s all I know.”

“And why do you know all that?” Han Sooyoung demanded.

“Why do you think? We were there,” the projection said. “I was, anyway. You slept through the whole thing.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stepped into the projection’s space, glowering. “What do you mean Kim Dokja cut a deal?”

“I don’t know the details—but whatever he did, it got you and this part of him out of the loop.” Another tear appeared in the projection’s arm while, overhead, the dark void of the sky also began to tear open. Harsh, fluorescent light poured through the widening gash.

The projection grimaced. “For years, I’ve been trying to track down the Endless Cycle. To figure out if it’s possible to move between realities to find it again. I’ve only just now realized the final missing piece I needed—we can use this spirit world distortion. We can create a bridge between the two loops using thematic resonance. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Han Sooyoung’s eyes darted back and forth, absorbing all of the information. “I… Is that possible? In that case, we need…”

“You three need to get out of here,” the projection snapped. “You’re destabilizing the distortion. Once you’re out, I’ll be able to hold onto it longer, but not indefinitely. You need to decide whether you’re coming back into the time loop with me or not. If you are… you will know how to find me. I’ll give you twelve hours.”

“But—!” Han Sooyoung protested, but the lights above us suddenly blazed bright, completely eating up the shadowy streets. Just before everything vanished, I caught the projection looking at me, her expression tired.

“Was I wrong? Was this ending the one you wanted?” she whispered.

Of course, I didn’t know what she was talking about. And I still didn’t know if I could trust anything this projection of Han Sooyoung was saying. But at the same time…

I could feel it now. That absence. The void in my soul I’d been desperately trying to fill this whole time, flooding my system with ghost fragments—both myself and the fragments desperate for our stories to be complete, but neither of us able to make it happen. This state couldn’t be called an ‘ending’ at all.

There was a version of me who could look the way I had looked in Yoo Joonghyuk’s dream. Who could say the words with confidence: I want to live, too…

It would be so much better if that version of “me” wasn’t real. And in fact…

It was about time I stopped pretending that “I” was really this person called Kim Dokja.

***

Kim Dokja found himself lying on his back in a hospital bed, staring up at the dim fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

He sat up, pulling the oxygen mask from his face. He was in the quarantine room—everything that had just happened had occurred only to their souls, while their bodies were still sleeping. He could see Han Sooyoung waking up from where she had been slumped in a chair to his left, and on his right was—

Yoo Joonghyuk ripped the oxygen mask off his own face and lurched towards him. Kim Dokja vaguely heard Dr. Makersfield make a noise of surprise—she was over with the other patients, who appeared to also be waking up—before Yoo Joonghyuk caught Kim Dokja by the collar.

“You cut a deal to end the loop,” he growled. “What deal?”

“How can you believe anything she was saying was even true?” Kim Dokja demanded, grabbing at Yoo Joonghyuk’s wrist. “How can I even believe everything I saw in your mind was even real? I don’t have memories of any of that.”

“It was real,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. The absolute conviction in his face made Kim Dokja feel vaguely ill. “It happened just like that. To end the loop—what did you sacrifice?”

“I don’t know!” Kim Dokja snapped, ripping Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands away with a concentrated effort. “How should I know? ‘I’ didn’t do anything. The one you’re talking about—”

Yes, that was the way to think about it. This person that Yoo Joonghyuk cared so much about—that was someone else. It wasn’t really Kim Dokja, at least not this Kim Dokja.

And that was fine. It was better, even.

“Kim Dokja.” That was Han Sooyoung, urgently leaning in from the opposite side. “She—I think that other version of me was telling the truth. If she’s right, and that other part of you is still in the loop, we need—”

“We don’t need to do anything,” Kim Dokja said, getting to his feet. Both Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk made an attempt to stop him, but he quickly ducked out of their range. “I didn’t ask you to do this. I have… something else I need to do.”

He did not pause to see their expressions. He left the room, and then the hospital, relying on the Demon King’s powers to move as quickly as possible.

It was dark outside, and he wasn’t sure what day it was. When he pulled out his phone to look at the date, he felt an odd sense of vertigo. It had barely been two hours since their ill-fated attempt to summon the Devourer of Dreams… though much of Yoo Joonghyuk’s dream had been indistinct, it had felt like weeks.

A call came through from Han Sooyoung, and Kim Dokja declined it. Then, as he walked, he scrolled through his contacts list and pulled up a different name.

“Dokja-ssi?” Yoo Sangah picked up on the first ring, sounding shocked. “Is everything all right?”

Kim Dokja forced himself to calm down. It was definitely weird to call Yoo Sangah so late… even if she had apparently been waiting right by the phone. It was just past ten P.M. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late.”

“It’s fine. I was still out helping Heewon-ssi, actually,” Yoo Sangah said. “She told me about Yoo Joonghyuk-sii being attacked—we’ve been searching for other traces of the spirit to see if we could help weaken it. Is everything okay over there?”

“Yes, it’s fine now. We managed to catch the spirit by surprise and break its connection with him.”

“That’s wonderful news—I’ll be sure to let everyone know.” She paused. “If you didn’t know I was out helping, why did you call, Dokja-ssi?”

“I wanted to ask you something,” Kim Dokja said. “A while back you tried to get me to remember a conversation we had on my last day of work.”

“…Yes,” she said. “If you don’t remember, it’s not a problem, I just…”

“Can you remind me what I said? Word for word, if possible.”

Silence came through the line for a few moments. “…Why don’t we meet up in person? If it’s on this subject, Heewon-ssi might also want to speak with you.”

This subject sounded a bit ominous, but Kim Dokja was in too deep now to back out. “If you insist on it. Where are the two of you right now?”

The three of them ended up at a hole-in-the-wall bar—Jung Heewon claimed that she hadn’t eaten anything all day and absolutely needed both food and alcohol to get through this conversation.

Kim Dokja was liking the sound of this even less, but surprisingly, felt a little more collected once he was squished into a corner seat under the warm yellow glow of the overhead lights. The small handful of dishes Jung Heewon had ordered sizzled on the table.

Kim Dokja ignored three more missed calls from Han Sooyoung and put his phone away.

“So,” Yoo Sangah said, “I assume something prompted you to bring this up?”

Jung Heewon, leaning over her beer, was giving Kim Dokja a careful look.

“… It’s recently come to my attention that I may have been having some memory problems.”

“Recently?” Jung Heewon asked, sitting up. “I’ve been telling you for months that there’s something wrong with your memory, Kim Dokja. You never took it seriously.”

Kim Dokja tried to think back on conversations he’d had with Jung Heewon. Now that he considered it… yes, she had brought it up several times. It had always struck him as a joke, but in retrospect, she had been quite serious. “Well, I’m taking it seriously now. Actually, if it’s possible, please tell me again everything you’ve been trying to tell me lately that I wasn’t understanding.”

Jung Heewon sighed, annoyed, though Yoo Sangah perked up.

“It’s to do with some kind of encounter with a spirit, yes?” she asked.

“I’m surprised you know that much.”

“And somehow, that encounter affected both your memory and your ability to understand people asking about your missing memories.”

“… Yes.” Kim Dokja looked at her, dumbfounded. “Really… how do you know all this?”

Jung Heewon silently dug out her wallet and handed Yoo Sangah a small handful of bills.

“… That was my theory,” Yoo Sangah said.

“Mine was that you did it to yourself on purpose,” Jung Heewon said.

“I’m sorry,” Kim Dokja interjected, not sure whether to be amused or offended, “but were you two betting on the cause of my memory issues?”

“I wouldn’t say betting…” Yoo Sangah hedged, though pocketed the money. “I’m sorry, Dokja-ssi. We really are taking this seriously. It just felt like…”

“It felt like you were totally dismissing our concerns before,” Jung Heewon said. Her shoulders seemed to slump, releasing some tension. “Though, if this was actually a spirit attack and was completely beyond your control, I would certainly owe you an apology.”

Well… there was the matter of the ‘deal’ that Kim Dokja had apparently struck, but that seemed like a problem for another time. “Thank you. For the record, something happened while we were helping Yoo Joonghyuk. It seems to have made me able to hear people talking about my missing memories.”

“But did the memories actually come back?” Jung Heewon prompted.

“No. That’s why I need your help. I need to verify what exactly it is I forgot.”

“You forgot saving my life,” Jung Heewon said, voice bland.

Kim Dokja stared at her in surprise. “I… no, I know I helped you resolve a haunting.”

“Lay it out for me how exactly it happened. How did I react? What was the ghost that was haunting me?”

“I…” Kim Dokja shifted uncomfortably. Now that he thought about it, he really only recalled the event as summarized by Han Sooyoung. How he had felt or what he had said in the moment fully escaped him. “Hm.”

“So, that’s one thing.” Jung Heewon sipped her beer, not quite managing to hide a concerned expression.

“Sooyoung-ssi’s books,” Yoo Sangah added. “You were quite passionate about them before. But tell me, what is it about them that you enjoy? You once spoke to me about a new release for thirty uninterrupted minutes.”

Kim Dokja grasped at a complete blank spot in his memory.

Those books—they were somehow fundamental to him. They had fed his childhood interest in ghosts and connected him with Han Sooyoung. He was perfectly familiar with those facts.

But… what had actually happened in the pages of those books that he had loved so much? He hadn’t picked up a book to read in…

Well, in about five months.

Yoo Sangah and Jung Heewon continued to bounce back and forth, speaking of memory after memory that Kim Dokja had no connection to whatsoever. Sometimes they spoke fondly, with regret, or with annoyance… in the space between their words, the outline of a person unfamiliar to Kim Dokja was forming. A self who was a stranger to him—someone who had existed in this world not only for his own sake, but had actually been the friend of both Yoo Sangah and Jung Heewon.

“That last conversation we had on the subway leaving work—afterwards, I noticed you change,” Yoo Sangah admitted. “You pulled away. You seemed to give up on things you had cared about, and no longer seemed to consider me someone you could talk to. It was worrying.”

No matter how Kim Dokja wracked his memory, he only knew of Yoo Sangah as a distant coworker. To think she would so easily consider him a friend was surprising. “Yoo Sangah-ssi… just what did we talk about on the subway?”

“A few things.” Yoo Sangha’s eyes grew distant, recalling. “We had actually been having a rather ordinary conversation at first. But then, at what I think was about seven P.M.… Your face suddenly dropped. You looked ill, so I asked if you were all right.”

By Kim Dokja’s reckoning—if everything he had just learned in the dream world had really happened—that moment on the subway would have been the last moment “Kim Dokja” had possessed all his memories.

After he left the subway, “Kim Dokja” went on to implement his plan to resolve the time loop, while Yoo Joonghyuk killed the spirits. The next time anyone saw him, it would have been Yoo Joonghyuk in the convenience store.

I found you, he had said. Mistaking Kim Dokja, he thought, for someone else.

“You still had a strange look on your face, but insisted you were all right,” Yoo Sangah said. “Then, you asked me for two favors. The first was that you wanted me to check on Sooyoung-ssi. I’m not sure why, but you seemed very worried about her.

“You said, ‘if she isn’t well, you have to get Jung Heewon to help out, she’ll know how to resolve a haunting’. At that point I hadn’t even met Sooyoung-ssi, so you can imagine I was rather confused.”

“I see.” Because Han Sooyoung hadn’t been present in the loop, Kim Dokja had needed to ensure that she both reappeared, and that there wouldn’t be any lingering side effects from the disappearance. It matched up.

“The second favor was for me to tell you to quit your job. You said something like: Tell me I’m miserable, I’ll probably listen to you.”

Kim Dokja tried to hear his own voice in those words, but failed.

“When I pointed out that you could just do that on your own, you said that even so, you would appreciate a reminder from me on the following day. Though at that time, I… I couldn’t get a hold of you. You simply stopped showing up at work or picking up your phone. For a while I was concerned that something terrible had happened.”

Kim Dokja still didn’t remember much of that time at all. He wondered if there were side effects from having one’s soul torn apart, and if they would manifest like that. “What else? I must have said something about what I was planning to do, or why…”

Yoo Sangah shook her head. “The last thing was that you asked me if I had ever lost anyone important to me before.”

Kim Dokja winced. “I did?”

“Yes. I told you that though I had lost people, I hadn’t experienced losing anyone who I was deeply close to. You said… Maybe it was just selfish of me to love them this much. When I tried to understand what you were talking about, you simply waved me off, thanked me for listening, and left the subway.”

“I… see.”

“You can probably see why I would be concerned, but I could never confirm what it was you had been talking about. When I asked about it later, it seemed you genuinely didn’t remember the conversation.”

Kim Dokja silently folded his hands on the table and looked down at them.

Loving “them” as selfishness. Would he really ever have said that? Would he so easily have called it love?

Based on the facts and timing alone, it was starting to seem like the things he had seen in the dream, and the things the projection of Han Sooyoung had told him…

“Sangah-ssi and I both got concerned,” Jung Heewon said, “when you seemed to completely isolate yourself and start ignoring us. I tried to talk with Han Sooyoung, but though she could also see the problem, she seemed determined to fix everything on her own. So, Sangah-ssi and I have been gathering information.”

“Wait,” Kim Dokja interrupted. “So, you two have also been trying to find my missing memories?”

“You saved my life once, and we’re friends,” Jung Heewon said simply. “I wanted to help, even if you didn’t want me to. That’s how I feel.”

That person was really a lucky guy.

“What exactly happened tonight that caused this change?” Yoo Sangah interjected. “Did you perhaps uncover the source of the missing memories? Did Sooyoung-ssi—”

Kim Dokja stood. “Actually, I need to go. Thanks for your help with this.”

Both Yoo Sangah and Jung Heewon looked alarmed.

“Wait,” Jung Heewon said, but Kim Dokja was already on his way out the door. As soon as he hit the streets, he took off, the Demon King’s wings lifting him up into the warm night air.

If there was a word to describe the emotion Kim Dokja felt for this other self of his, the one who had lived for over ten years in the time loop, who remembered all the details of his own life…

It would have to be “resentment.”

To have everything he had, and then to throw it all away…

I want to live, too.

When the loop is over, I will be there.

Maybe it was selfish to love them this much.

Just who the hell was this person?

The city lights spread out beneath Kim Dokja like a starfield, bright streaks and pinpoints scattered across a plane of solid black. As he lifted higher into the sky, he could feel the city’s darkest, most forgotten corners calling out to him: the faintly questing hands of thousands of ghost fragments. The city was packed to bursting with them.

End—abandoned—the flames—unknown… they couldn’t express their needs in any other way but to reach out. In their reaching, they harmed others; their mindless pain was fundamentally hazardous to human life. Ghost fragments were only fit to be cleared away with a ritual or a charm, an endless cycle of erasing symptoms without ever considering a cause.

And the reason they reached out to him… it wasn’t really because of the powers of the Demon King.

It was because Kim Dokja, too, was only a fragment.

For once, he let them come. Just as with the others he had taken in, they flooded in towards his heart, their broken edges seeking his own. Though he and they were fundamentally incompatible—though the force of their desperation and resentment caught in his lungs like oily smoke—it was a kind of comfort for both of them.

For a long stretch of time, he didn’t have to think at all. As he absorbed the clamouring fragments, they settled within that blank space in his chest and quieted into a low hum.

He was still listening to that hum when an unexpected voice broke through to him: “Dokja ahjussi?”

Kim Dokja startled, opening his eyes.

He was on the rooftop of a residential building. It had been… a few hours, at least, judging by the faintest light of sunrise on the horizon, though the exact time escaped him. The ghost fragments were still thick around him, drifting through the air like mist.

And standing on the other side of the rooftop, arm against her face to protect herself from them, was… Shin Yoosung?

Kim Dokja stood, fought through a sudden wave of dizziness, and reached out a hand to part the fragments. He had been listening to them for so long that their agitation was almost completely assuaged—rather than attack and sting like the storm of fragments that Lee Gilyoung had once summoned, this particular cloud was almost docile. It responded to his movements without any resistance.

Still—they were ghost fragments, and they were dangerous, so he couldn’t let them touch Shin Yoosung. He pushed them out to the edges of the rooftop, clearing the area they were standing in. “Shin Yoosung—what are you doing here? It’s not safe.”

The kid had a serious look on her face, staring at Kim Dokja with something like fear in her eyes. “Um… Mia told me you went missing. We were all looking for you.”

“That’s…” He hadn’t gone missing, he had just desperately needed some time away from everyone’s memory-related expectations. “I’m sorry to have worried you, but it’s fine. I haven’t gone anywhere. It’s late, shouldn’t you be at home sleeping?”

Shin Yoosung just kept looking at him, her bright eyes shaking. “I’m sorry, but it really doesn’t look fine…”

Kim Dokja just looked back at her for a moment, then caught a glimpse of his own hand, which he’d just used to sweep the ghost fragments of the roof. His skin was clouded with a mosaic of fragments; he could also feel them clinging to the Demon King’s wings on his back and the horns on his forehead.

“Ah—I’m sorry.” He probably looked like some kind of horrible creature half-buried in clinging shadow—no one was supposed to observe this pathetic state. He coughed a cloud of fragments out of his lungs, dislodging a good portion of them from his body. “It probably looks bad, but it’s not a big deal.”

“Are you really…” Shin Yoosung hesitated, “only part of Dokja ahjussi, like Mia said?”

And how has Yoo Mia been coming by all this information? Kim Dokja thought to himself dryly. Then again, Yoo Mia had already proven herself pretty skilled at tracking down trouble. “… That does seem to be the case.”

“Everyone wants to help,” Shin Yoosung said, taking a step towards him. “We are all worried about you, Dokja ahjussi.”

“It’s okay. You really don’t have to get involved in this. How did you even find me?” He paused to take out his phone and check the time—it was 5:15 A.M. He also had roughly fifty missed calls from just about everyone on his contacts list.

… This was going to be troublesome. He hadn’t meant to lose so much time.

“Well, everyone else was looking for you in places they thought you’d go,” Shin Yoosung said hesitantly. “But I could sense something happening to all the ghost fragments in the city. All I did was follow it to its source.”

“I… see.”

“Why won’t you go back?” she asked. “Is it that… you don’t want to go back to being the complete Dokja ahjussi?”

Her question brought Kim Dokja up short, and he dropped the phone from his face. “I told you, Shin Yoosung, it’s…”

“I just want to help!” she insisted. Her eyes swam with barely-supressed tears—shit, he was trying to keep her as far out of this mess as possible, but he was only making things worse. “Why won’t you let anyone help? If you don’t want to go back to being the other you, then can’t you just tell that to everyone?”

“It’s not really that simple.” Go back to being the other you. Even if he decided that that was his part to play, that hardly seemed possible. “Anyway… I don’t think they want to hear about what I want. It’s this other ‘me’ that they’re after, and that guy…”

“I don’t know that version of you,” Shin Yoosung said, now glaring at him. “I only know Dokja ahjussi who helped my best friend move on to the next world, and taught me about how to help ghosts. I only know this version.”

“Shin Yoosung…”

“I want you to come back, to keep teaching me about ghosts,” she continued. “I don’t even know if the other version of you would teach me. But… he’s trapped, isn’t he? Isn’t he also part of you, and isn’t he suffering?”

Some part of Kim Dokja wanted to say—good, let him suffer. That was the person who had caused this massive hole in his soul that Kim Dokja was both desperate to get rid of and afraid to fill. If that guy had wanted to stay behind in the loop so badly, then let him do it. He must have had his reasons. In fact, to end the loop…

Maybe it was just selfish of me to love them this much.

What an idiot.

“Yes,” Kim Dokja said after a moment. “That part of me is definitely suffering.”

“Then isn’t this part of you suffering as well?”

Looking at Shin Yoosung’s earnest face, he remembered her sitting in the office a few short weeks ago, asking if Kim Dokja would teach her.

When you helped me, that was the first time I ever realized that ghosts could also be helped. You don’t just have to sit by and ignore them, listening to them suffer.

That was essentially what the other version of himself was asking: for them to just leave him behind and let him suffer.

But Han Sooyoung, Yoo Sangah, Jung Heewon, Shin Yoosung, and even Yoo Joonghyuk… They didn’t want to accept that. Even that independent projection of Han Sooyoung, a being that Kim Dokja didn’t understand at all, was sacrificing her own well-being to hold an enormous spirit world distortion closed just for the chance to go back and save him.

To go back into the time loop.

No, what was he doing here, wasting all his time on ghost fragments? He had to go talk some sense into them.

“I’m sorry to have worried you,” Kim Dokja said, shaking off the last of the ghost fragments. Those he left behind accepted their abandonment with only a stuttering sigh. “Where are the others right now? I’ll talk to them.”

Shin Yoosung’s face brightened like the sun. “Really? I think they’re planning to meet at your office. You’ll really come back and let us help?”

“I’ll come talk to everyone,” Kim Dokja said, and was practically dragged off the roof and back down to street level. Behind him, the dark mists lingered for another few moments and then dispersed.

***

Predictably, Han Sooyoung yelled at him. Jung Heewon didn’t get mad, only looked quietly hurt, which was worse. Yoo Sangah tried to assure everyone that the most important thing was that Kim Dokja was safe.

Partway into this conversation, Yoo Joonghyuk burst through the door, but said nothing, only awkwardly hovered nearby in silence.

Apparently, the situation with the kids was that Yoo Mia had overheard her brother saying that Kim Dokja was missing, and after consulting with Shin Yoosung, they had taken it upon themselves to deploy their own search-and-rescue team. So it was that Yoo Mia, Lee Gilyoung, and even Lee Jihye showed up to the office as well, taking the volume from Angry Sooyoung levels to Unsupervised School Field Trip levels.

“Okay,” Han Sooyoung snapped, adding a few decibels to reach Actually Angry Sooyoung, “I need anyone in here who is not old enough to pay taxes to get the hell out of my office. We found him, so the crisis is over. Go home.”

“But—” Shin Yoosung piped up, only to be shushed by Mia.

“She’s probably right,” Yoo Mia said. “We’ll just get in the way.”

Han Sooyoung narrowed her eyes at Yoo Mia, but she only blinked innocently.

“Hyunsung-ssi can drive them back home,” Jung Heewon said, glancing at her phone. “He was just coming back this way. That okay?”

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. Lee Jihye attempted to casually stay in the room as the others filtered out, but was steered out by him.

Finally left in some modicum of peace, Kim Dokja sighed. “Well, now that I’m here. Please tell me you’re not seriously considering going back into the loop?”

“It would work,” Han Sooyoung said immediately. “My projection—okay, I’m still not used to referring to that as a separate person, but she has it figured out. We can use the Devourer of Dream’s spirit world distortion to open a path directly back into the time loop, if it really is still active somewhere.”

“I’m not asking if the technique will work,” Kim Dokja said. “I’m asking if you’re seriously thinking of doing it.”

“I… of course I am,” Han Sooyoung said. “All this time, I’ve been trying…”

“You,” Kim Dokja said, looking at Yoo Joonghyuk. “You’re going back into the time loop?”

A sudden silence followed his words. Han Sooyoung, too, seemed to catch herself short—to realize just what it was she was asking of him.

In that demon-induced nightmare, Kim Dokja had seen only a fraction of what Yoo Joonghyuk had endured. Even so, it was enough. To begin again—to willingly go back in there…

There was no way he’d do it.

But Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes were burning like black flames. “I will go back.”

“No,” Kim Dokja said. His voice came out weak and pathetic in the face of that conviction. “Forget it. I won’t let you.”

“We can’t leave that part of you in there, Kim Dokja,” Han Sooyoung said. “We just can’t. It’s okay… this time, there will be more of us. We can save those pieces of you if we all work together.”

Clearly, they were all dead set on it. Even Yoo Sangah and Jung Heewon nodded—what, they couldn’t possibly be involving themselves in this as well?

“Why?” he asked.

“Why the hell do you think, you idiot!” Han Sooyoung burst out, getting right in his face. “This is not okay! You’re not okay, and neither is that other part of you. Frankly, I don’t care if you intend to let me help or not. Call it selfish if you want. I’m fixing this.”

“But it’s not even.” His throat tried to close on his words. What the hell. “It’s just a piece of me.”

“Well—I want it back! I’m not leaving any single piece of you behind.”

Unable to keep looking at the expression on her face, Kim Dokja looked up, only to lock eyes again with Yoo Joonghyuk.

“If it was his choice to remain, I would try to accept it,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “But, tell me. You’ve seen what happened in the time distortion, and you are as much Kim Dokja as he is. What do you think he wants?”

Maybe it was just selfish of me to love them this much.

“… It was probably his choice,” Kim Dokja admitted. The words came out reluctant and clinging. “But he’ll regret it. He’ll regret it more than anything.”

“Then let us help.” Han Sooyoung said.

“Is that… is that really want you all want?” Kim Dokja asked. “There’s no way this is safe. If the time loop is still happening, then going back in… what if we can’t escape? Don’t you think that the reason he did this was to create a way out? If there had been another way…”

“We’ll definitely escape,” Han Sooyoung said. “All of us. We’ve got three time loop experts on our team… four if you want to count me twice. My projection has been working on this for a long time. She says it’s possible.”

“But…”

“If I had known a little earlier what sort of rescue mission we were looking at,” Jung Heewon said with a sharp glance toward Han Sooyoung, “I could have prepared better. But… I’ve decided. I’m coming, too.”

Yoo Sangah nodded. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but you have my assistance if you need it.”

They all said it in their own ways: Despite the danger, I will go.

Maybe Kim Dokja should have tried harder to stop them; he should have pulled out all the stops. If he bent all his strength and abilities to it, he could stop them by force—or at least delay them. He could sabotage their efforts and ruin their chances of ever carrying out this crazy plan.

But, deep down, Kim Dokja, too…

Maybe he also wanted to be saved.

“What does this plan actually involve?” he asked.

***

In the crushing darkness of the inactive spirit world distortion, thrumming with leftover power from the departed Devourer of Dreams, the projection of Han Sooyoung thought it all over.

This version of her wasn’t really supposed to exist.

She’d known it from the very first time she’d started to develop her own thoughts independent of her original, conscious self: She was nothing more than a defense mechanism.

The real Han Sooyoung was a child who slept in a lonely house, confined to a prison of halls and furniture where she knew every nick and scratch.

The projection was what happened when the true Han Sooyoung, in her restlessness, subconsciously created a part of herself to walk free. As the true self dreamed, the false self wandered, passing easily over thresholds forbidden to the main body.

It wasn’t so bad of an existence.

She got to see many beautiful and terrible things. She had walked through the most dismal and bloody hauntings of the mortal world; she had seen the most vibrant and indescribable corners of the spirit world.

In the early days, the desire to see more was all that drove her. She felt her true self’s strong desire to escape and she assuaged it as best she could. It was the only purpose she could imagine for herself.

But they had both been very young, then. As the true self became an adult and the false self continued wandering, she couldn’t help but feel…

Lonely, herself.

Ghosts and spirits were not the best of company. The ghosts all suffered and lashed out; the spirits were fascinating but incomprehensible, creatures that dwelled just to the left of her understanding.

All while her true self used her dreams—once a pure defense mechanism against the crushing loneliness of life—to profit, to meet others, and to maintain her friendships.

Certainly, it wasn’t fair to the false self. But what could she do? She was only an echo of a person, a thing which should not have developed its own thoughts and feelings in the first place.

What could she do, but continue to wander in the night?

But, then…

The time loop.

Han Sooyoung’s conscious self fell victim to its power, as did everyone else except for the loop’s subject: the man called Yoo Joonghyuk. Only he remembered each loop; only he bore the weight of that endless cycle on his back.

But the false self of Han Sooyoung had been wandering the spirit world for years. Of course, if her true body was trapped in a spirit world distortion, she would eventually wake up.

It was difficult for her to remain conscious in the loop. Normally, she was only able to operate when the true self was asleep, the noise of its ego and personality completely quieted.

In the loop, however, Han Sooyoung was still awake, going about her day as normal until she inevitably died to some spirit attack or another that Yoo Joonghyuk could not prevent. Very rarely did she make it far enough in the day to actually go to sleep.

Gradually, the false self learned to gather its power and managed to force the true self to doze off. With this method, she began to explore the loop—not its surface level, where Yoo Joonghyuk endlessly fought and died, but its inner workings. The places where only ghosts like her could go.

She tried to be quiet so as not to arouse suspicion, but as she neared the core of the spirit world distortion, its master caught her.

It was around Loop 500 or so—the early days. Testing the limits of the distortion had brought her to a maze-like confusion of energy at its heart, and there, while she tried to comprehend the impossible strength that could create such a thing, she was found out by the spirit’s avatar.

At first, all she saw of this person was blinding light and what looked like a mandala spinning behind their head. They caught her like a bug in a trap—the blinding light of their hand locked around her wrist—and said, quite calmly: “Now, what do we have here?”

Unable to break free of their grip, she said, “Just a wandering ghost.”

“A wandering ghost who seems determined to enter areas she should not be able to.” The avatar’s face resolved somewhat from the blinding light. Though ethereally beautiful, the expression on their face looked very… human. And annoyed. “I’ve noticed some little gnat poking at all the corners of the time loop, trying to prick apart holes to escape. You even tried approaching Yoo Joonghyuk, though thankfully he couldn’t see you. I really can’t have that happening again.”

“Wait,” Han Sooyoung stammered as the avatar’s grip tightened. Their power was such that it seemed fully capable of destroying her—and in the process, no doubt leaving permanent damage on the true self. “I won’t interfere. Can’t you just let me out?”

“No one can get out of the loop,” the avatar said. “Not even me. It’s not possible until its conditions are resolved… and I really don’t want you getting in the way of that.”

Their grip tightened. Han Sooyoung said: “If you let me live, I’ll help you.”

The avatar laughed. “Help me? How, exactly?”

“You are the designer of the loop, aren’t you?” Han Sooyoung said. “I assume you’re designing it for some specific purpose. But don’t you think your methods are getting stale?”

“Stale,” the avatar repeated.

“Of course it’s stale. All you’re doing is throwing the same boring minor spirits at Yoo Joonghyuk until he dies. These ‘conditions’ that the loop has—will those really be achieved using such an uncreative method? Didn’t you imply that you also need them to be resolved, in order to escape?”

“You’re clever for a ghost, aren’t you?” the avatar said with the flash of a grin. “Though not clever enough to stop yourself from insulting me.”

“You’re running out of ideas,” Han Sooyoung said. “I’ve wandered through all corners of the spirit world—I have ideas, if you’re looking for them. Just let me live and I’ll give them to you.”

The avatar hummed, considering. “I suppose something in there might be ever-so-slightly useful. Tell me—how would you test a person’s resolve down to its very core?”

The initial plan was simply to stay alive. But staying alive meant helping the avatar calling themself Nirvana Moebius—and helping Nirvana meant designing the most harrowing possible challenges for Yoo Joonghyuk.

But Yoo Joonghyuk could hold on. Han Sooyoung had watched him fight enough times to know—this was a person whose strength of heart could never be broken, no matter what she threw at him. If he could only keep holding on, keep fighting, then she would find a way to get both of them out of this situation.

She would find a way to end the loop. She almost had it. But…

Then, Kim Dokja woke up. And things became very complicated.

Nirvana went straight to Han Sooyoung when it happened. Her main body had been extracted from Seoul and placed at the distortion’s core, induced to a permanent state of sleep so that the false self could work perpetually on improving Nirvana’s loop. They had come to rely on her over the past thousand loops; she had worked hard to make that the case. The more Nirvana relied on her, the more leverage she would have when she turned against them. But…

“Why,” said Nirvana, appearing in her writing room in a flash of light, “is a second person aware of the time loop?”

The power of the Endless Cycle was burning in them, moments from consuming her entirely. Though Nirvana could also be seen as a victim of this spirit world distortion, their power could not be taken lightly. Han Sooyoung tried to gather her confused thoughts together.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Of course you know. You’re friends with that guy. In the early loops, I watched you keep trying to get to him before you died. Don’t think I didn’t notice that.”

“That was my conscious self, not me,” Han Sooyoung said. “I don’t know why he’s awake. You’re the one who designed the loop, so shouldn’t you know?”

“My power to direct the loop is limited,” Nirvana said, as if speaking to a child. “As you well know, I can shape it, but I can’t control it.”

“Then why do you think it’s my fault?” she demanded. “Does it really change anything? We must be nearing the resolution of the loop by now. The fact that he’s here…”

“The fact that he’s here,” Nirvana bristled, “is going to ruin everything.”

Neither of them ever figured out why Kim Dokja woke up, but Han Sooyoung had a theory.

She designed the loop challenges based on her own experiences in the spirit world. Those very same experiences had been used by her conscious self to write books, books that she would use to connect with Kim Dokja.

Seeing the same arcs from those books playing out in front of his eyes again and again… resulting in hundreds of deaths that, though not remembered, left their brief, impermanent impressions on his soul…

Maybe that was why. Maybe, in her loneliness, she had accidentally reached out to him in the same way that her true self had.

And the fool had actually reached back.

***

The spirit world distortion thrummed, trying its best to break apart. The power here was meant to disperse and return to the Devourer of Dreams, helping it heal from the injuries it had sustained.

The projection of Han Sooyoung felt another tear dart through her body, a painful line jolting from her hip to halfway up her side.

Holding the spirit world distortion closed for this long…

It was really not helping with the deterioration.

She and her other self had been hammering out the plan as well as they could over the past few hours. The true Han Sooyoung had caught on that she could project herself into the collapsing distortion—that meant they could talk face to face, for as long as the true self could hold the projection steady.

Maybe it was a good thing that time was so much of the essence. The two of them were forced to focus on the matter at hand, exchanging information and preparing for the next step of this crazy plan. With arguments kept at a minimum, they could be surprisingly efficient.

Speaking of efficiency, it was about time for this plan to get started. She needed to do her part soon. Otherwise…

The air in front of her shimmered, as if on cue. Han Sooyoung relaxed marginally as a silhouette gradually formed from the waves, then a shape—resolving itself, a moment later, into Kim Dokja.

He blinked and looked around. The shadowy streets of the fake Seoul were now scattered with white cracks, the whole of it only held together by Han Sooyoung’s hands.

“So,” she said, “you decided to cooperate after all. I wasn’t sure.”

“Hah, well.” Kim Dokja glanced at her and then away. “If everyone is so determined, I guess I don’t really have the right to stop them.”

This version of Kim Dokja was the hinge on which this plan turned. In order to let the others travel to the other reality where the time loop was still cycling, the Devourer’s distortion would have to be linked to Kim Dokja’s dreams. He was the common thread needed to connect the two distortions, rather like the lamp in the “wrong room” case her other self had nearly botched so badly.

It meant he was stuck here sleeping while the rest of them travelled to the other reality.

“Why… are you doing this?” he asked her.

Han Sooyoung felt a wry smile dart across her face. “To be honest, it’s… my fault. A lot of this.”

Kim Dokja just stared. “How?”

“… I’ll tell you about it. We’ll probably have a lot of time in here while the others prepare to pass through to the other world. After that I’ll have to focus on keeping the passage open.”

“Sure.” He paused, scrutinizing her. “… How much of Han Sooyoung would you say that you are?”

“It doesn’t divide so neatly.” Han Sooyoung ignored another small tear that appeared suddenly in her side. “Ultimately, I was created because I was needed by her. And now, I’m not. That’s the best way I can think to describe it.”

Holding this distortion closed, facilitating the others into and back out of the time loop… this would be her final act.

She had known it from the instant her true self started making her own projections. The real Han Sooyoung was gaining conscious control of the projection ability—and as that control increased, the less and less distinct this version of her would become.

She’d already extended her time to a ridiculous degree. Time moved differently in the spirit world. Since the time loop had ‘ended’, she had spent nearly thirteen years of experienced time in there, doing everything she could to study and track down the Endless Cycle spirit.

Soon, it would be over. The true self would reabsorb her… was already doing it, tiny piece by tiny piece.

It wasn’t something anyone could change.

“I wonder if it’s the same for me,” Kim Dokja mused quietly. “Was this part of me sent back because it was ‘needed’, or…”

Han Sooyoung had considered that.

The “block” that had been placed on Kim Dokja, preventing him from ever even knowing about his missing pieces…

Maybe it had been part of the “deal”.

Maybe it had been an accident… just a result of scar tissue building over the wound caused by tearing apart one’s soul.

Or maybe Kim Dokja had done it to himself as a sort of kindness. Perhaps he expected this version of himself to live happily, unbothered by the knowledge he was missing anything at all. Whether it could really be seen as a gift or not, the fact was that Han Sooyoung could tell: only after she had removed the block had the absence really begun to hurt.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Kim Dokja shook his head. “Hard to say. If the other part stayed behind, it may have been him who decided he wasn’t needed. Maybe I’ll have to meet him to really understand.”

She and Kim Dokja looked up at the sky. A rift of white separated the black void, like the sky seen through a torn sheet of paper. That empty space… those fools who refused to accept things as they were would cross it. And on the other side, they would enter it once more: the Endless Cycle.

Even this version of Han Sooyoung did not know what awaited those who traversed that void. Her long years of study had been fruitless in that area. Just what reality would they find themselves within? How many loops, how much perceived time, could have passed in there already? Could they really find a way to tear that man back from the grip of time itself?

The only thing she knew for certain was that Kim Dokja was in there—and so, they had to go to him.

Her time was short. She would likely not be able to meet him again. But hopefully, in this fragment’s stead, Han Sooyoung would give him a piece of her mind.

Chapter Text

Han Sooyoung was drifting somewhere warm and soft.

For a while, she felt perfectly at ease. Bright morning sunshine dappled her eyelids, lulling her into a perfect state of drowsiness.

It wouldn’t be so bad to laze around like this for at least an hour more. She didn’t have any classes to teach today, so…

So… wait a second.

Han Sooyoung sat bolt upright, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

What the hell was she thinking about? She should be inside the time loop right now. She and Yoo Joonghyuk, along with the others…

Somehow, she couldn’t remember exactly what happened. There had been a passageway of sorts, something like a blazing white field of snow. But just as they were about to cross, there was a disturbance.

Why couldn’t she remember?

As her bleary vision resolved, she saw the familiar walls of her own bedroom. The morning sunlight poured in through a gap in the curtains, flooding over her desk, bookshelves, and a disorganized scatter of personal items.

It was strange. There seemed to be stuff missing, and even the things she expected to see were arranged differently…

Someone shifted on the other side of her bed and she froze—then, slowly, making as little noise as possible, she made a quarter turn to look.

Long, loose hair pooled on the pillow. A thin, black tank top revealed one well-sculpted shoulder, the other buried in sheets.

“… Jung Heewon?”

Jung Heewon murmured something indistinct and put her face into the pillow. Han Sooyoung suddenly realized that she herself was not wearing a shirt. Or pants.

… Okay! Just what exactly was happening here!

Jung Heewon started moving as if to get up, so Han Sooyoung quickly scrambled out of bed and grabbed the closest clothes she could find, which happened to be her own outfit crumpled on the floor beside the bed.

“What are you doing,” Jung Heewon muttered with a hoarse voice, eyes still closed.

“Nothing!” Han Sooyoung pulled her shirt on and tried to force herself to become normal. There was certainly an explanation for this. “Uh… do you remember what happened?”

“I wasn’t that drunk,” Jung Heewon groused, clearly still half asleep.

“No, I mean with the… with crossing to the other reality. Something happened, but…”

Jung Heewon groaned, placed the heels of her hands over her eyes, and said: “What the hell are you talking about. It’s too early for this.”

“We crossed over to get back into the time loop,” Han Sooyoung continued, equal parts annoyed and concerned. “Obviously you remember that! We all decided to work together, to make sure Kim Dokja…”

“Who?” Jung Heewon asked, finally cracking open one eye to the cruel morning light.

“I…” Han Sooyoung fought off an uneasy shiver. “Kim Dokja. The reason we came here. You’re friends with that guy, aren’t you?”

“Uh… I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jung Heewon admitted with a sigh. “I’d remember someone with a weird name like that… Are you trying to kick me out, Sooyoung-ah?”

Her name was said with what sounded like a teasing rather than a genuine familiarity, but it was still far too much to process at that moment. “I’m trying to get you to remember. What the hell is going on here?”

“What, did I promise I’d be out of your hair before sunrise or something?” Jung Heewon slowly sat up and yawned. “You’re so particular. I’m only here because you don’t like the fact that I have roommates.”

“We shouldn’t be here at all!”

“Really?” Jung Heewon propped her face up on her hand and smiled. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself well enough last night.”

“Um!” Be normal. Be normal. “… Get out of my house!”

“Ugh, I’m going,” Jung Heewon muttered, groping around the bedside table for her phone. “You should at least offer me coffee or something. Don’t you think this might be why you can’t hold down a serious relationship?”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“Right. Can I use your shower, or is that also out of bounds?”

While Jung Heewon was showering, Han Sooyoung dug her own cell phone from the pocket of the previously-discarded pair of jeans. To her dismay, no one who she needed to talk to was in her contacts list—no Yoo Sangah, no Yoo Joonghyuk, and no Kim Dokja.

There were names she recognized, but her texting history was sparse. It seemed she texted friends occasionally when she wanted to go out for drinks, but other than that…

This was weird. This was really weird. She was getting a terrible feeling.

Just what “reality” was she in right now…?

Jung Heewon emerged from the bathroom before long, displaying a shocking level of familiarity with Han Sooyoung’s possessions as she toweled her hair dry. “Well, I’ve got work anyway, so I’ll be going.”

Han Sooyoung just looked at her helplessly. Was this really the Jung Heewon that she knew from her reality? Could it be that Han Sooyoung had ended up in the wrong place—or maybe Jung Heewon had, and this was a different version of her entirely?

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung said. “Tell me. When you were haunted, what happened? How did you recover?”

Jung Heewon gave her a flat, uneasy look. “Sooyoung, are you… okay? Is this some kind of game I’m not getting?”

“So, you have never been haunted.”

“What does that even mean?” Jung Heewon sighed. “Haunted by what? My taste in women?”

“… A ghost.”

“A ghost,” Jung Heewon said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you legitimately believe in ghosts, or are you still messing with me?”

Rendered speechless, Han Sooyoung could only stare. Jung Heewon seemed to decide that she was indeed being messed with, gathered her things with a shrug, and left. Once the door clicked shut behind her, there was silence.

... Han Sooyoung needed to figure out just what the hell was going on here.

She did a once-over of her own house. It was a bit uncanny—almost everything was the same, but there were enough minor differences that the space felt foreign.

The change that got under her skin the most was that, on the shelf where she had once kept all the advance copies of her novels, there were now only language textbooks and classic literature. There wasn’t a single trace of anything she had created.

A clue to this difference lay on top of the shelf: a college-branded ID card with a picture of her face and the caption: assistant professor.

So, in this reality, she wasn’t a writer, but a college professor?

She hadn’t really expected anything like this. When her projection had said “other reality”… well, she had imagined something more like a spirit world distortion, otherworldly and dreamlike.

Actually, their whole plan had been contingent on that. They were supposed to enter the time loop and then break through to its core, just like her projection had done. At the core of the distortion, they’d find the avatar with whom Kim Dokja had cut his deal. Whether through confrontation or deception, they would find out where the hell those fragments were and bring them back.

But this place… rather than a distortion, it was like a whole other version of their world. One where she had made different choices.

One where she and that guy hadn't met.

Han Sooyoung had Kim Dokja's number memorized—for no particular reason—but when she punched it into her cell, she found that it was not in service. Having had no reason to expect this situation to crop up, she hadn’t bothered to memorize anyone else's numbers… nor could she even say whether those numbers would be the same.

Presuming that she had arrived in the correct reality, there was no way she had come here alone—and ‘Kim Dokja’, or at least a part of him, was supposed to be in here somewhere, too. She had no choice but to try and track everyone down in person.

After throwing on a clean pair of clothes and jumping in her alternate-reality car—once again disturbingly almost the same—she arrived in front of the offices of MinoSoft.

This would be her best bet to catch two birds with one stone—though considering she herself was in a different line of work, there was certainly no guarantee that this was where she would find the Yoo Sangah and Kim Dokja of this reality. Still, it was the first thing which had come to mind.

Luckily, getting in was as simple as walking like she belonged. Certain areas did require employee keycard access, but it wasn’t like it was difficult to wait for an employee to tap open the door and then slip in behind them.

She found and cornered Yoo Sangah in an office corridor. Yoo Sangah was dressed professionally and had a bland look on her face, though her eyes sharpened when Han Sooyoung blocked her path.

“Yoo Sangah. Where's Kim Dokja? I need to talk to you two.”

But, like Jung Heewon, Yoo Sangah appeared to be confused. “…Excuse me, but who are you? I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Ugh, come on,” Han Sooyoung snapped, getting increasingly antsy. A few office workers shot her odd looks at the commotion. “Maybe you don’t recognize me, but you know Kim Dokja, right? That weirdo always reading books in QA?”

“Um… I'm afraid that doesn’t ring a bell. No one works here by that name.”

“It had better start ringing bells!” Han Sooyoung exclaimed. “There's no way I ended up here alone, right? Am I in the wrong place? But then, that idiot…”

“You seem to be confused,” Yoo Sangah said, her body angled as if expecting conflict. “I'm sorry, but I don’t think you should be in here… maybe you mistook me for someone else?”

“Yeah. I guess I did.” Feeling numb, Han Sooyoung turned on her heel and left the building.

Her next stop was Kim Dokja's apartment. It was getting under her skin, how she could meet with the others but couldn’t find even a single trace of him… if she was in the reality that contained the time loop, finding him would confirm it. The pieces of him he had left behind would be somewhere.

But the apartment, too, was a dead end. When Han Sooyoung knocked on the door, a woman opened it. The small glimpse she could see of the interior showed unfamiliar photos on the walls and a scattering of children’s toys.

Trying to play off her surprise, Han Sooyoung asked the woman if she had ever met the previous tenant or knew where he had gone.

But the woman just gave Han Sooyoung an odd look. The previous inhabitant, she said, had been an elderly woman…  she knew nothing about the person Han Sooyoung described.

The door clicked shut and Han Sooyoung was left outside on her own.

After a long moment staring at the blank, white surface of the door, she pulled out her phone.

First, she needed to check on the final member of their expedition.

Yoo Joonghyuk was easy to find online. Nothing new there—his online presence was pretty much identical to the one she was familiar with in her world. No personal accounts, but plenty of publicity photos and photos posted by fans. The difference was that there was no mention of him suddenly breaking contract and vanishing from the gaming scene five months ago, as had happened in their reality.

It was definitely weird to see him in those photos… He tended to have a serious look on camera, but the way he held himself and even the way his expression settled was completely different. Yoo Joonghyuk without the time loop seemed somehow… very young.

But at least he existed. That meant the only person she hadn’t yet tracked down was the one she most needed to find.

Something sparked unexpectedly in her memory. A white rift torn across a black sky. Her projection, floating in front of her.

I don't know the details of what sort of reality awaits you on the other side. It will probably be difficult to hold onto your memories and sense of self… the other reality could try to take priority.

Maybe that was why no one else remembered why they were here?

The projection had also said…

The missing part of Kim Dokja will be there. Depending on how much consciousness that part retains, he might be tough to find.

The only advice I can give you is to hold onto your sense of self as hard as you can. Then, you'll have a chance to find both each other and him. I’ll support how I can.

Okay. If the others had failed to hold onto their memories, it was going to be her job to track down Kim Dokja.

If that “part" of him was in this reality, there must be evidence of it somewhere. But if he didn’t have the same phone number, the same job, and didn’t live in the same apartment…

Well, there was one place she was sure she could find him. Even in this reality, surely…

She opened up the webnovel platform she had used as a teenager and put in the name of the very first story she had ever posted: The Unseen World. Later, she’d reuse the title for her first bestselling novel. Only she and Kim Dokja remembered this original version.

To her relief, though it was over ten years old, the story came up. Having lost access to the account at some point, she hadn’t been able to delete it in a fit of embarrassment—a lucky break for her current self. Now, in the comments, there should be…

It was empty. No one had left a single comment. The single-digit number of views suggested that the only person to ever look at it had been her.

This particular story, she recalled, had not been based on any of her dreams. It was, however, the first time she wrote about ghosts.

Her teachers in school praised her writing, but their approval was contingent on her stories matching a more literary style. She could write like that, but she didn't enjoy it. The Unseen World was what happened when she stopped caring if her writing was seen as “trashy” and just earnestly created something that excited her.

She'd put a lot of hard work into it. It was over twenty chapters of mystery, action, and melodrama, and it was absolute dogshit. Truly just cringeworthy stuff. Just thinking about her thirteen-year-old self's writing style sent a cold shiver down her spine.

And now, she remembered... posting the first chapter, wondering if anyone else would like it, and eagerly refreshing the page.

Back then, she didn’t know a thing about promoting her work. She got absolutely no views or engagements. Overcome with childish despondence, she had looked at that thing she had poured so many hours of her life into and thought, I guess it's worthless after all.

But then, there had been a comment. The thing she made, clumsy and too-earnest though it was, had connected with someone.

In this world, though, no one had read the story at all.

Because of something so simple, would she really not become a writer?

Well... maybe. She was never a person who could only write for herself. Stories were incomplete without a reader, just lifeless words on a page. So, if her words had only sunk out into an uncaring void, if no one had ever tried to understand the things she created... maybe the Han Sooyoung of this reality had simply made the mercenary play. Only work on things that are useful.

And if this version of her didn't dream every night of spirit world landscapes she itched to try and describe in words, she could see how the drive to write could have faded altogether. She owed her other self more than she liked to admit for that.

In any case, if Kim Dokja hadn’t read the original The Unseen World, there was only one more avenue she could think to try.

Han Sooyoung went back to the search engine and typed in: The Underground Killer, Lee Sookyung.

Even if that guy hadn’t commented on her story, even if he hadn’t met Jung Heewon or Yoo Sangah, surely this much must remain the same. Without this essay and the incident it was written about, the person known as “Kim Dokja” would hardly be the same one she knew.

The top result instantly verified that the book existed and had been a bestseller, but the second news story on the page was what caused her heart to skip a beat. She gripped the phone with sweaty hands and stared.

Dated thirteen years ago, the article read:

Son of author of bestselling book, ‘The Underground Killer’, dies from a fall at age 15.

***

Well. She knew.

Kim Dokja had never spoken directly about it to her in person, but during the era where they exclusively communicated through text, it had come up.

I wanted to die, or something similar. It wasn’t that foreign of a sentiment. She herself hadn’t exactly been in the best mental state of her life around the time she posted the original The Unseen World.

This was a reality she didn’t want to exist. Maybe, though… this could mean she was in the wrong place, right? That whatever had gone wrong had dropped her in a different reality, far from the time loop.

That had to be the case. Because if she was where she was supposed to be—and if Kim Dokja wasn’t here, if he was dead, then…

Her body, which had been automatically taking her down the stairs toward street level, suddenly collided with what felt like a brick wall, sending her staggering back.

When she looked up, she saw Yoo Joonghyuk.

He was wearing a color other than black, which was nearly as shocking as being bowled over by him. The blue T-shirt was alarming, but she could tell just from the way his face looked… this was her Yoo Joonghyuk, from her reality.

If he was here, too… she must be in the right place after all.

She opened her mouth to berate him for crashing into her, but the words just wouldn’t come out.

He said, “So, he is gone.”

Han Sooyoung squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the bridge of her nose. There was no way she could look at Yoo Joonghyuk’s stupid face right now. “He’s not, I won’t accept it. You, you’re coming with me. We'll track him down.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“You and I are the only ones who remember crossing over to this reality, so the others are no help. But there is a person in this world who can tell us what happened to him. Maybe, then…”

Her explanation faltered, but even so, when she turned to leave, Yoo Joonghyuk followed.

***

Persistent self-image.

That was another one of Kim Dokja’s little ghost theories, alongside the business of stories and endings.

He had told Jung Heewon about it not too long after her own haunting incident. For a while, she couldn’t help but obsess over why the ghost in question had targeted her specifically. Was it someone she had known, or wronged? Resolving the haunting had not answered this question, and so it had continued to rattle in her mind.

Kim Dokja had said: Persistent self-image means a ghost had a strong sense of its living self’s identity. That makes it capable of holding specific grudges or maintaining specific memories. Your haunting didn’t have a strong self-image—just pure emotion disconnected from a source. It couldn’t target you on purpose even if it wanted to.

It would take her a bit of work to be comfortable with that idea. At the time, she mostly remembered thinking…

If I were a ghost, I’d probably be like that, too. I’d want to forget everything about who I am.

… What was she thinking about right now?

Jung Heewon jumped, nearly knocking over the cup in front of her.

“Ah!” The barista who had just placed the cup down managed to dart a hand out to steady it. “Please, be careful!”

“I’m sorry. Thanks for catching that.” Wherever her head was today, it was clearly not on this stupid delivery-running job. Seriously, the small amount of extra income was barely worth the fuss. It might be time to try out something else soon.

With a sigh, Jung Heewon collected the order she was picking up and tried to focus on reality.

***

Several hours later, Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk were seated at a table in a café.

Getting Lee Sookyung to agree to meet with them hadn’t been easy, but it also hadn’t been as hard as Han Sooyoung feared. She had picked up a lot of little hints from Kim Dokja about his mother over the years, and used those to her advantage to track her down. In this timeline, as with their own, Lee Sookyung had been released from prison for just over a year.

Lee Sookyung looked younger than expected. She had very little physical resemblance to Kim Dokja, except for the way her placid face gave away little of her feelings. Her eyes, though, looked tired. “So. What is this about?”

The meeting was only happening because Han Sooyoung had claimed to be childhood friends with Kim Dokja. Han Sooyoung was about to string together a plausible lie to get at the information they needed when Yoo Joonghyuk interrupted her with: “Tell us what happened to him.”

Lee Sookyung barked a tired laugh, at the very least amused with the audacity. “So, two strangers show up claiming to know my late son and then demand I tell them about him. What gives you the right?”

“We… really did know him,” Han Sooyoung said. She kicked Yoo Joonghyuk's ankle as hard as she could under the table to warn him to keep his mouth shut, during which assault he remained still as a statue. “We just want to know the truth about how he died. I need to know.”

Unfortunately, the lies she had been trying to spin up were fraying before she could even get them out: A first for her. Just tell me. Help me save him, damn it.

“Are you trying to determine whether it is my fault?” Lee Sookyung raised an eyebrow. “I've heard it enough times, if so.”

Han Sooyoung glared at her. “So, you don’t consider it your fault at all? That guy…”

“We all make our choices,” Lee Sookyung said quietly. “We can only choose the best method we have in each moment. Whatever method lets us survive a little longer.”

Silently, they watched each other for a few long moments.

“…Maybe you did know him,” Lee Sookyung spoke up unexpectedly. “I'm surprised. I didn’t think he had any friends back then, but… you knew a few things you shouldn’t know otherwise.”

“Maybe not in person,” Han Sooyoung said.

“Over the internet? Hm… something else the child never talked about, I suppose.”

Though it was difficult to spot, Lee Sookyung was clearly carrying a deep well of sorrow. Han Sooyoung could tell. It was a gaping wound every bit as damaging as the hole Kim Dokja had torn out of himself.

Lee Sookyung sighed. “By the way, if this about that stupid ghost story, I’m leaving. You won’t hear a single additional word from me, regardless if you really knew him or not.”

Han Sooyoung just blinked. “Ghost story…?”

“Ah… maybe you don’t know, since you weren’t actually a classmate of his.” Lee Sookyung frowned. “It is a vulgar schoolyard myth. Somebody dies on school property and somehow it’s all right to make that into a game for kids and idiotic YouTube ghost hunters. If your purpose in being here has anything to do with that…”

“No,” Han Sooyoung quickly said, though she mentally filed away the information. “I didn’t know.”

“Hm.” Lee Sookyung’s sharp look suggested she didn’t fully buy it, but at least she did not immediately end the meeting. “Then, what is it you do want to know?”

“Is there anything. Did he leave anything behind?” Han Sooyoung was faintly aware that it was stupid to be getting emotional. This wasn’t even her reality—her Kim Dokja was alive, and she was here to ensure it stayed that way. The missing pieces were certainly somewhere in this world. They had to be.

“It was thirteen years ago,” Lee Sookyung said. “The family members who were taking care of him long since got rid of anything he owned. I’m told there wasn’t much.”

“Not even his books or anything?”

Lee Sookyung shook her head. Her voice was heavy. “No, not even his books.”

“When someone sacrifices their life for you,” Yoo Joonghyuk spoke up, voice stiff, “it’s not a gift that is possible to accept. It is a curse too painful to bear alone. That is why he gave up.”

“Hah. I know.” Lee Sookyung stared down at a coffee she had not taken a single sip from. “And yet, even if I wanted to change the choices that I made, I cannot. No one can. In this world, we all must bear the consequences of our choices. You, also, were not there for him.”

I was there, Han Sooyoung wanted to snap at her. He was there for me, too…

But in this world, they had never met—and Han Sooyoung was alive and well, while Kim Dokja was dead. That was a fact that couldn’t be denied.

“In another world…” Han Sooyoung said hesitantly. There was no point in saying this, but… “Your son… well, I know he would have become someone who was loved by a lot of people. He had the ability to change things no one thought could be changed. He may have been kind of an idiot, but he was our idiot.”

Lee Sookyung, rather than be offended or point out that she was talking nonsense, just nodded. “In that world, I think I would have been glad for him to know you.”

In the end, Lee Sookyung was not able to give them any solid leads. All of Kim Dokja’s possessions, his history, and his impacts on the world had been erased. It was the way he had always said it was… death and its aftereffects made people uncomfortable. It was human nature to sweep it away and pretend that the discomfort had never been there.

Thirteen years later, finding a trace of him was not going to be easy.

Feeling numb and a bit disoriented, Han Sooyoung nearly tried to drive herself and Yoo Joonghyuk back to their office, even though such a thing didn’t exist in this reality. In fact… from what she’d been picking up so far, it seemed that the whole system of paranormal investigators and hauntings was different here.

She needed more information, but gathering it on her phone, already low on charge, was going to be too much of a pain. It would be best to head back home and use her computer.

For a while, they drove in silence, Han Sooyoung having forgotten about the existence of the thing called a car radio.

Thankfully, her brain did eventually kick back in. “Hey. Yoo Joonghyuk. Do you remember crossing over to this reality?”

He frowned. “… Not all of it.”

“Right. Something went wrong right at the end, didn’t it? But I just can’t remember what.”

“I also don’t remember,” he said, staring ahead. Shit, so she wasn’t the only one with a big blank spot. Maybe that was why the other two hadn’t been able to hold onto their sense of selves.

After a moment of silence, she continued. “… Not to mention, aren’t we supposed to be in a time loop right now? Is time going to reset?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you? You’re the expert.”

“It is not what I expected,” he admitted. “’Death’ is the trigger I am familiar with for resetting the loop. However, I don’t know if this loop has a specific subject. And there are no spirits to kill.”

No spirits and no spirit-hunters. They all seemed to lead ordinary lives in this world.

“How do you find this version of your life?” Han Sooyoung asked on a sudden whim. “Must be nice being so popular again, right? Should I be worried about fans trying to take selfies with you or anything?”

“I don’t want it,” he said simply. Han Sooyoung’s next teasing words died on her tongue.

They arrived back at her place and Han Sooyoung went straight for her laptop, reaching for the pair of blue-light blocking glasses that were kept slightly to the left of their usual spot. Barely a minute later, she had the glasses on, her phone charging on the arm of her couch beside her, and two preferred search engines on the screen of her laptop.

Before she could type in any queries, the sound of her fridge opening startled her into looking up. Yoo Joonghyuk was in her kitchen, scowling at her disorganized refrigerator shelves.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Did I say you could go through my stuff?”

“Food,” he said, plucking out several items with a suspicious look at each one.

It was already afternoon and neither of them had eaten a thing all day, but seriously? “Food. In this situation?”

Yoo Joonghyuk silently placed a handful of vegetables on the counter, then began to root around her kitchen for spices and cooking oil.

This guy… Han Sooyoung shook her head, deciding it was probably best to just leave him to it. It wasn’t like she wanted him getting in her way while she was doing research. His ability with computers pretty much stopped dead at the point where a game controller wasn’t connected.

Her first objective was to get a general idea of the ‘ghost hunting’ situation. Somehow, that felt like a key element to all this. They wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for the power of a spirit, so why was it that no one she had talked to seemed to take the idea of hauntings seriously?

She pieced her answer together with only a handful of searches.

The truth was, in this world… it seemed that the paranormal was mainly the domain of cults, hack psychics, and bad reality television. There was no official registry of spirit-hunters or trustworthy reporting on hauntings. Only trashy magazines entertained the idea of the paranormal with breathless seriousness, claiming the world’s blurriest or most obviously faked photographs as “proof” of supernatural entities.

As she scrolled through all this information with rising confusion, the smell of frying vegetables and chili oil started to fill her house. Though Han Sooyoung hadn’t been able to bear the thought of eating moments before, her stomach actually growled.

She shot a sneaky look over the top of her laptop screen at Yoo Joonghyuk. He cooked with the same serious face he fought spirits with, but there was an undeniable easing of tension from his shoulders. He looked so out of place in her kitchen it was almost funny, but also… the sight was weirdly comforting.

She was hesitating to press the “enter” key on her next search query when Yoo Joonghyuk said, “You have poor quality ingredients.”

She looked up and saw him standing at the counter with at least four separate dishes spread out in front of him—seriously, how did he even find that many ingredients to cook with in her house? Her own culinary skills were extremely basic and ended in disaster roughly half the time.

He was hovering there with what appeared to be his own plate. Han Sooyoung blinked at him. “What are you even doing right now? Come sit down already, you’re making me anxious.”

He made his way to the couch and sat, leaving the greater portion of food on her counter next to the stove. Han Sooyoung gave him a few moments before asking, “what, you’re not going to offer me any? You used all the stuff from my fridge.”

“Do what you want.”

It seemed to be tacit permission for her to just go and help herself to the rest, which she did. She couldn’t deny a weird sense of guilt for doing so—after all, Kim Dokja was dead, and here she was eating stir-fry—but hell, it was already made. If they were trapped in another thirteen-day time loop or something similar, she’d have to eat at some point anyway.

Also, the food was amazing. It made her wonder just what Yoo Joonghyuk could do with actually decent ingredients.

“Since when can you cook this well?” she asked, once she could force herself to stop eating for three seconds.

“Eating well is important.”

“Man, Kim Dokja must have eaten well in that time loop. I can’t believe I’m actually kind of jealous.”

No sooner had the words passed her lips than she wanted to force them back in. That… somehow felt like a boundary she shouldn’t cross. And the guy was dead, to boot.

Yoo Joonghyuk, though, didn’t seem particularly offended. “There wasn’t much time to cook to my satisfaction in the loop. I’ve come to value it more since then. In any case, getting him to slow down long enough to eat was rare.”

“Hah. I bet. Stubborn moron.”

They ate in silence for a few more minutes. Han Sooyoung wondered what it would be like if this sort of thing was more common. Herself, Yoo Joonghyuk, and Kim Dokja… when the three of them were together, there was always some crisis happening. What would it be like to spend time together normally, like regular people got to? Cooking food and arguing.

Yoo Joonghyuk had sat down on the same side of the couch as her, leaving the opposite end open. A golden beam of afternoon sunlight bisected the empty space.

Eventually, Han Sooyoung sighed, pushed her dishes aside onto her coffee table, and looked at her computer screen again. The words in the search field said: Kim Dokja school ghost story.

Somehow, she didn’t want to press enter on it. She kept seeing Lee Sookyung’s face… it’s a vulgar story.

It was her only lead, but judging from what she’d seen so far of the state of paranormal investigating in this world…

Yoo Joonghyuk squinted at the screen. Seated this close to him, Han Sooyoung observed that the subtle scatter of premature grays she had noticed just barely beginning at his temple were missing. He didn’t have them in this reality. “So, you think that has something to do with it.”

“Well, it is where this version of him died,” she said. “If there’s no fragment of him in his old possessions, or with his mother, then maybe… this ‘ghost’ could be the key.”

“It is possible,” he agreed. Neither of them moved to press the enter key. “Have you been in contact with your projection?”

“Ah… no,” she admitted. “You’re right that she’d probably have a better idea of where to look, but…”

“This reality,” he said. “I’m unable to use any of my spirit abilities here.”

Han Sooyoung took a second to try and use her own projection ability. Though she’d grown adept at doing it on command, it was as Yoo Joonghyuk said… it just didn’t work. Like she’d just been imagining it that whole time. “Me neither. That’s…”

That was actually really bad. If spirit abilities didn’t work—if her projection wasn’t able to get through to this reality at all, or reopen the rift—then wouldn’t that mean they would have no way back to their own world?

“Fuck that,” she muttered. “I’m not staying in this bullshit reality any longer than I have to, I don’t care if none of those freaky abilities work. I don’t need them. I’ll find him on my own.”

“Those fragments.” Yoo Joonghyuk hesitated, staring blankly at the computer screen. “Could they survive in a reality like this?”

“Of course they can,” Han Sooyoung snapped. “What are you saying? We know for a fact those fragments are here. That’s the only reason we came.”

“He may have wanted to make finding them impossible.”

“So, what!?” she demanded, rounding on him. Her heart pounded in her chest with almost painful strength. “I don’t want to hear any of this, okay? Are you implying that we’re stuck here in this reality with no way home and with no way to find him? Because that’s not acceptable.”

In a flash of desperate anger her hand flew towards his shoulder; he caught her half-hearted strike around the wrist.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. In his eyes, she saw what she had been avoiding looking at all day, the exact thing she’d known she’d see…

Her own pain, identical in depth and severity, looking back at her.

Her anger utterly drained away, leaving her suddenly exhausted. She slumped into the couch and out of Yoo Joonghyuk’s grip, releasing all the tension that had been winding up in her since she opened her eyes that morning. Her forehead slid down onto his shoulder and he didn’t bother to shake her off. “This is fucked up. I hope that bastard considers what he’s putting us through here.”

“He always does what he thinks is best.”

“What he does is act stupid, lie whenever he feels like it, and dedicate way too much of himself to what he loves. And if you fall in love with him a little bit in return, he lies his way out of it. Just wriggles away every time. Like none of it means anything.”

Yoo Joonghyuk said nothing. At some point their arms settled around each other; Han Sooyoung squeezed her eyes shut into the stupid blue T-shirt and tried to ignore the way her body was shaking. Yoo Joonghyuk’s breathing, too, was unsteady.

A tiny slice of… memory, came to her then.

A writing room in the core of a spirit world distortion. This man, throwing himself against odds that were designed to be impossible, doing it again and again with a bloodied face. Her other self's twisted feelings of regret and satisfaction. He refused to play by the rules; he forged his own path forward regardless of how she tried to guide him, but always he moved with grace through those stories.

Oh, she realized. She… I… made you like this.

“It was me,” she said, drawing back immediately. “I just remembered, I…”

“What?”

“In the time loop. The reason it was based on my books. My other self, she…”

Haltingly, Han Sooyoung tried to describe what the shards of memory were telling her. She didn’t have the whole picture, not even close, but… she felt her other self's emotions. She was, in some ways, the unwilling architect of all of Yoo Joonghyuk’s struggles.

He listened with an unreadable face. Finally, he said, “you just remembered this.”

“… Yeah.”

“You received memories from your projection,” he clarified a second later.

“Oh,” she said, sitting up. “Yeah. I did. That must mean… well, she does exist in this world, in some way! If she exists, she must still be holding the passage for us. There’s still a way back.”

He nodded. Silence stretched between them.

“Don't you… have anything to say about what I just told you?” Han Sooyoung asked, her fingernails digging into her own palms.

“I don’t care who designed it.”

“But… I made you this way.”

“I have made my own choices, inside of and outside of the loop. You have made no choices for me.”

“You said you'd kill the designer of the loop when you found them!”

“Is that what you would prefer?”

She saw then, in his eyes, that he was angry. At the loop itself… at the avatar called Nirvana who had caused him to be chosen for the ordeal… and yes, at her, whose idle dreams had been forged into his own unending nightmare. Hell, she was angry, too. This whole fucking stupid situation.

“No,” she said, squirming. “She… I… couldn’t escape the loop alone. I needed you to struggle and survive. Even so, you…”

She trailed off. The final words didn’t really want to come out, but they caught in her mind: You may have been an arrogant idiot the whole time, but even so… you were incredible.

“Let's not waste any more time.”

“… Okay,” Han Sooyoung said. She turned back to her laptop. “If my projection is still able to exist, that means so can those pieces of Kim Dokja. I’m looking up this story.”

She hit enter. The search results populated with badly designed personal websites, paranormal discussion forums, and obnoxious video thumbnails showing young people posing outside a school. Titles in bright yellow read, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SCHOOLYARD CURSE!

Wincing as if about to put her hand into the garbage, Han Sooyoung started reading.

The ghost was most commonly referred to as the “murderer’s son”. According to the most common iteration of the story, he had been a resentful and quiet kid, carrying an eerie disposition with him ever since he had witnessed his own mother murder his father.

After he died on school grounds, students reported sightings of a slight teen who matched his description standing in corners or behind trees. The manifestation was said to stare silently and disappear when looked at directly.

The school had forbidden any mention of the ghost story, citing disrespect for the dead and his family, but it had persisted in whispered rumours. By this point, thirteen years after his actual death, the “murderer’s son” ghost was a popular urban legend. Kids would often dare each other to go to the school at night.

I think it’s real!!! My friend has class in the same room where he jumped, and she saw him in the corner!

You’re lying, the corner thing is a myth. I heard the ghost actually crawls on the ceiling.

Ew, that’s so creepy… I cant believe we still have to have class in that room when everyone knows its haunted.

Did anyone get a picture? This whole thing is so fake.

Look up “the Underground Killer"!! It’s totally real!!

Increasingly annoyed, Han Sooyoung scrolled through pages and pages of nonsense. A sort of lurid obsession fueled all the posts and theories. Did no one see the irony that having his story viewed this way was the reason he had taken his life in the first place?

Even in death, he could not escape it. That really pissed her off.

“We have to go to that school,” she said, slapping the laptop shut as soon as she could take no more. “This must be that fragment we need to find.”

Before they left, Han Sooyoung shot off a text to Jung Heewon, who she did still apparently have in her contacts list. Their previous conversations were mostly times to meet up and single-word confirmations.

HSY: as soon as your damn memories come back, meet us at the address I’m about to send you. Go get Yoo Sangah too.

After a minute, Jung Heewon’s reply came: I’m deleting your number.

HSY: Do not fucking do that please.

HSY: Just try to remember.

HSY: In our world, I made a conscious choice not to trust you.

HSY: Frankly, I stand by it.

HSY: If you’ll really accept this reality so easily, I don’t have a use for you.

She got left on read. She and Yoo Joonghyuk headed out for the school.

***

You can’t go back to a normal life, after a haunting.

It wasn’t like Jung Heewon hadn’t tried. For a while, she had even felt pretty good about it. The ghost had sucked light and colour from her whole life, compounding and feeding on her misery. Getting back to living freely without its influence should have been a great relief.

Instead, she found herself jumpy and depressed. The experience had left her with the ability to sense ghosts, and she now heard them everywhere… they lurked in dark apartment halls; they softly wept in backrooms and alleyways; they hovered with their hand on a living person’s shoulder.

She had crossed a threshold that she could never return from. Not in this world, anyway.

In this world…

… Okay, where was her brain today? She had somehow managed to cross the street, enter a building, and drop off her delivery on the front desk completely on autopilot.

She sighed, then grabbed her phone to mark the delivery as complete on her app. Han Sooyoung’s weird message still sat at the top of her screen.

What was with that woman today? Normally, they were in perfect agreement that, though compatible on some levels, it was best to leave each other to their own lives. They were ‘friends’ only in the loosest sense of the word; neither found it convenient to open up much to other people.

I made a conscious choice not to trust you. What was that about? It should only confuse her, yet the statement made her stomach turn with a peculiar kind of anger.

It was probably just the after-effects of not getting much sleep. She’d run a few more deliveries and then call it for the day.

Despite focusing on her work, the strange feeling in her gut only seemed to grow.

To make things worse, the final delivery on her list turned out to be an annoying one. The address didn’t show up properly on the GPS. She wasted ten minutes squinting at unit numbers on storefronts and trying to determine whether the address was indicating the main street or a smaller side street nearby.

Actually, yes, this gig was pretty terrible. The recipient of this order would probably give her a negative review for being late, and then she’d have to run several more deliveries in an attempt to inch the rating back up. The whole thing was a racket: she earned barely anything while the delivery app raked in all the cash.

… It didn’t match the address, but maybe it was this building? Jung Heewon stopped in front of a small, unremarkable storefront and frowned. Something about it was calling out to her.

The nameplate looked familiar, but the business name on it seemed incorrect. Try as she might, she couldn’t nail down the source of that familiarity.

You can’t go back to a normal life, but you can choose to help others in the same situation.

Someone had said that to her. A petite woman with long, blonde hair, the strongest person Jung Heewon knew.

The feeling of a sword in her hand. The ability to see a spirit or a ghost feeding on someone and to do something about it. To sever the connection long before it got as bad as her own haunting.

Heewon-ah, you’re extraordinarily talented. Would you consider continuing to work with me in the future? I believe we can help a lot of people.

It wasn’t Uriel’s encouragement alone that had helped her find a new purpose. Lee Hyunsung’s earnest reliability and deep kindness. Lee Seolhwa’s sharp judgement and boundless compassion. Before she knew it, she was surrounded by people she liked and liked to work with, even if their work was of the dangerous and underappreciated variety.

Jung Heewon’s grip on the bag of food she was delivering slipped. It fell to the pavement with a soft noise. That’s right—the outside of this storefront was supposed to say Uriel’s Angels.

Everything came back in a rush.

How could she forget? This version of her may have been free of the past, but it simply wasn’t the person she was anymore. She was Jung Heewon, spirit-hunter, and she had come here to rescue somebody important.

She looked at the messages on her phone again and, instead of feeling anxious, got angry instead.

Well… at least Han Sooyoung seemed to be maintaining her identity in this world, frustrating though that identity was.

Go get Yoo Sangah. Did that mean Yoo Sangah had also failed to remember herself in this reality?

Instantly concerned, Jung Heewon abandoned her delivery and started for Yoo Sangah’s workplace.

As she made her way over, she called the office on her cell and navigated to the correct extension that could get her passed to Yoo Sangah. Once connected, she simply said: “You want to know who you really are, right? Come talk to me outside.”

“I… have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the voice on the other end. But when Jung Heewon finally arrived, there Yoo Sangah was waiting for her.

There was no recognition in her eyes whatsoever. She watched Jung Heewon with a kind of mystified caution, like Jung Heewon was a completely foreign element she was nonetheless compelled to investigate.

Jung Heewon did her best not to come off as intimidating. “Sangah-ssi, hello. It seems you don’t recognize me.”

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Yoo Sangah said, “but you’re the second stranger I’ve met today who walked up to me and seemed to expect me to know them. What exactly is happening?”

“It’s difficult to explain.” Going over the situation word for word wasn’t going to help—it hadn’t gotten through to Jung Heewon when Han Sooyoung had tried it.  What had actually snapped her out of it wasn’t the facts, but being reminded of the person she really was. For Yoo Sangah…

Yoo Sangah blinked at Jung Heewon. “Is it a prank or something? I really need to get back to work…”

“It’s not a prank.” Jung Heewon took a breath. “Here’s who you really are: an intelligent and determined person who tends to take too much on her shoulders. You can be surprisingly stubborn, as well. I suppose I realized just how stubborn when you manipulated myself and Han Sooyoung into working on that apartment case.”

Yoo Sangah only blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“You did it because you have a strong belief in our capacity to work together. You are a more forgiving person than I am.” Ultimately, this might be useless. After all, the side of herself that Yoo Sangah showed to others… Jung Heewon always had the feeling it was only a tiny slice of her inner world. Maybe she wouldn’t identify at all with the picture Jung Heewon was painting. “You are able to evaluate what you want and find a way to make it happen. I admire that about you. Others’ shallow impressions of you based only on looks are worthless. You choose what you are.”

Something moved, then, in Yoo Sangah’s expression. “… Why do I feel like… I have heard those words before?”

Jung Heewon smiled. “I hope because I’ve told you. Try to remember.”

It took a few moments to click. Jung Heewon saw the exact moment the memories flooded back, like a light coming back into Yoo Sangah’s face.

Her hand leapt up to her mouth in surprise. “Oh… what have I been doing?”

“It’s okay. It took me a while to come back, too.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you with that. We… We crossed over here to help Dokja-ssi. I can’t believe I forgot.”

“As I said, it’s okay. It’s really good to see you back.”

At these words, Yoo Sangah let herself smile back. “Yes… I’m also glad to see you well, Heewon-ssi. It was a rough passage over.”

With Yoo Sangah back in action, Jung Heewon felt instantly better about their chances. Now that that the urgent matter was taken care of, however, other questions were taking priority.

Such as… What was this reality? And in the back of her mind, she faintly remembered something going wrong during the crossover… “Wait—isn’t Dokja-ssi here with you?”

A troubled look passed through Yoo Sangah’s face. “… No. In this reality, he doesn’t work here. I never met him.”

“I see. I hadn’t met him, either.” Already pulling out her phone to check the address where the others were waiting, Jung Heewon turned to leave. “I think something’s wrong. Let’s go find the others.”

***

The late afternoon sun was still burning bright and hot as they arrived at the school. Han Sooyoung stepped out of the car and squinted up at the building, blocking the worst of the glare with her wrist.

“Don’t we need a cover story for why we’re here?” she asked Yoo Joonghyuk belatedly as he unfolded from the passenger seat. “Are we picking up our kid?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, come on, don’t be stubborn. It has to be something.” After what she had just learned about herself, needling him was a bit like picking at an open scab, but Han Sooyoung still couldn’t stop herself. “You’re just going to walk around school property with that scary face?”

The scary face turned to her, but she only smiled at it. “I’m just stating facts.”

“I pick Mia up from school without incident.”

“Well, Mia’s not here, is she?”

They walked and continued arguing. Even from a distance, Han Sooyoung could pick out the exact third-floor window that had been described in the ghost story. There was a tree outside of it now, planted where there hadn’t been one to catch his fall before. Even without a tree, the drop hadn’t necessarily been enough to kill a person. According to the news story, he had just… hit the ground wrong.

And standing beside the tree, gazing up at the window, was the small figure of Shin Yoosung.

Suddenly, the memories slammed back. Han Sooyoung remembered what had gone wrong during their crossover.

Her projection had been giving them her explanation. They had been about to cross through the rift and into the other reality.

And, then…

A bunch of little brats had burst inside the passageway, too.

Han Sooyoung closed the remaining distance in an instant, forgetting all about the cover story and just running across the field.

“You!” she exclaimed. Shin Yoosung’s head whipped back toward her. “Hey—I seriously can’t believe you invited yourself on this little excursion. You destabilized everything!”

This, Han Sooyoung belatedly realized, was why everyone was having such trouble holding onto their memories. With the sudden addition of four additional people, the spirit world distortion had rapidly begun to collapse. Her projection had shouted: this is going to be rougher than I had planned!

Searing light had consumed everyone, and then… she had woken up in this awful reality.

Shin Yoosung avoided Han Sooyoung’s eyes. “Okay. It wasn’t our smartest move, I can admit that.”

At least the kid still had her memories, but seriously. “Didn’t you think about how dangerous this was? Because of you, half the party can’t even remember why they’re here.”

“I know. I just… we couldn’t bear to be left behind.”

Yoo Joonghyuk, having caught up to them without much effort, had an expression that was moving through some fascinating shapes. “… Mia passed through to this reality, too.”

“… It was her idea, actually,” Shin Yoosung said sheepishly. “She insisted she couldn’t let you go alone, so…”

“I spoke to her already. I assumed she was this reality’s version of Mia.” Yoo Joonghyuk scowled and turned around. “I must go get her. Han Sooyoung, I leave this to you.”

Han Sooyoung couldn’t help but stare a little as his back receded into the distance. Not like she cared at all what he thought about her, but… despite it all, he still trusted her to find Kim Dokja. He’d even used her name, bringing his mode of address towards her down to “generally rude" from “unbelievably rude asshole”.

… Well. They had work to do.

“So,” Han Sooyoung sighed, turning back to Shin Yoosung. “What is the situation?”

Shin Yoosung had returned to staring at the window. She seemed to know what Han Sooyoung was here for, but… “He’s not here.”

“… He must be,” Han Sooyoung said, somewhat weakly. It was her only lead. “How can you say it with such confidence?”

“I can sense ghosts, remember?”

“Spirit related powers don’t work in this reality.”

“Even so… I already snuck up to the classroom and looked around inside. If there really was a fragment, I would be able to sense it, or see it. But there’s nothing. I think the ghost story really was just a story.”

“Damn,” Han Sooyoung muttered. “Maybe because it’s daytime? If he’s a ghost, night would be better. We could try waiting.”

“… Maybe.” Shin Yoosung, though, did not look convinced.

“That won’t work,” someone said behind her. “Day or night, he’s not here.”

Han Sooyoung nearly leapt out of her skin. She’d been so focused on Shin Yoosung and the ghost that she hadn’t heard two people walking across the field and nearly right up to her: Jung Heewon and Yoo Sangah.

Yoo Sangah offered her a little smile, while Jung Heewon simply looked annoyed.

… Ah. She had sent a text saying something a bit rude. Not to mention the fact that they had woken up in bed together this morning.

Still, it was good to know something had gotten through. “So, your memories came back? I no longer sound like I’m talking nonsense to you?”

“My apologies for not recognizing you earlier, Sooyoung-ssi,” Yoo Sangah said, sounding sincerely regretful.

Jung Heewon opened her mouth to add something, though her expression changed to one of alarm when she fully registered Shin Yoosung standing there in front of them. “… Wait a second. How did you get here? Are you the Shin Yoosung from our reality?”

Han Sooyoung explained, to the best of her ability, what she remembered happening.

Recollection gradually crept back into their faces. “That’s right,” Yoo Sangah said. “Four additional people suddenly tried to enter the distortion. It must have been yourself, Lee Gilyoung, Lee Jihye, and Yoo Mia.”

Shin Yoosung nodded, again sheepish. “That’s right.”

“But where are the others now?”

“Only I seem to have kept all my memories,” Shin Yoosung continued. “I did speak to Lee Gilyoung briefly, but… I couldn’t get him to remember. So, I decided to try and track down Dokja ahjussi on my own, hoping he could help. I heard some rumours that took me here.”

“There’s a trick to getting them to remember,” Jung Heewon said. “I think it’s about, well… if you have a strong self-image. If you feel you know who it is you are, and if you want to be that person.”

Han Sooyoung frowned, looking closer at Jung Heewon’s face. If that was true, was Jung Heewon really the type of person who could be said to have a weak self-image? That seemed so inaccurate.

“I see,” Shin Yoosung said hesitantly. “So, they would have to be reminded of who they are? Or of the way they see themselves?”

“I believe so. That’s what seemed to work on us, anyway.”

For a brief few minutes, they rapidly hammered out logistics. They would need to go out and track down the others who had ended up in this reality, then resume their concerted effort to find the fragments of Kim Dokja. Yoo Sangah and Shin Yoosung headed off to retrieve Lee Gilyoung first.

Han Sooyoung was agonizing about whether she should leave or try to investigate the ghost story more closely when she realized that Jung Heewon had not left with the other two. She was staring straight at Han Sooyoung, though her normally confident gaze slid away when Han Sooyoung looked back.

“… So. You don’t have a ‘use’ for me?” Jung Heewon said, shaking her phone and the offending text message within.

“… I was trying to snap you out of it.”

“Right.”

Han Sooyoung suddenly felt uncharacteristically self-conscious. “Hey, you don’t actually remember what these versions of us were up to last night, do you?”

Seeing her face, Jung Heewon only laughed. “Once my real memories came back, the ones of this life started to fade. Rest assured. I know well enough how you feel about me.”

Han Sooyoung hesitated. “And how… is that?”

“You consider me unreliable,” Jung Heewon shrugged. “Not worth your time. I think this world’s version of you had similar feelings, though apparently a very different way of expressing it.”

“Okay, that’s not it.” Han Sooyoung scowled. “My problem with you is that you’re actually too reliable. You really care about other people and about doing the right thing. It’s inconvenient.”

“Since we’re being so honest,” Jung Heewon said, “My problem with you is that you’ll disregard everyone else’s safety if you can get what it is you want. Your original plan—what was it, exactly?”

Han Sooyoung didn’t break Jung Heewon’s gaze. “I assumed I’d have to restart the time loop.”

“So, to be clear, you would have put the entire world back in that situation, just to find out what happened to Kim Dokja’s memories?”

“Yes. I would.”

Jung Heewon let out a sigh. “That’s a completely unacceptable risk.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“But…” Jung Heewon hesitated. “I have to admit that we only came this far because of you.”

Han Sooyoung blinked. “Wait, really?”

“If it were only up to me, I worry I’d never have realized how severe it was. That there was a whole part of him missing. Even if I noticed on some level, I might have just… tried to pretend it was okay.” Jung Heewon glanced pensively at the window and then back towards Han Sooyoung. “So… for driving us this far, I suppose I should say thank you. Without you, we would not have known to look for him.”

“You can’t thank me,” Han Sooyoung said immediately. “You’re the one who decided to come with us into the time loop, even though I hid everything from you. So, really…”

They stood and looked at each other for a long moment.

“Why don’t we make an agreement?” Jung Heewon said abruptly. “Accept my help when it’s offered, rather than insisting on making yourself the villain. In turn, I’ll hear out your ideas without judgement.”

Could Han Sooyoung really trust Jung Heewon, when it came down to it?

Well, Jung Heewon had had the chance, when Han Sooyoung revealed that they would need to cross realities to enter the loop, to shut the whole thing down. She could have refused to go, convinced Yoo Sangah it wouldn’t work, and sabotaged the whole thing. She also could have completely divorced herself from it. You left me out, so I’m not coming. This is your problem to deal with.

And instead, Jung Heewon had accepted that she would be thrown into a situation she had not been able to prepare for. She had simply said: I’ll go.

“Um… fine,” Han Sooyoung said. “Yeah. We’ll give it a try. I… could have stood to try relying on you.”

A mischievous light appeared in Jung Heewon’s eye. “… As long as it’s not too awkward knowing these versions of ourselves were so compatible.”

Han Sooyoung did her absolute best not to blush. “If you’re going to keep bringing that up, the agreement’s off.”

Jung Heewon smiled. She really was beautiful, especially when the weight of that frustrated anger had lifted somewhat from her brow. Maybe Han Sooyoung, too, was feeling an anxiety of her own start to ease.

Maybe things could be okay between them. If not like it used to be, then maybe it could be something new.

“So,” Jung Heewon said after a few moments had passed. “Both you and Shin Yoosung came to this school, chasing that ghost story.”

Han Sooyoung felt her stomach swoop as her focus returned to the matter at hand. “It seemed like the best bet we had.”

“I understand the thought process, but this isn’t the place he would haunt.”

Han Sooyoung looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“A ghost sticks to the site of its greatest trauma,” Jung Heewon said. Her hand drifted towards her hip where a sword had once hung, but then fell at rest. “A ghost like him, especially. It can’t go anywhere else.”

Of course. “You mean… that incident?”

“The apartment he lived in as a child,” Jung Heewon nodded. “It would have to be. If you’re right that these fragments exist in this world like a ghost does, then that’s where they’ll be.”

“You could be right. Shit, I don’t know where exactly that is, though. I can try to get the information out of his mother, but…”

“That’s okay. I know where it is.”

Apparently, it was only by coincidence. Jung Heewon and Kim Dokja had happened to be passing through the same suburb and, when Jung Heewon noticed he seemed oddly spooked, he waved off her questions by pointing out the building in the distance. I haven’t been back here since, so it’s weird to see, that’s all.

Still, it was the coincidence that was going to let them save him. Just a tiny glimpse into his personal world that he’d accidentally let someone else see. With that tiny glimpse, they’d track him down and fix the terrible mess that had begun with that time loop.

It was evening by the time everyone had regained all their memories, met back up, and prepared for their next task. Jung Heewon led the way to the building. A sign hung at the front entrance warned of private property: the building was no longer inhabited, evidently due to planned renovations, though the state of disrepair suggested that it had been awaiting these renovations for some time.

Han Sooyoung was concerned that they would not be able to find the exact unit, but to her surprise, it was impossible to miss.

Hauntings were known to cause temperature fluctuations. She had brought a thermometer for that purpose, but it turned out she didn’t need it—the fluctuations were so severe they could be felt on the skin. The whole complex was unseasonably cold, but their surroundings grew colder and colder as they neared one apartment that was actually dusted with frost.

There was an undeniable pressure emanating from behind that door. Han Sooyoung exchanged looks with the others.

That pressure should not exist in this world.

The door was locked, and then it was swinging on its hinges courtesy of Yoo Joonghyuk. He was the first to storm inside. Han Sooyoung barged in right on his tail, a flashlight directed over his shoulder.

The apartment was empty. It had been cleared of all furniture and valuables, so only blank walls and floors looked back at them. As Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung moved deeper inside, the others crept in after them, lights popping up from phone flashlights to scan over the empty space.

“We’ll have to check each room,” Jung Heewon said. Her voice sounded oddly muted, like the air was full of cotton. “Nobody move alone. Everyone has a buddy.”

Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk, already moving together at a faintly frantic pace, quickly went through the kitchenette and found themselves in a small hallway at the back of the house. It seemed to lead to two bedrooms and the bathroom.

Despite the number of flashlight beams now darting around the small apartment, the darkness remained deep. It seemed to eat up any ambient glow.

“Do you sense anything?” Han Sooyoung whispered.

Yoo Joonghyuk looked back at her and was about to speak when his eyes suddenly widened, focused on a point over her shoulder. Han Sooyoung whipped around.

She could see it, too: a shadow danced in the corner of one of the bedrooms. The small, slim figure of a boy flickered lightly back and forth as if emitting from a projector. It appeared to be facing away.

They both moved at once towards that shadow. Their feet crossed the threshold of the bedroom at the same instant, in lockstep.

The shadow turned around. Darkness exploded out from it in all directions, covering the water-damaged walls and completely erasing the human figure at its center. In an instant, all trace of light was devoured.

The haunting consumed them.

***

The two of you came here because you hoped to find something.

You had a plan, I think. The idea was to enter back into that thing called the “Endless Cycle”. The Endless Cycle was itself a spirit world distortion, and so, it would have a core. I think you wanted to re-enter the Cycle, breach that core, and face off against the Cycle’s avatar, thus reclaiming your precious thing.

… Whatever it is about that thing you think you value.

But there’s a problem.

You made an assumption that simply wasn’t true. That’s why your mission here will not succeed, and I’ll put an end to it before the situation gets any more unstable.

Your assumption: that you must face the avatar of the Cycle in order to save the thing you value.

The thing is, that person called Nirvana is no longer the avatar of the Endless Cycle.

Actually… the current avatar of the Endless Cycle is “me”.

Chapter Text

Let me tell you a ghost story.

There was a boy who lived in a world where he couldn’t connect with others. No one needed him and he needed no one. He carried his confusion and hate and anger crushed so small in his chest—so unobtrusive that even he didn’t notice it.

He grew into the type of man who didn’t know how to do anything but watch the world go by. Like the ghosts he heard in the walls and shadows, he was a being that could observe but not affect the world around him. He could only assuage the pain of that lonesome existence through fiction.

While others invested time in their loved ones, their careers, or in developing useful skills, this man had obsessively read a certain genre of novel.

What a gift, then, that when he was caught up in a time-warping spirit world distortion, it happened to follow the arcs of those novels exactly.

In the world of the loop, things were different. He could play the part of protagonist rather than invisible bystander. Not only could he affect the world, he could do so with confidence and power. Others looked at him with fear, awe, and even trust.

In such a world, he could even let himself fall in love.

Isn’t that sad?

But there was a purpose to the power he gathered. It was to end the loop and return to real time. Nothing would stop this man from achieving this goal… on two counts, he was desperate to reach the end of the story. To set one person he loved free, and to find the other, who was missing.

I told myself that these were my only goals. In chasing them, I finally made my way to the core of the Endless Cycle itself.

There, I finally found my missing companion.

She looked exactly the same as I had last seen her so long ago—it had been over ten years in experienced time, though not even a day had actually passed for either of us. The outer core looked like a white-walled room, and in that room was a single desk where she was slumped over, dead asleep.

I quickly moved to her side and shook her shoulder.

“It’s no use,” someone said. “She’s been asleep for years at this point.”

I looked up and saw a second Han Sooyoung floating there.

The surface of her body was ghostly and misty-white. She looked down on me with an expression of frayed exhaustion, though her voice, identical to that of my Han Sooyoung’s, was steady.

“Then who are you?” I asked.

“Only a subconscious projection,” the floating person said. “It doesn’t matter. More importantly—we don’t have much time to speak. If the avatar sees you…”

I waved my hand dismissively. “The avatar seeing me is the point, actually.”

Han Sooyoung’s body (your body) looked wan and exhausted slumped over the desk. Absently, I repositioned her arm so that her face wasn’t pressed right against the hard surface, then dropped my coat over her shoulders.

(This, then, explained why the loop was designed so closely after your writing. The loop’s master was using you for that purpose.)

The projection’s expression hardened. “You’re going to get yourself killed. They really don’t like you.”

“I can hold my own,” I assured her. Speaking to a ghostly Han Sooyoung that was apparently not her ‘conscious’ self was disconcerting, but I was secretly so grateful to see her at all that I felt I could accept it. At least she was alive. “Can you point me in the avatar’s direction? I’ll end the loop so we can all escape this nightmare.”

“Where is Yoo Joonghyuk?” she asked.

“What, do I have to take that guy everywhere? This is a personal matter.” I peered past her and saw that there was a door at the back of the room, left slightly ajar. A cold, bright light was pouring out from the gap. “I assume the avatar is that way. Excuse me.”

“Kim Dokja.” The projection floated down to block my way. The edges of her body were torn and ragged—it didn’t seem like it was easy for her to move around. “What are you planning?”

“I’m going to negotiate,” I told her.

“You can’t. There is no longer a way to end the loop through normal means. That wasn’t what I…”

“You called me here, didn’t you?” I said. “You kept sending the same spirit in for five loops, the one from Within the Silence that created secret pathways to its distortion core. Then the spirits you sent after that revealed the pathways.”

“Because I wanted to exchange notes,” said the projection. “I wanted to show you the true nature of this spirit world distortion. With both of our knowledge…”

“You look a bit worn down, Han Sooyoung, so why don’t you rest? I’ll take it from here.”

“Kim Dokja—” she snapped at me, but I turned away. As I passed through the door behind her, sheepishly waving goodbye, she jerked to a sudden stop before its threshold—unwilling, or unable, to follow.

To be honest, I was not sure what I would find in the core of the spirit world distortion, but I hadn’t been expecting a library.

Bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling, extending in recursive patterns as far as the eye could see. The further I looked, the more twisted gravity and space became—floors spiralling into ceilings, shelves overlapping with one another. A wave of vertigo prevented me from looking too deep out into the stacks.

There was, in any case, something close by to focus my attention on. Near what would have been the library’s entrance, floating cross-legged over a decorative wooden desk, was a human figure. Their eyes were closed, as if meditating, and an enormous mandala made of light turned slowly behind their head.

To this figure, I said, “So, you’re the spirit responsible for this loop?”

They opened their eyes and looked down on me. For a moment, their expression was gentle and beatific. Then, they seemed to recognize me.

“Oh,” said the floating spirit, nose wrinkling in disgust. “It’s you.”

“…Why say it like that?” I protested somewhat weakly. It hadn’t been easy to get in here, and the spirit was immediately insulting me? I had not expected the all-powerful originator of this time loop to have this kind of personality.

The being in front of me sighed, then dropped down out of their floating position to stand in front of me. They moved with an otherworldly grace, though their face, caught in an annoyed expression, made them look very human. Strange, for the avatar of such a powerful spirit. “Well. What do you want, then?”

“What do you think I want?” I regained my resolve, staring down the person in front of me. “I want this loop to end. Tell me how, or I’ll start by testing the theory that it can be resolved with your death.”

The more I talked, the less impressed the avatar looked. “If that was your plan, you could have at least brought Joonghyuk.”

The familiar way with which they said Yoo Joonghyuk’s name skeeved me out. “You talk like you know him, but aren’t you just someone who trapped him in this loop?”

“Yes and no,” the avatar said, face blank.

I gripped my spirit-hunter’s blade. “I’d appreciate a more detailed explanation.”

“I’m sure you would,” the spirit sighed, casually leaning back on the desk behind them. They didn’t seem even marginally threatened. “Well, whatever, it’s not like either of us have anything better to do. It might do me good to vent a bit of frustration. My name is Nirvana—and I am the avatar of the Endless Cycle.”

Nirvana explained to me, while admittedly skimming over a lot of details, what the Endless Cycle was and how they, as the avatar, fit into the picture.

It matched up pretty well with the information I had already gathered. I knew that whatever spirit could create a distortion like this—something that was less of a manipulation and more of an entire spirit world unto itself—would be something of unfathomable strength.

But to think it had an avatar who used to be a human being…

“You should be thankful that someone like me is the avatar,” Nirvana informed me. “I’ve made huge improvements to how the time loop operates since I took over.”

“Improvements,” I repeated doubtfully.

“Yes. When I was in the Cycle…” Their eyes grew distant for a moment. “Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I consider the length of time that you and Joonghyuk have been trapped in here to be rather trivial. The number of lives I have lived would humble you.”

“How is this loop so different?” I asked. “Yoo Joonghyuk…”

“Oh, don’t talk to me about Yoo Joonghyuk,” Nirvana snapped. “This was all for him, you know. For his benefit.”

“You’re deluding yourself if you think that’s true.”

“Truly, I mean it.” Nirvana opened both hands as the mandala behind their head spun. “Throughout my many lives, I realized the true purpose of a time loop like this. It isn’t just meaningless repetition… it helps people. It teaches them about themselves. It takes a soul that is full of potential and, through adversity, it refines that soul.”

“It erased his will to live.”

“It erased his attachments to the world,” Nirvana shrugged. “He isn’t the first to go through this loop, you know. I’ve worked hard to develop my strategy. But he is… well, he had the most potential of anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s truly the Cycle’s finest work. A soul like the fine silver edge of a blade.”

“And you believe you have the right to claim ownership over that, I see.”

“Oh, and you do?” Nirvana said, dismissive. “All you are is a distraction. I don’t know what he sees in you, it’s so annoying.”

“So, what,” I said, “you’re doing this to him because you want to help him? Because you decided he should fulfil some kind of cosmic potential?”

“I’m not doing anything to him,” Nirvana declared. “I can’t stop the Endless Cycle from creating loops. I can only affect who experiences the loops and how. I’ve made it into a positive force of enlightenment. And Joonghyuk… he’s the first I’ve ever found with the potential to join me here. To transcend the loop and become another avatar.”

I stared at the person before me. “So, you were lonely, and you decided to force him to join you.”

“Force,” Nirvana scoffed. “Of course not. The conditions I placed on the resolution of the loop were voluntary. Once Yoo Joonghyuk was able to let go of his attachments, once his soul was perfectly refined, the loop would end. He could then make a choice—to return to his original timeline, where he would now be a complete outsider, understood by no one… or to become an avatar.”

I had pieced a lot of things together over the years, but the motivation behind it all… I had not understood it before that moment.

“And he would have chosen, of course,” Nirvana continued, “to become one with the Eternal Cycle, and with me.”

“I really don’t think he would.”

“You don’t know anything about what he would have chosen,” Nirvana snapped. “It would have all gone perfectly, if only you hadn’t waltzed in and messed everything up! Because of you, we’re all trapped here—yourself, Joonghyuk, that annoying girl you passed on your way in, and me.”

“Why is it my fault? I didn’t ask to be here.”

Nirvana scowled. “It’s obvious that you’re not supposed to be here, though, isn’t it? You’re just supposed to be set dressing. A background element.”

“Evidently, that’s no longer true,” I said, shifting the weight of my sword.

“You broke the rules,” Nirvana continued, almost plaintive. “As the avatar, I don’t actually have the ability to control the Cycle’s power, you know. I can only direct it. Once the rules are in place… I can’t change them. No matter what I do.”

“What’s the problem, then? Surely Joonghyuk’s soul is ‘refined’ to your satisfaction by now. Just let him leave already.”

“The problem,” Nirvana hissed, “is that his soul isn’t the only one that’s being judged anymore. He is ready to go. He’s met the criteria for hundreds of loops. But you, being refined enough to meet the resolution criteria… it’s just not possible. The loop can’t end because of you.”

“… Why?” I asked, at a loss. After everything I’d been through in here, after all the ways I had changed. “Even after all this time?”

Nirvana’s gaze suddenly sharpened as they looked at me. A smile appeared. “Would you really like to know? I can show you in great detail.”

“Um—”

They raised their hand. The aura of white light surrounding their body twisted and morphed, forming indistinct shapes. Before I could even register what was happening, a tendril flashed out and gripped my wrist, twisting it until I dropped my sword.

I called on the wind, trying to extract myself from the avatar's grip with a burst of speed, but the aura tendril held fast. Another curled around my leg while I struggled.

“I have the power to peer into souls,” Nirvana told me as still more tendrils snaked around me. “I can strip away the artifice and tell you what it is you truly desire… what it is that prevents this loop from ever ending. You’re the one who asked. Don’t you want to know?”

I did want to know, but this method… “Can’t you just tell me in words like a normal person?”

“That’s no fun,” Nirvana said. All at once, the aura tendrils pierced into my body.

The sensation was paralyzing. Suddenly, my innermost thoughts were clearly exposed. There was no physical or mental resistance I could put up against a power like this.

“Ah,” Nirvana sighed, “Just as I thought. It’s a complete mess in here. You want to be special so very badly.”

Nirvana’s aura closed around that desire like a claw. I felt it clear and undeniable. Needy, like a child screaming: I want to be admired. I want to be loved. I want to be seen.

I cringed back from the pathetic honesty of that. “I don’t really… that’s not actually how I feel.”

Nirvana just laughed. “You can lie with the mouth, but not the soul, you know.”

Nirvana dug a little deeper. The traitorous desire continued to babble childishly. I want to be the hero. I want to be the smartest. I want to be the most powerful. Like in the stories. Like Yoo Joonghyuk.

The depth of my admiration for that guy was abjectly embarrassing. If it was just for him as my partner, as someone I loved and respected, that would be one thing. But seeing him trace the stories of the loop, defeating the spirits from those novels which had formed such a core of my being…

I was only in love with him because he was that hero I knew I could never be.

“That’s enough,” I muttered, thoroughly horrified. If he realized that this was how I really felt about him, he’d abandon me in an instant. There was nothing he hated more than the coercive dance of the loop’s “stories”.

“It’d be cute if it wasn’t so pathetic,” Nirvana said, cheerful. They seemed to be enjoying themself. “If you can’t accept this desire, there’s no path forward for you, you know. It’s all you. If you could admit that, we might actually have a chance of getting out of here.”

I just shook my head. Even now I was poised to push all of this back to the depths of my mind the instant Nirvana let go. Looking at it directly was excruciating.

The last time anyone had ever even brushed against these desires, it was Han Sooyoung. We had had undeniable feelings for each other. Even now, I didn’t think those had really gone away. But the instant she had gotten too close to this, the instant she caught even a glimpse of that wailing inner child, I had to shut her out completely. I had to make her realize that a bit of distance was necessary between us.

Otherwise, she’d probably leave, too.

“Ah, well,” Nirvana said, dropping the desire like a boring toy. Back it went into my subconscious where I could bury it. I felt a rush of relief. “You get it, right? If Yoo Joonghyuk’s soul is refined silver, yours is… I don’t know. A plastic cosplay sword? You can’t improve on something like that.”

“You’re saying this part of me is what’s stopping the loop from ending?” I asked.

“Exactly.” Nirvana released the aura tendrils and I slumped to the library floor, limbs weak. “The nail in all our coffins is that the time loop lets you soothe all those pathetic desires without ever resolving them. You can’t escape because you don’t actually want to. You love the loop.”

Nirvana let their words hang in silence as I climbed unsteadily back to my feet. A sick, helpless anger turned in my gut.

“Of course I don’t love it,” I managed to say. “My whole purpose in living has been to escape this damn loop.”

“That’s what you tell yourself,” Nirvana said, “but I think I’ve made the truth quite clear. Deep down, you love the Endless Cycle and—to be honest—it also loves people like you, people who repeat their own mistakes forever. You can’t leave because you don’t want to. And so: we are in stalemate.”

I thought it might be something like this.

There was, after all, a reason that I had come here alone.

You love the loop.

Maybe I did, but that didn’t mean I could just let it continue forever.

“There is a way for the loop to end,” I said.

“Not anymore. I even tried to kill you for good by lending my powers to that soul-eater, but it didn’t stick,” Nirvana sighed. “If you’ve got any bright ideas, I’m listening.”

“Brute force.”

“Not that I find caving your head in disagreeable, but you’ll just revive again when the loop restarts.”

“No… brute force the soul refinement. Shouldn’t that be in your power?”

Nirvana looked at me critically. “That’s not really how it works.”

“Would the Endless Cycle really understand the difference?” I said. “Sorry, but I think your rules for what counts as a ‘refined’ soul are based on your own personal bias. I think you could create the exact same result just by ripping out all the parts that don’t meet your criteria.”

“Just ripping them out,” Nirvana repeated, looming a little closer to me. “I hadn’t considered that. It would, at the very least, be entertaining.”

Our souls apparently could not be destroyed, but we knew from experience that they could be altered. If Nirvana had the ability to drag out that desire so easily, surely they could take it a step further and slice it right out. Especially if I put up no resistance.

It would work, I was sure of it.

“If I did that, there would be no way to go back,” Nirvana mused. “The loop would end naturally if you were able to accept your desires and move on. I said it was impossible, but if there’s even the tiniest sliver of a chance you could manage that, be it now or in a hundred years…”

“No, there’s no chance. We’ll have to do it my way.”

“Hm.” The aura tendrils reappeared. They didn’t bother to hold me in place, just aimed at my heart and waited. “Well, there is one other thing. Identifying a desire and excising it are two pretty different things. There’s no clean way to only take the desire and nothing else, especially with you, when your whole everything is so tangled together with it.”

I looked at the tendrils with apprehension. “So, what else would be taken out?”

“Nothing you’ll really miss. Bits and pieces. Passions, favourites, old trauma. And the memories of everything that’s happened in this loop… Those will have to go, as well.”

“No.” I stepped back before I realized it. “That means my memories of Joonghyuk…”

“Look, if you want to do this, it’s non-negotiable,” Nirvana sighed. “It’s all knotted together in there. I rip your heart out, all those memories are coming with it.”

It shouldn’t matter—I was doing this for his benefit, after all—but I felt like there was no way I could carry on without those memories. “You need to let me keep at least a small piece.”

Nirvana just shook their head. “If you want to get out of here, I can’t let you keep a single shred. That’s just how it is.”

“You’re really taking to this idea quickly.”

“It’s an interesting one,” Nirvana said with a cold light in their eyes. “Even if it fails, I at least get the satisfaction of tearing out all the bits of you I find the most annoying. That will keep me going for a bit, even if the loop never ends.”

“And what exactly are you going to do with those pieces?” I asked. I’d be happy for the desire itself to be destroyed, but those memories…

“I’ll feed them to the Endless Cycle,” Nirvana shrugged. “I doubt they’ll retain any sense of consciousness, if that’s any comfort. Just spirit food. They’ll be devoured.”

But… Nirvana was wrong.

I convinced them to let me have the rest of the loop to get my affairs in order. I had time to leave a few instructions with Yoo Sangah and give Yoo Joonghyuk a task that would keep him too far away to interfere. Once the time had come, I returned to the core.

Han Sooyoung tried to stop me again, but I told her: Don’t worry. I cut a deal that will end this. See you on the other side.

Nirvana ripped out all the parts of my soul they had promised to. The fragments collected in their hands in a ragged clump, dark and unpleasant and disgusting.

What was in there? It was the trauma experienced in childhood of growing up with an abusive father. It was the murder and growing up with the judgement that resulted from it. It was a miserable time in the army, of moving from shitty job to shitty job, working under abusive bosses and not making enough money to get by.

It was a self who ended up in a time loop and suddenly felt alive. To live in a world without a future, without consequences, was this self’s greatest dream. Everyone else could die suffering as long as this self was safe in a world where his knowledge of made-up stories made him a hero.

There were other pieces in there, too. Either Nirvana was indelicate, or the pieces were all stuck too close together to separate. The book series that had gotten me through so much of the difficult times. How often I had imagined myself living in the world of those pages. The brightest spots in my life, the closest friendships. All of it was clutched briefly in Nirvana’s hands, then thrown away like garbage into the core of the Endless Cycle.

But those pieces weren’t consumed in the way Nirvana expected.

While Kim Dokja was able to escape the loop and return to his life, the pieces that Nirvana had torn out of him became “me”.

Joonghyuk—you once asked ‘why’ the Endless Cycle creates loops. The surface-level answer Han Sooyoung gave you was accurate. It is a force without ego, a self-sustaining system.

On a deeper level, though, the Endless Cycle has a need. I could never describe this need in simple words… it is all-consuming, incomprehensible, as fundamental to it as atoms are to us.

But if I could choose a word that even brushed against that need, it would be “loneliness.” Its perpetual loop is not like a need for food or water, but rather…

Stay forever. Don’t leave. Don’t change. Never leave.

Never end the story.

It is something like that.

The Endless Cycle accepted me as its avatar. It was Nirvana who was consumed instead in the burst of power that followed. The shreds of Nirvana’s soul were tucked away within the Cycle, like a piece of my subconscious: freed from their role as avatar, but fated to never leave.

Gone is any shred of me that once wanted to escape this loop. This self is all the worst, most unpleasant pieces of Kim Dokja. The pieces that were in pain and suffered. The pieces that hated the world and hated living in it. The pieces that had once tried to die, to find an end to the pain of being so thoroughly misunderstood.

I am not Kim Dokja—I am only his ghost.

And so, in order to finally reach the end of this story, I ask: give up on me.

Before I have to make this even harder on all three of us…

Please, please, both of you. Just give up.

***

Yoo Joonghyuk lurched forward, as if to catch something, then stopped.

Where… was he?

They had been in that apartment. Han Sooyoung had been right at his elbow, and they had both seen… something. Though it had only been moments ago, the memory was indistinct in his recollection, almost dreamlike.

Now, Yoo Joonghyuk was in a library.

A pockmarked wooden floor was under his feet, worn down from what looked like years of heavy foot traffic. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stretched ahead in a narrow corridor as far as the eye could see. Like the floor, they were in a state of disrepair. Many of the shelves had fallen loose, hanging by only a nail or two. The books were mildewed and worn to shreds.

He was alone.

Instinctively, he reached for a sword at his side. He knew it wasn’t there—he wasn’t a spirit-hunter in this reality, after all—but to his surprise, his hand found the hilt. A familiar one, at that.

He drew it to confirm. As he thought—it was not the sword he had acquired after escaping the time loop, when he had been recruited by Han Sooyoung. This was the stolen blade he had used in the time loop itself, his companion for thousands of fights. He also appeared to be wearing his black coat, not the blue T-shirt which had been the choice of his other reality’s self.

He sheathed the blade and looked around. The library was dead silent, and so dimly lit that he could not see further than a few meters in front of him. A pressure radiated from above, like hands pressing down.

The impenetrable darkness seemed to say: leave, leave, leave, leave.

“Kim Dokja,” he said experimentally.

The pressure neither increased nor decreased. Still, that fool must be in here somewhere. Yoo Joonghyuk had not crossed realities simply to be met with an empty library.

He moved ahead.

The corridor twisted, branched, and curved in impossible directions, seeming to double back on itself in configurations that defied physics. The faster he walked, the less progress he seemed to make. When he realized that his abilities had returned, he tried to dash ahead in a burst of red light—but the increased pace gained him nothing. There was nowhere to go but the same twisting corridor.

Annoyed, he stopped, then placed a hand on the nearest shelf. The wood was slightly too soft, like it was decaying from the inside. He took a moment to focus his senses.

Even the shelf itself felt hostile, that same litany of leave, leave, leave emanating from the rotting wood. Luckily, there was an incredibly slight gradation in the intensity of that hostile energy. He should be able to follow it to where it was stronger—likely to the core of this haunting. His destination was not further down the endless corridor, but rather…

Yoo Joonghyuk turned and smashed through the shelf shoulder-first.

After breaking through a few more shelves, his surroundings opened up. Now, the bookshelves formed the walls of cramped rooms, scattered with broken furniture. As he passed by a worn-down chair, Yoo Joonghyuk thought he spotted, from the corner of his eye, someone sitting in it.

He immediately turned around. What he’d glimpsed, however, was not a human being.

A disembodied shadow was bent over a book in its hands, flipping through the pages with jerky, flickering motions. Its movements seemed to play on a repeating loop. Once it reached the end of the book, the image glitched back to the beginning, then started to flip through again.

Yoo Joonghyuk approached the shadow with caution, a hand on the hilt of his sword. The energy emanating from the shadow was strong, but not as strong as it should be from a manifestation. This was like an imprint, or an echo.

Still, he would recognize that shadow anywhere.

He reached for it. Before his fingertip could even brush the shadow’s wrist, the apparition evaporated. Yoo Joonghyuk was left in front of an empty, caved-in chair.

“What game is this,” he growled under his breath. The haunting did not, or could not, respond. It only continued to push at him: Leave, leave, leave.

Another flash of movement came from the corner of his eye. He whirled, instinctively drawing his blade.

His sword was met with an opposing flash of silver and an indignant cry. “What the hell! Yoo Joonghyuk!”

It was Han Sooyoung, dagger held to block her face. Yoo Joonghyuk reluctantly dropped his blade.

“Honestly.” Han Sooyoung put away her own weapon, looking a bit frazzled. She, too, must have been making her way alone through this strange library. “Well, at least you’re in here, too. Have you found any traces of him yet?”

“I’m not sure.” He glanced at the chair again, but it was still empty. “This haunting… it is hostile. It does not want us here.”

“Well, too bad,” Han Sooyoung said. “If he wants us gone, he’s going to have to come out and use his actual words. If he can tell me to my face he wants to stay here, I’ll tell him he’s a liar.”

“So, you think the fragment is capable of speaking with us.”

Han Sooyoung hesitated. “… Maybe. Maybe not.”

For a moment, they looked at each other.

“Thank god you’re in black again,” Han Sooyoung said abruptly. “The blue was getting on my nerves.”

“… Why does it matter to you what I wear?”

“What, you don’t care about your own self-image? You must, or you’d just wear whatever. The all-black thing is a deliberate choice. To look cool. I’m just saying, for your future reference: blue’s not your color.”

He turned away to keep walking, following the energy. Han Sooyoung quickly followed.

They had passed through two more rooms, moving in silence, when Han Sooyoung suddenly hissed: “There!”

Another shadow was kneeling in front of a nearby bookshelf. Its hand was outstretched as if it were sorting the books arrayed there, though the bindings its hand was passing over were half-decayed. The shadow passed its hand over the whole row, glitched back to its starting position, and then began again.

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung said, moving towards the shadow. “Kim Dokja.”

Yoo Joonghyuk just stood back and watched. Just as had been the case with him, the shadow evaporated the very moment Han Sooyoung got close enough to touch it.

“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath. After a moment, she reached towards the books the shadow had been perusing. “The hell were you reading…?”

The instant she made contact with the broken spines, her whole body jolted. Yoo Joonghyuk quickly rushed to her side, ready to draw his sword again, but she slapped him away.

“I’m fine. Back off. What, are you going to fight a book?” As she straightened up, though, her face was pale. “Hey… you’re probably going to want to see what happens when you touch it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his eyes, but Han Sooyoung only let out an impatient sigh. “It didn’t hurt me or anything, it just startled the hell out of me. You’ll see.”

Still suspicious, he nonetheless reached out to brush the corner of some peeling bindery.

28.L195.15

“I worked at a game company. It was nothing interesting,” I said, forcing the words through laboured breath. Yoo Joonghyuk was propped against the wall a short distance away, blood coating the side of his face. “You?”

His voice was faint. “Professional gamer.”

“What?” I immediately choked on blood as I started laughing. I groped shakily for my phone, even though it was lying cracked on the ground nearby. Maybe it still worked. “I need photographic evidence of this. What game?”

“I don’t see why you find it so amusing,” Yoo Joonghyuk growled, a little more life coming back into his eyes.

“It’s just surprising! You can barely operate a cell phone, and you were a pro gamer?”

“I can operate a cell phone.”

A sickening pain suddenly ripped through my chest, transforming my breathing into something absolutely grisly. “Oh, fuck, I think I punctured a lung,” I wheezed. “Guess I’m going first this time.”

Professional gamer! I had to see it. I bet he was popular. With that personality, though…? I kept snickering stupidly even as I died. “I didn’t expect that at all… I need to look up a video… next time…”

Yoo Joonghyuk ripped his hand off the book, gasping for air. The terrible pressure of the chest wound vanished.

That was… a memory. Kim Dokja’s memory, of him.

In the place where he’d touched it, the book crumbled even further, shreds of the leather bindery falling away.

Yoo Joonghyuk looked around at the decaying library with a sudden sense of dread.

Han Sooyoung immediately touched another book. Her eyes briefly went blank. “It’s… all of these are his memories.”

“Stop touching them,” Yoo Joonghyuk warned, watching more dust crumble in the wake of her hand. “They’re falling apart.”

“But why?” she demanded, taking a step back. “Is this… whole library the Kim Dokja fragment we were looking for? If that’s true, then why is it falling apart?”

“It may have been a long time. A very long time.”

“But it’s only been five months.”

Despite her protests, Yoo Joonghyuk could see that she understood. It had been five months for them, living in the real world, but what could time really mean in a place like this? The shadows seemed to show a version of Kim Dokja reading books that were intact. If the library had been intact at one time, and had since fallen into such extensive disrepair…

“I hate this. Let’s go to the core,” Han Sooyoung said abruptly. “That’s where you’re taking us, right?”

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded and set off again, Han Sooyoung close behind.

They passed through various rooms and corridors, occasionally breaking through bookshelves to make the required path. This time, Yoo Joonghyuk was careful to move any books in his way. It was possible to touch them without activating the memory if it was through another surface, such as a jacket sleeve.

Even so, he brushed against them accidentally. Some of the memories were barely more than woodworm-eaten scraps. A good meal he’d had once. A snippet of a conversation he’d had with Yoo Sangah. The sting of a fist on the chin.

The shadows continued to intermittently appear, always either reading or looking at the books. One stood in the center of a room, a pile of shadow books all around it, staring up blankly at the ceiling. Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for it again as he passed, though it dissolved like all the others.

“We are getting close,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally said. The energy was growing thick and acidic, oozing through the air like black vinegar. The litany had grown desperately resentful. Leave! Leave! LEAVE!

“Hey,” Han Sooyoung said. “Does it seem… brighter in here, to you?”

She was right. The oppressive dimness was slowly beginning to clear, even though the energy of the haunting was only growing thicker. A cold, white light seemed to be emanating from between gaps in the bookshelves.

Yoo Joonghyuk picked up the pace. No more shadows littered these last corridors, only books in yet more advanced stages of decay. They were hardly more than piles of dust. The sight made his stomach turn.

Suddenly, they were through. They had reached the “core”.

The cold light emanated from above, a greyish-blue sky that felt almost real but for the lack of fresh air. The bookshelf walls braced the area in a wide circle, their shelves completely bare of books.

There was no one there, but Yoo Joonghyuk did not feel they were alone. He took several cautious steps inside the circular room, Han Sooyoung moving right beside him.

“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk said again.

The room’s energy felt like it curdled. For a moment, there was silence.

Then, Han Sooyoung shouted, “Hey, watch out!”

The light clang of clashing blades rang out. Han Sooyoung stumbled away, having thrown up her dagger to block an attack.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword was instantly in his hands again, just in time to catch an incoming strike that had been aimed at his heart.

Their attacker was a burning-white spectre. Its eyes were contrasting black, dust-scattered voids. All other features were indistinct, lost in the ferocity of that white light.

Nonetheless, he knew. He recognized the sword and the way the ghost’s hands gripped the hilt.

Han Sooyoung knew, as well. “Kim Dokja?” she demanded. Her dagger, foolishly, dropped. “What the hell are you doing? Hey, we’re here to rescue you!”

The ghost only swung again. They were Kim Dokja’s moves, but jerky, almost puppet-like. Its body seemed to glitch and its mouth hung open, frozen in a silent scream.

Yoo Joonghyuk felt its anguished cry deep in his bones.

LEAVE!

***

I may have been the avatar of the Endless Cycle, but that didn’t mean I could just let everything carry on as normal.

If I did that, well. Time would just start looping again. Probably, you two would have been caught up in it. This thing, the Endless Cycle, it’s not like it’s creative—that’s why it needs avatars.

In any case, I couldn’t allow it to stay in our reality. You two, along with Kim Dokja, were going to live out the rest of your lives in peace.

With the impossible power of the spirit at my fingertips, I evaluated my options.

It took me awhile to adjust to my new abilities. The way I observed and experienced the world had transformed completely… like I’d been living my whole life seeing the world in muted, cloudy grayscale, only to suddenly be given the gift of endless light and colour. A bird’s-eye view from a place where I could never again be reached.

This universe is not at all what I imagined. The entire reality that I was familiar with was like… a branch on a tree.

Other realities sprang up in all directions. The time loop, in fact, was a system that grew many little “buds” off from the main branch. Our reality was ringed with thousands of them from our ill-fated attempts to resolve the loop. Your count was off, by the way, Joonghyuk.

But ours is far from the only reality. Some of those realities are… well. I don’t know how I could summarize them in a few words.

In any case, I needed to find the reality where I could bring this infinite loop to its end.

After a long period of searching, I finally found one. My chosen reality did not have ghosts and spirits the way ours did—ensuring that, even if it tried, the Endless Cycle could not create a time loop there.

Most importantly, the Kim Dokja of that worldline was dead. I could create a sort of thematic resonance with that absence, anchoring the Endless Cycle for eternity.

Without the ability to loop time for the entire reality, the Endless Cycle’s power would have to turn inward. That was my goal, anyway. If it can only loop time for itself, so long as I chose not to let it move realities, it would eventually starve to death.

At the beginning, I really had no idea how long that would actually take. Long enough to outlast any sense of attachment or emotion. Long enough to erase the importance of any memory.

… It would become a problem. If I became a mindless avatar of the Endless Cycle, forgetting the reason I had trapped myself here, you two and everyone else would be in danger.

I needed to find some way to outlast it.

At first, I focused on keeping myself occupied. With my ascension to avatar status, the “core” of the Endless Cycle changed to reflect my memories. A scattering of books filled those recursive shelves, now reflective of the experiences this part of me had retained.

Compared to how the place had looked when Nirvana was in charge, my version of the library was pretty pathetic. Few of the shelves were even close to full. Considering I’d only intended for this part of me to keep all the trauma and upsetting memories, the situation could have been pretty dire… if not for three sources of reprieve.

The first, that I had been forced to keep all my memories from the loop. Perhaps selfishly, I was deeply grateful for that. Even though the two of us had been constantly fighting and dying, even though it was my fault we had been stuck in there, there were a lot of things that happened I absolutely didn’t want to forget.

The second source of reprieve was that the library had copies of all the books I had ever read. That number was pretty high—and, of course, included all of your books, Han Sooyoung, even the ones that had never been officially published.

So, even though I could never see you two again in person, at least I had these pieces of you. With all this to keep me occupied, I was sure I could outlast the Eternal Cycle.

This was, after all, everything I had always wanted. I got to be left alone with my books and never had to interact with the uncaring and unpredictable world beyond the walls of the library. The whole reason I was in here was because this part of me wanted the same thing as the Endless Cycle: for the story to never end, for nothing to ever change.

I didn’t really have a way of keeping track of time, but it must have been… fifty years, or maybe a hundred, before I started to lose my grip.

I read all the books and read them again. Leaving the unpleasant memories to moulder on their shelves, I went through all my favourites in an endless loop around the library. When I reached the end, I went back and started again. Eventually I knew every word on every page by heart, and though I loved those stories more than I loved my own life…

The more I lost myself in those pages, the less grip I could maintain on my self-image.

I started to forget what it had ever been like to be a living being. I started to forget that I had come here for a reason. I felt only a perpetual need to loop around this library, reading the same words again and again. With each repetition, I became less of a person, becoming like a machine that existed only for the purpose of reading words on pages.

Even a ghost like me could only take so much.

I had small bursts of lucidity, wherein I realized that the situation was worsening. And at that point, how close was the Endless Cycle to starving? Well…

If I had to guess, it would take at least another twenty thousand years.

Occasionally, Nirvana would reappear in the library to speak with me. Being able to talk a bit with them, even though they were generally upset about the whole taking-over-as-avatar-and-trapping-us-inside-for-eternity thing, was another small thing keeping me sane.

At some point, Nirvana said: Let me show you something. Maybe it’ll keep you going for a couple hundred more years.

They brought me to the innermost core of the Endless Cycle, a place where cold light shone down from above. This would be the place where I would find my third and most important reprieve from eternity.

From here, it turned out, it was possible to look out at other realities in great detail. I could even, Nirvana told me, look back home.

Time passed so slowly there in comparison to here. It had only been a few weeks for you. Even so, I could see it when you, Han Sooyoung, made the offer to Kim Dokja, that you should work together to investigate ghosts and spirits. I should have immediately seen that you were up to something, honestly. You, quit writing on a whim? Kim Dokja was missing the context to see why that was such a big deal.

Because of the difference in the passage of time, I would need to wait many years before I could get updates from your reality. So, waiting for those intermittent updates kept me going loop after loop.

I watched with shock when Yoo Joonghyuk agreed to work alongside a Kim Dokja who didn’t remember him at all.

I felt phantom pain when Yoo Joonghyuk was forced to stab that Kim Dokja through the heart. (You’ve seen me die hundreds of times, you know, no need to look so upset.)

I watched with concern as it became clear that Han Sooyoung was planning something. (Just let it go. I need you to just accept how things are. You’ve got the good part of Kim Dokja, anyway.)

I laughed when you laughed, shook with tension during dangerous standoffs, and cheered you on when you came out on top. Maybe I pretended for a while, for a long while, that it was really “me” who was fighting at your side. Time passed. A lot of time.

And eventually, you…

You decided you were coming back here, for “me”. For the ghost.

It was the most painful thing you two could possibly have chosen. You shouldn’t have even realized I was missing. You certainly shouldn’t have found a way to cross realities to find me again.

I wish I could let this happen, but I can’t.

Listen.

Sooyoung-ah—despite the depth of the stubborn kindness in your heart, you have to let this go.

This “me” isn’t even the one you want to save. This is the “me” that got scared when we tried to have a relationship, and acted like that was your fault. The “me” who hides from the real world—a pathetic and cowardly thing that only knows how to run away.

You don’t have to save something like that.

Joonghyuk. You don’t want “me”, either.

This “me” isn’t the confident person that joined you in the time loop and unraveled all its threads at your side. “I” am simply the coward who would rather stay in that loop with you for a thousand years rather than face an unpredictable future. “I” only hold you back, and hold Kim Dokja back, too.

You don’t have to feel bad about losing me, so do the right thing. I know I can rely on you two. Just do this one thing for me and we can all be free—we can reach the true ending of this story, the ending that I want.

Now that you’re here, we only have one option.

Please, destroy me.

If you don’t…

This Cycle will never, ever end.

***

The ghost moved so fast it was like watching a video with skipping frames. It attacked Yoo Joonghyuk in a flurry of strikes, only to flicker back to Han Sooyoung to target her again.

“Stop it!” Han Sooyoung snapped. She summoned a projection to strike at the ghost from behind, trying to box it in long enough to slow it down. The ghost didn’t even try to defend itself, though—just kept attacking even while her projection’s dagger skimmed over its back. “Snap out of it, idiot!”

It was definitely him. Even so, he didn’t seem to hear her words at all.

A few things rattled around in Han Sooyoung’s head.

Depending on how much consciousness that part retains, her projection had said.

It may have been a long time, said the one whose idea of a ‘long time’ was already staggering. A very long time.

Shit. She should have seen this coming.

“We might have to subdue him,” Han Sooyoung panted, splitting herself a second time so that two projections could keep the ghost occupied. This technique, which she had been chipping away at for weeks, felt suddenly effortless in the adrenaline rush. She moved back toward Yoo Joonghyuk. “Take him with us by force.”

“It would not be possible without damaging him,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“No, I can manage it. Maybe if I can just hold him still for a minute he’ll calm down. Keep him occupied for me.”

Yoo Joonghyuk gave her a brief, unreadable look before rushing ahead to confront the ghost.

This time, Yoo Joonghyuk was instantly in control of the exchange. The ghost had an advantage in terms of speed and his unpredictability of movement, but Yoo Joonghyuk’s assault was so skillfully targeted that it didn’t matter. The ghost’s wild attacks were completely shut down, beaten back strike after strike.

Han Sooyoung took a breath and focused. Her two projections dropped their daggers, waiting for their moment. The instant the ghost raised his weapon in an overhead swing, leaving his back exposed, both projections blinked into the space and grabbed him.

Though his body was indistinct, appearing to be made only of light, through her projections’ touch she could feel a trace of warm, living skin. One projection locked its arms around his shoulders and the other grabbed his wrist, trying to twist the sword out of his grip.

The ghost trembled wildly, trying to glitch his way out of her arms. She held him tighter, closer than they had ever dared to hold each other before, desperate to feel that trace of his warmth.

“Stop fighting,” she said in his ear. He would not let go of the sword no matter how she bent his arm. He was still trying to turn its edge back on her. “Look, I’m sorry we took so long, but we finally made it, all right? Just let us take you home.”

Yoo Joonghyuk suddenly looked startled, reaching a hand towards the ghost’s face. Han Sooyoung saw it a moment later, too. The ghost was crying tears of light, dripping out of the empty, black eyes and running down his face.

“Come home,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. His hand hovered over the tears he could not touch. “Dokja.”

The ghost went limp for the briefest moment, then glitched out of her grip entirely.

Han Sooyoung grabbed for him again, but it was too late. The ghost’s sword sheared straight through the projection that had been trying to hold his arm, bisecting it at the waist. In a burst of pain that sent her real body down to its knees, the projection dispersed.

“Shit,” she gasped, trying to keep control of the second projection. She managed to send it far enough back to dodge the ghost’s next swing, but he glitched behind it, taking advantage of her disorientation to lay a good slice into the projection’s shoulder.

Han Sooyoung was forced to disperse the second projection as well before it could take more damage. The ghost switched targets back to Yoo Joonghyuk, its dark eyes blank of all emotion.

To Han Sooyoung’s horror, Yoo Joonghyuk dropped his sword.

“Hey!” she shouted, clambering unsteadily to her feet. She’d be too late to get in between them, no matter how fast she forced her feet to move.

The ghost blinked in front of Yoo Joonghyuk, blade aimed straight at the heart. Yoo Joonghyuk did nothing. He actually turned towards the blow, making it impossible for the ghost to miss.

And the fatal blow flew uselessly over his shoulder.

Yoo Joonghyuk sighed, sword still down at his side, and said: “If you really want to kill me that badly, go ahead.”

The ghost’s face and body warped wildly between shapes. He lifted the sword again, pressing the tip directly over Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart.

“If it’s really what you want,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated, not moving.

The ghost actually… sighed. And then laughed low under his breath, a foreign, static-torn sound. In a voice without inflection, he spoke.

“You two realize I’m trying to make this easy for you, right?”

“Kim Dokja.”

“Go ahead. Fight back. I’m trying to kill you.” The sword remained frozen in place, clear evidence to the contrary. “There’s only so much of this spirit’s power I can control. If you don’t get rid of me, I’ll trap you here forever. I can’t not do that. For your own sake, I need you to just cooperate. Please.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Han Sooyoung cried, throwing her dagger to the ground. “What the hell was all this, some kind of game? I thought you lost all sense of consciousness!”

“It’s not like I’m holding onto that… all that well,” the ghost admitted. His body continued to glitch in strange directions. “Do you two ever think about what I want? Are you under the impression that, if you take this part of me back, everything just goes back to normal?”

Han Sooyoung stalked up to him, perhaps angrier than she had ever been in her life. “The problem with you is that you want stupid things, Kim Dokja. If you had your way everyone in the world would leave you alone forever. Am I wrong?”

“What’s wrong with that?” he asked. “That other me, the real Kim Dokja. He’s the one who wants to live in the world, anyway. If it makes you so angry, just go back to him.”

“He doesn’t!” Han Sooyoung snapped. “He doesn’t want to live in the world, actually! You really thought that version of you would be better off? He is also miserable, thanks to you.”

The ghost emitted a painful-sounding laugh, his body glitching into a less distinct shape. Yoo Joonghyuk snatched a hand towards him, but the ghost blinked out of reach.

“I don’t really know what else… to do,” the ghost admitted, now hovering in the center of the room. The strength of his voice was beginning to fray. “I thought I did everything I could. I just wanted you to be happy. Can’t you understand that?”

“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “Just tell me. What did you do?”

“Stop calling me by that name,” said the ghost. “It’s too late. I’ve been the avatar of the Endless Cycle for so long… It’s no longer possible to separate me from it.”

Han Sooyoung felt another burst of memories hit her.

Her projected self, wandering through the spirit world for years and years. Gathering information on the Endless Cycle, trying to find a way back.

Suddenly, all the information that her other self had collected was at her fingertips. It made her dizzy.

“Its avatar…?” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated.

“This part of me was supposed to be destroyed anyway,” the ghost said. “I’m only here by accident. And I can’t… I’ve been trying to hold onto my identity for as long as I can. But I don’t think I can do it much longer. It hurts.”

The glitching grew momentarily worse, then settled. The ghost’s expression could almost be seen within the light of his face. “Once I lose control, the Endless Cycle will eat you. You’ll go back into the loop forever. Do you understand? You have to destroy me before that happens.”

“No. You are lying to me again,” said Yoo Joonghyuk.

“He’s not lying,” Han Sooyoung whispered.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s head whipped towards her. She crept closer to both of them, feeling a bit like she was trying to corner a wild rabbit. “If he really is the avatar of the Endless Cycle… then he brought it here to stop it from looping time. If he loses his grip on it, it will start again. We’ll get caught up in it for sure.”

“Thank you,” the ghost said. “You understand, then. I thought I could starve it out on my own, but now that you’re here, that’s not really an option. So, in order to escape, you’ve only got one choice. It’s all right. I’m not going to exist much longer after this either way.”

“No,” Han Sooyoung snapped. Her heart was pounding painfully hard. Surely, in all the information she had just gotten beamed into her head, there had to be something… “There will be another way. We’ll find another way, I promise. I chased this fragment of you all the way here, and you think I’m going to kill you?”

“You have to,” the ghost said, voice wavering. “Can’t I ask you for this one thing?”

“Shut up. Just let me think, and I’ll find a solution.”

“You can’t possibly have more time to think than I already have. There’s no solution. Joonghyuk-ah, you’ll do it, right? You understand what’s at stake here. Please.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face had gone completely pale. He only stood frozen, eyes staring into the distance.

“You two really know how to make it difficult.” The ghost looked between them helplessly. Neither moved for a weapon. “… It’s okay. I’m probably asking too much. It’s hard for you. I’ll… I’ll bring in someone who will certainly finish the job.”

The light coming down from above suddenly burned bright as the sun, enveloping the ghost of Kim Dokja.

Han Sooyoung rushed for him, reaching out.

There had to be words, she thought. There would be the right words to say to get through to him. To tell him the truth. To selfishly demand that he not leave. To explain that there was this shining future she could just almost see in front of them, the three of them, as long as he was there. As long as he was there, too.

She opened her mouth. The room shattered all around them, drowning out every last word.

***

“Hey. Han Sooyoung.”

“I’m fine,” the projection of Han Sooyoung insisted. The dark holes and tears that were consuming more of her body by the moment said otherwise, but she hardly seemed to notice them. “You’re breaking my focus.”

Kim Dokja frowned, but backed off. She was right that distracting her wasn’t going to help.

… There had to be something he could do. Unfortunately, none of his eclectic knowledge about ghosts, spirits, or their behaviour could illuminate anything at all about this ridiculous situation.

Around them, the dark streets and buildings of the dream world distortion were growing less distinct with each minute that passed. The pavement had actually started to shatter in places, huge plates of it seemingly free-floating over a void of white light.

“Useless,” Han Sooyoung muttered under her breath. She floated with her hands out in front of her, holding the distortion together with all her might. “I can barely get through at all, no matter what I try. They need to hurry it up.”

Kim Dokja looked up at where she was silhouetted against the great white rift in the sky. The others had passed through that rift and to the other reality. “… If they’re not able to find my other self, or take too long to do so. What happens?”

“Before I completely dissolve, I’ll have to pull them back,” Han Sooyoung said. “Especially now that there’s four extra volunteers.”

Kim Dokja resumed pacing, which had been his main activity of the indeterminate stretch of time he had already spent in the distortion. “Those kids…”

He couldn’t help but feel responsible for this. They’d certainly jumped in on his account. Why hadn’t he realized they’d try something so stupid…?

“It’s okay. That reality isn’t dangerous, I can see that much,” Han Sooyoung said. “The problem is that I’m not able to communicate with them or help them find your missing fragment. If I lose my grip on the rift and have to pull them back before they’re able to find you…”

“If that’s how it happens… it’s what he wanted, anyway.”

“Try telling that to those morons and see how it goes. I need the distractions to stop, remember?”

Casting around for anything to occupy his mind, something caught Kim Dokja’s eye up in the rift in the sky.

Was there… something coming through? A spot of darkness hovered in the empty, white field.

“Han Sooyoung,” he said.

The projection grimaced. “I see it. It’s not them. It’s…”

Eyes. A pair of black eyes growing larger and larger, scattered with white pinpricks like a starfield. They expanded to impossible size, hovering over the shadowy cityscape until they nearly filled the sky.

“Shit!” Han Sooyoung hissed under her breath. “You have to be kidding me.”

Kim Dokja drew on the Demon King’s powers, manifesting the wings and sword. The massive eyes tracked slowly back and forth, their pupils only visible as an absence in the stars.

Then, the eyes focused on him.

“Don’t let it catch you!” Han Sooyoung demanded. She moved as if to put herself in between Kim Dokja and the eyes, but even that small movement tore a massive piece of mist from her shoulder. She hissed, forced to come to a stop.

Catch me? Kim Dokja thought, mystified, just before a massive hand reached through the rift.

The hand glanced a skyscraper, snapping off its top third. For a second, there was utter silence, then a deafening cacophony as the massive chunk of building hit the streets. Debris filled the air, masking the searching eyes above.

That thing was reaching into their reality from where the others had gone. That meant…

It had to be the avatar of the Endless Cycle, Nirvana.

The immense, glowing hand, dwarfing the buildings around it, emerged from the clouds of dust directly in front of Kim Dokja. It was reaching for him.

“Run!” Han Sooyoung snapped at him.

Kim Dokja took off, doing his best to lead the hand away from Han Sooyoung. It swerved to follow him, apparently uninterested in the projection.

Was this Nirvana’s strategy for preventing the others from rescuing the Kim Dokja fragment? Something didn’t make sense here. Why would Nirvana take such drastic measures? Whatever deal had been cut between those two…

Kim Dokja suddenly had a strange feeling in his gut. Probably not, right? What he was thinking…

The hand made a swing for him and he was forced to dodge between several crumbling buildings. The wings responded to his urgency, propelling him almost too fast to see where he was going. As the clouds of dust began to settle, those two great eyes bore down on him with terrifying focus.

The only reason Kim Dokja was here was to serve as the “connection" between the two realities. If he got killed or captured…

A second hand manifested right in front of him.

He was going too fast to turn around, so he tried to dive under it, sword flung out to force a bit of distance. It didn’t seem to mind, though, that he left a long gash down the glowing white palm, simply slammed shut in a fist around him. In its grip, everything went painfully white, like he was floating in an empty void.

He summoned every drop of the Demon King's powers for a last-ditch attack, sure he could force it to loosen its grip for just a moment. Shadows sliced out in all directions, surging to cover the white void. Once he had his moment, he would fly out and—

Suddenly, he couldn’t move at all. There was a cold, aching sensation in his back. He craned his neck around as best he could just in time to watch the fingertips of the massive hand effortlessly pinch off his wings, like a cruel child playing with a mosquito.

Weirdly, it wasn’t that painful. Somehow, watching the shadowy wings painlessly flutter down off his back and then dissolve was almost worse.

Having well and truly caught him, the hand lifted back towards the rift in the sky.

“No! Stop!” a voice called from below. Kim Dokja could just barely see Han Sooyoung coming after him, leaving a trail of white fragments. “He’s the one connecting our realities! If you take him out—"

The rest of her words were drowned out by the static-like roar of the rift. The black eyes loomed, expanding until their darkness surrounded Kim Dokja on all sides.

Suddenly, he was falling.

Automatically he tried to resummon the wings, which did not work. The best he could do was try to protect his head. A second later, he hit the ground hard and tumbled.

Shakily, he climbed up to his knees.

He was in what looked like a small, circular area of empty space, crouching on a scuffed wooden floor. Shattered bookshelves, surrounded by scraps of paper and loose pieces of shelving, stretched out into an infinite white plane on all sides. The sky above was a pale silvery-blue.

Huge, black shadows rose in the distance, and it took Kim Dokja an extra second to register what they were. They were the buildings from the dream world distortion. They seemed to be bleeding into the destroyed library, following him through the rift. The great shadowy shapes bore little resemblance now to the Seoul skyline, leaning in odd directions and even taking on the aspects of crumbling bookshelves, uneven wooden beams crossing them where there should have been windows.

At first, he seemed to be alone. Then, in the space of an eye blink, a glowing white figure appeared. A sword hung from its right hand. Its wide, emotionless eyes, black with a scattering of white pinpricks, were unmistakable.

Kim Dokja got to his feet. “Where are the others?”

The figure would not, or could not, answer. It blinked towards him and aimed a wide slice at his neck.

Kim Dokja blocked it. The force behind that blow… it wasn’t what he would have expected. Had the avatar exhausted itself by reaching through realities?

“Who are you?” he asked. Up close, the figure was oddly small—the silhouette of a child.

It attacked again. With each of its movements, tiny fragments of light fell from its body. Not only were its attacks weak, fighting at all seemed to be actively harming it.

Kim Dokja's suspicions grew stronger. When the ghost made its next swing, Kim Dokja turned its blow aside and grabbed its wrists with his free hand. Despite its apparent ghostliness, its body was solid—and though it had easily ripped his wings off just minutes ago, it now couldn’t even seem to break his grip.

Kim Dokja said: “Just what the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Destroying everything you love,” the figure said blandly. It was also the voice of a child. “Unless you stop me.”

“… I'm not fighting a kid.”

“Is that how you see me?” The child pulled at Kim Dokja's grip, so he released its wrists. “You'll change your mind. Let me show you.”

The ghost's small hand darted out to touch Kim Dokja's temple before he could react. At that brief touch, he was buried in a landslide of boiling emotions.

The sick, sullen fury of being an abused child. Unwanted, unloved, left to fend for himself. Bullies and disinterested family members. Blue sky outside the window.

Kim Dokja gasped and pulled away. The pain was instantly swept away, eaten up by that hole in his heart.

“Now you get it,” said the child. “I'm not a person, you know. I'm just… that. Trust me, you are better off without all this. Go ahead and get rid of it.”

Kim Dokja just stood there, heart pounding.

Of course, he had known that his missing pieces… many of them were painful. He knew the outlines of his past traumas like they were bullet points on a list. Clinical, summarized.

Feeling it was different. Feeling it was unbearable. And he had come here to… take that back?

The child spectre stood still, waiting. Kim Dokja felt the weight of his sword in his hand.

“… It's not only negative things,” he forced himself to say. The words sounded weak and pathetic in the face of what he'd just felt.

“Ah, maybe not. But the negative is pretty bad,” the spectre said. “That was the easy stuff just now. How about this?”

It blinked to his side and flung a hand at his temple again.

It was then that Kim Dokja learned the truth of how his father died, and recalled the sensation of his young hands wrapped around the hilt of a knife.

Visiting his mother in prison, not remembering, begging her to tell him why. To make him understand.

Taking cowardly refuge in fiction. Desperately wishing to disappear into those stories. And the time loop…

The reason the loop couldn’t end.

The ghost removed its hand. Kim Dokja saw tears dripping endlessly down its face, matched by his own stinging eyes.

“You see it,” the ghost whispered. “I'm the reason for every bad thing. I'll tear you away from those you love. I'll make you leave them again and again. I'll make you all suffer forever.”

Kim Dokja's stomach turned with revulsion.

It was right.

Live with this thing as a part of him? How could anyone ask that of him?

He gripped his sword.

The spectre shuddered, glitching minutely back and forth, then relaxed. The black eyes closed.

“Thank you,” it said. “Take care of them for me.”

Kim Dokja moved.

***

There is a scene in The Unseen World—the original, not the version you later published under the same name—that I used to reread again and again.

It’s silly. There were even a bunch of grammatical errors. When I brought them up, I think you said you wrote it late at night (you also said: If it’s that big a deal, write it yourself??).

Still, there was something about it that kept me coming back. Your heroes had been sucked into a terrible haunting, tasked with exorcising a ghost that had been responsible for a string of deaths.

But when they got to the core of it, they didn’t find a single ghost with a coherent story. The haunting actually consisted of hundreds of ghosts, some of them all stuck together—unable to differentiate between all their different needs and grudges.

To resolve the haunting, the protagonist came up with the idea to let the ghosts all fully merge. This happened by way of an extensive action sequence wherein they all tried to kill him. Once they had become a single being, the ghosts’ desperate anger ceased. They left the scene almost peacefully.

KDJ: I definitely enjoyed the chapter a lot, especially the action scene, but is it really realistic for the ghost to just leave?

KDJ: If all the separate pieces were angry, how come merging together didn’t just make it angrier?

KDJ: How come it moved on so easily?

HSY: I’m not explaining every little thing to you. Try reading between the lines a bit. You know, there is a such thing as “story themes” you could stand to learn about.

HSY: … I’m glad you enjoyed the chapter.

To be honest, as a living person, I don’t think I ever came to understand what you were getting at with that scene, no matter how often I revisited it.

Since then, though, I had a lot of time to think about it. I’m not the author, so I certainly couldn’t say for sure what you intended, but I think it might have been something like…

Maybe the ghosts all had the same desire, deep down.

With my eyes closed, waiting to die, I could sense the dire state the entire spirit world distortion was in.

When I pulled Kim Dokja inside the library, I destabilized everything. It was all bleeding together: the library in the core of the Endless Cycle, the false Seoul built by the Devourer of Dreams, and the childhood apartment I was haunting. It all fell towards a central point like a black hole, unmoored from the rules of any reality.

Jung Heewon, Yoo Sangah, and the kids were there, fighting in towards the center from the outskirts. They wouldn’t make it; there were too many broken bookshelves and shattered chunks of concrete between them and me.

Even so, they were moving fast. Lee Gilyoung was bursting through bookshelves like a demon, commanding a brand-new swarm of ghost fragments. The others followed in a line, urgency written on their faces, throwing furniture aside.

I’d swept Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung away as far as possible in the other direction. Yoo Joonghyuk was using the bird spirit’s power to rush back with Han Sooyoung clinging to his back (… were you two making a habit of that?). With a brief exertion of the Endless Cycle’s power, I threw a few extra bookcases in their way to slow them down.

The projection of Han Sooyoung was still desperately holding the passageway open. She needn’t have worried. Reality is a sticky thing. Kim Dokja, even in here, was still acting as the anchor—as long as everyone followed him, they could get back to their original world after this one collapsed.

It was really neat and tidy. I felt satisfied. This was the best way things could go.

A hand settled over my heart.

I jerked back in surprise. Kim Dokja, that idiot—he’d dismissed the sword. Instead, his warm, living hand was pressed overtop my heart. The fragments and pieces of me that had been shredding off of my body this whole time…

He was absorbing them. They were crawling up his arm and vanishing into his skin.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded. I tried to wrench back out of his grip, but after expending almost every last drop of power I had in pulling him here in the first place, I was practically helpless. “Are you crazy? You have to kill me. We’re in agreement we both hate all of what’s in here, right? This is your chance to just get rid of it for good!”

“There's a problem with that,” Kim Dokja said. He was concentrating, pulling the disparate fragments in piece by piece. I could feel them settling in the ragged gash in his soul where I’d been ripped out. “Even without you, I still feel your presence. I can't ever escape you just by killing you.”

“I can put the block back up, if you want,” I offered, half in a panic. “Then you can forget there's anything missing all over again.”

“It’s tempting,” he admitted, but didn’t stop absorbing fragments. Even the ones I’d been dropping all over the room during our brief combat encounter started to flow towards him. “But if I let you do that, I’m going to get my ass kicked.”

“Kim Dokja!”

What—here already? Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung were dashing towards us (I guess I should have known a few bookshelves wouldn’t be enough to slow you down).

“They value you highly,” Kim Dokja said. “I need to find out why.”

I dug my fingers into his wrist. “They’re wrong.”

How could I salvage this? There had to be a way. But with my failing powers…

“It’s okay,” Kim Dokja called to Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung as they ran up. “I’m not going to kill him. I can help.”

“Help?” I tried my best to rip the skin off his arm. “You want to help? Then do what I’m asking of you! This is pointless!”

“Let me ask, then, since you're my ghost,” he said. I could see the gleaming white fragments lifting off of me reflected in his eyes. “What is the ending you really wanted?”

I laughed helplessly. “I don’t get one. I gave you mine.”

As more of my fragments flowed into him, I started to get a better sense of what he was feeling.

He was gritting his teeth through it. He didn’t like this any more than I did; he didn’t want to take back the memories and the trauma and the gross reality of who we really were.

Even so, when he looked at me, he saw a lonely ghost. A forgotten and unwanted imprint abandoned by the world. And this guy… he couldn’t help but love the ghosts of the world. Even if it was his ghost, he had to love it.

Stupid. It was all so stupid. How could I have let it come to this?

“Kim Dokja.” Han Sooyoung had kneeled in front of me. “Answer him. What’s the ending?”

“Sorry,” I said. I reached out to her, suddenly amazed at how close her face was. “You won’t like it.”

My hand of course, phased uselessly through her cheek.

“This won’t work,” I said. “I’m sorry, but this body you’re seeing in front of you… well, it’s like a projection. It’s only a small part of me. So, absorbing it… it won’t get you too far.”

Yoo Joonghyuk appeared at my other side. “Then, where is the rest of you?”

“It’s everywhere,” I said. “Like I told you earlier, I’ve been a part of the Endless Cycle for so long that I can’t be separated from it. So, everything… the library, the haunting, the Endless Cycle itself… that’s where I am.”

Around us, the destabilized spirit world distortion was dissolving. The bookshelves and their books were shredding away into trails of white fragments. The floorboards, the shadows, and the old apartment all lifted away into nothingness.

“Sorry, but to be honest, I never needed you to kill me.” I offered my other self a brief smile. The crease between his eyes showed he was focusing on absorbing fragments. “The moment I pulled you into this dimension, I sealed the fate of the Endless Cycle. That’s good. It means you three can go back home.”

His killing me would have been easier, that’s all. That way, I could have ceased existing for good.

This way, pieces of me would stay in what remained of the Eternal Cycle forever.

By half-starving and then fully destabilizing it, I wasn’t really “killing” it. A thing like this couldn’t be “killed”, no more than you could kill the force of gravity or time itself.

It was changing states, like a lake of water rising into the air as vapour. No longer would it be capable of forming a distortion, of descending on a reality and exerting all its power to loop time for those within. It would exist in a different way, on a different layer of reality.

Suddenly, I was scared.

“I wanted to die as myself,” I said. “If you just absorb part of me and leave the rest, I’ll never be able to escape this place. I’ll never even know how to want to. If you kill me, it will all collapse, and… I’ll be free. That's the only ending available to me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kim Dokja. “I can’t kill you.”

Through the fragments of soul we shared, I tried to make him understand my desperation. How little I could endure this. Still, he kept absorbing the fragments.

“Is it… the time loop memories that you want?” I asked, voice dull. “The memories of Sooyoung’s books? If I give you those, would you kill me?”

I placed a trembling hand on what remained of my chest. I was falling apart quickly now, along with the rest of the dimension.

It should be easy. Like ripping off a bandage. Just take those memories… rip them out, like Nirvana had done to me so long ago…

The memories shrank from my hand.

I remembered passing my thumb over the ink set into a dedication page in a novel: To my first and only reader.

It had shocked me. By then I was manifestly not her only reader, even if I had been the first. That novel had been all her own work. My part in it extended no further than the world's most annoying beta reader.

But to me, that message meant: we made it through alive. Through that story thirteen years ago, we clung onto a world that didn't care about us. We made our own world in the blank spaces between those pages.

I remembered those two silver wedding rings. The first time Yoo Joonghyuk and I got married, it was because I brought it up on a whim, when a spirit world distortion took us through a half-destroyed jewellery store.

I had said it to make him get annoyed, but instead, he smiled. His mouth would twitch subtly up into that same expression whenever he found the rings again in subsequent loops and casually slipped mine back onto my finger. I had to pretend I didn’t take it that seriously or the whole thing would crush my heart to pieces. That smile…

I couldn’t do it. There was no way. Bearing eternity without those memories, even if I could no longer understand them, was just not possible. Call it selfish. That’s how I felt.

“We’re not killing you,” Han Sooyoung snapped. She stood and threw her arms open, disturbing glowing white fragments like they were motes of dust. “We’re bringing you back. All of you. Keep your memories, Kim Dokja.”

She, too, began to absorb the fragments.

They flowed towards her slowly, then at increased pace. I wanted to hold them back from her (you really don’t want these parts of me, I mean it) but, at this point, I couldn’t control what they did. The fragments sensed her calling to them and simply went to her, openly desperate, a fierce and naked affection I had always kept under wraps and behind walls.

She breathed them in with a matching hunger.

I didn’t understand it. That affection of hers was supposed to evaporate the second she understood the pathetic thing that was me, the real me, but she didn’t recoil from these fragments that grasped at her with undisguised need.

As those pieces of me settled alongside her heart, I felt the brilliant and ferocious core of her beating. The determination, the fury, the willingness to break the world in two if it let her have the thing she wanted. The love, the love, the love.

I’m taking them all! her heart declared. I’m not leaving behind even a single fragment!

Her projections began to dot the sky, taking in more and more. It should have been impossible to distinguish between the fragments that were parts of me and the ones that belonged to the Endless Cycle itself—we were so very nearly one and the same being—but there was one small difference.

The pieces that were me recognized her. That was all she needed.

Even so… There were many parts of me that she didn’t know. And those fragments flowed up and away, moving through and past her without hesitation.

A third source began calling to the fragments of my soul.

Despite everything, despite everything… Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart was like a shelter in a storm, completely open to me. His was such an enduring and steadfast love, a deep well of warmth that no possible stretch of time could cool.

Even now, it was frightening to be welcomed into that. To be offered any part of that. Certainly, I’d ruin it. It was best to push him far away before that happened. That’s what I thought.

He didn’t let me, though. Just like he had in the time loop, he breached the gap I had put between us.

His heart made a simple demand of me. Stay.

I can’t, the broken pieces of me shivered. In this state, it was not possible to pretend I felt otherwise, to build up any artifice over the real reason I always ran. I can’t. I’m scared, and I don’t know how.

Stay anyway.

Around him, a vast pool of fragments began to spin.

As my fragments passed through both of their hearts, I felt a warm and glowing thing come alive between us.

If we got back. When we got back…

I’d hurt them so badly. We had hurt each other. To sweep it all under the rug and pretend that it never happened was too disingenuous.

Even so, I wanted to talk with them. I wanted to try and express what I thought, how I felt. I wanted to try again.

We all had that feeling. Even if it hurts… let’s try.

My body was almost gone. Kim Dokja still had his hand (my hand?) pressed over the ghost’s heart (my heart?) as the glowing white figure dissolved away.

I started to forget what I had been so scared of. In place of all my memories and fears there loomed a placid nothingness. An eternal dream, where none of this would matter.

I’ll never be able to escape this place. I’ll never even know how to want to.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least it wouldn’t hurt. Nothing would ever hurt again.

I will have to leave the rest to you.

Kim Dokja tried to pull in as many fragments as he could, and even so, the empty space in his heart remained so vast. He was still missing an impossible amount of himself, an infinite volume of soul that was still flowing through this dimension as it dissolved.

“It’s not enough,” he said through gritted teeth. The fragments were quickly losing their last scraps of consciousness. Everything they didn’t catch would stay here forever.

 Hands settled on each of his shoulders. From one side, Han Sooyoung channelled the vast river of fragments that her projections were collecting down into him. On the other, Yoo Joonghyuk did the same, breathing the fragments in and back out.

The connection between the two halves of Kim Dokja sparked back into place like an arc of lightning.

Kim Dokja—I—felt the dimension breaking down to its basic elements. I felt the books and the bookshelves losing the very last of their structure. It was all fragments now, blowing like snow, lifting away.

And then, some of those fragments… slowed. More people were calling out to them.

A child was crying angry, indignant tears. “You have to stay! You said you’d teach me!” Ghost fragments that he was calling up around him formed a massive claw and snatched a great quantity of fragments out of the air.

Another reached out to them with a similar demand. I remembered in a flash. Shin Yoosung—the reason I had decided to teach her. She was exactly like I had been, growing up hearing the laments of ghosts.

That’s right. I couldn’t leave those two on their own. Who else would be willing to take them seriously, to reach out a hand to help them?

Other hearts called out to me, as well. Jung Heewon moved with confidence and urgency through the dissolving reality, leading the way into its center with her heart calling out—It’s my turn to help you. I won’t let you die here. Come with me. Fragments spun out in her wake.

And Yoo Sangah, following along behind. We still have so much more life to live, to find out who we really are. Don’t give up. Let’s find out together.

Even Yoo Mia and Lee Jihye, running along beside the others, pulled a stream of fragments along behind.

Yoo Mia shouted into the wall of fragments around her: “You can’t leave until you give my oppa a proper apology! Stupid ugly ahjussi!”

“Don’t be a coward, ahjussi!” Lee Jihye shouted in solidarity.

Really, the fact that any of my fragments were following those two at all…

Even if it was ridiculous, they were pieces that no one else was gathering.

It wasn’t long before that group reached the core where myself, Yoo Joonghyuk, and Han Sooyoung were gathered. The small, ghostly body that had been in front of me moments ago—that had been mine moments ago—was gone. Our time was running out.

Without hesitation, Jung Heewon grabbed my hand, channeling all the fragments she had caught back into me. The others crowded in a chaotic jumble, following suit.

The hole in my heart started to fill back up, bit by bit.

“Stay close!” I warned everyone. Beyond the circular area where we huddled, the distortion was warping like a fisheye lens, losing all physicality. White light began to stream out from under my feet, heralding the return of the rift. “We’re going to fall back into our world!”

And it was too late, wasn’t it? Even with everyone trying their best, even with the vast amount of fragments I had already drunk in, even with dozens of Han Sooyoung projections dotting the sky, taking in all the stragglers…

Even if it was only a few percentage points, there was some of me that no one could gather.

There were pieces that nobody recognized, and that recognized nobody. Even I didn’t know all my hidden pieces, nor was it possible for me to know them.

Had we been too greedy, too selfish, in thinking we could gather everything? Would the kinder thing have been to kill “me” after all, rather than return to our world knowing a part of “me” was always out here suffering in that unending dream?

As the rift opened up around us, white light consuming my vision, an unexpected hand appeared on my back for just a moment. It was very, very faint.

Han Sooyoung, still clutching my left shoulder, looked alarmed. “You—!”

“It’s okay,” said the projection. She was barely holding onto a human form at all. “Just fall back through the rift and you’ll get home safe. You have a reliable friend on the other side.”

As a few of my fragments slipped past me and into the rift, I sensed what she meant. Lee Hyunsung, who I had last seen trying to prevent the children from breaching the passage between worlds, appeared to be waiting on the other side for us. He was essentially holding open the passage on his own, with his silver-gauntleted hands. …Had he been doing that this entire time?

Jung Heewon grinned ferociously. “Hang on, Hyunsung-ssi! We’ll be back soon!”

The projection of Han Sooyoung drifted past me and out into the dissolving dimension.

“We won’t leave behind a single fragment,” she said, looking back at her other self. “You don’t need me anymore, Han Sooyoung. My job is done. So, from now on, live in the waking world.”

I reached out a hand towards her just before she burst into a bright web of particles. The particles flew out in all directions before racing back towards Han Sooyoung—taking with them a collection of tiny fragments of my soul that had nearly been left behind.

Thank you, I wanted to tell her. It was true that she had just been absorbed by Han Sooyoung—all of that projection’s memories would still live on inside her. Even so, that instance of her had given everything she had to make this possible.

It was more than I could possibly ask of anyone.

It still wasn’t quite enough to save me.

A small empty space remained. It was a quiet, lonely corner. I had filled that corner with a humming darkness, taken in from abandoned stories all across the city.

Darkness that was now humming in a single voice: Set us free. Set us free. Set us free.

My… my ghost fragments. They wanted to leave?

Mystified and already halfway into the rift, I let them go.

They spiralled out in a brilliant whirl. When I collected them, they had all been like ragged, angry shadows, but in this dimension, they were visible as a multitude of shining colours. Ruby-reds and violets, silvers and onyx black.

There were parts of me that no one could recognize, not even me.

But the ghost fragments didn’t know me at all. They only recognized things that were like them, broken pieces seeking the rest of their stories. They also asked, in their own way: what was the ending you wanted?

And those final, unknown and forgotten shreds of me, already half-consumed by the Endless Cycle, responded with one voice, and spoke one answer.

In the end, I think I… was wrong.

As we all fell back through the rift, my final fragments clicked into place. They settled in like a held breath released.

Static roared on all sides. Walls appeared around us. We tumbled backwards into an ordinary office, on top of a cheap rug that had been placed askance over where a summoning circle had recently been scrawled.

I might have hit the ground pretty hard, if it wasn’t for both Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung clinging onto my body like I was a life raft in a storm. The others all appeared in various odd locations, Lee Jihye crashing into the desk with a cry of alarm and Jung Heewon slamming straight into Lee Hyunsung, whose grip on the rift finally released. We had all safely arrived in our home reality, caught in a moment of stunned silence.

“Did it work?” Han Sooyoung gasped. Yoo Joonghyuk immediately slapped a hand over my heart, trying to verify the condition of my soul. “Hey, did it work?”

“It worked,” I said. The sky outside the office burned a warm, dark sapphire-blue. Everything was blurry, though when my eyes had started streaming with tears, I could not say. “It worked. I’m here.”

In the shining light of day, we clung to one another. The three of us were caught in that single warm, precious moment… a moment so precious for the very reason that we could only experience it once.

Well, the sensation of our arms around each other… maybe that could happen again.

“Just so we’re clear,” Han Sooyoung said from where her face was buried in my neck, “If you ever do anything like that to me ever again, I will actually kill you, and it will hurt the whole time you’re dying. I expect an apology for this. After everything you did…!”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, resting a hand on the back of her head. The only words I had were so small in the face of everything she had done for me. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was still pale. His trembling hand had not left its place on the left side of my chest.

“Tell me,” he said. “Do not lie. Is it all there?”

“It’s there,” I said. I grabbed his hand in both of mine. “It’s there. Can’t you feel it?”

In truth, some of the fragments I’d gathered back up were worn down and frayed. It isn’t possible for a soul to experience such a vast length of time unscathed, to emerge fresh and perfect and unmarked.

So, my soul might have looked a little different to him. It might have scars in odd new places. Fragments that he had never seen before, once buried deep in the core, might have risen closer to the surface.

No, it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t exactly the same as it had been. I didn’t even like all of it, and still couldn’t look certain parts of myself in the eye without flinching.

But, even so, it was me… Alive and breathing, all 100%.

***

There is a stretch of time, before it fully settles in, that I can see the full outline of it: That piece of me that Nirvana had sliced out.

The outline is in the shape of a child. For a long time, I hated that child. I despised him for becoming me and living in me still, for never letting me be free of his neglected needs.

It’s not as if those feelings could go away so easily. But even so, before everything settles back in…

I feel like I’m looking back at myself from thirteen years ago. Holding his hand in the moment before the distinctions between us fully evaporate.

To that kid, I want to say…

We were wrong. Neither a ghost nor a human is only a story. We are all of us perpetually beginning and ending, and the story is only what we tell ourselves later to make sense of it all.

And it is okay—you deserve to exist, even if it isn’t the story you wanted. In the future, there are those who love you. They love you enough to chase you across realities and time itself, even those parts of you that they do not know.

So live until then, to love and be loved in return.

I really mean it. It is not your given time to die.