Chapter 10: A Morning of Fried Rice and Ghosts

Though they lived in human bodies, they were not human.

Every worker at the Seonil Administrative Agency was the same. The joke about being the ‘garbage disposal squad’ came from their refusal to elaborate. They were gods and their subordinates who had committed unforgivable sins in hell and ascended.

To return to where they once lived, they had to meet the conditions set by King Yeomra. First, destroy all the ghosts of this world that were disturbing the afterlife above and below. Second, capture the last remaining Imugi in the world and bring it to the underworld.

But the ghosts roaming the human world were so numerous that counting them was pointless. Having been kicked out with only their abilities intact, they had no money or possessions. They had to solve the problem of eating and living first before they could even find the Imugi.

The human world, unlike the underworld, was capitalism. It was a world of capital where you had to pay for even a drop of water. So the rich, even after death, worry about their useless property first. f*cking ridiculous, but there was no choice.

So they worked haphazardly, and when they had saved enough money, they started taking orders by distinguishing targets. From then on, their work phones increased to ten.

Maybe they had hoped for a ‘real-life experience.’ Whenever Yeomra manifested and laughed heartily, mocking, ‘I told you to keep your d*ck in check,’ they wanted to commit patricide more than once.

There was only one Imugi. If they caught it, all the previous conditions would be nullified. They could return to where they lived without going through such shitty hardship. Though a very long time had passed before that could happen.

The reason Ahn Dae-young was kicked out of the underworld and became a ‘garbage disposal squad’ as a being neither human nor anything was also because of the Imugi. The charge was that Yeomra’s son had failed to maintain dignity and had shared pleasure with the Imugi. It was enough to cause an uproar that the only son of Yeomra, who would become the eleventh king of the underworld, had fallen for a lowly Imugi hiding in Doricheon.

He desperately wanted to kill the father who had kicked his son out into this shit field just for f*cking around, but unfortunately, he was in a position where he had to obey. If the human world ran on capital, the underworld ran purely on power.

“Between that pretty b*tch who fucked me over and disappeared… and that fucker who wants to swallow it up and change his fate…”

Just when his calm tone seemed playful,

“Which one should I crush first?”

The antique radio in Ahn Dae-young’s grip shattered miserably. Blood beaded on his palm, cut by sharp fragments, and dripped like dew. Cha Min-hyuk swallowed dryly.

“As you wish.”

“Wish?”

Ahn Dae-young let out a chuckle as he spat out a word. ‘As I wish’…

“Clean it up.”

“Yes.”

His back, as he walked out, had already calmed down. Only then did Cha Min-hyuk pat his numb legs and stand up.

* * *

He looked like a human now.

That was Jeong Eun-gyu’s impression after waking up from a good sleep and looking at the mirror in the bathroom. His bloodshot eyes, hollow sockets, and sunken cheeks were slowly returning to normal.

He tore open a new toothbrush, finished brushing and washing his face, then rummaged through his suitcase for an electric shaver. While smoothly rolling it over his jaw, he yawned widely, feeling like he could fall asleep again if he just put his head down.

He had slept far less than during his residency when he was busy to death, so it was no wonder his thought circuits were paralyzed.

“I’m hungry…”

It was past ten in the morning, but Ahn Dae-young hadn’t returned yet. He worried that something terrible might have happened at his house, but at the same time… he had a strange conviction that that man wouldn’t be easily beaten.

Standing up with a neat appearance, Jeong Eun-gyu habitually brushed back his hair. He thought he should get a haircut before going to work the day after tomorrow.

Cooking in someone else’s house felt like overdoing it, so he was munching on pre-cut carrots, slicing them into pieces.

Winter sunlight seeped into the silent living room, creating shadows. Jeong Eun-gyu’s lips, which had been mechanically chewing and swallowing carrots, stopped moving.

…It was bright.

Unlike the past days when he had been tied up and spent messy nights, the morning with the sun up was very bright. A sense of disparity he hadn’t noticed before washed over him.

He walked to the window and looked outside. Unlike the warm interior, the wind was blowing fiercely outside, making the bare branches shake incessantly.

「Open the door.」

Someone outside spoke to him. He couldn’t tell who it was. Jeong Eun-gyu, holding a carrot between his index and middle fingers like a cigarette, remained silent.

「I want to be friends with you.」

A sense of déjà vu added to the disparity. The whisper that flowed on the wind seemed to take Jeong Eun-gyu back to his childhood. But he was no longer the child of those days. He was an adult standing in a reality without his mother, who had told him not to speak to them, without the mountain he had to hide in, and without the shamans who used to visit. Adults had better judgment than children.

He opened the window halfway. The sound of the whisper came closer.

「That house is dangerous. Get out now. That person will kill you.」

Weren’t you the one who said I killed my mother? His laugh, pfft, was carried away by the wind.

「He’s dangerous. We can’t enter that house.」

「You have to come out. If you want to live, come out.」

「Hurry.」

Whispers poured out to the unresponsive Jeong Eun-gyu one after another. They were heard in each ear separately. Quietly listening to their temptations, he bit into the carrot between his fingers. The crunchy carrot released moisture that pooled between his teeth, and he swallowed.

While Jeong Eun-gyu silently chewed the carrot, the whispers gradually faded. Already tired? Their endurance seemed lacking.

“If you’re going to jump, pay for the carrots first and then jump.”

Ahn Dae-young, who had returned still in Jeong Eun-gyu’s pajamas, threw off his white shirt and pulled out various things from the refrigerator randomly. A beat later, Jeong Eun-gyu turned around and looked over his discarded pajamas and the half-naked Ahn Dae-young in turn.

“I’m not going to jump.”

“Then close the window because it’s cold.”

He says it’s cold after stripping his upper body. But Jeong Eun-gyu obediently closed and locked the window as told.

Walking toward Ahn Dae-young, Jeong Eun-gyu picked up the fallen shirt. As he tried to stand up, a bulging crotch was right in front of his face, making him almost fall backward. Startled, he pretended not to see it and straightened his back, but Ahn Dae-young openly sneered.

“I was thinking about whether to grab your head and bury it in there.”

“…”

“I take back what I said about you being clueless. I took out the ingredients, so make whatever you can cook. I’ll be out after showering.”

“…”

“If you don’t want to, you can suck my d*ck instead. Then I’ll set a full table for you.”

“…I can only make fried rice.”

“Good. Make it bland.”

He had been seriously considering dumping all the soy sauce in.

“Oh, Professor.”

“Yes?”

He reflexively answered and looked up, then felt dizzy and squeezed his eyes shut before opening them. Ahn Dae-young was completely naked. His flaccid cock dangling in the middle was disgustingly large even without an erection. If it got hard, it would be even bigger. If he took him to a urology department, they might write a paper asking if this size was possible for an Asian. It was that big.

Straight, huge, well-shaped cock. Ah… Why am I staring so intently at someone else’s d*ck? I should have just closed my eyes.

“Seeing it, do you feel like sucking it?”

“You’re unlucky enough to use honorifics at a time like this. I’m not going to suck it. Why did you call me?”

“To tell you not to put onions in the fried rice.”

“…Ha.”

That was it. The bathroom door closed, and the sound of a strong water stream was heard. I should put a ton of onions and soy sauce in the fried rice. The dangling cock kept rising like an afterimage, and Jeong Eun-gyu shook his head, staring blankly at the ingredients in the frying pan.

But… how do you make fried rice again?

After much effort, the finished fried rice was a mess. Not knowing that the instant rice should be heated in the microwave before adding, he put it in raw, so clumped rice grains and undercooked vegetables were mixed together, looking unappetizing even for a spoon.

What should I do? Just as he put down the frying pan full of roughly stirred rice lumps, Ahn Dae-young, who had just washed up and come out, chuckled ‘heh’ before even pulling out a chair.

“Did you make this for me to eat?”

“It’s fried rice because I fried it, isn’t it?”

“Your hobby must be lying. I can tell at a glance you didn’t season it.”

He found it hard to gauge the amount of soy sauce, so he didn’t add any at all. Didn’t he say to make it bland? Jeong Eun-gyu hid his embarrassment, feigned shamelessness, and held out a spoon to Ahn Dae-young.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’m not eating.”

“Actually, I’m not good at cooking.”

“Then you should have just sucked my d*ck. Why did you interfere?”

Ahn Dae-young clicked his tongue, took the frying pan, and put it back on the induction stove. He broke up the clumped rice with a ladle, then took out two eggs, scrambled them, sprinkled them in, and quickly mixed. Jeong Eun-gyu watched blankly. In less than five minutes, a fried rice that looked completely different from before was placed back down. It finally looked like the fried rice Jeong Eun-gyu knew.

“Will I not die if I eat it?”

When he asked as if seeking revenge, Ahn Dae-young grabbed a spoon and answered.

“You’ll know if you eat it.”

Then he took a big spoonful and chewed, looking skeptical. Ahn Dae-young, who had suddenly become a food taster, bobbed his Adam’s apple.

“You’re not dead. Eat.”

Only then did Jeong Eun-gyu properly grasp the spoon. The taste was ordinary. Ahn Dae-young ate the fried rice in silence, then draped his long arm over the back of the next chair. His arm was nicely muscled. This man’s body had not an ounce of unnecessary fat. A slender, large physique was a fitting description.

“The professor’s house is perfect for ghosts to live in.”

To say such a thing with such a beautiful body… His appetite dropped, and his spoon stopped.

“Ghosts have the most developed sense of smell among sight, smell, and touch… I borrowed your clothes and went there to disguise my scent with smell. You already knew this without me saying it, right?”

“Yes.”

“They’re simpler than you think. If they think it’s a scent they know, they charge in first. As soon as I entered the room, the radio that wasn’t even turned on turned on first.”

Jeong Eun-gyu’s hand holding the spoon trembled slightly.

“That can’t be. I always turned it on by hand. It’s an old radio, so you have to pull the antenna all the way out.”

“Well, maybe it waited because the owner was away for a few days. Typical of a ghost living in Korea, it was impatient.”

He spoke casually, massaging his stiff neck with his large hand. Really large hands every time I see them. Did those hands smash the ghosts in my house?

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