Chapter 24: Why Did She Fall in Love with Him?

Okbanji had come into the human world in Tae-yi’s hands and become his talisman. She drove away the ghosts that approached him and turned his future into a smooth road to success.

It was love.

“Maybe you should be a little more careful about which humans you fall in love with.”

“…I didn’t know.”

“You think not knowing makes it an excuse?”

“…”

“So ignorance makes everything okay?”

He was right. Not knowing could never be an excuse. From the very beginning, it had been Okbanji’s fault for falling in love with Tae-yi at first sight.

But Okbanji felt wronged, too. She had tried several times to escape Tae-yi.

Yet Tae-yi had clung to her by telling her that without her, he would have to live in hell, asking if she was really going to leave him alone in hell.

At first, she believed him. She thought that perhaps, despite loving her, he couldn’t easily give her his heart because she wasn’t human.
She even thought he was simply a human who loved her but didn’t know how to express it.

Having only recently been born and knowing nothing of how frightening a human’s three-inch tongue could be, Okbanji had no choice but to be swayed by those sweet, pitiful words.

“I really, really hate him now… I want to go back… Please send me home…”

At Okbanji’s sorrowful voice, tears welled up in Lee Young’s eyes.

“So…”

“Stop scolding her.”

Lee Young glared at Sa Hae at his cold voice. They were both yokai, so didn’t he feel sorry for her at all? He kept looking at Okbanji as though she were pathetic.

“Why is loving someone a sin?”

“Hey.”

“Is trusting someone a sin? She only did it because she was kind!”

Lee Young pulled Okbanji into her arms as she said that.

‘That girl really has a weakness for anything small and cute. What a disgusting habit.’

Sa Hae thought that as he turned his head away, as though he couldn’t stand looking at the sight anymore.

Was trusting a human really a sin?

In the world of yokai, it was.

There were too many yokai who had trusted humans and ended up ruining their own lives to even count. And yet this girl was asking whether trusting a human was a sin.

Sa Hae shook his head and looked at Okbanji, who was sniffling in Lee Young’s arms.

To take her home this time, they would have to go to Bukhansan.

“First Taebaeksan, then Chiaksan, and now Bukhansan. You’re touring all eight provinces at this rate.”

At Sa Hae’s words, Lee Young simply continued patting Okbanji without answering.

She looked so young that Sa Hae’s claim that she had only been born recently clearly wasn’t a lie. Her face was as youthful as a girl’s.

“We’ll definitely take you home. So don’t cry.”

Okbanji’s eyes sparkled at Lee Young’s words, and she nodded.

She really wanted to go home now. She didn’t want to be used by Tae-yi anymore.

At that very moment, Tae-yi was going mad with rage over the fact that the Okbanji ring, which should have been in his pocket, was gone.

The ring itself was still intact, but because Okbanji had stopped transforming into a human, Tae-yi had assumed that his companion dokkaebi had abandoned him.

And now that even the ring had disappeared, more and more ghosts began appearing before Tae-yi’s eyes.

“Aaaah!”

Tae-yi ran through his enormous house as though playing hide-and-seek, desperately dodging the ghosts charging at him.

From the spirits of dead children, known as taeja-gwi, to ghosts whose identities he couldn’t even recognize, they came rushing toward Tae-yi as though they intended to devour him.

These were things he hadn’t been able to see during the three years Okbanji had remained by his side.

Tae-yi ran into his bedroom and climbed inside the wardrobe.

He absolutely hated the darkness, but at least if he closed his eyes inside it, he wouldn’t have to see the ghosts.

“Damn it! Damn it!”

Cursing wildly, Tae-yi cursed Okbanji for leaving him.

He was her master. She was something he had found and therefore something that belonged to him. He simply couldn’t forgive the fact that she had disappeared.

Tae-yi thought that because his living talisman was gone, he was being forced to suffer like this.

“That damn dokkaebi! When I get her back, I’ll break her legs!”

Even as he trembled in terror, Tae-yi calmly began thinking through what he would do after using Lee Young to find Okbanji again.

First, he would break those slender ankles.

No.

He would tie a red cord around the Okbanji ring and wear it around his neck for the rest of his life.

He would bind her to his side by whatever means necessary and make her live forever as a living talisman for him.

And if Okbanji didn’t return, if he couldn’t find her, then he could simply use Lee Young.

If that proved difficult…

If he couldn’t use Lee Young either, then he could always climb Bukhansan again and bring another dokkaebi back from beneath that seonang tree.

Of course, dokkaebi were frightening beings, and finding an innocent, obedient dokkaebi like Okbanji might prove difficult…

But it was still better than living like this, tormented by ghosts.

Tae-yi would find a way.

He would find a way… And if he managed to possess another decent dokkaebi…

Then…

He would find Okbanji, who could no longer transform into a human, and smash that ring to pieces.

Thinking such thoughts, Tae-yi desperately pretended not to notice the ghost breathing an icy breath beside his ear.

He ignored the taeja-gwi clinging to his shoulder and crying that it was hungry.

He absolutely could not die.

Absolutely.

****

That night, Okbanji lay beside Lee Young.

Lee Young turned onto her side and stared at Okbanji’s face.

It was flushed from all the crying she had done.

Although fifty years had passed since Okbanji’s birth, Sa Hae had said that, in human terms, she was essentially no older than someone born yesterday.

Because of that, Lee Young couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, almost as though she were her little sister.

“You can go home tomorrow. That man—no, that Bulgasal, may have a rough way of speaking, but he’s kind at heart.”

At the words rough way of speaking but kind at heart, Okbanji’s face crumpled as though she were about to burst into tears again.

“I thought so, too… Our Tae-yi…”

She had thought that, despite his harsh words, he was kind inside. She had thought that, deep down, he really loved her.

At Okbanji’s words, Lee Young gave a small shake of her head.

‘Oh, no.’

She had said something she shouldn’t have.

Whether it was a human, a yokai, or a dokkaebi nursing a broken heart, you should never say useless things like that…

“M-Men…”

“All men are the same!”

At Okbanji’s words, Lee Young suddenly wanted to ask whether Sa Hae counted as a man too.

Strictly speaking, wasn’t he closer to being a male creature?

Ah. Was that basically the same thing?

“I treated him so well. So, so well…”

“What did you do for him? Tell me. Talking about it might make you feel a little better.”

That was how Okbanji began telling her just how devoted she had been, and how terribly Tae-yi had treated her in return.

Even if Lee Young had wanted to argue that Okbanji bore some responsibility for being too naive, Han Tae-yi was undeniably trash.

“I kept the ghosts away from him. I helped him succeed as an actor… When he was scared after seeing ghosts at night, I stayed with him and took care of him…”

She had figured out which projects would succeed and guided him toward them. She had driven away every stray ghost and minor spirit that approached him. And as though that weren’t enough, she had even given her heart to Han Tae-yi, who was desperately starved for affection.

She had loved him. Loved him with everything she had.

Yet as time passed, Han Tae-yi began treating Okbanji like something disposable.

Eventually, he stopped treating her as a living being with a heart of her own and instead treated her as nothing more than a toy that existed to help him, a toy he could reach for, touch, and possess whenever he wanted.

The more Lee Young listened, the more Tae-yi seemed like something worse than a beast.

“I really liked him… That’s why I did everything I could…”

Suddenly, as she listened to Okbanji, Lee Young looked at her as though something had occurred to her.

“But why did you like him?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you like him?”

At Lee Young’s question, Okbanji looked at her as though she had never once considered the reason herself.

Why had she liked him?

Well, that was…

Lee Young could understand being captivated after meeting Tae-yi. His handsome face, his words that tugged at maternal instincts, things like that could certainly have bewitched someone over time.

But Okbanji had said she had liked Tae-yi from the very first moment she saw him.

That was what Lee Young wanted to understand.

Strictly speaking, from Okbanji’s perspective, wasn’t Han Tae-yi basically her kidnapper?

“I liked him from the moment I first saw him.”

“Just because?”

At Lee Young’s question, Okbanji nodded.

She had simply liked him from the first moment she saw him?

Could that really happen?

She had woken up one day to find Tae-yi sitting right before her eyes, and afterward, she had been unable to return to the place where she originally lived for three whole years.

And yet she had simply liked him?

Lee Young felt vaguely uneasy.

Perhaps Okbanji hadn’t actually chosen to love Tae-yi of her own free will.

“You just liked him, and then you just suddenly stopped? Or did you stop because he hurt you?”

Okbanji tilted her head at Lee Young’s question before answering.

“Suddenly? Suddenly… I thought I could never leave him. But one day, I just thought I couldn’t go on like this anymore, so I stopped turning into a human.”

So Tae-yi had believed that Okbanji had run away.

But in reality, Okbanji had remained inside the ring and spent an entire month without transforming into her human form.

Even while hearing Tae-yi calling out for her and searching for her, she had not wanted to become human again.

She didn’t know why.

That was simply how she felt.

And then she began wanting to leave Tae-yi’s side forever.

If possible, she even wanted to punish Tae-yi for doing nothing but use her.

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