Chapter 6: Prepare Yourself to Be Surprised

“Do you want me to give you a name? What kind of name would you like? You’re small and cute, so how about Chestnut? Hmm?”

When lunchtime came, Lee Young locked the bookstore door from the inside, settled Samjokgu on her lap, and began talking to him.

It was her first time raising a dog.

Sa Hae had clicked his tongue at Samjokgu, accusing the little creature of putting on an act of innocence right up until the moment he left, but to Lee Young, Samjokgu was nothing more or less than a cute, pitiful little puppy rather than a yokai.

“Since I called you Chestnut, should I shorten it to Tori? Hmm? Tori.”

At Lee Young’s words, Samjokgu seemed to like his new name. He climbed down from her lap and began yapping and circling around her feet.

He was apparently more than three hundred years old, yet he acted as though he knew exactly how to be cute enough to win affection. He was simply adorable, and Lee Young liked that.

“You really are cute, aren’t you?”

Her gentle hand stroked the head of Samjokgu, who had acquired the name Tori. No matter how she looked at him, he was far too cute to be a yokai.

Sa Hae had grumbled that being cute did not excuse everything, but perhaps it really was like that. Being cute seemed to be enough.

“Are you sleepy? You can come up here and sleep if you want.”

If its body had not changed size according to its own wishes, she would have thought it was an ordinary puppy.

Tori had spent the entire morning scampering around the bookstore, and the moment Lee Young told him it was all right to sleep when he was tired, his body shrank down.

He became so tiny that, at a glance, he could have passed for a puppy-shaped plush keychain. He crawled beneath the cuff of Lee Young’s sleeve and hid there.

Apparently, hiding inside someone’s clothing was an instinct of the Samjokgu.

Lee Young found even that adorable and kept smiling.

“But what do you like? Dogs eat kibble, so do you eat kibble too? You’re not actually a dog, you’re a yokai, so do you eat meat?”

Lee Young became more talkative than usual because she liked the warmth she could feel beneath her sleeve.

Sa Hae had said that seeing more and more yokai would be difficult, but for now, it simply felt fun. No, more than fun, it just felt good.

If she could spend her days looking at something this small and adorable, she felt that there was nothing bad about it.

****

“This is actually better than I expected. I was really worried when you said I’d have to see yokai.”

Lee Young spoke as she pushed a piece of perfectly grilled pork ribs into her mouth.

The private room of a famous, expensive barbecue restaurant near the bookstore contained Sa Hae, Lee Young, and Tori.

Half of the perfectly grilled meat went into Lee Young’s mouth, while the other half disappeared into Tori’s mouth beneath the cuff of her sleeve.

Sa Hae had told her that since Tori was a yokai rather than a real dog, she could feed him human food as much as she liked. So Lee Young kept slipping little pieces of meat into Tori’s mouth.

“Take care of your own mouth. Your own mouth. Stop worrying about that thing.”

“How can I when he’s eating so well?”

“Tsk.”

Sa Hae sighed at Lee Young’s words.

“You really take after Sun-young. Your meddling nature is practically as wide as a whole skirt.”

As he spoke, Sa Hae placed more pieces of perfectly grilled meat onto Lee Young’s plate.

“Aren’t you eating, too?”

“If you’re going to keep calling me ‘Mister,’ at least use proper honorifics, will you? What do you mean, ‘aren’t you eating’? You should be saying, ‘Won’t you eat?’ properly.”

“Old man.”

At Lee Young’s casually tossed remark, Sa Hae bristled and glared at her.

This one had an even more cheeky side to her than Sun-young. Sun-young had never been like this.

“Anyway, what were you worried about?”

Sa Hae asked, remembering the part of Lee Young’s earlier statement that she had left unfinished.

“Oh, I thought that since I’d be seeing a lot of yokai, I might run into some really disgusting ones. You know, like virgin ghosts or egg ghosts?”

“They’re not yokai. They’re exactly what you called them, ghosts.”

“They’re different?”

“They’re humans who died and became ghosts, while yokai are born. They’re just a different category from you humans.”

“Oh.”

Lee Young gave an understanding little exclamation, but in truth, she still did not completely understand the difference between yokai and ghosts.

Still, if every yokai was as cute as Tori, she felt that granting their wishes might not be so bad.

“Yokai as cute as that mutt are rare.”

Sa Hae ordered another two servings of pork ribs and spoke as though he could see straight through her.

“I don’t need that much…”

“You’ve fed that dog more than you’ve put in your own mouth.”

“He’s not a dog. He’s Tori.”

“A dog.”

“I said Tori. Tori.”

Watching Lee Young go so far as to give the creature a name, Sa Hae shook his head.

Humans did not realize how much meaning there was in giving something a name.

That was why they had given a name even to someone like him, who had once been no better than a stray bastard. And now she was so casually giving a name to that dog yokai, too.

Sa Hae suddenly remembered Sun-young, who had called him “Ahae.”

The day Sun-young had first called him “Ahae,” he had trembled like a boy who could not sleep at night. Having a name of his own had made him happy. It had felt as though he had finally gained a family.

Of course, when he learned that “Ahae” simply meant “child,” he had been a little sad. Sun-young had noticed that sadness and, in the end, given him her own surname, turning him into Sa Hae.

“You shouldn’t just go around giving everything a name, all right?”

“Why is Tori ‘just anything’?”

As she fed Tori a piece of meat she had blown on to cool, Lee Young widened her eyes and glared at Sa Hae.

“Oh, look at you.”

Sa Hae let out an incredulous laugh.

He had gone to the trouble of buying meat because he was annoyed by how skinny she was, grilling it himself, cutting it up, and placing each piece neatly on her plate. Yet she was glaring at him like that just because he had called the dog ‘just anything.’

Humans, honestly.

“You have a name too, Mister.”

“…”

“So Tori should have a name too.”

“If you keep giving names to things so carelessly, you can end up tying your souls together.”

“Tying them together?”

Sa Hae nodded lightly.

Give something a name. Grow attached to it. That itself became a connection.

A connection between a human and a yokai. A connection between a human and a ghost. A connection between a human and an animal.

Every kind of bond came from things like that.

A name was proof of existence.

Give something a name, call it by that name, grow attached to it, and the souls would inevitably grow close. It was unavoidable.

“Then even if you want to leave each other, you won’t be able to.”

“Then we can just stay together without leaving each other.”

She really was Sun-young’s granddaughter, through and through.

Sa Hae clicked his tongue softly at Lee Young’s innocent words.

Humans and yokai had different lifespans. To say so easily that they could simply stay together without ever parting showed how little she understood.

If it were really that easy, then why would sad beings exist in this world? Why would there be souls that decided never to trust anyone and to live alone?

“Fine. Do whatever you want.”

In the end, people had to learn things for themselves.

No matter how much you lectured humans, they would never truly understand until they experienced something themselves. That was practically a chronic human ailment. They had to taste something themselves before they believed it.

“But aren’t you really going to eat?”

Huh.

He had told her to use proper honorifics if she was going to use them at all, and she had immediately remembered and put it into practice. She really was quick.

Sa Hae began scrutinizing Lee Young’s face from across the table.

It was a face he had secretly watched since she was little.

A clever, bright child who resembled Sun-young.

“You really…”

“Yes?”

“You grew up well.”

The words might have sounded a little out of the blue, but after saying them, Sa Hae handed Lee Young another piece of meat.

“Stop feeding the dog and eat. I told you to eat beef, so why did you order pork ribs?”

“I like pork ribs the most. They just make me feel good.”

“These?”

“Yes.”

Lee Young nodded and pushed another well-cooked rib into her mouth.

Pork ribs.

Whenever she and Sun-young had eaten out, they had always ordered pork ribs. The sight of families gathered three or four at a table in neighborhood barbecue restaurants on weekend evenings had never left Lee Young’s mind.

They were not even her family. They were other people’s families.

She had never understood why seeing them always made her feel so happy.

“There were fewer people like this these days, but when I was little, every barbecue restaurant in the neighborhood would be packed with customers on weekend evenings. I really liked seeing that.”

Lee Young spoke in a voice filled with fond reminiscence.

“Maybe that’s why pork ribs are still my favorite food.”

“Pretty modest.”

Sa Hae gave a short snort of laughter, and Lee Young shot him a look.

“What would a man whose favorite food is Chilseong bells know?”

“You’re comparing Chilseong bells to pork ribs?”

“Honestly, I think these taste better.”

“That’s hilarious.”

What would you know?

Sa Hae looked at Lee Young with exactly that expression, then picked up his chopsticks for the first time since they had arrived and put a piece of pork rib into his mouth.

“Ugh. It’s sweet.”

“That’s why you eat it.”

“This chopstick probably tastes better.”

“Hey, hey! They’re actually made of brass. If you eat that, you’re going to be a nuisance.”

Tsk.

Sa Hae clicked his tongue in disappointment with the brass chopstick still between his lips.

“We paid enough for this meal. Can’t I eat at least this much?”

“You said you’re the CEO of a steel company. Eat your own steel. Your own steel.”

“Brass tastes different.”

Sa Hae sounded genuinely disappointed, but Lee Young firmly shook her head.

She hated causing inconvenience to other people more than anything.

As far as Lee Young was concerned, even making a pair of brass chopsticks disappear from this restaurant would count as causing trouble.

“What a shame.”

Sa Hae smiled mischievously, rolling the chopstick around in his mouth as though it were a piece of candy.

Just as Lee Young was about to say something, Tori began barking.

“What? You’re barking at me because I’m eating this one thing?”

Sa Hae spoke incredulously as he looked at Tori.

Then, all at once, his expression hardened.

A strange energy was coming through Tori.

“Tori, shh. Shh!”

As Lee Young tried to calm Tori down, she stared at Sa Hae.

The light radiating from his body had turned a painfully cold blue.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I guess we should stop eating.”

“Why?”

“Looks like someone is looking for you.”

Sa Hae said that as he rose from his seat.

“Get up. And prepare yourself to be surprised.”

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Underdog Connection

ChaebolContemporaryObsessiveLove

Read Now →
Not interested