Chapter 73: A Greeting Only Our Family Uses

Everyone returned from the hospital to Gu Min-ah’s house. Yoo Hui-ro, who had clearly expected them to head straight back to Seoul, looked displeased the entire way, sulking with a sour expression.

Since there were so many people, they split into two cars. Gu Min-ah and Shin Yoon-jae went with Park Soo-jin, while Lee Hye-rin, Sung Ji-woo, and Yoo Hui-ro rode in Gu Min-ah’s mother’s car.

Inside the car with the four of them, an awkward silence stretched on until Lee Hye-rin cautiously spoke to Gu Min-ah’s mother.

“Um… are Min-ah and her father… okay?”

“They’ve always been like that, so don’t worry too much. If anything, I’m embarrassed you had to see that side of us.”

“No, no, it’s really fine. …Honestly, I was happy Min-ah called us her friends.”

“Thank you for saying that, at least.”

Gu Min-ah’s mother seemed to think Hye-rin’s words were just polite courtesy. But in truth, they were filled with genuine feeling.

There was a saying that if you spent two years grinding through X-Gate together, you’d develop camaraderie even with someone who’d been your mortal enemy in a past life. Still, Gu Min-ah wasn’t affectionate and rarely showed her feelings, so sometimes Hye-rin wondered, Are we really that close?

She’d even worried that if Gu Min-ah didn’t consider her a friend, maybe her own actions had been rude or bothersome.

But today, Min-ah had defined their relationship out loud. Hye-rin’s expression turned reflective.

“Since we’re already here, why don’t we eat before you go?”

“Sure!”

Hye-rin accepted immediately, without hesitation, then turned to look at Sung Ji-woo and Yoo Hui-ro in the back seat. Ji-woo hesitated for a moment.

That hesitation ended when Gu Min-ah arrived and explained that she still hadn’t done what she’d come for.

She was here to visit her older brother’s grave. His name, she added, was Gu Min-hyung.

Lee Hye-rin and Shin Yoon-jae said they’d come along. Sung Ji-woo also agreed without much thought, and Park Soo-jin said she would join them too.

Perhaps the reason a stranger’s death felt so painfully real was because they had all experienced death once themselves.

She had been given a second chance. Others had not. They probably didn’t even know they had died once.

No—since that future never came to them, maybe it was wrong to say they had experienced death at all.

The grave was on a low hill some distance away, reachable on foot. Only after passing a little beyond the midpoint did a neatly trimmed grassy area come into view.

“It’s really well kept.”

“My dad comes by to clean it up sometimes.”

As if reflecting a father’s love for the son who had left first, not a single stray leaf lay on the headstone.

With Gu Min-ah in the lead, they began setting up a memorial table with the food each of them had brought. It wasn’t traditional, and to an outsider it might have looked rather humble.

Pajeon and makgeolli prepared by her mother, several bags of snacks, chocolate and mint candies, and pork belly—everything Gu Min-hyung had liked when he was alive.

Once the modest table was ready, the six of them stood facing the grave.

“……”

They stood there unsure what to do, all of them stealing glances at Gu Min-ah. She stared silently at the headstone for a long time.

“…Why are you all just standing there like that?”

She suddenly turned around and asked, looking at the five people frozen in place.

They all made awkward faces.

“Uh… should we bow or something?”

Hye-rin asked first, hesitantly. Min-ah replied,

“Bow for what? My family isn’t religious.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Just sit down. Don’t make it awkward. We brought mats, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. Min-hyung hyung would feel uncomfortable.”

Shin Yoon-jae was already calling the deceased familiarly, as if he’d known him for years. Min-ah stared at him in disbelief, then snorted with a laugh.

If it really were her brother, he probably would have felt uncomfortable with such a stiff gathering.

“He’ll probably be happy. It’s been a while since this many people visited his grave.”

Hearing that, Hye-rin suddenly felt her throat tighten and turned her head away.

Shin Yoon-jae took the initiative, spreading out the mats and calling everyone over. They gathered together, awkward but close.

“Let’s drink. Eat what we brought.”

Even after offering the food, plenty remained. Gu Min-ah’s mother had made no less than thirty pajeon, and there were easily over ten bottles of makgeolli, all packed into an icebox.

Park Soo-jin had carried the heavy load without complaint. They’d also brought peaches, but after Shin Yoon-jae muttered, “Aren’t peaches supposed to drive away ghosts…?” they’d quietly hidden them in the corner.

They even debated leaving them behind somewhere, but since they were crops grown with care, it felt wrong to discard them.

“S-sure, let’s do that!”

An awkward drinking session began. Gu Min-ah poured one cup of makgeolli onto the grave and drank another herself.

The others followed suit, lifting their cups one by one. From then on, the mood shifted completely.

As they talked about this and that, the sun set beyond the hills. Eventually, the peaches hidden in the icebox were discovered by Min-ah. When she asked why they’d been hidden and heard Soo-jin’s honest confession, she burst out laughing.

Saying it was fine, she placed one peach on her brother’s offering table. As if someone who grew up in a peach-farming family would be scared of peaches.

She took a bite of a neatly peeled peach. It tasted like summer, a flavor only her hometown could offer. But that taste had already become a memory of the past.

It had been her choice.

Min-ah’s gaze remained fixed on the sky, somewhere far away. Her eyelids slowly fluttered closed and open, showing she was fairly drunk.

Lee Hye-rin, her face flushed from alcohol, hesitated before asking,

“I asked your mom earlier too, but… are you really okay with your father?”

Even though it wasn’t her own business, leaving a patient like that in the hospital weighed heavily on her.

“He even collapsed…”

“He’s always been kind of weak-hearted.”

“It did seem that way, but still…”

Hye-rin recalled how he’d looked on the verge of collapsing at any moment. Even while speaking harshly to Min-ah, he hadn’t dared treat her guests poorly, constantly glancing at them.

“Still, he wasn’t completely wrong. Being a hunter is dangerous. And if your whole family’s civilian, of course they’d worry. And besides—”

Shin Yoon-jae nudged Hye-rin, covering her mouth. Going any further would have been disrespectful.

“When I first lost my family, I thought there was nothing more irresponsible or cruel than saying, ‘Those who live have to go on living.’ But as I kept living… I realized it was true. It just… happens that way.”

“……”

Everyone fell silent, listening. Min-ah took another drink and drew a deep breath.

“I didn’t die—that’s all. But that means I’m alive. And if I’m alive, I eat, I sleep, I laugh, I start wanting things again. I’m just living. But people say things like, ‘That family lost their son, but you can hear laughter from their house,’ or ‘They’re going on a trip.’”

Her eyes held emotions impossible to put into words. She looked exhausted, as if she’d been tormented by them for a long time.

“Hearing that made me think… ah, I have to stay alive. I have to live well.”

Hye-rin asked carefully,

“…Then what your father said was—”

“Eat well. Live well. It’s a greeting we use only within our family. That’s why I said we’re fine, that we made up.”

That almost playful sentence was filled with concern and comfort. Unable to hold it in, Hye-rin burst into tears.

“That kind of sad story is cheating…!”

Min-ah patted her shoulder. The gesture was awkward, like someone comforting another person for the first time in her life, but Hye-rin leaned into her and sobbed openly.

“Why are you crying, idiot?”

Even as he scolded her, Shin Yoon-jae’s eyes were brimming with tears too. They really were such warm-hearted people.

“You did well.”

Park Soo-jin offered quiet comfort, and Min-ah nodded.

Sung Ji-woo chose to pour more alcohol into Min-ah’s cup instead of words. His heart felt heavy. He wanted to leave, yet at the same time, he wanted to stay.

He knew this wasn’t a good thing. That was why he’d meant to use today to put some distance between himself and everyone else.

But now, he didn’t want to say anything or think about anything at all.

With tangled emotions, Sung Ji-woo stared at the grave. There were no words he could offer lightly.