GRR 107

How could I lessen that worry and anxiety? How could I make her leave this world even a little sooner? Jion bit the inside of his cheek as he pondered. However, today, his mind had gone completely blank, and he couldn’t think of anything. Right now, his mother, the grim reaper who had come to take her mother, and the words that Kwon Chasa had said to the ghost were all jumbled together in his head.

Jion barely managed to hold in a sigh and forced a smile. It wasn’t until he took a deep breath and a long while had passed that he was finally able to get to the point.

“If you can think of any wishes, would you mind telling me later?”

“…….”

“I’ll also think about what I can do for Mingyu.”

“…….”

“If I grant your wish, you’ll have to go to the underworld then. That way, you’ll be able to be reincarnated a little sooner. It might even be better for Mingyu too.”

Jion held out his pinky finger toward the ghost. But she simply lowered her head. As Jion waited quietly instead of urging her, the woman looked up and bit her lip.

Without a word, Jion quietly extended his pinky finger and smiled gently. He wanted to convey that everything would be all right. The woman, who had lowered her head again, made up her mind and mimicked Jion’s hand gesture. Though her pinky finger passed right through Jion’s, that alone was enough to prove their promise.

She began to weep bitterly once more, and Jion sat on the floor. He felt overwhelmed by a sudden wave of exhaustion, leaving him nearly drained of strength. Only now did he feel a stinging pain around his eyes, which he had rubbed countless times to wipe away his tears.

The sound of her crying disrupted the quiet street. Jion closed his eyes tightly. He felt that if he didn’t stolen content pull himself together, he too would burst into tears.

Kwon Chasa’s eyes were darker than ever as he watched Jion.

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Although he had said he would go home on his own, Jion had no choice but to take Kwon Chasa’s hand and step through the gate. This was because the place where they had gone to meet the ghost was not near his home, it was Gangwon Province, a two-and-a-half-hour ride even by express bus.

He had only stepped through one gate, yet he found himself right in front of his house in an instant. This situation, which was never unfamiliar to Jion, felt alien today.

It didn’t take long for him to realize why. Usually, as soon as they reached the front of the house, Kwon Chasa would let go of his hand and urge him to hurry inside, but today he didn’t let go of his hand. He tried wiggling his trapped hand, but Kwon Chasa didn’t let to.

“Why were you crying?”

It was Kwon Chasa’s soft voice that broke the silence. Jion looked up to meet his gaze, but the words suddenly felt cruelly affectionate, causing him to lower his head again. It was a complete contrast to the harsh words he’d hurled at the ghost.

His heart fluttered because it proved that he cared about him and still liked him.

“…I was thinking about my mom.”

Feeling the warmth from his hand, Jion could resist no longer and answered.

“My mom was worried about me just like that person earlier… That’s why she didn’t want to go to the underworld…”

Jion trailed off and gritted his teeth. It was because Kwon Chasa’s figure overlapped with the dark silhouette of the grim reaper he had seen as a child.

As he exhaled, a white puff of breath escaped his lips. Jion lifted his head again to look at Kwon Chasa, who was waiting for him to finish his sentence. His expression was blank, as if he felt no emotion, but his dark eyes were fixed on him. It was as if they were telling him he would never turn his gaze toward anyone but him.

Jion suddenly felt the urge to confirm something. If this was the grim reaper he was now, no, if he was the one who had never once lied to him, from the very beginning until now, then he felt he would tell him the truth this time as well. Rather than agonizing over assumptions and doubts, he wanted to ask him directly and hear his answer.

Was the grim reaper who took his mother Kwon Chasa?

Jion finally managed to speak.

“…Chasa-nim. You mentioned before that you’d experienced something similar.”

“……”

“You said you’d taken a soul who was a mother, just like her.”

In response to Jion’s question, Kwon Chasa nodded, but furrowed his brow slightly. Jion struggled to hold visit our site back tears that already threatened to spill over and continued.

“Back then, was there a child beside that ghost?”

“…….”

“A child crying his heart out… was there one? He must have been crying and calling for his mother the whole time……”

Kwon Chasa gazed at Jion’s eyes, which had reddened, and searched his memory for the past.

Once, a visibly exhausted Yeomra had summoned him and handed him a register personally. She said there was a soul still lingering in the living world due to an incident caused by Sobyeolwang, and that since over a year had passed, the soul must be brought to the underworld as soon as possible. She warned that since the soul had already disrupted the order of the living world several times, leaving it be could lead to even greater chaos.

After hearing the explanation, Kwon Chasa immediately drafted the jeokpaeji and headed for the living world. He arrived at a narrow room that was pitch-black because the lights had been turned off. Kwon Chasa immediately grasped his buwol and approached the soul.

‘Let go of your attachments now.’

‘……’

‘Unless you want to be cast into hell.’

As he brought the razor-sharp blade close to the woman’s neck, she looked terrified yet stubbornly resisted.

‘No, I can’t go. Absolutely not, absolutely not…!’

With that, she dashed ran the window and fled outside. Kwon Chasa easily blocked her path and threatened her in an irritated voice.

‘Don’t you understand that you’re only hastening your journey to hell? If you keep accumulating karma, not only will reincarnation be difficult, but your child will also have to bear that sin. Is that really what you want?’

The ghost hesitated for a moment, but could not let go of her attachment. When Kwon Chasa followed her back into the house, he realized that there was a child in the room.

“Mom, sniff, Mom…”

The child was curled up in a corner, crying, searching for his mother.

“The grim reaper who came to take my mother said… that if she stayed here, the chances of going to hell will increase… that her karma will pass on to her child…”

Kwon Chasa snapped out of his reverie and listened as Jion spoke slowly. Before he knew it, Jion was once again shedding tears.

“So my mom… went with the grim reaper. All I saw was the back of that grim reaper…”

“……”

“At that moment, I wondered if that reaper might have been you… because what you said was so, so similar to what the reaper who took my mom away said…”

Jion wiped his stinging eyes once more and looked at Kwon Chasa. The latter followed that movement and, feeling as if something deep unauthorized copy inside him was suddenly and precariously lurching, could do nothing but close his eyes tightly.

The thoughts contained in Jion’s eyes were conveyed to him unfiltered. Jion hoped that the grim reaper from back then wasn’t him. He desperately wished that the grim reaper who had hurled harsh words at his mother and taken her away wasn’t him.

“Do you remember when it was?”

“…I was eight years old, so that was 11 years ago.”

The timing and circumstances matched perfectly. Eleven years ago, a soul who had stayed in the living world for over a year, and a child crying out for his mother. It might have been a string of coincidences, but Kwon Chasa was already certain.

“…Was it you, Chasa-nim?”

Among the roughly three hundred reapers, he was the only one who would threaten a soul refusing to go to the afterlife in that manner. Even the number of days Jion’s mother and the soul he had taken care of were similar.

Kwon Chasa recalled the answer Jion had given when asked when he first started seeing ghosts.

‘I’m not exactly sure when I first started seeing them… but I first realized they were ghosts when I was seven. After my mom passed away, I saw her. And for a whole year after that, she stayed with me.’

The child he had seen had been curled up, crying and calling only for his mother. Since his duty was simply to take the deceased to the underworld, he hadn’t even had time to spare a thought for the child.

But to think that child was Jion. To think his spiritual eyes had already opened enough to see a grim reaper back then. Kwon Chasa, who had no way of knowing that, naturally hadn’t even considered cleaning up the mess afterward. No, he didn’t think it was necessary.

“The grim reaper who took my mom… was that really you?”

“……”

“…Really?”

Jion rubbed his eyes as he asked the silent Kwon Chasa again. He couldn’t bring himself to offer a clear yes or no. But the despair painted on Kwon Chasa’s face, and his heavy silence, served as an affirmative answer.

It felt like he wouldn’t have been in this much pain if Kwon Chasa had acted shamelessly instead. If he had said that it was only natural for a soul who had disrupted the order between the living and the dead to be punished, and that he had simply done his duty, Jion might have been able to vent his anger and disappointment. But Kwon Chasa left him speechless.

He couldn’t understand why he felt so upset, or why tears were streaming down his face.

Jion wept for a long time. Kwon Chasa could only watch him. He could not bring himself to hug him, comfort him, or reach out to wipe away his tears.

He could do nothing but fully accept Jion’s choked breathing as if it were a punishment falling upon him.