Hanpuri Concert (3)
Neoul looked closely at the bearded ghost’s face. The old man sniffed the air, then his eyes went red as he muttered,
Neoul did not answer. The man looked far too suspicious, and for some reason Neoul had the distinct feeling that he should not say a word.
Instead, he took out a ten-thousand-won bill and handed it over.
When Neoul nodded, the ghost’s red eyes returned to normal. Taking the money, he broke into a hearty laugh.
"Well, now, thank you kindly. What’s the point of raising your children to the end if all they do is fight over your property and not even give you a penny for the road? Eh?"
The bearded ghost folded the bill neatly, stuffed it into his pocket, and wandered off.
After that, two more ghosts approached Neoul. He was focused on the concert, so he only half-listened to what they said and absentmindedly slipped each of them a bill.
"Want some cotton candy?"
At the tap on his shoulder and the voice beside him, Neoul paused just as he was about to hand over another ten-thousand-won bill, then turned.
A boy stood there in clothes far too thick for the season, wearing a deer-antler headband and glasses. He held out cotton candy to Neoul and pointed down below, a little away from the stage.
"They give it out for free over there every time there’s a performance."
A Grim Reaper was busily pouring sugar and making colorful cotton candy to hand out.
"Is this something to eat? It seems as though someone has plucked a great cloud and brought it here by the armful."
Neoul took the cotton candy in wonder.
"What, is this your first time eating cotton candy? Hmm... You don’t look like someone who’s ever been to a concert before, either."
The boy did not move on. Instead, he stood beside Neoul and leaned against the railing, then looked down at the stage as he spoke.
"This show happens every week. Just in our country alone, several hundred people die every day. In a single week, that’s enough new audience members to fill this tiny amusement park over and over."
Neoul was a little startled.
Several hundred people a day died...?
To Neoul, it was a number too vast to truly grasp.
"Hmm. Since the audience changes every time, they could always prepare the same set list, but I never understand why the Reapers always put together a new one."
The boy clicked his tongue as though he couldn’t make sense of it.
The concert was nearing its end, and all the Grim Reapers, including Baek Namu, came out for one final encore. By then, the ghosts were all in tears.
The Reapers lined the ghosts up in two orderly rows. The line stretched all the way to the amusement park exit.
The exit had been sealed shut with a massive gate. When one of the Reapers opened it, a broad field full of white wildflowers and a road came into view. It was an entirely different place from the world outside that Neoul had seen on his way to the amusement park.
Far across the empty field, big and small dogs came racing forward in a frantic rush. Behind them walked Grim Reapers dressed in black like zookeepers, wearing safari hats and white boots. Several cats were cradled in the Reapers’ arms.
"Choco! I missed you!"
"Kim Elizabeth!"
"Mongguuu! Waaah!"
Some of the ghosts who had been waiting in line with such discipline burst into tears and ran to the pets that had come to greet them. The ghosts who crossed the gate and dashed into the field threw their arms around the dogs and cats one by one.
Pigs, rabbits, parrots, turtles, and other animals were there as well.
The remaining ghosts exchanged affectionate greetings with the Grim Reapers, sending them lingering, tender looks before obediently following their guidance into that space.
Neoul stared with curious eyes at the unfamiliar animals he had never seen before and did not even know by name. They were mostly plump and fluffy, with a very endearing appearance.
"You know something?"
Then the boy in glasses asked,
"A Grim Reaper appears to the deceased in the form of the person they loved most in life, or the person who was their ideal type. Seeing that the one all the way to the left looks exactly like the girl I had a crush on before I died, I guess that was true. What about you? How do they look to you?"
Neoul looked around at the Grim Reapers. Baek Namu was Baek Namu, and all the others had faces he had never seen before. Neoul tilted his head, then turned back to the boy in glasses.
When the boy met his eyes, he lifted the corners of his mouth and grinned.
"That’s the face of someone who doesn’t understand at all. So you really aren’t dead, huh?"
Neoul wondered whether now was the time to take out another ten-thousand-won bill. But the boy only shrugged and changed the subject.
"Why aren’t you eating the cotton candy? Hurry up before it melts."
Neoul brought the cloudlike sugar to his mouth. Just as he opened his lips to bite into it, he felt a prickling gaze against one side of his face and stopped.
Neoul lowered the cotton candy instead of eating it.
"I have a question."
Neoul, having finally understood the source of the unease he felt from the boy, asked,
"You said the audience changes for every performance because, once the concert ends, everyone goes through that gate to the afterlife, did you not?"
"Yeah. That's right."
"Then why do you remain here and not go on?"
He seemed to have stayed here for quite some time if he knew the concert was held every week and even knew that the set list changed each time.
Neoul narrowed his eyes and studied the boy.
The boy pointed at the cotton candy and said,
"I’ll answer if you eat that."
"...Very well. I shall not listen."
Neoul turned away as if to say he could keep his answer to himself. He wasn’t curious enough to force himself into doing something just to hear it.
"Damn it. I said eat it, didn’t I?"
The boy in glasses snatched the cotton candy from Neoul’s hand and tried to shove it into his mouth.
Neoul clamped his mouth shut and pushed the boy away with his long arm. It had been suspicious enough that he kept trying to make him eat the cotton candy and stared at him so insistently.
What is he plotting?
Seeing the suspicion in Neoul’s expression, the boy in glasses seemed to realize he was in trouble and took several steps back.
Then he suddenly lunged at Neoul, ramming his head into Neoul’s chest. His body shrank as if being sucked into Neoul’s, then vanished. It all happened in the blink of an eye.
The cotton candy dropped to the floor with a soft thud.
...?What just happened?
Neoul stared in shock and touched his chest. Just then, Baek Namu, who had finished what he needed to do, returned.
"Mermaid prince! How was the performance? Best ever, right? I know, I know!"
Baek Namu approached with an air of self-satisfaction, then suddenly stiffened, his expression freezing in place.
"Ah... damn it."
With that curse, he reached out toward Neoul.
"You need to get back into your body, now!"
* * *
Meanwhile, at Baek Yuri’s house.
Neoul, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly opened his eyes. While he was astral projecting, the connection between his body and soul had weakened just enough for a ghost to slip in.
The one who had taken over Neoul’s body was the boy in glasses.
At last, I’m out of that damned amusement park!
The boy in glasses was a restless spirit who had died in that amusement park long ago, before it was shut down, before the place had completely emptied of human visitors and turned into a den of ghosts.
Unable to accept his own death, he had spent his time hiding from the Grim Reapers and avoiding their eyes. But no matter how badly he wanted to leave, an unknown force tied to his corpse kept him from departing the place where he had died, forcing him to wander there endlessly.
And then...!
Who would have thought a living soul would appear in that place, overrun only by the dead and the Reapers!
The boy had approached Neoul, hoping to rob an empty house, so to speak.
The sugar used in the Grim Reaper-made cotton candy had been grown in the afterlife and brought here. There was an old saying that if you ate food from the underworld, you would never be able to return to the living world.
The boy had planned to feed Neoul the cotton candy, sever his connection to his body, and take over Neoul’s flesh.
If that quick-witted bastard hadn’t refused to eat the cotton candy, I would have cut the connection right away...
But if the body’s owner did not return for a long time after the body had been stolen, the connection between body and soul would naturally grow weak and break.
To keep up his act as though he were the body’s rightful owner, the boy first tried to figure out the situation.
Who are these people? Siblings of this body?
After some thought, the boy decided to wake them up.
They don’t look alike, but whatever. Let’s go with the amnesia cliché. Hit your head, lose all your memories, and use that to gather information and start a new life!
Just as he reached out with grand ambitions, the boy suddenly saw an illusion of a massive tidal wave surging toward him.
Huh...?
His vision flashed red, then blue, and tears began spilling from his eyes. His emotions went wild like those of a madman, churning into chaos.
The boy writhed under the rushing thirst and mental agony, feeling an urge to throw himself into the water. In the end, he could not endure it and was thrown out of Neoul’s body.
* * *
The boy, expelled from Neoul’s body, fell straight back into the amusement park. Baek Namu, who had been reaching for Neoul, collided hard with the suddenly reappearing boy in glasses and was shoved backward.
"Ack! What the hell?"
The boy in glasses, tears streaming down his face, recognized the Grim Reaper and collapsed in dismay. By the time he gathered his wits and tried to run, it was already too late. Baek Namu had quickly pulled out the black binding cord and wrapped him up tight.
"You little punk! If you were dead, you should’ve left peacefully! What are you doing, lusting after someone else’s body?"
Baek Namu blew a whistle to summon another Reaper. A moment later, the two-tailed Grim Reaper Neoul had seen onstage came over and hauled the boy away.
Baek Namu immediately grabbed Neoul by the arm, and before long they were back at Baek Yuri’s house. Baek Namu flicked Neoul’s forehead, sending him back into his own body.
"Ow..."
Neoul sat up, rubbing his forehead. His body, which had felt so light, suddenly grew heavy, the sensation strange, like surfacing from underwater and losing buoyancy all at once.
Only two of the five bills remained in Neoul’s hand now. He laid the crumpled money by his pillow.
Looking around the room, he saw that Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom were fortunately still sleeping soundly. Baek Yuri lay neatly as he had when he first fell asleep, while Baek Gi-yeom had rolled around so much that his head and feet had switched places.
While Neoul was inspecting the room, Baek Namu studied him in confusion.
"What on earth was that?"
Baek Namu muttered to himself.
"What do you mean?"
Neoul whispered softly so as not to wake the two sleeping men.
"That wraith from before. The boy with glasses. He definitely took over your body, so why was he thrown out so quickly?"
"Did that fellow take over my body?"
Neoul was briefly startled, then went blank as he too had no idea why the ghost had been expelled.
Baek Namu narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin, trying to reason it out.
"Could it be because you’re not human?"
"Hmm. It seems so."
Neoul agreed, then slowly buried his face in the pillow.