The Things That Should Not Be Seen
Yeo-won collapsed onto her bed the moment she returned home.
“Ah, there’s no place like home.”
Without even washing up, she rubbed her face against the blanket. She still had to unpack and catch up on work, but the thought of leaving the warmth of her bed felt impossible.
Maybe it was because she had splurged on an expensive microfiber comforter. The way it felt against her skin was just too good.
As she ran her fingers over the soft fabric, a strange sense of déjà vu washed over her.
“……Have I touched something like this recently?”
All the blankets back at the house in Inwol were cotton-filled, and she couldn’t remember ever handling anything with a similar texture. Yet for some reason, the sensation felt oddly familiar.
Yeo-won’s brows drew together in confusion before smoothing out again.
She didn’t have the energy to think too deeply about it. The string of major events she’d faced lately had left her utterly drained. Right now, all she wanted was rest.
Once the tension left her body, sleep came rushing in.
Just as her eyelids began to droop under the weight of drowsiness, a cheerful notification sound snapped them wide open again.
“What the…?”
Irritated, she checked her phone. An email from her client waited in her inbox.
The message explained that due to internal circumstances, the project timeline had been moved up, and they hoped she could adjust her deadline accordingly.
Yeo-won frowned and flipped her phone over.
Fortunately, she had already made decent progress on the work while she was in Inwol, so there wouldn’t be any major issues. Still, the curt, matter-of-fact tone of the email grated on her nerves.
She rose from the bed with a heavy body, mentally hurling every bitter curse she could think of at the company.
“I still have to make money.”
Before that, though, she needed to put something in her stomach. For some reason, she felt constantly hungry lately.
She had eaten fairly well today, yet her stomach felt completely empty.
Normally, she could skip meals for a day or two without issue.
Maybe it was because she had dutifully eaten every meal Grandmother Yoon prepared for her. Her body seemed to have grown weaker when faced with an empty stomach.
When she opened the refrigerator, only a plastic bottle with a little water left inside rolled around forlornly.
Yeo-won picked up the empty bottle, shook it, and frowned. The single mouthful of water inside felt unreasonably cruel today.
The fridge was the same as always, but for some reason it looked especially barren right now.
She sighed at the sight of a coffee-stained mug with dried grounds stuck to the bottom of the sink.
Come to think of it, the last cup of coffee she’d made before leaving for Inwol had used up the very last of her coffee beans.
She could order food for delivery, but she needed something to drink right away.
“I guess I have to go buy some……”
But going out was such a hassle.
Yeo-won stood in front of the fridge and rubbed her tired face. Staring at it wouldn’t magically fill it with water.
In the end, she gave in to necessity, shoved her feet into her shoes, and left the house.
*
By the time she finished shopping at the convenience store and stepped outside, a steady drizzle had begun to fall.
It had been clear when she left the house, but the sudden rain looked like it was turning into a downpour.
Caught off guard, the people on the street hurried along with obvious panic.
Yeo-won stood in front of the store for a moment, debating.
It wasn’t raining hard enough to be called a torrent, but it was enough to make walking in it unpleasant.
As if to prove her point, a few people stood at the crosswalk with their hands awkwardly shielding their heads, waiting for the light.
She considered buying an umbrella, but her house was just around the corner once she crossed the street.
As she hesitated, she felt someone’s gaze on her. She had been blocking the entrance to the convenience store.
“Ah…… sorry.”
Yeo-won bowed her head in apology and, without thinking any further, dashed toward the crosswalk.
While waiting for the signal, the rain grew heavier.
Her makeshift hand-shield was useless against the downpour, and her body quickly became soaked.
The thought of getting the floor at home wet made her unreasonably irritated.
I shouldn’t have come out.
She wiped the rainwater from her eyes and stared at the light ahead. Something on the road was writhing.
What is that? A cat?
Yeo-won narrowed her eyes and focused on the road.
A black mass that looked like a pile of dust twitched unpleasantly, then something long and thin began to emerge from within it.
Yeo-won sucked in a sharp breath. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the scream that nearly burst out of her.
“Hup.”
It was so crushed and mangled that it was hard to recognize, but what had crawled out was unmistakably a human head. Or rather, what had once been a head.
What she had mistaken for a pile of dust was its upper body. The thing had no lower half and was crawling across the ground on its elbows. Its spider-like arms scraped grotesquely against the pavement.
A traffic accident……?
It was the kind of shape she often saw near intersections.
Yeo-won’s face turned deathly pale as she looked away. She hadn’t seen anything like this while in Inwol, so encountering it again after so long hit her twice as hard.
Her appetite vanished instantly, and nausea churned in her stomach.
She couldn’t bring herself to step on that thing.
If she went up the overpass it would be a longer walk, but she could get home without crossing the crosswalk.
Just as she turned to do exactly that, something touched her back.
Thud.
“Huh?”
It wasn’t a strong push, nor was it weak. It was exactly the right amount of force to send a person tumbling.
It was completely unexpected.
The blaring of a car horn, the startled gazes of passersby.
In that instant, the world seemed to move in slow motion.
And then she saw the hand sticking out from the crowd. A hand that could never belong to a human—pitch black, with flesh that looked rotten and eaten away in places.
Ah……
So this is how I die.
It had never directly harmed her before. But she wasn’t surprised. She simply thought, Of course.
The only thing that saddened her was the realization that she could never die an ordinary death like everyone else.
If she died now, would she be able to see Grandfather?
Or would she end up looking like the thing on the road?
What would Grandmother think when she saw her dead body?
Would she cry? Or would she be glad?
Either way, it didn’t matter. It would probably be easier on her heart if Grandmother didn’t cry at all.
The sound of the car grew closer.
I hope it doesn’t hurt too much when it hits me.
With that thought, Yeo-won closed her eyes. But strangely, no pain came.
She heard someone whispering nearby, and then her body was yanked forward.
When she opened her eyes again, she was sitting on the sidewalk.
A car sped past in front of her with a whoosh of wind.
The plastic bag she had dropped was crushed under its tires, sending its contents flying everywhere.
“Huk, haa…….”
Yeo-won let out the breath she had been holding. Along with the ragged gasps that escaped her lips, something—sweat or rain, she couldn’t tell—trickled down her forehead.
Am I alive? How?
“Are you okay, student?! Are you hurt anywhere?!”
Before she could even process what had happened, people swarmed around her. A middle-aged man in a suit grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
She couldn’t tell if she was trembling because of him or on her own.
“You, the guy in the blue shirt! Call 119! 119!”
“M-me?”
“Stop dawdling and hurry up!”
“O-okay, okay.”
At the older man’s shout, the younger one grumbled and lifted his phone.
“No, I’m fine…… I’m not hurt.”
Yeo-won stopped the man and stood up. Her legs shook so badly she nearly stumbled.
The older man looked at her precarious state with concern.
“Still, maybe we should……”
At her refusal, the younger man glanced around awkwardly and slipped his phone back into his pocket.
“S-sorry, I’ll just get going.”
All Yeo-won could think about was escaping this place as quickly as possible.
She forced her leaden feet to move. Even though it was in the opposite direction of her house, it didn’t matter.
She just wanted to get far away from there.
Hugging her trembling arms, she turned the corner. The alley had few people in it.
“Haa, haa…… huk, ugh, urghhh.”
Staggering, Yeo-won braced herself against a utility pole and began to vomit. Since her stomach was empty, only yellow bile splattered onto the ground.
Only now did the fear truly hit her. The helplessness of being unable to do anything in the face of death made her tremble uncontrollably.
Yeo-won crouched down in front of the pole.
“Hic……”
Tears began to fall. She covered her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud.
Living while seeing things others couldn’t was never easy.
She had to imitate normal people’s lives, and to keep up the act, she could never let her guard down for even a moment.
She had worked hard not to be left behind in human relationships, but there was always a limit. The moment she faced that limit, all her efforts felt meaningless, and she was swallowed by a crushing sense of powerlessness.
In the end, Yeo-won had given up on trying and isolated herself.
Living while seeing those things was exhausting just by existing.
Yet she kept living because she lacked the courage to die.
She didn’t even dream of ordinary things like traveling or dating like other people.
She just wanted to live.
That was all.
“But why……”
Was even that too greedy for someone like her?
Those things still terrified her.
Just seeing them was frightening. She hated even speaking their names, so she never used any of the words that referred to them.
She had never gotten used to seeing them, and now her life was being threatened by them.
Did that mean she would have to endure situations like this from now on?
She didn’t have the confidence to endure it. She didn’t even know why she should keep living through it.
Tears flowed endlessly. Yeo-won wiped them away as she cried in silent, choked sobs.
“Hic, hk……”
She was trying desperately to stop crying when she sensed a presence behind her. Then an unfamiliar hand settled on her shoulder.
“Hik!”
Her body jerked as if she had been electrocuted.
She tried to run, but the hand held her arm firmly.
“Aigoo, student. You must have been really scared.”
“……”
At the sound of a human voice, she turned her head. The middle-aged man who had helped her earlier stood there with an awkward smile.
“Ah……”
A sigh of relief slipped from Yeo-won’s slightly parted lips.
“You left your phone behind. I had to chase you for a while. How are your legs so fast? Haha.”
In his hand was indeed a phone.
“Th-thank…… hic, thank you……”
When Yeo-won sniffled and thanked him, the man laughed heartily.
“Aigoo. You must have been terrified. Well, that kind of thing isn’t common. Still, I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt. Here, take it.”
The man smiled warmly and held the phone out to her.
Yeo-won wiped her tear-streaked face and reached out to take it, but stopped in midair.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to take it?”
When she remained frozen, the man asked in confusion.
“……This isn’t my phone.”
The model and the case were completely different.
The image of the young man in the blue shirt flashed through her mind. The phone he had taken out to call for help had looked exactly like this one.
“Ah.”
A flat exclamation sounded above her head. But to Yeo-won, it sounded like a scream—chilling and horrifying.
The atmosphere changed. A chill ran through her entire body, and goosebumps rose along her spine.
Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Yeo-won slowly lifted her head.
Praying that she had misheard.
The moment their eyes met, his mouth split open from ear to ear. Along with a grotesque laugh that no human could make, the whites of his eyes turned blood red.
“I caaaauuught yooouuu.”