Curiosity Is a Sin
Everything changed in the space of a single blink.
When I came to, I was standing alone in the black space that had grown so familiar to me. The stately old hanok, the gangsters snickering around me — not a trace of them remained.
So I'm back.
The bandages that had been wound tight around my hands until moments ago were gone as well. I opened and closed my painless fingers for no reason other than to feel them work. It really was like a dream.
I stayed rooted in place for a while, then looked up at the empty air.
“……When do I get my prize?”
I'd gotten the answer right, after all.
Muttering into nothing was embarrassing, sure, but it had seemed worth a try — laughter had come swirling back the moment I did it, after all.
"I thought removing the hallucination would be your prize… You're a greedier child than you look."
The voice felt like it was drifting around me, light as something floating on a cloud — as if it had a shape of its own.
"If you want something, there's little I cannot give. Is there anything you desire?"
“Do you happen to know where Mist is? If you do, could you call him for me?”
I had no idea what exactly was going on here, but I could take a rough guess. The way he'd been playing gangster right in front of me a moment ago, for one….
Chances were high that this was one of the same 'kind' Mist had mentioned that first day. And judging by how freely he manipulated hallucinations, he was a being on a higher level than Mist, at the very least.
"Do you have a reason for seeking that child?"
“Sorry? I just wanted to see his face…. Why? Is something wrong?”
Unease began to creep quietly up on me.
Don't tell me something had gone wrong again while I was gone.
My brow was furrowing without my permission, but the voice that came back was utterly at ease.
"You're every bit as curious a child as I heard. No wonder they all keep their eyes on you. Wait a moment."
Yokai?
Before I could even digest the word I'd never expected to hear, something came flying toward me at high speed.
Reflexively, I caught it — no time to think.
Something soft and warm filled my hands. A familiar face stared up at me.
—Whine….
"He can't speak while in that form, so calm him as you see fit."
A snow-white dog with only his right paw painted black whimpered as I held him. He was trembling all over, so I hastily shifted my posture and gathered him against my chest.
“Do you know why he can't talk in this form?”
"Of course. I do."
Held this deep against me, his damp nose kept brushing the nape of my neck, ticklish. It was mildly distracting, but the thought that I might finally untangle a question that had been nagging at me for ages won out, and I opened my mouth first.
“Then explain it for me—”
"Child, the hallucination from moments ago — I made it."
“Sorry?”
"And the extreme confusion you felt before that — that, too, was my doing. Do you know why I did it?"
How would I know that?
The unhurried drawl and the endless string of question marks were grating on my nerves. My brow kept knitting itself, and I had to consciously smooth it out.
Be patient, I told myself. He could be Mist's family, after all.
“I have no idea. Why did you do it?”
"Because of your behavior. Even just now you did it again. Like a foolish human, endlessly repeating the same mistake. Do you know what wrong you have committed?"
“……Haah.”
The frustration welling up in my throat escaped as a sigh before I could stop it.
It wasn't like we were playing twenty questions. What was he trying to do right now?
“Excuse me.”
I clenched my teeth and let the words out.
“If you're deliberately talking in circles, I'd rather you didn't. And if you're not trying to provoke me, then you should change how you phrase things — because right now, it's not helping this conversation at all. Never mind how the person listening feels; a conversation has a purpose, doesn't it? If you're calling me a child, I assume you're an adult. Has no one around you ever told you this before?”
"……"
Only after firing off the whole speech without stopping for breath did I register how hot my body had grown with irritation. Maybe I'd held it in too long while nothing around me made sense — even breathing was starting to annoy me.
Startled by the hostile air, Mist had stopped whimpering and gone small and quiet in my arms, so I pressed down the sighs rising in me as hard as I could.
“I'm sorry for being rude. But I'd appreciate it if you could be a little more direct.”
"……Your wrong was in harboring curiosity."
“Sorry?”
"Curiosity you cannot bear is a sin. Do not wonder. Do not question. I came to warn you of this."
Do not question.
While I was turning the words over in my head, Mist — who had been holding his breath the entire time — quietly leaned his head against me. The weight settling on my shoulder brought me back to myself.
Right. What did any of it matter?
“All right. I'll do that.”
So I wasn't to wonder about anything — the Black Stone, that clinging, sticky something, none of it.
It would be stifling, but it wasn't impossible. All I had to do was act the way I had before I met Mist.
Back to the days when, even if I wanted to ask, there was no one to ask. Back to then.
“Can I ask just one last thing?”
"And what would that be?"
“If I don't wonder — if I don't commit any wrong — then nothing bad will happen, right? Nothing like Mist disappearing on me again, like last time—”
The other party fell silent for a long while at my question.
It was frustrating, but I held back from pressing him — pushing for an answer might count as wondering, too.
"For now, you may take it as so. But I cannot promise it will remain so forever."
I was on the verge of scowling at that second vague, evasive answer when someone appeared in front of me.
It was a face I'd never seen before, and yet it was easy to tell that this wasn't his true form. His clear laughter, unclouded by a single trace of murk, radiated an atmosphere that was anything but human.
“You truly are a fascinating child….”
A hand pale to the point of translucence brushed against my chin. It lingered a moment, then withdrew and drifted serenely downward.
I stared blankly at the strangely mesmerizing movement — I couldn't take my eyes off it — until a vibration against the back of my neck snapped me back to my senses.
Mist was trembling.
The instant before the man's hand could touch him, I jerked backward. At the same time I raised my arms and gathered Mist deeper into my chest, and the man wordlessly pulled his hand away, smiling without a sound.
The smile hanging on his handsome face had grown only deeper.
“You've found yourself a good master, haven't you.”
“……”
“How fascinating…. The two of you blend together quite beautifully.”
The corners of his eyes, slanting upward like brushstrokes, curved into a slow smile. I could feel an intense gaze, hidden behind those delicate eyelids, sweeping over the two of us.
“What do you mean—”
I'd forgotten my own resolution not to ask about things I couldn't understand, and asked anyway — but no answer came back.
He simply vanished, and soon everything scattered with him.
No pain. No confusion.
Quietly, I opened my eyes.
“No. Don't be stubborn.”
“The one being stubborn right now is you, hyung, not me.”
Manager Ahn Jinbae's gaze and mine locked in a tense standoff. I could feel Seong Ijun and Nam In-hoo by the door doing their best not to get caught in the crossfire.
Watching the manager stand his ground like an unshakable wall, I swallowed the sigh that came rising up on its own. Better to try soothing him instead, I decided, and opened my mouth gently.
“Hyung, I never said I wouldn't go at all. I said I'd go after the shoot. Let's go together the second we're done, okay?”
I thought I'd made a fairly persuasive case, but my opponent held firm.
“You said you didn't have time to go to the hospital, yet you seem to have plenty of time to argue like this.”
“……”
I'd never heard that tone from Manager Ahn Jinbae before, and the words wouldn't come.
“It's not that— Hyung, touch my forehead yourself.”
I took his hand and placed it on my forehead.
“See? No fever right now, right? If I were really sick, I would've told you first thing. Said I couldn't make the shoot.”
“You wouldn't have, though.”
“I….”
He's seriously had an answer for everything since a while ago.
Feeling my words cut off at every turn, I finally let out a sigh.
“I promise. The second the shoot ends, I'll go straight there. No buts — straight there.”
Only after I went so far as to hook my little finger with his did the stubborn look in his eyes finally soften back to normal. He nodded at my suggestion that we at least eat something before heading out, and I got up.
“Yeonjae, you're really okay…?”
“If you tell the director, he'll probably push the schedule back. Just go to the hospital.”
Just when I thought this was finally over, they're really going to do this?
But I couldn't bring myself to sigh at people who were worried about me. More than anything, I'd given them a scare yesterday.
“I'm really fine. And I'm sorry for freaking you out yesterday. Sometimes when I get startled, I have trouble breathing.”
I paused mid-sentence, wondering how far I needed to explain — and the two of them shook their heads at the same time.
“It's fine. That can happen…!”
“Right. Don't worry about it. Let's just do a good job with today's shoot.”
“Yeah! Let's do a good— …wait, no, I don't have a shoot today….”
When Seong Ijun's face fell into a sulk, Nam In-hoo cracked a joke about him dropping by the set often. Since when did those two get so close?
Odd as it was, I patted Ijun's back along with him anyway.
After eating the fried rice Manager Ahn Jinbae had made, I headed to set with Nam In-hoo. Thankfully, the scenes we had to shoot today weren't all that difficult. Aside from one retake when the wind drowned out the audio, we wrapped with not a single NG.
True to my promise, I went straight to the hospital the moment filming ended — and sure enough, the test results turned up nothing. They'd said I'd run a high fever overnight, but by the time I woke up I'd been fine as if it had never happened.
When I asked if I could go home now, Manager Ahn Jinbae hesitated, then asked whether I shouldn't see a counselor.
I pictured the face of the doctor I'd already seen a couple of times and shook my head.
“My appointment's this weekend anyway. There's no need to go today, too.”
“Still….”
“Hyung, I'm really okay. Yesterday was just a nightmare, I told you.”
It wasn't as if I could bring up misfortune factors or Mist with a doctor. What would be the point of going today?
More than anything, I was no longer allowed to wonder.
So that night, when I saw Mist sitting in the black space, I said this:
“Mist. Did you not want to see me?”
The little one looked up at me with eyes brimming wet. His small, flinching body, his right hand hidden inside a sleeve that hung too long — I saw all of it clearly, and sat down beside him as if I hadn't.
“I wanted to see you.”
“……”
His dog form wasn't bad at all, but I liked his human shape best. Because we could talk, after all.
And yet, frustratingly, Mist wouldn't open his mouth.
“Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you want to?”
At my gentle words, his small lips began to tremble.
“……You don't hate me…?”
“Why would I?”
Was there anything in last night that would've given me reason to hate Mist?
No matter how I turned it over in my head, nothing came up.
Mist worked his lips for a moment, then — as always — failed to continue. Instead of pressing him for an answer, I just muttered that the floor was hard.
“…!”
At that, a chair formed beneath me and my view lifted in one smooth motion. The sudden sensation of moving startled me for a heartbeat, but once I grasped what had happened, I burst out laughing.
When I whispered a thank-you, the little one hesitated a moment — then threw himself into my arms. Oof, easy on the strength.
“Yeonjae.”
“Yeah?”
“……From now on, I'll protect you.”
The small body saying those words was warm.
I smiled and held Mist close.
“Okay. Thank you.”
For now, this was enough.