Chapter 47
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Monster Tale Specialist Office: The Cursed Video (9)
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Taeju sat at the first-floor bar table, letting out a big yawn. He looked like he was waiting for someone.
Taeju had once talked with Sia about curses. She had explained them in the same way, and back then, Taeju had asked her one question.
“Isn’t there something even more important in a curse than the one who casts it and the one who receives it? One more thing before that, right?”
That was the question Taeju had asked Sia before. She had smiled and answered.
“That’s so obvious. No need to put it into words.”
“Yeah, it really is just like you said.”
He must have been a bit fatigued. Taeju closed his eyes and decided to wait. The promised time wouldn’t be long now.
How much time passed? Ding-a-ling. The bell rang out. Taeju opened his eyes.
“Is it just you?”
The one who appeared was Suhyeon.
He had clearly said that Seonwoo was coming too, but since only he was there, Suhyeon looked flustered.
“I only called you a little early, Suhyeon. There’s something we need to do first. Come with me for now.”
At Taeju’s words, Suhyeon approached without a word. But when Taeju told him to follow not to the table but to another room, that’s when Suhyeon finally hesitated.
“Why are we going this way?”
“I want to have a serious talk.”
Taeju and Suhyeon walked down the hallway and entered a small room on the first floor.
“Have a seat.”
As Taeju said, Suhyeon sat down. But Taeju didn’t sit. He just stood by the door.
“First off, let me ask you something.”
Before Suhyeon could even feel puzzled, Taeju spoke up.
“What do you plan to do once the curse is resolved?”
“Huh?”
Suhyeon hesitated at Taeju’s sudden question, unable to answer right away. He had come because Taeju said he’d show evidence. He couldn’t quite understand why this was coming up out of nowhere.
“Um... well. What’s there for me to do if it’s resolved? I don’t even believe in curses anyway. I’d probably just go on living like before.”
Suhyeon answered with an awkward smile. But Taeju didn’t smile.
“Hmm, no. I don’t think so.”
“Really? What do you think then?”
“You seem like you’ll die soon.”
Suhyeon looked at Taeju’s face, wondering if it was a joke. But Taeju’s expression was deadly serious, without a hint of amusement.
If it had been a lame joke, he could have played along, but at Taeju’s utterly earnest words, Suhyeon’s face hardened instantly.
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“Suddenly? You’ve been acting like you’re about to die this whole time.”
Suhyeon was dumbfounded, but Taeju didn’t care.
“I did some investigating. I even heard that you’ve been handing your stuff around to people nearby.”
Taeju slowly began laying out what he had uncovered.
Suhyeon stared at him with a disinterested expression, as if to say, “So what?”
“What about it?”
“That’s exactly the cause of the curse.”
Taeju said it without smiling. Suhyeon didn’t value himself. You could tell just by looking at his living space. You could feel it from the way he handed his belongings to others.
That was the cause of the curse.
“You even got a nickname for it.”
“Did you do a background check or something?”
Suhyeon asked aggressively.
“I didn’t need to go that far with a background check.”
Taeju slightly raised his phone to show it.
“Most of it came out just from a phone call.”
Of course, there were a couple of things two people had dug up on foot, but he didn’t mention that.
“Either way, you investigated me without even telling me?”
Suhyeon stood up, looking angry. But he couldn’t leave the room.
There were no windows in this room at all, and Taeju was standing in front of the only door.
“Normally, that’d be a fair criticism,”
But not this time.
“If there’s someone who got cursed because of you, that changes things a bit.”
This time, there really was a third victim. That’s why Taeju could push hard.
“Shall we talk about Seonwoo for a moment?”
At the mention of Seonwoo, Suhyeon fell silent for the first time.
“Before, I told you why this curse happened, right?”
At Taeju’s words, Suhyeon nodded.
“Here’s a tragic story: the reason Seonwoo got cursed this time is that he was the most conscientious among the people you gave things to.”
It was absurd, but true.
“Seonwoo thought he was just borrowing the item and using it, and that’s exactly what he was doing.”
“I just gave it to him.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Huh?”
Suhyeon retorted as if it was nonsense.
“If the owner of that tablet had completely changed, the cursed video probably wouldn’t have activated properly. Because then it wouldn’t be cursing itself.”
If the tablet’s owner had changed, the caster and receiver of the curse would be different. In that case, the curse shouldn’t activate in the first place.
“But you thought you’d thrown it away, while Seonwoo, who had the tablet, thought the owner hadn’t changed.”
So the curse got confused about the owner.
“It’s like a bug occurred. A curse that shouldn’t have activated misidentified its target.”
The curse was created by Suhyeon. It was an item made by chance, and likewise, it didn’t activate by chance. The curse had been created but lay dormant, untriggered.
And then, that pad ended up with someone else.
The curse, made to target its owner, failed to clearly recognize the owner and mistook the person actually holding it for the original owner.
“If Seonwoo had been a bit more shameless and just claimed it as his own, the video would have had no effect. This is an accident.”
In this incident, Seonwoo was a perfect victim. Hearing that, Suhyeon glared at Taeju like he wanted to kill him.
“So what’s your point? That it’s my fault?”
“At least for this incident, yes.”
Taeju stated it definitively.
“It’s your fault.”
* * *
Suhyeon remembered the moment he first came to love horror movies.
He couldn’t recall his exact age, but it was probably when he was six. What Suhyeon saw was just a single scene: a ghost crawling out of the television.
That one scene captivated him. The ghost with long dangling hair, slowly emerging headfirst, was incredibly shocking and alluring to Suhyeon.
He couldn’t watch for long. His parents saw a child watching a horror movie and quickly changed the channel. But that single scene was impactful enough to etch itself into his mind.
It wasn’t fear. It was because he had never even imagined something like that before, striking a huge blow to a child’s imagination.
Suhyeon wanted to feel that sensation again. But he didn’t know what movie or scene it was from.
Curious, he even asked his parents.
“Mom, how can I watch that TV thing with the long-haired woman?”
But his parents just panicked and neither told him nor showed him. They only promised to show him something more fun later.
Suhyeon’s parents loved movies. Thanks to that, their room was full of video tapes. All old films, unfortunately, and none gave Suhyeon that same shock no matter what he watched.
Of course, since his parents only played kids’ movies.
So Suhyeon started searching for that scene himself.
When he entered elementary school, he learned how to use a computer. He even posted questions in the green search bar using his parents’ ID.
Someone replied to his post that it was a scene from the Ring series, and that’s when Suhyeon learned it was a horror movie.
After that, it was smooth sailing.
Suhyeon looked into how to find more of those.
He started learning about computers separately and joined several small sites. Not many survived in the end, but a few lasted.
That’s how Suhyeon became enthralled with the world of horror movies.
He read posts where many people recommended horror films and watched the uploaded videos himself. Most were low-quality jump scares, but occasionally there were well-made ones.
Having grown up watching such videos repeatedly, Suhyeon developed a sense for directing through atmosphere and situations. He had what they call an “eye” for it.
After finishing elementary school and entering middle school, Suhyeon started getting allowance money. He spent it all collecting classic horror movies.
At first, his parents tried to stop him, but since they loved movies too, they came to understand while watching and discussing them with him.
They realized that Suhyeon’s preference for horror movies meant more than just visual shocks.
Suhyeon began writing reviews of the films he watched. At first, they were obviously the work of a student. The grammar was a bit off, and the structure was a mess. Still, it was decent for a middle schooler.
It was a small site, and they were longtime IDs who knew each other, so critiques on the writing quality were relatively mild. Thanks to that, Suhyeon’s skills improved day by day.
His writing got better and better, and along with it, his eye for movies sharpened.
His parents watched the whole process. And they quietly cheered on their son doing what he loved.
What his parents regretted a little was Suhyeon’s narrow social circle.
Suhyeon had little interest outside of movies. So the people approaching him were extremely limited, and interactions were passive at best.
People weren’t that interested in a little kid lost in his own world.
Suhyeon always said he’d work in something movie-related in the future, and his parents advised that social skills were essential. Because movies aren’t made by one person alone.
Suhyeon thought it over and agreed it was right, so as he became a high schooler, he pondered how to improve his social skills.
That’s when a movie club caught his eye. Suhyeon joined without hesitation, only to be greatly disappointed.
The club had been created by Seonwoo just to play movies in the background while hanging out. No one there was seriously interested in films.
Suhyeon decided to do proper club activities on his own.
“Seonwoo, I’m thinking of sending my article to the newspaper. Can I put our club’s name on it?”
“What? ...Whatever, go ahead.”
Seonwoo replied without much care. He just thought the kid was a bit quirky.
And that became the trigger for the movie club to start real activities under its name.
Suhyeon submitted his review to the newspaper. There was a small contest.
He entered hoping for even a minor award, but he won the grand prize.
Moreover, he was the only high schooler among the winners.
The award was delivered to the school. He had submitted under the film club’s name. The prize money was decent, and the review was published in the paper.
Teachers’ views of the film club changed, and they started paying attention.
It wasn’t great for the other members who had gathered just to goof off.
The other members decided not to participate in activities. They couldn’t just hang out with the sign up anymore.
But Seonwoo was the president, so he couldn’t quit entirely. And so, the two-person club activities began.