The Neck That Stretches at Night
Bzzt!
Mid-drive, Kang Hyeong-seok glanced at the message that had popped up over his navigation screen and tapped it away with a fingertip.
A text from Kwak Young-ho. Shin Yo-sep had evidently passed word along that the two of them would be paying a joint visit to a subcontractor's plant still under construction — and aside from the small detail that Hyeong-seok was currently making the trip alone, not a word of it was untrue.
'Rokurokubi....'
Something about it felt off. Every existence he had faced until now had been rooted in native soil. The Dokkaebi had been. The Beomgwi had been. So had the vengeful spirits and the sal they spawned. And now, out of nowhere, Japan had barged into the picture — a yokai, of all things.
Beep-beep.
He knew. He knew he was getting close.
And yet he had closed not one step of the distance to the truth of the matter, which was why Kang Hyeong-seok took a sip from the iced Americano hooked in the drink holder, settled his churning thoughts, and eased off the accelerator, his face crowded with worry.
The factory — his destination — sat in a place that felt strikingly alien. It was remote enough to make him wonder, 'Why here, of all places?' — hemmed in by mountains on every side, the road barely more than a suggestion of one.
'Divined ground, all right.'
He had seen this before. The place where a creature hardly fit to be called human — a mudang going by the name of Director Kwon — had conspired with a factory owner and offered up the man's own workers as living sacrifices. That place, too, had been built with careful attention to the terrain, and this one breathed the very same air.
Scritch. Kang Hyeong-seok swept the surface soil aside with his shoe, pinched up a few grains between thumb and forefinger, and rolled them. There had been no rain of late. And yet the earth was heavy with moisture, and it carried a faint, raw tang — blood, or something very like it.
'Malignant ground.'
Earth fit for nothing, not even a grave — the kind of land that would visit ruin on anyone who tried to live on it.
'What the hell is this guy playing at?'
Word was he'd taken up Japanese sorcery. Word was he'd joined hands with someone who had — that a yokai was tangled up in his affairs besides. A man that careful of his own hide, so why in God's name would he sink a small fortune into a factory built here?
Tap-tap. He was brushing the dirt from his fingers, sweeping his tongue along the inside of his gums as he eyed the construction site in the distance, when—
Step.
A soft footfall sounded behind him. The faint steps and presence he'd taken for a trick of the mind kept coming — steady, unhurried, straight toward him. Someone was approaching with intent; of that much he was certain. Kang Hyeong-seok eased out a slow breath and waited for the man to come within reach.
And the instant the man's fingertips made contact—
Wham! Whoosh! He was already spinning, snatching the man's wrist and collar in the same motion and driving him down into the ground.
THUD!
"GYAAAH!"
Kang Hyeong-seok had his fist cocked back like lightning before the scream had even died, staring down at the man beneath him. Then he let the strength drain from his knuckles and screwed up his eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
"H-Hyeong-nim."
Yoon-sang. The BJ who streamed horror for a living — and the man who had thrown himself into helping Kang Hyeong-seok any number of times, each one ending with permission to air the aftermath on his channel.
"Ow. It hurts."
"...You could have just called out. What was that stunt for?"
Wearing an apologetic face, Kang Hyeong-seok reached down a hand and helped him up.
"Uuughhh."
It must have hurt plenty; even on his feet, Yoon-sang grimaced as he kneaded at his back.
"Hyeong-nim, where'd you learn that? Your form was way too textbook."
Kang Hyeong-seok clicked his tongue and brushed the dust off Yoon-sang's back for him.
"Sorry."
"That's not it — I asked where you learned it."
"A little, in the army. So what are you doing here?"
It was a line tossed out to change the subject. Yoon-sang's face said he'd caught on, but he answered anyway, smile a touch stiff.
"Me? I'm here for the stream, of course."
"The stream?"
Kang Hyeong-seok noted that Yoon-sang's getup looked unusually well suited to moving around, and gave a small nod.
"Doing a preliminary survey?"
"Yes. And you, Hyeong-nim?"
Those eyes were honestly a burden. A wanting sat brimming in both of them — braided into it, the desperate hope that the wanting might actually come true.
There was no reason to make excuses, and no point even if he tried; the man read people too well for a flimsy story to mean anything.
Kang Hyeong-seok clicked his tongue once more and let a breath slip through his teeth.
"More or less the same."
"H-Hyeong-nim! Then how about we do this together?"
The suggestion had come in razor-sharp, and Yoon-sang followed it up with eyes full of pleading. It was not easy to refuse a man whose gaze looked like a puppy caught out in the rain.
"Haah... seriously."
"Hyeong-nim, I know it's late to bring this up, but you never once gave me a call! And I helped you last time. And the time before that, too!"
"I know. Me too."
Drawing in a breath, Kang Hyeong-seok winced like a man with a bad tooth and looked at Yoon-sang. His head was already a snarl, and with Yoon-sang barging into the mix, he couldn't begin to say what to do, or how.
"Hyeong-niiiim."
Would it really be all right to fold Yoon-sang into this? If he ran it alone, at least his heart would be easier. But the affair had Shin Yo-sep woven through it, and there had been a revelation from his Momjusin besides — and that was exactly why he'd hesitated at the thought of Yoon-sang at his side.
Ring.
Without warning, the Mudang Bang-ul — his sacred shaman bells — chimed inside his bag.
'What now?'
Too real to write off as imagination — he could feel the vibration of the ringing — so Kang Hyeong-seok shifted his gaze to the bag and stood there, unmoving, for a long while.
"Hm? Is something there?"
Yoon-sang ventured, but Hyeong-seok kept his eyes locked on the bag and stood without a word.
When the long deliberation was done at last, he blew out a breath until his cheeks bulged and tipped his head back toward the sky.
'Are you telling me that this, too, is fate?'
There was no such thing as a light fate in this world. Fates that brushed past and were gone; fates strung together by chance. Even a fate that left nothing but wounds was something heaven had prepared, and in some hour its worth might surface at last. Which meant that Yoon-sang, met by pure accident, might well be a fate with meaning of his own.
"...You're certain you won't be in the way?"
"I swear it on heaven! Truly! You give the word, Hyeong-nim, and I'll keep my mouth glued shut and trail you like a shadow. I absolutely will not get in your way!"
Pounding his chest as though to say trust me, Yoon-sang made his vow.
And in fairness, Yoon-sang had never once been a hindrance. Kang Hyeong-seok drew in his lips, then parted them.
"Just one question, then. How did you come to be out here?"
"Ah, that's... um...."
"You're not the type to roam any old place hunting for stream material. Don't tell me you actually came looking for me."
"No! What are you even saying!"
Yoon-sang flapped his hands in alarm, then pulled out his phone.
"You're a mudang, Hyeong-nim, so I'm being a little careful about how I put this...."
Then he typed a familiar name into the search bar and turned the screen around to show a familiar picture.
"It's called a Rokurokubi. It's a yokai — a Japanese one."
Son of a bitch.
As if heaven truly had braided the thread itself, Yoon-sang's purpose matched Hyeong-seok's own to an almost absurd degree.
"Hm? Why do you look like that?"
"...Do you know anything about this thing?"
"Do I ever! Of course I do. You have no idea how hard I studied up."
With his eyes alone, Kang Hyeong-seok urged him to spit it out — and yet, strangely enough, Yoon-sang wriggled in place and hesitated to speak.
"What?"
"Um, Hyeong-nim? Could you maybe grant me just one favor?"
"Anything but a cameo on your stream."
His grandest wish denied, Yoon-sang groaned like a man in pain and gave him the most pitiful look he could muster — but on this one point, there was genuinely nothing to be done.
"I'm an office worker, and a salesman at that. If I turn up on your stream, my life gets very complicated."
"Then how about a mask, or—"
"I'd rather not go that far."
Streams sat badly with him. There was his identity being laid bare — and whenever he asked himself whether it was truly the right thing to do, the answer was as obvious as daylight.
"It's not as if you truly need my help, and nobody out there is desperately begging for it. I have no wish to go butting in."
"...."
Yoon-sang gnawed at his lower lip, sunk deep in thought, and the silence stretched long.
"Understood. I won't push it anymore."
For a man in resignation, he looked like a man holding something back; Kang Hyeong-seok arched one eyebrow, and Yoon-sang shook his head and went on, his tone suddenly firm.
"I honestly think you're amazing, Hyeong-nim. Whatever you decide, I'll respect it. No argument."
"...Sorry."
"Don't be! But in exchange, I've got an idea of my own — so don't go back on your word later, deal?"
It was the very moment Kang Hyeong-seok opened his mouth to ask what that idea was—
"Anyway — the Rokurokubi! It looks grotesque, sure, but honestly it's not as frightening a yokai as you'd think."
Yoon-sang yanked the subject back with an urgency he couldn't disguise, holding up his search results as he pressed on with the explanation.
At a glance, a harmless yokai. Judged by Yoon-sang's account alone, the Rokurokubi was exactly that. But it wouldn't be that simple. Yoon-sang's face said as much — and more than anything else, the fact that a Japanese yokai had surfaced on Korean soil gnawed at him.
"And?"
"There are a few more strange things about it. For one — its form was never standardized."
Kang Hyeong-seok narrowed his eyes at the image lit up on the phone. The thing had a shape. It had come down through paintings. And yet if no single, distinct form had ever settled, then whatever this was, it was only one shape among many.
"Think of it as two broad types. The one where the head comes clean off is the Nukekubi. The one where the neck stretches is the Rokurokubi. These days both just get called Rokurokubi, though."
"...Is that so?"
That was new to him. And Yoon-sang, wearing the quiet satisfaction of a man who had landed his point, carried on with the lecture.
"Yes! And — here's the real kicker — some sources say the Rokurokubi is a yokai that was made. Deliberately."
"Made?"
He'd asked half wondering whether this was something like the taeja-gwi, Korea's ghosts of princes, and Yoon-sang answered on the spot.
"Yep. Its image overlaps a lot with the cheonyeo gwisin — the maiden ghost. Probably a rumor that grew out of that. Or maybe out of how it only becomes a yokai at night, only moves at night. I think that trait's what did it."
The explanation was thin, but not so thin as to be beyond following. Active only at night. The image may well have been fastened onto it by that trait alone. And if so — then the character of that era, an age when lives were bent to another's will, could not be ignored either.
"I really did my homework on this one, huh, Hyeong-nim?"
Yoon-sang's eyes were sparkling. He looked for all the world like a dog waiting to be told good boy, so Kang Hyeong-seok held his gaze and nodded.
"I came prepared, didn't I?"
"Yeah."
Truth be told, anyone with a search bar could dig up this much. But gratitude to Yoon-sang was a fact all the same, so Hyeong-seok admitted it freely, and Yoon-sang drew a tightly clenched fist up against his chest in a small nailed it gesture.
"Well, now that we know its name — let's go take a look."
"Sorry? Look at what?"
"Whether it's a Rokurokubi or a Nukekubi. That's what we're going to find out."
"Eh? Eh? For real? We're actually doing this?"
Kang Hyeong-seok gave no reply, only turned his eyes toward the construction site where the factory would stand.
A yokai whose neck stretches only at night — that was what Yoon-sang had said. Which meant the thing itself would show itself at night.
"If it's there, we'll see it."
Without a sound, Kang Hyeong-seok clicked his tongue and looked up at the sky. The sun still hung at its height, and yet, with Yoon-sang's explanation fresh in his ears, some figure seemed to overlap with the blue overhead.
A human head, circling and circling through the heavens. A grotesque image — an expressionless head darting across the ink-black night sky like a string of will-o'-the-wisps.