By Zephyria 
Startled, he looked up to find Jeil Heon also frozen, eyes wide. Yoo Jiha let out a stifled shriek and scrambled back. Then, in an effort to erase the resurfacing memories of that day and the lingering sensation in his palms, he desperately tried to change the subject.
“S-so, anyway, what about the ghost? The ghost was a lie, right? Right!”
“Your parents are coming. What do you want for lunch? I looked around for the first time in a while, and a lot of good restaurants have opened nearby.”
However, having quickly regained his composure, he blatantly avoided the answer, leaving Yoo Jiha to swallow his frustration. Ah, seriously, this man is really…!
His parents, expressing their gratitude, treated them to a meal at a fairly expensive traditional Korean restaurant, and Jeil Heon didn’t refuse. As expected of the price, the food was delicious, and even Jeil Heon, who usually ate barely a mouthful, cleared his plate. Since he always picked at his food during lunch at the office, Jiha had wondered how he maintained that physique on such a small amount, but it seemed he was simply a picky eater.
By the time his parents left—after sternly warning him not to cause trouble in the house he was indebted to, and especially to be careful with alcohol—twilight was settling in. Yoo Jiha looked around the room anew as he organized his few belongings. The room was furnished with items including a desk and a bed. The lighting and interior felt very sophisticated while maintaining a traditional vibe.
Jeil Heon had told his parents that this was the room where a younger sibling used to stay, but the furniture showed no signs of ever having been used by anyone. Just in case, he looked for the air conditioner and found it was a model released this year.
‘Did he buy everything new because of me?’
Jeil Heon was the one who had suggested the boarding in the first place. Jiha felt a restless mix of emotions, not entirely joyful. While he secretly liked that Jeil Heon was slightly kinder and more considerate than others, the fact that he provided such material abundance left him bewildered. He wasn’t even sure if it was okay for him to accept it so readily.
With his mind in a whirl, his gaze happened to catch a strange scrap of paper outside the window. Leaning his waist against the window frame, he precariously fished out a crumpled piece of paper from behind the water basin beneath the rain gutter. He intended to throw it in the trash, but the words scribbled in ballpoint pen caught his eye.
To the employees of Goryeo Hanok and the carpenters handling the remodeling and interior of Pilgyeongdang, the old house at the top of Bukchon Hill.
I truly never thought I would end up writing something this absurd. This is a record for others, as well as for myself. Whether you believe it or not is up to whoever reads this paper. Including me.
1. Before going to work in the morning, the manager of the old house will call you. You can only enter after receiving that call and getting directions. I went the same way just yesterday, but strangely, if you try to go alone without guidance, you can’t find the path.
Do not try to force your way in. One of our employees ignored the call and tried to go alone out of stubbornness; he went missing and was found three days later. Right at the entrance of the hill road. He said he wandered for three days, but we had been passing that road every single day for those three days to work. To this day, I don’t know why we didn’t find him.
2. You don’t need the manager’s guidance when leaving after work, but try to leave before the sun sets. Only those who claim they wouldn’t flinch even if a killer with a blood-dripping chainsaw appeared before them in the middle of the night may stay behind for overtime.
3. The door to the inner quarters is always locked; pass by that area with your mouth shut and as quiet as a dead mouse. Inevitable bodily reactions like coughing or sneezing seem to be fine. However, you must never peer beyond it or try to open the door to enter.
There was an employee who suddenly vanished during work and was found ten days later—not in Seoul, but in the mountains of Gangwon Province. Based on the circumstances, it seems he tried to do something in the inner quarters. That guy is still hospitalized in a psychiatric ward.
4. Occasionally, there are people who find the bathroom too far and decide to expose their junk to pee outside; absolutely do not do that. If construction materials collapse for no reason, the guy who lowered his zipper is usually pinned underneath. You’ll end up being carried away in an ambulance with your bare ass exposed. The same goes for smoking. Smoking itself is fine, but do not flick butts or ash just anywhere. Do not spit either.
An intern who was learning the ropes ignored our warnings, calling them superstitions, and threw a cigarette butt; he was struck by lightning. It wasn’t even raining; it was a bright, clear day, and a bolt of lightning literally fell from a clear sky. He didn’t die, but he died in another sense. He became impotent.
If you feel like you’re going to die because you need the bathroom so badly, just pee in your clothes. It seems they overlook that. Don’t bother trying to figure out how we know.
5. While working, you’ll naturally use terms like ‘shimai’ or ‘tenjo osamari,’ right? Don’t do it. Whatever is here—I don’t know what it is—but it doesn’t tolerate the use of Japanese. Maybe it’s a ghost that was killed by a Japanese person…
Since Japanese is so commonly used in this industry, it took a long time to realize that the language was the problem. Until then, I spent several days contemplating with the site manager whether I should quit this job.
6. You know those kinds of stories men usually tell when they gather? Don’t do it. I trust that no one would actually commit such an act, but obviously, you shouldn’t do anything reckless.
This isn’t about our employees, but some guy forcibly dragged a woman near the house in the middle of the night. That guy was found as a corpse in front of the main gate. I don’t know how he got through a path that even workers can’t find without the manager’s guidance, but he died with fourth-degree burns all over his body. There wasn’t a single trace of fire nearby. And of course, the CCTV happened to be broken during exactly that time window…
Anyway, no matter how much you read or memorize this scrap of paper, you’ll forget it all once you finish work and go home. The only thing you’ll remember is that you need the manager’s guidance to enter. When you show up for work the next day, it comes back to you, and when you leave, you forget again. Experiencing this every day is driving me crazy. Sometimes there are employees who don’t even remember after arriving at work, so I have to explain everything from the beginning.
But why do I keep doing this job? You know why. Fuck, it’s for the money. They pay five times the construction fee, and they don’t even pressure us for completion. Where else can you find a job like this? So, let’s just avoid doing the forbidden things, finish the work quickly, and forget it all completely.
It really is a house with ghosts! Yoo Jiha wanted to cry.
* * *
Jeil Heon vomited, turning the bathroom faucet on high so the sound wouldn’t leak out. Food that had barely been digested surged back up his esophagus. Only after coughing and emptying his stomach for a long while did he flush the toilet and rinse his mouth.
Even then, the bitter taste lingered, so he lit a cigarette and went out to sit on the wooden veranda. Now that he was outside the barrier of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute, the difference was palpable. Inside the barrier, he could digest human food to some extent, but outside, he could not. Jeil Heon had to chew and swallow food not as a meal, but with the sensation of merely loading material into his stomach. It would have been even more agonizing if his sense of taste had also crossed the boundary of humanity.
‘I’m hungry…’
His vacant gaze traced the dark sky where cigarette smoke drifted slowly. He was hungry. Hunger was being stimulated. He needed a meal. Not food that was grilled, cooked, seasoned, or heated, but flesh with a vivid, fishy scent. Not the meat of livestock that is raised and slaughtered. The flesh of a sentient being that screams and begs for its life.
The taste of that meat and the scent of blood, which he had never actually tasted, unfolded naturally in his mind. Phantom scents and phantom tastes frantically poked at his nerves, demanding satisfaction. You’re hungry, aren’t you? Don’t resist. Look, there are plenty of prey prepared here for your meal. The first taste will be the sweetest. His Ji-hwan began to heat up.
“Mister!”
And then, the hunger subsided, and the heat of the Ji-hwan vanished. The voice of the child who swallowed his name, the eyes of the child who contained him, and the soul of the child directed toward him reassembled him back into a human. Jeil Heon embraced the child’s presence in his heart, not as a monster that devours humans, but as a human being.
Ah.
The child is coming. To me.