By Zephyria 
He quickly puts out the cigarette and waves away the smoke before looking at the boy. Suppressing the urge to kiss the small, round crown of his head, he smiles warmly, his eyes crinkling.
“What is this paper! There was something written on it that looked like a Procedure Manual!”
“Ah, that? I thought I’d cleared it all out and thrown it away, but one page managed to remain.”
“It’s a ghost, isn’t it?!”
Yoo Jiha solidified his resolve to pack his bags right this instant. He would rather take the shuttle bus every single morning than live in the same house as a ghost. However, his feet, which were about to bolt toward his room, stopped at a single word from Jeil Heon.
“Would I ever do anything to harm you?”
“…….”
That was certainly true, but.
“If you’re scared when you sleep, come over to my room. I’ll hold your hand all night long.”
“……I’m not that much of a child.”
Contrary to his indifferent words, Yoo Jiha sat down close, pressing his hip right against Jeil Heon’s side.
「Tsk, tsk.」
“I-I just heard someone clicking their tongue!”
“It’s the wind. The sound of bamboo leaves brushing against each other in the breeze.”
「Sigh…….」
“That was definitely a sigh?!”
“You’re imagining things.”
“…….”
Still suspicious, but Jeil Heon only gave a beaming smile, and no more strange noises were heard. As Jiha scanned the surroundings with a wary gaze, Jeil Heon beckoned with his finger.
“Want me to hold your hand?”
“No.”
Having confidently rejected the adult’s offer to hold his hand like a child, Yoo Jiha instead clung to his forearm. This felt more reassuring.
“……Are you a good ghost?”
“Hmm, they aren’t exactly of a purely benevolent nature.”
“……?!”
“But as long as you maintain your manners within the walls, they won’t harm you. It was written on the paper, too.”
“Even in Japanese? What if the ghost gets angry because I wrote it without knowing it was Japanese!”
“No, they aren’t usually that particular, but it seems those people did a lot of rude things while doing the construction. You don’t need to overthink it. You don’t spit on the floor at home, do you?”
Should he think of it as something like a house deity…? He felt a bit more at ease thanks to the calm explanation and the presence of the firm forearm he was clinging to. That didn’t mean, however, that he had the courage to return to his room alone.
“On the bright side, there’s a plus. There’s no one wandering around near the house, so it’s quiet.”
“Oh, you’re right. I really haven’t seen any tourists even during the day……. Oh, do I always have to come home with you?”
“They’ve recognized you as someone staying in this house, so it doesn’t matter.”
Jeil Heon remained consistently polite when mentioning the mysterious ghost, and that courteous attitude diluted the fear considerably. As Jiha slowly let go of his arm, Heon wore a look of feigned emptiness.
“I wanted to hold our Jiha’s hand.”
“I’m not a child, why would we hold hands?”
“If I said I was scared, would you not hold mine?”
“……Umm.”
“Wow, I’m hurt that you didn’t answer right away.”
Jiha knew it was a joke, but because the reaction was so exaggerated, he flinched reflexively. Yoo Jiha hurried to respond.
“No, it’s not that. I just thought you wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”
“I don’t know……. I’m human too, so there are times when I get scared.”
“You have times like that too?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
Jeil Heon smiled faintly and lay down on the wooden porch. After hesitating, Yoo Jiha carefully lay down beside him. The weather forecast had blared that tonight would be another hot and humid night, but the front yard was quite cool. It was chilling to think it might be because of that polite ghost, but… just a slight glance allowed him to see Heon. That alone thinned the sense of dread.
It was likely just a light, joking remark, but the candid admission that a man who looked as solid as him also had fears left a remarkably deep impression.
“……Actually, I’m adopted.”
That was probably why. He peeled back a layer of the secret he had kept deep in his heart, one he had never shared with anyone, not even his family.
His first memory begins with a young child crying in a corner of a market. A child who, for no reason, found everything in the world so terrifying that he kept his head down, shedding tears, and blindly followed a woman.
〈Ma’am. No matter how much the child did wrong, how can you leave them behind and walk ahead alone? You’ll lose the child.〉
〈What? Are you talking to me?〉
At the merchant’s rebuke, the woman turned her head in confusion. She took the parentless child to the police station, but the image of the child crying in terror, unable to even make a sound, kept lingering in her mind. Eventually, she visited the orphanage where the child had been placed. After visiting several times to meet the child, the woman consulted with her husband and decided to adopt.
The child who wore a bracelet engraved with the name ‘Jiha’.
The child who had only a name and no surname thus became the four-year-old Yoo Jiha.
“Even after adopting me, my mom and dad thought my biological parents might have lost me, so they kept searching. But they said there was no one to be found. No one had seen a similar child either. I guess my biological parents must have brought me far away before abandoning me.”
His father had been the only son of the fourth generation, carrying all the expectations of his parents. Since the first child was a daughter, they were waiting for a grandson to carry on the family line, so there was immense opposition when he suddenly announced he would adopt an orphan. To make matters worse, the mother suffered a miscarriage the year after the adoption.
His grandparents blamed him even for the missed miscarriage. They said a rootless thing had entered the house and cut off the family line.
“My father isn’t usually a man who gets angry, but back then, he really fought with Grandfather and Grandmother, his veins popping in his neck. I remember it even though I was very young.”
Still, his father couldn’t turn his back completely. It was because he knew the expectations placed upon him. When the grandfather became bedridden, the relationship seemed to recover somewhat, but the grandfather closed his eyes without ever accepting the adoption, calling it the family’s calamity, and then the incident with the grandmother’s jade ring occurred. His father, having severed ties, didn’t even take care of the grandfather’s ancestral rites.
His parents did their best to shield Yoo Jiha from the criticism of the grandmother and relatives. However, he couldn’t help but notice the air turning foul whenever it was directed toward him. Whenever the grandmother stormed into the house like an annual event, or the aunts blamed the father saying the grandfather died because he wouldn’t give in to his stubbornness, or whenever they spent a chilly holiday, Yoo Jiha was scared.
If it weren’t for him, his father would never have severed ties with his family. He would have spent boisterous holidays caring for the grandmother and remained a reliable younger brother to his aunts. If the mother hadn’t been stressed by her in-laws because of the adopted son, she probably wouldn’t have miscarried and would have given birth safely. No matter how many times he thought about it, a scene where he was absent felt complete.
The child abandoned by his biological parents had ruined his adoptive parents’ home as well.
That was the fear that Yoo Jiha could not stop, stemming from the first memory of being left alone. A solitary loneliness that he could not convey to his adoptive parents, nor to anyone else.
He had received nothing but constant criticism. Because the wounds that couldn’t be fully healed even by his parents’ affection were still open, he felt that if he revealed he was adopted, even his friends’ gaze toward him would change. From the moment he uttered the first words, ‘……Actually, I’m adopted,’ his heart was pounding violently.
But Jeil Heon remained the same. He stayed by his side without showing a single hint of the foul air the boy had sensitively detected since childhood.
After the lingering echoes of his voice vanished, Heon remained silent for a long time, as if chewing over the weight of the words, before he turned his head. Then, he carefully reached out and smoothed the disheveled hair. Because his sincere, tender gesture was more comforting than any few polished, pleasant words, Yoo Jiha bit his lip to suppress the emotions suddenly surging up.
“You must have been in a lot of pain alone.”
“……A little.”
“I wanted to always protect you so you wouldn’t be hurt or sad, but it seems I was of no help when you were actually struggling.”
The fingertips that had been smoothing his hair brushed his earlobe and cradled his face. As if doing so could truly take away the fear Yoo Jiha had harbored alone. Oh, what should I do. Yoo Jiha swallowed his embarrassment and cast his eyes down slightly. For some reason, his cheeks flushed hot.
A low whisper flowed in, embracing him.