TFN C25

Chapter 25

Wonhyo, flustered, bit his lip hard, then stumbled to speak again.

“No. I mean. You must still be on duty.”

Isn’t it against the rules to step out from the workplace at any time like this?

“You must be busy, too.”

He quickly tacked on another reason.

Cheongmun shrugged.

“Ordinarily, the leave would have lasted until tomorrow, so flexible duty is possible; no need for concern.”

Never having worked a salaried job—much less a part-time one—for fear of being a burden if something went wrong, Wonhyo let it go, thinking this must be one of those unfamiliar things.

He’d heard of fieldwork and business trips; flexible duty was a first.

Public servants with free arrival and departure—it sounded nice.

He drifted into a stray thought for a moment, then snapped back to the fact that he ought to refuse.

“Uh… then, rather than seeing me home, shouldn’t you rest?”

On leave and coming into the office at that—surely any remaining time should be spent relaxing, so why insist on escorting him?

“Driving is a hobby.”

The dry face suggested it wasn’t a joke.

En route to enjoy a hobby and kindly tending to him along the way—he couldn’t push Cheongmun away any further.

He wasn’t stricken with a disease that required public transit to survive, but since buses and subways were off-limits, he had to call an unmanned taxi, which was costly.

Besides, they had already shared skin contact; any calamity would come regardless—worrying now wouldn’t help.

Hope there’s no accident along the way.

Wonhyo slipped the ID, exchanged for the visitor’s pass, into his wallet and trailed after Cheongmun.

He got into the car he’d ridden once before and buckled up.

The car glided smoothly toward the packed road.

Only then did it occur to him that “a drive” generally meant cruising on a quiet road—but he chose silence. Yet Cheongmun seemed to want to talk.

“If other leads arise, can they be tracked from those?”

He asked while waiting at a light.

“Pardon? Ah…”

Turning the half-heard question over, Wonhyo licked dry lips.

“It depends on the lead. If the grudge’s energy remains, the odds are good; if not, it’s probably impossible.”

He sounded confident about revealing the grudge’s substance.

Squinting in the sunlight, Wonhyo elaborated.

“If it’s something used in life, odds are higher for what was always on the person. Glasses, a watch, a ring—things like that. A phone works, too.”

“I see.”

“And only on days safer than today.”

Once was enough for nearly becoming a fish.

Today was a gapjin day; if “dragon” was next, then in twelve days—still, there were days between when he loathed going out.

Horse or ox meant large bodies; snake was also a problem.

A hatchling snake is small, but with subzero temperatures, the cold made it unsuitable.

He now wanted to avoid any day life might be at risk.

“Is there a separate principle for which animal you become?”

Maybe because “dragon” followed “tiger,” Cheongmun hadn’t quite gotten the feel for it.

Should he explain the penalty? Since it had been exposed anyway, he just laid it out.

If he came into contact with ghostly energy beyond a certain threshold, he turned into a beast.

“It’s the natal-animal cycle. On that calendar with the twelve zodiac animals, you turn into the animal for that day. On rat day, a baby rat. On ox day, a calf.”

“Not adult, only juvenile.”

“For now?”

“…There are other forms?”

“When the penalty first hit, it was full-grown.”

He regretted not scraping his soul and taking out a loan to enter the Tower then, but there wasn’t a bank willing to lend readily to a freelance shaman.

He couldn’t even get a credit card—what chance a loan.

“Then there’s a next stage?”

“Don’t know yet.”

There’d been no separate alert when it shifted from Stage 1 to 2—only a month-long window.

Ask what he did that month, and he could only curse private guilds for charging exorbitant fees even to climb the lower floors.

Without ability and running lower floors, you still had to pay for potions and risk; with ability and speed, you paid for that ability.

Though registered as a shaman business and taking referrals, his work wasn’t fortune-telling or proxy prayers but expulsion—so the only income stream was talismans.

And listing them doesn’t make them sell; more people didn’t even know they existed.

Lately, stock had cleared out—but that didn’t cover costs.

“How is it now?”

“What is?”

“The number.”

Wonhyo opened the status window.

His face hardened as he checked the accumulated ghost-load.

“Did it rise?”

“No.”

He’d seen it stop climbing after the mouth—no, the mouth-to-mouth.

He’d seen the purification alert; even so, he’d figured it would have crept up again—but it had dropped below where it had last been.

“No—why. Why did it drop like this?”

Had there been any other notification about the change, he’d remember; nothing had come.

It was just lower. He’d definitely been in a place dense with ghostly energy—so why the drop?

What is this, O gracious system.

Not that asking would yield any answer.

“The fluctuation is large, then.”

“Last alert had it in the sixties; now it’s down to the fifties. It’s never dropped like this for no reason.”

Thinking he might know these debuffs better through his work, Wonhyo did his best to explain.

“Does it drop like this without cause?”

“Well. Debuffs that transform one into animals—seen those often. Conditional curses repeating are rare, and if the number changed, it suggests a strong factor in the environment that hasn’t been encountered before.”

Wonhyo looked at him.

If anything differed from usual, only one thing came to mind. At his gaze, Cheongmun’s mouth curved.

“In Mr. Yun Wonhyo’s case, that factor would be me.”

“But at first, there was nothing.”

There wasn’t.

Comparing the first apartment encounter and today, he wondered whether to bail out of the car now.

“So it’s not only mucosal contact that produces a one-off effect, it seems.”

Grateful for the calm, factual delivery—without preening—that it was his “doing,” Wonhyo looked out to see how far they’d come.

If they were near his neighborhood, he could alight with dignity—but alas, it was only Seoul Station.

For avoidance, he folded his arms, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the window.

Climbing the hills, the car slowed and finally stopped.

Cricking his stiff neck like one just roused, he unclipped the belt quickly.

“Thanks for the—”

His eyes flew wide at the touch of fingers brushing his cheek.

Before he could ask what this was, another hand rose and touched his jaw and neck.

Why didn’t I wear a mask and scarf—ah, I dropped them on the bathroom floor earlier and stashed them in the inventory.

Contact made his skin flare, as if sparks skittered and bloomed.

“How is it now?”

“…What?”

“You’re being touched where there’s no ghostly energy.”

He fluttered his lids to hide the trembling in his eyes.

What exactly is he asking?

Still, he found the answer soon.

“No change at all.”

No alert that accumulated ghost-load had purified; no pause in accumulation, either.

Only the pounding of his heart grew loud.

Whether it was the pinky or the ring finger, the touch traced lightly over a throbbing neck vein—infuriatingly distracting.

“Now that you’ve checked—your hands, please…”

They left before he could finish “off.”

He blew out the rough breath that had gathered.

“How about the lips?”

You’re not asking me that—are you?

Mouth opening in dismay, he then clamped dry lips shut, feeling them parch; then, with a surge, he opened again.

“Don’t know—haven’t tried.”

You’re not going to, so why ask?

It came out loaded with annoyance.

Seeing him, Cheongmun leaned closer.

“May I?”

“Mouth-to-mouth?”

The word he’d held only in his head popped out reflexively.

He tried to swallow it with his next inhale, but it had already gone into the other’s ear.

Brows lifted; then, somehow, a calm nod.

“Yes. Mouth-to-mouth.”

With a trembling voice, he protested his own blunder.

“D-do we have to?”

“It is a matter of life, is it not.”

“No. Aside from dragon days, there’s no issue.”

“When a curse penalty is advancing in stages, it is best to avoid fulfilling conditions. The more often you transform, the more the beast’s nature will rise over human reason.”

Knowing the truth of that all too well, Wonhyo swallowed a sigh.

He already feared his humanity was eroding, and worried about the faster pace of accumulation.

“Mouth-to-mouth, after all.”

It felt like he was about to be persuaded by the way Cheongmun nimbly picked up and set back on his tongue the fig leaf he’d used.

His mind had already tipped over.