The Dokkaebi Waiting for the Moon

Chapter 5

“What? A dokkaebi house?”

The three people shouted simultaneously, startled by the man’s sudden words.

In the dead of night, on a remote island with only one small shop, Park Jeongbae, astonished by the previous statement rather than the request to obtain daily necessities, asked again.

“D-d-does that mean we’re supposed to stay in that creepy house too?”

Park Jeongbae’s hands, holding the edge of the credit card the man had handed him, shook uncontrollably.

“I was planning to stay alone, but if you really want to, we can do that.”

These people would only interfere with his plans. Although he had no intention of staying with them, the man probed Park Jeongbae with a smiling face.

“Ah, no, that’s not it. You know we can’t even open the gate of that house, right?”

They had tried to follow the man who had suddenly opened the gate and entered, but no matter how hard they tried, the door wouldn’t open. It was truly like a dokkaebi’s trick.

As Park Jeongbae made excuses with a forced smile, the man joked.

“You should have said ‘Open Sesame.'”

“Open Sesame?”

“Yeah. Open Sesame.”

“Ah… So that’s what it was. Open Sesame…”

Park Jeongbae scratched his head with an awkward laugh, thinking it didn’t sound like a serious answer at all. Although he didn’t particularly believe in ghosts, after experiencing a series of strange events that couldn’t be explained scientifically, he couldn’t dismiss the man’s words as a mere joke.

“Um… Boss.”

Yang Jincheol, who had been cautiously observing, continued.

“There was a basket in the yard yesterday that wasn’t there before. How did your meeting with the dokkaebi go?”

Even if they couldn’t be seen, traces of life couldn’t be hidden. As the village stories went, the dokkaebi disguised as a wealthy person clearly existed there. The man looked at the expectant Yang Jincheol and said,

“If I had met them well, don’t you think I wouldn’t be saying I’d stay in the dokkaebi house?”

“Ah. I was short-sighted. I’m sorry.”

Afraid that fists might fly again, Yang Jincheol bowed deeply and apologized. He seemed to only know how to show off his strength, but he wasn’t completely lacking in learning ability.

“Then you couldn’t find the land documents either, right?”

Jeon Sunam, who had been listening to the two men’s conversation, suddenly interjected.

“Not yet.”

“Shit, looks like they caught wind and ran off with them.”

Jeon Sunam, who was about to spit in frustration as if nothing was going right, swallowed hard while watching the man’s reaction. Seeing this, the man clicked his tongue and scolded the three, kicking their legs alternately.

“That’s why you should have threatened them moderately. You’re not some 1980s gangsters. What on earth were you doing? Even I would have run away in fear. Right?”

In fact, after the boy disappeared, turning into dokkaebi fire, he had searched the house for anything useful.

Although he wasn’t an expert and couldn’t put an exact price on them, the man was secretly surprised to see antiques that looked like national treasures scattered throughout the house.

A mysterious blue-green Goryeo celadon vase he had never seen before held wildflowers picked from the mountains, and Kim Hong-do’s Geumgangsan Mountain Album scroll, believed to have been lost, was carelessly spread out on the floor like a picture book. Anyone who knew the value of these items would have fainted on the spot.

He had also found the land documents the demolition team was looking for in a mother-of-pearl box inside the headboard in the main room. It was a document proving ownership of the entire Wolhwa Mountain.

However, the man hadn’t taken anything out because the item he wanted wasn’t anywhere to be found.

“I’ll take care of the dokkaebi myself, so you guys focus on persuading the villagers. I heard you haven’t closed a single deal yet. How do you expect to build a resort like this?”

“Yes, boss. We’ll try to speed things up!”

Long ago, the pioneers who had migrated to the uninhabited Wolhwa Island regarded all natural disasters as the will of the mountain god. Even now, their descendants still clung to this pre-modern way of thinking, showing a negative reaction to the island’s development, fearing it might anger the mountain god.

They were people living in a state of lost reality, bound by outdated customs. In the 21st century, dreaming of migrating to Mars, they wouldn’t even go near the mountain with the dokkaebi’s territory, muttering about plagues. They were not just old-fashioned, but foolish beyond measure.

The man glanced at the face of Jeon Sunam, the youth chairman who was the only one in favor of development, and then headed towards the only inn on the remote island.

The night on the isolated island was deepening.

* * *

“He’s coming.”

A white-tipped evening primrose petal danced in the air before falling to the ground with a soft thud.

“He’s not coming.”

Eun-hwi plucked the last remaining petal and dropped it on the ground again. At his feet, yellow ripe petals covered the ground as if flower rain had fallen.

Only one flower remained in his hand. Gently grasping the slender stem, Eun-hwi recalled the taste of the plum candy he had eaten yesterday.

More precisely, the bitingly sweet taste of the candy the man had popped into his mouth.

Will he really come? To touch my horns.

Normally, he would have put on the dokkaebi’s hat and gone to the beach to find food, but today he couldn’t. Because of the uninvited guest who had kindly announced his visit.

“Huh?”

Just as he was about to pluck a petal from a new flower for another round of the flower fortune-telling game, something strange caught the half-dokkaebi’s eye.

“Oh. This means…”

There were only three petals left when there should have been four originally. It seemed one had been torn off when he picked it.

“He’s coming. He’s not coming.”

He plucked two petals in order. Now only one petal remained on the evening primrose.

“He’s coming…”

The last petal, with its slightly faded edge, fluttered down like a yellow butterfly onto his foot. As he stared endlessly at the yellow petal, forgetting even to brush it off, a shadow fell diagonally, and a strong scent of mint permeated his nostrils.

“Hello.”

“Eek! He really came!”

Eun-hwi, startled out of his wits, quickly hid behind a porch pillar. Clutching his pounding heart, he peeked out to see the man in a different, more comfortable outfit than yesterday.

“It’s hot. Have you been sitting here waiting for me all this time?”

The man touched the floor with his palm to check the warmth, then smiled with his eyes, curling up the corners. His dimples caught Eun-hwi’s attention.

“N-no, I wasn’t waiting. I was just sitting here because I had something to do.”

Eun-hwi replied gruffly, trying to hide his flushed face.

“That’s a shame. I was hoping you’d been waiting for me.”

The man rubbed the bridge of his nose as if disappointed, then set down a large cylindrical bag he had been carrying on his shoulder onto the porch. It made a dull thud as it hit the wooden floor, seemingly full of many items.

“I’ll be staying here for a while. I got kicked out of the village.”

Kicked out?

Feeling sympathetic as he too had always been unwelcome and rejected by everyone, Eun-hwi wondered what had caused the man to be disliked. But then…

…Staying here?

His small mouth opened round in surprise at the earlier statement.

“Here’s the lodging fee.”

The man opened the bag and took out a lump of something wrapped in clear plastic. It was the highest grade beef, with a network of milky-white fat marbling its surface, glistening with juices.

“Gasp!”

How long had it been since he’d seen meat? Just looking at the delicious sight made Eun-hwi unconsciously lick his lips.

“I came without having dinner. Let’s grill it together.”

Let’s grill it together.

As he swallowed the saliva that had filled his mouth, the sweet voice clung to his ear, gently shaking his resolve.

What should I do? What should I do?

What should I do…?

He had already eaten candy from someone who wasn’t “it” in their game, and now he had even let him into the house. If Gabi found out about this, he would be in big trouble.

The half-dokkaebi, squeezing his eyes shut and struggling to resist the temptation, shouted loudly.

“No! I was told to stay away from humans!”

“By whom?”

“By, by my father.”

“Is that so? Then from today on, I’ll be a son of a bitch instead of a human. I’m the worst bastard in the world, you know.”

Woof! Woof!

The man playfully made dog barking sounds.

“…A dog?”

Just like the half-dokkaebi who wanted to become human, did this human also want to become something other than human?

Eun-hwi looked with confused eyes at the man who was saying incomprehensible things about giving up on being human and living as an animal.

Even so, with his huge build like a massive mountain, covered in hard muscles that looked like they wouldn’t bleed even if stabbed, and eyes glowing sharply even in the darkness, he looked more like…

“A tiger…”

The man resembled the king of beasts, the tiger, that Eun-hwi had seen in his childhood hometown of Mount Baekdu.

He remembered being terrified by the intense gaze of a tiger observing them while stretching its front paws gracefully amidst the swirling snow, clutching tightly to his father’s clothes.

Gabi had said that tigers were both spiritual beings and fierce predators that could bite off a neck in an instant, so one had to be very careful. As the son of the Dokkaebi King, he wouldn’t be prey to the Mountain Lord of lower status, but if he ever encountered one, he should quietly turn away and avoid it.

“Hmm…”

They say a guest in May or June is scarier than a tiger, but now a tiger guest had come in May or June.

So is he the scariest guest of all?

Eun-hwi’s unusually large sulfur-yellow eyes rolled around. Seeing Eun-hwi unable to speak easily and slowly hiding his half-exposed body behind the pillar, the corner of the man’s lips twisted for a moment.

Yang Jincheol was right. This won’t be easy.