"My shoulders feel heavy these days."
If someone had asked when it started, Mu-ryeong could only answer: from the beginning. He had never been slow to notice things, especially when it came to his work. His instincts had always been razor-sharp in those moments. From the first time he saw Ki Hwan-young, and through the days they spent together, his instincts had led him here, step by step.
"â¦You figured all that out just from a saju reading?"
They had spent hours on the rooftop, lingering until the sky turned crimson with the setting sun. Mu-ryeong had stared absentmindedly at the sky, while Hwan-young seemed to be sorting through his thoughts. When Hwan-young finally broke the silence with that question, Mu-ryeong answered in an unbothered, everyday tone.
"I couldnât not know."
Trulyâthere was no way he wouldnât have known. Yet Hwan-youngâs face hardened instantly, as if he had assumed Mu-ryeong had been completely oblivious. Seeing that reaction, Mu-ryeong ran a hand through his cooling hair before speaking again, his lips moving slowly.
"Just because someone has spiritual energy doesnât mean they can see spirits. But someone like you⦠youâd still feel something, even without the ability to see them."
Many ordinary people possessed traces of spiritual energy. Those with heightened intuition or those frequently haunted by ghosts often carried it. But just because they had spiritual energy didnât mean their spiritual sight was open. At most, they might feel an eerie chill, a sense of unease.
"But you didnât react at all when ghostly hair brushed against you."
Mu-ryeong recalled the sight of the fiendâs hair draping over Hwan-youngâs hand. Most people would have flinched, startled by the sensationâbut Hwan-young hadnât even blinked. As if it was something so familiar, so ordinary, that it no longer fazed him.
"I donât scare easily either, even when something suddenly jumps out at me."
"â¦"
"Iâve been seeing them since I was a kid."
Seung-joo had once told him, If I had been born seeing ghosts like you, I probably wouldnât get scared either. Mu-ryeong had agreed with that sentiment.
"Besides, most people ask what happened after I finish an exorcism."
Whenever Mu-ryeong handled a case, he always fed his friends some plausible excuse afterward. Heâd say it was just bad energy, or that he sprinkled salt to ward off negativityâmixing in just enough ghost stories to keep them interested without revealing the truth.
"But you never asked. Not why your shoulders hurt, not what I did in your houseânone of it."
If he really wanted to, he could list every strange detail about Hwan-young until morning. Hwan-young might have thought he had hidden it well, but to someone like Mu-ryeongâwho had seen and experienced so muchâit was obvious.
"They say a spiritual user can always recognize another one."
"â¦Ha."
Hwan-young let out a small, disbelieving laugh. He looked like he hadnât expected Mu-ryeong to say that. The expression on his face was a mix of frustration and betrayal.
"And even knowing that, you still ran all the way up here?"
"Spiritual users still get hurt if they fall from a rooftop."
Accidents were called accidents because they happened suddenly. Whatever ability Hwan-young hadâit didnât matter. If he had fallen backward, Mu-ryeong didnât even want to imagine the consequences.
"That barrier around you⦠was it to keep the fiend away?"
The same protective field that had repelled a lingering spirit during the entrance ceremony. The same barrier that the fiend had clawed at hungrily, desperate to devour Hwan-youngâs soul. It wasnât visible to the naked eye, but Mu-ryeong, as an exorcist, could feel it.
"Do ghosts cling to you often?"
As he spoke, Mu-ryeong leaned back on his hands and gazed up at Hwan-young, wondering just how much danger he had been in to need such a constant barrier around himself.
But instead of answering right away, Hwan-young paused. Then, in a calm, almost monotonous voice, he asked:
"Do you think this is to protect me?"
The energy surrounding him began to shift. The carefully controlled spiritual force around him loosened, unraveling like a thread being pulled from fabric. And the aura that seeped outâit was strong, sending chills up Mu-ryeongâs spine.
Then, from the shadows stretching along the rooftop, something began to emerge.
"â¦!"
A fiend. Or rather, a lowly wandering spirit. Unlike the one that had clung to Hwan-young before, this one was weakâsomething that survived by latching onto people and slowly draining their energy.
"Waitâ¦"
Mu-ryeong stiffened, caught off guard as he pushed himself upright. It wasnât powerful enough to cause real harm, but the fact that it had appeared so suddenlyâwhile the sun was still upâwas unnerving.
"Wait, youâ"
Before he could react, Hwan-young casually reached out and grabbed the fiend by the throat.
No barrier. No spiritual energy reinforcement. No indication that he was using any power at all.
And yet, the moment his fingers touched itâ
The fiend evaporated.
Like mist dispersing in the wind, its form vanished completely, leaving no trace behind.
"â¦"
Mu-ryeong froze, his eyes widening. The faint remnants of negative energy disappeared the second Hwan-young pulled his hand away, erased so cleanly that it was as if it had never existed in the first place.
"This isâ¦"
It wasnât the first time Mu-ryeong had seen an exorcism. He had grown up in a family of exorcists. As a child, he had followed his father to various cases. He had watched Mu-heun and Mu-yeon perform countless rituals.
But neverânot onceâhad he seen something vanish that fast.
No matter how weak the fiend was, this wasnât normal. It shouldnât be possible to erase a spirit so effortlessly, without even channeling power.
"What⦠did you just do?"
Mu-ryeong asked, his voice quiet.
Slowly, Hwan-young turned his head toward him.
His pitch-black eyes were darker than ever, filled with something deep and unreadable.
"I didnât do anything."
"â¦"
Nothing.
The weight of that single statement was indescribable. Mu-ryeong felt as if someone had struck him on the back of the head, his mind going completely blank. The words echoed in his ears like a ringing aftershock.
"Do you think this is to protect me?"
A chill ran down his spine.
What he had always assumed to be obvious⦠might not have been the truth at all.
The barrier wasnât for self-protection.
Mu-ryeong realized that everything he had witnessed up until nowâthe things he had tried to piece togetherâwas only a fraction of the full picture. There was something far greater that he had yet to understand.
"This is why I donât need talismans."
With that final remark, Ki Hwan-young turned and left the rooftop. The broken iron door let out a chilling creak as it moved.
Left alone, Mu-ryeong found himself replaying the scene in his mind, as if it had been burned into his vision.
***
Exorcists had three main duties.
First, guiding lost spirits.
Second, eliminating malicious fiends.
And third, sealing demonic entitiesâthose beyond simple spirits, such as goblins or vengeful specters.
When it came to fiends, the rule was clear: destroy them without hesitation.
Once a spirit became a fiend, it lost all traces of its former humanity. It was no longer considered a living being, and therefore, it held no value for salvation.
No matter what methods were used, a soul that had turned into a fiend could never return to what it once was. All it could do was drain the life force of the living, or consume wandering spirits, wasting away and harming others in the process.
That was why exorcistsâaside from those specializing in demonic sealsâprioritized eliminating fiends. They would track spiritual disturbances, trace negative energy, and deal with them using their own methods.
This process was called "work," and Mu-ryeong, not yet a fully recognized exorcist, had never formally participated in such tasks.
Of course, that didnât mean he hadnât faced fiends before.
The next morning, Mu-ryeong sat crouched at the entrance of an alley, waiting for Ki Hwan-young.
After staying up all night wrestling with his thoughts, the skin around his eyes was flushed red from exhaustion. His mind kept returning to what had happenedâthe way Hwan-young had erased a fiend without using any spiritual energy.
"A spiritual user born on a leap dayâ¦"
Mu-ryeong had grown up hearing one particular phrase:
"If you want to surpass Kim Mu-ryeong, your best bet is to be born on a leap day."
But he had never met anyone who had actually been born that way. And since his abilities far exceeded expectations, he had never given it much thought.
"With that much spiritual energy, he could handle fiends on his own."
What Hwan-young had erased last night had been little more than a wandering spirit. But even if it had been a stronger fiend, the result would have been the same.
If not for the barrier around him, the fiend gnawing at his shoulder would have dispersed just as easily.
There was never any need for him to request an exorcismâhe could have done it himself.
But he didnât.
Mu-ryeong remembered the night his older brother, Mu-heun, had spoken to him over the phone.
His voice had been serious.
"Stay out of this."
He had said Hwan-youngâs fate was one that would consume everything.
His family, his friends, and eventually, even himself.
"He was born under a cursed fate. He slowly drains the people around him."
"If you get too close, youâll get hurt."
Mu-heunâs saju readings werenât ordinary fortune-telling.
They werenât just vague predictionsâhis abilities allowed him to read past, present, and future.
And if Mu-heun had said that Mu-ryeong would get hurt⦠then it was inevitable.
Logically, Mu-ryeong knew that walking away now would be the smart choice.
But for some reason, he couldnât.
"There must be a reason he requested an exorcism."
He couldnât shake the image of Ki Hwan-youngâs expressionâthe look of someone who had already given up on everything.
The slight tremor in his eyes when Mu-ryeong had asked if he had been planning to jump.
The way he had clung to Seung-jooâs arm, as if the world had collapsed beneath him.
He didnât want to turn away.
Even if people called it selfishness, he refused to act as if nothing had happened.
Ki Hwan-young, who couldnât even take public transportation like everyone elseâhe didnât want to watch as he wasted away.
"â¦Kim Mu-ryeong?"@@novelbin@@
A familiar voice pulled him from his thoughts.
Mu-ryeong slowly lifted his head.
The face looking down at him from above felt almost dreamlike, distant.
"Donât cancel the request."
Mu-ryeong leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment before reopening them.
The sunlight streaming behind Hwan-young made his vision blur slightly. His throat felt dry as he forced himself to speak.
"Iâll take care of the fiend attached to you."
If Seung-joo had been there, he would have asked if volunteering was Mu-ryeongâs new hobby.
If his mother had been there, she would have scolded him for saying something so reckless.
But Mu-ryeong wasnât choosing this out of impulse.
He believed that this decisionâright nowâwas the only chance to protect both Ki Hwan-young and others around him.
"I know how to purify it."