Page 47 of Vicious Spirits

Junu felt drawn to her, but his mother placed a hand on his arm.

“Come, Junu, there are more vendors down this street.”

He tried to crane his neck to catch another glimpse, but she was gone.

She found him later.

As he waited for his mother and sisters to finish perusing a table of shoes, the girl approached him.

“You are one who observes more often than he partakes.” She did not say it like a question, but like a statement.

“And you are one who can’t seem to move much without attracting a dozen distractions.”

She gave a small chuckle and gazed at the sky, taking in the sight of a kite flying above.

“I envy that kite. How beautiful and free it must feel all alone in the sky.”

“But a string holds it down. How free could it really be?” Junu asked.

She nodded in agreement and said, “What do you wish to accomplish in this life?”

He was surprised at the question but too polite not to answer. “I would like it if I were free of social constraints. If I could be who I wish without the expectations of family and others. Though I have a plain face and my family expects me to become a scholar, I have more interest in art.”

“Are you any good?”

“I’m great. I could sketch something for you if you’d like.”

“Could you sketch me?” she asked.

He was speechless, so he just nodded.

And so they started spending time together. He’d steal out of the house to meet her in the nearby forest. She said that it was easier away from the crowds of town. And it would give them the space and privacy to finish the painting.

His family never noticed what he was doing unless they were looking for him to do some chore. So it was easy for him to spend hours and hours away.

And in the course of this painting, they fell in love.

He loved her under a new moon sky, lit only by stars. And that night, he asked her to marry him. When she accepted, he brought her home to meet his family and they laughed at him. They said there was no way a lady so beautiful would want to be with him. He was so homely and nervous and mediocre. His head was always in the clouds instead of trying to get an appointment that would make his family proud.

Plus, Junu’s love of making art was no life for the son of a nobleman. Even though he was the second son, he was still a son of a noble house.

Junu vowed to leave his family behind once he was married. He no longer needed their disdain if he had Sinhye. He rented a small room and waited for the day he’d marry his bride.

But that wasn’t to happen. His death came while he was still unwed.

21

SOMIN OPENED THEcabinet in Junu’s kitchen for the third time without taking anything out. She kept opening it only to forget what she was doing and close it again. Then she’d remember a few minutes later, open the cabinet again, and immediately forget.

She wasn’t usually this scattered. It was more her mother’s forte to be so forgetful. But Somin had a lot on her mind. Not only was she worried about Jihoon—and Junu, to a lesser degree (or so she told herself)—but there was also something that had been eating away at her already raw nerves.

When Junu had accused her of sacrificing her own comfort for Jihoon’s, he hadn’t been completely wrong (which she hated). Somin had spent most of the day trying to convince herself he’d been full of it, but the damned dokkaebi was right.

She hated to think of that time when both she and Jihoon had lost their fathers. One might have thought the shared trauma was what made them so close. But it was actually the only thing they could never connect on. Through an act of fate or perhaps on a tragic whim of the gods, the day of her father’s memorial was the same day Jihoon’s father was arrested. So when she’d needed her best friend most, he wasn’t there for her.

They both no longer had a father, but through such differentpaths. Even though Somin had been young, she’d known Jihoon’s parents were cruel. And though Jihoon never said it out loud, she knew he’d lived a horrible childhood under his father’s roof. Living with his halmeoni was the first time Jihoon had felt genuine love. Somin had never wondered if she was loved. And because of that, she felt a need to protect Jihoon.

Later, Jihoon always said he barely remembered his father. And Somin said the same thing, but it was a lie. A lie started when she was too young to understand the consequences. She thought that if she talked about how much she missed her father, how much she loved him, then it would make Jihoon sad. It was the first time she’d laid aside her own pain for Jihoon. And she’d never stopped since.

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