GOBLIN [TAEGYU]

twenty-three ; soobin

I glared my phone. Yeonjun wasn’t picking up. Taehyun wasn’t picking up. Were they ignoring my calls? Yeonjun had snuck out so early that morning to do the exact opposite of what I’d asked. Was he ignoring me because he was afraid of what I’d say? He’d be right, because I was planning to tear into him as soon as I saw him again. But was I a hypocrite for being upset? After all, I’d gone months lying to Yeonjun, thinking I knew what was best for him last winter. But that had been different. I hadn’t wanted to upset Yeonjun because he’d held my fox bead inside of him. It had weakened him; I’d had no idea if he could handle the strain of knowing his life was in danger because of me.

Still lost in my thoughts, I went into the kitchen for a glass of water and stopped short when I saw Beomgyu at the fridge.

“Beomgyu-ah, what are you doing in here with all the lights off?” I asked, shuffling to the cabinets for a glass. “Can you pass me the water?”

Then I blinked, thinking perhaps I was just tired from stress. That’s why I thought I could see the fridge through Beomgyu.

Then the figure turned. The glass fell from my hand, crashing against the tile at my feet.

“Mother?” I whispered.

Free me, son.
“What are you doing here?”

Don’t you want me to visit you? Don’t you call me to you?

“No, I’m not doing anything. I promise,” I said.

Mom held out her palm, and in it she held a thread, which shone bright and gold and sliced through the air to connect to me.

We are connected. It’s how I can come to you. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Mother?” I sobbed, stepping forward. But mom faded into nothing before I could reach her.

“Soobin?” Beomgyu rushed to me. “What happened?”

“What?” I turned, dazed, barely registering Beomgyu.frantically dragging me to the high-top chairs around the island.

“You stepped in glass. You’re bleeding everywhere.” Beomgyu grabbed a towel and knelt in front of me. “What happened?”

“I saw her,” I murmured.

“Stay here, I’m going to find the first aid kit.”

No, this isn’t happening, I thought. Because if this was happening, it meant Taehyun was right about ghosts coming to this world. That my mother really was haunting me. And my mother must have the bead, which was how she’d been able to visit me this whole time, using her connection to my bead. Was mom making the tear wider by coming to me so often in my dreams? How big was it now that mom was appearing before me?

Beomgyu rushed back with tweezers, ointment, and bandages. I barely felt it as Beomgyu pulled the glass shards from my feet while chastising me. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign language; I was barely listening to his lecture.

“Soobin!” Beomgyu shouted. “Are you listening to me? What the hell happened here?”

“I . . . I can’t . . . I don’t . . .” And finally the pressure that had been building in my chest broke free and I burst into sobs.

Without a word, Beomgyu wrapped me in his arms. And I held on, my whole body shaking.

Taehyun was right; ghosts shouldn’t linger in this world too long. I hated admitting it. But I’d been seeing mom in my dreams for months and I had been ignoring it. No. I was lying to myself. I’d been holding on to it, just like I was somehow holding on to mom. My mother had said to set her free, but I didn’t know how to do that.

When my sobs had quieted to slow hiccupping tears, Beomgyu pulled away. “Tell me what’s happening. Let me help. Please.”

I started to tell Beomgyu. That my mother was haunting me. That my mother was a ghost and must be the reason that my yeowu guseul was in the ghost realm. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Because there was nothing to say. No, because I knew that if Beomgyu knew about mo, he’d ask me to give her up. And I didn’t know if I could do it.