Finding You

SPECIAL CHAPTER: WRONGFUL IMPRESSIONS

Hyo Jin was notified of another assignment that would take place during the ungodly hours before daybreak. This time, she was required to be at a back alley of a flea market to call out the spirit of a man in his sixties who used to serve at the palace but was banished due to a particular circumstance she did not bother to inquire about.

Contrary to what she had hoped for, the woman the other grim reapers unofficially christened as the mistress of catastrophe was already standing beside the ahjussi.

Notwithstanding her exasperation, Hyo Jin still gave her a half-bow plainly out of courtesy.

"Good morning," she uttered with the tiniest hint of dismay.

The mistress merely nodded in acknowledgment, then calmly said, "Go on and do what you came here for, will you?"

Startled at the civility of her demeanor, Hyo Jin almost jumped to her feet before walking towards the man, clearing her throat once in preparation for the ritual.

"Cheon Ki Bum," the grim reaper declared his name with a resolute voice.

A minute passed and yet, nothing – not even a wisp of the man's soul – came out of the body.

"Cheon Ki Bum," she repeated, a little louder and more articulate.

When her second attempt proved to be futile again, Hyo Jin stole a sidelong glance at the woman who was already sitting at a makeshift bench not too far from her, legs crossed and looking utterly bored.

"The spirit you are summoning belongs to a drunkard, miss," the mistress murmured lazily as she feigned interest in the texture of her exquisite black hanbok. "I'm afraid you have to be a bit more forceful than usual."

Hyo Jin slowly turned to behold her ally's appearance, wary that the latter might throw a fit due to her growing impatience.

It immediately dawned upon Hyo Jin that if not agitated, the woman actually looked as if they were of the same age – in mortal years, at least. The grim reaper observed that the face of Fate's physical manifestation betrayed fleeting signs of warmth and lightheartedness, yet she was very quick to control such good-natured emotions and keep it suppressed underneath her stern façade.

Hyo Jin braved herself to stare into those brown eyes which were awfully apathetic on the exterior, holding her gaze to decipher whatever hid in the shadow that lurked in them.

Loneliness, the word instantly came into her mind. Grief. Sorrow...

"Would you like to give it another try?" her unlikely comrade asked, pulling Hyo Jin out of her thoughts before she could distinguish the other emotions underneath that intimidating persona.

The grim reaper nodded, then bellowed the name of the man for the third time.

The soul of Cheon Ki Bum rose from his lifeless body and shuffled on his feet, trying and failing to get enough balance as he marched towards the path to the other side. As he went on, the two ladies watched closely – wincing every time that he stumbled and almost fell on his behind – until his unearthly form completely disappeared.

"I apologize for the delay," Hyo Jin offered as they prepared to part ways. "I did not know that calling out spirits of that character would entail some shouting from my end."

To her surprise, the almost-deity laughed, waving her hand as if she was banishing the grim reaper's worries.

"It isn't every day that we are assigned such nuisance," she said as soon as the humor faded. "Nevertheless, I can only hope that you have learned something new."

"I definitely did, mistress," the grim reaper concurred, nodding.

Once more, her present collaborator took Hyo Jin aback by bowing her head as she formally introduced herself.

"Please call me Son Eon Jin," she told the grim reaper. "Am I right to assume we are going to be partners for quite a while?"

Hyo Jin returned her gesture with utmost sincerity, optimistic that this would be the beginning of a cooperative – if not friendly – working relationship.

"Certainly," she answered with a faint smile on her lips. "My name is Gong Hyo Jin."

Eon Jin eyed the grim reaper for a few seconds more and wondered what deadly sin a seemingly kind person like her committed in her former life to deserve a severe punishment like becoming a grim reaper. Moreover, while it did not make any sense to her at that time, she realized that Hyo Jin was the first mythical being she felt comfortable to be around with in almost two centuries of being the Fate's servant to the extent that she wanted to ask her personal questions such as how far along was she in serving her sentence, where did she come from, was she able to remember her past life...

Nonetheless, Eon Jin knew better than to invade someone else's space and, in consequence, step out of the walls she built around herself.

"Until our subsequent meeting, then," she said, her unreadable expression back on display as she turned on her heel to head out of the alleyway.

However, a fat drop of water landed on the tip of her nose just as she emerged from the obscure street, prompting her to pause. As if on cue, another foreboding crossed her mind.

Ultimately, Eon Jin lifted her chin to the starless sky in resignation and was greeted by giant nimbus clouds which were uncannily present on a supposedly clear autumn day.

"Ahh... It is going to happen after all," she whispered to herself. "How inconvenient."

Reluctantly, she faced about to return to the place where the lifeless body of the drunk ahjussi still lay undiscovered by mortals to seek for the grim reaper she recently acquainted herself with.

"Let us have some tea and a well-deserved breakfast after work," Eon Jin proposed after finding her at the same place where they bade their farewells. "For now, we must hurry to the palace."

"Why?" Hyo Jin asked, her usually astute eyes already shrouded by sheer confusion.

The mistress raised a questioning brow at the grim reaper, then broke the news with a heavy sigh, "If you have not been advised yet by the immortal you are serving – which is obviously the case at the moment – Queen Myeongseong is about to be assassinated thirty minutes from now."

—

Image by I. H Cho from Pixabay