HFTS 4

Chapter 4

“Now that you’re here, you can leave.”

“No way. I have to make sure you get inside your house safely.”

In the end, Park Su-ho had fractured his right leg and had to wear a cast.

Yoo Hae-won had carried his belongings for him from the hospital and followed him all the way to his home.

He had told her several times that he could manage on his own, but she refused to back down. Park Su-ho let out a deep sigh at her stubbornness.

“You’re more stubborn than you look.”

“Thank you!”

“That wasn’t a compliment…”

He had never invited friends or anyone else into his home before, so he was rather reluctant to let her in.

However, she had saved his life today, so he couldn’t rudely tell her to leave.

Park Su-ho lived in a small two-bedroom unit in an old apartment building.

“I’m home.”

“Excuse me…”

It was Yoo Hae-won’s first time visiting a friend’s house, but she wasn’t here simply to hang out. Her sharp eyes scanned the entire place.

It would be better if more sunlight came in, but the land itself isn’t bad.

On the contrary, strong energy lingered throughout the house. With energy this strong, minor spirits shouldn’t even dare to gather here.

It’s not coming from Park Su-ho, whose life force has been heavily drained… Could someone in his family have particularly strong energy?

Moreover, the moment she entered the house, the spirit attached to Park Su-ho had disappeared without a trace.

Yoo Hae-won rolled her eyes around, carefully surveying her surroundings.

Then she noticed two figures standing near a photograph in the corner.

“Thanks for helping me all the way here. Now, you can—”

“I’m thirsty. Can I have some water?”

Without even turning to look at Park Su-ho, Yoo Hae-won called out while staring intently at the living room.

Park Su-ho was speechless at her shamelessness. Eventually, he turned around.

“Just a moment…”

While he went to get some water, Yoo Hae-won hurried inside.

She really is a bit of a handful.

I’ll just give her some water and send her off.

I need to start studying quickly so I can get a scholarship again this time…

Huh? Come to think of it, I feel a lot more at ease.

Back at school, he had been… No, for the past few days, he had constantly felt irritated and become increasingly short-tempered. Even hearing his friends call his name had gotten on his nerves.

One reason he had been so on edge was that the students kept talking noisily to Yoo Hae-won, who sat behind him.

But why don’t I dislike Yoo Hae-won?

If anything, I sometimes feel more at ease when I’m with her…

Park Su-ho tilted his head in confusion and turned around, only to find Yoo Hae-won inside his house. He was startled.

Then he saw her quietly staring down at the small table in the corner of the living room, and his eyes flashed with anger.

“Who told you that you could come in whenever you wanted?!”

He rushed toward Yoo Hae-won so quickly that half the water in his cup spilled onto the floor. Then he turned over the picture frame on the table, hiding the photograph from view.

“Drink your water and leave! I need to study!”

Worried that she might say something, Park Su-ho forcibly placed the cup in her hand and pushed her toward the front door.

Yoo Hae-won allowed herself to be pushed along without resistance, but then she turned to look at him.

“Do you know that someone has placed a curse on you?”

“What are you talking about? I told you to leave!”

“Have you been feeling irritable lately? Getting annoyed over the smallest things? Have bad things kept happening around you?”

He had managed to push her all the way to the entrance, but at her continued words, Park Su-ho hesitated.

“Little things keep going wrong, you can’t concentrate on studying, you get nosebleeds once a day, and whenever you solve practice exam papers, your scores aren’t as good as they used to be. Am I right?”

“What…?”

A chill ran down Park Su-ho’s spine as Yoo Hae-won casually listed things he had never told anyone.

Perhaps she was simply making guesses because he had been as irritable as everyone else had noticed. But there was no way he could ignore her last statement.

Ever since his last mock exam, he had frequently been getting questions wrong when solving practice papers.

This had never happened to him before, so he had been constantly worrying that he would ruin both the upcoming mock exam and the midterm exams.

“You’ve been cursed. If this continues, something terrible will happen to you.”

“……What do you mean by a curse?”

“Someone has put a curse on you.”

Park Su-ho’s serious expression immediately relaxed. He gave her a look of pity and pushed her back toward the door.

“Ah, right. That sounds terrible. Now leave. I need to study.”

“This isn’t something you can just ignore! The power of the ghost attached to you is getting stronger and stronger!”

Park Su-ho had successfully pushed her out to the entrance, but Yoo Hae-won’s desperate words left him looking unconvinced.

“You talk just like someone who can see ghosts. What are you, a shaman or something?”

“……”

Yoo Hae-won finally closed her mouth after talking so noisily until then.

She didn’t nod or admit it by saying, That’s right, but somehow, her silence felt like an even stronger confirmation.

“……Just pretend you’re taking a chance and believe me once. It’s not like you have anything to lose by following my advice.”

Perhaps it was because her eyes looked so desperate. Or perhaps it was because of her beauty.

The anger that had surged within Park Su-ho gradually subsided, and he let out a faint sigh.

“I can’t give you much time. I need to study.”

“Okay! I’ll be quick! One hour…!”

When Park Su-ho raised an eyebrow, Yoo Hae-won rolled her eyes.

“No, no! Thirty minutes is enough!”

“……Come in.”

In the end, Park Su-ho let her back inside.

This time, Yoo Hae-won moved around his home even more boldly.

Of course, she avoided the area around the small table where she had been standing earlier.

“This is your room, right?”

Park Su-ho watched her quietly, feeling surprised.

The apartment had two bedrooms, and both doors had been closed except for the bathroom. There was no way she could have known which one was his room.

“……That’s right.”

“Hmmm. Wait a moment.”

Yoo Hae-won stood by the doorway and examined Park Su-ho’s small room. Then her eyes grew calm and focused.

Just as Park Su-ho began to notice the sudden change in her demeanor—

Wheee!

Yoo Hae-won whistled.

She even closed her eyes, placed a hand against her right temple, and whistled several times.

He had no idea what she was doing, but he felt that he shouldn’t interrupt her.

Just then, Yoo Hae-won opened her eyes wide and strode into the room.

Then she began rummaging through the trash can beside the desk.

“Su-ho, look at this.”

Park Su-ho was about to stop her when Yoo Hae-won pulled her hand out of the trash can.

In her hand was an empty energy drink can, one of the essential supplies for students.

“Who gave this to you?”

“……How did you know?”

“Who gave it to you?”

“A friend from school. He’s in the class two rooms down from mine. We sometimes study together in the library.”

“From now on, don’t accept anything from this friend, no matter what it is.”

“What?”

“This friend hired a shaman to send a curse your way. To make it more effective, he’s been secretly sprinkling yangbap on you little by little.”

Park Su-ho furrowed his brows at the unfamiliar words, curse and yangbap.

“You said the curse was meant to harm me… But what’s yangbap?”

“It’s a form of sorcery. It can be used to help people or drive away spirits, but it can also be used to harm people or control ghosts.”

Only then did Park Su-ho begin to understand what she was saying, and his expression grew serious.

“That friend of yours is good at studying too, isn’t he? I bet he was only a hair’s breadth behind you in second place in the entire school.”

Park Su-ho’s eyes widened even further.

Just as she had said, the friend who had been giving him things was Shin Yu-jin, the second-best student in the school after him.

“Think about it. Ever since this friend started giving you things, whether food or other items, haven’t you started feeling unwell or experiencing strange things?”

Park Su-ho thought it over, looking uneasy and slightly frightened.

“Was that… really the case? I’m not sure. But he usually shares things with other students too, not just me.”

More importantly, he had been receiving food and other things from Shin Yu-jin since the first semester.

“A curse doesn’t take effect immediately just because someone sends it your way. It gradually eats away at a person while growing stronger and stronger.”

And once it gained momentum, it would grow beyond control until nothing could be done to stop it.

“Before that, you probably just thought you were having a little bad luck here and there. You only started seriously noticing that something was wrong about twenty… No, fifteen days ago. That’s probably when the other person started sprinkling more yangbap on you.”

Well? Am I right?

When Yoo Hae-won looked at him expectantly, Park Su-ho naturally recalled what had happened fifteen days earlier.

With the mock exam just around the corner, Park Su-ho had been studying with Shin Yu-jin at the library they often visited together.

[Su-ho, have some of this. I bought some for you while I was getting mine.]

[Oh, thanks! How much was it? I’ll send you the money—]

[Come on, it’s fine. It didn’t cost much. Hurry up and eat. Let’s both do well on this exam, too. Just you wait. This time, I’m definitely going to beat you and take first place.]

[Haha, then I guess I’ll have to study even harder.]

They studied at the library until eleven o’clock. On their way home, a motorcycle suddenly came speeding out of an alley, nearly hitting Park Su-ho.

The alley was narrow, and delivery drivers frequently rode their motorcycles through it, so such incidents happened occasionally. At the time, he had simply brushed it off as bad luck, but…

“On the day of the exam, I got severe indigestion and couldn’t eat a single meal. I still felt sick when I took the test, and I had a bit of a fever too.”

Perhaps because of the fever, or perhaps because of the medicine he had hastily taken, Park Su-ho had been overwhelmed by an almost unbearable drowsiness.

He had never once fallen asleep during class, let alone during an exam, but that day, he could barely keep his eyes open.

On top of that, his fever wouldn’t go down even after he took medicine, and his head kept throbbing. There was no way he could concentrate on the exam.

“What rank did you get on the mock exam?”

“……Fifth.”

“Then the friend who gave you this must have come in first place.”

Park Su-ho’s eyes flew open.

She was right.

A few days earlier, when the mock exam results had been released and the school announced the rankings, Shin Yu-jin had taken first place in the entire school for the first time.

And when Park Su-ho told him that he had done terribly because he had been feeling unwell, Shin Yu-jin had said this:

[Oh, come on. You should’ve taken better care of yourself. Has your fever gone down? You still don’t look very well. Here, have this at least. My mom’s been giving it to me lately, and it works really well.]

Even then, he had given Park Su-ho some nutritional supplements.