NOVEL NEXT chapter 5
5 – Date in the Demon World – 2
“Rain…?”
“Ah, that is, let’s go together.”
“Holding hands?”
“…Yes.”
It wasn’t the first time I held hands with Scarlet. We’ve walked hand in hand before.
But for some reason, the atmosphere felt peculiar today. Seeing Scarlet’s face turn bright red, I couldn’t help but notice it. Perhaps my face was doing the same.
“hehehe, Rain. You’re quite peculiar today. Lost in thought, suddenly holding hands… Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened.”
Nothing had indeed happened. Everything was going smoothly. Having infiltrated the Demon World as a spy, I’ve become one of its Four Kings, having inherited another Kings’ workload enabled me to understand the Demon World’s administration, and with that knowledge, I’ve earned the demon king’s trust by creating reform plans.
Everything miraculously fell into place. Only my feelings remained complicated.
Just because everything was going exceptionally well, old memories began to resurface. Memories from back when I was still living in the 21st century stirred my mind.
“Rain, if it’s okay with me, I’ll listen. If it’s something hard to talk about, you can lean on me and rest for a while. Even though you say nothing happened… you look quite tired right now.”
“Um…”
Indeed.
I couldn’t recall the last time I rested. Since becoming one of the Four Kings… no, since I started my undercover work in the Demon World, I hadn’t had a day off.
Living as a spy, even rest was a job. Not a single moment to truly reveal myself. Every moment was something like an impromptu performance. I couldn’t treat sincerity with sincerity.
So…
He must have been tired.
No human can spend months acting and manipulating time without losing their mind. Damn it.
No wonder my mood has been so erratic lately. I want to die. Seriously. Why did I have to take on this task and go through such hell?
That damned old fart. Once I complete this mission and settle my debts, I’ll kick him in the rear. I’ll yank out that beard of his too. To hell with those shadow bastards, whether they live or die.
Sigh…
I miss the civilization of the 21st century, damn it.
“Scarlett.”
“Yes, Lain?”
“Scarlett…”
“It’s okay, Lain.”
“Will you listen to my story?”
“Heh, of course. Speak freely.”
“Don’t ask anything, don’t wonder, just… think I’m tired and talking nonsense, and listen…”
“Sometimes when we’re tired, we tend to babble nonsensically, don’t we?”
So I began my story softly, murmuring as if talking to myself.
It’s not about the crone or any secret organization. I wasn’t so out of my mind from exhaustion to blather about my mission.
The story I’m about to tell is not about Lain, the half-demon living in this world.
It’s the story of a human, living in 21st century South Korea.
The story of Woo-chun.
…
…
My father, like many middle-aged people, loved to tell stories of the old days. It might have been because of the IMF crisis. He took pride in having personally withstood and overcome Korea’s tough times.
His stories varied each time in content, but the subjects were largely the same: work, technology, politics, the military… My father had a talent for telling stories about matters that were so dull they could make listeners feel like dying. Yet I enjoyed them. Even as my mother turned up her nose, my sister fled to her room, and my older sister half-heartedly pretended to listen while looking at her smartphone, my eyes would sparkle as I listened intently to the stories my father told.
The Korea he spoke of seemed like such a funny place. Everything was so absurd, yet everyone took it as natural. Some even took pride in this absurdity.
I thought the world was hilariously absurd and became curious about the principles that made it tick.
I was a human who couldn’t contain his curiosity. I scoured introductory texts and overviews in libraries to learn about the country called Korea. I studied economics, sociology, dabbled in psychology and philosophy, and even sought out books on world history.
To me, all these books were like joke books filled with ridiculous episodes. Histories were written by braggarts, treated as gospel for hundreds of years, and people chasing profits made idiotic choices because they couldn’t trust each other.
Trivial moments had an unnecessarily significant impact on choices, and sometimes, a person would be killed by a meteorite or die after falling into a cesspit.
If you don’t call that humor, then what would you call humor?
This world was indeed a place brimming with jokes. Every book you flipped open held a joke within. My father’s old stories, the television news, even the comments on internet articles were full of all sorts of humor.
So, when I lifted my head from those stories to look at the reality surrounding me,
It felt incredibly quiet, deserted, lonely… and boring.
The genuinely funny humor existed only within stories. That’s why I became obsessed with them. It was no surprise that my interests had shifted from non-fiction to fiction.
By that time, I had become a high school student.
…
…
…
Although my father opposed my decision to pursue the arts, his opposition was not vehement. He simply parroted, like a broken record, how a science track would be more advantageous for employment in his attempts to persuade me.
When I remained unpersuaded to the very end, he went on to support my choice. My grades were good in almost all subjects except for math. There was hardly a need to study the elective subjects since most of their content was already familiar to me. I didn’t really study math either; even after reading, I couldn’t grasp what it was about. Even in high school, I spent most of my time reading.
If in middle school I had delved into various non-fiction texts, in high school it was into literature.
Literature was a completely new world, unlike non-fiction. While most of the non-fiction books in the library repeated similar research material or editorials, each piece of literature was a breath of fresh content.
The themes changed, the characters changed, and the structures changed, and with avant-garde literature, even the fundamental role of text became different. Every day was enjoyable. This world was filled with humor.
And at some point, a brand-new desire began to creep into the depths of my heart. It was the desire to ‘write stories like these.’
From that moment, the time I spent reading diminished. Instead, my time wasted on daydreams increased. I squandered hours scribbling meaningless sentences and characters in my notebooks.
Like being possessed, I frantically wrote sentences, only to read what I had written later, find it dreadfully dull, and tear up the pages in disgust.
I entered a creative writing program in college. My father said that it suited me and cheered me on.
…
…
…
Time teaches us many things. It can change people, occasionally.
The four years I spent at university taught me that I was no different from the average person. I lacked the talent or passion to pour my soul into the noble pursuit of literature.
I, like an ordinary person, ventured into the job market. After being eliminated at the application stage several times, I lowered my standards and secured employment at a passable company. Truthfully, it was a garbage company riddled with absurdity.
The company, which called on employees to work weekends without overtime pay, could stomach being called such. I neither fought against the absurdity nor demanded my ‘rightful’ entitlements.
One day, I stood vacantly in front of a mirror, gazing at my own haggard reflection. I looked undistinguishable from a zombie.
And so, I laughed! Oh, how funny the irony was – the ‘joke’ I had always found so amusing was right there, in the mirror!
I don’t know how long I was cackling with delight, hours, perhaps. Only when my voice was hoarse and I could no longer laugh did the laughter stop. My smartphone had either run out of battery or shut down after incessantly ringing. The thought of checking missed calls didn’t even occur to me.
Just like that, it was over.
The joke that was called ‘me’ ended there. Like tearing out the meaningless-filled pages of a notebook. I was resolved to end it by my own hand.
I had to face an irreversible ending.
But, what a joke this is.
When I opened my eyes again, I-.
.
.
.
My throat was burning. Unknownst to me, I had been scratching at my throat like mad. Bits of flesh from my throat were being scraped away under my nails, falling away like scabs. I felt suffocated. I struggled to breathe.
“Actually, I didn’t want to die….”
“It’s okay….”
Someone lightly grasped my hand with a cold one. It was Scarlett. The raw power of the hero filled her hands, a slight pain resonated from her touch. The hand that had been feverishly scratching at my throat would no longer move.
“If only there was something I could do right….”
“It’s okay…”
Scarlett embraced me. The soft touch of her black dress felt against my skin. My face was buried in Scarlett’s chest.
“I’ve had enough of this damned world….”
“It’s all okay….”
As my body stopped shaking, Scarlett caught my face between her hands and locked her gaze with mine. My reflection fell inside the clearness of Scarlett’s eyes.
Half-breed, a half-penny, a half-species that could only ever possess half, regardless of what we do. It was the image of the half-demon Reid.
“I just… want to rest….”
“Leave the rest to me, take a deep breath and sleep….”
A strange magic flickered in Scarlett’s eyes. Only then did I recall Scarlett’s other power, veiled by her hero’s strength.
My consciousness began to fade away.
The boisterous surrounding became quiet.
Finally, I could sigh…and sleep….
…
“Sleep well, Rain….”