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22. The Order of Underworld

  Inside the Bathroom, Two Souls were confronting each other, both dead in some way.

  “I was a doctor,” Park Tae Hyun growled at his reflection, or rather at Kim Min Woo, droplets clinging to his lashes.

  Outside, Ruri set her book down, her movements deliberate, almost ceremonial.

  She glanced at the bathroom door, her expression deep and unreadable, a flicker of something ancient in her eyes.

  She didn’t approach. Instead, she turned and slipped out of the bookstore, her small boots clicking against the pavement as she crossed to Baek Cheong-won’s noodle House next door.

  Inside, Baek was still talking to the air, his voice thick with desperation.

  “Dad, Mom, no matter how you persuade me, it’s useless. I want you to sit down and eat with me, seriously. If he can do this, I can make you like this! We can live together again, as a family, just like before.”

  The two human skins hanging beside the small table began to sway violently, as if in protest.

  Baek’s eyes darted to the ceiling, where yellow talisman papers clung, their edges curling, their vibrant color fading to gray for reasons he couldn’t fathom.

  His heart lurched.

  He flung back the curtain and stumbled into the main shop, freezing at the sight before him.

  Ruri stood in the center, her small frame commanding the space like a storm about to break.

  Her mouth opened, and her tongue unfurled—long, impossibly long, a grotesque ribbon that shimmered with an unnatural sheen, stretching across the room like a path to the unknown.

  “There is order in the underworld,” she intoned, her voice a chilling blend of childish clarity and ancient weight, “The Dead of the Mortal Real Must Depart.”

  The two human skins Flapped Violently, though No Wind could reach this part of Noddle House.

  The skins withered at an unprecedented rate, their luster fading as two streams of white vapor seeped out, pooling beside Ruri.

  They coalesced into the forms of an Old Couple, A man and a woman—Baek’s parents—swaying, their eyes empty, their memories gone.

  They moved toward her tongue, drawn to it like moths to a flame, each step pulling them closer to oblivion.

  They swayed, seeming to forget everything, knowing only to walk step by step along the long tongue, as if it were their destination, leading to some unknown place.

  Baek’s face contorted, shock giving way to horror.

  “You… you actually…” He pointed at Ruri, the sweet girl he’d doted on moments ago, now a specter of judgment.

  As his parents’ forms grew fainter, more blurred, he lunged forward, desperation overriding sense.

  “No!!! Don’t take them!”

  His feet caught, as if bound by invisible chains, and he crashed to the floor, tiles biting into his knees.

  He stretched out his hand, pointed at his parents, and began to plead, his voice breaking.

  “Don’t take them away, don’t take them away!"

  "I didn’t hurt anyone. I’ve never hurt anyone."

  "I just want our family to be together. They haven’t hurt anyone! "

  "No, no, please, I beg you, please…”

  But Ruri remained indifferent, her face a mask of cold resolve.

  The two souls vanished completely, swallowed by her tongue, and she retracted it with a snap, turning back into the cute, harmless girl she’d been moments before.

  Baek collapsed, his chest hollow, as if two pieces had been carved out.

  His parents were gone—truly gone.

  He pounded the tile floor, blood smearing from his knuckles, his eyes full of bloodshot fury.

  Suddenly, he seemed to think of something.

  He raised his head, pointed at the bookstore next door, and shouted, his voice raw with anguish:

  “He’s not a Human!"

  "Park Tae-hyun’s not a Human! "

  "Why don’t you take him? Why didn’t you take him in? "

  "This isn’t fair! You’re not doing it fairly! "

  "He’s not a human being either! Why did you only take my parents?"

  "It’s not fair! It’s not fair!!!”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  His cries echoed in the empty shop, a desperate plea against a world that offered no justice, no answers, only the cold weight of loss.

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  .

  The bathroom in Kim’s Bookstore was a stark, utilitarian space, reflecting the indifference of its former occupant.

  A chipped washbasin jutted from the wall, its edges stained with years of neglect. Beside it, a squat toilet sat unadorned, the tiles around it cracked and uneven.

  There wasn’t even a showerhead, just a rusty pipe protruding uselessly from the wall. Upstairs, the second floor was no better—a barren expanse used as a makeshift warehouse, devoid of comfort.

  No bed, not even a straw mat, only dusty shelves and forgotten boxes.

  Kim Min-woo had never needed more; he’d close the shop each night and trudge home, leaving the bookstore to its ghosts.

  Home, for Kim Min-woo, was no sanctuary.

  A father-in-law and mother-in-law who sneered at his existence, a sister-in-law whose sharp tongue cut deeper than any knife, and a wife—Im Yoo-jin— sigh........

  Yet, every evening, he’d lock the door, the bell jingling faintly, and make his way back to that house in Tongmyeong’s Chongchon District.

  Day after day, he followed the same rhythm, a life stripped of dignity, a routine that offered no peace.

  But he’d embraced it, in his own quiet way.

  Kim Min-woo was no hero, no figure destined for history’s pages.

  He was small, timid, and ambitionless—a man who found solace in the simplicity of his cage.

  To Park Tae-hyun, trapped in Kim Min-woo’s body, that choice was incomprehensible.

  Standing in the bathroom, he stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror, water dripping from his chin.

  His hands still trembled from the encounter with Ruri, from the moment he’d almost crossed a line he couldn’t uncross.

  He’d grown up in an orphanage, a place that carved inferiority into his bones, even if he’d never admit it aloud.

  That shadow had driven him—through school, through his career as a doctor, through a life of relentless effort to prove he was enough.

  He’d always pushed himself to be the best, to rise above the whispers of doubt.

  Kim Min-woo’s surrender to mediocrity baffled him, offended him.

  How could anyone choose a life so small?

  Yet, as he gazed at the wet face in the mirror—not his own, but Kim Min-woo’s—a strange pity stirred in his chest.

  Pity for the man who’d lived this way, content in his confinement.

  Pity for himself, too, caught in a different kind of cage, one woven from secrets and the weight of a borrowed life.

  Everyone had a cage, he realized.

  Kim Min-woo’s was a house of scorn and routine; Park Tae-hyun’s was this body, this bookstore, this ghosthood that tethered him to a world he no longer fully belonged to.

  The shapes and sizes varied, but the bars were always there.

  He spread his palm before him, studying it in the dim light.

  His nails, which had sharpened into claws moments ago, were normal again, smooth and unremarkable.

  No trace of the black mist that had curled around his fingers, no echo of the dark glow that had flickered in his eyes.

  He smiled, a tired, bitter curve of his lips.

  "Maybe this is what I deserve."

  Park Tae-hyun didn’t dream of becoming a ghost king, ruling the shadows with supernatural might.

  Nor did he crave power over the living, bending the world to his will.

  He knew the cost of standing out too brightly—attention from forces he couldn’t outrun, consequences that would unravel his fragile existence.

  More than that, he was exhausted.

  His past life as a doctor had been a marathon of effort, of saving others while neglecting himself.

  In this life, he wanted something different.

  Simpler.

  Not to conquer, but to survive.

  To live, quietly, in this stolen skin.

  He wiped his face and hands with a threadbare towel, the rough fabric grounding him.

  When he stepped out of the bathroom, the weight on his shoulders felt lighter, as if he’d shed a layer of doubt.

  His face no longer carried the tension of confusion; there was a hint of ease in his expression, a quiet resolve to let things be.

  Ruri was still there, perched on her plastic stool, engrossed in her picture book.

  The sight of her—small, delicate, dangerous—should have set him on edge, but he felt oddly detached, as if the storm inside him had passed.

  “Uncle, Ruri’s thirsty,” she called, her voice bright, almost playful, like a puppy nuzzling for attention.

  Park Tae-hyun nodded, moving to the counter where a kettle sat.

  He poured water into a paper cup, mixing hot and cool to temper it, and brought it to her.

  She took it with both hands, sipping carefully, a crescent-moon smile curving her lips.

  The gesture was so innocent, so human, it almost made him forget what she was.

  He didn’t sit behind the counter this time.

  Instead, he lowered himself onto the cold tiles beside her, the floor biting through his jeans.

  Reaching out, he ruffled her hair, his touch open, unguarded, as if daring fate to strike.

  She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, just kept reading, her focus unbroken.

  Time drifted, slow and unhurried.

  The bookstore was quiet, save for the occasional hum of Seongbuk Middle Road outside, where Tongmyeong carried on its daily pulse.

  Ruri would pause now and then, pointing to a page with a giggle, sharing a silly detail from her book—a fox outsmarting a bear, a rabbit lost in a forest.

  Park Tae-hyun responded, his voice soft, weaving in lessons from fables or bits of stories he half-remembered from his own childhood.

  The Tortoise and the Hare.

  The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

  Simple truths wrapped in gentle words.

  One big, one small, they sat together, an odd harmony settling between them.

  It wasn’t trust, not quite, but a truce, fragile and unspoken.

  The bell above the door stayed silent, the world leaving them be.

  Hours later, the red car pulled up again, its engine a low growl against the evening’s hush.

  Ruri’s mother stepped out, her red wool dress catching the fading light.

  She pushed open the door, the bell chiming, and offered Park Tae-hyun a warm smile.

  “Thank you,” she said, bowing slightly, her gratitude as polished as before.

  He noticed her hair—unchanged, not a strand different from when she’d left.

  A faint amusement flickered in him.

  He wanted to tell her to march back to the salon, demand an explanation for wasting her time, but he bit his tongue.

  Some things weren’t worth the trouble, and meddling rarely ended well.

  Ruri closed her book and slid off the stool, bowing to him with a precision that felt rehearsed.

  “Thank you, Uncle,” she said, her voice clear and sweet.

  She took her mother’s hand, and they left, the door swinging shut behind them.

  From beginning to end, Ruri never looked back.

  Park Tae-hyun stood still, staring at the empty space where she’d been.

  Once gone, gone.

  The words echoed in his mind, heavy with finality.

  He crossed to the counter and picked up the gift box her mother had left earlier.

  Opening it, he found a stack of banknotes—three million won, crisp and neatly bundled.

  He didn’t hesitate, didn’t consider chasing after them to return it.

  Money was tight, and pride was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

  He’d use it, let it ease the strain of keeping the bookstore afloat.

  The thought brought a wry smile to his lips.

  Standing there, he felt a shift, like a knot unraveling in his chest.

  Part of him wanted to call it clarity, the kind of epiphany a monk might chase on a mountaintop.

  But another part whispered it was surrender, a giving up of the fight against things he couldn’t control.

  Either way, it left him lighter, freer, as if the cage around him had loosened just enough to breathe.

  He leaned against the counter, the gift box still in his hands, and let the quiet of the bookstore wrap around him. For now, at least, he was still here.

  Still living.

  And that was enough.

  For Now...

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