What Sin Have I Committed

It might have sounded like a ridiculous, foolish thing to say, but it was the truth. All of Yu-yeong's past memories were in fragments. Her memories of her grandmother and of her school days, while not perfectly intact, remained fairly vivid. But certain memories had been erased entirely.

There had apparently been a friend she'd been close to, yet she had no memory of the girl at all—whole swaths of her past had been carved clean out of her.

"My memories aren't complete... But a little while after I woke up, I became an idol trainee."

"Not of your own will."

"No..."

It was the truth. Yu-yeong hadn't become a trainee by choice.

"That was when it started."

She remembered everything and her mind was perfectly sound, and yet her body had been seized by someone else.

It had been like that at her first audition, too. She hadn't been the one to apply, nor the one who sang and danced on that stage. That day was the first time Yu-yeong had ever danced in her life.

And it stayed that way even after she became a trainee.

"It wasn't me who lived that trainee life."

"..."

"In ordinary, everyday life, it's me. But the celebrity Yu-yeong isn't me. She has never once been me."

"Not once?"

"No... never."

Yu-yeong nodded, insisting it was true. Cha-mu studied her steadily. Even from her face alone, her nature was readable; her energy alone revealed a person's fundamental temperament. Yu-yeong was introverted, demure, and docile.

"Even as a child, I could never perform in front of other people..."

Simply put, she didn't have the ruthless edge needed to survive in the entertainment industry. It simply wasn't in her nature.

"I hated that so much. No—actually, I didn't hate it. Because with the things I couldn't do... I was making money and becoming famous."

"..."

"Thanks to that, I could put my grandmother in a good hospital and pay off our debts, and that made me happy..."

In the end, it had been greed. Her own greed.

"And seeing ghosts?"

"That, I've seen since I was little... But the first time they started coming inside me was when I was fifteen."

She had been born a God's Vessel, and at some point in her childhood, an accident had shattered it. Strangely, though, Cha-mu could not see what that accident had been. Whether a living human or a departed spirit, anyone he faced had their story laid bare before his eyes.

But the accident Yu-yeong spoke of was wrapped, as it were, in a thick fog—entirely invisible to him. Which meant something immensely powerful was seated within it.

He had plastered talismans on her front door and let the chime of a shamanic bell fill the place, yet the thing dwelling inside Yu-yeong hadn't stirred so much as a hair.

"I thought it was fine, but... it feels like it's getting worse. No, not just feels—it really is getting worse."

"It would be. A hole only ever grows wider."

It was his casual, offhand reply—as if it were nothing—that let Yu-yeong open up a little more easily.

Cha-mu showed no sign of surprise, none of pity, none of contempt.

He simply listened to her story.

Paradoxically, that dry detachment was what loosened the knot of tension inside her.

"The wider the crack spreads, the deeper the flaw in the vessel grows. That's just how it works."

Cha-mu nodded as if he understood. At first, only that coiled thing would have slipped in and out. But with Yu-yeong turning a blind eye to it, and with its comings and goings growing frequent, the hole would have begun to widen. And other things would have slipped through after it... She had been born a small God's Vessel to begin with, her Ghost Gate open besides.

Not everyone spiritually sensitive receives gods. If your vessel is small, you simply see a little of what others cannot, and live out your days with keener instincts than most.

Yu-yeong had been born that way too.

But as her vessel shattered, the things that should only have been watched began to lay hands on her.

"I see terrifying things, and strange ones come inside me, and so..."

In an instant—pit-a-pat—tears fell from Yu-yeong's eyes. She had desperately fought to hold them back, telling herself she mustn't cry, that this was no time for tears, that weeping in front of someone else was nothing but a burden. But the crying would not stop.

"Honestly, honestly, seeing ghosts is fine. Seeing them, that's..."

As if it could ever be fine.

Living a life unlike everyone else's was never a fine thing. Especially seeing what no one else could see.

If you honestly admitted what you saw, all you'd hear was that you were insane, and even on the rare occasion you met someone who believed you, they inevitably tried to use you.

Enduring alone, with no one to trust, rotting in your own silence—that was the kind of thing that broke a human mind.

Cha-mu himself came from a family that had been exactly that kind of family for generations, so the people who knew him never found it strange that he could see departed spirits.

"..."

Cha-mu's gaze settled on Yu-yeong's face.

Objectively speaking, it was devastatingly beautiful. If rumors had spread that a face that beautiful belonged to a girl who saw ghosts, she would have been chewed over by vicious gossip far worse than any ordinary person ever would.

"Hoo."

A sigh escaped Cha-mu without his meaning it to.

That was why he could picture Yu-yeong's life without ever having lived it himself.

Yu-yeong flinched at the sigh, then slowly opened her mouth.

"I'm... I'm disappointing my grandmother."

At those words, Cha-mu's own dream flashed through his mind. Yu-yeong, weeping, calling for her grandmother... So it hadn't been some meaningless dream after all, but a true vision. Dammit.

"Through things I never wanted, again and again, I keep disappointing her. Am I being punished? Succeeding this much through an ability that isn't mine... Then what sin have I committed? Should I repent for it—no, not repent..."

"..."

"What am I supposed to do?"

What was she supposed to do.

Who knew. Was there even a way?

Cha-mu couldn't answer that either. There was no such thing as mending a vessel already shattered. And driving out the spirit now living inside her wouldn't fix anything either. The moment the coiled thing vanished, even more of them would swarm to claim the empty space.

"Who did you kill?"

Cha-mu spat the words out flat.

Yu-yeong startled at the question and looked at him, then shook her head hard.

"No—no, I've never done anything to anyone—"

"You never killed anyone, never summoned a ghost with the intent to exploit someone, never made and used a death-hex doll. So why do you call it a sin?"

"Oh."

"You have committed no sin."

Strictly speaking, it was being born with a fragile vessel that then broke. In certain worlds, that might count as a sin, but in the human world, it was not.

It wasn't something she had done herself. Whether knowingly or not, how could that possibly be a sin?

"You were simply unlucky."

"Oh."

"It's like a natural disaster."

"..."

"If an unforeseen typhoon blows in one day and sweeps your car away, would you torture yourself with guilt, as if it were punishment for your own sins?"

At Cha-mu's words, Yu-yeong shook her head.

"It's the same thing."

Except that, in truth, Cha-mu's words were a lie. Japan aside, in Korea, most of the suffering one endured in this life was bound to karma. Yu-yeong, no doubt, had piled up a considerable weight of it in a past life, even if she didn't know it—but Cha-mu saw no reason to bring it up. He had no desire to drag a past life's karmic debt into the torment of someone already struggling enough.

"A pity."

Saying that, Cha-mu turned his head once more and let his eyes sweep the interior of Yu-yeong's home.

Do not get entangled.

That warning was beginning to fill more and more of his mind. He knew by instinct that if he tangled himself in this out of pity, something would go wrong—wrong on a massive scale—and snarl beyond repair.

Every one of his senses was telling him.

Do not get entangled.

Cha-mu regarded Yu-yeong quietly for a moment, then drew his phone from his pocket and set it on the table.

He needed to sever whatever thread hung between them, however thin, and erase this connection entirely.

"They say a person's temperament is their fate. Try to think positively."

"..."

"Look on the bright side—in human life, nothing is truly bad."

Liar.

It was something even he himself couldn't do. Look on the bright side and nothing in human life is bad? As if. No one knew better than he did the situations that could never, ever be viewed that way.

But Cha-mu simply wanted to close the situation with words that would sit gently in Yu-yeong's ears.

"One thing you can rest assured of—the departed spirit dwelling inside you has no intention of harming you."

"...Really?"

"If it had intended to harm you."

Cha-mu's cold eyes swept over Yu-yeong's face, missing nothing.

If the thing sharing her body had been a malicious, spiteful demon, Yu-yeong would long since have run raving to her death, or been cast out of the entertainment world after doing unspeakable things she couldn't begin to explain, and would now be living out her days in some shaman's house, hearing ghosts morning and night.

Cha-mu rose from his seat without a trace of hesitation.

"Then, if you'll excuse me."

"Wait! Wait—!"

The moment he stood, Yu-yeong seized his wrist.

"You're—you're leaving?"

Yu-yeong's eyes came into Cha-mu's view. They were brimming with expectation. And he knew exactly what kind of expectation they held—eyes wondering whether he might save her, whether he might know of some way.

"You're a—a Taoist master, aren't you?"

"I'm not."

"But..."

"Just put your faith in the spirit living inside you. There's nothing I can do for you."

At his cold words, Yu-yeong shook her head and gripped his wrist even tighter.

Right now, Yu-yeong was clutching a lifeline.

And in the instant she seized him harder, her mind went startlingly clear. It was the same sensation as back on set, when the sound of the bell had washed her thoughts clean.

"Please... help me."

Yu-yeong's voice trembled, sorrowful and small.