Waiting for Nightfall
Among the crowd, the secretary was watching her. The moment their eyes met, the secretary nodded with fierce urgency.
Following the gesture, Heeseo glanced downstairs and found Kim Jonghyeop staring straight at her and Jeeon. Unspoken pressure radiated from his gaze.
The thought of beginning married life on the very first day of the wedding made her insides slowly simmer. Heeseo muttered in a flat, emotionless voice.
“……Waiting until night makes time feel like it’s crawling.”
Perhaps the answer had caught him off guard. Jeeon let out a soft breath and laughed.
It was only a light laugh, yet it brightened everything around them. Heeseo’s crooked eyebrows, however, stayed exactly as they were.
“That’s far too provocative a line to deliver with such a dissatisfied face.”
“My face is just like this. It’s French style.”
She brushed it off casually, but the criticism was nothing new to Heeseo.
Tall, with sharp features and piercing eyes, she was constantly asked whether she was angry or displeased whenever her expression went blank.
Of course those questions had never truly been about her feelings, and she knew it. What people really wanted to say was: Smile a little. Don’t ruin the mood.
Every time, Heeseo answered with the same half-hearted deflection—just as she was doing now with Kim Jeeon.
“Is that so? How fortunate.”
“……What’s fortunate about it?”
“Because in France, people wouldn’t have misunderstood you.”
Heeseo blinked slowly. She had never expected that kind of reply to her careless excuse. Kim Jeeon laughed again at the sight of her sulkily closed mouth, and the laugh was still as lovely as a flower.
Just as Jeeon was about to speak again—
“Executive Director. The Chairman is asking for you.”
A man approached from behind Jeeon, footsteps deliberate. He was the same man who had stood beside Heeseo’s secretary throughout the entire ceremony.
Jeeon hesitated, regret flickering across his face, then finally released Heeseo’s arm.
Only then did she realize he had been holding her the whole time. The skin that had touched his burned strangely.
“To think of interrupting newlyweds already. I’ll have to go complain to the Chairman a little. See you shortly, Heeseo-ssi.”
With that, Jeeon turned and walked away with the man. Heeseo tore her gaze from his tall, elegant back and looked down at the champagne flute in her hand.
The empty glass held nothing but the mark of her lipstick. The brief encounter felt unreal, as though she had been possessed by a ghost.
The very moment she thought it, a cool fragrance suddenly brushed the tip of her nose.
Tuk…….
As if her mind had gone blank, Heeseo touched her cheek. The man with the clear smile whispered to his bride. The laughter in his voice tickled her earlobe.
“Don’t drink too much. I have no intention of spending our first night with you drunk.”
The fragrance vanished as quickly as it had come. Left alone, Heeseo emptied the glass without a second’s hesitation. The sharp alcohol heated her body through.
In shamanism, exorcism is performed by soothing the soul. The gut rituals people commonly hold, or the talismans they write, are ultimately acts of resolving lingering grudges and guiding the dead to the afterlife.
But Heeseo was not a shaman. She had once tried to receive divine possession, yet it had been impossible. She could not take a guardian spirit into her body, and her Young-an never opened.
At times she could glimpse living spirits that had briefly left their bodies, or sense and chase strange things, but that was all. Heeseo could never see the dead.
In the gut hall, she was the only one who could not see the deceased. Because of that, she was still called a Half-Shaman.
Even so, Heeseo had become famous in another way.
Someone who hunted ghosts without ever receiving divine possession. A woman more vicious than any vicious spirit—one who would drive them out no matter what.
People called her an Exorcist.
Heeseo rummaged deep inside her bag. Soon the hidden talisman came into view. It was the Shadow-Breaking Talisman Haejeong had given her.
The Shadow-Breaking Talisman summoned the true form of a concealed ghost—one of the charms even ordinary shamans found difficult to produce.
No need to drag this out. Once I learn the name, I’ll finish it in one stroke.
Kim Jonghyeop had said a ghost possessed his grandson’s body. The problem was that the ghost imitated the grandson so perfectly that no one suspected the possession. He claimed there was neither a suspicious party nor any known grudge.
“It’s the kind of lie everyone tells, but……”
Deaths heavy with resentment keep the living from leaving this world, and those who remain become ghosts.
It was not an absolute rule, yet most of the ghosts Heeseo had met were beings who could not depart because of accumulated grudges. Naturally, people who were honest about the ghosts they themselves had created were rare.
Heeseo did not expect the full truth from Kim Jonghyeop either.
But what you said about my parents had better be true, Elder.
Parents she had searched for across more than ten years. Then one day Kim Jonghyeop had appeared out of nowhere and become the first person to promise he would find them for her.
That single condition made it impossible for Heeseo to refuse whatever he proposed.
Even if it meant living under a false identity and playing the part of a false bride.
Lee Heeseo would drive the ghost from Kim Jeeon’s body; Kim Jonghyeop would help Lee Heeseo find her parents. A simple transaction. And Heeseo intended to cast that ghost out of Kim Jeeon’s body by any means necessary.
“It’ll work…… right?”
Heeseo glared at the yellow paper covered in unknown characters written in cinnabar.
The Shadow-Breaking Talisman was one she used often, yet its method was extremely exacting.
If my Young-an had opened, I wouldn’t have to do this.
Every time she used the Shadow-Breaking Talisman it left a bitter taste in her mouth. Of course it did. She had to hold the charm between her lips and receive the blood of the possessed in order to learn its true identity.
But the opponent was Kim Jeeon. According to Kim Jonghyeop, this was a dangerous ghost that had cleverly concealed the fact of its possession. That also meant she could not simply swing a fist and take blood by force.
“……At least there’s a legal method. That’s something.”
If she could not obtain blood, taking something else would still work. Heeseo slipped the talisman into her mouth and stretched out on the bed.
The bed prepared for the bridal chamber was so soft that her entire body seemed ready to melt the instant she lay down. Yet the unfamiliar evening dress continued to cinch her waist even while she was lying there.
Perhaps because she had risen so early to become the perfect bride. Despite the uncomfortable clothes, fatigue crashed over her the moment her body touched the mattress.
Staring up at a ceiling incomparably higher than any ordinary home’s, Heeseo thought,
Weddings aren’t something just anyone can pull off.
High heels that crushed her feet, thick layers of makeup, and headpieces so heavy she had wondered whether a wig might have been better.
Experiencing the role of “bride” for the first time in her life, Heeseo was already thoroughly sick of it after a single day. The fact that everything was false was almost a comfort.
False blessings and false smiles, false cheers and false vows. And the wedding of two false protagonists.
How ridiculous. Heeseo closed her eyes and recalled the man who had kissed her—the man who looked exactly like the perfect groom every woman imagined and sketched in her mind.
Finish it in one go.
A spouse lacking nothing in beauty, intellect, temperament, or status. The man who had taken Lee Heeseo’s hand and walked the aisle with her was destined to become the next chairman of the GM Group.
Yet he was the same as Heeseo. Meaning he, too, was fake.
The faint sound of water faded. Fortunate. Her mouth had been growing uncomfortably dry.
The bathroom door opened and a light scent of water drifted out. To Heeseo, whose five senses were sharp, a heavy body-wash fragrance was one of the more unpleasant things in the world. The man’s presence drew nearer; thankfully, only the faint smell of water clung to him.
“……It would be troublesome if you fell asleep already.”
One side of the bed dipped. Even though the mattress must have been absurdly expensive, every movement of the man transmitted straight through. Apparently the advertising copy about unshakable comfort had been fake as well. Heeseo tried to loosen her tension with random thoughts.
Unfortunately, her efforts crumbled at a single touch.
“This is the first time since we met…… that we can spend time alone together, isn’t it?”
Tok, toook…….
Near her side she felt the man’s hand. As if that were not enough, water droplets that fell from him wet her cheek. Even with her eyes closed she could feel the gaze looking down at her intently.