Chapter 13

 I Will Be Discharged.

“Superstition?”

As that unwelcome word left Min-gook’s lips, Eun-ho’s brow furrowed, and he bit his red lower lip with his upper teeth.

“Ah, I see you detectives haven’t heard yet. The reason those dead students went to run a relay late at night… it was all because of a superstition—”

Ringtone—

Right at that moment, before Min-gook could even finish his sentence, Jin-tak’s cell phone rang loudly. Holding out his left palm toward Min-gook to silently ask for a moment of understanding, Jin-tak pulled the phone from his jacket pocket with his right hand. Checking the caller ID, his eyes widened in surprise, and he answered immediately.

“Ms. Miso!” “Ms. Miso?”

Jin-tak’s exclamation mark and Eun-ho’s question mark clashed with a stark sense of contrast.

“What?! Got it. I’ll be right there!”

Ending the call with Miso, Jin-tak tried to quickly slip past Min-gook and Eun-ho with a spellbound look on his face.

“Where are you going?! Is the person you just talked to that crazy woman who chases ghosts?! Since when have you been contacting her on the side?!”

Quickly grabbing Jin-tak by the arm, Eun-ho shouted, his eyes fierce with sudden agitation.

“Ah, hey… Young-ah just woke up! I’ll explain everything once I get back, Eun-ho. Producer, I’ll definitely call you separately later! I’m so sorry!”

After Jin-tak scrambled off in a rush, an awkward silence settled over the two left behind. Right then, even though it was the middle of the day, a biting gust of wind swept sharply between Min-gook and Eun-ho as if paying no mind to the sunshine. Only then did Min-gook break the somewhat lost mood, offering a warm smile.

“I should get going for today as well. Please do call if you need my help.”

‘I’m certain you’re going to need my help.‘

In Min-gook’s warm gaze directed toward Eun-ho’s still icy eyes, the image of Miso from the hospital briefly overlapped. He recalled her face—smiling up at him with her round eyes twinkling brightly.

“Jeong Miso…”

As her name slipped out of his mouth unbidden, a distinct hint of spring seemed to drift through the air. Yet for Eun-ho, superstition was an indispensable issue—something beyond simple disgust that he felt compelled to prove as nothing more than irrational nonsense. As his thoughts rapidly reached this point, he felt irritated with himself for even paying attention to a woman like Jeong Miso.

“Detective?”

Seeing Eun-ho frowning heavily without offering any response to his farewell, Min-gook called out to him again cautiously, looking slightly embarrassed. Min-gook even waved a hand in front of Eun-ho’s eyes to check on him, causing Eun-ho—who had been on the verge of spacing out—to flinch and finally turn his gaze to Min-gook.

“Are you alright? Your complexion…”

Eun-ho’s somewhat stiff face had turned even colder, going completely pale.

“I’m fine. You should go on ahead; I’ll look into what you said on my own and get in touch with you.” “Yes, please do. Guigamsa isn’t just a simple temple to be taken lightly.”

Leaving behind one last earnest request, Min-gook took his leave first. Eun-ho, unable to shake an indelible feeling of suffocating tightness, took a deep breath, turned around, and looked back at the school gymnasium. He felt a cold chill circulate through his blood vessels from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Soon after, a sharp, tingling sensation woke up at the tips of his long fingers.

“The students’ relay race… doesn’t seem like a simple accident.”

Muttering a quiet sentence to himself, Eun-ho pulled his gaze away from scanning the gym. Following the small trees neatly planted along the stone wall path beside the building, his eyes finally stopped at the school’s main gate.

With the crowd having dispersed, a deep quiet had settled over the area, making even the softest sound of the wind feel pronounced. Caressing his chilly cheek with a dry hand, Eun-ho began to walk. The place his steps led him to shortly after was the school guardhouse, sitting peacefully right next to the main gate.

“Ms. Young-ah! Ms. Young-ah!”

Having run all the way to the hospital where Young-ah was admitted, Jin-tak burst open the hospital room door and called out. With tears already welling up in his eyes from the sprint, Jin-tak saw Young-ah sitting up leaning against the hospital bed and froze in his tracks, unable to step any closer.

“Detective, you’re here! Thank you for coming.”

Instead of Young-ah—who sat quietly with a faint smile, not yet fully recovered—Miso, standing beside her, welcomed Jin-tak.

“Is Ms. Young-ah doing okay?” “Young-ah’s physical condition is okay, but the overall situation isn’t… Could we perhaps talk outside for a moment?”

Miso spoke with a troubled look, guiding Jin-tak out of the hospital room. Stepping outside, the two sat down on a long waiting bench in the corridor. Handing Jin-tak a warm can of coffee she had brought along, Miso opened her heavy lips.

“The first time I met Young-ah was about five years ago, back when I was running the Superstition Research Institute on my own. It was a cold winter, and I saw a tiny, frail-looking girl sitting right in front of the building with her face buried in her knees.”

As if feeling that day’s biting cold all over again, Miso held the hot coffee tightly with both hands as she continued.

“It was such a cold day that I brought her inside the office, but out of nowhere, she told me she couldn’t share her name or age and asked to work with me here. At first, I was so dumbfounded that I naturally intended to report it to the police. But you see, Detective…”

As if anticipating where the story was headed, Jin-tak answered with a deep sigh. When Miso paused for a moment, a brief silence settled between them, flowing with profound emotion as if communicating volumes without words.

“There are clearly strange, unexplainable things in this world. That’s why people simply accept and live with things that logic can’t explain. Giving Young-ah a name and living together with her… it’s just like that. Like a superstition.”

He understood. Perhaps not every detail, but Jin-tak acknowledged to some extent the heart behind her confession. As he nodded with a gentle smile, Miso—as if finally at ease—smiled brightly, looking like yellow forsythia blossoms bursting into bloom on a spring day.

“Excuse me, are you the guardian for the patient in Room 52?”

A female nurse dressed in a light pink top and bottom uniform approached, clutching a clear acrylic clipboard in one arm with a somewhat blunt expression. She was a young woman with a short build, plump figure, thick eyelids, and broad nostrils.

“Ah, yes, Nurse…” “You know this is already the third time I’ve come looking for you this week, right? I have my own duties to attend to, so you need to settle this quickly.”

At the nurse’s sharply pointed tone, Miso looked completely crestfallen, her eyes darting around helplessly. Seeing this, Jin-tak stood up boldly from his seat, stepped up to the nurse, and spoke.

“Talk to me!” “W-Who might you be?”

Flustered by the large man stepping so close, the nurse stuttered as she took two steps back.

“Starting today, I’m the guardian.” “Ha— Fine, then I’ll explain this one last time. Since the patient’s identity is unverified, it’s difficult to apply National Health Insurance. And in cases like this, internal regulations mandate that we report it to the police. So when I asked for cooperation, that woman over there—!” “Yes, yes, I understand what you’re saying.”

As the nurse’s rant ultimately targeted Miso again, Jin-tak gently guided her by the shoulder—her tone growing sharper by the second—leading her down to the end of the corridor, away from the room.

“By the way, what is your relationship to the patient? Are you really the guardian?”

Finding this sudden appearance suspicious, the nurse scanned Jin-tak up and down as she spoke.

“From now on, regarding this patient, you can just contact me. Ah, and there’s no need to report anything to the police.”

Jin-tak fumbled around in his jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet to display his police badge, and drew a dusty, worn business card from a card slot to hand to the nurse. Upon confirming his identity, the nurse’s initial reaction was one of obvious shock, but fortunately, her face quickly softened.

“Alright, then I’ll consider the police report handled on your end, Detective. Please make sure to settle the most important part—the hospital bills—very soon.”

The nurse handed Jin-tak the clear acrylic clipboard she had been clutching under her arm all along. Because Young-ah had been staying in a private room and basic health insurance coverage hadn’t been applied, the total bill was rather brutal.

“We will be discharged today.”

The figure on the paper was certainly high enough to trigger that word out of him as a reflex.

“Payment will be possible today as well, right?” “By any chance… do you take installments?”

Feeling as though she had finally pulled out a lingering, troublesome tooth, the nurse beamed with a satisfied look and called out:

“Of course!”

As the crowd gathered at the crime scene vanished and the surrounding air grew unusually quiet, a chilling draft lingered in the atmosphere. Arriving in front of the guardhouse, Eun-ho began to carefully inspect the surroundings.

It was a small concrete structure of barely 10 pyeong. The front featured a full-glass window facing the school’s main gate and playground, but perhaps owing to the grim atmosphere surrounding the school, it was covered with blinds save for a small, slide-open window at the very bottom.

Stepping around to the back of the guardhouse—which stood almost flush against the stone wall with barely a three-step gap—there was a gray iron door meant for people to come and go.

‘If you follow the stone wall path from here, it leads straight to the gymnasium.‘

“Hey there, who are you to be loitering around like that?”

The security guard inside, apparently bothered by Eun-ho inspecting the guardhouse, opened the iron door and stepped out. From inside, a pungent smell of instant ramen spilled out alongside him, hinting at a late breakfast or an early lunch.

It was an elderly guard in a faded blue uniform jacket, baggy black trousers, and a blue cap bearing the word ‘Security’, with white hair peeking out from beneath the brim.

“My apologies. I’m a police officer dispatched because of the incident at the gymnasium this morning.” “Ah… the gym. You’re a detective?” “Yes. If it’s not a bother, would it be alright if I asked you a few questions?”

At Eun-ho’s sudden request, the guard pondered for a moment before inviting Eun-ho inside the guardhouse.