WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 16: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (16)
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This incident let Eun-jeong confirm Yo-han's character once again.
By nature, Yo-han was kind and gentle to everyone.
But he was also the sort of man who could be especially tender and devoted to one particular person.
Someone equally kind to everyone would make a poor prospective spouse.
‘Being nice isn't enough. He has to know how to clearly distinguish the people precious to him from everyone else. Only then can he be a good lover, a good partner.’
Many devout religious people who sincerely put goodness into practice could not do that. Because doing good was, to them, the same as practicing their faith, they often put volunteer work before married life.
Worse still, some saw the two as one and the same.
Marrying someone like that meant accepting a life spent being dragged along by an exhausting life of faith.
Or, after enduring bitter conflict, eventually parting ways.
Fortunately, Yo-han was not that sort of person.
He put Eun-jeong first, even setting aside his usual work and missing worship services to be with her.
The fifty-six-year-old man who insisted he was young did not take Sundays off from stalking her.
Worried this might cause friction between her lover and the man who could someday become her father-in-law, Eun-jeong asked Yo-han,
“I'm grateful, but is this really all right? What if your father gets angry?”
Yo-han reassured her in a gentle voice.
“My father told me to go see you right away. He said God would understand. Faith is in your heart, and your God is there too, so missing a worship service isn't such a big deal.”
“Really? He's much more open-minded than I expected. I'm surprised. I've never met a pastor like your father before, Yo-han-ssi...”
“Ah, haha. My father is a rather unusual person. He thinks of himself as a realist.”
“A realist?”
“Yes. He believes that the reality we live in is ultimately God's will as well, so whatever we do, we must act according to our circumstances and take responsibility for ourselves.”
“Ah...”
“He always says that being intoxicated by blind faith, speaking and acting in ways detached from reality, treating every resulting harm and loss as the price or trial of faith, and even forcing that onto others is nothing more than the arrogant act of shifting the blame onto God...”
“...He really is unusual.”
“Right? Even I find myself surprised by him sometimes.”
As her relationship with Yo-han deepened, Eun-jeong learned more about Pastor Kim's family.
She was most surprised to learn that Yo-han had been adopted.
They had been speaking honestly about their pasts and families. When Eun-jeong asked about his mother, Yo-han hesitated before finally telling her the truth.
He was adopted, and he did not know who his mother was.
“I'm sorry. It wasn't that I meant to hide it, but...”
Eun-jeong was flustered too.
“Please don't misunderstand! I'm not upset because you hid it. I was only surprised... I'm sorry for asking without realizing it might be a sensitive question. I'm truly sorry.”
“There's nothing for you to apologize for. I've never felt any sadness over my mother's absence. My father's love was enough.”
As it turned out, Pastor Kim had never married in the first place.
Kim Pi-deuk, the eldest, Kim Yo-han, the second, and Kim Philip, the youngest, were all children he had adopted.
The more Eun-jeong heard about Pastor Kim, the more she understood how his son Yo-han had become the person he was.
For example, Pastor Kim had never forced the children of his heart to follow a religious calling.
“Children. Suppose a pastor and a businessman have faith of equal depth. Then honestly, which does more to practice God's love and save people? Wouldn't a businessman who donates billions of won at a time be more helpful than a pastor who does everything through physical labor?”
“Look at Africa, where we lived. Even if you brought thousands of people like me there, they would not equal one Bill Gates. You can't save souls through material things alone, but spiritual salvation was too distant a concern for people about to starve to death or be shot. It was too far from reality.”
“This father became a pastor because I lack ability, so I hope you will take other paths if you can. You could become businessmen and donate generously. You could become journalists or writers and show many people the reality faced by those in hardship. Even as artists, you could do the same work.”
“Hm? Politicians? Well, it is very difficult to remain an upright person while doing politics... Still, if you want to do it, then do it. I believe in you. Greater good may lie at the end of a more difficult road.”
“In any case, there are as many ways to practice God's love as there are possibilities He has granted humanity. So long as you do not forget that your lives themselves are God's love, I will be glad and happy no matter what you do.”
The teachings Eun-jeong heard through Yo-han left her with no choice but to admire Pastor Kim.
Following those teachings, Yo-han had worked hard to prepare for his future, and he was still preparing.
He did not lack ability.
To travel throughout Africa and carry out relief work with international organizations, one needed to speak English and French at a minimum.
None of Pastor Kim's three sons lacked those skills. Their father had taught them with desperate determination.
Yo-han had also graduated from Protestant-affiliated international schools and universities abroad.
He had an extensive record of relief and volunteer work in isolated regions and conflict zones.
And the connections he had made in many countries through international organizations and companies were rare assets in their own right.
Yo-han remained at his father's side not because he lacked ability or vision.
It was simply because Pastor Kim's three sons worried deeply about their father.
All three brothers worried about their father's life with his injured leg, so they agreed that one of them would be responsible for him.
They used the word “responsible” because they meant it quite literally.
Pi-deuk, the eldest, could not leave his post because he had to fulfill his role as family head and manage his trading company. He entrusted the more dependable of his two younger brothers with their father.
“Yo-han, you need to keep a close eye on him. If Father tries to take on something physical again, stop him by any means necessary! Understand? If you need money, I'll give you as much as I can! If you say it's for taking care of Father, even Moweli won't complain!”
“Ah, but don't try to grow the money I give you by buying stocks or anything. You have no talent for investing. If you need more money, just ask me...”
“Hm? Everything's fine, but you're in an environment where it's hard to meet women? You're getting to the age where dating is becoming urgent?”
“My beloved younger brother. I can't do anything about that, so let us leave it to our merciful Lord God. God, please unite my good younger brother with a worthy match. Help him find beautiful love and bear its fruit. I pray to You earnestly. Amen.”
“...”
“What? Why? You don't believe in God? Are you possessed by Satan or something? Even if you don't believe in me, you should believe in God.”
Philip, the youngest, also made an earnest request of the brother he found more dependable than his eldest brother.
“Listen, hyung. I know you feel the same way I do, but Father must never be called something like Crazy Kim again. He needs to live peacefully somewhere quiet now. I'll contribute plenty toward his living expenses too. Got it?”
“What? The money you get from our eldest brother is enough? What, are you being racist right now? You won't take money from a nigger? Don't get cocky. Your dick is smaller than mine.”
“...”
“Hm? Everything's fine, but you're in an environment where it's hard to meet women? You're getting to the age where dating is becoming urgent?”
“If you're all right with it, I could introduce you to some people from the Black community I know around here. What do you think? Interested?”
“What? Black women aren't your type? And a long-distance relationship across the Pacific would be too much? What a joke. This is racism too, isn't it? Is something wrong with you, hyung? Are you possessed by Satan or something? Get out of my brother's body right now, you devil bastard!”
Listening to Yo-han recall these stories, Eun-jeong laughed several times despite the heavy worry on her mind.
The brothers had good reason to be concerned.
Pastor Kim was the sort of person who often described a pastor's work as something to be done with his own body.
The result of doing things that way in Congo had been losing an ankle after stepping on a land mine, so his children could not help worrying.
After hearing the joke Pastor Kim had supposedly made when he lost his ankle, Eun-jeong could understand his sons a little better.
“Oh dear. One of my ankles has gone ahead to God's kingdom. Isn't that wonderful? One of my feet is always standing on the soil of heaven, so no matter where I go or what path I walk with my remaining foot, I don't think I will ever lose the direction of a righteous life. What a blessing. Hahaha.”
It had supposedly been a joke to keep his sons from crying, but it was not the sort of joke an ordinary person could make in a normal state of mind.
What was more, he had said it with a bright smile immediately after regaining consciousness in his hospital bed.
That was why Yo-han had been responsible for his father until now.
Still, it did not mean Yo-han intended to remain by his father's side forever or inherit his father's church plant.
Yo-han said,
“My father is still a little young to retire, but it is time for him to consider what his life after retirement will be like. Fortunately, he seems satisfied with his current life. I plan to help him for another year or two, then find my own way.”
Eun-jeong had not even asked. Yo-han brought it up first, speaking stiffly with nervousness, as though a junior soldier were reporting to a superior.
Honestly, considering their ages, it was only right to ask for her understanding once they began dating.
To others, Yo-han looked like a young man who had simply been taking time off.
At his age, in his mid-thirties, he was a dangerously long-term unemployed young man who had not worked for years.
If he went to Eun-jeong's parents in his current state to ask permission to marry her, it would be a disaster.
A disaster like this.
“So. Your name is Yo-han, was it? What do you do for a living?”
“Um... I do ministry and volunteer work in the countryside.”
“...What?”
“Ministry and... volunteer work...”
“...”
“...”
“Hm, then what does your father do?”
“Ministry and... volunteer work... in the countryside...”
“...”
Of course, Yo-han had something to rely on besides his own abilities.
He could join the company his brother ran.
Banseok Trading Company, the import-export business run by his brother Pi-deuk, had established a small but firm place for itself in Congo's raw-materials trade market.
The major shareholder in Congo scrutinized every aspect of its operations, and the company had been founded for fair trade rather than profit, so its wages were not particularly high.
Still, it paid enough to build a home with a schoolteacher.
After asking Eun-jeong to trust him and wait for him, Yo-han continued by telling her part of the advice his father had given at Pi-deuk's wedding.
“For a married person to enter heaven, they must strive to make the lives of their spouse and children into heaven. And that effort can bear fruit only when husband and wife make it together.”
“From now on, put your own family before this father and your brothers. If you wish to be good, you must first be good to your wife and children. If you wish to share something, first give your wife and children their share, then give what remains to others.”
“I too am one of those others, and the church is no different, even though it is not a person. A church that teaches you to fill the offering box even if it leaves your wife and children cold and hungry is never God's house. It is the temple of merchants our Lord Jesus Christ struck with a whip long ago.”
“If you break this instruction, I will take up a whip and come strike your backside, just like Jesus who went to the temple with a whip. Do not take this as a joke. This father truly will do it.”
Anyone could see the intention behind telling such a story to someone he was seriously dating. Yet Yo-han could not state that transparent intention outright.
It was the first time Yo-han had mentioned marriage, even indirectly, to Eun-jeong. Of course, Eun-jeong had understood his feelings long before then.
Yo-han had flushed to the back of his neck with nervousness and embarrassment, and Eun-jeong's cheeks reddened too.
In truth, Eun-jeong had already half accepted him in her heart.
The more she learned about him, the more he seemed like someone she could trust.
#
Yo-han always parked his motorcycle in the same place in front of Eun-jeong's home. The motorcycle kept the stalker away more reliably than the police no-contact order.
Whenever the red-and-white City Best motorcycle stood in the apartment parking lot, the stalker who arrived in a blue Porter truck could only make a bitter face. He did not dare approach.
Every time Eun-jeong saw it, she had the same thought.
‘He's like a demon blocked by a cross.’
The reason the demon, the fifty-six-year-old man who insisted he was young, could not approach carelessly was simple. Deep down, he was afraid of Yo-han.
The real young man's physique frightened him.
Yo-han's steadily mounting anger frightened him too.
The self-proclaimed young man's bravado was only bravado.
If a fistfight broke out, the fake young man had no chance. The best the elderly young man could do was resort to some petty tactic, such as going to the police and turning it into a mutual-assault case.
But that would be a self-destructive move that hurt the Village Youth Association President just as much.
If he committed violence while ignoring a no-contact order, it would work heavily against him in court.
At that point, even the distinguished local assemblyman who protected him for money would think, ‘What an annoying little bastard...’
That elder's influence did not extend to the Supreme Court.
More than anything, the fake young man nearing sixty was simply afraid of getting beaten up.
Age had already left his body weaker than it used to be.
If he were struck in the wrong place in his current condition, he might spend the rest of his life sickly and frail.
Honestly, Eun-jeong could not understand why this lowly demon still could not give her up and clung to her so disgustingly.
‘...It doesn't even seem like he truly likes me.’
Much about the demon's circumstances remained unclear to Eun-jeong.
Still, as the person involved, Eun-jeong could at least judge the depth of his feelings for her.
The fake young man's feelings for Eun-jeong seemed far too shallow to produce such deep obsession.
They were nowhere near enough motivation to cling to her while shouldering every burden involved.
Even now, the fake young man wandered aimlessly between the motorcycle and the Porter truck.
“Hack.”
Perhaps feeling frustrated, he chain-smoked before gathering phlegm and spitting it onto the ground.
It was enough to make Eun-jeong frown.
‘I really hate him...’
Did he not realize that scattering cigarette butts everywhere whenever he came only made the person he claimed to like dislike him more?
If he truly did not know, that made him even more off-putting because he was thoughtless.
If he knew and still did it, that was even more disgusting.
It would mean he wanted to leave proof he had been there, planting anxiety and fear in Eun-jeong.
Trying to control someone through anxiety was a common pattern among stalkers.
As she stared at the shabby demon through a gap in the blinds, an idea came to the teacher.
After turning that sudden idea over in her mind several times, Eun-jeong turned to Yo-han.
“Yo-han-ssi.”
“Yes?”
“Should we teach that person a lesson?”
Yo-han looked a little startled.
“Teach him a lesson... How do you mean? If that is what you want, I could make him leave by force, but...”
She knew without hearing the rest.
The teacher knew that was a method they needed to avoid. The relief would be brief, and what followed would be even more stifling.
Eun-jeong smiled with slight nervousness. It was not the demon making her nervous.
“I want to make it clear to him. Not with words, but with actions. That he has no chance with me. That the man I love is Kim Yo-han, standing here. That it needs to end now.”
The moment the word love left the teacher's lips, Yo-han flushed to his neck and stammered.
“Ah, if we're going to make it clear, then what would we...?”
“I have a good idea. I do, but...”
“But...?”
“I need your help, Yo-han-ssi. Will you help me?”
“Ah... Of course. What should I do?”
“Follow me. It isn't fair for only us to keep suffering, so just this once, let's make that shameless man hurt too.”
“Pardon? Ah, ah?”
Eun-jeong, flushed with excitement, grabbed his wrist and pulled him along. Despite the difference in their strength and size, Yo-han was helplessly dragged after her.
The teacher led her lover outside the building entrance, into the space between the motorcycle and the Porter truck.
The demon confined within that space saw them suddenly appear and stopped pacing. The teacher could see many emotions cross his face.
The strongest among them was wariness.
‘What a coward. He's trash who only acts tough in front of people weaker than him.’
Despising the demon inwardly, Eun-jeong kept a suitable distance from the object of her contempt and turned to face Yo-han. Yo-han glanced toward the demon and asked quietly,
“Um, you need to tell me what you're planning now...”
“You only need to stand still, Yo-han-ssi. I'll be the one doing it.”
“...?”
“Please wait like that for a moment.”
Eun-jeong stood in place and took several deep breaths.
Then she firmly grasped Yo-han's collar with both hands.
Yo-han watched his lover's cheeks grow redder as she looked up at him.
That was when he realized what she was about to do.
Before acting, the teacher whispered in a thin, trembling voice.
“Don't take your eyes off that person, so you can respond right away or run if it becomes dangerous. I'll trust you, Yo-han-ssi... I can trust you, can't I?”
As if entranced, Yo-han nodded.
After one final deep breath, Eun-jeong rose onto her toes and pulled him down by the collar.
It was a kiss both bold and clumsy, innocent yet provocative.
Yo-han reflexively put an arm around the teacher's waist to ease the strain on her.
It was not their first awkward kiss with closed lips.
But it was their first in front of someone else.
And that someone else was a vicious stalker.
Even so, the two found this kiss sweeter than any before.
It was probably because of the tension. People easily mistook a racing heart caused by danger for the fluttering of love.
The two kinds of excitement had become one, so the kiss could only taste sweeter.
Even as they kissed, their senses remained open to the potential threat.
Yet that potential threat stood nailed to the spot, doing nothing but faithfully playing the role of spectator Eun-jeong had forced upon him.
Eun-jeong opened her eyes slightly and glanced at the demon. It felt as though a long-standing blockage in her chest had finally cleared.
‘Just as planned.’
The demon who had tormented her, the fifty-six-year-old man who insisted he was young, wore the expression of someone who had taken a solid blow.
Just looking at his vacant face made her feel better.
Eun-jeong had already determined that the demon did not have the nerve to turn violent in a situation like this. The elderly young man was afraid to openly face the real young man.
Even if her prediction had been wrong, it would not have been bad.
There was CCTV at the apartment building entrance.
For some reason, the demon did not seem especially concerned about it, despite the sign announcing that recording was in progress.
So if he used violence first, it would work in Eun-jeong and Yo-han's favor.
All the demon held now was a cigarette, not a weapon.
If he ran to the Porter truck to get something, they only had to retreat at once. Eun-jeong's front door was much closer than the Porter truck from where they stood. Eun-jeong was also counting on the older man's obese build.
She had intentionally left her front door slightly open.
Even if the demon only watched, the CCTV footage would still matter.
It would prove that he continued stalking her despite knowing Eun-jeong and Yo-han were already in a relationship.
It would also prove that Eun-jeong had rejected the stalker's courtship with absolute clarity. What possible way could make her refusal any clearer than this?
It would give the court grounds to judge the demon's crime more harshly.
‘Look carefully, you filthy man. This is the person I love.’
As though flaunting it before the demon, Eun-jeong continued the most nerve-racking kiss of her life.
It was something they needed for the fight ahead, too.
Eun-jeong believed the fight against the demon would become a far longer battle than she had imagined. How long would it take to secure a final victory in the higher courts?
If she spent that entire struggle shut inside her home, enduring stress without any way to push back, both she and Yo-han could break down in body and mind from helplessness.
Only after a long while did the teacher pull away. She whispered shyly to her lover, who was breathing hard.
“...I think this is enough for today.”
“For today?”
“Yes. Let's go in now. It's time for dinner.”
Lately, it had become Yo-han's routine to stay and watch over Eun-jeong until late before going home.
Naturally, he ate dinner at Eun-jeong's home. The two cooked together.
Even after the man and woman disappeared up the stairs beyond the entrance, the weak demon stood blankly in the same place.
He did not come to his senses until the cigarette between his fingers burned down and shocked him with searing pain.
#
The unmarried, fifty-six-year-old Village Youth Association President sat in the driver's seat of his Porter truck and smoked.
“Those fucking bastards...”
The car ashtray in the cup holder was nearly half full from the cigarette butts he had discarded that day alone.
He had not painstakingly picked up the butts he threw outside, so he must have smoked more than two packs inside the car that day.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fucking bastards.”
The Village Youth Association President was in a foul mood.
Darkness had fallen long ago, yet the fire filling the fake young man's heart showed no sign of cooling.
The scene he had seen when the sunset was still pale, Eun-jeong and Yo-han kissing, still flickered before his eyes.
His hand had suffered the burn, but the mark seemed to have remained on his retina.
The pain running up his nerves from his fingers made the fake young man even more irritable.
He glared through the car window at Eun-jeong's apartment window on the second floor.
The lights were on, but the blinds were drawn, allowing only dim light to seep out.
The fake young man could not know what the two were doing inside.
‘They're probably sucking and fucking.’
No. Yo-han was a believer in chastity before marriage, rare even among the congregation.
Even an innocent kiss with their lips touching was overly stimulating for him.
But the fake young man did not know that. In his imagination, he projected every pornographic scene he had watched onto Yo-han and Eun-jeong.
The pornography he preferred was so filthy that his tastes bordered on the deviant, so the Yo-han and Eun-jeong in his imagination became filthy too.
The fake young man chewed over his rage and sense of defeat.
‘Do they think I'll just back down like this? No. I can never do that.’
It was not jealousy, but rage. Not heartbreak, but defeat.
A difference the fake young man himself did not recognize.
That important difference showed that the English teacher's judgment, which had once seen through a fellow teacher's concealed jealousy, had once again been correct.
This stalker was not the usual type who stalked because his one-sided love for Eun-jeong overflowed, then twisted and twisted further.
‘...Do they think I'll lose like this?’
His stalking had certainly begun as interest and cheap affection for Eun-jeong.
Yet without the stalker realizing it, it had changed into a contest with Yo-han.
His repeated conflicts with Yo-han kept stirring up his inferiority complex.
It was the fake young man's inferiority toward a real young man, a crooked person's inferiority toward an upright person, and the inferiority of a man who had failed to find a partner as he neared sixty, pouring his resentment toward his own life onto the wrong target.
Petty pride was added to that.
‘That little punk...’
The world was full of people made ugly by pride.
Even when they knew inside that they were wrong, they did not want to say one word of apology. Admitting their mistake felt like losing to the other person.
So they argued for the sake of arguing and fought for the sake of fighting, seizing on every phrase and spinning every kind of sophistry.
The Village Youth Association President was one of those people.
What mattered now was not losing to Yo-han. It was not feeling defeated.
It was refusing to recognize his shabby reality as reality.
Whether he won the beautiful teacher's heart had become only a secondary issue.
There were no demons apart from people in this world. It was hearts like this that slowly turned people into demons.
The beginning of evil was nothing grand.
“Fuck...”
The fake young man's stomach growled. He had skipped dinner and remained planted in front of the teacher's home.
“Bang!”
The fake young man struck the steering wheel hard enough to hurt his own hand. Still muttering curses without end, he started the car and roughly changed gears.
The blue Porter truck left the apartment parking lot.
Before long, it left the town behind and drove along a quiet mountain road.
As he drove, swallowing rage and inferiority, the fake young man became strangely conscious of the road he was on.
No vehicles passed through this remote mountain road at this hour.
It was a lonely road that led only to a village that grew older and faded away day by day.
Only the fake young man's Porter truck drove along this road.
It would be the same when Yo-han went home.
‘That arrogant bastard comes home late every day now, pretending he's protecting his woman...’
Sweat beaded on the fake young man's forehead. It was a sticky heat unsuited to the cold season, heat rising from within a human being.
The fake young man thought that perhaps the answer he sought lay on this dark road.
Wicked tension and excitement gripped his heart fiercely.
Footnotes:
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