WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 31: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (31)

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Yo-han's grave lay in a sunny spot within Onik's family's ancestral burial grounds.

When someone wished to establish a grave, they did not necessarily have to buy the land. They only needed the landowner's permission.

Once permission had been granted and a grave established, not even the landowner could deal with it as they pleased. The law recognized the right to maintain a grave.

The registered owner of the clan's ancestral burial grounds was Onik's grandfather, Jo Jeong-ho.

That was because Onik's great-grandfather, independence fighter Jo Yang-jin, had recovered the ancestral burial grounds and other lands after liberation, after they had been taken by a pro-Japanese landlord during the colonial era.

Still, although the ancestral burial grounds were formally registered under an individual's name, they were legally regarded and managed as trust property of the clan association.

Before his death, Jo Yang-jin, the restorer of the main lineage, had left clear documents concerning the burial grounds' rights. Then Jo Jeong-ho, who succeeded him as head of the clan association, had kept the main lineage steady and strong.

As a result, there had never been a single dispute over the ancestral burial grounds among the clan association and family branch to which Onik belonged.

Not one.

It was something many other clan associations would envy.

Countless clans had suffered under chairmen who pushed through clan meetings and resolutions to dispose of property.

So when Jo Jeong-ho convened a clan meeting and proposed giving Yo-han a burial plot there, every voting member present supported it without complaint.

"Well, let's do that. Elder Jeong-ho wants it, and Yo-han wasn't some stranger to us."

There was a minor disagreement over exactly where in the ancestral burial grounds he would be buried.

Some elders had looked uncomfortable when they saw the spot Jo Jeong-ho chose.

"Wait a moment... This is the best spot left. Couldn't it be somewhere else? Elder Jeong-ho should use this place later!"

But Jo Jeong-ho was firm.

"Don't worry. I won't take away your burial plots. I'd be fine being buried someday in shaded ground where water gathers, so let Yo-han rest here."

That made even more clan members leap up in protest.

"Shaded ground where water gathers? What are you saying? If the elder of our family is buried in a place like that, what will become of those who come after us?"

"What do you mean, what will become of them? They'll manage just fine on their own."

Jo Jeong-ho did not hide his scorn for feng shui before the elderly clan members.

"If bad ancestral graves ruined the fortunes of their descendants, then the descendants of friends whose bodies were never found in the jungles and swamps of Vietnam would all be wandering as beggars before dying sudden deaths. The descendants of soldiers who never returned from the Korean War would be the same. Wouldn't they?"

Feng shui that singled out the descendants of patriots and turned them into wretches was a superstition that deserved to be discarded.

At least, Jo Jeong-ho believed so.

"And think about it. If I'd benefited from my ancestors' blessings, would Onik have grown up without a mother or father like that...?

"When people die, that's the end. Where they're buried doesn't matter. We hold memorial rites to show respect. We aren't treating our ancestors as ghosts and hoping to profit from their favor."

"..."

"One last thing. Fine burial sites don't just keep appearing forever, do they? Once earlier generations use up all the good spots, later generations will have to make do with worse ones. Does that mean a family's fortunes can only worsen with every generation? To turn that around, what, should we dig up ancestors who were buried long ago?"

The family members who had objected to Yo-han's burial place ultimately fell silent.

They had been struck over and over by what young people these days called an unbeatable argument.

Jo Jeong-ho drove the final nail in before the silenced elders.

"We'll do as I say. I won't entertain objections."

That was how Yo-han's grave came to stand on sunny ground within Onik's ancestral burial grounds.

The lonely boy visited it often.

There was no particular day set aside for it. Whenever he passed nearby while hunting, he would stop by, even if only briefly.

He came when something made him sad. He came when he had worries he could not tell anyone about. He came when his loneliness simply grew too deep.

The gravestone bore Yo-han's photograph, a cross, and an engraved Bible verse.

「Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:24)」

Onik, who had come to the grave during school break, cleared away weeds before speaking to the dead.

Most important was making sure no bulb plants grew there.

If nutritious tuberous roots were left to grow, wild boars or water deer would surely dig up the grave.

A place suitable for a person to be buried was also a good place for a wild boar to make a daytime hideout.

Unless it was carefully maintained, it was all too easy to find a wild boar's flower tracks around the grave.

That was why he had to clear not only the grave itself but the surrounding area too.

When he finished, Onik plopped down in front of the gravestone and met Yo-han's eyes in the photograph.

"Hyung. I'm here."

When Yo-han was alive, Onik had found it hard to look him in the eye. Now that he was dead, he could.

The lonely boy thought it was a little funny.

He could only meet the eyes of dead people with a clear mind, free of wandering thoughts.

‘No, I can look straight at people I'm going to kill too. Without any wandering thoughts. Without letting my mind become scattered...’

The memory of the night he killed the Village Youth Association President surfaced on its own.

Even now, nearly half a year after his first murder, it remained as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.

Perhaps it would stay that way for the rest of his life.

Within the flashback that glinted like a blade, the frightening boy closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.

There was not the slightest trace of his usual liveliness in them.

"Today, I'm going to brag a little first."

Onik pulled something square from his backpack.

It was a YouTube Silver Creator Award, commonly called a Silver Button. Its chrome-plated play-button sculpture reflected the sunlight in a dazzling flash.

"YouTube gave this to me and Uncle Cheol-sang because our channel reached one hundred thousand subscribers. It came a little late, right? We're already getting close to two hundred thousand now."

The channel's growth picked up even more after it passed one hundred thousand subscribers. The algorithm had begun showing it much more often.

"Uncle Cheol-sang said our views and watch time are really good compared to our subscriber count. He said it's because I'm so entertaining. He said that if things keep going like this, we might earn as much as some YouTubers with a million subscribers."

Not every YouTuber with a million subscribers was the same. Some had metrics so poor that they earned less than an employee at a small or medium-sized company.

Onik Uncle and the Hapless Chief was the exact opposite. Its views and watch time were so strong that advertising and sponsorship inquiries had already started coming in.

That had been possible because they kept adding fresh, interesting content.

Naturally, most of that freshness and interest came from Onik.

"Recently, we started 「Let's Play with Onik!」 and 「Beat Onik!」, and people really like those too. Oh, that reminds me. I have one more thing to brag about. Just a moment."

Onik rummaged through his backpack again and pulled out a thin file. Inside was a neatly preserved TOEIC score report.

"Ta-da! I got a perfect score on the TOEIC! Clap, clap! Praise me!"

Onik's first TOEIC registration had been for 「Beat Onik!」, their new viewer-participation competition segment.

During the livestream announcing the challenge, Legal Hunter had acted as the hype man and brazenly provoked the viewers, taking advantage of the fact that they did not yet know how good Onik was at English.

"Everyone taking the TOEIC this time! Hurry up and sign up! We'll draw fifty people who score higher than Onik and send them gift sets of our region's specialty Korean beef worth two hundred thousand won!

"Hey, you're taking the test anyway, so here's your chance to get free beef! Surely there isn't an adult who isn't confident they can score better than a first-year middle schooler, right? If there is, are they even human? They're monkeys!"

After that, looking a little nervous, Legal Hunter asked Onik, who was beside him.

"Uncle, you really have to do well on this test. If it goes wrong, we'll lose ten million won in one shot... This chief is begging you. Okay? I trust you."

The viewers only laughed, but Onik could see the sincere worry behind Legal Hunter's request.

Legal Hunter knew Onik was good at English, but there was still a chance he might not score well.

So when Onik returned with a perfect score, Legal Hunter turned on a livestream and went wild with excitement.

"That's it! Damn it, I knew I could trust you! Uncle!"

Onik's score broke the previous record for the youngest perfect scorer by one year.

Legal Hunter's ecstatic fuss heightened the delighted surprise viewers felt at the record. It was, as people said, maximum impact.

The ability to raise the energy was also a broadcaster's talent and asset, and Legal Hunter did his job well in that regard.

He also took on the irritating role of getting viewers worked up.

It was an image-separation strategy meant to leave "Onik Uncle" as nothing but a pure, kind, healing character.

When they divided their images this way, it naturally created a back-and-forth synergy.

"All right, those of you who scored lower than our uncle! Repeat after me! I am a monkey! Ooh-ooh! Ooh-ook-ook!"

He teased them like that, but he still sent gift sets to the top ten scorers, including those tied with Onik.

Legal Hunter's calculation was that being too stingy would hurt their image. He said this much was worth treating as an investment.

The chief, who was serious about YouTube, was doing his best to study current trends and broadcasting strategies.

Onik placed his phone in front of the gravestone and played a video.

There was no signal where he was, but he had downloaded a few videos he wanted to show Yo-han.

"Look, hyung. Teacher even appeared briefly because of this."

After the controversy over whether Onik's score was real was easily settled by revealing the score report's QR code, another question followed.

「How is this kid so good at English? Is it just his genes?」

Onik gave all the credit to his precious teacher, Lee Eun-jeong.

Eun-jeong smiled awkwardly but warmly before the camera after giving her favorite student permission to film her.

「Hello. How do you do? I'm Lee Eun-jeong, the teacher in charge of experiential learning activities and English at ○○ Elementary School. It's a pleasure to meet you.」

「Everyone, don't believe everything Onik says. Calling me the world's best English teacher is such an exaggeration that I can only laugh...」

「Onik is simply very smart. I was the one who met a student far more wonderful than I deserved. I'm so grateful that a student like him has taken such a special liking to me.」

「How did I teach Onik...? Well, there was nothing special. Our school has so few students, and Onik was the only student in his grade. So we had a lot of one-on-one lessons.」

「Because Onik worked so hard, I grew ambitious as a teacher. Later, we conducted lessons using free writing and conversation, though I'm not sure whether that helped.」

Eun-jeong had dressed up properly for the first time in a while, and seeing her like that reminded Onik of when Yo-han was alive.

After Yo-han died, Eun-jeong had not dressed herself up as much as before.

Onik spoke to Yo-han's gravestone.

"Hyung, isn't it nice to see Teacher going about her everyday life like this? She probably comes here often too, but when she does, she isn't her usual self."

Then he read comments praising Eun-jeong to Yo-han.

He had even taken screenshots of every comment because he thought Yo-han would surely be happy to hear them. He could not view comments offline.

Comments saying Teacher was pretty.

Comments saying it was nice that Teacher was so humble.

Comments saying that not every teacher could teach through free writing and conversation, especially not elementary school teachers.

Comments saying that teaching a child well enough to earn a TOEIC score better than many English instructors took not only the student's talent, but also a teacher capable of nurturing that talent.

"After this video went up, Teacher even received a special commendation from someone called the superintendent of education! They said she'd set an example for other teachers and made a major contribution to local education and community development!"

Eun-jeong felt deeply burdened by it, but she really had made a contribution.

The rural study-abroad program in this area had originally had almost no presence at all. It was such a remote rural place.

Then inquiries from parents in the Seoul metropolitan area exploded because of Onik's broadcasts.

It seemed that parents were drawn to the chance for their children to receive something close to group tutoring from an excellent teacher like Eun-jeong, as well as the fact that she also guided experiential learning activities.

The many awards listed for Eun-jeong on the school's website made that interest grow even further.

"We're doing well like this. Me and Teacher. We've never forgotten you, hyung, but we're still trying to live on as best we can. Teacher said you'd want us to do that too. Is that right?"

No answer came.

Even so, Onik asked again.

"Are you doing well over there, hyung?"

The wind blew, rustling through the brush. From far away came the low cooing of an Oriental turtle dove.

The sky was clear, and the sunlight stung. There was no shade from which to escape the sun at a burial site blessed with sunlight.

The heat was already fierce, but the boy who grew by consuming the deaths of living things did not sweat even a single drop in weather like this.

His pale skin, untanned despite running through mountains and fields every day, was another strange thing. His flawless skin reflected the stinging sunlight in a white glow.

It was one newly revealed aspect of the frightening boy's abnormality.

The dark power that had begun to sprout in earnest with his first murder was growing thicker and fuller with every passing day.

"There's something I'm curious about."

Onik continued his monologue disguised as a question, a conversation with himself.

"If heaven and hell really exist... If good people go to heaven after they die, and bad people go to hell...

"Then why is murder a sin? It's only sending someone where they're supposed to go."

Pastor Kim had said that heaven was a kingdom of light without death, sorrow, or pain, where people could enjoy endless joy and happiness.

It was where all people who lived righteously and died would remain in complete happiness until the day of judgment.

So going to heaven was a blessing, not something to grieve over.

Pastor Kim had also said that hell was where sinners were punished forever after death.

A place where they burned in unquenchable fire and were eaten by worms that did not die.

That was why people had to live good lives.

Onik did not understand.

"Let's say Pastor Kim is right. Then why did Mr. God separate this world and the next?"

He truly did not understand.

"Mr. God knows the entire future before acting, so when people are born, He must have already decided whether they'll go to heaven or hell later...

"Then shouldn't He just send good people to heaven from the beginning, and bad people to hell from the beginning? What is the point of this world?"

If an omniscient and omnipotent god existed, then human free will no longer had meaning.

An omniscient god would already know every decision people would make through that free will.

"If a god like that existed, I think I'd feel at ease too. There'd be no reason for me to worry anymore."

The boy let out a soft sigh.

"Mr. God must have had a reason for making me like this, and where I'll go after I die must already be decided, right?

"All the disasters and murders in this world must be things Mr. God planned to send people a little faster to heaven and hell."

In truth, the boy had reached a conclusion about this long ago.

There clearly was no god in this world who loved people.

It was the conclusion he had reached after finding the murderer's traces at the place where Yo-han died.

Even so, the lonely boy kept asking the dead questions because he could not quite let go.

"That's right. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in heaven, and I don't believe in hell. I didn't believe before, but after your death, hyung, I believe even less."

But...

"But I do want to believe heaven exists. Then you'd be there, hyung. And like I said before, there wouldn't be any reason for me to worry anymore."

He wanted his hyung to be in heaven.

He also wanted to set down, with an easy heart, all his painful worries about his own abnormality and his future.

Onik suffered more because he could not do that.

The best the lonely boy could do was comfort himself with the shallow lie that perhaps what he believed and what was real might be different.

"I thought about it a lot after you died, hyung. I wondered if you'd still be alive now if I'd realized a little earlier what that Village Youth Association President was trying to do and acted sooner."

If there was no god in this world who loved people, then saving people and killing people were left entirely to people themselves.

Of course, taking action did not necessarily mean murder. Perhaps he could have stopped the Village Youth Association President somehow through conversation.

But the fact that murder was not necessary did not mean it could be excluded as an option.

After thinking it over again and again, Onik knew that the Onik of the past had no option of reporting the Village Youth Association President to the police for a crime he had not yet committed.

He had learned that there was such a crime as conspiracy and preparation for murder.

Yet the circumstances the Onik of the past could have known fell far too short of establishing that crime.

To make matters worse, the policemen in town were lazy, and the Village Youth Association President was friendly with them.

So if Onik could not be certain he would persuade the Village Youth Association President with words, and if he knew the man was capable of killing someone...

Then there was only one way to make Yo-han and Teacher one hundred percent safe.

...The only way was for the frightening boy to take up a knife to kill.

But that directly clashed with the lesson he had learned from his grandfather.

It also clashed with the sorrow he had felt through Yo-han's death, and the lesson he had drawn from that sorrow.

Death could not be undone.

Things that could not be undone should not be done carelessly.

"My grandfather says that even now, his heart sometimes feels heavy when he thinks about fighting in Vietnam. He said there were many things to be proud of, but sometimes there were things that weren't."

A conversation with the dead was really a monologue, so it was fine if it lacked order. It did not matter if only he knew the context.

If Yo-han's spirit existed, then as a spirit, he would hear every word in the boy's heart on his own.

Onik continued speaking to himself.

"So I asked Grandpa why he still hung his veteran's certificate high up where it was easy to see, especially right beside Great-Grandpa's medal certificate."

What tormented Onik's grandfather must have been memories of things that could not be undone, memories of killings he himself did not believe were wholly just.

Even so, it was strange at first glance that he had framed and displayed his veteran's certificate.

"Then Grandpa told me, 'Put the sun and the moon side by side, and the moon naturally becomes ashamed.'"

Everyone hated pain and had unconscious defense mechanisms that tried to escape painful states.

Jo Jeong-ho had framed his veteran's certificate and hung it beside his father's medal certificate to preserve both his proud memories and painful memories without distorting either.

From that single answer, the clever grandson understood every part of his grandfather's heart.

"Yo-han hyung. In front of me now, there is one path where you might still be alive, and another path where I keep avoiding Grandpa's regrets."

Onik asked the dead.

"If I have to live while killing people from now on, if I was born as someone who has no choice but to live that way, where between these two paths should I find my balance?"

The final question the boy asked the dead was really directed not at the dead, but at himself.

The smooth surface of the gravestone reflected the boy's own image.

The frightening boy stared quietly into the lonely boy's eyes reflected in the stone.

Footnotes:

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