WeTried Translations

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 59: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (59)

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#59.

Accidents were common at riding grounds.

And some of them were truly absurd.

Even on beginner courses where riders merely plodded in circles along a round safety track, ridiculous accidents sometimes happened.

For instance, the horse in front might stop to take a dump, and the horse following behind would be startled out of its wits and go into a fit.

Why?

Why were they startled?

You normally poop while walking, don’t you?

In this case Ju-won had learned about as a prospective athlete, the rider who fell suffered severe injuries requiring twelve weeks of treatment.

Ju-won had heard that even after those twelve weeks had passed, the rider could not walk unaided for some time.

Horses that spent their days confined to narrow stalls in stables were prone to abnormal behavior.

That was even more true for horses that had come from a racetrack.

About three months ago, a retired racehorse that had fortunately found a second owner caused a major accident at this riding ground.

Contrary to what people unfamiliar with horses might think, racehorses trained from birth to do nothing but sprint flat out were unsuitable as riding horses in many ways.

It was not easy to correct their habit of trying to run at top speed regardless of who was riding them.

Simply put, they were mounts with no middle ground.

That was why ordinary riders regarded racehorses that had not received enough retraining as psychopathic horses obsessed with running.

Of course, that was unfair to the retired racehorses.

「Humans. You’re the ones who raised me this way, aren’t you?」

Most racehorses lived within a single reward circuit until retirement.

If they sprinted at full speed around the track, humans praised and rewarded them.

In a sense, it could even be called brainwashing.

To such horses, the role suddenly demanded of them as riding horses was simply unfamiliar.

「I ran! And I was really fast! So why won’t you reward me? Why won’t you let me run? You people are weird! I’m right, and you’re wrong!」

From a retired racehorse’s perspective, humans had suddenly broken their promise.

Since humans no longer followed the rules they were supposed to follow, the horse became irritated with them.

The horse also became stressed.

In human terms, they resembled North Korean defectors struggling to adjust to South Korean society.

The social rules they had to follow had changed completely.

One privately owned racehorse entrusted to this riding ground for care and retraining had been exactly like that.

The horse managers had made their own efforts.

They had worked hard at retraining it for three months, so they had every right to say they had covered the basics.

(Three months was the period requested by the owner.

A longer training period was needed to ensure safety, but the owner, who had considerable riding experience and no shortage of confidence, decided there was no need to spend that much.

They believed they could handle it well enough.)

Yet when it entered the practice arena carrying its owner, the racehorse, stressed by the unfamiliar and controlled environment, could not suppress its urge to sprint.

The urge was closer to an instinct learned after birth.

「Open space! Other horses! This is where I run!」

To a racehorse, every other horse carrying a rider was nothing more than a rival it had to overtake, even if it had to ram them with its body.

It came from a hot-blooded breed with a nasty temperament to begin with, and given the environment it had grown up in, the retired racehorse was not very social either.

As a result, the out-of-control retired racehorse crashed into other horses and caused several falls.

Among the horses it struck was Yeon-ri, who had been carrying a new prospective athlete at the time.

Ju-won had been one of the witnesses to that accident.

And Yeon-ri was now carrying Onik.

#

Horses were animals with strong hierarchy instincts.

Yeon-ri’s kind and gentle nature was a disadvantage, at least when it came to fighting for rank.

Yet that nature, along with Yeon-ri’s excellent qualities, made humans especially fond of Yeon-ri. It also made Yeon-ri the target of much jealousy from the other horses sharing the stable.

The stalls where horses rested were built with low walls and bars so the horses could see one another.

It reduced their sense of confinement.

It also let them feel they were with the herd.

As a result, the other horses in Yeon-ri’s stable could not fail to notice the favoritism Yeon-ri received.

「Why do humans always look for that one, take that one out all the time, and dote on that one so much?」

「I want to get out of this cramped place often too! I want to go for walks, carry humans around, and get sweet treats!」

「Huh? Why only that one? Huh? This is pissing me off.」

Within a herd, limited resources were distributed according to rank.

For horses living in a stable, chances to leave their cramped stalls for a walk outside, and thus chances to receive sweet treats, were limited resources too.

(Things might be different if the stalls were spacious and the conditions good. But that was difficult to expect at a riding ground funded by public money.)

From the other horses’ perspective, Yeon-ri was not especially high-ranking, yet still enjoyed more than their share of limited resources, so they could not help resenting Yeon-ri for it.

Naturally, the horse managers knew about this tension.

When horses went outside, they formed separate groups of horses that could be together without trouble.

At times, they also separated horses temporarily or reorganized the groups.

Even so, Yeon-ri had been subjected to threatening attempts by other horses to establish their rank on several occasions.

Being rammed by a racehorse obsessed with speed amid all this had left Yeon-ri with a mild trauma.

Whenever another horse ran straight toward Yeon-ri, Yeon-ri had developed the habit of stopping and becoming wary, even when the other horse was still far enough away that a collision was not a concern.

Ju-won had heard this from the instructors and horse managers he was close to.

To be assigned a good horse, one first needed to figure out which horses were good before anyone else did.

That was why Ju-won had maintained his relationships with the horse managers.

If there happened to be a pearl hidden in the mud among the newly arrived horses, he wanted to know before anyone else did.

That way, he could get even a little ahead of competitors in circumstances like his own.

Thanks to all that diligent effort, Ju-won was able to devise a plan to punish an unbearably arrogant little entertainer.

#

His parents might have belittled him by saying he did not have the brains for studying, but Ju-won was not a stupid kid.

In certain ways, his mind worked extremely well.

At last, it was his turn.

Ju-won rode his assigned horse into the arena and quickly looked over the situation.

‘Good. That entertainer brat is still focused in one direction...’

At this practice ground, west was the only safe direction for shooting arrows.

There was an indoor riding arena to the south, a busy road to the east, and the main stadium where racehorse riders trained to the north.

There was a path to the west too.

But as long as that path was controlled, there were no other dangers.

Beyond the fence were only gently sloping ground and low brush.

That was why the cocky little entertainer’s gaze kept turning west.

‘But Yeon-ri is always looking straight ahead.’

Ju-won’s plan was to make a false charge while the entertainer boy’s attention was turned elsewhere.

A false charge that only Yeon-ri could see and find threatening.

The first-year high school student about to do something bad felt his heart race.

Tension, anticipation, excitement, a little fear, and guilt swirled inside Ju-won.

His fingertips trembling faintly, Ju-won thought:

...When he falls, I hope he breaks a few bones.

Even riders with talent and experience sometimes could not bring themselves to get back in the saddle for a while after a serious fall.

Ju-won wanted that to happen to the little entertainer.

“This time, me! I want to throw one!”

A few trainee riders around Ju-won’s age, whom he had marked in his mind as “good friend” candidates, were taking turns falling for the entertainer boy’s tricks.

They played with him by riding alongside the entertainer boy and throwing targets into the western sky.

“Fuck...”

The sight, full of shrieks and happy excitement, made Ju-won even more irritated.

The mood had been friendly for some time.

In that atmosphere, the young entertainer’s old companion was easily getting the other student riders’ consent to be filmed.

When I first tried to get close to them, they acted so damn stuck-up... Earlier, they were talking shit about that bastard with me too!

Ju-won only considered children from good families “good friend” candidates.

Yet these children from good families were usually stuck-up.

They got along well with one another because they were all on the same level, but their attitude changed when Ju-won approached them.

When he had first tried to become friends with them, they often snorted openly, laughed at him, kept their distance, or treated him like an inferior.

Even now that they had some degree of familiarity, they still blatantly treated him as beneath them, constantly stirring up Ju-won’s sense of inferiority.

They could have a conversation well enough, but they were not close enough for him to call them friends with confidence.

Ju-won did not think the problem lay with him. Nor did he think his reasons for approaching them were impure.

His parents had taught him that relationships between people were supposed to be like that.

Since he believed he had no impure intentions to begin with, it never occurred to him that the “good friend” candidates might look down on him more because of those intentions.

He also found it far too natural to divide people by status. It was a problem with his basic way of thinking.

The friendly atmosphere between his “good friend” candidates and the young entertainer only hardened Ju-won’s resolve to do something bad.

‘Fine. This works out better. There’ll be fewer people watching what I do.’

Even if someone saw, it would not be a problem.

How many people here knew about Yeon-ri’s trauma?

And it would be difficult to prove Ju-won had acted deliberately.

If he claimed his horse had briefly slipped out of control, who could possibly refute that with certainty?

Keeping a suitable distance, Ju-won waited for the right angle to charge. Then his eyes widened.

‘Now!’

Ju-won struck the reins and pressed his heels in, and the horse carrying him accelerated forward.

“Hyah!”

He gave a quieter-than-usual sound cue.

He did not worry about it carrying all the way over there. It would be buried beneath the other noise in that direction.

‘Yeon-ri! Look at me! Me! Right here! I’m running at you!’

The moment his eyes met those of the gentle horse carrying the entertainer, Ju-won felt a thrill of adrenaline-laced satisfaction.

If Yeon-ri could have read Ju-won’s mind and spoken human language, Yeon-ri would have cursed him out despite that gentle nature.

「Look at what, you lunatic! You’re trying to torment me using my weakness! You’re thinking of doing something violent to me, aren’t you? Like in a furry doujinshi!」

But Yeon-ri had no Gung Ye’s mind-reading powers, nor the ability to speak human language.

Naturally, Yeon-ri did not know what furry doujinshi were either.

Unlike the boy shooting arrows, Yeon-ri ran while looking ahead. When Yeon-ri saw Ju-won spur his horse straight toward them, Yeon-ri flinched.

Yeon-ri only flinched.

Ju-won panicked as his plan began to go wrong.

...Yeon-ri? Why aren’t you stopping? Aren’t you scared of me?

According to the plan, the cocky entertainer brat, who had let go of the reins, should already have been flying through the air.

He should have been thrown like a stone from a catapult, or had his foot caught in the stirrup and suffered an even worse accident.

All because he would have taken the full force of Yeon-ri’s sudden stop.

But Yeon-ri did not stop. Yeon-ri did not even slow down.

Another horse running toward Yeon-ri? Of course it was frightening.

But the rider Yeon-ri carried was far more frightening.

Onik treated Yeon-ri kindly, but the frightening presence Yeon-ri had felt at first remained vivid in Yeon-ri’s memory.

Even now, Yeon-ri sometimes felt a chill.

Yeon-ri could not dare defy him.

That frightening being was demanding that Yeon-ri run. How could Yeon-ri ignore that demand?

There was one more thing.

Horses tamed by humans tended to recognize humans as part of their herd and accept the strength and rank of the rider they carried as their own prestige.

In short, this was how Yeon-ri felt while looking at Ju-won and Ju-won’s horse.

「Are you two trying to put me in my place? Really? Are you sure you’re up for that? I’m carrying something this scary, you know?」

Around then, the eyes of the boy shooting arrows slowly turned.

His indifferent gaze swept briefly ahead.

The frightening boy had simply sent an arrow flying with a powerful flick of the bow tip, then briefly returned his attention to where a rider needed to look.

There was no intention in the boy’s gaze as it passed over Ju-won and his horse.

But that alone made Ju-won’s horse sense the presence of something frightening.

The frightening boy’s gaze treated humans and nonhuman animals very differently.

It lasted only an instant, but the frightening boy’s dark unconscious recognized Ju-won’s horse as something he could kill and would enjoy killing.

A horse’s instinct for survival was sensitive enough to sense that instant.

『Clop, clop, clop...』

Ju-won frowned.

He had meant to run toward Yeon-ri a little longer. But Yeon-ri, who was supposed to stop, had not stopped, and the horse Ju-won rode had begun slowing down on its own.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

As if asking in human words would bring an answer.

From Ju-won’s assigned horse’s perspective, Ju-won charging straight toward Yeon-ri meant another horse carrying that frightening thing was running straight toward it.

Annoyed, Ju-won pulled the reins a little roughly and turned around.

“Again.”

After widening the distance, Ju-won charged at Yeon-ri once more.

He struck the reins harder than before and pressed his heels in with force, demanding faster acceleration from his horse.

Yet Ju-won’s assigned horse slowed down on its own again.

「Clop, clop, clop...」

The bad-tempered high schooler moved beyond annoyance into boiling rage.

This rage, flooding in all at once with the addition of only two spoonfuls of irritation, had already existed in the high schooler’s heart.

It was a bulb that had grown there beneath the daily suppression and control of a life spent restraining himself and waiting on his parents.

If Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince had traveled through Ju-won’s heart, he would have been deeply worried.

「Ah, no. The baobab trees on this planet have grown far too large...」

For Ju-won, the time he spent riding was freedom.

It was one of the few times he could feel free amid his oppressive daily life.

It was also a time when effort brought results in proportion to what he put in, and when he could enjoy making a creature larger than himself submit to him.

The high school rider, who had always waited on his parents and danced to the tune of his “good friend” candidates, found a gloomy, sorrow-filled satisfaction in making a horse submit to his will.

But now, the horse was rejecting the rider’s will.

The high school rider felt betrayed twice over.

He felt betrayed by his efforts, and betrayed by the horse.

‘Now even you are looking down on me?’

Ju-won’s rage placed particular weight on the words even you.

The rage he felt from being disregarded by his mother, father, and “good friend” candidates surged up in him.

“Again! Again! Again!”

Ju-won handled the horse he rode more and more roughly.

His demands grew harsher, fiercer, and more oppressive.

Run. Run hard. Do not stop until Yeon-ri is frightened.

Then, at last, something went wrong.

Ju-won’s assigned horse became angry.

Footnotes:

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