Mudoo - Chapter 8

Seula stood in front of the gate, hand resting on the latch, frozen for what felt like forever. All she had to do was open it and step out — but that one step felt impossibly heavy. She just couldn’t bring herself to face those strange shapes drifting among people again.

“Weren’t you leaving?”

It was Kang Tae-shin. He’d come out into the yard, holding an old outdoor broom, eyeing her like she was a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.

Thanks to him, she’d actually had a peaceful night. The moment she lay down, she passed out cold and hadn’t woken up once. She’d shamelessly eaten a steaming pot of doenjang stew and a bowl of freshly cooked rice, too.

Now it really was time to go home. Last night, when she’d stormed out of her house, she hadn’t even grabbed her phone or wallet. She was still wearing pajamas with just a jacket thrown over them — she needed to change her clothes, and she’d made plans with a friend for later that afternoon. But with no phone, she couldn’t even cancel.

“I was about to go,” Seula said, her hand still on the latch. She had plenty of reasons to leave — she just couldn’t summon the nerve to step outside.

“She’s been standing like that forever. She’s scared to go out, scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat!” Dong-gil, who’d guarded her door all night, circled her now, wagging his tail and teasing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“Are the things you see really that scary?”

Tae-shin’s voice was oddly gentle, like he was talking to a nervous kid. He stepped closer to her, his expression calm and patient.

Seula tried hard to keep her face composed, to look reasonable, even though inside she was still terrified. She couldn’t just keep whining forever.

“…Could you please just shut it off again?” she asked, one last desperate try, even though she knew the answer.

But of course, it wasn’t that easy.

“Just pretend you don’t see them,” he said, that lazy smile tugging at his lips. His tone was so casual, like he was explaining that one plus one equals two.

“Act like you don’t see anything, don’t hear anything, don’t feel anything. Just live like you did before your spiritual eye opened.”

If only it were that easy. If she could do that, she wouldn’t be standing here, knees practically knocking together.

Before she could protest, Tae-shin lifted the latch for her and swung the gate wide open. The cold air hit her face, but Seula squeezed her eyes shut — she couldn’t even look.

“If you really can’t handle it,” Tae-shin said softly, his voice brushing her ear like silk, “come back to me.”

“……”

“I’ll come pick you up next time.”

For a second, his voice was so gentle she nearly blurted out that he was exactly her type. Well — looks-wise, anyway.

***

Seula used the cab fare Kang Tae-shin had given her and made it back home. The whole ride there, she stared out the window — and today, somehow, those things stood out even clearer than yesterday. It hadn’t even been two days, but it felt like she’d already developed this awful new sense that could tell people apart from not-people.

Hands trembling, she unlocked her front door and stepped inside.

The energy in here is bad.

She’d heard people say stuff like this place has bad energy, but never once in her life had she actually felt something like that. But the moment she crossed her doorstep, the air felt cold — the kind of cold that slithered right down her spine and made her skin crawl.

It’s still daytime. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.

Mumbling that like a charm, she hurried around her place like someone was chasing her. She changed out of her pajamas in record time, grabbed her phone and wallet, and bolted right back out the door.

I can’t live here.

Three whole years she’d stayed in that apartment without a hitch, and yet now the thought hit her like a slap in the face: I can’t stay here anymore. She pulled out her phone, figuring she’d just cancel her plans and run straight back to Cheonghaedong. But the moment the screen lit up, all she saw was the dead battery icon.

“Of course. Nothing ever goes right for me…”

***

It was about a fifteen-minute walk. By the time she finally made it to a café in the busy part of town, Seula looked half-dead. She shuffled to the counter, ready to order.

“What can I get you to— Oh! Miss, are you alright?”

The barista nearly dropped her pen when she saw Seula’s face — pale as a ghost, cold sweat dripping down her cheeks. She quickly handed over a whole wad of cocktail napkins.

“Ah, I’m fine. Really. Thank you.”

Seula managed a tiny smile and dabbed her face with the napkins. She did exactly what Tae-shin told her — pretending she didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel anything — but no matter how hard she pretended, the things she wasn’t supposed to see were still there.

She somehow got her coffee and turned to find a seat, only to run into another problem. Her favorite spot was always the quiet corner in the back, but today, the shadier the corner, the more ghosts were loitering around, whispering, drifting, staring. It nearly made her drop her cup.

Everyone else in the café was blissfully unaware — studying, chatting, laughing — completely normal.

Well, there are ghosts… but there are people too, right? People! That’s good. That’s great.

She forced her brain to run on toxic positivity, trying to calm her racing heart.

In the end, Seula picked a table right in the middle of the café — the safest spot she could find, surrounded by real, warm, living people. Sure, she could’ve sat by the sunny window, but then she’d be face to face with the ghosts drifting outside.

Hurry up and get here, Shin Haejun. Please, please get here fast…

She was hunched over the table, half-buried under her arms, praying her friend would hurry up and get there. Then — knock knock. Someone tapped the table. Seula’s whole body went stiff. If she looked up and there was a ghost staring back… she honestly didn’t think she could handle it.

Very, very slowly, she peeked her eyes over her arm.

“Hey, what’s with you? Are you sick or something?”

Thank God. It was Shin Haejun. He dropped into the seat across from her, looking worried. She didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to see someone’s face — her chest actually stung with relief, and tears nearly sprang to her eyes.

“I was waiting for you…”

“Sorry, sorry! Did I keep you long?”

“Every single second felt like a million years.”

Haejun scratched at his temple with an awkward grin. ‘I came as fast as I could,’ he mumbled. Seula, now that her heart had finally stopped trying to punch through her ribs, got to the most urgent thing first.

“Do you have a charger?”

Even with her spiritual eyes wide open to ghosts and all, her smartphone addiction — that modern-day plague — was still alive and well.

***

“I’m serious — my skin’s totally cleared up!” Seula pushed up her sleeve and showed him the smooth patch of skin where her rash used to be.

“Whoa. Not a trace left. What did you do?”

Haejun knew everything — from the first day that weird rash showed up to all the clinics and hospitals she’d dragged herself to, one after another. He’d genuinely worried about her, dug up info online, even found good specialists to recommend. So, hearing that it had all cleared up in just a few days? Of course, he was curious.

“Uh… it’s kinda hard to explain.”

Honestly, Seula had no idea how to say any of it.

Haejun thought she was just being dramatic and leaned in, chuckling under his breath. “Come on, you can tell me. I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Hmm.” She flicked her eyes sideways, trying to think. But no — it was impossible. “Nope. It’s better if you don’t know.”

“What? Since when do we keep secrets?”

They’d grown up in the same orphanage and were still the only ones from back then who kept in touch as adults. Sure, they were close — but not so close that they poked around in every corner of each other’s private life.

Still, the longer Seula clammed up, the more stubborn Haejun got.

“Seriously. So what fixed it?”

No matter how she tried to change the subject, he steered it right back every time. In the end, Seula gave up — and went with a half-truth, half-lie that wouldn’t get her locked up for sounding insane.

“I, uh… went to this super famous shaman.”

“A shaman?”

Haejun’s eyes went wide — clearly, he hadn’t expected that answer.

“Mudoo? What’s that? Never heard of it.”

“It’s, uh… something like a skin disease shamans get. I don’t really know either.”

“But you’re not a shaman.”

“I know. But I guess you can get it even if you’re not one.”

He immediately pulled out his phone and started typing.

“Hold on, let me look it up. Mudoo…”

“Don’t bother. Nothing comes up.”

“Seriously, nothing.”

Haejun lowered his phone again and stared at her, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“So, what, did you use a charm or something?”

“Nope. They said charms wouldn’t work, so they sent me to see someone — and poof, it cleared up.”

“Who’d you see? A doctor?”

“Huh? Oh… yeah, a doctor…”

Haejun clearly didn’t buy it.

“You didn’t do a gut or something, did you?”

A gut… well, honestly, it wasn’t exactly wrong. But if she told him her skin cleared up because she did some exorcism ritual — or worse, because she hugged Kang Tae-shin once — would he believe her? Not a chance. Haejun was an even bigger skeptic than she was. Whether she said she did a ritual or spilled the truth about Kang Tae-shin, either way she’d just look like an idiot.

“I’m telling you, I saw a doctor. No gut or anything. They gave me medicine, some shots, prescribed a cream — that’s it.”

She stuck with the most boring, normal excuse she could find. Haejun still looked unconvinced but didn’t push it any further when she flat-out insisted. He really was relentless sometimes — no wonder people joked he should’ve been a detective. He was sharp as a tack and annoyingly stubborn when he got curious.