Osratida - Chapter 4

At twenty-one, Shinhee had never known the presence of parents in his life, but now, as he stood before this father—who was slowly dying day by day, having lost his beloved daughter and unable to speak properly—he hesitated to even mention Jisoo’s name.

Glancing at Jisoo, who was silently caressing his father’s head with a sorrowful expression, Shinhee carefully chose his words.

“…I’m from the real estate office,”
he finally said.

When he asked if he could look around the house, his father, eyes closed, responded with a resigned gesture, as if it didn’t matter anymore.

The once sharp sense of vigilance against the stranger who had entered through the dog hole instead of the front gate was now dulled by a body worn out with age and a mind consumed by longing and sorrow.

A man who loses his wife is called a widower, and a woman who loses her husband is called a widow. A child who loses their parents is called an orphan. But there is no word to describe a parent who loses their child. The grief is so profound that there is no name for it, only the sorrow of having witnessed *chamcheok*—the tragic loss of a child.

And Shinhee felt as if he were witnessing *chamcheok* right before his eyes. The suffocating sensation weighed on him, and he loosened the top button of his shirt in a desperate attempt to breathe.

Shinhee followed Jisoo’s lead into another room. What greeted him was a bunk bed, standing out as a bright and beautiful space in stark contrast to the worn and shabby house.

The walls were lined with bookshelves packed with textbooks, and the well-organized desk was adorned with small, delicate items of unknown purpose. It was a room filled with a certain richness, despite being in a home otherwise devoid of luxury.

Everything had a clear function, with no hint of excess, making this the one place in the house where abundance overflowed.

Even just by looking at the room, Shinhee could tell. Jisoo and her younger sibling had been the entire world to these elderly parents.

“What is it that I need to find and deliver?”

Shinhee asked, his voice soft in the quiet room.

Jisoo responded by slowly writing with her finger on the desk. The words she traced were simple, almost mundane: a small and familiar phrase that somehow carried the weight of all the unspoken emotions in the room.

On the bus ride back, Shinhee remained silent, gazing out the window. Although the journey had been grueling and difficult, worsened by his hangover, Jisoo’s request had turned out to be surprisingly simple.

What she had asked him to deliver was a wallet, or more specifically, a single lottery ticket inside the wallet. The ticket had been purchased exactly a year ago, and it was now just two days away from expiring.

Jisoo, a poor job seeker living alone in Seoul, had died in a traffic accident on the day she returned from a job interview.

Her few belongings, including the ticket, had been carefully placed in the most treasured box and wrapped in silk, stored away in her family’s wardrobe.

Before leaving the shabby house, Shinhee met Jisoo’s mother, who had just returned from work, filling in for her bedridden husband. Following Jisoo’s instructions, Shinhee handed over the lottery ticket. Though initially wary of him, the mother softened when she learned it was among Jisoo’s possessions. She accepted the worn piece of paper with both hands.

Shinhee’s message was brief, consisting of only two sentences: that there was little time left to claim the prize, so she needed to go immediately, and that she should trust no one around her. There were no other words from Jisoo—no messages of love or reassurances to not cry—just the lottery ticket.

Shinhee slowly leaned back into the seat of the bus and closed his eyes. Although the events had happened hours ago, they replayed in his mind as vividly as if they had just occurred minutes ago, making him even more exhausted.

Even though he dealt with spirits, he was not someone used to physical exertion. Whenever he experienced something as emotionally overwhelming as this, he needed a period of rest.

The brief moments he shared with Jisoo’s family struck a deep chord in the most profound parts of his memory. Remembering, rewinding, and letting go of every moment when the deceased met the living was something he had to do from time to time after dealing with a significant event like this.

If he didn’t, his mind would be uprooted, and he would be suffocated, bound by the flood of damp emotions that others left behind.

The mother, who had collapsed from the shock of losing Jisoo and suffered a stroke, had cried while clutching the slip of paper he had given her.

Her younger daughter, who had just returned from school, supported her mother. The younger daughter, more practical in her approach, searched online for instructions on how to claim the prize money.

After the mother and daughter left the house, he found himself alone with Jisoo’s lingering spirit.

“It’s time to go. If you stay too long, you’ll turn into an evil spirit and wander aimlessly forever.”

She quietly nodded, closing her eyes as if preparing herself.

“Thank you,”

she said in a voice that couldn’t be heard. As always, the exorcism ended quickly and quietly. Her 23 years of life and the few days she had lingered after death—all those moments of existence—vanished under a few simple incantations.

Though it was a fleeting thing, Shinhee remained there, standing still, until every trace of her spirit had left this world, silently wishing with all his heart that she would safely reach the threshold of the afterlife, wherever that might be.

He wondered if they would be able to smile when they saw the gift Jisoo had left behind. And what about Jisoo? Even though she had died, her family would now be happier and more secure because of the little she had left them, but she would never be able to witness their happiness. Was she truly okay with that?

It was a chain of questions with no one to answer. All Shinhee could do was resolve the unfinished business of the departed, guiding them safely to the afterlife. That was all he could do, and it was only for the deceased—not the living.

Shinhee quietly closed his eyes. Despite only enduring a single day of hardship, an overwhelming exhaustion akin to not having slept properly for a month washed over him. As he surrendered to sleep, he thought about the things he needed to do once he got home. This time, at least, it was a relatively happy ending. He hoped that might lift his spirits a bit.

“I need to find a new part-time job, eat something delicious, and start with a hangover cure,”
he mused.

“Then, if I have time, I’ll take Minam to the PC room, visit the bookstore to check out the new releases, and open my sketchbook to draw… the last image of Jisoo before she departed this world…”

Shinhee stepped out of the express bus terminal and checked his watch. Although the round trip to Ansan took over three hours, the time he spent there was brief, so the sun was still high in the sky.

The autumn sky was clear, with not a cloud in sight, but the weather had noticeably cooled as winter approached.

Shinhee slowly sat down on a bench, pulling his collar tight against the chill. He was hungry, but the thought of putting anything in his mouth didn’t appeal to him.

Across the street, a convenience store’s display was filled with advertisements for the upcoming Pepero Day, urging people to express their love. But his half-dazed eyes barely registered it.

For a while, he stared blankly up at the sky until, suddenly, a strange sensation trickled down the back of his neck, snapping him to attention. It was a sense of déjà vu that unsettled him. The sharp, cold energy piercing through him was something he’d felt before, a chill that raised goosebumps on his arms.

When was it that he had felt this before? Instead of dwelling on it, Shinhee slowly rose from his seat and scanned his surroundings. He didn’t have to look far; there, in the distance, was a man he had seen from the bus just the day before, surrounded by a swarm of ghosts.

It seemed like the number of ghosts clinging to him had grown even more since yesterday. At this point, it almost seemed deliberate, as if the man knew and carried them with him on purpose.

Shinhee considered sticking to his “one ghost per day” rule and simply heading home. But despite his shamanistic abilities, he also had a strong belief in the concept of fate. Encountering the same man two days in a row couldn’t just be a coincidence; if this was destiny, it certainly wasn’t a trivial one.

Shinhee didn’t hesitate and followed the tall man draped with ghosts like accessories. The man’s height was imposing, and though Shinhee could only see the back of his head, something about his presence felt off.

“He looks like a grim reaper,”
Shinhee muttered, chuckling at his own comment. A tall man dressed in black, carrying ghosts around as if they were part of his outfit—how could he not seem like a reaper?

Shinhee had encountered grim reapers before, especially during times when he had to forcibly send malevolent spirits to the afterlife. These reapers were surprisingly stylish, more like trendy uncles than the eerie, otherworldly figures he had imagined. Gone were the pale skin, black hats, and fluttering robes he had once associated with death.

Instead, these reapers were modern, with only their pale skin betraying their otherworldly origins.

One of the grim reapers, who introduced himself as “Yukgap, the idol of the afterlife,” was particularly unforgettable. He strutted around in a sharp suit with a red tie fluttering confidently, even throwing a wink at Shinhee.

The shirt under his jacket boasted an audacious pink floral pattern, a fashion choice that could only be described as bizarre. Yukgap, brimming with self-assurance in his own taste, had the nerve to criticize Shinhee’s checkered shirt as outdated the first time they met.

When Shinhee, surprised, remarked,

“You’re quite different from the usual image people have of grim reapers,”

Yukgap proudly responded that times had changed. He went on to brag that in the *Cheonin-do* (the registry of a thousand souls), the latest trend was to drive around in a sleek sports car, before vanishing as nonchalantly as he had appeared.

As these unforgettable memories started to surface, Shinhee hastily shook his head to clear them, quickening his pace to stay focused on the present.

• TL Note:

*”참척” (chamcheok) is a Korean term referring to the profound and often unbearable grief experienced by parents who have lost their children. The word captures the depth of sorrow and the sense of complete devastation that comes with such a loss.