GRR 11

They say no one knows what the future holds, but Jion truly never imagined he would become a target of the grim reaper so quickly. He even thought just minutes ago that if he were to meet a grim reaper again, it would be the day he died.

Unable to hide his flustered state, Jion’s gaze wandered. Regardless of Jion’s turmoil, Kwon Chasa stepped away from the counter and moved toward the dairy section, where he began browsing the items.

Just then, the convenience store door opened again with the sound of the bell. Jion turned his head around, and this time, the manager he had been waiting for finally appeared. Upon seeing Jion’s deathly pale face, the manager ran over in a single bound.

“Jion, did something happen? Are you sick?”

“Ah, no… it’s nothing.”

“But why do you look so pale? Are you pushing yourself too hard with studying and your part-time job? Hurry, change your clothes and head home. Did you check the register?”

“Yes… there were no issues….”

While the manager led him away from the POS system, Jion glanced at Kwon Chasa. He tried his best to ignore him and went into the staff room to take off his vest and grab his bag. When he came out, he saw the back of Kwon Chasa walking toward the counter. He held a bottle of banana milk in each hand. The manager immediately scanned them.

“That will be 3,400 won. You can insert your card here.”

“Yes.”

Kwon Chasa paid for the items just like a human would do. He even replied to the manager.

Is it possible that the grim reaper isn’t only visible to me? Suho’s parents didn’t see anything. Or is the manager also someone with spiritual eyes? What is going on?

Jion stared as Kwon Chasa took back his card, put it in his pocket, and picked up the milk and straws. Then when he noticed the manager’s gesture, he hurried over. The manager handed Jion a notebook he had almost left behind, picked up a lollipop near the register, paid for it himself, and gave it to Jion. Meanwhile, Kwon Chasa left the store.

“Get home safely, and I’ll see you next week. Good job today.”

“Yes… I’ll be going now….”

Jion slung his bag slowly over his shoulder. He politely bowed before stepping outside. Sensing a strange presence, he turned his head and saw Kwon Chasa sitting at one of the plastic tables outside.

“Shall we talk for a moment, Student Chae Jion?”

As Jion flinched in surprise at the fact that Kwon Chasa knew his name, Kwon chuckled and patted his left chest. Jion, who had unconsciously looked down at his left chest, sighed after seeing the name tag pinned there.

When Jion hesitated to approach, Kwon Chasa pushed one of the banana milks toward the seat opposite him. It wasn’t hard to tell it was meant for him. He offered a banana milk while asking for a conversation. Jion had thought the man didn’t have a lick of compassion, but this was unexpected.

Jion hesitated at the door for a while, but had no choice but to move toward the table because of a customer trying to enter the convenience store. He clutched the strap of his bag tightly as he pulled out a chair and sat opposite Kwon Chasa.

Where had all the courage he had when he stood up to Kwon Chasa to protect Suho gone? He couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he might have come to take his soul. Jion moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. He closed his eyes and opened them again, before slowly opening his mouth, feeling that it was better to get over it quickly.

“…Am I going to die soon?”

If I die already, my grandfather will be so sad. I’m all he has, so what should I do? I don’t mind being hit by his long pipe every day, so can I live just a few more years? I haven’t even properly repaid him yet… As Jion thought while nervously fiddling with the lollipop the manager had bought him, Kwon Chasa chuckled incredulously.

“I wouldn’t know. Yu Chasa is the one who promised to escort you to the underworld, so if you die, Yu Chasa will be the one to come.”

Kwon Chasa pushed the banana milk closer to Jion and shrugged. Only then did Jion relax his stiff expression and look back and forth between Kwon Chasa’s indifferent face and the milk. The lid of the banana milk in front of him had been completely peeled off, and a straw was stuck in it.

It seemed his time hadn’t arrived yet. Jion stroked his chest and leaned back in his chair. However, the relief was short-lived. A question suddenly occurred to him, causing Jion to frown slightly.

There were no ghosts in the store, and it wasn’t his time to die, so why did a grim reaper come looking for him? Did he find out I cursed him and come to argue? This must be why they say you can’t live with a guilty conscience. Jion felt a lump in his throat.

“Then… why did you come to see me?”

Jion asked cautiously as he watched Kwon Chasa drink the banana milk through a straw. He didn’t even want to touch the suspicious banana milk, so he kept his hands under the table and fiddled with the lollipop. Kwon Chasa stared at Jion, tapped the table with his index finger, and spoke in a calm voice.

“To erase your memories.”

“…What?”

Taken aback by the statement, Jion asked. He rubbed his furrowed brow and looked at Kwon Chasa, who took another sip of the milk. His attire and the banana milk were terribly incongruous. Kwon Chasa straightened his back and crossed his arms.

“Unlike ordinary humans, those with spiritual eyes are greatly influenced by the energy of the underworld. I don’t know how many deceased you have met so far, but they, as well as I, must have left quite a bit of the energy of the underworld on you.”

“……”

“If the energy gets too strong, vengeful spirits will flock to you even if you don’t want them to. If things like water ghosts¹ or disease demons latch onto you, your life will be in danger. They say you never know what will happen in the living world. Even if nothing has happened so far, who knows what will happen in the future?”

Jion bit his lip as he listened to Kwon Chasa speaking in a low pitched voice.

“You’re fine for now, but back then, you didn’t meet me while I was in a humanized state, so you must have been affected. Among those who travel between the living world and the underworld, grim reapers carry the most energy of the underworld. I have to purify the energy that is clinging to a human.”

“……”

“It would be much better to erase the memory completely, if possible.”

To think that meeting a grim reaper was such a serious matter. It was something that he had never heard even from his grandfather, who knew the ways of the afterlife to some extent and often resolved his curiosities.

He had seen a grim reaper once when he was a child, was that one okay? Their eyes never met, they didn’t speak, and all he saw was the man’s back and the buwol… but perhaps he had been affected then without knowing it. It seemed the grim reaper was currently in a “humanized” state or something, but the grim reaper back then wouldn’t have come for his mother in a humanized form.

“Drink that first.”

Would it be okay if I purified the underworld energy now? Jion, who had been biting his lip while lost in thought for a moment, came to his senses only after hearing Kwon Chasa’s voice.

He sat arrogantly with his legs crossed, and gestured with his chin toward the suspicious banana milk. At first, Jion thought it was a sign of a slightly human side, but seeing him insist, he must have bought it with an ulterior motive. It wasn’t that Jion disliked banana milk, but thinking it was something a grim reaper gave him made him feel uneasy.

“…Is it okay to drink this?”

“It’s mixed with water that purifies underworld energy. Do you think I’d kill a student with something like this?”

“It’s suspicious because you keep forcing me to drink it.”

“Stop talking and just drink. Oh, and keep in mind it’s a bit bitter.”

Although a grim reaper wouldn’t harm someone whose time hadn’t come yet, his attitude was so disrespectful that Jion couldn’t help but distrust him. It even tasted bitter, making him hesitant to reach for it. Jion looked down at the banana milk with a skeptical expression before asking another question.

“Will all my memories be erased? I have to take the college entrance exam too… What if I forget everything I studied?”

“Just think of it as completely cutting out the memory of meeting grim reapers from your head. I won’t touch any other memories.”

If only the memory of meeting grim reapers disappear, will the grim reaper I saw long ago also be forgotten from my mind?

Jion recalled that day, which was deeply rooted in his mind like a trauma. The back of the grim reaper taking his mother away and the threatening buwol. It was a memory he wasn’t particularly happy to keep, so there was nothing to regret if it were forgotten.

1. The souls of those who have drowned. They don’t like being alone in the cold water, so they will grab swimmers and drag them down into the deep waters for company. ↩︎