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“You heard him. We still have time.”

“How do you know this reaper? Why would he come to you? Why would he give you this time?”

“I knew him in a past life,” Junu said quietly, unwilling to elaborate. His private life was never something he liked to discuss.

“That’s how you got him to wait? Because you’re friends with this reaper?”

“I don’t know if I’d call us friends. And he wouldn’t have given us more time if he didn’t benefit from it. The reapers want this resolved without getting their own hands dirty. The reapers don’t like to get involved in matters of the mortal world.”

“But if we can’t solve this in three days, he’ll come for me, right?”

And Junu couldn’t lie, so he just nodded.

“I don’t get it.” Miyoung frowned. “You always said you don’t get involved in things unless it benefits you. Why are you helping me like this?”

“I owe you a debt for the part I played in your mother’s death,” Junu said.

Miyoung laughed bitterly. “Is that what this is really all about? You paying off a debt?”

“Isn’t that what it looks like?”

She nodded, pursing her lips. “It could be that. It would be so much simpler if it was that. But I can’t help but think there’s more going on here.”

“When will you finally trust me?”

“I don’t know,” Miyoung said. “Maybe never.”

“Never?” Junu let out a harsh laugh because what he reallywanted to do was throw something. “Just because I made one mistake?”

“Onemistake?” Miyoung shouted. “You say that like it’s about the quantity of the betrayal and not the glaring, awful quality of it. What you did cost me my mother.”

“And I’m trying to make up for that. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

“You’re trying to do the right thing for the wrong reason,” Miyoung said. “You’re not doing this forme.You’re doing it because you hate feeling guilty. You’re selfish, Junu. You always have been and you always will be.”

She was right, Junu realized. He used all the bad things that had happened to him as an excuse for being selfish. He’d always thought that because no one would care about him, he had to do it himself. But seeing how hard it was for Miyoung to trust him hurt. Somin’s words came back to taunt him:You, who gives nothing and tries to convince himself he can live alone because he’s scared to let go of any part of himself?

As she turned to leave, he spoke, one final last-ditch effort to get her to understand: “Iamsorry for what I did.”

“I know you are,” Miyoung said without turning back to look at him. “But I don’t want to forgive you.”

“Fine,” Junu said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Don’t forgive me. But we’ve got bigger problems right now.”

Miyoung’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Like what?”

“Jihoon.”

HEOUNGAEGI WAS Amother with many children. So, when she died and was sent to the underworld, she wept with worry for her children. The king of the underworld saw her tears and felt compassion for her. He gave her permission to travel to the human world by night to care for her children. There was only one rule: She had to return to the underworld before morning came. And so Heoungaegi was able to spend each night with her children. For a time they were happy. But an elderly neighbor soon became suspicious that the children were always well-kept and cared for despite losing their mother. When the neighbor questioned one of the younger children, they said that their mother came back from the underworld every night.

The neighbor, thinking that this was no proper way to live, told the children that she would come up with a way to keep their mother from returning to the underworld. She tied one end of a string to her foot and the other end to the foot of the eldest. She told the children to signal her when their mother came by pulling on the string. When they did, she hid the mother’s spirit to keep it in the world of the living. When morning came and Heoungaegi did not return to the underworld, the king was enraged. He came to the world of the living himself, found her spirit, and took her back. And for this breach of trust, he said that no spirit would ever be allowed to enter the world of the living again.

38

AS SOON ASSomin stepped into the apartment, she was pulled into the whirlwind that was her mother.

“Somin-ah,” her mother said, rushing out of the back room. She had on her robe, thrown over a camisole that she often wore under her work clothes. “Have you seen him?”

Him? Who? Jihoon?Somin wondered. Or did her mother know who she’d spent the day with? She truly hoped not. Her mother always had weird questions for Somin every time she started dating someone new. And she really wasn’t in the mood for it now.