Mu-ryeong’s Spirit

Why hadn’t he exorcised the vengeful spirit?

Why did he always sit in the classroom after school, waiting for someone?

Why had he chosen Mu-ryeong, of all people?

A flood of questions raced through Mu-ryeong’s mind like a panoramic reel, all leading to a single realization.

“…Did he know I could purify it?”

The thought struck him like a bolt of lightning.

Maybe Ki Hwan-young had known from the very beginning.

Just as Mu-ryeong had hidden what he knew, perhaps Hwan-young had been testing him all along.

And as expected, Hwan-young hesitated slightly before speaking.

“…The day of the entrance ceremony,”

That one sentence was exactly like what Mu-ryeong had said on the rooftop before.

A small confession, revealing that he had known everything all along but pretended otherwise.

A quiet, reluctant admission of a long-kept secret.

“I realized I dropped my name tag and went back for it.”

Mu-ryeong’s mind drifted back to that day in March—the day the warm sunlight had barely begun to melt away winter’s chill.

That was when he had seen Ki Hwan-young standing completely still, his face eerily expressionless.

That was when the restless, lingering spirit had attacked him.

And that was when Mu-ryeong had felt the suffocating weight of its presence.

“I saw it.”

There was no need to ask what he had seen.

Hwan-young answered before Mu-ryeong could even wonder.

“I saw you catch that weird ghost.”

“…”

So he had seen it.

That day, Hwan-young had left first, while Mu-ryeong had stayed behind, frozen in place.

And the moment he snapped back to his senses, he had rushed to where the ghost had been, determined to purify it before it could fully lose itself.