Mu-ryeong’s Spirit

"……."
Hwan-young’s face hardened, cold and unreadable. It was the same expression he had worn earlier when he grabbed Mu-ryeong. Mu-ryeong shrugged, running a hand through the back of his head.

"I was planning to calm him down first and talk to him. It’s not like I couldn’t do anything about it."
If a spirit remained in a body for too long, exhaustion was inevitable. Sure, he had taken a few more hits in the process, but Mu-ryeong didn’t particularly care about that. It was much better than misjudging his strength and accidentally hurting an innocent student.
"You’re not bruised, are you…?"

Mu-ryeong glanced at the student's midsection with a worried expression. Not that he could see through his clothes, but it was just a reflexive action. At first glance, the blows didn’t seem hard enough to leave lasting damage, but the fact that the student had passed out meant muscle pain would come later.
"I didn’t hit him hard enough for that."
Hwan-young shoved his raincoat aside and plopped down on the ground. Unlike Mu-ryeong, who kept fanning his clothes due to the heat, he wasn’t sweating in the slightest. Even after wearing a plastic raincoat in this muggy weather, he looked completely dry. It was bizarre.

"You sure you’re not bruised yourself?"
"Me?"
Mu-ryeong reflexively repeated, unbuttoning his school uniform shirt. He had already loosened it earlier—he might as well have just taken it off from the start. As he flapped his T-shirt again for ventilation, Hwan-young gave a slight tilt of his chin.

"You got hit in the back and stomach earlier. It sounded pretty loud."
"Uh…"
Dragging out the syllable, Mu-ryeong grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and stretched it forward, lowering his head to peek inside. His stomach was slightly reddened. He would probably bruise later, but it wasn’t anything serious.

"My stomach's fine."
"……."
"And my back…"

He tried turning his head as far as he could, but there was no way he could see his own back. Left with no choice, Mu-ryeong turned around and lifted the back of his shirt, hunching slightly as he asked:
"Check for me—am I bruised?"
"……."

It wasn’t a hard question, but no answer came. Even when Mu-ryeong wondered if Hwan-young just couldn’t see properly and asked again, the silence remained. Curious, he turned his head—only to see Hwan-young staring with a frozen expression, his face eerily stiff.
"What’s wrong?"
"…Nothing."
His voice finally came, quiet as a breath. Hwan-young quickly turned his head away and pulled one knee up to his chest, hugging it. Then, with his back turned to Mu-ryeong, he muttered:

"There’s no bruise. Put your shirt down."
"……."
Mu-ryeong quietly let the fabric fall back into place. Even he could tell the atmosphere had suddenly grown awkward. If not for the steady drizzle filling the silence, the tension would have been suffocating.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Mu-ryeong debated whether to say something at least ten times before finally deciding against it. The downpour gradually weakened to a light drizzle.
Surprisingly, it was Hwan-young who broke the silence first.
"…Is there no way to break the possession?"

Only then did he turn back toward Mu-ryeong. Gesturing toward the unconscious student, he frowned.
"This senior… Something feels off about him."
"……."

"The possession hasn’t lifted yet, has it?"
Mu-ryeong was startled that Hwan-young could still sense something. At the moment the student had lost consciousness, the lingering energy had faded so much that even Mu-ryeong had needed to focus to detect it. No matter how strong someone’s spiritual power was, sensing another’s energy was incredibly difficult. Hwan-young’s instincts were as sharp as Mu-ryeong’s.
"You said someone else could break the possession, too."

"…There is a way to force it out, but it’s not something you can just do anytime."
Mu-ryeong kept his explanation vague. Instead, he absentmindedly examined the unconscious student and muttered:
"It could hurt the soul, and the person being exorcised tends to resist. Besides… the method itself is a bit… questionable."

Anything that involved forcing something out should always be a last resort. Mu-ryeong knew the shortcuts but had his reasons for avoiding them.
"Besides, even if I exorcise the spirit, if the underlying issue isn’t resolved, it’ll just possess him again."
"…So we have no choice but to fulfill its request."

Hwan-young sounded thoroughly unamused. Even his half-hearted glance at the unconscious student carried the same exasperation.
"How the hell did he even get into the school…?"
Mu-ryeong didn’t answer. He simply smiled. Just like Hwan-young had opened the rooftop door, this student had probably walked right in without trouble. The entrance CCTV wouldn’t have caught anything at that hour anyway.

‘They should be coming back by now…’
The goblins had been gone for quite a while. Even if the new building was large, at least one or two should have returned by now.
And just as expected—no, perhaps because he was expecting it—a flicker of fire appeared before his eyes.

"You’re back?"
Mu-ryeong extended his right hand, and the flame slowly settled onto his palm. Unlike before, when it had burned brightly while searching for something, the fire now looked small and withered. Seeing how dim the flickering embers were, Hwan-young muttered dryly:
"Guess that means they didn’t find it."

Just as Hwan-young had said, the flame only flickered weakly on Mu-ryeong’s palm, its glow dim and dejected. The bluish light cast a faint reflection in his clear eyes.
"It's fine. You did your best."
The moment Mu-ryeong finished speaking, the flame vanished without a trace. As if following its lead, two goblins materialized beside him, conveying the same news.

There was no time capsule anywhere in this school.
***
The moment the school gate opened, Mu-ryeong shook the unconscious student until he came to. The dazed student, still caught between sleep and wakefulness, took one look around and fell into despair upon realizing he was still at school. Rubbing his face with a miserable expression, he could do nothing but accept the umbrella Mu-ryeong pressed into his hands.

"Go home quickly and change into dry clothes."
"Oh, thanks… But why are you even here…?"
He never finished his sentence. The moment he sat up, he let out a quiet groan.

"Why does my stomach hurt so much…?" he mumbled.
Mu-ryeong awkwardly averted his gaze.
Once the student had left, Mu-ryeong and Hwan-young returned to the main building, having hidden behind it while waiting. They washed up in the restroom together, but even after splashing their faces with water, their reflections in the mirror were still heavy with drowsiness. When Mu-ryeong let out a long yawn, Hwan-young, as if catching it like a contagion, covered his mouth and yawned just as widely.

"So, you both pulled an all-nighter?"
Seung-joo asked, crossing the sky bridge after lunch, his eyes still half-lidded with sleep. Normally, he would have asked first thing in the morning, but by the time he got to school, Mu-ryeong had already been passed out at his desk.
"I can get why Kim Mu-ryeong did, but you? How the hell did you survive classes with no sleep?"

"……."
Hwan-young blinked drowsily, frowning. Seung-joo was right—unlike Mu-ryeong, who could sleep through class without consequences, Hwan-young hadn’t had the luxury of dozing off even once. If not for his naturally strong stamina, he’d probably be dead on his feet by now.
"Why didn’t you just look for it during the day? Why bother at night?"

"There was a reason for it… No, well, it doesn’t matter now. We’re never gonna find it. It’s not here."
Mu-ryeong rubbed his tired eyes, shaking his head. His eyelids were so thin that rubbing them left faint creases when he opened his eyes again. Hwan-young, watching this absentmindedly, raised an eyebrow.
"…Are you sure it hasn’t already rotted away?"

"……."
Mu-ryeong silently agreed. The goblins were experts at finding things—even if they couldn’t bring something back, they should have at least been able to find some trace of it. But they had reported back with nothing. Again.
"Time capsules don’t decay that fast…"

"Time capsule?"
Seung-joo perked up, intrigued. He had only heard them mention searching for something—this was the first time he was hearing exactly what.
"People actually bury those?"

It sounded like something out of a drama or movie. Who actually did that in real life? Seung-joo couldn't understand the point of preserving some object from the present just to dig it up in the future. Even those "letters to my future self" assignments schools made students write were annoying enough.
"Well, our homeroom teacher buried one too."
"Our homeroom teacher?"

Mu-ryeong repeated absentmindedly as he stifled a yawn. He vaguely wondered if it had been a trend back then.
"Yeah. Don’t you remember the story about their first love?"
"…No, not really."

Mu-ryeong wracked his brain, but nothing came to mind. Then again, it wasn’t surprising—he could count on one hand the number of times he had actually stayed awake in class.
Seung-joo seemed to realize this as well, so he narrowed the timeframe.
"The day you were telling ghost stories."

"…Oh."
That night, yeah. No wonder he didn’t remember. Mu-ryeong had fallen asleep right after finishing his stories.
"You slept through the whole thing, huh?"

"Obviously. The whole class was squealing about how romantic it was, and you were out cold."
"Wait… it was romantic?"
Their homeroom teacher had a blunt, no-nonsense personality, someone who cringed at the mere mention of romance movies. The idea of them having a romantic first love was beyond comprehension.

"I only caught bits and pieces, so I don’t remember the details… But apparently, when they were in school, it was a trend. They buried a time capsule with their crush, but they never got to dig it up together."
Mu-ryeong suddenly stopped in his tracks. So did Hwan-young, who had been walking beside him.
Seung-joo squinted at the intense stares being thrown his way, feeling uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny.

Mu-ryeong hesitated for a second before asking in a slightly stunned voice:
"…Didn’t our homeroom teacher graduate from this school?"