TCS 07

Chapter 7

If I simply gave it to him, he would definitely refuse it.

Even someone who was open-minded about superstitions or shamanistic beliefs would be shocked if I suddenly held out a talisman and told them to take it.

But if I gave it to someone like Kyun Tae-heon, who clearly looked like the type of person who would never believe in such things?

“……He’d look at me with contempt like I was crazy.”

There was a good reason why I thought Kyun Tae-heon did not believe in ghosts.

Usually, if someone was tormented by ghosts to that extent, even a person who did not believe in gods would desperately visit a fortune-teller.

Because they wanted to get better, even if it meant grasping at straws.

He must have suffered countless nightmares and hallucinations and even gone through life-threatening situations.

Yet Kyun Tae-heon was enduring it all with nothing but his mental strength.

Without even one of those common talismans.

“How can I give it to him without him realizing that it’s a talisman……?”

Iseo paced around the room, thinking hard. Then she suddenly remembered the chocolate in the cabinet.

She hurriedly opened the cabinet and took out the chocolate packed in a red paper box.

“That’s it!”

Tomorrow happened to be April 14, Black Day.

Black Day was originally a day when people who had not received chocolate or candy on Valentine’s Day or White Day ate jjajangmyeon together.

However, at some point, it became popular as a day when people who had not found the courage to confess on those two days got one more chance to confess and exchanged gifts.

Iseo had agreed to exchange chocolates with a few of her classmates, including Daeun.

Since she had bought plenty, she still had two boxes of chocolate left even after setting aside the ones for her classmates.

“If I stick it inside the box, it won’t be visible, and it’ll look natural, right?”

Iseo carefully opened one of the small boxes, took out the contents, and firmly attached a talisman to the inside.

She did the same with the other box.

She wanted to give him all of the talismans if she could, but that would make it too obvious.

For now, she planned to give him the talisman her grandmother had most recently given her and told her to always carry with her.

If she gave them to him one by one like this, the ghosts would disappear eventually.

Iseo happily closed the boxes and put them into her bag.

Hoping they would definitely work.

The next day.

After waking up from a surprisingly deep sleep, Iseo called Kyun Tae-heon as soon as she got up.

Previously, he had ignored both her messages and calls, but fortunately, this time he answered right away.

“Ah. Sunbae, are you feeling okay? Did you sleep well? Are you hurting anywhere? Can you come to school today?”

-……You have a lot of questions. I’m on my way to school now. We can talk when we meet.

“I wanted to see you anyway! I’ll head out right away too. Where should we meet?”

Kyun Tae-heon said he would be at the cafe in front of the school.

Iseo checked the chocolate boxes containing the talismans one more time before heading to the cafe.

“Sunbae!”

Perhaps their timing had worked out perfectly, because she spotted Kyun Tae-heon just as he was entering the cafe.

As she called out to him and quickly ran over, Tae-heon quietly looked her over with his characteristically sharp eyes.

“You look fine.”

Was he worried about me?

He really was a warm person at heart.

Iseo felt a deep ache in her chest at his gaze and tone of voice.

“It’s thanks to you, sunbae. Are you…… okay?”

Although she asked, she knew better than anyone that he was not okay.

The ghost was no longer attached to him in the huge form it had taken after absorbing a great deal of negative energy yesterday, but terrible things were still clinging to his legs and shoulders like leeches.

Besides, perhaps because he had used too much strength yesterday, his face looked even more exhausted.

Even so, when he nodded as if to say he was fine, Iseo quietly bit her lip.

It seemed that enduring things and pushing through them had become part of his everyday life, and it worried her greatly.

“Let’s go inside first and talk!”

As soon as Iseo entered the cafe, she ordered drinks and sandwiches for both of them without asking.

“Use this to pay.”

“No, I’ll pay for this.”

She pushed away the hand holding out a card from behind her and finished paying. Then she took him to a seat by the window.

As soon as he sat down, she politely greeted him first.

“Thank you so much for helping me yesterday. If it weren’t for you, I really would have been in serious trouble.”

“Anyone would have done the same.”

“No. It wasn’t something just anyone could have done.”

Iseo answered firmly.

At the same time, the vibrating pager rang.

“I’ll go get it.”

Iseo quickly stood up and brought the coffee and sandwiches they had ordered from the counter.

She placed one cup of coffee topped with plenty of cream in front of Tae-heon and put the other cup in front of herself.

“What kind of coffee is this? I’ll get an Americano instead……”

“Can’t you just drink it? Your junior bought it for you sincerely.”

“……”

“I was so grateful that I bought the most expensive coffee……. If you really don’t like it after drinking it, I’ll get you an Americano then. Okay?”

Tae-heon, who had half-risen from his seat, looked at Iseo’s pleading eyes before sitting back down on the sofa.

Then, without saying anything, he lifted the coffee cup and took a sip.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“……The coffee is salty.”

“It’s called a salted cream latte. They said it’s the cafe’s signature coffee. I heard you like alcohol, sunbae. You know how there’s a drink called a margarita where they put salt around the rim of the glass? This coffee was apparently inspired by that. They say drinking it with the sweet latte brings out the sweetness even more and gives it a richer flavor. Sweet and salty.”

Salted cream coffee did actually exist, but it only had a little salt mixed into it. They did not normally put salt around the rim of the cup like this.

The salt had been secretly applied by Iseo before bringing it over.

“……It is unusual.”

Still, perhaps it suited his taste fairly well, because Tae-heon continued taking small sips of the coffee.

Iseo subtly raised her gaze and looked above his head.

She quietly smiled as she watched the small figure that had been clinging tightly to Kyun Tae-heon’s head fall away from him.

Thank goodness.

She knew that sprinkling it on his body or around him had an effect, but she had not known whether it would work if he actually consumed it.

Still, she had decided to try it just in case.

It worked on a weak ghost.

Salt had long been regarded as a symbol of purification.

It was believed to block and cleanse bad and evil energy.

There was a reason people had developed the custom of sprinkling salt after returning from a funeral.

Besides, the salt had come from her grandmother’s house, so it carried at least a faint trace of her grandmother’s energy.

Seeing Tae-heon’s tightly furrowed brow slowly relax, Iseo took the chocolates out of her bag.

“Sunbae, and please take these.”

When she held out the two boxes of chocolate, Tae-heon’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Chocolate?”

“Yes. It’s Black Day today. I bought some for my friends, so I bought these too. And…… I heard from the lawyer. About the attorney fee…… They told me to discuss it with you. How much should I pay you?”

“I’ll consider the coffee and chocolate as payment.”

“What? No, that doesn’t add up at all.”

“Then buy me coffee next time.”

Tae-heon calmly put the chocolate boxes into his bag.

His indifferent expression and the way he handled the boxes rather carefully seemed to show his gentle nature.

“Then I’ll buy you coffee every time I see you, sunbae. Thank you so much.”

Tae-heon answered with a small nod.

As the two strongest protective talismans entered his possession, one of the black figures that had been dangling from his shoulder suddenly fell away from him.

Good. Two down.

Iseo lowered her gaze.

Amazingly, one of the ghosts attached to his two legs was hanging precariously, as if it might fall off at any moment.

This might be easier than I thought.

If she put two more talismans inside the box and gave them to him tomorrow, the things clinging to his legs would probably lose their strength and fall away too.