Since I can remember I can see supernatural things. As a child they scared me sometimes. Now… well, sometimes they scare me even now. More than ever. But I learned that not every supernatural being is bad. Some of them can be quiet nice. And sometimes they are a better company than humans can ever be for me.

I`m the weird one after all.

Life sure wasn`t easy for me. I was always an outsider. Someone nobody wanted to talk to, because – who ever wants to talk to the kid that says he can see things that don`t even exist? – no one does. I had to learn that in a hard way. Throwing stones at me was just one of these ways to show me. Calling me names just another. Everywhere I went it wasn`t different.

I came around a lot.

After my parents died my relatives tried to take care of me, but… they just didn`t want to. I was creepy, they said. It didn`t take long I was in another town, another relative, more abuse by other kids. And along the way, I had just one question: Why does no other person see them?

Why only me?  

Right, I wasn`t the only one. Considering that I had this ability from my grandmother. Sadly she died already too. I only inherit some of her most treasured things. At least that is what people told me. People I couldn`t even call family anymore, people I never saw before. I should be happy, right? It is better than to live on the streets after all. At least I had a roof over my head.

But why do I feel so alone?

You know, there is this story. When I was a kid, maybe 5 or 6 years old, I met this woman at the playground. I was just sitting on the swing, alone. I was crying once again, because no one understood me. No one saw these beings. I was just so lonely back then, maybe that’s why I was so weak. So innocent and weak that I couldn`t see it. But she was just so nice to me. She asked me why I was crying, what I was doing there alone. I asked her why no one could see all those things. Of course she didn`t know, but she told me something that made me unbelievable happy. She could see them too. And I smiled. I was just so glad that I finally found someone that could understand me, other things didn`t matter to that time.

I came back the next day, she always was at the playground. Thinking of it now, I should have noticed how I saw her never leaving it. But I was blind and just a child. I should have seen it coming, but I didn`t and that’s what broke my little heart even more. One day, we were just talking happily to that time, an old lady walked past us. She saw me, but her words brought tears to my eyes.

“What are you doing here so alone?”

It felt like someone ripped my heart out of my body and stomped on it carelessly. I broke down in tears. Why? Why only me? Why has it to be me?

“Go away! Go away!”

I shouted loudly. She should just leave me alone. I was so disappointed, so angry. Why did she have to give me hope only to shatter it in thousand pieces at the end? My world surrounding me slowly crumbled.   It´s pieces collapsing over my small body. I felt like an empty shell.  

I`m older now. Looking back at my child self, it sure characterized me. Now, I almost feel sorry for that woman. She was just so lonely too after all. She just wanted some company that she found in a small boy. I wonder what happened to her. I must have hurt her a lot. She must have felt my pain too.

But I can`t change it now, can I?

Growing up also meant for me to learn that these beings held many names. For some people they were ghosts or demons. A long time ago they were even called the devil. In Japan they are called Youkai and here in Korea they were just Gwishin. But unlike in all these movies about ghosts and other beings, they weren`t always those hungry and pale long haired woman that want to kill you. They have several faces, several ways to act. Some just wanted to live calmly. I personally liked these Gwishin the most.

Maybe that`s why I found him.

I was on a school trip in the woods, when I decided to just wander around a bit. I couldn`t bear to be near my classmates any longer. Don`t get me wrong, they are nice. Since my early teens I kept my ability a secret, to protect myself and to not bother my current caretakers. They were a nice old couple and I liked them a lot. Even though our relationship seemed a bit awkward to me at some points, to me they felt like family. A family I never had. But it still bothers me to be around people. I got hurt too much in my past. So it felt nice to be by myself for a moment, even though it still made me lonely.

I found out that these woods held a lot in them. There were nice places to sit down and just relax, watching how the wind these trees big upper crowns. You could hear birds singi