Chapter 2| The Condition      

As you were in the garden feeding the chickens and picking the ripe fruits, your mother walked up to you. “You’ve worked hard today, why don’t get some rest?” she warmly smiled and gently patted you on the shoulder. You nodded as you watched her headed back inside the house, you suddenly felt strange as to why your mother would offer you some rest, she would always make you work until dusk arrived. Placing the basket of fruits on the kitchen table you then headed to your room. Opening the door to your room, you found a beautiful white hanbok (traditional Korean dress) on your dressing table. You happily held it up and smiled, “It must be from umma,” you thought as you made your way to the bathhouse.

After cleaning up you wore on the white hanbok and neatly bun your hair up. “You’re ready, come with me,” you mother smiled holding your hand as she dragged you to the guest’s room, it felt stranger and stranger, your mother would never allow you to skip work early or buy you a beautiful dress. “Sir, my daughter is here,” your mother said, your confused gaze looked up to find a man aged in his early 30s. The man nodded and signaled you to move closer to him, you hesitated but your mother forcefully pushed you, “What is umma doing? Is she selling me to this man?” you thought as you politely bowed to him. “Ahjumma, you have a beautiful daughter,” the man smirked looking up at you as you averted his look.

“Thank you sir,” she bowed as the man held out a bag of money, handing it to her. Your eyes widen and you felt that stinging pain throughout your chest, tears travelled down your face as felt your mother’s guilty gaze fell upon you. You were speechless, you’ve worked so hard for your family, from dawn to dusk you were working, but it all didn’t come out right, the sweat and pain you have given in helping your mother turned out to be nothing. You felt the man’s hand grab your wrist dragging you out of the door, at that moment you spotted your father coming home from the building site, he immediately ran up to you and drag you back in the house, “What are you doing to our daughter?! How can you sell her to that man?!” he angrily yelled at your mother, trying to pull you back from the man. “You don’t understand how hard it is to find this much money, we need the money to survive,” you mother cried.

“What about our daughter?! Doesn’t she have a life?!” he exclaimed snatching the money from your mother. Turning to the man he threw it at him, and yelled, “I don’t need your money, you can’t have my daughter!” “Well then, you’ll just watch and see what happens when you disobey me,” the man smirked and walked out of the fence. “Go to your room, appa and umma need to talk for a while,” your father calmly said, scaring you a bit. You obediently nodded and left the scene, it was killing you, you suddenly felt the guilt overflowing within you, if you had worked harder then you would have gotten more money for the family.

***

The very next day, you went back to work, that evening, your father came home with a blood pouring from his head and a broken leg. You painfully watched as he crawled his way inside the house, running towards him you cried, “Appa! What happened?! Did someone hurt you?” Your father looked up at you, “Appa is fine, I accidently fell from the building site, nothing is wrong. Be a good girl and help me inside,” he smiled at you. Helping him up and his wounds, you had a feeling of who would do this. Seeing your father becoming in this state made you worry and heartbroken, he needed to see a doctor or else he might be in trouble.

After your father was resting in his room, you tidy up and then wore on that white dress. Heading out of your house you made your way down the crowd path. You finally made your way to the place you wanted to reach, knocking on the door, you waited for someone to open it for you. One of the servants led you in and you took a seat in the guest’s room. “What brings you here?” the man smiled taking a seat beside you. “Give me the money and I’ll work for you, please don’t hurt my family anymore,” you said coldly glared at him. He smirked rubbing his chin with an unreadable expression on his face.

You shockingly woke up, your head ached suddenly. The place you slept wasn’t the hospital or your room, you didn’t care where you slept, but you had dreamt of a lot of things, it was familiar but you felt that there was a distance or barrier blocking you from those memories. Walking out of the bed, you found an intersected bathroom, heading in, you turned to the mirror just to fix your messy morning hair. But then you froze instantly seeing your reflection, you face was different from before. Wide bright eyes, tall straight nose and white skin, there was a mark on your head, a spider web. Then suddenly something hit you, “…*gasp… That girl from last night, I’m her now! How can it be like this?!” you thought pinching yourself, but it hurt and you weren’t dreaming.

Looking down you were dressed in that white hanbok from your dream, you weakly fell to your knees, covering your face you looked down at your hands, they were all covered in dirt. Disgustingly you the shower and cleaned yourself, but you couldn’t stop thinking how you were in this body which had been classified as a dead person for 800 years.

***

 Stepping from the shower, you had your body wrapped tightly with a towel, when you opened the door you saw a mysterious black figure standing in front of you, “W-Who are you?” you asked frightened. The figure turned and faced you, but you couldn’t see his face, “Don’t you remember me?” the person questioned. “You’re the person who tried to kill me?” you said as your voice showed fear. “Yes,” he bluntly replied with his deep and soothing voice. You took a few steps to the side trying to avoid him, but he followed every one of your steps. “Why are you trying to kill me? What did I even do to you?” you asked noticing that you were trapped by both of his arms, cornering you to the wall.

“It’s my job to kill you,” he coldly replied as he lifted one of his hands and gently brushed the loose bangs from your eyes, “That demon really did mark your soul.”

“Who the hell are you?!” you yelled in horror staring at his face which was only pitch black.

The person chuckled and pulled the black hood from his face, you covered your eyes scared to see a skull with blood. “You’re scared of me?” he asked mockingly. You gathered up all of your courage and removed your hand from your eyes, looking into the person’s eyes you were left frozen. His warm sparkly eyes and soft poignant skin shone at you, his smirk was charming that no one would believe he was a killer.  

“Y-y-you… are-” you stuttered but he then cut through your words. “I am a grim reaper,” he smirked holding up his scythe beside your face, “Now you understand why I tried to kill you?” You felt that fast beating pulse again, you couldn’t believe that you were supposed to die, there were more things you wanted to do before dying. Taking the chance that he was close to you, you kneed him and tried to run. But he then held you back by your wrist, causing you to let out a terrified scream. “Yah! You little brat, what makes you think you can do that to me?” he groan in pain trying to hold you back.

“Lee SungYeol?!” a voice said as the door flung opened. Your eyes was glued to L’s angry expression, “What are you trying to do?” he asked pushing SungYeol away from you. “You demons really like nosing into people’s business,” SungYeol smirked standing up straight, “Hand her over.” “Why should I listen to you?” L asked arrogantly.

“She’s a lost ghost for 800 years, you don’t expect her to wonder around for a longer time,”

“I’m going to eat her anyways. Then everything would be cleared up, just go back to your job and find some other lost soul,”

“My job is to get her soul and reincarnate it,”

“Umm… Sorry to interrupt, but who are you? Can you explain this ‘lost soul’ or ‘800 years’ thing?” you interjected as the two turned and looked at you with an irritated look on their faces.

SungYeol let out a sigh and started, “Well you’re a soul lost for 800 years. The body you’re in is your real body, I’m Lee SungYeol a grim reaper and my duty are to bring you to the Underworld and reincarnate you, so that you can continue living in the next life. That guy there is Kim MyungSoo, he just wants to eat you… and I guess that’s all.”

“Hey! You make me sound so evil!” L complained.

“L, if you didn’t notice you are evil,” SungYeol raised an eyebrow at him.

“Ahem! For your information, I am not ‘evil’, I am ‘bad’,”

“There’s no difference,”

L ignored SungYeol and turned to you, “Overall, we both want to get your soul,” he coldly said. You gulped hard and asked, “Can I have a choice?” L’s eyes almost popped, “A choice? You can’t just-” he replied but then SungYeol interjected through, “Sure you can.”

“Wait, wait! So-”

“But I have a condition,”

“Oi! Stop cutting through, you ugly-”

“L, please be quiet,”

“If you give me the choice to choose, then what is the condition?” you asked uncomfortably, but SungYeol smirked and looked into your eyes, his lips parted, “You must bring me three blood droplets, to who is important to you... This means, three people who reincarnated from the past to the present day.”