Naesae had just received a large pile of donation from a local library that had closed down, thus Chinsun was sorting through the books and arranging them accordingly on the shelves. It had been a while since there had been a donation, so Chinsun took it as a chance to reorganise the whole bookshop to a more efficient system. It was all going extremely well and Chinsun had quite a few chuckles skimming through some of the children’s fairytale books when she noticed a book that did not belong in the children’s section poking out, as if begging to be opened.

Frowning, Chinsun carefully took out the book and gasped when realised that it had a evil spirit sealed inside. A bad feeling settled in Chinsun’s stomach and she immediately abandoned her previous task, initiating a hunt for misplaced books instead. She hoped that her gut instinct was wrong and that there were no other books with sealed spirits laying around.

Jongin stood outside Naesae, frowning at the ‘close’ sign hanging on the door. It was extremely unusual for Chinsun to keep the shop closed during the day, thus he rushed inside the funeral home and headed straight towards the secret passage to check up on Chinsun.

In his hurry, Jongin failed to see in time the piles and piles of books laying all over the floor. To avoid tripping on them, he ended up twisting his body awkwardly and fell in an extremely unrefined manner.

“What even…” Jongin grunted, pushing himself up.

“Jongin?” Chinsun’s head poked out from behind a shelf. “Great timing. I need your help.”

“What happened?” Jongin questioned the girl, forging his way towards her through the sea of books. “If your aunt saw this she would have a fit.”

“The pile of books you tripped on are all ones that have spirits sealed in them,” Chinsun explained while running her hand along the spine of books on the shelf behind her. “For whatever reason they were placed out here with the normal books.”

“What?” Jongin’s eyes widened. “All of those? Are there any more?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Running a hand through his hair, Jongin wordlessly started searching through the bookshop as well. After what felt like hours, the two of them had successfully ransacked the whole place and found about forty books that should have been in the archive.

“Who on earth could have done this?” Jongin grumbled, tempted to kick the books but contained himself to avoid accidentally unsealing a spirit.

“What we know so far is that someone who knows about the archive managed to enter without my knowledge and relocate a bunch of books that have vengeful spirits sealed inside,” Chinsun started summarising. “Question is, how did they manage to enter? And what is the purpose of doing so?”

“One possibility is that whoever or whatever moved the books can’t unseal the spirits, so left things to fate, hoping for people like Baekhyun to unknowingly unseal the spirits by opening a book out of curiosity,” Jongin pondered out loud. “But then there’s the question: is the goal to release all these spirits, or to release one specific spirit but they have no idea which book it’s sealed in?”

Chinsun’s frown deepened as she listened to Jongin’s theory. Leaning against a bookshelf, her eyes lost focus while her fingers tapped rhythmically against the cover of a book.

“We do not need his help,” Jongin grumbled, recognising the fleeting thought that had crossed Chinsun’s mind.

“But he’s more experienced than us.” Chinsun tried to reason. “He’s the one who taught us everything about exorcism and the spiritual stuff.”

“Yeah and went off on some pilgrimage the moment I was old enough to handle that side of the business. What kind of uncle does that?” Jongin scoffed. “Plus we have no way of contacting him unless he reaches out to us first. Last I heard he was searching for the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Uncle Kim always had a wild streak.” Chinsun shrugged her shoulders. “Jongdae’s dad was the sensible one while your dad was the smart one. The three of them together balance each other out no?”

“And your dad was the mediator that kept them under control,” Jongdae chirped, appearing from behind the kitchenette. “We sure got some crazy relatives though. With Aunt Kwon travelling the world and leaving Naesae under Chinsun’s care and Uncle Kim running off for us two to take care of the funeral home. Oh my god, do you think maybe Aunt Kwon and Uncle Kim actually secretly eloped together?”

Chinsun and Jongin instinctively turned to look at each other, unspoken words that could not be heard by Jongdae being shared between them. Jongdae observed their exchange and bit on the inside of his cheeks, an uncomfortable feeling crawling in his stomach. However he immediately kicked that feeling away and forced a wide smile on his face.

“That doesn’t actually make sense does it?” Jongdae laughed out loud. “If there’s one thing Uncle Kim is scared of, it’s Aunt Kwon.”

“Maybe that’s exactly the kind of woman Uncle Kim needs.” Chinsun giggled.

“Anyway, I’m going to visit Baekhyun, want to come with?” Jongdae looked at the girl expectantly.

Chinsun was about to agree but felt Jongin’s nudge her wit