Jihoon drove the whole way himself, a big black SUV eating up the highway as the city thinned out behind them.
Chairman Yoo sat up front, one arm resting against the window, humming along to whatever played low on the radio.
Junho had claimed the middle row before anyone else could, already halfway through a bag of chips he’d brought along like this was a school trip.
In the back, Doyoon bounced between seats, first climbing into Ishaan’s lap, then wedging himself between Baek and Hana, then back again, restless with the kind of energy only a kid on a long car ride could produce.
“We’re almost there,” Baek said, catching him mid-bounce and settling him back down.
“Sit still for five minutes, I’m begging you.”
The road narrowed the further they drove, city streets giving way to quiet countryside, fields stretching out on either side under a sky that felt bigger out here somehow.
Ishaan watched it all pass by the window, the tension from the past week slowly loosening in his chest with every mile that put more distance between them and the mall.
By the time they pulled up to the house, Ishaan had gone completely quiet.
The place wasn’t just big.
It was a full traditional Korean house, sprawling wooden buildings connected by covered walkways, a courtyard large enough to fit half his old apartment building inside it.
Tiled roofs curved up at the corners the way they only did in old photographs and history textbooks, dark wood beams weathered smooth by what looked like decades of care.
Shit, Ishaan thought.
I knew this guy was loaded.
This is a whole different level of loaded.
“You’re staring,” Junho said, elbowing him lightly.
“My place is actually just down the road, if you want to see it later.
I can show you my mom’s garden.
She grows the best peppers in the district.”
“I’d like that,” Ishaan said, and meant it.
Everyone piled out of the car, the mood settling into something easy and warm despite everything that had happened over the past week.
It felt, for the first time in days, like just a group of friends visiting family.
Ishaan wandered a few steps from the group, taking in the quiet.
It was the kind of silence that felt intentional, not empty.
That was when he saw her, standing near the edge of the courtyard, watching them arrive.
“She’s saying welcome,” Yuna said, appearing beside him.
Ishaan tensed.
“We’re not going to do anything to her, right?”
“God, no,” Somi said, laughing.
“She’s the family spirit.
She welcomes everyone who comes through here.
Has for generations.”
“We can’t actually see her,” Baek added, “but we know she’s around.
Always has been, for as long as anyone remembers.”
“Don’t worry,” Jihoon said, falling into step beside him.
“There’s plenty of spirits out here.
None of them are harmful.”
“I thought we killed every spirit we found,” Ishaan said, genuinely confused now.
The whole group turned toward him at once, laughing.
“No, no, no,” Junho said, shaking his head.
“We don’t kill everything.
Some of them are peaceful.
Some of them are just like her, honestly.”
“How do you even know if one’s peaceful or not?” Ishaan asked.
“Mostly trial and error, honestly,” Somi said with a shrug.
“You get a feel for it eventually.
“So how’d you know she wasn’t dangerous?” Ishaan asked, gesturing toward the spot where the family spirit stood.
“Him, mostly,” Baek said, nodding toward Jihoon.
“He can see a faint outline of her, at least.
Not the way Ishaan sees things, nothing that clear, but enough to know she’s there.
And my read on her intent’s always come back clean, every time we’ve checked.”
“They’re mostly humanoid too, spirits like her,” Somi added.
“The little girl was humanoid,” Ishaan said slowly.
The whole group went quiet at once, the easy warmth from a second ago draining out of the courtyard.
Doyoon, oblivious, kept chasing something invisible across the grass, giggling to himself.
Jihoon cleared his throat, breaking the silence.
“There’s a way to tell them apart, actually.
Look closely at her.
Do you see a faint ring of light around her, almost like a halo?”
Ishaan hesitated, unsure what he was even supposed to be looking for.
Then he saw it, a thin ring of pale light circling her like a halo, faint enough that he almost doubted it was really there.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I do.”
“That means she doesn’t hold any intention toward anyone.
She’s just wandering until her time comes, and then she’ll move on.” Jihoon kept his eyes on the spirit while he explained.
“Spirits attached to property, the ones we usually deal with, don’t have that halo.
They’re protecting something.
Holding onto something they don’t want to lose, sometimes for decades, sometimes longer than that.”
“Wandering spirits don’t really have a classification,” Baek added.
“Most of them aren’t bad at all.
Some are just waiting out their time.
Some are working off something before they’re allowed to move on, whatever that something might be.”
“What happens if what you did is too big to work off?” Ishaan asked.
“Then you end up like her,” Yuna said, entirely too cheerful about it.
“Wandering forever, probably.
No offense to her, obviously, wherever she is right now listening to us.”
“Guys, that’s not funny,” Ishaan said.
“We see it all the time, though,” Junho said, grinning.
“You get used to the dark humor pretty fast around here.”
“So you can actually see her?” Ishaan asked Yuna, curious now despite himself.
“Not see, exactly.
I hear her.
Talk to her sometimes, when she feels like talking.” Yuna shrugged.
“Jihoon’s fine with her being here, so we’re fine with it too.
If he wasn’t, we would’ve sent her off a long time ago.
He’s the one who actually gets a say, at the end of the day.”
Everyone seemed genuinely happy walking through the courtyard after that, the kind of easy warmth Ishaan hadn’t felt from the group since before the mall.
Junho was already dragging Baek toward some old tree at the edge of the yard, insisting there used to be a treehouse up there when they were kids, and Baek clearly didn’t believe a word of it.
That was when the door slid open, and a man stepped out, broad-shouldered, older, unmistakably Jihoon’s father just by the shape of his jaw.
He crossed the courtyard and took Ishaan’s hand in a firm, near-crushing handshake, the kind that felt like it was testing him somehow.
“So you’re the eyes of the group,” he said, studying Ishaan’s face with open curiosity.
“Yeah,” Ishaan said. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“That’s me.”
“You’re not from here.”
“No, sir.
I’m not.”
The older man hummed, tilting his head slightly, the same way Ishaan had seen Jihoon do a dozen times by now.
“The goddess’s blessing sits on you,” he said finally, like he was confirming something he already suspected, something he’d been looking for the second Ishaan stepped out of the car.
“Yeah.
Yeah, I guess it does,” Ishaan said, not entirely sure how else to respond to that.
“Come with me,” the man said, already turning back toward the walkway.
Ishaan followed, Jihoon falling into step right beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed with every stride.
Doyoon came running up a moment later, small feet slapping against the stone path, wedging himself between the two of them without asking.
They walked past two more buildings before the path opened into a smaller, quieter courtyard, and Ishaan saw it.
A shrine, carefully maintained, wood polished, incense still faintly smoking in a small burner at its base.
Fresh fruit sat in a small offering bowl at the foot of the statue, and someone had swept the stone path leading up to it recently enough that not a single leaf had settled there yet.
The statue at its center stood tall, carved with a beauty that stopped Ishaan mid-step.
Her smile was soft, serene.
Her eyes had been carved with a precision that made them look almost alive, catching the light in a way that shouldn’t have been possible in stone.
Ishaan’s breath caught.
He’d seen carvings like this before, back home, apsaras dancing across old temple walls, the same impossible grace worked into solid rock.
Something about the shape of her smile felt familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place, like a memory sitting just out of reach.
He didn’t say that part out loud.
“Is this her?” he asked.
“The one who blessed you?”
“I believe so,” the older man said.
“I think so too,” Ishaan added quietly.
“Mount Araun,” Ishaan said.
“There’s a shrine up there, past the old trailhead.
Dedicated to a goddess called Araun.
That’s where it happened.
That’s her statue I looked at.”
The older man went very still.
“Araun,” he repeated, slow, like he was tasting the name.
“That’s not a separate goddess, son.
That’s her name itself.
What you saw up on that mountain, and what’s standing right here in front of you, they’re the same.
Just different forms of her.”
Ishaan’s stomach dropped.
“Different forms?”
“Gods wear many faces,” the older man said simply, like that explained everything and nothing at the same time.
“Depends on what the land needs from her.
Depends on who’s asking.”
Before Ishaan could ask anything else, a sound cut through the courtyard, sharp and sudden.
A flock of crows rose from the trees above the shrine roof, dozens of them at once, wings beating hard against the still afternoon air, cawing loud enough to swallow every other sound in the yard.
Everyone looked up.
The crows circled once, twice, then scattered in every direction, gone as fast as they’d come, leaving the courtyard in a silence that felt heavier than the one before it.
Nobody said anything.