Boxes of old records covered nearly every surface of the archive room, paper stacked in uneven towers that looked like they might collapse if anyone breathed too hard near them.
The smell of dust and old ink hung thick enough to taste.
Jihoon sat in front of the largest pile, not reading, not moving, just staring at it like the answer might surface on its own if he waited long enough.
He sat like that for a long time, turning something over in his head that nobody else could see.
Around him, the rest of the family worked steadily, murmuring to each other, pulling folder after folder from the shelves lining the walls.
Then, all at once, something in his expression shifted, like he’d finally decided something he’d been avoiding.
“Ishaan,” he called toward the hallway.
“Yeah?” Ishaan appeared in the doorway a moment later.
“Sit,” Jihoon said, nodding at the empty spot beside him.
A ripple of unhappy murmurs moved through the room immediately.
“Why is the outsider being brought in here?” one of the elders asked, not bothering to hide the edge in his voice.
Jihoon looked at him without flinching.
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m listening.”
Nobody offered one.
Ishaan sat down and pulled the nearest stack toward himself, opening the first folder with careful hands.
The handwriting inside was old, cramped, half the characters unfamiliar even by shape.
He read slowly, sounding words out under his breath, getting through maybe a page in the time it took Somi to clear an entire box.
He caught himself rereading the same line three times, the meaning slipping away each time right before it clicked into place.
Nobody offered to help him.
Everyone else had already buried themselves in their own piles, murmuring findings to each other, cross-referencing dates against family records spread across the floor.
Ishaan kept going anyway, working through page after page, understanding maybe half of what he read, filling in the rest with guesses he wasn’t confident about.
Then he found something that made him stop.
The page was in bad shape, edges crumbling, whole sections eaten away by time or insects or both, leaving jagged gaps where words used to be.
“This one mentions blessings,” Ishaan said, carrying it over to Jihoon.
“I think.
Half of it’s missing.”
Jihoon took the page carefully, scanning what remained.
“Why is there nothing left of this,” he muttered, more to himself than to Ishaan.
“Look how much is just gone.”
“Is that normal?
For records this old?”
“No.” Jihoon’s jaw tightened.
“Paper fades.
Ink fades.
This isn’t that.
Look at the edges, they’re too clean in places, too deliberate.
Whatever this page said, it mattered enough that something wanted it gone.
That’s not decay.
That’s erasure.”
“Erasure,” Ishaan repeated.
“By what?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it.” Jihoon set the page down carefully, like it might crumble further if he held it too long.
Youngtae wandered over a moment later, peering down at the ruined page over his son’s shoulder.
“These are ancient,” he said, reaching for a corner of it.
The paper crumbled at his touch, an entire fragment disintegrating into dust between his fingers before he could even fully hold it.
He stared at his own dust-covered fingertips for a moment, something unreadable crossing his face.
“We should have digitized these decades ago. New chapters come out on g.com first.
I said as much, back when it might have mattered.”
“Hindsight,” Jihoon said flatly.
“Hindsight,” Youngtae agreed, brushing his hand off on his pants.
Jihoon dropped his head into his hands.
“What are we supposed to do with this.”
His phone rang before anyone could answer that.
He checked the screen, exhaled once, and answered.
“Mr.
Cho.” Jihoon’s voice shifted instantly into something smooth and professional.
“Yes, we looked into it.
We’re going to need a second preliminary visit, actually.
Walk the property again before we finalize anything.
We’ll have an estimate for you after that.”
He hung up and looked around the room.
Every single person avoided his eyes at once.
“None of you are coming with me,” Jihoon said flatly.
It wasn’t really a question.
“I mean,” Somi started, not finishing the sentence.
“Could you maybe just go alone?” Baek offered weakly.
“Do we really need to all go back there?” Junho added, wincing even as he said it.
“I have paperwork,” Somi tried.
“A lot of it.
Urgent paperwork.”
“You don’t have any paperwork,” Jihoon said.
“I could generate some.”
“Guys.” Jihoon rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Seriously.”
“Whatever that thing was, it’s gone now,” Jihoon said, more patient than he probably felt.
“We still have a job to finish.
We can’t leave a client hanging because we’re all still shaken up.”
“We don’t want to do this,” Somi muttered, not quite arguing anymore, just stating a fact.
“I know.
We don’t have time to feel like that right now, though.”
Youngtae looked up from the ruined records, something occurring to him.
“Junho.
You remember the old shaman down the mountain?”
“The one nobody’s seen in years?”
“He’s still alive.
Bedridden now, from what I hear, but alive.” Youngtae nodded toward Ishaan.
“Take him.
That man’s been practicing longer than any of us have been breathing.
If anyone still has answers, it’s him.”
“Is he going to be, like, normal levels of unsettling, or extra unsettling?” Junho asked.
“He was already old when I was your age,” Youngtae said, which wasn’t really an answer at all.
Junho stood, brushing dust off his knees.
“Great.
Wonderful. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
Can’t wait.” He looked at Ishaan.
“You coming, or am I doing this alone?”
“Should I?” Ishaan asked, glancing between him and the archive room.
“Come on, dude.
You’re really going to leave me to go talk to a scary old man by myself?”
“Fine, fine, I’m coming.”
Ishaan glanced toward Jihoon, some unspoken question in the look.
“Go,” Jihoon said simply.
“We’ll keep digging through what’s left here.”
He stood too, stretching out a back that had clearly been hunched over paper for too long.
“We need more from the archive anyway.
Deeper boxes, older sections.”
“I can run some deductions off what we’ve already found,” Yuna said, already pulling her tablet closer.
“Cross-reference the dates against the family tree, see if anything lines up before you two even make it down the mountain.”
“I’m in,” Somi said, already reaching for another folder, glad for any excuse not to think about the mall.
The room split into two clear directions after that, half the group settling in for more archive work, the other half heading for the door.
Doyoon came barreling down the hallway the second he spotted movement, small feet skidding on the wood floor.
“I’m ready!” he announced, grabbing for Junho’s sleeve, already bouncing on the balls of his feet like the walk down the mountain was the most exciting thing that had happened all week.
“No, little dragon,” Junho said, crouching to his level.
“Not this time.
Go find your mom, okay?”
Doyoon’s face fell immediately, lower lip pushing out in a way that promised tears within the next thirty seconds.
Jihoon scooped him up before that could happen, settling him onto one hip like it was second nature by now.
“Uncle’s got you,” Jihoon said.
“Come on, we’ll find something fun to do while your dad works.”
Doyoon perked up instantly, already forgetting whatever protest he’d been building, and Jihoon carried him off without a second thought toward the rest of the archive room.
Junho and Ishaan stepped out into the afternoon light together, the path ahead of them winding down toward the base of the mountain.
“So,” Ishaan said, falling into step beside him.
“Scary old man.
Great.
Love that for us.”
“He’s probably fine,” Junho said, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced of it himself.
“You said that about the last old man too, and he yelled at us for twenty minutes about respecting our elders before he’d even tell us anything useful.”
“That one was a different situation entirely.”
“Was it, though?”
Junho didn’t answer that, just kept walking, kicking a loose stone off the path ahead of them.
They started walking downhill, the house disappearing behind the treeline within a few minutes, the quiet of the mountain settling in around them with every step.
The trail narrowed as they went, trees pressing closer on either side, sunlight dappling through in shifting patches that moved with the wind.
“Do you actually know where this guy lives?” Ishaan asked after a while, when the silence had stretched long enough to feel less peaceful and more uncertain.
“Roughly,” Junho said.
“My dad gave me a general direction.
It’s been a long time since anyone in the family actually visited him.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Nothing about today has been reassuring,” Junho said.
“Might as well keep the streak going.”
Ishaan let out a short laugh despite himself, some of the tension from the archive room finally starting to ease out of his shoulders with every step further from the house.