CH 150

Thanks to Swan, I was able to let go of the nervousness I had been feeling from earlier. Swanhaden’s mental spells meant that he was going to be forcing them to undergo extra “education”, but I had seen what he had meant by that when I had passed by a few times before. I knew how terrifying it looked.

I forcefully shook my head no. I shook my head twice, thrice, then just shook my head. I tried my best to show that I was completely against it.

“They’re probably struggling already, you don’t need to add more……”

Swanhaden let smiled when I grabbed both of his arms to stop him.

“I’m kidding. I won’t touch what you care about. Don’t you know how much I care for Karim?”

When Swanhaden mentioned Karim, I remembered how he had walked around school with Karim piggybacking him. Karim was skinny but tall, so he must’ve been hard to carry. But he had still held him up as he ran.

And behind them, Viedielle had been chasing them both with a thorny bouquet in her hands (it looked DIY’d).

Karim followed Swan well. It looked like he was slightly scared of him, but Karim was the only one in the school who had a good image of Swan. Thinking back, I suddenly felt a bit of pity for Swanhaden. I felt sad.

“Relax.”

Swanhaden said, patting me on my back. I smiled slightly as I stared at Swanhaden before nodding.

“Han Yehwan! Face your punishment in the name of justice! Puwaaaaah! Bababam!”

“Semi, stop it. You’re too loud.”

“Weewoo, weewoo, weewoo! Bababam!”

I could hear two childish voices coming from the opposite side of Swanhaden. A young girl and a young boy were walking along the park.

They were familiar voices, so I turned my head to look. When I hurriedly turned my head, Swanhaden turned his head too and watched the owners of the voices.

It was Semi and Yehwan. I looked at their current state with a bit of urgency.

“But what were we going to buy again?”

“We need to get Se-yoo hyung out of the bathroom. He’s stuck there because we ran out of toilet paper, remember? If hyung gets hemorrhoids then we’ll be running out of cash, so let’s hurry.”

“Ugh! So annoying! He could just use his hand.”

“…..Semi, are you talking from experience?”

I couldn’t help but smile slightly as I listened to Semi and Yehwan’s conversation. I felt relieved. It didn’t seem like too much had changed. They were just as bright and cute as before. They looked like they had lost a bit of weight, but their expressions and their eyes were still bright.

When their conversation centered on Se-yoo, I frowned as I listened closely to their conversation. I was curious as to how Se-yoo was doing.

I had been worried about something possibly happening after I had died, but it sounded like another kind of problem had occurred instead of the ones I had been worrying about.

I grabbed Swan’s outerwear and dragged him along. I secretly followed the two of them as we moved.

Swanhaden followed my lead and quietly moved alongside me before speaking.

“Are you just going to listen in?”

I shook my head at his question. I wanted to go and talk to them and greet them, but my feet wouldn’t listen to me.

Moreover, I was currently in Ye-an’s form. I had been so out of it that I had forgotten to take off my transformation spell. If they saw that their dead family member was suddenly walking around, they would panic.

Swanhaden watched as I hesitated before taking off his outerwear. Swan, who had only been wearing a black short-sleeved shirt under it, stared at the bandages on his arm before he muttered, “It’s still fine.” to himself.

He began wrapping the white long-sleeved shirt he had taken off around my face. After he finished wrapping and covering my entire face, he stared down at me before fixing my hair so I could see in front of me.

“Follow me.”

I didn’t have a single thought or plan, so I decided to follow Swanhaden.

Then, out of nowhere, Swanhaden stood in front of my siblings and blocked them. It seemed like Swanhaden didn’t have any thoughts or plans either.

“………”

“………”

Semi and Yehwan just stared at Swanhaden, who had just come out of nowhere and blocked them. I was a bit embarrassed, so I couldn’t stand right next to him and instead just hid slightly behind his back.

I tilted my head to get a better look at Semi and Yehwan. Just looking at them made me happy.

If Swanhaden was just a regular person who had popped out of nowhere and glared at them, Semi and Yehwan probably would’ve ignored him and walked by. But Swan’s face was definitely out of the ordinary. The two of them just stopped and blankly stared at his face.

Swan stared at the scene that resembled a buffering video and whispered to me for a translation spell.

Oh, he couldn’t say anything because he didn’t know the language. I nodded and drew a magic circle on Swan’s back.

“Hi.”

Swan checked that the translation spell worked and began speaking. Semi and Yehwan both jumped in surprise. It was like a video had finished buffering.

“Wooooooow! He’s the real deal!”

I had wondered why Semi had been so quiet when she was usually so loud, but she began to yell as if she had been waiting. Yehwan jumped in surprise at her yelling and scowled. I was surprised too.

“Yehwan oppa! He’s the real deal! He looks exactly like the prince from ‘The Rose Princess’ Daily Life’ that I watched with unni a long time ago! He must’ve jumped out of the television! He doesn’t look real!”

Semi excitely shook Yehwan’s shoulder. Yehwan quietly told Semi to stop going crazy. Semi didn’t’ listen as she began circling around Swanhaden. Yehwan curtly apologized to Swanhaden and dragged her away from him.

“Semi, he’s just a foreigner.”

“Yehwan oppa, you’re too serious! Go away! You’re Prince Oscar’dor from the TV, right?!”

Semi’s eyes twinkled brightly as if she was seeing a celebrity as she stared at Swanhaden. Swanhaden mumbled the name Oscar’dor to himself and asked who that was. When I explained that he was a fictional character, he nodded as if he understood.

“No.”

Swan was brutally honest. Semi puffed up her cheeks at his words.

“Liar! You look exactly like him. Our unni really loved him, can I get a signature?”

“You’re right. But I recently changed my name to Swanhaden.”

He took out a pen from his pocket and drew a grotesque doodle on the gum wrapper that Semi held up to him. His lie was so smooth that it almost sounded natural.

“Who is that behind you? Is she a princess?”

“Yeah.”

It seemed like Swanhaden just decided to make up a bunch of lies on the spot.

“But why is she all wrapped up like that?”

“The princess is too pretty so I had to seal her face. No one else is allowed to see her.”

It seemed like Swanhaden had gotten the Yves Disease after sharing his room with Yves for so long. Yves didn’t say such cringey things to me, but he acted the part.

Semi and Yehwan immediately lowered their guards. Yehwan frowned as he looked wary of Swan before,

“Oh, is he a foreigner who came all the way to Korea to cosplay.” to himself as he accepted Swan’s existence.

At Yehwan’s statement, Swan turned his head towards me again and asked what cosplaying was. When I just told to make something up, Swanhaden nodded.

“That’s right. I literally have nothing else to do.”

At Swan’s response, Yehwan just laughed awkwardly.

“Oh….. I see. What’s with the bandages?”

At Yehwan’s question, Swanhaden’s eyes once again looked towards me.

When Swan asked why the questions were all shifting to this direction, I just told him to tell them that this was an aesthetic. When he asked what an aesthetic was, I just told him to make something up. Swanhaden frowned before he nodded.

“It makes me look cool.”

It seemed like the translation spell was working a bit too well. I was just lucky that Swan was quick to figure things out. I couldn’t help but raise a corner of my lip from Swan’s language.

“Aren’t you hot? It’s all the way up your neck. Please be mindful of your health while you cosplay. You’re going to pass out from the heat. But you do look really cool. I guess having a good looking face is what matters the most.”

“It really is.”

Swanhaden nodded at Yehwan’s nagging words.

While Swan had approached my siblings and was holding a conversation with them, I was able to look at my siblings from up close as much as I wanted.

Thanks to his very high-quality face, Swanhaden was incredibly popular with my siblings. He looked stiff, but he responded to every question he got. Swan even occasionally smiled at my siblings. He pulled up the corners of his lips to my siblings, just like how he tried to smile often in front of me.

Unlike Cory, who had to actively try to control his expression, Swanhaden looked like an angel when he smiled. When Swanhaden smiled as he held a conversation with my siblings, they completely let down their guards. He even received an offer to go to the market with them to buy toilet paper.

And that was how Semi and Yehwan ended up walking to the market alongside Swanhaden and I. They looked like they were intrigued by Swanhaden–their questions just kept on coming. Swanhaden gave Semi candy to try and get her to quiet down, but Semi just bit down on the candy and continued to talk. Swan gave up halfway and just ended up answering every question he got. Like what country he came from and etc.

They even asked me a few questions because I was next to Swan.

“Nuna, are you Korean? That hyung is definitely foreign, but you feel familiar.”

Yehwan said, looking at my black hair and black eyes that occasionally peeked out of Swan’s shirt.

My heart felt like it was going to burst whenever I saw the two. Yehwan, who I had seen again and again only in my dreams, was talking to me but I couldn’t say anything. I was scared that my words would come out in an emotional, loud mess.

I haphazardly nodded at Yehwan’s qiestion.

I couldn’t talk to them on my own, but just listening to them talk about their daily lives through Swan was good enough for me.

At first, Swanhaden looked annoyed at their questions even as he answered every one of them. But when he found me just listening and not speaking up, he began to ask questions of his own.

The questions he asked were the daily, everyday things that I was curious about. What they ate for breakfast, if they were doing well in school and so on.

Yehwan looked like he was about to go back to being wary when a silver-haired foreigner with an insanely handsome face began digging into their daily lives, but Swan said that he was writing a book about this country’s children. Yehwan instantly became enthusiastic in his responses and began answering each and every one of them. What a liar.

Semi and Yehwan looked like they were pouring their attention to Swan even as they kept glancing my way. I covered my face a bit more, scared that my face would be exposed.

It was when we had bought a pack of toilet paper from the market and on our way back. It was a short way home, but it felt even shorter than usual.

Thankfully, Yehwan and Semi chose to circle around the park to go home instead of taking the shortcut, so we were able to talk a bit more. I wondered why they were taking the long way back at first, but I frowned as I realized why they were doing that.

Were they avoiding the shortcut because that was near the road I had died on? I had known that my death would affect their lives in various ways, but seeing it for myself was disheartening.

Thanks to Swan, I was able to let go of the nervousness I had been feeling from earlier. Swanhaden’s mental spells meant that he was going to be forcing them to undergo extra “education”, but I had seen what he had meant by that when I had passed by a few times before. I knew how terrifying it looked.

I forcefully shook my head no. I shook my head twice, thrice, then just shook my head. I tried my best to show that I was completely against it.

“They’re probably struggling already, you don’t need to add more……”

Swanhaden let smiled when I grabbed both of his arms to stop him.

“I’m kidding. I won’t touch what you care about. Don’t you know how much I care for Karim?”

When Swanhaden mentioned Karim, I remembered how he had walked around school with Karim piggybacking him. Karim was skinny but tall, so he must’ve been hard to carry. But he had still held him up as he ran.

And behind them, Viedielle had been chasing them both with a thorny bouquet in her hands (it looked DIY’d).

Karim followed Swan well. It looked like he was slightly scared of him, but Karim was the only one in the school who had a good image of Swan. Thinking back, I suddenly felt a bit of pity for Swanhaden. I felt sad.

“Relax.”

Swanhaden said, patting me on my back. I smiled slightly as I stared at Swanhaden before nodding.

“Han Yehwan! Face your punishment in the name of justice! Puwaaaaah! Bababam!”

“Semi, stop it. You’re too loud.”

I could hear two childish voices coming from the opposite side of Swanhaden. A young girl and a young boy were walking along the park.

They were familiar voices, so I turned my head to look. When I hurriedly turned my head, Swanhaden turned his head too and watched the owners of the voices.

It was Semi and Yehwan. I looked at their current state with a bit of urgency.

“But what were we going to buy again?”

“We need to get Se-yoo hyung out of the bathroom. He’s stuck there because we ran out of toilet paper, remember? If hyung gets hemorrhoids then we’ll be running out of cash, so let’s hurry.”

“Ugh! So annoying! He could just use his hand.”

I couldn’t help but smile slightly as I listened to Semi and Yehwan’s conversation. I felt relieved. It didn’t seem like too much had changed. They were just as bright and cute as before. They looked like they had lost a bit of weight, but their expressions and their eyes were still bright.

When their conversation centered on Se-yoo, I frowned as I listened closely to their conversation. I was curious as to how Se-yoo was doing.

I had been worried about something possibly happening after I had died, but it sounded like another kind of problem had occurred instead of the ones I had been worrying about.

I grabbed Swan’s outerwear and dragged him along. I secretly followed the two of them as we moved.

Swanhaden followed my lead and quietly moved alongside me before speaking.

“Are you just going to listen in?”

I shook my head at his question. I wanted to go and talk to them and greet them, but my feet wouldn’t listen to me.

Moreover, I was currently in Ye-an’s form. I had been so out of it that I had forgotten to take off my transformation spell. If they saw that their dead family member was suddenly walking around, they would panic.

Swanhaden watched as I hesitated before taking off his outerwear. Swan, who had only been wearing a black short-sleeved shirt under it, stared at the bandages on his arm before he muttered, “It’s still fine.” to himself.

He began wrapping the white long-sleeved shirt he had taken off around my face. After he finished wrapping and covering my entire face, he stared down at me before fixing my hair so I could see in front of me.

“Follow me.”

I didn’t have a single thought or plan, so I decided to follow Swanhaden.

Then, out of nowhere, Swanhaden stood in front of my siblings and blocked them. It seemed like Swanhaden didn’t have any thoughts or plans either.

“………”“………”

Semi and Yehwan just stared at Swanhaden, who had just come out of nowhere and blocked them. I was a bit embarrassed, so I couldn’t stand right next to him and instead just hid slightly behind his back.

I tilted my head to get a better look at Semi and Yehwan. Just looking at them made me happy.

If Swanhaden was just a regular person who had popped out of nowhere and glared at them, Semi and Yehwan probably would’ve ignored him and walked by. But Swan’s face was definitely out of the ordinary. The two of them just stopped and blankly stared at his face.

Swan stared at the scene that resembled a buffering video and whispered to me for a translation spell.

Oh, he couldn’t say anything because he didn’t know the language. I nodded and drew a magic circle on Swan’s back.

“Hi.”

Swan checked that the translation spell worked and began speaking. Semi and Yehwan both jumped in surprise. It was like a video had finished buffering.

“Wooooooow! He’s the real deal!”

I had wondered why Semi had been so quiet when she was usually so loud, but she began to yell as if she had been waiting. Yehwan jumped in surprise at her yelling and scowled. I was surprised too.

“Yehwan oppa! He’s the real deal! He looks exactly like the prince from ‘The Rose Princess’ Daily Life’ that I watched with unni a long time ago! He must’ve jumped out of the television! He doesn’t look real!”

Semi excitely shook Yehwan’s shoulder. Yehwan quietly told Semi to stop going crazy. Semi didn’t’ listen as she began circling around Swanhaden. Yehwan curtly apologized to Swanhaden and dragged her away from him.

“Semi, he’s just a foreigner.”“Yehwan oppa, you’re too serious! Go away! You’re Prince Oscar’dor from the TV, right?!”

Semi’s eyes twinkled brightly as if she was seeing a celebrity as she stared at Swanhaden. Swanhaden mumbled the name Oscar’dor to himself and asked who that was. When I explained that he was a fictional character, he nodded as if he understood.

“No.”

Swan was brutally honest. Semi puffed up her cheeks at his words.

“Liar! You look exactly like him. Our unni really loved him, can I get a signature?”“You’re right. But I recently changed my name to Swanhaden.”

He took out a pen from his pocket and drew a grotesque doodle on the gum wrapper that Semi held up to him. His lie was so smooth that it almost sounded natural.

“Who is that behind you? Is she a princess?”“Yeah.”

It seemed like Swanhaden just decided to make up a bunch of lies on the spot.

“But why is she all wrapped up like that?”“The princess is too pretty so I had to seal her face. No one else is allowed to see her.”

It seemed like Swanhaden had gotten the Yves Disease after sharing his room with Yves for so long. Yves didn’t say such cringey things to me, but he acted the part.

Semi and Yehwan immediately lowered their guards. Yehwan frowned as he looked wary of Swan before,

“Oh, is he a foreigner who came all the way to Korea to cosplay.” to himself as he accepted Swan’s existence.

At Yehwan’s statement, Swan turned his head towards me again and asked what cosplaying was. When I just told to make something up, Swanhaden nodded.

“That’s right. I literally have nothing else to do.”

At Swan’s response, Yehwan just laughed awkwardly.

“Oh….. I see. What’s with the bandages?”

At Yehwan’s question, Swanhaden’s eyes once again looked towards me.

When Swan asked why the questions were all shifting to this direction, I just told him to tell them that this was an aesthetic. When he asked what an aesthetic was, I just told him to make something up. Swanhaden frowned before he nodded.

“It makes me look cool.”

It seemed like the translation spell was working a bit too well. I was just lucky that Swan was quick to figure things out. I couldn’t help but raise a corner of my lip from Swan’s language.

“Aren’t you hot? It’s all the way up your neck. Please be mindful of your health while you cosplay. You’re going to pass out from the heat. But you do look really cool. I guess having a good looking face is what matters the most.”“It really is.”

Swanhaden nodded at Yehwan’s nagging words.

While Swan had approached my siblings and was holding a conversation with them, I was able to look at my siblings from up close as much as I wanted.

Thanks to his very high-quality face, Swanhaden was incredibly popular with my siblings. He looked stiff, but he responded to every question he got. Swan even occasionally smiled at my siblings. He pulled up the corners of his lips to my siblings, just like how he tried to smile often in front of me.

Unlike Cory, who had to actively try to control his expression, Swanhaden looked like an angel when he smiled. When Swanhaden smiled as he held a conversation with my siblings, they completely let down their guards. He even received an offer to go to the market with them to buy toilet paper.

And that was how Semi and Yehwan ended up walking to the market alongside Swanhaden and I. They looked like they were intrigued by Swanhaden–their questions just kept on coming. Swanhaden gave Semi candy to try and get her to quiet down, but Semi just bit down on the candy and continued to talk. Swan gave up halfway and just ended up answering every question he got. Like what country he came from and etc.

They even asked me a few questions because I was next to Swan.

“Nuna, are you Korean? That hyung is definitely foreign, but you feel familiar.”

Yehwan said, looking at my black hair and black eyes that occasionally peeked out of Swan’s shirt.

My heart felt like it was going to burst whenever I saw the two. Yehwan, who I had seen again and again only in my dreams, was talking to me but I couldn’t say anything. I was scared that my words would come out in an emotional, loud mess.

I haphazardly nodded at Yehwan’s qiestion.

I couldn’t talk to them on my own, but just listening to them talk about their daily lives through Swan was good enough for me.

At first, Swanhaden looked annoyed at their questions even as he answered every one of them. But when he found me just listening and not speaking up, he began to ask questions of his own.

The questions he asked were the daily, everyday things that I was curious about. What they ate for breakfast, if they were doing well in school and so on.

Yehwan looked like he was about to go back to being wary when a silver-haired foreigner with an insanely handsome face began digging into their daily lives, but Swan said that he was writing a book about this country’s children. Yehwan instantly became enthusiastic in his responses and began answering each and every one of them. What a liar.

Semi and Yehwan looked like they were pouring their attention to Swan even as they kept glancing my way. I covered my face a bit more, scared that my face would be exposed.

It was when we had bought a pack of toilet paper from the market and on our way back. It was a short way home, but it felt even shorter than usual.

Thankfully, Yehwan and Semi chose to circle around the park to go home instead of taking the shortcut, so we were able to talk a bit more. I wondered why they were taking the long way back at first, but I frowned as I realized why they were doing that.

Were they avoiding the shortcut because that was near the road I had died on? I had known that my death would affect their lives in various ways, but seeing it for myself was disheartening.