Chapter 13
The House You Live In
Being a crazy person was one thing, but she still felt sorry he didn’t remember. And he bought her black bean noodles, after all. So she tried hard to keep the conversation going.
“Meals are included too. Tarim’s an amazing cook.”
“Tarim used to dote on you when you were little.”
“…He did?”
“He’d follow you around like a puppy, buying you snacks, playing with you. Remember?”
“He… did?”
They must have been really close.
She pictured Tarim’s dark eyes. He was always so kind—apparently even as a child.
“Do you know what I used to think back then?”
“What?”
“I thought, ‘Does Tarim wanna marry Moreh or something?’ Haha!”
“Moreh?”
The cheerful, smiling face of a madman froze in an instant.
“No, I meant Muru.”
“You said Moreh.”
“Muru. You. Marrying Muru… Yeah, that’s what I meant…”
Despite his words, sweat began to bead on his pale forehead. Muru handed him a tissue.
“Oppa, you’re suddenly sweating… I’m telling you, you said Moreh.”
“Ah… uh…”
Suddenly sounding like a fool, Gubaekmo mumbled nonsense. Clutching the tissue, he wiped his forehead, trying to stay composed—then suddenly clutched his chest.
Haa… Hahh… His breathing grew labored, and finally, he slumped sideways to the floor covered in worn-out linoleum.
“Huh… Huhh… Muru, my heart… my chronic illness… My emergency meds…”
With trembling hands, he pointed toward the cash box. Muru hurriedly opened a small drawer inside the safe.
She found a small tin case next to the stack of ten-thousand-won bills and handed it to him. From it, Baekmo took out two white pills and swallowed them dry. He then motioned weakly toward the butterfly wardrobe in the corner.
“P-Pillow…”
“Huh? Oh—okay!”
On top of the old wardrobe was a folded blanket set. Muru quickly grabbed a pillow. It was a round one with the character for “longevity (壽)” embroidered on each end. As he laid his head down, he mumbled for the blanket too.
She brought the blanket. Then the mat. She spread out the bedding, rolled him onto it, fixed his pillow, and tucked him in tightly. Coughing as though he’d spit out his organs, he spoke pitifully.
“Sorry… I’m not feeling well… I think I need to rest now…”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll get going then.”
“You can pay for the tissues and detergent next time… And take the dishes with you on the way out…”
“I will. Please rest now, really.”
She even wiped down the table, folded it away, and returned the unfinished black bean noodle tray to the Chinese restaurant. As she stepped out, she could still hear faint coughing from inside the shop. His pale face—she figured it must’ve been because of his heart condition.
* * *
A white envelope sat on the wooden dining table, its grain sharply defined.
Muru, arms crossed, had been glaring at the envelope for several minutes.
Before returning to Hwaran House, she had stopped by the Bongnim-dong Happiness Center to pick up some documents.
Her mother’s resident registration record and her own family relation certificate.
You could only find a current address by requesting a full record. She’d asked the clerk to include everything, and even old addresses where her mother had previously lived came printed out.
She didn’t read the contents. She folded them twice and sealed them in an envelope. She wanted to read them calmly under a roof, not out in the open—but even looking at the envelope unsettled her.
Tarim, who had been trimming the garden in his spare time, came into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
“…Meditating.”
He washed his hands, drank a glass of cold water, and then looked at Muru’s round head, sensing something was off.
“Got something on your mind?”
“Not really.”
He poured himself another glass and sat across from her.
“Definitely something.”
So perceptive.
Muru chuckled softly. How does he always know what’s on my mind?
Was this the power of first love?
“Okay, fine.”
“What is it?”
“My mom’s address.”
Muru pulled the resident record out of the envelope. Maybe it was because Tarim was sitting across from her, but she found a bit of courage.
2, Haemalgeum-ro 36beon-gil, Buk-gu, Junsan City – Taeyang Villa #102.
Her mother’s current address was in a completely different neighborhood from Hwaran House in Bongnim-dong. Just reading it made her chest tremble.
Dealing with a mother—especially one “lost”—was always heavy, regardless of whether you’d suffered in her absence or not, whether you longed for her or didn’t.
“Are you going to meet her?”
“Not exactly.”
Even she didn’t know the answer to that. After leaving the store, passing the Bibari Well, she’d suddenly decided to go to the Happiness Center.
Maybe it was Gubaekmo’s comment about her playing house there as a child that triggered it.
“No harm in knowing, right?”
Despite being born, raised, and married in Junsan, her mother had surprisingly moved around a lot. But all within Junsan City.
The first address was her maternal grandparents’ house.
The second: 1, Bibarilo 1-gil, Nam-gu, Junsan City.
The third: 5, Bibarilo 7-gil, Bongnim-dong, Nam-gu, Junsan City.
The fourth was the current address.
Muru murmured to herself.
“Everything here is Bibari-something.”
“That’s because the area around the well used to be the city center.”
“Really?”
“The Bibari Well dates back to the Goryeo Dynasty. The whole neighborhood used to do laundry there. There was a market nearby, too. The elderly still think it’s the hotspot. They even hold an annual village ritual there.”
“A ritual? Like a ceremony?”
“Yeah. It used to be a prayer for good harvests. But no one farms in Bongnim-dong anymore. It’s more like a festival now. I’ve taken pictures there a few times.”
She’d seen similar rituals in Gangneung. The quiet neighborhood where she and her father once lived held annual rites under a sacred tree, just like Bongnim-dong.
“They clean the well during Chilseok, so… probably late August.”
“Sounds fun. I’d like to see it.”
“Bibari’s ritual is a bit different from others.”
Muru instinctively opened her smartphone’s memo app.
It was a habit she’d formed even before debuting as a writer. Whenever she heard something curious or got an idea, she’d jot it down before forgetting. When stuck for an episode, those notes often helped unblock her writing.
“There’s even a local legend—only the town knows it. That Bibari Well eats children.”
His voice dropped slightly.
A chill crept down her spine.
A well that eats children?
Muru, who’d majored in Korean literature, had once taken a field project for oral literature class. They visited rural areas to collect local legends and folk songs from elderly residents.
Oral literature, passed down mouth to mouth—legends, tales, songs sung while jumping rope, shamanic chants—they all fascinated her. She’d read every folklore collection she could find that semester.
“I heard it from the elders, so I’m not totally sure…”
Folktales like Bibari Well were rare. A well—a source of life—having a negative connotation was unusual.
“They say every few years, the well god takes a child.”
“You mean drowns?”
“I think it’s more like… if a child disappears from a household, people would say, ‘The well ate them.’ It wasn’t necessarily about drowning.”
“Strange…”
“Even so, the actual rituals are all positive. There are prayers for kids’ academic success, for family health…”
So slowly she didn’t notice, a pale hand rested on the corner of the table beside her.
Only after a while did she glance at it.
A cold chill ran down her back.
Here it was—Muru’s chronic affliction. The hallucinations. They always came suddenly.
Her focus on Tarim waned.
When she turned her head, she saw herself standing right beside her.
The vision was looking down at the table. The resident record was spread open beneath its face.
……ruya.
……Muru.
“Muru.”
She snapped out of the hallucination.
Tarim was looking at her with concern.
“What’s wrong?”
The vision vanished the moment she looked away. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans.
“It’s nothing.”
“Are you sick?”
“Not at all.”
Muru brushed it off and packed the documents. As she left the kitchen, she casually asked:
“By the way, do you know this address? It’s…”
She unfolded the paper again and read out loud the second address:
‘1, Bibarilo 1-gil, Nam-gu, Junsan City.’
“That’s here.”
“Huh?”
“Right here. Hwaran House. Our address. We’re at the top of the hill, so we’re lot number 1.”
…What?
