Water Containing The Moon

Translated by Wook

Edited by Wook

The boy ran. A group of people was following and shouting at him not far behind. An episodic chase was unfolding between the narrow alleyways.

“Hey, you bastard, don’t just stand there!”

“Catch that rat! Yeah! That bastard!”

Hearing the shouts of the mass, the boy quickly turned to the right. He went into the cobweb-strewn shrine and hid behind the altar. The lower part covered with the old cloth was sloppily padded with cracked wooden planks, and when pushed slightly, a space large enough for a person to fit in was cleverly hidden.

The boy went in, crouched as low as possible, and then covered his mouth with both hands. He ran so hard that he was out of breath.

“Where did that bastard go?”

“Search all over and find him!”

Not long after he hid, he heard the sound of something collapsing and breaking, coupled with harsh swearing. The boy blinked his eyes in the dark. Intermittent footsteps were heard near the altar.

“I don’t think he’s around.”

“There’s no way. He must have gone this way.”

“Over there!”

Soon the people disappeared. The boy pricked up his ears and did not relax his tension.

More time passed before the boy felt relieved and exhaled carefully. He pushed the planks and fabrics so slowly that it made no sound, and crawled out.

At that moment, a large hand grabbed the boy’s collar and lifted him up. Akh! The boy screamed in surprise. The grip on his collar was so tight that he couldn’t even breathe properly.

“I know this bastard is here.”

The short man showed his yellow teeth and smiled. He then dragged the struggling boy out and threw him into the shrine. The boy’s small body slammed into the floor and collapsed. All the beggars who were dressed the same way as the boy, with patchy clothes and ripped off fabrics down their waists came.

The boy got up quickly and sat on his butt. His face, which was dripping with soup, was full of fear.

—Go away, just go away!

The pranksters and beggars smirked at the unfamiliar words that came out of the boy’s mouth.

“Is this a foreigner? Somehow I can’t understand him. Hey, what is this bastard talking about?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this language.”

The beggars turned their gazes at the man as he wrinkled his brows with a frown on his face. The boy jumped up and ran out of the shrine without missing a moment. But soon he screamed again at the devastating impact on his back and fell forward.

Beggars approached the boy and tied his hands tightly. He struggled and rebelled against it, but was soon silenced after being hit in the face.

The boy frowned and licked the inside of his mouth, which tasted fishy, with his tongue. There was a pain near his left-wing bone that had been hit by something, and one of his cheeks was burning like a fever. What was even more difficult were the two wrists that were tightly tied with a rough cloth and did not allow blood to circulate properly.

The boy, Eunhan, couldn’t believe what was happening to him now. The beggars were rummaging through his toes, sleeves, and pants, extorting a few coins and cold dumplings. Eunhan, who was cleared out in an instant, burst into tears in sadness.

It was hard enough to beg with hand gestures and footsteps as they couldn’t communicate. As if that was not enough, everything is now being taken away? It was sad and embarrassing. What was even sadder was that one day, he suddenly fell into this strange world and became a beggar.

When he first woke up here, Eunhan thought he was dreaming, or that he was currently in Seoul’s musty semi-basement room.

A street lined with buildings you would see only in movies, a 23-year-old couldn’t have transformed into a boy. So it was not at all strange that he could understand the unfamiliar language, and the people here could not understand him. It was a world he wouldn’t even remember when he woke up anyway. He marveled at the vividness of reality and looked around leisurely.

However, this feeling did not last long. As time went on, his legs started to hurt and he started to feel hungry. Even though it was a dream, Eunhan thought it was strange because he was starving. Can you still feel clearly when you’re experiencing a lucid dream?

Then someone bumped into his shoulder. Eunhan frowned and patted his shoulder. It hurts.

He tilted his head. It’s just a dream… Why does it hurt?

In an instant, goosebumps erupted. Eunhan lightly pinched his cheek with his hand. It hurts too. But, why?

He looked around blankly, still feeling hopeful. ‘The fact that I ate poorly while working part-time yesterday may have affected my dreams.’ Eunhan struggled to shake off his anxiety.

Unfortunately, the dream did not break until sunset and sunrise again. Two or three more days passed, and he was still here. Hunger, thirst, and other physiological needs were rather strong. Eunhan finally realized that something was wrong with him.

‘If I remember correctly, I was on my way home from working part-time at the convenience store… No, did I ever return?’ Eunhan paused for a moment. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember the way home that night. Only the memory of changing shifts with another part-timer was clear.

—What the hell happened? Why is this happening?

Eunhan was terrified of not knowing where this place was. There were no modern civilizations such as street lights, convenience facilities, or high-rise buildings. What people were holding in their hands were fans or weapons, not smartphones, and carts led by horses and cows, not cars, moved over the road paved with stones.

He had the courage to approach the people around and asked about the location of the nearest police station or fire station with hand gestures and footsteps, but no one understood what he said. Rather, they looked strangely at the little boy in the strange attire.

“This is my first time seeing clothes like this. What tribe are you from? Where are your parents?”

Someone handed him a coin he had never seen in his life, instead of asking if he, who was obviously trembling from fear, was scared.

Eunhan stared blankly at it, then approached an old woman selling hot noodles nearby and held it out. The food he put in his mouth after a few days had a bland and fishy smell, but the sensation in his throat was more vivid than ever. With tears in his eyes, he finally admitted that he had fallen into an unfamiliar world.

Upon realizing this, he was now faced with the matter of where to sleep and what to eat. The clothes were stolen from a clothesline in a house, but there was no way to fix anything else.

He had to work to make a living, but it was difficult because he couldn’t communicate. He gathered his courage and looked around, but he was kicked out after only being called a beggar. In the end, he was begging like other beggar boys and had no choice but to sleep in a nearby abandoned shrine or abandoned house.

However, even that was not easy as the beggars claimed it was their territory. When passersby threw coins at Eunhan, beggar boys appeared out of nowhere and pushed him before taking it. Fortunately, he still had enough money to buy one bowl of noodles.

The problem was that adult beggars also plunder Eunhan. Aekoo and the other beggars had nothing more to shake off from Eunhan, so they began to think seriously among themselves.

“They say they need an errand runner in Hongru, we can just sell him, right?”

“Cheongsimpa says that if you bring a test object, they will give you 20 silver coins, wouldn’t that be better?”

Eunhan bit his lip and slowly got up. His heart was pounding because he thought he would be sold to the place they were talking about if he stayed like this. He glanced at them, then quickly got up and ran away.

“Eh? Hey, that bastard is running away! Catch him!”

Eunhan ran blindly forward. He made his way through a maze of winding alleyways, rambling through the crowds of people on the boulevard. He ran out of breath, and his legs were getting weak. He had not eaten properly for several days, and his stamina was rapidly declining. In the end, he hadn’t run far before he got caught once again.

As soon as they grabbed Eunhan, they immediately swung their fists. Pak! His small body wobbled like paper and slumped poorly on the floor. The beggars caught their breath and ran to Eunhan to kick him.

Pakk! Pak! Pak!

“This bastard!”

“Once we beat you hard enough, you won’t be able to run anymore, right?”

Eunhan curled up as much as possible, accepting their violence. It was throbbing here and there, probably because he had hit his head on the floor a while ago. It felt like something had exploded from his nose and inside his mouth, and tasted fishy. Everywhere he was trampled on was very painful.

‘Maybe this is how I die.’ He wished anyone could help him, but the onlookers whom he could see through his blurred vision were just biting their tongues. Eunhan looked at them in vain and then closed his eyes tightly at the beatings again. 

But suddenly, the pain was gone. Someone grabbed his arm and held him up. ‘What?’ Eunhan, feeling puzzled, managed to open his swollen eyes.

For a moment, the world seemed to move very slowly. Voices echoed all around, and the landscape painted with opaque colors before him was crushed. In it, only a handsome man with a handsome face, who did not take his eyes off him, was clearly visible. He was truly a beautiful person with a straight forehead, clear facial features, tightly closed lips, and two cool eyes.