Starllet

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You could still remember how excited you were about going to high school. You were always a very cheerful person, an optimist with natural leadership skills, never had a problem with making friends or being the first person to speak up and, on top of that, you were academically talented too.

At the very beginning of the school year, you became class president – you volunteered for the role and your new classmates didn’t oppose that after hearing that you used to be a class president in middle school as well.

Sometime later, when the first midterms were nearing, one of your classmates asked you for help with mathematics. Yoon Bonggil. He was a member of your school’s basketball team and a very skilled player. Many girls in your school, the first graders as well as some older students, were swooning over him. It wasn’t a surprise – he was tall, unbelievably handsome and treated people around him with kindness. Not to mention the amazing aura that he had while on the court. Whoever went to the games was captivated by his moves, his charisma, his bright smile after his team scored a point and his joyful expression after winning the match.

Even you.

You would lie if you said that he didn’t make your heart beat just a tiny bit faster, especially when he was leaning so close to you, eyes on your eyes level while asking you for help so cutely. How could you turn him down? You couldn’t. And maybe that was the best decision you have ever made – or so you’ve thought at that time.

Over the time when you were helping him with his studies, the two of you got closer. Your study dates moved from the school cafeteria and library to cafes and your own houses. Eventually, your study dates stopped being just about school and became real dates. You could still remember the night when he grew the courage to ask you out.

It was the last game his basketball team was playing during the first year of high school. They won of course. After the game he was appointed the new captain of the team – the previous one was about to graduate and he wanted Bonggil to be his successor. Bonggil couldn’t believe it at first. You could see the joy radiating off of him, his sparking eyes, his wonderful smile when he was running up to you. Before you had a chance to congratulate him, he scooped you up in his arms and swung you around. When he put you down his eyes were glued to yours, smile never leaving his lips. And he popped up the question and asked if you would like to go on a date with him.

You started the second year of high school officially being in a relationship with Bonggil. You two were the hot talk of the school for some time – the class president and captain of the school’s basketball team. Many students envied you and your picture-perfect relationship. And it truly was like a fairytale for you. Everything you remember about your relationship with him was just wonderful. He was the sweetest, the most caring and the most loving boyfriend a girl could dream about. He always made sure that you felt loved, that you knew that no matter what you mattered to him the most. He always put you first. Not school. Not basketball. But you.

You were his whole world. And so he was yours.

But everything changed that cursed spring in your last year of high school, just a few months before you two were supposed to graduate. And everything because of that big game his team was playing, the game that could help them to get sports scholarships for university, the game that could be their ticket to professional basketball. The game and some idiotic idea of one of his teammates.

A ritual.

One of Bonggil’s teammates suggested doing a shamanic ritual to summon good spirits for the game. And for some reason, they all agreed to that. They decided to do a summoning ritual without telling anyone about it. If you knew what they were planning, you would at least try to talk them out of it, talk him out of it – but when you got to know about it, it was way too late to undo the damage. You never got to know what exactly that ritual looked like, but you remembered clear as day what was happening afterwards.

The team played better than ever before. They won the big game and their manager got contacted by some important names in the basketball world. It all seemed like their sports careers were about to reach up to a new height. But soon after the game things started getting weird. Weirder and weirder with every passing day.

Firstly one of the members complained about having some crazily scary nightmares in which an ancient powerful demon was chasing him trying to rip his heart out of his chest and eat it. Within just a few days all of the members were suffering from nightmares – all of them exactly the same, with a demon trying to eat their hearts. Secondly, there were hallucinations. Some of the boys claimed that they were seeing the demon from their dreams follow them around the town. Some claimed they’d heard the demon’s whispers or felt the touch of his claws on their skin.

It was getting progressively worse and worse. Boys stopped attending school. Their families, worried about them, were seeking medical support, but not a single doctor was able to tell what was happening to them. That’s when information about them performing a ritual came to the daylight. It was Bonggil who mentioned it during his feverish talk.

You were sick-worried about your boyfriend’s well-being. Even before the big game, you had noticed his unusual behaviour – it seemed to you like he was trying to hide something from you, but you blamed it on stress before the game. You thought he was just trying to play it cool and act as if he wasn’t anxious about the most important game of his teenage life. So you didn’t press him to tell you what was wrong. But you should have asked.

After the game, you could tell that your boyfriend wasn’t quite acting like himself. He seemed restless at all times, always looking around as if he expected someone or something to jump at him from behind the corner. And he had that wild look in his eyes. At first, it wasn’t very noticeable or maybe you didn’t notice fast enough, because suddenly Bonggil distanced himself from you, always coming up with some excuse as to why he couldn’t meet up with you. His explanations made sense to you so you didn’t inquire. You were pretty busy yourself at that time too, after all, it was your last year of high school and you had to prepare for your final exams.

But things were getting worse. Your boyfriend was admitted to the local hospital, but after many tests run by the doctors, nothing came up. Nobody was able to say what was wrong. And the situation looked just the same for all of Bonggil’s teammates. You would visit your boyfriend at the hospital almost every day. You tried to talk to him, assure him that everything will be alright, but more often than not he wasn’t mentally there to listen to what you had to say. He was hallucinating, talking about weird things he was seeing. His eyes unfocused, frantically moving around his surroundings, skin covered in a thick layer of sweat, face pale like a wall. You couldn’t stand that sight – it was breaking your heart to see your boyfriend suffering like that.

One evening during your visit he had a moment of clarity. Through tears falling from his eyes, he told you about the summoning ritual they had performed before the game. His words were filled with fear, his voice breaking multiple times, his pupils dilated in pure terror – the sight of him back then will never leave your memories.

You shared what he told you with his family. His relatives thought about calling for a shaman to see him. They were desperate to try anything that could possibly bring their son back to health. You weren’t there to see the shaman, nor whatever means they used to help Bonggil, but it worked. Your boyfriend and all of his teammates were back to their right minds.

Thanks to the shaman.

A sense of relief washed over you when you heard that your boyfriend was finally feeling better. But sadly it was just the beginning of suffering for you.

Boys returned to school just in time to still have a chance to take final exams. You thought that everything would be alright, now that you had your boyfriend at your side again. But he acted differently than before. He wasn’t as cheerful as he used to be, he was barely talking to anyone, not even to you, his mind seemed to be elsewhere. You tried to make up explanations for his behaviour. He must have felt traumatized after all that had happened. He needs some time to recover. Maybe he's stressed about finals after skipping so many days at school?

But days were passing by and Bonggil was growing more distant. Hanging out after school used to be your everyday occurrence, but now it was barely ever happening. You used to text each other every day with “good morning” and “sweet dream” or other sweet stuff like that, but now it was all long gone. Not to mention calling each other by cute nicknames, holding hands on school corridors or eating lunch together. It suddenly appears like he was avoiding you.

You got sick of his behaviour. Sick of making excuses for him, when he barely talked to you at all. So you made up your mind about finally facing him and straight up asking what the hell was going on. But you couldn’t imagine what he was about to tell you.

The summer evening just a week before the end of high school was when your world went crumbling down. Bonggil told you that the two of you should break up. He wanted to go to Seoul after graduation and join the shaman who healed him as her apprentice. He was already set on his resolution and prepared everything needed. The last thing to do was to end his relationship with you and he would be ready to leave.

You couldn’t believe what you’ve heard. You thought that the two of you were meant to be. That your relationship had every chance to last for long long years. You thought that one day the two of you might stand in church making vows of loving each other “until the death do us part”.

And all of it was gone now.

To say you were heartbroken was an awful understatement. His was your first real love and maybe the only one. You couldn’t stop crying for days on end. Your whole world just went apart and you had no idea how to handle it. You didn’t show up at school during those few last days. You only showed up to the graduation ceremony, but even that brought unbelievable pain to your heart. Because the man you loved so dearly was there too. And that was the last time you ever saw Yoon Bonggil.

He left the basketball team. He left his family. He left the town.

He left you.

Thanks to the shaman.

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After everything that happened, you started hating shamans and everything connected to them. You lost your love because of all the stupid crap they were spreading. But you did your best not to think about that, not to think about him.

From what you heard Lee Hwarim, the shaman who agreed to come to check on your grandpa, was quite famous in her field with a reputation that allowed her to take a pretty fat check for her work. She was told to give her services to filthy rich people and to have a rather packed-up schedule – so it was almost impossible for an average person to even book a meeting with her. And yet, she agreed to come to your grandfather surprisingly quickly.

Which wasn’t adding up at all.

Something about her coming here doesn’t seem right and that’s why you decided to be here today. You were extremely suspicious of that shaman. Your opinion on shamans was bad in general, but even if you put your thoughts aside, this situation seemed extremely fishy. However, your grandma insisted on the shaman’s visit, so you decided to make sure that this “oh-so-amazing” shaman won’t scum her. After all, there were many scumbags in this world and your grandma was just an elderly lady seeking a way to help his sick husband.

What an irony, how this situation reminded you of your high school days. But those days were long gone and it wasn’t a time to think about that.

When you heard a car’s engine, you walked up to the window. An expensive-looking black car was parked outside the gate. You called for your grandma and walked out of the house with her to greet the awaited guest. You saw an elegant woman stepping out of the car. You were surprised to see that the shaman was a beautiful young woman like her.

What surprised you even more was the other person that stepped out of the car. At first, you only saw dark hair tied up and some tattoos peeking about from the collar of his shirt. But when he turned around and your eyes locked – you knew that face.

He was there. In front of you.

Yoon Bonggil the lover you thought you had lost forever.