1. The Missing Father
Yeju had lost her mother early and had lived alone with her father ever since.
Her father was a poor archaeologist. Though the word "scholar" hardly suited him, he never shied away from grueling work to raise young Yeju.
Still, in those days when he left at dawn and returned late at night, her father had a human touch to him.
The phrase "human touch" meant, quite literally, that he had the sharpness of mind of a human being and knew exactly what his purpose was.
At some point, that human touch vanished from her father.
It was around the time Yeju was entering high school.
For her father, who was struggling financially, the proposal from his former colleague Professor Kim of X University to join an excavation of ancient ruins was too tempting to refuse.
The pay was good for what amounted to nothing more than exploration and reviewing related materials and papers. Though there was the risk of having to travel all the way to the tundra of the northern Siberian polar region.
The reason her father ultimately accepted the offer was, in all likelihood, largely because of the university tuition for Yeju that the professor had promised to cover.
It was Yeju who persuaded her father, who had been writing a polite refusal saying he couldn't leave his only daughter for over half a year. Since her mother's death, her father's eyes—once dead—had come alive, filled with expectation and yearning.
Yeju respected her father as an archaeologist, and she didn't want his light to be extinguished forever.
Yes, that was all it was. The reason she had sent him off, reassuring him again and again that she could manage alone, that he worried about until the very end.
For the first three months, her father called faithfully once a day. Even when Yeju begged him to stop because the phone bills were piling up, he was stubborn about it.
But it was around the time two months had passed since he'd gone to the tundra.
Her father's voice began to change, little by little. The change was so slow and subtle that she couldn't notice it at first.
His voice grew gradually—then increasingly violently—urgent, like a man being chased.
The frequency of the weekly calls, as well as the duration of each conversation, dwindled bit by bit. Even the call that finally came after months barely lasted a minute.
"Yeju, Daddy's busy right now."
"Yeju, Dad has to go."
"Yeju, let's hang up now."
Yeju felt hurt, but she didn't show it. She was glad her father had found his dream again, and she assumed that was why he had to be so busy.
He had said he'd stay in the tundra for just half a year and come right back, but he returned home well over three months past the expected time.
And in his eyes, back on Korean soil, an indescribably bizarre light began to swirl.
After returning home, her father clung desperately to something. No matter how she scolded or reasoned with him, he'd only act like his old self for a moment before nothing changed.
Around that time, Yeju was also busy beyond reason preparing for university entrance exams, so she couldn't pay attention to her father.
Still, whenever she saw him with the study light on late into the night, absorbed frantically in something, she would break out in goosebumps.
Beneath the yellow glow of the desk lamp. Her father, his nose buried in old papers and books scattered all over the desk, muttered like a madman.
― The seal! I have to seal it! Catching it before it increases its numbers is the only way to save the world!
Just what was it that had intoxicated him then with such a sense of achievement and ecstasy, believing he was saving the world?
By the time Yeju graduated high school, her father finally left home for good, leaving behind nothing but a single note saying he'd "be back from the tundra shortly."
After that, she never saw her father again.
Her father, who'd said he'd be back shortly, didn't return until the year she turned twenty-three.
He went missing without even a single call to say he'd arrived safely—not even that most common of greetings.
---
After her father disappeared, Yeju began to have strange dreams.
In the dream, on a blindingly white field of snow, stood a massive black wolf with a lush black mane.
The wolf's eyes were the color of blood.
"Grrrrrr..."
Even against the harsh, biting wind, the black wolf looked directly at Yeju. And as if binding her, Yeju couldn't move a muscle.
Then the beast would prowl toward her leisurely, like a predator that had captured its prey.
As if it would snatch her up in one bite and tear her to shreds at any moment. Baring its sharp teeth, one step, another step...
Startled awake by the vividness of it, her body was always drenched in cold sweat.
As the dream repeated, the distance between her and the black wolf grew steadily closer.
She had a hunch that it was closely tied to the purpose of her father's trip to the tundra. Yet she deliberately avoided looking into it.
She was afraid. That she might lose her reason and go mad, just like her father.
But as if mocking her, the wolf in her dreams wouldn't leave her alone.
The beast that had been prowling around her stopped looking at her at some point. Instead, its crimson eyes blazing, it tore apart the human lying beneath it.
Its sharp teeth struck bone.
Crunch, crack. Horrible sounds echoed in succession.
She screamed. The person who lay beneath the wolf's muzzle, slashed and bleeding to death, was none other than...
Her father.
---
The dream of her father being torn into the wolf's belly continued relentlessly, to the point of disrupting her daily life.
Her mind grew increasingly ravaged. At some point, she began to sense it.
She didn't want to admit it, but it seemed her father—her only family—was dead.
Then one day. As she was preparing to leave for her part-time job, she received a phone call.
A Russian country code. Yeju stared at the unfamiliar number on her phone, then frantically answered.
"H-hello?"
"Yeju?"
"Dad?"
"Yeju!"
It was her father's voice. Dazed for a moment, she soon exploded.
"Dad! Where on earth... are you hurt anywhere? Do you know how worried I've been? Where are you right now?!"
At the sound of her still-living father's voice, tears burst through and poured out.
How much she had suffered because of those nightmares. She didn't want to go through again those hours of trembling at the thought that her father might be dead.
Yeju poured out words she had never once said before.
"Can't you just come home now, huh? Dad, I'm suffering so much. Please just come back and live with me. Okay?"
"Yeju, Yeju. Daddy's sorry. But there isn't much time. I'll make it short."
But even as his only daughter sobbed, her father only talked about something else. At his voice, urgent as if chased by something, Yeju grew angry again.
"What's so urgent! What's so urgent that you skip even my graduation ceremony!"
"Yeju, my daughter. Sob, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Daddy's sorry."
"Dad!"
"My daughter, can you live well without Daddy? Hmm?"
"What are you... what are you saying! Where are you? I'll come instead. Where are you, Dad!"
"No, no!"
At Yeju's words, her father denied it fiercely, his voice agitated. And he poured out his next words like rapid fire.
"Forget about someone like me, and live bravely and well like you've done so far. You must never come looking for me here."
"What are you saying! Dad!"
"I love you, daughter."
"Dad! Dad!"
Click.
With that, her father's call ended. Yeju stared blankly at the phone, from which only intermittent dial tones sounded.
Anxiety swept over her entire body.
***
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