Yui's first spirit hunt began the way all great disasters did: with caffeine and a total lack of preparation.
She slurped loudly from her iced Americano as Baek Woo-jin stood beside her looking like a vampire who'd been forced into a high school group project.
"Are you seriously drinking coffee right now?" he asked, glaring down at her cup like it had personally offended the afterlife.
Yui leaned against the counter of the dusty old café they were staking out. "Listen, if I'm going to chase angry ghosts around Seoul for free, I need at least 300mg of courage in my system. Otherwise I'm calling a priest."
Baek said nothing, just clenched his jaw like someone suppressing centuries of pent-up rage.
"So," Yui said, swirling the ice in her cup. "Where's the evil spirit?"
Baek didn't respond. Instead, he raised his hand and drew a slow circle in the air. The lights in the café flickered. The air grew colder. A crackle of spiritual energy shimmered — and a glowing ripple appeared above the kitchen counter.
Yui blinked. "That's… new."
A shadow spilled out of the ripple.
It slithered across the floor like ink come to life, black and writhing. It took shape slowly — a woman in a tattered hanbok, her eyes hollow, her mouth stretched unnaturally wide like someone had carved her jaw open with a broken mirror.
Yui's eyes widened. "Okay. That's way too much ghost for my first day."
"She's been haunting this café since 1992," Baek explained casually. "Died during a fight with her boyfriend. Comes back every spring looking for him."
"Romantic," Yui deadpanned. "Also, deeply unhealthy."
The ghost turned to them, her mouth gaping open.
Then she screamed.
Yui flinched. "Oh wow, surround sound."
Without missing a beat, Baek took a step forward and unsheathed what looked like an umbrella — but with a flick, it twisted and unfolded into a spectral scythe.
Yui blinked. "Okay. That's kind of cool."
Baek spun the scythe with clean, practiced precision and lunged at the ghost — who flew backwards, screeching, vanishing into the walls.
"Hey, wait!" Yui called. "Aren't I supposed to help?"
Baek paused. "You're... moral support."
"Excuse me?" she said, hands on her hips. "You said I'd help hunt evil spirits, not stand here like an unpaid intern."
He turned to her, serious. "Fine. You want a job? Then go into the storage room. She always retreats there."
Yui blinked. "You want me to go in there first?"
Baek gave a small nod.
"…You do realize I'm still technically alive, right?"
"You're in between," he said. "Mostly alive. Slightly cursed. Just enough to interact with spirits."
"Cool, cool, love that for me."
Yui grabbed a broom from behind the counter like it was Excalibur and marched toward the back room.
The door creaked open with classic horror-movie flair. Inside: shelves, old coffee beans, maybe one too many cobwebs. And... the ghost.
She hovered near the back wall, whispering something unintelligible, her mouth twitching.
Yui whispered, "Okay, Yui, you've seen worse. That time you walked into a public bathroom in Busan during a K-pop festival — that was worse. You've got this."
She stepped forward, trying to look confident. "Hey. Ghost lady. Look, I know you're angry. Your boyfriend sucked. Totally valid. But haunting espresso machines isn't going to solve your trauma."
The ghost turned slowly.
Her jaw clicked as she whispered: "He... never... came back…"
"Oh wow. I know the feeling. But trust me, he wasn't worth it."
The ghost's eyes narrowed. Then she screamed again — this time louder, enough to make the walls shake.
Yui raised the broom like a sword. "Back! I am full of coffee and bad decisions!"
Baek stormed in behind her, scythe ready, energy glowing from his sleeve. "Move."
Yui dove out of the way, dramatically rolling behind a bag of expired coffee beans. "You could've said excuse me!"
With one clean swing, Baek sliced through the ghost's shadow form. It shrieked, dissolved into wisps of gray smoke, and vanished.
Silence.
Then Yui popped up from behind the bag. "Okay. That was low-key awesome."
Baek didn't even look at her. "You were reckless."
"And you were boring," Yui snapped. "But hey, we survived."
Baek walked past her, scythe folding back into an umbrella. "This is only the beginning. There are dozens more."
"Oh good," Yui muttered. "Ghost-hunting with a guy who has the emotional range of a turnip."
Baek paused. "You did well. For a human."
Yui blinked. "Wait—was that a compliment?"
"I didn't say it was good."
She grinned. "I'll take it."
Outside, the clouds rolled back. The day returned to normal. But Yui knew her life wasn't normal anymore.
She was in way over her head — stuck with Death himself, armed with sarcasm, a broomstick, and way too much coffee.
And for the first time in forever…She kinda wanted to live.
END OF CHAPTER TWO