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It was at midnight when the villagers took Jungwon away and headed to the Holy Site with burning torches in hand. They had drugged him before dinner – the women in the kitchen slipped the powder into Jungwon’s wine (and did this in front of everybody). The friends sitting next to him made sure he drank every drop in his cup. The official meeting held to discuss and seal Jungwon’s fate was held even earlier. The pack leaders made the decision to sacrifice Jungwon to the Moon Demon a month ago. Jungwon was kept away in his usual chores when the meeting took place. He had no clue.
However, to say that he was shocked at the midnight kidnapping would be a lie. Muffled, blindfolded and handcuffed, Jungwon appeared surprisingly calm and obedient to the villagers who expected at least a vicious fight or some high-pitch scream. When they broke into Jungwon’s house with weapons and a speech draft announcing the news that Jungwon “has been chosen to honor his community”, Jungwon, who felt dizzy and nauseous under the influence, simply nodded and gestured for the villagers to come up. His bizarre and quick submission, without doubt, ruined the excitement for most men at the scene. It was the exact opposite of what they wanted – and for this reason, they grew to hate Jungwon a little more.
They had always hated him. This night was planned to be a celebration of this hatred.
The path to the Holy Site was dark and muddy, so the villagers progressed at a slow pace. Jungwon passed out on someone’s back, but woke up just in time for him to see the tip of the Holy Site shining like a silver earring up in the sky, behind all the towering trees.
Still, Jungwon made no noise. He knew already which day it was, what was ordered to be done, and why he was chosen. What the villagers did not understand was that Jungwon had accepted his fate the day his father died in his arms. As the only life that he ever cared for in this world passed away, so did his will to live. The boy that Jungwon once was would tremble at the sight of a barking dog, but nothing could scare a heartless, loveless shape of a human that he had become – not even the Moon Demon.
So, let the sacrifice happen, Jungwon said to himself. Let the demon take my useless body and hollow soul.
The ancient ritual for the Moon Demon actually dictated the annual sacrifice to be female, and for the past 100 years, the pack had listened to his wish faithfully. They had always chosen the youngest girl from the poorest household and brought her to the Holy Site without fail.
This time, Jungwon was going to be a special case. Yet the villagers held no fear in pissing off the Moon Demon by offering him a boy. Quite on the contrary, they were confident that the Moon Demon would find Jungwon a delightful gift, a wonderful treat – a boy who was born with both male and female genitalia.
To most people who knew this secret, Jungwon was not supposed to be born at all.
Jungwon only survived systematized superstition and harsh exclusion for sixteen years because of his father, who was the pack leader for twenty years before he died. As his body burned into ashes and flames at the grand funeral, the protection he casted upon his son also came to a welcoming end.
Ironically, the leader’s death brought relief to both ends. To Jungwon, nothing could be more dreadful than a living where everybody around him knew his “secret” and still pretended to like him; to the villagers, the simple sight of Jungwon walking among them was shameful enough to unilaterally vote for him as the next sacrifice. As a result, without any direct communication, including a single eye contact, they arrived at the same agreement that Jungwon needed to be gone.
What is more, he needed to be gone before the winter.
The sacrifice took place on the first day of a full moon in November. Just like how the loyal and humble villagers never missed a ritual for 100 years, the Moon Demon never missed his feast. Today, he would come too. He would come and enjoy a nice dinner. The villagers secretly hoped him to be starving beforehand.
The forest faded into the background as the crowd neared the Holy Site. Tall, slender, and white, the building was rumored to be built upon hundreds of bodies of the pack’s enemies.
Jungwon still remembered his history lesson: centuries ago, legend had it that a war broke out between the village and another group living across the river. They fought with stick and stones; nevertheless, it was bloody and extremely fatal. When the common weapons brought no victory but only years of turmoil, one of the villagers finally ventured a horrible opinion – to seek the help of the Moon.
What they sought, however, was not the “Moon Goddess” written in broken hieroglyphic which they dug out from the history record. The summon worked magic – they eventually defeated the river people and annihilated their whole population – but at a considerable price. They invited, or probably invented, a Moon Demon.
A Moon Demon who would take Jungwon’s life soon.
Jungwon, who was still handcuffed and brought to his kneels at the center of the site, checked the position of the moon above him – very soon.
The villagers awaited the demon with impatient, zealous faces. Jungwon fixated his gaze on the bright moon, trying not to blink.
“This is a little different from the usual.”
The crowd gasped at the sudden arrival of the Moon Demon behind them. They quickly moved around to form a circle, giving the demon enough space to appreciate their dedicated gestures and feverous praying. Jungwon did not want to attract any attention, so he kept his head down quietly. To admit, he did not want to look at the face of his killer either.
Unfortunately, the silent disinterest seemed to emit a different signal, for the demon completely ignored the loud crying by the villagers and walked directly to Jungwon.
“I said, ‘this is a little different from the usual.’”
The demon’s voice was deep and smooth, tone low and masculine. He did not sound much annoyed or furious at the sight of a male sacrifice wrapped in plain, shaggy clothes in front of him, ready to take his “blessing”. He was just a little curious, like an elder wolf on a rat diet discovering a squirrel on his catering menu - what’s special about this boy?
It was not like he had never tasted squirrel before.
The eldest men among them, K, stood up to explain the selection in carefully prepared words that he was certain would deeply please the demon. “Oh, dear holy master, we chose Jungwon as our sacrifice for this moon period as the purest love for you and the highest honor we could offer…he is special, my holy master. He was born in a man’s body, but…”
K’s voice lowered until it became a murmur.
The last few words, the most important and hence the most insulting, disappeared into thin air like invisible dust dancing in the wind. Jungwon heard nothing. He knew from a distance he could not hear a thing. However, he could not escape the expression on K’s face. It was a flat translation of the hatred brewing inside of him ever since the day Jungwon came to this world and “contaminated” his pack. It was an open book written for Jungwon, full of curse words, violent bullies, and death wishes. Only for him. The boy with a different body.
Only for Jungwon.
Then he saw the expression on the other villagers’ faces, too.
He saw his “friends” who allegedly befriended him out of his father’s order. He saw the women who let him help with chores in the kitchen but would deny his petition to learn the actual skills of cooking and medicine. He saw the deer hunters, stout and sturdy, who treated Jungwon like a fatal wound which they were always displeased to find on a nice piece of leather with beautiful pattern. “Ah, now it’s totally useless.” Jungwon could hear their inner voice as if reading minds was his special power.
When in reality, he was just something that nobody bothered to hide their feelings toward. It took no mysterious force to understand that he was unwanted – except for now, when K was still trying to settle the deal with the demon, who looked increasingly unconvinced and irritated.
“You meant to tell me,” the demon reached out to stroke Jungwon’s messy, sweaty hair with a pale hand, and the touch sent an electric current right to Jungwon’s heart, “…that this boy, Jungwon, is also a girl.”
A weird relief, the words did not strike Jungwon as demeaning when it came out of the demon’s mouth.
The demon made the statement with such a casual tone that Jungwon could not detect any emotion hidden behind it. Maybe the demon did not care at all, Jungwon thought. Like how he once found a rabbit with three legs by the river – and it looked just like a rabbit. It tasted like a rabbit, too. In spite of the abnormal body, Jungwon doubted he would taste much different from the human of either sex. His blood was red and smelled like metal as well, after all.
Standing beside the two of them, K nodded feverishly like he was going to break his neck. “I promise you, holy master, that this is the best sacrifice we have prepared for you in ages. We only ever strive to provide the sincerest service to thank your protection…and Jungwon is rare…so rare…”
“Hmmm.”
The demon kept stroking Jungwon’s hair. From Jungwon’s perspective, he could only see the demon’s black shoes and the thin white cloth. A faint smell from the robe reminded Jungwon of the fresh flowers he would pick for the village women at dawn. He smelled like roses. Jungwon realized. The demon smelled like his favorite flower.
Running out of crude adulation and upset at the demon’s seemingly indifference, K took the next action.
Jungwon was still in his trance with the rose scent when a merciless force grabbed his arm and dragged him up. He raised his head and saw right into K’s spiteful eyes. He saw how K moved his mouth to form the sentence, too. And he finally felt horror for the first time tonight.
“I can show our master how special Jungwon is.” K said.
“No! Don’t touch me!!”
The deer hunters sprinted forward as if they were invited into a spring game again, K leading them as a team after the running boy. The women retreated further into the darkness to play the role of the audience, though a few began to sob quietly or look away.
Within seconds, someone had captured Jungwon’s waist, tossed him to the ground, and flipped him like a coin. He scrabbled clumsily at Jungwon’s linen pants. Jungwon kicked with his full strength but was met with a hard smash on the left ankle. He knew it was broken now. And his clothes, his last shell of dignity, were broken as well.
“No.”
Jungwon screamed again, this time with tears streaming down his face. He looked frantically around for any type of help at this last second of his pride as a human, and found the demon standing afar, looking right at him.
“Please just kill me.”
Jungwon pled, his breath so hot that the night began to burn in front of him. He kicked his skinny legs one last time, and sensed, in formidable despair, that his lower body was in the cool air now.
Meaning, the demon must saw what K wanted him to see.
Jungwon stopped resisting. He lied flat on the ground; his legs spread out in a disgustingly open position. More than one pair of hands were on his body, forcing him to stay down.
In the end, Jungwon just lied there with no motion, like the real lamb for sacrifice that he was always supposed to be. Perhaps, Jungwon thought bitterly, that he was born to be.
I can still kill myself.
The notion came to Jungwon in a whim. Biting his own tongue off would surely be painful and grant him a slow, miserable death, but it was death after all. And death would be his sweetest relief.
I guess now you have to start dinner after the meat turns cold – Jungwon whispered the sarcasm to the demon soundlessly. I also wonder how many times you have witnessed human acting cruel toward each other like this. Jungwon added. Probably enough times…
The night fell into the darkest shadows.
The men gathered around the naked boy; their hungry eyes fixated on his groin.
Since no one was checking his face, Jungwon took the chance to bite his tongue.
At first, Jungwon thought the sky turned scarlet red.
The next moment, Jungwon realized the color he saw was the color of blood. A lot of blood.
He blinked three times to focus on the scene. Men. The deer hunters. Their heads. Their heads without bodies. The dead bodies. The blood coming out of them, sprinkling like little crimson fountains everywhere…and the distant screams behind him. The women were crying and shouting and crying and shouting.
“I gave you people my protection over one-hundred years, asking very little in return. And this is how you show your gratitude.”
The soothing voice came right above Jungwon’s head, which finally made him realize that he was not pinned to the ground anymore. Jungwon struggled to free his limbs, only to find out that he was trapped between someone else’s arms. He looked up and froze immediately – all he could see was the sharp jawline and the pale skin of the demon.
The demon held him in an embrace.
“What…what did we do wrong? Was it Jungwon? We will offer another girl next moon, I promise you…please let us make the emendation and bring you the satisfaction…”
It was not K who spoke. An elder woman, too weak to run, took over the responsibility to appease the infuriated demon. They must not lose the demon’s blessing or the other villages would consider them defenseless. She put her own life at risk to ask the right question, so the fate of the village would be secured again.
But she was faced with the coldest response.
“Yeah, it was Jungwon.”
The demon shifted his arms to give Jungwon a bit more space. He covered the boy’s body with his white robe, which had now turned into a dirty pink stained with the hunters’ blood. Under the robe, Jungwon saw a silk black blouse with delicate laces. When the demon raised his hand to stroke Jungwon’s frozen face, the laces kissed Jungwon’s nose. They smelled like roses, too.
“I have been looking for him for so long…too long that I can’t even remember. And you people hid him from me all this time. All this time, you knew he existed and you said nothing…and I had to run around the world looking for him like a stupid fool.”
Jungwon heard everything but understood nothing. Clearly, the woman was puzzled, too.
“Looking for him…?”
Now the demon was laughing out loud. Human, human. Jungwon caught the pejorative words under his breath. Fucking human…
“If I recall correctly, your ancestors did not want to summon me in the first place. No… I was too small of a character to be written into history, of course. They wanted the Moon Goddess. But he died before that century. Suicide, I have heard. I had to do the dirty job for him and participate in a stupid war.”
The woman grew paler. Jungwon began to shake involuntarily. What did the demon just say? “He” and “him”?
“I have been looking for the new reincarnation everywhere ever since… He has to be born mortal, a boy of both genders, a body of two souls. Do you know that I even journeyed to the Arctic for him? While he was right here under my protection… You even got the nerve to offer him as a sacrifice. What a terrible, terrible breed.”
The reincarnation of the Moon Goddess.
A boy born mortal of both genders. A body of two souls.
Jungwon processed the demon’s sentences with great difficulty, given the shocking circumstance he was in. When he came to the realization, the elder woman had been gone. The hunters stopped groaning and went deadly cold. The forest returned to its perpetual tranquility and the moon shone bright, unbothered, above his head. Maybe even brighter.
“I…I can’t be.” was all that Jungwon could say.
The demon’s hand swam from Jungwon’s face to his neck. There, the demon fondled the delicate skin with the attention of his whole world. He pinched Jungwon softly on a spot, appreciating the sight of the blue veins popping and showing. Jungwon’s skin grew pink under the silver moonlight, or rather under the demon’s caress.
When he spoke again, even the moon seemed to be eavesdropping.
“I’m sorry for my mistake, Jungwon. You must be really scared.”
“I…” Jungwon fumbled for something to say. He quickly gave up when he saw the demon smiling at him in a manner that could only be described as tender. The expression was human. The demon looked very much human in his handsome youth. Yet no human would ever smile at Jungwon like that. Like he was a present sent by heaven. Or by hell. Depends on what creature you are.
Now even Jungwon was not sure if he was mistaken for the Moon Goddess anymore. Because he wanted himself to be the one. The yearning for affection gradually flew back into his body from a remote place that he did not even know still existed in his soul, and he kept quivering under the waves of emotions in the demon’s embrace.
“What if you thought wrong…?” Will you prey on me again then?
The demon shook his head.
“I saw it with my own eyes. You are the one I have been looking for, Jungwon.”
Jungwon tried not to recall the earlier incident but failed miserably. The feeling was indeed nothing but bizarre. He had been taught for years by the villagers to engrave the shame and self-pity into his heart for what he was born with. Now, a demon called him the Moon Goddess because of the exact same “thing” that made him a freak. What’s the odds?
What’s the future?
The demon began to walk as he held Jungwon in front of him. “I can’t fly here. You will get more sacred.” His hands dropped to cup Jungwon’s ass cheeks so he would not fall. Jungwon felt that he was in a trance again. He hid his face in the demon’s chest and inhaled deeply in an attempt to gather his delirious thoughts. Roses. All he could smell was roses.
“Oh, by the way, my name is Jay. I never let anyone call me by my name, but of course you can.”
The demon – Jay – petted Jungwon on the head. “Are you hungry?”
Jungwon responded as if he was still dreaming. “I like roses, too.”
Jay burst out laughing again. The wild creatures in the forest ran along them like a group of avid followers. Vampires ruled here for the longest time and still claimed the throne even after Jay abandoned the habitat. Jay began to wonder if he shall move back. But Jungwon probably would like to be a bit further away from his stupid human clan.
“Do you like France then?” Jay asked.
“I am hungry…” Jungwon murmured. Jay gave him a peck on the forehead. “Ok, let’s go eat. Maybe we should also bath before supper. Your stupid humans ruined my cloth… I got this from the Arctic, damn them.” Jay picked up the dropping garment and carefully wrapped it around Jungwon’s bare legs. He did not even frown or blink twice when his hands travelled through the thighs, meeting Jungwon’s secret.
They ended up flying anyways, because Jungwon fell asleep in Jay’s arms before they could reach his temporary residence. In his last dream as a human (since vampires do not need to sleep anymore), Jungwon saw the three-leg rabbit by the river again. He also realized, after all this time, that his memory tricked him. The rabbit looked distinguishingly more beautiful and serene than any of the animals he had ever seen.
That day, the rabbit fell into Jungwon’s trap but ended up free. Jungwon set it free. Then he watched the rabbit disappear into the deep woods and wished that he were that rabbit.
Jay would tell him, in the near future, that the wishes and dreams of the Moon Goddess would always come true.
END