The Youngest Master wants to be exorcised! chapter 38

“Why is that man saying he’s Jaehee?”

Jaemin frowned as he entered the living room. Jaeyoon was holding onto the shabby-looking man, and their father looked furious.

“Jaemin.”

“I’m Lee Jaehee! I’m really him! You’re all being deceived by a fake! Fake! Fake!”

The man screamed again, his hair tangled in his fingers from all the pulling.

“Jaeyoon, why did you bring a crazy person into the house and cause this mess… Father, should I call the security team?”

“Hyung, listen. The truth is…”

Jaeyoon, his eyes unfocused, started to ramble on about what had happened.

Despite his father’s desperate attempts to stop him, he kept going.

Jaemin hesitated for a long moment after hearing the unbelievable and confusing story.

“…So what you’re saying is, when Jaehee passed out from the guiding shock, it wasn’t memory loss but that another soul had taken over?”

“Yes. This is our youngest.”

“That’s nonsense… Did you take any drugs? Be honest with me.”

Jaemin was extremely worried about Jaeyoon. His eyes were unfocused, and he didn’t seem to be in his right mind.

He’d never been like this before, so Jaemin stared at him with concern, but something about their father’s silence bothered him.

He expected his father to at least refute or scold Jaeyoon’s absurd claims, but he’d said nothing so far.

He was just glaring at the skeleton-like man with a grave expression, as if Jaeyoon’s claims might actually be true.

“Wait a minute. Father, are you telling me Jaeyoon is right?”

“…”

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Are you telling me that back then, Jaehee really had some other spirit or whatever inside him?”

After a long silence, his father finally admitted it.

“Yes.”

“Why are you doing this too, Father? Did you really check everything properly? Maybe it was just a temporary delusion, or he was sick and got confused for a while…”

“…”

“What kind of sudden possession is this? Are we filming a movie? Our youngest is the kind of kid who, once he gets obsessed with something, gets totally absorbed in it, so maybe he was just confused for a moment, and…”

“He was talking just fine with people he was connected to in life. His attitude and tone toward those people were completely different from our Jaehee’s. Just in case, I even did a background check, and everything that person claimed matched perfectly. I even brought in several shamans before you came back, and all of them said they couldn’t find our Jaehee anywhere…”

Listening to his father’s continued explanation, Jaemin felt utterly bewildered.

Possession?

Wasn’t that something out of a low-budget horror movie?

An evil spirit taking over a living person’s body, causing havoc and doing strange things—how could such a terrible thing actually happen in reality?

“So you’re saying that the thing inside that emaciated man’s body is our Jaehee?”

The thought filled him with rage.

“Then who was it that had dinner with me when I returned home last time? Was that not really our Jaehee?”

“We decided to let that person pretend to be Jaehee until we found the real one, so you wouldn’t be shocked.”

“How could you hide something like this from me? Am I not a part of this family? Am I not your son, too?”

Jaemin, unable to control his emotions, choked up. His entire family had conspired to keep this from him, even though it concerned the safety of their precious youngest sibling.

“Jaemin, calm down…”

“While the person in our Jaehee’s body was shamelessly using his name and living comfortably, our Jaehee was left in this state, unable even to get a proper meal? Look at his body! If he hadn’t come here, he could’ve starved to death!”

Jaemin cried, pointing at the man. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped from his chin.

“Calm down! We haven’t even confirmed it’s really Jaehee yet. He hasn’t answered any of my questions, and most importantly, you know our Jaehee isn’t someone who would shout like that, right?”

The gentle voice trying to soothe him didn’t reach Jaemin at all. Consumed by indescribable emotions, Jaemin spoke to Jaeyoon, who was still holding onto the man.

“Bring that person here.”

“What?”

“The one you said is inside our youngest’s body! Tell him to give our Jaehee back his body. Right now!”

“O-okay, just wait a moment.”

Jaeyoon took out the phone he had put in his jacket and found the number. Jaemin, who had been watching him make the call, wiped his tears.

“Jaemin, please calm down…”

“Do I look calm right now? How can you hide such an absurd thing from me?”

The father’s attempt to soothe his eldest son failed.

He had hidden the truth, fearing that Jaemin might faint due to his fragile nature, but the situation had taken a strange turn.

The father of the brothers slumped onto the sofa.

His intuition told him that this man was definitely not his youngest son.

However, he had no energy to stop Jaemin, who was already convinced that this man was his younger brother.

“Mr. Park Hyunsoo. I need you to come to our house right away. As soon as possible.”

Jaeyoon got straight to the point without any common pleasantries.

“Tell him to come immediately! Quickly!”

“This is urgent. There’s no time for explanations.”

As Jaemin shouted loudly, the call was abruptly disconnected.

“What did he say? Is he coming?”

“…Yes.”

Jaemin then took a deep breath and looked at the man standing next to Jaeyoon.

“Jaehee.”

“…”

“Why are you so thin? Haven’t you been eating properly? Should we have a meal before he arrives?”

“Give me food. I’m hungry.”

Jaemin ordered immediate meal preparations, and the pale-faced servant hurried to the kitchen.

“Let’s change clothes first. Preparing the meal will take some time.”

“I’ll go to the room.”

Jaemin and Jaeyoon followed the man, leaving their father in the living room.

The man, who had not been given any directions, managed to find the room.

He went straight into the attached dressing room, rummaged through the clothes, and came out wearing them, but they were all too loose for his frame.

“What’s with being so thin? Our youngest…”

Jaemin wiped his thin shoulders with a sob. Jaeyoon silently looked around the room and then went with them to the dining area.

As they were about to sit beside the man at the dining table set for the meal, the man, clutching his spoon as if possessed by a demon, shoved the food into his mouth desperately.

“You’ll choke.”

Jaemin poured water and advised him to eat slowly, while Jaeyoon watched with a worried expression.

The sight of him swallowing food without chewing properly was quite shocking. As they observed this strange dining scene, a servant approached Jaeyoon.

“Master Jaehee has arrived.”

“Tell him to wait until we finish eating.”

“Understood.”

The servant disappeared into the kitchen. The eyes of the other servants began to wander again. It seemed that something unusual was about to happen.

“Suddenly telling me to come and then waiting until you finish eating?”

Despite the urgency, having rushed over without a break, Hyunsoo felt deflated.

In the now somewhat familiar living room of the mansion, Jaehee’s father sat with a pale face.

Although his complexion was poor, Hyunsoo deliberately avoided speaking.

He subtly shifted his gaze to grasp the chaotic atmosphere.

“The atmosphere is a bit, strange.”

The silent father, the urgent request to wait until the meal was finished, and Jaemin’s shouting over the phone. It was clear this was not an ordinary situation.

Hyunsoo took a sip of the tea in front of him and stood up as people entered the living room.

Behind Jaemin and Jaeyoon, a gaunt silhouette with an eerie smile was staring.

“I heard that you’re the spirit possessing our youngest.”

Jaemin suddenly shouted at Hyunsoo with blatant contempt.

“Oh…”

Hyunsoo sighed quietly. It seemed Jaemin had discovered the truth.

The term ‘spirit’ made his heart sink, but he clenched his fists and steadied himself.

“Now that our Jaehee has returned, please leave the body.”

The claim that Jaehee’s spirit had returned, which shamans had said was impossible to find, surprised Hyunsoo.

“Jaehee has returned?”

“Hehe. This is my body. It’s mine!”

The man with a broad grin and hollow eyes made Hyunsoo mutter absentmindedly.

“…Jaehee?”

“I’m the real Jaehee. This one is fake! Hehe!”

It was a chilling voice, filled with malice, striking the heart with its venomous words.

Fake. Something made to look like the real thing.

The word ‘fake’ felt like a blow to the chest.

Despite knowing better than anyone that he was a fake—his name, age, body—all were not his.

Hearing that he was a fake made him feel utterly drained.

“Stop clinging to someone else’s body like a malevolent spirit and return it to its rightful owner. Now.”

“Jaemin. What kind of talk is that?”

The father, who had been passively observing, finally spoke out.

Although the entity occupying his son’s body, Park Hyunsoo had worked harder than anyone to acknowledge the possession and even cooperated to prevent other spirits from taking over, he was seen as a grateful person in some ways.

“Acting so shamelessly as if you’re our Jaehee and claiming you’re not a malevolent spirit? Are you all collectively out of your minds? How can you tolerate a complete stranger using our youngest’s body? Have you all been possessed by this spirit?”

“…”

“Immediately drag that malevolent spirit out and do whatever it takes to get our Jaehee back—perform a ritual, cause a commotion, whatever!”

The flood of accusations left Hyunsoo’s mind blank.

His ears were filled with Jaemin’s screams and the man’s unsettling laughter. It was horrifying.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’

Having been lost in a dreamlike state, it was time to face reality.

There is no fairytale of a new second life by entering someone else’s body.

What remained were only the cries of those who had lost their family, the accusations of having taken over someone else’s body, and a shaken sense of identity.