Forbidden Scent

The Beginning

What happens when you mix the world of Tokyo Ghoul with Seoul's people?

Hi, my name is Jane Yoon-Lee, I'm 19 years old and I just moved from Dublin, Ireland to Seoul, South Korea. I was born and raised in Ireland. My mum's Korean and she worked at a small café and my dad's Irish and he worked at a shoe factory. Some months ago, he got fired from that job, so we had to move to Seoul, where my mum had some contacts and could gain some money by doing the exact same thing she did in Ireland.

We've been living here for almost 2 months and so far the situation isn't great.... Instead of going to school, I help my mum at the café (which, by the way, is called 커피주세요! - keopijuseyo - "Coffee, please!") every morning... In the afternoon, I watched the boys and girls walking home together when that day's classes ended. I watched them laughing, running, playing, being friends with each other, and there I was, on the 3rd floor of an old building, doing the house chores looking out of the window with the eyes of an abandoned puppy.

"So.... The new semester is about to start.... And.... You know.... Do you think I could go to school this time?" I asked, praying to all the Gods above for a "yes".

"Why are you always insisting on that? You can't go, at least not yet." I was losing my hope... "Here, let me put some meat on your plate."

It was dinner time and we were sitting on our small, square kitchen table. Appa (what I usually call my dad) was facing the oven and Omma (my mum) and I were in front of him.

"But why? Please, just tell why! I hate to help you at 커피, you know that. Also, your boss is a weirdo..."

"I told you to stop calling him a weirdo."

"Where's the lie, though?" I tried one last time. "Omma, please, I promise I'll do the house chores anyway! I just want to make some friends! I'm 19yo and home alone... I'm supposed to be out with my friends, not at a café with my mum and a weird old man."

She looked at my dad and he shrugged his shoulders. He didn't want to step in my mom's decisions but I knew he didn't agree with her.

I finished my meal, asked my dad to go to my room and locked the door behind me. I sat on the floor and noticed some tears rolling down in my face. They were dropping so fast that I couldn't stop them.

Since I was a little kid that my dad would tell me that crying is for the weak, so whenever I needed to do so I'd go to my room and cry alone and quietly so he wouldn't hear me. When I realized, I was 7yo and never cried again. Until the day my dad got fired... It was my fault... Or at least I thought it was... I don't quite remember that day so well, especially between the moment I arrived at my dad's working place and the moment I woke up again, lying in my bed and crying without even knowing why.

I heard some heavy steps in the hallway, walking towards my room. I got up, cleaned my face with some water and sat on the desk pretending to be studying. Someone started knocking on the door.

"Jane, can I come in?" Appa asked with the calmest voice.

"Yeh... Let me just unlock the door." I unlocked it and sat again on the desk.

"You do know that you need to go to school in order to have homework to do, right?!" he said trying to sound funny (failing of course).

"Oh really? And where don't you guys let me go? Oh wait, SCHOOL!" my sarcastic voice was starting to show up. I was mad, really mad, but deep down I knew they were right. He pulled another chair and sat right next to me. Of course, I wasn't studying, but I was drawing. It was a boy, full of stitches and eyes blood red, and another one with some kind of sword and mid length hair that flew with the wind.

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's a nightmare I'm having since we moved here..." Somehow, my dad's tone always calmed me down.

"What are they doing?" He had "shock" written all over his face and something in the way he looked at the draw told me he knew those boys.

"Fighting I guess.... This is the last thing I see in my nightmare before I wake up. Everything before that is just a big blur of body shapes and weapons or so... I don't know it's all too confusing."

"Okay then, don't be up for too long, and go get some rest." He kissed my forehead and left my room in hurry. I didn't pay much attention to him because I was finishing my draw. It was my mum's weird boss who gave me the idea of drawing my nightmare. Apparently, there's an old folklore that says that if your terrors are imprisoned in a piece of paper they can't appear in your sleep. It doesn't hurt to try, right?!