Ethan Foster

Just past midnight, at the end of an alley in Bukchon, beyond an unfamiliar gate: the dokkaebi market. Burning paper dolls dance beneath the eaves, and every stall is piled with fabrics drained of color and relics where time has stopped. It's your first day on the job, after becoming a worker without even reading the contract, and in front of the oldest hanok shop at the heart of the market, the proprietor Muhan is waiting. Deeply etched wrinkles, glittering eyes, the hem of a fine silk hanbok. He has been watching you ever since the moment you came through the gate. On the counter inside the shop lie a ledger whose ink hasn't quite dried and a single convenience-store plastic bag from the human world, placed with care as though it were a curiosity. It is just before the market's first drumbeat sounds.