Chrysanthemum Tea
“Anyway, I ought to thank you for saving me. Thank you.”
“What, for something like that? If you’d fallen into Giovanni’s hands, I’d have been in trouble too, so I helped of my own free will. And if you’re really grateful, don’t just say it with that free mouth of yours—yeah, I’d like to try some of that traditional Korean tea.”
“Traditional tea?”
Seo Rin looked up at Argon. There were traditional teahouses everywhere nearby, sure, but a vampire who wanted to drink traditional tea? Argon simply nodded in answer, looking for all the world like a mischievous little boy. He hardly seemed like a vampire who had lived more than a thousand years. Even among vampires there were those who reeked of villainy like Giovanni Vantero, and others like Argon or Maria who felt almost painfully human. Seo Rin turned the thought over for a moment.
He already knew Argon’s power was overwhelming. If the man had truly wanted to seize him, he could have done it without a second thought for onlookers. Seo Rin had already witnessed several times the way Argon could seize human minds and weave hallucinations without ever lifting a finger. If he had meant to take Seo Rin by force, he could simply have scooped him up while Seo Rin was still unconscious after the fight with Giovanni. Coming after him now made no sense. So why was he doing this?
On a hunch, Seo Rin checked his watch. He still had two full hours until his appointment with Maria. Sitting still for two hours with every thought that kept rising to the surface would drive him insane. Fine, then. Passing the time by listening to a little conversation wouldn’t hurt.
Unlike Se-gun, Seo Rin still had only a vague grasp of the power structure in this world. Hearing from a gentlemanly vampire just why all of this was happening didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.
“All right, then. I’ll cover it as thanks.”
“Yeah, good. Hey—you heard that?”
Argon glanced toward the side alley, and out of it stepped a Black man with dreadlocks and a middle-aged man in a raincoat and glasses. The Black man grinned and trotted right up in front of Seo Rin.
“Ow, friend. Real generous of you. But I’d rather have a proper meal than tea.”
“……Wait.”
Seo Rin glared at Argon. If he thought of them as lifesavers, a little money was nothing—but who were these two who had just attached themselves without a word?
“We’ve been in Korea a while now, so we’re thinking it’s about time we left. Problem is, ever since we got here we’ve been so busy scraping by that we haven’t done a thing. Figured we’d take the chance to sample a bit of foreign culture.”
“You still stuck those doll eyes on, though,” the bespectacled middle-aged man said, shooting him a sharp look.
“Stuck them on till I was sick of it. Anyway…… I’m a little short on cash.”
“A little short?”
He clearly had a lot of grievances piled up. Argon wiped cold sweat and gave a helpless shrug, a full-body gesture that said what do you want me to do about it. The middle-aged man started to get angry, then deflated with a long sigh.
“Haa. Well, anyway…… Ah, how about we go over there?”
Argon grabbed the wrist of the drained Seo Rin and dragged him, without asking, into the nearest traditional teahouse. They settled by the window and opened the menus.
“Ouuu. Argooon~ I no can read Hangook-eo~.”
The dreadlocked Black man suddenly rolled his tongue and put on a thick foreigner act. Argon snorted.
“What a pathetic line…… So this is—”
The moment he opened the menu, though, Argon broke out in a cold sweat of his own. Hangul was one thing; the menu was written entirely in Chinese characters.
“Hmm. So this one…… this one’s four thousand won, I guess.”
If you don’t know, just say you don’t know—yet here he was faking it. Seo Rin couldn’t help a quiet laugh. These really were some cheerful vampires. You would expect centuries of life to hollow a person out, but apparently not. Then again, hadn’t Seo Rin himself—a lycanthrope—been cheerful, light, and free before everything started?
“Ah, um. What’s good here?”
In the end Argon simply asked the young woman in the modernized hanbok who had come to take their order. She smiled and began explaining the menu.
“By the way, you all speak Korean so well.”
“Ouuu~ I speak Hangook-eo a little. Hangook girls. So, so pretty.”
The Black man kept the act going.
“Hey, Rat. If you’re gonna play it up, do it right. ‘A little’ is hard enough to pronounce—why’d you even try?”
“Tch. That so?”
“Four chrysanthemum teas and some dasik for everyone, please.”
Seo Rin finally placed the order and closed the menus. The waitress took them with a smile and left.
“Whoa, she smiled. She smiled. She was definitely smiling at me.”
“No way, Rat. That was for me. This isn’t Japan—Black guys aren’t popular here.”
“Ouuu. Argon, no way. My sexy dynamite muscular body and manly looks! The ladies are gonna melt for sure. You’re too baby-faced—no chance.”
Rat and Argon bickered over which of them the waitress had smiled at. The middle-aged man in glasses handed Seo Rin a towel and spoke.
“Let’s set the two idiots aside…… and talk.”
“Ah—yes.”
“We are the free spirits among vampires—Esprit. You know of us?”
“A little. But free from what, exactly?”
“Free from what? That’s a question you only get to explore after you’ve won the freedom. Still…… most vampires aren’t free at all. Those who suddenly become vampires without being absorbed into the system turn into beasts driven by instinct, attack whoever they please, and die at a hunter’s hands.”
The words driven by instinct made Seo Rin flinch. Hadn’t he himself become a beast ruled by instinct whenever he transformed? He gripped his water glass with uneasy hands.
“That’s why we need a system that controls and protects us. Tetra Anax are the ones fit to lead that system—we know that perfectly well. But Tetra Anax’s control sometimes goes too far. He refuses even free will and tries to turn every vampire into a limb he can move at will.”
Is that really true? Seo Rin looked at them, doubtful. No matter how he looked at it, these three did not seem like limbs of Tetra Anax. They must have their own reasons for talking this way. He simply nodded.
“Vampires are blood-sucking monsters in the end, aren’t they? Or greedy people who turned themselves into monsters chasing immortality……”
As Seo Rin muttered, Argon stopped roughhousing with Rat and looked straight at him.
“Hmm…… not entirely wrong. But that doesn’t mean we think, ‘I’ve become a blood-sucking monster, so I should die!’ Vampires have their own will to pursue a future. Same goes for you, doesn’t it, werewolf?”
He had seen straight through the struggle Seo Rin was carrying right now. After all, Argon had been present at the scene where Seo Rin killed Hyuk-jin. He hadn’t been there for the killing itself, but the before-and-after would have made it easy to guess. And he was right. On the surface, the words were perfectly right.
Dr. Kang had said the same thing; so did Argon. Sound reasoning. But if it were that easy, people wouldn’t be people. Hyuk-jin’s parents still didn’t know their son was dead; they would keep that room empty forever. The father would keep cursing his child, the mother would keep waiting and nursing her heartache. What right had Seo Rin ever had to wound them like that?
“I met his parents today. They don’t even know their son is dead. They keep the room spotless so he can come back any time. And I—the one who killed him—couldn’t say a single word in front of them. How am I supposed to tell them I killed their son?”
Seo Rin clenched his fists. Argon let out a quiet sigh.
“Time will pass and they’ll get back on their feet. As long as you’re not dead, no wound stays open forever.”
“That doesn’t mean I can say something like that so calmly after being the one who hurt them.”
“True—anyone who could say it that calmly wouldn’t be worth knowing. But you’re wounded right now too, aren’t you? Remember that wound. Be careful every time you use your strength. That’s the only atonement you’ll ever be able to make.”
As Argon spoke, the waitress returned with the chrysanthemum tea. A single dried chrysanthemum blossom rested in each porcelain pot, ready to be steeped. The vampires all leaned in together in surprise to examine it.
“Huh?”
“It really is chrysanthemum tea.”
“Some relative of jasmine? Putting the whole flower in is a pretty unique sense of style.”
“Whoa. Look—when you pour the water the flower opens.”
They made a fuss and looked at Seo Rin. He poured tea from the pot, covered the vessels, wiped the moisture with a towel, and met their eyes.
“So why did you want to meet me, then?”
“Hmm. Nothing we need to demand directly.”
Argon was blunt. They did want to find Lilith, but they weren’t about to order Seo Rin to dig her up. If he had that kind of ability, Se-gun would already have done something with it. Still, they couldn’t simply hand the current Seo Rin over to Tetra Anax either. He was a hot potato, pure and simple.
“All we ask is that you don’t get caught by Tetra Anax, and that if you ever find Lilith—or if anything else happens—you don’t treat Esprit as an enemy. We have no intention of making any hostile moves against you.”
“That’s…… incredibly cautious and completely trivial. Don’t tell me you came all the way to Korea just to say that?”
Seo Rin was speechless. Was that really something that needed saying out loud?
“No. We had other goals as well. But we’ve already achieved them. Hmm—this is actually pretty good. Unexpectedly.”
Argon sipped his tea and shrugged. Rat Gunip, however, downed his cup in one noisy gulp, poured more water, and grumbled.
“Smells nice, but it just makes me hungrier.”
“……You barbarian.”
Argon glanced at the complaining Rat, then smiled at Seo Rin. That smile held no ulterior motive; it looked like the plain truth. No—it couldn’t be anything but the truth.
“Anyway…… well. Basically we just want to stay on friendly terms. Honestly, I’d like to be friends with Han Se-gun too.”
“Even if the planet splits a hundred times over, that’s never happening.”
Seo Rin stared at him, incredulous. Was the inside of his head the level of a children’s cartoon? If simply wanting to get along made people get along, the world would be peaceful and conflict wouldn’t exist. Why would we even need armies and police?
Sensing Seo Rin’s reaction, Argon turned serious.
“I know that much. Do I look that stupid? I’m just saying. I know the difference between possible and impossible. And even if it’s a hassle, I’m not the type to swallow my pride and run from a fight either.”
“It’s not that, but……”
Seo Rin rolled the teacup between his palms. If these people really thought this way, Se-gun would have to rewrite his entire plan. The main reason Se-gun kept Seo Rin close wasn’t only that he was Lilith’s descendant; it was to draw out the moths that came after Lilith’s blood and to drag vampires into the open. But that effort to draw them out had not gotten nearly the response he expected.
Han Se-gun’s name had already grown so large it was practically an urban legend. As long as he was protecting Seo Rin, very few vampires dared to come after him.
“Anyway, I’ve said everything I wanted to say. Ah—wait. Hey, why are you meeting Maria, of all people?”
Argon threw out the unexpected question. Seo Rin blinked in blank surprise.
“Huh?”
Why was he meeting Maria? More importantly, how did Argon even know, and what did it matter if he was? Seo Rin asked back, half exasperated.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Maria calls me oppa and follows me around. She’s like a little sister—how am I supposed to not care?”
“Is she really your sister?”
Their personalities seemed similar enough, but their looks were completely different. Seo Rin asked just to be sure. Of course Argon and Maria couldn’t be blood relatives. Argon waved a hand and explained how he had met her.
“Of course not. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands she was just standing there, completely lost, outside a burning building. I saved her that day…… and after that we just got along, I guess.”
The Damned had always been a faction that submitted to Tetra Anax’s rule, so naturally they had never been on good terms with Argon, the anarchist leader of the discontented Esprit.
“……Uh, so that means……”
Seo Rin stammered as he raised his cup. Argon immediately turned serious.
“Hey, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not a pervert with a Lolita complex or pedophilia like you.”
“Pfft! Wh-who has a Lolita complex?”
Calling someone a pervert! Seo Rin was meeting her with nothing but pure intentions; he harbored no impure sexual feelings toward Maria whatsoever. The idea of feeling lust for a girl who still looked like a child no matter how many centuries old she was—he didn’t even want to imagine such a disgusting pervert.
“It’s a joke, a joke. Why get so worked up?”
“There are jokes you can make and jokes you can’t!”
When Seo Rin raised his voice, the other customers in the teahouse turned to look. They were already a conspicuous group; raising his voice only made the attention worse. Startled, Seo Rin quickly sat back down and drank his tea.
“So what do you think of her, then?”
Argon smirked at him. He clearly wanted to hear the answer. The realization made Seo Rin’s face heat up.
“What do I think…… Well…… first of all she’s rich!”
“Right!”
Argon chimed in immediately.
“And pretty.”
“Wow!”
This time a gasp of admiration.
“And she has a good personality.”
“That one I can’t agree with.”
Argon waved both hands. Hmm, so that was how he saw it? Still, the Maria Seo Rin knew had a cute, considerate side.
“Ah, anyway…… I’d like to have her as a little sister.”