Speak Your True Heart
The movie was finally over. I left the ending credits behind and slipped outside with Hong Yumin.
"……So."
"……."
I was afraid to speak.
"I'm sorry……."
There was nothing else I could say. I should have been more careful.
"……You did nothing wrong."
Hong Yumin slid me a sidelong glance.
"Even so……."
"Does my past trouble you so much?"
"……."
How could it not? I knew her past down to the bone.
"It is time long gone. So faint now that I can scarcely remember it."
Was that true? It couldn't be. Immortal or not, pain that overturns a life does not fade, not even after decades. Why else did trauma exist? Why else did PTSD?
"You do not look convinced."
"……It's not the sort of memory that fades easily."
"And your lack of tact, I suspect, will not fade easily either."
Damn this mouth. I should have kept it shut.
"Fool. The one who lived it says she is fine, and you alone kick up a fuss."
The words drove in like a blade. I could practically feel my favorability plummeting in real time.
"Sorry."
"An apology does not suit. Do I look so weak to you?"
"Of course not."
Hong Yumin, weak? How many people in the world could even stand against her? And yet she seemed to feel otherwise. She snorted.
"Ha. Words you do not mean."
"I stated an objective fact."
"Nonsense."
Her gaze turned razor-sharp. It wasn't fair.
"You……. Hah. Say no more."
She let out a heavy, stifled sigh.
"Hey, Yumin?"
"Do not speak to me."
She left only that cold voice behind and walked away.
"H-hey……?"
The moment she stepped forward, I was dragged along with her.
"Why do you follow? The weaker one was trying to bow her head and keep quiet."
"It's not that……."
"Then what is it?"
"Our hands……."
I lifted my right hand. Hong Yumin's was locked tight around mine, as if it refused to let go.
"…………."
Color flooded up her neck.
"Let go."
"Uh, yeah."
I slowly opened my palm. Before my hand could slip free—
Grab.
Hong Yumin's hand caught me again.
"…………."
"…………."
I tried to pull away.
Grab.
Caught again.
"……Yumin, won't you let go?"
"……."
Her eyes churned wildly. She didn't seem to understand why she was doing it either.
"So you worked some trick on me."
"I didn't!"
"And what part of that is 'didn't'?"
"It's didn't because it didn't!"
This was genuinely unfair. It might have been the first time I had ever held a woman's hand, but there was no way I would force it like this.
"……Then this."
She forced her mouth open through the shame.
"This happened because I wished it?"
"……."
Well, yes? But say that out loud and my arm would be severed on the spot.
"Yumin."
"What."
Her eyes went bleak. I could feel the resolve in them: one arm or the other had to come off. I had no desire to become a red-haired pirate.
Just then, a bar caught my eye.
"……There's a bar right there. Want to go?"
"You mean to go like this?"
"Uh……."
If a man and a woman walked in hand in hand, all cozy, what would people think? That we were lovers. Obviously.
"Have you a thought in that head, or have you not?"
"Booze! If we drink, maybe our hands will let go!"
"Drink, you say?"
Get drunk enough and the strength goes out of you. Maybe that would solve this too.
"And you imagine the two of us would grow drunk?"
"……."
Hard to say. If we drank by the truckload, maybe?
"A shame. I shall have to cut it off."
"Wait! Seriously, just a second!"
I did not want to donate my arm to a new era.
"If we focus on eating, they really might come undone."
"Ha. Bullshit of that caliber is practically an art."
Hong Yumin looked up at the sky. It seemed less a glance than a lament for her own fate.
"Very well. I ought to grant you a final farewell, at least."
"You really don't have to."
"Then I may cut? Even if your head comes off, it grows back, so you will be fine."
"It doesn't grow back!"
Not right now. If she was going to cut anyone, she could cut Phantom.
"Fine. What does it matter. Let us go drink."
"Uh, then which restaurant—"
"No restaurant. Buy only the side dishes."
"Then where? A park? Somewhere by the Han River?"
"No."
What she said next left my mind blank.
"We will drink at my house."
"……Pardon?"
I blinked. I couldn't be sure I had heard her right.
"I said we will drink at my house."
"……You have a house?"
"Of course I do. Soryeong gave it to me. I have merely had little cause to use it."
Well, she had been busy enough that the chance never came. Hong Yumin shrugged.
"Drink at your house and everyone would notice. Even you did not know I had one, so it is a suitable place to avoid prying eyes. No one will interfere there."
"Is that really all right?"
"And why would it not be?"
I wasn't sure it was. How had we circled all the way around to that conclusion?
"At any rate, know it for what it is. Prepare the food. As quickly as you can."
She issued the order with absolute finality, and with the clear intent that a single second's delay would not be forgiven.
"Got it……."
I ordered spicy chicken feet on my phone.
"What's the address……?"
"The address?"
Hong Yumin went blank for a moment.
"Right. There is such a thing as delivery……."
She murmured it like a revelation, then gave me the address.
"Let us go home. It should have arrived by the time we return."
"We're going somewhere with no people."
She rose onto her toes, and the world shot upward. Seoul's nightscape spread out clear beneath us.
"Hold fast."
"I'm already holding on."
"……Damn you."
She spat the curse and kicked off into empty air. I gave myself over to her like a kite on a string.
Hong Yumin's house was, ironically, the one directly across from Dan Miryu's.
We killed our presence, picked up the bag of chicken feet set neatly by the door, and went inside.
"Pardon the intrusion……?"
"Enter."
We went in together, still not letting go.
Walking into a woman's house. Another first. Reaching her home on a single date was an impossible feat, unless you were a man drowning in plot convenience.
Nerves tight, I looked around. The inside was remarkably clean. Every necessary piece of furniture was there, and crafts that belonged in a museum sat in tidy rows. Outside, it was a modern house. Inside, it might as well have been a noble yangban manor lifted out of a historical drama.
"Here it is."
Hong Yumin drew an enormous bottle from the kitchen.
"What is that?"
"Can you not tell by looking? Snake wine."
Did she haul that out of the Amazon? The snake came up to a person's waist.
"When did you steep something like that?"
"Not long ago. I cannot say whether it has aged properly."
She popped the lid and sniffed.
"It will taste of liquor well enough."
She flicked her hand. The bottle and a pair of chopsticks flew onto the table.
"Open the chicken feet. You ordered them spicy, did you not?"
"Y-yeah."
Under that subtle pressure I fumbled the bag open with one hand. Bright red chicken feet greeted us cheerfully.
"Let us eat."
She poured snake wine into a cup and held it out to me. Once she saw that I had taken it, she knocked her own drink back without a word.
I had wanted a toast, at least……. This did not seem like the moment.
With one hand locked in hers, we ate and drank in silence. One cup, two, three. The snake dwindled at a startling pace. The chicken feet vanished in an instant.
While I was wiping sauce from my lips with a napkin, Hong Yumin swirled her cup and asked.
"What happened at that café?"
"……What café?"
My slightly drunken brain snapped awake at once. I swallowed and tried to deny it, but those half-lidded eyes did not miss the slip.
"You fought someone where I could not see. Who?"
"I didn't fight anyone."
"If you mean to lie, at least hide the trembling of your eyes."
She was staring straight through me.
Since when? I had fought in a place where space and time were cut off from everything else.
"You must be curious how I know."
She gave a short laugh and drained her cup. Fair skin flushed red, the same red as her hair. Her fingers traced the rim. She made no effort to hide the heat in her skin, and the sight of her was strangely, terribly alluring.
"I saw. Only briefly."
"You saw……?"
Then? Stealing that space had been the mistake.
The cup filled in a rush and emptied just as fast. One drink before speaking. One drink after.
"Seeing that, what do you imagine I thought?"
"……."
Her eyes gave me the answer. Her skin was drunk. Her gaze flashed with reason.
"I was afraid."
The flat confession sank straight into me. Was this the true feeling she could speak only by borrowing the wine?
Liquor rushed into the cup again. Was that the key that opened honesty? I matched her and drank it down, gulp after gulp.
"You have nothing to fear."
"Do not make me laugh."
Her fury slammed the table.
"You saw that, and you tell me not to be afraid? You tell me to run again?"
"That's not what I meant……."
"……No. It is because I am weak."
A dull weight settled in my chest. Could words make her understand? I had no confidence they could.
The fingers wound so tightly around mine came loose. A hand that had lost its hold groped, then seized me by the collar. Breath drew close. Lips drew close. Eyes drew close.
"That one is the enemy you must face at the end, is he not?"
An enemy I would have to fight, no matter what, when everything reached its close.
"Go on, then. Recite it."
Were we truly what that fight required?
"Nece—"
"Put that false answer back where it came from."
One finger slipped between my lips.
My true heart. The scent of a woman's skin stirred my brain. The liquor unraveled my mind. Reason was driven out, instinct seized hold, and my mouth opened on its own.
"I……."