The Dragon and the Strange
We were killing time at a coffee shop near the station when the car Do Ji-yeon's grandparents had sent for us finally arrived.
Following Ji-yeon out to the front of the shop, we found a van waiting—and a fairly large one at that.
It was the kind of vehicle you only ever saw on variety shows when celebrities traveled as a group, but with seven of us, the size made sense, so we climbed aboard without much thought.
It wasn't as though they'd suddenly dispatched a limousine. Grandparents who had money and knew how the world worked could easily spend this much on their granddaughter and her friends. That was what I told myself, anyway.
But soon enough, that perfectly ordinary assumption of mine sank straight to the bottom of the ocean.
I'd always figured I sat pretty far outside the bounds of "ordinary" myself—but this was a side of things even I had never experienced. Living with Ha-yan in an apartment, how many of these old-fashioned buildings had I really seen? Gyeongbokgung Palace, maybe, if I stretched it.
I'd been casually picturing a western-style villa by the sea or nestled in the mountains. What greeted our eyes when we stepped out of the van was—
"A... hanok?"
"Hehehe. Welcome, everyone, to the greatest pride of our family—a perfect traditional hanok~!"
A massive traditional Korean house, radiating antique elegance from deep in the mountains.
But how could a hanok this enormous even exist out here?
"Holy crap. There are still hanok like this left in our country? In a mountain valley in Gangwon-do, no less?"
"Heh. What do you think? It's a hanok built the old-fashioned way, exactly as they used to. Not a single modern iron nail in the whole place, supposedly."
"Your grandparents must be seriously rich, huh? Old-money landowners or something?"
"Maybe? I don't know the details either, but I've never heard anything about them running a company."
"Woooow... This is insane... That wood smell..."
"There's even a little bell hanging over theeere."
"It is summer, right? There's this incredibly cool breeze blowing in. This is exactly like those YouTube videos."
The enormous wooden gate before us creaked open with a pleasant sound, and we stepped into the hanok.
The people who'd opened the gate for us—several folks dressed in something close to everyday hanbok—bustled about busily, greeting Ji-yeon and us as they passed.
Watching them hurry around, I casually asked Ji-yeon,
"So this isn't the villa we're staying at yet, right? No way a villa would have this many people. And the place is huge."
"Of course not. This is the main house where my grandfather and grandmother live. On New Year's and Chuseok, the whole family gathers here. I figured we should at least say hello first. Grandpa and Grandma said they wanted to see your faces too."
This time Ha-yan asked,
"So just the two of them live in this enormous hanok?"
"Well... two of them, sort of. There's almost always guests coming through, so calling it just the two of them feels a little off. When I was little, I used to come here every school break, and in those two months the main gate never once stayed closed. I learned the meaning of 'wearing down the doorstep' firsthand here."
Beside us, Choi Hoon—who'd been blankly looking around—muttered with a look of grim resolve that we all heard clearly.
"I'm never letting you put malatang and tanghulu on my tab again, Do Ji-yeon..."
"Ah!! Why!! This isn't even mine! It's not my mom and dad's either!!"
"Hey!! If you have any conscience, think about it! You're the granddaughter of a house like this and you keep trying to sponge off my broke ass!!"
Choi Hoon yelled at Ji-yeon in open rebellion, but Ha-yan and I already knew how this argument would end.
The moment school started again, Choi Hoon would get dragged off to a malatang place by Ji-yeon.
Looking at it that way, Ji-yeon might even eat malatang with Choi Hoon more often than with Ha-yan.
Anyway, following our guide toward the very center of the hanok complex, we arrived in front of the largest building.
Ji-yeon immediately kicked off her shoes, stepped up onto the wooden floor of the hanok, and knocked on the door covered in clean white hanji paper.
"Grandma~ Grandpa~ Your granddaughter's here!!"
We hesitantly took off our shoes and climbed onto the floor after her as she flung the door open and went inside.
After a short wait, Ji-yeon came back out beaming, holding her grandfather and grandmother by the hands.
Sssssss... Hmm... What is this.
"Hm? What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just talking to myself."
Something was off. Both of them looked... unnaturally youthful. I didn't know their exact ages, but they looked far younger than they had any right to.
The grandfather wore the kind of sophisticated clothes you'd see in a senior fashion magazine, his white beard neatly groomed to perfection. The grandmother was dressed in a lovely everyday hanbok, her slightly downturned eyes giving her a warm, kindly look.
Of the two, the grandmother spoke to us first.
"Come in, come in. It must have been hard putting up with our scatterbrained granddaughter, and coming all this way."
"Aahh~~! Grandma! Why would you say that!!"
"Quiet, you. I already heard everything from your mother. These kids helped you finish your summer homework in a week! She told me all about it!"
"...Ugh."
Ji-yeon, who'd been clinging to her grandparents and acting cute, wilted instantly at her grandmother's words and threw her arms around her grandfather instead.
The grandfather looked thoroughly amused by his adorable granddaughter, but he didn't say a word about what the grandmother had said. Or rather, he couldn't.
One look at the conversation told you exactly how the hierarchy in this household worked.
On our side, Ha-yan stepped forward and greeted them.
"Thank you so much for inviting us. I think we're going to have a wonderful time."
The grandmother's expression softened a little at Ha-yan's manner, and she came forward to take Ha-yan's hands firmly in hers.
And the moment the grandmother took my hands as well, I couldn't help flinching slightly.
"Hehe. Not at all. We're so grateful you've been putting up with our inadequate granddaughter. This young lady is Lee Ha-yan? And the young men next to her are Cha Siu and Choi Hoon, correct? And the ones behind are your junior classmates studying abroad for a year? I've already heard a brief version from my granddaughter. Please rest well while you're here."
After the introductions, the grandmother and grandfather quickly withdrew.
They probably didn't want to put too much pressure on us as Ji-yeon's friends. Otherwise there would have been no need to call Ji-yeon aside for a private talk.
While Ji-yeon discussed the rest of the schedule with her grandparents, we moved to another nearby wooden floor and passed the time with the tea and snacks the servants had brought out.
According to Ji-yeon, the villa was located in a mountain valley—we'd need to drive a little farther from here, then walk about ten minutes on foot.
We were resting with fragrant Solomon's seal tea and yakgwa when Ji-yeon came back to us quickly.
"Ugh. All I got was an earful of nagging for nothing."
She casually swiped the tea sitting in front of Choi Hoon as if it were her own and downed it in one shot.
Choi Hoon, suddenly robbed of his tea, stared at her with a look that said he desperately wanted to punch her—but Ji-yeon paid him not even one percent of her attention.
Ha-yan swallowed a laugh at the two of them and asked her,
"Hehe. They nag because they love you. So what did they say? They seemed to duck out pretty fast so we wouldn't feel uncomfortable."
"Nothing special. Just told me to have fun with my friends and head back. And to treat you well since you helped with the summer homework. Not that I needed them to tell me that—I was going to anyway."
Grumbling, Ji-yeon started eating Choi Hoon's yakgwa too.
Choi Hoon just stared at her with dead eyes, like a man who had given up on everything.
Holding back a laugh at his pathetic expression, I asked Ji-yeon,
"So why are we waiting around here?"
"Huh? Mmmph. No reason. Grandma and Grandpa said we should eat lunch before we go. They felt bad about not feeding us after we'd come all this way. They said to look around the hanok until then."
"They really don't have to. You said they stocked the villa with tons of food already."
"You already know we don't get a choice in the matter, don't you, Ha-yan?"
If the two of them said so, then as guests, following along was the proper thing to do.
I still didn't know exactly how wealthy they were or what kind of business they ran, but judging purely by the size of this hanok, they stood somewhere far above the average rich people of Seoul.
I could have looked into it if I wanted to, but I had zero intention of digging into Ji-yeon's family affairs. And honestly, there was no need.
While the meal was being prepared, we followed Ji-yeon's lead and started touring the hanok.
The place was so enormous I couldn't even gauge its size—a maze of interconnected buildings that would leave a stranger hopelessly lost.
Even Ji-yeon, leading us around, grumbled as old memories came back.
"It's so huge I used to get lost here all the time as a kid. The first time I came, I was so scared I bawled my eyes out. After Grandma and Grandpa found me that one time, though, it never happened again. Oh, and this way is the best part of the whole place."
Ji-yeon said that and boldly opened a door—
"Woooow. Holy crap."
"I-it's huge. It looks like a tree that's lived for hundreds of years."
"And it's a ginkgo, right? It must look incredible in the fall."
Not just the three juniors—Ha-yan, Choi Hoon, and I all stood with our mouths hanging open at the massive ginkgo tree that greeted us.
And the moment I laid eyes on that ginkgo, I knew.
Something was wrong here.
What was wrong?
The second I stepped over the threshold of the place where that giant ginkgo stood—
A massive wave of magical power washed over me—
"...Things even Ha-yan can't hear?"
"Hohoho. Sharp young man, aren't you. And here I thought I'd kept this magic carefully sealed away for a few hundred years."
"Well... I'm not exactly an ordinary human myself."
In an instant, everyone around me vanished, and I found myself standing alone before the great ginkgo tree.