Good Morning, Intruder
Ohayo.
Moving house wouldn't do me much good anyway.
Truthfully, the current climate was actually a decent time to go house-hunting. Many Japanese had panicked at the news that the Governor-General and the army were withdrawing together and hurried back to the home islands. Some had simply abandoned their real estate in Korea and left, but a considerable number were putting their land up for sale — or preparing to — before departing for Japan.
The reason was a rumor that the kind of procedure every newborn state eventually goes through — land reform — was likely to be implemented. With the army and Governor-General stepping down, the question of the state-owned lands purchased during the land survey could hardly fail to surface. And it wouldn't stop at state land alone; a controversy was bound to erupt over whether it was really appropriate for Japanese capitalists to keep holding so much Korean soil even after independence.
The Japanese cabinet had declared that protecting Japanese interests in Korea would be its top priority. If the Korean government tried to forcibly confiscate land owned by Japanese, it would run headlong into fierce Japanese resistance and interference. But this was a government that hadn't even managed to protect the interests of its own citizens living on the home islands because of the war.
There was no way to be certain it could protect the interests of Japanese living in Korea for long. And so many Japanese had begun putting their buildings and land on the market, trying to salvage whatever price they could before the Korean government launched any coercive land reform. With listings piling up in the market, decent properties were more accessible than they'd ever been. I could probably have managed to move into a reasonable villa somewhere — but in the end, I decided to stay right where I was, in my small, shabby little house.
I finished a simple dinner and went to bed. The next morning, I was woken by the sound of someone tapping on my window.
I fished my pocket watch out from under my pillow — half past six already. I scrambled up wondering if I was supposed to be at work, then remembered I no longer had a job to go to. By a normal schedule, this was about the right time to be getting up anyway. I'd never been much of a morning person, but my body was healthy enough that I shook off the grogginess of waking before dawn fairly quickly.
"Honestly, what kind of lunatic goes around tapping on people's windows at the crack of dawn…"
I muttered in Japanese, already guessing who it was. Muttering, I say — though I kept my voice loud enough to carry clearly through the glass. At that moment, something thin and long, like a sliver of metal clip, slid smoothly through the gap in the rattling window. I watched in silence as the tool clinked and jiggled, apparently trying to work the latch loose.
"Hmm, the tapping's stopped. Did they give up and go home? I suppose I should make breakfast. There's leftover miso soup from yesterday, and…"
Any ordinary person would have been terrified out of their wits, but after three years living in this age of barbarism, I'd learned to keep my composure in most situations. A well-timed inoculation, you might call it.
Being thrown into harsh circumstances doesn't automatically toughen up your mind. In fact, in extreme situations like an actual battlefield, PTSD can take root and leave you psychologically weaker. But I had spent three years in the most barbaric era imaginable, witnessing every manner of savagery — albeit from the relative comfort of the rear echelon.
Which is to say, I'd cultivated enough resourcefulness to handle it gracefully when a stalker tried to pry open my window latch before sunrise.
Click. With that sound, the window finally gave way. The unidentified intruder hauled it wide open from outside and shouted, Peekaboo!
I darted toward the window, clapped my left hand over my own eyes, and let out a scream, exaggerated for effect.
"Kyaaa! A burglar!"
Then, trusting instinct, I poured every ounce of strength into my right fist and thrust it forward.
My fist shot out through the gap of the open window. A deeply satisfying impact bloomed across my middle knuckle — the particular sensation of a punch landing squarely on a human temple.
With a strangled ugh, the person standing outside the window crumpled to the ground. I lowered my left hand from my eyes and leaned my upper body out the window, feigning surprise. Lying sprawled on the street below, blood streaming from her nose, was the Deputy Minister of Military Affairs of the People's Republic of Korea.
"Oh my. It seems a burglar was just now trying to force open my window and break in…"
At my words, Hui-yeong swayed, pressed her hands to the ground, and managed to haul herself upright. I didn't help her to her feet — but my conscience did compel me to lend her a handkerchief for the nosebleed. Taking it, she spoke in a limp, exhausted voice.
"W-well… I didn't see any burglar. I think you must be imagining things."
"No, there definitely was one. Clearly they targeted this place knowing a woman lives here alone."
"Who on earth would target the home of Ajisai Mizuko on the grounds that she lives alone? It'd be safer to target the Emperor's harem."
Hui-yeong grumbled as she dabbed at her nose. I stuck out my tongue and pointed at her temple.
"Why is there a bruise on your face? Did you get hurt somewhere?"
"A little. I ran into a vicious thug on the way here and got attacked."
"What kind of thug in this world would have the nerve to ambush the great Choi Hui-yeong? Assaulting Joseph Stalin would be safer."
"Exactly what I was thinking. Oh, by the way, Unni — I'm grateful for the handkerchief, but any idea why I'm bleeding from the nose right now?"
I answered with practiced innocence.
"That would be my doing, obviously."
"You're actually admitting it?"
the Deputy Minister asked, dumbfounded. I nodded.
"You're in love with me, aren't you? You ran into the person you love first thing at dawn, so you got excited and your nose erupted. Isn't that how it works? When you're done with the handkerchief, wash it and return it."
"Honestly. Fine. So I just climb back in through the window, then?"
"No. Use the door."
And so, nose pinched shut, Hui-yeong had to trudge all the way around the block to the front gate before she was granted permission to enter my house. When she stepped into the small room, she was carrying a white box in her hands.
…There were a few red stains on it, though. Since I was the cause of them, I could only hope the contents weren't anything precious or important. Given how little Hui-yeong herself seemed to care about the stains on the box, it didn't look as though I'd committed some irredeemable blunder. She set the box down on the desk with a thump and took a seat on the wooden chair.
"And here I thought you were a more refined, serious person. You've got quite a mischievous streak, don't you?"
"I live according to the times."
I answered, still in my pajamas, perched on the edge of the bed. The woman before me looked me up and down as if determined to commit my sleepwear-clad figure to her black-memory forever, which was a bit much — but I wasn't naked, and frankly, acting self-conscious about it would have been more embarrassing.
"According to the times?"
"When I first met you, the world was presumably a somber, gloomy era. But it's brightened up, hasn't it? Korea is independent! Liberation, they say! Staying dark and brooding now would clash with the mood."
"Liberation. I wonder if it really is."
I understood exactly what lay behind that uneasy remark. But it was the kind of political subject that, once started, would sprawl on endlessly, so it didn't linger long between us. I changed the topic instead.
"Besides, I also live according to my company. With dignified people, I'm dignified. And with crazy women, I do crazy things. If the other party weren't a crazy woman, I wouldn't be greeting them with a punch to the head before sunrise. Even when I arrest criminals, I say hello first and attack second."
"Am I a criminal now?"
"If you plan to protest your innocence, I suggest you review your own conduct from yesterday."
Hui-yeong, apparently with nothing to say to that, simply laughed. And somehow I found myself laughing too, a smile tugging at my lips. Two days since we'd met, and I'd made her bleed twice.
…A personal record, for what it was worth.
Perhaps because we'd ended up smiling at each other, the atmosphere had grown rather warm. It felt like we could move on to business now. As conscientious a bureaucrat of a brand-new government as she was, I doubted she'd come crawling to my window at dawn purely because she felt like stalking me with no agenda at all.
If stalking were the goal, midnight would have suited just fine. There had to be some business. It would be in that box she'd brought. I turned my head toward the box sitting on the desk and asked.
"What's that?"
"Ah, that. Right. I nearly forgot — my head went all dizzy after taking that hit. I came to deliver that today."
"What is it?"
"Your uniform, Unni. I stayed up late last night working on it, and it was finally finished this morning."
…Stayed up late last night, finished this morning? A uniform? What kind of nonsense is that? If clothes could be whipped up that fast with a wave of some goblin's magic club, there'd be no such profession as tailor.
I asked, keeping my expression grave.
"When did you make it?"
"Well, um…"
"When did you make it to my measurements? Based on what?"
"…Last year."
"Before Korea was even independent?"
"…When I broke into your place, I checked the measurements of the clothes hanging in your closet. And as it happened, the Preparatory Committee was already designing uniforms for the new Korean army and police at the time, so I, ah, had a sort of prototype made to your measurements. So today I thought I'd bring it…"
"So you've been planning to drag me into this work ever since last year, on the assumption Korea would gain independence."
"Well. Yes."
"The Hong Sa-ik affair was just a pretext, then?"
"I was racking my brain for a pretext to win you over, and a very good one came along."
She was so disarmingly honest that I had no comeback at all.