Deputy Minister of Military Affairs, Choi Hui-yeong
Unni? I've never had a little sister like you.
We don't even share a surname, to begin with. I'm an Ajisai, and you're a Choi. Different nationalities, too. Honestly, we don't even look that much alike.
The words that should have burst out of me caught in my throat and refused to come. If my mouth wouldn't move, then my hands would have to — with that thought, I squeezed my fists tight against her grip, and mercifully, my body obeyed. But even with every muscle strained to its limit, my hands wouldn't come free.
Hui-yeong's fingers only dug harder into the backs of my hands, as if punishing me for the very attempt to escape her.
"You're… hurting me…"
"Oh, sorry about that."
Hui-yeong blinked and loosened her grip. But she didn't let go of my hands, and I, sensing the moment her strength had waned, didn't try to pull free again. Something told me I shouldn't. That darkness, sharper than obsidian, was telling me exactly that…
"Don't you remember me?"
"Even if you say we've met, Deputy Minister, I have no idea why I was summoned here in the first—"
"Ah."
Hui-yeong released my hands. With a faint air of disappointment, she trudged back to her seat.
"Of course. We never actually introduced ourselves, did we. I've been working at the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence since last year. Before that, Japanese police were the sort of people we had to avoid on sight, so it makes sense we never crossed paths. I'm quite thorough about things like that."
"You look rather young for it. Serving on the Committee for a year and already making Deputy Minister — you must be remarkably capable…"
"And before that, I spent two years in Tokyo."
"…So you were a student abroad, then?"
Even as the words left my mouth, something about them felt wrong. A Korean woman studying abroad? It didn't sit naturally. This was hardly an era that forgave such things easily. Hui-yeong listened, then covered her mouth and burst into laughter.
"You actually meant that, Mizuko?"
"No — a slip of the tongue."
She called me by my name as if we were close. But beneath that intimacy lay a heavy iron bar that tolerated no objection. I am someone who may call you by name as I please. Do not deny it. I had never granted permission in the first place, and yet I found myself unable to push back against an insolence that didn't quite register as insolence.
"A slip of the tongue, not a joke?"
"I wasn't joking… haha. Well, I'm glad you found it funny, at least."
"Most people wouldn't make that kind of slip. When a Korean woman says she spent two years in Tokyo, the typical reaction isn't 'studying abroad' — it's 'working in the pleasure quarters,' wouldn't you say? Ah — studying abroad, pleasure quarters. Don't those words fit together suspiciously well?"
"That's a joke I can't laugh at. Surely you don't mean…"
"Of course not. It was closer to studying abroad, actually. I learned a great deal in Japan. I came back to Korea after Tojo died. It was getting hard to stay there any longer."
What a strange way to put it. She spoke as though there were some connection — some cause and effect — between Hideki Tojo's death and her own return to Korea. Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked.
"What does the Prime Minister's death have to do with your homecoming?"
"That's a trade secret on my end. I may only be a government official in name so far, but I am one all the same. Even someone like me keeps a secret or two she can't just go around telling."
Hui-yeong said it breezily. Her dark eyes crinkled into a smiling look, and she seemed far more beautiful for it. I'd been so fixated on those eyes that I'd failed to notice until now — she was quite the beauty. Her skin was whiter than a white person's, and beyond white, so bloodless it felt almost cold, if nothing else.
Could she walk onto a kabuki stage with no makeup at all? Looking again, her skin wasn't quite that drained of color. But the fact remained that her pallor was striking enough to give that impression in an instant.
"In any case, that means there is a connection. Ah — I don't mean to pry. I was only…"
"Around that point — is there nothing you remember? It was barely a year ago."
There was something I remembered. But… was it really?
"I remember, Mizuko-unni. I'm the one who remembers. November 13th, 1944. Four thirty-three in the afternoon — I had a middle-aged gentleman passing nearby to thank for that, the pocket watch in his hand. Unfortunately, I can't recall the seconds. But the hour and minute are exact, I assure you."
"You… near the road back to Jongno…"
"You were on horseback."
"I gave you a piece of bread."
"And this, as well."
The Deputy Minister of Military Affairs strode to the wardrobe set in the corner of the room and flung its doors wide open. Hanging on the rack inside, pressed and immaculate, was the brown coat I'd lost about a year ago. The wardrobe was by no means small, yet it held nothing else whatsoever. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I couldn't help feeling that the entire space had been built as an altar for that single coat.
"A whole year has passed… I suppose it was only natural you'd keep it. Ah — was that what you summoned me for today? To say thank you?"
It seemed her purpose wasn't a bad one, and I relaxed a little.
The memory came flooding back. Last winter, shortly after I'd begun to be addressed as Senior Constable. Two years after making Assistant Constable, my title had changed, and so that the world might behold 'the newly promoted Miss Ajisai,' I had ridden through the streets of Kyeongseong on horseback, surveying public order.
My superiors' orders had been explicit: Tojo's death could serve as the spark that ignited the Koreans' independence movement, so watch them closely. Should any unrest show itself, they said, measures would be considered — using the Prime Minister's state funeral as pretext to shutter the street shops and disperse the crowds.
Fortunately, the patrol turned up no sign of anyone plotting another mansei uprising under the banner of Tojo's death. In truth, such uprisings were ignited when someone meaningful to the Korean people died — and Hideki Tojo's passing stirred nothing in them at all.
That day, the only troubled heart in the city had been mine. If Tojo was dead, then the world was flowing down a course entirely unlike the history I knew. What on earth was happening? What was I supposed to believe in, and how was I supposed to live? Those thoughts churning in my head, I rode the streets — and, remarkably, nothing happened at all.
Perhaps out of loneliness, I found myself lingering before a Western confectionery, a rare sight in those days, and bought some bread on a whim. It had been a bitterly cold day, and the streets were nearly empty.
That was where I saw the girl. Curled up inside a ragged straw mat that couldn't have kept out the cold, a girl with a gaunt, hollow-cheeked face.
She had been smaller then. Frailer. And her eyes…
No — her eyes alone were exactly the same. I remembered, with perfect clarity, where I had seen that gaze. The moment I mounted my horse to return to the station at last, the single look she gave me — it had been precisely the same as the one in Hui-yeong's eyes now.
There was no possibility it was someone else. She had grown taller, stronger. She now possessed a strength that even I couldn't wrench free of. But she was still her.
"You've grown."
"My chest, you mean? Probably thanks to that bread you gave me. Do you like it?"
Did I like it — I mean, no, that wasn't the point. Even between two women, how could she say such things so serenely?
"No, I mean, overall… you were younger back then."
"It was a year ago."
"Still… I'd have guessed you were fifteen at most…"
At my words, Hui-yeong smiled faintly.
"Last year I was a little smaller than the girls my age. And after Mr. Lyuh Woon-hyung took me in, I grew bigger than any of them. I'm still a touch shorter than you, though. Back then, I looked at you and thought — she's so tall, so striking. I wanted to catch up. I suppose that's hopeless now."
"Er… you're the Deputy Minister of Military Affairs of the People's Republic of Korea? And with General Hong Sa-ik not yet returned, you're effectively acting Minister?"
"Minister of Military Affairs in name, but Korea doesn't have a proper army yet, so there's little for me to actually do. Abe Nobuyuki — that stingy old man swept up everything, right down to the ancient rifles. We'll have no choice but to import from Manchuria and China. Well, the real work can wait until General Hong returns."
"Forgive my asking, but your age…"
"Eighteen. The very flower of youth. A seven-year gap — it suits us beautifully, don't you think, with you at twenty-five?"
I thought there was no need to go on about how well we 'suited' each other, but I felt a strong, silent pressure forbidding me from saying so aloud.
"Still… I don't understand why you sought me out."
In that instant, Hui-yeong seized my hands and hurled me bodily onto her chair. Pulled by that tremendous strength, I sank back into the plush cushions. It was the first padded armchair I had sat in since arriving in the twentieth century — the kind of chair that felt like the exclusive property of the upper crust. My world had held nothing but hard wooden seats…
But I wasn't given long to savor the softness. Hui-yeong's knee came up onto my lap as I sat with my arms resting on the chair's — one knee settling atop my thigh, her body looming over mine as she looked down. Her fingers brushed my chin, feather-light, and with the faintest touch, she tipped my head upward.
Our eyes met again. Those two eyes I could not refuse.
"I'm stronger than you now, aren't I, Unni?"
"…Your strength earlier was certainly…"
"Not just the strength of my arms. Power, too."
"Ah, but I'm… just a police officer…"
"I waited for that exact moment."
What was she talking about?
"I wanted to surpass your height as well. Some things seem to be beyond what you're born with. But…"
Hui-yeong took hold of the collar of my dress — that feminine, ornamental thing.
"Clothes like these never suited you. It was you in a uniform that I… fell for."