Han Seola (2)
“Seo, Seola? Shh!”
When I peeked past Juha, who was flustered and leading the way deeper into the training room,
“……Huh?”
there stood someone I’d never expected to see.
Sojin.
The one who had been her rock ever since childhood.
She must have woken from sleep, and yet the feeling wrapping around her heart was so warm and lingering that it was as though she were still dreaming.
How could she have forgotten? The moment she saw him, all the memories they had built together since they were children came flooding back.
And of course they did—he was the person she had wanted to see most of all.
When I searched for him like that, he never showed up even once…
A faint ache, like spring rain falling softly over dry ground, seeped into her heart.
Somehow she had ended up abandoning him, but that had never been her true intention.
Sojin was such a lovable man. The kind of man you always wanted by your side.
But…
If she wanted to obey her parents’ wishes, there had been no other choice.
When she finally went looking for him, he wasn’t there—he must have been out on a mission.
It’s not like he’d avoid me on purpose.
Just because she was Han Seola didn’t mean she had done nothing to find him.
In her own way, she was certain she knew Jin Sojin—no, Cheon Sojin—quite well.
She had gone everywhere he was likely to frequent, and just in case, she had even searched the old Jintian squad base.
None of the cadets knew where he had gone, and when she asked the instructors or the masters, they only said they didn’t know. After checking every corner of the academy and still failing to find him, she had assumed he’d gone back out into the Central Plains.
Maybe that was why. There were other people around them, but to her eyes, no one existed except him.
So he was in the training room. I’m glad I got to see him like this.
Then her mind went blank, like someone had struck her over the head with a club.
But… a training room? Sojin was training…? Ah!
Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Memory flashed through her mind like lightning.
That’s right. That was how it was.
The young Sojin she remembered, who trained diligently every morning;
the boy who hadn’t been especially gifted, but who loved training more than anything;
…she remembered.
Before that incident, he really had practiced martial arts with genuine passion.
“……”
Suddenly, she felt a little embarrassed.
Not some stranger, but her childhood friend, the boy she had grown up with—and she hadn’t even thought of something so obvious…
As a strange emotion began to rise in her chest, she clenched her faded bracelet tightly in her hand.
It’s not strange. It’s not that I wasn’t interested. I just didn’t think of it…
She forced herself to calm the turmoil in her heart and shook her head from side to side.
Maybe it was because the image of him as the head of Jintian Squad, taking care of the members and nothing else, had been burned too deeply into her mind.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought that.
She consoled herself and steadied her heart.
If it had been anyone else, they would have thought the same.
No one would have imagined that Sojin was holed up in the training room, practicing.
Had he been training like this all this time?
To think there was a side of Sojin I didn’t know about.
It felt strange.
For some reason, it made him seem farther away, like he was becoming someone else entirely.
No. Sojin must have had his reasons.
She didn’t particularly like the idea that he might have been hiding something from her, but now she understood why he had been able to defeat Namgung Jin in the great hall.
If he had kept training like this, it wouldn’t be so strange if he had won the duel after all.
Back then, he hadn’t truly used his techniques or his inner energy.
However,
…does training hard even mean anything?
Using martial arts was a different matter entirely.
With eyes that did not waver, she stared at him as though dazed.
Like the scent of flowers carried on the wind, old memories slowly began to return.
After such a long time, he greeted her as naturally as ever.
“Seola. You’ve been well?”
At a glance, she could tell something had changed.
No, it would have been stranger not to notice.
“S-Sojin… what happened to you…? Why is your inner energy…?”
It was because the inner energy he had accumulated as a child of the Guangdong Jin Family, after consuming countless elixirs, had nearly vanished.
That exhausted expression still lingered in her mind.
“I’m just a little under the weather.”
His joking smile was just as she remembered it the last time she’d seen him, but
she immediately noticed a subtle difference from usual.
His hands were trembling ever so slightly.
“…Liar.”
He had lost almost all the inner energy he’d built up while dreaming of becoming a martial artist—what kind of person could possibly keep their composure under that?
“……”
“You’re not trying to lie to me, are you? There’s no way I wouldn’t know.”
Maybe someone else wouldn’t, but he couldn’t hide it from her eyes.
“……”
“Tell me the truth.”
“You really can’t fool you, Seola. I just had some trouble… and things ended up like this.”
Sojin smiled awkwardly and waved it off as if it were nothing.
“Ended up like this? And you expect me to laugh that off?”
“……”
“This is serious! What on earth happened?”
“……”
She asked again and again, but
infuriatingly, he only wore an embarrassed look and stayed silent. He refused to say a word.
“You can’t even tell me?”
“No. You won’t feel any better hearing it.”
He looked terribly worn out.
Seeing that expression, she understood.
It was the same face she herself used to make.
Surely he’d been harassed by other adults, or by the family’s people, even if it wasn’t by her.
Looking at that face, she felt sympathy more than concern.
“Okay. You aren’t hurt somewhere, are you?”
So she decided not to press him any further.
That was the day she worried about him for the first time, unsettled by how strangely deflated he seemed compared to usual.
“Are you hurt?”
After hesitating for a long while, he glanced around before lowering his voice.
“A little.”
“What? Your inner energy’s gone, and you call that a little? I can’t even guess how long it’ll take to recover….”
“It couldn’t be helped. I chose it myself. …And I don’t need to recover.”
“You don’t? What does that mean…? Ah! You mean it isn’t serious enough to need recovery, right?”
She shook her head left and right, thinking hard about something.
“No. I’ll be like this from now on too.”
He had always been the dependable, reassuring childhood friend, but today he looked unbearably unstable.
He seemed so unfamiliar…
“From now on? Sojin… what are you saying right now?”
She gripped the sleeve of his long robe tightly in her hand.
If she didn’t, it felt like he might vanish somewhere forever.
Maybe he sensed her unease.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing big.”
Sojin smiled gently and laid a warm hand over hers.
A bright, charming smile.
The same smile he always showed only her steadied her heart again.
She met his eyes and gathered herself for a moment.
“What are you going to do without any inner energy…? Is there really no way?”
“I’ll just have to work harder from now on. I can’t give up just because I’m short on inner energy.”
He sounded confident, and he wore the right expression, but maybe it was just her imagination that he still looked somehow uneasy.
Having seen how hard he always worked, she couldn’t easily agree with that.
“……”
And yet, looking at Sojin’s resolute expression, the words wouldn’t come easily.
“...Still, it’s not all bad. I’ve got a dream now.”
“A dream? What is it?”
Some ridiculous nonsense like becoming the greatest swordsman under heaven, or the greatest swordsman in Guangdong, no doubt.
“I’m going to become a righteous wanderer.”
“A righteous wanderer?”
“Yeah, a righteous wanderer. What that means is…”
And then he talked with obvious enthusiasm until the sun set like a dying ember beyond the western mountains.
The story went on until the servants came looking for them.
“You really aren’t going to tell me?”
“Sorry.”
She asked again and again, worried sick, but he never told her in the end.
Still, that was fine.
Because it was fun being with Sojin.
Because they would keep staying together, today and next month and after that too.
“All right…. Let’s go inside first.”
“……”
She heard no footsteps.
When she turned her head, he was avoiding her gaze with a faint smile.
Instinctively, she knew.
He had come here to say this.
And then…
“Why? Is there something else you need to say?”
“I have a fiancée.”
He said the one thing she did not want to hear—the truly shocking thing.
*
“Lady Namgung, it’s been a while. What brings you here…? Did you come to train?”
By the time she came to her senses, three girls had already gathered around him.
When did that happen…?
She had been too lost in her memories.
“……”
When she glanced down, Juha was nervously chewing at her nails.
Come to think of it, why is Juha spying on Sojin…? And who are those girls? …I’m jealous.
There was nothing here she liked.
Sojin standing there so confidently, the girls surrounding him and smiling brightly—compared with that scene, she felt a little miserable.
Their strangely cheerful expressions dragged her mood all the way down to the floor.
“...Tch!”
Their bright, happy smiles were intensely irritating.
Why are you smiling like idiots?
At that moment,
“...Eep!”
their eyes met when he turned his head toward her side.
W-What do I do?
She quickly hid behind the wall.
It was true that she had wanted to talk to him again, but
“……”
“……”
she still didn’t have the courage.
Not now.
*
Where is he going?
This didn’t seem like a place he had any business with.
He had clearly come here looking for me, and yet he suddenly broke into a run toward somewhere else.
Namgung Hye raised her head and asked in a worried tone,
“Sojin-nim, is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing. By the way, Lady Namgung, you said you had something to tell me…?”
“Ah… well, that’s a little hard to say right now…”
She trailed off and looked back behind him, as if troubled.
“What’s the matter?”
“We’re just here. Don’t mind us. Isn’t that right?”
Paeng Gayeon and Ju Yeonhwa hummed innocently, awkwardly avoiding his gaze.
“……”
Namgung Hye gave a dry laugh, as if she couldn’t believe it.
If they were going to do it, they should at least act properly.
“So it seems. Please come this way, Lady Namgung.”
“Huh? S-Sojin-nim?! Eek!!”
Her face turned red as a ripe apple.
“Ah!? W-Wait!”
“H-hey!? Let go of my hand!”
Without another word, I grabbed Namgung Hye’s hand and ran out of the training hall.