Uninvited Guest - 5
The attic.
To Dang Hwarin, a room whose ceiling was not particularly high—one some might have found cramped—had become a far cozier nest than the Seong Family Manor, where she had once lived without want.
She stared blankly at the medicine clutched in her hand until a scent brushed her nose and she turned toward her roommate.
"Ugh… reeks of alcohol. Go wash up and sleep."
Hwarin rose and cracked the window open for a moment. The chill that slipped through cooled her flushed face.
"Urgh."
"I'll cover you with the blanket."
When Kang Yunho groaned at the sudden draft, Hwarin approached the man who had passed out from drink and exhaustion.
She unfolded her roommate's blanket from the corner, and his scent washed over her at once. She hated the smell of liquor, but this—this she did not mind. It had felt awkward at first; now it was somehow reassuring.
"Ugh."
"Ah!"
Startled by his soft moan, she yanked her nose away from the fabric she had been pressing close. She hastily pulled the blanket over Yunho, sat back down on her own bed, and watched him.
Hey. You didn't wake up, right? …Thank goodness. If you'd caught me, I'd have died of embarrassment.
When Yunho showed no sign of stirring, Hwarin picked up the hand mirror beside her.
"Look at me, actually using a hand mirror."
She let out a soft laugh at the absurdity of it, staring into the glass.
Hwarin had never looked in mirrors often. To do so meant facing a bleak reality.
A life spent swathed in cloth, lower face hidden behind black gauze. Why bother checking a mirror and fretting over that part? But things were different now.
Because she could finally imagine a brighter tomorrow, she looked into the hand mirror.
Just the vanishing of the pain after taking the medicine had felt like a miracle. Yet the effect had not stopped there.
"It's really healing."
Even looking again, it was marvelous. Subtle enough that she might have missed it if she had not examined carefully, but the improvement was unmistakable.
A face she herself never studied closely. Yet there was someone who always watched it carefully, who always worried. A man who always wished for her body to heal.
If that man had not pointed it out, she would never have noticed.
Gazing at the man who had come to her like a miracle, Hwarin replayed the scene from moments earlier.
Yunho's sudden physical contact.
Without permission he had laid his hand against her face—the very site of her complex. Anyone else would have earned a broken wrist. But Yunho was fine.
She had quietly accepted his touch.
— Hwarin. Honestly, if people just dropped their prejudices, it's a charming face.
Is he drunk? Is that it? Does being drunk make things look better?
At Yunho's murmur her head began to spin. She had heard that when men got drunk even plain women looked like peerless beauties. Was this that sort of situation?
— Hwarin. Lift your face a little.
Yes. That was exactly what this was. What was she supposed to do? Yunho. You said we were just friends.
She had never particularly wanted that kind of relationship, but if he truly desired it he should start with words. This was not right.
I'm not staying still because I want this—you're forcing it. Got it?
Since he wanted it, she would stay still for now. Thinking of a refusal she never intended to voice, Hwarin closed her eyes and pushed her chin forward as far as she could to make it easier for him.
Yunho adjusted the angle of her face with firm hands. To Hwarin it felt as if he were carefully positioning a target so a hidden weapon could pierce it cleanly.
Is it coming? It is coming, right? So Yunho did harbor impure thoughts toward her. What was she supposed to do next?
Right. First get a clear confirmation. He was the one who approached. She didn't particularly mind, but since he came to her she had no choice.
Don't even think of calling it a mistake. I'll be sad. No—not that. Anyway, just tell me your true feelings.
Hwarin smiled inwardly at the delightful plan forming in her head. Then a single sentence from Yunho shattered it completely.
— Undo the front of your clothes a little.
— Whaaaaat?
Permission did not mean everything was allowed. And the words Kang Yunho had spoken lay far outside the bounds of anything Hwarin had consented to.
How far am I supposed to allow this? No—how far is tonight even going?
— Hic!
Caught between fear and confusion as the man's hand drew near, she let out a sharp little scream.
— Sorry, Hwarin. My mistake. That wasn't what I meant.
Idiot. Absolute idiot. Dang Hwarin, you're not an idiot because of your face—you're just an idiot. Why scream there of all places.
Hwarin looked at Yunho, who could not lift his head for guilt. There was still a chance. She still had a secret move left.
She knew Yunho sometimes stole sidelong glances at her chest.
He seemed to think he was being natural enough that no one noticed, but she was the only person he ever paid attention to—how could she not know?
That cumbersome, heavy part of her. Still, if he was conscious of it enough, maybe it was worth using now. Whatever had extinguished his interest, perhaps she could rekindle the spark.
— First take a deep breath. This is important.
Just as she expected, when she loosened the front of her clothes something new seemed to flare to life in Yunho's heart.
— Yeah. I'm ready to listen.
She was ready to nod, too.
— Hwarin. Your face is healing.
What he said, however, betrayed her expectations—and was a truth greater than anything she had hoped for.
After expressing every emotion that could be called emotion—moved, overjoyed, overwhelmed, on the verge of tears, pure happiness—Hwarin headed for the washbasin.
Of course fresh embarrassment also bloomed: once again she had misunderstood everything alone. At the same time there was gratitude toward Yunho. And hope for the future.
She could heal.
Hwarin smiled at her reflection in the washbasin mirror. She had made a ridiculous mistake. Why do you keep confusing people? It wasn't her fault. Better to forget the embarrassment quickly and pretend nothing had happened.
The moment she stepped out she would thank her friend.
But the instant she saw him, she could not offer any words of gratitude.
Because the person standing there was not her friend Kang Yunho, but someone else's sworn brother, Kang Yunho.
He's thinking about his friend.
Hwarin could tell, without asking, that he was lost in thoughts of someone else.
She had spent her whole life longing for something she had never possessed; was Yunho still thrashing in the eternal emptiness left by something he had once held?
— What are you thinking about?
She hoped, desperately, that she was wrong.
— Mm. Just… if my friend could have taken that medicine, would they have recovered? Or would it still have been short? That kind of thought.
But of course it was exactly that.
Can I never become a substitute for that friend?
Sworn brother, he had said. Mo yeok ji u.
He had helped her solely because she, like his friend, was a victim of the Dokin experiments. That was how enormous the existence of that friend must be inside his heart.
And what of the relationship between the two of them?
He was a man far too generous to call her merely a friend.
Kang Yunho had helped her when she writhed in agony, had rescued her from the bandit den. When she was about to be crushed under massive debt and left on the street, he had used his wits so she could inherit this bookstore.
With the medicine he gave her she could even imagine a future where her face was fully healed.
I haven't given him anything.
She had merely been standing in his path, and he had helped her; she herself had been of no help at all.
If not for her, he would never have needed to revive this failing bookstore. With his silver tongue and writing skill he would have succeeded anywhere.
Am I the shackle…?
If not for her, he would not have been racing around solving incidents, would not have spent every day working in the bookstore, and could have written in peace.
She was blocking Kang Yunho's path. That fact stabbed her heart again and again.
"Yunho… once I'm all better, you're not going to leave, right?"
Hwarin muttered the words she had never been able to say to him aloud.
He had first said he followed her out of atonement. If her face healed and every debt of this bookstore vanished, wouldn't that be the day his atonement was complete?
If that day came, would he remain at Daseogak?
"Yunho. We're friends, right?"
We're friends, so stay by my side.
She was still the immature young lady of the Seong Family Manor while he kept growing larger and larger.
The gap between them, the favors he had bestowed—all of it kept swelling. And the thing swelling most of all was the Kang Yunho inside Dang Hwarin's heart.
Yunho called her a friend. That alone was truly precious, but friends could not stay at each other's side forever. If she wanted to keep him beside her, then not as a friend but as something else…
Hwarin stopped the thought cold.
How? With a face like this? In a relationship like this? What kind of nerve do you even have?
She let her head droop powerlessly. The hope that she might replace his sworn brother was gone; only her endlessly diminished self remained.
"The medicine… should I throw it away?"
The medicine she took every day. The medicine Kang Yunho and his friend had created. If her face never healed, he would never leave, would he? If she stopped taking it, she could keep him from going, couldn't she?
She could bind him forever, couldn't she?
"That would be betraying Yunho."
Hwarin shook her head hard. That would be betraying his trust, his kindness, his atonement—everything.
She could never betray Kang Yunho. If she betrayed his goodwill she would lose even the right to call herself his friend. Better to strive to become the sort of person he would want to keep beside him than to entertain such thoughts.
Hwarin swallowed the medicine.
It was a pill that usually had no taste beyond a dry chalkiness—
yet today it tasted more bitter than any poison.
"Yunho! Get up!"
Hwarin's completely unsympathetic morning call cracked my eyes open.
"Ugh! My stomach…"
The first thing I felt upon waking was a vicious hangover. I rubbed my belly and staggered up from the bed.
Whether I'd been writing or out drinking, I still had to go to work. The Daseogak I worked at was a golden labor environment of Monday-through-Sunday shifts—tomorrow and the day after, too. Who the hell was the manager around here?
"I'll mix you some honey water. Wait."
Hwarin quickly prepared the honey water and held it out. I soothed my burning stomach with it, then looked at her.
"Hwarin."
"Hmm?"
"You look a little better than last night."
"Really?"
"…Or not?"
"You little—! Want me to lose it?!"
"No, really. It's improved a bit more. Enough that it's clear."
Where clean skin had yesterday sat like a thin line, the patch had now narrowed to the width of a child's pinky finger.
"Really? It is…"
Hwarin checked her hand mirror and touched the improved spot. Shouldn't she be happier? Why the subdued tone?
Did my reputation points go up overnight?
Either a lot of people stayed up devouring my book, or plenty of folks had been talking about Hopil the way they had at last night's drinking party.
Was Hwarin's treatment possible once I reached a certain level of fame in Yichang?
Hubei Province.
A certain county far from Yichang.
Inside a vast manor reduced to wreckage, a few officials stood.
"They appeared again this month?"
"Yes. Following last month, they appeared this month as well. It seems periodic. We still don't know who did it, but there appears to be a leader. Look there."
The official pointed to a flag planted in the middle of the ruined manor.
Eliminate the Bourgeoisie.
— Kang Mo.
"Who in the blazes is this Kang Mo fellow?!"
In the manor that had once belonged to a notorious steward—where overnight every last scrap of wealth had been plundered and forcibly redistributed to poor farmers—the official lamented the bandit the common folk were now praising.
