Temporary Closure - 4
Of course it was a guy.
Hwarin, it was true that I had invented a Dokin friend with my rich imagination, but creating a female human friend was impossible—I simply lacked the data.
I was certain she would start by grilling me about the pineapple pizza.
I already had an excuse prepared for that, yet she hit me with a completely unexpected question and left me flustered.
Had I ever actually told Hwarin that my Dokin friend was a boy? I thought about it for a second. No, I didn’t think I had.
Naturally, the image of my Dokin friend in my head was the son of Hyang-a, the one who had been killed by bandits. A fellow Joseon person, burdened with a tragic secret of birth, and meeting a pitiable end.
Why is Hwarin suddenly asking something so weird?
Was she suspicious of me? I had shown her my lying face far too often. From her perspective, there might be plenty of shady spots in my whole setup.
My carefully crafted Kang Yunho universe had been tainted by this slapped-together illegitimate-son multiverse nonsense, and Dang Hwarin might not be thrilled about it at all.
Should I just say the Dokin friend was a guy right away?
Kang Yunho’s crisis-detection sensor wasn’t ringing any alarms, yet something felt off. Declaring the friend male might be walking barefoot into a minefield.
“Why do you ask?”
Instead of answering that my Dokin friend was a guy on the spot, I took a step back and probed her carefully.
“So it is a girl.”
Hwarin declared it with the air of someone who had already solved the case.
“What are you talking about?”
“You just hesitated. I saw the whole thing. If it had been a guy, you would’ve answered right away. You hesitated because it’s a girl, didn’t you?”
Dang Hwarin spoke with absolute conviction, as if a legendary detective had possessed her. Hwarin, catching the hesitation was good, but your direction is completely wrong.
“What nonsense. It’s a guy.”
I denied it at once to clear up her misunderstanding—but I kept my tone light, leaving a crack. If she truly had solid proof, I wanted room to change the story later.
“You’re going to lie to me too?”
Hwarin deliberately scowled, eyes wide as she glared at me.
“Why do you think that?”
Come on, at least tell me the reason you’re so sure.
“Actually… I’ve been suspicious for a while. But after hearing what Uigakju-ahjussi said today, I became certain.”
“What Uigakju said?”
“The lecher. You remember him saying something was wrong with his head?”
So Hwarin really didn’t think of that lecher as her father at all. I thought it would bother her, yet she tossed out the word “lecher” in a completely casual tone.
“The part about not being able to control his emotions?”
“Yeah. I saw something similar in the Dokin manufacturing manual Dang Geoho had hidden deep inside the Seong Family Manor.”
Men possessed the nature of yang, so they consumed poisons charged with yang energy; women, conversely, took in poisons of yin energy. First you built a body that could withstand the opposite nature’s spiritual poison pills, then you ingested them.
Hwarin gave me a brief rundown of the complicated Dokin creation method.
“The lecher was a man, so he must have taken poisons full of yang energy.”
“Right. When you keep taking yang-charged poisons, the toxins stimulate the brain. You end up with impulse-control problems just like that lecher.”
“Ah.”
“You said that kid stayed close with you right up until the moment he shoved you away before dying. That means his mind was fine. For that to be possible, the Dokin had to be a girl.”
Hwarin dipped her head slightly and peered up at me through her lashes, the look on her face screaming, Still going to keep quiet even after all this?
“…….”
Should I claim the Dokin friend was a guy who also had impulse-control issues? That would clash with every memory of the friend I had already shared with Hwarin.
While I stayed silent, she spoke again.
“And another thing. Do you know what your face looks like whenever you think about that friend? No matter how close the friendship, you can never, ever make that kind of face.”
Hwarin cut her words short and hammered each one into me for emphasis.
That’s just because I think of Sohee when I’m doing emotional acting.
Too many things snagged in my heart. When I tried to catch the right emotional wavelength while talking about my pitiful friend, I thought of Sohee and her cursed fate. When Hwarin started recovering, I thought of Sohee again.
Do I have to say the Dokin friend was a girl?
At this point it was basically checkmate. Time to change the plan.
Let’s review the Dokin friend setting. Everything I prepared. Everything I already said. Does anything change if the gender flips? No. Any contradictions? None.
Aside from the name, nothing major in the prepared setting would break if the gender changed.
Fine. Just admit it cleanly.
“Yeah. You’re right. It was a girl.”
I nodded like a criminal caught red-handed by the great detective, letting out a hearty laugh as I confessed the “truth.”
After a brief silence, Hwarin spoke.
“Why did you lie and say the friend was a guy?”
Because that was the setting I made, obviously.
“Because you didn’t need to know.”
“Wh-why wouldn’t I need to know?”
“We’re about to walk into the tiger’s den. I have to play the illegitimate son of the Dang Clan Leader. If you know that ‘son’ is actually a girl, you might unconsciously show it or slip up. Compared to the clean feeling of telling the truth, the risks are way too high.”
“Then what about before? You could have told me even before today’s mess.”
Hwarin bit her lower lip lightly and looked up at me. Was she feeling betrayed that I hadn’t revealed the friend was a girl?
I couldn’t afford to have a falling-out with Hwarin in this situation. Time to cook up a plausible excuse.
“I never once thought of that kid as a girl. So when I talked about our memories, there was no reason to say things like ‘she was a girl’ or ‘she was a young lady.’”
“But—!”
I know. Every time I thought of that kid, my expression got way too soft. I already prepared an excuse for that too.
I avoided Hwarin’s eyes, turned a wistful face toward the window, and spoke.
“It’s just…….”
“Just?”
“My puberty only arrived after that kid died. That’s all.”
A one-sided love that could never become first love. A man who went through the most painful adolescence imaginable. A man who realized his feelings too late and kept them locked in his heart.
I smiled at Hwarin, packing regret and sorrow into the expression.
“……Huh?”
Hwarin looked like she had been smacked with a hammer; her jaw dropped open.
When I spoke to Hwarin it was just a friend, but whenever I reminisced my face filled with affection. Hwarin, with a setting this solid, isn’t that enough for you to understand?
Let’s be satisfied with roughly this much setup and move on to the next topic.
We still have way too much to prepare before we charge into the tiger’s den.
So he loved her.
A sharp, tingling pain flooded into her chest like rising water. She shouldn’t have asked. The curiosity that had nagged at her like a thorn in her shoe now dug deep into her flesh.
From the sorrowful smile on his face, Dang Hwarin could finally understand every single thing that had happened until now.
Why he hadn’t been able to walk past her even at their arrogant first meeting. Why he had come running when she was in danger. Why he returned with the antidote even after she rejected him.
She finally grasped the real reason he helped her with everything he had—because her circumstances resembled those of his closest friend.
He must have seen that girl overlapping with her.
It wasn’t some grand sense of atonement he kept talking about. He had helped her for an entirely different emotion.
The tingling pain squeezed her heart tight.
“What’s her name?”
Dang Hwarin asked about the girl once more, like someone peeling a scab to check the wound underneath.
“Hm?”
“Your friend’s name. What is it?”
“Uh…….”
Kang Yunho made a face as if he were struggling with something. It couldn’t be that he didn’t remember the name. Then why was he reluctant to say it?
Perhaps he didn’t want to share the name of a girl whom no one else remembered anymore. A cold wind blew through Dang Hwarin’s heart.
“Tell me.”
She was startled for a second by how cold the voice that left her own mouth sounded.
“Dang Gagi. She was a kid who loved to play pranks.”
“You said she was upright.”
“Haha. With me, she played a lot of pranks.”
Upright, yet she teased him constantly. That meant they had been that close. The scab she had foolishly picked at stung all over again.
“What about the pineapple pizza? That’s something only someone with Sichuan Dang Clan blood can eat.”
“My friend forced it on me. Right when we first met and I said I wanted to be friends, she told me, ‘How can you be friends if you can’t even eat this?’ and made me eat it. She fed it to me as a prank. Fed it to me while we played. After a while I just… became able to eat it.”
“You can just eat it and suddenly become able to?”
“Haha. Even when she was really sick, if I sat beside her eating pineapple pizza and suffering, she would laugh. I forced myself to eat it just to see that face. Later I started eating it on every anniversary of her death. Now I can eat it just fine… but the friend who used to eat it with me isn’t here anymore…….”
Kang Yunho gazed out the window, face full of regret.
Dang Hwarin secretly bit her lip at the sight.
She had heard of it too.
In the end, pineapple pizza was food, not poison. If Sichuan Dang Clan blood ran in your veins you could enjoy it, but even without it there was a way.
If a cook endured vomiting and diarrhea for a long, long time while eating it, eventually they could manage.
But the path was so agonizing and slow that almost no cook ever actually walked it.
A relationship close enough that they could share even the pineapple pizza that normal people found disgusting without Dang blood. Kang Yunho had walked that long, painful road for his friend’s sake.
It was never an empty seat to begin with.
The empty place in Kang Yunho’s heart. The hollow left behind after his Dokin friend vanished. Dang Hwarin had believed she could slip into that gap.
That had been a delusion.
There had never been any room for her in that man’s chest. A man who looked for people who resembled her while walking the street, who thought of her even while writing, who drowned in regret over her at any random moment.
His heart was already filled with her.
Was there any way to defeat someone who was already dead?
A thick swamp of defeat began to rise around Dang Hwarin’s ankles.
“Hwarin!”
Yet the same man who pushed her into that swamp of defeat was also the one who pulled her back out.
The moment a shadow crossed Dang Hwarin’s face, Kang Yunho called her name at once.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. Don’t get depressed over this too. That friend is that friend, and we have to think about the future.”
“…….”
The swamp of defeat kept rising little by little. Kang Yunho smiled and held out his hand to her.
“You gonna keep sulking? Hwarin-aaaaaa. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Help me out a little, okay? Hwarin, without you I’m seriously screwed. Save your friend, please? Okay?”
Kang Yunho fidgeted and spoke to her in an exaggerated tone. Hwarin, you’re the only one I have. Anyone could see the forced high energy. But for a girl drowning in low self-esteem and the swamp of defeat, that act was effective.
This isn’t the time. Yunho needs me.
The man who had helped her was in danger. She couldn’t just sit there. Dang Hwarin grabbed the hand Yunho offered and climbed out of the swamp of defeat.
“Okay. I’ll help.”
She said it with a small smile.
“Really?”
“Anyway, the friend’s mother crossed over to Joseon while she was pregnant, so the Dang Clan has no idea whether she gave birth to a boy or a girl. As long as I keep my mouth shut, that’s all that matters. Just trust me. I’ll help you.”
“I’m really glad Hwarin’s on my side.”
Kang Yunho let out a sigh of relief once it seemed she had recovered her spirit.
“What are you talking about? I’ve always been on your side.”
“Hwarin’s the only one I need!”
When Kang Yunho playfully tried to hug her, Dang Hwarin slipped sideways with a laugh.
“Heh heh. What are you even saying. Seriously. Come on, tell me what you’re planning to do now.”
Dang Hwarin watched Yunho desperately explain his plan to her.
Right. This wasn’t the time to wallow in defeat.
Of course, she might not be his only friend.
But no matter what happened, she would save him.
Because Kang Yunho was her only person.
There had been a dangerous moment during the friend talk, but luckily we got past it safely.
Hwarin discussed the upcoming work with me full of energy. Sometimes she looked at me with strangely bitter eyes, but since I had now become the guy who force-fed himself pineapple pizza, I decided I could live with that much.
“What are you going to do tomorrow? Don’t you need time?”
Hwarin asked in a worried tone.
“I already have a method in mind.”
Temporary closure required time. On top of that, I needed a safety device that would guarantee my life even if things went completely sideways.
“How are you going to do it?”
“You’ll know when you see it tomorrow.”
This is Hopil….
“It blew up again, dammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”