Poison Human - 1
Hwarin could die.
No matter how resilient Hwarin might be, controlling the toxins of the Human-Faced Spider and the Thousand-Year Centipede inside her body to form a poison core could prove impossible. Her entire body might melt away into nothing more than a handful of toxic sludge.
"This may well be your final conversation, so speak with her without a single regret," Uigakju told me with a grim face, delivering the brutal truth.
After all the hardship we had endured to finally secure the Human-Faced Spider's Poison Core, every effort could still come to nothing. Anyone else would have sunk into despair, yet I still had one method remaining.
To save Hwarin, I have to kiss her.
It was not because she was a princess trapped in an eternal sleep from which she could never wake, nor was it to break some curse that would turn her into a beast.
Hwarin's body might simply fail to withstand the toxins of those two spiritual beasts. In that case, the answer was to find a way to make her able to endure them.
After turning the problem over and over, I recalled the conversation from the night I had parted from Sohee.
— Cheongija said that during the Seong Family Manor incident, Yunho's sincerity transferred the power of the Yeokcheonja to me. He told me the killing intent would not surge for a while.
The kiss I had given to snap Sohee back to her senses. Yes. I already possessed the solution.
With a kiss I succeeded in calming the killing intent of the Heavenly Killer Star that lived inside Sohee.
I alone held the power in this world to save the women burdened with tragic destinies.
It's worth the challenge.
My ability as the Yeokcheonja had already remade Hwarin's body into one that could endure the toxins. What if a kiss could temporarily grant her an even greater measure of that power?
Still holding the question, I asked Uigakju once more.
— Even if she successfully forms the poison core, is it still possible she will fail to withstand the toxins and die?
— The ability to create the poison core means she has brought every last toxin in her body under her control. So long as she can form that core, there will be no further need for worry.
So she only needed to endure the moment of forging the poison core within her flesh.
It was a challenge worth attempting. With a kiss I had already rejected a fate ordained by the heavens themselves. Defying a destiny manufactured by mere humans would be far simpler.
Yet one truly enormous problem remained.
"Will Hwarin even allow a kiss?"
Dang the Iron Wall Hwarin.
Did Hwarin feel romantic attraction toward me? That was the difficult part. The fact that I now had to sit and puzzle over whether Hwarin harbored romantic feelings for me...
Of course she did not hate me. That much I could swear to. And naturally there was goodwill. Whether that goodwill ran deep enough for her to simply offer her lips the moment I proposed a kiss, however, was an entirely different question.
Living together, I had certainly seen positive signals that could be mistaken for romantic interest. But I also had to take her unique circumstances into account.
Hwarin had never made a proper friend in her entire life, and a boyfriend was even more unthinkable. Even between friends a certain distance should exist, yet because I was her first friend she might never have learned how to keep that distance.
It should be fine, right?
I was not certain, but I did not think she would refuse. Still, I simply did not know. For me, romantic problems were harder than staking my life before murim masters.
"And how exactly am I supposed to go about kissing her?"
Luckily I had kissed two people in my life. In both cases, however, it would be fairer to say I had been the one who got kissed.
How in the world was I supposed to ask Hwarin for a kiss?
Time was short and the kiss had to happen. There was no leisure to build atmosphere. No—I did not even know how to build atmosphere in the first place.
"Let's kiss."
After endless deliberation the choice that finally emerged was a rookie's straight pitch.
I feel like I am going to die.
That was the feeling that filled Dang Hwarin until the moment she woke and met Kang Yunho.
When she opened her eyes it was as if she had been dragged by force out of a swamp. Even after her mind cleared, her whole body still felt unpleasantly coated in mud she could not wash away.
Unpleasant as it was, it was still a mercy.
She had momentarily lost control of the yang energy and toxins flooding through her, and in the despair of thinking this was the end she had blacked out. Yet somehow she could open her eyes again. It could only be called a miracle.
— You woke at a precarious but fortunate moment. You must turn the Human-Faced Spider's inner core into a poison core by the end of this day if you are to live. Everyone will give their utmost to help you.
Of course, to keep the miracle alive she would need yet another miracle.
She had barely endured the poison core of the Thousand-Year Centipede, and now the toxins of the Human-Faced Spider on top of that? The thought rose unbidden: Is something like that even possible when it's my own body?
Whether or not he sensed Dang Hwarin's despair, Uigakju finished his explanation and delivered the vital news.
— Kang Yunho staked everything for your sake. Therefore you must live.
The members of the Medical Pavilion quickly added their own words.
— You should have heard the things Young Master Kang said before the Council of Elders while risking his life.
— It felt as though the knot that had been sitting in my chest all this time finally came loose.
Uigakju and the Medical Pavilion members heaped praise without end on how hard Yunho had fought for Dang Hwarin.
While Dang Hwarin listened to those praises with a swelling heart, one of the Medical Pavilion members delivered a piece of news so shocking that it blasted away both the oppressive weight of the toxins ruling her body and the despair that had gripped her.
— When Young Master Kang declared before the Pavilion Master himself, "I came because I want to protect my woman," I almost wondered whether the true protagonist of Dangga Pungun was not Young Master Kang after all.
Huh?
Huuuhhh?
"What did you just say?"
Dang Hwarin asked again, face stunned, certain she must have misheard. The Medical Pavilion members only smiled more brightly and described the scene in meticulous detail.
— Watching him renounce even the rights of the heir right in front of everyone for the sake of saving "my woman"—I truly thought, so this is what love looks like.
— Declaring that Hwarin is my woman straight to the Clan Leader and the entire Council of Elders, no less...
She had not misheard.
My woman. He had called her his woman in front of every last one of them. And it was Yunho! That dense blockhead Kang Yunho! Had called her his woman!
Dang Hwarin's face flushed scarlet in an instant.
"That idiot. What the hell did he just do?"
Curses spilled from her lips, yet she could not suppress the smile rising underneath.
"Blocking other people's marriage prospects and everything."
If it's come to this, I'll have no choice but to marry you, you know. Dang Hwarin fidgeted with her fingers in pure embarrassment.
I feel like I am going to die.
He called me his woman in front of all those people. I am going to die of shame.
Yunho called me his woman. I am going to die of happiness.
I might die very soon. Yet I am so happy that the terror of death feels like nothing at all.
The Medical Pavilion members smiled secretly at Dang Hwarin's grumbling face.
Yunho would enter any moment now.
Dang Hwarin could already hear, from beyond the door, the very voice she had longed for.
— I came because I want to protect my woman.
What the hell is that supposed to be. It is far too cool. Dang Hwarin kept replaying the image of tall Kang Yunho standing boldly before a crowd and introducing her as his woman.
No. My heart can't take this.
How would Yunho behave once he walked in?
Would he suddenly wrap his arms around her and say, Hwarin, you are my—my woman? Just imagining the scene that was about to unfold made it impossible for Dang Hwarin to control the corners of her mouth.
It is embarrassing. But I want to keep imagining it. If Yunho looks at me with eyes full of affection, how am I supposed to react? Dang Hwarin sank into deep deliberation.
After all the heartache I've suffered, I can't just say yes that easily. Yeah, yeah. So I'll pretend to push him away a little... No. Then he'll run off again. No. But isn't that making it look too easy? No. Still. Uuuuuugh.
Her head was a complete tangle. She could not rein in her smile. She could not rein in the joy. And still she wanted to see Yunho's face.
She would have to greet him any second. That meant she first had to get her expression under control.
Dang Hwarin decided to manage her face by quietly reciting the poison-human martial verses the Dang Clan experts had taught her.
At last Yunho entered. Dang Hwarin opened her eyes just a slit so he would not notice.
It's been so long—where exactly is his gaze going?
A small urge to make a remark rose, but she quickly set it aside and thrust her chest out proudly. If you want to look, go right ahead. The majestic waterfall of fabric plunged even more steeply toward the floor.
Kang Yunho tried to smother the soft sound of admiration that escaped him, yet there was no chance the woman who was focusing every scrap of her attention on him would miss it.
Basking in that admiration and that gaze, Dang Hwarin charged her confidence to the brim.
I want to hear Yunho's confession.
Soon she would have to swallow the Human-Faced Spider's Poison Core that Yunho had prepared. She could not predict what might happen next. Steeling herself for the immediate future, Dang Hwarin made her decision.
I will open my eyes like an adult and begin the conversation with that unpleasant dream.
I will hear Yunho's confession.
"Let's kiss."
It was not the confession Dang Hwarin had expected.
What on earth was Yunho saying? No matter how frantically she spun her thoughts, she could not make sense of it.
Who?
Kang Yunho.
Saying what?
A kiss.
What in the world was happening?
This was nothing like the scene Dang Hwarin had imagined. If Yunho declared, "You are my woman," she had planned to give him a light shove and retort, "Who says I'm your woman?" Then, the instant he showed even a hint of backing away, she would latch onto him and never let go.
Is it not Yunho?
No. When she had pinched his cheek just now it had definitely been Yunho's skin. Faced with such an utterly unexpected remark, Dang Hwarin could not help but slip, if only for a moment, into an even more unexpected line of thought.
Yunho. It's far too sudden.
We exchange our hearts, we build affection, we share meals, we hold hands, we even whisper secret things to each other in secluded places...
We've already done all of that.
They even lived in the same house. In the same room, no less. Dang Hwarin suddenly realized that the only remaining gate left for her was a kiss.
"Hwarin..."
While she was still lost in thought, Yunho's face slowly drew nearer.
Is he doing it? Is he really going to do it?
"W-w-wait!"
Dang Hwarin's voice trembled without mercy as she shoved both palms against Yunho's approaching face and pushed him away.
She should have been pulling that face closer with both hands, yet the more she pushed him back the thicker the regret grew. Even if it felt like kicking away a golden chance, she could not help herself.
"Sorry."
Kang Yunho's expression began to darken with the awkward shame of rejection.
"N-no, it's not that!"
Dang Hwarin hastily denied whatever he was thinking.
"Then?"
I want to hear it first.
Dang Hwarin looked at the bewildered Yunho and thought hard.
"Yunho, answer me."
"Huh?"
Even if we do it, I absolutely have to hear this. I must hear it.
"What d-d-do you think of me?"
I want to hear Yunho's confession.