When It Rains, It Pours (1)
"This room will do. From today on, you'll be staying here."
Lunchtime, after a chaotic morning shift. I had brought Lim Hayeon to a room in the printing workshop's inner residence.
"Ugh..."
Why was it that this girl wouldn't even pretend to listen to me, and instead kept banging her head against the poor innocent wall?
"Lady Hayeon?"
"How could..."
"Hm?"
"How could you just say it was nothing, and then slip away all by yourself?"
Lim Hayeon asked, looking at me with the most aggrieved expression in the world.
Had the employees put her through the wringer this morning?
Well, no one but me was ever allowed into the Daseogak attic, so the misunderstanding wasn't exactly unwarranted. On top of that, Lim Hayeon had bathed right before coming down — her hair was still visibly damp, and she had changed into fresh clothes besides.
But I'd been busy since morning myself.
"Things like that are best breezed past as if nothing happened."
Denying it in a fluster only invites more misunderstanding, and confirming it would make matters far worse. Calmly letting it slide is always the surest play.
"Do you have any idea how much trouble I was in, vanishing right after morning assembly? Soso kept pressing me with sparkling eyes, asking whether your advice had helped, and the other women just giggled behind their hands..."
So it had been more awkward than I'd imagined.
"Just take it all in stride."
"I can't! Honestly! The rumor is going to spread through the whole staff — what am I supposed to do?"
Lim Hayeon asked me with the anxious face of a woman caught sneaking around in a secret office romance.
"There's no call to worry over something that small."
"You call that small?"
"We'll be commuting to work together from now on, after all."
"Huh?!"
Lim Hayeon's mouth hung open, sheer dismay written across her face.
With employees working at the printing workshop, word that Lim Hayeon and I were living there together would naturally spread.
Responding to each rumor one by one would do nothing but fan the flames.
Lim Hayeon seemed to grasp the situation as well; wearing the look of someone caught in a trap she never saw coming, she still hadn't pulled free of her shock.
"Young Master Kang."
"Escort Leader Ha."
Perhaps because I had abruptly announced this morning that I would be living at the printing workshop, Ha Pyodu of the Seocheon Escort Agency had come to see me in his capacity as the officer in charge of the workshop's protection.
"We had the inner residence cleaned in advance, so you can move in today without any difficulty. However — might I ask why you wish for the guard to be strengthened?"
"As you will have heard, my life was threatened in the very heart of Yichang only recently. And once word gets around that Daseogak's black-haired manager has moved in here, I shudder to think of some fool deciding I look like easy prey and coming over the wall."
I had no way of knowing how many armed men might come to drag Lim Hayeon away. Using my own security as the pretext, I impressed upon the escort leader just how seriously to take the matter.
"What ruffian would dare set his sights on a residence under the Seocheon Escort Agency's protection? Still, we shall reinforce the guard from today onward. And the lady beside you — who might she be?"
When Ha Pyodu turned his gaze on Lim Hayeon, she swiftly smoothed the dismay from her face and turned to stare out the window with a prim, aloof look.
I keep telling you, that kind of attitude feeds the misunderstanding. And why was she suddenly tidying the hair by her ear? What was she, a new bride?
What should I even say?
"She's an employee who will be living at the printing workshop from today and managing the place."
...
Why was she glaring at me all of a sudden?
"I see. It did seem the place ought to have at least one live-in caretaker. You will already know the facilities, of course. The kitchen has yet to be sorted out — did you intend to make use of it as well?"
"The kitchen... Lady Hayeon. Do you happen to know how to cook?"
"...I brew a fine cup of tea."
Lim Hayeon fiddled with her hair and dodged my gaze, looking none too sure of herself.
Couldn't cook, then. Come to think of it, I'd heard that courtesans trained in song and dance, but I couldn't recall ever hearing of one being schooled in cooking.
"There's no hurry — just see that it's put in order."
"I shall see to it."
Ha Pyodu nodded and withdrew to attend to his own duties. Still — the kitchen, huh.
"When will I ever get to eat a warm meal made by a woman's hands..."
The heir to a great merchant house, an assassin, even a Poison Human. Come to think of it, every last one of those women had walled herself off from cooking.
The romance of waking up to a woman in an apron making breakfast looked likely to remain out of reach for the foreseeable future.
...
That wasn't aimed at you, Lim Hayeon. Sit there in silence like that and it starts to sound as though I said something I shouldn't have.
"Let's move your things in together later."
I talked over with Lim Hayeon how she would manage herself from here on, and we discussed the plans ahead.
"You're here? So you two are finally living together! I knew it would come to this! Hey, you! I won — pay up!"
Evening, after the day's work at Daseogak was done. Lim Hayeon had stopped by the Haomen branch on the off chance there might be word from Wuhan.
"What kind of Boss shakes down their own subordinates for money?"
"Not 'Boss' — Branch Manager, how many times must I tell you!"
"It's not like that."
Just what kind of bet had the two of them made, anyway?
Lim Hayeon wanted to say something, but since the branch manager's prediction had been right on the mark, she judged that asking would only dig the hole deeper, and settled for a clumsy denial.
"Not like what? Oh, right — Manager Kang is a courtesan's man, so does that make him a pillar husband? No — he's even set her up to live with him in his own home, so just a plain husband?"
"I said we're nooooot!"
Lim Hayeon denied it through gritted teeth, fury mixed in.
"Hahaha! Fine, fine. Your man came by this morning, asked us to look into the Wushan affair, and left plenty of money behind before he went on his way."
"Already?"
So that was why he had vanished this morning.
He had notified the Seocheon Escort Agency of the move, and even placed a request with Haomen.
The moment Lim Hayeon realized that the reason Kang Yunho had thrown her into an awkward spot and disappeared that morning was to deal with her problem, she felt her resentment drain away.
"Prying into other branches' business doesn't sit right with me, but neither of you is a stranger, so I'll help however I can. I'll go easy on the Wuhan side too, so stay put in Yichang for now."
One of them had come bearing a friend's Black Money token and was that friend's sworn younger brother; the other was that friend's daughter. The Yichang branch manager resolved to go all out for the two of them.
Of course, the fact that Kang Yunho had paid handsomely was no small part of it either.
"Thank you."
"If you're grateful, then go dig up some information on your man for me. Even when we comb through Tang Clan business, nothing solid ever turns up."
"You've been investigating all this time?"
"All that comes in is one bizarre rumor after another. That he's the chieftain of some monstrous bandit horde, that he's a swindler who sold fake medicine to an entire village, even the nonsense that he died years ago. Is this intelligence or a heap of garbage? At this rate, someone will be reporting on Jiang Taigong next, just for sharing the surname Kang."
"Black hair isn't exactly rare, you know."
"Right. Walk into Wuhan this minute and you'll see black-haired folk everywhere. What I want is to attach something credible and sell it as premium intelligence at a steep price — but to manage that, I'd have to dig into the Tang Clan itself, and digging into the Clan Head carelessly is a fine way to get killed."
The branch manager grumbled, sounding genuinely wistful.
The Tang Clan Head had an illegitimate son.
Startling news, to be sure — but it wasn't as though the abbot of Shaolin had fathered a bastard, and as mere word that the Tang Clan Head had a child out of wedlock, it fell short of what Haomen could market as premium intelligence.
"I have no intention of handing over information on Manager Kang Yunho."
"How stingy, when it's your own man's business."
"I said we're nooooot!"
"My ears haven't gone yet! If not, then keep one thing in mind from here on."
The Yichang branch manager put away the mischief and turned a grave look on the daughter of an old friend.
"What is it?"
"A pure courtesan who knows nothing of men will be treated like a treasure by the house even as a runaway. But a courtesan who spends a night with a man without the house's leave — there's no telling what end she'll meet."
A courtesan was the property of the house. A courtesan's body was not her own.
Lim Hayeon, too, knew full well, from all she had heard, what could become of a courtesan who had tasted a forbidden love without permission.
"...I know that much. I'll be going."
"Good. Be good to your husband!"
"I said we're nooooooot!"
— "Be good to your husband."
"I told you, we're not like that."
Grumbling at the branch manager's parting words, which kept ringing in her ears, Lim Hayeon made her way toward the printing workshop.
Your husband, of all things. She had let her guard down because they weren't sharing a room. But a man and a woman living together in the inner residence? That was cohabitation in everything but name.
The rumor would spread among the employees in no time. The man had moved his own residence for her sake, but word that the two of them had suddenly begun living together was more than enough to invite misunderstanding.
"What on earth am I supposed to say..."
"Meat on special today! Pork for stir-fry! Soup cuts! You there, miss! Fresh meat right here! Buy it cheap and take it home!"
Amid her hurried steps, Lim Hayeon stopped at the butcher's call.
Because the moment her eyes fell on the meat displayed before her, what the man had said at lunch that day came back to her all at once.
— When will I ever get to eat a warm meal made by a woman's hands...
Lim Hayeon found herself recalling the wistfulness in Kang Yunho's voice.
A courtesan's calling was to bring men pleasure — it did not extend to lessons in the kitchen. If anything, there was no need to learn cooking at all. A courtesan's life was nothing like an ordinary woman's.
To a courtesan, a man meant a pillar husband who would keep her in her station while offering the comfort of a night, or at most a favored customer who bought out her registry and took her in as a concubine.
Either way, neither of them called for learning how to cook.
And yet, strangely enough, Lim Hayeon found it hard to tear her feet away from the butcher's stall.
Kang Yunho is a courtesan's child.
Perhaps he had lived his whole life far from a warm meal made by a woman's hands, ever since he was small. Even after coming to the Central Plains he had drifted and begged for his bread, so his life had kept women at a distance all the same.
A man who had thrown himself busily about for her sake since dawn. And to think of it as that man's wish — Lim Hayeon couldn't easily walk away.
"If you're no good at cooking, we've got tonkatsu right here — just take some with you."
The butcher held up a pork cutlet that needed nothing more than a quick fry.
"How did you know I'm a bad cook?"
"One look is all it takes — you've got the face of a new bride who can't cook to save her life. Just pour in the oil, fry it up nice, and your husband will love it. We sell the tonkatsu sauce separately, so grab a bottle too."
Without even a thought of denying the 'new bride' remark, Lim Hayeon found her gaze snagged on the tonkatsu in the butcher's hand.
How much did she even have in her purse? Most of her wages had been swindled away by the innkeeper, and what remained in her pocket wasn't enough for even a single night's lodging.
A courtesan has no need to learn how to cook.
And yet, you never knew.
Perhaps one day a man would appear — a man running a shop of his own, who would scrape together every coin he had and every coin he could get, to buy her registry for her sake.
And if that day came, the best that man would manage to eat was discounted meat like this. Wouldn't it be wise to get some practice in beforehand, for that day?
Not that she intended to cook for that man, of course — but contingencies existed, that was all.
If she thought of it as practice for the future, then she could cook for that man too, couldn't she?
"Shall I wrap up the tonkatsu, then?"
Come to think of it, tonkatsu looked far too half-hearted. Fry it in boiling oil and done — wouldn't that make her look like a woman who couldn't cook at all?
If she set her mind to it, she was perfectly capable of making something far more impressive.
"I'll take the stir-fry pork, please."
It wasn't as if she was worried about looking half-hearted in front of the man, of course. She bought her meat at the butcher's and hurried her steps onward.
Lim Hayeon had spent every last coin in her purse, and yet somehow her steps toward the home she would now share with Kang Yunho felt light.