The Gift - 7
"Unnie, first things first — try holding his hand."
So declared Ha Soso, self-proclaimed master of romance, offering her very first piece of love advice.
From where she stood, it was simply a nudge to hurry up and clear a stage of the relationship that should have been passed ages ago, back in the ancient past.
"Excuse me?"
The one receiving the advice, meanwhile, was reeling at the sudden command to escalate things.
"This is no time to be going 'excuse meee.' That sly fox is this close to snatching away the number-one husband material, officially recognized by all the women working at the Yichang Daseogak!"
"Since when did you two decide that?"
"After a great deal of in-depth deliberation, I'll have you know. Anyway, the fox is wagging her tail right in front of you, and you're telling me you haven't even held his hand — let alone grabbed him for yourself?!"
It was a fair point. Lim Hayeon couldn't lift her head under the weight of Ha Soso's criticism.
"...But still."
Head bowed, Lim Hayeon trailed off, her voice thick with embarrassment.
"But what?"
"Th-that sort of thing... the man is supposed to go first..."
Zero romantic experience. For Lim Hayeon, who had spent her whole life living among a garden of women, a woman reaching for a man's hand first was unbearably shameful — practically scandalous.
Her face flushed crimson, and she flapped her mouth open and shut like a gasping red carp, utterly at a loss for where to put all that homeless embarrassment.
"Ughhh! Unnie, I swear I'm going to die of frustration. Ughhhk!"
At the sight of her, Ha Soso beat her chest, gasping for air.
"You can't die!"
"If you don't want to watch me suffocate to death, then make some time for just the two of you!"
"We already spend time together..."
"Time to make special memories! Not just working side by side! Walk together and naturally hold his hand! Get jostled in a crowded market and grab on! Go somewhere scenic and hold hands all cozy-like!"
Man and woman — the kind of relationship where merely meeting each other's eyes sets the heart ablaze. How on earth had they gone this long without once holding hands?
"I'm busy with work. Where would I find the time?"
"Then go at night! They say history is made at night, after all!"
Ha Soso pressed on, nagging at the flustered Lim Hayeon.
"At... night?"
Startled by the unexpected suggestion, Ha Soso seized Lim Hayeon by the arm and opened her mouth again, her voice burning with conviction.
"Unnie, your opponent is a formidable one. You have to make memories that woman never could, and pull ahead in your race for Branch Manager Kang's heart."
If things kept going like this, Ha Soso just knew she'd end up watching Branch Manager Kang and the sly fox walk down the aisle, while her unnie stood there wondering why she'd never held his hand when she had the chance.
And she absolutely refused to witness such a sight.
Burning with zeal, Ha Soso threw herself into her coaching.
How exactly am I supposed to hold his hand?
Lim Hayeon murmured quietly to herself in the office, staring down at her own palm.
How did a man and a woman hold hands naturally, anyway? And she was supposed to go out and make memories just to set the mood for it?
Ha Soso had called it the most natural thing in the world, but to a woman who had never once been in love, it looked less like nature and more like some unreachable realm of mastery.
Naturally. As if it were the most obvious thing. Lim Hayeon tried picturing the moment Kang Yunho took her hand.
What if he suddenly, manfully seized my hand in his — how am I supposed to react to that...
"I'm back."
Lim Hayeon nearly stopped breathing in shock.
Her frozen reaction to Kang Yunho's greeting wasn't rudeness — it was her desperately trying to calm her startled heart.
Managing, barely, to keep her composure, she found her gaze drifting — unconsciously — to the hands of Kang Yunho, just returned from his schedule.
In them was a small box she hadn't seen this morning.
"It's nothing."
— The sly fox is wagging her tail right in front of you!
So what had he brought back from the fox this time?
The hesitation that had tormented Lim Hayeon all night — how does a woman even hold a man's hand? How am I supposed to go out at night? — vanished in an instant, and something began to boil and churn in her chest.
"Lightfoot training? At this hour of the night, Lady Hayeon?"
Lim Hayeon gave a firm nod, then kicked straight through the window and landed on the ground below.
— Unnie, your opponent is a formidable one. You have to make memories that woman never could, and pull ahead in your race for Branch Manager Kang's heart.
Looking up through the window at Kang Yunho's bewildered face, Lim Hayeon held his gaze.
It wasn't that she particularly cared about that woman. But surely she could manage to make at least one memory.
And so, to forge a very special memory indeed, Lim Hayeon shouted up at Kang Yunho:
"Jump."
Has this woman lost her mind?
"I'll take the stairs."
I said, doing my best to hide my alarm, to Lim Hayeon, who had just leapt out the window.
"Jump."
Why is she so stubborn about this?
We're on the third floor here. People can die from a two-meter fall, and she wants me to leap from the third floor, where carrier pigeons are flying around?
"Um..."
"Coo-coo! Coo-coo-coo!"
Gugu. What's the big idea, suddenly appearing to land on my shoulder with an air of utter pity, then leisurely flapping over to Lim Hayeon's side?
"Even a mere animal like Gugu can do it. Why can't you?"
Because I don't have wings, that's why.
"Coo!"
Gugu spread one wing and cooed at me, as if to say a single wing was more than enough to manage the distance.
That bird is, no matter how I think about it, no ordinary spirit beast.
"I'm not one of the Giosugu, you know."
So this was why the laborers of history launched the Luddite movement. The Giosugu have stripped away human rights and reduced man to a creature meant for flying.
"Have a little faith in yourself. I didn't teach you for nothing."
Lim Hayeon looked up at me with a faintly wounded expression.
Of course I know Lady Hayeon worked hard to teach me lightfoot arts.
"I did study the Shadowless Body Art diligently, but..."
It's just too high!
This was like catching slimes in front of the house and then being told to fight the Four Heavenly Kings. Like mastering a fighting game's basic combos and being thrown against the veterans.
When I hesitated, Lim Hayeon let out a small sigh and then, as if granting a special favor, stretched both arms out toward me.
"If it looks like you won't make it, I'll catch you."
Catch me?
My eyes darted, just for a moment, to the wonderfully substantial cushion Lim Hayeon was carrying.
Wouldn't even a botched landing be a net win here?
No matter how badly I fell, there was zero chance that Lim Hayeon — a grandmaster of lightfoot arts — would actually drop me. Which meant I would land, quite naturally, in the finest cushion ever crafted by human hands.
Not that I'm saying I'd fall on purpose. But there was bound to be a gap between what a lightfoot master believed my skills to be and my actual level.
Suppose I landed badly, twisted an ankle, and tumbled face-first into the cushion — surely no harm done there, right?
Suddenly, I was feeling rather courageous.
"I'll give it a try."
As long as I didn't die face-planting, it was a challenge worth taking.
I set my foot on the windowsill. A gust of night air swept in through the open window, reminding me that this was a place only wind and birds could come and go freely.
If I didn't want to end up friends with the cold hard ground instead of the cushion, I had to focus.
Steadying my mind, I circulated my internal energy according to the formulas of the Shadowless Body Art, gathered it into the soles of my feet, and kicked off from the window.
Following the art's teachings, I balanced my body midair.
My lightened form touched down precisely in front of Lim Hayeon. A flawless landing, by anyone's measure. But it wasn't over yet.
Loosen the tension in my toes just so, tip forward from the head, and drift naturally toward the target zone...
"You mustn't let your guard down until the landing is complete."
Lim Hayeon spun around and seized me by the nape of the neck.
"What kind of behavior is that?!"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you'd catch me!"
"I did catch you! Perfect, except for losing your balance a little at the very end."
"..."
It was perfect right up until that exact moment, though.
"It's true of every martial art, but movement techniques especially demand total control over every motion of your body. A single instant of carelessness can cause a serious accident — so stay careful to the very end."
Lim Hayeon was generous with both praise and advice for my attempt.
Somehow this feels unfair.
No wonder it felt like I'd just lived through a mother bird luring her chick out of the nest with food, tempting it to fly on its own for the first time.
"So jumping from the third floor really is nothing to you."
I gave up on my regrets at last and looked up at the window as I spoke. I'd fallen from that height, and my body felt perfectly fine.
By all rights, something somewhere should have broken.
"Well, consider who taught you."
Lim Hayeon pressed the back of her hand to her side and gazed at me with a contented smile.
"That's an argument I can't refute."
Even if some martial artist out there surpassed her in lightfoot technique, no one in the world had more natural talent for it than she did.
"Consider this the start of our night stroll — we're running now. Keep up."
Wait, this wasn't the end of it?
And so I set off on an entirely unscheduled midnight stroll with Lim Hayeon.
Huh. This is actually pretty fun.
I'd been practicing my lightfoot arts steadily, but I'd never sprinted at full power over a long distance.
Like running laps around the schoolyard in gym class, all my training had been repetitive drills with Lim Hayeon in a wide open lot.
A quiet night street, empty of people. Slicing through the cool night air as I ran, I felt like a motorcycle on two legs.
"This is more fun than I expected."
When crowds suddenly appeared ahead, we halted our sprint in a deserted alley.
"See? You've improved so much. No one would believe this was the same man who couldn't manage a single lightfoot technique a few months ago."
"With a teacher like you, I'd hardly dare slack off."
Personal instruction in her own martial art, from the woman destined to be called the Shadowless Divine Thief. Honestly, prostrating myself in a full kowtow every single day still wouldn't be enough thanks.
"Flattery will get you... oh."
Lim Hayeon started to chide me, then stopped, as if she'd noticed something, and turned her gaze across the alley.
Beyond it, amid a sea of lanterns and lights, countless people were milling about. Where on earth were we, that there were this many people?
"Ah. Running with my head in the clouds — we've gone and wandered all the way to the night market."
No wonder it was so crowded.
"..."
Lim Hayeon didn't answer. She just kept staring past the mouth of the alley.
What is it? Following her line of sight, I saw a couple at a street stall, holding hands while feeding each other chicken skewers.
A midnight date, no less. Must be nice.
I turned to ask Lim Hayeon what she wanted to do now, and found her already looking up at me.
Something on her mind? The moment our eyes met, her pupils trembled as if startled.
Oh. Could it be.
"Envious?"
"E-envious of what?!"
"Why are you staring at something so trivial with that blank look? All you had to do was say so."
"D-do I really have to say it out loud?"
"Ah. My mistake — I was being oblivious. I should have taken the initiative myself."
"Th-that's not — I mean, it's not just a matter of you deciding to..."
Why would you stop mid-sentence and turn away like that?
Lim Hayeon lowered her head, then cautiously, almost impatiently, extended her hand toward me.
Eager, aren't we. I understand completely.
"One moment."
"Huh?"
I'll be right back.
"Here. Chicken skewers. I truly was being oblivious."
We'd worked late into the night and gone running under the moon — a midnight snack was only proper.
"..."
Speechless, I held out the mouthwatering chicken skewers before the eyes of Lim Hayeon, who was looking up at me.
"I bought one of each — teriyaki sauce, salt, and spicy glaze. Let's share."
Pick whichever you like.
"Haah..."
Why the sigh?
"...It's delicious."
"They must use good meat. For salt-grilled chicken to taste this fine."
What a find of a stall.
"..."
Instead of answering, Lim Hayeon glanced — with something like regret — between the bowl of skewers in my hand and the crowded bustle of the night market.
Could it be. Does she want to walk around the night market?
"Even at night, wouldn't the market be dangerous for you?"
She could wander about in a bamboo hat and gauze veil, sure, but the last thing I needed was someone recognizing Lim Hayeon.
"If not here, then somewhere else..."
"Hm?"
Lim Hayeon nodded slowly, lost in some thought of her own, then opened her mouth to me at last.
"Let's go. There's somewhere I want to show you."