Opening Preparations - 6
"Lady Hayeon. I can explain everything."
Inside the carriage bound for the Daseogak branch. The moment Lim Hayeon read the diary's title, every trace of expression drained from her face, and she had withdrawn back into the carriage. I told Jegal Hyang to come along in the carriage she'd arrived in and hurriedly climbed into the same one as Hayeon, but her face showed no intention of thawing.
"......"
Say something, at least. Look my way, even once.
"Lady Hayeon."
"...And who exactly asked for this?"
Lim Hayeon asked in a frosty voice without so much as glancing my way.
There was no need to ask what she meant. My mouth opened with spinal-reflex speed.
"Lady Jegal herself said she finds conversation difficult, so I suggested that writing might be easier for her. And there was a touch of the Mangeum Lord's scheming mixed into this whole affair, too."
To sell the impression that I'd had no choice, I would press the Mangeum Lord into service as well. The old man wasn't actually involved, so it was unfair to him—but life treated me unfairly far more often, so he could swallow this much.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's a diary. Private matters. I thought it would be discourteous to Lady Jegal."
"And me?"
Only then did Lim Hayeon turn her head and look at me.
With you it wouldn't be rude at all, now would it. I nearly fired that off on the spot, but the hurt threaded through her voice brought me up short.
A question sown with landmines on every side. How was I supposed to answer? In moments like these, the surest path was a straight charge up the middle.
I opened my mouth, gazing at Lim Hayeon with eyes brimming with trust.
"Lady Hayeon. Are we really the sort of pair who'd need to bother exchanging private thoughts in writing?"
We're closer than Jegal Hyang and I could ever be—what would we need a thing like that for?
Whether my single remark landed as an unexpected blow, the expressionless Lim Hayeon's lips pushed out into a pout.
Still not satisfied, perhaps, but a sly little face that suggested the answer had pleased her. So was she going to let her anger go now?
"...Hmph."
She was not.
"Goods can shift around in transit, so unpack everything first and start sorting by broad category."
"Wow. Filling all these shelves is going to take forever."
"Nothing we can't manage. Sort as you go, and check everything against the inventory list I drew up in advance."
"What should we do with the used books?"
"The first floor comes first—set those aside for the second."
"What a madhouse."
Under Lim Hayeon's practiced direction, the branch staff began sorting the books with drill-ground precision. Work that was supposed to be mine, mind you. This is exactly why a man needs to cultivate middle managers. She's better at this than I am.
"Manager, if you're heading upstairs, please take some of the used books up with you."
"Hand them over."
There was no need for two leaders on one floor. Gathering an armful of used books for the second-floor book café, I climbed the stairs. I'd agonized over how to source the used volumes, but with the Mangeum Money Exchange lending a hand, snapping up well-kept books at rock-bottom prices had taken no time at all.
"Heheheh."
The moment I reached the second floor, a giggle I was by now somewhat accustomed to drifted out from somewhere.
"There you are."
A corner of the second floor. In the middle of a chaotic heap of books that hadn't even begun to be sorted, Jegal Hyang had built herself a fortress and sat reading within it. I'd assumed she hadn't arrived yet, coming in a separate carriage. Apparently she'd gotten here ahead of everyone.
"Ah, th-that is... it's a little like my own room... I-I'll get up right awayyy."
Jegal Hyang hid her face behind a book in embarrassment and made to scramble up from her seat.
"Haha. No need. I'll hide away in here with you."
"Whaaat?"
Leave the heavy lifting to the staff, I say.
I strode boldly into Jegal Hyang's fortress and sat down between her and the books.
"Cooped up inside a mountain of books like this, the smell of old paper is wonderful. It feels like stepping into an antique bookshop."
"Righhht. Being tucked into a small space is so calming... Ah! N-no, wait, I-I like wide-open places toooo."
Jegal Hyang, apparently convinced she had committed some terrible blunder, hurriedly walked back her own words.
"Have you heard anything about how the mansion we're to live in together is coming along?"
"I heard we're to be shown it tomorrowww."
"Then tomorrow we can have a look at the house we'll be sharing."
"Heh. Yesss."
Fast work, that. It looked like the Mangeum Lord truly meant to spare no effort. But here was the trouble—it wasn't going to be just the two of us living there.
"You! Not working, and what... what were the two of you doing?"
I had been chatting with Jegal Hyang about our plans for all of a few minutes when Lim Hayeon—like a shore patrol whose radar had just locked onto a slacking long-service sergeant—ferreted us out from among the book piles.
"We were just discussing the house we'll be staying in."
Cozying up, more like.
"......"
The expression began draining from Lim Hayeon's face once again.
"H-Hayeon-eonni... a-are you ang-angryyy?"
Jegal Hyang cupped a hand over my ear and whispered to me in a trembling voice.
Anyone could see how busy things were; no wonder she'd be furious to find the two of us lazing about together.
"I can hear every word. Was there any need to whisper?"
Lim Hayeon's voice—cold past the point of chill and straight into stinging—struck Jegal Hyang full on.
"Eek!"
Startled, it seemed, by the killing aura Lim Hayeon radiated, Jegal Hyang seized my sleeve in a tight grip.
"Eep!"
Lim Hayeon, don't glower like something out of a nightmare. Lady Jegal is the sort who could melt away over the smallest thing.
"Let's head downstairs. There are things I need to tell the staff as well."
Keep this up and we'd have an emotional war on our hands.
Suddenly the very picture of a conscientious superior, I rose from my seat and made for the first floor, Jegal Hyang still clinging to my sleeve.
"I'm coming down with you!"
And why are you grabbing my sleeve too, Lim Hayeon?
"Good work today. I'll have Sooksoo serve up something nourishing, so let's eat together."
We finished sorting the books by evening, and Lim Hayeon and I returned to the guest house.
"I'm exhausted. I'll eat on my own tonight."
"Lady Hayeon. Wait..."
This from the woman who usually insisted on sharing a meal whenever she possibly could—and now she was vanishing into her room, cold as ice. Had her anger not yet cooled?
"An exchange diary, hm."
I returned to my office and set the exchange diary from my breast pocket down on the desk.
An exchange diary. To think the day would truly come when I'd be caught up in something this saccharine.
Back when I lived in the modern world, the sum total of sweet-and-bitter notes ever received from a woman amounted to a single post-it in a university library. I had stepped out to the restroom and come back to find a drink waiting at my seat, a prettily written post-it stuck to it.
Wow. Was I finally getting a girl who was into me?
Heart aflutter, I read the post-it.
[Your face is a little overwhelming. Could you please move to another seat?]
In truth, it remained one of the bitterest memories of my life—neither sweet nor bittersweet. Simply bitter.
And of course I had to go and get caught.
An uphill battle already, before I'd read so much as a page. I let out a small sigh toward the exchange diary with its graceful script.
I had been far too careless. Lim Hayeon was out there working while bracing for the very real risk of being taken by the Domun herself. Through her eyes, a man like me might well look like someone running a romance operation on the side. However sincerely I protested otherwise, the standing of being the Zhuge Clan's youngest daughter would keep her doubting me without end. And then, on top of everything, she had gone and discovered the evidence: an exchange diary.
Through Lim Hayeon's eyes, the fear must be quietly taking root—what if that man has abandoned the whole point of saving her, and set his heart wholly on becoming the Zhuge Clan's son-in-law instead?
Was there no way to untie the knot in Lim Hayeon's heart? As long as the exchange diary went on, she would carry the same ache tomorrow, and the day after that. I had given Lady Jegal Hyang my word, so I could hardly stop now. Wasn't there some good way to set Lim Hayeon's mind at ease? A gift, perhaps, like last time?
"Hold on... there is a way."
A fine idea flashed through my mind.
Deep in the night. A lone figure that even a seasoned martial artist would have struggled to detect flitted between the rooftops of the buildings.
"Coo! Coo-coo-coo!"
"We'll take it slow."
Lim Hayeon, on her way back from patrolling the affiliated shops, paused mid-step at the sound of Gugu's labored cooing.
"Coo-coo? Coo-coo-coo."
Her mistress's face was clouded over with worry. Gugu cooed as though to say she was worried about Lim Hayeon.
"It's nothing."
"Coo! Coo-coo-coo!"
Cheeky, Gugu. Very well—counsel your mistress's worries, then. Gugu cooed once more, voice heavy with concern.
"Why can't that man tell?"
At Gugu's worried cooing, Lim Hayeon settled onto the rooftop of a tall building where the river wind blew, and began pouring her heart out to the bird.
"Coo?"
"I should have been suspicious from the very start."
Gazing down at Gugu perched on her hand, Lim Hayeon scrunched her face, chafing at the unfairness of it all.
Jegal Hyang. The youngest daughter of the Zhuge Clan. A daughter of that house would only have sat through the matchmaking under her family's pressure. Seeing how timid she was, Lim Hayeon had let herself believe exactly what she wished to believe. That she felt nothing whatsoever for Kang Yunho—blind to the scheme hidden beneath that meek surface, Lim Hayeon had rested easy.
"An exchange diary, of all things. An exchange diary! What woman with no feelings would ask a man for an exchange diary?"
Jegal Hyang had romantic feelings for Kang Yunho. Only today—today of all days—had Lim Hayeon finally understood. For a woman of such a retiring nature to work up the courage just to speak with a man could only mean one thing: he was a man she wanted to speak with, whatever it took.
"That sly fox—honestly!"
The longer Lim Hayeon dwelled on the woman who had spent the entire day plastered to Kang Yunho's side, refusing to be pried loose, the more her indignation swelled past all containing.
"Coo?"
"Even you should have seen it, Gugu. I've never once pulled a stunt like that!"
Whispering! With me standing right there, glaring fit to freeze the air blue! Pretending to be so close, leaning in to whisper! As if to announce to the whole world that she was the one intimate with Kang Yunho, and Lim Hayeon merely a bystander. And on top of that, the sly deftness with which she kept saying Hayeon-eonni, quietly rubbing in the age difference. The way she had scurried to Kang Yunho's side and played the fragile lamb the instant Lim Hayeon's tone sharpened even a little. Of all the sly foxes under heaven, there had never been one like her.
Was she truly that timid by nature? For all Lim Hayeon knew, even the shyness was a stratagem for winning Kang Yunho's heart.
"He doesn't know yet... does he?"
Lim Hayeon could not bring herself to point out to Kang Yunho what she had realized today. He was a man with no experience of women. A man who could stroll, unshakably composed, barefoot into another person's heart—yet remained so hopelessly dense where a woman's feelings were concerned. And if a man like that were to learn that the Zhuge Clan's youngest daughter had fallen for him?
"Would he still choose me...?"
Lim Hayeon gingerly drew out the worry that had been pressing down on her chest all day long.
"Coo?"
"...I'm going in."
Today, as every day before, she slipped open the window of Kang Yunho's room with practiced ease. The close of a day that had long since become routine—all for the pleasure of beholding Kang Yunho's sleeping face.
"......"
A face asleep, oblivious to the whole world. If she woke him this very moment and asked, would he give her an answer? And what if that answer turned out to be anything other than the one she prayed for? No. Now was not the time. Lim Hayeon bowed her head, confidence failing her, and turned to go back to her own room.
Huh?
In the instant her head turned—there, atop the empty desk of the office.
[Exchange Diary.]
A single book, sitting forlorn and alone, was beckoning to her.