The Door Opens - 8
"Is there something you're hiding from me?"
Kang Yunho's office-slash-bedroom in the mansion. There was no telling how he might answer if she asked him outright — so Im Hayeon, rummaging through the drawers built into the wall, had resolved to feel him out with a question dropped in passing.
"So you caught me after all."
Without a moment's hesitation, Kang Yunho answered with an apologetic look on his face.
"......"
He'd admit it that easily? Startled, Im Hayeon froze, then turned her head to look back at him.
"My apologies. Those gift cookies in the drawer — I ate everything in the box except the top layer. My mouth was feeling restless, so I helped myself, and once I'd started, there was no stopping."
Im Hayeon turned her gaze to the drawer, where sat a cookie box that was light — far, far too light.
"Not that."
"Judging by your expression, you're angry... Don't tell me?! Gugu, you traitorous wretch! So you informed on me in the end! Just you wait — tonight's dinner will be pigeon skewers."
"What did you do?"
"Gugu didn't tell you? Well... I may have had the Gio Sugu practicing sand-scattering and body-slamming drills."
Kang Yunho scratched his head and gave a sheepish smile.
"......"
"In truth, I had them practice a few other things as well, and it proved more entertaining than I expected... I'm sorry."
Kang Yunho fumbled through the words, flustered, as Im Hayeon's expression hardened by the second.
"Haah. Honestly."
How could the same man be endlessly mature one moment and endlessly childish the next? Some of us were in the middle of some very serious worrying, you know.
Before she knew it, she was laughing — hollow and helpless.
"I suppose I really should have them go with this one."
Taking her laughter as forgiveness, Kang Yunho murmured, eyes on the paper in his hands.
"What are you looking at?"
"Sichuan's Number One Beauty, Gu Sook-jeong, as painted by Lady Jegal. We ought to have it redrawn at full size and hung wherever Dangga Pungun volume one is sold."
Im Hayeon was an avid reader of Dangga Pungun herself. At the words Sichuan's Number One Beauty, she drew closer.
A face like a lone blossom no hand in the world could bend. So this was what that breath-stealing presence would look like on paper? It was a painting even Im Hayeon — a Du Eung-hyang partisan to the bone — could not help but acknowledge.
"......"
The trouble, of course, was whose brush had made it.
"I think so too. By any chance, might you have some free time later?"
"What for?"
"I thought we might go out for an outing together. Just the once."
"...You know full well I can't go out."
"The new carriage arrives today, they say. Even if the Domun lot are lurking about, there's no telling who's inside a closed carriage, is there? Let's call it a test drive and make a lap around the streets of Wuhan."
"Will that really be safe?"
"I bought it with ironclad security — for your sake, Lady Hayeon. You've done nothing but work lately, and frankly I feel guilty about it. Come with me."
Kang Yunho had noticed perfectly well that Im Hayeon's mood had been poor these past several days.
That the reason was her discovery of his true identity, he did not know — but in his own way, he wanted to lift her spirits.
"I'll get ready."
Perhaps she was even stepping out to confess an important secret of her own. Im Hayeon smiled and nodded at his suggestion.
"Splendid. I should invite Lady Jegal as well."
The smile began to slip from Im Hayeon's lips.
"Ha-ha. On its very first drive, how could I possibly leave out Lady Jegal, the one who bought the thing? Besides, with her in the party, the mounted escorts will help keep watch on anyone who tries to follow us."
"......"
Im Hayeon held her tongue and studied him for a long moment.
He had already warned Mangeum Hall that a faction was hunting both their lives. If the two of them moved together, her safety would indeed be guaranteed.
Her safety, that is.
"Lady Jegal can scout reference material for her paintings, since Dangga Pungun volume two is set in Wuhan — and Lady Hayeon can come along to clear her head. What do you say?"
He had no idea she had seen through him. Without doubt he was proposing this in pure goodwill, to set her at ease.
But.
Im Hayeon thought of the oddly smug little smile Jegal Hyang had been wearing of late.
"You two go on and enjoy yourselves. I'll head in to work first."
She had no confidence she could stand there watching Kang Yunho marvel over the carriage Jegal Hyang had bought him — or watch Jegal Hyang glow at the sight of his delight.
Least of all when those two alone shared an important secret.
"And what exactly do you all think you're doing right now."
The mansion, after Kang Yunho and Jegal Hyang had ridden off by carriage. Shoulders slumped, Im Hayeon muttered as she eyed the Gio Sugu.
"Gugu? Gugugugu!"
Sensing the storm front in Im Hayeon's mood, Gugu startled and began hustling the idle Gio Sugu into action.
What are you layabouts even doing? The mistress just called us not a pigeon coop but a pigsty, didn't she?
At their captain's word, the Gio Sugu beat their wings as one.
"Gugu!"
"Why are you scattering sand as a group? Haah. Honestly, the strange things he teaches you."
"Gugu......"
So this wasn't it. Stunned, Gugu hopped onto Im Hayeon's shoulder and, turning on the charm, brushed the settled sand from her clothes.
"Gugu, you've flown the streets of Wuhan in broad daylight plenty of times, haven't you?"
"Gugu?"
"And I've never once gone on a carefree outing with him..."
Stroking the pigeon perched on her shoulder, Im Hayeon murmured forlornly.
Life in Wuhan, where her guard could never fully come down. She and he had made memories together — but never the kind where two people simply stroll out in broad daylight, the way that woman who had just ridden off with him could.
"The contrast is just too cruel."
A woman who could dine at a fine restaurant at midday and take an ordinary outing whenever she pleased.
And herself — a runaway courtesan who could only move under cover of night.
Even the smallest things set them worlds apart. Im Hayeon quietly lowered her head.
Her usual self would never have sunk this low. She was the woman who pressed on brightly, insisting that she and Kang Yunho would weather every trial side by side.
But the fact that he shared his secret with that woman alone — her rival, the one standing on the other side of it — bore down on her with crushing weight.
"The youngest daughter of the Zhuge Clan. The gap between us is simply too wide."
She had thought them evenly matched. No — against a woman who was merely good with a brush and hopelessly timid, she had thought she would win outright.
Because his affection was pointed at her.
Because no matter how splendid a gift Jegal Hyang gave, it was Im Hayeon who held his gaze.
But what if... what if his affection were drifting toward Jegal Hyang?
Then all that would remain was a runaway courtesan versus the Zhuge Clan's youngest daughter.
"It hasn't come to that yet... has it?"
"Gugu?"
Im Hayeon shook her head, willing herself to believe it.
He had clearly thought of her today, too. He had offered the outing to her first, and only afterward said he would call for Jegal Hyang.
"Then why hide it from me — and tell her?"
His affection surely hadn't migrated to Jegal Hyang in full. And yet the unanswered question and the creeping doubt kept cinching around her heart, heavy as iron.
She had no desire to agonize alone again, the way she had when he'd received that luxury calligraphy brush.
"I'll simply have to ask him to his face."
Im Hayeon resolved to wait for Kang Yunho's return.
"Thank you for all your hard work today."
An expensive carriage certainly earns its price. It even comes with cushioned suspension.
Would have been nicer with Im Hayeon along, though. A shame.
With the painting Jegal Hyang had worked on all day in my arms, I entered my room together with her.
"Hnngh... I m-made it throughhh."
Jegal Hyang looked utterly wrung out.
I had steered us clear of the crowded districts out of consideration for her, but the mere fact of being outdoors was visibly grinding down her mental fortitude by the minute.
"I'm sorry — it seems you went to all this trouble on my account for nothing."
"It's, it's my duty as the official illustrator of Dangga Pungun, y'knowuu. I cannot afford to be careless for even a moment, noo."
"And thanks to you, Lady Jegal, I enjoyed the outing a great deal myself. Oh, right! There is one more matter."
"Is there something else you wished to discuss?"
"It concerns what the Mangeum Lord said. That if our relationship does not progress, he will arrange a matchmaking meeting for me with another young lady. We find ourselves in a rather difficult position, don't we?"
I raised the subject Jegal Hyang had cautiously broached during today's outing.
"Ah... Yes."
"Having Lady Hayeon reside in the mansion was meant to shut down ugly rumors, yet it may yet produce the opposite effect."
"I don't know what I should do either, y'knowuu."
Jegal Hyang bowed her head, troubled.
"I have turned the matter over carefully, and I have arrived at one brilliant stratagem."
"A stratagem? What sort of idea, y'knowuu?"
What, exactly, would the Mangeum Lord count as "progress" in a relationship?
Jegal Hyang and I were bound by a contract relationship.
Physical displays of affection were strictly forbidden, and the relationship itself had to hold exactly where it stood. So was there truly no way forward?
No. There was one.
"Lady Jegal. What I am about to say is not heartfelt — it is, from beginning to end, nothing more than a scheme. So please, listen without being startled."
"Pardon?"
With an expression of perfect gravity, I took a step toward Jegal Hyang.
She really mustn't be startled.
"Would you do me the honor of calling me darling?"
"...Yeeeeeees?!"
As expected — it would have been stranger if she hadn't.
Darling. The endearment a lover uses for the man she believes is her betrothed.
To Jegal Hyang, who had always addressed me as Young Master Kang, it was as if I had asked her to start calling me "honey" from this day forward.
"So long as the two of us live under one roof, closing the distance any further on paper is impossible. But the way we address each other — that, we can change."
While we cohabitated, no further step in our relationship remained to us short of an actual engagement.
Short of what we called each other, that is.
"B-b-b-b-but, y'knowuuu..."
Jegal Hyang ducked her head, her face scarlet.
"If you would rather not, we shall pretend this never happened."
"Th-th-that's not it either, y'knowuu..."
"Ordinarily, you may keep calling me Young Master Kang. Only when the guards or maids happen to be nearby — once or twice, slip in a 'darling,' loud enough to reach the old man's ears. Now, gather your courage and try it slowly, just once, this very moment."
I had to press her right now. Knowing her temperament, if I left it for later, she would never say it at all.
Jegal Hyang trembled at my words and barely managed to open her mouth.
"Da... d-d-d-d-d-d-dar..."
Rather than an endearment spoken with courage, it sounded for all the world like a song in which keeping the beat mattered more than bravery.
"Lady Jegal, there is no need to be nervous. I am the one who asked this of you. Take a deep breath and try once more."
"T-to truly calm myself, I, I believe I would require proper breath-control exercises, y'knowuuu..."
It was that dire, was it.
"I will wait until your nerves settle. And if you truly do not wish to, you may stop at any time."
I set about crafting the most forgiving atmosphere I could — playing the part of a man who would simply laugh and let it go, however badly she fumbled it.
When I turned my gaze aside with a hearty guffaw, Jegal Hyang simply studied me in silence for a long while.
Was she about to give up? Or would she actually say it?
At last, Jegal Hyang drew one enormous breath and, hands clasped at her chest, called out to me.
"...Darling."
A voice steeped in embarrassment, affection, and courage.
A single line of song. A scene from a photograph. A word laced with memory.
People have a way of dredging up memories that had been sound asleep, from the unlikeliest of places.
An unexpected memory — one already two years old — crashed over me.
The first time a woman ever called me darling —
"Darling."
"My lady — what did you just call me?"
"We are to be wed before long, so I thought 'darling' suited you better than 'Young Master.' Does that seem strange to you?"
The most beautiful woman in all the Murim. The voice with which that brown-haired woman had once called to him, shyness and love woven through every syllable.
An unforgettable memory. The woman of fate, whom I was destined to meet again someday.
"Young Master Kang? Agh!"
Her cry startled me out of the memory and back into the present.
What met my eyes was Jegal Hyang, face tight with worry, hurrying toward me — and catching her foot on the hem of her own skirt.
I flared the Shadowless Body Art into motion in a flash.
One arm at her waist, I glided with her, smooth as drifting smoke, toward the bed alongside us. But the first stage of the Shadowless Body Art had never been built to handle variables like these.
Her feet tangled with my legs. Balance gone, the two of us tumbled onto the bed together.
"Eep?!"
This was no shonen manga — and yet there I was, frozen in a full-on pinning pose.
With Jegal Hyang sprawled on the bed beneath me, I had ended up covering her outright.
"I'm terribly sorry."
"I-I'm quite all right, y'knowuuu..."
Why are you closing your eyes?
"Would you lift your waist a little, please?"
First things first — I needed to free the arm wedged between the bed and her waist.
"L-lift my waist first, y'knowuu?"
Why "first"? And what exactly comes last?
This was bad. If anyone walked into this room now, it would breed a misunderstanding of catastrophic proportions.
Or wait — hadn't the entire point of the endearment been to breed a misunderstanding? In which case, was this not technically mission accomplished?
— Creeeak.
While I dithered, the door of the room behind me slid open.
A maid, in to clean? Not the worst outcome. Ought I even to thank her for joining us?
Hold on.
Since when do maids slide a door open without announcing themselves first?
I whipped my head around — and the figure I met was no maid.
"You. There is something I absolutely must ask you..."
"...Lady Hayeon."
I was dead.