The Three of Us — 2

If I ever sent a letter like that, I would no doubt receive an urgent report within days that the enraged Poison Human of the Tang Clan was already racing straight for Wuhan — which was precisely why I hadn't spent all this time playing dumb about the two women's feelings.

Not that there had been none of that, of course.

I would find the true heroine. As a Defier of Destiny, I would rescue these heroines from their cursed fates — and I would not turn away the affections of any woman who offered them to me.

I had left the Tang Clan with that resolve, yet face to face with the situation itself, I couldn't help but agonize.

Refusing no woman's affection was, in the end, only ever my own resolution. But what about the other side of it? Could the women who had feelings for me truly accept a man like that?

There was, admittedly, a way.

Just like the woodcutter in the tale of the Fairy and the Woodcutter, I could wait until things had deepened past any hope of retreat, then slither the truth out sideways, smooth as a serpent gliding over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a garden wall.

But for some other heroine, maybe. For the two women standing before me, that would not do.

I had to tell them now.

I lifted my head and looked at the two of them, staring back at me as though I'd grown a second head.

The Shadowless Divine Thief, Lim Hayeon.

After all the legwork I'd put in, two paths now lay open before her: to live out a quiet, ordinary life as a Runaway Courtesan with the Gambler Division's help, or to become the Shadowless Divine Thief.

Had I not spoken the truth at this very moment, she would have chosen the latter without a flicker of hesitation.

Would that have been right? She had become a thief she swore she never wanted to be, out of trust in me — if she then learned I had a fiancée, wouldn't she have shaken with the sting of betrayal?

If she was a heroine, then holding on to her by any means necessary was the correct play. But what I wanted was to save a heroine's fate, not to ruin it.

Which meant that right here, right now, was exactly the time for the truth.

With Jegal Hyang, ours was a contract relationship.

But was she truly a heroine? A beauty who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Lim Hayeon, and multi-talented on top of it. It was possible she was a character from some route I'd never managed to clear. But that, in the end, was only a possibility.

All I knew for certain was that her feelings for me had begun to sprout. Watching that affection grow tall and burst into bloom might have been its own quiet joy — but I already had women I was bound to answer for.

Not that I intended to turn Lady Jegal's feelings away. Only that loving me even after learning such a truth was another matter entirely.

"The truth is, I have a fiancée."

Which was why I had no choice but to say those words to the two of them, here and now.

"Y-you're joking, riiiight?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Jegal Hyang asked me, as if she couldn't quite believe it.

"No joke. I have a fiancée. She's far away."

When I denied it, this time Lim Hayeon questioned me, arms crossed.

"A childhood friend back in your hometown. Someone you promised to marry when you were children, and you've never gotten over her. Is that what you're trying to tell us?"

Gah.

"N-no, that's not it."

There was indeed a childhood friend to whom I'd promised a future — but she wasn't in my hometown. She was in Salmak. She was my childhood friend, and yet she wasn't.

It wasn't a hundred percent correct, you see. Which made it a wrong answer.

"Then what is it?! Out with it!"

Lim Hayeon pressed me for an answer, visibly frustrated.

First, a small, deep breath. Then an answer delivered with a grave expression containing not one shred of a lie.

"My fiancée is with the Sichuan Tang Clan."

"Did the Tang Clan pair you up by force or something?"

Did she think it had something to do with me being the Tang Clan's illegitimate son? Lim Hayeon gaped at me, unable to close her mouth.

"She is indeed a woman of a very distant branch of the Tang Clan. But no one forced anything. It was by our own two wills that we promised each other marriage."

I shook my head.

"Th-that's ridiculous..."

"Then why did you never say a word?"

Lim Hayeon bit her lip and demanded, glaring at me.

"For various reasons, I've been receiving treatment at the Tang Clan in secret. Until I noticed both of your hearts, it was not a thing I could speak of lightly."

The Poison Human was a being born of the Tang Clan's living experiments — with the Demonic Cult tangled into the bargain. It wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a subject even the closest of friends could raise carelessly.

"Y-Y-Young Master Kang is really engaged, you saaaay?"

"...So it's true."

Lim Hayeon searched my eyes for a long moment, then knotted her brow in disbelief.

"I'm sorry. Whatever the reason, I should have told you."

No excuse changed the fact of my guilt. Still on my knees, I bowed my head to them both.

A silence.

Even for a man who had steeled himself, it was a silence hard to endure, and it flowed between the three of us.

The cool night wind off the Yangtze swept past the estate.

...This is suffocating.

"I do have a fiancée, yes — so from today, let's all live happily together!" ...Yeah. This was decidedly not the mood for lines like that.

"So those tender whispers beside me, up in the pavilion that night — you did that with a fiancée waiting somewhere?"

The brief silence broke, and a voice colder than the Yangtze's night wind slid toward me.

"That is so."

The two women closed in on me, one measured step at a time.

"Y-Young Master Kang... even with a fiancée, you held a marriage meeting with meeee?"

"Th-that is so."

"Even with a fiancée, you stood before the Hyangju and swore you'd take responsibility for me, didn't you?"

"Th-that is so."

Why do they keep getting closer?!

"Y-Young Master Kang... even with a fiancée, you asked me to live with yooou?"

"Th-that is so."

Their shoes filled my downcast field of view; slowly, I raised my head.

The two women stood before me, blotting out the moonlight.

"You."

"Hm?"

They both look absolutely grim. Why is it neither of them is wearing an expression I've ever seen before?

Let's all just calm down now. This is merely one step back — a strategic retreat before the trial. I can explain everything, after all.

"First — take this!"

"Oof!"

I'd been hit.

"Y-Young Master Kang."

So Lady Jegal does know how to make a face like that. But what, exactly, is that in your hand?

"L-Lady Jegal. Wh-where did that iron fan come from?"

"Young Master Kang is... Young Master Kang is...! The enemy of all womennnn!"

In the end, I was beaten even more thoroughly.

And then I was thrown out.

"Aigoo, these poor old bones."

In the end, I'd spent the night at the Wungi Inn.

"Count yourself lucky they didn't tear you in half."

Chef An, having heard the rough shape of the story, clicked his tongue as he set breakfast down before me where I sat in the first-floor dining room.

"Hahaha."

"I made beef soup and abalone porridge. Eat what you like, then hurry back home and start groveling all over again."

Chef An really is the best. Delicious. Well-fermented kimchi, torn generously over the porridge — absolutely heavenly.

"I don't think they're going to forgive me this time."

Who knew rage past its breaking point came with swinging fists? I'd forgotten they were both martial artists.

"Listen to the blessed one. Take a good look at your own face, boy."

"Sorry?"

"Not one scratch on that face means that, furious as they were, they were still thinking of you."

"Ah..."

Come to think of it, my face was completely unmarked.

"It's enough to make a man bitter, I tell you. Some of us come home from a night of drinking and get our ears chewed off, you know."

"Chef An, the whole Hometown Association already knows what a loving couple you two are."

"None of your lip. Get back in there and sort things out. A flare of temper settles soon enough — they'll listen once it does."

Could I not perhaps stay another two or three days first? I have a feeling I'd only get beaten worse.

Keeping my feelings well hidden, I nodded and climbed the stairs to my office.

Thank heaven for small mercies — at least I wasn't a Kang Yoonho carved into five pieces.

If the whole truth had come out — that I was a married man, that I had a childhood friend to whom I'd promised a future, that I had a fiancée, and that I'd been courting lovers on the side of marriage meetings — being thrown out would have been the least of my troubles.

The other two were secrets even harder to reveal than the Poison Human, so I had judged it best to lay the official relationship on the table first.

Though, granted, there was a certain calculation layered underneath — that once they forgave me one time, a second and third would come easier.

"Hm? What's this Golden Sore Powder doing on my desk?"

The office door had been locked when I opened it, yet there on the desk sat a jar of Golden Sore Powder I'd never seen before, with a note resting on top.

Had Hayeon brought it here? In those indifferent strokes of ink, I could feel an affection that had not yet faded.

"So there may still be room to make peace."

I sat down on the bed and stared at the Golden Sore Powder for a while.

The confession I'd kept buried was out in the open now. From here on, whatever choice the two of them made, I would have to accept it.

If the two of them truly left me, could I really bear it? Ought I to accept it, no matter how I felt about them?

There were still so many words I hadn't said.

"A hero keeps three wives and four concubines."

The honest truth was, I didn't want to let them go.

I would respect whatever Lim Hayeon and Jegal Hyang decided — but I refused to just sit here and wait for it.

So what was there to do?

"Fine, then — a hero it is."

Time to grit my teeth and charge.

When I knocked at the gate of the estate, the guard opened it for me.

So I hadn't been banned from the premises. A mercy.

I sensed movement in the annex and knocked — and with the smallest sound, the presence vanished.

Hayeon. Not ready to see me yet, then. In that case, I had no choice but to try the other door first.

"Lady Jegal."

Thankfully, this door had a presence stirring behind it.

"..."

"I'm coming in."

I eased open the door of the darkened room with care.

"...Hehh... hehh... hehh..."

Lady Jegal! Your soul is leaking out of your body! I coughed delicately and took a single careful step inside.

No reaction. Half corpse, apparently.

At the sound of the door opening, Lady Jegal had offered nothing but that gloomy little laugh, refusing to so much as glance my way.

"Lady Jegal, I'm opening the windows first."

I flung every window in the room wide open, letting in the air and the light.

"Hyaaagh! Huh?! Y-Young Master Kang?!"

Is she some creature of darkness or what? Reacting only now?!

"I'm sorry. I know it's shameless of me, but I've come to apologize once more."

Once again, I knelt before Jegal Hyang.

"..."

"You must be disappointed in me. It's only right that you feel hurt, wondering ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how I could hide a thing like this. But I felt I had to stand before you all the same, so here I am."

As I bowed my head, a silence passed — brief, and yet long enough.

"...Th-that's just too much, you knowwww."

What came out of Jegal Hyang's mouth was neither a satisfying curse nor blazing fury, but wounded feelings, brimming with tears.

That hurts.

It hurt more than yesterday's blows. But I couldn't spend the rest of my days begging forgiveness like this, either.

If I'd resolved to charge, then let me at least push through this barrage of accusing arrows.

"The truth is, the Mangeum Lord already knew of my engagement."

Start with the facts.

"What? Grandfather knuuuew?"

"The late grandfather of my fiancée — Tang Hwa-rin's late maternal grandfather — was an old friend of the Mangeum Lord's. I told him of my betrothal and refused the marriage meeting, but he held the Daseogak's debt hostage and forced the meeting to proceed."

I was laying out for her the truth that had been kept from her.

"Th-that can't be!"

"It's the truth. That's why I proposed the contract relationship to you in the first place, Lady Jegal. Neither of us had any thought of marriage, after all."

"So then... you were forced into that meeting with me. Then... then everything, all this time, was..."

Her face was darkening. Was the despair circuit spinning up? I'm not raising a wall here, insisting I never felt a thing for you.

Our relationship until now was one manufactured by the Mangeum Lord — that much I wanted her to understand first, so that the arrows of blame might turn toward him instead.

I looked carefully at Jegal Hyang.

If she could hold on to her feelings for me even knowing the truth, I had no intention of refusing them. But I couldn't be certain she was a heroine — and so long as I couldn't, this wasn't the stage to bind her to me by force.

So what to do, then?

Set a fish trap.

Not a hook and line — a fish trap. If the fish swims in knowing full well it's a trap, then that is the fish's own fault, isn't it?

"However our first meeting came about, every meeting after that, I attended because I wanted to see you."

"What?"

"It was enjoyable. Talking with a reader of my work. Talking with a woman who shared my hobbies. Having someone I could speak with comfortably — I treasured all of it."

Say the honest feelings. I had genuinely enjoyed myself. Had I felt nothing, I would simply have avoided the meetings altogether.

"Ah..."

"Where else would I find a woman as beautiful as you, Lady Jegal — so multi-talented, so suited to be a bride who could stand at a man's side, and who converses with me so effortlessly? Before I knew it, for all I called it a contract relationship, there I was, looking forward to every meeting with you."

"...Hnn. Th-that's not... it's not to that exteeeent."

Weak to compliments, as expected.

The trap was set. Now to dangle the bait into it.

"My fiancée requires ten years of treatment."

Deliberately carving a pained look onto my face, I forced out the painful truth.

"Ten whole yeeeears?"

"My fiancée screamed at me to give her up. But I promised to wait ten years for her. If two people hold each other in their hearts, what is a mere decade?"

"...Hnngh..."

Don't shrivel up all at once at the word fiancée.

"If you wish it, you may end this relationship."

"E-end it, you say?"

"The Mangeum Lord rebuked me soundly for it. 'Do you mean never to marry past thirty?! Every soul in the world will point fingers at you!' And he was surely right."

"A-anyone still unmarried at that age is a monk or a mountain hermit, you knowuuu."

"Indeed. And as if he knew that my fiancée had, at our betrothal, given me leave to accept other women, he offered to introduce me a bride who could keep my house — and so arranged the meeting between you and me, Lady Jegal."

Beautiful. Multi-talented. A bride who would keep a house well. To help her summon back the words I'd spoken moments ago, I gazed at her tenderly.

"H-he said you may accept other woooomen?"

A strike on the bait.

Now, let's pretend to reel it back in.

"Even if you give up on me, Lady Jegal, the Mangeum Lord will not. In all likelihood I'll simply end up marrying another of his granddaughters."

Whether or not you swim into the trap, my ending does not change.

I looked at Jegal Hyang with tenderness, then turned my eyes to the window and spoke like a man wracked by a marriage he never asked for.

How would she answer?

Wearing an expression of exquisite torment, I stared out at the window and waited for her reply.

"...Th-that... I don't waaaant."

Jegal Hyang spoke in a small voice — one that carried unmistakable resolve.

"Lady Jegal."

"Pl-please, just give me a little tiiime."

I nodded to Jegal Hyang and left her room.

"Phewwww."

The fish trap was set.

Now all that remained was to flush out the Lim Hayeon in hiding.