Wing to Wing, Branch to Branch (2)
"The Haoxumen Master?"
The words that had just left her lips were so far beyond anything I had expected that all I could do was echo them back.
"I have to make a trip to Moji, the main seat of Haoxumen, where the Haoxumen Master resides."
Lady Hayeon said this while avoiding my gaze, her face drawn with anguish.
"You're going because you became Mangju, then?"
"Yes."
She nodded, listless.
So, having become Mangju of Haoxumen, she was expected to pay her respects to the Haoxumen Master — and no doubt she had matters to report concerning the Branch Master of the Do Gate as well. Having to meet the Master himself, that much I could understand.
"Will it take long?"
"The round trip alone will take a little over a year."
"Which means it won't be just a round trip."
...
As I thought. Lady Hayeon affirmed it with silence.
This was a continent where a leisurely journey could swallow months without blinking. Her complexion could not look this visibly wretched over something so trivial.
There had to be more to it.
"Could the Hyangju be driving you out? They'll acknowledge you as Mangju, but they spat some abuse at you — told you to trot off to the Haoxumen Master and perform your tricks there?"
"You know full well they aren't the sort to say such things."
Lady Hayeon shook her head, bitterness written across her face.
"Then tell me why your heart is so troubled, Lady Hayeon."
Wearing the easy expression of a man prepared to take half of whatever pain she carried, I lent her my ear.
Lady Hayeon studied me for a long moment, then at last opened her mouth, her expression strained.
"As Mangju of Haoxumen... I have to go and become the Haoxumen Master's disciple."
The source of her worry, as it crossed her lips, was something I had heard of before.
"His disciple? Ah, of course... they said that becoming Mangju grants you the right to become his disciple. But a right — not an obligation, no?"
The Hyangju elected the Mangju themselves, and the Mangju held the right to become the Haoxumen Master's disciple. That was the Moji Pact, as I had heard it told long ago.
"No Mangju has ever not wanted to be his disciple — that's why it's called a right."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Become the Master's disciple, and one day you might rise to become a Minor Sect Master. Even if you never succeed him as the next Haoxumen Master, you'll be accorded the standing of an Elder. In practice, it becomes a seat that no one in the Unorthodox Sects could ever slight, whatever their seniority. So yes — a right."
"So it's only called a right because there's no reason anyone would refuse it in the first place."
It was like being elected regional union chairman and then handed a seat in the National Assembly — who on earth would turn that down?
Though Haoxumen held little sway within the domain of the Orthodox Sects, in lands where the Unorthodox Sects ran strong it was a power that could not be ignored. What was more, alongside the Beggar Sect, it was one of the precious few sects with a network spanning the entire country.
That becoming Mangju meant the chance to become the Haoxumen Master's disciple — anyone would call that a right.
"That's right."
Lady Hayeon nodded at my words.
"There's no way to refuse the discipleship, is there?"
If it was a right, surely she could simply choose not to exercise it. I asked in hope — but Lady Hayeon spoke with a sorrowful look, as though she had already exhausted every avenue.
"I did refuse. I told them that now that I was Mangju, I would simply pay my respects and come home. They told me that was impossible."
"Impossible?"
"Four Hyangju, the representatives of Hubei Province, acknowledged me and made me Mangju. The one Hyangju who opposed, I killed with my own hands. And now, if we said we would do well on our own — that I had no intention of becoming your disciple — what do you suppose would happen?"
"Rebellion... It would look like a rebellion for independence."
The reason we had been able to drive out the Branch Master of the Do Gate was that the Mangju's authority flowed from the Haoxumen Master himself.
But if a newly elected Mangju refused to forge that master-disciple bond, then to the Haoxumen Master's eyes, Hubei's Haoxumen would look like nothing more than a separate organization — one driven by an independent Mangju and her Hyangju.
To a Master who had already lived through one massive rebellion, it would be tantamount to another.
"For the Haoxumen Master, it would be absolutely intolerable. Something he would have to crush even if it meant bloodshed."
So once she became Mangju, the discipleship was settled, then. And mastering the Haoxumen Master's martial arts would take far more than a day or two.
Now wearing an expression that shared her pain, I asked:
"If you do become his disciple, how long must you stay at Haoxumen's main seat?"
Lady Hayeon let her head fall, and spoke as though vomiting up her anguish.
"...I don't know."
A silence more piercing than the chill autumn wind bore down heavily upon the two of them.
In all of Haoxumen's history, this was the first time a Mangju had been chosen with the Hyangju's consent. How much time it would take to become the Haoxumen Master's disciple — no one could begin to guess.
To Lim Hayeon, Kang Yunho's silence hurt more than anything. She could not bring herself to raise her head.
What would he say now? He had strained every sinew to save her, only for her to have to leave. Would he rage at how absurd it all was?
"So this is my doing, then."
Kang Yunho's self-reproach — the last thing she had expected — gouged at her heart.
"It's not your fault!" Lim Hayeon cried out, startled.
"I'm the one who made you Mangju."
"There was no other way! You did everything right. Is it because it looks like I'm being hauled off as a hostage? It's nothing of the sort. Once I'm the Master's disciple, nothing bad will come of it."
It was not his fault. His efforts could not be denied. All she had to do was enter the Master's tutelage, and everything would be resolved.
...
"As the Master's disciple, I'll be able to learn profound martial arts. No one in the Unorthodox Sects will dare look down on me. It's only..."
...that she would not see the man she loved for a long while. For an instant, Lim Hayeon could not breathe.
"Lady Hayeon."
She could not let him blame himself. Lim Hayeon's words came faster and faster.
"You have nothing to be sad about. Becoming Mangju is a wonderful thing. I'm not even twenty yet, and I've already taken one of the highest seats in the Unorthodox Sects. So..."
Don't be sad. Your grief wounded her heart more than her own ever could. Lim Hayeon lifted her head and looked at her beloved.
"Lady Hayeon."
Kang Yunho had somehow drawn near without her noticing.
"I-I'm fine, really. Honestly, it's a wonderful arrangement."
Her voice trembled. It truly was an offer no one could refuse — who in the world would turn down the Haoxumen Master's discipleship? But no matter what benefits came with it, that one single flaw shook her heart to its foundations.
"Lady Hayeon... don't cry."
"Huh?"
Without her realizing it, tears had been slipping down one cheek. Kang Yunho brushed her cheek with his hand, his face full of tender ache — and the warmth of his touch undid everything she had been holding back.
"Sob... How can this be happening..."
Lim Hayeon murmured, wiping at her eyes.
"Hayeon."
Once the tears burst free, no hand could stop them. Before she knew it, they were spilling from both eyes as though a dam had collapsed.
"After how hard you worked! After how desperately we both fought to get here!"
It was so unfair. Lim Hayeon was angrier than words could say.
"Lady Hayeon."
"I wanted to be by your side! That's why I came this far! I didn't walk all this way just to meet— just to meet an ending like this..."
She had walked on water to get here. And now she was to be torn from him — all to become the Haoxumen Master's disciple. If only she could stay at his side, she needed no other seat in the world.
"Look at me."
She could not bear to look at him. It felt as if the world were sinking. As if everything were ending here and now. The tears would not stop, and her heart kept collapsing without end.
...
Lim Hayeon found herself meeting the eyes of her lover, who had knelt down before her.
It was the face he wore when he refused to surrender and pressed onward. But this time there was truly no way through. Mangju was a post for life. Nothing about the situation would change.
This time, surely, not even he could have an answer. But Lim Hayeon had forgotten one thing.
That he was a man who never hesitated to reach out his hand to the woman he loved, no matter how desperate the straits.
"Lady Hayeon. Let's sit down for a moment."
I settled onto the rock in the inner garden just behind us and said it to her.
...
"Not on the cold stone. Here."
I stopped Lady Hayeon as she made to sit beside me, then rapped my knuckles on a thoroughly unexpected spot.
"Your... lap?" she asked, looking faintly startled.
"What's wrong with my lap?"
"N-no, it's not that. It's just... huh?"
I simply gathered up the flustered Lady Hayeon in my arms and settled her atop my thigh.
Her body was trembling. Rage, sorrow, indignation, shame — a storm of emotions too tangled for any single word to name was shaking her.
What was I to say now?
Nothing I could tell her in this moment would bring her comfort.
"Eep?!"
"Let's just stay like this for a moment."
And so, without a word, I drew her into my arms. Sometimes the warmth of another person reassures the heart better than a hundred well-chosen words ever could.
I waited, and kept on waiting, until the warmth of my affection melted the frost in hers.
"A little calmer now?" I ventured carefully, once her trembling had eased.
"A little..." Lady Hayeon answered, swallowing back her tears.
However mature she might appear, inside and out, in truth she was still only a girl not yet twenty, brimming with feeling. She had merely weathered the world's cruel storms and learned, as she always had, to swallow her tears. What was I to say to her now?
I had already decided on my answer.
"Go, and come back to me."
"You..."
Startled, Lady Hayeon turned her head slightly and looked up at my face.
My own heart felt close to tearing in two. I did not want to part from her. But I could not let it show. For her sake, as her lover, as a grown man, I had to stand unbowed.
"Lady Hayeon. Did we fail?" I asked, holding her gaze.
...
"You are no longer a courtesan. And the Branch Master of the Do Gate who tormented us is gone."
To Lady Hayeon, who could not find her voice, I recalled our situation once more.
"And the result of all that is a farewell." Lady Hayeon bowed her head and murmured, her sorrow aching in my own chest as well.
"It will only be a few years at the very most. Perhaps far less. They cannot keep the Mangju who must rule Hubei Province away for long."
This was my doing.
In the story as it was meant to unfold, the Branch Master of the Do Gate would have become Mangju, and Lady Hayeon — rendered useless — would have lived out her days as a runaway courtesan. Buying out the courtesan registry of Lim Hayeon, the finest courtesan in Hubei, at an astronomical fortune: that was supposed to be the original condition for winning her route.
I had solved that problem by making Lady Hayeon the Mangju instead. I had saved her — and this, perhaps, was the price of not saving her by the book. But it did not matter. Because it would only be a few years.
"Are you truly all right with this?"
"Not in the least. You think parting from my woman wouldn't hurt? Here — listen to my heart. Well?" Cradling her head as though it were something precious, I drew it to my thundering chest.
"...It's surging."
"I feel just as wronged, just as furious. But I'm holding it in. Because once we endure just a little longer, it will be over."
"Over?" Lady Hayeon echoed, as if she could not quite follow.
"Because I intend to spend the rest of my life with you. It's only a few years, isn't it? A mere instant in our lifetimes — that's all the time we'll spend apart."
Of course she was in anguish. It was, by any measure, a long separation.
But at the end of that separation, a reunion awaited. And measured against the life that would follow it, a few years apart was nothing more than the blink of an eye.
...!
"I happen to be surprisingly talented at waiting. Between putting out novels and running businesses, living at a breakneck pace — one of these days you'll appear at my side before I know it, scolding me: why have I let so much work pile up, why haven't I tidied up my affairs. Won't you?"
Some day, at some hour, Lady Hayeon would stand there grumbling, unleashing a torrent of nagging. I could hardly bear how much I looked forward to that day.
"Y-yes, I will..." Perhaps she could picture that future self of hers as well, for Lady Hayeon nodded, her cheeks flushing.
Measured against the life ahead, this parting was but a fleeting instant. So let us not grieve too deeply. I would go on waiting, and the love between us would not change.
With all my heart, I told her:
"So go, and come back to me. You're only going off to sort out some tedious business on my behalf, and then you'll return."
The heart that had been trembling in wild disarray settled. The mind, once brimming with sorrow and fury, sank into calm.
It was not a long separation — merely a brief errand, undertaken so that they might spend their whole lives at each other's side. Feeling the worry she had carried all day long melt away in a single instant, Lim Hayeon nestled into his embrace.
"When the time comes — when will you leave?"
"Soon. Once the attendants who will travel with me are chosen, I'll depart."
"And you were planning to keep that from me? Wow... that stings even more." Kang Yunho said it in a slightly exaggerated tone, as though wounded.
"I-I was going to give myself a day or two to compose my heart before telling you."
"Then I've gained a whole two days."
"I'm sorry?"
Lim Hayeon lifted her head to look at Kang Yunho, and her lover smiled warmly.
"Let's toss all our work aside and take this time for each other alone. Anything you've ever wanted to do — we'll do all of it."
"Things I've wanted to do?"
"All the things you couldn't do because the Do Gate kept us too busy surviving. Let's do those. Is there nothing?"
"N-no, there is."
"Tell me anything. I'll grant it all."
Lim Hayeon deliberated for a while before she opened her mouth.
"I want to roam the streets of Wuhan in broad daylight."
"You've never truly gotten to see Wuhan, always in hiding. Good."
"I want to cook you three square meals a day."
When her lover nodded readily, she let slip a slightly embarrassing secret.
"I had better prepare some stomach medicine."
"What did you just say!"
"Haha. Only because you'll be eating so much."
"Ugh... honestly."
Lim Hayeon drummed her fists against Kang Yunho's chest in wounded indignation, but he only gathered her in all the tighter, savoring his lover's adorable pique.
"What else do you want to do?"
"I want to go on outings, and boating on the river, and see the famous scenic sights. And..."
Too many. So many thoughts crowded her head that the words would not come. There were so very many things she had dreamed of doing as an ordinary woman — not a courtesan — with the man she loved.
"Then we'll do every last one of them. So that while you're away handling that tedious business, you can endure it by remembering the memories we made together."
And before she knew it, the tedious business would be finished. Then she need only return to make new memories. It was just a single sentence — and yet Lim Hayeon already found herself anticipating the reunion rather than mourning the parting.
"And..."
"And?"
"Whatever I become... I want to be with you."
Lim Hayeon made her shy confession to the man she loved more than anyone in the world.
"Endure it just a little while, and you'll have that forever."
Their eyes met.
From that fateful meeting in the new year to this very day, they had lived in a whirlwind. They had faced countless trials head-on, and overcome every hardship as though the two of them were a single body.
They had begun by snapping and bickering, but somewhere along the way they had become lovers — and by now they even knew how to reward one another.
It did not take the two lovers long to share each other's breath.