Wing to Wing, Entwined as One — 5

Am I dreaming right now?

Ha-yeon, doing an impression of a cat?

Inside and outside. It was nothing more than a scene divided by a single window, yet it felt as unreal as the boundary between reality and television.

Right, of course it couldn't be real. I must be exhausted. Time for bed. I closed the window.

"Why are you closing the window!"

A startled voice rang out the moment the window shut.

"You were real?"

"Did I look fake?"

Well, there was a fake Muyoung Shintu going around. You were standing there like a paused screen — I thought you were an illusion.

Ha-yeon stared at me for a long moment, face flushed, then bowed her head and let out a small sigh.

"B-but this was supposed to work……."

Where on earth does she learn these things?

A chill autumn breeze slipped through the open window and brushed my face. This was Wuhan, where river winds blew without warning. The cold air looked like it had stiffened Ha-yeon's cheeks too.

"The wind's biting."

I stepped back a few paces from the window to let her in.

"That means I can come in? Then……. Huh?!"

Had her fingers frozen over? Ha-yeon fumbled for the window frame and missed it entirely.

"Come in, quick."

I took her hand and pulled her inside. Cold as ice, just as I thought.

"Thank you. B-but why weren't you asleep yet?"

"I was taking care of something important."

I nodded toward the desk, where the lamp was still burning.

"You said you'd throw everything aside and have fun."

"I deal with the tedious things quickly so I can enjoy myself more tomorrow. That's my policy."

"Heh. Now that you mention it, so did I."

Remembering that she'd worked today as well, Ha-yeon gave a soft laugh and nodded.

I tidied the half-finished letters scattered across the desk and turned to look at her.

As the warmth of the room slowly thawed her stiffened face, I noticed something I hadn't seen before.

"Are you wearing makeup?"

"D-do I look different?"

Where had she gone to get done up like an idol? Even her eyelashes had effort in them. Was she waiting for my answer? Ha-yeon fidgeted with one of her twin-tails, cheeks going pink.

"Hmm……."

When a woman already beautiful had professional-grade makeup applied on top of it, even compliments refused to come easily. And speaking of which — why on earth was she wearing a qipao?

It was no Daseogak uniform. It was a qipao tailored exactly to my tastes — a skirt slit scandalously high, a neckline that left nothing of her collarbone to the imagination.

Her face was already straining with effort, and if I let my gaze drift down, there was nowhere decent for it to land. In the end, my eyes, with nowhere to go, dropped to the floor.

"Hmph."

Ha-yeon let out a pleased little hum, as if my reaction were answer enough.

Don't tell me she came here to do it tonight.

I could feel her gaze on me, lingering. Even a man utterly oblivious to women's affairs would have caught the signal.

An event that had never once occurred in the entire history of Kang Yunho. An event so unprecedented that searching my own history would return No results found. Please check your spelling and try again.

If I were ever to write my own epic, was I standing on the eve of an event that would deserve a full page or more?

"What brings you here in the dead of night?"

How many times had I been wrong about things like this? Just to be safe, I probed the edges.

"Why do you think I came?"

"Ahaha."

Alert! Red alert! No—green alert! No, wait, that's not right either. Because if I do that, everything below goes all-green while everything above goes all-red!

"Sit here."

Ha-yeon perched on the edge of my bed, eyes crinkling, and beckoned.

No. The moment I sit beside her, it's over.

Someone has to keep a grip on reason here, and it might as well be me.

I had prepped so thoroughly with audiovisual material that I'd even started producing original content — I knew exactly how a man and woman were supposed to behave once they ended up in bed together, but nothing about the preparation stage before that.

If I'd known this would happen, I'd have studied harder in sex education class. And here I'd thought it was the most useless information in my entire life.

Calm down. Hold onto reason and talk her down. I stepped in front of Ha-yeon and spoke with grave seriousness.

"Ha-yeon. I understand the heart grows impatient before a parting. But soon you must go to the Haomen Grand Assembly. You're to become the Haoxumen Master's disciple — one night of playful fire, and……. Gah! Ha-yeon?!"

I was suppressed on the spot.

Ha-yeon rose from her seat and carefully linked her arm with mine. Hold on. This sensation — wait. Don't tell me she's not wearing anything underneath? While I was floundering, she pushed me down onto the bed.

"I came prepared f-for everything."

Ha-yeon straddled my waist and looked down at me. Her face looked more bewitching tonight than it ever had.

Don't tell me the only choice I had tonight wasn't yes or no — but how many times.

Her face drew closer.

She'd come to this after weighing everything — was refusing actually the right thing to do? My reason was telling me to push her away for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her own sake, but my heart was telling my reason to shut up, because a moment like this comes but once in a lifetime.

I should refuse. But my body wouldn't move, as if caught in a trap. Her breath touched my face. Up close, I could see that her eyes were trembling too.

The instant our lips meet, it's over. I won't be able to refuse either.

My heart pounded like a pair of drumsticks. Dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum. Pshoo. Dum-dum. Surrendering myself to a current no one could refuse—

Hold on. Pshoo?

Pshoo is a firing sound.

"Huh?"

Something launched itself over my head.

"Hah!"

A speed beyond my comprehension. Ha-yeon was already soaring through the air. That's my Muyoung Shintu for you!

The projectiles weren't finished at one. Toward Ha-yeon, who had rebounded into the air, wave after wave of mysterious objects came flying.

She twisted her body and changed direction midair. Of course — the Shadowless Body Art, woven through with the footwork of the Eight Great Cloud Dragon Forms!

It was a display of movement that drew genuine admiration, but the room was small, and the firing sounds did not stop.

"Ugh!"

In the end, overwhelmed by sheer volume, Ha-yeon took a single hit and dropped straight to the floor.

What is going on?

Looking closely at the projectile, it was a small ball. There was writing on it? I picked one up off the floor, which had become a sea of balls.

"……Alliance?"

Every single ball had the same word written on it.

"Y-you can just ignore those!"

Ha-yeon, flustered, pushed me back down onto the bed.

"Hold on. Ha-yeon."

"I-I told you it's fine!"

"Look out!"

Water came pouring down onto the bed.

"Uuuugh. Seriously!"

Ha-yeon and I barely rolled ourselves onto the floor, but the bed was already soaked through — unfit for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any lying down, of any kind.

"What on earth is this?"

"It's fine! I'll just change the bedsheet!"

Ha-yeon's eyes were blazing. I am Lim Ha-yeon — a woman who knows no surrender. With skill astonishing enough to warrant the declaration, she stripped the bedsheet off in a flash.

Then she pushed me down onto the bed again.

"Aaagh!"

"How many of these things did she even install?!"

This time the bed flipped clean over, executing a full 540-degree rotation.

The room was a disaster zone in an instant.

It wasn't even midwinter, it wasn't Christmas, and I wasn't home alone. How many traps had been laid in my room?

"Did you make some kind of pact with Jegal Hyang?"

The fired balls, the water-filled buckets, even the underside of the bed — every last one of them was inscribed with the word Alliance.

"………."

There it was. Ha-yeon avoided my eyes.

So the two of them had a secret pact I knew nothing about. Jegal Hyang must have judged the pact was falling apart, so she'd re-engineered the defenses she'd set up against a Domun raid — tonight.

"Let's clean up."

I had Jegal Hyang to thank for the return of my sanity. I opened the window to clear the thick, charged air in the room.

"Hnnng."

Ha-yeon. Let's not deflate *that* badly. Mood is everything in these situations. It popped. It popped.

"Ha-yeon."

I called to her with the composed expression of a man who had no memory of the last ten minutes.

"………."

Perhaps because she'd been interrupted at the very brink, Ha-yeon was biting her lip, head bowed.

"There's no need to rush, is there?"

"I just feel like I'm falling behind."

Her small voice was brimming with anxiety.

"I'll be right here. Whenever you come, I'll be waiting."

Don't be so impatient. Tonight isn't your only chance. And by the progression meter, you just set a new high score anyway. Minus the parts I had better leave unsaid, I spoke to give her something to hold onto.

"……Okay."

Ha-yeon stole a careful glance at me, then nodded and crouched down to gather the balls.

"Let's clean up together. Tomorrow we'll apologize to Jegal Hyang together, too."

"Yes. Right. ……Huh?"

In the wrecked room, Ha-yeon's gaze drifted from the desk to the papers scattered on the floor.

"Ah. That's……."

The letters I'd been writing to Hwarin.

Lim Ha-yeon picked up one of the papers lying on the floor.

She knew the handwriting at a glance — letters, unfinished, their contents incomplete. She knew she ought to look away from her lover's private correspondence, and yet she could not tear her eyes from it.

Because every single letter scattered across the floor began with the same words.

— To Hwarin.

"You were writing letters to your fiancée?"

So the "important business" had been writing to his fiancée. A shock far greater than the sting of her hard-won courage collapsing into failure shook her chest.

"I've been too busy to write often, you see."

Kang Yunho swept up the letters with a rueful look and gathered them, but what she had already seen could not be un-seen.

"Then the business in Wuhan, too?"

"A woman who is ill. I didn't want to worry her needlessly, so I've only been sending letters to ask after her health."

She'd heard it was a woman who would need a full decade of recuperation. From a single sentence, Lim Ha-yeon could feel the depth of his devotion to his fiancée.

"And this time you meant to finish one?"

"I must write, but the brush won't move the way I want it to."

Her lover nodded with a bitter smile.

A woman who could give the great Hopil himself writer's block. Was the reason he'd still been awake at this hour, when he normally would have been asleep, his fiancée as well?

Dozens of sheets of paper, stacked and strewn — and not a single letter finished. Lim Ha-yeon felt a strange, quiet taste of defeat.

"Do you love her?"

She startled even herself with the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠question that had slipped out.

"I do."

The answer came without a flicker of hesitation.

And me?

She wanted to ask. But the words wouldn't leave her mouth.

It wasn't that she doubted his love. How could she? It was only that the knowledge of being the second woman to enter his heart made her feel small.

Lim Ha-yeon gazed at her lover for a long moment, then nodded, as if steeling herself.

Tonight was the night she would close the distance herself.

"Ha-yeon?"

Lim Ha-yeon sat Kang Yunho down in a chair, then settled herself onto his lap, facing him. It was another of the many postures in which lovers shared their love, but that wasn't what mattered to her now.

Countless thoughts flashed through her mind. The art of seducing men, learned from the courtesans. The art of seducing the Association Leader, heard from the members of the hometown association.

But all the countless things she had trembling-heartedly learned to cross her lover's window vanished, and soon only one thing remained in her head.

Lim Ha-yeon gently took her lover's hand and pressed it to her own face.

"They used to say that ever since I was young, I could become the finest courtesan in Hubei without learning a thing — just by sitting still and doing nothing."

Lim Ha-yeon's beauty, dressed and adorned with all the care the courtesans could muster, was, in this moment, an unmatched splendor no one alive could deny.

"My woman is beautiful, but……. H-Ha-yeon?!"

But that wasn't enough. Lim Ha-yeon took his hand and carried it to a place she had never permitted to anyone.

The place closest to her heart. She wanted him to feel, without mercy, the trembling that pounded there.

"This is a place only you may touch. No hand but yours will ever be allowed here."

Crossing a single fold of silk. The lovers exchanged each other's touch and trembling. But she had no intention of stopping there.

Lim Ha-yeon took her lover's hand, traced it down over the firm planes of his stomach, let it linger briefly at his navel — and then pressed it, firmly, against her lower belly.

"And this place is yours alone."

The place where, perhaps, she might have felt him tonight. A man's hand — her lover's warmth — pressed against her lower belly.

"………."

With empty hands, Lim Ha-yeon lifted his chin and met his gaze, pouring everything she felt into it.

His declarations of love always set her heart trembling. Made her forget every worry. Gave her the strength to rise again. But today—

"Every hair on my head. From now on, all of it is yours."

— today was the day she made the confession first.

"Ha-yeon."

"Do you love me?"

"I love you."

The answer came without a moment's hesitation. There was no need to compare it with the answer about his fiancée.

"More than her?"

She asked with trembling eyes. She didn't doubt his love — but the longing to be a man's first is one every woman carries.

"I love Hwarin as much as I love Ha-yeon, and I love Ha-yeon as much as I love Hwarin."

Kang Yunho answered her with eyes that did not waver. An unexpected answer.

"What kind of answer is that?"

"The day I first spoke of taking responsibility, I made up my mind. To love. To love my women with everything I have, every single day."

It was a man's resolution, reached after countless nights of torment. If he was going to take responsibility for them, then not one of them would ever be an afterthought.

"You're a fool."

He should have said he loves me most. Even if it were a lie, she'd expected him to say it. His answer was far too honest. Lim Ha-yeon, feeling oddly deflated, buried her face in her lover's chest and laughed.

"I know."

"I'm a fool too."

A relieved smile hung on Lim Ha-yeon's face.

This was the Kang Yunho she knew. The man she loved. Dependable — that was exactly why he was him. The man who gave his all.

"It's my own selfish fault."

"I love you."

Selfish? What nonsense. If he had truly been selfish, she would never have been able to hold the man she loved in her arms like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this.

It was because he gave everything to love that she could be here. Because he would always, unfailingly, be waiting for her, that she could leave.

Lim Ha-yeon held her lover close until the overflowing feeling in her chest finally settled.

"Send her everything you told me tonight. Every word, in a letter."

Lim Ha-yeon spoke the moment her trembling subsided.

"Then I'll have to prepare myself to crawl to the Sichuan Tang Clan and beg."

At his troubled reply, she smiled and said,

"Then I'll crawl there with you. But in exchange…… you tell me about your fiancée, too."

She brought up the subject of her lover's fiancée — the one she had deliberately avoided until now.

"About Hwarin?"

Kang Yunho asked, looking startled.

"She's your woman. I want to know her now."

Only then did Lim Ha-yeon understand the true face of the anxiety that had tormented her to the very end.

The thing she had feared most, all along, had never been the parting from him. It had been the woman living in his heart.

"Hwarin's story, hm. Where should I even begin……."

Kang Yunho, looking at a loss, settled Lim Ha-yeon on the desk, and then, with a face full of fond remembrance, began to tell her story.

"She's your age? Then she's my unni, isn't she."

"Unni? Come to think of it, doesn't that make me your oppa?"

"You……. You're just you."

"What does that even mean?"

"Hmph. Exactly what it sounds like."

Lim Ha-yeon nodded at her bewildered lover, her face brimming with affection.

A story that began with a sharp-tongued you and ended with a tender, loving you. That was the story of her and her lover, after all.

The story continued until the sky grew light — and the days the two of them could spend together were running out.

The day of parting was drawing near.