Closed-Door Seclusion Training - 2
"A letter from Oppa?"
Cheon Sohee stared at the paper her master, Dan Seowol, held out to her.
"A letter from your beloved? No. 5, receiving a love letter! Yukiko! I am so jealous I could die!"
The moment Seolja grasped the situation, she kicked up a fuss as though she might expire from envy on the spot.
"A letter envelope?"
Salmak's headquarters was no place for personal correspondence to come and go. Even the message Kang Yunho had sent half a year ago had been nothing more than a slip of paper. The instant Cheon Sohee realized that the paper being offered her was not a note but an envelope, she murmured in puzzled wonder.
"Normally only notes are permitted, but this time I pulled a few strings. It's only the one page, mind you."
"...Give it here."
Cheon Sohee nodded at the faintly apologetic look on her master's face and accepted the letter.
To my beloved Sohee,
A letter from Kang Yunho, her first in half a year—and one brimming with feeling. Cheon Sohee's cheeks quivered before she knew it.
"Ohohoho! Just look at No. 5's face! She's so hot I feel like I could loose a Fire Fist from my Heat Haze Art! Nin-nin!"
"You're not going to read it right away?"
Dan Seowol asked her disciple, who stood gazing entranced at nothing but the characters written on the envelope.
"Yukiko is curious about the contents as well!"
"Yunho Oppa. You're safe, aren't you?"
"You doubt your own master? I have already gone so far as to confirm it."
Cheon Sohee nodded at her master's confident words and spoke.
"Then I'll read it in my room."
"Ah! How sly, reading it all by yourself!"
"You've been too loud since earlier."
She was an exhausting creature at the best of times, but today she was worse than ever. Cheon Sohee said, brow furrowed.
"Nin-nin! Yukiko! Deeply wounded! I am!"
"..."
Cheon Sohee found herself at a loss for words at the sight of Seolja clutching her unimpressive chest and collapsing with theatrical anguish.
"If you want to read it alone, go and read it."
"Yes. And..."
Cheon Sohee nodded at Dan Seowol's words, then fixed her master with a steady gaze.
"Is there something you wish to say?"
Whenever her disciple had something on her mind, she would stare at her like this. Dan Seowol could read what lay beneath from that attitude alone.
"Thank you."
Cheon Sohee bowed deep at the waist in gratitude to her master, then vanished from where she stood.
"That's not like her at all..."
She had thought she'd seen straight through the girl, so the words of thanks caught her off guard. With her disciple vanishing so quickly, Dan Seowol half wondered whether her eyes had played tricks on her.
This was a child who had always been numb and indifferent to everything. Could it be because her master had believed in her—the girl who had seen her seclusion through to the end? Or because she was treasuring her beloved's letter? However she turned it over, a word of thanks, of all things.
Dan Seowol could not help but marvel anew at this new side of her disciple.
"Well, can you blame her! Did you hear that love confession earlier? Yukiko! It was a tremendous shock!"
Seolja, having somehow already recovered from the wound to her heart, came sidling up to Dan Seowol and fussed all over again.
"Indeed. 'Without that man, I have no reason to go on living.' For a moment I wondered if she was still the disciple I knew."
Who could have imagined her disciple would declare that if her beloved died, she would take her revenge and then die too.
She had known the girl had fallen in love. But this was a child who had thrashed and clawed just to live one more day as herself. The girl who had survived by holding the murderous heart of the Heavenly Killing Star at bay had found something dearer to her than life itself.
Dan Seowol recalled her disciple pouring out that sorrowful confession before her only moments ago, and a fond smile spread across her face.
"So the saying that love gives you something more precious than life was true after all!"
"With somewhere for her heart to lean, I suppose even she can change."
"Did you see No. 5's face just now? Completely girly-girl! I nearly couldn't tell whether she was the Heavenly Killing Star or the Heavenly Maiden Star!"
"Yes. I saw it too."
A child like a blank sheet of white paper. She seemed to be trying to hide her expression, but there was no missing the way that paper flushed pink.
"Nin-nin! Yukiko cannot bear it any longer! I must make preparations at once!"
At the sight of that face, Seolja clenched her fists and began drawing something from her robes.
"What are you doing?"
"I am far too curious about the contents of that love letter! I shall use my stealth arts to learn what it says and report back!"
"Quit your nonsense. There is real work to be done, so come with me."
"Tch."
Dan Seowol gazed for a moment in the direction Cheon Sohee had vanished, then led Seolja off somewhere.
To my beloved Sohee,
Her heart was pounding. At that single word, love, worry and killing intent had somewhere along the way melted into anticipation and flutter.
Cheon Sohee hurried back to her room and carefully slit open the envelope.
Is he safe? What could have happened to Oppa? Was he hurt anywhere?
Cheon Sohee had kept her composure even inside the training cave, yet in the moment she opened the envelope and unfolded the letter, she could hardly steady herself.
Sohee, I've been keeping well and healthy. A while back, I was hauled off to the Tang Clan over a novel I wrote. It seems a small misunderstanding arose because I made the protagonist out to be a native of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
"A misunderstanding, just because the protagonist was from the Sichuan Tang Clan?"
Even the Emperor did not bar memorials that criticized him. And they had dragged him away over nothing more than a protagonist's birthplace? Those sinister Tang Clan bastards. So the rumors about their experiments on living humans had been true after all. Cheon Sohee could not hide the fury that flared toward the distant Tang Clan.
Fortunately, the misunderstanding was cleared up at the clan. I even received gifts, and was able to return home treated as an honored guest of the Tang Clan.
"Phewww."
A sigh of relief, a rare thing indeed, slipped from Cheon Sohee's lips. Had her master Dan Seowol witnessed it, she would have been astonished—for this was a girl who would not so much as sigh even after surviving a brush with death.
I'm sorry for making you worry over nothing. This is a first for me as well, and in the end you were the only person I could think of to trust.
"No, Oppa. That's not it."
Cheon Sohee shook her head side to side, as if to say, what nonsense is that?
She leaned on Yunho Oppa, so of course Oppa was allowed to lean on her in return. No—more than that, he actually thought of her as someone he could depend on. What a strange feeling. She was the one who had hurt him, after all.
Something overwhelming welled up from deep within her chest. Cheon Sohee could not have named the feeling, but her face was already flushed and smiling.
Kang Yunho's current circumstances. The things that had delighted him. His growing fame in Yichang. The letter was only a single page due to circumstances, but everything that had happened was pressed firmly into it. Cheon Sohee read on with eyes full of affection, savoring every last character Kang Yunho had written.
Sohee, I will become the most famous writer in all the Central Plains. Whatever hardships come, I will become the most famous man alive—and save you.
Then she reached the final line, and her breath caught despite herself.
"..."
Nothing in the letter said so outright, but he had clearly endured hardships at the Tang Clan that could not be spoken of. And even so, her Oppa wanted to save her. Cheon Sohee's eyes trembled.
So you must do the same—never let go of the destiny held in your hands.
— From Oppa, who loves Sohee
Your destiny lies not with heaven, but in these hands. Cheon Sohee recalled Kang Yunho's parting words, the last he had spoken before they separated.
Yes. Destiny was in these hands. It had been this hand, too, that had pulled her killing intent free of the clinging sea of the Heavenly Killing Star's murderous heart. The hand Yunho Oppa had reached out and taken hold of.
"Oppa. Yunho Oppa."
They were far apart—but so long as neither of them gave up, they would meet again. Cheon Sohee simply pressed the letter tenderly to her chest, her heart brimming over.
"Have you finished reading your letter?"
Dan Seowol waited until her disciple had had ample time to read the letter and settle her heart, then entered her room.
"He says he came back safe, and that he's writing for me now."
"Word has it that in Hubei Province, your beloved's book grows more famous by the day. I took it for a passing stir of attention, but it seems it has grown well beyond that."
"Because it's Yunho Oppa."
Had that child ever worn such a face? Dan Seowol was struck momentarily speechless by the sight of Cheon Sohee hugging the letter to her chest, glowing with pride.
"Good. And did you attain anything in there?"
"I found the killing intent inside me."
Dan Seowol's body flinched, just for an instant, at her disciple's answer.
"You found your own within the murderous heart of the Heavenly Killing Star?"
"Yes. Oppa helped me."
The energy of the Defier of Destiny that dwelt within Cheon Sohee. It amounted to less than a single strand, but had it not been for that energy standing defiant against the Heavenly Killing Star's temptation, Cheon Sohee would never have won her attainment.
"Astonishing."
The murderous heart of the Heavenly Killing Star was no mere anger, no simple quirk of temperament. The moment killing intent so much as stirred, the power of that star answered in kind. She had been born bearing the power of a star—but no human vessel could hold a star entire, and so the mind was devoured before long.
Dan Seowol had taught the Heavenly Killing Star as its master, yet even she—the Red Rakshasa feared across the world—had only ever taught how to feed the murderous heart, or how to leash it. And now her disciple had found a way to raise killing intent without the star's power surging in its wake. Dan Seowol could not suppress her awe at her disciple's quiet confirmation.
"It isn't complete yet."
She had only found the path, Cheon Sohee added. But finding the path at all was surely what mattered.
"Your problem is solved and your attainment has deepened—there's nothing here but cause for celebration."
Dan Seowol looked at her disciple with crinkling eyes.
"Nin-nin! Then we simply must hold a celebration feast!"
"Yukiko?"
"Where on earth did you pop out from?"
At Seolja's sudden appearance, the two of them could only stare at her, bewildered.
"Nin-nin! It is the ninja art—Shadow Technique!"
"Honestly..."
"Fufufu! Is that really what matters here! No. 5 has attained enlightenment! And No. 5's hubby's troubles are resolved! Which means we feast, do we not! Am I not right, No. 5!"
"I don't care."
Cheon Sohee shook her head, her face as frigid as if someone had dashed cold water over her.
"Call it a feast if you like—it's you, me, and No. 6. Just the three of us."
The feast had in truth been Dan Seowol's own doing, so even the Red Rakshasa backed up Seolja's claim.
"Quite right! We have prepared delicious food as well!"
"I'm not thinking about eating."
Cheon Sohee felt no particular desire to go. Given the choice, she would rather spend the time rereading Oppa's letter a few more times. That much she thought only to herself.
"Fufufu. Can you take responsibility for those words?"
Seolja curled one corner of her mouth upward and thrust her face toward Cheon Sohee.
"What now."
No. 5's reaction has already been predicted! Dan Seowol herself said to trust only me! Time to put it to the test!
Seolja had long since learned, one evening long past, that Cheon Sohee was the sort who would not budge no matter how hard you tugged her sleeve. But a first-rate ninja never surrenders. And she had a method.
"Which is why I went and prepared the tteokbokki that No. 5 loves so much."
Seolja had resolved to deploy a brand-new trap art—the kind that makes the prey come to you of its own accord.
"Tteok...bokki?"
Temptation had crept into that voice. Seolja laughed inwardly and resolved not to let the moment slip away.
"Tteokbokki alone? There are seaweed roll fritters, sweet potato tempura, vegetable tempura, squid tempura—and sundae besides! A truly lavish spread has been prepared!"
"You prepared a full Tteok-Twi-Sun?"
"Nin-nin! No. 5! Don't you want to dip your tempura in that tteokbokki broth?"
Cheon Sohee stared at Seolja, who asked her question with triumphant relish.
Something is wrong with me.
She had felt no appetite at all until this very moment. Now, at the mere words tteokbokki, tempura, sundae, her heart was swaying. That fiery kick of tteokbokki, the crackle of fresh fried batter, the fragrant aroma of hot oil. And sundae besides.
I want to eat it.
She wanted to eat the tteokbokki she had gone half a year without. Before Cheon Sohee knew it, her stomach had answered on its own.
"Let's eat, then."
"I'll go."
Cheon Sohee didn't much care for the knowing smile Seolja wore, as if to say she had her number all along—but in the end, she had no choice but to nod. The Heavenly Killing Star's stomach had been howling for tteokbokki, after all.
"Nin-nin! As expected! The power of tteokbokki is truly mighty!"
Cheon Sohee declined to confirm it. The Heavenly Killing Star had never bowed even to its own murderous heart—yet somehow, this felt like raising a white flag to tteokbokki.
"What is this?"
In the modest banquet hall set for three, Cheon Sohee could not hide her shock at the food before her eyes.
"Can you not tell just by looking? It is tteokbokki!"
"That is not tteokbokki."
Cheon Sohee's voice carried, of all things, a note of betrayal.
And how could it not?
"It is premium tteokbokki! Cream-sauce tteokbokki, no less!"
Because the food before her was not what she had been promised.
"...Why?"
The question welling up from the pit of her chest was aimed squarely at Seolja.
"Yukiko! The truth is, I am weak against spicy food!"
"You said you'd dip the tempura in tteokbokki broth."
Which naturally meant a spicy, savory broth, did it not?
"Dipping tempura in cream sauce is delicious too! Huh! Don't tell me—does No. 5 not like things like soup rice?"
Cheon Sohee could only stare, dumbfounded, as Seolja cocked her head as though nothing in the world were amiss.
Tteokbokki was, at its very root, meant to be a spicy broth—obviously. And wasn't rose tteokbokki, with cream sauce folded in for a velvety softness that sent a shiver straight down the tongue, the true pinnacle of the dish? Wasn't it only right to pile chewy wheat-flour cakes on top of perfectly cooked rice cakes and savor that taste of pure happiness?
And yet—cream-sauce tteokbokki.
Cream sauce without a single spoonful of gochujang.
Something came simmering up from the deepest part of Cheon Sohee's chest.
"This is not authentic tteokbokki...!"
That day, Cheon Sohee unleashed upon Seolja the fury she had, for the very first time, made truly her own.