Correspondence — 4
To the esteemed Jiwoo,
Today, news I never could have imagined came flying into the Jipseodang, the hall where the sect receives its mail.
You say you wish to know my name?
"Thank goodness. Seems the Seocheon Escort Agency didn't forget to send word after all."
If they hadn't, I'd have been marching straight down to their offices the moment I finished this letter.
Thanks to that, I finally know one thing for certain—you are not of the Mount Hua Sect!
To tell the truth, I had been secretly imagining that some elder within the sect was sponsoring me from the shadows, and I had been narrowing down my list of candidates from afar. As of today, I can put that game to rest. Living as I do in a secluded hermitage, few people know my name—but there is no one of the sect who could possibly fail to find it out.
The letter carried the deductions of a young detective drunk on a tremendous breakthrough.
With one question settled, I find myself only more curious. I was raised within the sect—so how is it that you know of me, and why do you sponsor me? Every answer seems to breed new questions. But there is one thing I now know beyond all doubt! No—forgive me. The first thing I have learned for certain about you, Jiwoo.
And what would that be?
That you are not the only one burning with curiosity about the other's name!
I could all but hear a triumphant laugh ringing off the page.
A man who would so readily sponsor a stranger whose very name he does not know... could you perhaps be a magnate of vast fortune? I truly cannot begin to imagine.
"I'm a self-employed man who works sixteen hours a day."
And I'd be back at it again tomorrow. It wasn't even a five-day week. A dull throb crept into my temples.
You have never answered, no matter how many times I ask who you are, so I understand that you are reluctant to reveal yourself. But I would be content to know at least your name.
Tell me yours, and I will gladly give you mine at once.
From the disciple of Master Jinmu.
P.S. You called us paper friends, Jiwoo. And as everyone knows, a friendship begins with the exchange of names! I shall be waiting.
"No! There's no way I can give my name first!"
So he really was curious who I was. Fair enough—a stranger wiring him a small fortune every month would make anyone wonder.
Whether it was because he'd learned a little more about me, or because he believed a name was finally within reach, the original protagonist's delight bled through every stroke of the handwriting.
"Feels like trading messages with an online pen pal."
Frustration wasn't what I felt—a chuckle kept slipping out instead.
How should I put it? Like two guildmates in an online game, having a grand old chat while waiting for a raid to form. If my correspondent had been a woman, it might have felt like that push-and-pull flirting I'd only ever heard tell of. Sadly for me, the person on the other end was the original protagonist.
If anything, it felt more like getting to know a mystery pen pal, one letter at a time.
Well, now that I'd confirmed the original protagonist actually existed, maybe it was worth investing a little more time and learning his name too. The next letter was thin. I opened it on the spot.
To the esteemed Jiwoo,
My master is gravely ill.
I am sorry. With my master needing care at his sickbed, I do not think I will be able to write for a while.
"His master's in worse shape than I thought."
In the original story, once his master died, the original protagonist lost his last reason to remain at Mount Hua—and that was what sent him out into the world.
There was still time before the story proper began, so I'd assumed his master's condition was holding relatively steady for now. Apparently not.
I pulled out the next letter at once.
To Jiwoo.
The handwriting was oddly flat and lifeless.
"Huh?"
There was something angry simmering in the strokes.
You have never once answered my questions.
I write to you of my days, and you never write back. I bare my heart to you, and I cannot even tell what face you make as you read it.
'Eat something good. Mind yourself against colds. Train hard.' Greeting letters carrying nothing but a single line—and no matter how I read them, I cannot feel any heart in them.
A thought occurs to me. Are you perhaps writing this very same letter to others as well? Am I, perhaps, no more than a beggar on the roadside to you, Jiwoo? Is my lot to receive alms tossed out without a shred of feeling, rather than a sponsorship given with me in mind?
I tried to accept it as my due, but my head spun so badly that I set my brush down for a while.
I do not know who you are. I do not know your name. I do not know your face, nor what work you do.
You called us paper friends. Yes. Friends made of paper—nothing more. Writing to you feels like writing to the paper itself, and I have begun to doubt whether you even read my letters at all.
"Sorry. My bad."
I really hadn't read them.
How was anyone to know that the greeting I'd written at the new year hadn't actually gone out until autumn?
P.S. My master's breathing has eased a little. If it was him you were worried for, and not me, then... thank you.
The handwriting, unlike anything he'd sent before, was sharp enough to cut.
"He's thoroughly angry, it seems. Which means I should have answered him, and soon..."
Every time one of my one-line greetings arrived, the original protagonist would faithfully send back a letter of his own, laying bare everything that had happened—even the secrets of his heart.
I couldn't blame him for his racing thoughts. Anyone would spiral if money began arriving out of nowhere—worse, without a single reply to a single letter.
"This takes me back to my freshman year."
A wry smile crept across my face before I knew it. Back then, I'd scraped together every ounce of courage in me and texted a girl I'd been pining over—and the message sat there, unread, all day long.
Half a day later, the reply came.
'k.'
I sent a long, heartfelt follow-up. The next day, the same answer.
'k.'
Busy, I figured, and brushed it off without a second thought. Then I watched another, better-looking classmate text her about grabbing drinks together—and her reply came back before his message had even finished sending. That was when it dawned on me.
It wasn't that she was busy. The problem was me.
For a freshman, the blow ran deeper than I could handle, and I spent that weekend licking my wounds. The original protagonist was probably feeling something similar right about now.
Granted, ours was no romance. It was a sponsorship. Same principle, though.
"If a relationship falls apart like this, I'm in real trouble."
Hoping for the best from the few letters that remained, I broke the seal on the next one.
To the esteemed Jiwoo,
I am sorry. I am truly, truly sorry. I was disrespectful. Even now, I bow my head with every character I write.
For days on end, I was terrified of what might become of my master. And on top of that, there are days when my heart grows heavy without warning, and in a flash of temper I did this without knowing what I was doing. I am truly sorry.
I have committed a grave discourtesy against you. If you are disappointed in me, I have nothing to say in my defense.
Living alone with my master in that hermitage, the moment I believed someone out there was watching over me, I fear my heart ran far ahead of itself. I had been pouring my feelings out to another person, and something inside me began to surge beyond my control.
I am truly sorry. Of course you have every right to withdraw your sponsorship. Even if you cannot forgive me, I ask only that you read this letter of apology.
I am truly sorry.
For however brief a time, I had a friend. It made me happy.
"He's the original protagonist, after all. A thing like this, I can forgive—magnanimously, even."
That's right. When a person's hanging on by a thread, things burst out of them. A kid who hasn't even come of age, with the whole world acting like it has a grudge against him—of course he needs somewhere to pour it all out.
Your big brother here is an adult, and adults understand. So keep those letters coming.
Before I knew it, I had reached the last letter.
To the esteemed Jiwoo,
I received your letter.
It was the same greeting as always, yet you cannot know how deep a sigh of relief I breathed upon holding it in my hands.
Surely this means you have accepted my apology. Thank you.
Page after page was filled with the earnest weight of the heartache he had carried, and of his apologies.
Come to think of it—you did ask after my name.
"Huh? Is he actually going to tell me?"
I straightened up in my seat without meaning to.
I agonized over it countless times. Naturally, it is only right that I tell you my name, Jiwoo. But I found myself seized by one small greed.
"A greed?"
Something he wanted, huh.
Not a greeting, but a letter of yours, Jiwoo—that is what I wish to receive. Two lines instead of the usual one. And if you are willing, more than that would be welcome too.
"Ha-ha."
If I am to receive letters from a Jiwoo who stays unmoved no matter what I say, it seems I must be armed with at least this much. In exchange—no matter what—I will tell you the other name I have been using all this while.
"Another name?"
Your letters were written in winter. But they reached me when the plum blossoms were in full bloom across Mount Hua. So from this day forward, please call me Ranmae.
"Ranmae? A plum blossom thrown into confusion?"
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
When will Jiwoo's next letter come, I wonder? Will there be a reply this time? What sort of person is Jiwoo? Every time your letter arrives, my heart is thrown into disarray. So from this day on, I am Ranmae.
I will be waiting for a reply signed 'Ranmae.'
—Ranmae
P.S. Should you ever write something other than greetings... I suspect the plum blossom may grow a little more confused still.
"Yeah, no mistaking him for anything but Mount Hua..."
A quiet snort slipped out of me.
A grown man asking to be called 'plum blossom'—where's the shame in that? Then again, what else would you expect from a disciple of the very sect that crowns its swordsmen Plum Blossom Sword Masters?
"It's a fine thing, him becoming someone the protagonist can lean on through the hardest stretch of his story..."
But surely I hadn't just mishandled the original protagonist at the most delicate possible moment.
I turned it over in my head for a while, but with the letters already sent, there was nothing left to change.
"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound—might as well give that plum blossom a shake."
— To Ranmae.
For the first time, Jiwoo would send a true reply.