The Letter - 5

"If I'm going to keep sponsoring the protagonist on a regular basis, I'd better stockpile several letters in advance, just like before."

Just because I wrote a letter didn't mean it reached the original protagonist right away.

Shaanxi Province was a two-month round trip away by horseback as it stood, and an escort convoy dispatched from the agency to Shaanxi and back would take longer still. On top of that, a snowbound winter would descend in a few months' time.

The world I lived in now was not the modern one, where snowplows cleared the roads every morning.

With so many variables plaguing letter delivery, the sensible move was to have the Shaanxi branch of the Seocheon Escort Agency carry them over on schedule of its own accord, just as it had before.

"I suppose I have no choice but to fix Zhiyu's persona as a taciturn benefactor."

I had considered gradually turning warm depending on how the original protagonist responded, or getting mischievous and cutting the stipend off before restoring it — but too much time had passed for any of that now.

No matter what the original protagonist asked, no matter how he raged, Zhiyu had always gone on stolidly delivering the same letters of greeting and the same sponsorship money. If the letter's tone changed out of nowhere, the boy was bound to sense something off.

"Keep the taciturn persona, and simply revise the plan according to whatever he writes back. That seems the best approach..."

It was, in a way, a matter of trust.

If the protagonist had come to suspect his letters went unread, then there was certainly no need to expose the truth — that I had, in fact, never read a single one of the original protagonist's letters.

"How should I write it, I wonder."

"Young Master Kaaaang?"

I was deep in thought when the office door swung open.

"Lady Jegal. I take it I woke you?"

Somehow the moon was already up — it was full night. The silver-haired beauty stood there in loose-fitting sleepwear, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she looked at me.

"Have you really been working all this timeee?"

Lady Jegal stole a glance at the desk strewn with documents, then said to me:

"I should be able to sleep once I've finished up a bit more."

"It's far too late for that, though. Y-you should really get some sleep first, and..."

Lady Jegal said worriedly, avoiding my gaze.

"I have somewhere I need to be tomorrow, you see."

"Th-then I'll brew you a cup of tea, thenn."

"Tea, you say?"

"I learned it from Hayeon Eonni, you seee!"

With a triumphant look on her face, Lady Jegal went trailing the hems of her loose pants off to the kitchen and disappeared.

Right. Tea was good. I'd have a cup, sort out my thoughts, and wrap this up quickly.

"Here, drink upp."

Lady Jegal had the tea whipped up in no time and offered it to me along with a plate.

"Thank y—"

The words caught in my throat.

Oh no. Don't tell me she was in such a hurry she didn't notice.

Lady Jegal's bare skin was showing. The loose shoulder of her top had slipped ever so slightly askew.

An abrupt flash of shoulder. That defenseless expanse of snow-white skin caught the moonlight and looked, for some reason, strangely alluring.

"Y-young Master Kang?"

Lady Jegal looked at me, apparently none the wiser. Pointing it out would only leave the two of us embarrassed for nothing. I hastily shifted my gaze down to the tray.

Huh?

"Ah... an iced Americano at this hour is a bit much."

"Ahhk!"

"There's no need to get too close. I have to keep my distance while making him move at my command."

"I didn't mean to keep you from sleeping! I'm sorryyy!"

Having sent Lady Jegal — who apologized over and over — back to her room, I sat down at my desk once more.

Once a brief and pleasant interlude had passed, my thoughts fell neatly into order.

If it were a heroine beautiful enough to make your eyes pop out of your head, perhaps — but this was the original protagonist. There was no need to become overly intimate.

If anything, what mattered was keeping a certain dignity about me — maintaining just enough distance that he would, as a rule, do as I said.

So how, exactly, should I write my letters to the original protagonist?

There was no need to agonize over it.

"I am, after all, the great general of a hundred battles and a hundred defeats. A mere reply letter? Easy."

From curt one-word "hey"s to walls of text piled high as a heaped bowl of rice — I had plenty of experience reaching out to girls I liked and getting shot down for it.

Of course, the one flaw in that track record was that my target this time was the original protagonist, not a woman. But the point, after all, was to shake a person's heart.

"He did ask me to unsettle his heart. So unsettled it shall be."

Ruminating on the old days made my chest twinge, but it was fine. Surviving meant being strong. As long as the original protagonist trembled before my strength, that was all that mattered.

I gazed at the greeting I had written out, stroke by careful stroke, with a fond smile on my face.

"Getting a different-than-usual response from someone you'd braced yourself to hear nothing from — that gets the heart pounding, let me tell you."

When someone from whom you were certain no reply would ever come suddenly calls you by name? What on earth could this be? Naturally, you find yourself reading it over again with wide eyes.

That was what it was like. The moment a text suddenly pinged in from my little sister — a girl who barely seemed to know my own name — ten thousand thoughts came flooding in at once.

Had she heard I'd returned to school? Last I knew she believed I'd graduated — or had she learned I'd been on leave? Why was she looking for me?

When she suggested grabbing a coffee, I decided that if she was working up to a confession, I might even spring for the fabled jade longboard.

Multi-level marketing, however, crossed the line.

"So I've called him by name — the question is what to write next."

A chatty reply would shatter the Daddy-Long-Legs persona. I had to disturb Ranmae's heart while keeping that persona perfectly intact.

And in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moments like this, pressing meaning into every single syllable was the supreme technique.

"Nothing more than a subtle show that I've actually read the original protagonist's letter."

He asked to be called Ranmae, so I called him Ranmae. He seemed to be having a hard time, so I told him to take heart.

What would the original protagonist think? The Daddy-Long-Legs truly did read my letter. My sponsor is worried about me. He would stare at that letter with astonished eyes.

As the old adage goes, nothing in this world delights like finally being accepted after endless pushing away. The situation at hand was a little different, admittedly — but this was the teaching of Mr. Kang, supreme master of pushing women away and being pushed away by them, so it was bound to be sound.

"Zhiyu answered him for the very first time. This was bound to land with tremendous force."

To Ranmae. Take heart.

A reply of only a few strokes, yet one freighted with countless layers of meaning, was complete.

"If he receives the first letter now, the next one should go out around Chuseok, the autumn festival, I suppose."

What to write in the second letter came to me on the spot.

Sending gifts to another man ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt a touch embarrassing, but he had seemed low in spirits — I would have to play the worried patron one more time.

"He did say he had a sweet tooth, after all. I can simply ask the Seocheon Escort Agency to send along something appropriate."

Even in the original story, the protagonist would eat anything thanks to his deprived upbringing, but he had held a particular fondness for sweets. It would make a fine gift.

I had called him by the name he begged to be called, and offered encouragement on top of it. And now, in the next letter, I would send a gift as well.

Then how was the letter after that to be sent?

"If you raise a man's spirits, you must bring them back down."

No "Ranmae" this time — just the usual, routine letter of greeting.

Train hard. Take care not to catch cold. Mundane words — but unlike the previous two letters, which had each stepped a pace beyond the ordinary, this would be a well-wishing conspicuously thin on tenderness.

"I can't let even the word 'Ranmae' start to feel like an everyday thing."

The original protagonist already knew how precious my sponsorship was, and his master Jinmu was ill with medicine to pay for — so there was no need to actually cut the stipend and throw my weight around.

But the word "Ranmae" — the word I wrote for him, the very symbol that the original protagonist and I had drawn closer — I would use it only once in a great while, and make even that word special.

Why does he no longer call me Ranmae? Did I do something wrong? Or has something happened to Master Zhiyu? Even so — I wish he would call me Ranmae again. And at the point where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠those small, unspoken grievances had piled up...

"...I send the letter marking one full year of my sponsorship."

"Only then will he guess at my true identity — and be struck dumb."

The Joseon man who had once saved the original protagonist when he was an orphan. The benefactor who, for a boy left all alone with nothing under heaven, had freely poured out a fortune and made him a lay disciple of the Mount Hua Sect.

'So the one who sponsored me this past year... was that man all along!' He would leap to exactly that conclusion, wouldn't he?

He never forgot me. All this time, he has been my sponsor. Unable to contain himself, the boy would be stamping his feet where he stood.

"It was probably just some flourish of a Korea-made wuxia dating sim, sticking a Joseon benefactor into the backstory."

Either way, no matter what ending the original protagonist met once the story ended, he would never reunite with the benefactor of his childhood.

And since this story had already veered from the original, every scrap of usable information had to be used.

"If I bind us together not just by trust but by fate itself, defying anything I say will become very difficult for him later on."

His childhood savior was now his sponsor, besides — for a personality like the protagonist's, refusing such a man's commands would be no simple matter.

"Time to put it to good use, then."

If my plan went as written, I could keep the protagonist walking the original story's line.

With every letter the protagonist would receive until spring now finished, I slipped them into their envelopes one by one.

"Lady Jegal, I'll be heading out ahead of you."

The next morning, Jegal Hyang sat at the table and greeted Kang Yunho, who had finished readying himself to go out, his face haggard with fatigue.

"Eh? You're not going to eeeat?"

"I have to stop by the Seocheon Escort Agency in the morning. It wasn't part of the schedule, so I'd best get moving as soon as I can."

He needed to explain to the Seocheon Escort Agency, in careful detail, how the letters were to reach the original protagonist. Because it was important business, Kang Yunho meant to handle it in person, starting first thing in the morning.

"But stillll..."

Breakfast was supposed to be her time at the table with Young Master Kang. Lady Jegal spoke in a voice tinged with disappointment, her eyes on the piping-hot dishes laid out on the table.

"Haha. I appreciate the concern, but nobody dies from skipping a single meal."

"...Yes."

He didn't eat with me yesterday, either. Jegal Hyang tried to say it, but the words never made it past her lips, and before she knew it, her shoulders had slumped on their own.

"I'd ask you to organize last month's sales figures while I'm out. It's urgent, so I'll go on ahead."

To Kang Yunho, who departed with an apologetic air, Jegal Hyang could say nothing at all.

"Hnngh..."

All that remained was to finish breakfast alone and step into the office buried in paperwork.

Paperwork that ought, in fairness, to have been shared between two women and one man.

The Eonni who had gone away had handed a few of the duties ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over to others, but the truly important work, in the end, could only fall to the person who truly mattered.

Dipping her brush into ink, Jegal Hyang set about the work.

Morning.

Noon.

The documents did not grow any fewer.

"Somehow or another, I just can't help but think..."

The office was quiet. Jegal Hyang sat alone at her desk and muttered the words in a somewhat despondent voice.

It was a truth she had come to realize of late.

"I think Hayeon Eonni got one over on meee."