A New Encounter - 4
The closest friend of a Poison Human.
That was the setting I had prepared for Dang Hwarin.
Inventing a fictional person for it was no trouble at all. All I had to do was picture someone packed full of original Dang Hwarin's settings.
My friend, unfortunately, had fallen into the Dang Clan's schemes and died. I would be the man who, grieving that unjust death, investigated the affair and finally reached the truth.
The best part of this setup is that I don't have to walk a tightrope with my life on the line.
Until now, every relationship with a heroine had been, put simply, tightrope walking. Whether as Moyong Sang-ah's fiancé or as Cheon Sal-seong's childhood friend, I had been forced to risk my neck fighting tooth and nail just to prove I deserved the role.
Through countless tests and crises, a single misstep would have sent me plummeting off the wire to certain death.
Luckily I had made it across both times, arriving in front of them and forging close bonds, but it had been damnably dangerous.
This time I had crafted a setting that minimized any threat to my life.
Unlike before, Hwarin and I had no direct connection at all.
Not a fiancé who risked everything to find her, not a childhood-friend big brother tracking down the girl who had become Cheon Sal-seong—just an indirect link: we were people in similar situations who knew someone in common.
Because I had been the friend of someone like her, I could understand her pain and sorrow and offer a helping hand.
Helping her might deepen our relationship… or we might part ways after I helped her.
The one real flaw in the setup was that the connection was only indirect; she could simply swat my hand away when I reached out.
So I just remove the possibility of her rejecting help.
Not with lies—only with the truth.
I would use the truth to let her know that the person she trusted most had been using her, planting distrust. I would make her realize her efforts had been pointed in the wrong direction, leaving her lost and adrift.
Then I would stretch out my hand.
"So there was another Poison Human besides me."
Hwarin looked at me with eyes that said the puzzle pieces had finally clicked into place.
Don't settle for just solving the puzzle, Hwarin.
You need to understand exactly how trustworthy the man in front of you is.
"The first day I saw you, young lady, I realized at a glance what was happening."
"Yeah, I can believe that."
She lightly tugged up her sleeve and gazed sadly at the mottled skin beneath. It was a symptom no one could possibly miss.
"That was why I asked your name that day. If you turned out to be a bastard child of the Dang Clan, my suspicions would be confirmed."
Not Seong Hwarin—Dang Hwarin. That night I had pointed out her true name.
"So back then it really wasn't a pickup line… that's why."
The faintest, yet unmistakable, note of bitterness colored her tone.
I knew it. Are you actually disappointed it wasn't a pickup line?
Fine. Let me oil the wheels a little.
"Haha. Of course, even if my suspicions had been wrong, hearing the name of such a charming young lady from her own lips would have been an honor. Asking was no loss either way."
"Don't bullshit me. If you're gonna insult me, just insult me straight. What the hell's charming about me? You mocking me right now?"
Apparently she took any compliment about her looks as mockery; she bared her hostility on pure reflex.
Hwarin. This girl still doesn't get my setting.
I'll say it again, so listen carefully.
"My closest friend was a Poison Human as well. Unlike you, by the end his skin had completely collapsed. And yet we were the dearest of friends. Young lady Hwarin— a person's charm is not something that can be hidden by a mere layer of skin."
I fixed her with a solemn look that said, You were born to be loved. You're overflowing with charm. Have confidence.
"B-b-bullshit."
She cursed, but her voice carried more embarrassment than hostility.
Honestly it wasn't pure flattery either.
Aside from the damaged skin, if she just covered her lower face with a black mask like a delinquent-girl fashion statement, anyone would call her a beauty.
Now that I had made her understand I saw her skin as nothing at all, it was time to emphasize my kindness once more.
"No matter what you did to me, young lady, I could not simply leave you be. That is why I told you how to learn the truth."
"…Thanks. I owe you one."
She averted her eyes and offered a half-hearted word of gratitude, as if she still had no idea what to say about calling me a barbarian and treating me rudely earlier.
"I simply did not wish to watch the misfortune my friend suffered happen again."
My eyes were on her, yet my expression was that of a man looking past her with sorrow at someone imaginary.
"What… happened to your friend at the end?"
She seemed to understand who stood at the far end of that gaze and asked carefully.
Time to lock the mood down solid.
I am the friend of a Poison Human who met a tragic end. Sad thoughts. Sad thoughts.
I decided to think about that video I had liked so much I planned to go back for it, only to delete the whole folder by accident and forget even the name.
After staring at the ceiling for a long time with eyes full of regret, I finally spoke.
"Forgive me. It is a memory too painful to recall."
"No! It's fine."
Reading the torment on my face, she waved her hands hurriedly.
"However."
"Huh?"
"After my friend died… the Dang Clan master he trusted and followed never appeared at the funeral. Of course he didn't. To that bastard my friend was never a disciple—only a mere experimental subject."
I spat the words toward the floor as if venting a rising fury.
"Not a disciple… just an experimental subject… I was an experimental subject…"
She chewed over my words again and again, sinking into thought.
Lots of thinking going on, Hwarin?
Wondering if she might have ended up exactly like the friend I described if she had been just a little later?
Thinking this man might actually be someone she can trust? Wanting to know him a little better?
While her mind is this shaken, I need to strike while the iron is hot.
"Young lady Hwarin."
"Huh?"
Startled out of the swamp of her thoughts, she looked up at me.
"Come to think of it, why are you here? And what of the Seong Family Manor?"
A rich young lady whose room rent was a full week overdue.
Something she could not easily speak of to others had clearly happened. But by now I was no longer a complete stranger to her.
All right, Hwarin. I've shown you my cards, so it's time you laid yours out too. Spit it out already—what the hell happened?
She hesitated for a moment, wrestling with whether to speak, then opened her mouth under a clouded expression.
"I got kicked out of the Seong Family Manor."
"What?"
"Because of that crazy bitch, look at the mess I'm in."
She launched into the story with a bitter lament.
Seong Sehui's new mother—Hwarin's own birth mother—had been the woman who triggered the Seong Family Manor tragedy. She had betrayed her husband Seong Joru, taken up with Seong Jiru, and yet managed to evacuate early and survive the massacre.
Naturally Seong Sehui was never going to leave her alive and free. In the end she fled with nothing but a few trinkets, dragging Hwarin and a handful of servants with her, practically driven out.
A decent enough case of karma, I supposed.
"Then why are you here alone?"
Shouldn't she be with her mother?
"…andoned me."
She muttered something under her breath, face tight with resentment.
"Pardon?"
"I said that crazy bitch abandoned me!"
Wow. Really? That auntie is even more spectacular than I imagined.
"You said you left the manor together. There is the bond of blood between parent and child. How could a mother abandon her own child?"
"If that bitch knew anything about blood bonds, you think she would've pulled that shit at the Seong Family Manor?"
Fair point.
When I just stared at her with a blank face, she clicked her tongue once and began explaining everything that had happened.
"Just like your friend, I was always in pain. There were days it was a little better or a little worse, but almost never a day without pain. Then weirdly, about two months ago, the pain just… stopped."
"Two months ago would be around the time of Seong Jiru's Seong Il feast day?"
"Yeah. Around the feast day."
Something about that niggled at me.
Seeing I was listening with a serious expression, she continued.
"When we left the manor there was no problem. I wasn't hurting. The problem started once we left Daeheung County—the pain came back, and after we arrived here it got so bad I couldn't move at all."
Left Daeheung County and the pain returned, huh.
"Normally when it got that bad, Uncle Dang Geoho would bring me medicine that eased it a little. But without that medicine, even the stuff from the apothecaries here did nothing. When the schedule started slipping, that crazy bitch just left two servants and told me to manage on my own."
Her face twisted with pure rage at her mother, teeth grinding.
Medicine useless. I felt like I almost had it.
"When I still couldn't get out of bed, a while ago those two leftover servants stole the money from the room and ran. Bastards. If you're gonna run, just run quietly—why the hell did they have to trash-talk me on the way out?"
She complained with a complicated expression, as if replaying that day. Not full-on fury—more like resentful but also kind of understanding.
I watched her sink into gloomy thought. If what she said was true, this situation was strange.
"Young lady Hwarin. So right now… you're not in pain?"
"Yeah. Since this morning. Completely pain-free for the first time in two months."
She gave her arm a light swing to show how normal her body felt.
That's just weird.
As a side effect of being a Poison Human she should always be in pain.
Recently she had been bedridden, yet overnight she was fine. And the only times she claimed to have been completely pain-free were two months ago at the Seong Family Manor… and today.
Very conveniently, the periods without pain overlapped perfectly with a certain someone's path.
The puzzle pieces of suspicion began snapping together in my head.
I simply stared at her.
"Wh-what? Why?"
Uncomfortable under the prolonged gaze, she turned her face slightly away.
Purple hair, green eyes. Sharp features and that delinquent-girl vibe.
Even with every bit of skin wrapped up tight, that enormous chest still sucked in every eye in the room.
If only the mottled skin were fixed, she would be a beauty.
— Yunho.
Sohee's confession back at the Seong Family Manor floated up in my mind.
— When I'm next to Yunho, the killing intent disappears.
If the power of the Yeokcheonja included the ability to cancel any fatal debuff a heroine carried…
How exactly would it work on Hwarin?
I didn't even need to figure it out—I had already heard the answer from her own mouth.
Poison Human Dang Hwarin.
A beauty with a tragic story… and me.
She was a woman fated to live in the agony of a Poison Human,
and I possessed the ability to erase the side effects of being a Poison Human simply by standing beside her.
Everything pointed to one conclusion.
I was right after all.
Just as I expected—Hwarin was a heroine too.