The Scent of Dried Petals and Lingering Hatred
Yeo-won reached out and pulled the pouch from the pond. The red fabric, thoroughly soaked, was embroidered with clumsy shapes resembling flowers and butterflies. When she opened it, she found what looked like fragments of brown tissue paper inside.
Yeo-won took one out and rubbed it between her fingers. After several minutes of puzzled examination, she realized they were dried flower petals.
A pouch filled with dried petals. Yeo-won remembered seeing something similar in an old book long ago.
A scent sachet? A fragrance pouch?
In the Joseon era, women carried them on their bodies instead of perfume.
Why is this here?
As Yeo-won stared intently at the sachet, her vision suddenly rippled. The world spun. She forced herself to stay upright, and then a woman appeared beside her.
The mature woman, similar in height and build to herself, was Mun-a, but a little older.
The hazy, shimmering vision wept as it cried out toward someone unseen.
Yeo-won held her breath for a moment and watched the woman’s actions. Mun-a clutched her chest and collapsed to the ground. Her breathing came in ragged, desperate gasps, as if she could not draw air properly.
Her voice was thick with countless years of sorrow and pain. The woman’s delicate, fragile eyes suddenly turned venomous. She ground her teeth together.
It was a horrific scream, like metal scraping against metal.
She collapsed where she stood and wailed.
Unable to contain the emotions exploding from within, she raked her nails across the dirt floor, her voice rising in a frenzy.
The terrifying sight made Yeo-won stumble backward.
What is this? Am I dreaming? The woman who had been clawing at the ground slowly lifted her head.
The moment Yeo-won saw the woman’s eyes through her disheveled hair, she clapped a hand over her mouth.
They were utterly empty.
Black eyes devoid of any emotion stared into the void.
A single tear of blood fell from Mun-a’s eye with a soft plop. At the same moment, the sachet slipped from Yeo-won’s grasp and sank back to the bottom of the pond.
As if nothing had happened, the peaceful garden reappeared before her eyes. Yeo-won gasped for breath, her anxious gaze darting in every direction.
Mun-a’s voice still clung to her ears, tearing through her mind.
When Yeo-won staggered violently, someone grabbed her shoulder from behind and steadied her.
[You don’t seem ready to come outside yet.]
Yeo-won slowly turned her head and met his eyes. Shin-wol’s face hardened like stone when he saw her unfocused, clouded gaze.
[What is wrong?]
He lifted her into his arms so she faced him directly. As she stared into his golden eyes, an inexplicable wave of nausea surged through her. Before long, all strength left her body.
A sharp, metallic scent of blood wafted from Shin-wol.
Even as her consciousness faded, Mun-a’s desperate screams continued to echo in her ears.
*
Her body felt heavy. It wasn’t the heaviness of pain, but a physical weight. At the same time, her head throbbed. Yeo-won tried to sit up, clutching her forehead, but the pressure from above grew even stronger.
[Sleep a little longer.]
A low, velvety voice came from behind her. Her chest felt tight, and she realized Shin-wol’s hand was wrapped around her stomach.
When he pulled her closer with greater strength, Yeo-won swallowed a soft moan.
The back pressed against hers was so warm it felt as though it might melt her. The contact felt strangely vivid. When she looked down, she saw that she was completely naked. Shin-wol, who was pressed against her back, seemed to be in the same state. Normally she would have panicked and flown into a rage, but she had no strength left and felt nothing at all.
Yeo-won squeezed her hazy eyes shut and then opened them again before asking weakly.
“Did… I collapse?”
[Yes. You suddenly collapsed.]
The unconscious Yeo-won’s body had begun to grow dangerously cold at an alarming rate. Everywhere he touched—her face, her arms, her hands—felt like ice.
Dan, who had rushed over, crushed medicinal herbs meant to reduce fever and tried to feed them to her, but she couldn’t swallow. Both the marble’s power and her spiritual energy were weakening by the minute.
No one knew what had happened, but her life was flickering out.
Humans die when their body temperature drops below a certain point. Yeo-won had already drifted far beyond the normal human range.
In the end, Shin-wol sent Dan away, stripped Yeo-won of her clothes, and removed his own. He pulled her into his arms with the intention of sharing every bit of his warmth, holding her so tightly there wasn’t a single gap between them. Yet her condition did not improve.
Finally, Shin-wol summoned his tails and ears, taking on his half-human, half-beast form.
Then he pressed his lips to hers and poured spiritual energy into her. With no strength left, simply receiving the energy seemed to exhaust her.
He repeated the kiss again and again until her body temperature returned. When she struggled, he would pull away. When her breathing calmed, he would kiss her once more.
The act, closer to artificial respiration than anything else, continued without pause.
Only after several hours did color slowly return to Yeo-won’s blue-tinged lips. A faint trace of life crept back into her once deathly pale face, and soon after, she was able to open her eyes.
Shin-wol ran his hands over her body, checking her temperature.
He licked his dry, cracked lips, which felt rough and chapped.
“Why did I collapse…?”
Her voice was as cracked as parched earth. Her throat burned, so she coughed a few times. Shin-wol rose, picked up the cup of water beside the bed, and brought it to her lips.
[Drink. The pain will subside.]
When Yeo-won, half-sitting up, reached for the cup, he pulled it back slightly.
[Do you intend to drop it?]
He tilted the cup slowly, letting the water trickle into her mouth. As she tried to swallow the small sips, that day suddenly flashed through her mind—the day water had been forced endlessly down her forcibly opened throat. The image of Shin-wol before her overlapped with Jae-young, and Yeo-won jerked her head away.
“Cough, cough!”
The water wetting her lips felt revolting. Ordinary water tasted unbearably metallic.
When Yeo-won couldn’t swallow, Shin-wol clicked his tongue above her.
[Tsk. Trauma, is it?]
He took the water into his own mouth, then lifted her chin and kissed her. She reflexively pushed at his shoulders, but there was no strength in her hands.
“Mmph.”
Lukewarm water flowed between their joined lips. It was slightly sweet. Yeo-won shook her head desperately, but Shin-wol paid no heed and continued to pour the water into her mouth.
Some of the water she couldn’t swallow trickled down her chin, but a small amount definitely made it down her throat.
When Shin-wol pulled away, Yeo-won gasped as if suffocating. As soon as she lifted her clouded eyes, he took another mouthful of water.
“Hng.”
To keep her from escaping, he slid a hand behind her head and kissed her again. Even without words, the feeling that she must drink was conveyed clearly through the contact.
With his other hand, Shin-wol stroked her throat, continuously checking the movement of her swallowing. Only after confirming that more water had gone down this time than before did he finally release her lips.
“Haa…”
Focus gradually returned to Yeo-won’s once pitch-black eyes. After drinking the water, her foggy mind felt a little clearer. Shin-wol’s fingers wiped the corners of her mouth.
[Are you a little more awake now?]
Yeo-won nodded slowly. The flickering candlelight cast shadows across Shin-wol’s face.
[The eodukseoni left a curse behind.]
“Cough—what? A curse?”
Yeo-won’s eyes slowly widened. The curse on the marble flashed through her mind.
His gaze was fixed on her neck. While he had been briefly absent, something had clearly agitated her; the bruises that had wrapped around her throat had now spread down to her chest.
Although the writhing, snake-like sensation had stopped after he forced the waterfall water from Cheongung down her throat, it had not been completely resolved.
Yeo-won’s eyes trembled with unease.
“C-can the curse be lifted?”
[It is not impossible.]
“How?”
[By forcibly separating it, or by transferring the curse to a stronger entity.]
He spoke calmly as he lifted her and held her in his arms. When she ended up sitting on his lap facing him, Yeo-won squirmed in embarrassment.
[I will not do the first. If it is forcibly torn from the soul, you will either die or go mad.]
“Then what about the second method?”
[Transfer the curse to me.]
Yeo-won tilted her head in confusion. Could a curse be passed around like an object? She didn’t particularly like the idea of transferring a curse to someone else, but there was something she wanted to know even more.
“How do you transfer a curse…?”
At her puzzled question, he answered with a perfectly indifferent expression.
[By mingling our bodies.]