Between Admiration and Astonishment
Every time the wooden swords collided, a vicious crack tore loose and flooded the training ground.
"That's a fine sword! Thrill me more!"
Ha-ryeon broke into a delighted smile and charged.
Crash!
Every stroke she unleashed came on like a threat. Her eye for an opening was anything but ordinary, and honestly, just keeping up was starting to be more than I could manage.
Thud!
Even so, I wasn't falling behind in raw power.
"That's some force. How do you keep power like that going?"
The sword I'd swung had knocked Ha-ryeon clean back.
"Asking after a clan's secrets isn't exactly polite."
"True enough. A woman is supposed to make a man give his secrets up on his own."
Ha-ryeon reset her stance at once and came at me again.
The exchange went back and forth more times than I bothered to count. Strength against strength, and I had the edge—but judged by the completeness of the sword art itself, I was the one being pushed back. Fierce was the only word for it.
"At this rate, I'm not going to win."
Ha-ryeon retreated a long step.
"Watch closely. This is the best I've got."
Then, all at once, she set her stance and gathered her focus.
Dangerous. Instinct was already telling me so—that I could not afford to let Ha-ryeon finish whatever she meant to do.
Flame-like energy bloomed along the blade as she swung.
"Sword qi...!"
It held for only the barest instant. That instant, though, was time enough to shear through the wooden sword in my hands.
"I lost."
"Haha, I won...!"
Ha-ryeon had been standing still. Then her balance went, and she staggered as if she might drop where she stood. I rushed in and caught her. Spent to the last, she couldn't hold herself up, so I laid her gently down.
"How was it...? The sword qi I bloomed...?"
"...It was beautiful."
"The sword qi I can draw still isn't perfect. That's why using it even once leaves me drained like this."
Fleeting as it was, Ha-ryeon had manifested sword qi. But the stability had been poor. She hadn't fully reached the realm of the Peak, then.
"A first-rate, looking up at the Peak."
"That's right. I haven't stepped into the Peak yet, but that's only because my training still falls short."
Even so, drawing sword qi meant she had touched enlightenment. Ha-ryeon had been living fiercely in her own way.
"So? Do I pass as a bride?"
"Not yet. Still, I can tell what kind of life you've lived."
I quietly studied her hands—countless calluses, and the traces of old blisters. She had never held a sword carelessly.
"Hehe. I got one step closer.... That's enough to make me happy."
Exhausted as she was, Ha-ryeon forced a smile. I brushed her forehead once.
"You look handsome even from down here."
"What are you saying right now...!"
"Haha, are you embarrassed? I'd have thought you spent your whole life hearing things like that. What a surprisingly unexpected reaction."
"You just... said it out of nowhere...."
I turned my head, flustered by a shame I didn't even understand the source of.
What entered my sight then was Tomusa. She stood with a cup of water in her hands, and those hands were shaking so badly the water was spilling over the rim. She drew a deep breath and came toward us.
"Young master, your water. Please wet your throat."
She offered me the cup.
"And this is yours."
Then she upended the other cup over Ha-ryeon.
"Oh dear. My apologies. My hand slipped. Are you all right?"
Tomusa said it with a face that was not sorry in the slightest.
"I'm fine. Mistakes happen."
Ha-ryeon answered with a face that was not fine in the slightest.
Why did the two of them try to fight every time they so much as looked at each other?
"Well, we've sweated, and our clothes are a wreck. Let's wash up and meet again."
With that, I went inside first. I would wash, for a start. I needed a moment alone to think. Surely nothing would happen between those two while I was gone.
Lee Hyeon had hurried inside so quickly that only Tomusa and Ha-ryeon remained on the training ground. The two of them had already settled on forcing a reckoning.
"Tomusa. Kindly stay out of what's between us."
"That name is permitted only to the young master. Address me by something else."
They went on, each of them bristling with open hostility.
"Ha. Shall I call you the Obsessive Warrior, then?"
"I would prefer that. Spoiled young lady."
Ha-ryeon snorted as if she couldn't believe her ears.
"Hah. Draw your sword. Let's settle it in a spar."
She meant the challenge. Tomusa only looked at her as if the very idea were laughable.
"I'll pass. I have no hobby of trampling the weak."
The insult landed, but Ha-ryeon swallowed it.
"Do you honestly believe a bodyguard and the person she guards can fall into some ultimate love? Give up already and hand Lee Hyeon over. Go find another man. Once I marry him, I'll see that you're retired."
This time the insult came from Ha-ryeon's side. Tomusa heard it, drew a deep breath, and let it out.
"Let us at least stop making our displeasure quite so blatant. It discomforts the young master."
"I was about to say the same, Miss Obsessive Warrior."
"Then I'll go guard him. I'll send a servant, so try not to lose your way like last time."
With that, Tomusa stepped into the building.
Just you wait. I'll prove myself to Lee Hyeon with my own hands.
Ha-ryeon steadied her heart once more.
I finished changing, came out, and spoke to Tomusa, who was waiting for me.
"Tomusa, couldn't you get along with Ha-ryeon, even a little?"
"I'm sorry. My duty is to guard you, young master. As time passed, I needed to grasp what sort of person that young lady is. Now that I have, I won't be wary of her as excessively as before."
Tomusa bowed her head in apology.
"Really? That's a relief, if things are better even now."
Ha-ryeon might still be washing, so I left word with a servant that she should come out to the garden, and I went ahead myself. A cool breeze was blowing. Maybe because I had just washed, it felt fresher than it ever had.
"What did Ha-ryeon look like to you?"
Tomusa sank briefly into thought, as if replaying what had just happened.
"She has certainly honed her sword nearly to its limit. She understood very well the nature of the middle sword and the hard sword, as the Namgung Clan has reinterpreted them."
"I thought the same. Ha-ryeon's been working hard in her own way. I wish I could at least start looking toward the Peak myself."
At my sigh, Tomusa smiled.
"Don't be impatient. You will surely surpass the wall of the first-rate, young master."
She was comforting me.
"Right. I won't rush. I'll just train hard."
Hearing her reassurance, my mood seemed to ease. Ha-ryeon arrived just as our conversation was ending.
"Sorry I'm late. Women take forever to wash, you know—one thing and another."
She said it with her hair still a little damp.
"I didn't wait long, so there's no need to apologize. And I can wait that much."
I told the apologetic Ha-ryeon it was nothing.
"Anyway, you've already done your makeup? Men really are fast."
"Hm? Makeup?"
"...You didn't put any on...?"
"Of course not. I've never worn makeup in my life."
At that, Ha-ryeon's jaw dropped.
"Th-that's a lie! If you didn't put on a speck of powder, how can your skin be this fair and fine?!"
"It isn't powder. I was just born like this."
I scratched at my cheek, thrown by how violently she was reacting.
"You train on that ground every day, don't you?"
"Yeah. Obviously."
"So you're saying you train under the sun every single day, and your skin can still be this clear?"
"I... guess so?"
Ha-ryeon shook her head as if she simply could not believe it.
"Excuse me a moment."
She set a finger against my face and rubbed once. Then she checked the finger, and the admiration broke out of her before she could stop it.
"It's... it's real. Nothing came off. Then you haven't put anything on your lips either?"
"Of course not."
At my answer, Ha-ryeon's hands trembled. She clasped both of mine and spoke.
"Did you come down from heaven?"
"What kind of nonsense is that...."
I shook her hands off, trying to escape that burdensome gaze.
"Not even a mark like a callus.... These look like hands that have never touched water in their life."
From the hungry little pants she kept slipping between her words, Ha-ryeon clearly belonged to that sort as well. Only after muttering to herself several times did she manage to stop.
"Ahem... that was rude of me. I couldn't hide my excitement for a moment."
"It's fine. I'm used to it, so it doesn't really faze me."
At that, Ha-ryeon tilted her head. Tomusa cleared her throat.
And so we passed the time in the garden, talking about this and that. The longer we spoke, the more Ha-ryeon seemed like someone with little interest in worldly affairs. Even so, she appeared to be studying whatever she might need, against some day yet to come.
"But why are you taking the lessons meant for the heir?"
"Well, something might happen, and I might have to become clan head. Lately, though, the reason I'm learning has changed. I'm studying so I can help my future husband, and keep it from being a burden on him."
Ha-ryeon was declaring a rather strange ambition.
"Who said I was your husband?"
"Oh my. I never pointed at anyone in particular. Did that sting?"
Damn. I'd walked straight into her sly little trap.
"Forget it. Let's just go eat dinner. My parents should be there too."