How Does Brother Namgung Know About High Heels…?
Great Hero,
I offer my apologies for the discourtesy I committed earlier in the bathhouse.
To make amends, I have chosen an auspicious day and wish to treat you to tea and wine.
Near the Fitness Hall there is a place said to be like a paradise on earth, called the Special Tea House, which is truly ideal for unburdening one’s heart.
If it is convenient, I would be glad to meet you there five days hence at the beginning of the Hour of the Pig (nine in the evening).
I entrust this letter to my sworn elder brother Namgung for delivery; a reply through him would be most appreciated.
“…Is this enough…?”
I handed the letter I had just finished writing with unaccustomed diligence over to Brother Namgung.
“Hmm, hmm…. The contents are perfectly unobjectionable. That said, the handwriting is so round and soft it looks like it belongs to a girl who hasn’t even come of age yet… Well, I suppose one could call it very much like you….”
“…? Don’t tell me it’s so bad you can barely read it…?”
They say handwriting is the mirror of the heart. If the first proper writing I’d done in ages turned out to be a mess, that would be a real problem.
Brother Namgung shook his head at my worried question.
“I didn’t mean it’s hard to read. At any rate, don’t fret over it. You’ve had a long day with all sorts of things; rest well tonight. If you truly have nothing else to do, practice your mental cultivation.”
With that, Brother Namgung said he would deliver the letter and left in a hurry.
After seeing Brother Namgung off, I had nothing particular to do, so I sat cross-legged and began practicing the Dark-Startled Heart Method. About two hours had passed when—
“Well, as expected, he accepted readily.”
Brother Namgung had somehow already entered my room and spoke with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Ah, so Great Hero Geungwang said he would come to the Special Tea House…?”
“Indeed. For the next five days, rest moderately and train your footwork.”
Looking rather pleased, Brother Namgung produced what he called essential equipment for footwork training: a pair of shoes with remarkably high heels.
“Uh…. Will I even be able to walk in these…?”
It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to me, yet Brother Namgung appeared to find my question the strange one.
“What are you talking about? These days the heel on a shoe starts at a minimum of one chi—about three centimeters—and can go as high as four chi if one wants it long. That’s basic.”
As if to prove his point, Brother Namgung showed me his own shoes.
“Look here. Even I walk around in shoes with a heel of one and a half chi.”
“Huh, I had no idea….”
I wasn’t exactly the observant type, and I rarely had reason to stare at other people’s shoes, so of course I wouldn’t have known the height of the heels Brother Namgung preferred.
He chided me for it.
“You are a practitioner of the Femboy Divine Art, so your heels should be at least two chi. Now hurry and change into these.”
Brother Namgung urged me on, but the shoes looked terribly uncomfortable and I was far from eager.
“Ugh, can’t I just… not wear them and not learn this…?”
“Silence!! Watch your tongue. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that this once, but if you ever utter such impure words again I will teach you by force.”
Something in my words must have struck a nerve; Brother Namgung’s expression hardened at once.
Well… asking if you can skip something just because it looks hard, when you’re learning martial arts… yeah, that might be a bit much…
Thinking it over, even the usually good-natured Brother Namgung had every right to get angry.
“I-I’m sorry…. That was shortsighted of me.”
I bowed my head in apology and obediently changed into the shoes he held out. The moment I fastened the leather straps around my ankles—
Click—
A truly ominous mechanical sound rang out.
“Uh…. Brother Namgung, why did it make a clicking noise…?”
Seeing that I had changed shoes and fastened the straps, Brother Namgung lifted the corners of his mouth in satisfaction and assumed his usual “explanation mode.”
“These shoes are something I imported from the Western Regions. The colored-eyed folk call them high heels.”
“…….”
“The mechanical sound is only natural—I had Arin custom-make them so that you cannot remove them yourself.”
“What…? I can’t take them off…?”
In a panic I tried to force the shoes off, but the so-called high heels fit my feet perfectly and refused to budge even a fraction.
“Heh. To train footwork properly, one must wear them day and night. …That said, I’m not telling you to sleep in them for real; I’ll let you take them off when it’s truly necessary, so don’t worry.”
How long has it been since he forced the chastity belt on me…. Now how am I supposed to deal with this discomfort…?
Despairing at the difficulty of footwork training, I sat limply on the edge of the bed until Brother Namgung pulled me to my feet.
“A hundred hearings are not worth one seeing. First walk a few laps around the room. Come on, move.”
I had no choice but to walk a circuit of the room.
Click, click—
“Ugh, uuugh….”
Because of the high heels I was forced to walk only on the balls of my feet, and I couldn’t keep my center of gravity at all. With every step I lurched dramatically and walked so unsteadily that Brother Namgung finally couldn’t watch any longer and demonstrated.
“Cross your legs as you go, and sway your hips left and right. Like this….”
………Why does that look somehow lewd….
Brother Namgung walked with deliberately slow, exaggerated steps for the demonstration; his hips swayed, and the tight black trousers clinging to them only made the motion more pronounced.
“Ugh….”
Fortunately the damned chastity belt prevented my imprisoned little brother from stirring, so at least I was spared further embarrassment.
…Not that I was grateful for it.
“All right, now that you’ve seen it, try copying me.”
Having already completed a slow lap of the room as a demonstration, Brother Namgung urged me on, and I had no choice but to keep walking around the room.
Click— click—
Wearing the high heels and producing their distinctive footfalls, I walked until my mind was truly spinning and rest became desperately necessary.
“Haa… Brother Namgung… can I rest a little…?”
Seeing me utterly exhausted, Brother Namgung nodded.
“Haaaaaa………”
I threw myself onto the bed. Perhaps trying to soothe me, Brother Namgung began listing various good points.
“It will be a bit hard at first while you’re getting used to them, but these high heels actually have great advantages once you understand them.”
“……Is that so……?”
“Of course. First, they make you look taller. I’m already close to six cheok, so I avoid heels that are too high… but that doesn’t apply to you.”
“Aha…….”
It felt like he was indirectly calling me short, which stung my pride a little, but looking taller was still a pretty decent advantage.
“And another thing. In the Western Regions these shoes are favored by male nobles for their unique elegance. Looking at you now that you’ve changed into them, your leg lines stand out even more and your hips look firmer, like a ripe apple. If you truly consider yourself a proud man, how could you refuse to wear them?”
Is that so…?
Even so, less than half a day had passed since the scissoring session with Lady Arin in the secret room, and I had already walked more than two gak in high heels; I had no energy left to agree with Brother Namgung’s words.
Seeing me still limp and unable to recover my strength, Brother Namgung clicked his tongue.
“Tsk tsk…. With stamina this poor… This won’t do. Let’s go downstairs and have dinner. After that you may rest freely.”
It was a truly welcome suggestion.
“Haa…… Yes…….”
I’ll eat something moderately sweet, rest in my room, and just sleep….
“Waaah…….”
When I took a bite of the apple pie, the crisp texture of the stewed apples and the sweet flavor of the bread in the middle blended softly in my mouth.
“That’s already the third one—aren’t you getting sick of it…?”
Brother Namgung looked at me with an expression that said he was tired of watching, but how could anyone ever get sick of sweet food?
“Ah, Brother Namgung. Come to think of it, every time I walk there’s a clicking sound, but why have I never heard any sound from you until now?”
According to him he had been wearing high-heeled shoes all along, yet I had never once heard a click when he walked.
“If you walk with the proper knack, the clicking sound doesn’t appear. You’ll pick up that knack naturally yourself. …Though there are people who actually like the sound.”
“I see….”
After we finished the meal and were drinking tea, Brother Namgung handed me a sheet of paper.
“These are the preferences of that Geungwang fellow you’re so eager to befriend.”
The sudden remark made me tilt my head without thinking.
“Great Hero Geungwang’s preferences? Why do I need those?”
“Come now. Unless a person has reached the state of liberation the Buddhists speak of, you know perfectly well how much someone’s attitude changes according to the other party’s appearance.”
Brother Namgung crossed his arms and began to lecture.
“If you meet him dressed according to his tastes, becoming friends will be far easier. This too is strategy.”
“Hmm…….”
It wasn’t completely unreasonable, but I didn’t feel particularly convinced.
Displeased with my reaction, Brother Namgung tapped the table with his fingers in frustration.
“You already ignored my plan once, ran off, and ruined things. Please just trust me this time.”
Well, Brother Namgung would know better about this sort of thing….
Truly, Brother Namgung was like an onion—the more layers you peeled, the more impressive he became.
Looking at how he had rented two large rooms in this inn for the long term, or how he casually produced ridiculously expensive elixirs and artifacts, it was easy to guess how much money he had on hand.
And from the way Lady Arin, a proper workshop owner, fretted around him, or the occasional scraps of information he dropped about importing high heels from the Western Regions himself, it seemed he was running several personal businesses as well.
Compared to me, who had wasted ten years in the mountains, of course he would know far more.
“All right. This time I’ll properly follow Brother Namgung’s words. ……But Brother Namgung, what is this ‘reverse rabbit’ thing listed under preferred clothing…?”