Then What of Me, My Heart
When the glittering light faded, the body of Hoeyeon's first love vanished with it.
When a Masu's life ends, its body crumbles into black mist and disappears, leaving only a core behind.
Eunha's corpse crumbled and vanished as well — but her light was not black.
An ashen gray, as if a single thread of white had been woven through purest black.
Of her body dissolving into gray, the last thing to disappear was the finger that had wiped away Hoeyeon's tears.
With a clatter, her sword, her clothes, and her core fell to the ground.
The moment Hoeyeon picked them up through her tears, Arang snatched her up.
"Arang?"
"We must make haste! Hold on tight!"
With a sharp heave she bounced Hoeyeon upward and slung her over one shoulder, then leapt hard, springing onto a rooftop.
Hoeyeon had been about to ask after Gayul when she saw the blue-haired woman draped over Arang's other shoulder in the same fashion.
Gayul was utterly spent. The feat of fully shielding Hoeyeon and Eunha's battle had exacted its price — leaving her barely able to hold herself upright, and draining the greater part of her magic.
Cold sweat plastered her blue hair to her face.
"We go to the house of one who owes this humble one a debt!"
Arang raced across the rooftops. At every gap between buildings she leapt hard, and Hoeyeon and Gayul could not open their mouths for fear of biting their tongues.
When Hoeyeon looked at Gayul, her eyes were full of pain.
I'm sorry.
Hoeyeon sent the words with her gaze, and Gayul's eyes trembled.
She wanted to reach out a hand — but both of Hoeyeon's were full of Eunha's keepsakes.
Gayul's gaze brushed the corner of Hoeyeon's mouth, where red blood clung like lipstick, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight.
The one Arang had called her debtor was an older woman, and her house was large enough to be called an estate. Yet aside from the mistress herself, not a soul was in sight; the place stood empty.
"Explanations later. Hide us."
"Hic!? L-Lady Arang…?"
The mistress of the house started violently at the sight of Arang bursting through her door and demanding sanctuary — but when Arang fixed her with a glare, she led them to an empty room deep in the innermost part of the estate.
"Where might one find drinking water?"
"I-I'll bring some…."
"We shall impose upon you a while — but speak of us to no one. Not a soul."
There was a single bed in the room. Arang laid Gayul upon it.
"I shall have to ask for bedding for the floor as well… Hoeyeon, forgive me, but sit a moment."
"…Okay. Gayul — is she all right?"
"She collapsed from overexertion, but she is unharmed."
"Okay. Thank you."
"…It would be wise to set the core down."
"…Okay."
She had been holding it wrapped in Eunha's garments so as not to touch it bare-handed, but Arang was right.
Hoeyeon set Eunha's keepsakes down in a corner of the room, then sat on the edge of the bed beside Arang, who was looking down at Gayul.
"Hoeyeon, should you not lie down as well?"
"You're tired too, Arang."
"Of the three of us, this humble one is in the best shape. Rest. If it truly troubles you, we can switch later. Ah — you've brought the water? Well done. Forgive me, but might you also fetch some bedding? Good. Now then, Hoeyeon — lie down."
"…Okay."
With a small heave, Arang shifted Gayul from the center of the bed toward the edge. Hoeyeon sat and was about to lie down when Arang stopped her with a quiet wait.
"There is blood on you."
Arang dampened a cloth with the water the mistress had brought and gently wiped Hoeyeon's face clean.
"…Thank you."
Hoeyeon touched the corner of her mouth where Arang had wiped, then let her hand fall.
"Think nothing of it."
So saying, Arang leaned her back against the bed. Once Hoeyeon lay down, their eyes met at the same level.
"Oh — your ears."
At some point, both of Arang's ears and her tail had come out again.
"Ah, there is no need to hide them from that one… What are you doing?"
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Hoeyeon reached out and stroked Arang's head.
Her fingers slid from hair to fox ear, caressing the underside and gently scratching.
"Nnh…."
A sound Arang could not quite suppress slipped from her lips.
"What… are you doing…."
Arang tried to speak through the trembling, but Hoeyeon's hand went on stroking her head and ears for some time yet — and only stopped when Hoeyeon herself slipped away into sleep.
When the motion finally slowed and stilled, Arang felt a twinge of something wistful as she caught her own fox ear in her hand.
"…What was that about, all of a sudden."
Her body felt strangely warm. She was clearing her throat, trying to scatter the heat, when the mistress's voice reached her ears again.
"Um… the bedding……."
Arang looked back. Both Hoeyeon and Gayul were asleep.
"This humble one shall come out. Wait there."
Arang slid the door open to find the mistress standing with the bedding in her arms.
"Well done."
"Y-yes… Um, Lady Arang, what… what is going on…?"
"We have caused a disturbance, and must remain hidden until it settles. We mean to slip out of this capital under cover of night as soon as we can — but it may take some time."
"Ah, yes… Um, by 'some time,' you mean…."
"Weighing it against the grace you received from this humble one — is a few days' trouble truly so hard to bear?"
"N-no… that's… not what I…."
"It was no ancient debt from ages past. Not even a fortnight has passed since this humble one risked danger to fetch the medicinal herbs you begged for on your child's behalf."
"Of course, of course… Please, by all means, make yourselves comfortable…."
"…Very well. Be gone."
Tsk. Once the mistress had withdrawn, Arang clicked her tongue. She had thought the debt of saving the woman's child would make her about eighty percent reliable — but it seemed the remaining twenty was the truer measure.
And though she had not bothered to tell the woman, the terrible incident in which Arang herself had been attacked and a Masu core planted in her had happened on the very road home after delivering those herbs.
"Insolent creature."
Judging by that attitude, slipping away this very night would be best.
The question was whether Gayul and Hoeyeon could recover enough. And if not enough — whether they could at least manage their own bodies.
Not only their bodies. The shock to their hearts as well….
The bond between Yu Eunha and Hoeyeon. The state of Hoeyeon's heart, having found her again only to lose her once more. And the state of Gayul's heart, having witnessed it all before her eyes.
"A night that makes one long for drink."
Arang sighed. Of course she had no leisure to put liquor to her lips now. But there were simply too many problems that yielded no answers no matter how hard one thought — and that one found oneself thinking about all the same — for the craving not to rise.
And Arang herself needed rest. She was only better off than Hoeyeon and Gayul; she was by no means fresh and whole.
She spread the bedding beside the bed, and before lying down, glanced up at it.
Gayul and Hoeyeon slept side by side.
When Arang sat on her blanket, only Hoeyeon — the nearer of the two — was visible. When she lay down, both of them disappeared from view.
Lying beside them, and yet apart from them, Arang absently touched her fox ear.
Gayul loves Hoeyeon.
Gayul herself had not yet realized it. Why, Arang could not say — and it was not something to guess at lightly. In the worst case, it might even be tangled up with the contract the Founding Emperor of Geon had struck with the heavens.
And Hoeyeon — does she love Gayul in turn?
Arang had seen clearly the final words and the kiss Hoeyeon had shared with Eunha.
She had seen that face where tears and regret and joy and affection were all tangled together.
"And this humble one…."
She remembered the head Hoeyeon had stroked. The ear. The touch of those fingers.
The heat she had once pushed away lingered as a residual warmth, pressing lightly against her body before scattering, incomplete.
Arang looked up at the bed once more.
From here, the two of them were not visible.
Only the sound of two people breathing reached her.
What is it that this humble one desires?
The words she herself had tossed out that night by the campfire, teasing Hoeyeon and needling Gayul, rose unbidden in Arang's mind.
—But what then? What if this humble one said she had taken an interest as well?
A problem that yielded no answer no matter how hard one thought — and that one found oneself thinking about all the same.
Realizing that yet another had been added to a list already far too long, Arang sighed and tried to close her eyes.
"Mmh…."
Hoeyeon stirred, and one hand slipped over the edge of the bed.
It was a hand that spoke of years spent gripping a sword, of a heart devoted wholly to the blade. And it was also the hand that had so gently caressed Arang's fox ear.
—Far more reliable than most males, I should think.
Another of the words she had spoken that day stirred back to life in Arang's mind.
Arang looked up at that hand of Hoeyeon's — then closed her eyes.
She forced them shut.
The reason Gayul did not know the feelings she carried in her own heart was one that would have left Arang speechless with sheer absurdity, had she ever heard it.
Having accepted a station in life that forbade her from living by her own emotions, she had spent her entire existence suppressing what she felt — and so she had never once fallen in love.
Marriage, she had always assumed, would of course be something she entered into with someone for the sake of the nation.
After the political maneuvering beneath the surface, a handful of candidates would be put forward, and she would choose from among them the one most suitable to the circumstances of the realm.
She had never particularly thought about whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. It was simply how things were.
And so Gayul had not known.
That the vast beauty she had felt in the ashen-haired girl she met that day was an emotion so fierce her lifelong armor of the heart could not, for the first time, hold it back.
That the shock she had felt in her chest then was not yet love — but the seed from which love would grow.
That every time she recalled that beautiful ashen-haired girl, the seed had been putting down roots.
And that when she reunited with that child, now grown into a beautiful woman, it had at last blossomed clear and bright.
She had not known.
In the end, Gayul simply — because she did not know — did not know.
That was all there was to it.
A reason so pathetic, so ordinary, that had Arang heard it she would have been too dumbfounded even to tease.