Wanting and Yearning
Gayul blinked slowly. In Hoeyeon's gaze fixed upon her, she understood exactly what the other woman wanted.
"I see. So if you wish to stand as equals, it must be a law that cannot be owned… Heh heh."
And then she burst out laughing.
"Ahahahahah!!!!"
Like a child who had just heard the funniest story in the world, Gayul clutched her stomach and cackled for a long while.
It was not a laugh of mockery or scorn. It was a pure, bright laugh that spilled out simply because she was truly delighted — because she could not hold the joy in.
For the first time, Hoeyeon realized that Gayul was barely any older than she was. At least in appearance.
Gayul wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
"I did not expect that answer in the slightest."
"I didn't expect any of this at all."
"A fair point. Then allow me to make a request of you, who so dislikes the notion of being purchased. Would you grant me a meal and a place to sleep tonight?"
"……………Follow me."
Hoeyeon turned and started walking.
"Do not walk too quickly, if you would. I am weak and without strength at present."
"Liar."
"Heh heh."
Trailing close behind Hoeyeon, Gayul glanced back once. A crowd of dumbfounded faces stared after her.
She flashed them a grin, then hurried after Hoeyeon once more.
"I'm back."
"Huh? You're back earlier than I expected— Who is this!?"
"I'll explain later. For now, nobody follow us."
Hoeyeon waved off every disciple who tried to pepper her with questions and dragged Gayul into the detached cottage where she lived alone.
She shut the door connecting the main house to the cottage, stepped inside and shut that door too, then finally hauled Gayul into the bedroom and closed that door as well.
That should keep our voices from leaking out. Though some of those kids would press their ears to the wall if they got the chance.
"A bedroom in broad daylight. You have become a more passionate woman than I anticipated."
"What?"
This time it was Hoeyeon's turn to need a moment to process what Gayul had said.
"What the hell are you talking about!!"
"Do not shout so. It makes me flush."
Hoeyeon wanted to yell the same thing all over again, but bit down hard on the urge — she had no idea what kind of reply that would earn her.
"In the first place."
Hoeyeon had meant to start asking questions, only to realize there were far too many things she wanted to know.
Why had her hometown had no choice but to burn that day.
Why had Gayul vanished ten years ago.
Why was she so weakened now.
Why had she suddenly appeared before her like this.
And what had she truly meant by asking whether Hoeyeon would take her.
"…What do you want."
That was the only thing that made it out of Hoeyeon's mouth, everything else tangled hopelessly in her head.
"I sought you out because there are two matters in which I would have your aid."
Gayul's answer was gentle.
"The first. I would have you help me find what I have lost."
"What you lost?"
What Gayul meant could have been a single coin — or the entire world beneath the heavens.
"My inheritance. More precisely, a power my great-grandfather obtained, which has been passed down to me."
"Wha—"
Gayul's great-grandfather had been the first emperor of Geon, the one who had pacified an age of chaos.
"And the second is to resolve a certain question."
As she spoke, Gayul looked at Hoeyeon. At the end of that gaze, Hoeyeon flinched despite herself.
"A question?"
Gayul smiled.
"You."
And she continued.
"For the past ten years I have pondered the nature of this feeling that rises whenever you come to mind — and still I cannot name it."
Hoeyeon did not want to imagine what her face looked like right now.
Whatever expression she wore, it was surely laying bare a tangle of different hungers all at once. Even Hoeyeon herself could not say what each of those hungers was.
And whether Gayul would be able to take them apart and understand them — she had no idea.
She could only hope Gayul couldn't read them.
"I would have you help me with both of these problems."
Gayul set the thumbnail of one hand against a finger of the same hand and drew it across. A faint stir of energy rippled, and a single drop of red blood welled from her fingertip.
"I swear it. Aid me. And in return, I shall grant you anything you desire — one thing, whatever it may be."
Hoeyeon doubted her own ears.
"Anything?"
"Anything."
Gayul repeated it with perfect clarity.
"If you wish for something I possess, take it. If you wish to use my power, use it. And if what you wish to have is me — if what you wish to use is me — then have me and use me as well."
Gayul said,
"There is but one condition. You may claim your price from me only after the two problems I have named are resolved."
"In other words."
"When I have reclaimed my inheritance and this question I hold regarding you has been answered — whatever you demand of me, I shall give it as your due."
"……And if you're lying?"
The very fact that she was asking how to enforce the promise meant she was already captivated by its terms.
She was drunk. Hoeyeon dimly recognized her own intoxication.
On the woman before her.
On this space that belonged to the two of them alone, on this situation, on the blood beading at Gayul's fingertip.
On those impossibly clear blue eyes that seemed to look so terribly deep.
She was drunk. A drunkenness far more vicious than any liquor.
"You could claim you still don't know even after you've figured it out. There's no way to stop that."
"To think that I would stoop to such a disgrace is insulting — but I understand, and I forgive you. That is why this blood."
Gayul rolled the drop of blood from her fingertip until it pooled in her palm.
"Do you know anything of magic?"
"I've cut down a few."
"Whether you mean you cut down mages or cut through magic itself is a fascinating distinction, but I shall ask later. What I am about to use is a magic employed to bind a promise."
Into that single drop of vivid crimson blood, Gayul's magical power gathered.
A blood-bound magic that forces a promise.
Should the vow be broken, the blood within the contractor's own veins turns upon them in agony.
The sole path to release is the forgiveness of the one to whom the promise was made.
Hoeyeon swallowed hard.
"So you and I… meaning I have to help you, and you have to pay the price as promised?"
It was a price the kind of people who considered a single life cheap would find common enough in this world.
"No. I have no wish to force you to aid me."
Once again, Gayul's words betrayed Hoeyeon's expectations.
"But for myself, the matter is different."
"Wait—"
"O my blood — bind me to my word, and punish me should I break it."
Hoeyeon realized what Gayul intended and tried to stop her, but Gayul did not wait. She activated the magic.
The drop of blood in Gayul's hand flared into a brilliant scarlet light and burst.
Magical power surged. Hoeyeon, who had trained with the sword until she could command internal energy, could feel just how vast a force had moved.
"Have you lost your mind?"
"……I do not know myself."
For the first time, Gayul took a moment before answering.
"That is precisely why I wish to know."
This feeling that drove her to such lengths. This emotion she could not identify, that bloomed in her chest and constricted her — what was it?
To learn that, she would even bind herself with an unbreakable vow. That was what Gayul was saying.
"Well then. The urgent business is settled, it seems."
Gayul's eyes met Hoeyeon's.
"Shall we go wash ourselves?"
Gayul smiled.
It feels strange to say it now, but…
Gayul sank into the hot water and let out a long, languid breath of satisfaction.
The one sitting across from me is my enemy.
Her blue hair clung wetly to the nape of her neck and her shoulders.
Hoeyeon looked away.
The feeling she had known that autumn day ten years ago, standing in a town reduced to ash, rose up again.
That feeling that had made her demand — that she could not endure without demanding — why something so beautiful had to exist.
Learning the weight of the crime called treason, and that feeling itself, were the reasons she could not bring herself to harbor true hostility toward Gayul.
"It is a touch narrow — but that makes it all the better. I can see you so clearly across from me."
Gayul's voice pulled Hoeyeon up out of her heavy thoughts.
"Narrow?"
It was a great bath large enough for ten people at once. But then, that was what it meant to be an emperor.
"Hup."
Gayul stretched out a foot through the hot water, but Hoeyeon folded her legs and pulled them out of reach.
"How timid. Why do you turn your eyes away?"
"Don't you have any sense of shame!?"
She shouted because Gayul had lifted one leg. Above the water's surface, a calf appeared — then a knee — then a thigh — and stopped.
"Come now. With the water rippling, nothing can be seen save the leg I have lifted. And I shall lower it again before the ripples settle."
Gayul chuckled softly.
"Take this to heart as well. Simply baring the body is like pouring oil on the flame of desire — it flares roughly for a moment and dies at once. Only by mixing what is shown with what is hidden can one truly kindle a lasting heat."
"…."
"Your cheeks have gone red. That innocence of yours is rather endearing."
Enemy or not — should I just cut her down?
It was a question she was seriously considering.
Gayul had been the one to drag her into the bath in the first place. She had even heated the water with magic on her own.
Had she meant to tease her from the very start?
"To think that little child from back then has grown into such a fine woman. My eye was right after all."
"Don't look!"
"If you may look upon me, may I not look upon you as well?"
At those words, Hoeyeon's gaze flicked over despite herself. It was a body that traced the most exquisite curves a woman's form could draw.
"You need not hesitate so. Look as you please."
Smiling, Gayul rose from the water.
"Or would you rather see from closer still?"
She whispered.