Tempting
The sound of hot water cascading down a body. Gayul drew near. She set her knees on the floor of the tub and brought her eyes level. The soft splash of her swaying form meeting the water.
"Look."
Hoeyeon swallowed hard. When she lowered her gaze from those blue eyes, Gayul's throat filled her entire field of vision.
So white. How could a neck be this white?
"Would you like to touch it? I give you leave."
Gayul's mouth at her ear. A whisper. A sound that slipped sweetly through her ear and shook her mind.
Gayul's throat was right before her eyes. No — right before her mouth. From this distance, if she meant to touch it, her lips were far closer than her fingers. Should she stick out her tongue? And prod it with the tip, the way one might test a piece of fruit?
A great splash rang out. It was the sound of Hoeyeon shoving Gayul away, of Gayul's body striking the water.
Ragged breathing.
The pounding of her own heart was deafening.
"…Your cheeks are red."
Gayul said.
And Hoeyeon's eyes went chasing after those lips, that tongue.
Hoeyeon pinched the back of her own hand.
"Ow!!"
She had pinched so hard a scream tore from her mouth.
Clutching the back of her hand, Hoeyeon glared at Gayul. Gayul raised an eyebrow.
"Do you dislike it that much?"
"…At this rate, we won't get a single word of conversation done. Wash up and come out."
"How adorable you've become."
Even after Hoeyeon slid the door shut and left, Gayul kept smiling for a long while.
Then she sank into the hot water. Up to the crown of her head.
Truly. How adorable you've become.
As if she meant to hide, in the scalding water, the heat that was kindling through her body.
To her disciples, Hoeyeon had simply said that the mysterious beauty who had appeared out of nowhere was an old acquaintance, and that she would be staying as a guest for a few days.
"An acquaintance? For just an acquaintance, weren't the two of you standing awfully close…?"
"She never did say exactly what kind of relationship it was, did she?"
"Don't tell me… Master's ex…?"
"Ex what? You don't mean—"
"Yaya, they'll hear you, they'll hear you."
But those very words only seemed to fan the disciples' curiosity further.
"And not a one of them doing the training I told them to."
Hoeyeon, who had meant to speak with Gayul, heaved a long sigh.
Those damn disciples. For all the noise they were making now, she was going to work them half to death later. A few of them were surely pressed up against the wall with their ears to it right this moment.
"Hm?"
Suddenly the noise outside grew louder.
"Someone seems to have arrived."
The instant Gayul spoke, a great voice boomed from beyond the dojo gates.
"Master Suhyeong, present yourself!!!"
"……Haaaaah… What a pain in the ass……."
A sigh escaped her of its own accord.
"If they call him Master, is he a scholar?"
"No."
"A retired official, then?"
"No."
"…A Taoist?"
"Not that either."
Gayul tilted her head.
"Who else would have their own servants bellow 'Master' at someone else's gate?"
"Starting to see why I sighed?"
"Hah."
Understanding, Gayul gave a snort of laughter.
"I see. A local power broker."
He was not truly so vile a man that one could report him, but he was arrogant enough to be thoroughly irritating, and he had just enough money and influence that crossing him would make living in this town a mild nuisance.
For his part, he had never cared for Hoeyeon or her master — a pair who had simply rolled in from somewhere.
There was only one reason a man like that would bother coming here. He was looking for a fight.
When Hoeyeon went out and opened the main gate herself, an old man of some seventy years stood waiting with a handful of servants.
"What brings you here?"
She disliked the man, but with people watching, it was simply easier to afford an elder the courtesy of polite speech.
"I—I've heard you've taken in a suspicious person!"
Ordinarily, even when two people disliked each other this much, if you were the one who had come to someone else's house, you at least opened with a formal greeting.
Hoeyeon sighed openly. The man was not worth the effort of arranging her face into a false expression.
"She's an old acquaintance of mine."
She did not lie.
"I heard the person's manner and speech are highly suspicious!"
That much was true enough.
"She's always been an eccentric acquaintance."
Again, she did not lie.
"And I heard she's not even from around here — some outsider. Explain what sort of person this is!"
"…She's my acquaintance. Someone I met long ago, and I have nothing further to explain."
Judging that the bother of continuing this conversation would outweigh the bother of cutting it short, Hoeyeon was about to close the gate when the old man — perhaps emboldened by the larger-than-usual crowd — spat out something far harsher.
"How would you know? The two of you might be plotting something! If it should turn out to be treason, it won't stop with your lot — this entire town will—"
What happened next, set in order, was this:
Hoeyeon's hand, laden with killing intent, swept toward the old man's face.
Before it could land, another hand brushed lightly against Hoeyeon's shoulder.
Sensing it, Hoeyeon stopped her hand midway.
Only a handful of her senior disciples clearly registered those three steps — but a few seconds later, even the ordinary people nearby understood.
That something dangerous had been there, and then was gone.
"Wh… what, just now, was…."
The old man could not properly gauge the scale of that danger.
Perhaps he thought the worst he might have suffered was a sliced-off nose; the moment Hoeyeon withdrew her hand, he frantically checked with both hands that it was still attached. Having verified that it was, he jabbed a finger at Hoeyeon.
"Y-you just threatened m—"
Hoeyeon flicked her hand through empty air, and the shockwave that burst from it shoved the old man backward and toppled him.
"Get lost."
Hoeyeon said coldly.
The reason she had shoved him without touching him directly was that even contact with him was revolting.
But when the old man, still ignorant of his place, tried to jab his finger again, Gayul spoke.
"That will be quite enough."
She had not put any particular force into the words, yet they were more than enough to shut a man's mouth.
"And withdraw. Is it not about time you checked whether the inner door of your storehouse is properly shut?"
The old man went pale with shock.
"S-surely you don't—"
"The letter you have been awaiting may well have arrived by now. Withdraw."
At the second remark, every last drop of color drained from his face. As he began to tremble violently, Gayul spoke once more.
"A distinguished guest may already have come calling, might they not?"
"H-hyaaaaah!!!"
The old man abandoned even his servants and fled. He ran so desperately on his aged legs that he tumbled several times along the way.
"…."
"Are you weary? You may lie down a while, if you wish."
They had returned to the room, but Hoeyeon remained quiet, so Gayul spoke.
"No. I'm fine."
Weary she was — but there was one thing she had to ask right now.
Hoeyeon steadied her breath.
"Are you,"
Any one of them alone might have been nothing.
But too many of those nothings had stacked on top of each other.
Why did she look the same as she had ten years ago.
Why could she use magic as if it were nothing.
Why, even having lost her power, could she still move fast enough to stop her.
If Gayul lied, Hoeyeon was fully prepared to draw her sword in earnest. Looking into Gayul's deep, transparent eyes, she asked.
"Are you human?"
Gayul gave a bitter smile.
"I am not a human, but I am a person. Do not look at me with those eyes. I will tell you everything."
There was not the slightest sign of a lie. Hoeyeon let the tension ease from the hand she had kept near her sword.
Gayul nodded.
"Have you heard the word demi-human?"
"No."
"Those who are people, yet differ from ordinary folk. My house is one such kind of demi-human."
"…You mean a different ethnicity?"
Gayul shook her head.
"The difference runs deeper than that. You yourself are of the minority Langlang tribe, yet if you simply dress as others do, most cannot tell you apart, can they?"
Gayul swept her blue hair back behind her ear and turned her head to the side.
"Look."
If she was going out of her way to show something in that pose, it had to be the ear. Why the ear, all of a sudden?
"Huh?"
Hoeyeon tilted her head.
"Is that a scar?"
"My ears were cut and reshaped to match a human's. It was done when I was a child."
"Why would anyone…."
She swallowed the rest — do something so cruel to a child — back down her throat.
"That is because my ears were originally."
Gayul traced the shape of a pointed leaf with her finger.
"Shaped like this."
"People like that— ah."
"Hence, demi-human."
Gayul let her hair fall forward again.
"Written with the characters for pointed leaf — the Cheomyeopin, the Sharp-leaf-kin. Our defining traits are the ears, an aptitude for magic, and aging slowly. I am one such Cheomyeopin."
Gayul's voice was calm and composed.
"My ancestor, it seems, was a particularly extraordinary one. Through a certain pact, she gained tremendous martial power at the cost of her lifespan. And though that pact was meant to pass down through the generations, ten years ago it suddenly broke."
Their eyes met.
"I wish to know what on earth happened. And so I would have you come with me."
"Why me, of all people?"
"Because the day the pact broke was the very day I first met you."
And so.
"Will you not come with me to Geumdo?"
Geumdo was a region the first emperor of Geon had forbidden anyone to approach — somewhere in the northern wasteland.
"It is said my great-grandfather sealed the pact I spoke of in that place. When I went alone, I found nothing — but with you beside me, I may yet learn something."
"How long would it take from here?"
"If an ordinary person walked hard, a month to arrive. You and I could manage it in two- or three-tenths of that."
Even going at full speed, then, the round trip would leave the dojo empty for two weeks.
"I can't just leave the dojo empty all of a sudden. Besides, the weather's perfect for training right now — there's a lot I need to oversee."
"I suppose so. Must you be present the whole year round?"
"In midwinter, training gets hard the other way around, so if I give them notice ahead of time, I can spare about two weeks."
"Midwinter… so two or three months from now."
"There's no guarantee we'd even make it back within that window in the first place. If it's the north, don't we have to cross into Sang territory?"
Crossing a border between nations was the sort of thing where you never knew what trouble might arise, or when.
"You are right. There is a fair chance of tiresome complications."
"All the more reason it can't be now."
"Is that so."
Gayul closed her eyes slowly.
"It cannot be helped. Very well. Deepening our bond with you until winter arrives shall be a great pleasure in its own right."
"………What?"
What was she on about this time.