If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 2

The woman got out of the reserved taxi and lit a cigarette on her way to Seoul Station. Accustomed to life in the stockade, which felt like a countryside backwater, she soon felt a headache coming on. The high-rise buildings and roads of the outside world felt like a sack trapping people.

The people living in Seoul, in particular, young or old, man or woman, had a distinctly unpleasant air about them. It was a daily occurrence for people to bump shoulders as they walked by without a care, and the number of young people who simply saved their apologies and went on their way was countless.

Standing in front of the high-speed train that arrived with a minute to spare, she checked her wristwatch repeatedly. Was the owner of the face she should have seen by now lost in the station crowd like a duck out of water?

“Where is this thing.”

Just then, as the woman sat on a bench searching a notebook for a contact number, a pair of large sneakers slid in beside her. Seeing the person’s shadow, the woman snapped her head up, ready to give them a piece of her mind.

“What took you so…!”

The woman’s mission was to take a homeless boy to the Nanjubeol clan. She had planned to put him in his place right from the start for being two minutes late. But when she faced the boy, who had a bag slung over his left shoulder, her gaze grew busy instead of her mouth.

“I got lost. It’s my first time in Seoul.”

His voice had a low tone, but it wasn’t hard to understand. The boy was so tall that the woman’s neck strained as she looked up at him. She had heard he was a boy the Bansi clan had picked up and raised. She had expected him to be unpleasantly gaunt, with a shadow cast over his face.

However, the boy, dressed in a blue tie, white shirt, and black cotton pants, was a beauty who made one forget this sewer-like city. There was something about him that made the heart of the woman, now in her forties, flutter for a moment. Whether it was the air of a troubled past, the long, dark eyelashes, or the naturally colored lips, his appearance screamed that his life had been anything but smooth.

However, his gaze and way of speaking seemed innately slow. A man who talks too much is unattractive, but a taciturn and sluggish man makes for a difficult traveling companion. The boy, perhaps finding it strange that she had forgotten what she was saying, wrinkled one of his eyes. It seemed to be a habit of his that appeared when he was embarrassed or hurt.

“Are you going to scold me more?”

“…Forget it. Let’s just get on. We’ll talk once we’re on board.”

To hide her flushed cheeks, she picked at her handbag with her fingernails. With the boy, whose expression changed relatively little, in tow, she boarded the train. They had reserved the entire first-class car, No. 2, so they could choose any seat. The woman sat facing him and cleared her throat.

It was his first time in Seoul, so it must have also been his first time on a train. The boy tossed his bag onto a nearby seat. Contradicting the innocent first impression he had given, he crossed one leg. Then, with a look of utter boredom, he leaned his head against the window. He looked as if he might fall asleep at any moment, but his eyes remained wide open until the train departed.

“I heard your name is… Kim Yirok.”

The woman started the conversation, intending to exchange at least some basic information. But the boy, who seemed to have no intention of cooperating, answered while keeping his gaze fixed outside the window.

“Yes.”

“You received special training as a Jeongmusa, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Listening to his half-hearted replies, the woman was lost in thought for a moment. The origin and distinction of the musa was a long story. No one knew if it began in the era when a bear became human after eating garlic, or in an age before the creation of the heavens and earth.

Those who came into contact with the various spirits, demons, souls, and ancient gods invisible to the eyes of ordinary people were called ‘musa’. They were messengers born on earth, chosen by the heavens. After passing the stage of being mere communication tools between gods and humans, the ‘musa’ officially split into two factions when they began to command spirits.

Those who followed the fundamental path of the musa continued the lineage of the ‘Jeongmusa’, while those who fell into wicked substances and curses continued the lineage of the ‘Maengmusa’. The arduous training process and the ability to command spirits were similar, but the way they acquired and used their power divided the Jeong and the Maeng.

The Jeongmusa fundamentally pursued ‘good’ and forbade curse rituals that harmed people. A Jeongmusa who broke this taboo could become a Maengmusa, but the reverse was impossible. Repentance, after all, was not a virtue of the musa. Whether to fill one’s selfish desires through spirit rituals or not—that was the crossroads for a musa.

After the meaning of musa diverged, the two groups seemed to respect each other’s paths for several hundred years, but they were different from their very core. Those who summoned spirits to destroy others and those who summoned them to save others were bound to meet as enemies one day.

Discontent and prejudice, once just whispers within the groups, turned into established theories in the blink of an eye. The two factions, which had repeated a cycle of war and curses since the dawn of the ‘musa’, entered into a peace treaty around the time of the division of North and South Korea. But that peace, as precarious as a fish in a cat’s mouth, had been shattered 17 years ago. Sarira, the head of the Bansi clan, the leaders of the Maengmusa, had committed a murder that sent ripples through the musa world.

He hadn’t just killed an ordinary Jeongmusa; he had cursed the head of the prominent Nanjubeol clan and her husband. Although it was officially an accident due to a vehicle defect, there wasn’t a single musa who didn’t know the truth behind it. As a price for breaking the peace treaty, all exchange between the two groups was severed without a shred of leeway, as was to be expected.

But the most crucial point of this long and winding history was that there was a baby who had survived Sarira’s curse. The precious child who would inherit the Nanjubeol clan, the one who was hailed as the greatest Jeongmusa in history and was still thriving. From the day Nanjubeol announced the heir’s conception, all the renowned prophets had added their predictions. They said this was a musa who would transcend the principles of Jeong and Maeng and become the pride of the heavens. How the attempt to cut down that precious bud had failed, leaving only the newborn alive, was a mystery. After the incident, hadn’t Sarira hidden away in her stockade and cut off all communication with the world?

“From now on, I will be the one to relay messages from Lady Sarira. I’ll get you in as a novice haenong. Once you’re in, your first priority is to get close to the Nanjubeol’s child. That’s your first mission.”

Novice haenongs trained under the clan, occasionally helping with preparations like carrying utensils for rituals. When they came of age, they could either become independent or receive the title of a formal haenong. Since large clans like Nanjubeol and Bansi typically kept many novice haenongs, slipping the boy in was not a major issue.

However, planting a spy like Yirok into the Nanjubeol clan, the leaders of the Jeongmusa, was, from the woman’s perspective, a life-or-death gamble. Yet, facing such a critical conversation, the boy couldn’t tear his eyes away from the window reflecting the city scenery. He seemed to have no intention of fixing his posture, lying on his side like a bystander.

“Sit up straight. We need to get our story straight before we go.”

“Yes… go ahead.”

“Sit up straight.”

At the criticism of his posture, the boy’s eyes turned sharp. He wrinkled the corners of his eyes as if to express his displeasure and said, “I said, go ahead.”

“Ha. Is this the attitude of someone who’s going to get his story straight with me?”

“I don’t want to get my story straight with you, ajumma.”

“What?”

He answered in a listless voice, but the content of his words was impertinent and shocking. At the woman’s stunned reaction, the boy finally raised one corner of his mouth.

“Just kidding.”

The boy rolled his eyes as if he had no will to fight. As if to resolve the situation, he lifted his head from the window and placed his legs in a proper position. But he avoided eye contact and still seemed interested only in the view outside, a clear sign of disrespect. The nerve of him, a life as disposable as a fly, a mere Maengmusa spy. It was true she had been taken aback by his pretty face, but fundamentally, there was an insurmountable wall between the boy and the woman. Considering their future relationship, she couldn’t afford to lose the upper hand right from the start.

“Kim Yirok. Stop looking out the window. And listen to me.”

Nevertheless, the boy remained uncooperative, his lips sealed shut. At this rate, he would surely be exposed as a spy, and her own neck would be on the line. The woman shot up from her seat and, as a last resort, raised her hand. Slap! The sound of a slap echoed through the train car.

“Still not looking?”

However, Yirok, his indifference exposed, only glanced at the woman for a moment. The woman’s hand, now filled with rage, struck his cheek again as if beating a drum. Slap, slap! The one cheek, struck so hard it could have burst an eardrum, turned bright red. The boy’s eyes, who had limply accepted the slaps, were empty. Only after the woman, exhausted from her own efforts, backed away did his eyes take on the look of a gaunt beast.

“Look at this? Are you upset?”

“Yes.”

His voice, which had been crafted from listlessness, was now lower and more precise than before he was hit. With one cheek swollen, the boy sat with a smile playing on his lips.

“Do you remember what I said?”

The Bansi was a clan famous among the Maengmusa for their ruthless retaliation. Didn’t the other Maengmusa grovel before a clan that would curse even a newborn baby to achieve its goals? Indeed, who would dare to defy them when a slip of the tongue could get three generations of one’s family annihilated?

This was the boy raised by the merciless Bansi clan. Just by the way he looked at her, as if a few slaps were nothing, she could size him up.

“I have to get close to that clan’s child… and you’ll get me in as a novice haenong.”

“If you heard everything, why didn’t you answer?”

“Because I wasn’t taught any better. As you know.”

The boy let his words trail off with a sarcastic smirk. He glanced at the woman’s fist, clenched in anger.

“By the way.”

“Your attitude is…”

“Aren’t you in the same boat as me, ajumma? If I open my mouth… you’ll die too.”

The woman was dumbfounded by his threat, not knowing where to even begin to correct him. It seemed a few slaps hadn’t been enough to establish their relationship. She unclenched her jaw and returned the same sneer.

“Open your mouth? You? You and I are…”

“Ajumma.”

Not only did he cut her off mid-sentence, the boy abruptly reached out his hand. He snatched the woman’s wrist, her face turning pale in an instant. The woman was momentarily speechless from his heavy, constricting grip.

“If I betray Sarira, my brother dies… but if I’m caught as a spy, only I die. If I become useless, my brother will probably become useless too, so maybe they’ll let him go. If they kill him, well, can’t be helped. I’ll just have to become a spirit and get my revenge.”

“What are you…”

“Let’s die together if we have to, ajumma. And this, your wrist. Use it carefully. It wouldn’t do for it to get broken, would it?”

“Hah.”

“Hm?”

He tossed her hand, which he had been toying with, to the opposite side. Trying to teach him respect for a superior, she had been utterly overpowered instead. The woman rubbed her marked wrist and put some distance between herself and the boy. As she took a long moment to catch her breath, the boy’s eyes never left her face. His gaze, too unripened to be called lewd, slowly raked over her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Well… don’t tell me you’re interested in me?”

“What?”

“For someone whose wrist was just grabbed by an eighteen-year-old, your cheeks are very red. Redder than mine, and I’m the one who got hit.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“My point exactly.”

“Kim Yirok.”

“You watch your mouth too, ajumma. Or I might just grab your wrist again.”

What bruised her pride the most was that the boy’s tone had become as indifferent as it was at the beginning. He gave a faint smile to the woman, who was now red up to her neck, and fixed his gaze back outside the window. She had assumed that since he was captured by the Bansi clan and lived like a dog, his temper would have been completely broken. It was her own miscalculation, not knowing the ferocity of a young pup.

As if deciding to stop talking altogether, the woman fanned her hot cheeks with her hand. The boy leaned his head against the backrest, returning to the same posture as before. She was deeply worried about the uncomfortable symbiotic relationship that lay ahead.

In first-class car No. 2 of the train, where not a single word was exchanged until their arrival, the journey of the two spies who had ruined their first impressions felt just that distant.