If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 6

Subjectively, an hour spent in Nanjubeol felt like it had been inflated tenfold. Since it was his first day as a probationary haenang, Yirok was given a trivial task. His duties were to receive the personal items provided to a haenang and to meet the Matriarch to pay his respects. He had failed to meet the Matriarch last night when he and Juhee had burst in like unwelcome guests, and had failed again today because the Matriarch had an outside engagement.

After breakfast, Yomyeong Halmeom took Yirok to a guest room in a tile-roofed house. It was about a twenty-minute walk from the kitchen occupied by the kitchen staff. In the empty room, furnished but without a guest, he received a spare set of clothes and a coat.

“Hey, Yirok. What happened to your face?”

“I fell. On a hill.”

“Oh… is that so?”

He was just thinking that this was a household with extravagant spending habits and meekly accepting the items. Yomyeong Halmeom, who had said she would throw away his old clothes, didn’t leave and added another word.

“I know you’re not a man of many words… but from tomorrow on, try to be sociable. The young lady isn’t too fond of shy men like you.”

After finishing her nagging, which didn’t quite hit home, Yomyeong Halmeom put down a pink cloth bundle. She said it contained books and writing utensils for his lessons. Even that was old-fashioned, and Yirok inwardly gave a bitter smile.

The guest room consisted of a small bookshelf, a mother-of-pearl wardrobe, and a set of flower-embroidered bedding. It seemed to be a room prepared for one person.

The light-blue shirt provided by Nanjubeol was loose-fitting and made of good material. He decided not to think about how long it had been since he’d worn new clothes. With no mirror, Yirok faced the bare wall as he changed his shirt, his hands gradually slowing as he buttoned it up.

The young lady who showed her face diligently, as if to make sure he wouldn’t forget—he had seen her last night, and this morning. She was the one he, who had joined hands with Sarira, was supposed to drag into the mud.

He was destined to let Sarira, his actual object of resentment, live a long and prosperous life, while he was set to kill a naive, clueless young woman. Sarira’s side hadn’t planted him in Nanjubeol for mere amusement, so word would come soon. It was a shitty life, like drawing the ‘lose’ ticket in a lottery back-to-back.

Returning to reality, Yirok buttoned his shirt up to his neck and let his gaze drift outside. Beyond the glass window, white snowflakes were falling tiresomely.

“Yirok!”

She was a girl who should have no connection with him and his gutter-like life. An jade norigae¹ at her waist, fingernails dyed with flower petals, a daenggi² ribbon flowing down her chest like a river. A young lady who, even if dropped in a crowd, seemed as if her innate nobility would not disappear.

Yirok let out a snort as he recalled her clear face, unable to even recognize an enemy’s pawn. He himself was the obstacle thrown into the life of that lucky young lady. He couldn’t tell which of the two was the truly unlucky one.

Yirok was swallowing the emotion rising in his throat and picking up his bundle. A flickering shadow in front of the paper-screened door made him stop in his tracks. The haenang would be in class, and the kitchen staff in the kitchen, so he thought Yomyeong Halmeom must have returned.

The shadow darted quickly to the right, then to the left, hopping around like a squirrel climbing a tree. Just as he stood on guard, unsure of its identity, the door flew open.

“Hello!”

The cold wind that entered the guest room stirred the cozy interior. Just as the blowing wind whipped across his injured cheek, Chaehwa came into view. She was panting as if she had done some gymnastics after lunch, and she knelt on the threshold.

“I heard you have the day off from classes, so I came to see you, you know? Halmeom told me you were here.”

Chaehwa sat with her arms spread wide against the door, chattering away. Yirok just rolled his eyes at her tone, which was hard to distinguish as either condescending or informal. His gaze, which had been wandering without a place to rest, eventually returned to Chaehwa’s face, which was like a white moon. Was he, a spy whose livelihood was uncertain, feeling a sense of guilt? He had only seen Chaehwa’s clear smile a few times, yet it was strangely grating.

“I heard you didn’t eat much, Yirok. So I brought you something.”

As if not minding the blankly standing Yirok, Chaehwa brought a basket she had brought with her over the threshold. The basket, which had carried in the winter wind, was full of boiled potatoes and eggs.

“Go on, eat. I snuck them out of the kitchen to give to you, Yirok.”

Chaehwa, who had boldly confessed to her kitchen raid, fully crossed the threshold and sat cross-legged. With a clack, she even meticulously closed the door before looking up at the still-frozen Yirok.

“I said sit.”

In the enclosed room, Chaehwa’s voice echoed suffocatingly. A butterfly that flew towards him showing interest, even though he held no honey. It seemed the adults’ saying, ‘personality is fate,’ was right. He should have just gulped it down and accepted, but Yirok, who had no talent for spying, remained stiff. He should have just closed his eyes and thought of his brother, but instead, of all things, the memory of his parents who had passed away on a snowy day came to mind.

“I don’t like them. Potatoes, eggs.”

No one had ever taught him what tone to use when speaking to someone called a ‘young lady.’ Living under his enemy’s roof, a sarcastic tone had become a habit. The words had already left his lips. Chaehwa seemed flustered by his refusal without a second thought. The young lady, unaccustomed to rejection, slapped the bare floor with her hands.

“Informal speech is fine. I like being casual like that. We’re the same age anyway, I heard. So just sit here. You don’t have to eat the potatoes and eggs.”

“I’ll just stand…”

“What did you say?”

Her head, which had suddenly shot up, seemed about to hit his chin. Yirok, stumbling back, almost touched the mother-of-pearl wardrobe. Giving off a camellia scent befitting the middle of winter, Chaehwa took a step closer. She hid her slender hands, which had never known a day of work, behind her back.

“I was so excited I couldn’t sleep when I heard you were an Outsider.”

He looked around to see if there was anyone he could ask for help. The door was shut so firmly that not even the sound of the snowy wind could be heard. Yirok returned his gaze to Chaehwa, who was pressing uncomfortably close. He was trapped by the young lady’s gaze, which glittered as if studded with stars.

“Yirok, what level did you clear in ‘Star Knight’?”

At the out-of-the-blue nonsense, Yirok couldn’t manage his expression. He took his hand off the wardrobe he had been leaning on and stood up straight. The distance between him and Chaehwa had narrowed, but neither of them paid it any mind. Rather, Chaehwa, as if they could finally communicate, tapped the ground with the toe of her beoseon³.

“I’m stuck on level 653. I recently got back my confiscated phone and hid it in my grandmother’s separate quarters, you know? Let’s meet tonight and clear up to level 654 together.”

By the time the clueless young lady’s request was finished, he could understand the whole situation. The reason for the excessive kindness she had shown from their first meeting until now. Glancing at the potatoes and eggs she had brought as a bribe, Yirok found himself laughing in spite of himself. Cell phone, <Star Knight>—he could understand the general context, but they were things that had no connection to him. The 8-year-old sports bag he had brought all the way to Nanjubeol was all he owned.

“Then, when the 9 o’clock bell rings…”

“I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know, so ask someone else. I don’t know.”

Yirok gently pushed the dumbfounded Chaehwa with the silk bundle in his hand. Caught off guard, Chaehwa was pushed back quite a distance. With a face that couldn’t believe the series of events—rejection, then being pushed—Chaehwa demanded.

“Did you just push me?”

“It’s just… you’re spitting.”

After spitting out the carefully chosen words, he avoided her gaze for a moment. And when his gaze returned, there was the young lady, at a loss for words.

“Spit? I don’t have spit… I didn’t open my mouth wide…”

Now was his chance, while Chaehwa was muttering as if in a daze. Yirok slipped through the barely opened gap and opened the door. With an unhurried hand, he sat on the veranda and took out his sneakers. He gritted his teeth as he saw the shoelace that had come undone at the most inopportune moment. He was tying the lace with the deathly quiet guest room as a backdrop.

“So you don’t know anything?”

Yirok’s calloused hand stopped on top of the tied shoelace. Don’t know anything. That was right. From the age of ten, when he was forcibly initiated into the world of musa, Yirok knew nothing. He was in no position to converse with a young lady who had grown up basking in the precious spring sunlight.

His defiant attitude, despite being in a position where he needed to win her favor, was an inner rebellion he himself hadn’t been aware of. It was because he didn’t want to let everything in the world go according to Sarira’s will. And perhaps because, deep down, he didn’t want to bring harm to the young lady who ran barefoot in the snow. The world was not so easy, and the target who was supposed to shed blood by Yirok’s hand was this pure.

“I’m asking if you don’t know anything. Huh?”

His mother had taught him how to tie his shoelaces into a ribbon. A heart that grew weak even while putting on sneakers had no chance of surviving the long winter of the Chukjangji. He had to stop at feeling that the precious young lady was pitiful. Yirok locked his heart so there was no room for compassion to enter. His gaze, which had been fixed on the white snow for a moment, turned back to the guest room. Chaehwa was biting her lip with a sullen face. It was a look of great disappointment, as if her expectations had been shattered.

“You’re an Outsider. But how can you not know anything? You’ve never even played a cell phone game?”

“Just think of me as someone from the Stone Age.”

“I went through all the trouble of packing potatoes and stealing eggs to see you… huh? Don’t just leave, listen seriously.”

In the meantime, Yirok, who had shaken off the memory of the shoelace, showed a cynical smile. Whatever he had heard about the person named Chaehwa, nothing was similar except for the fact that she was precious. He considered the weight of their mutual disappointment to be about equal.

“Yirok, if you ignore me and leave like this, you’ll cry later. I’ll make you so tired from crying you won’t even be able to sleep.”

“I’m so scared I could piss myself.”

As Yirok nonchalantly said this and got up to leave, Chaehwa’s breathing became ragged. Though unintentional, he had ended up harming Chaehwa in a different sense.

The wind followed behind Yirok as he carried the pink bundle in one hand. As he crossed the snowy field with slow steps, he felt no other presence. Was it said that life is a tragedy up close, but a comedy from afar? It was a day that could be mistaken for peaceful.

T/N:

1. Norigae: A traditional Korean accessory hung from a woman’s hanbok jacket or skirt.
2. Daenggi: A traditional Korean ribbon used to tie and decorate braided hair.
3. Beoseon: Traditional Korean padded socks worn with hanbok.