If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 82

“Yirok-ah. Should I help you with your training? Making a contract with a ghost.”

With her eyes sparkling like a lightbulb turning on, Chaehwa gradually pressed her body close to Yirok. The moonlight coming through the round window cascaded like a waterfall over the lines of Chaehwa’s face. Yirok’s wavering eyes came to a halt and turned the color of ink. Chaehwa’s oblivious face moved mockingly right beside Yirok’s shoulder.

“If I’m here, we don’t even need three people. Yirok, I will take care of you specially.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why am I special?”

There was a stark difference between saying she would take care of him specially and saying that he was special. Because Yirok asked without a trace of a smile, Chaehwa could only smack her lips. It was a moment of looking back at her own words to see if there was a point where she had made a mistake.

Without changing the atmosphere, Yirok’s eyes as he quietly awaited her answer felt as if they were stroking her. She had only intended to help a novice Haenang with a difficult ghost contract while getting closer to Yirok. Since he asked for the reason behind her pure approach, Chaehwa was merely at a loss. Her chest tightened as if she could get drunk just by smelling the alcohol contained in the crocks.

“Yirok, you’re an outsider. For me to treat an outsider…”

“Do you treat every outsider specially?”

Yirok was something stimulating that stabbed for the first time into Chaehwa’s world, which had been as bland as a watermelon with little sweetness. How nice would it be if she could swallow it if it were sweet, and spit it out if it were bitter. However, the nineteen-year-old young lady raised confined within the walls had no immunity to men. Under Yirok’s low-hanging shadow, Chaehwa’s heart flailed.

“Even if it were another outsider who wasn’t me… you’re saying you would have done this.”

“T-That’s right.”

“Then what about Shinwoo.”

“Shinwoo does well even without me.”

“And I can’t do it without you?”

“That child has things he learned within his family and has been living the Haenang life for a long time, and, well, they say even a schoolhouse dog can recite poetry after three years.”

“Shinwoo is reliable because he’s a schoolhouse dog. And you’re treating me well because I’m a stray dog?”

“What kind of words do you want to hear?”

Chaehwa, who had been shrinking her neck like a stepped-on can, spoke up as if launching a counterattack. Her body, which had been drawn to Yirok like a magnet, also moved back little by little. Yirok, whose posture and gaze remained unchanged, opened his mouth and then slowly closed it. The crock that the two of them were leaning their backs against was pounding instead. Time seemed trapped in their lips, refusing to flow. The wind drifting through the cellar turned into a rod and stirred Chaehwa’s heart.

“I hate that I’m a stray dog. Lately, that is.”

His voice mixed with a sigh was lukewarm, but the ears of Chaehwa, who was listening, burned hot. She felt sorry for Yirok for calling himself a stray dog. Affection that starts from pity was the most dangerous kind. It makes one ponder a path they don’t strictly need to take, and makes them try walking it. Yirok subtly pulled the hem of Chaehwa’s skirt that was covering his sneakers. Chaehwa, who absolutely couldn’t erase the words ‘stray dog’ from her head, slowly looked down at those shy fingers.

“So.”

“…Huh? What do you mean, so?”

“Even if Shinwoo were the stray dog instead of me… would he have been special to you?”

Hoping it wasn’t the case, he might have been peeking down another path. Even though she understood the meaning of his words, Chaehwa anticipated the words to come out by borrowing his lips directly. Yirok was feeling what Chaehwa was feeling. As soon as she turns twenty, her marriage partner will be decided, and she oblivious to her own situation of gaining a husband. Painting her flustered breath onto her lips, Chaehwa shook her head. She had no talent for refusing Yirok, who was approaching with an honest gaze.

“No. Probably if another person had come, they wouldn’t have made me as angry, as upset, or smile as much as Yirok did. And originally…”

Even the moonlit night and the crocks held their breath and eavesdropped on the secret conversation of the two. To the point where the peach fuzz on her arms stood up, Chaehwa became languid and grew hot.

“Mutt dogs are the prettiest. Among puppies, I like that kind the best.”

“Ha… What nonsense.”

A single smile with difficulty returned to Yirok, who covered the area around his mouth with his hand as if embarrassed. Like this, they could spend time perfectly well even with the most childish words in the world. The time spent with Yirok was always like that. It was a night where she became intensely curious about the adult Yirok. Chaehwa quietly asked as she looked down at Yirok’s hand staying on top of her silk skirt like an accident.

“Yirok, what kind of adult do you want to become? As for me. An adult who walks alone even at night. And… an adult who can go to the places they want.”

In that atmosphere that started with a bundle and drifted into trivial stories, Yirok was silent. Chaehwa liked the look in Yirok’s eyes as he watched the moonlight. The look in his eyes falling into the moonlight without any ulterior motive.

“An adult who has a family.”

“That’s right. Yirok, you… I heard you don’t have parents. So they said the Baekyeong family took you in.”

“Chaehwa-ya.”

“Yeah?”

Yirok pulled his hand away as if stroking the silk skirt and sat up straight in his posture. Stepping out of the moonlight, he casually took Chaehwa into his eyes.

“Don’t believe everything. Even when you become an adult, and before you do. Then… it will probably turn out the way you wish.”

“Together with you, Yirok? What I wish for is to walk a street sparkling like starlight with a friend?”

“Exclude me. Don’t try to do anything with a stray dog.”

“I told you I like mutt dogs.”

“We don’t have the ghost book… shall we do the contract tomorrow?”

Because Yirok skillfully shifted the subject of conversation, Chaehwa missed the words to continue. When she becomes an adult, that was a subject Chaehwa liked so she wanted to keep talking about it, though. Thinking that today wasn’t the only day, Chaehwa stood up from her seat with a heave and dusted off her skirt.

“Wait here just for a moment. I’ll bring it quickly.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s finish it up quickly today and completely flatten the noses of the other kids tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

The first answer was sweet, and the second answer had a smile attached. Both were answers so good that it was impossible to choose which was superior. Chaehwa left the wine crock cellar with light steps, remembering in her head the location of the warehouse where the tools for the ritual were kept. Even while closing the cellar door carefully, she exchanged glances with Yirok. At the moment she closed the door with a thud, she exhaled the breath she had postponed.

Stray dog, stray dog, speaking it repeatedly must have become a lesson. It felt like she was abandoning a puppy that followed her well at the wine cellar.

Did her steps leaving to get the ritual tools have weights attached? Feeling as if the ground were sinking deeply, Chaehwa placed her hands behind her back like an elderly person. The shoulders of Chaehwa walking along the path of lamps were raised unusually high today.

🌹₊ ⊹

The basic accomplishments a warrior must possess were learned from within the family. Even if it wasn’t something seen over the shoulder of Chaehwa, who was evaluated as the best of the current generation, Shinwoo, the son of the Hwaeun family, knew a fair amount.

The words of Ms. Yomyeong that three people were needed to contract a ghost were not true. As long as there were candles and special incense candles, summoning a ghost was not that difficult at the burial grounds.

On a night when the moon rises, summoning a ghost became a piece of cake. Shinwoo, who came out after packing only simplified luggage to avoid being caught by anyone, entered the pine nut forest while guarding his surroundings. On a night when the owl hoots, it was dreary, so it was a road that even the kitchen staff were returning on.

Shinwoo, who was entering between the pine nut trees that were boasting of their height, slowly thrust the candlestick he was holding forward. The silhouette of a woman who had been sitting hunched in the darkness was revealed beneath the candle light.

[Why are you so late?]

At the hideous face of the ghost that the curtain of night had been hiding, Shinwoo’s feet froze. For a moment, the thought occurred that this was not a matter to decide with a momentary emotion. However, reading Shinwoo’s expression of regret, Janghui laughed loud enough to shake the pine nut forest.

[Are you worried only now? It’s fine. Lately, your young lady Chaehwa is distracted by other matters, so her surveillance over me is lax. When Jangsi fell asleep at night, I used to borrow and use this body for a bit.]

The ghost’s words brought an instinctive revulsion, like the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Aiming at the gap inside Shinwoo’s heart that tilted like a seesaw, Janghui sent a contact from her side first. He could have chosen not to go. But there was something Shinwoo absolutely needed to know through Janghui.

“Tell me what benefit comes to me if I contract with the ghost you mentioned.”

[A request will come in before long. You, an orthodox spiritual warrior, and your young lady Chaehwa might be fine, but… something will happen that one outsider won’t be able to endure.]

“…What?”

[The choice belongs to our clever Haenang Shinwoo. If you contract with that ghost, a moment will definitely come when it benefits you. A chance to save the young lady, and to pluck out and throw away the stone that rolled in from lord knows where.]

Inherently, life was not sweet like the honey cookies that young lady Chaehwa liked, so words coated only with honey had to be guarded against. Furthermore, the words of the ghost using Jangsi’s body lacked credibility. However, as if knowing the heartstrings of Shinwoo that were rotting with jealousy, Janghui’s voice became even more suggestive. A sweet proposal flowed out from her horizontally torn lips.

[I am of no harm to your young lady. Out of fear, I can’t even touch that side. Ultimately, I desire freedom, and as for Jangsi, what is there to say. How exhausting must it be to share and use a body with a ghost.]

“……”

[This matter is an opportunity for me as well. Conveniently, we each have something we want. You want to possess a person, and I want to escape being a person.]

“Do you expect me to believe the words of a ghost?”

A bleak wind blows through the pine nut forest, shaking the disheveled hair of the ghost. Stretching her neck long like a snake, Janghui arrived right in front of Shinwoo’s nose.

[You already believe it.]

While there are birds that get soaked in the warm spring, there are also birds that feel the chill and hide in a cave. As candle wax dropped into the pine nut forest, the sky was weeping at their ominous meeting.

The ghost smiles while avoiding the moon. The heart of a weak human was merely shaking upon meeting the wind that even the pine nut trees endure.