As True as a Dream Chapter 95

“…Find out as much as you can about the people around the soup kitchen or the lady. As many as you can, useless people. And throw the material to Hae-Joo.”

 

“What? Why…?”

 

Yi Ho added as Hongo rolled his eyes at the rambling instructions.

 

“What will happen if a mere mortal jumps in while everyone is bent on bloodshed?”

 

Hongo nodded immediately, as if realization dawned on him.

 

“You mean you want me to… beat the crap out of Lady Hae-Joo so that she can’t get involved with the Guishan Dao?”

 

“Yes. Master Hongo, you’re definitely as competent as Lady Hae-Joo said.”

 

“Has Lady Hae-Joo praised me?”

 

Hongo Wu smiled pleasantly, and Yi Ho rolled his eyes in recognition.

 

“Forget it, keep Lady Hae-Joo as far away from Guishan Dao as possible.”

 

“Understood, please leave it to me.”

 

Hongo had thought he was afraid of thieving, a skill he learned late in life, but he hadn’t expected Yi Ho to put him in such a position because of a woman.

 

Hongo was so overwhelmed with emotion that he didn’t even realize Yi Ho had turned and walked away.

 

When he regained his senses, Yi Ho’s straight but lonely back was silently disappearing into the dawn.

 

“…Master, you’re still half human, aren’t you, and people shouldn’t be lonely. At least now you’ve found someone to walk with.”

 

Hongo Wu muttered to himself.

 

He had lived for over seven hundred years.

 

He was now old enough to show it in his complexion.

 

No matter how heartless a youkai was, it was impossible not to get attached to one after three hundred years.

 

He doesn’t know if Yi Ho would have thought this, but Hongo did.

 

Although he had never said a good word to him, Yi Ho had saved his life many times over the years and kept him by his side.

 

To him, Yi Ho was a benefactor, and he was grateful.

 

So he really didn’t want him to be lonely, like a rootless cattail, and he wanted him to live.

 

So it was okay if he called him a shaman.

 

Although he didn’t like it!

 

***

 

Hae-Joo frowned slightly.

 

She must have fallen asleep while waiting for Yi Ho.

 

She could feel the bright sunlight shining through her closed eyelids.

 

‘What time is it? Is the boss back?’

 

As soon as she woke up, she thought to herself, and struggled to lift her heavy eyelids.

 

She stopped being dazed by a clear sight in front of her.

 

It was Yi Ho, sitting at an angle on the sofa across from her, holding a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling something down with a serious expression.

 

She squeezed her eyelids shut in disbelief, and soon he looked up from his paper and smirked at her, as if to say he was awake.

 

“…What happened yesterday?”

 

She groggily pushed herself up from the couch, the blanket that had been covering her body sliding off whenever it had been.

 

“I got off work and it was curfew, so I didn’t come back.”

 

Hae-Joo picked up the blanket, careful not to let it fall to the floor, and Yi Ho raised an eyebrow at her answer.

 

“Where did you sleep? And what the hell are you doing up so late? Shouldn’t you have called to say you’ll be late, or that you can’t come, or that you were worried?”

 

Yi Ho’s laid-back answer, as if it were no big deal, made Hae-Joo, who had been nervous the whole time, spill out the words she had swallowed in the night.

 

Yi Ho stared at her, then laughed slowly.

 

“I slept at an inn in the suburbs, very well and safely.”

 

Then he held out the paper in his hand to Hae-Joo.

 

Hae-Joo took the paper and looked down at it.

 

On the paper was a drawing of a human face that looked like it could have been drawn with a foot.

 

“…What is this?”

 

“What do you think? It’s you.”

 

At a loss for words, Hae-Joo turned her eyes back to the paper.

 

It was a round face with worm-like eyebrows, lashes that stretched out like steel, a straight bridge of the nose, round nostrils, and pouty lips with a pouty mountain.

 

“…Another thing I can’t draw, to be honest with you.”

 

Even a seven-year-old could draw this better.

 

Hae-Joo swallowed hard, trying to find something to praise in a drawing that was, by all accounts, unflattering.

 

“…The eyes and nose are on point… the drawing is very three-dimensional.”

 

Yi Ho tilted his head in embarrassment and swallowed his complaint.

 

“That’s a compliment I’d rather not hear. Is it that bad? I tried to be serious.”

 

‘I can’t believe I drew this seriously.’

 

Hae-Joo’s eyebrows knit together, feeling speechless.

 

“But there are many other things I can’t do, things I don’t know, and things I’ve never done.”

 

“What can’t you do?”

 

Hae-Joo asked, raising her eyes from the painting.

 

“Um… like… Okdol (billiards)?”

 

Hae-Joo blinked in surprise at the unexpected comment.

 

“Mister Hongo taught me how to play it once, but I didn’t like the way the ball rolled.”

 

Hae-Joo thought of Yi Ho standing in front of a square jade stone table, cue in hand, playing matsusei (a method of carving a ball by holding the cue vertically), and then she giggled.

 

It was hard to imagine a man who liked to lean against something and be lazy whenever he could, diligently enjoying such an exercise.

 

“What don’t you know?”

 

“The future.”

 

The short answer made her feel cold underfoot.

 

Many thoughts rushed through her head.

 

‘Will Yi Ho’s illness get better in the future?’

 

‘What would happen to her dream of leaving the country of her birth and traveling the world?’

 

‘And what would the future hold for her and Yi Ho?’

 

Nothing was known, or even dared to be expected.

 

Hae-Joo pushed past her confusion and asked Yi Ho again.

 

“…What about the things you haven’t tried?”

 

“I haven’t, but there’s something I really want to try. It just came up recently.”

 

Yi Ho’s lips suddenly curved up at an angle and he looked at her with a coy glint in his eyes, as if his previous profound answer had been lost on her.

 

‘Is this man talking about physical affection between a man and a woman?’

 

Hae-Joo’s face instantly flushed red as she mulled over Yi Ho’s answer in her mind.

 

Unsure of what to say in response to the words that caught her off guard, she stood up and ran out of the study.

 

‘I mean, what kind of manly thing is that to say in broad daylight when you’ve only been awake for a few minutes?’

 

As she rushed out of the study and downstairs to the first floor, Hae-Joo stood upright at the sudden thought that flashed through her head.

 

She glanced up at the second floor, at the doorway to the study, with a bit of anger in her eyes.

 

“Sneaky, really…!”

 

She was swept away again.

 

Sometimes he was like a fox in his behavior.

 

He was always enticing.

 

Meanwhile, in the study, the mischievous smile on Yi Ho’s lips gradually faded.

 

The more he felt for her, the more hesitant and nervous he became.

 

Now he was afraid that she would notice something, that she would pry.

 

“You said I was taking pictures of my instep. I look ridiculous.”

 

Yi Ho’s self-help mutterings trailed off.

 

Sinking into the armchair in his study, where he’d been sleeping lightly to restore his strength from the night before, Yi Ho suddenly opened his eyes and frowned.

 

The house was eerily quiet.

 

Hae-Joo had been living here for the past few days, and he could feel her presence everywhere.

 

Yi Ho stood up, left the study, and looked around the house.

 

As he had suspected, there was no sign of Hae-Joo anywhere.

 

‘Could it be that she hadn’t come back yet, since he had seen her crossing the lawn toward Song Yue?’

 

Yi Ho went back to the study, grabbed the fox mask, and came out.

 

As he walked across the lawn, he ran into Hongo.

 

“Have you seen Hae-Joo?”

 

He asked before Hongo could greet him, and Hongo’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

 

“She said she’s been away for a few days and that the rent is due soon, so she asked me to tell you that she’s going back today, and she’ll come back tomorrow.”

 

Yi Ho’s brow twitched at the long-awaited answer.

 

Watching Yi Ho’s eyes widen and then narrow as he continued, Hongo swallowed his laughter and added

 

“Master, today is June 1st.”

 

Yi Ho looked at Hongo at the sudden mention of the date.

 

Hongo smirked and raised an eyebrow, and he soon realized what he wanted to say.

 

“Tomorrow is June 2nd, master. It’s a very important day among humans, and if you’re wondering what to get her, since you’re engaged to be married, she’d like to give you a ring as a token of that…”

 

Yi Ho’s tone was lecturing, and Hongo immediately coughed in response.