Chương 73: S.05 Time to Fly 01(01)

Scene 00. There is a road I must walk, and I shall unfurl my will upon it. Along the petals strewn before that road, my fledgling, faltering wings frighten me still. Bearing seeds that drift on the breath of my will, I bring them to the one who waits; and you, damp earth-end slumbering between the grasses, take this seed and stretch yourself awake. Along the stretch you raise, I shall offer my joyous wings. The green spread far afield shall melt down across the sodden ground.

Unfurling the long, long wait, when my dry wings beat at last, look upon me and lend me your smile. I shall look upon you and forget the sorrows that have passed. In the thick mist where nothing was laid, a single weeping tree held within it the sound of something rising from a great pillar. At the sound that arose from a place that had borne no presence, the desolate mist that had filled the air rippled. Scene 01. PROLOGUE.

The clattering sound of heel-tips trod through an alley that was loud and gaudy yet without refinement. The thick coat collar was pulled up rather high. Even though a scarf was wrapped around, the cold was not so easily blocked, and so a long white breath flowed out from between the plump lips. Stepping forward on heels neither high nor low, Hee-jin walked through the bustling alley.

With her short bobbed hair tucked behind her ear, Hee-jin stepped into the lobby of a lavish hotel set beneath a crescent moon that had tilted as far as a moon could tilt. It was a familiar walk, yet no one recognized Hee-jin. As if greeting someone arriving for the first time, Hee-jin passed indifferently through the hotel lobby and turned toward the café that occupied a corner of the hotel's interior, just off the lobby.

With a clear, deliberate stride, she stepped into the café, which had no formal entrance door of its own. Only then did Hee-jin pause her step for a moment, briefly surveying the broad interior of the café. Beside her, the hulking Hong-sin approached and bowed deeply at the waist. Hong-sin: You've arrived. Hee-jin: The 향주 (Hyang-ju_Master of the Province) of the Northwest... Hong-sin: She is waiting inside. The hulking Hong-sin, attempting a courteous guidance ill-suited to his bulk, took the lead.

Hee-jin followed silently behind Hong-sin toward wherever he was going. When Hong-sin approached the sofa set deep inside the café, Yeon-jin, who had arrived earlier, rose from her seat to greet Hee-jin. With a slightly brighter smile as though it had been some time, Yeon-jin offered a courteous greeting with a bow less deep than Hong-sin's. Yeon-jin: You've arrived. Strategist. To Yeon-jin's deep greeting, Hee-jin returned a somewhat formal nod of the head.

When Hong-sin tactfully withdrew on his own, Yeon-jin and Hee-jin sat facing each other on the sofa deep within the café. Hee-jin let out a somewhat heavy sigh and pulled off the scarf wound around her neck. With an expression of slight, satisfied lightness, she drew a cigarette from the inner pocket of her coat and set it on the table. Yeon-jin: How have you been keeping, all this while? Hee-jin: It's only been a little over a fortnight since the first cataclysm. Nothing could have changed.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Yeon-jin: And the 단장 (Dan-jang_The Oldest) — Hee-jin: She has seized everything. There is now no one who would step outside her will, refuse her, or defy her. She has risen to such a seat. And in a very short span of time. Yeon-jin: The Strategist truly is remarkable. At Yeon-jin's praise, Hee-jin twitched the corner of her mouth and did not bother to continue the reply. Hee-jin: I wonder why you spoke of me, and not The Oldest.

Yeon-jin: The Oldest is, of course, bound to be a remarkable person. I can tell, just by looking at Si-yeon. Si-yeon, too — uneducated and filthy as she may have been, was a remarkable child — Yeon-jin's light praise, Hee-jin — still wearing that twitched sneer — cut down flatly. Hee-jin: The uneducated, the filthy. All of it was because you, Master of the Province, stripped Lee Si-yeon of everything she had. At Hee-jin's cold and easy intent, Yeon-jin did not press the words further.

Hee-jin glanced briefly at Yeon-jin's silence, then picked up the cigarette set on the table and lit it with practiced ease. At Yeon-jin's gesture, someone waiting nearby brought over an ashtray. Hee-jin, having lit the cigarette, exhaled a long stream of smoke and asked Yeon-jin. Hee-jin: Have you come around to handing it over? At Hee-jin's flat question, Yeon-jin's mouth-corner lifted just a touch higher. Yeon-jin: It has become of no use now, at any rate.

Yeon-jin took up a single document envelope that had been set behind her, placed it on the table, and carefully slid it toward Hee-jin. Hee-jin, the cigarette still in her mouth, glanced down at the documents. Yeon-jin: However, I am a merchant. Hee-jin: What is it you want? Yeon-jin: An assurance. Hee-jin: It's a time when no manner of assurance can readily be given, but go ahead and speak. Yeon-jin: Simply do not betray me.

At Yeon-jin's careful, courteous, yet razor-edged undertone, Hee-jin smiled a touch more broadly and tapped the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray. Hee-jin: Betrayal. That may well come from your end, Master of the Province of the Northwest. Demanding such an assurance from me alone — that strikes me as a rather presumptuous judgment. Yeon-jin: Lee Si-yeon is no longer a girl I keep at hand to use. To have had that whore Lee Si-yeon taken from me — I had already given up a fair number of things by that alone.

And yet I have received nothing in return — Hee-jin: The seat you now hold — Hee-jin exhaled another long stream of smoke and glared at Yeon-jin with a blade-sharp eye. Hee-jin: Was it granted to you by your ancestors? Did you pick it up in a toilet stall? Did you rob it from the pocket of some bitch walking down the street? Yeon-jin: Because I made it perfectly clear that that alone was not enough. Hee-jin pondered briefly, then nodded as though recalling — as though it had just come back to her, belatedly.

Yeon-jin: You've gone so far as to demand even Lee Si-yeon's past from me. So I think I am owed knowing at least the intent. That much, I believe, is fair. Hee-jin: You seem afraid. Yeon-jin: The secular world does not frighten me. Police, prosecutors and the like cannot touch me, cannot encroach upon me. Even if they dig into my past, they have no means of doing anything to me. Hee-jin: And so. You seem afraid. Yeon-jin: Yes. I am uneasy that the blade may turn upon me.

It was Yeon-jin's honest and flat confession. Only then did Hee-jin nod, as though she had at last heard the answer she had wanted, with a sigh and a bright, sneerless expression. She crushed the cigarette — by then burned down to nothing — into the ashtray. Hee-jin: And yet you dared invoke such a thing as betrayal to me. You may well be smaller than I had thought. Yeon-jin: My speech was out of line and I apologize, but I would have you know that it is also not my wish to fall out of the Strategist's favor.

Hee-jin: I am aware that you bear many sins on your ledger, and so you fret and worry. But sins are not settled by such means. Do not concern yourself. Yeon-jin: That alone is not enough. Hee-jin: You're being a child. Particularly today. Yeon-jin: It was the most monstrous thing I did to the girl who brought in the most money. Hee-jin: And yet you speak of it flatly. Yeon-jin: Because you, Strategist, are not the one it was done to. Hee-jin: You would be just as bold about it before Lee Si-yeon as well.

Yeon-jin: Because it is already a thing of the past. No matter what such a creature as she might say to me, the people I killed are not coming back, either. Hee-jin: Then the answer is already out, is it not. Before you start invoking betrayal, just follow my directives properly. So long as you do not run wild like Kwon Su-jeong. What I want is a dog that listens well, not some shitty mutt that, under the pretext of some trifling, dust-mote intent of its own, shits wherever it pleases.

Yeon-jin: I shall wag my tail as much as you wish. Hee-jin: That alone shall suffice. So long as you come when I say come and go when I say go, so long as you do at least that well — I, for one, do not abandon the dogs I keep. It was Hee-jin's blade-sharp cool, yet as though Yeon-jin had at last heard a satisfying answer, she too nodded with a slightly more eased expression and offered Hee-jin a smile of a slightly different kind.

Yeon-jin: Since you've come after so long, would you care to enjoy yourself a little before leaving? The fresh stock that's come in lately — the quality is rather good.