BW C97

Chapter 97

 

“I… I feel sleepy,” Hoeun mumbled. He shouldn’t fall asleep. This was the battlefield. Man-eating Shikgoes could be lurking outside. If they attacked while he slept, it would be disastrous. With such thoughts, he forced his eyes open.

But Taemuk replied indifferently,

“Sleep.”

“…It’s all right if I do?”

“What could possibly not be.”

So dry, so curt—and yet those words eased him. Truly, with Taemuk beside him, what did it matter if Shikgoes or anything else came? To fall asleep in his arms must be the safest place in the world.

“Then… just for a little…”

Just a little nap.

Before he could finish, Hoeun’s eyes drifted shut. He felt Taemuk’s hand wrap around his back, the weight upon his body perfectly steady and secure.

Hoeun awoke to the faint smell of tobacco brushing his nose. A ceiling unfamiliar stretched above him. From the beams overhead, it was no tent, no military lodge, but a house. Someone’s house. The downpour had ceased overnight too, for no sound of rain remained.

“….”

He blinked sluggishly, his eyelids heavy from lingering sleep. Again the curl of smoke touched his nose. Hoeun turned his head toward it.

A sliding door stood wide open, and beyond it, a familiar back. Not in uniform now, only a white robe—but unmistakably Taemuk. He sat on the porch, smoke curling upward from his hand. The haze drifted mostly outside, but some tendrils, caught by the cool late-autumn breeze, coiled lazily into the room.

Hoeun breathed it deep. The air was crisp and cold, yet he didn’t feel chilled—the floor beneath him was heated near to boiling. That warmth was familiar. When winter came, his mother had always stoked the floor fires so he wouldn’t catch cold.

“….”

He gazed quietly at Taemuk’s back. A steaming floor, a chill breeze slipping in through an open door, smoke drifting lazily with it—it left him with a strange feeling. Peaceful, perhaps. Drowsy, perhaps. Whatever it was, it wasn’t unpleasant.

Watching him, Hoeun belatedly recalled the events of last night. His last memory was the bath—so how had he ended up in a warm room with floor heating? Surely Taemuk had carried him. Yet he hadn’t stirred even once. He wasn’t a particularly heavy sleeper… unless it had been less sleep than collapse.

Hoeun shifted, stirring. His unbound hair spilled forward, and the blanket that had covered him to the neck slipped down. At once, a chill prickled his skin. He was bare. Not a single thread upon him.

“Ah…”

A thin sigh escaped him. Right—his clothes had been drenched with rain. He had to find something quickly. To linger naked in broad daylight was no habit of his. And to appear so disheveled before a superior was beyond discourtesy.

Flustered, he pushed himself upright—

Squish.

A strange sound came. From his palm. Sticky, clammy, unpleasant. He grimaced, lifting his hand. It was smeared in something translucent, viscous.

“….”

What was this?

He sniffed his palm. A faintly stale scent, but he couldn’t place it. His eyes darted—until he spotted a jar near the bedding.

Ointment.

Ointment? Why here…? Then he remembered—his injured hands. But he hadn’t applied anything himself. Likely, Taemuk had.

Slowly, he looked back at Taemuk’s figure.

So while he slept, Taemuk had carried him from bath to room, undressed him, stoked the fire, and even dressed his wounds with ointment.

“….”

It was surprising, unexpected, puzzling…

But more than that, lately he’d begun to feel that Taemuk was… changing. Softer, perhaps. Kinder, perhaps. As if he had begun to truly accept Hoeun as his own. The thought made him glad.

Hoeun rubbed the ointment over his palm, lips twitching at the thought—would Taemuk keep applying it for him every morning and evening?

After a while, he remembered again—he was still naked.

He glanced about the modest room, neither small nor large. In one corner, clothes lay folded. A pale jade silk hanbok—not his, perhaps not belonging to anyone anymore, but at this point, he had little choice.

Carefully avoiding the floor with his hands, he rose. Yet his feet felt strange. Sticky. He lifted one—also smeared with ointment. Right. His feet had been injured too.

How was he to walk like this? Still, he couldn’t remain naked.

Jaw tight, Hoeun crept toward the clothes, each step leaving sticky prints upon the floor. He felt sorry—for Taemuk who had applied it, for the owner of this house whose floors he dirtied—but what else could he do?

He hurried into the robe. The jade silk wasn’t the finest, but soft enough, the color lovely. A little too large for him, though—he had always worn clothes tailored precisely. The loose fit felt strange, though not unwelcome.

But there was no hair ribbon. He searched beneath the robe, scanned the room, but saw none. His hair had to be tied.

He hesitated, then combed his long hair back with his fingers and approached Taemuk. Even if Taemuk surely knew he was awake already, courtesy demanded some sign. Hoeun cleared his throat softly.

He sat gingerly beside him on the porch. Taemuk knew, but said nothing, only exhaled smoke.

“Did you sleep well, General?”

“More or less.”

“…You did sleep, didn’t you?”

Hoeun tilted his head, peering at him. He couldn’t recall ever seeing him rest.

“Yeah.”

The answer was weary, dismissive.

“….”

Hoeun’s lips jutted in a pout. However he tried, Taemuk never met him halfway. Still, he refused to give up, and went on.

“This room was so warm. Yesterday was bitter cold, but thanks to this, I’ve not caught a chill. My body feels light.”

He rolled his shoulders, to show how unburdened he felt. After yesterday’s trials, he had expected to suffer fever for days, but a hot bath and a blazing floor had restored him. His feet and calves ached a little, but such pain hardly counted.

“All thanks to you, General.”

Hoeun smiled bright. Taemuk flicked him a sidelong glance, then snorted, amused at something unknown. Hoeun, no longer troubled by such derision, prattled on.

“These clothes—you left them for me, didn’t you?”

He fluttered the hem of the robe.

“Should I have worn them myself?”

Taemuk exhaled smoke, replying. The thought of himself in such pale finery made gooseflesh prickle along his nape. He scratched it roughly, as though to scrape the feeling away.

“Where did you even find clothes like these?” Hoeun asked in wonder.

“This is still a town,” Taemuk said flatly.

“Ah…”

Hoeun let out a small sigh. Of course. In a town large enough for hospitals, schools, churches—finding a robe was hardly difficult. Shikgoes had no need of clothes, after all. Until now, to him this had been no town but only a battlefield, and he hadn’t realized.

“I was foolish, just now.”

Ashamed, he lowered his gaze. Hair spilled forward over his shoulders. He brushed it back and asked,

“By the way… did you happen to see a hair ribbon?”

He couldn’t go around like this. People would gossip. Worse—he was Taemuk’s Guide. To have his Guide whispered of as a ghost? That would only add to the grim rumors already circling him.

Then—Taemuk’s breath stopped.

“….”

The smoke seeping between his lips ceased. Hoeun felt it, and he too froze, guilt thudding in his chest. Too thoughtless a request, perhaps. To ask for a ribbon, in such times.

“Th-then, even the one I wore yesterday is fine.”

Hurriedly, Hoeun tried to rise, to search among his discarded garments.

“Do you really need that?” Taemuk asked, cryptic.

“…What?”

Hoeun’s eyes widened. Not need it? Was he to let his hair fly loose? Or… cut it?

Even if others no longer held to the old maxim, the body, hair, and skin are received from the parents and must not be harmed—Hoeun could not abandon it. His parents had given him this body. How could he defile it?

“….”

He stared up at Taemuk, pale as if condemned. Taemuk clicked his tongue.

“Forget it.”

Then he reached into his trouser pocket. From it, he drew a ribbon of pale jade silk—woven of the same cloth as the robe Hoeun wore.