The Result of the Deed — Jang Jimin
After finishing the meal, Jimin reserved a single room.
Soun asked politely,
"Why only one? Is it not said that men and women should keep their distance?"
He was full, and the task was done. Ease had returned to him.
His speech slowed, and his movements grew languid.
Morning sunlight streamed through the window.
It was the kind of quiet hour that invited one to lean back and doze.
"Are you even a man, Young Master? A child… a boy… a baby."
Jimin snorted.
"Besides, who knows when you might run off again?"
She was referring to the night before.
When Jimin insisted on following him into certain death,
Soun claimed he would wait and give them time for farewell.
Then he mounted his horse and left first, as if fleeing.
"That was an unavoidable choice.
What would Cheonsangaek have said if he saw me?
He might have thought me a bandit who stole his wife.
A man does not wear that expression without reason.
I had no other choice.
If you had left, I feared Cheonsangaek would collapse.
He might have leapt from the third floor, or done something worse.
In any case, that is why I acted as I did."
Leaping from the third floor would not have endangered a warrior of his caliber,
but the sentiment remained.
"And I did not run away.
I truly waited a moment before departing.
How would it feel to send a child alone into certain death?
That feeling cannot be put into words.
I believed that if I left first, matters would settle themselves."
Soun explained everything calmly.
He laid out his reasons one by one, insisting he had not fled.
Jimin understood his heart.
That was precisely why she felt more hurt.
"Young Master."
Her voice trembled faintly.
"You do not even know what relationship I have with Cheon Ilcheong, do you?"
"Oh, so his name was Cheon Ilcheong?
He might as well have been called Cheon Ilcheon—palindromes are tidy. Ha. Forgive me."
Soun shrugged, then let the smile fade.
"But until you choose to tell me yourself, I do not intend to ask what that relationship is."
His tone was light, but his eyes were serious.
"Not everything in this world must be explained in words.
Everyone carries pains they cannot speak of,
and each lives within their own reasons.
I will not pry.
Tell me when you wish to.
Truth be told, I am not that curious. Ha."
Jimin wanted to say that Cheon Ilcheong was not her husband.
Yet she could not bring herself to speak.
If she overturned the story already fixed in the jianghu,
she could not bear the storm that would follow.
"Still, you must not run off again. Whatever the reason. You understand, Young Master."
"I understand. What would I have to fear?"
"You're afraid of women."
"Pardon? Women? Why?"
"When the pretty Lee Sojeong spoke to you, you kept dodging her words. I saw it all."
"That is because I was taught that a gentleman must not quarrel with a lady. Is that not proper?"
"That was not quarrelling. It was a small expression of interest."
A small expression of interest.
It was true.
What Lee Sojeong had shown was not hostility but attention—
a quiet effort to draw his gaze.
Jimin, being a woman, recognized it.
But Soun had always deflected,
sidestepped,
smoothed it over.
To Jimin, that looked like fear.
"Haha. What interest would anyone take in a mere scholar like me? Such notions are unfounded. Do not invent tales. More importantly, should we not take separate rooms? I am now a proper man—fifteen years of age."
Jimin laughed outright.
He puffed out his chest when he said "fifteen,"
but no matter how wide he spread it, he remained small.
"Fifteen? Is a man someone who weeps in the arms of a grown maid?"
She had seen it.
The moment of farewell,
when Soun awkwardly embraced Mirang.
Jimin had kept that scene in her heart.
The boy clinging like a child to the chatterbox maid, reluctant to part—
she remembered clearly.
Soun fell silent.
He could not win against Jimin in words.
Nor in logic.
There was no victory to be had.
"In any case, you are a fifteen-year-old child who knows nothing of relations between men and women. Sharing a room will be fine."
Soun was troubled.
Except for the army tents on the great plains of Haran,
he had always occupied rooms alone.
In the General's household, he had even enjoyed the luxury of a wide courtyard and annex to himself.
Solitude was familiar.
Now he had reached an age when awkwardness stirred.
Shame had begun to take root.
Avoiding women would solve nothing.
Yet habit and upbringing moved before reason.
Etiquette pressed him back.
So he kept his distance.
Aside from following Lady Lee Sogun as one would a mother,
he generally stepped away from matters between men and women.
It was far from Jimin's free-spirited nature as a martial artist.
Inspecting the Belongings
Jimin would not yield any further.
Soun had no choice but to follow her up to the third-floor room.
The moment he set his sword and bundle down near the door, Jimin suddenly let out a sharp cry.
"Hey!"
Soun turned in surprise.
Her eyes blazed as if sparks had been struck from steel.
"Why are you putting it there?
Are you planning to grab your bundle and run the moment you get the chance, Young Master?
Put it inside. Over there."
"Ahem, that is not the case.
I am simply not used to this.
I did not see a proper place to set it…."
"I will take care of it."
"No, no. I will do it myself."
Jimin swiftly snatched the bundle from him.
She untied the knots, emptied the contents, and placed each item carefully on the shelf inside the room.
She did not leave the bundle tied.
She spread everything out deliberately.
It was a clear warning—no thoughts of escape.
"Oh my… what is this? Is this a flat cake? You are not a child—
…No, you are a child."
The corner of her mouth curled in mockery.
"It was given to me by Great Elder Jin Musik's great-grandchild before the second campaign. She told me to return victorious. I could not bring myself to eat it, thinking of the warmth in her hands."
Soun's explanation sounded like an excuse, but Jimin paid no heed.
"What about these? Fire-starting pellets, wound medicine, dried meat, grain flour… Were you planning to gather herbs in the mountains? Or march off into the desert for war?"
"These are necessities in the field. They are useful when sleeping outdoors. Our White Dragon Unit camps out most of the time. We must make do wherever we are."
The pouch of grain flour was nearly empty.
Jimin's lips pressed thinner.
She lifted one end of the long pouch and weighed it in her hand.
Its lightness displeased her.
"Oh? There is hardly any flour left. Did you starve us and eat it alone?"
"No, Miss— I mean, Sister. That is not it. I spilled some along the way. The pouch tore—"
"There is no hole."
"Haa…"
Soun let out a long sigh.
He walked to the window and sank into the chair beside it, where the street below lay fully in view.
His posture carried resignation, surrender, and quiet acceptance all at once.
If I had known she was like this, I should have pushed her straight into Cheon Ilcheong's arms…
Why did I not?
Thinking back, Cheon Ilcheong's gaze had been unmistakable.
There had been no hiding it.
He had looked at her with open affection.
They were not husband and wife, she had said. That only made it more complicated.
He had stood at a distance, watching.
He could not even bring himself to speak.
He dared not step closer, as if afraid even a brush of hands would overstep some unseen boundary.
That careful distance, that awkward restraint, revealed more than closeness would have.
No wonder others mistook them for husband and wife.
The room itself was spacious.
Beds stood on either side.
A large round table occupied the center.
Near the wall sat a desk with the Four Treasures of the Study laid upon it.
It differed greatly from an ordinary guest chamber.
Soun inhaled the familiar scent that lingered within—
paper, ink, wood, and sunlight woven together.
It was the smell of a scholar's room.
When he had lived at the Yu Estate in Taiyuan, his chamber had been much the same.
His father had wished him to rise not as a warrior steeped in blood, but as a man of letters.
To hold a brush instead of a sword.
To open books instead of marching onto battlefields.
Each year, cartloads of paper had been delivered to his room.
More than fifty ink sticks were stacked neatly, along with ten solid ink blocks.
Fine feather brushes and weasel-hair brushes were always supplied.
The fragrance of ink had never faded from that chamber.
Two maidservants taking turns grinding ink could scarcely keep up with his writing.
That room had been quiet.
The scent of ink had been deep and steady.
It belonged to a world far removed from the smell of steel and blood.
A branch that has once grown in another direction cannot return to its first place.
It may be regrettable, yet it cannot change.
Life divides with a single choice.
After that, there is no returning to the former path.
Because it cannot be undone, it aches—and becomes all the more desperate.