The longer Hui-seo's story went on, the more Hui-won's face changed by the moment. Pale, then sighing, then dazed — only at the end did his expression soften.
"If you were pickpocketed you should have reported it to the authorities. Why did you chase him yourself? Without even a sword. Did you think you were a guardsman?"
But Hui-won's face stayed hard as stone.
"You don't know the streets."
"…"
"Your sense of direction is hopeless. What if something had happened to you?"
Hui-seo had done wrong, true — but apart from that, Hui-won still seemed to see him as a ten-year-old child.
When Hui-won passed the examination and came up to the capital, Hui-seo had been about that age, and since then he'd only stopped by the family home in Anseo once in a while on holidays — so it was only natural, he thought.
But Hui-seo didn't point that out. He knew the root of the scolding was, in the end, boundless affection. And far from disliking that affection, Hui-seo was glad of it.
"I'm sorry for worrying you. I didn't mean to."
When Hui-seo faltered out the words, Hui-won listened in silence.
Seeing his brother willing to hear him out for now, Hui-seo took out the jade pendant — treasured and tucked away ever since the man had handed it to him.
It seemed unlikely he'd see the delighted look he'd imagined, but he wanted to tell him why it had to be so.
"It's just — earlier I was so desperate to find this…"
Hui-seo's gaze fell on the pendant. His eyes trembled faintly.
"You told me you'd lost the other one. So I wanted to give you another — last time it was for your examination success, so this time, for your wedding."
The pendant Hui-won had worn at his waist without fail ever since Hui-seo gave it to him had, at some point, vanished from sight.
It hadn't been of the finest quality, so while he tried to think nothing of it, he couldn't fully conceal his inner hurt. Hui-won seemed to hold such thoughtfulness dear.
"Hui-seo — I treasured it because it was from you, but this brother of yours was careless and lost it."
He apologized to his brother again and again, soothing him. He'd tried to find it, he said, but it was nowhere to be found.
"I didn't want to lose it…"
"…"
"But I was short-sighted. If anything had happened to me, you would have grieved… I promise I won't act rashly again. I swear."
To Hui-won, who silently gazed only at the pendant, Hui-seo spoke with his whole heart packed into the words.
Looking back and forth between the pendant and Hui-seo, he bent one knee to meet his eyes.
Hui-won, who had been sitting there for a long while, pulled Hui-seo into an embrace as if he could not bring himself to part, and whispered, "Thank you. This time I will keep it safe."
"Only you must not lose it the way you did last time."
In truth, even if he lost it again, he had meant to press another jade pendant on him with some other excuse — but he put a scolding edge on his voice on purpose.
"Of course."
At that, Hui-won burst out laughing, his body trembling in small shakes.
After holding Hui-seo for a long time, Hui-won drew back and hung the jade pendant at his waist. As expected, it suited him well.
"………"
Hui-seo, who had been smiling brightly, soon tilted his head in puzzlement. Hui-won was smiling too, but something about him looked uncomfortable.
"Is it… not to your liking?"
"How could it not be. I like it. You chose it thinking of me — how could I not like it?"
Cutting him off hastily, Hui-won hesitated a moment.
"Now that you mention it — I didn't actually lose the pendant that time."
"What do you mean…"
"There were circumstances I didn't tell you about, so I gave it to someone else — and afraid you'd be disappointed if I told you the truth, I pretended I'd lost it."
He added his apology in a heavy voice — that he hadn't known he would keep it in his heart for so long.
His words were rather unexpected, but not incomprehensible. Hadn't he said there were circumstances he hadn't spoken of? It was just like Hui-won to do such a thing.
"…Then may I stop scolding you now?"
Hui-seo wanted to lift the guilt that must have lingered in his heart all this time.
"Only if you promise me you won't do anything so reckless again."
Seeing his younger sibling freeze up so suddenly, Hui-won, quick as ever, saw straight through him.
"I promise, truly."
When he answered at once, Hui-won — saying "then" — reached to rest his hand on Hui-seo's head and lightly ruffled it. Then, sitting beside him, he studied his face closely, as if to check whether he was in any pain, his expression turning grave once more.
"It will all have faded by tomorrow."
"You say so, but Grandfather will worry a great deal."
At his grumbling, sounding drained after the long day, Hui-seo smiled vaguely.
"Hui-seo, do you still find Grandfather so formidable!?"
At his inwardly reluctant expression, Hui-won, seeing through him, asked with a careful air.
"…No, it's not that."
He denied it, but there was no particular strength in his voice.
"Grandfather is quite fond of you."
"………"
"It's only that he's taciturn and can't show it well."
Hui-won, knowing that Hui-seo found their grandfather difficult, always tried to soothe him with those words.
Grandfather doesn't hate you. How could he hate you — from what you've seen, it's just that his nature is reserved and he can't show his feelings.
He never argued back, but that didn't mean he believed it all.
Sometimes their grandfather looked at Hui-seo with an expression no words could describe — how could he love him?
…The grandchild born in exchange for his beloved daughter's life — how could he love him?
"Yes, I know."
Even as he said it, Hui-seo answered meekly.
"Right…"
He smiled all the more brightly beneath the watching gaze, so that this time he would not notice what he hid behind his clothes.
"Oh, right."
After a pause in his breathing, Hui-won let out a sigh as if something had come to mind, fondling the jade pendant as one would something precious.
"You said before — the one who saved you was my friend. Did you happen to ask his name?"
Hui-seo shook his head.
"It's just, there was no time… By the time we reached home, everything was such a confusion that I never caught it."
"You were saved by him, so proper thanks are owed… Do you remember, by any chance, what he looked like?"
His appearance — there was no need to dwell on it long.
But he hesitated, not knowing how to put it into words. Him, glimpsed beneath the moonlight — in what sentence could he ever express him?
"…I don't quite know how to describe him."
"Hm?"
"He seemed like someone who could not exist in the human world."
That calm bearing, as if it could overwhelm anything, and the dreamlike beauty standing in such stark contrast to it — all of it.
He was a being no words could easily define.
"………."
His own description struck even Hui-seo as pitifully thin.
And yet Hui-won, at that meager description, took on an ambiguous air, as if he had found some clue.
Watching him lost in thought, Hui-seo felt a quiet hope rise within him.
"Do you… perhaps know who it is?"
At his tossed-off question, Hui-won met his gaze.
Hm — humming, thinking a good while longer, he soon curved his lips into a smile and tousled Hui-seo's hair roughly.
"How could I know from a description like that?"
As expected — he hadn't held out much hope, but he couldn't help the small disappointment inside.
"I suppose so… cough."
Answering him, his throat suddenly itched, and he broke into a dry cough.
"Are you all right?"
"Cough, yes, I'm fine."
"Surely you haven't caught a cold? The physician — ah, but the hour…"
Hui-won half rose, as if to summon a physician at once, then remembered what time it was and sighed.
"I'm truly fine, Brother."
"Then, that's a relief."
Only after feeling the blanket beside him did Hui-won finally relax his expression.
"Rest for now. I've stayed too long, thinking of you."
Only then realizing he had stayed in his room since midday, Hui-seo hurriedly rose from his seat.
He was as sorry to part from Hui-won, glimpsed the night before after so long, as he was glad — but the accumulated fatigue was crashing over him like waves, and there was no holding it back.
"Tell a servant to look to your bed, and rest now. There's plenty of time — we'll talk more later, Brother."
"Yes, Brother."
"If it hurts, no matter how late the night, don't stay alone — send word to me. Understood?"
"I will, I promise."
Hui-won, having tended his younger sibling's health with an almost docile care, stroked Hui-seo's cheek one last time, lightly, and withdrew.
Only after he had gone did he wash up lightly, and Hui-seo, changed into his nightclothes, lay down on the bed. The moonlight outside the window was still bright.
"………."
Who on earth could that man have been?
With his fear somewhat eased, what surfaced was curiosity. Besides, was he not the benefactor who had saved Hui-seo?
He thought of him for a long while.
Until the moon tilted westward, and Su-a at last let down the mosquito net.
***
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