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There was a banquet to be held the next evening in the palace. It was finally announced to all that the Queen was with child, and although this was to be a festive occasion for those in the court, Hye-ri wondered when she would be able to escape the grounds without notice. Everyone would be wandering that night, lovers meeting each other in dark corners while the King was distracted with his familial duties.

It was already the early afternoon, and she had been cooped up like a pigeon in Byung-yeon’s nest for quite some time. When she awoke, both he and the strange eunuch were already gone. Today was not only the day of the banquet, but the final exam. If Hye-ri knew anything about the court system, she was sure she would never see that odd little fellow again.

After folding up her makeshift bed and cleaning the sticky soju from the table, Hye-ri simply waited. She had been in such a situation before, sneaking out at night to stay at the palace, but it had been years since her last visit and she couldn’t help but feel like a child again.

“What to do? What to do…” She glanced around the room, her finger tapping her chin quizically.

Truthfully, there was only one thing she could do, aside from waiting like a lonely housewife for Byung-yeon.

In the darkest part of the building , on a tall shelf tucked away in the back corner, rested a sword. It was a child’s sword, but still made out of solid steel with a carefully protected blade, it was a toy that could slice open a man’s heart with one swoop. It had once belonged to Byung-yeon, but when he and Hye-ri would grow bored, she had his permission to use it. In a way, he was her teacher for many things in life, and self defense was no exception.

When she made her way over to the familiar object, she could almost hear Byung-yeon’s voice in her head, high-pitched from when they were children.

“If your grip isn’t strong enough, your opponent will know that you’re weak. If it’s too strong, he’ll recognize that you’re scared.”

When she pulled it from the shelf, her hands kept the blade a few inches away from her chest. One wrong move and Byung-yeon would walk in to find her dead on his floor. She wasn't sure if he would be more upset that she was dead, or that her blood was staining the wood.

“Keep your feet slightly out past your shoulders. This will give you a good balance not just for swordplay, but in everyday life.”

She had remembered those words above everything else. They helped her back tire slowly when working on the farm, and they kept her stable when she would dance on unsolid grounds.

“The Geom is a single-handed sword. You have to make sure to keep it at the right level at all times. It can be daunting working with only one hand when we’re used to using both, but I promise that you’ll be a better fighter for it.”

Hye-ri went through the motions slowly. There were twenty-six methods in total with eighteen skill sets. She would be proud if she remembered four. She could recall ‘Holding the Sword, Facing the Enemy’. That was the easy part. ‘Turn to the Right’ was also quite simple. She felt the long fabric of her dress hit her legs when she spun to the side, keeping the sword as straight as she could. ‘Advance Forward to Attack the Enemy’ was far easier when someone else was in the room, but Hye-ri used her imagination to the best of her ability.

The other methods were a bit more complicated. ‘Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg’ only made Hye-ri think of the farm and how much work needed to be done, but she pushed the thought away and sliced her sword through the air with as much strategy as she could grasp from her childhood recollections.

‘Wild Tiger Hides in the Forest’ always sounded more difficult in her head, but when Hye-ri’s hands were clutching the frosted grip and pommel, the move came back naturally.

It was the ‘Wild Goose Character’ that she was struggling to remember. Was there a forward step? Did she take a backwards step beforehand? Was there any step at all? The frustration was only growing. She couldn’t dance properly. She couldn’t take care of her sister. Now she couldn’t remember a gesture she had made thousands of times. It was like forgetting how to wave goodbye. With an angry and unplanned swing of her sword, Hye-ri spun around with her arm raised, a frustrated cry coming up from .

When she turned, however, the last thing she expected to see was another person.

Her sweaty palms and sudden shock caused her sword to slip from above her head. She could feel it falling from her fingertips, dangerously putting her and the man, who she now realized was Byung-yeon, in momentary danger. Of course, being the rather collected character that he was, the sword was caught mid-air and placed it the hilt of his belt.

Hye-ri’s arms were still raised, her pink mouth parted somewhat in shock. Byung-yeon’s single brow rose in amusement, his eyes scanning over her like she were some sort of ferral cat.

“I see you haven’t been practicing.”

“I-I didn’t realize you were here. Were you watching me?”

“For a while.”

Byung-yeon had already moved to put the sword back. Brushing the dirt from her skirt, Hye-ri tried somewhat to make herself presentable. “How did I do?”

“Terribly,” he said over his shoulder. “You have the same problem now as you always did.”

“Which is?”

He his heels to face her. “You live inside your head. You never think about it as an actual fight.” He paused, the words in his head sounding far more perplexing when he said them aloud. “You never realize when someone important is standing right in front of you.”

Thankfully, Hye-ri didn’t read into it. “Women can’t be swordsmen. It was always a game to me.”

“Women can’t be swordsmen at the palace,” Byung-yeon corrected. “That doesn’t mean there might not be a time where you need to protect yourself.” The thought of his secret missions rolled through his brain. He wanted to tell her about it. He wanted to lift the weight off of his shoulders, but why to her?

“Hopefully we’ll one day live in a world where I don’t need royal guards to protect me. There might even come a day where my daughters can train to fight. Maybe they wouldn’t even need a husband to look after them.”

Aha, Byung-yeon thought with a smile. That was why I wanted to tell her most.

“Did you sleep well?”

Hye-ri nodded. There was no sense in asking him. He rarely ever slept, and if he did, he was halfway on the verge of a dream and halfway on the verge of awaking and stabbing you in the throat.

It was simply Byung-yeon’s perplexing nature.

“We have to get you out of here before the banquet. Otherwise, you’ll have to stay another night. I’ll take you into town before things get busy and we can meet the doctor.” Hye-ri was about to thank him, but he brushed past her towards the door. “Don’t worry about changing into something more regal. We can just tell them that you came to collect your pay.”

He made his way outside, leaving Hye-ri alone once more. Her eyes inadvertently shifted over to the beautiful gowns tucked away in her sleeping quarters. There were dazzling shades of gold, pink, blue and red. Of course, they had belonged to many noblewomen and Queens of days long gone, and she had no right to wear them. Yet it hurt her to think that she would never be seen as beautiful without them. They were the key to gaining the affections of a suitor, and although Hye-ri wasn’t thinking about marriage on a regular basis, she had suddenly been forced to think of it then.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

The man was a complete drunk. In fact, if you could be anything worse than a complete drunk, he was certainly that.

Hye-ri inched a bit closer to Byung-yeon’s side when she saw him. The aging man was crawling on all fours around the chicken coop like he was one of the poultry.

“You can’t be serious,” she whispered from the corner of .

“I’m completely serious.”

“Of course. When are you not?”

Byung-yeon’s sigh of offense meant nothing to Hye-ri as she stepped through the gate to meet the infamous ‘doctor’. His slightly bearded face turned somewhat to acknowledge her arrival, but there was no other sentiment in his gaze. She could see that he had clearly been a scholar. There were too few wrinkles on his forehead. Scholars always had small wrinkles. The kind you would get from slightly squinting to get a better look at dried ink on pages.

“I was told you could help me." Her tone was somewhat informal. It was only then that he seemed to notice Byung-yeon off to the side. “My sister is ill and my friend said that you could help her. Is that true?”

"You don't believe your friends?"

Her unforiving eyes passed over his once more. "On this occassion, it's a struggle."

The man stood, or rather stumbled, onto his wobbly legs. His back arched to regain his balance, but Hye-ri did not reach out to help. She simply stared at him, unwilling to believe that this pathetic excuse for a human could save her sister from death.

“If Byung-yeon has asked it, then so be it. It doesn't matter that you lack in manners. Come inside.”

He his muddy heels to enter a small hanok beside the farmland. When his white shirt and messy bun disappeared around a corner, Hye-ri let out a sigh she had been holding in since their arrival. “Are you insane?” She snapped. “This man can’t even look after himself, let alone a child. He was so dirty, even the mud on him was covered in mud!"

“He can help. Trust me.”

Byung-yeon led her, albeit somewhat hesitantly, inside the house. The former doctor, Jung Yak-Yong, had somewhat attempted to maintain his appearance. His shirt was tied more tightly, his hair a bit more stiff at the top. It was the only thing to prove that he had managed to salvage the little dignity he had left.

Jung sat in the centre of the dimly lit room, his books piled around him like a wall of safety from outside attackers. Hye-ri was curious about what had caused him to leave the palace, but there were too many secrets behind those towering red poles that needed answering. Jung's weary eyes scanned over multiple books until he rested on one, dropping it with a thud on the table between them.

“I never told you that my sister had a cough,” Hye-ri said, noting the title. “Yet you chose the correct book. Did Byung-yeon tell you?”

“No,” he slurred his words. “You said it was your sister. I presumed she was younger. Most illnesses in children begin with a cough. Call it a wild guess.” Hye-ri said nothing. She was somewhat impressed, but would never let him know it. “Where does the cough start? When does it get worse during the day?”

“It sounds as if it’s coming from her chest. We don’t eat much meat and so her body is rather frail and thin to begin with.” Hye-ri’s cheeks colored somewhat at the admission. They also turned pink when she felt Byung-yeon’s concerned eyes fall upon her. “The cough is usually the worst in the evening and during the early hours of the morning.”

Yak-Yong was nodding the entire time. The more of an explanation she gave, the more drawers he began to rummage through. Eventually he had a full set of plants and bottles laid out, as if he were running a miniature apothecary. Although it was supposed to be a comfort that these items were suddenly available to her, the amount was overwhelming.

“Why are there so many?” She stuttered, trying to make sense of the strange labels.

“The first thing you should know is that your sister will survive. I’ve seen this before in many children, and the fact that she does eat a diet mostly consisting of vegetables will actually work in her favour.” He began to move more quickly, as if simply being around the medicine was curing his drunkenness.

Hye-ri leaned over to her friend with a whisper on her lips. “I can’t afford this.”

“You don’t have to,” Byung-yeon replied. “He owes me.”

She turned her head to get a better look at him. His eyes seemed almost dry, as if he had been straining himself too much in a short amount of time. She did not expect him to look back at her, but when he did, it was as if the air in her lungs had frozen into ice. “Why does he owe you?”

Byung-yeon’s eyes passed over the girl’s face. There was something wild about her brows, the darkness of them and how elegantly they fit the sharp frame of her face. In the candlelight of the hanok, she seemed almost perplexingly... pretty. When had she become pretty? “For protecting him,” he said flatly.

“You do that a lot, don’t you?” Her brow rose. The simple gesture confused his heart.

“I… suppose so.” He leaned back somewhat. A swarm of butterflies danced in the pit of her stomach.

“What exactly does everyone need saving from?”

His next words were not what she had expected.

“Themselves.”

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Na-ri was already feeling somewhat better the next morning. Whatever had been grounded up and put into Jung's remedy was clearly working, and although she could not pay him in coin, she would pay him in occassional visits bearing free vegetables until the man was practically her friend. It was in Hye-ri’s nature. If she enjoyed your company, she would seek it out without acknowledgement towards where you came from.

Feeling much lighter on her feet, Hye-ri offered to go into town to sell some of their crops. It was a good time of the week to earn more money than usual, and a good time of the year for people to be less careful with the depth of their pockets. If she wasn’t allowed to dance to the gayageum, she could at least dance to the sound of jingling coins in her belt.

After setting up her stall in the sunniest part of the road, Hye-ri prepared for business. Wandering eyes passed over her cart, their eyes occasionally glancing up to catch her wide smile. They would almost always smile back, and the friendliest of them would even stop to examine some goods.

Everything had been going well that day. In fact, she had been in town for over an hour and was making almost double the normal amount. Yet it was just her luck, as if the demons of the afterline fancied her, that something would go wrong.

“Get out of the way! Everyone move! It’s the Baekwoonhwe!”

Although people were pushing past her, bumping into her cart and even knocking some of her fresh produce to the dusty Earth floor, Hye-ri did not move. Her head fell to her shoulder as the name rang through her head.

Baekwoonhwe…?

Waiting to replay the sound over in her brain was not the best idea. She was suddenly alone on the streets. All the doors to the shops and homes around her were locked as many times as they could be. She could have sworn there was the sound of a pin dropping to the ground beside her, but instead she quickly realized that it was coming from up above.

Craning her neck towards the rooftops, she saw a man looking down at her. His long hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, a solitary strand hanging down to frame his face. His build was tall and slim, like that of a warrior’s, but he did not seem threatening.

It was the mask that scared her the most. It was whiter than the man’s skin, the eyes hollow and dark like the harvest moon. It almost seemed to peer into her soul, and she knew that if she did not run in that moment, her fate was certainly to be caught up in another mess.

Gathering her skirts, Hye-ri made her way down an alley with as quiet of feet as she could manage. More men were coming, judging by the sound of heavy and fast footsteps, likely to fight the roof-top hero. Whoever he was, he was almost certainly on his own.

It was also in her nature to pry. Curiosity was always bubbling over the rims of her heart, and she couldn’t resist peeking around the corner to see the commotion. Three men without masks, but stil doning all black clothing, had finally caught up to the slender figure. The masked crusader was on the ground now, his head occasionally glancing in Hye-ri’s direction as if he were aware of her mischevious eyes.

He was a strong fighter. His feet were swift as they kicked off of housing panels, crates, and of course his enemies. It was not simply a street fight; Hye-ri had seen those before. These men wanted the masked crusader dead, whoever he was, and they wanted it done quickly. Whether or not anyone saw made no difference. There was only one goal on their checklist.

Hye-ri’s hands fell over as she saw one of the attackers bring their sword upon the man’s knee. He stumbled backwards in surprise, his eyes likely wide underneath his cover. If he wasn't as swift as a fox, the following blow towards his head would have been successful.

And although his life was spared in that moment, something else happened.

His mask had come off.

Hye-ri was too far away to catch sight of his features, but she could see the white curved edges getting buried beneath the sand as the men continued to kick and fight their way through one another like blades of grass. Hye-ri could tell that the former masked gentleman was winning, and the thought gave her some comfort. He could have been the dangerous one, but there was nothing about him that felt distressing.

The mask was only a few feet away.

Something about it seemed so… familiar.

Without thinking, she stepped out into the narrowly packed street. Houses protected her on both sides. The only danger was in being caught, but she suddenly didn’t believe that any of them would hurt her. As her fingers reached down to pick up the object, she could see from the corner of her eye that the gang was already making their leave. When she stood up, she would be left alone with him.

The mask was cold in her hands. It was lazily made with thinned paper, the edges of some pieces curling nto her shaking palms. When she glanced upwards, the man’s back was towards her. He did not run. He knew that she was behind him.

Taking a careful step forward, Hye-ri outstretched her arm long enough for him to realize that the disguise was being returned. His fingers gently curled around the edges, just softly enough that they brushed her warm skin as a token of gratitude.

She could have grabbed him by the shoulders. She could have demanded his name in order to earn money for his capture. Yet, a pull coming from some unknown and unexplainable part of the Universe kept her back. The sensation of it was odd. She didn’t want to look at him. She felt that she almost couldn’t.

And so, it was her moment to turn away.

He didn't put the mask on.

He had turned around to face her. To give her his name. To give her the honest truth. Yet when the time had come for their eyes to lock, he found that she had already gone. No other living thing lingered in the alley but himself; the pulsing heartbeat in his fingertips hitting the mask like the hushed warning call of a drum.