Chapter 28  The Wings of Fire

The house where Gu Dong Mae had lived still lingered with his presence; on the table, a few pieces of candy were strewn, coated in dust, and mould, while in the corner, a shirt, carelessly thrown, draped over a chair. 

No one had dared to occupy the house; they feared him too much. No one had heard from him ever since he departed for Tokyo, and there were rumours that he had died there, killed by his former mentor and adoptive father, the Chief of the Musin Society. His fellow clan members had fled, together with Hotaru, the tarot card reader, and no one knew where they went, or whether they were alive or dead. The house had been left as it was, and no one had entered it, until today.

Hina turned to the estate agent.

"I will buy the house," she said. 

The shirt had been draped over the chair ever since the day he left, and it was covered with a fine sheen of dust.

Slowly, Hina lifted it off the chair.

She touched the soft fabric, and pressed it against her face, inhaling; it was his scent.

She lifted the shirt and saw the stain, where she had wept, her tears seeping into it, and he had held her close, and said that he could not bear to see her cry.

Where are you? 

Did you keep your promise to me, that you would not die before me?

Bad men die first, he had said ruefully, and smiled his crooked little half-smile.

"I miss you, Gu Dong Mae," she cried to the silent room. "I miss you so much."

1907

Three Years Later

Manchuria

Dong Mae stirred on his makeshift bed in the opium den.

He reached for his pipe, and inhaled deeply.

At once, the pain receded, as the fumes clouded his mind.

He hurt everywhere, and the pain got worse every day. It hurt to breathe, and it hurt to move. But the opium dulled the pain, and made it bearable, for a while, until it wore off; and then the pain would start again.

He lay back, and allowed his thoughts to drift, as the fumes drifted dreamily around him, and the mists lifted a little.

In this dark world filled with dark, blurry figures lying indolent and intoxicated on their beds, and the air thick with the fumes from their pipes, this shadowy world filled with uncertain light, days blurred into nights, and dreams merged into reality, and it was hard to distinguish between what was real, and what was not, for the illusions were sometimes more real than the realities.

Sometimes, Hina appeared to him with beseeching eyes, and said, "Promise me that you will not die before me."

At other times, Ae Shin appeared.

Like now.

She stretched out a hand, and placed a coin on his palm.

He opened his palm, and the coin lay there.

He looked up, but she was blurring, wavering, around the edges.

Wait, he called out to her, do not go.

Do not leave me.

He stretched out his hand to touch her.

But she was not there.

There was only emptiness.

Emptiness, and the pain that started to gnaw at him again.

Hanseong

The Royal Military had been dissolved. The commander had shot himself, and the Royal Military soldiers had been brutally massacred by the Japanese soldiers. Most of the Royal Military soldiers had been killed, and the remaining few that survived had surrendered to the Japanese.

Hina stood on the tram, and shot at a Japanese soldier who was about to shoot the tailor.

"Should I join the Righteous Army?" Hina mused, looking at the piles of bodies lined up on the streets, and the flags of Japan fluttering above the Glory Hotel.

For they had come to the hotel three years ago, and told her coldly to vacate the second floor; it would be reserved henceforth for the soldiers of the Japanese Colonial Forces.

She had stood and watched, as they pulled down the Joseon flags flying high above the hotel, and hoisted the flags of Japan in their places.

Three years later, bodies lined the streets, and relatives of the fallen soldiers sifted through the mass of bodies to find their loved ones.

The dead comprised soldiers from the Royal Military, including the Head of Palace Security, Seung Gu, shot multiple times in the back while protecting the Royal Military trainees, and members of the Righteous Army, as well.

It was a hive of activity at the Glory Hotel.

The servers had been ordered to fill the tables with food and wine all night long.

The Japanese soldiers were holding a grand dinner on the second floor of the Glory Hotel to celebrate their victory.

Hina had planned a grand celebration for them, something that they would never forget.

Everything was ready; all it needed for the celebration to start was a spark.

A shot sounded, and Hina burst through the swinging doors of the Glory Hotel  and hurried down the steps, lifting her skirts up high.

A Japanese soldier grabbed her from behind, yanking back her hair cruelly.

"What was that shot?" he yelled. "What did you do, ?"

A shot rang out, and he fell, dead.

Ae Shin ran toward Hani, and grabbed her hand.

"We must hurry," she said. "It is about to blow."

Two men approached from opposite directions.

A pair of feet, clad in sandals, shuffled from the left, while the other pair of feet, clad in dress shoes, treaded from the right, stepping over the bodies on the ground.

The two opposite paths taken by the two men converged in the middle.

They looked at each other.

Both of the men looked older, worn, and battered, around the edges, and each recognized himself in the other.

"You have undertaken a long journey to return here," said Eugene.

"I would say the same thing of you," said Dong Mae.

"She is not at my side," Eugene said.

"She is not at mine, either," Dong Mae replied.

Hina and Ae Shin ran from the hotel.

Behind them, the Glory Hotel exploded in a ball of fire, flames shooting up to the sky.

The glass windows of the hotel shattered, and caved in, slowly, the jagged edges melting in the onslaught of the mighty flames, that tentatively with forked tongues, then blazed into fury afresh, with every new fragment it fed on, and devoured, greedily, cruelly, ravenously; the insatiable appetite of the montrous inferno could not be appeased, and the flames continued on their path of destruction, unwilling to stop until every last shred of glass, every last brick of wall, every last shaft of timber, had been consumed, and razed to the ground.

Above the hotel, the sky turned crimson, as if smeared with blood, stark against the inky black of the night.

The blast caught the two women, separating their linked hands, and lifted them.

They flew high, soaring like birds, as if on wings of fire, and then crashed heavily to the ground.

Hina.

Ae Shin. 

The thick, acrid smell of smoke and fear choked Dong Mae, making him gasp out loud.

He started running.

Eugene followed, close behind.