TBML 67

Despite Hyunhak’s bold promise to procure everything he needed, and contrary to Yiyeon’s belief that he was completely unreliable when it came to daily life, he managed to produce whatever he asked for with uncanny precision. No matter how early Yiyeon woke up, Hyunhak was always already gone, and in his place, the items he had requested the night before were laid out.

Yiyeon, who had wondered how such a clumsy young gentleman could possibly survive in this harsh world, had to admit that he was capable, far more so than he had expected. He realized that not just anyone could live alone deep in these rugged mountains.

But it was a mysterious affair. Yiyeon and Hyunhak had clearly fallen asleep together in the same room. A room no bigger than the palm of a hand, where he hadn’t sensed a single soul coming or going. Yet every time Yiyeon woke up, Hyunhak was gone. Yiyeon wasn’t particularly a heavy sleeper, and his ears, which had once been muffled from an injury, had improved considerably by then, so it wasn’t a matter of him simply not hearing anything.

However, the time he was gone was far too short for him to have gone down to the village and brought back the item Yiyeon had asked for, especially since it was either the dead of night or the early dawn before sunrise. Even if he went down to the village, where the market hadn’t even opened yet, how could he possibly have found the item? Yiyeon simply assumed that that someone named “Zao” was coming and going at dawn.

Hyunhak’s earlier remark that Zao wouldn’t come kept weighing on his mind. Occasionally, even when Hyunhak was in his room, Yiyeon would sense a presence outside that would startle him; Yiyeon thought that Zao was hurt by his mistake and was avoiding him. There was no other way to explain all of this.

“Yeon-ah.”

“…….”

“Yeon-ah!”

“Yes?”

Yiyeon snapped out of his reverie at Hyunhak’s voice and looked at him. The traces of violence on his face had faded considerably, and though his arm was still bandaged, Yiyeon looked much better than before. If he had previously resembled a walking corpse, he now at least looked like someone who was only injured.

Although his ears, which had been unable to hear properly, had almost fully recovered, lately Yiyeon had often been so lost in thought that he missed him calling his name. Though he didn’t let Hyunhak see it, he found himself increasingly lost in thought, trying to piece together the events of that day.

If a servant couldn’t even hear his master calling him, and if this were a place like Magistrate Seo’s residence, he would have been immediately punished as a good-for-nothing. Yiyeon looked at Hyunhak, who had called out to him, with wide eyes. He wasn’t startled by the call, but by Hyunhak’s appearance.

“What is this, My Lord?”

“A door.”

“No, I can see that. What I mean is… why is there a door here?”

“You said we needed to fix the door.”

When he looked up at the sound of someone calling his name, there stood Hyunhak, holding a door panel. Since the cold wind was whistling in through the crooked door that wouldn’t even close properly, he’d simply remarked, “Once my arm heals, I’ll have to fix this door first.” Moreover, he’d meant to fix the door. He certainly hadn’t told him to bring an entire door panel from somewhere else.

Yiyeon wouldn’t have the slightest idea, even if he were to die and come back to life. He had no idea that Hyunhak had torn down a door from someone else’s house, and that someone living somewhere in the village was probably pounding the ground in frustration, exclaiming, “This crazy tiger has been stealing household belongings whenever he comes down lately, and now he’s even torn off the house!”

“Well… I did say that.”

Yiyeon swallowed the words, “Are you going to do it yourself, My Lord?” Hyunhak had already set the door down and rolled up his sleeves, so what was the point of asking? It meant he planned to do it himself.

Actually, it wasn’t a big deal. Hyunhak had been doing everything for Yiyeon over the past few days. At first, it looked so awkward and clumsy that he wondered, “Can I really leave this to him?” But as he crouched down beside him and gave him instructions here and there, he managed to do it well.

Yiyeon simply realized that this scholar had no experience with such menial work, which was why his every movement seemed [Read on]strange, so he guided him step by step, as if he were teaching a child. As a result, the whole scene looked rather odd.

The servant sat on the veranda, giving orders like, “Do it this way,” or “Do it that way,” while his master rolled up his sleeves and did the actual labor. It was something no one in the village would have dared to imagine, but Hyunhak, far from getting angry, actually enjoyed it.

The more time Yiyeon spent with Hyunhak, the more he realized, just like his awkward way of speaking, that he was childlike, innocent, and naive. For instance, he didn’t want to show that he didn’t know something. When Yiyeon asked, “How can you not know something like this?” his expression wouldn’t change, but the tips of his thick eyebrows would droop slightly, betraying his disappointment.

Sometimes, Yiyeon would pretend not to know and explain everything in detail, and when Hyunhak managed to execute it, Yiyeon would offer words of encouragement like, “Well done” or “That must have been hard,” Hyunhak tried to act calm, but Yiyeon could clearly see his shoulders and the bridge of his nose rise. Then, as if he’d accomplished something great, he’d stride around the house with a proud air all day long, asking if there was anything else Yiyeon needed. He was just a mischievous ten-year-old.

As Yiyeon groaned and struggled to his feet from the wooden veranda, a crow perched on the fence swiftly flew over and landed on his shoulder.

The owner wasn’t the only strange thing about this small house deep in the mountains. The crow that Yiyeon had grabbed with his bare hands that day never left the house again. Feeling guilty for what he’d done, he stroked him gently and watched over him, then secretly placed barley grains one by one; perhaps having grown attached to them, the crow did not leave.

Instead, he roamed the yard; one day, a chicken appeared, and not long after, the number of chickens had grown. The crow behaved like a guard dog, keeping the chickens in check and patrolling the yard. For a crow, he was as big as an eagle, and whenever he flew over and perched on Yiyeon’s head or shoulder, he would stagger.

As Yiyeon stepped aside from the veranda with the crow, Hyunhak carried the door and walked forward. At a glance, the house looked shabby, but the door was fit for a nobleman’s residence.

‘Did he perhaps bring it from his family home?’

For a moment, Yiyeon had that thought, then shook his head. It was nonsense, but since bringing an entire door panel here in the first place was already unusual, it wasn’t all that far-fetched.

Hyunhak propped the new door, which looked as if the rice paper had been replaced only recently, and fetched some tools from somewhere. Since when had things like that been in this house? They were the sort of tools a carpenter would use, but Yiyeon had no idea how to use them either. He simply used whatever looked good for hammering to hammer, and whatever looked good for splitting to split and pry.

Once Hyunhak removed the old door that was no longer functioning, the real trouble began. He’d taken it down with great enthusiasm, but the task of reattaching it made his eyes water. The one silver lining was that the door Hyunhak had found fit the doorframe stolen content as if it had been custom-made. If, for some reason, they couldn’t fix it after all, they’d at least have to prop it up to block the wind, so it was a relief all the same.

Tap, tap – the sound of the door being tapped repeatedly with a wooden tool echoed, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Yiyeon stroked the feathers of the crow perched on his shoulder and scurried over to Hyunhak’s side to observe what he was doing.

“Is that the right way to do it, My Lord?”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure.”

When Yiyeon asked, Hyunhak replied with a counter-question, but Yiyeon shook his head. How could he possibly know the answer? Even back in the village, the men had always excluded him from physical labor like this. They’d puffed out their chests and acted all high and mighty, not even letting him peek over their shoulders, so even if he watched, there wasn’t much advice he could offer Hyunhak.

Hyunhak tapped the door a couple of times with his hammer and tried shifting the door panel this way and that, but it wouldn’t stay in place. As Yiyeon, growing increasingly anxious, glanced sideways at Hyunhak, the crow perched on his shoulder suddenly let out a drawn-out caw.

Hyunhak, who had been sweating buckets while grappling with the door, was startled by the sound, and Yiyeon, who had been watching him, was so startled that he jumped up. As the nine-cheok-tall[fcnt content=’About 2.7 meters (about 8 feet 10 inches). It’s probably an exaggeration..‘]Hyunhak jumped up, his head thudded against the roof.

“Thud” was putting it mildly. For a moment, Yiyeon thought a hole had been punched right through the thatched roof. It must have hurt quite a bit, because Hyunhak clutched his head instead of the door and rushed out onto the veranda. Seeing the nobleman hit his head, Yiyeon couldn’t help but laugh rather than worrying. He hurriedly tried to cover his mouth with his hand, but it was already too late.

“Ahahaha.”

Yiyeon laughed with his eyes narrowed like a crescent moon and his mouth wide open like a first-quarter moon. As Yiyeon laughed out loud without even realizing it, the crow perched on his shoulder began cawing, as if mimicking him. It was a comical combination.

The nobleman, standing with his hands clutching his head and his hair disheveled, looked funny, and the very situation was laughable. How long Read onhad it been since he’d laughed out loud like this? The memory was so distant that he felt as though he were laughing like this for the very first time in his life.

What a beautiful smile. Like sunlight shattering upon ice, like a lotus blossoming from muddy waters. Hyunhak gazed at Yiyeon, lost in admiration as he smiled so sweetly. The pain from the blow to his head was so intense that, for a moment, he thought he was seeing stars as light seemed to scatter around Yiyeon.

As he stared, mesmerized, at Yiyeon, perhaps due to the shock of his head hitting the roof, the snow piled up on the thatched roof slid down and fell onto his head. Faced with this sudden mishap, Hyunhak leaped into the air like a cat with its fur bristling. As the burly nobleman jumped, his movements seemed even more exaggerated.

As the snow – hardened from long exposure – fell on his head and shoulders, Hyunhak shuddered at the chill that made every hair on his body stand on end. He looked exactly like a cat caught in a snowstorm.

Yiyeon burst out laughing once more. It was loud and unreserved, even more so than before. After enduring such hardships and barely scraping by, he managed to laugh again. He was so exhausted and worn out that one might think he’d have no strength left to laugh, yet as time passed, he found himself laughing again.

The face, still bearing the traces of pain, bloomed brightly. A person capable of smiling like that was truly a mysterious and unfathomable being.

Hyunhak gazed at Yiyeon’s smiling face, the very sight he had longed for so much. He had wished to see it, but now that he was actually looking at him, it was a breathtaking sight, as if he were seeing it for the very first time. Spring was still far off, yet the flowers had already bloomed in full splendor. Both ibrant and delicate.

And as Hyunhak looked at Yiyeon, a rosy flush blossomed on his own cheeks as well.