Ha-nah.
2nd day of first lunar month, 1632, Year of the Monkey
Let this day be over quickly.
Lady Choi Ji-na quickened her pace. She clenched the loop of the cloth bundle tighter. The frozen morning air was filled with crisp morning habits people followed without thinking. Bodies brushed past her in leisure and in hurry, going about their business. A man was hawking his wares loudly. Honey. Lady Choi thought distractedly. Her eyes drew to the pretty ribbons and bracelets other hawkers had laid temptingly.
She shifted the bundle from one hand to the other. She actively disliked wearing her brother's clothes. Even though the dress was from four years ago, they were still too big for her. The ill-fitting pyjamas were slipping under her heels; the tunic was a tad too long. The soft cloth wrapped around her head covered half of her forehead, and she had to constantly push it back so it didn't obstruct her view.
"Just this one last time, Noonim," her brother had begged. "If Father finds out, he will flog me to death."
"But if Father finds out about my going out dressed as a boy, he will lash me," her fear had been palpable.
Choi Ji-na spent all of her fifteen years on earth obediently carrying out the duties of a filial daughter. She rose at the break of the dawn, paid her respects to her ancestors, prayed, helped in the kitchen, and left for the noble ladies' school run by their family. Meticulous in her learning, she could sew, stitch, cook, make lists, do basic bookkeeping, organise servants, recite Naehun by heart and follow the strict code of moral ethics her teachers drilled in her. She only spoke when spoken to and obeyed her parents and elders at all times.
She obeyed and obeyed and obeyed. Yet, nothing she did was enough for her father or stepmother.
A small troop of soldiers marched by her. People parted to give way.
Even though she was disguised as a boy, she kept her eyes down. She could hear her teacher's voice in her head....
Do not raise your face to look a man in the eye.
Do not raise your voice or partake in loud laughter.
Never show any part of your body skin, including your face. When stepping out of the house, you must always keep yourself covered with a jang-ot.
If a stranger touches your hand, you must bathe seven times to cleanse your sin.
Should a man, who is not your husband, lay his hand upon your skin other than your hands, your virtue shall be considered ruined, and you shall be rendered unfit for marriage. You shall be lashed five times. Your father will hold the right to disown you, and your husband can divorce you. Hence, you must keep yourself covered at all times.
It was not the first time she had been employed by her thirteen-year-old brother to pay off gambling debts. At ten, he had somehow found the company of street gamblers. Once, a small-time habit was now threatening to consume his life. She knew he had started pilfering money and selling small, though insignificant, artefacts to pay off his debts.
Recently, he enrolled in Seowon {preparatory school for aristocrats}. The thugs he borrowed from would not hesitate to follow him there. While the thugs dared not confront their powerful father, his brother could not take a chance.
"No one will know. Our parents will think you are in school. Teacher Kim will let you be in the garden because you are getting married, and no one will miss you," her brother implored.
He was right on that account. Ji-na was the academy's favourite pupil, and they had let her do whatever she wanted for the last fortnight. No one would miss her as long as she was back by noon. "Moreover, Father will not touch you. He cannot afford to scar you. I cannot trust any of the servants with this. Please, sister, this one last time. You will be married four days later, and I will not have anyone to help me. I promise I will never gamble again." His large eyes had pleaded and sweetened the deal, "I will include Aunt Yu-Joo's books in your marriage chest when no one is looking."
Ji-na stopped at a two-way crossing, compressing her lips, trying to remember which way her brother had asked her to go. She was supposed to meet two people, hand them over the bundle he had prepared, and leave. The Palace gates would be on her right, which meant she had to turn left.
Ji-na looked down the road nervously. She had done this twice before in the last three years. This would be the last time. She could do it.
The dust around her shoes danced, and the ground beneath her shook. Horses - thought Ji-na. It must be Capital force petrol. They were coming from her right.
Men parted hurriedly, preparing to give way to the majestic animals ridden by impressive royal capital guards in their finery. A woman picked up her child and darted to a shop by the side of the road. Three young men lazing in the middle hastened their pace to get out of the way. The milling of people thinned.
At any other time, she would have stopped and watched. Outdoors fascinated her. She was never allowed to venture outside, her world existing between her house and the short distance to the school she attended, always covered from head to toe, escorted by her slave and servant Woo Sa-ri.
Right now, she was too nervous, her heart echoing the beating of the hooves behind her in trepidation. Ji-na hurried, keeping her head down, the sound of the horses getting closer every minute.
An anomaly caught the corner of her eye. Amidst the increased din of noise that had filled the air and hurried movements of everyone around her, a tall, blue hanbok-clad figure stood unmoving, as if rooted by an unseen force to the ground. A few others also noticed it and started yelling at the figure to move.
Ji-na turned her head back to see how far the horses were; to her horror, she could see they were almost upon them. The fellow made no effort to shift from his position, standing directly in the path of the animals bearing down on him.
One of the horsemen saw the man, and he reigned in desperately, wildly screaming for him to get out of the way, but the horse was galloping too fast, and even if the first horse could slow down, there was no way the other five horses could stop.
Ji-na didn't think. She flew and slammed into the man, pushing on his back with her shoulder and head with all her might. The man stumbled, but her momentum was too great, and it flung him onto the side of the road. She tumbled after him, landing on his back, just as the horses flew past them, the riders yelling profanities. Thankfully, they didn't stop.
Ji-na was almost draped over him, his sky-blue tunic a blur, her right hand jammed to the ground by his neck. She leveraged herself with her left hand by pushing it against his shoulder blades and snatched her right hand off the ground. Somehow, a bracelet she was wearing got entangled with his hat, so she gave it a jerk and freed her hand.
Appalled she had touched a man, Ji-na quickly went back on her hunches and stood up. Just then, the man turned around to sit up, a long leg folded, putting his weight on a hand behind him, the other rubbing his temple, still looking disoriented.
It was the face of a very young man. A very handsome man, Ji-na thought disinterestedly.
People were coming forward to help the man get up. Murmurs went around her, of concern, of castigation.
The bundle she was carrying had flown out when she fell. Looking around desperately, she found it a couple of feet away from them. It had come loose, and corners of the two books peeped out. She quickly grabbed and re-tied it, half running and half walking away from the scene as fast as her short strides could carry her.
Ji-na heard a shout behind her. "Wait, wait -"
She didn't pay heed.
It took her another fifteen minutes to get to the road that would take her to the gambling house. Her throat was parched, her hand stung from the fall. Her legs shook with apprehension. The area was secluded, with untamed swaths of land rising like a vast ocean of green, brown and mush foliage as far as eyes could see. The area teamed with shady figures going about their murky business. Fortunately, people often overlooked children, especially young boys, so no one paid attention to her. Just then, she heard a voice somewhere behind her calling out. Involuntarily, she looked back.
To her astonishment, it was the man she had saved from getting mauled to death minutes ago. He was looking at her, waving at her to stop.
Why was he following her?
Ji-na increased her pace and hid between two bulky men who moved in the direction she had to go. She then darted to a narrow alley between two houses, coming out on the other side. She circled the first house and peeped from its corner.
The man stood at a bend in the road that disappeared behind him, eaten by the few houses that rose like sentinels, looking around baffled. Another road crossed it, going away from where he stood at an angle.
After some thought, he started moving along the road that took him away from her.
Heaving a sigh of relief, she quickly made her way to the gambling house, an imposing structure by a deserted patch of land. She stopped shy of it, counted the houses close to it, and knocked on a large piece of rotting wood that passed for a door two houses beyond it. The dilapidated structure shook with the knock.
A burly, bearded man came out, reeking of alcohol. A thinner, shorter man followed him.
"Yellow butterfly sent this for you," she said briskly without looking at them, handing them the pouch. The shorter man took it. His hand brushed her fingers accidentally.
Ji-na turned and walked away, her heart thudding and her calves trembling. Tears pricked in her eyes.
She was scared, revolted and felt dirty.
If a stranger touches your hand, you must bathe seven times to cleanse your sin.
She would be married in four days and never have to do anything like this ever again.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans for her because she had barely taken ten steps when one of the men barked at her to stop. "This ain't enuff money," the burly man with a shaggy grassland for a beard ambled towards her.
"Where is the rest, you mongrel?" the shorter man with a flat nose wearing strands of hair on his chin sniggered.
"I-I don't know, it's all in the bundle I gave you," Ji-na stepped back, panic rising like fetid gas from her gut.
He held up a green pouch. "This ain't enough; those two books will fetch pittance. Yellow butterfly sent a thief now, eh?" his eyes looked dead as he sneered.
"N-No, you are mistaken," Ji-na darted her terrified eyes for an escape route.
"Catch him, Gun-woo," the thinner man spit.
"He speaks fine. If he be a yangban?" the burly man interceded, uncertain.
Without removing his eyes from her face, the shorter man barked, "He is a thief; catch him."
Ji-na turned and ran. The men set chase.
She ran with all her might, but in panic, she ran in the wrong direction. She turned on the nearest bend, hoping to get into an alley to hide, but there was only one house, and the road ended, giving way to wilderness. She stumbled, her obstructing pyjama catching a stray branch and dragging it behind her.
The burly man caught her first, lifting her up by the collar beneath her neck and dangling her in the air like a rag doll.
"Search him. He sure is hiding it someplace."
"Ye sure? What if we not find money?"
"Then we take his clothes. Silk. Should fetch us some pretty nyangs," the shorter trilled with an evil laugh.
Ji-na's heart squeezed in terror. "No, please, don't touch me," she begged, tears tumbling from her petrified eyes.
"Crying like a lassie now, mongrel?" The shorter man jeered at her terror.
Burly dropped her like a sack on the ground. Ji-na tried crawling away, but the man dragged her back like a puppet and yanked her up by her arm. His large hands started roughly prodding and probing, slapping her legs, thighs, back, and chest.
He paused.
"He ain's no boy, Master," concern lacing his voice. "It's a lass."
Ji-na backed away, her heavy tongue falling to the back of her throat, terror making it hard for her to breathe.
"L-let me go, please."
The shorter man had a strange look in his eyes. "Lass, eh?" He rubbed his crotch.
"Master, she speaks fine," Burly warned.
"Yellow butterfly would not send a yangban here. She has to be a cheonin," Burly's master said. "But even if she is, who cares? She ain't living to tell the tale." His laugh turned Ji-na's blood cold.
He lunged at her.
She screamed.
He smacked her, pushed a foul-smelling cloth in her mouth, and slapped a cloth over her head, twisting it behind her in a chokehold. Tossing her up over a shoulder, he ran, holding the end of the chokehold in his hand so she struggled to breathe.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
∞
The blue and purple hanbok, with its green headdress, looked exquisite. The skirt bore the delicate horse and lotus lace woven in gold thread his father had brought his little sister from Ming. Lee Seung watched the man fold it expertly and pack it in a colourful bundle. His sister would be thrilled. There was not much he had been able to give her growing up. Their savings had gone towards his school, with little left to indulge in for themselves.
He expected the tide to turn soon. Seung hoped to make it through the Gwageo this year. Seung had already cleared it once and was ranked at seventh junior rank. At five months short of nineteen, he was already among the youngest ranked officers. Having cleared the chosi and the heosi examinations, Seung was looking forward to clearing the jeonsi in the presence of their King Injo. This time, he was determined to top the exam, which would raise him by four places to third junior rank. Their days of hardship would be a story of the past.
Smiling to himself, Seung paid and held the bundle lovingly. Just then, a shoulder brushed him. A tall, stocky man with a slight limp walked by.
Seung suddenly felt blood rush to his head. As if in a trance, he turned and followed the man, trying to ascertain if what he saw was correct.
The man stopped and took something out of his sleeve. It was a piece of paper. He then looked left at a commotion.
The scar. It went from his jutted, bearded chin, goring the high cheekbone, all the way to the corner of his slanted eye.
The scarred man turned away and started limping across the road. Everything turned black for Seung in an instant. Frantically, Seung felt for the hilt of his dagger in his sleeves. Blindly, he followed the man, only to be obstructed by bodies chaotically moving around him.
Voices crashed in his mind.
"No! Seung, forget what you saw. Forget it. Promise me!" His mother was shaking him. "Erase it from your mind. You will never speak a word about it. Never! Promise me!" His mother's hysterical voice slammed him. He closed his eyes to shake it away.
The blood was still warm under his father's body. Warm and sticky. The eyes were open, looking at Seung as if demanding he seek retribution.
Sweat trickled down his sideburn. Noises hammered at his temple. His mother was screaming. He was screaming, but no sound came out. The screams coalesced into white noise he could not process. He saw himself asking his father to get up, over and over, wishing it was all a nightmare. A nightmare he had been living for the last nine years. He needed to go. To find this man.
His feet would not move.
Seung felt something slam at his body, uprooting him from his frozen stance and propelling him down.
Down and down until he hit the ground. A weight shifted on his back. Loud yells penetrated his foggy brain.
Just then, a cluster of hooves passed them by.
A small hand was planted next to his face. The hand lifted, only to have a green-looking thing stick in his hat. It was a bracelet. The hand jerked, and the bracelet slipped out.
Seung sat up. A young boy was brushing his ill-fitted tunic. Though still dazed, Seung was getting his bearing back. He looked up at the child, who was frantically looking around for something.
The child retrieved a brown cloth bundle and quickly walked away.
A blue velvet pouch had fallen from it.
"Wait, wait -" he called out after the child as he hurried away.
People had gathered around him to help him up. Some were concerned, others were chiding him. He said his thank yous but waived away their help. His hand touched something. It was the green bracelet the lad had been wearing.
With lightning speed, Seung got up and retrieved the blue pouch. Coins clinked together, a lot of them.
He could see the child walking at a distance, his improperly sized ash and brown handbok hanging way below the average hem length. The lad was no more than eight, maybe ten at most. Seung knew he could catch up with the youngster if he walked fast. Pocketing the bracelet and the money bag, Seung gathered his bundle and followed the child.
Seung had almost caught up with him when the boy turned. Surprisingly, the child was walking towards the most secluded and notorious area in Hanyang.
Seung increased his pace. He could see the lad walking at a hearing distance. He called out loudly. Once, twice, three times. People turned to look at him. So did the child, but then the lad moved between two large men in the crowd and vanished from his sight.
Seung stood, trying to figure out where he might have gone. It was clear the child was hiding from him. A crossroad went behind the cluster of houses. His chances of finding him there were the maximum.
Seung wandered around for the next few minutes. He would not leave until he had a chance to thank the youth for saving his life and perhaps escort him back to his home. A lad his age should not roam alone in areas like this. Slave traders were everywhere.
That's when he heard the scream.
Bloodcurdling. Terror filled.
Seung raced in the direction of the scream. He scanned his surroundings. The landscape was littered with sparse, dilapidated houses. Unruly wilderness claimed the terrain, deciduous trees thickening the belly of the forest at elevation.
He spied a movement that was out of place, his senses hunting for danger that triggered all his internal warnings. Two men rapidly climbed the forest, one hoisting a small bundle over his shoulder. The pale ash silk hanbok was unmistakable even from this distance.
They were kidnapping the child.
Seung sprinted after them, unsheathing his dagger fluidly. He slashed all obstructing vines that hit his face, determined to catch the bastards before they could harm the boy.
He was panting when he reached where he had last seen them, with no one in sight. Dropping the hanbok bundle on a rock where he could find it later, Seung crept up, listening intently to any sound that could alert him to their presence.
His efforts paid off. He heard a moan, a keening sound of a terrorised, pleading person.
Parting the thick vegetation, Seung saw a man hunched over a small, struggling form on a flattened rock in a small clearing. A soiled, sack-like cloth covered the child's head. A large, overstuffed man with a grizzly beard was standing a foot away from the rock, rubbing his crotch. A smaller man was disrobing the child rapidly, holding the child's thin, tiny wrists with one while tearing at the tunic with the other. The small figure pinned under him thrashed wildly, clawing, twisting, flailing his legs.
The man started laughing maniacally, the cackling sounds rebounding ominously from the trees. He then tossed the tunic away, exposing the flesh.
Seung froze.
The flesh of a very, very young but unmistakably female form. A greedy, grimy hand closed over a flat, almost non-existent breast that hardly rose from the chest, topped with a large pink aureole that dispelled all notions of Seung being wrong.
A repressed, muffled scream pierced the air.
The man freed her hands and reached for the fastening of his pants. The girl clawed at his hands on her chest, frantically tossing her head from side to side.
Blood drained from Seung's body before rushing back with an intensity that almost exploded his head. The rage he had felt earlier when he had spotted the scarred man rushed back manifold. Yet he felt cold wash over him, almost like he could see everything in slow motion.
Seung burst upon them, surprise being his biggest weapon, his boot connecting with the side of the rapist's head with a crack that threw the bastard off the child, his shoulder hitting the ground with another crack. A painful whelp filled the air.
While Seung kept his eyes trained on the thugs, with the periphery of his eye, he saw the young girl roll off the rock, her hands desperately covering her nakedness. She yanked off the cloth that shrouded her head and covered her chest with it, but not before he noticed angry welts forming on her delicate skin.
A rage akin to nothing before slammed his body.
"Why don't you deal with someone more your size?" Seung was cold as ice.
The larger brute snickered; his hand was still folded over the bulge between his legs.
Seung stood across from the thugs, legs planted apart, his dagger clutched tightly. He gave the girl a quick sideways glance and worriedly noticed her loosely fitted pants slipping down her hips a bit, revealing a large mole at the base of her spine right above the shadow parting the cheeks of her bottom as she extended her hand to grab the ruined tunic.
The revolting pig licked his lip, ignoring Seung, his eyes fixed on the small scrambling figure.
She was not out of danger yet, thought Seung, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. Seung was one against two, which could quickly turn dangerous with the girl in the mix.
Seung moved to shield her from the view of the thug. He almost shuddered with relief when he heard the girl run and disappear into the trees.
The brute made no effort to follow her.
"We're just havin' sum fun," he exposed a broken tooth and a set of blackened teeth. The smaller man with the goatee groaned and stood up.
"Ye lookin' fer trouble, lad?" the lech drew out his words threateningly.
"Why not?" Seung returned evenly.
Lee Seung was young, but he stood a good head above most men, his broad shoulders spreading like the wings of an eagle poised to swoop, his grip on his dagger and ice in his eyes sending a clear message to anyone that he was not someone to be trifled with.
They better not. Seung had spent a decade channelling his rage into ruthlessly bending his body to the rigours of marshall art and mastering weaponry in hopes that one day he would find his father's killers. And wipe them out.
The giant finally stopped his disgusting motions and stepped forward. "Ye want me to take him down, master?"
The goateed thug looked at Seung speculatively. "That lass is a thief. We just wanted to punish her for stealing from us."
Seung remembered the blue pouch. Shifting his blade to the other hand, Seung pried the bag out of his sleeve and tossed it between the two delinquents. "Looking for this? She dropped it on the road on her way to you."
The goatee bent and picked up the money bag, juggling it up and down on his palm, checking for its content, the jingling noise satisfying the greed in his eyes. He motioned the giant by his side to follow him.
"Ignore the bundle on the rock on your way down. Touch it, and I will find you."
The large brute grunted and came swinging at Seung, who was more than ready. Seung ducked and came back up, his fist connecting with the flabby chin in an uppercut that dislodged a tooth. The man staggered back, howling in pain.
"Try again, and I will disembowel you. Also, if I were you, I would stay away from that child and anyone involved."
The goatee kicked burly in his shin, who howled again. "I told you not to use yer brain."
The would-be rapists slinked away and disappeared from his view.
Seung released a shaking breath and sheathed his dagger. He then walked towards the dense growth to which the girl had escaped.
He found her crouched, the ruined tunic drawn around her tightly, folded legs drawn to her chest, her head hidden in her arms wrapped around her knees as she wept into them silently, brokenly.
Seung did not know what to do. The girl sensed his presence and shrank, edging and turning away from him, keening moans pouring from her in grief.
"I am not going to hurt you, little girl. I will just sit here if that is all right with you," Seung said gently to her back, a tone he often used with his sister when she was upset. He lowered himself to the ground a reasonable distance away so she felt safe.
Her small, trembling body wracked and heaved with heartbreaking sobs and shattered breaths.
Seung sat with her, watching the rocks and vines that loomed above them until he could sense her tiring, her dry hiccups indicating she was calming down.
After a while, the girl sat motionless.
"I wanted to thank you for saving my life today," Seung told her softly. "I am sorry if I scared you by following you. You had dropped a money bag when you jumped in to save me. I wanted to return that."
The girl hung her head back into her arms in reply. "I am ruined," the girl whispered brokenly, another desperate sob breaking from her, bringing on fresh tears, and she rocked herself, her knuckles white.
Seung felt a strange twinge in his heart at her forlorn figure. Inexplicably, he wanted to draw her into the protective fold of his arms.
She had to be a yangban. Though Seung could not really make out how she sounded normally, he recognised easily that her speech was exquisitely refined, her posture elegantly poised despite the ravages she had just undergone. How and why she was here was beyond his understanding. He knew she had come to pay money to those thugs, possibly gamblers, which explained her disguise in the obviously rich, though ill-fitting hanbok. She conceivably had a gambling father and had fallen upon distressful times. He cursed silently at the rotten man who had pushed her to her near ruin.
"You are not ruined. Nothing happened. No one knows, and no one will know. You are safe. I will safely escort you back to your house if you can trust me."
"I-I cannot go home. I am ruined." She uttered the words in a barely audible voice.
"Of course you can."
But he was beginning to see her point. Her tunic was torn; she was clutching it in place with her folded knees and fists, and she was dishevelled. She had even lost the cap she had worn earlier.
Seung knew what to do. Though his heart felt heavy, he knew it was the right thing to do. His sister would understand.
∞
Ji-na felt as if her life was leeching out of her. The horror of those filthy hands on her body made her feel like bugs were still crawling on her skin. She wanted to throw up.
She didn't know how much time had passed. It could have been a few minutes. It could have been hours.
She had calmed down enough, thankful for the man who had saved her life, though he had been too late to save her honour.
"Stay here until I am back," she heard him moving away.
Panicked, she turned, "Dont go, please -"
The man had just stepped out of the foliage, and she could see his boots and trousers.
"Don't be afraid, I will be back. I have to get something," his tone was soothing, almost healing, as he addressed her through the thick screen of the leafage.
As promised, he came back. Ji-na turned around and hid herself in her arms once again. She could not let him see her face. He had seen everything that no man other than her husband should have seen.
He and those two evil men. She felt the burn on her chest from the scratches she had received.
It sickened her.
She wretched, emptying her stomach on the ground. She puked and puked until nothing more would come out.
"Are you all right? I am sorry I do not have water to offer you."
She heard a rustle.
"I bought this for someone; she is about your size, and this should fit you. Why don't you change into it? I will wait for you by the rock."
Ji-na had no strength left to say anything. She heard him leave.
It was a small bundle that opened to reveal a hanbok. Blue, purple and green.
Ji-na peeled off her ruined clothes with shaking hands and donned the new hanbok without another word. It was a little loose for her size, but not by too much and the length fit. She had never been so grateful for clothes. She tightly encircled her face with the headdress.
She slowly walked to the edge of the clearing and peered.
The man was sitting on the rock, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at ankles, tearing at a twig preoccupiedly. The sun shone directly on his features. He had glowing skin, stretched over high cheekbones. A sharp nose with a narrow base graced his oval face. A square, powerful chin jutted out of a jaw chiselled by a sculptor. Straight brows were currently knit in a frown, shielding eyes that looked deep and dark from afar. He was simply the most handsome man she had ever seen. Handsome and honourable. She would have blessed him with a thousand beautiful lives if she could.
He turned as she stepped out. She kept her head down, making sure her face was not exposed. She would save whatever she had left of her modesty.
Without another word, he led the way, and he understood her need for anonymity and kept his gaze averted from her face. She followed him. Then, he let her lead once they were out of the thick foliage.
The trek down the hill was challenging as she struggled to keep her face covered. Twice, she slipped, and he helped her up by holding her arms from behind. She was ashamed that both times, she jerked away as if burned, and he let go immediately.
They made their way down without further incident. He walked her all the way to the middle of the town.
She stopped where she had first seen him and plunged headlong to save him.
It was ironic. They had both saved each other.
"I want to go alone from here. Khamzamnida Dari for saving me," she said in a voice hoarse from crying that was just above a whisper. But he understood.
"You saved my life, too, little one. Khumabda. Go home child and remember nothing happened. Tell no one. In a few years, when you are old enough to get married, pretend this day never happened; your husband will never know. And keep the hanbok. I don't need it back."
He thought he heard a sob, but she made no sound. She bowed deeply and left.
Seung saw her disappear around the corner, her fast gait telling him she was not far from home and felt safe. He wanted to follow her yet also grant her what little dignity and self-respect anonymity brought her. His heart went out to her. She was going to live with the trauma for the rest of her life.
Belatedly, Seung realised he still had her bracelet with him. A wry smile bent his lips. It was not even noon, and he could already count this as the most challenging day of his life since the one when his father had died in his arms, his life cut short by the cruel blades of his enemy.
A day when he saw his father's possible assassin for the first time. And knew he would hunt them and make them pay.
A day when a little girl endangered herself to save his life and gained a nightmare that would last her a lifetime.
A day where possibly both could have died but lived.
Both were perhaps left with a token remembrance of this excruciatingly painful, fate-changing day.