An Invitation to the Sea
"……You're referring to the seven-day ritual, I take it?"
"That's right."
So this was something deserving of a proper response, then.
Chairman Woo had leaned so heavily on the spiritual world that he'd personally entrusted Granny with a ritual spanning a full seven days. But Tae-shin was different. He was a man who neither believed in shamanism nor was swayed by superstition. And yet the assessment he'd handed down felt strangely generous—generous enough to seem almost out of character.
She had half expected him to fire off something cutting, like a waste of time and money. Well, this is a surprise…. Tilting her head, Lee-seol asked offhandedly, "What on earth happened back then—"
"You should eat quickly, Agassi. Your food's barely been touched."
Calling her Agassi from outside the estate, of all things. Lee-seol's face grew a touch warm. It seemed to be retaliation for her calling him Executive Director earlier.
She bowed her head and looked down at her kalguksu bowl—nearly untouched. It stood in stark contrast to Tae-shin's, which was more than half empty, even though they'd supposedly been talking at the same pace.
"Do you have a small appetite, Shin Lee-seol-ssi?"
"……A little."
"You have to eat well to weather life's ups and downs. And the road ahead of you doesn't look all that smooth."
Had he not grabbed her back there, she would surely have collapsed on that road she'd walked a hundred times. She could have had ten mouths and still nothing to say. Lee-seol wordlessly picked her chopsticks back up.
Only then did it dawn on her, belatedly, that Tae-shin had deftly sidestepped the very topic she'd brought up.
She studied him quietly. Draped in composure as if it were armor, he was utterly calm, like flowing water.
Something… feels off.
There seemed to be far more hidden things she didn't know about. She was no psychic, but her instincts weren't bad.
The seven-day ritual. Just a simple cleansing rite, on the surface—and yet something enormous felt buried beneath it.
If only she could find out what that was, she had a feeling it would untangle a great many things.
With a rather resolute heart, she tried to carry on with her meal—but Lee-seol's meal was anything but smooth.
"……Why are you staring at me like that?"
Tae-shin, who had long since finished eating, had his gaze fixed squarely on her. He rested his chin on one hand at an angle, showing no intention whatsoever of hiding where his eyes were aimed.
"Wanted to see how it tastes."
He replied in a low, unhurried voice. Unbearable. She scooped up an enormous mouthful and slurped it down—no telling whether the noodles went into her nose or her mouth.
"What do you usually do with yourself at Sehwawon, Shin Lee-seol-ssi?"
Tae-shin asked. Blinking, Lee-seol pondered for a moment how to answer. The first thing that came to mind was, of course, writing. But she didn't think she could tell him now that she lived by her pen.
The world was full of people who wrote for a living, true—but it hadn't been long since he'd gone on and on about Dongbaek. She had a prickling feeling in her gut, worried that this sharp-eyed man might catch on.
"Well. I just… look after the manor. And twice a week, I take flower arrangement and piano lessons."
Lee-seol had spent years learning flower arrangement from a young instructor who visited the manor every few days. The same went for the piano.
"You play the piano?"
One of Tae-shin's eyebrows arched sharply. He seemed to have reacted to the word piano.
"Yes. There's a piano on the first floor of Sehwawon. It's quite old, but…."
"How good are you? Should I be asking which Czerny book you're on?"
"……I'd say I'm not bad… by hobbyist standards."
"Suits you."
Tae-shin ended the conversation ambiguously. It felt as though he had more he wanted to say but held back. What was that about. When she tilted her head slightly, he brought up something else entirely.
"Speaking of which—flower arrangement, piano. Rather like bridal lessons, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"The old lady must be eager to marry you off, Shin Lee-seol-ssi."
Who could say. Granny had told her that even if she lived her whole life here admiring pretty things, she ought to have this much refinement ingrained in her.
Come to think of it, while Granny Yoon-hwa had said that leaving this place would require marriage, she didn't seem to think Lee-seol necessarily had to be married off at all.
Unbefitting her age, the woman treated the very concept of marriage as optional. Then again, she herself had never married anyone in her entire life.
And if she'd truly intended to marry her off, she would never have shut her away in this manor from the very start.
"I don't know…. It didn't seem that way at all. If I married, I'd have to leave this place, and I thought she might be lonely."
Hmm. At that, Tae-shin let out a small hum and changed the subject.
"Have you ever been in love?"
"……Why on earth would you ask that?"
Completely unbothered by her pointed retort, Tae-shin pressed on.
"Curious, that's all. What kind of man does Shin Lee-seol-ssi like?"
"……."
"Or have you never even tried it?"
It truly made her blood boil, but he was right. She'd never given romance any serious thought, nor did she believe she had to experience it. Having no dating history up to now was simply the result of that.
Lee-seol's irritation was plain to see; Tae-shin took one look at her sour expression and smirked.
"Then I take it you've stayed here at Sehwawon the whole time?"
"Something like that."
Lee-seol dropped her head and slowly stirred her leftover kalguksu. He was stating the obvious, so why did it feel so mortifying? A sterile room. The word surfaced and drifted away for no reason at all.
"You've never once been outside?"
"Never beyond Eulju-ri…."
"That's a shame. There are so many wonderful things out there."
"……."
"Have you never wanted to go?"
Her chopsticks stopped dead at those words. It was as if the air surrounding them had suddenly turned bleak and razored.
The detached gaze of the man lounging with his chin in his hand was still fixed on her. Within that contemplative look—always poised between ease and ennui—a flicker of curiosity had kindled.
Those eyes expect an answer. No—they look like eyes that already know what I'm going to say.
"……No. Not really."
Lee-seol lied as impassively as she could manage.
Who on earth wouldn't know that? She knew perfectly well. She knew how wide the world outside was, and how narrow this place was for her.
But curiosity about the outside was something she was never permitted.
Here was this smug man, every inch of him proclaiming he belonged to somewhere else. Confessing her longing for the world beyond in front of him felt, somehow, like confessing a desire to know him better.
A man who had flowed in from the outside, draped in every treasure the world coveted like mere ornaments. A low, dangerous stranger with a knack for prodding that ugly instinct—the one that craves forbidden things.
Her insides tangled into knots. Lee-seol grew all the more uncomfortable with Woo Tae-shin.
"There's a lot you haven't done, Shin Lee-seol-ssi. I'd wager you've never even seen the sea."
Tae-shin drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Mt. Hyeonak and Sehwawon were beautiful places, of course—but beyond them, gorgeous and magnificent things existed in tiresome abundance.
Nothing was more arrogant than passing judgment on another person's life. He wasn't pitying her, exactly, but the thought did cross his mind that she'd lived a rather joyless life. Living somewhere like this, one would wither away into nothing but mountain and green.
He felt, for a moment, that this woman was a waste. Tae-shin's eyes narrowed briefly.
"I suppose."
"The sea suits you, Shin Lee-seol-ssi."
The vast, bleak, lonely sea.
The low voice drifting toward her was uselessly melodious. Lee-seol averted her gaze slightly.
The East Sea—the closest coast to Eulju-li—was about an hour and a half away by car. Naturally, Lee-seol had never seen the sea with her own eyes. The space she'd lived in all this time struck her anew as impossibly cramped.
"Someday, shall we sneak off and go see it—without telling Granny Yoon-hwa?"
Though no ear was listening, Tae-shin leaned in from the shoulders, proposing it in a voice pitched low and soft.
Blinking, Lee-seol stared at him from a distance. With the words without telling Granny attached, it somehow felt like they were plotting something wicked together. Don't let him taint you—that warning kept buzzing and circling through her head.
And yet it was alluring. Alluring enough to make her want to nod and tumble straight in. Her heart was beating a little too fast.
"……If I had the time for it."
"Skip a flower arrangement lesson for a day or so—I don't see why not. It's not as though you're getting married any time soon, are you?"
Lee-seol narrowed her eyes and shot him a sidelong glare. His oily eyes curved gently in return.
The meal soon drew to a close. Feeling oddly indebted, she rose first and made for the register—but Tae-shin slipped his card out with the smoothness of flowing water.
"Consider it payment for recommending such a fine place."
He smiled, his eyes crinkling. Well, if you insist…. Lee-seol let him pay without protest.
She returned clutching the two mint candies sitting on the counter, to find his phone on the table buzzing incessantly.
He picked it up to check the caller—and his brow creased ever so slightly.