The Seed He Left Behind

Before she could even finish her sentence, her left cheek was burning as if scalded by fire. A sharp crack split the air, and her vision flashed white once more.

It took her a moment to understand what had just happened to her. I got slapped. Shin Lee-seol pressed a trembling hand to her reddened cheek and stared at her grandmother, dazed and uncomprehending.

"So now even my words sound like a joke to you."

"G-Grandma……"

"Is that it, hmm? Go on, then. Say it to my face. Properly."

Grandma Yoon-hwa's eyes, blazing with fury as she raised her hand again, had lost their light entirely. There was not a trace of regret or remorse left in them — only a bottomless, unfathomable rage. These were not the keen, clever eyes that had once shared every secret with her. These were the eyes of someone being hunted. What was Grandma so afraid of? Lee-seol thought she had a fairly good idea.

"I heard everything! The last person who asked you to perform a rite was the Chairman of Haeun Group!"

"Wh-what did you say?"

The old woman's face went white, caught completely off guard. Unmistakable confusion cracked through her voice. Lee-seol let everything she'd been holding back come pouring out at once.

"That's why you hate Woo Tae-shin, isn't it? Because being around him keeps reminding you of everything you lost to your own greed!"

No one alive knew Grandma Yoon-hwa better than she did.

Which meant that no one could press on the old woman's sorest spot and leave a deeper scar than Lee-seol herself.

It didn't take long deliberation to work it out. It could only be that way, couldn't it? Looking at Woo Tae-shin, Grandma had to be seeing her own past self overlaid on him — the foolish woman who lost her patron spirit to a single moment's mistake. Lee-seol was certain of it, almost effortlessly so.

"Why, you—!"

"That's why you couldn't stand him getting close to me……!"

Just as she'd expected. Grandma Yoon-hwa's face mottled red and blue like some vengeful spirit.

The wrinkled hand rose high into the air once more. Lee-seol had no intention of standing there and taking a third blow. She snatched the phone from her grandmother's other hand and bolted out of the room.

"Shin Lee-seol!"

A furious bellow erupted at her back. Perhaps Grandma Yoon-hwa believed that if she only shouted loud enough, Lee-seol would stop on her own.

Her sprinting steps faltered for a heartbeat — that was all. Lee-seol ran on down the corridor. Her grandmother, with those unsteady legs, would never be able to catch her.

Bang, bang, bang — she thundered down the staircase as if staging a protest with every step, jammed her feet into her sneakers without untied laces, and fled the manor.

Outside, the autumn rain was coming down in sheets. The moment she passed the front door, the heavy downpour soaked her hair through and through.

……Where do I even go.

The old house stood alone on the mountainside; there was nowhere nearby to run to. No house she could call a neighbor for miles.

Maybe I could stay a day in the servants' quarters……. But Grandma would find out within hours if she did. And right now, the last thing she wanted was to linger at Sehwawon. The place that had always felt so snug and safe now seemed unbearably suffocating.

She couldn't exactly camp out on the mountainside either. She had to get down to Eulju-ri — even if it meant an hour's walk in the pouring rain.

Not that reaching the village solved anything. She'd have to find an inn, but in her frantic escape she hadn't even thought to grab her wallet — she hadn't even managed to grab an umbrella, for that matter. Sure, if she mentioned Sehwawon's name, they'd probably lend her a room…….

No — maybe I should go to Jang Hyun-woo's house and stay the night. But that option didn't sit right with her either. She might not survive the throbbing, awkward atmosphere — might end up biting her tongue just to escape it.

In the end, Lee-seol possessed exactly one thing.

The seed of discord that Woo Tae-shin had left behind.

She prodded the rain-specked phone screen mischievously with her thumb, and it lit up.

There was a single contact saved in this phone.

Fine. Woo Tae-shin.

There was, in fact, a way. She could shelter from the rain somewhere reasonable, wait for him, and ride away in whatever car he brought. Simple and painless.

It might even be the easiest option available — and the most effective way to enrage her grandmother, too.

She knew all this. She knew it so well that, strangely, her heart refused to cooperate.

……Because Grandma told me to stay away from him?

No, it wasn't that stale excuse. If anything, right now she felt like she'd do almost anything, so long as it grated on her grandmother's nerves.

There was some other reason she couldn't name — some indistinct resistance she couldn't pin down. Lee-seol grew a little frustrated with her own muddled feelings, which refused to clear. She had never once, in her entire life, felt this particular kind of suffocation.

Okay. Okay, just walk a little. Think while you walk. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually you'll get there…….

She soothed herself and trudged onward. Her body shivered, drawn thin and fine by the cold rain. Her shoes, sodden through with water, delivered a horrible squelching sensation with every step along the muddy, drenched path.

This is the worst. She had no idea who to blame for it all. Lee-seol scrubbed irritably at her eyes, unable to tell whether what ran down her cheeks was rain or tears.

How long had she been walking down the road toward the lower village? The harsh glare of headlights cut through the dark, drawing closer from far away.

The car climbing the winding road soon came upon her head-on. The bright beams filled her whole field of vision, and Lee-seol shielded her eyes with a hand, squeezing them shut.

When she opened them again, blinking, the driver's-side door was already open and a figure was approaching, unfurling a large black umbrella.

"I was starting to think my eyes were playing tricks on me at last."

"……"

"It was you, Agassi."

The low, deep voice belonged to Tae-shin.

With a suit jacket draped over one arm, he advanced like some savior come to deliver her. He said he'd be here soon — apparently he'd just pulled in at this very moment.

When he drew near, he tilted the umbrella toward her at an angle. Only then did Lee-seol finally find shelter from the rain.

The downpour, thickening by the minute, was soaking one side of his clothes a deep, dark hue. Her gaze darted briefly to the firm skin showing faintly through the white of his shirt.

Tae-shin looked down quietly at the girl before him, soaked through like a drowned little mouse.

From a distance she'd looked like a ghost — a pale, delicate shape swaying precariously in the rain.

She was wearing the thin white pajamas he'd seen on her that one night. The water beaded at the ends of her long hair, and the curves the rain-dampened fabric clung to were, frankly, quite alluring.

She's grown. Irritatingly so. He pressed down hard on the rogue thought and asked, as politely as he could manage,

"Where exactly are you going, dressed like that?"

"……I'll manage on my own."

"Ah — or is it to that 'friend's' house, the one with the strange eyes? If you show up looking like this, I'm sure he'd be delighted."

Tae-shin drawled, needling her. She was barely hanging onto her composure as it was; she was in no mood to indulge his cheap jokes. She twisted her body away, meaning to push past him and keep descending — and then his suit jacket settled over her shoulders. His hand rose suddenly toward her mouth.

"You got hit."

His thumb traced gently along the corner of her lips. She'd tasted blood in her mouth, so her lip must have split. Lee-seol dropped her gaze, embarrassed.

"Why did the elder strike you?"

"……I never told you it was Grandma."

"She's the only person in that house who would ever lay hands on you."

"……"

"Why did she strike you?"

As if he absolutely had to have the answer, his voice pressed the question again with an almost tender patience. And the fingers drifting near her split lip were confusing in their intent, to say the least.

Now that she finally had someone to pour her grievances out to, everything that had been about to burst inside her melted into a soft, aching blur. Lee-seol answered in a low voice, slow and halting.

"……I got caught with the gift you left me."

"Ahh."

Tae-shin let out a small sound of realization as he looked down at the phone clutched tight in her small white hand. Lee-seol seized his shirt sleeve and knotted her brow.

"It's all…… because of you."

All the filthy dregs she'd been swallowing this whole time came boiling up and out.

And come to think of it, not a word of it was wrong. Ever since Tae-shin arrived, the edges of her daily life had started to fray — and now the whole thing had come apart at the seams.

He was the one who'd pried open everything she'd known and turned away from anyway. The one who'd made her see truths she never needed to know, laid bare down to the last detail. The one who'd broken the things she'd guarded so carefully for so long.

Every last bit of it — his fault.

Wet light shimmered in Lee-seol's voice as she hurled her accusations at him.

"Now that you mention it — yes, I suppose it is."

Tae-shin admitted it cleanly, without a moment's hesitation.

Lee-seol bit down hard on her lower lip. She tasted blood again.

"Then I suppose it's my responsibility to take care of it, too."

"What responsi—"

Tae-shin bent sharply at the waist toward her. His gaze studied her face slowly, deliberately — an ordinary scrutiny, and yet needlessly, unbearably deep. Lee-seol sucked in a breath without quite knowing why.

Then a warm, soft sensation passed over the injured spot. What was actually happening right now registered more slowly than the slap her grandmother had given her.

Even though she had seen it, felt it, with her own open eyes, it took her a very long time to realize that the unfamiliar touch against her cheek was his tongue.