The Tiger Cub Has Arrived

"So you already knew."

"How could I not? It crawls into my dreams every night, cursing and raging like something possessed. Damn thing."

To Lee-seol, the two of them looked as though they were meeting for the very first time today. And yet they both seemed to know exactly what this conversation would be about.

A guardian tree. A disturbed dream. As she turned the words over in her mind, Lee-seol recalled something Tongyeong-daek had chattered about a few days earlier, when she'd gone down to Eulju-ri for groceries and come back bursting with juicy news.

Twenty-one years had already slipped by since she came to live with Granny Yoon-hwa, the former mansin whose name no one in the shamanic world had failed to know.

But Lee-seol had no gift for the spiritual arts and understood little of them. Even so, she could tell at a glance what this was.

A textbook case of dongti.

If people had been hurt that badly, it was clearly no ordinary matter… They would likely need a mareum-gut, an appeasement ritual to soothe the offended spirits.

"That is why I've come to ask you to hold a ritual, madam."

If he came to the wrong address, he couldn't have picked a more wrong one.

For a moment, Lee-seol genuinely pitied the man.

"No."

Right on cue. The moment the man got to the point, Granny Yoon-hwa cut him off with a single stroke. But Tae-shin was nothing if not relentless.

"I'll compensate you generously."

"It's not about the money."

"Then what would it take for you to accept?"

Tae-shin smiled lazily, a faint curve of the lips. From the start, he had apparently intended to bargain his way through no matter what. Granny Yoon-hwa's eyes began to twitch and roll with mounting fury.

God, that's terrifying. Even as a child, whenever Granny's eyes took on that look, Lee-seol would be mid-tantrum one moment and shrinking, head bowed the next. How is that man not scared?

"I'll find you someone else. Go to them."

"My situation is rather urgent. I must insist on you, madam."

Yet Tae-shin, entirely unmoved by that monstrous glare, simply held the old woman's gaze for a long moment. Then he tilted his head slightly and answered with languid ease.

"It has to be you. No one else."

He's no ordinary man either. With that, Lee-seol reached her verdict.

Granny Yoon-hwa, who had been staring him down without so much as blinking, twisted her face and clicked her tongue — tch, tch, tch — loud and hard.

"Did your grandfather tell you to do this?"

"You already know the answer."

"……"

"So I intend to stay here until you give me your permission."

And then he smiled. It was such a beautiful face that Lee-seol thought any ordinary person might have simply surrendered on the spot at the sight of it.

"You don't mind, do you?"

Pretending he doesn't know how to take no for an answer, and yet keeping perfect manners about it — what an insufferable man.

Caught in the middle, Lee-seol broke out in a cold sweat and did nothing but watch the two of them nervously. She felt like a shrimp caught in the middle of a battle between whales, its back being crushed for its trouble.

"A tiger cub has walked into my house……"

Her face contorted savagely, Granny Yoon-hwa straightened her stiff old back and rose from her seat.

As expected, Tae-shin had come here fully intending to stay. It was obvious from the sight of him — he'd already brought all his luggage.

Pulling a single suitcase from the trunk of his black sedan, Tae-shin exchanged a few words with what appeared to be his bodyguard and then sent the car away. The black sedan, its owner not aboard, kicked up a cloud of dust as it rolled back down the mountain road.

"Seol-ah. You show him in."

With nothing but those words left hanging in the air, Granny Yoon-hwa rose from the wooden platform and disappeared into the old house ahead of them — visibly, unmistakably in a foul mood.

And so Lee-seol was left standing there awkwardly, alone with Tae-shin, who was pulling the suitcase along with one large hand as though it weighed nothing at all.

Tae-shin shrugged, and his gaze turned toward the young lady of the old house.

"The madam seems like quite a character."

He was testing the waters. His tone wasn't the least bit formal — more like he was fishing for agreement.

"……This way, please."

Don't get swept up in his current. Without answering, Lee-seol quietly led Tae-shin toward Sehwawon. He offered no further comment and simply followed in silence behind her.

Creeeak. The tall gate of Sehwawon swung slowly open.

The rumble of suitcase wheels grinding against the floor, and the steady, muted footsteps pacing hers, sparsely punctured the stillness. Since he seemed to be following well enough, she saw no need to look back.

The interior, which received no lighting beyond natural sunlight during the day, carried the heavy, woody gloom unique to timber-built houses. She climbed the central staircase and stopped before the guest room at the far left end of the corridor, which felt somehow unbearably long today.

The guest room where he would stay during his time here was on the second floor. The same floor as her own room. Lee-seol stole a glance toward the far end of the corridor where her room stood — then quietly turned the guest room's door handle.

Creeeak. The wooden door swung slowly open on its worn hinges.

Though guests were rare here, the room was always kept immaculately clean. That was thanks to Granny Yoon-hwa's obstinate temperament — she would not tolerate a single speck of dust even in an unused room.

Polished-to-a-sheen antique furniture, an old-model television, a bed made up without a single wrinkle. Through the large window beside the bed, she could look straight down on the garden, where a sasanqua camellia swayed in the breeze, its leaves rustling softly.

It was a beautiful view granted only to those who stayed in this room.

Click. She pulled the cord strung across the middle of the room and turned on the light. A small chandelier flickered to life, casting a soft glow over the interior. At the sight of it, Tae-shin let out a small breath of admiration.

"Charming place."

"Well…… it is quite old."

Lee-seol scratched the edge of her jaw, embarrassed. Perhaps because she didn't know what she ought to say, the conversation refused to flow.

She was hardly the gregarious sort who could banter and laugh with a stranger, nor was she particularly gifted with words. And yet she couldn't quite explain why conversation with this man in particular felt so impossibly awkward.

"Do guests come here often?"

His quiet voice reached her. With a grown man a full head taller than her standing in the room, it suddenly felt small.

Lee-seol slowly combed through her memory, recalling the guests who had visited this room one by one.

Tracing back to the most recent occasion, the last person to stay here seemed to have been an old man said to be one of Granny Yoon-hwa's oldest friends. He, too, had been the chairman of a renowned corporation. That would have been when she was in middle school — so even that was at least eight years gone.

People occupying this guest room was just that rare, and that long ago.

What about before that? Lee-seol dug a little deeper into memory. A faint image surfaced in her mind, then scattered.

When had that been? She thought it was around this time of year, when she was exactly nine. A young master had come all the way from Seoul to visit.

The boy — some ten years her senior, always bending his knees to meet her eyes when they spoke — never carried the rough smell of soil or grass. His hands always smelled of clean soap instead.

He stayed for only about ten days before vanishing without warning. Even when the child in her threw a tantrum and wept, nothing that had already been decided could be changed.

And yet, back then, she had truly been so happy. Suddenly, the small scar near her pelvis began to tingle.

She had said silly things like that, too. Looking back on it now, it was nothing more than a slightly embarrassing memory……

Lee-seol rolled her lips inward and bit down, feeling inexplicably sheepish.

She couldn't remember his face, or even the three syllables of his name. Judging by the age gap, he would be around the same age as the man standing before her now.

All she remembered with any clarity was a single fact: somewhere on his left side, just short of a hand-span, there would be a scar. One that had been made the same day as the one left near her own pelvis.

Why am I thinking about this all of a sudden……

It was something from a very, very long time ago.

Why on earth that memory had surfaced just now, she simply couldn't fathom.

Lee-seol pressed the backs of her hands hard against her cheeks. There was no reason to unspool every last thread of that trivial old story for this stranger. She gave a suitably vague answer.

"……No. It's been so long I barely remember."

"Such a lovely room, though. What a waste."

He said it, turning his head toward the window. She could sympathize with his remark that the room was being wasted — the view, exclusive to this guest room, was lovely enough that she had sometimes slipped in here behind Granny's back to read or doze in the afternoon sun.

Lee-seol walked the room at a brisk pace, checking whether anything was lacking. Nothing seemed particularly out of order.

"That door there leads to the bathroom. There's a single-person tub as well, so please make yourself at home. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask the staff — or me……"

She was wrapping up with a final word of welcome — please rest comfortably — and about to step out of the room when—

"You don't look much like the madam, Miss Shin Lee-seol."

Tae-shin asked abruptly. Lee-seol stopped dead, as though her foot had caught on something.

She had heard that she didn't resemble the old woman countless times before. And the question always pointed in the same direction.

Who exactly are you?

Who are you, that you receive the treatment of a young lady in that house?

That was what he wanted to know.