A Name Not Yet Given

Another guest reached out a hand, as if to shield Sowol from the criticism.

"Oh, come now. He had his reasons. A name can wait — the boy carries the Yeon surname either way, doesn't he?"

At that, another guest carefully cut in.

"That's not necessarily true. Yeon could always send the child off to another household."

"……."

"Honestly, growing up in a wealthy family like the Mi caravan would be better for the child than being raised by Yeon himself, if you ask me……"

"Tsk."

Someone clicked their tongue low, and the guest hastily swallowed the rest of his sentence. He stole a glance at Sowol and made a show of studying something else entirely. Sowol answered calmly.

"I'll be raising him for now."

For now.

That was what he said, but even Sowol didn't know how long that "for now" would last. Until Beopgong showed his face again? Until somewhere willing to take the child turned up?

At the hedging in his words, the guests wore puzzled expressions, but no one pressed further. Instead, the conversation drifted off in a completely different direction.

"More importantly — wasn't the baby's mother a courtesan from Jiangnan?"

"I heard she was a martial arts master of the murim."

"Why is everyone's story different? Innkeeper, which is it?"

One of the guests pressed him for an answer. Sowol replied without much thought.

"Neither."

"Then what sort of person was the child's mother?"

"There's no reason for me to share that."

When Sowol drew the line, a look of sympathy crept into the guests' eyes.

"Tsk tsk. So it's true what they say — that wretched illness took her far too soon."

Sowol swallowed a hollow laugh.

If he explained, the rumors warped into something unrecognizable. If he kept his silence, he became a man of tragic mystery. At this point, he almost preferred the rumors about his inn being haunted.

Unlike the much-wronged Sowol, the protagonist of all this gossip was perfectly at ease. The baby lay in his cradle, grunting and straining in an attempt to grab his own toes. When even his outstretched arms fell short of his feet, he scrunched up his face into a magnificent scowl and looked up at Sowol.

"You've got it good, you know. Not knowing anything."

When Sowol poked the baby's soft cheek with a finger, the little one's mood recovered at once and he broke into a beaming smile. Then he flailed both hands about, trying to seize the finger.

"Ahh."

Then again — maybe it was better to know nothing. A child with no parents, whose fate could send him to who-knew-where at any moment. Learning the truth of his own circumstances would do him no good at all.

Sowol quietly gave the baby his finger.

That was all he had to offer, for now.

While Sowol suffered under the weight of the rumors, a month had already slipped by since the Mi caravan's visit. It had been nearly four months since the baby first arrived at the inn.

Spring had quietly seeped into the inn where the winter wind had once blown freely through the doors. Over those months, Sowol had grown fairly adept at caring for the baby. From the sound of a cry alone, he could now tell whether the child was hungry, whether his diaper was uncomfortable, or whether he was simply sleepy.

His hands no longer fumbled when swaddling, and the force of his back-patting after feedings had settled to just the right measure. These days he could gauge the temperature of the goat's milk by letting a single drop fall on the back of his hand. In the beginning he'd warmed it too hot and cooled it, cooled it too much and warmed it again, over and over — but it seemed that, in time, even this was something a person could learn.

As Sowol smacked his lips in mild wonder at how practiced his hands had become, Baekya glued himself to his side and played with the baby.

"Baby. Nose."

"Aboo."

"Nose."

"Ah!"

Ever since Sohye's visit, the child had not levitated a single object. His eyes never turned gold anymore either. Sowol, who had fretted endlessly at first, gradually let his guard down.

But no sooner had one problem settled than another reared its head.

The baby refused to drink his milk.

Even when Sowol soaked a clean cloth in goat's milk as usual and held it to his lips, the baby would suck down no more than a mouthful or two before spitting the cloth right back out. The milk-soaked rag dropped with a soft thump onto his chest.

"What. Doesn't it suit your taste?"

Sowol pressed the end of the cloth to his own lips to test it. It was neither too hot nor too cold, and it carried no sour smell.

When he tried to bring the cloth to the baby's mouth again, the child whipped his head away and contented himself with sucking on his own fingers.

"Come on. You have to eat."

When Sowol moved the cloth to one side, the baby turned his head the other way. When Sowol circled to the other side, back it went again. After a long game of coaxing and cajoling, he finally got the cloth into the baby's mouth — only for the child to push it away after a couple of half-hearted sucks.

His belly was surely empty; he sucked at his fingers and fussed and fussed, yet the moment the goat's milk touched his lips, his face scrunched up before anything else.

"Does something hurt?"

Worried, Sowol laid a hand on the baby's forehead. No fever. He slipped a hand inside the swaddling clothes and gently pressed the little belly. Nothing felt knotted or hard, and the baby showed no sign of pain. His diaper was clean as well.

Sowol was frowning down at the cloth in frustration when a voice called out.

"Uncle Yeon? Are you in?"

At the welcome sound, Sowol looked up at once. It was Wang Yeom from next door.

"Perfect timing, I was just about to come ask you something."

"You, asking me for advice? My, my."

Wang Yeom chuckled as she stepped into the inn. Too embarrassed to preserve any pretense of dignity, Sowol led her straight to the cradle.

"The baby won't take the milk at all. It's not too hot, not sour, but he sucks a couple of mouthfuls and spits it right back out. I swear. I don't know what to do."

"How long has this been going on?"

"He'd been eating less the past few days, and today he won't even let it near his mouth."

"Let me have a look."

Rolling up her sleeves, Wang Yeom crouched beside the cradle and gently pressed the baby's cheeks.

"There now. Open wide for me."

The baby frowned with obvious displeasure, but when Wang Yeom pressed a little firmer with her finger, he reluctantly opened his mouth. She peered around inside it, then let out a small laugh.

"His teeth are coming in."

"Teeth?"

"See here? This spot is swollen."

Sowol leaned in and looked into the baby's mouth as well. Where Wang Yeom pointed, the gum bulged noticeably upward.

"A tooth pushing up hurts and itches, you see. So every time he sucks, it's uncomfortable."

"Should I wean him off the milk, then?"

"It's too early for that. Just feed him smaller amounts, more often."

Wang Yeom answered, then added,

"And from today, start giving him a spoonful or two of rice gruel."

"Gruel?"

"That's right. At first, boil the rice down until it's thin as water and feed him just a spoonful or two. If that sits well with him, you can slowly increase the amount."

Wang Yeom nodded, then held out the small bundle she'd been carrying.

"And take this."

"What is it?"

"A bib Danwoo used to wear. I figured you'd be needing one about now, so I brought it over. From here on out, more is going to end up dribbled down his chin than actually gets in his mouth."

Sowol's face brightened as he accepted the bundle.

"Aigoo, and here I am taking from you every single time. Thank you. We'll put it to good use."

"Thank me for what? I only ever got mine secondhand."

Laughing, Wang Yeom walked him through how to tie the bib and how to cook the gruel, down to the finest detail, before heading home.

Sowol washed the rice until it gleamed, dropped it into a mortar, and pounded it into a fine powder. He filled a small pot generously with water and stirred in the rice flour, and soon a milky-white gruel was bubbling up, soft and slow. He pressed and stirred it with a paddle for a long while — in case even a single lump might catch in the child's throat, he kept at it until every last clump had dissolved.

When he ladled the smooth gruel into a small bowl, a plume of pure white steam rose into the air. He blew on each spoonful until it cooled, then fed the baby one.

"There we go. Try some."

When he offered the spoon, the baby only blinked wide, wary eyes. But when the tip of the spoon brushed his lips, he cautiously parted them.

Nom nom.

As the baby savored the unfamiliar taste, both eyes went round as coins. He gulped the gruel down, and by the second spoonful he was opening his mouth wide on his own.

"You eat well, don't you. Is it good?"

"Ahh!"

The baby kicked his arms and legs, urging him to hurry. A thin trail of gruel ran down from beneath his glistening lips. Sowol caught the small chin with the bib Wang Yeom had given him and wiped it clean.

Then, as he lifted the third spoonful, he remembered Wang Yeom's warning and stopped.

"Let's stop here for today. If you eat too much your very first time, you'll get a stomachache — that's what I'm told."

As he soothed the baby, who smacked his lips in evident disappointment, Sowol was about to take the empty bowl away when he paused.

He simply hadn't noticed because he saw the child every day — but the baby had grown considerably since the night he first arrived at the inn.

A guest's question drifted through his mind.

'What's the child's name? Surely you haven't gone and left him nameless this whole time?'

His body had grown this much, and yet the baby still had no name to be called by.

Sowol rolled a name around in his mouth — one that had come to him unbidden — then swallowed it back down.

A child he was only minding for a while.

Naming him was not his place.

Having drawn that line, he erased the name still lingering on the tip of his tongue from his mind.