“Ten years of martial arts training, huh?”
“I thought it meant I would never see you again because of the training. If my reputation rises, wouldn’t that period just keep getting longer?”
“Stop sulking and get up, Hwa-rin.”
I took Hwa-rin’s hand, who had sat down in disappointment like before, and helped her up.
Whether she became a complete beauty called the “Most Beautiful in Sichuan” after a decade of isolation, her inner self would not suddenly change.
Hwa-rin’s self-esteem had been at rock bottom due to the contempt, discrimination, and pain she suffered during her ten years of isolation experiments before meeting me.
She would hide her inner self with a fierce demeanor like a hedgehog, but whenever something mentally crushed her, she’d immediately fall into a negative attitude or self-deprecation and sulk again.
I thought she had improved a lot while living with me, but it seemed this incident made her want to retreat to her old ways.
Hwa-rin held my hand to stand but wouldn’t meet my gaze, seemingly unwilling to change her mind about breaking up.
“You’re really saying we should break up over something so trivial?”
Now, I have to change Hwa-rin’s mind.
“Trivial, you say?”
Only now did she turn her head.
When I dismissed the breakup reason as trivial, Hwa-rin finally looked at me with slightly raised eyes.
I understood her feelings. Even up until the ’80s and ’90s in Korea, single women and men in their 30s were labeled as ‘old maids’ and ‘bachelors.’
In movies, dramas, and comics from a little while ago, the protagonists often had ‘experienced bachelor’ concepts, but many weren’t even 30 yet, and plenty of heroines in their 20s had ‘old maid’ concepts.
Let alone my world, which is a martial arts game. I even experienced getting married at 20 as soon as I fell into this world!
Martial artists should practice martial arts, and since aging is slower, they tend to marry a bit later, but still, they usually tie the knot by their mid-20s.
For Hwa-rin to tell me to wait until she’s 31 is like asking a couple who met at 20 to wait until they’re in their 40s to marry.
She must have thought it was better to say we should break up than to say such a thing.
“It’s naturally trivial.”
I must minimize Hwa-rin’s worries. I smiled and replied casually.
“Why is it trivial that we can’t be together?”
Well, compared to all we’ve been through, it’s trivial.
“Hwa-rin, is there no hope anymore that you can get better like when we first met?”
I know Hwa-rin’s pain. The face she made every time people frightened her like she was a contagious disease, bowing her head time and again.
How happy was she when I appeared and she stopped suffering! How overjoyed were we when the blemishes on her face disappeared?
“No, I can get better.”
“Then is it like before when we were on the verge of death on our journey to Sichuan Tang?”
Sudden arrivals of Sichuan Tang people, a deadly journey to Sichuan, the fear of facing a tiger in its den, the appearances of Tang Geoh and the Demonic Cult, the life-threatening battles and chases.
If we’d messed anything up, our journey would have ended right there.
“No, I just need to practice diligently.”
“Or maybe we’re in a situation where we don’t know each other’s genuine feelings?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then it must be trivial.”
I let out a small snicker.
“Ten years! We gotta train for a whole ten years!”
Hwa-rin cried out in distress as if she were objecting to me.
“Hwa-rin, are you saying affection will fade if we’re apart for ten years?”
“No way! How could I, I like you so much!”
Hwa-rin immediately rebuffed my words with a startled face.
In a world where magical changes exist, isn’t it too straightforward? Still, it feels good to hear it from Hwa-rin directly.
“So what’s the problem?”
I asked her, sounding puzzled.
Hwa-rin slightly lowered her head, avoiding my gaze, and answered with a distressed tone.
“It’s ten years, Yoon-ho. It’s ridiculous. Just forget about me and meet a nice girl, date, get married, have kids, and be happy… be h-happy… sniff.”
Hwa-rin couldn’t finish her words and started to cry.
“Hwa-rin, don’t say things you don’t mean.”
As I reached out to hug her, Hwa-rin swatted my hand away and, with teary eyes, dropped a bomb on me.
“I won’t be able to make a, a baby with you until I finish mastering martial arts!”
“Now that’s a big deal…”
Oops. I slipped out a remark due to Hwa-rin’s shocking declaration.
“See? sniff sob.”
Hwa-rin seems to have taken my comment as a fatal blow, sobbing with a face full of injustice.
“Hwa-rin, did becoming isolated give you physical issues, or… wait, are you saying you can’t do it anymore?”
“Not at all! How do you think I was born?”
Why is she getting angry while crying? Thank goodness. Some isolated beings in martial arts worlds can be infertile, but it looks like that’s not the case here.
“Then what? It’s not a big deal.”
Hwa-rin, that’s not what I meant.
Kang Yoon-ho thought it was a big deal due to offspring issues, not that big deal. I, of course, didn’t mean it, but I said it calmly to ease her sorrow.
“Did you really say it’s a big deal because of that?”
Did my intention come through? Hwa-rin looked at me with tear-stained eyes, doubtful.
“Yeah, then what is a big deal?”
Kang Yoon-ho is naive and knows nothing. A writer of colored heroic stories, but in reality, clueless. I looked at Hwa-rin with a confused face.
“You know, it would feel good doing it with you, right? Then, emotions would, like, erupt! I’ve heard people say they go to heaven. No, wait! I mean! I really don’t know!”
Hwa-rin seemed to be struck and replied, her face filled with embarrassment.
“Heh heh heh.”*
How cute, Hwa-rin.
“D-Don’t laugh! This is really important!!!”
“I got it, just stop crying and come here.”
I opened my arms to provide Hwa-rin with a place to come to me.
“It’s really important…”
Hwa-rin cautiously approached me, trembling like a frightened little animal.
“It’s not important.”
I pulled her in tightly and patted her until her trembling calmed down.
—
“Hwa-rin.”
“Yeah?”
At that moment, as she felt the strong grip of Kang Yoon-ho on her shoulders, Dong Hwa-rin lifted her head.
“You really misunderstood something.”
What could it be that she misunderstood? Many things raced through Dong Hwa-rin’s mind, but she couldn’t pinpoint it.
“What?”
“Why am I yours? You’re mine.”
Kang Yoon-ho said with a teasing smile.
“What?”
“I told you earlier, so this time, you say it: Hwa-rin, whose woman are you?”
“Ugh.”
This guy…
Is he trying to get revenge after squealing in embarrassment during the Elders’ Council?
Of course, it had been embarrassing, but I did it because I liked him, because I was happy, because he was cool. Dong Hwa-rin looked at him with slightly wronged eyes.
“Huh? Embarrassed?”
“N-No! I… I’m Yoon-ho’s woman.”
As Kang Yoon-ho pretended to sound a bit disappointed, it sprang from her lips directly whose woman she belonged to.
I’m Yoon-ho’s woman. Until she said it, Dong Hwa-rin was embarrassed, but upon saying it, she felt something warm filled inside her heart.
Kang Yoon-ho looked straight at Dong Hwa-rin, his expression serious.
“Yeah. Hwa-rin is my woman, and I’ve risked my life for such a woman.”
“So what?”
Dong Hwa-rin offered a timid resistance, but her face was already on the verge of surrender.
With the warm feeling filling her heart and the hope that he wouldn’t give up on her, she couldn’t hide the smile creeping up the corner of her lips.
Kang Yoon-ho promised one last time to give her reassurance, all to lift her up after she had once fallen into despair.
“I’ll be waiting for the day Hwa-rin returns from the Tea Bookstore.”
—
Dong Hwa-rin looked at Kang Yoon-ho in shock for a while before, overwhelmed with emotion, lowering her head and muttering.
“You have this knack for making serious concerns seem trivial.”
“What? Is that an insult?”
“It’s a compliment, so get it!”
I can’t tell if this guy has good instincts sometimes or if he’s clueless.
“Are you really going to wait?”
Am I hearing things? Even though she clearly heard him right, Dong Hwa-rin wanted to hear it once more and looked at him.
“Yeah, I will wait.”
“Even if I really train hard, it might still take ten years.”
“If I just write diligently, time might pass faster, right?”
Dong Hwa-rin’s heart moved at his words, which trivialized the ten years.
“S-So you won’t date anyone else?”
“Uh… um.”
Kang Yoon-ho was about to answer when he unknowingly hesitated, contemplating the heroines he had met so far and those yet to come.
“What’s with that hesitation?”
Dong Hwa-rin wasn’t about to let that slip.
“No! I mean, Hwa-rin!”
Kang Yoon-ho tried to explain, but there was no need to. Dong Hwa-rin’s face was full of smiles.
Dong Hwa-rin stopped her complaints and gazed at the face of her beloved man.
How could she hate a man who said he would wait for ten years? How could she not love him?
Her eyes, now free of tears, were filled with happiness. And they say happiness multiplies when shared.
Before long, the faces of the two people who had cried, gotten angry, and smiled again drew closer.
The lips that had once been far apart drew near again.
To connect more strongly, as if to untie the knot, their pink knot was tightly bound once more.
More tenaciously, as though they didn’t want to let go.
—
Inside the carriage returning to Sichuan Tang…
Even after the pink knot had unraveled, their hands did not part.
—
No matter how much they wished that day wouldn’t come, time marched on.
I prepared to return to the Tea Bookstore without Hwa-rin, to gather what I could learn and take with me from the Tang Family.
Hwa-rin immersed herself in martial arts training under the teachings of the experts at the Tang Family while also helping the Deputy Head of Family recover from Tang Geoh’s poison during breaks.
Before long, news arrived that Hwa-rin had succeeded in waking the Deputy Head of Family.
And finally, the day of our parting came.
