Part 25

Back at DongJae

"Are you feeling okay?"

Sunjoon says this in a small voice, finally free of having to watch out for others listening. He's had to hold back his concern on the way back to Sungkyunkwan, and even as he laid out Yoonhee's blankets back in their room in Dongjae, mostly because Jaeshin would not leave their side, with a suspicious look on his face. Sunjoon finally can attend to her, since Yongha has pulled Jaeshin away from the room to talk.

Yoonhee answers his question with a smile. Sunjoon is dissatisfied with her answer, so he lies down close to her and whispers into her ear. "I didn't realize you were so unwell."

His undone hair touches her face. Soon someone will bring him a mang-gun, but Yoonhee likes his hair this way for now. She whispers back, "The one who's unwell is my brother."

Sunjoon whispers even softer, "If you're well, what is this fever?"

                                                        

"I said that I was well, not that it didn't hurt."

Sunjoon realizes what she means and his face reddens. Yoonhee's face reddens as well. Yoonhee's mind travels back to when she was pushing Sunjoon to go ahead and take her. It's not something a woman should do, even if she wasn't in her right mind in that state. Yoonhee feels shame filling her body. She tries to hide her reddened face underneath the blanket, which Sunjoon pulls back down. She tries again, and they repeat this tug-of-war cycle.

"Why do you suddenly want to hide?"

"I'm embarrassed."

"Why are you embarrassed all of a sudden?"

Yoonhee pokes her head out the blanket and asks, "You must not see me as a proper woman, right?"

Sunjoon whispers back, "do you think a proper woman tells a man to submit to lust before moral conduct?"

Yoonhee's eyes fill with disappointment. Sunjoon tries to hold back his laughter.
He reassures her, "what's important is not whether you are proper or not, but the person I've been looking at all this time."

"I.. I lied to you about something."

"Is there something you didn't lie to me about?"

"Huh?"

Sunjoon smiles.

Yoonhee confesses, "I.. I don't do stitching or anything like that. I'm not good at it."

"But you're good at everything that I like. I like that better."

Yoonhee smiles widely, and Sunjoon smiles back. He wipes her forehead with a dry cloth, and puts a cube of ice in her mouth (They did this to lower fevers; not sure that it works). Yoonhee thinks about how he's been this gentle, even back when they first met.

There are only the two in the room. Even though it's hot out, the two lie adjacent to one another and whisper.

"I'm okay with everything, but I wish that you wouldn't call me Hyungnim when we're alone."

"Then what do I call you?"

"Whatever it is, I want it to be from Kim Yoonhee, not Kim Yoonshik."

"But.. what if I accidentally call you that in front of the other students?"

Sunjoon is hesitant because he's embarrassed, but he comes out to say, "there is something you can call me so that they don't notice... It sounds a lot like my nickname..."

"Ah! Ah-rang (what a woman calls her husband or lover)!"

Yoonhee's face reddens as she smiles. But suddenly she's hit with worry. It seems the more and more happy she is, the sooner the bad parts will strike. She imagines Hyo-eun's face.

"To Hyo-eun..."

Sunjoon kisses her eyes, then her ears. He whispers in her ear, "that time I went over there with Soon-dol (his manservant), I told her how I felt. Since then, we haven't met or spoken.

It was hard to meet her when all I could do was think about you."

But Yoonhee is still worried. A Noron and Nam-in, the wall between them is too big. Yoonhee runs her hand down his hair. Maybe she shouldn't worry about the tomorrow....wait. Tomorrow?! Yoonhee suddenly gets up, only to be pulled back down by Sunjoon's hand.

"I--I have to get up."

"You can't yet. Tell me--I'll get you anything."

"I have to prepare for the exam tomorrow. I can't be lying down like this..."

"Rest tomorrow. If you say that you're unwell, Professor Jung will understand."

"Resting is fine, but it will be too hard for me to catch up to the next lesson. I don't have the leisure of wasting a day."

Sunjoon grabs the book before she does, and he lays back down. "Come lie down. I'll read it to you."

Yoonhee complies, and says, "You can start at 일음일양지위도--where they say that yin yang and karma is the 도 (do, the character meaning "road"). I can decipher the characters, but their meanings are always hard to grasp. I think it's harder to understand when the phrases get simpler."

"There's a lot of meanings to the character '도', but here it's understood as 'law' or 'rules'."

"Law? so it's nature's law... You explain it well."

He speaks as though he's whispering. It seems like he's trying to get her to sleep.

"Everything about the universe is in duality. If there is a front, there is a back, and if there is a man, there is a woman. There's nothing with one side. There is a saying here: 'The world is a stage in mid-performance. There is only two performing all these thousands of years. One is woman, one is man.' Nothing can be done with just one. Just as I am nothing without you, and you without me."

Yoonhee laughs out loud to that last sentiment.

"This is the way of the world. If there is peace, there will be pain, and if there is pain, there will be peace."

Will there be a time when this happiness will end to allow for pain to come? Then will happiness come again? Yoonhee doesn't know the amount of pain that will strike, or the magnitude of the second happiness, but she can't imagine that they will be as great as the happiness she is experiencing now.

"I have to memorize the characters for Fuxi as well..."

"It'll be easy to just practice drawing it."

Sunjoon grabs Yoonhee's hand and puts his finger on her palm.

"Ah! That tickles!"

Yoonhee tries to pull her hand away, but Sunjoon holds it down firm.

"Wait! I will draw you each character on your hand. First, 건괘."

There's nothing to draw about 건괘, Yoonhee thinks to herself. It's just six lines. Anyone would know that there isn't anything to memorize there. It's just Sunjoon's desire to touch her that he's pretending to help this way. Sunjoon gets a little bit greedier.

"Recite the eight characters to the left of that."

Yoonhee recites them.

He puts his hand into the blanket. Yoonhee is startled, and tries to pull her waist away.

"What are you doing? We don't know when Gul-oh Sahyung will come back in."

"Your palm is too small to write all eight of them!"

Yoonhee is speechless at his tactic. He could just as well easily write each of them separately on her palm. Even doing this, Sunjoon's face is calm as ever. "I'll start from 쾌."

And he starts moving his finger softly on her stomach. It seems like he doesn't even remember why she wasn't not feeling well in the first place. Or he thinks it's okay, as long as he's not doing more. But with each touch, Yoonhee's lower body becomes more and more sensitive, and her face gets hotter.

Jaeshin suddenly bursts the door open and enters, spitting, "I can't believe he pulled me away for basically nothing! Why haven't the ghosts taken care of that guy yet?"

Yoonhee's face becomes beet red, but Sunjoon has already pulled out his hand, paying attention to the book he holds, as if nothing has happened. Jaeshin sits down next to her and asks, "what were you doing?"

Sunjoon answers, "he wanted to prepare for tomorrow's exam, so I was reading for him."

Yoonhee's face doesn't move.

"Why is his fever still so high?"

"I don't know... maybe it's still hot. I'll give him another piece of ice."

Sunjoon gets up to pull out the bowl of ice, when Jaeshin puts his large hand on her forehead.

"Why is your fever so high? We should get you treated, or at least get some medicine."

"I'm okay. It's just that it's hot."

Sunjoon reaches out to Jaeshin's hand and pulls it away, then puts the bowl of ice in its place. "The ice melted, and this is what we have. It should help lower the fever, though."

Jaeshin feels weird. It's not like Sunjoon pulles his hand away with any type of attitude, but Jaeshin feels as though something is up. He feels a little twinge of anger. Even though Sunjoon does not show it, he's burning up with frustration. Soon the three will have to sleep, and the thought of Jaeshin sleeping next to Yoonhee is making him explode inside. But it's not like he can suddenly propose to change way they've been sleeping. He thinks back to the first night, when he proposed that Yoonhee sleep in the middle, and wishes he had kept his mouth shut then.