Chapter 22

“Did you sleep well?”

Had he really managed to move in just like that?

Ja-yeong stared in disbelief at the man picking eggplants from the vegetable garden. The fresh morning sunlight shone down on his broad back like a halo, while the sparkling green leaves added a refreshing touch to the scene.

Was he filming a commercial or something? Han Eden hummed as he breathed in the grassy scent of the freshly picked eggplant stems. Judging by his expression, he looked more at home here than in his own house.

The previous night, her grandfather had returned from the clinic and, without even giving her a chance to explain what had happened, had immediately declared Eden an official member of their household.

Where had the man gone who used to swing a hoe at any bachelor in town who so much as turned his head in Ja-yeong’s direction? Now he and Eden sat facing each other over a round table laden with late-night snacks, laughing and chatting like the best of friends.

Eden had explained that he intended to help with the tedious chores while she remade the pottery, and Ja-yeong had said there was no need. Her grandfather had offered to clear out everything in the small room to make it comfortable for Eden, and Ja-yeong had said absolutely not.

She was the one who had to remake the pottery, and she was the one who used the small room for storage. Yet her opinion had been summarily dismissed.

Deep in the night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Ja-yeong glared at the pale wallpaper. Was it anger, or was there some other reason? For some inexplicable reason, her heart kept fluttering, and she couldn’t fall asleep.

“What a pain in the ass…”

She muttered so quietly that her voice was barely louder than a mosquito’s wings, desperately trying to calm the chaotic dance of emotions tap-dancing inside her chest.

The small room had originally been thrown together for her father, who’d been an excellent student. The partition separating it from the rest of the house was made of just two sheets of plywood, so flimsy that a single knock might bring it down. Forget sleep-talking—even the faintest sigh carried straight through the wall.

One particularly bitter winter, the kitchen had been so old-fashioned that everything inside it froze solid. Snow lay thick in every direction, making it difficult even to go to the neighbors for a meal.

For Deok-ho, who personally made sure his growing granddaughter had enough to eat, it had been a disaster of the highest order. Fortunately, the old cooking hearth was still intact, and since the house sat beside the kiln yard, there was always a plentiful supply of firewood stacked up year-round.

Planning to make soybean soup, the old man soaked some beans and left them in the small room. The faint heat from the hearth reached that room, keeping the water from freezing while leaving it cool enough for the beans to soak properly. Once they’d soaked leisurely overnight, he would grind them finely on a millstone and boil them until piping hot. That was how he made his granddaughter’s favorite soybean soup, Grandpa’s special recipe.

But even Deok-ho, with all his thoughtfulness about the temperature at which the beans soaked, had overlooked one tiny detail: the sound of the bean skins splitting.

Pop. Pop-pop.

The noises in the middle of the night woke Hwang Ja-yeong, whose senses were as sharp as her grandfather’s. When she’d first left the city and moved to Mount Worak, she’d spent entire nights awake because of the insects chirping all around her. She’d thought she’d finally gotten used to it, only for an unexpected sound to start echoing through the bedroom wall.

The next morning, she saw her grandfather leaving the small room with a washbasin in his hands, and it finally clicked. She’d never realized it because the room had always been empty. The wall separating it from her bedroom was as thin as a sheet of paper.

And yet, last night…

Ever since the man had entered the small room, she hadn’t heard a single sound from it. Not even the noise of him setting down his luggage, let alone the faint popping of bean skins. Was that perfectly sculpted man really so quiet in his sleep that he didn’t snore or even toss and turn?

Was he actually made of stone?

“Do you like eggplant?”

The man’s voice pulled Ja-yeong out of her thoughts.

The bamboo basket her grandfather liked to use looked like something straight out of an interior design magazine in Eden’s hands. She had no idea how he’d managed it in a house without so much as an iron, but his shirt was immaculate, with not a single wrinkle in sight despite its sleeves being rolled up.

Ja-yeong hurriedly swept her hair forward to hide the stretched-out neckline of her pajama shirt. Seeing Han Eden looking so effortlessly handsome first thing in the morning irritated her for no good reason.

“What if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll have to cook well enough to make sure you learn to love eggplant, won’t I, Ms. Hwang?”

The eggplants, grown with the chicken manure supplied by Village Chief Gwak, had grown so enormous that some were almost as thick as Ja-yeong’s calves. Yet in Eden’s large hands, they looked like perfectly ordinary, plump eggplants. His thick, long thumb rubbed over the smooth skin, making a faint squeaking sound.

“W-well… what if I do like it?”

Even Ja-yeong knew her own argument made no sense. She was simply feeling an inexplicable urge to push back against Eden’s unshakable confidence.

“Good. Today’s breakfast menu is eggplant gratin.”

Everything seemed to come naturally to that man. Delivering pottery to Cheongso-yo, being welcomed by the village elders, and settling into someone else’s home—all of it came as naturally to him as if it had already been arranged.

Did he think everyone had to do whatever he said? What did he take the world for? Some place where everything went his way?

“Oh, starting today, I’ll be making all the meals. It seems you haven’t been informed yet.”
“Who said I’d eat your cooking? Besides, I never eat breakfast.”

Ja-yeong answered on impulse, then turned on her heel and walked away without another word.

She couldn’t stop the pottery from being broken, and she couldn’t stop Han Eden from staying here. But she could at least boycott the eggplant gratin he made.

“Ugh, I should’ve brought a melon or something.”

Her arms and legs felt completely drained of energy. Ja-yeong was actually the type who always ate breakfast, and today’s task happened to be one of the most physically demanding stages of pottery making: wedging the clay.

After the clay had been purified through levigation, it spent three years maturing in a special storage pit designed by Master Hwang Deok-ho. The finely mixed clay was dried to just the right consistency, then packed layer by layer into a pit dug deep into the ground.

The microorganisms in the clay, which had been thoroughly stirred and mixed during the sieving process, were given time to ferment slowly, much like kimchi left to mature in a jar. The resulting clay developed a smooth, cohesive texture with just the right amount of elasticity.

She’d heard that some workshops mixed vinegar or makgeolli into the levigated clay, but Cheongso-yo preferred to preserve the natural qualities of the clay from Mount Worak as much as possible.

Grrrgl.

The moment she opened the door to the storage shed built into the mountainside, her stomach rumbled in protest, as if demanding to know whether she really intended to start working in this condition.

Ja-yeong pressed her lips together and lifted the lid off the clay-maturing pit. The sharp, earthy smell of the aged clay seemed to rush toward her, as though asking why she’d shown up so early.

The shovel felt unusually heavy. She maneuvered the two-wheeled cart right up beside the pit, then began shoveling in the amount of clay she needed for the day’s work. The waterlogged clay felt heavier than stone. After just a couple of shovelfuls, her wrists were already trembling.

“Phew… haah…”

She wasn’t even halfway through filling the cart, yet she was already struggling to catch her breath. She really had no energy left. Wiping the sweat from her forehead with the towel around her neck, Ja-yeong found herself glancing toward the wooden fence.

“He said he’d help with the tedious chores, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. Well…”

That was the problem with city people. They could always pack up and leave whenever they pleased, so they came and went as they liked, making grand promises they had no intention of keeping.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly admirable of Ja-yeong to start secretly hoping for his help when Han Eden had barely settled in…

“It’s not the pond’s fault for rippling. It’s the stone’s fault for jumping in whenever it pleases.”

Irritated for no good reason, Ja-yeong slammed the shovel into the mud and grumbled.

“So I’m the stone, then?”

“Eek! You scared me!”

Ja-yeong spun around in shock. Sure enough, it was Han Eden.

“Why do you keep sneaking up behind me and scaring the life out of me?”

“Because the entrance to the shed is right here, and you’re looking over there?”

“It’s not the fact that you’re behind me that’s the problem! It’s the way you keep appearing out of nowhere!”

“Ohhh, that’s what you meant. I’ll be more careful from now on, then. Since it’s an order from the lady of the house.”

The man chuckled mischievously and started walking. Ja-yeong wanted to argue some more, but decided to let it go. She was already exhausted, and raising her voice had left her legs feeling even weaker.

“Were you shoveling clay?”

Instead of answering, Ja-yeong tightened her grip on the shovel. She needed to load the clay and get it to the workshop before her strength gave out completely.

“How much do you need? Hmm?”

“…”

“Do I have to keep popping up out of nowhere and asking questions for you to hear me?”

His heavy footsteps circled around her. Ja-yeong occasionally checked Eden’s movements, but continued shoveling as though she couldn’t care less about him.

Rustle.

The faint sound of fabric rubbing together was louder than the squelching of the mud. Ja-yeong’s head snapped up.

“W-why are you taking your clothes off all of a sudden?!”

She shouted.