Chapter 20 — The Hearts Of Humans And Yokai (2)

“Brother, you’ve come back to us!”

His audience with the King had only just ended, and he had no sooner returned to Myeongdong Cathedral when Father Lucas, hearing that Shin Hweein was back, came calling at his chamber with both arms flung up in jubilation.

At that earnest, guileless smile, Shin Hweein let slip a wry laugh.

“Did you think I would not come back?”
“There were so many people of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses about. And since they all adore you, brother, I thought you might end up entrusting yourself to them after all.”
“That… could very well have happened.”

By now even the Royal House had gotten in on it.
That an outsider be received into the Royal House itself was a thing not even a king could lightly say aloud.
If Shin Hweein found the strife with his elder brothers intolerable and threw himself in with the Royal House, the King would take him in, if only to keep his own word.
Of course, the price would be marriage as a live-in son-in-law, so barring some serious turn of events Shin Hweein would never make such a choice.

“But in the end you chose the cathedral. Truly, the Lord’s bosom is the most peaceful resting-place of all.”
“That is not the reason.”

Shin Hweein cut straight back at the priest, who never missed a chance to slip a sermon into the conversation, then his expression softened and he added with a faint smile,

“It is peaceful because the people here are good. …Allow me, then, to impose on you a little longer.”
“You are welcome to stay as long as you like.”

Seeing him grow bashful over what he had just said, the priest laughed too, and held up a baduk board.

“We’ll play today, won’t we?”
“I have a prior engagement tonight.”
“How can this be. Another day’s wait, then!”

To the priest reeling in shock, Shin Hweein asked,

“And the Cardinal? Has he had nothing to say?”
“No. In truth, setting aside what happened in Suwon, with you here, brother, all the matters that had been piling up have rather been knocked off in a single sweep. There aren’t all that many cases in Korea that require an Exorcist Priest to step in personally.”
“Well, this country is a country of sorcery.”

Shin Hweein nodded silently, then asked abruptly,

“Is it really all right that you do not return to the Vatican?”
“As a matter of fact, the Vatican is in no hurry to have me back. Zer is rather more burden than the Vatican is willing to shoulder.”
“Suddenly you’ve turned to weighty matters again.”
“There were one thing and another during my time at the Vatican as well. But since coming to Korea, a great many things have changed.”

The priest read the regret in Shin Hweein’s face at having brought it up needlessly, and waved a dismissive hand as if to say it was nothing.
Fortunately, the smile on his face was not a manufactured one.

“His Eminence Cardinal Mose Oh Unwon, my present direct superior, is famous for his exceedingly mighty holy power. As a former Exorcist Priest himself, he possesses outstanding ability to subdue devils. For the supervision of one such as me, there could be no fitter superior.”
“That, too, is news to me.”
“More than that, I have met you, brother. You may not believe it, but Zer has been at his most docile since I met him. From the moment I met you, brother, it has been so. For this one reason alone, I cannot bear to be far from you.”
“…A rather peculiar feeling this gives me. Am I supposed to be glad of it?”

Certainly, from their very first meeting Zer had behaved with a strange familiarity toward Shin Hweein, had even treated him like a friend.
It may be that, even before the priest had, Zer had thought of him as a friend.
Until now Shin Hweein had taken it for Zer’s eccentricity, his fondness for ribbing him. But if the behaviour had persisted this long, it could no longer be put down to whim. There had to be a proper reason.

“Do you know the reason?”
“Of course I do not. There is no chance he would tell me. There is, however, one thing I have guessed at. Would you care to hear it?”
“Go on.”

When Shin Hweein nodded, Father Lucas set forth his theory with the gravest possible expression.

“You are uncommonly beloved of devils, brother. You say it is the same for every shikigami-sorcerer, but listening to others speak of it, I gather it is not at all so. Ordinarily the relationship is at best that of a superior and a subordinate, and at worst the sorcerer can only forcibly bind the devil to follow orders, so that the moment one lets one’s guard down, the devil may bite one’s throat out. Dangerous, they say.”
“That is an ordinary shikigami-sorcerer. I…”

For an instant Shin Hweein hesitated over whether to leave the rest unsaid, but he concluded that hiding his lineage from this man any longer was meaningless.
It was possible Father Lucas, foreign to Aeshin’s inner affairs as he was, already knew; and at the level of the Cardinal, the man was surely certain of it.

“I am a sorcerer of the Shin House. The Shin House’s shikigami arts place communion between sorcerer and shikigami above all else. To be sure, the fetters binding a shikigami are as strong as any other’s. But precisely because of those fetters, there is no room for needless conflict between sorcerer and shikigami.”

When he revealed his origin, the priest wore a startled look for only the briefest moment, then smiled and answered,

“If the relationship is so one-sided, then though no conflict may arise, surely something will accumulate on one side over time.”
“Of course. Tending to one’s shikigami so they nurse no grievance is also part of the sorcerer’s craft.”
“Tending to them… yes, of course. And the manner of tending must differ from sorcerer to sorcerer, no doubt?”
“It does. In my case…”
“Skinship, isn’t it.”

Shin Hweein was about to retort, then realised he was at that very moment stroking Flame-tail on his lap, and shut his mouth.
It seemed the priest had a point.

To Shin Hweein, who found himself with no rebuttal, the priest jutted out a triumphant finger and declared,

“Skinship is a method that works only on partners who already harbour goodwill toward you. And even then, depending on where one touches, opinions are sharply divided. Even I, when I was small, used to pat my little sister on the head because she was so cute, and a great many times I caught a straight punch to the gut for it!”
“No matter how close the family, one ought not to go pawing at a woman’s head.”
“That is the one remark I did not wish to hear from you, brother… in any case.”

The priest brought his long-running thread to its conclusion.

“What I mean to say is that you, brother, are popular among devils for reasons that predate any shikigami contract! And so I suspect Zer too has taken a liking to you.”
“Because Zer is also a devil?”
“That is precisely it.”

The remark was so absurd Shin Hweein could not begin to think where to start.
The one thing he could say was,

“It is something I felt this time round… this time meaning the matter at Suwon.”
“That should have been a chance for me to act as your partner, brother, and Zer made off with the whole of it.”
“In any case, I have never sensed yokai aura or anything of the like from Zer. The thing you speak of… a devil?”
“A retainer of Satan. Satan is the king of devils, and is at times identified with Lucifer the fallen angel, but each time he is mentioned in scripture the referent is expressed somewhat differently, so…”
“Spare me the doctrine lesson for the moment. At any rate, I do not believe Zer is a devil.”
“That is… well.”

A rare troubled look crossed Lucas’s face.
Only then did Shin Hweein realise his words might be putting the priest in a difficult position.

“Forgive me, forget I said it. I spoke too definitively about you, Father, and about Zer, when I scarcely know either.”
“No, I shall not forget. It means you have worried for me in earnest and given proper thought to Zer. But… might we have a drink together sometime, later on? If we are to speak of Zer, it seems right to first lay out my own past.”

Knowing the priest to be a heavy drinker, Shin Hweein looked at him steadily and at last nodded.

“In that case, I shall tell you of my own past as well. There will be little of interest in it.”
“That, I look forward to. I do know that the Shin House is the head of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses.”
“Now that you’ve made your drinking date, out, please.”

The one who said it was, of course, not Shin Hweein.
Geum Moa had endured for as long as she could before stepping into view, and now she scowled fearsomely at the priest.

“He has a prior engagement, you know. How long do you intend to keep your backside planted there yapping?”
“Aha. So your prior engagement is a prior engagement with a devil-maid, then.”
“Kyaaak — !”

Even as he was driven out, the priest held up the baduk board as a reminder for tomorrow, but Shin Hweein shook his head regretfully.

“Truth be told, tomorrow I have a prior engagement too.”
“How can this be…!”

The moment the shocked priest was driven from the room, the thoroughly worked-up Geum Moa slammed the door shut behind him.
She turned, locked it, and with a snap of her fingers transformed the room’s atmosphere in an instant.
A dark-toned hanging dropped over the clutter, and the lighting dimmed a touch.
Cloth had spread over the table at some point, lending the place a quite passable mood.

As Geum Moa set out goblets Shin Hweein had never seen before, she muttered,

“What a wicked man. Making a drinking date with one woman, then setting up a date with another woman for the very next day.”
“A date? With Ham Seoyeon I have only agreed to go to an amusement park.”

The time and place had been settled before they left the palace and parted ways.
When the King had at last succeeded in pairing Princess Mirye with Shin Hweein, Ham Seoyeon, wearing a deeply displeased expression, had abruptly raised the matter of an amusement park to Shin Hweein.
Yun Jinseong, listening in beside them, had given Yun Juna a meaningful look, but Ham Seoyeon’s bearing had been ferocious enough that Yun Juna had not dared even broach the topic.
Shin Yuhyeon? He had already vanished by then.

“I know little of these things, but is an amusement park not a place full of rides, where people go to ride them and amuse themselves? Not a place where a man and a woman would meet for a tryst.”
“People call that a date, you know.”
“You have a narrow view of the friendships between men and women.”
“It is the young master who does not understand people.”

Tomorrow, please, do hold on to that frame of mind, she added, and laid out dishes of food from who-knows-where.
Steam was rising from them as though they had only just been cooked, though it was a mystery when she had found the chance.

“Still, a first date at an amusement park. There’ll be no need for me to get in the way; she’ll skid out on her own. Kuh, kuh, kuh… she had no real chance to begin with, but with this it’s settled. She’ll be off for good.”
“Enough of the amusement park talk. Let us drink, now.”

When Shin Hweein produced a bottle of liquor, Geum Moa’s eyes glinted.

“I sense the air of a certain insolent creature.”
“Hm? Ah… I see. So that’s it.”

Tilting his head, not understanding her at first, Shin Hweein soon felt the touch of Old Aengseol’s energy mingled into the bottle, and nodded in comprehension.
For half a cup at most poured into the wine, the creature had infused this much of her power; he half-wondered whether she had short-changed herself.

“Still, since it will do the young master good, I’ll let her off just this once. …You lot, take yourselves elsewhere.”

— Kyuh?!

— Absolutely not — .

Beginning with Flame-tail, who had been wriggling in protest on Shin Hweein’s lap, every one of his shikigami was hauled forth by Geum Moa’s hand.
At this rate they were all to be banished into the Specter Realm; Shin Hweein shook his head and opened his subspace storage, and Geum Moa, as if she had been waiting for it, shoved them all in.

— This vengeance shall, one day — .

Flame-tail’s voice, vowing some piteous revenge, vanished as the storage closed.
Aside from the Blue-Robed Boy Eulha, who was away on other business, every last one of them was now sealed inside.

“Hoo… now at last we’re alone.”
“So we are. It feels as if it has been quite a while.”

Since he had begun handling shikigami after his coming-of-age rite, there had been hardly any chance to find himself alone with her.
Perhaps she had missed it, and that was why she had attached the condition that the two of them drink alone.

“Come, eat first. You’ve had nothing since dawn this morning, have you?”
“Now that you mention it, no.”

He never ate much to begin with, and today especially, with an important rite to perform, he had kept a strict fast.
Shin Hweein took up the chopsticks Geum Moa offered him and started with the stir-fried namul.

“Mm, this is your taste.”
“Since no other woman can produce this flavour, you’ll suffer terribly if you marry a strange woman.”
“That is the cutest and most practical threat I have heard yet. Stick to that kind from now on.”

The two of them ate, chatting amiably, as if back in the days when they had lived just the two of them in the Shin House annex.
There had been things hidden between them then, to be sure. But the relationship they had built in those days had not, on that account, been a lie. Surely not.
At least, not for him.
He hoped it had not been so for Geum Moa either.

“Shall we drink now.”
“How many cups will I be able to manage this time, I wonder.”
“Two cups will be the limit. Don’t fret, I’ve laid in another fine wine.”

To the look on Shin Hweein’s face that said only two, Geum Moa held up two fingers.

“One cup for Her Ladyship, one cup for Old Aengseol. Beyond that, your body will not bear it, young master.”
“Ah. So this was… that sort of structure.”
“Her Ladyship made it that sort of structure, and Old Aengseol locked it in. Originally, a single cup today would have been a struggle.”

He had suspected as much, but a ju had already been laid upon this bottle of wine, too.
The first cup, poured by his own hand, alone.
The two cups his mother had poured for him.
The three cups poured for him by Old Aengseol.
The strange sorcery in which the one who shared the cup with him on a given occasion lent their power to his next drinking gathering.

“Then it will be a while yet before I can drink a cup imbued with your energy.”
“A woman is out of the question.”

Shin Hweein was about to start counting up candidates for his next drinking partner, but Geum Moa cut in before he could begin.

‘Then… the priest? The priest would dislike it, sensing devil’s aura. Ought I to ask him anyway? What of Yun Jubaek? We aren’t quite that close yet, I think. Guji Mochizuki… the same. Come to think of it, I still haven’t delivered those heads to him. While I’m at it, to tell him things may turn turbulent in Gyeongdo this time round, perhaps I ought to call on him in person…’

Wait — then with whom am I to exchange cups next?

While Shin Hweein blinked, picking through his acquaintances in his head, she filled his cup.
True enough, the bottle bore Old Aengseol’s energy, but the wine poured into the cup was dominated by the energy he had felt when he had visited his mother’s grave.

“I shall pour for you as well.”
“Oh my.”

Receiving the wine with a flustered air, Geum Moa, as if in return, picked up a piece of beef skewer and presented it to his lips.

“Ah — .”
“I am no child any longer…”

Embarrassed though he was, Shin Hweein meekly opened his mouth and accepted it.
At which Geum Moa, as if to say now it’s my turn, opened her own mouth.

“Ah — .”
“…I see now. Is this not something lovers do?”
“Ah — .”

He had already accepted hers, so there was no help for it.
When he picked up a shrimp pancake and put it into her mouth, she took it with a delighted look and said,

“Shall we drink a toast.”
“To what?”
“To the engagement of the young master and m— ah, no, a joke. Let’s toast in commemoration of the young master resolving to accept the past.”

At those words Shin Hweein froze for an instant, but he tapped his cup obediently against the one she held out.
And tossed it back in a single swallow.

The medicinal effect carried in the wine spread through his whole body in an instant, driving out every last trace of fatigue, burning away all impure energies, and forging fresh, clean spiritual essence which it drew down into his dantian.
Compared to the first time, when he had drunk at his mother’s grave, the shock was lesser; yet it was still more than enough to amplify his spiritual senses.

“Hoo…”

He quietly parted his lips to let out the breath, and glanced at Geum Moa to find her with her eyes shut, as if savouring the wine.
It must have been quite something for her, then.

Shin Hweein asked,

“How did you know.”
“At the time of the incident with the North Sea Dragon Princess I already suspected as much. It grew clearer and clearer; when you came out from your training in the dream sorcery, I was certain of it. Truly, it is the natural thing. The young master always feared being swallowed up by the past, but now you have strengthened your mental power, and there is less cause for such concern.”

Shin Hweein nodded silently.
When Geum Moa lifted the bottle again to fill his cup, he made to do likewise and pour for her, but she refused, and instead drew out the wine she had brought along for herself.
For a moment he had wondered whether, disliking the thought of him drinking with another, she meant to polish off the bottle alone. But in fact, astonishingly, she was being considerate of him.

“It is only that I do not wish to make another case like Miu’s.”

Returning the now spiritually-elixir-grade bottle to the storage, Shin Hweein uncorked the bottle she had handed him and poured a cup for her as he spoke.

“To know the past and then deny it is more persuasive, for me as I am now, than to deny it without a hearing.”

His conversation with Lyl had had no small part in this.
The cowardly thing about her was the way she always used the medium of dream-space to deliver her sincerity directly.
A feeling that was, one-sidedly and yet too vividly, remembered by one party alone.
The cord of fate that unmistakably existed between the two of them.
To answer all that with nothing but ‘I know nothing of this and have no intention of ever knowing’ struck even Shin Hweein as too irresponsible.

“You speak of the persuasiveness of the claim that the past-life self and the present self are different beings.”
“Yes — the three-year compact, I mean. I have always been thinking of it in earnest.”
“Truly, I… am no longer sure.”
“Not sure?”
“Cheers.”

Geum Moa held out her cup.
He hurriedly clinked it and drained his own, and indeed, this time Old Aengseol’s energy came through richly, and for one brief instant his insight deepened.
By its grace, the feelings of the one facing him were read off all the more transparently.

What Geum Moa had just said meant, surely…

“So you can no longer harbour enmity toward me.”
“…”
“You are no longer able to wound me.”

Geum Moa, pretending not to have heard him, kept her eyes shut and continued to savour the wine, offering no reaction at all, and that, more than anything, made for the clearest answer.

In a direction utterly different from his original expectations, the Three-Year Pact had run up against its crisis.