The Twenty-Sixth Stanza - 관습도감 (Royal Stanza)
Read from the beginning.
NOTE: AN ENGLISH-KOREAN GLOSSARY HAS BEEN PROVIDED FOR REFERENCE AT THE END OF THE ENTRY, AS WELL AS ADDITIONAL READING.
-THE TWENTY-SIXTH STANZA-
“She’s gone?”
“We can’t find her.”
Yonghwa waited anxiously as Professor Hyunjung consulted his sheet. “She checked in about four hours ago.”
“And since then?”
He shook his head.
His forehead creased in worry. “Shouldn’t someone go find her?”
The professor shrugged. “Perhaps she’s enjoying the night air.”
He found that doubtful. “Did she say where she was going?”
“She told me she was going to the western edge.”
“Western edge…” Yonghwa repeated.
---
The sky began to darken slowly.
On the beachfront, Hyun kept a watchful eye on Yonghwa who grew more agitated as the minutes ticked by. “I’m sure she just lost track of time or something.” She told him.
He shook his head. “No, she’s not the type to just lose track of time.”
“Are you going to go look for her?”
He stopped pacing. “I’m starting to think that’s a good idea.”
“You don’t even know where she went.” She said incredulously.
Raindrops started to patter from the sky as the threateningly grey clouds started to roll over the horizon. The waves intensified; the crests were now up to their chest level.
Hyun was relieved, in a guilty kind of way. “You can’t go look for her in this.”
Yonghwa started to walk in the other direction from their quarters.
“Where are you going?”
Yonghwa turned around at the other end of the street. “To find my friend.”
Hyun hesitated. “I’m coming with you.”
He shook his head slightly. “I’ll be all right.”
“You’ve lied to me before.” She grabbed his arm and started walking. “And besides, two stands out less than one.”
The rain pouring down ever stronger around them in drenching sheets, they set off into the night.
---
No matter how many times he saw it, Namdaemun Market never failed to make Minhyuk a little dizzy in the head. Covering five city blocks, it was an eclectic hodgepodge of storefronts, covered bazaars, restaurants, roadside stands, and foreign merchants, all bustling with activity around the clock. Storekeepers shouted the prices of their latest wares in a voice that could carry all the way to Incheon. A veritable menagerie of animals made their presence known through their cries; the din of their rattling cages as they tried to escape from their crates competed with the storekeepers for the shoppers’ attention. Every couple of minutes, there would be a burst of impromptu fireworks by drunken revelers that lit up the sky in a shower of pyrotechnics.
The market sold almost everything imaginable; from an entire block devoted entirely to seafood, to a whole alley on herbal medicine, one could find almost anything here. A direct link to the Han River ensured its success, and the dock - one of the biggest in the city - was always filled, day and night, with river traffic loading and unloading their goods.
Taeyeon stood open-mouthed. Beside her, Minhyuk stood at ease, his arms folded across his chest and looking pleased at her reaction. “It’s really something, isn’t it?” He seemed to be in his element as he looked happily at the bustle. “This is where I grew up.”
She snapped out of her admiration. “You grew up here?”
“Sure.” He lovingly ran a finger down a wooden beam of the nearest tent. “Sleeping under storefronts…working for meals…good times.”
Taeyeon had started wandering off alone. He strode up to her and grasped her hand. “Careful. You could get lost in here.” He gestured to the numerous alleys and nooks that branched off in skewed directions from the main thoroughfare.
“That’s where I worked for a couple of months.” He pointed to a swordmaking shop. “I had to make sure the fire didn’t go out.”
“Did you ever let it go out?”
“Once.” He told her. “I couldn’t walk properly for weeks.”
She grimaced. “Why didn’t you move out?”
“I didn’t have anywhere to go.” He grinned. “Until Yonghwa tried to mug me.”
“He tried to what?”
“Mug me. You know, steal my wallet.” They dodged a cart piled full of sweet potatoes. He grabbed a couple from the rear of the cargo area and smiled furtively. “No one cares.”
“He tried to mug you?”
“Well, naturally, he failed - otherwise I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”
“Why was he trying to mug you?”
“Well, that’s a long story, isn’t it?” He said cheerfully. “Here we are.”
They entered a smallish roadside stand that had been hastily constructed under a couple of tent poles. It looked as though the owner had meant for it to be a temporary location, but had turned permanent over the years; it boasted little flowers among the edges, and someone had even painted shutters on the tent flaps. “Ahjumma!” Minhyuk called out.
A stout woman in her mid-fifties came out from the makeshift kitchen. “Minhyuk!” She encased him in a one-armed hug. “It’s been too long.”
He grinned. “It’s good to see you again. You haven’t aged a bit.”
She preened. “You look like you could use some fattening up. The road’s been hard on you, I expect.”
“No, not at all.” He said politely.
Her attention turned to Taeyeon hanging back behind him. “You’re married??” She yelled.
The room turned quiet.
The tips of his ears turned red. “No, no, no, we’re not married.” He quieted her down. “She’s just a friend.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “False alarm!” She yelled, even louder.
The room returned to its previously bustling state amid a few laughs.
Her cheeks still flushed, Taeyeon smiled in a way that suggested she would much rather be doing something else other than smiling.
“Can you roast these for us?” Minhyuk added hastily before she did something stupid, and placed the sweet potatoes that he had nicked into her arms.
“Of course, of course!” She bustled back into the kitchen. “Make yourselves at home.”
Laughing nervously, Minhyuk gestured for Taeyeon to sit down at the counter.
“Do sorrikkun always marry young?” She muttered.
“Heh.” He sneaked a guilty glance at her. “I told her that I’d come back with a wife before I left.”
She threw him an evil glare. “Why’d you come here, then?”
“I forgot.”
Taeyeon pulled a facepalm. “So she thinks we’re engaged?”
“Probably.” He acquiesced. “Relax, gossip never hurt anyone.”
---
“Bandages, bandages…” Shinhye scoured through the drawers. “Aha.” Shinhye pulled the bandages out of her closet and cut out a small piece to cover the bleeding. “I hope it isn’t anything serious.”
Setting the damaged gayageum aside - she would have to ask Yonghwa when he came back about the proper way to go about tuning it - she carefully licked the bandage before sticking it carefully on her index finger.
Putting steady pressure on it with her other hand, she was about to go retrieve a book from the shelf when she heard raised voices coming from her father’s study.
Since her father was rarely the type to raise his voice at anything, never mind at a person, she wondered what could be the problem. Standing up quietly, she tiptoed across the hall to his study and cracked the door open a millimeter. She strained to see through the crack; her father seemed to be pacing the perimeter of the room, while there was a guest seating on a cushion in the middle facing away from her.
---
“ - was not expecting fate to slam us together in so - ”
“And yet, here we are. If I had known you would come here, I never would’ve sent out the request in the first place.”
“I had been promoted.” The guest’s voice had a touch of egotistic pride.
“I was not aware.”
“Well, well…Park Yun.” He said softly. “Should I call this your promotion? Or just another one of your failed ploys to evade me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure you do.” The guest chuckled.
“The point is moot. I want you out of my school, right now.”
“I’d be happy to leave.” He chuckled again. “This time, you were caught by your own red hands. Your quality’s slipping.”
“Out.” His voice was getting more constricted.
The guest hesitated while standing up. “Oh, did you know that my son goes here?” He said in a self-indulgent voice. “I’m sure you didn’t, seeing as how he hasn’t been expelled yet.”
“For the record, counselor…” Park Yun’s voice grew more guttural. “I do know. That’s why I admitted him. He hasn’t changed in ten years, has he?”
It was the guest’s turn to grow agitated. “I’m going to pull him out. He is no longer your student. I will not allow it.”
“I believe this is my school, counselor. Your influence does not reach this far.”
“We’ll see about that. I’d be careful, if I were you.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I learned that lesson ten years ago.”
For a moment, the guest seemed to be on the verge of lunging at his throat; then he took a breath and let out a ghostly chuckle before standing up. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
“The pleasure is mine, Counselor Jung. Safe travels.”
Shinhye heard the guest leave through the main doorway before she saw her father collapse to the floor, staring blankly at the opposite wall for a good few minutes before he put away the documents that lay strewn across his desk in his private drawer and locked it with his key.
She sneaked away to her room before she had a chance to be discovered.
---
Glossary
관습도감: A government institution founded in the waning days of the Koryeo Dynasty and re-established by King Sejong, which focused on the musical arts. It supplied all music for royal use, including Royal Musicians, royal concerts, and parties, and trained its own in-house musicians, for which the competition was fierce.
Ahjumma: a derogatory term for middle-aged Korean women, often single.
Gayageum: a traditional Korean stringed instrument and a member of the zither family. It was usually crafted out of wood and had 12 strings, although modern variants can have up to 25.
Namdaemun: One of the four gates leading into Choson-era Seoul. Literally means “Grand South Gate”. The other three gates were named accordingly at the other three points of the compass.
Sorrikkun: wandering minstrels, who would travel around the country performing Korean music and ballads. They were often very poor and subsisted on what they were able to make through their music.
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Related Readings
Namdaemun Market