Taming the Crazy Horse, Ch. 12
Previously:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Disclaimer: The SKKS-verse belongs to the creators of Sungkyunkwan Scandal. Jae-shin's "lack of patience" quote is, according to Google, from Confucius; and the "gadfly/horse" bit from Plato's Apology. I think Professor Jung has a Korean translation that he shares with his prize pupils :D
Technical Notes: All the archery info comes from a Google search. Unfortunately, I didn't take note of the site on which I relied the most heavily. I just wanted to assure you that Jae-shin's pointers were rooted in fact!
Author's Notes: At long, long last, Chapter 12 is here. I think I literally spent a month stuck in the last part because I was very nervous about it :( I still am, actually, so if anyone thinks it needs to be more in-character or believable, please let me know and we'll see how we can make things better. (Unfortunately, I can't consider cutting it out altogether - as we all know, life isn't perfect and it's the bad that makes the good truly sweet.)
Having said that, I would as always like to extend deepest thanks to min7girl, Anonymous 1 and 2, Dorothy, naddyamal, Robelyn, cesiaj, akaironoyoru and pickaka for reviewing last week's commercial :) I hope you'll stay with me for the rest of this wild ride.
Chapter Twelve
Since it wasn't a serious injury, the wound on Jae-shin's arm healed quickly, but his wife insisted on keeping it covered. "Are you sure it's not coming loose?" Ka-hai asked, rolling up his sleeve to see for herself whether the wrapping was secure.
"It's fine," he muttered, trying to keep the impatience from his voice.
He probably didn't hide it too well, because she pouted dramatically. "I was only trying to take proper care of my husband," she said in an injured tone.
Jae-shin sighed. "Look, I know that the bandage is to keep the wound clean until it heals, which is why I'm keeping it on; but I've had worse than this, and I survived. Don't worry too much, all right?
"Unless, of course," he added, leaning in to give her a conciliatory kiss, "this is one of those times when you're fussing over me simply because you want me to make you stop."
"I don't do that!" she protested even as a telltale blush stained her cheeks.
He grinned. "If that's the case," he said, as though she hadn't spoken at all, "then you might want to wait until after we get home. I would be setting a poor example for the scholars if I got caught fooling around with a woman on campus, even if she is my wife."
They were standing together on one of the shooter's platforms at the Sungkyunkwan archery range. It was another one of those days wherein the Jalgeum Quartet was free to meet up, and Jae-shin thought that it would be a good idea to bring Ka-hai along and teach her to shoot.
The addition of a fourth meant that Yong-ha could stop pretending to be even remotely interested in archery, and he lounged unabashedly against the railing of the judges' platform behind them. "Hey, Lord and Lady Moon!" he called out as he twirled his bow like a baton. "It's your team's turn to shoot. What's keeping you?"
"Your friend, here, was being ungentlemanly," Ka-hai replied, giving both him and her husband a disgruntled look.
Yong-ha let out a scandalized gasp. "Geol-oh, you naughty, naughty boy!" he admonished. "What kinds of salacious things have you been telling your poor, gently-bred wife?" His expression grew sly. "If you share them with the rest of the class, then maybe our Ga-rang will learn something."
"I'll thank you both not to corrupt my husband any more than you already have," Yoon-hee, standing on the other shooter's platform with Sun-joon, said primly.
"It's purely in the interest of sharing intelligent ideas, my dear," Yong-ha defended himself.
"I don't think it's proper to discuss such things while the ladies are present," Sun-joon told his friends, and broke into a mischievous grin. "Geol-oh sa-hyung can tell me all about them later."
Jae-shin laughed. "It's a deal. Now, I believe it's time for Ka-hai to take her first shot."
He placed his hands on his wife's shoulders to guide her into the proper stance. "Imagine a straight line running from the bull's-eye to where we're standing," he lectured. "Put one foot on either side of that line, shoulder width apart." He nudged one of her feet with his.
Ka-hai giggled. "I thought you said to wait until we got home."
He hiccuped, but managed to look stern. "Pay attention," he said, and brusquely talked her through the correct way to hold a bow and nock an arrow. With his arms around her, he helped her raise the bow and sight the target. "The important thing when you're releasing your arrow is the thrill of anticipation," he murmured in her ear. "Your whole body tightens and you focus entirely on aligning everything - yourself, the arrow, and the bow - to hit your target. Only then can you completely relax your drawing hand."
"You mean like this?" she asked, sending the arrow hurtling into the bull's-eye.
Jae-shin watched, his arms akimbo, as his wife efficiently dispatched several more arrows after their brother. Not all of them hit the bull's-eye, but she managed to achieve a nice grouping around the center of the target.
"Let me guess," Yong-ha drawled, looking vastly amused. "You've done this before."
"I learned together with my brothers so that we could help defend the herds, if we had to," Ka-hai explained. "My mother had the vapors at the idea, but my father insisted on it. That's the way things are done in the Cha family."
"Why didn't you say anything?" her husband grumbled.
"Well, you were so excited to teach me, and it was so sweet of you to offer, that I thought I would humor you for a bit," she replied with a small smile, then bit her lip. "I suppose I should have done a better job of pretending that I was a novice at this."
"You shouldn't have pretended at all." He gestured towards the pair standing on the opposite platform. "Then we could have just gone ahead and beaten Sun-joon and Yoon-hee's team into the ground."
"Hey!" their opponents chorused in protest.
Ka-hai grinned at their friends, then at Jae-shin. "Well, there's nothing stopping us from doing that now, is there?"
"Is there anything else that I don't need to teach you?" Jae-shin asked his wife as they rode home after archery practice. After a hotly contested match, they had indeed defeated Sun-joon and Yoon-hee, but didn't win anything because only Yong-ha had been interested in actually betting on the outcome.
Ka-hai thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. "You don't have to teach me how to help horses and cows give birth," she answered, "and you don't have to teach me how to shoot a gun."
Yong-ha, who was tagging along for part of the way, grimaced in distaste. "Helping anything give birth sounds gross."
"City boy," Jae-shin teased his friend, with his best imitation of his wife at her most disdainful.
"It only works when I say that," she laughed. "Anyway, there are worse things that you have to put up with, here in the city." She grimaced as they passed a large pile of refuse that had clearly been there for quite some time. "Like all this garbage everywhere. If you think a farm smells bad, well, this is much worse."
"You should be used to it by now." He grinned and reached over to tweak her nose. "Who knew you country girls had such sensitive noses?"
"It seems especially bad today," Ka-hai said. "I guess the collectors haven't been by."
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, stirring up loose trash, including several stray blue leaflets. She frowned as a particularly grimy one caught on her stirrup. "These stupid papers are the worst," she huffed, kicking it off. "They get into everything. It's such an inconvenience."
Glancing quickly at his friend, Yong-ha hastened to point out, "Uh, those blue papers are messages to the people. They point out what's wrong with society and try to get people to change them."
"That's all very well, but this person should try sending his messages in a different way. It looks like people aren't taking them seriously if they just let them lie around and blow about."
"Maybe they read them and then throw them away when they're done," Jae-shin suggested. "Just because you don't keep the actual piece of paper doesn't mean that you don't take the message to heart."
She shrugged. "Maybe. But I still wish he would just post signs where people can see them instead of making a mess like this. It's such a waste."
"That may be so," Yong-ha chuckled, "but at least the people who make and sell paper and ink, and the garbage collectors get to make some honest money out of it, don't you think?"
Ka-hai laughed briefly, acknowledging the point, and Jae-shin gave his friend a grateful look when she turned away to look at something else. He had stiffened slightly in his saddle when his wife started talking about the Blue Messenger's leaflets. As someone who used to express himself in the exact same way, he couldn't help feeling as though she were attacking him as well.
That wasn't the case at all, of course, he told himself as they rode on through the streets.
For one thing, she didn't know that he had once been the Red Messenger, so how could she consciously cast aspersions on his past? Besides, now that she mentioned it, he supposed that the leaflets did make a bit of a mess.
The important thing was that Ka-hai wasn't against the idea of working for change in society. (At least, he didn't think that she was.) It was just the way the message was delivered that she didn't like, and that was such a small thing that really didn't need to dwell on it anymore.
Nevertheless, Ka-hai's words still weighed on his mind when Jae-shin encountered the Blue Messenger a few days later. The Messenger had sought him out on his first day back on patrol and, after making some sort of vague excuse to In-soo, Jae-shin soon found himself sitting on a rooftop not far from Banchon with the draft of her latest piece spread out on his knee.
"What do you think?" she demanded, gesturing towards the paper.
"'Lack of patience, even on small issues, can ruin a sound plan,'" he quoted as he continued to placidly read the leaflet.
She snorted, but clasped her hands together and tried to wait. "I was wondering what had happened to you," she said after several moments of quiet fidgeting.
"I got wounded while on patrol, so my commander put me on desk duty until I was better again."
"So... does this mean you're all better?"
"I'm absolutely fine," he answered a little impatiently. "It was just a scratch, but my commander tends to over-react." Thinking about Sergeant Ho led Jae-shin to wonder whether he should have stayed out of government, but then he remembered Headmaster Choi at Sungkyunkwan and supposed that there would be no escaping the syncophants who kowtowed to people like him and Sun-joon because of their family connections.
"That's good. And what's even better," the Blue Messenger added briskly, "is that it was your arm and not your eyes." She gestured towards the paper. "Are you done reading that yet? What do you think?"
"It's all right," Jae-shin told her, handing back the draft with an approving smile. "I think you're putting a lot more thought into your words now. It shows."
"Really?" Her eyes above the mask crinkled with pleasure, then flattened warily just moments later. "What's the catch?"
"I was just getting to that," he chuckled. "The catch is that you still tend to jump from topic to topic with every message. Why don't you try choosing a subject and writing a series about it before moving on to the next one? It makes it easier for the people to follow what you're thinking."
As he spoke, Jae-shin supposed that it was easy for him to say such things - the Red Messenger's writings had generally centered on how the government, specifically the Noron hegemony, suppressed the truth. However, an organized approach was definitely not a bad idea, especially since the Blue Messenger seemed bent on tackling a broader range of issues than he had.
"But you just said my writing's much better."
"It is, but it can always improve even more." He raised his eyebrows mildly when she shot him a glare. "Hey, since you asked for my advice, I assumed you were willing to listen."
"Fine," she grumbled. "I'll consider it. Is that all?"
He paused. "I suppose there is one more thing... have you ever thought about just posting your messages on walls? You know, instead of scattering leaflets like you do?"
The Messenger frowned. "Why?"
Jae-shin shrugged. "Leaflets sort of make a mess, don't they?" he ventured. "And I'm sure writing all those messages can be a pain sometimes." It had certainly annoyed him a few times, but not enough to make him stop.
"That's true, but the leaflets get people's attention and it makes them want to read my messages. If I just stick something on a wall, especially secretly, they might just walk by and not notice."
"Well... maybe you'd still want to think about it," he pressed lamely. The more he tried to argue, the sillier it sounded. "I mean, it might clean up the city and that would be good for everyone, right?"
"I guess I could try and think about that, too," she said.
It was plain from the tone of her voice that she didn't really plan to do that, but Jae-shin supposed that he had done enough to try and change her mind, so he decided not to push it. "You do that. So," he went on, getting to his feet and dusting himself off, "are we done? Can I go home now?"
"Someone seems to be in a hurry." Seeing an opportunity to needle him, the Blue Messenger gave him a sly glance. "Are you in a hurry to get home to your wife?"
"That's none of your business."
"Of course it is. I helped you fix things with her, didn't I? I guess it worked, huh?" she observed smugly.
"That's right, it did," he retorted, starting towards the edge of the roof where he could jump safely down onto the street below. Before he left, he turned and quirked a sardonic eyebrow at the Messenger. "See what happens when you're open to listening to people's advice?"
A few days later, the air was once again filled with fluttering blue leaflets, reminding Sergeant Ho that Jae-shin and In-soo's investigation was going nowhere. "I know you think that this Blue Messenger is a woman with some degree of education," the commanding officer told his men, "but thanks to the king's reforms, there are hundreds of people answering that description in this city. What else have you got for me?"
"Professor Jung has also verified that the Messenger isn't a Sungkyunkwan scholar," In-soo reminded him, "but we know that narrows the search only a little."
"And nothing more?" he demanded.
In-soo glanced at Jae-shin, who shook his head. "No, sir," he said curtly. "I've analyzed the evidence backwards and forwards, but there's nothing."
It was hardly the way to address a superior officer; but fortunately Sergeant Ho interpreted this as frustration over the stalled investigation and, recognizing a chance to worm his way into Jae-shin's (and Minister Moon's) good graces, abruptly changed his tone. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Detective," he soothed. "I'm sure that you and Detective Ha here are doing your very best. We'll close this case eventually."
Jae-shin ducked his head, mumbling an assent.
His attitude wasn't because he was frustrated over the lack of progress in the investigation. He was actually glad that the police hadn't come any closer to apprehending the Blue Messenger, and angry at himself for feeling that way.
Working on this case brought back unpleasant memories of when he had been the one being hunted down. In fact, he supposed that the police were technically after him, too, since he had effectively made himself an accomplice to the Blue Messenger instead of arresting her as he should.
He'd had plenty of opportunities to arrest her, of course, and doing so would be good for his career; but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Jae-shin understood only too well what drove people to cast their thoughts to the winds, and despite his commitment to serve and protect, a part of him still believed that the Messenger and people like her should be allowed to act as gadflies, using their words and arrows to sting the great horse that was Joseon into action.
Perhaps he should have disqualified himself from the Blue Messenger case from the very beginning, Jae-shin thought bleakly as he made his way home. At the time that the case was assigned to him and In-soo, he had believed that his past was an asset, that it could help him capture the Messenger, bring the case to a swift conclusion and earn professional accolades for himself and his partner. Little did he know that this was actually a liability in that it brought his personal biases and professional dedication in direct conflict with each other.
Unfortunately, he realized that turning down the assignment would not have been a good idea, either. It might have led his superiors to question him and perhaps find out that one of the rising stars on the force, who also happened to be Minister of Justice's only son and heir, had once been Joseon's most wanted.
Jae-shin took a deep breath, willing the heaviness inside him to go away, as he walked into his and Ka-hai's bedroom. The chamber was empty, but on the way there, he had heard his wife's voice coming from the kitchens. The prospect of a good meal cheered him a bit.
She entered the room after he finished changing out of his uniform. "Oh, you're home!"
"That's right," he confirmed needlessly, accepting a peck on the cheek. "I see you went shopping today," he added, nodding at the small pile of parcels against one wall.
"Yes, I ran some errands," Ka-hai said as she untied the apron from around her waist and tossed it in with the rest of the dirty laundry. "I tried to find you, but one of the other officers I did find said you weren't on patrol today."
"No, I wasn't. I was on desk duty, and there were a couple of meetings."
"Too bad. I was going to ask you if you wanted me to wait for you so we could go home together."
He smiled faintly as he sat down by the lamp to do some reading. "Maybe next time."
Jae-shin turned back to his reading, and the sound of her unwrapping things and murmuring to herself faded away as he lost himself in the words on the page.
He came crashing back to earth when she flung one of her packages to the floor. "What's wrong?" he demanded, sitting bolt upright. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she replied, although she sounded very irritated. "It's just those stupid blue papers again. A bunch of them got packed in with the sewing thread that I bought. I told you they get into everything."
Jae-shin sighed inwardly. Just when he thought that he could take a break from it all.... "I guess they're supposed to," he murmured. "The Blue Messenger has a lot to say, and s-he obviously thinks that the leaflets will get people's attention."
"I think they're more of a nuisance than anything else." She snatched up a leaflet and skimmed it with a scowl. "I'm sure that the Blue Messenger puts in a lot of effort making these things, but he'd probably be better off doing something productive."
"Like what, exactly?" he asked, beginning to frown as well.
Ka-hai shrugged and tossed the leaflet into the pile of wrapping paper that was going to be thrown away. "Well, if he knows so much about improving society, then maybe he should actually go do it instead of just writing about it."
"Making things better isn't just about taking action when you have an idea. You also need to change people's minds, plant the idea in their heads so that they'll support you."
"I think people find this a nuisance more than anything else."
"That's not true! I know that they read those things." At least, he seemed to recall that the Red Messenger's writings had set the people's minds afire. "Maybe not all of them, but some do, and if the messages reach even just a few people, then it's worth it."
She looked at him, startled by his outburst. "All right, perhaps some people do read these things," she acknowledged. "But can't the Blue Messenger reach just those people and leave the rest of the public out if it?"
"You can't just reach a few if you want things to change," he told her, an impatient bite to his words. "Society involves everyone, so everyone should be informed, whether they like it or not. It's the apathetic ones who choose to ignore what's going on around them who truly don't act."
"Are you calling me apathetic?"
Jae-shin set his jaw and said nothing. He hadn't been thinking about her when those words had flown out of his mouth; but to be perfectly honest, it seemed appropriate given the way she was acting.
Ka-hai stiffened at her husband's silence. "You are! I can't believe that after living with me all this time, you think I don't care!"
"Well, do you?" he challenged her.
"Of course I do! You might think that I'm some silly yangban housewife who plays at being a farm girl, Moon Jae-shin, but you couldn't be farther from the truth. Look at this." She thrust out a hand, showing him a palm that had remained callused even after she had traded her old life for a much more privileged one as a married woman. "My brothers and I trained horses and cleaned out stables with my father's workers not because it was fun, but because if we didn't do our part, we would go hungry.
"I know what the lives of the poor can be like," she spat, "and maybe I can't make money rain in the streets like your almighty Blue Messenger does with those papers, but I give and do what I can to try and make things better!"
"That's not the same thing. It's all very well," he added, in what to her ears sounded like an infuriatingly patronizing tone, "but the Blue Messenger is trying to get the people to think about what's going on in society and dream about a better life."
"Can people eat dreams? Do dreams keep them warm at night? Oh, it's not a bad thing to dream, of course," she said, mimicking his tone, "but you can't make them come true if you're starving to death!"
The sarcasm wasn't lost on Jae-shin and he glared at her. Why was she being so obstinate about this? Why wouldn't she just listen to him? "You don't understand!"
"And you do?"
"Yes!"
She flushed angrily. "I may not be half as educated as you, Moon Jae-shin, but I don't need to go to a fancy school to know that society's ills can't be fixed simply by scattering papers all over town."
"I just tried to explain-never mind." Fed up with trying to defend what the Blue Messenger stood for - what he stood for - he threw his book aside and jumped to his feet. "If that's what you want to believe, then fine. I hope that just throwing money at the problem works for you."
He quit the room without another word, leaving the door rattling in its frame behind him.
It felt strange not to wake up in Jae-shin's arms the next morning - strange, and literally terrible.
Upon waking, Ka-hai sat up in bed and was immediately assailed by a wave of dizziness so overwhelming that it compelled her to lie down again and wait for it pass.
She was slowly hoisting herself back to a sitting position when Kwan-sook entered the bedroom. Seeing her mistress struggling, the maid hurriedly set aside the wash water that she carried and rushed to help her to her feet. "Are you all right, my lady?" she whispered.
Ka-hai glanced at her husband, who slept on, undisturbed by Kwan-sook's arrival. She noticed that he was sleeping with back to her and wrapped up in his blankets for once, as if trying to put as much distance between them as possible without moving out of their bedroom, and tamped down the sick feeling that threatened to well up inside her anew. She was short on sleep and feeling bad about their argument. That had to be it.
"I'm fine," she assured her maid, making her way gingerly towards the washstand to begin her morning ablutions. "Just give me a minute."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Disclaimer: The SKKS-verse belongs to the creators of Sungkyunkwan Scandal. Jae-shin's "lack of patience" quote is, according to Google, from Confucius; and the "gadfly/horse" bit from Plato's Apology. I think Professor Jung has a Korean translation that he shares with his prize pupils :D
Technical Notes: All the archery info comes from a Google search. Unfortunately, I didn't take note of the site on which I relied the most heavily. I just wanted to assure you that Jae-shin's pointers were rooted in fact!
Author's Notes: At long, long last, Chapter 12 is here. I think I literally spent a month stuck in the last part because I was very nervous about it :( I still am, actually, so if anyone thinks it needs to be more in-character or believable, please let me know and we'll see how we can make things better. (Unfortunately, I can't consider cutting it out altogether - as we all know, life isn't perfect and it's the bad that makes the good truly sweet.)
Having said that, I would as always like to extend deepest thanks to min7girl, Anonymous 1 and 2, Dorothy, naddyamal, Robelyn, cesiaj, akaironoyoru and pickaka for reviewing last week's commercial :) I hope you'll stay with me for the rest of this wild ride.
Chapter Twelve
Since it wasn't a serious injury, the wound on Jae-shin's arm healed quickly, but his wife insisted on keeping it covered. "Are you sure it's not coming loose?" Ka-hai asked, rolling up his sleeve to see for herself whether the wrapping was secure.
"It's fine," he muttered, trying to keep the impatience from his voice.
He probably didn't hide it too well, because she pouted dramatically. "I was only trying to take proper care of my husband," she said in an injured tone.
Jae-shin sighed. "Look, I know that the bandage is to keep the wound clean until it heals, which is why I'm keeping it on; but I've had worse than this, and I survived. Don't worry too much, all right?
"Unless, of course," he added, leaning in to give her a conciliatory kiss, "this is one of those times when you're fussing over me simply because you want me to make you stop."
"I don't do that!" she protested even as a telltale blush stained her cheeks.
He grinned. "If that's the case," he said, as though she hadn't spoken at all, "then you might want to wait until after we get home. I would be setting a poor example for the scholars if I got caught fooling around with a woman on campus, even if she is my wife."
They were standing together on one of the shooter's platforms at the Sungkyunkwan archery range. It was another one of those days wherein the Jalgeum Quartet was free to meet up, and Jae-shin thought that it would be a good idea to bring Ka-hai along and teach her to shoot.
The addition of a fourth meant that Yong-ha could stop pretending to be even remotely interested in archery, and he lounged unabashedly against the railing of the judges' platform behind them. "Hey, Lord and Lady Moon!" he called out as he twirled his bow like a baton. "It's your team's turn to shoot. What's keeping you?"
"Your friend, here, was being ungentlemanly," Ka-hai replied, giving both him and her husband a disgruntled look.
Yong-ha let out a scandalized gasp. "Geol-oh, you naughty, naughty boy!" he admonished. "What kinds of salacious things have you been telling your poor, gently-bred wife?" His expression grew sly. "If you share them with the rest of the class, then maybe our Ga-rang will learn something."
"I'll thank you both not to corrupt my husband any more than you already have," Yoon-hee, standing on the other shooter's platform with Sun-joon, said primly.
"It's purely in the interest of sharing intelligent ideas, my dear," Yong-ha defended himself.
"I don't think it's proper to discuss such things while the ladies are present," Sun-joon told his friends, and broke into a mischievous grin. "Geol-oh sa-hyung can tell me all about them later."
Jae-shin laughed. "It's a deal. Now, I believe it's time for Ka-hai to take her first shot."
He placed his hands on his wife's shoulders to guide her into the proper stance. "Imagine a straight line running from the bull's-eye to where we're standing," he lectured. "Put one foot on either side of that line, shoulder width apart." He nudged one of her feet with his.
Ka-hai giggled. "I thought you said to wait until we got home."
He hiccuped, but managed to look stern. "Pay attention," he said, and brusquely talked her through the correct way to hold a bow and nock an arrow. With his arms around her, he helped her raise the bow and sight the target. "The important thing when you're releasing your arrow is the thrill of anticipation," he murmured in her ear. "Your whole body tightens and you focus entirely on aligning everything - yourself, the arrow, and the bow - to hit your target. Only then can you completely relax your drawing hand."
"You mean like this?" she asked, sending the arrow hurtling into the bull's-eye.
Jae-shin watched, his arms akimbo, as his wife efficiently dispatched several more arrows after their brother. Not all of them hit the bull's-eye, but she managed to achieve a nice grouping around the center of the target.
"Let me guess," Yong-ha drawled, looking vastly amused. "You've done this before."
"I learned together with my brothers so that we could help defend the herds, if we had to," Ka-hai explained. "My mother had the vapors at the idea, but my father insisted on it. That's the way things are done in the Cha family."
"Why didn't you say anything?" her husband grumbled.
"Well, you were so excited to teach me, and it was so sweet of you to offer, that I thought I would humor you for a bit," she replied with a small smile, then bit her lip. "I suppose I should have done a better job of pretending that I was a novice at this."
"You shouldn't have pretended at all." He gestured towards the pair standing on the opposite platform. "Then we could have just gone ahead and beaten Sun-joon and Yoon-hee's team into the ground."
"Hey!" their opponents chorused in protest.
Ka-hai grinned at their friends, then at Jae-shin. "Well, there's nothing stopping us from doing that now, is there?"
"Is there anything else that I don't need to teach you?" Jae-shin asked his wife as they rode home after archery practice. After a hotly contested match, they had indeed defeated Sun-joon and Yoon-hee, but didn't win anything because only Yong-ha had been interested in actually betting on the outcome.
Ka-hai thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. "You don't have to teach me how to help horses and cows give birth," she answered, "and you don't have to teach me how to shoot a gun."
Yong-ha, who was tagging along for part of the way, grimaced in distaste. "Helping anything give birth sounds gross."
"City boy," Jae-shin teased his friend, with his best imitation of his wife at her most disdainful.
"It only works when I say that," she laughed. "Anyway, there are worse things that you have to put up with, here in the city." She grimaced as they passed a large pile of refuse that had clearly been there for quite some time. "Like all this garbage everywhere. If you think a farm smells bad, well, this is much worse."
"You should be used to it by now." He grinned and reached over to tweak her nose. "Who knew you country girls had such sensitive noses?"
"It seems especially bad today," Ka-hai said. "I guess the collectors haven't been by."
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, stirring up loose trash, including several stray blue leaflets. She frowned as a particularly grimy one caught on her stirrup. "These stupid papers are the worst," she huffed, kicking it off. "They get into everything. It's such an inconvenience."
Glancing quickly at his friend, Yong-ha hastened to point out, "Uh, those blue papers are messages to the people. They point out what's wrong with society and try to get people to change them."
"That's all very well, but this person should try sending his messages in a different way. It looks like people aren't taking them seriously if they just let them lie around and blow about."
"Maybe they read them and then throw them away when they're done," Jae-shin suggested. "Just because you don't keep the actual piece of paper doesn't mean that you don't take the message to heart."
She shrugged. "Maybe. But I still wish he would just post signs where people can see them instead of making a mess like this. It's such a waste."
"That may be so," Yong-ha chuckled, "but at least the people who make and sell paper and ink, and the garbage collectors get to make some honest money out of it, don't you think?"
Ka-hai laughed briefly, acknowledging the point, and Jae-shin gave his friend a grateful look when she turned away to look at something else. He had stiffened slightly in his saddle when his wife started talking about the Blue Messenger's leaflets. As someone who used to express himself in the exact same way, he couldn't help feeling as though she were attacking him as well.
That wasn't the case at all, of course, he told himself as they rode on through the streets.
For one thing, she didn't know that he had once been the Red Messenger, so how could she consciously cast aspersions on his past? Besides, now that she mentioned it, he supposed that the leaflets did make a bit of a mess.
The important thing was that Ka-hai wasn't against the idea of working for change in society. (At least, he didn't think that she was.) It was just the way the message was delivered that she didn't like, and that was such a small thing that really didn't need to dwell on it anymore.
Nevertheless, Ka-hai's words still weighed on his mind when Jae-shin encountered the Blue Messenger a few days later. The Messenger had sought him out on his first day back on patrol and, after making some sort of vague excuse to In-soo, Jae-shin soon found himself sitting on a rooftop not far from Banchon with the draft of her latest piece spread out on his knee.
"What do you think?" she demanded, gesturing towards the paper.
"'Lack of patience, even on small issues, can ruin a sound plan,'" he quoted as he continued to placidly read the leaflet.
She snorted, but clasped her hands together and tried to wait. "I was wondering what had happened to you," she said after several moments of quiet fidgeting.
"I got wounded while on patrol, so my commander put me on desk duty until I was better again."
"So... does this mean you're all better?"
"I'm absolutely fine," he answered a little impatiently. "It was just a scratch, but my commander tends to over-react." Thinking about Sergeant Ho led Jae-shin to wonder whether he should have stayed out of government, but then he remembered Headmaster Choi at Sungkyunkwan and supposed that there would be no escaping the syncophants who kowtowed to people like him and Sun-joon because of their family connections.
"That's good. And what's even better," the Blue Messenger added briskly, "is that it was your arm and not your eyes." She gestured towards the paper. "Are you done reading that yet? What do you think?"
"It's all right," Jae-shin told her, handing back the draft with an approving smile. "I think you're putting a lot more thought into your words now. It shows."
"Really?" Her eyes above the mask crinkled with pleasure, then flattened warily just moments later. "What's the catch?"
"I was just getting to that," he chuckled. "The catch is that you still tend to jump from topic to topic with every message. Why don't you try choosing a subject and writing a series about it before moving on to the next one? It makes it easier for the people to follow what you're thinking."
As he spoke, Jae-shin supposed that it was easy for him to say such things - the Red Messenger's writings had generally centered on how the government, specifically the Noron hegemony, suppressed the truth. However, an organized approach was definitely not a bad idea, especially since the Blue Messenger seemed bent on tackling a broader range of issues than he had.
"But you just said my writing's much better."
"It is, but it can always improve even more." He raised his eyebrows mildly when she shot him a glare. "Hey, since you asked for my advice, I assumed you were willing to listen."
"Fine," she grumbled. "I'll consider it. Is that all?"
He paused. "I suppose there is one more thing... have you ever thought about just posting your messages on walls? You know, instead of scattering leaflets like you do?"
The Messenger frowned. "Why?"
Jae-shin shrugged. "Leaflets sort of make a mess, don't they?" he ventured. "And I'm sure writing all those messages can be a pain sometimes." It had certainly annoyed him a few times, but not enough to make him stop.
"That's true, but the leaflets get people's attention and it makes them want to read my messages. If I just stick something on a wall, especially secretly, they might just walk by and not notice."
"Well... maybe you'd still want to think about it," he pressed lamely. The more he tried to argue, the sillier it sounded. "I mean, it might clean up the city and that would be good for everyone, right?"
"I guess I could try and think about that, too," she said.
It was plain from the tone of her voice that she didn't really plan to do that, but Jae-shin supposed that he had done enough to try and change her mind, so he decided not to push it. "You do that. So," he went on, getting to his feet and dusting himself off, "are we done? Can I go home now?"
"Someone seems to be in a hurry." Seeing an opportunity to needle him, the Blue Messenger gave him a sly glance. "Are you in a hurry to get home to your wife?"
"That's none of your business."
"Of course it is. I helped you fix things with her, didn't I? I guess it worked, huh?" she observed smugly.
"That's right, it did," he retorted, starting towards the edge of the roof where he could jump safely down onto the street below. Before he left, he turned and quirked a sardonic eyebrow at the Messenger. "See what happens when you're open to listening to people's advice?"
A few days later, the air was once again filled with fluttering blue leaflets, reminding Sergeant Ho that Jae-shin and In-soo's investigation was going nowhere. "I know you think that this Blue Messenger is a woman with some degree of education," the commanding officer told his men, "but thanks to the king's reforms, there are hundreds of people answering that description in this city. What else have you got for me?"
"Professor Jung has also verified that the Messenger isn't a Sungkyunkwan scholar," In-soo reminded him, "but we know that narrows the search only a little."
"And nothing more?" he demanded.
In-soo glanced at Jae-shin, who shook his head. "No, sir," he said curtly. "I've analyzed the evidence backwards and forwards, but there's nothing."
It was hardly the way to address a superior officer; but fortunately Sergeant Ho interpreted this as frustration over the stalled investigation and, recognizing a chance to worm his way into Jae-shin's (and Minister Moon's) good graces, abruptly changed his tone. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Detective," he soothed. "I'm sure that you and Detective Ha here are doing your very best. We'll close this case eventually."
Jae-shin ducked his head, mumbling an assent.
His attitude wasn't because he was frustrated over the lack of progress in the investigation. He was actually glad that the police hadn't come any closer to apprehending the Blue Messenger, and angry at himself for feeling that way.
Working on this case brought back unpleasant memories of when he had been the one being hunted down. In fact, he supposed that the police were technically after him, too, since he had effectively made himself an accomplice to the Blue Messenger instead of arresting her as he should.
He'd had plenty of opportunities to arrest her, of course, and doing so would be good for his career; but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Jae-shin understood only too well what drove people to cast their thoughts to the winds, and despite his commitment to serve and protect, a part of him still believed that the Messenger and people like her should be allowed to act as gadflies, using their words and arrows to sting the great horse that was Joseon into action.
Perhaps he should have disqualified himself from the Blue Messenger case from the very beginning, Jae-shin thought bleakly as he made his way home. At the time that the case was assigned to him and In-soo, he had believed that his past was an asset, that it could help him capture the Messenger, bring the case to a swift conclusion and earn professional accolades for himself and his partner. Little did he know that this was actually a liability in that it brought his personal biases and professional dedication in direct conflict with each other.
Unfortunately, he realized that turning down the assignment would not have been a good idea, either. It might have led his superiors to question him and perhaps find out that one of the rising stars on the force, who also happened to be Minister of Justice's only son and heir, had once been Joseon's most wanted.
Jae-shin took a deep breath, willing the heaviness inside him to go away, as he walked into his and Ka-hai's bedroom. The chamber was empty, but on the way there, he had heard his wife's voice coming from the kitchens. The prospect of a good meal cheered him a bit.
She entered the room after he finished changing out of his uniform. "Oh, you're home!"
"That's right," he confirmed needlessly, accepting a peck on the cheek. "I see you went shopping today," he added, nodding at the small pile of parcels against one wall.
"Yes, I ran some errands," Ka-hai said as she untied the apron from around her waist and tossed it in with the rest of the dirty laundry. "I tried to find you, but one of the other officers I did find said you weren't on patrol today."
"No, I wasn't. I was on desk duty, and there were a couple of meetings."
"Too bad. I was going to ask you if you wanted me to wait for you so we could go home together."
He smiled faintly as he sat down by the lamp to do some reading. "Maybe next time."
Jae-shin turned back to his reading, and the sound of her unwrapping things and murmuring to herself faded away as he lost himself in the words on the page.
He came crashing back to earth when she flung one of her packages to the floor. "What's wrong?" he demanded, sitting bolt upright. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she replied, although she sounded very irritated. "It's just those stupid blue papers again. A bunch of them got packed in with the sewing thread that I bought. I told you they get into everything."
Jae-shin sighed inwardly. Just when he thought that he could take a break from it all.... "I guess they're supposed to," he murmured. "The Blue Messenger has a lot to say, and s-he obviously thinks that the leaflets will get people's attention."
"I think they're more of a nuisance than anything else." She snatched up a leaflet and skimmed it with a scowl. "I'm sure that the Blue Messenger puts in a lot of effort making these things, but he'd probably be better off doing something productive."
"Like what, exactly?" he asked, beginning to frown as well.
Ka-hai shrugged and tossed the leaflet into the pile of wrapping paper that was going to be thrown away. "Well, if he knows so much about improving society, then maybe he should actually go do it instead of just writing about it."
"Making things better isn't just about taking action when you have an idea. You also need to change people's minds, plant the idea in their heads so that they'll support you."
"I think people find this a nuisance more than anything else."
"That's not true! I know that they read those things." At least, he seemed to recall that the Red Messenger's writings had set the people's minds afire. "Maybe not all of them, but some do, and if the messages reach even just a few people, then it's worth it."
She looked at him, startled by his outburst. "All right, perhaps some people do read these things," she acknowledged. "But can't the Blue Messenger reach just those people and leave the rest of the public out if it?"
"You can't just reach a few if you want things to change," he told her, an impatient bite to his words. "Society involves everyone, so everyone should be informed, whether they like it or not. It's the apathetic ones who choose to ignore what's going on around them who truly don't act."
"Are you calling me apathetic?"
Jae-shin set his jaw and said nothing. He hadn't been thinking about her when those words had flown out of his mouth; but to be perfectly honest, it seemed appropriate given the way she was acting.
Ka-hai stiffened at her husband's silence. "You are! I can't believe that after living with me all this time, you think I don't care!"
"Well, do you?" he challenged her.
"Of course I do! You might think that I'm some silly yangban housewife who plays at being a farm girl, Moon Jae-shin, but you couldn't be farther from the truth. Look at this." She thrust out a hand, showing him a palm that had remained callused even after she had traded her old life for a much more privileged one as a married woman. "My brothers and I trained horses and cleaned out stables with my father's workers not because it was fun, but because if we didn't do our part, we would go hungry.
"I know what the lives of the poor can be like," she spat, "and maybe I can't make money rain in the streets like your almighty Blue Messenger does with those papers, but I give and do what I can to try and make things better!"
"That's not the same thing. It's all very well," he added, in what to her ears sounded like an infuriatingly patronizing tone, "but the Blue Messenger is trying to get the people to think about what's going on in society and dream about a better life."
"Can people eat dreams? Do dreams keep them warm at night? Oh, it's not a bad thing to dream, of course," she said, mimicking his tone, "but you can't make them come true if you're starving to death!"
The sarcasm wasn't lost on Jae-shin and he glared at her. Why was she being so obstinate about this? Why wouldn't she just listen to him? "You don't understand!"
"And you do?"
"Yes!"
She flushed angrily. "I may not be half as educated as you, Moon Jae-shin, but I don't need to go to a fancy school to know that society's ills can't be fixed simply by scattering papers all over town."
"I just tried to explain-never mind." Fed up with trying to defend what the Blue Messenger stood for - what he stood for - he threw his book aside and jumped to his feet. "If that's what you want to believe, then fine. I hope that just throwing money at the problem works for you."
He quit the room without another word, leaving the door rattling in its frame behind him.
It felt strange not to wake up in Jae-shin's arms the next morning - strange, and literally terrible.
Upon waking, Ka-hai sat up in bed and was immediately assailed by a wave of dizziness so overwhelming that it compelled her to lie down again and wait for it pass.
She was slowly hoisting herself back to a sitting position when Kwan-sook entered the bedroom. Seeing her mistress struggling, the maid hurriedly set aside the wash water that she carried and rushed to help her to her feet. "Are you all right, my lady?" she whispered.
Ka-hai glanced at her husband, who slept on, undisturbed by Kwan-sook's arrival. She noticed that he was sleeping with back to her and wrapped up in his blankets for once, as if trying to put as much distance between them as possible without moving out of their bedroom, and tamped down the sick feeling that threatened to well up inside her anew. She was short on sleep and feeling bad about their argument. That had to be it.
"I'm fine," she assured her maid, making her way gingerly towards the washstand to begin her morning ablutions. "Just give me a minute."