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“Elder Shin! Grandpa, come over here! You can read this, right?”
The woman went to the elderly servant and held out a note.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the young lady’s name.”
At that, the servants nearby swarmed in.
“How do you read it?”
“Her face is pretty, and her handwriting’s pretty too!”
Smiles spread across their murmuring faces.
From the moment the young lady—whom they’d assumed was fussy—had spoken first and said she was Joseon, a quiet goodwill had started to sprout among them. Rio, who used to only pretend to eat every day, now finished a whole bowl without trouble, and the kitchen servants were making a fuss about how admirable it was.
“Let’s see.... ‘Ri’ like a pear tree, and then ‘o’ in the middle.... So even in plain Joseon words, it’s Rio.”
“Her name fits her exactly! She’s so white—even at night, those cheeks of hers shine, don’t they.”
In the midst of the boisterous servants, the woman let out a sigh. She was someone who’d spent her whole life trembling at police boots and rifles, surviving on other people’s moods. She knew Rio’s question wasn’t simple. The young lady looked like she wanted a Joseon name.
“Then... what if we make her a different name? In Joseon words!”
At her thought, the servants around her nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
“Since she’s so pale, a name with ‘Baek’ or ‘Seol’ in it would fit like a glove!”
“I think a flower name would work. It’s already in her original name anyway.”
While they were all worrying over what name would suit Rio, someone lifted their eyes and snapped.
“You’re all so soft in the head—soft in the head. What, she’s pretty, so you’re gonna give a Joseon name to the daughter of a Jap lackey? Are you crazy!”
Not everyone liked Rio. At the resentful shout, everyone clamped their mouths shut. The ones who’d been about to make her a Joseon name licked their lips, awkward.
“She’s still Joseon too.”
“Joseon, my ass! If she’s lived among the Japs her whole life, she’s a Jap! In a grand house, eating only the good stuff and living easy—Joseon? Same Joseon as us? How is she the same!”
“Don’t be like that.”
The woman who’d brought back Rio’s name said gently, patting the servant’s shoulder.
“She’s just a kid. Even if people call her a Jap’s daughter, I haven’t once seen her call him ‘Father.’ If her heart is Joseon, then she’s Joseon. That’s that.”
No matter that Rio was Hanamura’s daughter—if you watched the two of them for only a few days, anyone would notice.
It wasn’t a normal father-and-daughter relationship. They were more like an employer and a servant. They didn’t have conversations. Not in a day.
The only words Rio ever said to Hanamura were two phrases at most: “Please go safely,” and “Have you returned?”
The day after they arrived in Joseon after a long voyage, even with a fever burning through her body, Rio had to dress herself up and see Hanamura off. Hanamura forced his shivering daughter to give him her greeting—made her do it, and received it.
“Don’t hate even a fellow Joseon like that.”
“How is that a Joseon....”
“If she said she’s Joseon, then she’s Joseon like us. That makes her one of us. She said it herself.”
“....”
The servant who’d been angry a moment ago had tears swimming in his eyes.
A fellow Joseon. It was unfair and irritating, and yet he couldn’t properly get mad at that phrase.
A cruel time. In an era when being born Joseon was treated like a sin, it was because they knew their only side—the only ally they had—was someone who was also Joseon.
Jeong, that feeling boiling hot by pulling pity, attachment, sympathy, and bond into one sticky mass, had stubbornly taken root in every Joseon person’s heart.
Thinking back to the times they’d stammered out, “I’m Joseon too,” the servants finally gave Hanamura’s young lady a new Joseon name.
Joyful Hui and to be, Jae—Huijae.
“The young lady’s Joseon name is read like this, they say. Hui-jae-.”
The next day, when the woman brought in the meal tray, she wrote the name on the back of the note Huijae had held out.
“Hijae?”
“Yes. It means: be joyfully. Be here and eat well and stay healthy. Make friends, all around, laugh a lot. That’s why we made it, isn’t it.”
Rio still couldn’t understand the words. Even so, it sounded like something good. Like something said for her. Her cheeks kept rising on their own. At Rio, who was grinning softly, the woman pulled a worn book out of her bosom.
“This is... it’s not a new book.... But still, while you’re here, if you’re going to read and speak, I figured it’d be better to look at even this. If you’re bored, take a look....”
Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to gift a book to someone who couldn’t read? The woman, who’d held back part of her own wages to buy a book for Rio, hesitated and handed over the old used book. It was a Joseon language primer written in Japanese.
“....”
Holding the book in both hands, Rio stared at the woman as if she couldn’t believe it. Her eyes trembled with joy.
“Then I’ll get going now. You left a lot of food yesterday—today, chew, chew, and eat it all!”
Left alone in the room, Rio hugged the book to her chest once. The book looked shabby against Huijae’s chest, dressed in expensive clothes made of luxurious fabric. But Huijae didn’t care. She hugged the book tight, putting strength into it.
“Hi-jae-.”
Then she repeated her name one more time.
“Hui-jae-!”
I’m Joseon. I’m Huijae. As if she were saying that, Huijae lifted the book high and hopped around the room, thump-thump.
The woman, who still hadn’t passed down the corridor and was standing beyond the door, smiled faintly. Leaving behind the sound of Huijae’s bouncing, she moved her feet slowly and muttered,
“So it makes her that happy... to be called Joseon too....”
* * *
Taeseok did delivery work again today, starting from dawn.
With the liquor dregs tied down tight in the cargo rack, he passed along the wall of Hanamura’s house. Out of habit, even though he knew it would be a wasted hope, he slowed his bicycle at the far end. That was when—
“Gi Taeseok!”
A girl’s face popped up, peeking over the wall. Taeseok kicked down the stand with his foot and stopped the bicycle.
“Hel-lo-?”
“...Huh?”
“Nice to meet you!”
Taeseok blinked slowly. He was dumbfounded. The girl who hadn’t even known his name a few days ago was now introducing herself.
“Please take care of me!”
On top of that, in polite speech. Taking quick steps toward her, Taeseok soon realized where the greeting had come from. The book clutched in both hands—she lifted it high over her head like she was showing it off.
“Me! Present!”
“Who gave you that?”
“I am very happy!”
Huijae only said what she wanted to say. She couldn’t properly listen, because she still didn’t understand. Maybe she’d wanted to tell him she was happy to receive a gift, so she just threw out the words she’d learned.
“So you were studying and didn’t come out.”
Taeseok chuckled. Was this why she hadn’t been seen? Thinking that made the corners of his mouth keep lifting for no reason.
Seeing him like that, the girl raised one hand again like last time. A demanding look that said, lift your hand up too. Without realizing it, Taeseok wiped his right hand on his waistband.
“Why are you doing that....”
Even while fidgeting, he held his hand out. With a confident smile, the girl tickled his palm again. Her index finger moved softly. Taeseok froze stiff, like the thick calluses glued to his palm.
It was a moment so brief it was almost cruel. The time it took her to write the letters was far too short. When she lifted her finger away, the girl’s eyes folded into soft crescents.
“My name. Is Huijae.”
Huijae. It was Huijae.
Only now did he learn the girl’s name. Taeseok clenched his fist, as if the name she’d written might fly away. But he couldn’t bring himself to squeeze an empty palm. Afraid the name Huijae might break, might crack, he kept his fist half-closed in that awkward way.
“Your name. Gi Taeseok.”
“Not ‘name’ like that. Just name. Na-me.”
To Huijae, who still remembered his name, Taeseok even taught her the word “name.”
Yeah. You’re Joseon, and you have the name Huijae. It felt like she was saying that.
Huijae, flustered for a moment, ducked back down under the wall.
“Tru-ly... hon... hongeum.... hon-gyeong.... hon-gyeong? I follow.”
At the voice coming from inside the wall, Taeseok stepped closer. Standing on tiptoe and peering over, inside there was—
“Hahaha!”
Huijae had secretly made herself a cheat sheet, and she was staring at the crumpled paper, pretending she was good at Joseon.
Thinking about how, with those tiny hands, she’d gripped that thick book and carefully picked out the things she wanted to say... it made somewhere in his heart itch, like someone was tickling him over and over.
Taeseok couldn’t help but burst into laughter. Because of Huijae. Because of that silly Joseon girl.
Realizing the laughter was coming from above her head, Huijae hurriedly hid the paper inside the book. But once Taeseok’s laughter had broken out, it didn’t stop.
“You teach me, please.”
Huijae spoke to him, cheeks reddened.
“I first arrive in Joseon.”
It seemed she’d studied even this in advance. After laughing for a long while, Taeseok looked down at Huijae, whose head barely reached his chest.
Everything that came across the water was expensive, they said. Only rare things you could barely get. Somehow, he felt like she wasn’t much different from that. No—she felt even rarer. So rare he couldn’t even measure it.
The eyes looking up at him sparkled and sparkled with expectation.
“Fine. It’s not like it’s hard.” freeweɓnovel.cøm
Hearing that, Huijae smiled brightly. In that moment, a music-box tune played. The heart that had been itchy a second ago turned strange—heavy, hot, and then, and then....
“I am very happy!”
Sunlight layered itself over her clear glass-bead voice. The light melody of a music box captured the scene beautifully.
A ridiculous feeling was blooming—something a poor nobody like him /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ had no right to have for a rich house’s young lady. If it was something this kid wanted, he wanted to do anything for her. He wanted to grant even difficult requests, bring her precious things, feed her tasty things.
Taeseok swallowed hard. Huijae’s gaze was still fixed on him.
Like he’d fallen splashing into a wide ocean and swallowed a mouthful of water, his throat kept drying up, tighter and tighter.
Ding-. Ding-. Ding-.
From far away, a bell rang from the port.
“I, I should go now.”
Taeseok rubbed the back of his neck with his big hand, then strode back to his bicycle. Strangely, he didn’t want to make himself step away. He could still feel her gaze on his back. Taeseok gripped the handlebar. Thunk-! He kicked the stand up with his foot and was about to press the pedal.
“Have a safe trip!”
Over the wall, Huijae stuck her face out and called to him. Taeseok turned his head, looked at Huijae, then silently began to pedal.
Have a safe trip meant she wanted Taeseok to come back.
The boy’s face, moving forward along the bumpy road, was dyed with anticipation.
A heart turned toward tomorrow.
