Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“Hwirim was a woman.”

At Paehyeon’s strange look and quiet words, Jaegyeom stopped breathing altogether.

“...What?”

Disbelief spread plainly across his face.

Hwirim was a woman?

It was almost impossible to believe.

Thinking back, Hwirim had been smaller than Myojeong, with a slighter frame as well. But Jaegyeom himself had been very young at the time, far smaller than he was now, so to his eyes, Hwirim had simply looked like an ordinary grown man.

Not only that, Hwirim had worn her hair cropped short. She dressed like a man too, and her swordsmanship had been so overwhelming that even Myojeong acknowledged her superiority. Her personality had been cool-headed, easygoing, broad-minded—everything Jaegyeom had instinctively considered masculine.

And because she had lived so far outside the customs and etiquette of that era, he had naturally assumed she was a man.

“But her hair was short, and she was the greatest swordsman under heaven...”

Jaegyeom stammered out the protest before trailing off halfway through.

Even as he spoke, he realized none of those things actually belonged only to men.

There was no reason a woman could not cut her hair short in those times.

No reason a woman could not become the greatest swordsman under heaven.

Besides—

hadn’t he recently mistaken someone else for a man too?

You must have thought I was a man.

Suhyang, whom he had met long ago, had also worn a horsehair hat and a scholar’s robe.

Back then, I wandered around disguised as a man. Anyone unfamiliar with women probably wouldn’t have noticed. But in those days, it wasn’t particularly unusual. There were many women who disguised themselves as men. It was simply a difficult world for women to survive in.

Looking utterly bewildered, Jaegyeom pressed a hand against his jaw.

No way.

Hwirim was a woman...

He was already stunned enough by that revelation alone.

But she had also been carrying a child.

As Jaegyeom reeled from the impossible story, a sentence suddenly flashed through his mind like lightning.

Do you know that Myojeong has a lover?

A cold shiver crawled slowly down his spine.

Why—

why did that memory surface now, of all times?

Now that he knew Hwirim was a woman, the things Suhyang had once said abruptly began falling into place like obstacles scattered across his path.

It was strange.

Completely baseless, and yet—

the vague premonition that had lingered somewhere in the back of his mind was rapidly solidifying into certainty.

No... it can’t be...

Come to think of it, after reuniting with Hwirim years later, Myojeong would disappear for several days whenever the seasons changed.

He always said he was going to visit Hwirim, who lived far away.

And every single time he left to see her, he had seemed oddly excited.

But when he returned, he would always wear a strangely troubled expression.

Sometimes he even paced around the yard while waiting for letters from Hwirim to arrive.

Even Jaegyeom, who was hopeless when it came to understanding human relationships, had known back then that something about it was different.

Still, he had dismissed it as nothing more than the closeness between old friends.

Myojeong had introduced Hwirim as an old companion, and the two truly had seemed close and informal with each other.

Yet somehow, even amid that familiarity, there had always been a strange tension between them. A lingering sense of restraint.

Could it be—

could the lover Suhyang mentioned really have been Hwirim?

“Then... the child...”

Jaegyeom hesitated before asking unevenly,

“Do you know who the father was?”

Paehyeon shook his head.

“That, I do not know.”

He had only traveled together with Hwirim for a single season.

They had never been particularly close to begin with. Afterward, they merely crossed paths from time to time, and Paehyeon knew very little about her private affairs.

To begin with, he had little interest in human lives.

And even if he had cared, prying into others’ personal matters simply was not in his nature.

Besides, Hwirim herself had not been someone who spoke much about her own life.

Still gripping his chin, Jaegyeom sank into thought with a stunned expression.

Myojeong was a man who should never have loved anyone.

Come to think of it, even the god of calamity had once said something strange.

You brat. I’m in no position to marry, even if I wanted to.

Can someone get married alone? You need another person for that.

And Myojeong had said similar things too.

For some reason, he had been someone who could not marry.

There was no proof.

Nothing concrete.

He had never actually witnessed anything suspicious.

And yet—

the intuition pressing against him now was strangely powerful.

It felt as though countless scattered fragments were finally snapping together into a single shape.

What if Myojeong’s lover really had been Hwirim?

What if the child Hwirim carried had been Myojeong’s?

Had Myojeong intended to build a family?

Then how had Hwirim died?

The moment his thoughts reached that point, his heart began hammering violently.

“Then... what happened to the child?”

Jaegyeom asked abruptly.

“Did it die too?”

“Who knows? It was two hundred years ago.”

Only after hearing the answer did Jaegyeom realize how foolish the question had been.

Two centuries had passed.

Myojeong and Hwirim were both long dead, and even if a child had existed between them, wondering now whether it had lived or died was meaningless.

Right then—

BANG!

The door behind them burst open.

Jaegyeom flinched and turned sharply around.

Yoon Taehee stood there expressionlessly.

His gaze first landed on the sword lying on the floor before slowly lifting toward Jaegyeom.

“......”

“......”

With a cool expression, Taehee silently held Jaegyeom’s gaze.

He had woken after hearing noise and assumed he would find Jaegyeom and Paehyeon fighting.

He had expected chaos.

Instead, the two had apparently been having a conversation.

Taehee briefly glanced past Jaegyeom toward Paehyeon, as though silently asking what had happened.

At that moment, Jaegyeom narrowed his eyes.

“You...”

He suddenly strode straight toward Taehee.

The murderous pressure radiating from him was so intense that Taehee briefly thought Jaegyeom was about to slap him for locking him inside.

But instead—

Jaegyeom abruptly seized the front of Taehee’s durumagi.

“You—this...”

His voice shook.

“Where did you get this?”

Taehee flinched slightly and looked down.

“This coat. Where did you get it?!”

“...What?”

Taehee asked blankly, unable to understand the situation.

“How do you have this coat...?”

Jaegyeom’s hand gripping the fabric trembled violently.

“This... this is the coat Myojeong used to wear...”

His fingers tightened around the ties of the robe.

There was no mistake.

Attached to the knot was a small leaf-shaped embroidery sewn in crooked thread.

It was the leaf Jaegyeom himself had stitched onto Myojeong’s coat long ago with the help of a government slave.

“......”

Taehee froze and looked down at his own clothes.

“What did you just say?”

“I said this is the coat I sewed for Myojeong.”

Jaegyeom spat the words out through trembling breaths.

“......”

At the sudden revelation, Taehee’s brows slowly furrowed.

“Answer me!”

Jaegyeom shouted, clutching the coat ties tightly.

“Where did you get this coat?!”

He could not understand why Yoon Taehee was wearing something that belonged to Myojeong.

He had failed to notice it earlier because his mind had been too chaotic, but now that he saw it clearly, there was no possibility of mistake.

The crooked embroidered leaf was unique.

Only one coat in the world carried it.

“This coat belonged to Saero.”

At Taehee’s answer, Jaegyeom stared at him with shaking eyes.

“...Saero?”

“Yes. One of the intelligent ghosts.”

Jaegyeom drew a ragged breath.

The violent agitation consuming him moments ago abruptly faltered.

“......”

Then his face slowly hardened.

“I’m not falling for your tricks anymore.”

“What?”

“That’s a lie.”

All the color had drained from Jaegyeom’s face.

“T-Tell me the truth.”

An overwhelming terror suddenly seized him.

“You...”

His voice trembled uncontrollably.

“W-What exactly are you...?”

As he spoke, Jaegyeom slowly backed away from Yoon Taehee.