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As it turned out, Ni Na tucked Dae Hee into bed before eight o’clock.  And lay down alone on the bed next to the tiny girl.  Both Beom Sook and the girl’s brother were playing a game with the older boys in their classroom as Lady Lee and Ni Na tucked the younger children into bed.

Dae Hee was the last of the children to whom Ni Na bid goodnight.  As she pulled the blankets up around the child’s shoulders, Ni Na smiled down at her. 

And Dae Hee begged her, “Please.”  She patted the bed next to her.  “Lie down?”

Ni Na returned her smile and walked over to the opposite side of the bed.  She lay down on top of it, and Dae Hee reached out to slip her hand into her teacher’s.  The little girl then closed her eyes.  And proceeded to fall asleep.

Ni Na found herself missing Beom Sook.  And his voluminous robe.  That smelled of honeycomb.

––

“What’s the matter?” Beom Sook asked Dae Jong an hour later.

“Come, my lord, and you will see,” the boy responded crisply.

Beom Sook followed him to his room.

Dae Jong gestured towards his fully occupied bed.  “Where am I to sleep now?  The teacher fell asleep holding my sister’s hand.”

Beom Sook smiled as he gazed down at the touching tableau.  The woman surely was smitten with the little girl.  And that tiny child was obviously absolutely taken with her teacher. 

Had Ni Na taken his words to heart then?  Had she wanted to afford him another opportunity to carry her to her room?

Sighing, he crossed the distance to her side of the bed and leaned over to gently extract her hand from the girl’s limp grasp.  Then he bent and picked Ni Na up in his arms.  He carried her into her room, but when he bent over to lay her down on her bed, her eyes fluttered open.

“This is becoming a habit, my dear.  Shall we continue this lovely exercise every night?” he murmured sweetly.

“What?”  She blinked up disconcertedly at him as he nestled her in her bed.  The faint light of the lamp burning next to her bed the only thing illuminating her beautiful face.

“You fell asleep in Dae Hee’s bed tonight.”

“I did?” she gasped.  She glanced around her room.  “And you carried me in here again?”

“Mm-hmm.”

She gazed up at him in alarm.  “Beom Sook, I’m so sorry.”

“Nonsense.  I’m not.  You were just testing out my earlier words, weren’t you?  To see if I was serious.”  He bent over her and grinned.  “I was.  I enjoyed carrying you in here.  Now,” he pulled the covers up around her and tucked them in under her chin, “sleep tight, and I shall see you early in the morning.  For our first day of school with our new students.”

Smiling at her, he blew out the lamp before turning and walking out into the hallway.

Leaving her…quite alone.

––

“Ni Na?  What’s wrong?” Beom Sook asked her the next afternoon after they’d dismissed their classes and he had wandered into her classroom to find her leaning over a table covered in ink blocks and quill pens.

“I’m missing a quill and a block of ink.  No matter how many times I count them, one is still missing.”

He smiled at her.  “Maybe you simply miscounted.”

“But how could I?  I have twelve pupils.  And I passed out one per child.  But…there are only eleven here.”

“Well, whose place was missing a set?”

“I do not know.  Na Mi and Sae Bit offered to collect them all.  They lined them all up here on this table before they headed to their rooms.  But clearly, one is missing.”

He shrugged.  “Maybe one of the children borrowed hers to occupy herself in her room tonight.  Who knows?  Perhaps you have a budding artist or author among your group, my dear.”

She glanced up at him.

Why did Beom Sook call her by that pet name all the time now?  She almost felt like she was married to him when he uttered those words so casually.  Was this what friendship with a man felt like?

She instantly recalled how she had poured her heart out to him – half of it anyway – and admitted that she wanted to become his confidante.  Perhaps he had taken her request to heart.  And let her in to his own.  At least, to that extent.  So now he referred to her as his good friend, his “dear.”

She sighed.  It was surely better than nothing.  But still so much less than that for which she had, at first, hoped.

––

Sae Bit lay on Na Mi’s bed as she watched the older girl penning characters onto the piece of parchment.  She finally closed her eyes and drifted on a daydream for several minutes as her friend wrote.  Her little reverie was eventually interrupted by the satisfactorily uttered words, “I’m done!”

Sae Bit jumped off the bed and crossed the room to the little table in the opposite corner.  She glanced down at her friend’s piece of parchment, at all her neatly penned characters.  “Na Mi,” she breathed, “you are an amazing poet!”

Na Mi looked at her.  “Do you really think so?”

Sae Bit bobbed her head enthusiastically.  “It’s breathtaking!  If he doesn’t love it, I will be astonished!  I would love it!  Oh!  You are so romantic!”

Her friend beamed up at her.  “Let’s hope that he thinks so.”

“I am sure he will.  Rest assured.  Your plan is going to work.”

If only Na Mi were as confident about this little scheme as Sae Bit was.  But she had learned that the path to true love did not always run smooth.  She thought of her beloved Yu Jin.  And sighed.

––

As she wandered through the marketplace later that afternoon, Ni Na stopped at the shop owned by Lang Kyong’s husband.  Instantly spying her friend through the window of the little store, Ni Na stepped inside.  She hadn’t seen her old classmate in some time.  Despite the woman’s almost daily assistance.

“Ni Na!” Kyong gasped and came scampering across the shop to greet her friend.  “How are you?”  She glanced around then lowered her voice.  “Have you come for your most recent earnings?”

Ni Na’s face brightened considerably.  “Have you sold more then?”

“Have I sold more?  My dear, I have sold them all!”

“All?!” Ni Na intoned incredulously.  Oh!  That is excellent news indeed!  For I have a good use to put those earnings to now.”

Her friend beamed at her.  Still speaking in an undertone, she informed her friend excitedly, “I have some news of my own!”

One look at her face, and Ni Na felt a cheerful premonition cross her mind.  “Oh?”

“I’m pregnant!”

“Oh, Kyong!  I am most happy for you!”  Ni Na reached out to give her friend a hug.

And if her heart released a pang of its own, none but she was the wiser.  Ni Na now held out very little hope that she would ever have a child of her own.  She had just taken on the mammoth task of raising twenty-four children.  She was committed to them all – and to the youngest ones for the next decade.  What man would want her now?  Who on earth would want to spearhead that mission with her?

Other than Beom Sook, of course.  But she fully expected that he would soon grow tired of teaching the boys, and she would have to find them another tutor.  Eventually, he would be off fulfilling his noble duties for the council anyway.  And surely when those obligations were met, he would long to return to his own pursuits.  Leaving her very much alone.  And in charge of two dozen young lives.

Hopefully, by then, she would have finished her own studies so that she could commit her evenings to creating more ceramic figures to finance the care of her new charges.  She was going to be quite busy over the next few years unless her father decided to send some financial support her way. 

She didn’t feel daunted by the task that lay ahead of her.  Only saddened as she considered that her close friendship with Beom Sook must eventually be weakened by his return to his lordly duties.  She had best begin to shop around for a male tutor for her boys.  That way when Beom Sook left her, she’d be prepared to provide her pupils with another fine teacher.  Though, truly, she couldn’t imagine a finer tutor for the boys than Beom Sook.  He would be very hard to replace.

“How far along are you?” she asked her friend suddenly.

“Just a couple of months,” that young lady blushed. 

“Oh!  I am just so happy for you!  See?  I told you it would happen.  Sometimes, these things just take time.”

“You were right, milady.”  Kyong gazed up at her.  “Have you found a beau yet, Ni Na?”  She watched in dismay as her friend’s eyes instantly flooded with tears.  “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing.  Just my foolish heart went and set itself upon a man who loves another girl.  But it doesn’t really matter.  I’ve my hands so full now that soon I won’t have time to think of him any longer.”

Her eyes wide, Kyong breathed, “What’s going on?”

“I have adopted twenty-four orphans,” Ni Na explained with relish.  “And I am spending my days teaching them to read and write.”

“You…what?” Kyong gasped.  “What do you mean you adopted twenty-four orphans?”

“It is a long story.  But I found them living by their wits in an abandoned shack.  Starving, they were.  I took them in.  We’re housing them, feeding them, clothing them, and educating them now.”

“We?” queried Kyong, completely confused now.

“A friend of mine – a wealthy landowner – gave me a house for them to live in.  And is helping me to teach them.”

“Where on earth did you find another woman as worthy as you?” Kyong breathed in awe.

“I, uh—”

“Kyong!  Where are you, woman!?  I need your help!” cried that woman’s overwhelmed husband.

“Oh!  I had best go help him!  Wait here, and I will bring you your silver in a moment.  It was so good to see you!” she burst out, giving Ni Na one more hug before returning to her harried husband’s side.

Ni Na was grateful to be spared the necessity of explaining herself.  A few moments later, she wandered out of the shop.  Her pocket full of silver.  Having just delivered a promise to present her friend with several more pieces of pottery before the week’s end.  Thankfully, she still had quite a cabinetful at home.  She’d had little time to create over the past week.  She’d been too busy raising someone else’s children.