Blog

The next day arrived all too soon for Ni Na.  She wasn’t sure that her heart could take what it was about to endure.  Gazing at the face of her beloved all day long while she tried to capture his beautiful essence on a piece of silk.  Was it even possible?

Would her heart explode while she accomplished the endeavor?  Would she perhaps melt into a puddle onto the floor at his feet?  Or, even worse, betray some hint of her true feelings?

She crawled out of bed.  Pulling on her clothes reluctantly.  She wanted to see him.  But she didn’t want to see him.  She longed to be with him.  But every moment more in his presence increased her desire for him.  And her hopelessness.  Because even if he ever did propose to her, his choice would be made out of simple friendship.  Not from fervent adoration.

She slid her arms into her robe and drew it about her waist.  Preparing herself to go beard the lion.  She released a deep sigh as a knock sounded on her door.

“Ni Na?”

It was Dan O.

“Come in, auntie.”

The woman slipped into her room and shut the door.  “This just came for you.  From the orphan house.”

She handed Ni Na a scrap of parchment.  The young woman’s eyes quickly perused the missive.

“Dae Hee is sick?” Ni Na gasped, alarmed.  “I must go to her at once!  Please inform Lord Lee when he arrives that I am visiting her this morning.”

Her friend nodded her head.  “Yes, milady.  Of course.  Just…please stay healthy.”

Ni Na reached out for a bag and began to fold an extra outfit.  She shoved it into the bag along with a few other belongings and set out for Beom Sook’s outer property.

She practically ran halfway there.  Until she came to an abrupt halt as she collided with a strong chest.

“I am so sorry!” she gasped, glancing up at the man now grasping her upper arms.  “Beom Sook!”

“My dear,” he smiled down at her.  “Why are you running?”  His brow crumpled.  “Didn’t we agree that I would meet you at your house this morning?”

She bobbed her head.  “But Dae Hee is sick!”

“What?  She is?  Why did they inform you but not me?” he wondered aloud.

“Come!” Without thinking, she reached up and grasped his hand as it slid off her arm.  She tugged him towards his own house.

He grinned down at her. 

She was holding his hand.  Did she even realize it?

It seemed, a few minutes later, that she suddenly did.  For she instantly released it.  And he felt his heart sink in disappointment.  He glanced abruptly down at her. 

“Why did you let go of my hand?” he queried before he could think better of it.

“What?”  She peered up at him.  “I’m sorry.  I hadn’t realized that I’d grabbed it.”

His heart sank.

Really?

He continued to stare down at her.  “It’s okay, you know,” he murmured suddenly.

“What?” she blinked as she continued to stare into his eyes.

“If you want to hold my hand…it’s all right.”

She began to blink more rapidly as her eyes moved away from his. 

Beom Sook was offering to let her hold his hand?

The other day was one thing.  He had wanted to reassure her when he’d believed that she had felt threatened.  But today…what reason did he have today?

“If people see us, they’ll think…”  Her voice trailed off.

“What?  What will they think, Ni Na?” he asked abruptly as he stopped to look at her.

But she kept walking.  “Come!  Please.  I want to see Dae Hee.”

Distracted from his own morass, he sharpened his gaze on her as he lengthened his stride to catch up with her.  “You’re really worried about her.  You care for her that much already?  After just a few days?”

The tiny child’s lovely face suddenly bubbled up in her mind’s eye.  Her wide, dark eyes and midnight bob.  Her brother had hacked her hair short.  He hadn’t wanted to deal with it.  Ni Na had found some scissors and trimmed it neatly that first day.  After the little girl had bathed.  Now her hair bounced around her chin in the most adorable way.  And a sweet smile always seemed to be lighting up her face when she was around Ni Na.  She smiled as she recalled how Dae Hee hadn’t wanted her to leave that first night.

“Choi Ni Na?” that tiny voice had queried.

 “Hmm?”

 Great, wide eyes had implored her.  “You’re not going to leave me tonight, are you?

 “Please don’t leave me….  I want to stay with you…. Can I call you Unnie Ni Na?”

Ni Na had sat on the floor near her bed until she’d fallen asleep.  And Beom Sook had wrapped his own arms around Ni Na and pulled her into his lap.  And she’d fallen asleep there, enveloped in his comfort.

“It doesn’t take very long for my heart to become committed,” she mumbled.  “I love her, Beom Sook.  I feel like she was supposed to be mine.  Had my life gone a little differently, had I been matched with a husband as early as some of my acquaintance, I could have been that child’s mother.”

His lips flipped upward.  “You’re just barely old enough.  But it’s true.  You could have a child her age.”

“You didn’t know that she was sick?”

“No, I spent the night at my own house last night.  I left the guards in place.  My mother and her lady’s maid agreed to watch the children for us.”

“I knew they had.  But…you’ve stayed at the orphan house every night.”

“As have you.  Until last night.  I just wanted to go home.” 

To get ready for today. 

But how could he explain that now?

However, she didn’t seem to be paying too much attention to him.  They were nearing his house.  He watched her face.  An intense expression of apprehension was swallowing it whole right now.  His fingers slid along hers.  Surprised, she glanced down.  And those fingers enveloped hers.

“She’s going to be all right.  Little ones get sick quite often sometimes.  She’ll be okay.”

She glanced up into his eyes.  And felt his hand squeezing hers.  She offered him a flimsy smile. 

And together they walked into the orphan house.

––

Ni Na made a beeline for Dae Hee’s room.

She found the little girl lying in her bed, So Yi sitting on the edge.  The woman was trying to comfort her.  But Dae Hee’s face didn’t brighten until she saw Ni Na enter the room.  Closely followed by Beom Sook.

“Unnie Ni Na!” the child burst out weakly.  Then she began to cough.

So Yi stood up and backed away.  To be quickly replaced on the edge of the bed by Ni Na. 

“Good morning, sweetie,” she murmured softly.

She reached up and touched Dae Hee’s forehead.  The little girl was burning up.  Ni Na glanced at Beom Sook, catching his eye.  He read the worry in her gaze.  Then she looked back down at Dae Hee.

Of all the nights to decide to leave the little girl, Ni Na had picked the one night that Dae Hee had truly needed her.  Ni Na felt terrible about it.

The tiny child stared up at her, fear clearly written in her eyes.  “Am I going to die, Unnie Ni Na?  Like Eomma and Appa?”

“What?” Ni Na gasped.  She tamped down on her own fear to lend the child strength instead.  “Of course not!  Baby, you’re going to be just fine.  You just have a little fever.  That’s all.”

“They all had fevers,” she murmured. 

Truly, Dae Hee didn’t remember much from that day.  Just that her mother had sent her and her brother away.  To visit friends in another village.  But those friends were terribly poor.  And after a few days, they had asked the boy to take his sister elsewhere.  By that time, word had spread that both of their parents – along with the vast majority of their village – had died.

“Who?” Ni Na queried.

“Our parents,” Na Mi answered her question from the doorway.  Ni Na turned to disturb a troubled expression on the girl’s face.  “Our younger siblings.”

“Your younger siblings?” Ni Na quizzed her.

The eldest of the orphans nodded as she slipped into the room.  She looked down at Dae Hee.  “You’re going to be all right.  You don’t have the sickness our parents had.  It was something strange.  And they died quickly.  You probably just have a little cold.  Just close your eyes and rest now.  You’re tired, aren’t you?”

The tiny child bobbed her head.  Her eyes found Ni Na.  “Unnie, you’ll stay with me, won’t you?”

“I’m not leaving until you’re all better.”  Ni Na lifted her bag off the floor.  “See?  I even brought a change of clothes.”

Her words, coupled with Na Mi’s, seemed to calm the child, and Dae Hee smiled before closing her eyes.  Everyone remained quiet for a few moments.  Until the little girl was asleep. 

Then Ni Na glanced up at Na Mi.  “Please.  Tell me what happened.  How did your parents come to die?”

So the girl began to share the sad story with both of her benefactors.

All of the adults in the village had come down with the illness.  Only those children who had been gone on the retreat with their teacher had survived.  Their teacher.  Na Mi had been the one teaching them all back in the village.  And she had decided to take them all on a nature hike one day.  Not too far from home.  Within walking distance.  But they had left after breakfast and gotten lost farther upstream and had spent the night in the woods.  Expecting someone’s father to come looking for them. 

But no one had come.  The children had drunk deeply from the stream that morning and filled their vessels with water before wandering back through the woods in their search for home.  Eventually, they had returned.  Only to find their entire village sick.  Including all the little boys and girls who had been too young to make the trek with them.

Their parents had sent all the returning children to a neighboring village.  Immediately.  Hoping to spare them from the plague.  Their dying wish had been granted.  All of Na Mi’s pupils had been spared.  But the one child who had returned to check on their families had also perished.  An older boy who had stayed to care for his parents after sending back word with a traveler that everyone in the village was still sick.  Or dead.  Then a week had passed without a word from anyone. 

Another traveler had then passed through the area and reported that the village was silent.  Fearing a plague, no one had returned to that town.  Na Mi and her friends had instinctively known that they had lost everything.  Their parents were gone.  As were their younger siblings.  They had dared not return.  Afraid that they too would die.

And the people who had been hosting them had begun to fear for their own lives once word arrived of the ghost town.  So they had cast the children out.  Na Mi had led them to another forest.  And then to another.  Until they had come to the edge of the capital city.  It was big enough that they could blend in better. 

And they had.  And they had also found a refuge in the forest that bordered the edge of that thoroughfare.  For several months, they had made their home there.  Subsisting off of scraps and stolen items.  And the occasional pay one of them received for the odd job here or there that some kind soul was willing to give one of them.  They had also discovered that a few tender hearts were moved by the plight of one of their youngest members.  More than one gentle woman had given some silver to one of the tiny girls when she’d begged for a bite to eat.  Many more steamed pork buns and rice cakes had been handed to the starving girls. 

After Na Mi related the details of their horrid journey from last summer through the day that Ni Na had caught Saem stealing her silver, that traumatized, eldest child fell silent.

“Na Mi?” her teacher’s quite voice awoke her from her awful reverie.

“Hmm?” Na Mi lifted her eyes to meet Ni Na’s.

“What happened?  Why are you so solemn?” 

The story had been difficult for the girl to relate.  And challenging to listen to also.  But Ni Na was certain that Na Mi had left out an important detail.

When she remained quiet, the teacher persisted.  “Did you lose someone besides your parents?”

The girl nodded as tears flooded her eyes.  “My baby brother.  Na Eun.  He was three years old.”

“Oh!” Ni Na stared in horror at a girl whom she was beginning to think of as her friend.  And, maybe someday, a possible confidante.  “I am so sorry.” 

She stood up then, reached out, and slid her arms around the girl, drawing her close to her.

Na Mi relaxed against her and let the tears come.  Coursing down her cheeks in a great flood.  She’d spent months being strong for her siblings.  And for everyone else.  She’d held those tears back.  Only daring to weep in the late hours of the night.  When everybody else had been sleeping.  She hadn’t dared cry in front of the rest of them.  Someone had had to be strong.  And lead the others.  And Dae Jong might believe that it should be him.  But he was more than two years younger than she.  Na Mi had known that she was the born leader of the group.  And she had quickly filled the shoes of all those missing mothers.

But now, she was surrounded by comfort.  And by the solacing arms of a girl even older than she.  One who had also lost her mother.  A young woman who could understand her pain.  And now lend her the strength that Na Mi seemed to possess no longer.

So she gave in.  And indulged in the good cry that she’d been putting off for months.

Beom Sook watched them.  And felt oddly at a loss. 

He had buried his father.  But he’d been blessed to know him well – and for a very long time – before he’d passed.  And the young lord still had his mother.  He’d also been left a title, power, lands, and silver.  He was quite intelligent, possessed a handsome face, and was sought after by both men and women alike.  The former seeking his favors and friendship.  And the latter hoping to become his bride.  He was blessed beyond measure.

And he had just taken on the monumental task of not just housing and feeding twenty-four very traumatized children but also helping them to cope with their pain.  And he hadn’t the foggiest notion where to even begin.  But as he watched Ni Na rubbing Na Mi’s back and murmuring soothing words into her ear, he realized that the remarkable girl whom he’d met just a few short weeks ago in Kim Jung Sook’s classroom seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

She never ceased to amaze him.