Chapter 38

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: A Shared Breath
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The next morning, the caretaker appeared bright and early, carrying a whole pot of ginseng chicken soup.

He’d said he was stewing the chicken with wild ginseng, and indeed, a chicken so thoroughly cooked its meat was falling apart was served for breakfast.

The caretaker set the table himself, and wearing disposable gloves, he deboned the chicken and placed the meat on their plates.

Taeseo pushed all the best parts, like the legs and wings, over to Yuna's side of the table.

Perhaps thanks to eating and resting well, Yuna's complexion was much better than the day before.

His mother came here twice a year to recuperate, but he'd never seen her complexion improve this much. Youth, it seemed, was truly a wonderful thing.

“How's the chicken?”

Yuna held up a large drumstick for the caretaker to see. With a little exaggeration, one could say the drumstick was the size of her face.

“I've never had chicken cooked this perfectly.”

The native chicken had been stewed for so long that the meat melted in her mouth. Every spoonful of the wild ginseng broth seemed to fill her with renewed strength.

Seeing Yuna so frail, this place had been the first thing to come to his mind. He was glad he'd brought her here.

After breakfast, the caretaker's younger sibling came to give Yuna an IV drip and cleared the table.

While Yuna was getting her IV, Taeseo went over to the caretaker, who was tending to the garden.

Summer here was the most splendid of the four seasons. That was because all sorts of plants were grown along the high walls that shielded the property from outside view.

Before, there were only crape myrtles growing along the wall, but ever since they started cultivating hydrangeas, his mother's favorite, the caretaker's workload had increased.

“Mister, should I tell Mom to stop growing hydrangeas?”

“Goodness, what are you saying?”

Hydrangeas produced large, soup-bowl-sized blossoms every year, but since they couldn't survive the winters of the central region, they had to be moved to the empty sunroom each winter.

This year's hydrangeas, laden with large flower stalks, had also spent the past winter in the sunroom, their flower buds intact.

“You're getting older, and digging them up in the fall and replanting them in the spring... That can't be easy work.”

“A person has to keep working. If you stop, you just get old faster.”

Taking advantage of a break in the dry monsoon season, the caretaker snipped off the hydrangea stalks one by one with pruning shears.

“Why are you cutting the flowers?”

“If you cut the stalks now, new branches will sprout from the ends during the rest of the summer. Buds for next year's flowers will form on those new branches, and after they survive the winter, they'll grow and bloom next year.”

“They'd still bloom even if you left them alone, wouldn't they?”

“Pruning like this makes two stems grow from one. That's how they get bigger. Even flower trees need to go through trials like this to grow larger and stronger. It's just like people.”

A pile of hydrangea blossoms accumulated at the caretaker's feet as he cut the stalks.

“Mister, what's that scent in the yard? Hydrangeas don't have a fragrance.”

Taeseo asked about the source of the fragrance that had kept him awake the previous night. The caretaker smiled warmly and pointed to the tall crape myrtles planted along the wall.

Taeseo tilted his head back and looked up at the crape myrtles. Purple flowers, light pink flowers on every stem. The oldest flowers, the ones that made the old house so brilliant in summer, were the source of the scent.

“My heart sank when I saw your picture in the newspaper, Young Master. I was worried, but I'm relieved to see you look better than I expected.”

“I'm not.”

“Pardon?”

“My father kicked me out. I'm living at a construction site in Chungcheong Province.”

“Oh my. For someone in that situation, you look quite well.”

“She's been making sure I eat well.”

Taeseo said "she" and gestured with his eyes toward the old house. Through the large living room window, Yuna could be seen resting in an armchair, getting her IV drip.

“It seems she's not someone you met in Seoul.”

“Yeah. She's a country person, like you. Oh, by the way, can I take some of these flowers inside?”

“Why?”

“She likes them.”

The caretaker stopped tidying the stalks and cut the stems longer than he had for pruning, handing them to Taeseo.

Taeseo entered the house with an armful of hydrangea branches. Yuna was asleep with the IV needle still in her arm.

***

Waking up a while later, Yuna tidied her messy hair with her fingertips, looking embarrassed.

“I don't know why I fall asleep the moment my head hits anything.”

“You should rest when you can.”

Taeseo believed that sleep was something you could run a deficit on.

She lived so diligently, even cutting back on sleep, that her body was worn out. The moment she had a chance to rest, sleep would claim her.

“I wonder if I deserve to be pampered like this.”

“You'll be even more surprised when you see this.”

Taeseo brought the flowers the caretaker had cut for him and placed them in front of Yuna.

“I saw him cutting the flower stalks earlier.”

“Yeah. He cut this many for you to see.”

“I could have just looked at them through the window. I feel bad for troubling him...”

Despite her words, she smiled, clearly not displeased. It was the first time he had seen her look so happy about something.

“Wait a second.”

Taeseo gathered the moon jars from around the house and brought them to Yuna. They were all different sizes, but every one of them was expensive.

“Try arranging the flowers.”

“In these?”

Taeseo knew they weren't jars for holding things but works of art to be admired for their balanced beauty.

“They're just useless empty jars. They might be worth looking at if they actually held something.”

Unaware of the jars' value, Yuna began to cut the hydrangea stems and arrange them in the moon jars as if they were vases.

Taeseo took the arrangements Yuna made and placed them around the living room.

In between arranging the flowers, Yuna checked her phone. Taeseo, who had been helping her, also paused to glance at her screen.

As expected, there were no messages from An Yunho. With a look of visible relief, Yuna continued arranging the flowers.

The old house, once so tranquil, had been filled with the sound of their conversation for the past two days.

Having rested fully in the unhurried flow of time, the two finished their dinner of spicy mitten crab stew, which the caretaker had bought for them.

As had become his routine, Taeseo filled the bathtub. This time, he took his time, filling it only with hot spring water to make it piping hot.

When the water reached the perfect temperature for a bath, Taeseo found a waterproof bandage in the first-aid kit and went to Yuna's side.

“Just in case, wear a waterproof bandage for your bath today.”

He placed the bandage on Yuna's forehead, handed her a fresh shower gown, and then scattered the leftover hydrangea petals from the vases onto the water's surface.

He stirred the water with his hand to spread the petals. Not only did the petals scatter, but the rising steam carried their fragrance, spreading it wide.

The cypress tub, having been used for the past two days, exuded a rich, woody scent.

The scent of crape myrtles drifting in through the sunroom's vent mingled with the woody aroma. The combined fragrance was as sweet as a perfume carefully crafted by a master perfumer.

The rich humidity and pleasant scent made one feel languid just by being in the sunroom.

Yuna entered the sunroom wearing a shower gown, looking the same as yesterday, yet she was shy all over again.

Though it was called a shower gown, it was shaped like a summer dress and covered everything, yet she was excessively bashful.

“I'll leave your change of clothes where they were yesterday.”

He turned to leave, intending to give her privacy, but Yuna's hand touched his arm.

“Um.”

“Yeah?”

Taeseo looked down at her hand on his arm. It was trembling slightly.

“Will you... join me?”

“Join you for what?”

Taeseo's gaze met Yuna's face. Unable to meet his eyes, she lowered her gaze to the tiled floor of the sunroom.

She hadn't even entered the tub, yet her earlobes and the area around her collarbone were already flushed red.

“The tub is really big, and it's nighttime, so it's a little scary... and since we're wearing gowns, I thought it might not be weird for us to bathe together...”

She was making various excuses, but what she really meant was that she wanted to bathe with him.

“Oh, uh. Okay.”

At Taeseo's reply, Yuna lifted her head.

The moment he saw her flushed eyelids, Taeseo's own heart, which had answered without much thought, began to race as well.

Yuna couldn't have asked him to bathe with her with any impure intentions. Therefore, he shouldn't be impure either. He couldn't be.

“I'll go put on a shower gown.”

He pulled his arm from her grasp and left the sunroom.

The air outside was much cooler than inside the sunroom, but he still felt hot inside. Once again, an inexplicable itchiness made his body simmer.

***

Taeseo dipped his foot into the tub. As he slowly submerged his entire body, ripples spread across the water's surface.

On this midsummer night, the sunroom's glass ceiling reflected the moon in the tub. The ripples Taeseo created made the submerged moon waver.

Under the brightly shining moon, the only light came from the round bulbs that encircled the glass walls. Beneath the amber glow, Yuna's face was still flushed.

A drop of condensation from the glass ceiling fell into the tub with a soft plop. No one had moved, but even that sound felt awkward in the night's silence.

Sitting at opposite ends of the two-meter-wide tub, their gazes drifted in different directions. Only the sound of their careful breathing lingered in the space between them.