Lady of Dreams Read online

The princeling didn’t wait for her to take another step. He fairly ran from the courtyard, his red heels flashing, and disappeared down the street.

  I heard the softest huff of a laugh from Yong-hwa, and it finally came to me why his expression and attitude were familiar: I had sat like that so often myself. I gave my own huff of laughter and looked below again, where Ae-jung was hurrying back into the house. She must be worried about Hyun-jun’s uncertain temper. Watching her run up the stairs, I found myself thinking that she should be more worried about making sure my father reimbursed her for the lunch box; she had gotten the most expensive one that could be had in the area, a multilayered, ribbon-tied thing that looked as if it would feed at least four well-grown men. Since I happen to know how much Eppan men—and women!—eat, I was quite sure there would be none of it left after Hyun-jun opened it, but it did strike me that Ae-jung had been recklessly extravagant in her boldness.

  I felt the tug of two different Dreams now, caught between the one of Ae-jung and one of Yong-hwa, and decided that on balance I’d rather go back to Yong-hwa, who stood more chance of being joined later by Jessamy.

  I spent the afternoon hovering in a strange place between aching boredom and quiet contentment; Yong-hwa was a restful sort of person to be around. He spent the entire afternoon with his tea and his empty stave paper, which became steadily less empty as he scratched out a series of notes between the lines. There were pauses for refilling his teacup and protracted episodes of absolute silence as Yong-hwa gazed at nothing in the direction of the next-door balcony that belonged to Hyun-jun, his fingers dancing on empty air as if playing an invisible gayageum. They probably were playing an invisible gayageum.

  I was roused first from my attitude of general boredom by the emergence of Ae-jung and Hyun-jun from the office onto the balcony. Yong-hwa looked up from his half-filled sheet of stave paper and for a moment was perfectly still; then I saw the sharpening of his cheeks as he went back to his writing, his left hand making a brief, complicated gesture in the air before he picked up the pen again.

  Magic, of course, but what kind? Something to make sure that he wasn’t seen? It must have been, for neither Ae-jung nor Hyun-jun had noticed him, and though the balconies weren’t exactly close, neither were they far enough away to make it difficult to recognise an acquaintance. I watched them with mild amusement. Ae-jung must have finished the typing she had been assigned without any mistakes, because Hyun-jun had the typewriter out in front of her. Or, rather, he ordered her to bring the behemoth of a thing out, and she staggered and struggled until she managed to wrestle it onto the spindly table that decorated the balcony. He began to dictate without doing Ae-jung the courtesy of waiting until she had loaded paper into the machine, or even sat down. Well now. Ae-jung was a more proficient typist than I’d imagined, if she’d already finished typing that pile of handwritten papers he’d given her earlier.

  There was a flurry of frantic activity as Ae-jung settled herself at the table, and another, louder flurry as she caught up with Hyun-jun’s dictation, her fingers dancing over the keys. Trust Hyun-jun to have a noisy, cluttersome Contraption typewriter instead of an Energy model. Still, Ae-jung caught up easily enough, and I felt a brief smile come and go on my face as I watched them work. Hyun-jun, caught up in his own brilliance and the flow of his words, stood with his back to the office, gazing out over the courtyard like a king over his court. Ae-jung, her fingers flying with a rapid ratatatatat of efficiency, was still stealing gazes at him periodically. After seeing her almost ruthless attitude toward her princeling brother, it was surprising to see her awed adoration of Hyun-jun. I couldn’t imagine anything more annoying than existing in a state of hero worship for someone who treated me as Hyun-jun treated Ae-jung.

  I was so absorbed in watching them that I didn’t notice Yong-hwa’s brief, amused looks at the two of them until my attention was caught away by the arrival of Jessamy in the courtyard below and went thence to Yong-hwa. Yong-hwa was still writing his music, but his glances up were frequent, and just after Jessamy entered the front door below, he stopped writing entirely to gaze at Hyun-jun—and, more particularly, at Ae-jung. He was actually smiling now, the amusement more than a suggestion of his cheeks.

  Jessamy entered Yong-hwa’s small sitting room without knocking or hesitation, a document holder tilted carelessly beneath his arm. I’d expected Yong-hwa to hear him approach, but he was still watching Ae-jung with that curious smile, his chin propped in his palm. Jessamy, ever mischievous, spotted his chance and slipped silently through the balcony door until he could edge around behind Yong-hwa’s chair. Giggling to himself, he crouched until he could see the line of Yong-hwa’s gaze, and followed it squarely to Ae-jung. The look of triumphant mischief was immediately replaced by a scowl that was as indignant as it was offended.

  “What are you doing, Hyung?” he asked, kicking the back leg of Yong-hwa’s chair. I saw Yong-hwa blink twice, rapidly, but it was the only sign he gave that he was startled. Jessamy, remembering his mischief enough to be piqued that his friend hadn’t leaped through the awning, said reproachfully, “Did you know I was here?”

  “The way you were giggling, I’m surprised Hyun-jun-ssi and Ae-jung-ssi didn’t know about it,” said Yong-hwa, his cheeks sharpening again. “Tea, Jessamy-a?”

  “Yes, please!” said Jessamy, immediately restored to cheerfulness. “Sorry I got you a room with that nuna next door.”

  Yong-hwa’s lips curved in a singularly beautiful smile. “Really? I’m not.”

  “You—” Jessamy stopped, then said sulkily, “Ya. Why are you being like that, Hyung?”

  “Jessamy-a,” said Yong-hwa solemnly, “do you like Ae-jung?”

  Jessamy’s mouth dropped open below eyes that were wide in horrified surprise. “Mwoh?”

  “Or is it that you’re a puppy with a bone you don’t want to lose? I’m genuinely interested.”

  “You—” Jessamy’s mouth opened and closed, seeking words. “You—Puppy? I’m not a puppy! And what do you mean, bone?”

  “In this scenario, I’m the bone,” explained Yong-hwa. “Do you feel less offended at being a puppy now?”

  Again Jessamy’s mouth worked through a series of undetermined starts. “Well,” he said at last. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t expect me to explain it,” Yong-hwa warned him, recapping his pen.

  “I don’t!” said Jessamy. He looked as though he was trying to scowl, but Jessamy has always been more inclined to laugh than to scowl, and it was a comical attempt. “Hyung, you were just teasing, weren’t you? You’re always teasing me. You shouldn’t do that.”

  Yong-hwa banished the smile, but his cheeks remained so sharp as to belie the solemn set of his mouth. “Shouldn’t I? But you give me so much material to work with! Did you bring the amended proofs, Jessamy-a? Shall we work?”

  I Dreamed within the Dream and awoke again in weariness to the Dream. This time, I opened my eyes to find that I was looking directly into a pair of brown, half-lidded ones. For a moment I was hopelessly bewildered, nose to nose with Yong-hwa and uncertain of exactly how I’d gotten there. I huffed out a breath, and opened my mouth to say an entirely cool “Ah. Still Dreaming,” but what came out was more of a startled cough, because that breath of air, or something very like it, had ruffled Yong-hwa’s fringe before my very eyes.

  Yong-hwa’s eyes blinked and became a shade more wakeful, his head tilting to the side. He combed his fingers slowly through his fringe, his eyes looking through me and at the same time at me.

  “That’s disturbing,” I said, peering doubtfully at those eyes. He didn’t see me—he couldn’t see me, because it wasn’t possible for him to see me. I looked around him, taking in the plain but well-cared-for sitting room furniture, and the window frame that I was currently halfway through. “Will you move, or shall I?”

  He didn’t move, of course; why should he? He was looking out his own window. Still, I didn’t like to move, either. It
felt too much like being frightened away, and I wasn’t frightened. I did move eventually, however; I didn’t particularly like being nose to nose with Yong-hwa. More importantly, I was getting bored. Yong-hwa wasn’t doing much more than gazing out his window, which, of course, he was very welcome to do, but it did seem like a pointless activity for a perennially bored man. I wasn’t much inclined to follow his lead. I’ve had such a lot of practise being bored that even a Yong-hwa has nothing to teach me. He probably had the brilliance of his own mind to keep him company, and that special place where he finds his music. I have no such resources; my boredom is utter and complete, lacking any special graces of cleverness or genius, perfect in resignation. Even my weary search for entertainment through my Dreams is a lacklustre one; other people aren’t nearly as interesting as they always seem to think they are.

  “And neither are you,” I said to Yong-hwa. There was a mild irritant scratching at my—for want of a better word—soul, a patch of not-knowing that grated minutely at me. “This is slightly annoying.”

  Carlin was sure to be having an interesting impression of my Dream if he was listening. I wafted back to the window where Yong-hwa still stood, and tentatively blew a breath of air at the back of his hair. A few stray hairs ruffled, but it was nothing like the effect that had happened the first time. Yong-hwa’s shoulders hunched, and he ran his hand over the back of his head.

  Well. Either I was getting stronger for some unknown and possibly dangerous reason, or this series of Dreams was more important even than I’d suspected. I’d never been able to move things with my breath before. Could I move other things as easily?

  I prowled Yong-hwa’s sitting room for a little while, prodding at various things around it in an attempt to move them. None of them moved except the flowers on the table, and even that took a great deal more effort than I would usually have bothered expending on such a fruitless task. That was curious. I briefly considered going back to blowing at Yong-hwa’s hair, but that would get boring quickly, and even if I did find that I could do it yet again, that would get me no closer to knowing the how and why of being able to do it.

  Besides, Yong-hwa had seen something out the window that interested him—at least he’d cocked his head slightly to one side, as much of a sign of interest as I was used to seeing from him—which likely meant that something less boring was about to happen. I looked over his shoulder just in time to see Ae-jung turning into the courtyard below. Her arms were wrapped around another stack of neatly typed papers that she must have taken home to finish for the irascible Hyun-jun, and she was biting her lip. Was she excited, or was she nervous?

  When she vanished through the front door, Yong-hwa continued to gaze at it, his head still cocked. Then he turned languidly and sauntered toward the door that led to the common hallway outside. He took his time, almost as if he were trying to convince himself that he wasn’t actually going to the door. That’s where he ended up, regardless, and when he found himself there, I saw him smile faintly before he opened the door.

  Yong-hwa’s sitting room door was in a good position: with it open, I could see not only the entire length of the hall in both directions, but through the banisters of the stairs and most of the downstairs receiving area. Ae-jung was well in sight, now juggling her stack of papers with a loaded tray that bore coffee, biscuits, and the morning paper. I looked the whole lot over and cast my gaze toward the stairs. She would be lucky if she made it across the floor, let alone up the stairs.

  Yong-hwa’s cheeks sharpened as he soundlessly shook his head. I almost expected him to leave his room and offer to help her, but instead he nudged his shoulder into the door frame and watched. He was enjoying himself. It wasn’t particularly gentlemanly of him, but I could understand the compulsion to watch Ae-jung: she was a well-meaning, tangled, messy ball of accident waiting to happen. I also watched, though in a more desultory fashion than Yong-hwa.

  Ae-jung, her heels coming perilously close to the edge of each stair as she climbed, desperately tried to control the tilting pile of paperwork that was threatening to send her tray of morning tea sliding into the oblivion of the floor below. She had only just made it safely to the top step when Yong-hwa carefully pulled his door shut again, his teeth gleaming in the fullest smile I’d yet seen from him. He didn’t move away from the door, though, and by the time there was the mangled sound of a fall mingled with the scattering of papers and crockery just beyond the door, his fingers were already turning the doorknob again. That did surprise me a little; but if it surprised me, it positively startled Yong-hwa, because he blinked down at the hand that was already on the doorknob and snatched it away as though it had been burned.

  “Don’t be so self-conscious,” I told him. “Are you a gentleman or not? Go out and help her. You know he’s not going to.” The odds were against Hyun-jun’s even hearing the cacophony in the hall outside, let alone thinking to go out and help. Mind you, that was probably just as well for Ae-jung.

  I left Yong-hwa with his hand hovering at the doorknob and pushed through the insubstantial wall until I was in the hall with Ae-jung. She was kneeling in the midst of coffee-stained carnage, shreds of paper torn by broken porcelain and wilted by dark coffee bearing only the slightest marks of their former tidy typing. Soggy biscuits were melting into the morning paper.

  “No!” said Ae-jung, her voice muffled behind her hair. Her head had dropped over her knees in despair. “Oh, I worked so hard!”

  For someone who took care of so many people, Ae-jung wasn’t very good at taking care of herself. Anyone with a smidgen of sense would have taken either the tea tray or the typing. Mind you, Hyun-jun would undoubtedly have taken umbrage at either course, but it was hardly a better solution to send the whole lot cascading onto the floorboards.

  “He’s going to kill me,” said Ae-jung. She didn’t sound afraid, or even hard done by. Just sadly certain.

  “Don’t be a baby,” I told her. “It’s only the typing, after all. He might kick you out, but he’s not going to kill you. If you’d ruined his hand—Oh.”

  Of course it wasn’t just the typewritten pages that were ruined; how could Ae-jung have typed up the pages if she didn’t have the original handwritten pages with her? I looked at the soggy, occasionally sharp morass and saw traces of Hyun-jun’s spiky writing disappearing into a pulpy, unreadable mess.

  She was right. Hyun-jun would kill her.

  But why was the mess suddenly looking . . . less messy? Ae-jung, her head hanging almost to her knees, didn’t notice it, but I saw the slow, nearly unnoticeable glide of coffee cup shards across the floor, so many porcelain sharks in a sea of coffee and paper pulp. I looked toward Yong-hwa’s door. It was open the smallest crack, through which I could see the gleam of one eye and the brighter glitter of an earring.

  Yong-hwa was doing magic.

  “Very useful,” I said, nodding as a coffee cup resumed its original shape with a soft grinding of rough porcelain edge against rough porcelain edge. The crockery wasn’t the only thing taking shape; biscuits were crumbling together again, and as coffee was drawn away from paper the pages began to re-form, ink and coffee separating until words, both typewritten and handwritten, became legible.

  It wasn’t until the coffee began to climb slowly and purposefully back into the coffee press, grounds and all, that Ae-jung noticed what was happening. I heard her squeak, scrabbling away from the unnaturally lively stream of liquid, and saw her gaze swing around to the half-formed pages still knitting themselves together, her eyes far too big for her face.

  I saw one last gleam from Yong-hwa’s door, teeth or earring; then the door quietly snicked shut again. On the floor around Ae-jung, the last few pages joined themselves back together and resumed their previous form, then became lifeless. Ae-jung still eyed them suspiciously, but when none of them showed any sign of moving again, she began to gather them up, a glow of thankful happiness spreading over her pleasant face until she was fairly beaming. She scrambled to her feet with the
papers hugged to her chest and bowed around at the whole hall, chanting a “Thank you!” for each bow, her voice high and exuberant.

  She took her time walking the last few steps to Hyun-jun’s door, the tray and pile of paper both gripped in white-knuckled fingers, and knocked very softly on it with the toe of one foot. Was she planning on serving him the coffee that had been on the floor, then? That was understandable enough.

  Hyun-jun opened the door just as abruptly as he had the day before, but Ae-jung was well prepared for it and merely smiled a bright, sunny smile up at him.

  “If you’ve made a single mistake I’ll throw you out,” he said, by way of greeting, immediately turning his back on her without so much as helping her with the morning tea tray. When he reached the centre of the room he turned again, precisely—presumably for the pleasure of watching her narrowly, since that’s all he did.

  “Ye, Seonbae!” Ae-jung said cheerfully, carefully placing her tea tray on the side table. So she was planning on serving it to Hyun-jun. She was bouncing on her toes, clutching the typed pages tightly in her eagerness. Hyun-jun cocked a fierce eyebrow at her, and she hastily presented the pages with both hands, bowing.

  Hyun-jun’s wild gaze swept her up and down. He took the pages with the finger and thumb of one hand—fastidiously, as though he expected them to be booby-trapped. If it came to that, he looked as though he wasn’t quite sure whether or not Ae-jung was booby-trapped.

  “Go sit over there,” he told her, hunching one shoulder. “You’re too energetic for this time of day.”

  “Ye, Seonbae!” sang Ae-jung, and sat down.

  Hyun-jun turned back to the window with his sheaf, scanning the first paper with a terrifyingly intent scrutiny. Was he going to flick through each typed page to check for mistakes? He was. Why was this Dream so very sticky? I didn’t want to hover in this mingled atmosphere of crackling eagerness and vibrant self-consciousness; it was exhausting. By way of protest, I sank tiredly back into Yong-hwa’s quieter Dream and settled into blissful boredom for as long as it chose to hold me.