Title: Merchant of Death
Author: setlib
Rating: T-rated for violence
Pairings: Gu Dong-mae x Ae-sin
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any characters from Mr. Sunshine. References to historical persons and events are used in entirely fictitious ways.
Summary: Scorned. Outcast. Hunted. Gu Dong-mae was forced to flee his home while he was just a boy. Life dealt him only hard blows, and he grew into a man with hard edges. Killer. Mercenary. Gangster. Yet he'd throw it all away for the soft swish of silk, for the chance to hold a blackbird in his hand. But this bird refuses to be caged. When she flies away, will she take his heart with her?
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Merchant of Death, Chapter 1: Blood and Silk
Hanseong, Joseon. December 1884.
Death has always defined me. I was trained to kill as a child, and I was good at it. Very good. I learned to strike hard, strike fast, and strike without hesitation. Animals can sense if you're afraid or uncertain, and they'll struggle for their lives, lash out with hooves or horns, teeth or claws. I was always calm when I worked, moving with a brutal efficiency that helped earn money for my parents even as the other butchers cast me sidelong glances and whispered behind my back that perhaps I was too skilled, especially for someone so young.
It was my mother who made sure I learned to use my mind as well as my hands. She knew enough Hangul to keep track of accounts, especially who owed us money, and taught me as well. She was an unforgiving teacher, quick to punish any mistakes with a slap to my ears. If I dared complain, she would strike even harder. "You think I do this because I like it? Everyone in this life will try to take advantage of you. How else am I to protect you?"
I learned fast beneath her blows and grew fast thanks to the steady diet of meat, and as soon as I was taller than she was, I went along when she tried to collect on debts. Perhaps she thought my presence would help, but instead it simply exposed me to the daily humiliations that she endured. The market women just laughed when she asked them to pay what they owed, threw refuse at us, and worse. When they struck us and kicked us, mother just whispered, "Rough beatings hurt less."
We baekjeong were the lowest of the low, beneath even slaves, our bodies and souls rendered impure by our constant contact with death. It wasn't until I started venturing out of Banchon with my mother that I realized the full extent of the disgust, the revulsion, we invoked in others. Shame burned in my gut as we groveled in the dirt, bowing and scraping before everyone else we encountered, even children. It didn't matter if we were mocked, spit on, kicked - we were forbidden from raising a hand in our defense.
Everything changed the night a stranger came to our hut. Father kept me in the shed, allowing the man to be alone with mother even though I could hear her crying out. Father pretended he couldn't hear and just kept his eyes on his work, methodically cleaving through flesh and bone, not speaking. How was I supposed to respect a man who let his wife suffer such abuse? Why learn to wield a knife if you can't use it to protect your family?
"Why did you give birth to me if this was how I would be treated?" I screamed at him until I was hoarse, but as always, he had no answer. My shame transformed into anger, sending fire through my veins, burning me until my hands shook with it. Perhaps that's why I didn't fight, didn't even question when mother cast me out the next morning.
"Get out! Go!" she shouted at me, brandishing a knife coated thickly with blood. "Die on the streets, become a gypsy, or join the bandits, I don't care. Make sure you never show yourself to me. I can't stand the sight of another butcher! Go before I kill you!"
Shock made me slow, and when I didn't move fast enough, she sliced wildly through the air, the blade catching me on my forehead just over my left eye. I fell to the ground, fear and anger rekindling in my belly, and I struck back at her with my words. "Fine! I'm going. I will! I won't ever come back! I don't want butcher parents anyway!"
I ran blindly, my eyes filled with tears, stumbling down the dirt path away from our thatched huts and out of Banchon, toward the market. I eventually collapsed behind a potter's stall, gasping for breath, trying to think. I had no money, no food, nothing but ragged cotton clothing to protect me from the rapidly approaching winter night. I had nowhere to go, no one to help me. It was the cold that made my hands shake, the cold that made my chest hurt, the cold that made me wrap my arms tightly around myself and rock slowly where I sat. I don't know how much time passed while I shivered, dazed, before I was finally roused by the cries of the market women across the street.
I rose to my feet and crept out from my hiding spot, staying behind a low wall to avoid being seen. A group of commoners had clustered in a loose circle and the men were using pieces of heavy timber to strike something at their feet. I dared to look over the wall and gasped at the sight - my parents were huddled on the ground on their knees, arms raised protectively over their heads as the blows fell heavily against their backs.
"That won't be enough to kill them!" screamed a woman as she picked up a heavy rock and smashed it against my mother's skull. A guttural cry escaped my throat as I watched her collapse on the ground. My fingers dug into the wall with the desire to climb over, run over, stand over my parents' bodies and somehow stop the mob from their deadly frenzy.
Suddenly a palanquin blocked my view, the bearers coming to a halt and setting it down in the middle of the road. While I could still hear the beating continue, breaking my view of my parents' bodies jolted me out of any thought of running to them. I collapsed back against the wall, knowing that the mob would surely kill me too if they saw me.
A stout servant woman scurried to the side of the palanquin and slid open the window to reveal a young girl. "Agassi, something strange must have happened since the street is crowded. Wait here while I go and find out."
The little girl nodded, leaning slightly out of her window to watch as her servant headed toward the crowd. I found myself staring at the child with a reluctant fascination. I had seen plenty of the nobility in my life - the scholars from Sungkyunkwan frequented the streets of Banchon to buy supplies for their studies - but never a yangban girl. From the elaborate gold ornamentation of her palanquin to her smooth hair that gleamed dark as a black bird, everything about her spoke of a richness and luxury completely foreign to me. I knew from the shine of her bright green jeogori that it was made of silk, a material too precious to ever touch my unworthy fingers. Her skin, too, was smooth, unblemished, so perfect it could have been porcelain. She seemed almost unreal, as if it was impossible for a person to be that beautiful.
The servant raced back, panting. "Agassi, in Banchon, a butcher girl stabbed a commoner to death."
I reeled back in shock. My mother's actions suddenly took on new meaning - the stranger last night, the bloody knife this morning. She hadn't abandoned me, she tried to protect me by driving me away. If I let myself get caught now, her sacrifice would be for nothing.
"The son ran away," the woman added breathlessly.
The girl shook her head. "He couldn't leave," she said softly, and I realized she was looking directly at me. She tried to wave me over, but when her servant spotted me and frowned I ducked back behind the wall.
"Come out," the girl ordered in that same gentle voice. "You can ride with me."
"Agassi, that's impossible! You can't allow a strange boy inside with you! And if he's baekjeong, well you can't - it's just - it's not allowed!"
"Ms. Haman," the girl began, and her voice suddenly had such an unyielding tone that I stood, startled, and looked back over the wall at them. "I have already made the offer. I will not go back on my word. Open the screen. Now."
The servant blustered but reluctantly moved toward the front of the palanquin and pulled open the screen. She cast me an angry look. "Well? Are you going to keep my lady waiting?"
Before either of them could change their minds, I scrambled over the wall and ducked quickly under the screen, folding my legs to sit on one side of the cabin. The screen snapped shut behind me and everything swayed as the bearers stood and resumed walking. I braced my palms briefly against the walls of the palanquin but swiftly pulled them back, ashamed to see the filth on my hands against the sumptuous curtains.
I looked up to find her gaze focused on me, wide-eyed but steady. I felt painfully self-conscious. Was she looking at my coarse, dirty clothes? My rough-cut, unwashed hair? I didn't see any fear or disgust on her face, though. Instead, she seemed genuinely concerned. Her eyes flicked up to my forehead and I remembered the cut over my eyebrow.
"I'm okay," I assured her. "But why help me?"
"So you won't get caught," she replied simply.
"What for?"
Her gaze was sincere when she answered. "I was told every man's life is precious."
It was that word, precious, that struck me the hardest. Nothing about me or my life was precious. If every man's life was precious, would my parents have been beaten to death in the streets? Tears blurred my vision as the last sight of their bloodied bodies flashed through my mind. I swallowed hard, tried to turn away from the memory, and stoked a growing sense of injustice instead. "Who said that?"
"Confucius."
The answer only fueled my anger. The yangban worshipped Confucius like he was a god. Of course they did - his teachings kept them in power, and kept the baekjeong under their feet. Not that this girl, this child, would understand that. She was sheltered from the real world in her palanquin, which baekjeong like me were forbidden to ever ride inside. She was clothed in silk worth more than my family earned in ten years, which baekjeong like me were forbidden to wear.
I wanted to lash out, wanted to strike hard, but without a blade I had only my hands, my blood, my words. I grasped the edge of her pink chima in my left hand and pulled it slowly to me, to my torn lip, to wipe my mouth, to defile the delicate fabric with my impure blood.
I met her shocked stare with a hard gaze. "You're just a noble fool who lives in luxury."
Her tiny hands clenched her chima defensively, pulling it tight, but I didn't loosen my grip. I watched tears form in her eyes and felt them rise in my own as well, but that made no sense. I had wanted to strike out, I had wanted to hurt her. I should be glad to see her tears. I wanted to put my mark on her - not just her chima, but her soul. For my words to strike deep, leave a lasting scar. Then I would stay with her, a painful memory that would ache forever.
I used my right fist to pound on the side of the cabin. "Stop now!" I called. "I'm leaving." The palanquin jerked to a halt and slammed abruptly to the ground. I twisted around to push up the screen and climb out without another word, without another glance at the hurt on her face.
I ran into the cold, fading light alone. I had no idea where I would go, how I would live now. I couldn't worry about a spoiled girl with a gentle voice and sad eyes. The softness of silk had no place in my life. I was born into a blood-soaked world, and to blood I would return again and again.
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GLOSSARY:
Agassi - "My lady"
Baekjeong - "Untouchable" lowest social caste in Korean history. Nomadic and/or segregated, denied citizenship, and restricted to jobs which Buddhism considered unclean, such as butcher, grave-digger, executioner, leather worker, etc. Intermarriage forbidden with other castes.
Banchon - neighborhood in old Hanseong/Seoul where butchers and other lower classes lived
Chima - long skirt that forms part of a hanbok, a woman's traditional dress.
Hangul - the Korean alphabet
Hanseong - historical name for the city of Seoul
Jeogori - Korean woman's jacket that tied across the chest with a ribbon. Upper part of hanbok.
Joseon - historical name for the kingdom of Korea (1392-1897)
Yangban - the nobility, i.e. the highest social caste in Korean history, comprised of scholars and officials
REFERENCES:
Lynn, Hyung Gu. "Fashioning Modernity: Changing Meanings of Clothing in Colonial Korea." Journal of International and Area Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, 2004, pp. 75–93. Passin, Herbert. "The Paekchong of Korea. A Brief Social History."