Yoon Hee smiled to herself as she and her upperclassman started to walk back to the dorm. Yong Ha was back to his silly old self again, whistling happily and twirling occasionally while toying with his ubiquitous fan.
"The virgin ghost must have forgiven you already, Sa-hyung," she teased Yong Ha.
"I don't think she has forgiven me," Yong Ha said. "I am still afraid of her."
"Haha, don't be, Sa-hyung," Yoon Hee said. "Just get a good night's sleep, and she will not bother you anymore."
As Yoon Hee was about to reach near the door of Center Room 2, Yong Ha stopped her on her tracks with a quote.
"I got distracted," Yong Ha said solemnly.
Yoon Hee turned around and looked at her sa-hyung sit on the wooden foyer, the same spot where Jae Shin often stayed when he wanted to lay by himself.
"I got distracted, which was why I forgot about the ghost," Yong Ha said before complaining. "Oh...she'll surely eat me!"
He hugged himself and rubbed his arms due to the sudden cold feeling only he imagined.
"What was Sa-hyung's thoughts back there to make him forget about the ghost?" Yoon Hee asked with a smile teasingly. "Your lovely gisaeng?"
Yong Ha remembered what Jae Shin shared to him about Insoo and Cho Seon. He smirked as he looked at the sky with the moon floating like a lone cookie.
"It's not about my beloved gisaengs, nor is it about Cho Seon," Yong Ha said.
Yoon Hee pouted cutely, and Yong Ha knitted his eyebrows as he looked at her.
"Ha! Your expressions gave way sooo easily," he pointed out in a matter-of-fact manner while tapping his palm with his fan.
"Eh? What do you mean, Sa-hyung?" she asked with a startled expression.
"I know that day what kind of person you were," he mysteriously told her.
"Please enlighten me, Sa-hyung," Yoon Hee begged in a whisper.
Yong Ha was too accepting of her secret that she was a girl who got in Sungkyunkwan, but he did not think the other scholars were that liberal-minded nor forgiving. Because Yoon Hee is a girl, she was saved by the king in favor of using the late king Yeongjo's Geum-deung-ji-sa against the Norons because the credibility of the said document will be questioned if everyone knew it was found by a girl-a GIRL. And it was an insult to the masculine mind that great things will be achieved by the opposite sex. Yong Ha wanted to tell her in secret how he found out, he wanted to tell her in his room, but he knew that, because of the norms of old Joseon, it was not proper for a man and a woman to be in a room together. He thought the other scholars might think that it was just two men hanging out, but because he knew her secret, it was not proper.
"Ha, this... I can tell you," he said, pointing the fan at her.
Yong Ha beckoned her to come, and she leaned forward. He leaned closer, much to her discomfort. Uhm, did he know that she already has a lover? Of course, he knew. He was just being annoying.
"Even before Garang and Geol Oh knew, I already knew you are a girl," he whispered.
Her eyes widened as she leaned back and looked into his mischievous face. He smirked at her distraught expression and tapped the fan to his temple.
"I know that my Sa-hyungs and Lee Seon Joon know about my secret, but how did you get to know first?" she asked in a hurried whisper.
He patted the place next to him, so she sat beside him but farther away. Of course, norms again.
"Were you that desperate to transcribe all the erotic novels I ordered?" he asked with a sly wink, and she gaped, her eyes wide open. "I wonder how you were feeling during the time you were writing those, oh-so dirty-thought-inducing scripts."
"I need money. What will I not do?" she reasoned out. "And, Sa-hyung, I had done it only thrice."
"Ah, you made me so happy, Daemul, even if you had done it thrice... Ah, my inhibitions are brought to life with the books you transcribed."
"You're embarrassing me, Sa-hyung," she pouted.
But meeting the transcriber of my erotic novels that day was the most memorable day of my life, next to meeting Geol Oh," he said with a happy sigh.
"Eh?"
He turned to her again and smiled that cute smile of his.
"You see, when you entered the bookstore, a glance of you, and I realized you were no ordinary man," he revealed.
Leaning towards her, he whispered her again.
"Because your beauty was that of a lady," he told her.
Yoon Hee understood why he had to whisper, but leaning forward to her ears like that just freaked her out again. Of course, Yong Ha is a very reliable friend, but he can get silly. I mean, he's silly and mischievous every single day.
"When you and Byung Choon wrestled against your bag, I saw your slender fingers... Your expressions were nothing to miss. You really ARE a girl."
Yoon Hee blushed and cringed, not being used to be terrorized like this. His playful and harmless threats frightened her more than Insoo's deathful glares from his blood-shot eyes.
"So that was why you were being rude to me that day?" Yoon Hee asked.
Yong Ha smiled again.
"The script had a lady's touch in it, and it's unmistakable," he told her.
"Sa-hyung!" Yoon Hee cringed, holding her cheeks with her palms.
Instead of laughing, Yong Ha smiled. "See? You are being obvious today. I will not wonder why I caught you so easily."
Yoon Hee began to cringe again at the memory at the bridge, when she bumped against Yeorim while he caught her in his arms. His quizzical expression was getting into her nerves, it was so scary. Yong Ha remembered that day again, remembering how he looked at her with great admiration and a heart-wrenching longing. He was not giving Insoo and his toadies the impression that he, THE Gu Yong Ha, is homosexual, but he treated Yoon Hee back then as a man in their eyes, and that he felt surprisingly and greatly attracted to her.
"Thank you, Sa-hyung," she whispered. "For continuing to keep my secret all these times."
"I am forgiving, you know, and I do not mind seeing a girl here in Sungkyunkwan," he told her. "You already know the real reason why I wanted to find the Geum-deung-ji-sa with the Jalgeum Quartet. Maybe, reforming Joseon will also mean allowing women to stay here. I may be very naughty, but I look out for you, just as I do for Geol Oh and Garang."
"I can really rely on you, Sa-hyung," Yoon Hee told her.
"But of course, Daemul, this is THE Gu Yong Ha that you are talking to," he bragged again. "If I keep secrets, I mean it. I am glad that you accept me for who I am."
"Yes, because Sa-hyung is my great friend," she said.
"That's a relief, Daemul," he told her. "I feel better telling you this even if the virgin ghost should haunt me."
"You want to see her?" she teased him.
"NO, NO!" he freaked out again. "Not in a million years!"
Yoon Hee's girlish laugh pealed beautifully into his ears, but he frowned again.
"But I cannot forgive how you tricked this Gu Yong Ha," he complained.
She laughed again. "But you caught me already even before I had stepped my foot in here."
Yong Ha nodded and smiled back at the moon. He did not know how Seon Joon found out, but as for Geol Oh, he was pretty sure that his beastly friend was lucky indeed. If he had been in Geol Oh's place, he could have seen for himself the real female version of the Kim Yoon Shik that he knew. Ah, how lucky must he had been if he had seen her, like the way the characters of his novels portray.
"Sa-hyung must have thought of another incident," Yoon Hee said.
Yong Ha was not willing to reveal it to her, not when she's already Garang's lover. Besides, even if he was green-minded, he had come to respect Yoon Hee a lot. For the fellowship, for the secrets kept, for the hard times and good times, the four of them stuck together. Noron, Namin, Soron, and Yangban-wannabe. All coming from different political factions, but all living together as friends.
"Ah, I just find the moon amusing tonight," he lied. "I can see a rabbit making rice cake."
Yoon Hee looked at the moon and saw the same rabbit that Yong Ha saw. Her smile grew wide that Yong Ha smiled to himself. Really, he might love Jae Shin with all his heart (which was why he had been following the crazy horse for ten years), but if he could turn back time, he could have loved Yoon Hee too, treating her rightly as a lady. He was still on his playboy ways, but only Yoon Hee received the different treatment from other girls, Hyo Eun and the gisaengs included.
"Let me tell you an interesting story about the hiccups," Yong Ha revealed slyly.
"What about the hiccups, Sa-hyung?" she asked.
"Geol Oh has them in case of emergency," he joked.
"What?" she asked. "Do hiccups induce something?"
"You see, Geol Oh only had hiccups if he can sense a girl near his perimeter. And it is unmistakable!"
Yoon Hee blushed, distraught.
"So... Geol Oh-sa-hyung also knew of my secret before?" she asked, her cheeks and her ears burning.
"But of course! No matter how much he tried to deny it, he could not fool me that he had detected a girl," Yong Ha shared in a whisper. "But there's no need to fear because he also keeps secrets well."
He left out the detail that because Geol Oh detected her gender, he started looking after her from behind, acting as her guardian angel while keeping his cold and rough persona. He also did not reveal to Yoon Hee that Geol Oh was madly in love with her to the point of smiling because of a heartache. And there was no need to tell need to tell Yoon Hee that Jae Shin gave her up already.
"I am happy that Sa-hyung kept my secret," Yoon Hee said about Jae Shin. "He is a good friend, and he always looked after me."
She remembered what he had told her the night when she went to visit Seon Joon in jail.
Thank you. Thank you for being you.
Yoon Hee did not know what it meant, but she was thankful that Jae Shin cared for her as a friend.
"That will answer all possible questions as to how we found out your secret, so there is no need to worry," Yong Ha told her. "Just continue acting being Kim Yoon Shik, and everything will turn out fine, except if Ha Insoo is going to get boiled up."
"Huh?" she asked.
"Ha Insoo...he knew from Hyo Eun that you are a girl," Yong Ha explained to keep the story short. "Nevertheless, do not worry because you are the one Seon Joon chose, not her."
"Thank you for being so kind to me, Sa-hyung," Yoon Hee whispered.
"We are friends, right?" he smirked before giving three successive winks.
Yeorim stretched out his arms and yawned. It felt so good to be calm on a night like this, unlike a few hours ago when he flipped out because of the ghost.
"Oh, by the way, what's your name?" Yong Ha asked.
"I'm Kim Yoon Hee," she replied.
Yong Ha, the resident playboy, smiled contentedly. "Yoon Hee. Nice. Your name suits you well. Ahhhh, it is a real lady's name."
"Sa-hyung!" she pouted again.
"Don't worry, Daemul. This Sa-hyung of yours will not reveal your secrets, so do not worry talking to me like this in whispers, in toned-down voices."
Yoon Hee nodded.
"Thank you for the pretend ritual," Yong Ha told her without telling her that her face in the candle light initiated his thoughts.
"Good night, Sa-hyung," Yoon Hee replied.
"Good night, Daemul," he said to her with his cute smile again.
-end-