A Man at Sea
The walls of the room were painted a soft rose color, like all the walls in the Seung dojo. Hwang felt his own feverish body heat radiate back at him from those walls; he suddenly felt very cloistered in the compact room. His master stood before him, his face looming in his vision like a burning sun. Master Seung had done his best to make the offer in a businesslike manner, but he was offering his only daughter in a binding contract after all. Marriage. Traditionally, this would be an affair between Master Seung, Hwang's parents, and a matchmaker. A matchmaker had been consulted, but Hwang had no family with which the contract might be negotiated. Like so many times in his life, he was left alone with his own decisions to make.
A drop of sweat trickled down the back of Hwang's neck. He had known that this moment would someday come, but the words he had prepared refused to come to his parched lips. He worked his jaw slowly, desperately trying to force himself to fill the expectant silence with his answer.
"Master Seung," he began, his cool words betraying no emotion. "I love and respect you as a father, but I fear that I cannot be your son-in-law yet." The fortuneteller's kyunghap divination, the matchmaker's expert opinion, the bright gleam in his mater's eyes—they all conspired to convince him to accept the proposal. Hwang's reason and sense of conviction told him otherwise, however. His intuition also told him that his proposed bride-to-be was most likely listening in on the private conversation. His eyes darted to each of the four walls before focusing on his master's face once again. The man's expression remained rigid, but the light in his eyes quickly faded. Hwang knew he owed his master an explanation for declining the marriage proposal, but he also knew there was no explanation that the eavesdropping bride would understand. He dropped his voice slightly before continuing.
"I must honor my master before myself, and my country before my master. A man who goes out to sea with the goodwill of his master is… doomed, unless he also holds the goodwill of the ocean," he said slowly, trying to make the right words come to his dry lips. A look of confusion flashed across Master Seung's face. Then both men startled when the sliding door to an adjacent slammed shut with a loud bang.
"I understand… I think," Master Seung replied softly in the silence that followed.
"As you know, our country is at war. I wish to join the Coast Guard," Hwang went on, hoping that this statement made sense in light of the metaphor he had just spewed.
"You have already volunteered, haven't you?" demanded his master, and Hwang was forced to look away from those black, piercing eyes.
"Yes, I have. I am sorry… I was going to tell you when I got my orders."
"You don't need to apologize, my son. My offer will wait until you return from your duties," said Master Seung, his tone stern and reassuring at the same time. The conversation hung in an odd suspension.
"I see," Hwang replied, and immediately wanted to hit himself. But it was the best response he could come up with that did not bind him into a promise he might not be able to keep. "Thank you, Master Seung."
"You may go now," said his master. Hwang bowed and forced himself to cross the room at an even pace. He wanted to run, to scream, but he choked down his stream of erratic emotions. After all, he still had Mina to deal with.
Hwang found that he was twice as nervous about confronting Mina as he was her father, and his anxiety compounded with each minute he spent searching the dojo for her. He did not bother searching the equipment room—she had not bothered to disguise her hiding place when she slammed the door and took off—but where did she run to? Hwang hoped that she had not gone back to her room in the Seung residence, a separate building that was connected to the rest of the dojo through the courtyard. He did not have the nerve to call upon Master Seung again this evening. No, if he knew Mina she was probably working out her anger at the rejection in the practice arena.
The practice room was strangely devoid of the sounds Hwang expected, however. There was no whooshing of Mina's zanbotou, no sound of the bladed stick meeting the leather hide of a practice dummy. Hwang frowned and slid open the door. The room was devoid of any activity whatsoever. There should have been at least a few students practicing until the evening curfew, but it was as if a storm had blown through the room and scattered away all signs of life. Hwang turned and left the practice arena. He paced past the weapons room and had nearly made a complete circuit around the dojo before he realized where Mina would have gone. Mina had always preferred to beat down invisible foes with the swift, fluid moves of her kata in the open air over killing the stoic, leather dummies in the practice arena. And there she was, doing just that, when Hwang sighted her in the courtyard.
Such was the ferocity of her movements that Hwang suspected that her invisible foe had a very familiar shape this time. A chill evening breeze blew across his face, but it did nothing to cool his anxiety. He forced his breathing into a relaxed pattern and hoped that his heartbeat would follow suit. How long he stood there trying to compose himself he did not know—but it suddenly crumbled to dust with a single spoken word.
"Creep," said Mina. "Watching me like that, like you always do. You watch like a hunter, never getting close, avoiding the thing you fear yet inexorably drawn toward it." She turned and faced him then, panting from exertion, her zanbotou dropping to her side.
"See, I can spew out metaphorical crap, too, Hwang. What was that shit about going to sea, huh?" The light from the full moon backlit her face and her eyes glittered with anger. She was beautiful, Hwang realized—more beautiful than anything he had ever seen.
"Mina," he began, but the cold stare she gave him might as well have been a slap to his face. He realized, too, that there was no answer he could give this jilted teenage girl. Trying to soften the blow of the marriage rejection had been a gross mistake on his part.
"If you don't love me, don't even like me, why don't you just say so?" she demanded. He did like her. He was pretty sure that he loved her, as well. But she certainly wouldn't understand his choice to leave the Seung dojo and join the Sea Force if he confided his feelings to her. Regardless, he longed to tell her everything he felt.
I care for you very much. In fact, it is because I care for you that I must leave you for a time. My family died at the hands of war. I cannot make a new family as long as war continues to threaten all those close to me. Mina, I want you with me, but I cannot take you from your father until I can protect you. All the blessings in the world wouldn't be enough to keep you safe. I don't deserve to take you as my wife right now and I cannot take on the responsibilities of the dojo while I face a greater responsibility to our country. I am joining the Sea Force. For you. Wait for me.
Hwang wanted to say all that, but what he said was, "I see."
"What'd you say?" Mina demanded, tapping the base of her zanbotou forcefully against the wide, flat stones that paved the courtyard.
"I said… that I understand how you feel," he replied. There. That was a better response.
"Before that. You told me to wait for something? Oh, you dumbass! You can't possibly understand how I feel! You have about as much emotion as a clay warrior guarding a tomb!"
"Wait for me," Hwang whispered, turning away before his stone mask crumbled before her. With that, he strode away from the courtyard and the angry goddess who stood smoldering in the moonlight.