Disclaimer: The SKKS-verse belongs to the creators of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, and Sungkyunkwan University to itself.

Author's Notes: Thank you very much to jinx XD for the review! :)

Chapter Eight

Even though the smell had made his nose curl, Jae-shin had to admit that Ka-hai's horse liniment worked wonders; he felt much better the next morning compared to the way he usually felt after a night's rest. Sergeant Ho, his commanding officer, was surprised when he reported for work that afternoon. "Are you sure you're up to it, Detective Moon?" he demanded. "I did say you could take both today and tomorrow off, didn't I?"

"Absolutely sure, sir," he assured him.

The older man eyed him warily. "All right," he said, "I'll let you go out on patrol today, but if there's any action, you stay out of it, do you hear? If something happens to you, your father will have my head!"

"I was surprised you managed to get out of bed today, old man," In-soo told him as the pair set out to make their rounds. "I thought you would be at home, wrapped up in blankets with your wife spooning broth down your throat."

Jae-shin colored as he remembered exactly what Ka-hai had done to treat his injury, but he laughed off his unease. "I hate to disappoint you," he replied, "but I just slapped on some horse liniment and then I was fine."

His partner sniffed delicately. "I was wondering what that smell was."

They walked through the busy streets, stopping to assist ajummas with their burdens, resolve traffic disputes and exchange pleasantries with Yong-ha at his shop. There was no action during their shift that required more than medium lifting, which meant that Sergeant Ho had nothing to worry about and Jae-shin had plenty of time to let his mind wander.

Unfortunately, it kept wandering back to yesterday's events. Did Ka-hai's helping him yesterday mean that they weren't fighting anymore? Perhaps his wife just had a habit of wanting to doctor every little hurt that she came across; but, given her anger with him, she could have just as easily stood back and laughed instead of treating his injuries. Besides, hadn't she said something a while back about dressing up and making herself pretty for him? Had that been some kind of romantic overture? The idea made him hiccup.

Suddenly, his sleeve snagged on something, distracting him from his thoughts. "Psst!" a voice hissed.

He turned at the hissing noise to find a dark figure running down the passage. Knowing immediately who it was, he didn't spare In-soo another glance and melted into the shadows.

Moving as silently as she, Jae-shin followed the Blue Messenger down the alley. She made her way confidently through the streets, confirming his suspicions that she was at least a longtime resident of the city. Every so often, she glanced over her shoulder to check whether he was still following her, but didn't speed up when she saw that he was still on her tail.

The Messenger and her pursuer scaled a wall and leapt onto the roof of the house beyond. A few rooftops later, she finally stopped. "Did you just grab my arm back there?" Jae-shin asked her, bending down with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

She turned to him, intending to answer, but paused and sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"

"Never mind," he told her flatly, still breathing hard. "What do you want?"

To his surprise, she held out a blue leaflet. "I thought you would want to look at this before I sent it out."

He looked at it blankly. "You want me to proofread your next message?"

"Maybe this way, you won't pick on my writing so much."

He took the leaflet from her. The sun had set, but it was a clear night, so he was able to read the words easily. "There are no hints here about where you're going to be next," he observed.

"Of course not!" the Messenger snorted. "I'm not stupid, you know. Keep reading." She flapped her hands at him briskly. The gesture reminded him of Ka-hai shooing away her brothers on the day they met, and just like that, his wife was on his mind again. "It's the substance of my message that I want you to look at."

Jae-shin skimmed the text and handed it back. "It's fine."

"Don't overdo the praise or anything," she said dryly.

"What more do you want me to say?" he replied, annoyed. "If I told you exactly what I agreed and disagreed with and you rewrote it accordingly, then that message will contain my thoughts and beliefs, not yours. How can you encourage the people to think for themselves if you don't do the same?"

"You just don't want to help me."

"Last time I checked, it wasn't in my job description."

"Is it just me, or do you seem extra grouchy today?" The Messenger peered at him. "What's the matter, Officer? Is your wife nagging you too much or something?"

He shook his head. "It's nothing. It's stupid."

"Try me."

"If you must know," Jae-shin replied with a sigh, "we had an argument."

"It was your fault, wasn't it?"

"How can you say that when you don't know all the facts?"

"It's always the man's fault in these situations." She folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "All right... what did you do?"

"She wore some new clothes and got angry when I didn't notice them," he replied with a roll of his eyes. Then, he added evasively, "And I may have said a couple of dumb things after that."

The Blue Messenger groaned. "You really have no idea what you're doing, do you? She was trying to get your attention, you idiot, and you basically just threw that back in her face!"

"Hey, watch your mouth," he warned, scowling. "You're still a wanted criminal, and I'm duty-bound to arrest you. Anyway, I don't think she's as angry as she used to be," he added defensively. "Maybe she's gradually coming around."

"Even then, you messed up big time," she replied. "You're going to have to do some serious groveling to make amends."

Jae-shin scowled. He was willing to admit that he had gravely insulted his wife, but she had some fault in all of this, too, and he didn't like the idea of groveling. "I don't know if just saying that I'm sorry — even if I really am — will be enough," he hedged.

"You bet it won't," the Messenger told him. "Your wife made a pretty significant gesture, so it's going to take a lot more than just saying you're sorry."

"Well... what do you think I should do?"

She looked at him for a long moment. "You can buy her a present," she suggested. "I mean, I'm sure you have some money on you so you can afford to do that."

"Yes, I have some money. What should I get her?"

"I can't just tell you what to buy," the Blue Messenger said, exasperated. "The gift should come from your heart. Surely you have some idea of what kinds of things she likes by now. Or... does she need anything that she doesn't buy for herself?"

Jae-shin brightened as an idea came to him. "Yes," he said. "As a matter of fact, she does."

Ka-hai was sitting in their bedroom, sewing and humming to herself, when Jae-shin got home that night. He paused for a while to take in the domestic tableau and must have stared too long because it was she who spoke first. "Oh, you're home," she remarked politely as she looked up from her work.

He nodded, his arm tightening around the bundle that he carried.

"Is there anything you need?"

"Um... there is, actually." Walking over to her, he held out the parcel. "I need to give this to you."

His wife glanced at it, but made no move to take it. "What is it?"

"It's a present. For you," Jae-shin added, just in case it wasn't obvious. "From me. I, uh, thought you might need some new ones," he went on, "so I got you some."

"Oh." She set aside her sewing and finally reached out to accept the parcel. "Well, thank you."

"You're welcome."

He supposed that he should say something more, maybe a short speech about how the gift was an apology, but he had been so preoccupied with the actual buying of the present that he hadn't prepared anything else. Finally, he said, "I'm going to get something to eat," and beat a hasty retreat.

Ka-hai watched him leave, then looked down at the bundle in her hands. Clearly, the present was his attempt to make peace. It would have been nice to hear him admit that he was wrong about her and Dong-wook, but her husband seemed to be a man of action rather than words.

Quickly, she opened the parcel and began to laugh. Apparently, Jae-shin thought that her racy underthings were thin from repeated washings, and bought her new underwear of sturdy, closely woven material. It was a rather misguided present, but she had to admit that it was also sweet in that he had tried to put some thought into it.

Besides, she thought, blushing as she set her new underclothes aside, she supposed that it also meant that her husband had at least noticed how thin those underclothes had been.

Jae-shin was glad that his wife had accepted the present, which was surely a sign that she was willing to forgive and forget. Further, he often glimpsed Ka-hai with a smile on her face ever since the night that he had given it to her, which indicated that he had found the perfect gift on the first try.

He was congratulating himself again on his newfound knack for choosing presents when he arrived home late one night and found her already abed. She had a habit of cocooning herself in her blanket like a giant caterpillar when she lay down to sleep; the fact that she was lying half-out of her blanket and with one arm flung out towards his side of the bed told him that she had been asleep for a while.

From the colored trim on the garment, Jae-shin could tell that she was wearing at least the undertunic he had given her. He could also tell by the good two inches of wrist extending beyond the cuffs that it was too small.

He sighed as he shed his uniform and disappeared behind the screen in the back of the room for a quick, very cold bath. Why didn't she say anything? He wanted to get her a good present, and would have been happy to exchange the clothes for ones that actually fit.

(Perhaps he should have asked Yong-ha's advice on this matter after all. He had considered it, but didn't want his friend looking over his shoulder while he bought underwear for his wife.)

On the other hand, Jae-shin thought as he donned fresh clothing and got into bed, Ka-hai might have kept quiet in order to spare his feelings, which was also quite nice of her. Or else she was just so busy these days that she didn't notice his present's, er, shortcomings.

One thing was for sure, though: he definitely had to do something more to make amends with his wife. Although his standards might not be as exacting as the Blue Messenger's, even he knew that a present of ill-fitting clothing wasn't going to do the trick.

Jae-shin tried again a few days later, on his next day off. Upon rising, he dressed quickly, stopped for a quick word with the cook, and then went in search of Ka-hai.

She was sitting in one of the sunny eastern rooms, working on another pile of sewing, when he found her. He cleared his throat and, when she looked up, he said, "I have the day off today."

"I can see that," Ka-hai replied.

He nodded. "So... I was wondering... if you would like to go for a ride with me. That is," he added quickly, gesturing towards the pile of snowy white linens at her elbow, "if you're not too busy." He was fairly certain that his wife would rather ride than sew, but didn't want to get in the way of her work if it was important.

Ka-hai laughed. "Oh, there's no end to mending," she told him. It was true; there was always a sheet that needed to be re-hemmed or a hole in a sock that needed to be darned. Nevertheless, she thought it was still more economical than buying replacements all the time. "It can wait."

"So you'll come?"

She nodded. "But I'll need to change into men's clothes," she warned him. "I can't ride properly dressed like this." Her mother, trying to observe the proprieties, had once forced her to ride in a woman's hanbok, but the endless blowing of her skirt around her head and her brothers' laughter had put a quick stop to that.

"Fine with me," Jae-shin replied with a shrug and a small smile. "You know I hardly ever bother with a hat, so I can't cast stones."

Ka-hai found herself smiling back. As a compromise following the skirt incident, she was allowed to ride around in man's garb, but only on the Cha estate. It appeared that her husband didn't intend to hold her to a standard different from those he held for himself. "All right, then. Just let me finish this piece I'm sewing, and then I'll go change."

Once she was dressed and ready to go, husband and wife stopped by the kitchens for provisions. To Ka-hai's surprise, Master Jeung had a bountiful picnic all ready for them. "I hope you'll enjoy yourselves, my lord, my lady!" chirped the cook, waving as they left with the basket.

"Did you ask Master Jeung to pack us some food?" Ka-hai asked her husband once they were out of earshot.

"Of course," Jae-shin answered.

"Before you asked me to go out riding with you?" she pressed, arching an eyebrow.

"Why not? If you had said no, then I would have gone by myself."

Chul-moo was still too inexperienced to take out riding, but Ka-hai had brought other horses with her when she first moved to her husband's house. One of these, together with the stallion that Lord Cha had presented his son-in-law, was saddled and waiting outside the house. "Where are we going, anyway?" Ka-hai asked as they mounted up.

"It's a surprise," her husband told her. "Let's go."

With Jae-shin leading the way, they rode out of the city and up the hill overlooking Banchon. Apart from the tree he had appropriated on the Sungkyunkwan campus, this was one of his favorite places. He felt a bit nervous about sharing the spot with his wife, but supposed that it counted as a "significant gesture" on his part, even if she might not be able to understand it as such.

Fortunately, she seemed to love it. "This is wonderful!" she exclaimed as they dismounted. "Look at how small the city looks! What's that over there?"

"That's Sungkyunkwan University, where my friends and I went to school," he replied, pointing. "And that's Banchon right beside it. It's not the nicest place in town, but the students hang out there a lot." At least, he had.

"How did you find out about this place?"

"I came across it while I was at school."

"Skipping classes, no doubt," Ka-hai sniffed, but she sounded more amused than anything else.

Jae-shin chuckled, not denying it, and turned towards her in time to see her undoing her braid. "What are you doing?" he asked with a tiny hiccup.

"Taking down my hair," she answered simply, running her fingers through it and massaging her scalp. "It's nice and windy up here, and I haven't had the wind in my hair for so long."

A stiff breeze blew a hank of it right into her face. She grinned at him through the dark web and reached over to flick at his hair, which hung loose and shaggy around his own face, with her fingers. "And you can't cast stones about that either, huh?"

"No," he agreed, dropping his gaze and chuckling. "Come, let's eat."

Naturally, Ka-hai insisted on seeing to the horses first, but once their mounts' saddles were removed and they were turned loose to graze, husband and wife sat down to the spread the cook had provided. There were large pancakes fragrant with green onions, radish kimchi, dumplings and sweet rice cakes. Master Jeung had also packed makgeolli for them to drink, and after some initial hesitation, they shared the single bottle companionably.

"This reminds me of home—I mean, where I grew up," she said, popping a cube of spicy pickled radish in her mouth and wiping her hands on a napkin that the cook had thoughtfully provided. "We didn't have hills this high, but sometimes my brothers and I would ride to the far end of my father's lands and just lie around for hours."

"That sounds very peaceful," Jae-shin said.

"I don't know if it was peaceful, what with us running wild all over the place," she laughed, "but the farm was much quieter compared to the city." She stretched out her arms, turning her face up to the sun. "And a lot more open."

He watched her quietly for a few moments before speaking again. "I have something for you."

"For me?" Ka-hai repeated, looking surprised. "Why in the world would you have something for me?"

"Because you're my wife?" he replied with a quirk of an eyebrow. "Could you just give me your hand, please?"

A wary expression crossed her face at his faintly annoyed tone, but she did as he asked, allowing Jae-shin to fasten his present around her wrist: a bracelet of white porcelain beads on a silken cord, much like the one he wore, with each bead decorated with a tiny painting of a bird or flower. "They didn't have any horses," he explained as he tied the knot firmly to ensure that the trinket wouldn't fall off. "I checked."

She laughed softly at that. "This is beautiful even without horses," she assured him. "Thank you, Jae-shin."

However, instead of saying "you're welcome," he froze. "Did I do that?" he asked.

"Did you do what?" Ka-hai repeated blankly. He pulled back her sleeve, which had ridden up earlier, to reveal a few yellow-green bruises marring her skin. "Oh, that. Yes, I guess so; no one else has grabbed my arm lately."

He lowered her arm gently. "I'm really sorry," he said in a quiet voice. "That day... it wasn't my finest moment."

"No, it wasn't," she agreed, glancing away briefly. "But the bruises are nothing. I barely knew they were there."

"Even then," he insisted. "If my brother were alive, he would have had me drawn and quartered for raising my hand to a woman."

Technically, she had raised her hand to him, but Ka-hai said nothing. Even though she hadn't felt a thing, she didn't want her husband to believe that she would let herself be manhandled like that.

"And the things I said to you..." A dull red flush spread over his cheekbones. "You know I didn't mean them, don't you?"

Taking a deep breath, she decided to let go of the last of her anger and nodded. He had been angry (even jealous, if Kwan-sook was right), and she of all people should know that one sometimes said and did stupid things when they were upset. "I probably should have been more mindful of how my actions might look to others, too," she acknowledged. "But I hope that from now on, you'll trust me as I trust you."

Ka-hai did trust him; not only had Yong-ha assured her that he'd had very little to do with women, but Kwan-sook also reported that there wasn't even the faintest whisper among the servants about her husband ever having a lover.

"I vowed to be faithful," she went on, "and if there's one thing my father taught me, it's the importance of keeping one's word." She had chosen her words carefully in order to avoid antagonizing him, but couldn't help adding, "If you ever doubt me again, you had better be prepared to talk to me properly about it, or I'll do more than slap you."

That brought him up short. "Oh, really?" he asked.

She gave him the level stare that had often cowed her brothers into submission. "Yes, really."

Since he wasn't one of her brothers, his lips curled in a slow smile. "I'll keep that in mind."

That smile caused a strange fluttering inside her belly, but she managed a decisive nod. "Good."

"Since we're apologizing to each other," Jae-shin said suddenly, "there's something you need to make up to me."

"Me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes — that kiss you gave me in front of my father." He gave her his best imitation of Yong-ha at his most critical. "I don't mean to put down your technique, but it was pretty pathetic."

"You obviously don't know anything," Ka-hai scoffed. "That wasn't a kiss. I used to do that to annoy my brothers all the time. Besides, you were the one—"

"I know you did it to keep Abeoji from knowing that we quarreled," he acknowledged, "but you did it to annoy me, too. Since we've basically agreed to start over, I think it's worth doing that again properly, don't you?"

"You just want me to kiss you," she accused, cheeks flaming.

All right, perhaps he did, but not just for its own sake. There were principles at stake here. "All you do is play games," he goaded her. "When someone calls your bluff, you run away. How are we doing to have a serious marriage if you keep up that habit?"

She raised her chin defiantly. "I never start something I can't finish."

He leaned towards her, the challenge in the air making his blood sing. "Then prove it."

His wife gave him a disgruntled look. For a moment, he thought she was going to balk, but then she closed the rest of the distance between them and touched her lips to his.

Ka-hai kept her lips primly closed, intending to linger only for as long as necessary to satisfy her husband's silly whim, but then his mouth opened over hers and she promptly lost count of the seconds.

Jae-shin cupped her cheek with one hand and took her lower lip between his teeth, nibbling gently and sending lightning all the way down to her toes. She stiffened and made a strangled noise in the back of her throat, but instead of pulling away, she leaned closer in a silent invitation to explore further.

A sudden, playful gust of wind sent Ka-hai's unbound hair whipping wildly around their heads, breaking the spell. Blushing, he cleared his throat and carefully untangled himself from the silky strands. "We should probably start heading back," he suggested in a low voice.

"A-Abeonim might worry if we don't show up for dinner," she agreed.

He looked away as she began to restore her hair to rights. Giving in to the impulse to try out what little he had learned from Sun-joon's red book and taking a more active role in the kiss had been a bad idea. (Perhaps it hadn't been a completely bad idea, because his wife had seemed to like it, but overall it had been a bad idea.) Actually, goading her into kissing him had been a bad idea, too, because instead of considering their argument and all related issues closed, Jae-shin felt as though he had opened the door on something for which they were both unprepared.

Now who was the one playing games?

Let that be a lesson to you, Cha Ka-hai, she told herself as she busied herself with weaving her hair back into a neat braid. If you're going to play games, they had better be the kind that you're sure you'll win. Ka-hai had risen to the challenge and given her husband a proper kiss, so technically she was the winner of this round, but she couldn't help feeling as though she had narrowly escaped getting more than she had bargained for. She bit her lip against the fluttering in her belly that hadn't stopped at all, and in fact seemed to be getting worse.

It was a good thing we were interrupted... wasn't it?