Adjusting the mask on his face, Yoon Taehee spoke.

“You may take my life.”

Whether both sides would die at once or remain in stalemate—Yoon Taehee stepped back and removed his pieces from the board. He had protected his “pieces,” but since it was as good as forfeiting, it was his loss. When he declared surrender in a game where lives had been wagered, the director’s expression changed strangely.

“Whether you crush my wooden tag or cut my throat, do as you please.”

It was impossible to tell what the eyes visible behind the mask were thinking.

“.......”

The director narrowed her eyes.

Just then, the cat that had been sitting at a distance approached Yoon Taehee and sat down with its front paws gathered neatly together. Then, as if trying to catch his attention, it meowed. Yoon Taehee looked into the cat’s golden eyes.

The cat seemed to have something to say.

“Life is precious.”

At that moment, the director spoke suggestively, gazing into the distance.

“It would be a waste to throw it away so dully.”

In any case, she had long since seen through Yoon Taehee’s plan. By now, she knew that his plan had been completely frustrated, and she also knew that, for the time being, he had no way left to oppose her. If she killed Yoon Taehee here, all she would gain was that boy’s resentment for no reason.

“The night air is pleasant, so why don’t we take a walk?”

Therefore, it would be more useful to keep him alive until the boy arrived. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

“The trumpet creepers have bloomed quite beautifully in the garden.”

The director slowly rose to her feet. At that, Yoon Taehee, who had been staring into the cat’s eyes as though possessed by something, shifted his gaze to her. The director opened the large sliding door at the side and stepped out into the back yard. Each time she moved, the wooden floor creaked, and the rustle of her skirt could be heard.

The cat seemed to lose focus for a moment when its master, the director, left her place, but soon turned its gaze back to Yoon Taehee. Yoon Taehee looked at the cat once, then turned his eyes toward the back yard.

“.......”

There was no way to know the director’s intentions in suddenly suggesting a walk, but Yoon Taehee followed her out into the back yard. When Yoon Taehee stood, the cat followed closely after him. A vast garden spread out behind the house. The branches of a tree so thick a grown man could barely get his arms around it swayed in the soft breeze carrying the bright moonlight.

Yoon Taehee followed the director at a slow pace, keeping some distance between them.

“Even when the scenery looks the same, there are things that change from day to day. Every time I take a walk, I am filled with new feelings. Today, memories of the past keep coming to mind more than usual, so I suppose I must be getting old.”

The director, looking over the flowers and trees in the garden, murmured as if to herself.

“Around this time of year, I used to roam here and there with my friends to look at flowers. We would sit on a windy hill and nap, or pick wildflowers and make rings with them... It was so enjoyable.”

Whenever the season came for such beautiful flowers to bloom, memories of living at Jaseonwon came to mind.

“Do you miss those days?”

“Of course I do. Time is something one can never turn back.”

The director, who had been walking through the back yard with her hands clasped behind her, spoke again after a while.

“A long time ago, at my house, trumpet creepers would bloom when this season came. They are quite beautiful. In the past, people used to call them the ‘nobleman’s flower,’ because they said they could only be seen at the homes of the nobility, but that is not something one should say in today’s world.”

After gazing at the trumpet creepers in full bloom with lingering eyes, the director continued.

“The world has changed a great deal. Now, there is no such thing as innate status, and if one sets one’s mind to it, a path can be found anywhere. Looking at the changed world makes me feel the passage of time, and yet I also find myself thinking, Why could it not have been like this in my day? Back then, I wonder what made me feel so wronged. At night, it felt as though a ball of fire had formed in my chest, and I could not fall asleep. I thought things like, Was I born to the wrong parents? or Why must I live like this?”

Yoon Taehee, who had been quietly listening to the director’s reflections, murmured to himself.

“Still, if you were born into a noble family in that era, it would not have been a situation worth being so pessimistic about.”

“Yes, everyone said so.”

The director nodded and smiled quietly.

“Do you know how I came to be a Naja?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I was abandoned by my family.”

The director raised her hand and lightly touched a trumpet creeper as she continued.

“They said I had tarnished the family’s honor.”

Her father was an ambitious man.

It was a story from a very long time ago. During her childhood, the royal family once held a selection to choose royal concubines who would carry on the royal line. Her father sent Suhyang’s older sister, who was several years older than her, to the selection. Around that time, however, the ghost-sight of Suhyang, the younger sister, began to open in earnest. Rumors spread outside the family that Suhyang, the younger sister, had the talent to see and hear ghosts, and that soon became an excuse.

What? You say she has wicked blood that communes with ghosts!

How can someone be rejected from the selection for such a reason?

In truth, the selection was a ceremonial process, and there were bound to be predetermined candidates. It could not be said that her sister had been rejected from the selection solely because of Suhyang. Nevertheless, perhaps because she needed someone on whom to take out her anger, her sister resented Suhyang terribly, and her father also treated Suhyang as a disgrace to the family, eventually all but driving her out of the house.

“Everyone whispered in unison that everything had gone wrong because of me.”

The director raised her hand, touched a trumpet creeper, and quietly added, “Even the parents who gave birth to me.”

Her father tried to marry Suhyang off to some distant place, as if clearing away a piece of luggage, arranging any marriage proposal he could find. Fortunately, however, she was smuggled away by her wet nurse, and the place she arrived at was Jaseonwon.

The hatred and resentment of being abandoned by her parents were all directed toward ghosts.

“I thought my father was quite a fool. I found it strange that he wanted his daughter to be selected so badly. Especially when she would not even be the primary queen, only a concubine. I wondered what all the fuss was about.”

The director paused for a moment, then shrugged.

“If I could have become anything I wanted, I would not have wanted to be something like a king’s wife.”

The director paused and spoke quietly, as if whispering a secret.

“If anything, I would rather have been the king.”

At the words, half joking and half sincere, the eyes visible behind the Fool mask narrowed slightly.

“In the past, if I had said such a thing aloud, my head would have rolled. But now this is a world where one can even become the leader of the country if one wishes, so surely no one would arrest an old woman for speaking treason.”

The director, having made a joke, smiled brightly and looked back at Yoon Taehee.

“That is why I was quite glad to become a Naja. In those days, there were not many things I could do. Embroidering, managing household affairs, finding a good match, bearing children, and serving a husband were the only duties allowed. If I had not become a Naja, I would have entered a temple and become a nun, or become a shaman, or else lived as the lady of some suitable household...”

The director slowly took in the sight of the trumpet creepers in full bloom.

“If so, would that not have been a truly dull life?”

Why was I born as a human who sees and hears ghosts? What did the heavens need from me, that they placed me on this earth? After long agony and despair, the young girl finally found her place.

There must be a reason the heavens gave me the talent to see and hear ghosts. Therefore, I am not a mistaken existence. I did not ruin anything. Perhaps this, too, is providence....

Perhaps I was called to this earth to become a Naja.

For the director, living as a Naja was an act of affirming her own existence.

“So, because you could not become king, did you want to become the Bangsangsi at least?”

The director’s steps faltered slightly, and she looked back at Yoon Taehee without a word.

“.......”

Only after a long while did the director murmur, with unexpected ease, “Perhaps I did.”

Myojeong, who had been a chosen human, grieved over being the Bangsangsi and treated the fate given to him as a burden. When Suhyang learned that, she realized that the providence of the world itself was unfair.

“Back then, I often lamented, Why is the world so unfair? The things I want are always in someone else’s hands, while the things useless to me are the very things others desperately desire.”

Myojeong did not want to be in that position.

And Suhyang thought it would be nice if she could sit in that position instead of Myojeong. Jaegyeom regarded immortality as a curse. And Suhyang wanted eternal life.

Why is that person not happy even though they have what I want? Why does that person envy me so carelessly when I have what I do not want? The fact that the world, or God, is unfair is either providence itself, or the most natural tragedy humans must bear.

“I see. It is a pitiful story in many ways.”

Yoon Taehee, who had been listening quietly, added in a dry voice.

“In any case, you could become neither king nor Bangsangsi.”

At the words Yoon Taehee uttered as if to himself, the director, who had been walking through the garden, flinched and stopped.

“.......”

Could not become the Bangsangsi...?

“What do you mean by that?”

The director, having stopped in place, slowly looked back at Yoon Taehee.

“You know as well as anyone that I possess the Bangsangsi mask.”

When the director asked back with an impassive face, Yoon Taehee replied in a nonchalant tone.

“Because not just anyone can become its incarnation simply by possessing the Bangsangsi mask.”

“Just because one possesses the Bangsangsi mask does not mean anyone can become its incarnation.”

It sounded like something she had heard somewhere before. Just as the director, feeling an unknown sense of unease, narrowed her eyes, Yoon Taehee brought his hand to the mask on his face and spoke in a low voice.

“Isn’t that right?”

Yoon Taehee, revealing half of his bare face, slowly lifted his eyes.

“Suhyang of the Yoon family.”

The moment she met those eyes, honed sharp as a blade, Suhyang’s face slowly hardened.