Chapter 18: The Headmistress

We were halfway across the main courtyard when Gi-chul caught up with us.

He was running. Glasses bouncing. Scroll bag flapping. He stopped in front of us, bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing.

"Mu-jin. Tae-man. I... need to... say something."

Tae-man crossed his arms. "If it’s about the paintings—"

"It’s NOT about the paintings!" Gi-chul turned red. Then he straightened up, fixed his glasses, and bowed. Like, actually bowed. A real one. "I’m sorry. About the scroll. About taking your names off. I was angry, and I was wrong."

Tae-man and I looked at each other.

"That’s... a big change," I said.

"Mother talked to me." Gi-chul stood up. "Last night. And again this morning. She said you came to see her. To apologize."

Tae-man made a very small noise.

"She said you were very sincere," Gi-chul went on. "She said you apologized for a long, long time. In her palanquin. All the way home. The long way."

Tae-man turned around and faced the wall.

"She said," Gi-chul added, a little confused, "that she’d never had a young man apologize to her so... thoroughly."

Tae-man’s shoulders were shaking. He was biting his own fist.

I kept my face completely, perfectly still. "Yeah. I felt really bad."

"She was in a good mood all morning," Gi-chul said. "She made me breakfast herself. She never makes breakfast. She hummed." He frowned. "Mother doesn’t hum."

"Must’ve been a good apology," Tae-man wheezed into the wall.

Gi-chul looked at him. Then at me. That same face. The math-problem face.

Then he decided not to solve it.

"Anyway. Thank you. For forgiving me." He bowed again. "Friends?"

"Friends," I said.

He smiled — a real smile, kind of sweet — and walked off toward the library.

The second he was out of earshot, Tae-man grabbed me by both shoulders.

"Bro."

"Don’t."

"In her PALANQUIN."

"Tae-man."

"She HUMMED, bro. She made BREAKFAST. You fixed his mom so hard she started COOKING—"

I shoved him into a bush.

The headmistress’s building was the tallest one on the grounds. Three stories, black tile roof, stone lions at the door. I’d never been inside. Disciples like me don’t get invited inside.

I was walking up the steps when someone said, "Excuse me?"

I turned.

A girl was standing at the bottom of the stairs. Not a girl — a young woman. Twenty, maybe. Travel cloak still on, dusty at the hem. A sword on her back in a plain sheath that was way too good to be plain. Long dark hair tied with a blue ribbon. Big serious eyes.

And a body that made two passing disciples walk straight into each other.

I waited for the ping.

Nothing.

No [Target Detected]. No window. No number.

The system just... sat there. Quiet.

Huh. Not a milf. Too young for its taste. First woman in three months it had nothing to say about.

"Do you know where the headmistress’s office is?" she asked. Polite. A capital accent, crisp and clean. "I’m a transfer. From the main academy. I was told to report directly to her."

"Top floor. I’m going there too."

"Oh!" She looked relieved. "Could I follow you? This place is a maze."

"Sure."

She came up the stairs beside me. Up close she smelled like horses and road dust and something like orchids.

"Yun Seo-ah," she said.

"Baek Mu-jin."

She blinked. "Baek? From Hangju’s Baek Clan? I heard about a Baek boy at the inn on my way into town. Something about a wall?"

God. Even the travelers knew.

"Different Baek," I said.

She looked at my face. Then at the healing bruise peeking out of my collar. Then at the fish scale stuck to my sleeve that I’d somehow missed.

She smiled a little. Didn’t push.

I liked her immediately. And it was the weirdest feeling. No system. No numbers. Just... liking someone.

The headmistress’s office was enormous. Bookshelves on three walls. A desk the size of a bed. A window looking out over the whole academy, and the river, and half of Hangju.

And Headmistress Hwang Yu-seon, standing at that window with her back to us.

[Target Detected.]

There it was. The system woke right up.

Tall. Taller than me. Plum-colored robes that fell straight to the floor. Silver hairpin through a coil of black hair streaked with one single line of gray, right at the temple, like she’d painted it there on purpose. When she turned around, her face was long and elegant, mid-forties maybe, with dark lips and eyes that looked like they’d seen through a thousand liars.

And a figure that her robes were very carefully, very expensively designed to hide.

They weren’t doing a great job.

"Yun Seo-ah," she said, and her voice was low and rich, like old wine. "Welcome. Your father wrote ahead. Wait in the outer room. I’ll be with you shortly."

Seo-ah bowed and went out.

The door closed.

The headmistress looked at me.

She didn’t say anything. She just walked around her huge desk and sat on the front edge of it. Exactly like Instructor Cha did. Except Cha swings her foot like a cat. Hwang didn’t move at all. She was perfectly, completely still.

Like a snake.

"Baek Mu-jin," she said. "Third son. Expelled from his clan four days ago. Third-rate. Missed more classes this month than he attended." She picked up a paper from her desk. "And yet, this week, the Gwak family — who have never once sponsored anyone — have filed papers to pay for everything you eat, wear and breathe."

She picked up another paper.

"Instructor Cha, who has refused every remedial student for six years, has requested private evening sessions with you."

Another paper.

"And this morning, a fisherman, a dock watchman and two laundry women all report that a foreign swordswoman cut a Black Boar thug’s club in half to protect you. After which, they say, you both stole a boat."

"We returned the boat."

She looked at me over the paper.

"What are you, boy?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

"Take off your robe," she said.

"...What?"

"The dock watchman says you took an iron bar to the ribs. Full swing. He heard the crack from across the street." She set the papers down. "I’ve seen a hundred disciples take that hit. They don’t walk for a week. You ran here. Take off your robe. I want to see."

I untied my robe.

She stood up off the desk and walked over. Slowly. She stopped in front of me, so close I could smell her — sandalwood and ink and something darker underneath. She looked at the bruise on my ribs. Yellow now. Fading.

Then she put her hand on it.

Cool fingers. Long. A big jade ring on the middle one. She pressed. Hard.

I hissed.

"Mm." She pressed again, a little lower. Then her palm slid flat across my stomach. Right over my dantian.

Her eyes narrowed. Then they opened wide. Then they narrowed again, slower.

"Oh," she said, very softly. "Oh, I see."

[Desire +20.]

She didn’t take her hand away.

"Four women," she murmured. "Four different yin. Braided. Badly — but braided." She looked up into my face. "That’s Cha Mi-ran’s technique. The Four-Strand Braid. She taught you that."

"Yes, Headmistress."

"In one lesson."

"Yes."

"With her hand exactly where mine is."

"...Yes."

She smiled. It was a thin, slow smile, and it made the back of my neck prickle.

"Cha Mi-ran always did think she was the cleverest woman in this academy."

Then she pushed.

Not a lot. Just one step. But she was strong — way stronger than she looked — and suddenly my back was against her bookshelf, and her body was pressed right up against mine, and her hand was still flat on my stomach. Except now it was moving. Slowly. In little circles. And her other hand was on my jaw, tilting my face down toward hers.

I’m taller than most people. She was taller than me. It was the first time in this life I’d had to look UP at a woman.

God.

"The Gwak widow," she whispered against my lips. "Ji-yeon. She’s sat across from me at every academy banquet for eight years. Looking down her spectacles. Judging my robes. Judging my... habits."

Her lips brushed mine. Not a kiss. Just a touch.

"And the whole time," she said, "she was sneaking out in her palanquin."

Her hand slid lower.

My whole body went tight.

[Desire +20.]

"Headmistress—"

"Yu-seon," she said. "When the door is closed."

Then she kissed me.

It was nothing like Ayla. Nothing like Yeon-hee, or Seo-rin, or Ji-yeon. She kissed like she owned the building we were standing in — which, to be fair, she did. Slow and deep and completely in control, one hand on my jaw holding me exactly where she wanted me, the other hand doing things below my belt that made my knees shake against her bookshelf.

A scroll fell off the shelf behind me and bounced off my head.

She didn’t even notice.

I didn’t either.

The braid in my belly was spinning like crazy. Like it could smell her. Like it was hungry for whatever she had.

And then—

She stopped.

Just stopped. Pulled her hand back. Stepped away. Straightened her plum robes with two neat tugs.

I stood there against the bookshelf, robe hanging open, breathing like I’d run up a mountain, so hard it hurt.

"Not in my office," she said calmly, walking back to her desk. "Not yet."

"Not... YET?"

"I’m the headmistress, boy. I don’t do anything quickly." She sat down behind her desk and picked up a brush. "Now. The Gwak sponsorship is approved. Cha’s lessons are approved. The dock report is... misfiled."

She dipped the brush.

"And you have a new duty. Yun Seo-ah is the daughter of a Ministry official in the capital. Her father wants her kept safe and kept out of trouble. You will be her guide. Show her the academy. Show her the city." She glanced up. "Keep her away from the docks."

"Why me?"

She smiled again. That snake smile.

"Because, Baek Mu-jin, every woman in this city seems to want to keep you alive. Let’s see if you can return the favor."

She went back to writing.

"Close your robe on the way out. And come back in seven days. Alone. After dark."

I closed my robe.

My hands were shaking so bad it took three tries.

Seo-ah was waiting in the outer room, sitting very straight on a bench with her sword across her knees.

She stood up when I came out.

She looked at my face. At my hair, which was sticking up on one side. At my collar, which was crooked. At my lips.

At the faint smudge of dark plum-colored lip paint at the corner of my mouth.

Her eyebrows went up. Just a little.

"So," she said. "Different Baek?"

I wiped my mouth.

"...Same Baek," I said.

She laughed. Bright and surprised. And it hit me in the chest like a punch, and the system didn’t say a single word about it.

"The headmistress says I’m your guide," I said.

"I heard." Her eyes were still sparkling. "The doors here are thin."

Oh no.

She slung her sword back over her shoulder and walked past me toward the stairs.

"Well, guide?" she said without turning around. "Show me Hangju. And this time, try not to fall into anything."