Chapter 46: The Diver

He swung.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t think.

The braid in my belly was still quiet from So-yeon’s lesson. Still listening. And it heard his weight shift before his fist even moved. Right foot. Shoulder dropping.

Slip left.

His fist went past my ear. His whole body followed it, the way Boar Neck’s did at the canal. Too much weight. Too far forward.

I stepped in. Inside the swing. Right up against him. My free hand found his elbow.

Not the forearm. The elbow. Here. Always here.

Push.

He was a lot bigger than So-yeon. But physics is physics. His arm went wide, his balance went with it, and he spun half around and crashed face first into a wall of stacked clay wine jars.

They exploded.

Wine everywhere. Red and gold. Splashing across the floor, the counter, the other two Boar men. The smell hit like a punch. Cheap plum wine and broken pottery.

The big one went down in a puddle of it and didn’t get up.

The other two stared at him. Then at me. Then at each other.

I stood there, covered in mud and pig slop and now plum wine, panting.

Holy shit.

It worked.

It actually worked.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to run back to the inn and tell So-yeon. Tell my uncle. Tell—

The second one came at me with a broken jar.

I didn’t feel him. I was too busy being amazed at myself. Rookie mistake.

The jagged edge caught my elbow as I threw my arm up. Pain. Sharp and hot. Blood.

I stumbled back against the counter.

He raised the broken jar again—

And a long wooden wine ladle came down on top of his head like a thunderbolt.

CRACK.

He went cross-eyed and folded.

The woman from behind the counter was standing there holding the ladle with both hands. Feet planted. Braid swinging. Breathing hard through her nose.

She turned and looked at the third Boar man.

She didn’t say anything.

She just lifted the ladle.

He ran.

"Sit," she said. "Don’t drip on my floor. Too late. Sit anyway."

I sat on one of her six stools. My elbow was bleeding all over her counter.

She came around with a clean rag. Pressed it against the cut. Hard.

I hissed.

"Baby," she said. Exactly how Yeon-hee says it. Then she looked at the two men on her floor. One face-down in wine. One cross-eyed in pottery. "Who’s going to drag them out? Not me. I did the hitting."

"I’ll do it. In a minute."

"You’ll do it now. Before they wake up and bleed on my good jars."

I dragged them out. One at a time. Into the alley behind her shop. Laid them next to her empty barrels.

When I came back, she was standing behind her counter looking at the wreckage. The wall of jars. Half of it was gone. Broken pottery. A lake of wine on the floor.

She didn’t look angry. She looked tired.

"That was a month of stock," she said quietly.

"I’m sorry. I’ll—"

"You’ll what? Pay for it?" She laughed. Big. Loud. From her belly. "You’re the Baek boy. The one from the roof. Everybody knows. You don’t have a copper."

"...Fair."

She looked at my elbow. Still bleeding through the rag.

Then she sighed. Grabbed a lantern off the hook. Flipped the little wooden sign in her window from OPEN to CLOSED.

"Come on," she said. "Upstairs. That needs stitching. And I have a needle and thread and absolutely nothing else to do with my night, since my shop is a puddle."

Her room was above the shop. Up a ladder-steep staircase. Small. Warm. A low table. A sleeping mat. Fishing nets drying on the wall. Abalone shells lined up on the windowsill, polished so they caught the lantern light like little rainbows.

It smelled like the sea. Salt and seaweed and sun-dried things.

And on the low table, a little painted portrait in a wooden frame. Her, a broad-shouldered man with a fisherman’s tan, and a chubby toddler between them, grinning with no teeth.

She saw me looking at it.

"My husband," she said, getting a sewing kit from a basket. "And our son. They’re back on the island for the abalone season. He dives with his brothers. Takes the boy every year so his grandmother can spoil him." She knelt in front of my stool with the needle. "I stay here. Somebody has to sell the wine."

"How long are they gone?"

"Two months." She threaded the needle with her teeth. "Three weeks done."

Three weeks.

Alone. Above a wine shop. In a city where Boar men think they can grab your wrist because you’re from the islands.

"Hold still," she said, and stuck the needle in my arm.

I made a noise I’m not proud of.

She laughed again. That big belly laugh.

"You walked into three Boar men covered in pig shit," she said. "And you’re crying about a needle?"

"It’s a big needle."

"It’s a fishing net needle. It’s the only kind I have." She pulled the thread through. Tied it off. Started the next stitch. "Be glad I didn’t use the hook."

She worked close. Kneeling right in front of me. Her face bent over my arm. Her heavy braid hanging over her shoulder, brushing my knee. Her tight black top pulled even tighter as she leaned in, and from where I was sitting—

God.

The red silk under the black. The deep, deep valley of sun-gold skin. Rising and falling every time she breathed.

I looked at the ceiling.

It didn’t help. The ceiling was very low. And she was very close.

She tied off the last stitch. Bit the thread off with her teeth.

Then she looked up.

Not at my face.

At my lap. At what was happening in my wine-soaked, mud-covered, pig-slopped trousers, very obviously, about a hand’s width from her nose.

She went still.

Then her eyebrows went up. Slowly.

[Target Detected.]

[Desire +15.]

"Hm," she said.

"Sorry. It’s — it’s been a really long day."

"Mm-hm." She didn’t move back. "You know, island women have a saying about men from the mainland."

"...What’s the saying?"

"All talk. No breath." She tilted her head. "They can’t stay under. Not for long. Not like island men. Island men can hold their breath for three minutes." Her lips curved. "Mainland men can barely hold it for one."

"Is that a challenge?"

"It’s a saying."

She stood up. Put the sewing kit away. Walked to the window. Stood there with her back to me, looking out at the night market lanterns, her hand on the polished abalone shells.

"Ko Mi-rae," she said, without turning around. "That’s my name. Since you didn’t ask."

"Baek Mu-jin."

"I know who you are, Baek Mu-jin. Everybody in the dock district knows who you are." She picked up an abalone shell. Turned it in the lantern light. "You know why those three came into my shop tonight? Why they always come?"

"...Because they’re Boar men, and Boar men are assholes?"

"Because I used to be married to the Boar."

I stared at her back.

"Pyo Gwang-chul," she said quietly. "When I was nineteen. Fresh off the boat from the island. I didn’t know anyone. He was big and loud and he bought me dumplings and said I was pretty." She put the shell down. "Three years. Then I ran. Hid. Married a quiet fisherman who didn’t hit anything except fish." She turned around. "The Boar found out where I live four years ago. He doesn’t come himself. He’s too proud. He sends his boys. Every month. To break my jars. To grab my wrist. To remind me."

She looked at me.

"Nobody ever stopped them before," said Ko Mi-rae. "Not once. In four years."

The lantern flickered.

"And then some idiot covered in pig shit walks in and throws one into my wine wall like it’s nothing." She smiled. It wobbled a little. "So I don’t care about the jars, Baek Mu-jin. Do you understand? I really, really don’t care about the jars."

[Desire +25.]

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

She walked back over. Stood in front of my stool. Looked down at me. At my stitched elbow. At my muddy chest.

"It’s late," she said. "You live across the whole dock district. With that arm. With Boar men in every alley who want your face broken."

"I’ll be fine."

"You’ll be dead in a ditch with a broken jar in your neck." She reached out. Touched my cheek. Her fingers were rough. Callused from rope and nets and wine jars. "Stay. I have a bath. A real one. Seawater. I carry it up from the harbor every morning. It’s good for cuts."

"Your husband—"

"Is on an island three days’ sail away. Diving for abalone with his brothers. Holding his breath for three minutes at a time." Her thumb brushed my jaw. "He’s a good man. A kind man. He has never once in eight years asked me what happened with the Boar. And I’ve never told him."

She was so close now I could smell her. Salt. Plum wine. Sun.

"Three weeks I’ve been alone up here," she whispered. "Three weeks of listening to the market through the floor. Three weeks of waiting for the Boar’s boys to come back." Her other hand came up. Both hands on my face now. "And they came. And you came."

She tilted my face up toward hers.

"Let me find out," said Ko Mi-rae softly, "how long a mainland boy can hold his breath."

She reached back behind her head.

And started undoing her braid.