The wind had been rattling the door paper all through the night in an ominous way — and sure enough, snow came pouring down from early morning. The snow fell with vigorous force and quickly blanketed the rooftops and courtyard of Byeoksong Palace in white. Unlike the blizzard that had lashed from every direction on the day of the Winter Hunt, the quietly falling snow felt as though it were gently blanketing every noise in the world, every worry and care along with it.
Orang, who had slept in late, spotted the snow piled up outside his enclosure and began wagging his tail furiously. Whatever had him so delighted, he was bounding about on all fours across the snow. Every now and then he would crane his snout high toward the sky, flicking his tongue out to catch and lick the falling snowflakes.
“Don’t eat too much. Orang — too much cold stuff will give you a stomachache.”
Orang, having no way of understanding Ha-hyeon’s words, continued tearing about his enclosure in a frenzy. Orang wasn’t the only one giddy with excitement at the falling snow. Ha-hyeon was seated on the open veranda with Wol and two young maidservants, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket, watching the snow come down. The winter air drifting in and out of his nose was pleasantly cool, his body warm beneath the blanket. With a steaming teacup in hand on top of all that, it was about as idyllic as life could get.
A bird that had been perched on a tree branch fluttered down into the courtyard. It pecked through the snow with its small beak, retrieved a red berry in its bill, and flew back up to its nest.
“Oh — did you see that?”
Wol pointed to where the bird had flown off.
“Yeah. I saw. Good thing I tossed those out earlier.”
While tending to Orang’s meal, Ha-hyeon had scattered some fruit around for the birds. That they had managed to find it even buried under all that snow was genuinely impressive. The nest itself had not a single flake of snow on it — thanks to the little roof Ha-hyeon had built over it just the day before.
“Thanks to my lady, those birds won’t freeze to death.”
“I only made it because I was bored — glad it turned out to be useful.”
Ha-hyeon smiled with quiet satisfaction.
The world was so thoroughly white that even the boundary between sky and earth seemed to dissolve. Perhaps it was from gazing endlessly at the snow-covered landscape — Ha-hyeon’s eyes began to sting faintly, and a hazy image started to take shape before him.
What gradually formed into color and form was no mirage. It was a scene sunken deep in the far reaches of Sa Ha-hyeon’s memory, beneath very still water. The memory that had lain completely buried and forgotten all this time surfaced now — purely because of that snow.
Perhaps nostalgia, too, had been overjoyed to see the snow falling so generously after so long.
Mang-i. Wei Wuyuan’s childhood name had been Mang-i. In the memory, little Mang-i had both cheeks flushed pink from the cold wind, and was struggling with both small fern-like hands to heft a snowball nearly as big as his own face. Then, sensing a presence, the child turned and looked at Ha-hyeon.
Eyes as clear as glass beads, lips redder than camellia petals fallen on snow, a straight and delicate nose that made you want to give it a playful little tap — all of it smiling at Ha-hyeon.
That winter, the year Ha-hyeon had stayed as a guest in the home of Mang-i — young Wei Wuyuan. On a day much like this one, snow had fallen so thick it seemed as though the world itself might disappear.
The elders who had left the day before saying they were going to a neighboring village had not returned even after a full day had passed. Most likely, the roads had been cut off by the snow that had fallen through the night, stranding them where they were. But with pitiless indifference, the snow showed no sign of stopping even the next day — and Mang-i, who was always composed beyond his years, couldn’t hide his unusual anxiety that particular day. He wouldn’t eat, and stood at the front gate waiting and waiting for the adults who wouldn’t come back.
Sa Ha-hyeon had decided he needed to somehow pull Mang-i’s mind away from that gate. He wanted to chase away the worry gnawing at that small head of his and plant something joyful in its place.
And so Ha-hyeon decided to build him a snowman. He rolled up his sleeves and started packing snow. The moment the first snowman was complete, Mang-i drew closer with eyes bright with curiosity. Ha-hyeon caught it from the corner of his eye — the faintest twitch at the corner of the child’s mouth. From that tiny, barely-there movement alone, Ha-hyeon could tell that Mang-i was fascinated by the snowman. Ha-hyeon felt his own excitement grow.
In no time at all he had gathered up every bit of snow in the courtyard, and when that wasn’t enough, he went outside the gate and scraped up all the snow piled along the road. By the time he had moved enough to work up a sweat that made his clothes cling to his skin even in the dead of winter, a respectable little family of snowmen had taken up residence in the courtyard.
Mang-i looked back and forth between Ha-hyeon and the snowmen, then reached out and tugged Ha-hyeon’s hand. Without answering when Ha-hyeon asked where they were going, Mang-i climbed up the hillside behind the house and began packing snow the same way Ha-hyeon had. Ha-hyeon watched, thinking the boy wanted to build snowmen up on the hill too — but instead, Mang-i gave the quickly packed snowball a light toss down the slope.
The snowball rolled downward, growing larger and larger in an instant. It only came to a stop when it hit the stone wall surrounding the back courtyard. Fortunately, it was only a little dented, not broken apart.
“Wow…… Mang-i, you’re actually brilliant. You used gravity?”
From the form on that, he’d probably be pretty good at bowling too.
“It seemed like it would be easier this way. I don’t like it when you’re working too hard.”
“Really? You thought of this method because you were worried about me? That’s actually really touching.”
Mang-i didn’t answer yes or no — just pressed his lips tightly together and dropped his gaze.
“Alright. This time, let’s build a snowman your way.”
It felt as though the voice of little Mang-i were caught somewhere in the howling winter wind. It was Wol who pulled Ha-hyeon back out of the memory he had sunk into.
“If we don’t start clearing a path soon, it’ll get hard to get around.”
Wol rose from her seat with a look of concern.
“Hm?”
“Too much snow is coming down. My lady, if we don’t clear it in time, it’ll be difficult to walk.”
“You’re right. Should we clear a path before it piles up any more?”
Ha-hyeon moved to roll up his sleeves and get to work, but Wol and the maidservants threw themselves in his way in alarm.
“We’ll do it. So please, my lady, enjoy a little more leisure.”
“No. I’ll do it. How long would it take you all to clear it on your own? Let’s do it together.”
“We can’t allow that. Absolutely not. If His Majesty finds out, our heads will roll.”
“Don’t worry. He said he wouldn’t be coming for a while.”
“Even so. There are many eyes and ears in the palace.”
“There aren’t. Not any. And even if there were, who would be watching in this kind of snowfall? Let’s all just clear it together. I’m bored.”
In the end, Ha-hyeon and the maidservants all headed out into the courtyard armed with brooms and snow shovels. While the three women swept in rhythm together, Ha-hyeon pushed through the snow at a rapid pace. With every drag of the shovel across the ground, the earth beneath came back into view. In no time at all, a clear path stretched from the front gate all the way to the main quarters and the annex.
This is nothing — absolute cake.
And it was — the unit he had served in during his military days was one of the notoriously brutal forward-deployed ones. Winters there were nothing short of a snow hell. No matter how much snow you cleared, there was always more. He had still been sweeping snow in the third month of spring, when all living things were supposed to be coming back to life and forsythias were supposed to be in bloom. Back then it had been nothing but trash falling from the sky — and yet now it felt entirely different. The human heart truly was a strange thing.
“My lady…… how on earth are you clearing it so quickly?”
The maidservants stared at him, mouths open in astonishment. Ha-hyeon wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and replied as though it were nothing.
“I’ve been training in martial arts. Must be why.”
Utterly ridiculous, of course.
Having piled the snow into a mountain in one corner of the courtyard, Ha-hyeon had worked up a sweat. He straightened up to cool down — and Wol came waddling over, rolling a lumpy snowball.
“My lady, look at this! Doesn’t it look just like a freshly steamed rice cake?”
Ha-hyeon grinned and looked down at the snowball in Wol’s hands. Then he scooped up a fistful of snow from the ground and quickly packed it.
“You’re right. It looks quite edible. Here — take a bite.”
“Eek!”
The snowball Ha-hyeon threw burst against Wol’s shoulder with a thud. Wol’s eyes went wide — and the maidservants beside her burst into giggles behind their hands.
“My lady started it! Girls — attack!”
At Wol’s cry, a snowball fight broke out in an instant. Rank and dignity forgotten entirely, all four of them returned to the hearts of children.
Snowballs flew and burst with soft thuds, one after another. The maidservants who had hesitated at first, wondering if they were really allowed to throw snow at their lady — had, without anyone noticing, become the most fiercely dedicated combatants of the bunch.
After moving around until they were all breathless, exhaustion came rolling in. Ha-hyeon flopped down flat on his back in the middle of the courtyard, gasping roughly. Wol and the maidservants lay down beside him. And all the while, snow continued to fall from the sky above.
