The body remembered pain. It was its new teacher.
Three days. I spent three days bedridden, unable to move without every muscle screaming its protest. The micro-tears in my meridians—those invisible paths I had brutally forced open—were repairing themselves. Slowly. Painfully. As if someone had sewn my insides with barbed wire.
Eunbi worried. Of course. She came every hour to check my temperature. Made me drink herbal broths that tasted like dirt and despair. Placed her cool hands on my forehead and murmured prayers to guardians who never answered.
"It's an infantile fever," Mansoo told her with the kind of assurance reserved for well-rehearsed lies. "It happens sometimes. He'll be up in a few days."
She believed him. Because what was the alternative? Accepting that her five-year-old son had just voluntarily mutilated himself by forcing his body to reach a level of cultivation that even teenagers found difficult?
Minjun came to see me. Sat at the edge of the futon. Three years old now. Old enough to understand that something was wrong. Not old enough to understand what.
"Is Hyeon-hyung sick?" He touched my hand with that clumsy gentleness that only young children possessed. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes."
"A lot?"
"Enough."
"Can I do something?"
I looked at him. Those round eyes. Worried. Innocent. This kid had never asked to have a cursed older brother. Never asked to witness this masquerade.
"Just stay there," I finally said. "That's enough."
So he stayed. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes babbling about things that didn't matter—a bug he'd seen, a game he wanted to play, a story Eunbi had told him. And strangely, it helped. Not physically. But somewhere in that void where memories of brotherhood should have been, something new was being built.
On the fourth day, I was able to get up. Trembling. Weak. But standing.
Mansoo was waiting for me in the barn.
. . .
"Sit down."
I sat. The packed dirt floor was cold under my backside. Mansoo stood before me, arms crossed, wearing that expression he had when torn between anger and resignation.
"You're an idiot," he said. Not as an insult. As a medical observation.
"I know."
"No. You don't. If you really knew, you wouldn't have done it." He crouched down. Looked me in the eyes. "You're lucky. The tears were minor. It could have been worse. Much worse. Completely ruptured meridians. Permanently blocked cultivation. Or worse—a cracked Danjeon. Do you know what happens to people with a cracked Danjeon?"
"No."
"They die. Slowly. The GI leaks constantly. Their body consumes itself from the inside. It takes months. Sometimes years. But they still die."
Silence settled in. Heavy. Loaded with all the things he wasn't saying.
"I could stop teaching you," he continued. "It would be safer. For you. For your mother. For everyone."
My stomach knotted. "Please—"
"But I'm not going to." He sighed. "Because if I stop you, you'll just keep going on your own. And alone, you'll kill yourself. So instead..."
He stood. Walked to the corner of the barn. Returned with two wooden sticks. Long. Thin. Polished by use.
"Instead, I'm going to teach you properly. Not just the forms. Not just the breathing. Everything. The techniques. The applications. The limits." He handed me a stick. "But you do exactly what I say. When I say. No improvising. No shortcuts. Understand?"
I took the stick. Nodded.
"Say it."
"I understand."
"Good." He spun his own stick. The movement was fluid. Natural. As if the wood was an extension of his arm. "Then we start with the second form. The one you should have learned before rushing toward the breakthrough."
"The Water Form."
"Exactly."
. . .
The Rock Form was stability. Anchoring. Stillness in the face of motion.
The Water Form was its opposite. Fluidity. Adaptation. Movement in the face of force.
"Water doesn't fight," Mansoo explained while demonstrating. His feet glided across the floor—not steps, more like a continuous flow. His body swayed slightly, like seaweed in a current. "Water goes around. It yields to force, then returns to its shape once the force has passed."
He struck toward me with his stick. Not hard. Just a demonstration. "If you are the Rock, you take the blow. You absorb it. You hold firm. But if you are the water..."
He repeated the motion. This time, his body pivoted. The stick passed within inches of his torso. No effort. No blocking. Just. . . absence. He was no longer where the strike was going to land.
"Water dodges. Let it pass. And strikes when the opponent is off-balance."
His stick shot out. Touched my shoulder. Gently. But the message was clear. In a real fight, that blow would have shattered the collarbone.
"This is the second lesson of the Way of the Breath. After anchoring comes flow. After stability comes movement. One without the other is incomplete."
He made me repeat. Again. And again. And again.
The movements looked simple. Pivoting on the balls of the feet. Letting the hips guide. The shoulders follow. The whole body is like a wave that rises and falls.
But simple didn't mean easy.
My body wanted to resist. Wanted to move in right angles. In rigid lines. Because somewhere in my muscle memory, I had learned to fight a certain way. And that way apparently didn't include much fluidity.
"No," Mansoo would say. Constantly. "You're thinking too much. You're forcing it. Water doesn't force. Water flows."
"Water doesn't have a skeleton," I replied. Irritated. Frustrated. "Water doesn't have mass."
"Exactly." He smiled. "That's why it can slip through anywhere. Fill every space. A rock can't do that."
He had me visualize. Imagine my body as water. My bones as currents. My muscles as waves. My Gi . . . my Gi had to flow. Not stagnate in my Danjeon like a lake. Circulate. Like a river that never stopped.
Weeks. It took weeks before something clicked. Before my body stopped fighting against the movements and began to accept them.
And then one morning. . .
Mansoo struck. His stick descended toward my head. Not a killing blow. But fast enough to test me.
My body moved. Not thought. Not decided. Just . . . moved.
Pivot. Hip. Shoulder. The stick passed. Air. Void.
And for a split second—during that brief instant when Mansoo's blow continued its trajectory and he was slightly off-balance—I saw the opening.
My own stick shot out. Touched his side. Gently.
Silence.
Mansoo straightened up. Looked at me. His eyes held something I'd never seen before. Pride? Surprise?
"Good," he finally said. "Very good."
. . .
Months passed. Autumn gave way to winter. Winter to a timid spring. I was six years old now. Still small for my age. Still too thin. But stronger. Much stronger.
Every night, I trained. The Rock Form to anchor. The Water Form to move. And slowly, carefully, I tried to extend the duration of my first breath.
Five seconds at the beginning. Then eight. Then ten.
Every gain was paid for in pain. Not as intense as the first time. But present. The cramps. The mild nausea. The metallic taste in my mouth.
Mansoo watched. Adjusted. Imposed strict limits.
"No more than two attempts per night. No more than fifteen seconds maximum. And if your nose bleeds, we stop immediately."
I followed his rules. Because I wasn't completely suicidal. Just. . . impatient.
Fifteen seconds. Then twenty. Then twenty-five.
At six and a half, I was holding the First Breath for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds where my body operated at full capacity. Where my senses sharpened. Where the world slowed down just enough for me to see the strikes coming. Dodge. Counterattack.
Thirty seconds. It was ridiculous. Pathetic compared to what I could probably do in my former life. But for a six-year-old kid who should have been playing with pebbles and sticks?
It was already too much.
. . .
The incident happened on a summer afternoon when the sun beat down like a hammer on an anvil. Minjun and I were in the courtyard. Eunbi was inside. Mansoo in the fields.
Minjun was playing. He'd found a beetle. Was chasing it, laughing. That high-pitched, joyful laugh that only children who didn't yet know the world's cruelty possessed.
I was sitting in the shade. Watching. Half-asleep in the heat.
And then... the crack.
Subtle. Almost imperceptible. But my ears—trained, sharpened by months of cultivation—caught it.
My head pivoted. Toward the roof of the house.
There. A tile. Split. Unstable. And right below...
Minjun.
Time did that thing it sometimes did. Slowed down. Not really. Just. . . my perception accelerated. The Gi in my body activated. Automatically. Without me asking.
First Breath. Instantaneous.
The tile fell.
My body moved.
Not like a six-year-old child. Not with hesitation. Not with clumsiness.
Like a warrior.
Three steps. Fluid. Economical. The Water Form. My left arm grabbed Minjun by the collar of his tunic. Pulled him back. Hard. My right arm rose. Palm open.
The tile struck my hand. The shock reverberated through my arm. Painful. But not unbearable. My fingers closed. Caught. Stopped the tile from continuing its fall.
Three seconds. Maybe four. From observing the danger to resolution.
Minjun fell on his backside. Looked at the tile in my hand. Then at me. His eyes were wide.
"Hyeon-hyung..."
I dropped the tile. It shattered on the ground. My arm was trembling. The breath dissipated. Fatigue hit like a wave.
"Are you okay?" I asked. My voice came out rougher than I would have liked.
"You... you caught that." Minjun pointed at the debris. "It was too fast. I didn't see you move. How...?"
Shit.
"I saw you fall. I ran." Lie. Bad lie. But it was all I had.
"But you were over there." He pointed at where I'd been sitting. "And now you're here. And the tile... you just caught it. Like that."
He was trying to understand. To rationalize. But his three-year-old brain didn't have the tools to reconcile what he'd seen with what was supposed to be possible.
"Big brothers protect their little brothers," I finally said. Simple. True. Incomplete. "That's all."
Minjun looked at me for a long time. Then nodded. "Okay. Thanks, hyung."
He went back to playing. The beetle was gone. He looked for another one.
And I stayed there. Standing. My heart is beating too fast. My body was trembling from the effort.
Too fast. Too precise. Too. . . obvious.
"Interesting."
Mansoo's voice. Calm. Neutral. Dangerous in its neutrality.
I turned around. He stood near the house. Must have come back during the incident. Had seen everything.
Our gazes met. A silent exchange.
You saw.
Yes.
Are you going to say something?
No. Not here. Not now.
He walked toward me. Stopped. Placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Good reflexes," he said. Loud enough for Minjun to hear. "You're looking after your brother. That's good."
Then lower. Just for me:
"Tonight. The barn. We talk."
. . .
That night, in the barn, Mansoo said nothing for the first ten minutes. He sat. So did I. The lantern cast dancing shadows on the plank walls.
"You moved like a fighter," he finally said. "Not like someone who practices forms. Like someone who's lived in combat. Who knows the difference between training and survival?"
"I—"
"Let me finish." His voice was soft but inflexible. "Your posture. Your timing. The way you assessed the threat, calculated the distance, and executed. All of it in three seconds. Hyeon. . . people don't move like that at six years old. Not even prodigies. Not even those who've trained since they could walk."
He leaned forward. "You didn't learn that from me. I never taught you how to react to imminent danger. How to prioritize between catching the object and saving the person. How to use the Breath instantaneously, without preparation, without stance."
"My body... remembers."
"Yes." He nodded slowly. "Your body remembers. But not just the techniques. The decisions. The choices were made in the heat of action. Reflexes forged by. . . what? Years? Decades of combat?"
He looked me straight in the eyes. "Who were you? In that past life? A soldier? A mercenary? An assassin?"
"I don't know." True. Frustrating. Insufficient.
"But you know you were dangerous."
"Yes."
Mansoo remained silent for a long moment. Then:
"Minjun doesn't understand yet. He's too young. But in a year or two? He'll start asking questions. And the other kids too. And their parents. And the whole village will want to know why Choi Mansoo's son moves like a war veteran."
"I'll be more careful."
"That's not enough." He shook his head. "You can't just 'be more careful.' When danger strikes, your body reacts. Automatically. That's how you survived in your past life. That's how you survived today. But it's also what will betray you."
He stood. Walked toward the door. Stopped.
"So from now on, we add something to the training. Control. Not just of your power. Of your reflexes. Of your instincts. You're going to learn to move like a child when you need to. To hide what you are. Because if you don't..."
He didn't need to finish.
If I didn't, the questions would come. The suspicions. The looks. And sooner or later, someone would notice. Someone who knew how to recognize what I was.
And then, this village—this peaceful life that Mansoo and Eunbi had built—would crumble.
. . .
The next morning, Minjun showed me the beetle he'd finally caught. I pretended to find it fascinating. Pretended to be impressed that he'd managed.
Pretended to be a normal big brother.
And while I pretended, Mansoo watched us from the doorway.
That six-year-old kid who sometimes moved like a war veteran.
And said nothing.