“I’m sorry,” Ethan murmurs. “I know you wanted answers about the sacred ashes.”
“It’s not your fault.” I draw myself up and squeeze his hand. “I’m sure the ink will dry off by tomorrow.”
“Yes, let’s try again tomorrow morning.” He flips his hand and laces his fingers through mine. “Well, what should we do until then?”
Just like that, the air between us hums with charged awareness, and my entire body tingles like a humongous nerve ending. I jump to my feet before I do something I’ll regret.
“Um ... laundry? Yeah, we need to do laundry.” Laundry helped dampen my horniness before. It can do it again. “We can’t keep wearing hanbok.”
Of course, the house would’ve been happy to do our laundry, especially after the weird stunt it pulled. I’m not even sure if it was the house that ruined theBook of Answers. It certainly felt as though the magic was coming from it, but my mother’s gi wouldn’t allow it to do anything that would cause me harm. Unless it was trying to protect me by drowning the book in ink. I huff a frustrated sigh. It makes no sense. At any rate, I’m peeved enough not to want its help. And I need a distraction from my infatuation with Ethan.
“Sure.” He draws out the word. “Why not? Let’s do some laundry.”
He helps hand-wash both of our clothes even though he must know I’m making up excuses to keep my distance from him. But the mindless, mundane work actually feels pretty nice after the week we’ve been having.
I look around my old house, with the humble courtyard and the woods surrounding it. I feel a pang of longing for simpler times, when I only had to worry about harvesting herbs and practicing sword fighting ... when I had someone who loved me unconditionally. I know she’s gone, but being here makes me feel closer to my mother. It’s both painful and healing.
I reach out with my senses and check the wards on the house, careful not to let my gi leak outside the boundaries of my mother’s magic. The wards hold strong. Staying put in one place when you’re on the run is never a good idea, but resting for a few days might not be abadidea.
Ethan wrings the water from our clothes, and my eyes catch on the muscles of his forearms.Gulp.Then again, this might be the worst ideaever. Giving in to this attraction will complicate an already impossibly complicated situation. The distraction might actually put our lives in danger. Well, in evenmoredanger.
With renewed determination to keep my hands to myself, I help hang the laundry on a line outside the kitchen. Once we’re finished, I glance nervously around the courtyard. What can we do now?
The house comes to the rescue. There’s a table laden with food waiting for us on the raised platform. And there’s ssam. Ssam is an art form of food wrapped in red lettuce and perilla leaves, topped with ssamjang, a sauce made with soybean paste and gochujang. The widely accepted goal of ssam is to build the perfect bite, which I suppose holds some truth. But we all know theultimategoal is to wrap as much food as you can in the leaves and stuff it into your face all at once. It’s glorious and fucking satisfying. Plus, it’s impossible to have sexy vibes with your mouth so full that you look like a greedy little chipmunk.
“I guess we earned ourselves a break.” I laugh with relief. “Let’s go eat.”
I sit cross-legged at one end of the table and wait for Ethan to settle down across from me. Saliva pooling in my mouth, I lay a piece of red lettuce and perilla leaf on my palm and top it with a spoonful of steaming white rice, a generous chunk of spicy pork bulgogi, and a dollop of ssamjang. I wrap the whole thing into a pouch of deliciousness and stuff it into my mouth, wiggling it side to side to make it all fit inside.
My moan is muffled by the food. It’s insanely good. There’s no giant bite more perfect than a well-made ssam. Ethan chuckles across from me, shaking his head, but he soon follows my example and adds his own muffled moan to the quiet of the late morning.
I give him a smug grin, dipping a green chili into the ssamjang. I bite off half of the crunchy pepper, and my smile slowly dims ... then dies. Torturous heat spreads across the inside of my cheeks, over my tongue and in my esophagus. Even my lips burn.
“Is this cheongyang gochu?” I yell at the house. “Are you trying to kill me?”
The house creaks in alarm and hurriedly produces a cold pitcher of makgeolli, a milky fermented rice wine. I pour some into a ceramic bowl and gulp it down in one shot. Then I pour some more and hold the cold drink in my mouth, hoping to douse the fire.
“What’s cheongyang gochu?” Ethan asks, wide eyed.
I swallow the makgeolli and answer in a husky rasp. “It’s like the Korean version of serrano chili. It’s tasty in small doses but not if you eat half of it at once.”
He bites his cheek to hold back his smile. It’s a smart move on his part, because I’m irritated enough to force the other half of the chili down his throat if he dares laugh at me. He avoids an untimely demise by cheongyang gochu and focuses on wrapping a ssam.
“Here, eat.” He holds it out to me. “It’ll help with the heat.”
I lean forward and open my mouth. His eyes twinkle with suppressed laughter as he stuffs the ssam into my mouth. But I forget to be grumpy because I’m enthralled by the symphony of happy-making flavors and textures. Ethan is a ssamgenius.
“Is that makgeolli?” He points at the pitcher. I can only nod with my mouth so full. “Can I have some?”
I pass him the pitcher, and he reaches across the table to refill my empty bowl—Korean drinking etiquette number one—before he pours some for himself. He raises his makgeolli in the air, and I clink mine against it.
Feeling magnanimous, I toast, “To the house.”
“To the house.” Ethan drinks deeply from his bowl.
Susceptible to flattery, the house happily keeps the pitcher of makgeolli topped off, no matter how many bowls we pour. Full and toasty drunk, we lie down on the platform after the house clears away the table. The tree branches arching over us are filled with enough leaves to shade us from the heat but sparse enough for us to see glimpses of the blue sky beyond it. My limbs grow heavy, and my eyes slide closed.
“Ethan?” I whisper, half hoping he’s asleep.
