Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 18 of 49

The next morning, Jeon-min laid out his tools on the table. Needles, thread, his family's knot cords. A torn jacket waited from a guesthouse client. Kensei sat across from him and watched Jeon-min's hands move. They always moved. His did not. Kensei had never learned a trade. In the palace, servants had done everything for him. Now Jeon-min carried all the work, and Kensei just watched. "Give me something to do," Kensei said. Jeon-min did not look up. "You'll ruin it." "Then give me something I can't ruin." Jeon-min stopped. He studied Kensei's face. Then he pushed a spool of thread across the table. "Wind this. Even and tight. If it tangles, we lose an hour." Kensei wound the thread. It slipped and bunched. He unwound it and started again. His fingers felt thick and slow. Jeon-min glanced over once, said nothing, and kept sewing. By the third try, the thread lay flat and even. Kensei set it down. It was a small thing. It was still a thing he had done. That afternoon they walked to the great market hall. Beef hung on hooks. Fruit filled crates. Vegetables spilled from baskets. Jeon-min needed stronger thread than the guesthouse sold. Kensei followed him through the noise. A cloth seller unrolled bolts of fabric. Jeon-min haggled hard, dropping the price twice, then reached for his coin pouch. Kensei touched his arm. "Let me." Jeon-min raised an eyebrow but stepped back. Kensei faced the seller. His mouth went dry. He had never bought anything in his life. He pointed at the thread. "Two spools. And you said a price too high." His voice shook, then held. The seller laughed and shaved a coin off. Kensei paid. He carried the thread out himself. "You argued," Jeon-min said in the lane. "I did." "Badly. But you did." Back at the table, Jeon-min pulled a stool beside his own. "Sit here. Watch this stitch." He looped the thread slow, showing each pass. Then he handed Kensei a scrap of cloth and a needle. "Not the client's. Yours. Ruin this all you want." Kensei's first stitch pulled crooked. The second sat straighter. He pricked his finger and bled a drop onto the cloth. Jeon-min took his hand, wiped it, and let go. "Again," he said. Kensei sewed a line that held. It was ugly. It did not tear when he tugged it. He looked up. Jeon-min was watching him, not the work. "You're not useless," Jeon-min said. "You just started late. I'll teach you the rest." Kensei looked at the crooked line of stitches. Tomorrow he would wind thread again. He would buy the fabric and haggle the price. He would learn the knots that were Jeon-min's whole family. The work was no longer only Jeon-min's. Now it was theirs to share, and Kensei had a place at the table at last.