The edges of the envelope were still not fully dry.
Sera laid another dry cloth beside the envelope. A careful hand, trying to keep the wet paper from smudging further.
Only upon seeing that cloth did Ruan realize the envelope had been set too close to the medicine bottles.
The wet paper clung to his fingertips. Ruan wiped his own hands first, before the envelope.
Ruan had set the envelope down at the edge of the table the moment he entered the tent.
The paper brought straight in from the outside delivery line was damp.
Thin mud had dried stuck to each folded corner.
The sealing wax was intact, but one side of the surface had been pressed flat.
It seemed to bear the trace of someone gripping it tightly somewhere along the way.
He didn't open it immediately. On the neighboring stretcher, a soldier waited to have his bandages changed, and the water in the decoction pot had yet to cool. Sera asked as she arranged three medicine bottles.
"Whose is it?"
Ruan turned the envelope over to check the name. It was a familiar hand.
"Home."
Sera asked no more. Instead, she pushed the envelope a little farther from the medicine bottles. A hand trying to keep medicine from splashing the wet paper.
Ruan went to the stretcher first. He unwrapped the bandage of a soldier whose shoulder was torn and began by examining the flesh. The smell of pus was still faint, and the fever was not high. Even as he cut away a pulled stitch and retied it, a corner of his gaze kept drifting to the end of the table.
Meli had never been one to end letters quickly. Someone who would be angry from the first line, then grow more worried around the middle. Someone who would insist at the end not to brush things off.
Ruan knew that flow. Because he knew it, he wanted to open it even less.
Only after finishing the bandage and wiping his hands did he pick up the envelope. The damp texture of the paper reached his fingertips first. The sound of breaking the seal was small. Yet strangely, it was clear.
Inside were two folded papers. One was a letter dense with Meli's handwriting, and the other was a short sentence seemingly copied from an old book. The ink had smudged a little, but the remaining characters were sharp.
Ruan opened Meli's letter first.
Brother.
If you start by saying you're fine again this time, I'll really tear it up.
These days your letters are too short, and the shorter they are, the more suspicious.
I don't know why the handwriting of someone who says they aren't hurt keeps changing, and last time you misspelled a herb name twice.
Even though there's no way you wouldn't know it.
The village is still fine.
The rain has stopped and the backyard herbs have come back to life.
But that's not what's important to me right now.
I don't want to just overlook whether what you're hiding is simple exhaustion or something deeper than that.
I found an old manuscript fragment under the box Mother used.
It seemed to be not about herb names, but about the way blood and breath connect the human body.
Half was erased and half looked like someone had scratched it out, but there was one readable passage.
Strangely, I kept thinking of you.
That fragment had originally been tucked between herb-drying papers.
At first I thought it was just an old prescription, but there wasn't a single measurement of medicine.
Instead, words remained such as the heat and hair color of the person who touched it, and the point when breath grows short.
I know I'm strange for writing this in a letter.
Still, I'm writing first because I'm afraid you'll just say you're fine again.
And there's one more strange thing.
Very faintly, something like a name remained below the scratched-out place.
I'm not sure if it's Hese or Hereu.
The paper was wet so I couldn't read further.
I couldn't even touch it, afraid it would crumble if dried.
I may have read it as our name for no reason.
But I don't know why Mother hid that fragment under the herb box.
I want to write that we should look at it together when you return, but writing that makes me angry because it feels like you won't come back.
I might be forcing connections because I'm scared.
Still, I couldn't just cover it up.
Because you were more dangerous when quiet than when nothing was wrong.
If I'm wrong, say I'm wrong.
But don't brush it off this time either.
Ruan stopped his gaze there. He first felt the sensation that Meli, far away, was groping with a single sheet of paper to see how far his hands had worn down. Though home was still far, from outside it was already following him here.
He unfolded the second paper lying beneath the letter.
The art that subtracts life to continue life becomes a calamity when borne alone.
It was a short sentence. Once was enough to read it. But the meaning didn't pass in a single go.
Ruan's fingertips stopped over that line.
Strength entered the hand pressing the paper's corner. The damp edge crinkled slightly.
The back of his neck chilled first.
Before the letters before his eyes, the color of the back of his own hand came to mind. After that followed the day he first saw a strand of white hair.
He lifted one side of the letter again to check the sentence Meli had written.
Heat.
Hair color.
Shortening breath.
A faint name.
All were words he could insist were things commonly experienced by someone on the battlefield.
But when the three words were placed in one line, the excuse grew thin.
It felt as if someone had read his body first from afar.
The mention of Mother's box also weighed on his mind.
Ruan remembered that box.
An old wooden box long steeped in the smell of herbs.
The thing for which Meli had been scolded for trying to open when they were young.
If the fragment had come from there, it was difficult to dismiss as a simple old prescription.
That box had always been hidden deep inside the house and was usually locked.
Outside, the sounds of stretcher legs scraping and dry coughs alternated. Inside the tent, the decoction pot lid clattered once weakly. It was a sound he always heard. But in that moment alone, the sounds reached him a beat late.
"Is something wrong?"
It was Karen's voice. She stood on the opposite side of the table before he knew when she had approached. Eyes that looked first at Ruan's fingertips, which had just stopped, before the letter.
Ruan couldn't fold the paper right away. He first took a short breath, and only then tried to compose an indifferent expression. The gap was too thin, making it more suspicious.
"It's nothing."
Karen's gaze went briefly down to the letter and came back up.
"News from home?"
Ruan skimmed only the front of Meli's letter once more. Familiar handwriting mixed with brief anger and long worry. The sentence lying beneath it was not familiar.
"It's about herbs."
It wasn't a lie. But it was too short and dry a reply. Karen asked no more and only pushed the water bottle toward Ruan. Her gaze lingered on Ruan's fingertips that had just stopped, not on the letter.
Ruan didn't pick up the water bottle. Instead, he unfolded the second paper and read it once more.
The art that subtracts life to continue life becomes a calamity when borne alone.
Meli probably didn't know everything. But without knowing, she had come too close. What was more unpleasant was that his body had recognized it first the moment he read that sentence.
"Medic."
This time it was Sera. It was a light call, but Ruan's shoulder stiffened first.
"Another child with a fever has come in. We need to check now whether it's a cold or not."
Ruan's reply was a beat late.
"I'm coming."
He didn't hurriedly hide the letter. That would have seemed even more suspicious. He placed Meli's letter down first and aligned the copied sentence neatly on top. A movement meant to look like tidying. His fingertips didn't move as straight as he intended.
Karen saw all of that. Yet she ultimately didn't reach toward the letter. Eyes that already knew Ruan would close up more if forced to be touched. She cleared only the path toward the stretcher first.
Ruan folded the two letters and pushed them deep into his inner pocket. The sensation of the paper corners scraping between cloth remained. It felt as if that sentence had gone in with them.
The fevered soldier was still young. Sweat had pooled heavily below his neck and his breath was short. Ruan looked at the rise and fall of his chest before his forehead. He had him open his mouth, checked his tongue color, then took his wrist.
"Since when."
The soldier who had brought the child answered immediately.
"Since dawn. At first he only shivered, but the fever rose more just now."
Ruan pressed below the neck and the armpit again. The sentence from the letter hadn't left his head, but his hands moved first. Fortunately, he didn't mess up the order.
"Cool some boiled water and feed it to him little by little. Change his wet clothes and don't put him inside right now. Keep him on the side less exposed to wind."
The soldier moved immediately. Sera covered the decoction pot lid while casting a brief glance at Ruan.
"What does it say from home?"
Ruan chose the shallowest answer while weighing his reply.
"The usual."
Sera asked no more. Instead, she swapped the positions of the clean cloth and water jug placed at the tent's end. A hand preparing to clear a space to lay the next patient immediately. An arrangement that meant to keep the tent's order from going awry whether Ruan faltered or not.
Orte looked up briefly from flipping through the records inside. He hadn't seen the letter's contents. But he had seen that since folding and putting away the paper, Ruan's replies had been half a beat slow. He didn't close the record book. Instead, he spread the next blank space open in advance. A hand calculating, without anyone explaining, that today omissions might precede words.
When the fevered soldier burst into coughing while swallowing water, Ruan immediately supported his back. His hands were still accurate, but the speed of his next intake of breath was half a beat slower than usual. Karen heard that delayed breath but didn't ask, and instead checked outside the tent more frequently.
The gap where wind entered from the North Gate side felt unusually cold today. A horse's whinny cut short once, and a small sound of metal scraping mixed in with the end of the wind. Though no one had entered yet, Karen's hand was already near her waist.