False Oath
Chapter 31: False Oath
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“Can I see you?” she’d asked.
Not may I come in.
Can I see you.
Cute choice of words.
I unlocked the door.
The door opened.
She stood there.
Closer, she looked worse. Eye sockets shadowed, irises too clear.
Hair a shade paler than the last time I’d seen her, like someone had reached in and thumbed out colour along with a couple of decades of her life.
“Saintess,” I said.
Her gaze moved, slow, from my face to my hand on the door, then back up.
“Han Si‑woo,” she replied.
The way she said the name made my skin itch, like it didn’t quite fit her mouth.
“Please, come in,” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of making someone of your stature wait out here.”
Her lips twitched.
Not quite a smile.
She stepped inside.
“Would you like coffee?” I asked.
She blinked.
“…If it’s not a bother,” she said.
“It isn’t.”
I went to the machine. Capsule in, button, hum. It was something to do with my hands.
Behind me, she walked.
Her eyes flicked to each, cataloguing everything, and then landed on the blue flowers on the balcony.
She froze.
Just for a breath.
“They’re pretty…” she said.
Then she smoothed it away.
“The flowers?” I glanced over my shoulder. “The clerk told me they were hard to kill.”
“A good choice,” she said quietly.
The machine finished its work with a small click. I poured the coffee into two cups.
My hand brushed hers, she trembled.
When she reached for the cup I held out, her hand shook.
Just a little. Enough to rattle the surface.
Was she that tired?
She steadied it and brought it to her lips.
We sat opposite each other at the table.
She put the cup down very gently, as if she wasn’t sure of the strength she was using.
“How have you been?” she asked, like a polite aunt checking on the child she’d left in storage.
“I’ve been… good,” I said.
“How is it here?” she pressed. “Is there anything that made you uncomfortable?”
Her tone was soft. Like a follow‑up survey on a product she’d just shipped.
I took a sip of my own.
“If there was,” I said, “I’d have moved out. The place is nice. The view’s amazing, the neighbors are
quiet. Nothing to complain about.”
“And the… things I arranged?” she tried again. “The stipend. The registration under your new name. The medical examinations.”
“They work,” I said. “I appreciate the hospitality, Saintess.”
When she finally spoke again, the politeness sharpened.
“There is something I would like to ask of you,” she said.
Ah.
“I assumed,” I smiled.
Her fingers tightened around the cup.
“The Church is conducting research,” she said. “On support class. On… anomalies. There are things only
you can help with, Han Si‑woo.”
There it was.
“Sorry, I can’t help you,” I said. “I’m not interested in anything that will put me through danger, in case
that wasn’t obvious.”
Her brow furrowed.
“But, you haven’t heard the details,” she said.
“I’ve heard the important ones,”I said mildly. “Last time I worked under someone, they nearly killed
me. Worked me to death. Almost burned me alive.”
She flinched at that.
“I’m not asking you to join Red Dragon,” she said. “Or Black Sun. This is different.”
“Yeah, the uniform might be a different color, but the chains are the same,” I said.
“I would never chain you,” she said quickly.
I raised an eyebrow.
“You wouldn’t,” I echoed.
“I am not asking you to die,” she said.
“Yet,” I said.
“Or to go back to the Association,” she added.
“Yet,” I repeated.
She took a breath, seemed to settle herself.
“I am not them,” she said. “I will not overwork you. I will not imprison you. I need your insight, not your
slavery.”
“You’re very confident about what you need,” I said. “I’m less confident about what I can give.”
“You’re you,” she said. “That is enough.”
I let that slide past me.
“I don’t have my memories,” I said. “I can’t use my abilities, I can only cast a small shield if someone
screams loud enough. That’s about it. If you’re expecting some grand miracle supporrt, you’ll be disappointed.”
“I’m not,” she said. She held my gaze. “As long as you come, I can manage the rest.”
The way she said come made something in the back of my head itch.
Is there something else she wants from Han Si-woo? Why would a Saintess go through this much trouble for a mere support?
I set my cup down.
“If I say no?” I asked.
Her expression didn’t change much. Just a slight dimming of the eyes.
“Then I will stop wasting holy resources paying for your nice view and comfortable life,” she said. “And the Association keeps pestering me to hand you over. I don’t like either option.”
I thought about it.
If I kept batting the ball back, she would change tactics.
If I kept saying no, eventually she’d stop asking and start moving.
“I don’t like institutions,” I said. “They have a habit of turning into cages when I’m not looking.”
“I told you,” she said, a hint of impatience leaking through. “I am not them.”.
If I wanted to survive on my terms, I needed something stronger than polite refusal.
Leverage.
Conditions.
“Then swear it,” I said.
She stilled.
“Swear what?” she asked.
“Take an oath.” I replied. “You’re a Saintess,” I went on. “That still means something, in this world. Words stick to you in ways they don’t stick to the rest of us. So if you’re confident in your good intentions, you shouldn’t mind making them binding.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but calculation.
“You want a binding,” she said.
“I want insurance,” I said. “If you drag me into your Church and decide later that it would be very
convenient to keep me there, I’d rather you explode first.”
Her lips pressed together.
“That’s a vulgar way to put it,” she said.
“I’m a vulgar man,” I said. “Do it, and I’ll agree to help with your research. To a point.”
She studied me.
Perhaps expecting me to flinch. To back down.
I didn’t.
“State it,” she said at last. “So there is no… ambiguity.”
I nodded.
“You will not harm me,” I said. “In body or in soul. You will not order anyone else to harm me. You will
not try to control me. You will not bind or chain me without my consent. You will not throw me into
situations you would not be willing to enter yourself.”
“That last one is unreasonable,” she cut in.
“That last one stays,” I said. “I don’t mind risk. I mind being used as disposable bait.”
She went quiet again.
“And,” I added, “if you break that, may whatever god is listening strike you down on the spot. Or you
will kill yourself the moment you realise you have broken it.”
That hung between us.
Saintesses and oaths were not a joke. I knew that much.
Her hand on the cup had gone white at the knuckles.
“That’s harsh…You don’t trust me,” she said, and there was something almost wondering in it.
“Why would I?” I asked.
She took that in like a blade.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” she said at last. “I’m asking you to work with me.”
“I don’t separate those,” I said. "Not anymore."
Silence again.
If she refused, I’d know she planned to break me.
If she agreed, she’d have to find ways around the wording, not through it.
We looked at each other over the table.
For a second, something like hurt flickered in her eyes.
Then she straightened in her chair.
“Very well,” she said.
She set the coffee down. Folded her hands together on her lap.
She exhaled once.
She closed her eyes.
Her voice, when she spoke next, lost the casual cadence and slipped into something older, shaped by ritual.
“I, current Saint of the Holy Church, swear upon the authority given to me and whatever heavens remain,” she said, “that I will not harm Han Si‑woo in body or soul. I will not command another to harm him. I will not bind or chain him against his will. I will not send him where I would not go, knowing the true danger.”
A faint pressure brushed against my skin. Not painful. Just… present.
“And if I do,” she finished, “if I betray this oath, may the god I serve end me where I stand. Failing that, I will end myself.”
The pressure snapped, like something slotting into place.
She opened her eyes.
“There,” she said. “Satisfied?”
“For now,” I said.
She looked tired.
More tired than when she’d arrived.
We went back to the table.
Her coffee had gone cold.
She didn’t seem to notice.
She sat.
Watched me over the rim of the cup she wasn’t drinking from.
“What if,” she said, “you find that you want to stay?”
“Where?” I asked. “In your Church?”
“At my side,” she said.
The directness knocked something loose in my chest.
I smirked over my own cup.
“Relax,” I said. “You’re not my type.”
“That’s not reassuring,” she said.
“It shouldn’t be,” I said.
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She didn’t stay long after that.
I walked her to the door out of habit.
She stepped into the corridor, then paused.
Her hand rested on the frame.
She turned back.
Her eyes lingered on me. Too long for politeness.
There was something quiet in them. Sadness, or nostalgia, or just exhaustion. Longing for something.
Her gaze moved over my face like she was trying to memorise it.
It wasn’t the hungry, panicked stare Eun‑ha had pinned me with in that Russian ruin.
It wasn’t the drowning softness Yeonhwa had worn under Spanish light.
It was worse.
Quieter.
Like someone looking at an old wound and realising it would never heal clean.
Why that expression? What kind of relationship did Han Si-woo had with her to make her look like that?
“Saintess,” I said, when the silence stretched too long.
She blinked.
The mask slipped back up.
“Thank you for the coffee,” she said.
“Anytime,” I said.
“…I will send for you soon,” she added. “Regarding the work.”
“Looking forward to being a respectable employee,” I lied.
“Rest well,” she said.
“You too,” I said.
She gave a small nod and walked away.
I watched her back until the lift swallowed her, then closed the door.
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