"Are you awake?" a voice asked.

"Mmmm," Seokjin said, pulling the thin blanket over his head. The temperature was not cool, but the blanket was still welcome for a sleeper on a futon on the floor.

Nevertheless, someone immediately took it away from him. The room was still shrouded in the darkness of the night, and Seokjin was confused.

"Come with me," the voice ordered.

"Taehyung? Why?" Seokjin groaned, recognizing the samurai's voice. The futon was so comfortable that he wished he could continue sleeping and never come out. The shadow of Taehyung and his weapons was silhouetted in front of him and he just wanted him to leave the room. "Did you come and kill me in my sleep?" he asked in a sleepy voice.

"Then, would have bothered to wake you up?" the other replied.

"Ah, you're right..." Seokjin said simply before closing his eyes and curling up even more comfortably in his futon.

"I'll give you five seconds to get out of the futon. Then I'll force you out," Taehyung threatened. "One. Two. Three. Fo-"

"Taehyung, shut up!" Jimin muttered, throwing his pillow at him, annoyed. "And you, Wako Slayer, you just have to do what he asks!"

Taehyung intercepted the pillow in the dark without difficulty and brought it down forcefully on Jimin's head, threatening to suffocate him.

"Why am I the only one who doesn't have the right to my restful sleep?" Seokjin replied.

"Sorry about your beauty sleep, little admiral," Namjoon muttered without even moving.

"Now go," Jimin said without pity, much to the satisfaction of Taehyung who no longer had to strain to drag Seokjin out of the room.

"Pfff, I'm awake now anyway," Seokjin grumbled, getting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Then put on a kimono and follow me," Taehyung said.

Seokjin took off his yukata and awkwardly put on the kimono that Hoseok had prepared for him the day before, after teaching him that here, Japanese clothing was required and Western clothing was prohibited. As he stepped over Hoseok's sleeping body, he was irritated to see that he hadn't even woken up but suppressed the urge to trample him.

Going out with Taehyung to the garden, Seokjin noticed that the sun was not yet up but the color of the sky announced that dawn was approaching.

"Why did you wake me up so early?!" he exclaimed.

"Don't scream so loud or you'll wake everyone up," Taehyung replied, turning around.

"WHAT?! You wake me up at dawn and I have to be careful not to wake anyone?!" Seokjin protested.

The samurai sighed in annoyance. Noticing the admiral's poorly dressed kimono, Taehyung walked up to him and began to arrange it.

"You really are a loud man, you know that?"

"At least I'm a man now, before I was just a rat in your eyes," Seokjin pointed out, letting the samurai straighten his clothing.

The latter gave him an intrigued look.

"I hadn't noticed."

"That you called me a rat?" Seokjin grumbled.

"No, that I had stopped," Taehyung corrected.

"Will you lend me one of your blades? I want to hit you."

"You're going to have the opportunity, we're going to the dojo."

"I beg your pardon?! Did you wake me up at this hour to hit me?" Seokjin cried.

"It's not just about hitting each other like you say, that would be too vulgar. Mastery of the katana is an art and without rigor in its handling, the art is lost like the blade forgotten in its sheath becomes dull."

"It's poetic," Seokjin conceded, yawning, "but I don't understand why it concerns me."

"You are a good warrior and there is no other samurai here than me," Taehyung admitted. "I want you as an opponent so I can continue to perfect my art."

"Tell me that again?"

"You are a good warrior and-"

"That's all I wanted to hear. Let's go," Seokjin said happily as he headed towards the dojo while Taehyung looked on somberly.

They took off their shoes - wooden flip-flops which Seokjin had struggled with walking through the rocky garden and had drawn criticism from Taehyung - before entering the large room with the tatami covered collar. There, Taehyung lit candles, although soon they would no longer need them as dawn was near.

"Where are all the samurai?" Seokjin asked as he stretched, preparing his body for what was to come. "I thought a daimyo had a lot of samurai in his service?"

"They are all with the daimyo. I'm the only one in Wakaï's service."

"Really?" Seokjin wondered vaguely imagining a man resembling Wakaï and surrounded by sullen-looking men, all with the same face as Taehyung. He shook his head to clear the image from his mind. "Why aren't you serving his father like the others, though?"

"Because that's how it is," Taehyung replied and Seokjin gave him a displeased grimace. "I brought you to train, not to chat with you."

He fetched a katana stored in its sheath on a wooden support and handed it to Seokjin who immediately unsheathed it and began to examine it.

"Don't hold it like a sword," Taehyung scolded as he saw him holding the sword with both hands and pointing it upwards. "The katana has a single-edged, curved blade so you have to hold it down. And you can hold it with one hand, it's not that heavy."

Seokjin followed his instructions and realized that indeed, unlike the long sword he was used to wielding, the Japanese katana was both shorter and lighter.

"But if it only cuts on one side, that means the Joseon sword surpasses it," he said with satisfaction, proud of Joseon weaponry.

"Absolutely not," Taehyung replied.

"Do you worship your katana or am I just imagining things?" Seokjin mocked.

By reflex, he immediately but clumsily blocked the katana blow that Taehyung suddenly delivered to him.

"You shouldn't make fun of a samurai who has drawn his katana."

"What would life be like if we didn't take risks?" Seokjin replied, tightening his grip on his katana after observing the way Taehyung held his.

Taehyung gave an appreciative smile that Seokjin found strangely rectangular. He found that it gave him a certain charm and it made him realize that it was the first time he had seen him smile. He didn't have time to point it out to him.

"Let's continue," Taehyung said, throwing himself at him without waiting.

For several long minutes, all we heard in the dojo was the crash of metal and Seokjin's panting. Taehyung, even though he was getting tired, kept his breathing controlled.

Seokjin, although he had difficulty getting used to the blade, found that using it tired him less than his heavy sword. The katana allowed him much faster strikes and it also seemed to allow him greater agility in his movements. At one point, he even thought he was going to succeed in slitting Taehyung's throat, but the blade just grazed him and he realized with horror that the katana was shorter than a sword, which forced him to recalculate its trajectories.

With one quick movement, Taehyung finally ended the fight, stopping his blade a few centimeters from the admiral's throat, making him grit his teeth in frustration. The two men, out of breath, observed each other in silence for a few moments, then Taehyung lowered his blade.

"You're not bad for someone who's only held a katana twice," he admitted.

"Would it kill you to say you're impressed?" Seokjin replied.

"I'm not impressed and I'm not a liar," Taehyung replied and Seokjin glared at him. "You just understood today that the katana is an unusual weapon. Where your sword thrusts and chops with barbarity, the katana cuts with speed and care. For the rest, you lack three things to learn to wield the katana as well as me. If you had them, you would probably be better than me because you learn quickly and you are strong."

Feeling revigorated by these words of the samurai stingy with compliments, Seokjin's eyes sparkled with interest.

"What those three things are?"

"A secret jealously guarded by the samurai who only pass it on to their disciples."

The light in Seokjin's eyes immediately went out and he grumbled:

"Come on, just tell me!"

"If I tell you, you will have to come train with me every day," Taehyung warned him.

Thinking that he didn't plan to stay here any longer and that he was going to do everything to escape and find a boat to return to Joseon, Seokjin told himself that he wasn't seriously committing.

"Okay, I accept. I don't have anything else to do anyway unless Wakaï plans to have me work with the servants, right? And between the two options I much prefer to train"

Taehyung nodded and motioned for him to follow him. He blew out the now useless candles and went out into the garden which he crossed with long strides, Seokjin at his heels, curious to know what the samurai had in mind.

The sun was rising and the sky was adorned with pink colors. They walked along the stream that ran through the east side of the garden and as they walked up its courtyard, Seokjin noticed that it flowed over the top of a small artificial cliff. They went around the cliff and soon found themselves facing a small waterfall under which there were rocks. Beyond, the stream continued its course calmly.

"You're going to sit on one of these rocks and let the icy water smash your skull over and over again for hours."

"I beg your pardon?!" Seokjin exclaimed, thinking the other was joking before remembering that Taehyung didn't know how to joke.

"As I told you, you lack three things," Taehyung started.

"How funny you are! You didn't even tell me what they were!" Seokjin exclaimed with irritation, feeling like the samurai had made fun of him.

The latter replied with a stern look:

"I could have told you if you'd let me finish."

"You had finished your sentence!"

"Yes, but not my point."

"You're speaking too slowly!

"At least I'm taking the time to think about what I'm saying to make sure my words are newsworthy, which you're not."

Scolded like a child, Seokjin blushed but refused to submit. After all, it was Taehyung's fault: he always spoke tersely and suddenly, he had to guess when he wanted to give him a long speech?

"How am I supposed to know when you've finished your speech?!" he replied.

"You wait until you're sure," the other replied simply and Seokjin had the unpleasant feeling of looking like an idiot in his eyes. "As I told you, you lack three things-"

"I GET THAT, go to your damn point now, what am I lacking?!" Seokjin cut him out of frustration.

"Patience, to start," Taehyung said and Seokjin restrained himself from hitting him, "then concentration and finally rigor of mind. All of them are essential and the fact that you don't have them makes you a slave to your emotions in a pathetic way. Do not interrupt me, I'm not finished," he ordered, seeing that Seokjin was already opening his mouth to protest.

Seokjin fell silent at the imperious tone of the samurai he had never heard speak for so long.

"There are many ways to get those three and I will teach you them," Taehyung continued. "The first way is takigyo, the meditation under the waterfall. As I told you before, you're going to sit on one of these rocks and let the icy water smash your skull over and over again for hours."

Seokjin's jaw seemed to drop.

"Is this the way samurai make jokes?"

"Samurai doesn't make jokes."

Stunned, Seokjin was about to respond but he remembered that the samurai had criticized him for not listening to the end, so he waited. There was necessarily an explanation for this madness that he asked him to accomplish.

"I'm done with my talk, you can talk," Taehyung told him.

"I want to kill you!" Seokjin shouted, his face red.

"Why are you threatening me with death? Takigyo won't kill you."

"That's not the problem!" Seokjin shook his head vehemently. "I refuse, there's no way I'm going to do something like that. I'm going to catch a cold for nothing."

"It's not for nothing. A cold is little compensation for all that you're going to gain thanks to the Takigyo. I got pneumonia while practicing it at first," Taehyung added.

"Is this supposed to make me want to do it?! I don't want to get pneumonia!"

The samurai let out a long sigh and finally said:

"Until you see the outcome, you will continue to believe that you know better than the sensei. You're going to do it, that's all. Later you will understand that I was right."

"I won't," Seokjin refused.

"You are my disciple, you will do what I ask you."

"I am not your disciple!"

"Yes, you are, since you agreed to train with me every day."

"That doesn't mean I'm your disciple."

"I told you that what I was going to reveal to you was what the samurai taught their discipline because you asked me insistently. And then you followed me of your own free will, didn't you?"

"I..." Seokjin started but he stopped, this time short of arguments.

"Did I force you to follow me?" Taehyung asked, seeing him silent for once.

"No," Seokjin admitted. "But you weren't really clear about the loyalty I owed you in return, you are at fault."

He felt like he was trapped and he was unhappy about it.

"That's why you need to focus on my words instead of rushing to answer."

"Fine, let's say I'm you disciple. Does that make you my sensei?"

That drew a new rectangular smile full of restraint on Taehyung's face, as being called that instilled an unsuspected pleasure in him.

"Yes, you are my dashi1, and I'm your sensei. And now, here is my first lesson: you're going to go sit over there and push your limits."

But he did not have the most obedient disciple in front of him.

"Why would I? I don't have the honor of a samurai, I lie and betray my promises," Seokjin retorted defiantly with a smirk. "I can say that I am your disciple to extract your secrets and then betray my word. So tell me, what compels me to obey you, apart from the word I gave you?"

Taehyung's gaze flashed and Seokjin saw clearly that he had just said something that particularly displeased him.

"If you do not obey and betray your word, I will put you to death, according to the samurai code," the samurai said grimly. "Bushido2 advocates loyalty, honor and respect for superiors. Without it, you have no value and deserve nothing but death."

"You say that like you're sure to win. You are very wrong," Seokjin replied.

"I am not. You are the wako slayer but in one on one with a katana, you saw that I was better than you. If the two of us fought to the death fairly right now, each armed with a katana, you would be the one to die. You are weak."

"I'm not weak," Seokjin gritted out, his jaw clenching, feeling anger overtaking him.

"You're afraid of the sea, maybe you're afraid of a waterfall too but you don't dare admit it to me?"

"I'm not afraid!" Seokjin roared.

"Then prove it to me and practice the takigayo," the samurai concluded.

"I have nothing to prove to you. If I do things, it's for me!" Seokjin replied with anger, walking towards the waterfall and taking a deep breath before passing under it, feeling his heart rate suddenly slow down under the effect of the icy water. He was going to die of a heart attack, not pneumonia, he thought, dismayed.

Taehyung didn't respond to Seokjin's proud personality, but he smiled at the sight of his deshi who was starting his hard training. 

Seokjin didn't see it.

____________

1. Deshi :disciple under the direction of a sensei (a master).

2. Bushido (literally "the way of the warrior"): code of honor and conduct of samurai in feudal Japan.