Chiun's face was a placid pool. "All those present who did not attempt to blow up a foreign nation's capital with nuclear booms, please raise your hand." The Master of Sinanju's hand alone appeared, fluttering high in the air.
"Oh, can the crap," Remo snarled. "There were extenuating circumstances there. Besides, they weren't even my bombs."
With a smile of flickering satisfaction, the old man lowered his arm. "I only consider myself fortunate that, in your madness, you were not more concerned. Had you been, you might have brought a wrecking ball to bear against the walls of Castle Sinanju. Clean up this mess."
With that, the old man turned on a sandated heel.
He marched back to the center of the room, settling back to the rug. For the first time, Remo noticed the small stack of sleek black equipment piled there. "What's all that stuff?"
"None of your business," Chiun sniffed.
"It looks like stereo equipment."
Chiun rolled his eyes. "I will tell you, O Nosy One, after you remove this mess."
Remo could see there would be no arguing. With a sigh, he began collecting the largest chunks of door. He propped them against the wall. As he worked, Chiun fussed with the equipment on the floor. A long extension cord ran over to a wall outlet. Remo saw a number of plastic boxes stacked in neat piles at the Master of Sinanju's scissored knees.
"You can't blame me for being worried," Remo commented as he hefted the last of the big door slabs. "It sounded like you were raping roosters in here."
"All was joy until you charged in here like a boob in a China shop," Chiun replied, uninterested.
"That's bull," Remo corrected dryly.
"No, it is truth," Chiun maintained. He fixed his pupil with an acid eye. "Less talk, more work."
It took Remo ten minutes to tug all the wooden darts from the wall. With a dustpan and brush, he picked up the shattered glass and smaller wood fragments.
"Finished," he said as he dumped the last dustpan of splinters into a paper shopping bag. "I'll have to pick up a new door at the hardware store tomorrow. Guess I'll have to hire someone for these windows." A thin, cold wind snaked through the shattered panes. Neither man felt the cold. "So what's with the stereo stuff?"
For the past few minutes, the Master of Sinanju's mood had been lightening. With Remo's work finished for the moment, he stood, proudly extending a shiny plastic CD case to his pupil. His wrinkled face beamed.
"Behold!" Chiun announced grandly.
Remo inspected the album. His face fell at once. On the compact disc, an overweight woman in a cowboy hat sat on a split-rail fence. It was a testament to the skill of the fence's engineers that it didn't splinter beneath her wide derriere. She looked like a hippo on a park bench. At the top of the CD was the name Wylander Jugg.
"Oh, God, no," Remo moaned, his stomach caving in. It was all clear to him now. "That caterwauling I heard was you singing, wasn't it?" he accused weakly.
"I do not know what your demented ears think they heard, but it is possible that I did burst into song. Her voice is infectious."
"So's syphilis. And at least that's fun while you're getting it. Where'd you ever hear of Wylander?"
A brief thundercloud passed over the old Asian's face. "You left on the radio in your car when you went into the video store last week."
Remo remembered. For reasons he hoped would never be brought up again, Chiun avoided video stores like the plague.
The old man's dark moment passed.
"I chanced to hear her lilting voice as I switched channels. With but one strain, I knew I had found true love." Chiun drew the case to his narrow chest.
"Chiun," Remo said, forcing a reasonable tone, "everybody hates country music. The only thing entertaining about it is George Strait's driving record and the guy who does the Kenny Rogers impersonation on 'Mad TV.'"
Chiun raised a thin eyebrow. "As usual, I have no idea what you are talking about. I will have to remember to thank the gods for this continued blessing before I retire this evening." He turned the CD in his hand, examining Wylander Jugg carefully. "She is lovely." He sighed.
"If 'lovely' is redneck slang for 'fat as a house,' sure."
"She is not fat," Chiun dismissed. "She is simply well proportioned."
"If I was one-tenth that well proportioned, you'd have me doing squat thrusts till my colon dropped out."
"You are jealous of her comeliness." As he glanced rapturously at the photo once more, a contented smile kissed Chiun's dry lips. "Her beauty is on the inside," he insisted.
"So's Jonah, Pinocchio and about a million soggy Big Macs," Remo countered.
With a thin scowl, Chiun shook his head. "Really, Remo, your lack of depth amazes me. At last your nation has produced an art to rival the daytime dramas of old, and you, soulless as you are, deride it."
"Chiun, let's face facts here. Your tastes and mine have never been quite the same."
"Another small favor for which I will thank the gods."
Chiun sank to the floor amid his CD collection. "Snipe all you want," Remo said. "I like what I like. And I don't like country music."
"That is because you refuse to evolve," Chiun replied. "You are content to leave things exactly as they are, little realizing that despite your protestations, things change."
At that, Remo fell silent. He had managed for a time to banish the weighty thoughts that had plagued him of late.
Chiun noticed the heavy silence. As he pretended to fuss with his plastic cases, he turned a half-interested eye on his pupil.
"Have you given any thought to the words of my son, Song?" he questioned absently.
Remo's head snapped up. "What? Oh. No, not really." His troubled look made clear what was truly on his mind.
Chiun nodded. "It is a difficult time, this long goodbye between Master and student," he said, his voice soft.
The words brought another, greater pause.
The truth was, Chiun was as eager as Remo to forget that aspect of their shared future. The Master of Sinanju's eventual retirement and Remo's inevitable ascension to Reigning Masterhood. But the old Korean had seen many winters, and so understood better than his pupil what an impossible task it was to hold back the future. It would come whether they wanted it to or not.
"Can we just leave that one alone for a while, Little Father?" Remo asked quietly.
The old man nodded. The wisps of hair that clung to scalp above each of his shell-like eats were cobwebs stirred by cold eddies of air.
"There is always your future pupil," Chiun offered, his tone lightening. "That was the purpose of Song's visit. What thought have you given to that?"
"I haven't run an ad in the Help Wanteds yet," Remo said. A moment's hesitation. "But, yeah, I'm giving it some thought." He felt guilty even admitting it.
Chiun nodded in satisfaction. "Good. We will have to visit Sinanju in the autumn. Most of the winter babies will have been born by then."
Remo frowned. "Can't they just send us their fall-baby catalog?" he said sarcastically. "I told you, Chiun, no wacky breeding rituals and no pulling some Sinanju infant from his crib while mamasan's in the kitchen getting the rice-flavored Similac. We do this, we do it my way. In my own time."
He expected an argument. He expected yelling. He expected every trusted standby for ingrate all the way back to the now never used pale piece of a pig's ear. Instead, he was greeted with calm acceptance. Chiun's face showed no hint of emotion. "As you wish," the old man said. He returned to his CDs. Popping one open, he removed a silver disc.
"That's it?" Remo asked. "As you wish? Aren't you gonna kvetch?"
At this, Chiun shook his head. "I do not kvetch, I instruct. And it is not my place to instruct in this matter. You have admitted that you are thinking of your protege. You have accepted fate. The rest will happen as it is meant to." Head bowed, he turned to his stereo.