(for absentthoughts) yesteryear ✸ part 1 of 6
❊ for: absentthoughts
❊ title: yesteryear
❊ pairings: kai/d.o
❊ rating: pg13
❊ warnings: history dump, language, violence, character death, confusing timeline
❊ word count: ~49,300
❊ summary: Jongin has a soulmate. ― Reincarnation!AU
❊ a/n:thank you so much to my recepient for the lovely prompts! making this has been a super fun experience, and i got to write things that i never wrote before. thank you so, so much! i hope you'll like it! thank you to the mods for all their hard work, and for allowing me to participate in this exchange! and a super, super massive shout-out to A, my best buddy in the world, for beta-ing this and saving me from all those hiccups that stemmed from writing at three am in the morning. you're the best!!!
~O~
Korea’s first modern postal service
- Robert Nerf, The Korea Times
On the evening of Dec. 4, 1884, a banquet was held at the post office in Seoul to celebrate the successful inauguration of Korea’s postal system. Ironically, it was this celebration that helped doom Korea’s postal system as well as other early modernizations.
Just before 10 p.m., a small building near the post office was set afire luring Prince Min Yongik out into an ambush. An assassin severely wounded him but he managed, bleeding profusely, to stagger back into the building. By the end of the night the conspirators had gained a tentative control of the Korean government.
Despite the great confusion and excitement that filled the streets of Seoul, work went on as usual at the post office in Seoul until the afternoon of Dec. 6. Alarmed at the increasing number of Chinese soldiers in the streets and rumors of battle at the palace, the postal employees, Korean and Japanese, abandoned the post office. Over the next couple of days the post office buildings were ransacked and, except for the main hall, were burned by angry mobs of Koreans.
The ill-fated “Gapsin” Coup lasted a mere three days, but its toll was heavy. Many of the conservatives and their foes, the reformers, including Hong Yongsik, died in the fighting or were later executed. Not only was the postal service destroyed and discontinued but so too were Seoul’s first newspaper ― the Hanseong Sunbo ― and the three photograph studios in the capital ― all vilified as Western modernizations and pro-Japanese.
~O~
“The shamans have spoken,” a quivering man beside Jongin says. He cradles his head with his hands in a hushed prayer.
Jongin returns to eyeing his rifle. His head pounds. He digs his fingers into the earth to compose himself. The soil leaks from his fist.
Armed with bayonets and other artillery, the soldiers hunch behind the post office building. Their clothes are muddied from staying near the grasslands for too long, and the soles of their combat footwear are fastened together with rusting hobnails. Jongin looks around for a familiar face in his troop, but finds none.
Using fresh meat as the first line of offense is pretty ambitious of Kim Okgyun. The Meiji pulled it off, but Jongin has a sick feeling that maybe they can’t. Not right now.
He closes his eyes and takes deep, calming breaths.
Jongin’s stomach feels queasy, perhaps from the nervousness. He’s been jittery ever since they stepped out of the fields and it’s amplified by the uneasiness of the hundred other soldiers, but now, there’s something else tittering around the edges. It prickles, like millions of honeybees buzzing inside a hive, anxiously waiting for the right moment to carry out the queen’s orders. It’s a sensation he’s never felt before, and he clutches his abdomen, fearing that he’d vomit and make a fool of himself.
He figures he probably caught something, when he had no choice but to eat all the rotten things they serve back in the barracks. Week-old rice and overly squashed tomatoes. Jongin’s stomach twists again at the thought.
Behind closed eyelids, there’s a sudden wash of white that sweeps in and roars against his vision. His stomach coils, a chain in his gut lassoing until it springs and latches onto something. Jongin can feel the other end of it throb, like a quiet, beating heart.
He opens his eyes frantically, and there’s a man crouching in front of him. Unlike the rest of them, he’s facing Jongin instead of keeping an eye at the helm of the door.
Jongin’s gaze flicker to the silver flower badge at the man’s blue collar. Staff sergeant.
“No need for formalities,” the man says when Jongin scrambles to stand up and bow. “Your name? Your father’s?”
“Kim Jongin, sir. I am the only son of Kim Yeonsuk, a humble fruit merchant. Our family is a big supporter of the cause,” Jongin says. He keeps his eyes on the man’s boots, even if it’s terribly impolite to do so. He really feels like he’s in danger of throwing up.
“How old are you?”
Jongin answers promptly, “Fifteen, sir.”
Jongin hears a sigh, and a mumbled “Too young” being uttered to the cold, desolate air. Then, there’s a small, rectangular object wrapped in a golden foil being thrust into his hand, and Jongin’s eyes snap up.
The man’s face glistens a little with sweat, but he’s smiling despite the exhaustion.
“S-sir?” Jongin says, trembling. His stomach is doing that strange tugging sensation, pulling him from somewhere.
The man widens his smile, even if it looks wearier than the first. “The Japanese troops have been kind. It is the last of their ration, taken from the Westerners,” he says. “They call it ‘chocolate’.”
“Chocolate,” Jongin repeats, but when the word tumbles out of his lips, it doesn’t sound like the way the man had said it.
The man chuckles good-naturedly, and gestures for Jongin to rip it open and eat. “Have strength, Jongin-ssi. Tonight will be a long battle.”
It looks like the staff sergeant won’t take no for an answer. Jongin bows his head. “Thank you, sir. I…” He inhales. “I’ll do my best.”
The man nods approvingly as Jongin wraps his fingers around the chocolate. He grazes the man’s hand, and Jongin’s stomach lurches, harder this time, and he jerks his hand back abruptly that the chocolate almost falls out of his grasp.
When he looks up, the sergeant is eyeing him again, the skin on his forehead wrinkling in confusion. They stare at each other for a while. Jongin’s palm sweats under the foil.
The man takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair. He’s shaking a little. “Good luck, Jongin-ssi,” he says quietly, before standing up and moving on to talk to the rest of the troop.
Jongin’s gut protests, and he clutches on his navel even harder.
He follows the sergeant with his eyes, since the churning in his stomach doesn’t seem like it’s going to die down any time soon, and his chest burns a tiny bit. He’s probably failing in being discreet ― the guy whispering about sungmo and the rest of the gods a while ago regards him now with an odd expression on his face. He then moves to stare at the chocolate on Jongin’s hand, so Jongin pockets it.
He can’t crane his neck anymore when the sergeant decides to walk around the corner. Jongin hangs his head low again, wishing that the peculiar feeling in his stomach would go away soon.
~O~
Fate did not stand by their ranks. Their men were slaughtered, embarrassingly so, and Jongin felt that it was some sort of betrayal that he came out of the whole ordeal bruised and shaken up, but still very much alive.
He files with the rest of the mourning families at the registry. He trudges on the rocky path with no sense of purpose, until he's facing the man behind the desk. His gat droops quite wretchedly over his forehead. "Name?" the man says in a monotone.
"I do not know," Jongin says.
“What? Then why are you -”
"He is a staff sergeant. Third division."
"The third division has four staff sergeants, son," the man says quite exasperatedly. "Find out his name first and come back later. You are holding the line."
"Please. I need to know if he is alive," Jongin says. The fingers in his front pocket curl around the scraps of foil from the chocolate bar he viciously ate in blind hunger during the second day. "He has black hair and pale skin. His eyes are round and wide, and his lips are ―"
"There are five hundred people in the list ― do you expect me to know every single one of you? I need a name."
"He is very kind," Jongin says. "Perhaps you know of his kindness."
The man frowns. "If he truly is kind, he would have pulled you out of this suicide mission that bastard Okgyun concocted." He waves Jongin off. "Come back with a name, but do know that you are wasting your breath. Less than fifty of the soldiers survived. I rather doubt that your friend is still alive, even if the gods hold him in reverence for his kindness."
Jongin bows grimly and leaves the register. His chest aches dully, and his stomach keeps on protesting. His eyes fall on the small puddle at his feet, and his shoulders sag when he sees his reflection staring back at him, lost.
Jongin can't describe what it is that he's feeling. He’s not alone. His family is okay back home, and he’s alive. He survived. But somehow, it doesn’t seem right.
He feels sad. He feels miserable and alone, as if there’s a part of him that has been severed without warning, the chain breaking as savage ice chinks the steel braces. He feels really lonely.
Jongin's lips quiver, until he finally gives in and cries. He’s at a good distance from the registry, so there’s no one around to see him.
~O~
Jongin wakes up to a fire around him. Oddly, he doesn't feel the burn when the flames lick at his skin and clothes. He stands up, shakes off the dirt on his trousers, and runs wherever his legs will take him. He crosses his arms over his face as he lunges to the tall barrier of fire, and he makes it to the other side. Jongin peers down on his body. There are no scorch marks.
He feels fine, and that's the strangest thing of all, because he suddenly realizes he's walking over a path with jagged rocks that could pierce through the skin on his feet. There's no blood and no pain. Strange.
The faint wailing all around spooks Jongin even more, coating his arms with goosebumps. He looks up to find, instead of a ceiling, a thick cloud of black smoke.
"Hello?" Jongin croaks out, and it echoes eerily until it fades behind the disturbing wailing sound. He wonders if he's having a nightmare.
Not knowing what else to do, he follows the path. He remembers a flash, and pain shooting from his calf and spreading everywhere. He remembers his head hitting a boulder before blacking out and waking up to the fire.
An icy finger of fear slides down Jongin spine, but he forges on.
He's almost at the end when he stops. There are three people behind a long, maple table, very much like the desk inside the meeting hall where Jongin swore his allegiance to Okgyun’s cause in front of the presiding officers.
From this distance, Jongin can tell that these people are foreigners. People from the West. His hand flies to his side, but he doesn't have his dagger with him.
"Now, now, don't be shy!" the one in the middle calls. "Come here, monsignor! We can't assess you properly if you're standing all the way there."
Jongin blinks. He's definitely not speaking in Korean, but Jongin understood everything he said perfectly. He gapes at them, arms shaking.
"Oh, good lord, we’ve got another one of those," the woman on the left says. She places a hand under her chin. "Come forward, Mr. Kim. We promise we won't let Cerberus eat you."
What in the world is a cerberus? Jongin glances back, and it seems like he has no other choice but to move forward. The path disappeared.
Jongin goes and stands before them, and he keeps his back ramrod straight the way the byeongjang thought him to. The three folders on the desk are heavily inked with Jongin’s name on the cover.
“I think introductions are at an order.” The man in the middle bounces on his seat excitedly. His bushy beard drops low enough to conceal the whole of his neck, and his nose is strong, but bulbous at the end. His robes are as red as his funny-looking hat, and his light green eyes brighten when his gaze lands on Jongin’s filthy clothes. “But before that, how many garamas shall I give you for that fine specimen of silk ―”
The woman snorts. “Save that for later, Marco. There’re still a lot of them waiting to be judged. Let’s go right ahead and get this over with.”
Jongin’s stomach drops. Judged? “Umm, excuse me,” he says. “But… who are you? And what ― what am I doing here?”
“You are dead!” the man, Marco, chirps. One side of his mouth quirks to form a happy smile. “Deceased! Passed on! Whatever you’d like to phrase it.” He nudges the woman with a wink. “You may have the pleasure of explaining the rest, Marge. You’re the writer here.”
Margaret rolls her eyes. Jongin can tell that she’s been doing that a lot. She turns to Jongin, and he inadvertently shivers; her gaze is piercing. “I am Margaret Fuller,” she says. “The idiot on my right is Marco Polo from Great Italy, and at the other end of this table is Sir Thomas Jefferson, former president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence of 1776.” She says the last words with profound respect.
“Oh yes, right! Tom’s a writer, too,” Marco quips, grinning afterwards. He pats Thomas’ shoulder. “Sorry, monsignor. Have to hand the ball to the lady’s court once in a while.”
Thomas ignores him as Margaret throws a glare at Marco. “We have been appointed as judges of the departed souls for this century and the next, or until when the higher-ups thinks is wise,” Thomas says to Jongin. “At your service.”
Jongin can’t speak. He’s… dead? He looks down on his chest, rising and falling like it used to. He clamps his mouth shut tightly, and panics when he finds he can hold his breath longer than he used to without his head hurting.
Is he in hell? The wailing he heard earlier ― was that the sound of troubled souls lamenting for retribution? Is Jongin going to be one of them?
What about his family? Are they still alive?
Thomas opens the folder and leafs through the pages. Jongin trembles as Thomas runs his finger over the blocks of paragraphs. “Hmmm. You’ve lived a remarkably short life, Mr. Kim. A grand total of twenty-two years, five months and seven days. No notable achievements either, aside from becoming a trooper at such a young age.”
“I… I am sorry,” Jongin mumbles and bows, not knowing what else there is to say or do. His mind reels.
Margaret shakes her head. “Oh, no. You don’t have to apologize for anything. It’s just that it’s going to be difficult for us to know where to place you, since you haven’t exactly done anything that stands out enough to put you in Up or Below.”
Jongin wants to ask what is Up and Below, but thinks that they’d probably explain it to him later, once Thomas is done reading.
“I have killed a lot of people,” Jongin confesses. He recalls firing one bullet after another, moving forward to another direction as quick as he could, refraining from looking directly at the sunken faces of his fellow countrymen he’d hurt.
“Doesn’t say here you did,” Thomas says, not looking up from the papers. He turns another page. “You’ve always shot them at the leg. They probably won’t be able to walk again, but you’ve never exactly killed anyone.”
“However, violence is not something to be condoned,” Margaret intones. “It might be hypocritical of me to say so, since all three of us are children of war. But as someone who witnessed needless bloodshed, your participation in the suffering of eighteen other people in Seoul and Chemulpo is something that I will consider heavily.”
“You seem like a good person who’s made a lot of bad choices,” Marco says. His moustache quivers as he laughs. “So, Monsignor Kim. What are we going to do with you?”
Jongin bites his lower lip. He’s not exactly religious. He stopped praying to the gods and visiting the sadang in the mountains when he was twelve. He wishes that he’d paid more attention to what the shamans were saying.
There are three strangers judging the fate of Jongin’s afterlife. Jongin has no idea what to do, or how to react, if they somehow decide that he had been a horrible person for most of his life and put him where all those dreadful wailing noises come from.
“Huh,” Marco says suddenly. He’s circling a passage in Jongin’s file with a quill. “Says here you met your soulmate at age fifteen. That’s pretty rare, son.”
Jongin cranes his neck forward. “Soulmate?” he says.
Margaret quirks a thick eyebrow at Marco. “Soulmates is a Western concept, Marco. He probably doesn’t understand.”
“Nonsense! Even the Chinese have it!” He swivels his chair to turn to Jongin. He looks absolutely ecstatic. “Ever heard of The Red String of Fate, monsignor?”
“Uhh, no.”
Marco frowns and shakes his head. “Pitiful,” he says, mournful. “Absolutely pitiful. You are one of the lucky few who have been graced by Circumstance for a chance to meet and bind with the other half of your soul, but you were ignorant of this massive opportunity. What a shame.”
Jongin’s jaw slacks. “Other half? Of my what?” He’s not sure if he heard it right. “Soul?”
“Yes. Human souls are incomplete, such as myself. I am a fragment of a much bigger entity, purer,” Margaret tells him. “Though I must say that one does not need to look for the other soul which one is destined to be bound to. A soul can stand alone.”
“But Jongin encountered his,” Marco says in awe. “I have lived a considerably long life, but I never had the pleasure of meeting my soulmate in those sixty-nine years Time has blessed me with. It’s a marvel.”
“He’s not exactly lucky,” Thomas interjects. “His soulmate died after a few hours Mr. Kim had met him.”
Jongin’s supposedly dead heart startles. “H-he died? What?” he stammers. “Who was he? How did he die?”
“Can’t say, if you don’t know who it is,” Thomas says before smiling at him. Thin locks of silver hair fall to the side when he tilts his head. “I’m afraid it’s a strictly confidential matter. Anyone who died within this time period has to go through this hall, and we can’t divulge any information about the souls who have stood before us.”
Marco laughs and props his feet on the table. “But you already gave him a hint.” He smirks at the younger man. “Think fast, Jongin! At the battle in Seoul, who was the last person you talked to that stood out among the rest? Think. Trust your gut ― a wise traveller always trusts his gut.”
“I ―” Jongin can only think of the cold year of 1884, and the chocolate bar that had melted on his tongue and kept him warm and alive. He remembers a tired smile and unblinking eyes staring at him with mild befuddlement, as Jongin’s fingers tingled and his stomach twisted after their hands had touched. Seven years later, and it seems that Jongin hasn’t exactly forgotten about it after all. “I… I think…”
“There you go!” Marco cheers, beaming wide at Jongin’s flushed expression.
Margaret looks over at Thomas. “You meant to do that,” she accuses without heat.
Thomas smiles at her enigmatically. “I haven’t been here long enough, but I’ve done the math. It is rare. Just as Marco said.”
“One in a hundred million,” Marco informs them. He claps his hands together and sighs. “Most of them end up in tragedy, like this boy over here, which is such a sad thought.” He tuts. “We might want to have a talk with the higher-ups about this. It’s such a waste. A lot of people might have not ended up in the Pit if they met their soulmates and became happy.”
“But I do not know his name,” Jongin blurts, breaking his muddled thoughts, and all three of the judges snap their attention back to him. He fidgets, and continues, “Can I… can you tell me? Please?”
“I deeply apologize, Mr. Kim. That’s not our call to make,” Margaret says.
Jongin’s heart is beating too fast for him to catch up, threatening to crack his ribcage. That kind man with the sad smile is his soulmate, whatever that is, and Jongin’s insides bleat and tug at the knowledge of meeting someone who’s apparently supposed to be very important to him, and letting him get away and die.
“Can I see him?” Jongin tries again. His stomach is whining ― soulmates must be really a big thing. “He is here now, right?”
“Do you want to say hi?” Thomas says. He sounds amused.
“Uhh, yes,” Jongin settles. “And thank him, if I could. He was nice.”
“Well, I apologize again that I can’t say any more about your bond person,” Margaret says. “He is, I believe, an irrelevant matter to your case. Now, since we have insufficient material to gauge whether or not you are fit for either Up or Below, we’ll have to make you choose.” She waves for Jongin to come closer and places two sheets of paper on the table. They look like contracts.
“We have this usually when people die below the age of thirty, unless you’ve done something remarkable in your early years that we can decide the right place,” Margaret explains. She slides her quill towards Jongin’s hand. “The first one is that you’d live on Earth again until it’s time. In the second agreement, you’ll have to work in The Fields and prove yourself in ten, horrifying trials. Read them carefully and choose.”
Jongin’s eyes widen as he plows through words he doesn’t understand. “What do most people choose?” he asks.
Marco grins. “Why, silly boy, The Fields of course! Ten trials are nothing compared to all the things you have to suffer back on Earth.”
Jongin pauses, and looks over the contracts again. Quick agony in The Fields, or a slow burn in the land of the living? The golden seal at the bottom of each paper glints beside the thin line where he has to affix his signature with indelible ink.
The man, Jongin realizes with a halting jerk. He wasn’t that much older than Jongin, perhaps. He probably died before he reached thirty. “What did my soulmate choose?” he says.
The three figures turn to each other, their eyes having a silent discussion, and Jongin instinctively knows that he’s right. That person, whoever he is, had been given a choice, too.
“We are not at liberty to answer that,” Margaret says snippily. “Now choose, Mr. Kim. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t have an eternity.”
Jongin stills his breathing. His stomach has quieted into a sloppy kind of churning now, a still unpleasant feeling, but bearable. He’s going to have to trust what Marco said earlier. “I choose…” he mumbles. He grips the quill tightly and signs Kim Jongin on the first contract.
Marco erupts into a very loud laugh, and Thomas smiles at the side as Margaret rolls up the contracts.
“You two really are soulmates,” Marco remarks, slowly clapping his hands. “Oh boy, this is going to be fun!”
Margaret shushes him before going back to look at Jongin. She purses her lips and says, “You’ll be having the preliminaries at The Boat by The Dock. Marco will take you there and explain everything about your transit to your next life along the way. Do you have any more questions?”
Jongin has billions of questions, but he decides that it’s best to choose the one that he needs to ask the most, “In my next life on Earth, will I still remember everything that happened on my first?”
That seems to shock both Marco and Margaret, but Thomas doesn’t seem fazed at all. He closes Jongin’s folder, the mysterious smile still in place. “You’re going to look for him,” he says, a statement.
Jongin can feel his cheeks heat up as Marco guffaws again. Margaret gapes at him like he’s out of his mind. The embarrassment is kind of ridiculous to feel since he’s supposedly dead.
“It will be impossible,” Margaret claims, eyes still wide. “It’s not guaranteed that you’ll meet again for the second time.”
Jongin squares his shoulders. “It will get me through,” he says. “I will need a goal.” He’s good with goals. He kept himself alive and went home after every battle because his family needs him. Jongin only slipped once in his entire life, though, and that mistake ultimately landed him here.
“Soulmates are not important, and definitely not worth the trouble,” Margaret insists, and Jongin wants to believe that she’s right.
The chain in his stomach revolts and coils ferociously inside him. “Is it bad if we meet again?”
“Well, no,” Margaret replies after a while. “It won’t be a problem, but it’s not… something that I would choose for myself, really. Looking for my destined other half, that is.”
But Jongin’s already found him. He has seen him, touched him, spoken to him, at least once. He remembers feeling that particular shade of anxiousness that made him want to hurl, but he also recalls feeling that soothing blanket of white, and the happiness and excitement of holding someone else’s gaze for a long time.
Even if the chances are low, Jongin just wants to see him again.
“Memories are not good things to carry for people who will live again,” Margaret speaks up again, a warning, and Jongin gulps. “It will be more of a hindrance than an advantage. Are you willing to take on that extra burden?”
“Yes,” Jongin says, and then sighs inwardly. He really needs to think things through, sometimes. He hopes that in his next life, he’d be more sensible.
“Alright,” Thomas says as he clears the table. “That’s settled then. Marco will take you to The Dock while we get ready for the next soul. Marco?”
“On it, monsignor.” Marco leaps from his seat and dashes towards Jongin. He puts an arm around Jongin’s shoulders, and Jongin balks at the fact that he couldn’t feel it at all.
In front of Jongin’s very eyes, a new path forms out of the puffs of smoke. It’s less sinister than the bed of pointy rocks Jongin had to take before, but the difference doesn’t matter that much, apparently. He’s a soul now. He’s dead.
Jongin still can’t believe it.
“I see it still hasn’t sunken it yet,” Marco says with glee. The path behind them slowly unravels with each step as new bricks pop up in front of them. “You just wait when you get into your second life. It’ll give you the shock of the century.”
A thought occurs. “What about my body?” Jongin squeaks. “Will I get a new one?”
“Not necessarily,” Marco says. His hold around Jongin’s shoulders slackens as he makes wild gestures with his hands. “Most of the time, your body won’t be reincarnated with your soul. But since we’ll be skipping the skinny-dipping part, you’re going to live in the same shell, so to speak. It’ll make transition easier.”
“Skinny-dipping?”
“Usually we’d dump the people who chose the first contract in the Fountain of Forgetfulness.” Marco strokes his beard. Some of them tangle against his fingers, and he pulls at them with a resigned sigh. “The water will dissolve your previous memories, if you chose to part with them. But since you want to keep yours, just imagine, waking up in another era with a different face. Difficult, isn’t it? The first few cases we had that were like yours, they had trouble adjusting to their new identities.”
“So I will look exactly the same?” Jongin says, his heart leaping in hope. Maybe he can do this. Maybe he’ll succeed in this his second chance he’s been granted. No guns, and no wars. And perhaps ―
“What about him? My soulmate?” he muses out loud. “Is he…?” He feels himself deflate a little. How is Jongin going to find him if he doesn’t look like what he used to be anymore? It would take more than a single lifetime to scour the earth for him. Margaret was right. It’s impossible.
Marco gives him a long, hard look, before whipping his head right and left. He stops, and the path stops, and Jongin has to stop too or he’ll fall into the abyss.
The older man grasps Jongin by his shoulders. “Marge is going to kill me for this.” He exhales shortly, and before making a grim expression. “Are you serious, monsignor? Do you really want to find him?”
“Yes, of course,” Jongin says. “I mean, it would be very nice to see him again.”
The look Marco gives him is inscrutable. “Monsignor Kim, soulbinding is a very serious business, especially here in the afterlife. And you are the first in the last millennia to have met the other half of your soul on your first life. The most famous one we had was Helen and Paris. It was such a long time ago, but it caused a lot of trouble.” His grip tightens as he whispers, “I’ll do everything within my power to make searching for him a bit easier for you, but I have to be sure that you have every intention of finding him. Do you understand?”
Jongin licks his lips, and then nods.
“Do you swear on your soul?” Marco says firmly. “This is a promise of one traveller to another. Will you not stop until you find him?”
“I promise,” Jongin replies. “With all my heart.”
Marco seems pleased enough with this and lets go. He claps Jongin’s back and gestures for them to move again. Jongin, a little dazed, follows him.
The journey to The Dock is quiet for a while, until Marco lightens up and tells him of the last five hundred years he spent as one of the judges and keepers of The Gateways. Margaret and Thomas were the replacements of Hildegard and Lao Tzu, who both opted for an early retirement at the Oasis.
“Oasis?” Jongin says. There’s a large body of water right ahead, and a boat that could probably carry only five people. “What is that?”
“Part of Up. It’s the ultimate headquarters of the goody-goodies,” Marco says and grins at the gloomy sky. “Some are like you and your soulmate, who opted for a second lifetime to clean their ledgers. Some of them even tried for third and fourth.” He ruffles Jongin’s hair. “So be a bit more optimistic, monsignor! If you work hard enough, you might end up there when it’s time.”
They stop where the coal-black sand starts sifting under Jongin’s slippers. It’s more of a lake than a sea, with the mountains bordering the still, murky waters, but Jongin is not wholly sure. Miles of fog stretch as the younger man looks yonder, and Marco nudges Jongin aboard the boat.
A man holding a big pole that seems to be more of a make-shift paddle is eyeing Jongin expectantly. Jongin steps into the boat, and it sinks at the added weight. The whole vessel feels like it will tip over at the slightest movement. Jongin sweats as he tries to balance himself.
“Safe travels, monsignor!” Marco says, waving. Jongin wants to wave back, but the boat keeps on rocking dangerously, and so he gives the traveller a strained smile instead.
The man with the pole blocks Jongin’s line of vision of the shore. “Edge,” he says.
Jongin stares at him dumbly. “What?”
“Edge. Near the edge.” The man jerks his chin forward. “Sit.”
“O-oh. Yes.” Jongin slowly moves, the boat swaying as he goes, until he finally lowers his butt on the wood. He lets out a shaky breath after.
The man’s mouth curves in vague amusement before he pushes his pole and sets sail for Earth.
The whole lake is calm and creepy at the same time. Nothing moves except for them, the boat and the ripple of water below. The fog thickens as they come closer to the other side, and the roll of mountains start to disappear when the sky dims.
Jongin doesn’t know what to expect, or feel. He’s still not sure if he’s dead ― he doesn’t feel any different, and this might be one of those times where his imagination got ahead of him. It wouldn’t be such a surprise. He once dreamt of leading the Korean and Japanese reformers to victory against the Conservatives, and that there would be a world of peace and prosperity afterwards.
“Not bad,” the stranger blurts, and Jongin jumps on his seat a little in shock.
Jongin fondles his aching neck. “Err… what?”
The man smiles. His front teeth are yellow and rotting. “Last part of dream,” he explains. “Not bad. Good dream.”
Jongin’s mouth falls open. “Oh.” He feels tongue-tied.
The man grins, but doesn’t say anything anymore.
After a few minutes of nothing but a swirling expanse of fog, Jongin hears something as they approach. A stream of water, falling from a high place. It gets louder, and Jongin panics.
“Wait, ahjussi!” Jongin cries out. “There’s a waterfall right ahead! We have to turn back!”
The man shakes his head. “This okay.” His paddles grow stronger and they launch towards the steady current that speeds up as they go. “Close eyes.”
“Sorry?”
“Eyes.” The man mimes a hand forcing his eyes to shut. “Close.”
Jongin has no idea what’s going on, but he does as he’s told. He clamps his hands over his eyes and doesn’t dare peek, even if the rest of him is screaming to jump off the boat and swim towards safety. Judging from the roar of the water below, it’s going to be a high dive.
He can feel the whole boat lurch and stagger as rocks start edging the fall. Jongin holds on tight to the wooden braces, eyes still shut, and his stomach heaves.
“This is crazy!” Jongin yells, and they plummet.
Jongin doesn’t remember opening his mouth to scream. He can hear himself, though, but it’s muffled, as if he is shouting underwater, and the bubbles that manage to pop to the surface are the only evidence that he’s even there.
Jongin falls, and falls, and falls…
…
Somewhere in a quaint town in Korea, a newborn baby cries.
~O~
The king’s letter
- Lee Hangbok, Korea Joongang Daily
The recent discovery of a diplomatic letter written by King Gojong provided the strongest piece of evidence of Korea’s objections to colonization by Japan.
The letter took the form of a telegram written in Korean by the king. In it, he issues an order to the Korean minister to Germany, Min Cheolhun, which says: “Japanese officials came to the palace with their army and forced me to sign a document they had prepared. After that Japan named a governor and forced us to give up our diplomatic rights. Such a crime is unacceptable under international law. You [Min Cheolhun] have to alert Germany and ask for help. The last hope for me and for the empire is Germany and international law.”
The order was translated and handed over to the German foreign ministry on Nov. 24, 1905, but with no response. King Gojong then sent a personal letter, dated May 19, 1906, to German Emperor Wilhelm II, but internal affairs within the German foreign ministry prevented the letter from ever reaching the emperor.
Apart from the pleas he made to foreign countries, King Gojong also sent a secret mission to an international peace conference held in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1907 to let other nations know that the treaty with Japan had been signed under coercion and without the consent of the king and the public.
The mission failed, and the outcome proved disastrous for Korea. It prompted a member of the secret delegation, Lee Jun, to commit suicide. It also led Japan to force the king to abdicate the throne to his second son, Sunjong, the last king of Korea. Sunjong remained in power for just three years before he announced in August 1910 that the country had ceded all of its power to Japan.
~O~
“Hun-ah! I need you to go to the store and buy prunes and cabbage for me.”
Oh right, Jongin thinks. He’s Lee Hun, now, the twelve-year-old son of farmers Yoon Gayoung and Lee Daewon. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget.
Jongin stands up and ties the belt around his baji, making sure he’s wiped the grime off his face before dashing towards the kitchen.
“The money’s on the table,” Gayoung, his mother, says without turning to him. She’s busy tending to the boilers. “The basket’s at the back door.”
“Okay.” Jongin scoops the coins from the rattan top, dumping it all to the small pouch his mother has sewn on his shirt. “Prunes and cabbage?”
“And tomatoes,” Gayoung adds, and then frowns at the state of Jongin’s hair. “Clean that rat’s nest first before you head out, dear.”
Jongin hugs his mom’s waist and slings the basket to his arm. He sets off, careful not to step on the rice paddies as he jumps from one thickle bush to another. He flattens his hair with his fingers as he runs towards the clay road.
He’s in Kwangju now, far, far away from Seoul, his first home. Jongin doesn’t know how to get there, so he has no idea how his old family is holding up. He’s not even sure if they’re still alive.
Sometimes, it can get confusing, with the new layer of memories coating over the old ones. Jongin started recovering his memories at age seven, and he remembers the massive headaches he got whenever he couldn’t separate the old memories from the new ones. He often mistook Gayoung for Hana, his first mother, and kept on waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, screaming about bombs and gunfire. His new family grew a bit concerned about his welfare after that.
It’s better now, though. Jongin realizes that the happy memories come much faster than the bad ones, and it helps. He still gets headaches, and sometimes he still has nightmares, but now he has an idea what to look out for.
There are frequent images that flash through his mind when he gets ready for bed, memories that seem to be much stronger than the rest. A dark room, full of people screaming, and the faint smell of expensive spirit in the air. Jongin always feels sad about that, but after, there’s always a fleeting face that appears. There’s a smile that has the fireflies in Jongin’s stomach come alight, and it’s a smile that Jongin always takes with him wherever he goes when he wakes up.
Soon, Jongin finds himself surrounded by fruit stalls and dozens of shops selling lamb meat. Next to the locksmith around the corner, men of almost all ages have gathered around the gambling mat, laughing and yodeling. The roads are far better here than the ones near Jongin’s home since the army and the trucks pass by here once in a while, the lanes wider and smoothed out. Girls play neoltwiggi in a separate alley while the boys trade marbles and wrestle one another.
“Ahjumma!” Jongin says once he’s reached the vegetable store. “Hello!”
“Oh, Hun-ah!” An old lady with a sizeable straw hat over her salt-and-pepper hair says. She hunches over him and fixes his messy brown hair for him. She goes by the name Duri. Jongin likes Duri ahjumma, because she always gives him extra oranges whenever Jongin comes by the marketplace.
“Take a bath after this, Hun,” Duri tells him fondly. “You stink.”
“Okay,” Jongin says brightly. He holds out his wicket basket. “Can I have four hon’s worth of cabbages, and around two for tomatoes, please? And do you have any prunes?”
“We’re all out of prunes, dear. But we do have tomatoes and cabbage, fresh from the fields!” She beams. “Is your dad coming home from service?”
Jongin nods. “Mom says he’ll be back just in time for dinner. Haneul and I are making mud castles to welcome him back.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet of you kids?” Duri says. She fills up the basket and hands it to Jongin in exchange for the coins. “Run along, now. Maybe your father will be back sooner than you think.”
Jongin gives her what he supposes is his most brilliant smile before leaping back to the front alley. He waddles through the crowd of people and steps into the road as he checks the contents of his basket. There are five oranges squeezed right next to the cabbages. Jongin grins. Excellent.
Suddenly, he hears an ear-splitting shriek, but Jongin looks up a little too late. He first sees the terror in the eyes of a young lady carrying bread wrapped in a cheesecloth before his gaze locks on a hood of a moving vehicle, speeding right ahead until the bumper smacks him on the face. Jongin blacks out in an instant.
~O~
Margaret is smirking at him now. “So. Twelve years.”
Jongin fights back a scowl. “I’m sorry,” he starts. “I wasn’t…”
“You got hit by an automobile. Pretty nasty hit.” Marco shakes his head. “You know, I’m starting to think that having you run around with your memories is a bad idea.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Jongin says. “I keep forgetting that things are no longer what they used to be.”
Thomas’ eyebrows shoot upward. He pinches the tip of his quill with his two fingers. “You’re saying you’re going to try again?”
Jongin nods gravely. He tries to give them all a steady look. “I won’t give up,” he says.
Margaret’s smile downturns instantly. “If you focus your energies on finding your soulmate instead of doing your best in becoming a better person, then I don’t think you’re going to end up in the Oasis like you wanted to,” she says.
Jongin exhales through his mouth. “Yeah, I know. But I promised I’d look for him.” His eyes unconsciously fleet to Marco’s approving expression. “And I never said I can’t do both. I’ll be good, and I’ll find him.”
Thomas chuckles, and all three of them look at him in surprise. “Now I can see why Marco’s getting so fired up for this,” he says genially. His fingers are coated with ink. “I approve your request, Mr. Kim. One more life, until you’re satisfied.”
Jongin feels like his knees are going to give out under him. “Thank you,” he says, voice filled with relief. He bows deeply.
“Don’t mess it up,” Margaret says starchily, and hands him a fresh contract to sign.
~O~
Korea under Park Chunhee
- Henry Liu, Asia Times
After 15 years of repressive government, Syngman Rhee was forced out of office into exile on April 26, 1960, by student mass demonstrations against widespread corruption and despotic rule. On May 16, 1961, amid general political chaos and paralysis, Major General Park Chung-hee, carried out a military coup d'etat followed by an anti-corruption campaign that was welcome by the general public.
As president, Park instituted central planning and industrial policy and looked to prewar Japan as a model for developing the South Korean economy. The Park administration was ultra-nationalistic and anti-market, harking back to a Confucian culture that does not hold merchants in high esteem. Park nationalized Korean banks and imposed strict control on foreign exchange to use sovereign credit to develop the economy through industrial policy and subsidized export, taking advantage of US anti-communism to get preferential access to the US market during the Cold War.
Park leaned on the chaebol, large family-controlled conglomerates that responded profitably to government development plans, reserving basic industries such as steel for state-owned enterprises. Park proved that a planned economy with intelligent application of industrial policy was a more effective system for promoting rapid industrialization and national prosperity for a developing economy than market fundamentalism.
Under Park, South Korea sent 300,000 troops to Vietnam, and was rewarded by the United States with war purchases that helped the Korean economy and political tolerance that consolidated his rule.
~O~
Jongin grabs his coat and runs down to the delivery room. The air-conditioning has been wonky since Thursday, and the hallways are oppressive as he pummels down through them. He meanders through the crowd of men in lab coats and nurses and bloodied children and crying mothers. It’s New Year’s, so the hospital is packed.
“She alright?” Jongin asks one of the nurses. Carla, he thinks is the name she’d like to be called. Some of the people in the hospital like baptizing themselves with new American ones as a running joke.
“Yes, she’s doing okay,” Carla says. She makes way for Jongin to scramble towards the beat-up heart monitor. “I’ve been asking if she wanted anesthetic, but she keeps on telling me no.”
Jongin nods and turns to the woman. Her chart says Lee Sooyoun in widely spaced blocks. “Sooyoun-ssi, this is seriously going to hurt without the anesthetic,” he says, wiping the sweat off her forehead with his gloved hand.
“I know it will. Woojin is not my first son,” Sooyoun says. She gasps and writhes on the bed, and the nurses flurry over to her side. They hold her arms like bondages.
Jongin lowers his arms to her raised feet. The contractions are not sporadic now - right on schedule. He pushes the catheter away.
“Now,” Jongin says, steadying his hands. “Sooyoun-ssi, I want you to breathe in slowly.”
The woman screams.
~O~
Jongin loosens the knot on his tie and undoes three of the buttons of his polo. His arms ache, his neck is sore, and his jaw creaks when he opens his mouth to gulp in bland air. He’s been up and about for thirty seven hours, running only in caffeine and adrenaline, and all he wants to do is to curl up in his office and pretend that it’s okay to stop saving more lives until he’s saved his own.
But then his pager beeps, the one he’s saved for Diagnostics, and Jongin closes his eyes and groans. He plants his face flat on the desk before staggering out of his chair.
He makes a sloppy Windsor and slips his coat back on, pushing the door open with his free hand. The lights keep Jongin from banging his crotch against the armrests of the waiting benches around the hallway.
“Sir,” a voice calls out. “Sir. Sir.”
Jongin stops and looks down to his left. There’s a scrawny-looking kid in a midnight black tweed coat, the cuffs rough and the threads sticking out. His shoes look clean but worn. Second-hand.
Jongin tries to smile warmly enough to thaw the frost of the winter’s day. “Oh, hey there.”
“You’re Doctor Min Taeil,” the boy says, sounding surprisingly sure of himself.
“Yeah. Found your guy,” Jongin says. He turns around so they could be face to face. “What can I do for you?”
“You have a patient named Lee Sooyoun, right?” the boy says.
Jongin’s too surprised that he slips from the usual patient-confidentiality clause. “Yes. Why?”
The boy licks his lips. They look cold. “I’m her son,” he answers. He bows deeply. “I’m Jinsung.”
“Oh. Right, she did mention that you’re here,” Jongin says. He wants to reach out and ruffle the boy’s hair, like he usually does with kid patients, but the air around Jinsung tells him that the gesture wouldn’t be taken as something friendly. “It’s nice to meet you, Jinsung-ssi. Have you met your baby brother already?” He chuckles. “He’s adorable.”
“He is,” Jinsung says. He then pulls out a folded sheet of paper from his pants, scribbled with what seems like a to-do list. Jongin’s eyes widen.
Jinsung coughs a little to clear his throat. “My mom’s allergic to strawberries and peanuts,” he informs Jongin. “She gets cramps a lot. ‘Round her thighs. Her neck becomes stiff when she sits upright for too long, so I usually -” He presses two of his fingers on his own nape. “Massage her around here, to relieve the knots and stuff.”
Jongin doesn’t realize he has his mouth open wide until his lower jaw starts to ache. “Uhh, Jinsung-ssi,” he begins. “Where’s your dad?”
Jinsung glares at him. “He’s not coming, so you’ll have to talk to me.” he says tightly. “Why? Does that bother you?”
“No. No, it doesn’t.” Jongin sinks to his knees to level their height, and he sees it.
Brown-black eyes with unusual depth. Thick eyebrows and stubby nose. The only things that look out of place are the long unkempt hair and the harsh edge in his cheekbones.
Jongin has to inch back and take a lungful of air, his whole body trembling in shock. It’s him. Jongin has found him again.
“Are you okay, sir?” Jinsung says, demands, and Jongin has to shudder away the nervousness, joy, relief, and sadness before pasting a new smile on his face.
“Jinsung - can I call you that? - it’s alright. The cafeteria downstairs doesn’t serve food with common allergens. And thank you for telling me that. There’s nothing about her cramps and stiff neck in her medical history.” Jongin leans in, careful. Jinsung’s eyes are really as wide and dark as he remembers. “How old are you?”
Jinsung definitely doesn’t like that question. His mouth tightens. “Fourteen,” he says, turning back to his list again. “She gets a cold easily, so you have to change the sheets often. She always wheezes a lot in the morning…” His gaze flickers at Jongin for a moment. “Maybe she needs medicine for that.”
“It’s rhinitis,” Jongin says. “Don’t worry. It’s very common. We’ll get her something for that.”
Jinsung looks at him tentatively. “How much is it?” he questions. “Is it expensive?”
“Oh. It’s…” Jongin scratches his chin. “It’s okay, Jinsung. Sooyoun-ssi gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and your mother and brother are both fine. She’s a little tired, but she’ll be discharged as soon as she gets strong enough. You don’t have to worry so much.”
Jinsung lowers his head. “It’s a public hospital, and it’s New Years,” he mutters. “There are a lot of people around.”
I have to make sure you’re taking care of her right, is what fourteen-year-old Jinsung wants to tell Jongin, in a way they’ve all been taught since primary school. Polite, discreet, and implicit.
Jongin doesn’t succumb to the urge to frown and hug Jinsung tight until it hurts. Instead, he places a hand over Jinsung’s shoulder, in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. “You’re going to make a great doctor, Jinsung,” Jongin says.
Jinsung leans onto his touch slightly. “Really?”
“You have a knack for details.” Jongin chuckles. “I have this strange feeling that you’re going to be a better doctor than I am, and quite frankly, I’m the best of the lot here.”
“Maybe.” Jinsung hands the doctor his list. It’s very elaborate, tiny blocks of Hangeul in bullet form.
Jongin waves the paper with his fingertips before pocketing it. “See what I mean? Now, you should grow up faster and work as my assistant,” Jongin says. “We seriously need a lot of people like you in this hospital.”
“Alright.” Jinsung gives him a small smile, just a slight curve of the lips, and Jongin’s waiting heart warms.
~O~
Jongin wakes up to the sound of rain pounding against the window. He blearily pushes himself from the table, the old, swiveling chair groaning as he does. The festivities have dulled down to a stop, and now it’s dark outside. It makes Jongin want to go back to sleep, but his spine creaks and tells him that three hours of rest is all he’s getting for today.
He checks up on his patients one by one, saving Sooyoun for last. But when he comes around the room she shares with two other patients, he finds that her bed is empty. There are fresh creases on the sheets, like ripples in a stream, and Jongin heads out and pages for Carla.
“She’s been discharged” is what Carla replies when Jongin asks her about it.
“What? Why?” Jongin says. “But I didn’t say she can. I didn’t even get to check her again if she’s fine to leave.”
“He said she can,” Carla says, pointing up, where the office of the head of OB’s department reside. “It’s that time of the year. We need the room.”
Jongin knows exactly what she’s talking about. Even if it’s happened so many times before, it still succeeds in turning him inside-out. A small part of him had actually been anticipating it, but it never really lessened the blow. Hospital policies have always been cruel, and Jongin feels so powerless against it.
He wants to shout at Carla, even if he knows she wasn’t the one calling the shots.
“She just had a baby,” Jongin says. “You should’ve just let her stay for the meantime, even if she can’t pay for everything.”
Carla doesn’t respond, and only eyes him gently. She’s worked with him long enough, and knew all the words he wasn’t saying.
Jongin breathes harshly through his mouth and rubs a hand to his cheek. “Tell me beforehand next time, okay?”
Carla answers with a solemn nod, and Jongin whisks himself away from the suffocating hallways. He tries not to think about Sooyoun and her son too much and resolves to help the people he can.
~O~
Another eighteen years and Jongin is here again.
“Is he still going to be there?” he questions after hearing the news that Jinsung had already passed the Gateways. “Will I still see him?” Did he pick rebirth?
Margaret sighs and gives him a faint nod. “Thank Marco for that one,” she says with barely hidden spite.
Marco beams. “What? All I did was make his soulmate a bit curious,” he says. “How’s another century going to hurt anyone?”
Margaret gives the man a fierce glare. “We’re breaking all the rules,” she grieves. “It’s ridiculous. No one should be an exemption to the rebirth rites.”
“I’ve taken this matter to the higher-ups, and they seem pretty interested enough. ‘Y’all do what y’all think is best for the laddy’, they said,” Marco say, forming circles in the air with his right hand. “We’re not breaking the rules. We’re just bending them.”
The two judges argue for a while, and Thomas takes this opportunity to study Jongin and say, “You seem troubled. Is there something you’d like to ask?”
Jongin nibbles on his upper lip. “I’m - I was wondering if this time… I was wondering if he asked for his memories,” he whispers. “Like I did.”
Thomas looks surprised. “Well, no,” he replies, and Jongin’s shoulders sag.
Margaret sniffs airily when Marco flicks his plume at her. “The memories of your past lives are a big burden to bear. And unlike the rest of you, Jongin’s soulmate actually listened to my advice,” Margaret says, and turns to face Jongin. “You knowing is already a disaster that we cannot mitigate. It’s better if he doesn’t know that you exist.”
“I understand,” Jongin lies. “As long as he’s out there.” It’ll be fine. Jongin will try again.
~O~
( part 2 )
❊ title: yesteryear
❊ pairings: kai/d.o
❊ rating: pg13
❊ warnings: history dump, language, violence, character death, confusing timeline
❊ word count: ~49,300
❊ summary: Jongin has a soulmate. ― Reincarnation!AU
❊ a/n:thank you so much to my recepient for the lovely prompts! making this has been a super fun experience, and i got to write things that i never wrote before. thank you so, so much! i hope you'll like it! thank you to the mods for all their hard work, and for allowing me to participate in this exchange! and a super, super massive shout-out to A, my best buddy in the world, for beta-ing this and saving me from all those hiccups that stemmed from writing at three am in the morning. you're the best!!!
~O~
Korea’s first modern postal service
- Robert Nerf, The Korea Times
On the evening of Dec. 4, 1884, a banquet was held at the post office in Seoul to celebrate the successful inauguration of Korea’s postal system. Ironically, it was this celebration that helped doom Korea’s postal system as well as other early modernizations.
Just before 10 p.m., a small building near the post office was set afire luring Prince Min Yongik out into an ambush. An assassin severely wounded him but he managed, bleeding profusely, to stagger back into the building. By the end of the night the conspirators had gained a tentative control of the Korean government.
Despite the great confusion and excitement that filled the streets of Seoul, work went on as usual at the post office in Seoul until the afternoon of Dec. 6. Alarmed at the increasing number of Chinese soldiers in the streets and rumors of battle at the palace, the postal employees, Korean and Japanese, abandoned the post office. Over the next couple of days the post office buildings were ransacked and, except for the main hall, were burned by angry mobs of Koreans.
The ill-fated “Gapsin” Coup lasted a mere three days, but its toll was heavy. Many of the conservatives and their foes, the reformers, including Hong Yongsik, died in the fighting or were later executed. Not only was the postal service destroyed and discontinued but so too were Seoul’s first newspaper ― the Hanseong Sunbo ― and the three photograph studios in the capital ― all vilified as Western modernizations and pro-Japanese.
~O~
“The shamans have spoken,” a quivering man beside Jongin says. He cradles his head with his hands in a hushed prayer.
Jongin returns to eyeing his rifle. His head pounds. He digs his fingers into the earth to compose himself. The soil leaks from his fist.
Armed with bayonets and other artillery, the soldiers hunch behind the post office building. Their clothes are muddied from staying near the grasslands for too long, and the soles of their combat footwear are fastened together with rusting hobnails. Jongin looks around for a familiar face in his troop, but finds none.
Using fresh meat as the first line of offense is pretty ambitious of Kim Okgyun. The Meiji pulled it off, but Jongin has a sick feeling that maybe they can’t. Not right now.
He closes his eyes and takes deep, calming breaths.
Jongin’s stomach feels queasy, perhaps from the nervousness. He’s been jittery ever since they stepped out of the fields and it’s amplified by the uneasiness of the hundred other soldiers, but now, there’s something else tittering around the edges. It prickles, like millions of honeybees buzzing inside a hive, anxiously waiting for the right moment to carry out the queen’s orders. It’s a sensation he’s never felt before, and he clutches his abdomen, fearing that he’d vomit and make a fool of himself.
He figures he probably caught something, when he had no choice but to eat all the rotten things they serve back in the barracks. Week-old rice and overly squashed tomatoes. Jongin’s stomach twists again at the thought.
Behind closed eyelids, there’s a sudden wash of white that sweeps in and roars against his vision. His stomach coils, a chain in his gut lassoing until it springs and latches onto something. Jongin can feel the other end of it throb, like a quiet, beating heart.
He opens his eyes frantically, and there’s a man crouching in front of him. Unlike the rest of them, he’s facing Jongin instead of keeping an eye at the helm of the door.
Jongin’s gaze flicker to the silver flower badge at the man’s blue collar. Staff sergeant.
“No need for formalities,” the man says when Jongin scrambles to stand up and bow. “Your name? Your father’s?”
“Kim Jongin, sir. I am the only son of Kim Yeonsuk, a humble fruit merchant. Our family is a big supporter of the cause,” Jongin says. He keeps his eyes on the man’s boots, even if it’s terribly impolite to do so. He really feels like he’s in danger of throwing up.
“How old are you?”
Jongin answers promptly, “Fifteen, sir.”
Jongin hears a sigh, and a mumbled “Too young” being uttered to the cold, desolate air. Then, there’s a small, rectangular object wrapped in a golden foil being thrust into his hand, and Jongin’s eyes snap up.
The man’s face glistens a little with sweat, but he’s smiling despite the exhaustion.
“S-sir?” Jongin says, trembling. His stomach is doing that strange tugging sensation, pulling him from somewhere.
The man widens his smile, even if it looks wearier than the first. “The Japanese troops have been kind. It is the last of their ration, taken from the Westerners,” he says. “They call it ‘chocolate’.”
“Chocolate,” Jongin repeats, but when the word tumbles out of his lips, it doesn’t sound like the way the man had said it.
The man chuckles good-naturedly, and gestures for Jongin to rip it open and eat. “Have strength, Jongin-ssi. Tonight will be a long battle.”
It looks like the staff sergeant won’t take no for an answer. Jongin bows his head. “Thank you, sir. I…” He inhales. “I’ll do my best.”
The man nods approvingly as Jongin wraps his fingers around the chocolate. He grazes the man’s hand, and Jongin’s stomach lurches, harder this time, and he jerks his hand back abruptly that the chocolate almost falls out of his grasp.
When he looks up, the sergeant is eyeing him again, the skin on his forehead wrinkling in confusion. They stare at each other for a while. Jongin’s palm sweats under the foil.
The man takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair. He’s shaking a little. “Good luck, Jongin-ssi,” he says quietly, before standing up and moving on to talk to the rest of the troop.
Jongin’s gut protests, and he clutches on his navel even harder.
He follows the sergeant with his eyes, since the churning in his stomach doesn’t seem like it’s going to die down any time soon, and his chest burns a tiny bit. He’s probably failing in being discreet ― the guy whispering about sungmo and the rest of the gods a while ago regards him now with an odd expression on his face. He then moves to stare at the chocolate on Jongin’s hand, so Jongin pockets it.
He can’t crane his neck anymore when the sergeant decides to walk around the corner. Jongin hangs his head low again, wishing that the peculiar feeling in his stomach would go away soon.
~O~
Fate did not stand by their ranks. Their men were slaughtered, embarrassingly so, and Jongin felt that it was some sort of betrayal that he came out of the whole ordeal bruised and shaken up, but still very much alive.
He files with the rest of the mourning families at the registry. He trudges on the rocky path with no sense of purpose, until he's facing the man behind the desk. His gat droops quite wretchedly over his forehead. "Name?" the man says in a monotone.
"I do not know," Jongin says.
“What? Then why are you -”
"He is a staff sergeant. Third division."
"The third division has four staff sergeants, son," the man says quite exasperatedly. "Find out his name first and come back later. You are holding the line."
"Please. I need to know if he is alive," Jongin says. The fingers in his front pocket curl around the scraps of foil from the chocolate bar he viciously ate in blind hunger during the second day. "He has black hair and pale skin. His eyes are round and wide, and his lips are ―"
"There are five hundred people in the list ― do you expect me to know every single one of you? I need a name."
"He is very kind," Jongin says. "Perhaps you know of his kindness."
The man frowns. "If he truly is kind, he would have pulled you out of this suicide mission that bastard Okgyun concocted." He waves Jongin off. "Come back with a name, but do know that you are wasting your breath. Less than fifty of the soldiers survived. I rather doubt that your friend is still alive, even if the gods hold him in reverence for his kindness."
Jongin bows grimly and leaves the register. His chest aches dully, and his stomach keeps on protesting. His eyes fall on the small puddle at his feet, and his shoulders sag when he sees his reflection staring back at him, lost.
Jongin can't describe what it is that he's feeling. He’s not alone. His family is okay back home, and he’s alive. He survived. But somehow, it doesn’t seem right.
He feels sad. He feels miserable and alone, as if there’s a part of him that has been severed without warning, the chain breaking as savage ice chinks the steel braces. He feels really lonely.
Jongin's lips quiver, until he finally gives in and cries. He’s at a good distance from the registry, so there’s no one around to see him.
~O~
Jongin wakes up to a fire around him. Oddly, he doesn't feel the burn when the flames lick at his skin and clothes. He stands up, shakes off the dirt on his trousers, and runs wherever his legs will take him. He crosses his arms over his face as he lunges to the tall barrier of fire, and he makes it to the other side. Jongin peers down on his body. There are no scorch marks.
He feels fine, and that's the strangest thing of all, because he suddenly realizes he's walking over a path with jagged rocks that could pierce through the skin on his feet. There's no blood and no pain. Strange.
The faint wailing all around spooks Jongin even more, coating his arms with goosebumps. He looks up to find, instead of a ceiling, a thick cloud of black smoke.
"Hello?" Jongin croaks out, and it echoes eerily until it fades behind the disturbing wailing sound. He wonders if he's having a nightmare.
Not knowing what else to do, he follows the path. He remembers a flash, and pain shooting from his calf and spreading everywhere. He remembers his head hitting a boulder before blacking out and waking up to the fire.
An icy finger of fear slides down Jongin spine, but he forges on.
He's almost at the end when he stops. There are three people behind a long, maple table, very much like the desk inside the meeting hall where Jongin swore his allegiance to Okgyun’s cause in front of the presiding officers.
From this distance, Jongin can tell that these people are foreigners. People from the West. His hand flies to his side, but he doesn't have his dagger with him.
"Now, now, don't be shy!" the one in the middle calls. "Come here, monsignor! We can't assess you properly if you're standing all the way there."
Jongin blinks. He's definitely not speaking in Korean, but Jongin understood everything he said perfectly. He gapes at them, arms shaking.
"Oh, good lord, we’ve got another one of those," the woman on the left says. She places a hand under her chin. "Come forward, Mr. Kim. We promise we won't let Cerberus eat you."
What in the world is a cerberus? Jongin glances back, and it seems like he has no other choice but to move forward. The path disappeared.
Jongin goes and stands before them, and he keeps his back ramrod straight the way the byeongjang thought him to. The three folders on the desk are heavily inked with Jongin’s name on the cover.
“I think introductions are at an order.” The man in the middle bounces on his seat excitedly. His bushy beard drops low enough to conceal the whole of his neck, and his nose is strong, but bulbous at the end. His robes are as red as his funny-looking hat, and his light green eyes brighten when his gaze lands on Jongin’s filthy clothes. “But before that, how many garamas shall I give you for that fine specimen of silk ―”
The woman snorts. “Save that for later, Marco. There’re still a lot of them waiting to be judged. Let’s go right ahead and get this over with.”
Jongin’s stomach drops. Judged? “Umm, excuse me,” he says. “But… who are you? And what ― what am I doing here?”
“You are dead!” the man, Marco, chirps. One side of his mouth quirks to form a happy smile. “Deceased! Passed on! Whatever you’d like to phrase it.” He nudges the woman with a wink. “You may have the pleasure of explaining the rest, Marge. You’re the writer here.”
Margaret rolls her eyes. Jongin can tell that she’s been doing that a lot. She turns to Jongin, and he inadvertently shivers; her gaze is piercing. “I am Margaret Fuller,” she says. “The idiot on my right is Marco Polo from Great Italy, and at the other end of this table is Sir Thomas Jefferson, former president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence of 1776.” She says the last words with profound respect.
“Oh yes, right! Tom’s a writer, too,” Marco quips, grinning afterwards. He pats Thomas’ shoulder. “Sorry, monsignor. Have to hand the ball to the lady’s court once in a while.”
Thomas ignores him as Margaret throws a glare at Marco. “We have been appointed as judges of the departed souls for this century and the next, or until when the higher-ups thinks is wise,” Thomas says to Jongin. “At your service.”
Jongin can’t speak. He’s… dead? He looks down on his chest, rising and falling like it used to. He clamps his mouth shut tightly, and panics when he finds he can hold his breath longer than he used to without his head hurting.
Is he in hell? The wailing he heard earlier ― was that the sound of troubled souls lamenting for retribution? Is Jongin going to be one of them?
What about his family? Are they still alive?
Thomas opens the folder and leafs through the pages. Jongin trembles as Thomas runs his finger over the blocks of paragraphs. “Hmmm. You’ve lived a remarkably short life, Mr. Kim. A grand total of twenty-two years, five months and seven days. No notable achievements either, aside from becoming a trooper at such a young age.”
“I… I am sorry,” Jongin mumbles and bows, not knowing what else there is to say or do. His mind reels.
Margaret shakes her head. “Oh, no. You don’t have to apologize for anything. It’s just that it’s going to be difficult for us to know where to place you, since you haven’t exactly done anything that stands out enough to put you in Up or Below.”
Jongin wants to ask what is Up and Below, but thinks that they’d probably explain it to him later, once Thomas is done reading.
“I have killed a lot of people,” Jongin confesses. He recalls firing one bullet after another, moving forward to another direction as quick as he could, refraining from looking directly at the sunken faces of his fellow countrymen he’d hurt.
“Doesn’t say here you did,” Thomas says, not looking up from the papers. He turns another page. “You’ve always shot them at the leg. They probably won’t be able to walk again, but you’ve never exactly killed anyone.”
“However, violence is not something to be condoned,” Margaret intones. “It might be hypocritical of me to say so, since all three of us are children of war. But as someone who witnessed needless bloodshed, your participation in the suffering of eighteen other people in Seoul and Chemulpo is something that I will consider heavily.”
“You seem like a good person who’s made a lot of bad choices,” Marco says. His moustache quivers as he laughs. “So, Monsignor Kim. What are we going to do with you?”
Jongin bites his lower lip. He’s not exactly religious. He stopped praying to the gods and visiting the sadang in the mountains when he was twelve. He wishes that he’d paid more attention to what the shamans were saying.
There are three strangers judging the fate of Jongin’s afterlife. Jongin has no idea what to do, or how to react, if they somehow decide that he had been a horrible person for most of his life and put him where all those dreadful wailing noises come from.
“Huh,” Marco says suddenly. He’s circling a passage in Jongin’s file with a quill. “Says here you met your soulmate at age fifteen. That’s pretty rare, son.”
Jongin cranes his neck forward. “Soulmate?” he says.
Margaret quirks a thick eyebrow at Marco. “Soulmates is a Western concept, Marco. He probably doesn’t understand.”
“Nonsense! Even the Chinese have it!” He swivels his chair to turn to Jongin. He looks absolutely ecstatic. “Ever heard of The Red String of Fate, monsignor?”
“Uhh, no.”
Marco frowns and shakes his head. “Pitiful,” he says, mournful. “Absolutely pitiful. You are one of the lucky few who have been graced by Circumstance for a chance to meet and bind with the other half of your soul, but you were ignorant of this massive opportunity. What a shame.”
Jongin’s jaw slacks. “Other half? Of my what?” He’s not sure if he heard it right. “Soul?”
“Yes. Human souls are incomplete, such as myself. I am a fragment of a much bigger entity, purer,” Margaret tells him. “Though I must say that one does not need to look for the other soul which one is destined to be bound to. A soul can stand alone.”
“But Jongin encountered his,” Marco says in awe. “I have lived a considerably long life, but I never had the pleasure of meeting my soulmate in those sixty-nine years Time has blessed me with. It’s a marvel.”
“He’s not exactly lucky,” Thomas interjects. “His soulmate died after a few hours Mr. Kim had met him.”
Jongin’s supposedly dead heart startles. “H-he died? What?” he stammers. “Who was he? How did he die?”
“Can’t say, if you don’t know who it is,” Thomas says before smiling at him. Thin locks of silver hair fall to the side when he tilts his head. “I’m afraid it’s a strictly confidential matter. Anyone who died within this time period has to go through this hall, and we can’t divulge any information about the souls who have stood before us.”
Marco laughs and props his feet on the table. “But you already gave him a hint.” He smirks at the younger man. “Think fast, Jongin! At the battle in Seoul, who was the last person you talked to that stood out among the rest? Think. Trust your gut ― a wise traveller always trusts his gut.”
“I ―” Jongin can only think of the cold year of 1884, and the chocolate bar that had melted on his tongue and kept him warm and alive. He remembers a tired smile and unblinking eyes staring at him with mild befuddlement, as Jongin’s fingers tingled and his stomach twisted after their hands had touched. Seven years later, and it seems that Jongin hasn’t exactly forgotten about it after all. “I… I think…”
“There you go!” Marco cheers, beaming wide at Jongin’s flushed expression.
Margaret looks over at Thomas. “You meant to do that,” she accuses without heat.
Thomas smiles at her enigmatically. “I haven’t been here long enough, but I’ve done the math. It is rare. Just as Marco said.”
“One in a hundred million,” Marco informs them. He claps his hands together and sighs. “Most of them end up in tragedy, like this boy over here, which is such a sad thought.” He tuts. “We might want to have a talk with the higher-ups about this. It’s such a waste. A lot of people might have not ended up in the Pit if they met their soulmates and became happy.”
“But I do not know his name,” Jongin blurts, breaking his muddled thoughts, and all three of the judges snap their attention back to him. He fidgets, and continues, “Can I… can you tell me? Please?”
“I deeply apologize, Mr. Kim. That’s not our call to make,” Margaret says.
Jongin’s heart is beating too fast for him to catch up, threatening to crack his ribcage. That kind man with the sad smile is his soulmate, whatever that is, and Jongin’s insides bleat and tug at the knowledge of meeting someone who’s apparently supposed to be very important to him, and letting him get away and die.
“Can I see him?” Jongin tries again. His stomach is whining ― soulmates must be really a big thing. “He is here now, right?”
“Do you want to say hi?” Thomas says. He sounds amused.
“Uhh, yes,” Jongin settles. “And thank him, if I could. He was nice.”
“Well, I apologize again that I can’t say any more about your bond person,” Margaret says. “He is, I believe, an irrelevant matter to your case. Now, since we have insufficient material to gauge whether or not you are fit for either Up or Below, we’ll have to make you choose.” She waves for Jongin to come closer and places two sheets of paper on the table. They look like contracts.
“We have this usually when people die below the age of thirty, unless you’ve done something remarkable in your early years that we can decide the right place,” Margaret explains. She slides her quill towards Jongin’s hand. “The first one is that you’d live on Earth again until it’s time. In the second agreement, you’ll have to work in The Fields and prove yourself in ten, horrifying trials. Read them carefully and choose.”
Jongin’s eyes widen as he plows through words he doesn’t understand. “What do most people choose?” he asks.
Marco grins. “Why, silly boy, The Fields of course! Ten trials are nothing compared to all the things you have to suffer back on Earth.”
Jongin pauses, and looks over the contracts again. Quick agony in The Fields, or a slow burn in the land of the living? The golden seal at the bottom of each paper glints beside the thin line where he has to affix his signature with indelible ink.
The man, Jongin realizes with a halting jerk. He wasn’t that much older than Jongin, perhaps. He probably died before he reached thirty. “What did my soulmate choose?” he says.
The three figures turn to each other, their eyes having a silent discussion, and Jongin instinctively knows that he’s right. That person, whoever he is, had been given a choice, too.
“We are not at liberty to answer that,” Margaret says snippily. “Now choose, Mr. Kim. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t have an eternity.”
Jongin stills his breathing. His stomach has quieted into a sloppy kind of churning now, a still unpleasant feeling, but bearable. He’s going to have to trust what Marco said earlier. “I choose…” he mumbles. He grips the quill tightly and signs Kim Jongin on the first contract.
Marco erupts into a very loud laugh, and Thomas smiles at the side as Margaret rolls up the contracts.
“You two really are soulmates,” Marco remarks, slowly clapping his hands. “Oh boy, this is going to be fun!”
Margaret shushes him before going back to look at Jongin. She purses her lips and says, “You’ll be having the preliminaries at The Boat by The Dock. Marco will take you there and explain everything about your transit to your next life along the way. Do you have any more questions?”
Jongin has billions of questions, but he decides that it’s best to choose the one that he needs to ask the most, “In my next life on Earth, will I still remember everything that happened on my first?”
That seems to shock both Marco and Margaret, but Thomas doesn’t seem fazed at all. He closes Jongin’s folder, the mysterious smile still in place. “You’re going to look for him,” he says, a statement.
Jongin can feel his cheeks heat up as Marco guffaws again. Margaret gapes at him like he’s out of his mind. The embarrassment is kind of ridiculous to feel since he’s supposedly dead.
“It will be impossible,” Margaret claims, eyes still wide. “It’s not guaranteed that you’ll meet again for the second time.”
Jongin squares his shoulders. “It will get me through,” he says. “I will need a goal.” He’s good with goals. He kept himself alive and went home after every battle because his family needs him. Jongin only slipped once in his entire life, though, and that mistake ultimately landed him here.
“Soulmates are not important, and definitely not worth the trouble,” Margaret insists, and Jongin wants to believe that she’s right.
The chain in his stomach revolts and coils ferociously inside him. “Is it bad if we meet again?”
“Well, no,” Margaret replies after a while. “It won’t be a problem, but it’s not… something that I would choose for myself, really. Looking for my destined other half, that is.”
But Jongin’s already found him. He has seen him, touched him, spoken to him, at least once. He remembers feeling that particular shade of anxiousness that made him want to hurl, but he also recalls feeling that soothing blanket of white, and the happiness and excitement of holding someone else’s gaze for a long time.
Even if the chances are low, Jongin just wants to see him again.
“Memories are not good things to carry for people who will live again,” Margaret speaks up again, a warning, and Jongin gulps. “It will be more of a hindrance than an advantage. Are you willing to take on that extra burden?”
“Yes,” Jongin says, and then sighs inwardly. He really needs to think things through, sometimes. He hopes that in his next life, he’d be more sensible.
“Alright,” Thomas says as he clears the table. “That’s settled then. Marco will take you to The Dock while we get ready for the next soul. Marco?”
“On it, monsignor.” Marco leaps from his seat and dashes towards Jongin. He puts an arm around Jongin’s shoulders, and Jongin balks at the fact that he couldn’t feel it at all.
In front of Jongin’s very eyes, a new path forms out of the puffs of smoke. It’s less sinister than the bed of pointy rocks Jongin had to take before, but the difference doesn’t matter that much, apparently. He’s a soul now. He’s dead.
Jongin still can’t believe it.
“I see it still hasn’t sunken it yet,” Marco says with glee. The path behind them slowly unravels with each step as new bricks pop up in front of them. “You just wait when you get into your second life. It’ll give you the shock of the century.”
A thought occurs. “What about my body?” Jongin squeaks. “Will I get a new one?”
“Not necessarily,” Marco says. His hold around Jongin’s shoulders slackens as he makes wild gestures with his hands. “Most of the time, your body won’t be reincarnated with your soul. But since we’ll be skipping the skinny-dipping part, you’re going to live in the same shell, so to speak. It’ll make transition easier.”
“Skinny-dipping?”
“Usually we’d dump the people who chose the first contract in the Fountain of Forgetfulness.” Marco strokes his beard. Some of them tangle against his fingers, and he pulls at them with a resigned sigh. “The water will dissolve your previous memories, if you chose to part with them. But since you want to keep yours, just imagine, waking up in another era with a different face. Difficult, isn’t it? The first few cases we had that were like yours, they had trouble adjusting to their new identities.”
“So I will look exactly the same?” Jongin says, his heart leaping in hope. Maybe he can do this. Maybe he’ll succeed in this his second chance he’s been granted. No guns, and no wars. And perhaps ―
“What about him? My soulmate?” he muses out loud. “Is he…?” He feels himself deflate a little. How is Jongin going to find him if he doesn’t look like what he used to be anymore? It would take more than a single lifetime to scour the earth for him. Margaret was right. It’s impossible.
Marco gives him a long, hard look, before whipping his head right and left. He stops, and the path stops, and Jongin has to stop too or he’ll fall into the abyss.
The older man grasps Jongin by his shoulders. “Marge is going to kill me for this.” He exhales shortly, and before making a grim expression. “Are you serious, monsignor? Do you really want to find him?”
“Yes, of course,” Jongin says. “I mean, it would be very nice to see him again.”
The look Marco gives him is inscrutable. “Monsignor Kim, soulbinding is a very serious business, especially here in the afterlife. And you are the first in the last millennia to have met the other half of your soul on your first life. The most famous one we had was Helen and Paris. It was such a long time ago, but it caused a lot of trouble.” His grip tightens as he whispers, “I’ll do everything within my power to make searching for him a bit easier for you, but I have to be sure that you have every intention of finding him. Do you understand?”
Jongin licks his lips, and then nods.
“Do you swear on your soul?” Marco says firmly. “This is a promise of one traveller to another. Will you not stop until you find him?”
“I promise,” Jongin replies. “With all my heart.”
Marco seems pleased enough with this and lets go. He claps Jongin’s back and gestures for them to move again. Jongin, a little dazed, follows him.
The journey to The Dock is quiet for a while, until Marco lightens up and tells him of the last five hundred years he spent as one of the judges and keepers of The Gateways. Margaret and Thomas were the replacements of Hildegard and Lao Tzu, who both opted for an early retirement at the Oasis.
“Oasis?” Jongin says. There’s a large body of water right ahead, and a boat that could probably carry only five people. “What is that?”
“Part of Up. It’s the ultimate headquarters of the goody-goodies,” Marco says and grins at the gloomy sky. “Some are like you and your soulmate, who opted for a second lifetime to clean their ledgers. Some of them even tried for third and fourth.” He ruffles Jongin’s hair. “So be a bit more optimistic, monsignor! If you work hard enough, you might end up there when it’s time.”
They stop where the coal-black sand starts sifting under Jongin’s slippers. It’s more of a lake than a sea, with the mountains bordering the still, murky waters, but Jongin is not wholly sure. Miles of fog stretch as the younger man looks yonder, and Marco nudges Jongin aboard the boat.
A man holding a big pole that seems to be more of a make-shift paddle is eyeing Jongin expectantly. Jongin steps into the boat, and it sinks at the added weight. The whole vessel feels like it will tip over at the slightest movement. Jongin sweats as he tries to balance himself.
“Safe travels, monsignor!” Marco says, waving. Jongin wants to wave back, but the boat keeps on rocking dangerously, and so he gives the traveller a strained smile instead.
The man with the pole blocks Jongin’s line of vision of the shore. “Edge,” he says.
Jongin stares at him dumbly. “What?”
“Edge. Near the edge.” The man jerks his chin forward. “Sit.”
“O-oh. Yes.” Jongin slowly moves, the boat swaying as he goes, until he finally lowers his butt on the wood. He lets out a shaky breath after.
The man’s mouth curves in vague amusement before he pushes his pole and sets sail for Earth.
The whole lake is calm and creepy at the same time. Nothing moves except for them, the boat and the ripple of water below. The fog thickens as they come closer to the other side, and the roll of mountains start to disappear when the sky dims.
Jongin doesn’t know what to expect, or feel. He’s still not sure if he’s dead ― he doesn’t feel any different, and this might be one of those times where his imagination got ahead of him. It wouldn’t be such a surprise. He once dreamt of leading the Korean and Japanese reformers to victory against the Conservatives, and that there would be a world of peace and prosperity afterwards.
“Not bad,” the stranger blurts, and Jongin jumps on his seat a little in shock.
Jongin fondles his aching neck. “Err… what?”
The man smiles. His front teeth are yellow and rotting. “Last part of dream,” he explains. “Not bad. Good dream.”
Jongin’s mouth falls open. “Oh.” He feels tongue-tied.
The man grins, but doesn’t say anything anymore.
After a few minutes of nothing but a swirling expanse of fog, Jongin hears something as they approach. A stream of water, falling from a high place. It gets louder, and Jongin panics.
“Wait, ahjussi!” Jongin cries out. “There’s a waterfall right ahead! We have to turn back!”
The man shakes his head. “This okay.” His paddles grow stronger and they launch towards the steady current that speeds up as they go. “Close eyes.”
“Sorry?”
“Eyes.” The man mimes a hand forcing his eyes to shut. “Close.”
Jongin has no idea what’s going on, but he does as he’s told. He clamps his hands over his eyes and doesn’t dare peek, even if the rest of him is screaming to jump off the boat and swim towards safety. Judging from the roar of the water below, it’s going to be a high dive.
He can feel the whole boat lurch and stagger as rocks start edging the fall. Jongin holds on tight to the wooden braces, eyes still shut, and his stomach heaves.
“This is crazy!” Jongin yells, and they plummet.
Jongin doesn’t remember opening his mouth to scream. He can hear himself, though, but it’s muffled, as if he is shouting underwater, and the bubbles that manage to pop to the surface are the only evidence that he’s even there.
Jongin falls, and falls, and falls…
…
Somewhere in a quaint town in Korea, a newborn baby cries.
~O~
The king’s letter
- Lee Hangbok, Korea Joongang Daily
The recent discovery of a diplomatic letter written by King Gojong provided the strongest piece of evidence of Korea’s objections to colonization by Japan.
The letter took the form of a telegram written in Korean by the king. In it, he issues an order to the Korean minister to Germany, Min Cheolhun, which says: “Japanese officials came to the palace with their army and forced me to sign a document they had prepared. After that Japan named a governor and forced us to give up our diplomatic rights. Such a crime is unacceptable under international law. You [Min Cheolhun] have to alert Germany and ask for help. The last hope for me and for the empire is Germany and international law.”
The order was translated and handed over to the German foreign ministry on Nov. 24, 1905, but with no response. King Gojong then sent a personal letter, dated May 19, 1906, to German Emperor Wilhelm II, but internal affairs within the German foreign ministry prevented the letter from ever reaching the emperor.
Apart from the pleas he made to foreign countries, King Gojong also sent a secret mission to an international peace conference held in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1907 to let other nations know that the treaty with Japan had been signed under coercion and without the consent of the king and the public.
The mission failed, and the outcome proved disastrous for Korea. It prompted a member of the secret delegation, Lee Jun, to commit suicide. It also led Japan to force the king to abdicate the throne to his second son, Sunjong, the last king of Korea. Sunjong remained in power for just three years before he announced in August 1910 that the country had ceded all of its power to Japan.
~O~
“Hun-ah! I need you to go to the store and buy prunes and cabbage for me.”
Oh right, Jongin thinks. He’s Lee Hun, now, the twelve-year-old son of farmers Yoon Gayoung and Lee Daewon. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget.
Jongin stands up and ties the belt around his baji, making sure he’s wiped the grime off his face before dashing towards the kitchen.
“The money’s on the table,” Gayoung, his mother, says without turning to him. She’s busy tending to the boilers. “The basket’s at the back door.”
“Okay.” Jongin scoops the coins from the rattan top, dumping it all to the small pouch his mother has sewn on his shirt. “Prunes and cabbage?”
“And tomatoes,” Gayoung adds, and then frowns at the state of Jongin’s hair. “Clean that rat’s nest first before you head out, dear.”
Jongin hugs his mom’s waist and slings the basket to his arm. He sets off, careful not to step on the rice paddies as he jumps from one thickle bush to another. He flattens his hair with his fingers as he runs towards the clay road.
He’s in Kwangju now, far, far away from Seoul, his first home. Jongin doesn’t know how to get there, so he has no idea how his old family is holding up. He’s not even sure if they’re still alive.
Sometimes, it can get confusing, with the new layer of memories coating over the old ones. Jongin started recovering his memories at age seven, and he remembers the massive headaches he got whenever he couldn’t separate the old memories from the new ones. He often mistook Gayoung for Hana, his first mother, and kept on waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, screaming about bombs and gunfire. His new family grew a bit concerned about his welfare after that.
It’s better now, though. Jongin realizes that the happy memories come much faster than the bad ones, and it helps. He still gets headaches, and sometimes he still has nightmares, but now he has an idea what to look out for.
There are frequent images that flash through his mind when he gets ready for bed, memories that seem to be much stronger than the rest. A dark room, full of people screaming, and the faint smell of expensive spirit in the air. Jongin always feels sad about that, but after, there’s always a fleeting face that appears. There’s a smile that has the fireflies in Jongin’s stomach come alight, and it’s a smile that Jongin always takes with him wherever he goes when he wakes up.
Soon, Jongin finds himself surrounded by fruit stalls and dozens of shops selling lamb meat. Next to the locksmith around the corner, men of almost all ages have gathered around the gambling mat, laughing and yodeling. The roads are far better here than the ones near Jongin’s home since the army and the trucks pass by here once in a while, the lanes wider and smoothed out. Girls play neoltwiggi in a separate alley while the boys trade marbles and wrestle one another.
“Ahjumma!” Jongin says once he’s reached the vegetable store. “Hello!”
“Oh, Hun-ah!” An old lady with a sizeable straw hat over her salt-and-pepper hair says. She hunches over him and fixes his messy brown hair for him. She goes by the name Duri. Jongin likes Duri ahjumma, because she always gives him extra oranges whenever Jongin comes by the marketplace.
“Take a bath after this, Hun,” Duri tells him fondly. “You stink.”
“Okay,” Jongin says brightly. He holds out his wicket basket. “Can I have four hon’s worth of cabbages, and around two for tomatoes, please? And do you have any prunes?”
“We’re all out of prunes, dear. But we do have tomatoes and cabbage, fresh from the fields!” She beams. “Is your dad coming home from service?”
Jongin nods. “Mom says he’ll be back just in time for dinner. Haneul and I are making mud castles to welcome him back.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet of you kids?” Duri says. She fills up the basket and hands it to Jongin in exchange for the coins. “Run along, now. Maybe your father will be back sooner than you think.”
Jongin gives her what he supposes is his most brilliant smile before leaping back to the front alley. He waddles through the crowd of people and steps into the road as he checks the contents of his basket. There are five oranges squeezed right next to the cabbages. Jongin grins. Excellent.
Suddenly, he hears an ear-splitting shriek, but Jongin looks up a little too late. He first sees the terror in the eyes of a young lady carrying bread wrapped in a cheesecloth before his gaze locks on a hood of a moving vehicle, speeding right ahead until the bumper smacks him on the face. Jongin blacks out in an instant.
~O~
Margaret is smirking at him now. “So. Twelve years.”
Jongin fights back a scowl. “I’m sorry,” he starts. “I wasn’t…”
“You got hit by an automobile. Pretty nasty hit.” Marco shakes his head. “You know, I’m starting to think that having you run around with your memories is a bad idea.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Jongin says. “I keep forgetting that things are no longer what they used to be.”
Thomas’ eyebrows shoot upward. He pinches the tip of his quill with his two fingers. “You’re saying you’re going to try again?”
Jongin nods gravely. He tries to give them all a steady look. “I won’t give up,” he says.
Margaret’s smile downturns instantly. “If you focus your energies on finding your soulmate instead of doing your best in becoming a better person, then I don’t think you’re going to end up in the Oasis like you wanted to,” she says.
Jongin exhales through his mouth. “Yeah, I know. But I promised I’d look for him.” His eyes unconsciously fleet to Marco’s approving expression. “And I never said I can’t do both. I’ll be good, and I’ll find him.”
Thomas chuckles, and all three of them look at him in surprise. “Now I can see why Marco’s getting so fired up for this,” he says genially. His fingers are coated with ink. “I approve your request, Mr. Kim. One more life, until you’re satisfied.”
Jongin feels like his knees are going to give out under him. “Thank you,” he says, voice filled with relief. He bows deeply.
“Don’t mess it up,” Margaret says starchily, and hands him a fresh contract to sign.
~O~
Korea under Park Chunhee
- Henry Liu, Asia Times
After 15 years of repressive government, Syngman Rhee was forced out of office into exile on April 26, 1960, by student mass demonstrations against widespread corruption and despotic rule. On May 16, 1961, amid general political chaos and paralysis, Major General Park Chung-hee, carried out a military coup d'etat followed by an anti-corruption campaign that was welcome by the general public.
As president, Park instituted central planning and industrial policy and looked to prewar Japan as a model for developing the South Korean economy. The Park administration was ultra-nationalistic and anti-market, harking back to a Confucian culture that does not hold merchants in high esteem. Park nationalized Korean banks and imposed strict control on foreign exchange to use sovereign credit to develop the economy through industrial policy and subsidized export, taking advantage of US anti-communism to get preferential access to the US market during the Cold War.
Park leaned on the chaebol, large family-controlled conglomerates that responded profitably to government development plans, reserving basic industries such as steel for state-owned enterprises. Park proved that a planned economy with intelligent application of industrial policy was a more effective system for promoting rapid industrialization and national prosperity for a developing economy than market fundamentalism.
Under Park, South Korea sent 300,000 troops to Vietnam, and was rewarded by the United States with war purchases that helped the Korean economy and political tolerance that consolidated his rule.
~O~
Jongin grabs his coat and runs down to the delivery room. The air-conditioning has been wonky since Thursday, and the hallways are oppressive as he pummels down through them. He meanders through the crowd of men in lab coats and nurses and bloodied children and crying mothers. It’s New Year’s, so the hospital is packed.
“She alright?” Jongin asks one of the nurses. Carla, he thinks is the name she’d like to be called. Some of the people in the hospital like baptizing themselves with new American ones as a running joke.
“Yes, she’s doing okay,” Carla says. She makes way for Jongin to scramble towards the beat-up heart monitor. “I’ve been asking if she wanted anesthetic, but she keeps on telling me no.”
Jongin nods and turns to the woman. Her chart says Lee Sooyoun in widely spaced blocks. “Sooyoun-ssi, this is seriously going to hurt without the anesthetic,” he says, wiping the sweat off her forehead with his gloved hand.
“I know it will. Woojin is not my first son,” Sooyoun says. She gasps and writhes on the bed, and the nurses flurry over to her side. They hold her arms like bondages.
Jongin lowers his arms to her raised feet. The contractions are not sporadic now - right on schedule. He pushes the catheter away.
“Now,” Jongin says, steadying his hands. “Sooyoun-ssi, I want you to breathe in slowly.”
The woman screams.
~O~
Jongin loosens the knot on his tie and undoes three of the buttons of his polo. His arms ache, his neck is sore, and his jaw creaks when he opens his mouth to gulp in bland air. He’s been up and about for thirty seven hours, running only in caffeine and adrenaline, and all he wants to do is to curl up in his office and pretend that it’s okay to stop saving more lives until he’s saved his own.
But then his pager beeps, the one he’s saved for Diagnostics, and Jongin closes his eyes and groans. He plants his face flat on the desk before staggering out of his chair.
He makes a sloppy Windsor and slips his coat back on, pushing the door open with his free hand. The lights keep Jongin from banging his crotch against the armrests of the waiting benches around the hallway.
“Sir,” a voice calls out. “Sir. Sir.”
Jongin stops and looks down to his left. There’s a scrawny-looking kid in a midnight black tweed coat, the cuffs rough and the threads sticking out. His shoes look clean but worn. Second-hand.
Jongin tries to smile warmly enough to thaw the frost of the winter’s day. “Oh, hey there.”
“You’re Doctor Min Taeil,” the boy says, sounding surprisingly sure of himself.
“Yeah. Found your guy,” Jongin says. He turns around so they could be face to face. “What can I do for you?”
“You have a patient named Lee Sooyoun, right?” the boy says.
Jongin’s too surprised that he slips from the usual patient-confidentiality clause. “Yes. Why?”
The boy licks his lips. They look cold. “I’m her son,” he answers. He bows deeply. “I’m Jinsung.”
“Oh. Right, she did mention that you’re here,” Jongin says. He wants to reach out and ruffle the boy’s hair, like he usually does with kid patients, but the air around Jinsung tells him that the gesture wouldn’t be taken as something friendly. “It’s nice to meet you, Jinsung-ssi. Have you met your baby brother already?” He chuckles. “He’s adorable.”
“He is,” Jinsung says. He then pulls out a folded sheet of paper from his pants, scribbled with what seems like a to-do list. Jongin’s eyes widen.
Jinsung coughs a little to clear his throat. “My mom’s allergic to strawberries and peanuts,” he informs Jongin. “She gets cramps a lot. ‘Round her thighs. Her neck becomes stiff when she sits upright for too long, so I usually -” He presses two of his fingers on his own nape. “Massage her around here, to relieve the knots and stuff.”
Jongin doesn’t realize he has his mouth open wide until his lower jaw starts to ache. “Uhh, Jinsung-ssi,” he begins. “Where’s your dad?”
Jinsung glares at him. “He’s not coming, so you’ll have to talk to me.” he says tightly. “Why? Does that bother you?”
“No. No, it doesn’t.” Jongin sinks to his knees to level their height, and he sees it.
Brown-black eyes with unusual depth. Thick eyebrows and stubby nose. The only things that look out of place are the long unkempt hair and the harsh edge in his cheekbones.
Jongin has to inch back and take a lungful of air, his whole body trembling in shock. It’s him. Jongin has found him again.
“Are you okay, sir?” Jinsung says, demands, and Jongin has to shudder away the nervousness, joy, relief, and sadness before pasting a new smile on his face.
“Jinsung - can I call you that? - it’s alright. The cafeteria downstairs doesn’t serve food with common allergens. And thank you for telling me that. There’s nothing about her cramps and stiff neck in her medical history.” Jongin leans in, careful. Jinsung’s eyes are really as wide and dark as he remembers. “How old are you?”
Jinsung definitely doesn’t like that question. His mouth tightens. “Fourteen,” he says, turning back to his list again. “She gets a cold easily, so you have to change the sheets often. She always wheezes a lot in the morning…” His gaze flickers at Jongin for a moment. “Maybe she needs medicine for that.”
“It’s rhinitis,” Jongin says. “Don’t worry. It’s very common. We’ll get her something for that.”
Jinsung looks at him tentatively. “How much is it?” he questions. “Is it expensive?”
“Oh. It’s…” Jongin scratches his chin. “It’s okay, Jinsung. Sooyoun-ssi gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and your mother and brother are both fine. She’s a little tired, but she’ll be discharged as soon as she gets strong enough. You don’t have to worry so much.”
Jinsung lowers his head. “It’s a public hospital, and it’s New Years,” he mutters. “There are a lot of people around.”
I have to make sure you’re taking care of her right, is what fourteen-year-old Jinsung wants to tell Jongin, in a way they’ve all been taught since primary school. Polite, discreet, and implicit.
Jongin doesn’t succumb to the urge to frown and hug Jinsung tight until it hurts. Instead, he places a hand over Jinsung’s shoulder, in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. “You’re going to make a great doctor, Jinsung,” Jongin says.
Jinsung leans onto his touch slightly. “Really?”
“You have a knack for details.” Jongin chuckles. “I have this strange feeling that you’re going to be a better doctor than I am, and quite frankly, I’m the best of the lot here.”
“Maybe.” Jinsung hands the doctor his list. It’s very elaborate, tiny blocks of Hangeul in bullet form.
Jongin waves the paper with his fingertips before pocketing it. “See what I mean? Now, you should grow up faster and work as my assistant,” Jongin says. “We seriously need a lot of people like you in this hospital.”
“Alright.” Jinsung gives him a small smile, just a slight curve of the lips, and Jongin’s waiting heart warms.
~O~
Jongin wakes up to the sound of rain pounding against the window. He blearily pushes himself from the table, the old, swiveling chair groaning as he does. The festivities have dulled down to a stop, and now it’s dark outside. It makes Jongin want to go back to sleep, but his spine creaks and tells him that three hours of rest is all he’s getting for today.
He checks up on his patients one by one, saving Sooyoun for last. But when he comes around the room she shares with two other patients, he finds that her bed is empty. There are fresh creases on the sheets, like ripples in a stream, and Jongin heads out and pages for Carla.
“She’s been discharged” is what Carla replies when Jongin asks her about it.
“What? Why?” Jongin says. “But I didn’t say she can. I didn’t even get to check her again if she’s fine to leave.”
“He said she can,” Carla says, pointing up, where the office of the head of OB’s department reside. “It’s that time of the year. We need the room.”
Jongin knows exactly what she’s talking about. Even if it’s happened so many times before, it still succeeds in turning him inside-out. A small part of him had actually been anticipating it, but it never really lessened the blow. Hospital policies have always been cruel, and Jongin feels so powerless against it.
He wants to shout at Carla, even if he knows she wasn’t the one calling the shots.
“She just had a baby,” Jongin says. “You should’ve just let her stay for the meantime, even if she can’t pay for everything.”
Carla doesn’t respond, and only eyes him gently. She’s worked with him long enough, and knew all the words he wasn’t saying.
Jongin breathes harshly through his mouth and rubs a hand to his cheek. “Tell me beforehand next time, okay?”
Carla answers with a solemn nod, and Jongin whisks himself away from the suffocating hallways. He tries not to think about Sooyoun and her son too much and resolves to help the people he can.
~O~
Another eighteen years and Jongin is here again.
“Is he still going to be there?” he questions after hearing the news that Jinsung had already passed the Gateways. “Will I still see him?” Did he pick rebirth?
Margaret sighs and gives him a faint nod. “Thank Marco for that one,” she says with barely hidden spite.
Marco beams. “What? All I did was make his soulmate a bit curious,” he says. “How’s another century going to hurt anyone?”
Margaret gives the man a fierce glare. “We’re breaking all the rules,” she grieves. “It’s ridiculous. No one should be an exemption to the rebirth rites.”
“I’ve taken this matter to the higher-ups, and they seem pretty interested enough. ‘Y’all do what y’all think is best for the laddy’, they said,” Marco say, forming circles in the air with his right hand. “We’re not breaking the rules. We’re just bending them.”
The two judges argue for a while, and Thomas takes this opportunity to study Jongin and say, “You seem troubled. Is there something you’d like to ask?”
Jongin nibbles on his upper lip. “I’m - I was wondering if this time… I was wondering if he asked for his memories,” he whispers. “Like I did.”
Thomas looks surprised. “Well, no,” he replies, and Jongin’s shoulders sag.
Margaret sniffs airily when Marco flicks his plume at her. “The memories of your past lives are a big burden to bear. And unlike the rest of you, Jongin’s soulmate actually listened to my advice,” Margaret says, and turns to face Jongin. “You knowing is already a disaster that we cannot mitigate. It’s better if he doesn’t know that you exist.”
“I understand,” Jongin lies. “As long as he’s out there.” It’ll be fine. Jongin will try again.
~O~
( part 2 )