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dreamcatcherjiah · 4 years

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Until we meet again. JK x reader

Part 1

A/N: @mabel-k3 sent these my way and I had a fantastic idea so I asked her and she allowed me to combine both!! What beautiful requests, these have unleashed my creativity big time!! Thank you for requesting, Momo!!

Also thanks to my lovie @lysjeon because she hyped me up so much after reading it and what can I say? THANK YOU TO YOU BOTH 🥺🥺🥺

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x reader (Jungkook has different names throughout his different lives, but they’re easy to spot ;))

Genre: ANGST, fluff, Reincarnation fic

Word count: 11.5k

Warnings: graphic violence, weapons, mentions of death, mentions of war, assassination, main character death (repeatedly), (and I think that’s it. If you find something triggering that I haven't listed, please let me know!! Enjoy!!)

Kingdom of Great Joseon, Hanseong. Year 1398.

Voices carried through the garden. Some of the guards were posted at the doors to prevent the peasants from entering the palace. Or to stop someone from getting out. The tumult and noise wouldn’t stop, carried by gossipy maids and new, inexperienced soldiers. They would learn, either one way or another. The Palace had been in an uproar since the King started thinking about abdicating, the Princes feeling uneasy, waiting to see which one of them would wear the crown next. Having listened to your fair share of courtly gossip, as the first assistant to the royal doctor, you knew there was actually no love lost between the Princes. Their attitudes were haughty at best and most of them were more concerned with their whimsy pursues than the good of such an incipient kingdom as Joseon was. King Taejo was a good monarch; he made peace with China and the Ashikaga Shogunate, bringing peace to his country after many years of war and uncertainty, yet it seemed his problems laid closer to Hanseong than he would have hoped.

His advisors had been the most loyal to him until the moment came when they had to pick a side to place their loyalty. Only one of his eight sons would become King and with him would come new favours to those who supported him and punishment for those who went against him in the battle for the throne. Word at court was that one of Taejo’s advisers, Prime Minister Jeong Do-jeon, was siding towards the two sons Queen Sindeok had borne the king. He had managed to place Prince Uian as the main heir to his father a few years back, but the opinion of most of the advisors was leaning towards the opposite direction; Crown Prince Uian and his brother Prince Muan may have been the most beloved by the King, but it was clear they were not what the kingdom needed of a monarch.

“Word has it in the King’s chamber that he will heed Jeong Do-jeon’s advice and do away with the Fifth Prince once and for all,” said one of the Queen Shinui’s chambermaids. The Fifth Prince, Prince Jeongan, was the favoured alternative at court. He was everything his half-brothers weren’t, intelligent, determined, and good for the kingdom. Naturally, he was a threat to Do-jeon and his cohort. “I hope Crown Prince Uian does become king,” she said, a dreamy cadence to her voice, “I may think about asking my father to introduce me as a possible consort.”

They were so enthralled in their conversation that they did not notice how they were directly in your path and neither did you, carrying boxes of supplies definitely too heavy for you. The inevitable crash echoed through the place as an explosion, glass vases and tonic bottles breaking, the minuscule shards of crystal flying in every direction leaving you, sitting ungracefully at its centre looking bewildered and quite a bit furious.

“What in the world do you think you were doing, gossiping like that?” you asked them. Your authority in the palace giving you quite the leverage to properly chastise these two silly girls. “What would have happened if it had been a higher official you had crashed into? Or, God forbid, one of the Princes or someone from the royal family?”

That last remark made them both drop to their knees and start profusely apologising. The prospect of losing their heads was a tad bit more fear-inducing than crashing into the Doctor’s apprentice and doing away with their supplies. As they scurried away and you picked up what you could salvage from the floor, you thought how convenient it was for them, here in the palace; their fathers trusted advisors to the King, with significant names backing them with years of honour and courageous deeds for the advancement of the monarchy. They would have everything they asked for at their feet if they so much as muttered they found themselves wanting it.

Passing through one of the storage rooms by the Doctor’s quarters, a hand emerged out of nowhere and you found yourself losing your balance and the grip you had on the glass of herbal poultice you rescued from the wreckage in the garden, which crashed on the straw floor with a muted thud.

“What you did back there to the daughter of Nam Eun could as well cost you your head,” said a voice you could recognise in a crowd. The soft chuckle that accompanied the threat and the sweet of his breath against the shell of your ear calmed your anxious thoughts and gave freedom to your heart to beat its way out of your chest. Strong, calloused hands circled your waist and you found yourself leaning against a firm chest that vibrated with his laughter and got closer and closer to you with every breath he took. “But I won’t tell on you, my dear.”

Turning around, you laid your eyes in the weathered and dirty face of the person you held most dear in this world. Oh Jookee was the captain of the Palace Regiment assigned to the protection of the Crown Prince and he had just arrived from accompanying him on a stakeout, preparing for the hunting season. His brown eyes held yours tenderly and his whole face morphed as he tried to contain a smile from overtaking his features. His pink lips finally gave way to that beautiful smile, his eyes turning into crescents and his cheeks becoming flush with happiness.

“My love, how did you manage to come back so… untidy?” you asked, pushing back some stray hairs that had escaped his manggeon. His hair was curling at his temples having escaped from the confines of the leather binding in at the top of his head. The accessory was a bit crooked and you could see the sweat beads along the black cloth. He gave you the image of how he must have been when he was younger and played on the dirt with his brothers. “I thought the Crown Prince just wanted to breathe some fresh air and prepare for tomorrow’s outing?”

Jookee nuzzled his nose along the column of your neck, causing that welcomed current from the tip of your toes to the end of the longest hair on your head. You hadn’t seen each other in months, and this meeting, while short-lived and clandestine, would be what would carry you through the months before you could ask the king permission to marry.

“We encountered some trouble on the way back and thought it prudent to bring the Princes back earlier. They are in Prince Muan’s chambers as we speak and I am required to join them presently.” He said. Even though he was young to be in such a powerful position, he took his duty to heart and he would never disobey an order, which made you question what he was doing hiding with you in the supply cupboard, and so you made him aware of your worry.

“You know Crown Prince Uian,” he answered, a sardonic smile spreading his lips after he managed to steal a kiss from yours, “he enjoys beauty and pristineness. In my present state I am still beautiful, but much less than pristine,” he joked. “I was sent away with the mission to do myself up with clothes fitting for a general, my dear.”

“Why, General Oh, I am afraid you will find yourself quite a long way away from your quarters,” you flirted. “How will you go back to the Prince in time, and all decent, if you don’t leave me now?”

Laughing at your poor attempt at jesting, he hugged you close to his chest, releasing a sigh when he couldn’t get his body any closer to yours. The happiness you felt in these kinds of moments was matchless to anything you had ever felt before meeting him, and nothing you would feel in your life together from then on.

“I must change my clothes, I am afraid,” he said, separating himself from you, slowly as if it was costing him an immense effort to do so, “go back to your master and be careful today, my flower,” he frowned. “The slight inconvenience I mentioned before is not yet taken care of, please watch yourself.”

Knowing he wouldn’t play you with something he didn’t consider serious, you promised to be more mindful of your surroundings and watched him go, with happiness in your heart and that already familiar sensation in your whole being, that sensation you felt every time you were forced to part.

It was nearly dusk when you were called to what used to be Queen Sindeok’s chambers before she died. A normal occurrence, it made you be just that bit more careful today. Even though Jookee’s warning managed to keep you on your toes through the day, there was no harm in being reasonably suspicious. After all, you were living in court.

Princess Gyeongsun, regal and poised, was sitting at a low desk in the middle of the room, flanked on both sides by her brothers, Crown Prince Uian and Prince Muan. Giving a quick overview of the room before being granted access, you located Jookee easily, a very imposing presence by Crown Prince Uian’s elbow. He looked completely different, wearing dark clothing beneath his shining armour and a concentrated scowl distorting his handsome features. He was the living, breathing image of a hero. His eyes drifted to yours for a brief second and you noticed how his mouth set in a thin line and a crease of worry settled between his brows.

With a twist of her wrist, the Princess called you over, and you busied yourself with serving her special tea blend, infused to perfection, just the way she enjoyed it. The Princes were bickering, back and forth, about some unbelievable treason they had not expected, how it completely changed the power game between the walls of the palace. Having been living this power struggle since you arrived at the palace five years prior, you were quite accustomed to the tension and the fear of betrayal that so delicately held the equilibrium of life in court; that being said, there was a seriousness to Crown Prince Uian’s tone that you had never heard before. He was the youngest of the princes, carefree and with a happy disposition, so to say that the frown adorning his features was disturbing was quite an understatement.

Chancing a look at Jookee’s face, you noticed his eyes moving nervously from the windows on the sides of the room, flanked by armed soldiers of the Crown Prince’s guard, to the door equally heavily guarded. Something was seriously amiss, but you needn’t have wondered any longer, as there was a commotion by the door and Jookee along with some of his soldiers moved in unison, blocking the Princess and Princes, and subsequently you, from whatever it was that waiting on the other side of the door. After a few minutes, silence took over and the tension escalated. Prince Muan was whispering furiously to his brother, his face red and distressed.

“We should have fled the palace,” he was saying, “as soon as we found out Do-jeon was murdered!” When those words left the Prince’s lips you knew how serious the situation was. The delicate equilibrium of power had just been altered with the death of the most powerful pawn at the hands of a very powerful enemy. “We should have never trusted him, he played you brother—”

Jookee made a curt but powerful hissing sound that managed to shut the Prince’s mouth in an instant. In any other circumstances, that would have gotten him the most severe of punishments, but as things stood, Jookee and his men were the only thing standing between certain death and the royals, and both princes knew that.

The doors imploded and in flooded many soldiers led by a very tall imposing man: Grand Prince Jeongan, the Fifth Prince. His face was impassive and his clothes were covered in dry blood. He didn’t seem at all bothered by this fact, as he wasn’t at all worried that the blood of the people he had murdered at the door was reaching his shoes. He straightened his shoulders and marched on forward, standing eye to eye with Jookee.

Your blood turned to ice. Jookee was the Captain of Prince Uian’s guard. If this was an attempt on his life, he would be the first one to fight. He could keep up in a fight, you had been witness to his quick strength and cold strategy when he trained on the palace grounds, grace and sheer power emanating through every pore of his body. But still, he was a guard sworn to protect the royal family, what was his fate when faced with such a decision as to protect one brother from the other? He would be seen as a traitor if he did so much as to grace Prince Jeongan with his sword, but if he resisted and didn’t raise his weapon, he would be seen as a traitor either way and executed for it. Your heart was trying to beat its way out of you, this time out of utter terror for what was about to happen. Your thoughts were your own, and so you allowed yourself to pray for him, to pray for the brightest star in the universe, the reason you drew breath every morning, you prayed for him to know his duty but also to know the value of his own life in a world that valued it so little in comparison to the people he was sworn to protect.

Time seemed to be at a stand-still, Prince Jeongan and Jookee face to face, looking each other in the eye, not a word being uttered. The Prince was a few years older than Jookee and much older than his brothers by Queen Sindeok, the youngest of them having barely turned sixteen last spring. There had been a time when the brothers played together and there was deep respect from the younger ones to the older, and a deep sense of responsibility and desire to protect the younger ones from the older princes. Now there was only betrayal in the eyes of the Fifth Prince and utter fear in the eyes of his younger siblings.

“You have no authority to stand on the way of a Prince, General. Move aside while I feel benevolent,” Prince Jeongan’s voice was deep and imposing, the voice of a person who was used to having his will fulfilled and his detractors beheaded. Turning your head, you saw Jookee’s shoulders take an even more determined stand and he stood, taller, determined, while more soldiers filled in the room.

Prince Muan, taking advantage of the distracted state of his older brother, had moved slightly to his right, so he was partially hidden behind Princess Gyeongsun. In the meanwhile, his younger brother, Crown Prince Uian had shifted in his sitting position and was sitting facing forward, towards the soldiers, with an impassive frown and a set sneer. In your opinion, neither one of them was fit to be king of Joseon, but you knew now who was the best of the two; at least the King had managed to marginally avoid putting a gutless puppet on the throne.

“If I move aside you may do something you will regret, my Prince,” answered Jookee, his voice calm and levelled. His words were not betraying the tumult that he was sure to be feeling inside. In a subtle movement, while he was still watching the Fifth Prince carefully, his eyes turned to you and you wanted nothing more than to tell him not to worry for you, to keep his head where it should be. “If you are here to talk to your brothers, allow the Princess and the servant to leave, they shouldn’t hear what will be said here tonight.”

You had no time to wonder what that was, for the prince had already drawn his sword and was pointing it towards Jookee’s throat, making thick droplets of sweat appear on your temples.

“And allow them to go warn my dear father’s guards of my presence here?” Jeongan chuckled and pressed forward, his sword drawing blood from Jookee’s skin. “I don’t believe so. It is, however, such a pity that you should find yourself here, General Oh, on the night I have come to kill my brothers.”

Those words made the night turn into chaos. With a swiftness you didn’t think him capable of, Prince Muan raised his sister from her cushion and moved with her towards one of the windows. The Princess, scared, reached for you and dragged you along behind her coward of a brother. When you were close to the window, you realised there was a shadow moving behind it. What a terrible mistake to leave the windows unattended when the prince entered. With a crashing certainty you knew now there was going to be a bloodbath tonight and there was nothing you could do to either flee the scene with Jookee unscathed or having him leaving with you willingly. What a horrible night for all the intrigues in the palace to come to fruition.

The soldiers charged forward and Jookee finally drew his sword to fight off the Prince, his movements fast and certain to try to defuse the sheer rage with which Prince Jeongan was pushing him backwards. The closer the squabble got to the Crown Prince, the harder he fought, and the harder Prince Muan pushed his sister to get to the window. Reacting just in time, you pulled the Princess backwards in the same second the window burst open and an arrow pierced the Prince’s chest. Incredulous, he dropped his eyes down in time to see a crimson stain spread over his blue silk-covered chest. Mere seconds after his eyes rolled back into his skull and his body dropped to the floor as if he had been nothing more than a marionette whose strings had been severed. Princess Gyeongsun, to her credit, kept a stoic and quiet calm even while life escaped her brother and got a hold of your hand. The both of you retreated to the furthest corner of the room while the fight to get to Crown Prince Uian was still ongoing and the bodies were dropping to the floor at an alarming rate. Jookee, now fighting the Fifth prince tooth and nail, kept his place close to the door, mindful of his surroundings in case he had to intervene if one of the soldiers got too close to his charge. More soldiers were entering through the now open window and now there was the added issue of arrows flying in all directions through the narrow window, taking down both friend and foe.

One of the Fifth Prince’s soldiers got rid of the guard fighting him off and advanced on the Crown Prince. Jookee, seeing this, turned his back on Jeongan and dispatched him before he could reach his target. In the few seconds that passed between the soldier falling and him looking at you, the dimension of his faux pas dawned on you. With his back unprotected and his eyes fixed on you to make sure no wounds were visible, he didn’t see Prince Jeongan raise his sword over his head and drop it in a powerful arch that cut deep wounds onto Jookee’s legs. The momentum propelled him forward, landing on his knees with a deep grimace of pain distorting his features.

You were frozen, pushing your body against the Princess’ so that she would come to no harm, but your whole world was leaning out of its axis. Your breath caught in your throat and all you could do was watch helplessly as the Fifth Prince walked by Jookee as if he was nothing more than an insect and approach his brother, who remained imperturbable and unmovable at the table. Looking up at his older brother, his frown still set, he straightened his shoulders and adopted a regal pose he rarely displayed.

“What are you doing here, brother?” he asked, knowing perfectly well the circumstances of his brother arriving at the palace in the middle of the night, and still enquired.

“You know perfectly well why I have come, little one,” he answered, sneering down at the young prince. “There was an attempt on my life not two days ago by that rat, the Prime Minister! And you and your filthy family were all behind it!” his voice was rising with each word, ending on a terrible scream that made the paper lamps hanging from the columns tremble.

Jookee was still kneeling, two soldiers standing rock-still next to him, one sword at his throat, the other at the nape of his neck. His eyes kept moving from where you were standing at the back of the room, to the quarrelling brothers, not knowing what to do, whom to help. He looked utterly helpless, his shoulders slumping and his trousers absorbing the spilt blood of his men. When you caught his eye, you saw the intense desperation that his eyes were hiding. You were aching to run to him, to tell him everything would be all right, but with the corpse of Prince Muan at your feet, you felt that the circumstances wouldn’t actually improve.

“That conspiration you are mentioning, brother, was staged by my mother Queen Sindeok and the Prime Minister as you so eloquently put,” spoke then the Crown Prince, “At present, I believe neither of them is a threat to you; the Queen died two years ago and I believe you did away with Do-jeon’s head not so long ago.”

“YOU ARE A THREAT TO ME!” Jeongan shouted. “Don’t you see? Had you not blindly followed your mother schemes; you wouldn’t have to die!”

The princes faced each other now, Jeongan in his thirties and Uian barely a teenager, both standing their ground. You could see their younger versions, the siblings everyone saw when the Fifth Prince would come back from a campaign in the name of his father and his siblings would be waiting for him in the palace, waiting for him to tell them the stories of his exploits and missions. What a fanciful far away dream that was.

With a snap of his wrists, one of his soldiers zeroed in on you and the Princess, who stood her ground with a presence few were able to muster in such circumstances. The man didn’t immediately make any move to grab any of you but his menacing eyes were set and his mouth contorted on a wicked rictus. He was the kind of soldier who thoroughly enjoyed his job; they were rare, those who instead of the honour of serving the royals sought only the power and the bloodbath, but they did exist. Jookee noticed him approaching from his position on the floor behind the princes and your hopes of leaving the room alive flew out of the window upon seeing his ashen face turn even whiter. You tried to convey how much you loved him with one look but the brute got in between and you could only see the soldiers pointing their swords at your lover’s throat.

“You have always sneered down at me knowing you would be sitting on the throne, safely away from me, when I realised how deeply treachery ran in your blood,” someone was saying. Your ability to concentrate on anything happening around you was slipping away from you, a blindly, white panic taking its place. “You shielded yourself with all the glamour and fanfare while your family were busy scheming, even your dear siblings conspired against you.”

As if some silent signal had been given, the Princess was taken from your side and made to kneel next to her brothers. She was still impassive, but now that façade wasn’t so much bravery in the face of danger, but actual knowledge of what was going to happen in the room and certainty that it wouldn’t affect her.

“You see, out of all our sisters, this one here has proven herself quite useful,” Jeongan droned on, unbothered by nothing while the future of a kingdom hung on the tip of his sword. “I was told ambition is not an appreciated trait on a woman, but I’m inclined to disagree. You can leave the room now, sister,” he said while she rose to her feet. She was nearly out of his reach when he reached out with his hand and caught her arm just above the elbow. “I don’t need to tell you that your presence here and what has happened tonight is not for public ears, now do I?” She shook her head and scurried out of the room faster than lightning.

If his sister’s betrayal did something to the Crown Prince, he didn’t show it. His face remained unreadable, his eyes fixated on the Fifth Prince as he pranced around him, comfortable in his victory. After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, Jeongan faced Crown Prince Uian for the final time and raised his sword in a silver, lethal arch. Aside from a minuscule flinch, the younger prince didn’t betray any reaction to the crimson stain spreading over his silk garments, nor to the metallic smell that seemed to penetrate the pores of every person in the room.

“I could let you live,” said Jeongan, “if you begged for your pathetic life on your knees. You have no supporters and you have proven to be the coward every single one of your detractors thought you were.”

Jookee was vibrating with rage behind the Princes. His eyes were thin slits that promised murder. In all the years you had known him, he had never looked as lethal and dangerous as he did now. He had been tasked with protecting the Crown Prince when he was no more than a boy himself and he had told you many stories about who Uian really was behind his mother and the minister’s plans. Granted, Jookee was as exasperated with the younger man’s excessive knack towards frivolity as everyone at court, but he also admired the Prince’s tenacity and courage. Growing up in the shadows of bigger people has taught him how to stand out, and yet remain unseen, he had told you one day, while the two of you returned to the palace from a festival in the city. He was relaxed back then, the Queen was still alive and, even though Minister Do-jeon was meddling on the King’s affairs more than recommended, the air of the palace wasn’t stale with tension and the expectation of tragedy, at least not for a few more years. It was around that time when he took you to his hometown and introduced you to his family; his mother, who shed tears as soon as her son told her his intentions on marrying you, his father, a stern man but who had warm eyes and very pleasant disposition; and his older brother, a high ranking officer in the King’s personal guard. You had spent the week helping his mother with anything she needed, tending to visitors and sharing private smiles with him. Happiness filled you back then.

“You came here to kill me,” answered Crown Prince Uian, bringing you back to a much darker present, “so go ahead and do it. I will not be considered some lesser being and be reduced to begging for my life.”

Upon seeing the older Prince raise his sword you started struggling against the thug keeping you in place. To impede you from reaching the royals, the soldier threw any decency to the wind and, taking advantage of his position, groped you all over. You hardly noticed as Crown Prince Uian straightened his shoulders and faced his brother head-on, for you were trying your hardest to escape the ruffian and get closer to them, perhaps if you could get rid of him and run fast enough you would be able to get in between the sword, avoid more years of chaos and instability. A double assassination could throw the kingdom into war and that could not happen.

“That’s it, you little bitch, you asked for it,” growled the man, and seconds later pain exploded from just below your ribcage, ripping through you until you felt the skin of your back breaking apart. There was a moment of blissful nothing until the sword was hastily jerked from your body and your body broke into violent spasms, your knees giving away and collapsing on the floor with an audible thud.

“NO!” you heard Jookee scream, an agonising growl, almost animalistic, as if it had been ripped from the deepest part of his soul. You heard him from a distance as if your head was submerged in water. The black edges of your vision made it difficult to see through the haze setting in; there was movement and a good amount of noise, of which you couldn’t make any sense, as the room tilted and you felt your temple hit the ground. In comparison with the flaming hot agony you felt around your mid-section, this injury felt ridiculously insignificant.

“Restrain him!” was saying the Fifth Prince, but Jookee was putting up an impressive fight. Not minding the swords at his throat, he rose to his feet and charged forward, swinging his sword at anything on his way to you. Rotten luck his was, as one of the things keeping him away from you was Prince Jeongan, who narrowly missed one of Jookee’s swings by a mere breath, jumping aside and seizing him by the hair at the back of his head. The crazed look on your boy’s face slipped away for a second and you could see the determined captain fighting against his better judgement and thinking if whether or not it would be worth it to raise his sword against the Prince. “You fool,” the Prince droned on, a dangerous glint in his eyes, “do you even know what you could have done? Had you left a scar in my body, I wouldn’t have been able to become king and all these assassinations would have been fruitless! I see you care more about some servant than the people you’re tasked to protect, do you not? If I recall correctly, the punishment for high treason is death.”

If you weren’t already trembling and cold, the ice that covered your heart at the Prince’s threat would have had you an incoherent mess in the floor in seconds. Your throat produced a drawn-out wheezing sound, but no one paid any mind to the agonising woman on the floor, not even your murderer, who had gone back to his position behind Jeongan.

Restrained from moving by the strong hand yanking his head back by the hair, Jookee moved his eyes to look at you and you could see through them how much it was breaking him to see you on the floor, away from him, and not being able, if not to take the pain away, to be next to you. He turned his gaze to the Prince and, with a voice clearer and steadier than you expected, giving that he was trembling out of rage, defied him one last time.

“I won’t protect a King whose throne is cemented over the blood of his own kin,” he said, poised and authoritative, even in this situation.

Not even deigning to give words back, Jeongan took the sword with which the soldier had run you through and impaled Jookee with it. For an instant, your vision cleared through your panicked tears and you could see the placid smile on your Jookee’s face, as a small spring of blood run from the corner of his mouth down his chin.

“If you care so much for this woman, over your own Prince, you might as well die by the same steel that killed her,” said the Fifth Prince before pulling out the sword and pushing Jookee’s head forward by the neck so that he fell on his side, a bit closer to you.

Whatever happened from the moment he collided with the floor onwards was lost to you. The sole focus of your drifting attention was focused on how Jookee was pulling himself by sheer force of will away from the royals, leaving a crimson trail behind him, toward where you lay, tears leaving his eyes from the pain, but certain and determined.

Lifting his head, his eyes locked with you as he grunted and you could see a thousand moments in one second; when the Court Doctor had introduced you to a scrawny lithe fifteen-year-old boy from the provinces, that seemed so long ago and yet you lived it as if it had been that same morning. When the bickering of childhood had turned into a beautiful friendship over the years, with him visiting you every time he was stationed at the palace, going on walks together, patching him up when he got rough with another soldier during training. The day he told you about his feelings it had been raining. Both of you had gone fishing to the river and when the sky broke it rained down with a vengeance. Your clothes soaked through so fast you’d had no time to seek shelter, and so it made no difference if you walked leisurely back to the palace or run your way there. Laughing as his hair stuck to his forehead and got tangled on the hilt of the sword strapped to his back, you didn’t notice how he was looking at you, with the softest smile on his lips, and reached a hand out to grab yours.

“I love how you laugh with your whole body,” he whispered. You shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the thundering rain, but you did. “I was meaning to tell you something as soon as we left the palace, but I just seemed to be missing the right moment.”

Tell me, you had whispered, as he drew you closer by the hand, moving a lock of wet hair away from your cheek with his thumb and leaving his hand there, caressing your face. You felt your heart on your throat and your eyes wandered around Jookee’s face, committing every second, every movement of his face to memory: the little scar under his left eye that he had gotten playing with his brother when they were children, the little dimples that showed on his upper lip when he tried to stop himself from laughing, everything.

“I know I am just a simple soldier and you could do much better than me, but I can’t live another day without telling you how you make my heart beat harder and are there every waking moment, in my mind and in my thoughts,” he said, quick and without drawing breath, giving away his nervousness. “We have grown old together. I can’t exactly tell you when my feelings for you changed, but I can just hope that yours did too and I am not overstepping your boundaries. I very much adore you and would be the happiest man on this earth if you loved me back just half as I love you.”

You couldn’t remember if you said something, or just jump into his arms, yours around his neck, and hugged him for the longest time. By the time you got to the palace, soaked through, you were a giddy happy couple who had planned, in such a short little time, what your life would be like when you got married.

It is incredible what the mind remembers in the most inopportune moments. We have grown old together, he had said and damn destiny, you wouldn’t get to grow any older. He was still painstakingly dragging his body to you, your vision blacker as the seconds went by, his face ashen but set. You knew he would reach you even if it cost him the last breath of life he had in his body. You wanted nothing more than be close to him until the end.

When he did reach you, he manoeuvred his body so that both his arms were encircling you, your face set against his chest which was shaking with shivers as violent as the ones you were suffering. Lifting your head with his bloody hand, he angled his so that you could look him in the eye. There, behind all the pain and the sadness at having both your lives cut short, was your boy, your Jookee, the one who had kissed you under rain and sun, over snow and with joyous passion, now dimmed as his consciousness began to slip away as fast as yours was. His lashes were wet with tears as he smiled at you, his teeth tinted with blood. You wanted to scream at the unfairness of today. What were the chances that you had to be here, the both of you, when a power-hungry Prince and a Princess too ambitious for her own good, decided to go around killing their siblings for the throne? Your life was fantastic, you were to be married to Jookee, a loving, caring and sensitive man, who would, no doubt, make your days beautiful and worth living if only to see the smile on his face when he came home.

“I love you,” he whispered, a tear escaping his eye and running down his temple. Your hand, resting on his chest, felt the erratic thump of his heart, trying to pump the little blood he had left to the rest of his body. Numbness had finally taken a hold of your body and you could feel nothing except from an overpowering sadness and helplessness.

“I don’t want you to die,” you sobbed. The hiccup caused by your cries did no good to your tired lungs, that tried to bring back the air you had expelled but were failing miserably. “Why did you… why would you act… so rashly? You… could have lived! You… have so much… to live for.”

“I have nothing to live for without you,” he whispered back, a wheezing sound leaving his body with every word he spoke, “I have no regrets if we leave together, we’ll die as we wanted to live. Holding each other.”

You could no longer keep your head upright, unable to kiss him one last time as you desperately wanted to do. Looking him straight in the eyes, as you heart broke into a million pieces, you whispered to him as your vision blackened completely. His sparkling eyes were the last thing you ever saw.

“I love you,” you told him, feeling your eyes close.

“If there is a life after this, let me find you again,” he said and those were the last words you heard as his body stopped moving and you slipped into unconsciousness.

You were walking along a river, barefooted. You felt as the warm, dark sand caressed your feet as you trod along, tirelessly. You knew you were looking for something, but couldn’t know what. Your mind was foggy and you couldn’t make sense of the flashes of thought that pierced through the milky white sheet. So, you kept on walking, maybe someday you would reach that place. What place? Days turned into months, or did months turn into days? Each hour passed swiftly and each second seemed to last a millennium. The shadows around the transparent willow trees grew closer to you the brighter the sun shined and the meadows were the most brilliant when the moon made its course across the sky. At some point between arriving at the river and then, you had stopped looking at how the sand engulfed your feet and lifted your head to look upon the thousands upon thousands of multicoloured stars that seemed to go on forever and whose light took residence in the most hidden corners of your soul. Silence surrounded you, incredibly noisy, even your footsteps on the sand were silenced. Weren’t you walking along a river? Shouldn’t the stream make some noise and silence your thoughts? You were meant to be someone else, somewhere else, and this unknown guilt was eating away at you. Yes, the night was silent, until it wasn’t anymore. The sound made you drop your head and you saw. The lonely figure walking along the same riverbank, only in the opposite direction. It was getting closer and closer as the years ticked by and you could almost distinguish the dark hair and the strong complexion that made him unforgettable to who you used to be. He was walking towards a bridge, standing proud atop the calm waters of the stream, red and powerful in a land where the dullest of colours were the brightest and the stars shone purple and green. His eyes and expression were covered in shadows and his gait stood out brilliant against the dark colour of the sand. You spent months walking towards him as he kept his steady pace towards you and, even though he was close enough to touch him, you never stopped walking but never could meet him in the bridge standing between the two of you. You were losing hope of ever this familiar stranger, what with having walked what felt like the longitude of the world twice for centuries. He was surely meant to stay there, the focus of your vision, and yet out of reach. Without knowing why that fact struck you as highly unfair. What had you done while living that the person you wanted to hold the most would forever stay strange to your touch? The stars faced and died and still there you were, walking to him, arms wide open and eyes brimming with tears, whispering over and over strange sounds that seemed to form words. Unknown words to you but familiar to him as he started to run. The seconds seemed to tick as if you were now walking through treacle instead of sand and you reached the bridge. Your body collided with his and intense happiness filled your whole being. Keeping him at arm’s length you were finally able to see his features, similar to the ones you remembered but not quite the same; brilliant eyes that seemed to reflect the galaxy over your heads, the scar was still there, but his hair was shorter, trimmed at the nape of his neck. His smile was still the same, blindingly shiny and unchanged.

“I’ll see you on the other side, my love,” he whispered and everything around you dissolved into nothingness.

Pink Hibiscus Cottage, Dartmoor, England. Spring 1922.

Watering the plants in your little cottage, you waited for the people to arrive. After a couple of quiet days, the cottage was going to be full of people and noise again. It had been so long that you could barely remember a time before your husband and you were the only occupants in the small wood house, close to Plymouth in Devon County.

Putting down the hose with some difficulty, you painstakingly made your way back inside and busied yourself with making tea. Once the kettle was hovering over the fire stove, you set aside two teacups and a little saucer with scones. It wasn’t likely that your husband would have enough appetite to munch on some sugary treat, but you were still trying to convince him to drink some tea. He was so quiet these days, so subdued. Up until a couple of months ago, he had still been his mischievous, playful self. His eyes always smiling at you, even when you bickered over small things; where did you put the stamps again?, he would ask you, exasperated that he seemed to forget all the time or, We should invite the children over more often, Christopher feels intimidated when we are alone and it is incredibly entertaining to watch. Christopher was your youngest son-in-law and your husband still teased him about the first time they met and the poor boy had tried his hand at introducing himself in Korean. His wife, your eldest daughter, had inherited a knack for pranking her husband, back then fiancé, more often than not using elements from her father’s Korean heritage that obviously went over the young man’s understanding.

The kettle whistled and you put everything on a tray to take it to your bedroom. It was a very sunlit room, the most luminous of the cottage, with windows lining the south-east part of the property. The wallpaper was a lively yellow flowery print, worn in certain places from the sun and bright and striking on some others. An armchair was put against the furthest wall, memories of rocking your children to sleep coming to mind the second you saw it, next to a massive oak shelf filled to the brim with books, both in English and Korean. If there was something your husband wouldn’t stand for as your children grew up was them not knowing where they came from and the riches of the country of their ancestors. Only your daughter Areum had been to what used to be the Kingdom of Late Joseon up until ten or so years ago, but even you, having been born in Plymouth, felt somehow part of that distant country. The centre of the room was dominated by a massive bed, the headboard and intricate pattern of forged iron, soft pillows supporting your husband’s body while he rested a few moments. Both of you knew those few moments were getting longer and longer, but no one mentioned it.

“I brought you tea, dear,” you said, leaving the tray on the nightstand and sitting on the bed. You leaned closer to your husband’s prone form, moving a few strands of grey hair away from his forehead. You found it funny, how after so many years, his hair refused to let go of the black colour it used to be, settling in a stubborn dark grey when he was fifty and never changing to white. He had also refused to cut it a while ago, and now it was getting closer and closer to the collar of his shirts. “Wake up a short while, my love. You need to be awake when the children get here.”

Groaning a bit, he opened his eyes and looked at you. As soon as he did, his face turned from a sombre and pained expression to the smile he always greeted you with.

“You know, Y/N,” he said and cleared his throat right away, straightening himself against the headboard, leaving a space for you to sit next to him. “had you not woken me up, I would have continued dreaming about the day we met happily.”

“I’m sorry I disturbed you, love. That was such a long time ago, do you still remember?”

“How can I not? I was the best day of my life.”

My father and I were set to arrive at Plymouth by mid-April, given that we had had to make a little detour to Massachusetts, but we didn’t expect to arrive at the beginning of May. Your father sent a letter telling us not to worry about our arrival, as he lived close to the harbour and would have no problem picking us up whenever he saw our boat beginning to dock. I still remember how nervous I was, coming to England and not speaking anything close to basic English, I was afraid I would be carnage to the old dogs of the docks, no matter what a big merchant my father was. After crossing the Atlantic, we arrived and just from the deck, my father pointed to where you and your father were standing.

You were so short, standing next to your father and not reaching his shoulder yet, and yet you were looking up at the boat, listening intently to how he explained something to you. And then you looked at me. I still don’t know what happened that day but it felt ethereal as if I already knew you and I was already madly, deeply in love with you. I could see your smile from the boat and my father would never stop reminding me in the following years how the first thing I said in English soil was “Have I seen an angel?”. You were so friendly from the first time we spoke to each other and even came to see me to our little room by the harbour with your books and your little sketches. Plymouth became a home to me thanks to you, you made a new country feel just like I felt in Joseon before we left.

“Oh, but I remember that day differently,” quietly, you interrupted him. He smiled tiredly and threaded a hand through your greying hair. You loved the feeling of him being caring and close to you. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you stuttered and were so shy I even thought you disliked me from the beginning.”

He chuckled as he tried to make himself a bit more comfortable in the bed, his back cracking and his lungs overworking themselves from the effort. Even if he was feeling bad, the second he turned to look at you, his eyes regained their spark and he kissed your forehead, allowing your head to rest on his shoulder.

“Why, I thought you were the finest woman I had ever seen. I even heard bells when you kissed my cheek later that week.”

“You Casanova,” you laughed, “I was already madly in love with you back then, I had to show everyone you were mine.”

He turned quiet, remembering those early days of your relationship, how you had been always together, when he would accompany you everywhere, under the pretence that his father had tasked him with keeping you company while the adults worked. You had been keeping correspondence while he studied English back home and him, being the strong-headed man he was, refused to return to England until he could properly talk to you. He would say back then that English didn’t make his native Korean any justice to tell you what he wanted to tell you.

“I proposed to you after that man insulted you for associating with me, remember?” he asked you.

“Kwangsu, please,” you saying his name was something rare. He was so fond using pet names and terms of endearment with you and your children your names were rarely called in the house, only when someone was in trouble or seriousness was needed, were those names called.

“No, I know you don’t like to talk about this because you think it upsets me, but I want to tell you, once again, how proud I was that day of calling you my friend. If I had any doubt that you were the bravest woman I knew, it was obliterated that day. I knew marrying you was the best decision I would ever make, and I am still amazed to this day.”

You had been waiting for Kwangsu to arrive back to your house from the harbour. Your father had been overjoyed when you told him your intentions of starting a courtship with him and so had been mister Yi. The two of you had been closer than blood since you had met two years prior and no one could doubt how strongly you felt for one another.

Someone had knocked at your door shortly after noon and thinking it was Kwangsu, you had run down the stairs and was unpleasantly surprised when Jack Richmond walked through the door, cane and walking coat in perfect condition and blond hair slicked back. He used to be your friend back when you were children until he had developed an attitude not many could stand. He seemed to think that only because his father owned the biggest training company in the city everything was his and everyone in town owed him respect. This attitude translated into his uncomfortable obsession with you, not so much unpleasant as it was unwelcomed. He would drop by unannounced, demand that you accompany him on one of his many strolls through Hoe Park, take you back to his immense house for tea with his mother and many other things that were not entirely tiresome if they weren’t coming from Richmond. Today, of all days, his presence was particularly tiresome and you itched with the want to run out of the door and go find Kwangsu. As soon as you saw Jack’s face, though, your every thought dissolved into weariness. He seemed angry and unsettled, twisting his neck in every direction, in search of something that obviously wasn’t there. If you hadn’t been starting to worry, you would have laughed at the perfect ostrich impression he was gifting you with.

“Where is that yellow friend of yours?” he asked, foregoing all courtesy and jumping straight to the reason for his impromptu visit. Which made you incredibly angry.

“What did you just say?” you demanded, livid on behalf of Kwangsu. How dare he, from his high and fragile pedestal, to speak such ill words of the person you held most dear?

“Ah!” he ignored you, looking over your head as the sound of the main door closing reached you across the parlour. “It seems I needn’t had worried, your shadow just arrived! It’s my lucky day!”

He brushed past you, making you lose your footing and grab for dear life at the bannister ascending to the second floor for balance. Jack was tall, slim and sharp and yet, he didn’t reach Kwangsu’s jaw when he tried to face him head-on. He was at an obvious disadvantage and he didn’t seem pleased when he realised it was so, his nostrils flaring and his brow creasing past the point of possibility. His shoulders straightened and his breathing became shorter and swallow.

Kwangsu, on the contrary, was calm and collected. He didn’t seem faced at all, his posture relaxed as he took on the other man’s stand. His feet moved a mere millimetre, slightly separated and firmly planted on the floor, making you remember that time he had told you how he had been taught martial arts since he could walk. In the event that a fight broke out, you were sure which of the two would end up fairing worse.

“What, you think you can just arrive from wherever you crawled out and take our women?” Jack was livid without reason. What did he care what the relationship between Kwangsu and you was? Apart from it being none of his business, he had managed to anger you past the point of reason.

You marched and walked in between the two men, your back to Kwangsu’s chest. If you stepped on Jack’s foot with excessive impetus, you would never recognise it.

“And according to you, whose property am I?” you asked, leaning back into Kwangsu and glaring at Jack through your lashes. If he thought he had the right to barge into your house and through ridiculous accusations left and right and lay a claim to you, he was sorely mistaken. “I must have lost the telegram telling me we were engaged to be married, Jack. Or is it that you are a long-lost member of my family to have a say in who I spend time with?”

His mouth turned into a deep frown and he screwed up his face in disgust. You could see the cogs inside of his head turning to figure out an appropriate comeback and coming back empty-handed.

“You are a good Englishwoman, Y/N,” he finally said, nothing better to voice. “I don’t know why you are wasting your time with this – this foreigner when you could be making connections for a good marriage.”

“Shove that good marriage of yours where the sun doesn’t shine, for all I care!” you retorted, as you saw your parents descend the staircase down to the parlour, surprised faces showing their confusion, but still they frowned and shot suspicious looks at Jack when they felt the tense atmosphere in the room. “Kwangsu is a thousand times the man that you are and if you insist to continue spewing your disrespectful propaganda, I am in the obligation of telling you that our association has finished today.”

Kwangsu took one of your hands in his and squeezed as your father shoed the dandy out of the door and your mother hugged you. None of you had ever cared highly for the Richmonds and thanks to what you did that day, you wouldn’t be forced to stand their company anymore.

“I didn’t last the week without asking you to marry me, did I?” said now your husband, hugging you tight to his chest.

“Oh no, you didn’t. and if you had I would have done something very indecorous and proposed myself,” you answered back with the same retort you did whenever you talked about that time. He loved how you weren’t the type to sit back and let things happen to them, much preferring to take the reins and make those things happen.

You lapsed into silence again as the shadows flickered around the room, highlighting parts of the wallpaper with brighter patches of light. Little by little the both of you drifted off to sleep and dreamed of the life you’d had. He woke you up with a coughing fit a couple of hours later and you painstakingly cleaned the beads of sweat from his forehead. He then asked you to help him change his sleeping shirt and trousers so that he could hug your grandchildren when they arrived. With a little too much effort on your part, he changed and settled back into the pillows, looking at you with guilty eyes. He had always been a very independent and dependable man, who would rather take care of everyone around him than being taken care of. As fate had it, he was destined to depend on you now.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you admonished him sweetly. “For every time you’ve depended on me, you’ve taken care of me a thousand.”

“I just find it difficult to make you worry so much,” he whispered, taking an iron hold of your hand. His eyes shone with unshed tears. “Guilt is eating away at me because I am leaving you behind, my love. I swore a long time ago that we would be forever.”

With a tired smile, you got closer to him and kiss his forehead. You had never had this conversation before, but you had known it was coming. He started looking at you with that guilty look the second the doctor had said there was nothing else to do except wait for the inevitable. He had been set on being as careful around you as he could be, not wanting you to exert yourself on his behalf.

“We both know forever is just a fancy young people tell each other, Kwangsu,” you smiled. If these were to be your husband’s last memories of you, you would make sure he remembered you smiling, if not happy. “We’ve had a great life together. Three wonderful children and so much love. I don’t regret anything.”

“Still,” he stubbornly retorted. It would be easier to sway a mountain than this man’s will. “I don’t like leaving you here in this house alone. We built it together and I thought we would have more time to share it. Why must I leave you when I would like to share a thousand more years with you?”

“Do you remember what I told you the day Soyeon was born? If you don’t remember that is the day in both our lives I depended the most on you.”

Frowning he nodded. You knew he remembered. As the years passed, he may have forgotten many things, but never that day.

“I nearly lost you both. I don’t think I’ll be able to forget it.” His face had turned ashen as the memories flooded him and it made you feel a little guilty at having provoked such reaction. Your intention was giving him fond memories to distract him while your children got to the cottage, but his mood had changed so suddenly you hadn’t thought it through.

“That day we got our Soyeonie, we became a family Kwangsu. I had never seen you so happy as the moment I woke up and you were holding her.” His eyes were now looking at you but he was very far away, maybe that day forty years ago when you had welcomed your first child into your hearts. “I still remember clearly how terrified you were when she fell off the tree in the garden one summer and she came back skipping, her mouth bleeding and her baby tooth held proudly on her fist.”

“That one was a calamity!” he said, letting go a strong laugh, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. “It is one of the biggest mysteries of humanity how we survived her childhood. She was always bleeding and giving us a heart arrest after another.”

“Yun wasn’t so bad, he was just happy following her around,” you remembered, seeing in your mind a pair of small children. A dark-haired girl with a sweet pink dress stained with mud and her hair going in every direction, and a baby boy waddling behind her, trying to keep up and getting dirt all over his short trousers in the process.”

“Yet neither of them gave us as many headaches as Areum did fifteen years ago,” he sighed, even if those days were a fond memory now, at the time it had seemed terrible and dangerous. “To fall in love with Yun’s friend and go back to Joseon when the situation was as bad as it was.”

Your youngest daughter, Areum was eighteen when she met Hongjoong, your son’s friend. He had been living in Joseon up until he turned sixteen and was sent by his father to help manage the branch of their trading company in England. Yun and Hongjoong had hit it off instantly and Areum had been captivated the second she saw the young boy. She would be found sighing in corners, looking out of windows when the boys arrived at the cottage from Plymouth in summer. The young man was bound to notice and it happened the year he decided to go back to his home country and help his father with their boat company seeing the Japanese threat getting closer and closer. In a fit of what she labelled courage and you labelled stupidity, Areum had left with him without telling you and had married when they arrived at Joseon. After that little stunt had followed many letters, getting scarcer and more worrisome as the years went by. It was early 1910 when they had arrived out of nowhere, with their son on tow, telling the news of how the Japanese had taken over and they had decided that returning to you was the best option for their family.

“Grandpa!” screamed a little voice, followed by the slam of a door and many adult voices admonishing the younger ones.

A huge smile illuminated your husband’s face and he sat upright in the bed with more energy than he had displayed in the last months. He was brimming with happiness at the mere laughter of your youngest grandson who, at six, was the biggest calamity the walls of the cottage had seen. Knowing how much you’d had to deal with his mother and her siblings, you weren’t really in agreement with how much Kwangsu validated the child, but you wouldn’t say anything. The door to the bedroom opened and in poured many dark heads and some slightly lighter. Your grandchildren all approached the bed and smothered their grandfather in love while your children stayed standing by the door, shocked to see their father is such a state. They must have remembered him as the energetic, happy and generous father they had last seen at Christmas, not this weathered and tired old man, laying on the bed, his face ashen and his bones noticeable through his skin.

Your eldest daughter, Soyeon, approached you, setting a hand on your shoulder and smiling wearingly at you. That gesture was enough to tell you how much they had missed you both and how much they were hurting too.

“Mother wants me to study so much!” was saying Yun’s daughter. At fifteen, she was an exact copy of her aunt Soyeon, a little explosive body and a personality to match. If it were up to her, she would be out of the house exploring everything she could find, including the harbour and the docks, which was no place for a young lady her age, according to her mother.

“Your mother wants you to be a learned young lady, don’t you want to be able to outwit your cousins?” asked Kwangsu, knowing exactly what needed to be said, as always. She was your only granddaughter and she would do anything to get ahead of her cousins and prove to them “what a girl could do”. Usually what a girl could do included swimming, playing polo and any other sporting activity they told her she couldn’t participate in, but it seemed that now that would also include studying, judging from the determinate frown on her face.

The hours after the arrival of your children passed happily. All your grandchildren had something to tell you, their parents complaining about their choice of spouse in the case of the older ones as your husband had done with your sons-in-law when he had been in their place. At some point, between laughter and witty remarks, the younger ones had drifted off to the garden to catch insects while their parents and older siblings went around bringing out chairs to take the evening tea in the sunlight. Kwangsu had asked you to open the curtains a bit wider so he could see your family enjoying themselves in the garden and you had, joining him on the bed again after and laying against the headboard while he settled against the pillows.

“I know now what you meant before,” his whispered, his eyes looking at you, reflecting the young boy you met in the docks all those years ago. “They make everything worth it. I have no regrets.”

His eyes gave a last determinate glint, memorising every corner of your face and he kissed the hand caressing his cheek. He relaxed, his body a dull weight against your side and the both of you listened to the laughter of your family as the shadows were growing and the light turned dimer.

“I love you,” he whispered and when you looked down his chest had stopped moving.

Keeping the tears at bay and through the unbearable knot on your chest, you tried to breathe in deeply and that air escaped your lungs in a strangled sob. His face was relaxed and he looked at peace. How were you going to live your life without him?

“Wait for me,” you whispered back and stood up to search for your children.

He had been waiting for a while, sitting at the bottom of the imposing bridge. He didn’t remember much but the place was oddly familiar and he just knew he mustn’t cross the bridge. He had seen how the trees moved to the soundless music of the river, how the dark sand had been covered by snow and turned even warmer. He had tried to see his reflection in the waters of the river but had never gotten close enough. There was always something that caught his fancy and took his attention away from the water. One day, the stars had started a dance overhead that kept him mesmerised for what only looked like a second. He had dropped his head after and realised the trees had withered. Or was it only an illusion, for it seemed that nothing withered in this land. Time was also a strange concept. He felt like he had been walking for an eternity when he reached the bridge and the time he had been here having passed fleeting and short. The days and nights succeeded each other faster than they should have, had he been still living. Even if the red construction promised oblivion and a cease of this boredom, he still sat upon the wooden steps. It was night, and the stars shined brighter than the brightest sun in multicoloured patterns, so close to him he could feel their coldness in his whole being. And then, in between the stars appeared another figure, clear and almost ethereal. Her hair flying around her body in swift breaths and he stood up. He knew her, he had been waiting for her. No words were needed, he wasn’t even sure if words were possible here. He just hugged her to him with the strength of all those centuries he had spent without her. And together, they crossed the bridge.

to be continued x

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