It takes two hundred years.
Two hundred years of thinking fruitlessly about the last words that Ah Sa Nyeo had relayed to him. Had they been real? He wished he could still ask Bu Ja. Their relationship had been on the brink of developing into something more, he'd thought, when she vanished that night when he went to get her the energy beads, and he'd never seen her again.
Was it the lack of closure that prevented him from moving on? Maybe. She'd disappeared so suddenly, without any warning, and he'd never seen her again, spoken to her again, although he sometimes saw glimpses of her, peeking past Ah Sa Nyeo's spirit.
Somehow, though, it felt like it wasn't that. Some part of him knew that Bu Ja had been to him what Sam Jang had been to Son O-Gong. What she still was.
Son O-Gong had somehow managed to get Jin Seon Mi back from the netherworld a hundred years ago, and that had been fun, although the whole time he'd been at the grand party Ma Wang threw at his hotel for the newly reunited couple, all he could think about was Bu Ja, and how she would have been thrilled to see Jin Seon Mi again, well and alive. She'd looked up to the older woman so much, and Seon Mi had likewise seen the zombie as a younger sister.
The Great Sage hadn't been too pleased with what he referred to as Pal Gye's moping, although to be fair, the pig demon hadn't been doing much else for the past two hundred years. He'd retired as PK soon after Ma Wang sold Lucifer Entertainment, and gone to live with him in the hotel, charming the ladies who came to the hotel for holidays. Unsurprisingly, Ma Wang's hotel became a hot spot for bachelorette parties in East Asia soon after he moved in.
Seon Mi was as sweet as ever, though, and she promised him that he would see Bu Ja again. On a particularly bad day, the 127th anniversary of the day he burned Ah Sa Nyeo in Bu Ja's body, while he was sulking alone in the Summer Fairy's bar while nursing a bottle of his favourite Japanese whisky, Seon Mi came in to find him. She'd gained new powers since her reincarnation – as he understood it, Ma Wang and O-Gong had guilted the heavens into making her a minor deity – and she told him that that, combined with the fact that Bu Ja still had some of her blood inside her, meant that she was still connected to the girl. That in turn meant that Bu Ja still existed somewhere, that her soul hadn't vanished into the ether.
"Be patient," she'd advised him, squeezing his hand and channeling some warmth into his cold body – another nifty new power she'd gained. "She'll come back to you one day. I can feel it." He had no choice but to believe her.
He doesn't know what it is about that particular day – maybe it's that after one of the worst winters he'd ever seen in his immortal life, it was finally nice and sunny. Whatever it is, he somehow felt compelled to leave the hotel and wander around Seoul, something he does once a year, if even that.
But today is different. He's walking past the building where Ma Wang used to live, long since razed to the ground and made into more modern apartments, when someone turns a corner at full speed and bumps into him hard, falling to the ground. (Pal Gye doesn't fall – it takes more than a puny human girl to knock him to the ground.)
"Hey, watch where you're going!" he snaps irritably. He's been in a bad mood for the past two hundred years, it seems.
The girl, sprawled on the ground, pushes herself up into a sitting position, rubbing the side of her head with one hand. "Sorry, sir," she apologizes sheepishly, looking up at him.
Pal Gye feels his heart stop, although he knows it doesn't matter, since it's not like something as mundane as shock can kill him. Still, his breath rushes out of his lungs as he stares at her.
Her face is different, her hair is different, everything is different. But her voice is the same, and the way her eyes twinkle at him is exactly how he remembered. "Oh, my God," he breathes.
Her brow furrows as she stands up, dusting her hands off against each other. "Hello…" she says, taking a tentative step towards him. "You look so familiar… do I know you from somewhere?"
So I just finished Korean Odyssey yesterday, and the finale WRECKED me. Like, I don't understand why they couldn't have at least given Pal Gye and Bu Ja some closure, if they weren't going to have them end up together. And Bu Ja's last words... oh my God.
So I had to write this as part of my healing process from this drama which has RUINED my LIFE. Please let me know your thoughts.
I might yet write a longer fic about what happens after the end of the drama, but we'll see if a more specific plot comes to my mind. (Also, I've learned to be leery about starting long fics, because I have a penchant for not finishing longer fics that I start lol.) Regardless, I hope you enjoy this short one-shot.