[September]
She sees him at a coffee shop.
Her hands are full with orders for her colleagues and she's on a schedule, almost running out the door without looking at her surroundings but she sees him. A chance meeting of eyes and she's frozen in place. He doesn't move in her direction, doesn't smile or say anything. Their eyes meet in a brief second and then it's gone, he's looked away, back to what he was doing, a life that moves on. There are no bells singing in the distance or their favorite song playing in the background, there never was anything like that for them.
It's you, Go Ha Jin thinks, having memorized the line of his jaw and the shape of his eyes. It's really you, she thinks, feet moving towards him, forgetting who she is and where she is, thinking it's fate, thinking it's the stars. But her friends arrive and they're dragging her away, and he doesn't look back at her, not once.
At work, her eyes glaze over and she thinks about his hands, the ones that once wrote for her, the hands that she always felt guiding hers, she thinks about them writing with a pen, so rapidly, so ordinarily. There is no art in them anymore, and no love in his eyes, but he was there, God, he was there.
She goes back to the shop after work, after dark, and he's not there anymore. She was torn between hope and acceptance and hope had won but hope brought no satisfaction. Still she vows to look for him the next day, vows to look everywhere for him.
If fate was not on her side then she would make it her own.
[September]
I once dreamed of making someone happy.
It was a simple dream that I almost gave up on. Happiness proved not to be so simple, after all. Simple to think about, sometimes abstract, easy to reach out for, but so hard grasp. If I wasn't happy, could I make anyone happy? I felt it slipping between my fingers every time I thought I was closer to it, this hand that was promised to different men along time, across time. Until you grabbed hold of it and didn't let go, and I let you.
I thought I could do so many things for you and lost my way. When in love, we forget we are only human and there's only so much we can do. We forget that we cannot change a person's nature and we forget that love can't heal all wounds. It couldn't heal yours and couldn't heal mine. It can't be the driving force in our lives, there are things so much bigger than us. Each person's dreams, each person's ideals. Yours. Mine.
But I think I managed it, even if a little bit. I made you happy, didn't I? And you made me happy. When we stripped ourselves from the masks we both had to wear, we were happy. When I kissed you the first time, when you held me and called me your queen. In these little moments we were happy and I only wished, back then, that I could have given you more. I know you wished it too, in all those years we spent apart.
When I woke up in this world again, I discovered I still had that dream in me. And it's you I want to make happy, only you. To make up for everything, to make up for the end.
Please let me.
Please let me in again.
[October]
He's always reading. Sometimes it's a history book, sometimes it's a fiction book. He makes annotations on a notebook and she wonders what his handwriting looks like now, if it's anything like hers. Probably not. She watches him for days before she gathers up the courage to talk to him, a kick-start, a first step, "What are you reading today?"
He looks up at her, a little surprised that she's there, just blinking for a few seconds. She can tell she's blushing when she tells him that she's seen him there everyday, that their schedules seemed to match, and that he's always reading and he seemed to be very focused so she wondered what book it was. He seems embarrassed when he shows her the cover of the book and tells her that it's poetry.
"They're not always poetry", he tells her, as if he has anything to prove, as if she wouldn't think it's so very much him. She has coffee in her hand and she asks if she can sit with him and he lets her but they don't talk. He looks at his watch and apologizes, he's out the door before she can catch his name. It takes her a few seconds to notice he forgot his book with her, the book with the poetry he was ashamed of liking. There's a signature on the first page, claiming the book to himself, and she traces it with her fingers. It's different but it's sharp.
Please let me in again.
[November]
He's in there somewhere, I know he is. Why else would you be interested in Gwangjong? I don't believe in coincidences, So, I stopped believing them when I became Hae Soo. And to know you helped with the exhibition makes it even less coincidental. It makes me believe that I had to meet you again.
You must think me forward, to come to you first, to love hearing you talk, but there are so many things you don't know. I don't care about how people see me, waiting every day until you walk through that door. I'm there with my make-up done to the best of my abilities, I want to impress you, want only your attention.
For now, all I know is that when I see your back I still see the loneliness I once saw and it rips me apart. I'm nobody to you now but I can still see you. I can see you in your smile, I can see you when you're concentrated and serious. You're still my person in this day and age and I don't believe in coincidences.
You ask me how I got so interested in history and all I want to tell you is that it's because of you.
[November]
He tells her about a hidden presence in Gwangjong's history and Go Ha Jin can feel herself grow cold. He tells her about how records show Gwangjong kept an urn of ashes nobody knew whom it belonged to and that he commissioned a painting of an unnamed woman, a painting that got lost a long time ago so nobody knew what she looked like anymore.
When he asks her if she thinks he had a secret mistress, she answers with tears in her eyes.
"I think he loved her."
She holds her belly as if she could still feel his daughter growing inside and he doesn't know how to deal with her sadness. His hands seem to want to move towards her but don't, and in her conscious mind she knows he's probably confused but she can't stop crying because So kept her ashes so he had gone for her, he had gone for her at the end. Maybe he still loved her then and it hurt so much to think about.
She has to excuse herself to the bathroom, to dry her tears, to let Hae Soo's pain subside. She takes deep breaths and reminds herself that Go Ha Jin still has a chance, that she needn't think about past wounds anymore. She reapplies her make-up and smiles at the mirror, unburdening her heart with her own will, trying to be the best she can be for him.
When she meets him outside, he seems nervous. It makes him adorable in her eyes, this new set of emotions, ones she barely had the chance to see in the other life because he always had to be so strong, so smart and at the top of his game. She tells him they should go and he nods, clearing his throat and letting her go ahead.
It's snowing when they walk outside, the first snow of the year. Ha Jin has an umbrella and he does not. She offers to walk with him to the station and he smiles shyly, accepting, still unsure of what to do next. She decides to pick up where they had left off, so ready to tell her story and bare her heart, and so she begins,
"I think Gwangjong met her a long time before he became king. I think he promised to marry her but they couldn't."
In this life, he loves poetry and quiet places and sweet coffees and she has a feeling he believes in love. He doesn't look down at her right away but they're so close, holding the umbrella over both their heads, her shoulder brushing against his arm. From this distance she can see the smile forming on his lips and she takes hold of his arm. This is me, she seems to speak, please look at me, and when he finally looks at her, it's like the umbrella has separated them from the rest of the world. She wishes he would kiss her then.
"What do you think, Hyun Woo?"
"I think it's possible, Ha Jin."
He doesn't kiss her.
They can't see the stars then but still she walks from under the umbrella and into the falling snow, closing her eyes and remembering fond memories. She runs ahead and then turns to wave at him, but he's running to her and saying something about colds. When he stops before her, she looks at him and giggles.
"I can myself in your eyes."
She loves his face and the way he blushes.
She runs again, all the way to her station and it's her time to leave him something, her umbrella, so that they have another reason to meet again. Even if he still goes to the same coffee place, at the same time. She leaves him with a piece of herself.
[December]
Sometimes, when I see you on the phone with someone I don't know, I get nervous. We've lived so many years apart in this life that I'm afraid I'm too late, that you already have someone else, that I'm going to be left alone again, with only the memories of So to keep me company. Sometimes I almost think about moving on, but could I ever love this way again? Could I let it go when you're in front of me and I've waited years to be with you? I've once lost my love and my best friend and my home but it's nothing compared to losing you the second time. To think I went through everything, all the pain and every loss, and ended up with nothing to call my own. My own home. My own person.
Mother, am I doing everything wrong?
I love the way you say "Ha Jin". I love the way you read and the way you look out the window on rainy days. I love the way you talk about things that you're excited about and the way you listen to me.
Mother, is it true that happy endings are only for poets?
Am I crazy to want my own?
[December]
She asks him for a tour at the museum where he works. He tells her that it's not something he usually does but she pleads him, bites her lips softly and looks up at him expectantly and she's delighted when it works. He probably does the tour better than the guides because he points out his favorite details from every piece, reads the descriptions with his beautiful voice. She pays attention to everything, is genuinely impressed at times, enjoys being immersed in his world.
She kisses him when he least expects it, in a hall with only the two of them. He's surprised, he always looks so surprised in her presence, like he's been hearing his whole life that he's living in the past and no one would notice him in the present, but she does. She has to be on her tiptoes, even in heels, just to give him a peck on the lips and she does and she seems so happy she did it. In his life, he's only ever initiated kisses, but this girl saw him in a crowd and she took every step towards him.
He lets her hold his hand, enjoying her presence, her laugh and the taste of her lip-gloss.
[January]
She wakes up in the middle of the night and he's not in bed. For a brief moment her heart races and she thinks he's gone, that she's made a mistake, acted too fast and it was over. She gets up and she's shaking, but she forces her feet to move until she finds him looking out the window. She thinks a million things and is wrong about all of them.
He looks at her, hair askew as if he had been running his hand through it, and it's like he sees her for the first time. He runs his fingers through her hair like he's never touched it before, like the color is new, caresses her face, softly, like she's the rarest piece in his museum. She barely breathes, feeling like she's falling in love with him all over again, in love with Hyun Woo, in love with Wang So, and when he speaks, her knees go weak.
"As always, you look beautiful."
[January]
I'm so happy now, I almost think it's going to end tomorrow. But there's always a tomorrow after the next, and when I wake up, you're still here.
It's you. It's really you.
I want to promise I'll make you happy in this life but whenever I want to say it you tell me you love me and I feel like I failed. I feel you only give and you don't let me return it.
I'd live a thousand lives to make up for Goryeo, So, and I think you'd still only think of me. I can't promise to be the best of me, I've tried and it's so hard, sometimes I barely feel I'm good at all. But when you tell me I'm the best thing to ever happen to you, I believe you. I trust you.
You're my person, and my happiness is yours.
I never thought about it that way until you.
[June]
He writes every moment that he can, every second that he's not working or with her. She doesn't know what it is, not yet, it's a secret and a gift. He doesn't know how long it will take but he writes, and he doesn't care if it's sold as fiction when it's done. They'll know it's true.
He writes about the only woman Gwangjong ever loved and her name was Hae Soo.
And she'll never be forgotten again.