Good day to you, and have fun reading.
I do not own Hetalia.
Im Yong Soo=Korea, Wang Yao=China, Honda Kiku=Japan, Leon Wang Jia Long=Hong Kong, Wang Xiao Mei=Taiwan, Lien=Vietnam.
Defying Oblivion: Part 1
The raging waters pounded in his ears as the waves surged in turmoil, throwing him back and forth like a toy boat in the middle of a vengeful ocean. A sudden vortex of malodorous fluid dragged him to the murky depths of the massive river, where criss-crossing undercurrents sought to tear him apart even while the water pressure threatened to compress him into nothingness. He was pulled apart, crushed to bits; tendrils of flame and daggers of ice shot through his veins.
He flailed in an attempt to free himself from the web of turbulent currents, but the flashes of rusty red against a roiling backdrop of yellow and brown in every direction provided no clue as to where the surface of the water was. He could only pray and let the river toss him anywhere it wanted to.
The afterlife was too similar to life for his liking. Some things happened because you brought them on yourself, like him being stuck in this Forgetting River; some things happened because they just did, like him being sent to the Netherworld at the unfortunate age of twenty.
Im Yong Soo never thought that he would perish so young.
His uncharacteristically pessimistic thoughts were distracted further by jarring screams. He braced himself, and sure enough, he was abruptly surrounded by a horde of anguished spirits tugging at his limbs and begging (the wrong person) for mercy. Their rolling eyes, clawing fingers and gaping mouths never ceased to elicit horror and a perverse sense of pity from Yong Soo, but it was their desperate wails that almost destroyed him and fractured his own soul. Disoriented, it was all he could do to keep his essence in one piece.
Just when he couldn't hold on any longer, the River unceremoniously spat him back up the surface. Yong Soo gasped for breath, then realised that he couldn't and didn't need to. He floated along on his back, bobbing gently like a cork on the suddenly-calmed waves and staring at the crimson sky.
It was always like that; he was always given a figurative breath of life just when he thought that his existence would be extinguished.
A nauseating stench of all things unpleasant still filled his nostrils, but it was an improvement from the mad storm. He gave himself a pat on the back for remaining sane throughout the turmoil, then seized the opportunity to gather his thoughts before the River really made him forget everything he tried so hard to hold on to.
I am Im Yong Soo, product of Korea. My merry family consists of Yao, Lien, Kiku, Leon and Mei. And me. I am here because I died and opted for self-inflicted suffering rather than losing memories of this life before re-entering the cycle of reincarnation.
Da-ze, he added just to give his rather depressing thoughts a touch of his unbreakable Korean spirit.
Yong Soo congratulated himself on his concise summary, then vaguely wondered why, if he was Korean, did he find himself in this blatantly Chinese afterlife? Hyung, I hold you responsible for this, he grimaced as he swatted a squelchy maggot that deemed his cheek an ideal resting place. Eldest brother Wang Yao had an unbreakable grandfatherly habit of filling his family members' ears with superstitions, folk tales and legends regardless of whether his listeners were willing or reluctant.
Yong Soo had been willing, for the most part. He faintly recalled egging Yao on to describe each of the Eighteen Levels of Hell in all their gory glory, just to snigger at Mei's heated protests and accusing glares. Now karma had come back to give him a nasty and prolonged bite in the butt.
A shadow fell over him. A silhouette of an ominous bridge stood out against the reddish glow of the Netherworld. Once again, Yong Soo found himself gaping at the imposing granite structure before metallic liquid coated his tongue and caused him to spit in disgust. Stuffy old Netherworlders and their stagnantly traditional architecture, he harrumphed.
The magnificent arch was divided into three storeys painted scarlet, dark yellow and inky black respectively. Through the sulphurous mists, Yong Soo could see the frail ghosts of men and women, as well as some children, slowly shuffling across the hard stone. Virtuous souls crossed using the red level, souls who had been good and bad in equal measure used the yellow level, while evil spirits crossed using the black level, where they cried out in fear as putrid winds buffeted them and greedy waves of the Forgetting River rolled eagerly a few feet below.
The Bridge of Helplessness, as Yong Soo recalled, stretched hundreds of metres from the bank of Hell to the opposite shore. There, an ancient, crumbling pagoda and a tiny old woman with a bowl of soup awaited every soul.
He had refused to drink this soup, and thus he had to pay the price.
Through the floor-to-ceiling glass panels at the airport, Yong Soo grinned appreciatively at the cloudless skies. He rocked back and forth on his seat, humming and rapping his knuckles on his luggage bag to the beat of K-pop blaring from his (Samsung!) earphones. The waiting lounge was getting fuller and fuller by the minute, with people and their friends and family crowding in to wait before they boarded the plane to Canada.
Next to him, Yao jabbered a constant stream of important brotherly advice that Yong Soo only heard snatches of.
"– sleep – panda eyebags –"
Leon Wang sprawled carelessly on Yong Soo's other side, his relaxed slouch contrasting comically with Yao's knitted eyebrows and almost frantic gesticulations. Thumbs moving dexterously, Leon played Candy Crush on his iPhone with the languid yet assured air of a pro.
"Drink – less salt – kidney failure –"
Opposite Yong Soo, Wang Xiao Mei earnestly traded words with Honda Kiku. Kiku kept glancing uncomfortably at Yao, and seemed to be deflecting Mei's pleads with his trademark long-winded, overly-courteous answers that ultimately meant refusal.
Stern, unshakeable Lien sat polishing the rice paddle on her lap vigorously, earning nervous glances from a number of people. Yong Soo wondered how in the world she got it past security. However, she wasn't as single-minded at her task as she looked, for her eyes occasionally flickered over to her family members and twitched at certain antics.
All was right with the world.
Over his thumping music, Yong Soo heard the speakers blare an announcement for passengers to board the plane. He tugged his earphones out and stuffed his Samsung S3 into his pocket. Almost immediately, his eardrums were assaulted by Yao's anxious reminders.
"Don't eat too much fatty and greasy food! Canada is too close to America for my liking…"
Yong Soo snorted and laughed. "Sure, da-ze! Healthy diets originated in Korea!"
"And no dating in college, aru!"
Leon gave him a good-natured clap on his shoulder. "Send me a pic of you and your new girlfriend ASAP, yeah?"
"Leon Wang Jia Long, you –"
Yao was cut off by Mei pushing past him to tackle Yong Soo with an unexpected hug. Yong Soo nearly recoiled, since the last time she got so close to him, it had been to imprint a well-deserved hand-shaped slap mark on his face.
"Be good," she told him.
"Or we'll fly over to teach you a lesson," Lien added, tapping her paddle slowly and staring at him till he shrivelled in his boots. Kiku nodded in agreement, dark eyes speaking volumes. "I will mail you the newest Final Fantasy CD the moment it is out in Japan."
"Aww Kiku you love me after all!" Yong Soo tackled him but missed, so he promptly latched onto Yao instead. "Hyung, you're getting old, so don't strain your back too much da-ze! And do find some way to toughen up those breas –"
"NONE OF THAT FROM YOU ARU!"
Yong Soo released his victim, picked his things up and gave a smart salute, nearly bonking himself in the head with a bag of books. "I'm off! I'll phone you the moment my feet touch solid ground again da-ze!"
Leon gave him two thumbs-up signs, Mei waved, Kiku and Lien smiled and Yao…Yao lips twitched upwards feebly, shoulders shaking. Then his eldest brother-cum-grandfather-cum-guardian turned his head away.
Yong Soo did not hesitate to drop his bag and grab Yao in a tight hug. After a few moments, Yao pushed him away and shoved his bag into his chest. "Take care," Yao smiled, voice wavering just the tiniest bit.
Yong Soo gave his family a final wink, his wayward curl of hair bobbing cheerily, before he disappeared into the crowd of jostling passengers.
Some say that in life-threatening situations, your senses are heightened and every detail around you becomes crystal-clear. Yong Soo disagreed. Things happened in a blur. Every flurry of action: the pilot's forced reassurances; the flight attendants' tremulous calls to put on the life vest; the passengers' panicked demands for help and the children's cries of confusion…all of them were muted out by the throbbing fear that he might soon be staring death in the face.
He felt a small hand grip his jacket sleeve, jolting him out of numbness. The seven-year-old girl strapped in beside him scrunched the cloth in her fist, staring straight ahead and emitting frightened sobs. Her mother was too preoccupied with inflating the life vest worn by her toddler, who wailed incessantly.
Yong Soo felt a pang. "Here," he tried, his own voice cracking, "Y-You can have this." He fished in his pocket and dropped a box of Lotte Throat Candy onto her lap. "After the bumps have passed, we'll eat this WHOLE box of sweets, 'kay?"
He winced as her lower lip trembled. Real smart, Yong Soo, he berated himself. Trying to pacify a little girl with a handful of candy when the plane is about to crash.
He resorted to holding her small hand in his much bigger one.
The water-landing failed. They couldn't evacuate the plane. Without warning, a whooshing feeling assaulted his gut. People screamed. The clash of metal and water rang and finally, a stinging cold seeped into his bones and wiped his mind blank.
It was too abrupt. He didn't even get to see his life flash past his eyes.
According to legend, when you die, you go through a gate called the Ghost Gate Pass
Reach a path called the Yellow Spring Road
Lining the path are red spider lilies called Flowers of the Opposite Shore
They are the only scenery you will ever see on the Yellow Spring Road
At the end of the path, there is a river called the Forgetting River
By the river, there is a rock called the Three Lives Stone
The rock contains records of your past world, current life and future journey
Over the river there is a bridge called the Bridge of Helplessness
Cross the bridge, there is a platform called the Home-Viewing Platform
Climb onto it, and take one last glance at home
Beside the platform there is an old lady called Meng Po
Meng Po holds a bowl of soup, brewed from herbs and the tears you shed in this lifetime
The soup is called Soul-Oblivion Soup
It has five flavours; sweet for the virtuous, and bitter, spicy, sour and salty for the lesser souls
Drink the soup and forget your current life
Enter the cycle of reincarnation
And be Reborn, once more.
"No." Yong Soo stated plainly. The old woman with snow-white hair piled on top of her head crinkled her eyes at him.
"I beg your pardon?"
"No," Yong Soo said again, more firmly this time. "Thanks, but I don't want to drink the soup. I'd like to look for my family in my next life da-ze."
"I'm sorry, my boy, but you are not allowed to bring memories from one life into another," said Meng Po kindly. "The point of drinking this soup…" she held up her bowl, "…is to start anew."
Yong Soo rubbed his forehead in frustration. "I appreciate your good intentions, Gran, but I'd rather not. When I was living, I didn't do everything I should have done…not for myself, but as a brother."
He squirmed guiltily. "I should have helped Kiku and Lien with the housework and been nicer to Mei. I should have taken hyung to the back-specialist to cure his sore old muscles. I should NOT have aided Leon with his firecracker escapades."
"I understand, there are MANY others like you…"
Yong Soo beamed. "Exactly da-ze! That is why I'm sure you'll have other options available! Hyung told me so, but I kinda forgot what it was."
Meng Po sighed. "Why do the ones who know always bring this upon themselves?" She gave Yong Soo a wry look. "If you want to retain your memories, you have to prove that what you want to remember is worth remembering even if you die a thousand deaths."
Yong Soo gulped discreetly, but Meng Po's beady eyes caught the movement. "You have to be sure that what you want outweighs whatever horrors await you should you choose to keep your memories."
Yong Soo stayed silent. The river behind him surged and rumbled. In the distance, tortured ghosts screamed and screamed, reminding him that many fates worse than death were readily available in this world of never-ending twilight.
The soup shimmering in the bowl suddenly looked a lot more inviting.
But he found that he couldn't take it from Meng Po's hands.
Not just because he hadn't done what he should have done. No, it was because he simply wanted to keep on – dare he say it? – loving his family. Simply knowing that the people who raised him, teased him (and whom he teased), comforted him and made him who he was, were out there somewhere—that made a big difference in his miniscule existence.
He looked Meng Po in the eye and grinned lopsidedly. Meng Po gave him a doleful look and put her bowl down on a spindly table. "Since you've decided…"
"You have to jump into the Forgetting River, and stay in there for several hundred years. You will be watching your loved ones crossing the bridge again and again. They will never know you are here among the doomed ghosts in the river, nor even know what you mean to them, for they will drink my soup and forget everything every time they begin a new life."
"Are you willing to do that, knowing that even when you are finally able to be reborn, only YOU will continue longing for them while they will not even know you?"
Yong Soo's answer was to leap off the ledge, right into the raging torrents below.
So long as one of us remembers, we will remain a family.
It was as Meng Po said. Expected and bargained for.
It didn't stop him from riding an emotional roller-coaster.
Kiku crossed the Bridge of Helplessness first. He was followed by Mei, then Lien. Leon crossed twice.
Yao didn't appear.
When Kiku's fragile form walked across the yellow level of the bridge in his usual dignified manner, Yong Soo's spirits soared at seeing him again but plummeted immediately because that meant Kiku was dead.
A part of Yong Soo felt hopeful that Kiku would refuse to drink the Soul-Oblivion Soup, but a bigger part of him worried that Kiku would not be able to withstand the merciless River.
Then Kiku smoothly accepted Meng Po's bowl and drank the soup without missing a beat.
Yong Soo had never felt more disappointed, then furious…with himself. It was foolish and despicable of him to want Kiku to be as silly as he was.
This repeated itself each time he saw one of them walk past, among the flickering forms of other spirits journeying towards reincarnation.
But he never, ever regretted his decision. Every glimpse renewed his determination. Because all that remained of his family was his memories.
Wang Yao still hadn't crossed. Who would have thought that the one complaining the most about bodily aches and pains even at a young age would live the longest da ze, Yong Soo chortled and almost inhaled a snakelike worm. If hyung acted like a grumpy grandpa at twenty-eight, who knows what he'd be like at –
He stopped short, eyes widening as he floundered to stay afloat. There, on the Bridge of Helplessness, was Yao.
To be continued...
A/N:
Crash course on the cycle of reincarnation: Do good, get good karma. Do bad, get bad karma. Die. Go to the Netherworld. Be judged by the First God of Hell. Good souls get to have some fun in heaven; bad souls get to experience one of the 18 levels of hell. Vacation/punishment ends. Go to Meng Po. Drink soup to erase memories. Get a life (literally). Good souls are reincarnated into happy people (or maybe Beverly Hills Chihuahuas); bad souls are reincarnated into suffering people or animals. Repeat.
Or you could do what Yong Soo did.
Or you could snuff out all your wants and desires (I mean ALL, including Prada bags, cookies, vanity and lovers), achieve Enlightenment and get out of the cycle completely. Attain Buddhahood.
Ghost Gate Pass 鬼门关 (gui men guan): Refers to the gates of hell, obviously.
Yellow Spring Road 黄泉路 (huang quan lu): Could refer to the path to the netherworld, or the netherworld itself. Named as such because when you dig a spring well really deep down into the ground, the water that bubbles up is yellow.
Flowers of the Opposite Shore 彼岸花 (bi an hua): A real flower named Lycoris. When its flowers bloom, there are no leaves; when the leaves appear, there are no flowers.
It has a sad tale behind it: Manju was an elf that guarded the flower of Lycoris and Saka was an elf that guarded its leaves. The strange blossoming habits of Lycoris meant that they could never meet, but they missed each other so terribly that one day they did just that, and the flowers bloomed among green leaves. The gods punished them (o_O) by tossing them into the cycle of reincarnation, never to meet each other again.
Every time Manju and Saka entered the netherworld, the fragrance of Lycoris along the Yellow Spring Road would trigger the memory of their past lives and they would swear to stay together forever, but they were reincarnated, their memories wiped blank and the cycle repeats itself.
So Lycoris has another name: Manjusaka.
Forgetting River 忘川河 (wang chuan he): Filled with creepy-crawlies, a disgusting stink and evil ghosts doomed never to be reincarnated again (i.e. stuck there for eternity, which seems a little unfair that they never get a chance to redeem themselves.)
Bridge of Helplessness 奈何桥 (nai he qiao): "nai he" actually means something like gloomy because you can't do anything to solve a problem.
Three Lives Stone 三生石 (san sheng shi): Right at the top, bright red words announce: "Get to the opposite shore quickly!" （早登彼岸）Well, without the exclamation mark.
Home-Viewing Platform 望乡台 (wang xiang tai): What it says on the tin. Built because the spirits in the netherworld made a ruckus about missing their families.
Meng Po 孟婆 (meng po): Granny Meng. She brews the Soul-Oblivion Soup.
Soul-Oblivion Soup 迷魂汤 (mi hun tang): What it says on the tin. Wipes clean your memories so you'll turn out as an innocent baby, or maybe the innocent young of another animal species. Depends on your karma.
Hyung: Korean word for brother, which a younger guy uses to refer to an older guy.
Lotte Throat Candy: Produced by LOTTE, a Korean brand. The web page for this candy states that: "This candy is refreshing for those who MUST TALK EXCESSIVELY or suffer from dry mouth…" etc etc. Sounds appropriate for Im Yong Soo, though he didn't get a chance to talk excessively here.
IM YONG SOO I'm sorry if I didn't do your amazing character justice. And sorry for sticking you in the Chinese afterlife. But everything originated in Korea anyway.
Can anyone tell me about the Korean afterlife?
So, do you like it or hate it? Tell me why by leaving a review! Thank you :)