Author's note: I've had this rattling around in my head for a few weeks now and decided to finally write it down. We know that Hae Soo is actually Go Ha Jin, a girl whose soul somehow transmigrated from the 21st century to the 10th century when she drowned during an eclipse. What might happen at the end - will Hae Soo become Go Ha Jin once more? And if she does, will she ever meet Wang So again? I hope she will, so this is how I thought it might look if she did. This won't be a long story - probably just a few chapters. I don't intend to sketch out their whole happily ever after, just the events leading up to them meeting in modern-day South Korea, and maybe a little past that. Also, I've never taken on a story that was set in Korea before and I'm not fully versed in honorifics and customs so I'm not attempting much of that but please let me know if there is anything just glaringly wrong.
Wang Seon Ho settled himself in the shade against the trunk of a tree. The warmth of the day was pleasant, but the glare of the sun in his eyes made it more difficult to draw. Pencil in hand, he took a slow look around, observing people and their families as they enjoyed the sun and the water, in search of a subject. Finding none, he flipped back through the tattered pages of the sketchbook.
Most of the sketches were of the same face, and had been ever since he was small, beginning on the day of the accident.
His memories of that day were now vague and blurry. Bright lights, unfamiliar voices speaking unfamiliar words, and strange equipment making jarring noises were all cobbled together with the sensation of pain. It had been the same each time he had awakened, so it had been easier to sleep. Gradually, he began to understand some of what was happening.
He was five years old. He had been in a car accident. His parents had been killed, and his face had been badly lacerated by glass. The social worker was very sorry, but he had no other living relatives to claim him, so he must go and live at an orphanage. Did he, Wang Seon Ho, understand?
He had only looked at the woman blankly and said, "My name is Wang So, Fourth Prince of Goryeo. What is a car?"
Taken aback, the woman began scribbling furiously with her writing utensil in what he later learned was a "notebook," muttering other strange words that would eventually become familiar:
Concussion. Amnesia.
It meant that he didn't remember, and that was true. He remembered nothing of Wang Seon Ho's life: the faces of his parents, his home, even his very name. Instead, Wang So's own memories were fresh in his mind, memories of a prince's life lived more than a thousand years ago. Whomever Wang Seon Ho had been, he was no more, his life snuffed out in the same accident that had claimed the lives of his parents. So Wang So assumed his name and his life; there was nothing else he could do. The few times he had tried to tell the social worker that he wasn't Wang Seon Ho, she had explained his story away as a fabrication, a child's method of dealing with the trauma of the accident and loss of his parents. He had then learned another new word: delusional.
It didn't take long before he became reluctant to speak at all. His accent was apparently strange and his vocabulary was quaint, drawing odd looks from the nurses on the few occasions he did attempt to converse with any of them. Thinking perhaps he could write his thoughts instead, he requested paper, ink and a brush. When the nurse brought him a pencil, he stared at itm confused and fascinated until she demonstrated how to use it. It took a while, but he finally got the hang of it, clumsy though it was. Pleased, he handed the paper over to the nurse that provided the pencil. After glancing at the page briefly, her eyebrows flew up to her hairline, and she excused herself.
An hour later, the social worker returned, with many questions about where he had learned hanja at such a young age and how had he learned the history of Goryeo, had he watched it on something called a television program? Where did he go to school? The questions made his head ache, and finally he shut his mouth and refused to speak again.
Instead, he drew pictures with the pencil and paper: a boat moored at the edge of a lake, the sun rising over the edge of the ocean; the slim form of a girl carrying a large, earthenware jug of water into a garden.
Large, sad eyes in the face of a young woman with bow-shaped lips.
Most of the drawings he hid, instinctively knowing that these would produce still more questions he either couldn't or didn't want to answer. Only once, one of the nurses caught him gazing at the sketch of the girl. She must have thought someone had given it to him rather than drawing it himself, after all, as he had eventually learned, five-year-old hands were more suited to scribbling with crayons than sketching with pencils.
"What a beautiful girl," the nurse said as she refilled the water thermos next to the bed. "Who is she?"
She probably meant, how was the girl related to him? A sister? A cousin?
"Hae Soo," he replied, as if that was explanation enough. For how could a five-year-old child explain that the drawing was the face of his lover, lost to the abyss of time over a thousand years ago?
Impossible.
He was finally released from the hospital a week after he had awakened. The doctor explained to the social worker that while the concussion was deemed no longer dangerous, the amnesia was likely permanent. Also, while the stitches on his face had been removed and the laceration had begun to heal nicely with no sign infection, there would unfortunately be a large and noticeable scar. Plastic surgery wasn't an option at this time as it would be expensive, and he was now a ward of the state. However, perhaps when he was older he could opt to have it corrected then.
While waiting for the social worker to finish her conversation with the doctor, So examined his face in the mirror of the contraption she had called a car.
He didn't really remember what his face had looked like at five years old, but he imagined it must not have been very different from this face now. The scar, however - the scar was familiar. The shape was the exact same, if not as prominent as the scar had been in his old life.
The social worker asked him what was so funny when she got into the car with him. He couldn't explain; he could only laugh harder.
The social worker muttered something about nerves, and started the car. "Ready to go to your new home, Seon Ho-yah?" she asked. He sobered immediately.
No longer was he Wang So, fourth prince of Goryeo, known by all, feared by most, loved by one. Now he was Wang Seon Ho, ordinary citizen of South Korea, and an orphan. He was five years old, alone, powerless and trapped, with no idea how he had come to be in the twenty-first century, and no way home - even if he could stand to go back there and face what he'd lost. Perhaps this opportunity was a blessing rather than a curse, a chance to start over and live a new life in a place where princes no longer existed and scars weren't such a big deal.
When they finally arrived at the orphanage, the social worker helped him pull the one suitcase that had been packed for him from the trunk of the car and led him to the director of the facility, a middle-aged woman who was currently on hands and knees in a small garden, smudged with dirt up to her elbows.
"Shin Mi Yeong ssi?" the social worker asked as she took a few steps forward and halted. "I am Park Sun Gyu. I've brought Wang Seon Ho to live here." At that, she reached back and placed her hand on the little boy's shoulder, guiding him forward.
"Oh, excuse me, I meant to wash up before you arrived." The woman had a sweet-sounding voice that was somehow familiar and caused a shiver of trepidation down So's spine, even as he gave a small bow and tried his best to smile.
It can't possibly be…
The woman straightened and brushed her hands off on her pants as So began speaking.
"Hello, I'm Wang Seon Ho. It's very nice to meet you…" he trailed off as she turned, then finished in a strangled, disbelieving voice, "eomoni?"
Because the woman's face was that of his own mother, Queen Yoo.
