A/N: Just finished Mr. Sunshine... it left me broken. This is what I envision happening after the show ends.
August 15, 1945 – Seoul
Liberation, at last. The streets of Seoul were flooded with people. Men sang and danced as the flag of the oppressors was burned, women wept openly in happiness. At the center of it all was a parade, the proud flag of Joseon waving in the wind high above it. The hand prints of the Righteous Army gleamed brightly on the white background still, even after decades of countless battles. After nearly 40 years of Japanese occupation, Joseon was free.
Go Ae-shin watched the celebration with a small smile. She blended into the crowd effortlessly, but anyone watching closely would have noticed her four guards parting the crowd around her as she slowly made her way up the hill. She was old now, and a lifetime of half-healed wounds and constant running had finally started to catch up to her. She knew her death wasn't far away.
It was for the best, she thought. She stopped halfway up the hill and looked out over the city of her birth. When she had been young, the city had been known as Hanseong and been the seat of the Great Korean Empire. It had relied on slavery and a rigid caste system in order to function, a system she had benefitted from, high up in her palanquin. Very little remained of that world remained now, due to the occupation and rapid modernization. Cars were driving faster than any horse down every street now, and telephone wires zigzagged over their heads. The world had transformed faster than she could comprehend in her lifetime, and she knew that great change was far from over. The future had no use for a relic like her anymore. Her life's purpose- to free Joseon- was fulfilled. All that was left now was a lonely old woman.
"I wonder if this was how Hwang Eun-san felt," she wondered out loud.
"He would be proud of you," Lee Do-mi said.
Ae-shin glanced at him. The boy at the American Legation had grown into a powerful man, one of the best shooters the Righteous Army had ever seen. Even he was beginning to show hints of gray at the edges of his temples. She'd lost Madam Jo in 1919 to the flu and Ae-soon to the Japanese in 1932. Do-mi was her last living reminder of the time she'd lost. Her last living reminder of him.
"Joseon remains divided between the American-occupied south and the Soviet-occupied north," she said. "We are not one or free."
"But we are sovereign," Do-mi said, and Ae-shin fell silent.
When she had learned English, the first three words she had learned were guns, glory, and sad endings. She had picked up her gun and dedicated her heart to Joseon, declaring so confidently to him that she wanted to burn brightly but briefly, like a flame. It turned out that living on was harder than death. She had buried more comrades than she could count, yet due to some unseen curse, she had outlived them all. Kim Hui-seong, the good man she'd never loved, who had only found himself in the final months of his life. Goo Dong-mae, the lost soul who couldn't stop loving her, who died as he lived- in blood. Even Kudo Hina, a begrudging ally whose selfish life had been ended by an act of selflessness. All of them were long dead. Who would be left to bury her? Who would be left to remember the fallen? She was the last of her family: the Japanese had hunted down her grandfather's relatives, and she had never had the time for children of her own. Even if she had, she had sworn to never remarry. That old forbidden dream danced in front of her eyes once more. His ring felt heavy against her chest.
"Let's keep walking," Ae-shin said, and her men followed her command.
Some time later, the small party reached the top of the hill, where a cemetery stood. Unlike the rest of the city, it had changed relatively little over the long years. The sign over its entrance was still the same, weathered and nearly illegible: Joseon Foreigners' Cemetery. She walked under its arch and through the rows of gravestones until she found the one she was looking for.
Eugene Choi, 1863-1907, the stone read. How could one stone capture a life? The slave boy who'd escaped to America and lived, who'd returned to Joseon a Captain and given his life for the country of his birth. No, for her. The man she'd loved. The only one she'd ever loved.
Ae-shin knelt at his tombstone, and Do-mi remained standing behind her but took off his cap. "Joseon is free now," she said softly, so none by Do-mi could hear. "Let's go to America now. You can show me your New York. I'll go to school and you'll meet me after, and wander the streets together until it's dark." She took a deep breath. "But we won't part ways. We'll go home together, because we will be married, regardless of what my family says. Let's do it, Choi Yoo-Jin. Love. Let's travel the world. Dress in Western clothing. Take photos together like we did in Japan. Eventually, let's settle down and have a family. That's the future we always wanted, isn't it?" She began to weep.
Do-mi knelt beside her. "All Joseon people of the future will be free to pursue their dreams thanks to your sacrifices, and his," he said. "They owe you… I owe you. He was like a father to me, and you have become like a mother to me."
She said nothing, and the two remaining kneeling for a long time at the grave while the others kept watch. "Leave me here," she said eventually. "Go enjoy the parade. It is liberation day, and you should celebrate."
Do-mi and her three other guards protested all at once. "We can't leave you-"
"Leave me," she ordered. "The Japanese are gone. The Righteous Army has achieved its goal, but it may be necessary yet. Stay vigilant, guard this freedom that we paid for with more than our blood. Our everything. Pass on our stories, make sure the younger generations know who they are and where they come from." She ran a hand over the tombstone. "They must know, or the tragedy will repeat itself."
Do-mi's face was resolute. "We will," he said. "I will ensure we do not betray your trust."
She smiled. "Good. As of today, you are the head of the Righteous Army. Now, carry on your duty, even if it means leaving this old woman behind."
The four men all saluted her, even as tears streamed down their faces. As Do-mi walked away, he said quietly to himself: "May you find him in the next life."
In the years that followed, flowers and food offerings began to appear in cemeteries all around Hanseong for people long dead. Kim Hui-seong, Goo Dong-mae, Kudo Hina, Im Gwan-soo, Go Sa-hong, Song Young, Joon-young, Seo Yoo-jung, Jang Seung-goo, Hwang Eun-san, Ms. Haman and Mr. Haengrang, and countless others. Who were these people? No one knew anymore, but it moved the people of the city that someone still honored them. The mysterious person also left flowers and food in the foreigners' cemetery for a man called Eugene Choi and a missionary called Joseph Stenson. After several years, whoever was making the offerings stopped, so they were continued on by the people of the city, and by members of the Righteous Army. Even as the future was embraced, the past was not forgotten.
After some time, a new gravestone appeared next to the one labelled Eugene Choi. His gravestone read: "Eugene Choi, 1863-1907. The Greatest & noble one, still on a picnic here in Joseon." Her gravestone fittingly matched: "Choi Ae-shin, 1871-1949. The flame that burned on, still waiting for him in New York." As the decades continued on and the Joseon people walked freely into the brave new future, the couples' graves stayed clean and well-maintained.
There were always fresh flowers.