A\N: Believe me or not, this has been a WIP since 2016. I wrote the initial draft like a week after the finale aired, just for fun. At the time I wasn't that confident in my writing not in my English, and there were so many great works that tackled on their reunion in modern times, that I just never thought about really committing. Then in 2018 I thought, well, I've somewhat improved now, I think I'll go back to it and publish as a one-shot. But as I worked on it, it became longer and longer and longer and I never finished it. The longer it got, the more arduous it became, so as I got involved with other works, with college and life in general, it was once again stashed away.

During the pandemic I came back to it. Took a time to reread it and see if I still really wanted to publish it and thought, well, why not? So I organized everything, changed the title (previously: "unlike the stars that rise in seoul" lol), fragmented it into smaller digestible parts, figured out a proper timeline, and then I had the skeleton of a multi-chapter work divided in parts.

Then, before I finally let this one see the light of the day I thought: "Well, why don't I edit and polish all my previous works first?"

Let's just say that ever since I've finished publishing "hide the petals" I've been editing everything I ever wrote (both in English and in Portuguese). Aside, you know, life, college, work, and trying not to crash under the pressure of the world.

As time went by, I almost snapped and just abandoned this project, but a friend of mine just casually asked what did I have to lose at this point by publishing. So, despite it being 2024, the dorama not being as popular as it was back then, this being a prompt already worked and scrutinized by so many great authors, I will just put my one out there. Maybe that will be my closure. (Or maybe I'll never fully move on, who knows lol)

Alright, I'm rambling now, sorry.

Hope you like it,
Have fun :)

Her memories are like a hurricane.

There are the good ones, then there are the bad ones. Then they all turn into a sole heavy burden coming down on her, dropping over her like a concrete wall, making her relive ten years in the span of ten seconds. And as it all collides inside her mind, she feels the shock, the happiness, the pain, the love, and the misery — she feels all of it, all over again. The large and sudden conglomerate of feelings weighs down on her, takes her breath away; fills up her eyes with tears as she can only think about the dreams that now she knows to be memories.

(She traveled back in time, and fell in love in Goryeo.)

Then the seconds of assimilation end, the memories settle down — burning and pulsing — in her mind, and the hurricane is gone. And when the hurricane is gone all that is left is the sorrow for the ones she left behind.

Sorrow for him.

(Forgive me for leaving you alone...)

The shock goes as fast as it came, and it leaves her heart bleeding like an open wound. Bleeding out in cascades as the shock merges into despair. And as her heart bleeds, she cries for him once again. She cries no longer with the quiet and sudden tears that used to stream down silently to her pillow at night, but with loud sobs as her eyes pour out like a flood, like a torrential rain. Like acid, they burn wherever they touch, devouring her skin and leaving her heart ripped open, broken and devastated.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry

That's all she can think. That's all she can feel. She probably starts saying it out loud, repeating it over and over again, but she's not sure, she does not care. She continues to stare ahead, into the picture of the emptiness of a palace, the emptiness surrounding a man, the emptiness she left when she abandoned him.

It's too much to remember in the matter of seconds.

It's too much to remember in the matter of centuries.

It's too much for her.

Thus, with a broken and empty heart, she collapses. She falls down on her knees, not noticing if there was anyone else near her, not paying attention to her surroundings. She breaks down, her eyes finally leaving the lonely painting, leaving the clear walls, leaving the blinding light, shutting away from the world and focusing on her pain.

Her prince, her king, her lover.

Their daughter.

She thinks she's ill again, for sure her heart is failing on her one more time. She feels her chest threatening to burst, and she believes she's dying once again, but this time she does not bother to care. This time the despair is accumulated with the guilt she had even forgotten she carried.

This time she's caught on the grief her regained memories inflict on her. This time she does not care about stares. That's why she can't say for sure how long she's been there crying before something comes up in view.

When her eyes catch the movement, her first reaction is of confusion. Her mind is still caught in the 10th Century, still lost somewhere in the cold palace of Cheondeokjeon to make sense of her surroundings. But then she blinks, and after a couple of seconds she can see past her tears and notice the piece of blue fabric.

She didn't even hear anyone coming closer to her, but now she notices someone standing by her side, offering her a handkerchief for her tears. So she tries to regain her breath and calm down her tears. She tries to stop crying at least long enough to thank the stranger for being so kind, and apologize for the disturbance.

For only a few seconds she lets go of Hae Soo and fights to be only Hajin once again. She fights to pretend there's nothing out of the ordinary happening, that she's not about to lose her mind, that her sanity has not abandoned her. She opens her mouth to start speaking, cleaning her throat as she blinks hard to stop crying. But her voice and her words also abandon her when she sees the stranger.

No, not a stranger.

Hajin's eyes are filled with the black of his clothes.

Hajin's mind is filled with the black of his hair.

Hajin's body is most likely about to pass out.

She stares at him for what it feels like an eternity, trying to convince herself that it's not him, it's not him. It's not him, there's no way it is. She must have been so lost in the past that her mind is now playing tricks on her. She must be having a hallucination or any other logical explanation, but it's not him.

It can't be him.

"It's okay, you can take it." He speaks and it's his voice, it's his firm and deep voice. It's the same voice she's been hearing in her dreams for the last year. It's the same smooth velvet voice that echoed in the sudden vertigo of flashbacks, and it sounds more beautiful than she remembered.

She can't move. She can't speak. Go Hajin can only stare at him, wondering if she's insane or if she's dreaming. With her eyes fixated on his — they are the same eyes — she finds herself unable to form a coherent thought, let alone a full sentence. But before she can put her dismay aside — fully understand what just happened — and react properly, he moves.

He puts his handkerchief in her hand, and his skin touches hers. His skin only brushes hers lightly, and she already feels an electric current trailing down her spine, trailing through her bones and, for a second, she believes she's really dead.

(She's dead. That's a possible scenario. She must be dead, and this is the afterlife. Hell or heaven, she's not very sure.)

"What's wrong?" The stranger speaks again, and this time he sounds a little more worried. That's when she comes to her senses, realizes that this is reality. And that's when she realizes she's been staring entranced at him for longer than it would be considered acceptable.

With a jolt, she turns her eyes away, snapping from the stupor his presence threw her into. She dries her face up with the blue fabric, trying to pull herself together, trying to make sense of what's going on, what she should do, what is going to happen now. Trying to make sense of this whole situation, of what it means to find this man right here and now. Trying to make sure once again that this is actually happening. And at the same time, trying to sound and act like a normal human being.

"I'm so sorry for bothering you," she finds out it's easier to speak if she looks at the ground — or anywhere else other than his eyes or his face — so she avoids looking directly at him, "I don't know what came over me."

"It's no bother at all, really," the man quickly dismisses her apology, and continues speaking with the same gentle tone, "Are you having any trouble? Are you in pain? Did you lose anything?"

His casual and spontaneous question takes what's left of air in her lungs.

I lost everything...

She shakes her head, trying to make all the misery go away, trying to clean her mind, trying to remember what it was like to live without feeling like the whole world was falling all around her.

"No, that's not it, I just..." She forces her mouth to spill the lies, and her lips to form a polite smile, "I've just been through a lot of stress. I just broke down, I guess..."

She knows it's a lame excuse as soon as the words hang in the air. Her breakdown had been too intense to be just stress, and her smile was way too awkward to convey any composure. And it's clear he doesn't really believe her, even looking mildly confused by her explanation. His eyes are cynical and dubious, as if he knows she's hiding something and is about to call her out on her evasion, and she wonders how she can be more obvious about her hopelessness.

"Do you want me to call someone? How are you going home?" He looks at her with a crescent concern, almost like he's about to pick her up and carry her home. And she would absolutely die if he actually came to do that.

"I'm with a friend," she says in a hurry, standing up and pretending she didn't see his hand being offered as a support, more lies coming out of her mouth, "I'm just waiting for her shift to end, so she can give me a ride. Thank you, anyway." She says all of it in one breath. Then, before he can offer anything else, she bows long and deep as she gives him his handkerchief back, trying not to flinch when his skin touches hers once again.

When she raises her head and allows her eyes to his, she sees that the worry is gone. The only thing left behind is a mild concern and a polite smile on his face. He puts the blue handkerchief on the inside pocket of his jacket, slowly and carefully. And Hajin can see that he's waiting to check if that's it, if that's her story, if she won't say anything else at all.

(She won't. It hurts to hear his voice, it hurts to talk to him. Even if it's not really him , even if it's only because of her memories. Hajin just wants all of this to be over already.)

"Take care, then," he says after a few moments of silence. Then he smiles again and lingers a bit before turning around and walking away, hands buried in his pockets. And as he departs, she can't help but notice that he looks more at ease and relaxed than the boy she met a thousand years ago.

She can't seem to look away.

Is that why I remembered? So that I could find him here and not let him go? So that I could know he and I belonged together in a distant past and follow him? So that we could be united here as well?

Is that why I went back in time in the first place?

So that I could go after him now?

She muffles the sob that takes over her, waiting until he's out of sight, and out of hearing, whe she will be able to break down and cry again, even harder than before. She holds back any sound, any tear, focusing on his black jacket, his black hair. And it's painful to do so, excruciatingly painful to watch him go as she holds it all in.

She does not follow him.

Hajin watches his back retreating, going away from her once again. She watches, and she anchors herself to the ground, not moving, not making a sound. She just watches and lets him go, because she doesn't have the right to make him stay. She doesn't have the right to after him now.

She doesn't follow him. She just stands behind, her mind now blending her memories from the past with her present. And she tells herself that this is it. This is why she remembered, mere minutes before meeting a stranger that carries her Prince's face. So that she could feel the pain she inflicted on him before, so that karma could find her and bite her hard back. So that they could be even at last.

She doesn't follow him. She doesn't have the right to his heart, not after Hae Soo abandoned him. Not after she left him alone. And after all, she's sure that the real one wouldn't want anything from her either, so there's no reason to pursue his doppelgänger.

Before the end, he hadn't come to her.

Before the end, he left her alone as well.

Before the end, they were only strangers who had ruined each other's lives, only to fall apart.

Now, before they are ruined once again, she will let him go first. She will become a stranger in his memory, a random girl he helped once to never be seen again. She will be sure not to destroy the stranger's life, the man who looks so much like Wang So that it hurts. She will prevent her misfortune from damaging his future, by not even being a part of his present to begin with.

She'd rather destroy herself than break his heart again.