"What is going on?"

Hajin looks up from the material she was organizing in the tray to Lee Jinhye's eyes, who had silently approached her and is currently glaring at her with a demanding look.

"I'm setting up my station...?" She replies unsure and the woman rephrases her question.

"What is going on between you and that guy that you met outside a while ago?"

Hajin's confusion fades into annoyance.

"Nothing is going on," she replies with a dry voice, resuming her previous activity, "I had lost my planner in the coffee shop, the other day. He found it, and just wanted to return it."

"Hm. And why exactly did he take you for coffee?"

Hajin pauses again, her brain slowly registering Jinhye's words. And then she bursts, a little outraged, staring at her accuser with accusing eyes.

"You followed us?"

"Well, I care for your safety," Jinhye retorts, making a shameless face, "Now, why did you go to a coffee shop with a stranger?"

"And why are you still going back there and talking to him?" Nari speaks up from the station besides Hajin.

She turns and looks at Nari with shocked, bulged eyes, surprised by her other friend suddenly joining the interrogation, as well as by the question she was just asked.

"Not you too."

"I didn't follow you, I just happened to see you there with him once," the woman quickly defends herself, and then nods to their colleague, "Jinhye-ssi is the one who has been following you."

"Yes, and that's how I know that there is something going on between you two," Jinhye looks unashamed of her behavior and presses on, "Go Hajin never hangs out with a stranger that she's not interested in."

Hajin rolls her eyes at the girls' inquisition. And then she feels a tinge of sadness creeping in her heart. Because yes, Go Hajin never hangs out with a stranger unless she's interested in him. But she's not Go Hajin anymore.

She's not Hae Soo either. She's this mix of both that resulted in another person, a new person. A person that not even her parents or her closest friends know too well. She has new behaviors, new feelings that clash with the old ones she had before traveling to Goryeo. And she also has the ones that surfaced after regaining her memories — both too long and not so long ago. She has burden on top of burden, and she feels that she's not someone she was familiar with anymore.

But that tinge is brief, and is soon gone. And with a naturality she does not quite feel — but has been masterfully trained to maintain — she shoots down any sort of accusation they might have, any matchmaking idea that is now sprouting in Jinhye's and Nari's heads.

"He works there. And since I had bumped on him and spilt his drink before, I offered to pay him a coffee," she explains, shrugging her shoulders, and then looks pointedly to Jinhye, "He probably wouldn't have had to come by if you had fetched my planner when you went back there."

Now it's time for Jinhye to shriek, outraged by the accusation.

"You didn't say anything about a planner, just your bag."

"You didn't even know. Shows how much you care."

"You know what? Now I'm not feeling bad for eating your chocolate anymore."

"You should feel bad! I needed that chocolate in times of crisis!"

"Well, it's your fault for not sharing it in the first place! How could you, Hajin-ah?"

"You still haven't replied to the first question, Hajin-ssi."

There's a second of silence after Nari's words, in which Hajin curses the woman internally for remembering it, and herself for not just walking away from that talk.

"Oh! You cunning fox!" Jinhye explains, laughing incredulously, "You were distracting me, and it was working!"

"Is there anything going on between you and the barista at the coffee shop?" Nari reinforces the question that had sparked that entire conversation, not letting any room for escape for Hajin.

The woman struggles to keep her answer simple and not to spill too many details.

"He makes me coffee, we talk, then I pay."

"He walks you home, sometimes."

"Jinhye-ah!"

"You have also been texting more frequently during your breaks."

"Nari-ah!"

They look determined, not taken aback by Hajin's indignation, so she sighs.

It's not that she wants to keep Kim Hyeonjin a secret from everyone, she's just treading carefully. Ever since she recovered from her coma, all her friends and family were insisting that she either find a new boyfriend or that she would let loose and have some fun once in a while, urging so that she wouldn't harbor negative feelings after what happened with her ex. She knows that, as soon as she lets them meet, they'll keep pushing things between her and her new friend, and that would just ruin everything.

Hajin can't really think of a romantic relationship. Not right now, so soon — and yet so long — after remembering the lover she left behind to save their daughter. Especially because she's only still getting to know the man who looks like her King, still learning how not to relate his face to Wang So's.

Hajin can't lose Kim Hyeonjin's newfound friendship, and yet she can't fall into him too fast. She would go crazy would that happen now.

"He's a friend," she gives a few more details to satisfy their curiosity, but answers carefully, "We talk, we text, he accompanies me to the bus stop when it's late and dark. It's not like we're going out or anything."

"But do you want to?"

"Hello, welcome!" Hajin ignores Jinhye's question by calling up her client who arrived serendipitously, "I'm ready for you."

The old lady walks forward with a smile and Hajin smiles back, ignoring her friend's gazes as they step away. She's still smiling as she waits for the client to properly sit down and explain what she expects from her make up today.

She continues to smile as she does her work, making small talk from time to time, but her mind is already wandering. Her mind is already back at Goryeo and she's covering the 4th Prince's scar for the first time.

Kim Hyeonjin is the anchor that brings her back to the present: It's been a thousand years since she last saw Wang So, but she had spoken with Hyunjin just the day before. She talked with him about wanting to get a better phone, a modern topic that she could never share with the fourth Prince of Goryeo. She had texted him a smiling emoji just before she had walked back to her station a few minutes before.

And just like that, she's tied to the proper timeline. She's hurting, of course, but she feels her feet on the ground even when missing a long dead monarch. The only setback is that now she's thinking way too much about the barista with the warm smile, and that seems to be more dangerous than it should.

Hajin shouldn't be getting closer, she knows. She should have left Hyeonjin out of this, out of her mental recovery. She should walk away from his life, slowly, before she ruins it. She knows she should, but it's hard to, when she already loves his face, his smile, his voice and his body.

No. Not his body.

This one has no scars, like the 4th Prince had. He has no sad and heartbreaking stories. No tragic past carved directly on his skin like the man in her dreams. But he makes her smile, even after she thought she could never be happy again. He listens to her stories after a tedious or a tiresome day at work. If not, he sends her a message wishing her good luck.

He gives her hope just after her world has crumbled down. And that's enough for her.

.

.

.

.

What Go Hajin had forgotten, even after living a decade in Goryeo, and adapting to a different lifestyle, falling in love, then out of love — being betrayed and continuing to believe in people — is that everyone has scars. It's just a matter of how much they let them show.

Gwangjong's scar was unknown to the 21st Century, not even a single trace of it remained in history books. But she knew its contour by heart. She could trace it even though he's been dead for a thousand years, she could draw it with her eyes closed.

And she was the only one.

She has her own scars as well. Hae Soo had a mark on her wrist, Go Hajin has the traumas of a past life. And even though she never forgot any of them, people around her didn't know how deep those wounds actually were.

That's what she forgot when she met Hyeonjin and allowed herself to get close to him. She forgot that even the man who looked so much like Wang So, despite having no marks at clear sight, could also have a painful story hidden behind the glint in his eyes. A sad past concealed behind the sweet smile he constantly used to greet her.

He was kind and full of a glow she didn't see often in people. And he had a habit of texting her silly pictures and emojis instead of starting serious and in-depth conversations. He knew her favorite drinks and could say how her day was depending on her order. Whenever he had a break or a slow shift, he would sit with her, and they would talk about whatever was upsetting or exciting her.

He also developed a habit of bringing her food whenever she took a late night-shift and spent too much time without eating. He would buy her a snack after leaving the café and wait outside until she finished cleaning and closing the shop. He would also walk her to the bus stop and wait there with her if it was too late — always claiming he was headed that way, even though she already knew very well he lived in the other direction.

And it was during one of these occasions that she found out.

He didn't have to work that day. Apparently, he had switched his shift that week with a colleague. But since Hyeonjin knew she would go home late, he went to the shop to bring her customary night snack and keep her company.

They walk with leasure, too engaged in conversation to be in a hurry. The day had been extremely hot, and now the night, despite being a little windy, is still very warm. Hajin has her hair curled in a bun on the top of her head, and Hyunwoo wears casual non-working clothes.

He is telling her a story about a friend back in his hometown, his hands waving in the air as he describes the story vividly, when she sees them.

Her smile fades and she feels a chill climbing down from her nape to her lower back. She freezes on the spot — her feet refuse to keep on walking — and before she knows it, she's grabbing his arm, the one closest to her, and bringing it closer for a proper inspection.

"Hyeonjin-yah... These are..."

"Ah, yeah. They're scars."

His confirmation comes in the usual upbeat tone with a shrug, and she doesn't know how to take in his reaction, still taken aback and surprised.

She stares. She tries not to, but she stares. She stares into the aggressive white marks in his forearms, climbing from his wrists, from the back of his hands, wrapping around his muscles like as web woven tightly to suffocate; like vines trapping him, and then disappearing under the sleeves of his shirt, making Hajin wonder just how far — just how deep — do they go.

"What happened?" The question slips from her mouth before she realized she thought it, before she fully assimilated the sight before her, before she remembers to have some decency, before she remembers it's rude to ask and it's rude to stare and now she has asked and she is staring and she can now only hope he won't be offended.

Not that he shouldn't.

(Really, he should just follow his doppelgänger's steps and walk away from her, no matter how much she wanted him to stay, no matter how she begged him to come back.)

Hyeonjin smiles.

"Oh, just one of those days. You know, when a burning building burns down and crashes down on you?"

She doesn't know how he does it, but now she's back to smiling at him.

"Urgh, those are the worst."

They chuckle and all is well. They even resume their walk, albeit slower, and even his scars look less shocking now, less intimidating and scary and a delicate topic, so she asks casually.

"How old were you?" The marks are faint enough to assume years, but she wants to be sure.

"Hmmmm, about ten years? I was still in high school."

"All this time and I only notice them now?" She wonders out loud, finding out that there are more details about Kim Hyeonjin that she never noticed before.

"I cover them at work. With makeup," he says as if that's something obvious and, given her experience in the area, that she should know already, "People don't know how to act around me when they see them. And it's bothersome to wear long sleeves during summer."

His clarification only surprises her even more. She didn't expect Hyunwoo to have scars, but she certainly didn't expect him to conceal them with make-up. She had been trying her best to not make any connection between him and Wang So, but it turns out that they have even more similarities than their faces.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to. I don't mind it."

She hadn't actually apologized to him, but to the man she left behind a thousand years ago. But when she looks at her new friend, she smiles bitterly, because she never thought he could have a troubled past as well.

"I'm sorry you were in a fire and had a building crash down on you and sustained multiple injuries," she rephrases her previous sentence, adding her true feelings and hopes for Kim Hyunwoo instead of Wang So, "And I'm sorry you have to hide it."

"Don't be," he whispers a request, but he's clearly elated* by what she said, "I've forgotten everything about that time already. In fact, I became a sort of a celebrity back in my hometown, so it was actually a good thing."

Hajin laughs again.

.

.

.

.

She had resigned herself not to know anything about Kim Hyeonjin history. She had no right to his past, and she wouldn't pry, wouldn't ask any more questions. She would take whatever he had to offer her now, and let that time stay in the past, where it belonged.

But she learns a few bits about that time anyway. Eventually Go Hajin comes to know more about his past, and how many scars he carried with an open smile. She has to pull the story out of him in fragments — a piece at a time — because he's always a bit too awkward about himself, never sure how or where to start, but always pouring everything out when he gets it going. So she guides him with prompts, slowly putting together the puzzle she now realizes he is.

An orphan. Car crash, he was only seven. Later she also finds out he was in the vehicle at the time, although always narrates it distantly, like a spectator, the trauma too acute for him to truly remember anything. His only living relative was his mother's sister, who was in Busan getting her post-degree at the time. He didn't speak for a year. Months of therapy to come out of his shell. After a long, intense and strenuous time, his first words were to his aunt: "I want to leave."

"You didn't like Busan?" She asks when he stops there, pauses and looks away for a long time.

"I hated Busan. Don't really remember why, but I remember not liking anything about it. Sometimes I think it was because it was so noisy, even at night. But I think it's also because I felt too alone."

"Your aunt was too busy?"

"She was an adult, it didn't count."

"What about school?"

"I hated school. Even the kids. Especially the kids. Honestly I had been hating school for a while, even before my parents died. After the accident, I just started to hate it more."

His aunt didn't hesitate to move after he spoke. They went back to her hometown, which was smaller and quieter. She got him a private tutor and took him to events around town, creating a positive environment so that he could flourish again. She saw him grow and mature in the safety of their community, and ten years later she almost had a heart attack when a burning building crashed down on top of him.

"She doesn't ever admit it," Hyeonjin said, laughing, "But whenever I forget to call her, or even take too long to answer her messages, she gets anxious, thinking I fell out of a plane or something."

"It's not like you can blame her."

"I don't blame her, just my rotten luck. But she does blame herself for most of it."

Hajin thought it was cute the way he talked about his aunt. He always had this air of mirth and was always smiling or grinning as he retold his memories, but underneath his words there was a certain tone of deep and solemn gratitude that she only used to hear back in Goryeo. Kim Hyeonjin loved the woman as a mother, and he felt grateful for having her in his life. He also missed her, despite having no plans of leaving Seoul and going back to his hometown.

It's been months since she first followed him to a coffee shop, and every day it seems that she finds out something different about him. It feels like she already knows him too well, and yet she realizes it's wrong to think that she knows all there is to know about him. And the facts that are unveiled gradually to her makes her appreciate him even more – not just because of the company on her way back home and the food. Not just because of his face, his smile, his voice and his body.

And from that night on, whenever she goes to the coffee shop, she carefully watches him work, paying attention to the little details she missed before. The way he's so polite as he greets his customers, the way he moves behind the balcony as he prepares the orders. His attentive and focused eyes when she sees him studying for exams, his relaxed and yet strong posture as he walks her home. And above all, she keeps observing his arms whenever he wears short sleeved shirts.

Hyeonjin's scars are unknown to those that walk past him in the shop, in college and on the streets, but she feels like she can see where they are, under the make up. She feels like she can see his whole past deep down in his eyes. She feels like, even though the 4th Prince was what attracted her to her new friend, she cares about him for who he is, and what he did for her, not who he resembled.

She feels she finally started to understand him properly.

A\N: Some background info into not-Wang-So this time around, and that's why this chapter was so hard to get out, and also why it go so long...