Chapter Text
Her
At Pyongyang
That winter night
Dan quietly watches Jeong Hyeok as he stares at the stack of folded sheets she gave him a moment ago. His disbelief is etched in his frown, and is likewise reflected on his perplexed brown eyes. It renders her speechless.
Then again, she anticipated this reaction from him early on. It does not require some rocket science to guess how he would feel after being handed the secret letters which—as far as he knows—should have been destroyed a long time ago.
“Forgive me if it took a while,” she tells him. “I have been waiting for a good time to return those letters to you. But when the divorce proceedings began, we kind of avoided each other… remember? Although it was just a short phase.”
“Ahhh…”
“Yeah. And after that, we became extremely focused on getting back on track—so much so that our schedules were so full, we kept on missing each other.”
He does not respond. He simply runs his fingers lightly on the surface of the timeworn papers—now a little brittle and discolored on the edges.
“Or maybe, I was scared to,” she confesses to him. “I was afraid that you would hate me more than you already do for dropping a bombshell on you months ago.”
He takes a deep breath before answering, “I never hated you for that, Dan-ah.”
“You should have. I betrayed you.”
“Who am I to feel that way when it was I who betrayed you first?”
She chews on her lip for a bit, then murmurs, “Still…”
Helpless, he sighs, “Did you read them?”
“Yes,” she mumbles. “Up to the last one.”
After a few heartbeats, he asks her, “Is it because of these letters that you decided to end our marriage?”
“No,” she breathes the word out. “These are from the past, I know. But they made me see what we have been missing all along.”
A low groan escapes him, and he closes his eyes as he puts two and two together.
“I swore to myself that after what happened in Grindelwald, I would never do anything to hurt you again,” he mumbles under his breath, then chuckles without any trace of mirth. “Somehow, I still managed to do that.”
Suddenly, his broad shoulders fall—as though they have decided to cave in to the burden of the guilt brought upon by her admission. Even so, he wills himself to gaze at her repentantly.
“I am sorry, Dan-ah,” he says. “I am so sorry I—”
At that instant, she shakes her head to stop him.
“I think we have already offered each other enough apologies to last us another lifetime, Jeong Hyeok-ah,” she reminds him with a tiny smile. “It is time that we choose to move forward and not to look back on the past anymore.”
He does not argue. And she takes the prolonged silence between them as his subtle agreement.
When the time comes for Dan to leave, Jeong Hyeok walks her to the door of the apartment they can no longer call ‘home’.
“Are you sure you don’t need me at the turnover tomorrow?” she asks him.
“I think I can manage. Besides, you only have two days left before you leave for Switzerland again. You might as well spend it out of town with jangmonim”—he catches himself at once—“your mother, I mean.”
She is certain that her mother would not mind if he keeps addressing her with the family honorific. However, she does not say anything to encourage him—thinking that doing so would be counterproductive and disrupt whatever progress they have attained in reverting to how things were before the marriage.
So instead, she maintains a curt reply, “Yeah, I… I probably should.”
“Anyway… I reactivated my old number for the duration of my stay here,” she segues while fishing out her keys from her bag, and then quickly returns them to him to keep her hand from lingering on his. “If anything comes up, please send me a message, alright?”
“I will.”
“Good, good.”
Recognizing his reluctance, she takes it upon herself to step forward and initiate their parting embrace. He gravitates towards it with a smile that flaunts those two adorable dimples of his. And soon, she finds herself enfolded in the safety of his arms once more.
And as he buries his nose in her hair, she hears him whisper, “Good luck, Dan-ah. And take good care of yourself—always.”
“You too,” she sighs before pulling back a little to cradle a side of his face while looking straight into his eyes. “No more saying sorry, alright? We had a good run together, and we tried our best. No regrets.”
Albeit hesitant, he murmurs in agreement, “No regrets.”
She then lets her hand fall, pulling it back as she retreats to her rightful place outside the line she drew between them months ago. And she shoves it deep in her pocket for good measure.
“Well…” she exhales while rocking on the balls of her feet to fill in the silence. “I better get going now.”
“Ah, yes. Do you want me to call a cab for you?”
“No need. My uncle will be picking me up. Actually, he’s probably waiting for me downstairs at the moment.”
“I see. Well… I will make the arrangements so that your boxes can be delivered by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sounds good. Thank you, Jeong Hyeok-ah,” she breathes out. “For that… and for letting me fly on my own wings.”
“As you should, Dan-ah,” his kind eyes are wistful as he says this. “I hope you find the kind of love you have always deserved.”
For some reason, his words leave a dismally-ominous feeling in her gut… as if there is more to their farewell than meets the eye. There is an air of finality to it. And to her, it seems like they are sending each other off to separate paths which may never cross again.
A part of her itches to probe—to extract the truth out of him lest there is something she should be concerned about. Yet, the smile he tries to give her is so sincere, it pacifies her—tempting her into believing that whatever happens, whether their parting is permanent or not, they are going to be alright.
“With work and everything in between, I doubt that it will happen anytime soon,” she chuckles a bit in her reply. “But I will let you know once I do for the sheer pleasure of teasing you.”
Falling into step with her banters, he smirks at her and says, “I will try not to get jealous.”
“For the sake of my image—at least—you should pretend to be,” she jokingly chides him.
To that, Jeong Hyeok nods while suppressing a laugh—though the sound holds nothing but superficial amusement to her ears.
“I wish you would do the same for yourself,” Dan tells him when the humor fades shortly afterwards.
“Do what?”
“Find the kind of love you have always deserved.”
His response is to purse his lips together in a grim line.
Worried that she might cross the line, she keeps her tone measured as she asks him, “You do know where she is, don’t you?”
He merely shakes his head. And wordlessly, he avoids her gaze by staring at an imaginary spot on the polished floor.
•••
Him
At Goseong
One year later
In the midst of the gnawing silence that evening, Jeong Hyeok feels the weight of his father’s calculating stare from across the table. So he keeps himself occupied with dinner in a futile—and rather pathetic—attempt to make it appear that he is immensely relishing the sumptuous dinner before him.
Truth be told, every time the now-retired general is looking at him with this familiar skepticism, he feels as though he is back to being the pubescent boy of eleven who has been caught doing yet another mischief. Except that, at the present, he is no longer clueless of what he did to earn his old man’s wordless scrutiny again. It is highly likely that his father can sense that something is up—although neither of them is willing to address the elephant in the room.
That is nothing, however, compared to the guilt brought upon by his mother’s frequent forlorn gaze.
Soon, the unwanted attention they inadvertently shower him with becomes suffocating. And Jeong Hyeok takes it upon himself to deflect it away from him by initiating some small talk.
“I saw you were having a hard time standing up earlier, abeonim,” he mutters as he picks at his food. “Are your knees aching again?”
The seemingly-innocent inquiry evidently caught Ri Chung Ryeol unawares. But as expected of a battle-scarred soldier, he quickly composes himself—squaring his shoulders and clearing his throat before he casually gives his reply.
“It’s my back that has been hurting recently,” he grumbles while poking around his own plate.
“How bad is it?”
“Well… what can you expect when a man lives to an age that is way past his prime?”
“Abeonim…”
“There is nothing to fret about,” he assures his son and his wife, who exchanges meaningful glances with him in turn.
The cryptic conversation is not lost on Jeong Hyeok. Then again, knowing that arguing with his father is a waste of time given his current situation, he ultimately decides to feign innocence.
Instead, he quietly reminds the older Ri, “Please do not forget to take your supplements.”
He hears his father let out a bitter scoff in response.
“I should be the one telling you that,” Chung Ryeol says in the same hushed fashion.
His remark elicits a sob from his wife, who immediately stifles the sound before it completely slips out of her mouth with her hand. And being the once-renowned actress that she is, Kim Yoon Hui gathers herself and comes up with an excuse before anyone could say a word.
“Darn hiccups,” she says before downing a glass of water.
Her reaction devastates Jeong Hyeok, rooting him to the spot helplessly while his heart breaks a little more inside his chest for the umpteenth time. He looks away at once to hide his emotions from his beloved parents—the two people whom he will forever be indebted and sorry to. And it is then that he catches a glimpse of his father inconspicuously letting his arm fall from where it was perched on the table on purpose—presumably to reach for her hand and hold it tightly under the table, out of his sight.
“You’re fine,” he hears the usually-stoic man murmur—not only to his mother, but also to him. “We will be fine.”
•••
Jeong Hyeok stays up late that evening, sitting idly before the window with one leg crossed over the other and an old notebook on his lap. He stares at a distance while absent-mindedly tapping the pen he holds against the timeworn leather cover, his thoughts wandering off to the diamond mountain range framing one side of the county.
Thanks to the glow of the full moon, he could clearly behold the beauty of Gaegolsan—with the peaks of the revered stone bone mountains in sharp contrast to the inky midnight sky. There were a few times he went hiking there with Mu Hyeok in their youth, and their last trip was to complete the Kuryongyon Course together before he flew to Switzerland. Consequently, he is reminded of Rabbit Rock and the legend of its origin—which is one of the many bedtime stories their mother told them when they were little.
As he remembers the tale, Jeong Hyeok could not help but wonder if, like the mythical rabbit, he is being punished by the King of Heaven—who granted him permission to see the realm for a limited time—for his greed. He should have not allowed the beauty he was meant to behold and not possess to consume every bit of him; he should have known better than to let himself fall crazily, stupidly, and hopelessly in love with it.
Now, here he is: smitten by the god with a spell that transformed him into a turtle whose fate was to become a worthless rock. He had a long drawn-out journey after being consumed with desire once upon a time—until his world stopped turning altogether without him noticing. Before he knew it, he had already ceased to move forward with his life.
In the end, he found himself stuck in the circumstances he shaped for himself, left without a choice other than to deal with the fortunes and misfortunes prompted by his decisions and indecisions. In the end, he found himself as still as a rock.
Maybe, it was a cruel retribution mandated by the powers that be for coveting someone like Yoon Se Ri. Or maybe, it was just him dealing with his grief for a life not lived and a love forever forgone.
Initially, he was in denial; he held on to the tiniest flicker of hope that a happy ending was waiting for him and Se Ri. A part of him believed that he could make his way back to her someday if only he persevered to accomplish everything he had to do. And then, at one point, he was angry. He felt indignant at the universe for conspiring to keep them apart.
Over the years, he made countless deals with the gods for her. He promised to bring the monster behind his brother’s murder to justice if she could be saved from herself; he promised to remain a filial son if her cold-hearted family could begin treating her as their own. What if he honors his vow to be a faithful husband? Perhaps she could meet someone who will never leave her side too.
Even so, there were several occasions when the fog of sadness had overcome him. And he caved in to it more times than he cared to admit. It crippled him, changed him into someone he could barely recognize. He was reduced to an empty shell of himself—dispassionate, spiritless, lethargic. He often asked himself if there was any sense in carrying on when the choices he made had led him further and further away from her.
It was an endless cycle in purgatory. He was going around in circles, passing through the phases and starting over without even reaching the end…
Until he got a chance at closure when he saw her in Grindelwald one winter day.
After that, he had come to terms with his reality and genuinely intended to carry on with his life—only to be dragged back to square one when Dan told him that it was time for them to throw in the towel and call it quits.
But he finally decides that his acceptance will not be equivalent to him blindly taking the cards he is dealt, no; he now has to play that hand with a strong determination to turn things around.
He has been acclimatizing himself to the gaping void in his life for years. It’s high time he takes as many shots as he can to find whatever it is he has been missing all along—even though it took him nearly two decades to realize that.
So in the darkest hours before daybreak, Jeong Hyeok starts to pour his heavy heart out into a letter to his parents—thanking them for everything they have done for him, asking for their unconditional forgiveness…
…in case I do not come back, he tells them. Please be happy, abeonim, eomonim. Stay healthy, be well… live the simple life you have always wanted here in the countryside for as long as you wish.
And if this happens to be my last farewell, then it is my hope that you could both send me off to my journey with a love powerful enough to shelter me from any harm.
Once again, I express my sincerest apologies for breaking your hearts. It is shameless of me to ask this of you despite knowing how much you have already endured all these years. Nonetheless, I have to—and I swear to honor your sacrifices as our parents by striving to be a decent human being for the rest of my days.
Abeonim, eomonim, I leave you with my love, my gratitude… and a humble request that you do not grieve for me as much as you did for my brother, Mu Hyeok. Even if you may not hear from me from here forward, please just pretend that I returned to Switzerland with a one-way ticket after the orchestra invited me to be their pianist for an indefinite period, and that every evening, I am playing in a big theater somewhere on the other side of the world.
And in parting, he writes:
For being that child who made you weep and the son whose departure would require you to mourn for the second time in this lifetime, I am truly sorry.
•••
Her
At Seoul
Seven years after Grindelwald
No matter how much Yoon Se Joon pleads, Se Ri could not find it in her heart to forgive her jageun oppa for being oblivious of her daughter’s schedule—while consequently ruining hers—yet again.
She is kidding, of course. Deep inside, she is thrilled to play the ‘stage auntie’ as always.
But she just had to poke fun at him before she acquiesces.
“Seriously…” she hisses. “How could you forget that Se Na will be having her exhibit today?”
“It’s because I was—”
“And you call yourself her ‘father’?”
She hears her eldest brother huff out his exasperation before arguing, “Ya, Se Ri-ah! You were the one who told me not to delay those meetings with the workers. I remember you scolding me all the time for not putting our people first.”
“Oh—did I tell you that?”
“Yes! If I am trying my best to be an exemplary leader now at the expense of my own family, it is all because of you—”
“Me? How is it—”
“—which is why you should cover for me today.”
“Ya, Se Joon oppa!” she blurts out. “Are you gaslighting me?”
“I’m not gaslighting you—whatever that means. You see…” he tries reasoning out in despair. “Oh, come on! Just this once, alright?”
“This is not the first time that you have been negligent towards Se Na’s activities,” her tone takes a more serious tone as she reminds him. “The kid rarely sees you these days.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? It’s because of these”—he lets out a frustrated sigh—“problematic managers Se Hyung hired years ago that we are having these never-ending grievances from the laborers.”
Se Ri does not respond to that. And for sure, it does not come as a surprise to Se Joon because even if they have somehow grown fond of each other like how siblings should, Se Hyung seems to be a permanent exception. After he was convicted and sent behind bars, the second of the Yoon descendants had drifted farther away from the family—which is in total contrast to how the rest of them had become incredibly cordial to one another.
Maybe, things will improve in due time—or go back to how they were, at least. Maybe they won’t.
Se Ri is not holding her breath, though. She finds the current set-up better actually; she would rather treat him like the estranged kin that he always had been than act as if the scars he inflicted on her had completely healed.
And she’s perfectly fine with that.
“Please, Se Ri-ah,” Se Joon begs her, albeit quite impatiently. “My wife would have attended today. But as you know, she only got discharged from the hospital two weeks ago. And our poor Hye Ji-ssi had to go through C-section, so—”
“Fine,” Se Ri snaps. “Although you really have to put in extra effort as Se Na’s abeoji, oppa. Sure, your daughter has inherited my capacity to understand inattentive parents like yourself. But should you wait until she becomes disappointed—”
“Of course not!”
“There you go! Now, listen: you owe me big time, you know? I have a client meeting at two that I have to skip.”
“Tsss… Can’t you ask Gu Seung Jun-ssi to be there on your behalf?”
“Well… what else can I do?”
“See how things are working out for us?” he sounds a bit too ecstatic for someone who should be repentant for his shortcomings. “Anyway, let’s talk about what you want in exchange for this favor later over dinner. Okay, Se Ri-ah?”
“Fair enough,” she shrugs. “I’ll let you know once I decide on my reward.”
In reality, though, she is already typing a quick email to her favorite designer in Dubai to order three pairs of shoes from the still-confidential Spring collection as they speak.
•••
As Se Ri looks at the photos on display, she cannot help but wonder from which side did her niece get the skills to capture life on film.
Definitely not from Yoons, she concludes. Their family is more into analytics and methodologies than art.
Se Na-yah probably takes after Hye Ji-ssi or her relatives, then, she guesses. Or me.
She bridles a proud laugh as she draws this conclusion. After all, except for her mother, only she has an eye for everything and anything beautiful…
And melancholic.
Truth be told, it pains her to stare into the eyes of the subjects of Se Na’s portraits because the emptiness in them is overly-familiar to her. It lurked in hers once, back in the day when she had fallen so deep into a rabbit’s hole with no one on her side and no place to call her ‘home’.
Now as she stands before these nameless faces of men and women battling depression, Se Ri’s heart breaks a little because she sees herself in them.
Because once in her life, she waged a war against her own monsters too.
“What did you think about my work, gomo?” Se Na asks her as they traverse the aisles leading to the next gallery.
“You’re brilliant, Yoon Se Na. I can tell you that much,” she answers. “You have an interesting perspective on everyday scenery. The lack of sophisticated techniques is pretty obvious, of course—but you have just started, right? And you can always acquire those skills through training and practice.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing.”
“Pssh. Have I ever lied to you?”
Se Na shakes her head while stifling a giggle.
“You should trust me on this,” Se Ri says with a little haughtiness—and a hairflip for good measure. “I know an artist when I see one.”
Her niece merely rolls her eyes in response.
“Don’t tell me porky now,” she hears Se Na mumble beside her—an expression the kid had been copying from her since god knows when.
“I’m not telling you porky.”
“No way, gomo. When have you ever met someone other than your managers, Gu Seung Jun samchon…?”
Before she can even catch herself, she utters, “I knew someone.”
By then, they had reached the ground floor lounge. And standing several feet away from them—a raging visual against the white modern interiors—is a polished ebony grand piano.
They both slow down to a halt as they approach it.
Se Ri can sense a question coming. (For crying out loud—she is talking to a wide-eyed teenager!) So she deflects it right away by tickling some of the keys until the first notes of a Beethoven classic fill the silence of the hall.
“I know how to play the piano myself, you see?” she scoffs. “This is called Für Elise.”
But as fate would have it, she forgets the next bar and hits the wrong keys.
“Oh. What was that again?” she grumbles under her breath.
Someone other than Se Na says, “It should be E and D#.”
“Ah. Yes…” she follows the instructions of her good samaritan. “This is the part I always—”
She trails off just as a stranger’s hand joins hers to hit the said keys. Her fingers cease to move as his long and undeniably dextrous ones flit over the ivory with the grace of a seasoned pianist. She wordlessly watches his nimble digits play the rest of the piece—mesmerized by the recurrent, yet euphonious shift in dynamics that could only be seamlessly executed by someone who studied the instrument by heart.
Towards the end, Se Ri finds herself floored by the unknown man. She is left frozen on the spot, paralyzed by some peculiar awareness that this happenstance is not at all random, so much so that she could not bring herself to move.
What more to lift her head and meet his eyes?
“Lee seonsaengnim!”
Albeit bewildered, Se Ri identifies Se Na’s voice through the thick veil of haze shrouding her brain.
“I thought you had already left,” her niece tells the man standing beside her. “I did not see you around here earlier.”
“I was checking the exhibits of your classmates,” he replies.
Se Ri squeezes her eyes shut for a couple of seconds as a wave of tingles run down her spine, for she—heaven help her!—would recognize that lucious baritone in any lifetime, in any realm.
Thankfully, the sound of Se Na clucking her tongue against her palate distracts her a bit and grounds her to reality.
“Let me guess…” the fourteen year-old mutters. “You got lost in the gallery again, huh?”
“I am afraid so,” the man she addressed as Teacher Lee nervously chuckles.
“Says someone who used to be a Captain of the army,” Se Na jokingly counters, but she keeps her tone hushed—as though she is stating some classified information. “With a sense of direction like yours, seonsaengnim, it baffles me how you survived the training in one piece, let alone get here.”
“Well… I boarded more wrong trains than you care to count, young lady,” their accidental companion takes a moment to breathe, and Se Ri is willing to bet her company that he is anxiously staring at her—waiting for her to look up—as he speaks. “And I blamed all of my detours on bad timings, difficult circumstances, and an indelible armistice line.”
“But by some miracle, Ms. Yoon”—the way he carefully states this makes her believe that he isn’t talking to Se Na anymore—“I still did.”
“Ugh—ahjussi, that’s so cheesy,” Se Na dramatically groans to express her disappointment. “No wonder you are still a bachelor.”
He simply laughs at her niece’s brazen comments.
“Anyway…” Se Na clears her throat before proceeding. “Gomo, I would like to introduce to you our teacher, Mr. Ri Jeong Hyeok. He is actually a pianist by profession, although he conducts photography classes in our school every now and then.”
“Seonsaengnim, this is my aunt”—Se Ri feels Se Na subtly nudging her forward with her elbow—“and my favorite person in the world… Ms . Yoon Se Ri.”
In front of Se Ri is a hand of a man that is twice as big as hers—with calloused digits extending from a wide, upturned palm. Prominent veins run from his wrist and upwards, entwined with the lean muscles of his forearm. She assumes that it has not changed much since the last time she saw it—or held it, for that matter. Nevertheless, it is quite easy to notice that his fourth finger is now missing a golden band.
“Hello, Ms. Yoon,” she hears him call unto her. “My name is Ri Jeong Hyeok.”
Se Ri is left with no other choice than to muster the courage to turn to him—the lover that whisked her away into his home for a clandestine weekend, the old flame she never expected to cross paths with in the busy streets of Seoul…
And apparently, the only man her heart was, is, and will be beating ever so wildly for.
With the same boyish smile that flaunts the dimples on each of his cheek—together with some laugh lines that serve as a bittersweet reminder of how much time had passed—Jeong Hyeok offers, “I am sorry it took me a while.”
And with that, he meant eighteen long years.
But still, for two souls seemingly fated to meet over and over only to be broken apart every time, this elusive chance at a clean slate is definitely worth the wait and the gamble.
So without further delay, she puts her hand in his, clutching it tightly to return the gesture. And in hopes that this beginning would be different from the ones that came before it, she tells him her name.
“I am Yoon Se Ri.”