It didn't take Sejeong very long to learn everlasting youth is nothing more than a curse.

When Kahi, the angel, had been summoned under Sejeong's trembling hands, she had warned her.

"You will love and you will lose. You will suffer."

"But I want it." Young, naive, impulsive Sejeong had said. "I don't see anything wrong with being eternally beautiful."

"It'll be painful. I know from experience." 

But Sejeong was determined, she was guided more by her emotions than logic. 

She stuck her arm out. 

"Do it. Give me the mark, the magic, whatever."

"You won't be able to die unless someone else chooses to kill you."

"I don't care."

Kahi shook her head.

"You'll regret this."

A hundred years pass. 

Sejeong's family and friends crumble into dust around her, so she leaves for somewhere else, to travel and explore the vast infinity of the world she now inhabits, forever. 

The first time she falls in love, it's with a girl named Somi. Somi is young, and bright, with a smile that speaks of a thousand suns, who has a joy for life Sejeong has forgotten with time.

Somi takes her into fields of flowers to weave every color into her hair and show her the shapes of the clouds. They swim in crystal clear ponds at night, try and count the number of stars in the sky. 

Their first kiss is under a willow tree in a field not too far of a walk from Somi's house. Sejeong forgets that Somi is tied to the binds of age and she is not, she forgets Kahi's warnings, and she falls in deeper. 

They don't travel much, but they're happy in the comfort of their own home. Somi sells flowers to visitors in the small village they occupy, Sejeong makes dinner every night. Sejeong feels at peace finally.

Then Somi gets sick. She coughs, vomits, clutches her stomach from the unbearable pain. Her smile sparkles just as much, and yet her body becomes frail, her eyes dark and ghostly. 

Sejeong devotes everything to taking care of her. She picks the fresh flowers Somi loves so much and brings them to her bedside, reads to her and tells her stories, sings lullabies Somi had taught her. 

But not even the most dedicated of love can stop disease. 

When Somi dies, Sejeong cries for days and days and days. It feels endless. She curses the binding mark just below her right hand that keeps her here, to suffer. She wants to go with her. 

She buries Somi under the same willow tree they shared their first kiss under, and thinks of Kahi's words as she places a bundle of flowers there. 

"You will love and you will lose."

It takes a long time for Sejeong to find love like that again, as hard as she tries. She has flings, fleeting affairs that dash by for a few months, a few years even, but nothing feels like Somi did. 

The second time she falls in love, her travels bring her to Jieqiong. Jieqiong is bright, and full of energy and laughter and humor. 

She teaches Sejeong words of her own language, and Sejeong cherishes every word that starts falling off the other girls tongue.

Jieqiong takes Sejeong to eat noodles together and they have loud, laughter filled conversations. She treasures tiny aspects of Jieqiong, from the curvature of her nose to the shape of her lips.

Jieqiong gives her rides on the back of her motorcycle, lends Sejeong her jacket, and calls her princess.

She feels a lot like a princess when Jieqiong kisses her, too. 

Their love is carefree, wild, caught up in eachother, and Sejeong is happy again. Jieqiong collects photos of her girlfriend like treasures, keeping polaroids in her pocket. 

But Kahi was never wrong when she had warned Sejeong would love and lose.

When Sejeong finds out that Jieqiong's motorcycle has crashed, that her leather jacket has been found with a tattered picture of her, the girl she called princess, in the pocket, she truly wishes she could end her own life.

Sejeong doesn't love again until the third time she falls in love. 

She meets her, the girl, in a rainy city.

Her name is Chungha. She has a smile like an angel, and the prettiest eyes that make Sejeong melt, hard. 

Chungha is Sejeong's warmth in the chilly drizzle of the rain. They start with just meetings for coffee, sitting in a corner, discussing life, dreams, whatever. It feels like Chungha has opened the gates to her mind and let Sejeong in. 

She grows an addiction to coffee because of Chungha's love for it—she's never been accustomed to the bitter taste before, but now the warmth and the oaky flavor makes her think of Chungha with her hair framing her soft face and Chungha with her warm hands—she falls in love with it, like she falls in love with Chungha. 

They grow accustomed to each other, in tune like their hearts are beating simultaneously, and it isn't long before Sejeong is spending long nights at the other's apartment. Her own apartment feels empty and cold compared to Chungha's, so she leaves it behind, and moves to Chungha's full time.

Sejeong has tried almost every delicacy in the world, eaten the finest of foods, yet nothing seems to compare to sharing a pot of out-of-the-box macaroni with Chungha while watching TV. 

One night, while lying on her girlfriend's bed, she asks Chungha, who's on the floor folding laundry, 

"Do you believe in angels?"

"I guess I should, I'm dating one, aren't I?"

"You're a cheeseball." mutters Sejeong from behind her smile. 

Sejeong is walking along the waterfront of the city on some nondescript rainy day when she sees a woman in a long camel coat approaching her. Her features ring a bell in Sejeong's mind.

"Kahi." she whispers.

"I came to check up on you." 

"I'm doing fine." Sejeong gives her a smile that radiates sunshine, even through the pouring rain. 

"You're a strange one, Kim Sejeong." Kahi says, and the smiling girl she's speaking to can see the ages of wear and tear and exhaustion the angel has lived through just beyond her eyes. "I'll never understand how you stay so positive. You've suffered and suffered and yet, not once have you begged me for death."

"I guess I'm an optimist." 

"And there's the difference between you and I." 

"This is simply the price I pay for being naive, ignoring your warnings." 

 Kahi simply shakes her head.

"One day you will come to me, and beg for death. I know it."

"But that day isn't today." Sejong smiles, and bows slightly to Kahi. "I must get going. Chungha's waiting for me to bring her dinner."

Telling your girlfriend you are cursed with eternal youth is a hard thing to go about.

"Chungha, you trust me, right?"

"Of course." 

"What if I told you I'm over a thousand years old."

Chungha only laughs.

"I wish I was joking." Sejeong says, and opens a box that has been sitting on her lap. There's piles of photos, history books with marked tabs, clipped out newspaper articles.

"See, here I am in 1985. And here's an old-timey photo of me in 1870." Sejeong flips through one of the books. "There's a drawing of me by some artist in the mid 1600s." 

Chungha stares at the photos in front of her. 

"Sejeong," she says, with just barely a hint of doubt in her voice, "With any other person I'd call them crazy. But somehow, i believe you."

"You don't have to force yourself to."

"But I do. And I love you, whether you're a thousand years old, or just some whackjob who believes she is."

Sejeong feels her heart light up. 

When Sejeong proposes, it's at a coffee shop, fitting to how they first crossed paths. 

The wedding is in a forest not too far from the rainy city. Even Kahi comes.

Sejeong opens a bookstore in the vacant building underneath their apartment. She likes the feeling of being surrounded by knowledge.

As the years pass, Chungha's body ages, and Sejeong's doesn't. And yet she still loves Chungha just as much. She just wishes she wasn't trapped by the binds of agelessness and could grow old too. 

Sejeong grows a fear of Chungha's death. She knows she is cursed, it is around some corner when she's least expecting it.

Sejeong cries into Chungha's shoulder.

"I want to grow old too. I feel trapped. I don't want to lose you."

"It'll be ok." Chungha says, but neither of them quite believe it.

When Chungha passes, Sejeong is right at her side, holding her hand. 

She can't bear it, the feeling that Chungha's soul is somewhere far away, that she's lost yet another person she's loved. 

"Kahi," she begs, sobbing, "I can't do this anymore. Let me go with her." 

Kahi normally doesn't feel sympathy for foolish humans. And yet, when she sees the brokenness in Sejeong's eyes, the optimism and sunshine gone, she knows she wants to end her suffering. 

That night when Sejeong goes to sleep, the tattoo on her right wrist fades. She doesn't wake up.