Junghee remembered when the doctor came to her with a vial of something clear and green. It’d looked the way she imagined poison looks in fairy tales. She’d been an old woman on her death bed then. So when that bespectacled man had said about her family signing consent forms allowing this experiment… she could neither understand nor respond.

She should’ve died at eighty-three.

But today they were celebrating her hundred-and-thirty-first birthday. And her body was only in its early thirties. It had existed for a full circle and then continued looping when the Age Reversal Serum went into action, lengthening her life unnaturally.

She pressed her spreading lips at the memory of sliding the wheelchair away with a fully functional foot. She remembered the joy she felt being able to have legs that walked, or teeth that shone in a laugh, or lungs that didn’t collapse after each breathe. The return of every scarp of vitality had become cause of celebration for her.

For them.

The van bustled and jumped on road bumps. She reached her hand to the side without having to see her way, and took Taeyeon’s fingers in a thick grasp. They were headed home. Where they were born, where they grew up, where they married and moved in next door to each other. Where they lived away a large string of their lives until their uncaring kids threw them into two neighboring beds at a hospice.

The doctor had moved between their beds with his ampoules of poisonous green serum, taking notes and recording changes. And once they were capable of leaving, they did. Together. They always did everything together. It was an unspoken promise.

Two marriages, two mid-life crises, two sets of children later they were still together. They were still sitting beside one another in the bus they’d taken to the city once as teenagers. They were still contemplating this together, passing it from Junghee’s lap to Taeyeon’s arms, then back again. They were still thinking about the second end, and how they wanted to go together this time as well.

"So you don’t want to wait until we’re at least twenty again?" Junghee still harbored her doubts. "We can still have fun, you know~?" she nudged.

"You know what my father always said," Taeyeon murmured over the rattling engine of the rusty old bus. "He said do something only until it makes you happy. Then let it go." She turned to look at Junghee. "Are we happy?"

Junghee could only reply with a series of blinks as she thought about it.

"… I wish I could stay longer with my kids. The new ones, at least…" she bit her lips. "But how would they survive the shock of seeing their mother crawl across the house like a five month old baby?"

Taeyeon squeezed their hands reassuringly. “We’re doing the right thing. We wouldn’t survive long after we turn ten… It’d be shameful and embarrassing. This is not the best way to go, I know. But at least this way we go by our own terms. Not like last time… not rotting in a bed.”

The other slowly nodded. “Fine, then. We’ll do it in the river behind the old barn.”

“Is it deep enough…? Ah, I don’t even remember. I’m so tired.”

Junghee giggled, reaching out to affectionately ruffle Taeyeon’s hair. “We went swimming into it one night, did you forget? There was a full moon out. I was supposed to help Appa sow the radish in the morning but I’d run away.”

Taeyeon clicked her fingers. “And I found you near the old acacia! You were trying to hide behind that thin little tree! And your chima was caught in the thorns. I remember having to rip it away so you could be free, haha~!” she said, tickled by the recollection. “Ah, the sight of you waddling in with half a hanbok on. How many years will it be now…?”

“Too many,” Junghee shook her head.

"Hmm," Taeyeon rested her head on the other’s shoulder. "Enough that I started to forget."

Junghee pressed her ear to Taeyeon’s crown. “What if the river isn’t there anymore…?” she whispered. “What if the barn’s gone? Or if the whole village disappeared? A lot can change in a hundred years.”

"You and I haven’t changed," came the reply. "Not by much, anyway."

Junghee smiled as she started to fall asleep. “We’ll find our way to it, then. We’ll find the river, for sure.”