I never understood why some twins dressed exactly the same. There had been a pair of twins at my middle school and they had always had the exact same haircut and since they had both wore the same school uniform, they had looked the same to the last hair. In addition they were 100% inseparable, attending the same classes, the same afternoon clubs and whenever you invited Miyoung, you had to invite Mihyun, too. To anyone on the outside they might as well have been one and the same person.

Maybe it had been misplaced – since the two girls had always looked happy – but I had always felt some odd pity towards them. How horrible it had to be to be constantly confused for your sister and the other way around? How awful to have an almost exact copy of yourself walking around with you all day?

I had always imagined that if I had a twin, I would do everything I could to be different than her.

Now fate… or whatever… had handed me a … sort-of… twin and – although she looked very much like me – she was an entirely different person.

But not that anyone on the outside could have deduced any of this as Chu Hua and I rode the bus, heading for the very outskirts of southern Seoul.

We looked almost identical: Chu Hua’s hair was still significantly longer than mine, but otherwise she had the same make-up less face, dark-green jacket and dark jeans and boots. Upon seeing her this morning I had actually wondered, whether she had bought and then dressed in the same clothes that I wore on purpose, but I hadn’t dared to ask and now I was far too thrilled and scared of what was lying ahead to worry about the fact that we looked like clones.

Chu Hua and I sat in the very back of the bus.

The people in the seats in front of us exited – a few at each station – until only we were left.

We had barely spoken since we had left,  as Chu Hua had insisted that I would have to see for myself to believe her.

I didn’t even know the name of the station where we were going.

I had texted my mum that I had made a friend and was going exploring around Seoul. After assuring her that my acquaintance was female, my mum hadn’t objected.

Some strange little feeling inside told me, that Chu Hua – also seeing something of herself in me, as I hoped – would not intentionally cause me harm.

“Almost there,” said Chu Hua, as the bus left behind the last houses and we entered the country-side that greeted us with fields of yellow and green and the occasional bit of wood.

Fear and reason decided to catch up with me and I got an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. Chu Hua might look like me, but at the end of the day she was still a total stranger. A total stranger with whom I was heading to a mysterious place. A mysterious place of which I knew neither name nor location.

Chu Hua seemed to register my unease and she tried to soothe me:

“Don’t be scared. There won’t be anyone there except us. We’ll have all the time in the world for me to explain things.”

Somehow that didn’t calm me. No one else, except us?

As minds do when you least need it, mine started coming up with worst case scenarios for the outcomes of the trip: Chu Hua as an axe murderer killing her clone or sacrificing me to her cult. I wondered whether it was too late to turn around.

Chu Hua was watching me attentively and with a worried expression. Once again the look on her face seemed to express almost precisely how I was feeling. But… there was something in her look… a fear… a fear that ran deep…

“I’m scared, too, alright?” Chu Hua said, “I’m about to show you something I haven’t shown anyone. Something only I and the gods know.”

A picture of several corpses dumped somewhere in a field materialized in my mind.

I could see my own worried wide-eyed expression reflected in Chu Hua’s brown eyes.

It was a little like looking into a mirror that was positioned opposed to another mirror and then seeing yourself duplicated endlessly.

Was I going crazy?

Was Chu Hua crazy?

The bus came to a halt and a voice announced that we had reached the terminal stop of the bus’s route. Chu Hua gave me another look which I guessed was supposed to look encouraging, but had no effect on the painful feeling in my stomach and the ringing alarm clocks in my head. My legs shook as I got up and followed her out of the bus.

To my relief the bus driver got out, too, sat down on a bus station seat and lit a cigarette. He gave us a look, that said very clearly, that we were a bunch of weirdoes for getting out at 'middle of nowhere', but then turned his attention instead to a sandwich he got out of his pocket.

I took a deep breath and then a good look around at where we were.

The Korean autumn - which was supposed to be pleasant and warm - had decided to once again give us a day of on and off rain drizzle, which made the air moist and misty. There was not a single building in sight. Instead there were tall green fields on both sides of the street and behind them - hills to the left side of the road and a forest to the right. I wondered why there was a bus stop here at all.

Meanwhile Chu Hua had already started heading down by the side of the road in the direction that led further away from civilization.

This was it.

I could choose to either follow her now or stay and wait until the bus comes back

I looked from Chu Hua to the bus driver and back at her.

I could be very very close after all, to discovering the secret behind my doppelgänger’s mysterious identity. Or very very close to death… or getting mugged… or…

“Are you coming?” Chu Hua called.

I gave the bus driver one more look that was supposed to say “If you hear me shouting, please come running!” and then I followed Chu Hua, my heart beating so fast I thought my chest might burst.

To my relief we didn’t walk much further and I could still see the bus stop, when Chu Hua stopped.

“Here we are,” she said and pointed into the fields.

Next to us was a small path that led into the field, side-lined by tall green crops. The sun was hidden behind clouds and the little light that the grey sky let trough, gave the field a monotone green colour that would have perfectly hidden the entrance, if Chu Hua hadn’t pointed it out to me.

Chu Hua went right ahead, but I hesitated to take a step into the field and instead tried to spy through the waves of dull green to see if I could identify where the path was leading.

With a little distance to the road, surrounded by the field, stood a small wooden cabin. It looked weatherworn, old and unsuspicious. Like an old slightly over-sized tool shed, that had been abandoned somewhere around the age when field work became mechanized.

I was still searching for clues of whether my death was impending, when Chu Hua had already reached the cabin and pulled out a key to the safety lock that hung from the door. She opened the lock with a creak that I could hear all the way over where I was standing and then gave me an insecure smile.

“Are you coming?”

Fear must have been written all over my face, because Chu Hua’s expression became compassionate:

“It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you!”

Chu Hua opened the door.

“See – nothing dangerous in here. Just my things. And, well, the proof for what I’m about to tell you.”

I cautiously took a few steps towards Chu Hua to peek over her shoulder and into the cabin. It had another door with a window on the back, so enough light shone into it to illuminate the things inside. From where I stood it looked like a large assortment of boxes of various sizes and shapes.

I stopped again. A horrible image had appeared in my head… in which the boxes were filled with bones.

Chu Hua was getting impatient. She shouted at me:

“Come on already! I’m not going to kill you for the gods’ sake! Look – “

Chu Hua turned around, grabbed a box and emptied its contents on the ground before her.

Jewels.

Jewels came spilling onto the flattened grass-green ground at Chu Hua’s feet.

Jewels, bracelets, necklaces…

I was still staring – half marveling – at the beautiful contents that lay splattered on the grass, when Chu Hua had already turned to empty the next box in front of me.

“No weapons in here,” she said, “No swords, no knives…”

Out of the large box came toys… dolls, teddy bears, toy ships, toy cars. They piled up over the precious jewelry. I felt an instinct to stop Chu Hua from covering up the valuables any further, but before I could shout at her, she had turned in my direction and said:

“Oh wait, I think I do actually have a knife. But it’s for rituals only, so I wouldn’t get it out of its scabbard now. So see – no one’s hurting you here.”

To my relief she had decided to not further spill stuff on the ground, but was now standing between the cabin and the pile of stuff with her arms-crossed.

I was still in too much of a shock to formulate a proper sentence, so Chu Hua continued the one-sided conversation:

“Look, you can go home – right now. That’s fine! But then you’ll never learn what this is all about. I mean… at least the answers that I can give you. I wish I knew the reasons for everything, but well, I guess a fraction of the truth will have to do.”

I was dying of curiosity, but the old cowardice that I knew so well was also gnawing at me. I wanted to run away... I wanted to run away from running away. I felt like a complete failure.

“Okay,” said Chu Hua with an exasperated sigh, “How about this? I start explaining and then you can always go should I bore you or you get scared. Alright, scaredy-cat?”

Damn. I needed assistance for everything. I couldn’t even head into an adventure without constant encouragement… but well, if that’s what it took for me to a feel a little alive – even if I was alive with fear…

I nodded shyly and then almost whispered:

“Alright.”

Chu Hua nodded and then started carefully picking up the various artifacts from the ground and sorting them back into the boxes. I wondered whether she might be a hoarder… or a thief… or both?

“What’s all this stuff?” I asked tentatively.

Chu Hua let out a chuckle.

“This,” she said, holding up a Barbie and brushing some grass of her dress, “Is stuff I bought, because it looked interesting.”

She put the Barbie in the box with the other toys. Then she picked up a glittering bracelet from the grassy ground:

“This, is how I pay for it,” she said, “And for the bus and drinks and food.”

I had five different questions that I all wanted to ask at the same time. I needed a moment to sort them by importance and finally asked – pointing at the cabin:

“Do you live here?”

Chu Hua looked back at the cabin, as though she needed to check I had really just pointed at it.

“That thing? Hell no! Na na na, I wish I didn’t, but I live quite somewhere else. But we’ll get to that.”

That was a very unsatisfying answer, but hopefully I would really learn where Chu Hua was from - later on. I went on to my next question:

“The jewelry… where have you got that from? If you don’t mind me asking! I’m not going to report you! I… I’m sure you have your reasons… if they’re… you know… stolen.”

Chu Hua looked at me, several beautiful accessories in her hands.

“They’re mine,” she said with a tone that left no doubt she meant what she said.

“And they always have been!” she added, while carefully placing them back in their box, “At least since they were handed down to me in my family or given to me as gifts. I guess it’s time I told you a little bit about my heritage.”

Chu Hua straightened up and placed the boxes safely back with the others inside the cabin. I decided to come a few steps closer, but remained standing about two meters from the cabin door.

“I’ll come outside to you then,” said Chu Hua. “Here,” she said, stepping out of the cabin again, carrying what looked like a long colorful gown. I noticed she was taking great care this piece of clothing did not touch the door case or the ground.

“This is the piece of clothing I put on today after breakfast,” she said.

I took another step closer to inspect the gown and was completely awed: It was a beautiful long pink skirt with delicate floral patterns, carefully tugged into a red, cuffed shirt-jacket embroidered with small orange birds. I had never seen a piece of clothing this gorgeous.

“Beautiful,” I said in lack of better words.

Chu Hua smiled.

“Yeah, it’s one of my favorites. And I usually only get to wear it in spring - to match the season. But they opened a new section in the Large Garden and planted this rare type of flower that blooms pink – in autumn – like now.”

Again I was confused. Chu Hua was speaking in a way that assumed I knew exactly what she was talking about – when I had no idea.

What garden? For what occasion would one wear such a gown?

I inspected it more closely: It wasn’t a hanbok as I had first assumed – although there were similarities. It was definitely a traditional Asian gown, but I couldn’t tell what culture. Although the gown looked very pretty and exquisite, it didn’t look like the type of semi-traditional piece of clothing you could buy in a tourist shop. It didn’t look the least bit practical either and I wondered if it was even possible to put it on without the help of another individual.

“So what is… your heritage?” I asked, getting a sinking feeling that… maybe Chu Hua was the daughter of some imperial... dictator family... that was ruling some small Asian country, where the people were de-facto slaves and the royalty lived in luxury, and that she had escaped its clutches, but was nevertheless unfit for a life as a commoner. I wondered whether… she might be from North Korea.

The conspiracy theories in my head were totally out of control.

“I am a Rong,” Chu Hua said, “I am a daughter of the 23^rd generation of the Rong family that dates back to the time of Emperor Cui Chaoxiang the Kind. I am now a noble consort of the 7^th rank at the royal court of Emperor Lu Zian’s son, his majesty, Crown Prince Lu Han.”

I stared at Chu Hua. She stared back and gave me a self-assured smile.

“You’re joking right?” I said, knowing that she wasn’t. “Where is this royal court?”

“Let me take you,” Chu Hua said with a spark in her eyes.

I was becoming increasingly convinced that my twin sister was crazy.

She had to be.

There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her voice when she spoke about… being a royal consort.

I mean, yes. There was the feudal-style clothing and the jewelry. But who’s to say she hadn’t stolen them and build her little fantasy world right here in the fields of the countryside.

Should I go playing into her delusions to further be able to judge their extent or should I be getting her professional help? If I had to take Chu Hua to a clinic, then it would be best, if she trusted me…

I looked at Chu Hua with some pity, as she took the precious piece of clothing and brought it pack into the cabin. She smiled at me again and I returned it feeling worried and uncomfortable.

“This way,” Chu Hua said, pointing past the cabin further into the field and confidently striding ahead of me.

I looked up at the sky and saw it reflecting my mood – it was still a cloudy grey and looked as though it was forcibly holding in the rain that had been drizzling down all day, but decided to stop when we had reached the terminal stop.

It was windy, too and the mist at the end of the field, between crops and wood was thick. The path in front of me and Chu Hua was getting increasingly uneven, until it disappeared completely and we were standing right inside the field.

Having been brought up to follow rules and act responsibly I felt a strong hesitation to march right into the crop - someone owned them after all. But I kept walking behind Chu Hua unsure where we were going and wondering what kind of crops grew this high – by now the green leaves around us were taller than we were.

After some time I felt we weren’t going straight any longer, but in circles. I got seriously worried so I went ahead and asked Chu Hua, whether she was sure that we were going the right way.

Pushing away the tall dull green crops in front of her, she replied:

“Yeah, I’m sure. It takes a few rounds in circles to work, but then we’ll be there in no time.”

Silently I continued to follow my confused twin, hurrying to keep up with her, before the crops that she had pushed aside resumed their original position.

The rain started again and I was getting increasingly impatient, when Chu Hua suddenly turned around.

“Aha,” she said, “It worked.”

The odd thing was… she hadn’t spoken Korean or English, but I had understood her perfectly well.

What was going on?