Turku, 1827

The ride to Lady Henrikka’s house was not long, a half hour journey, just a little on the west of town. It’s rather secluded, separated from the rest of the residential areas and slightly hidden by the woods that border the town from the next.

On the way, Barrick wanted to ask the coachman several questions; what did the Lady want with him? Was she actually the Governer-general’s daughter? And if she was, what was she doing in Turku? But between the sound of the wheels against the gravel, the horses hooves and the vicious whistle of the whip, there wasn’t much words Barrick could get in between. So instead he settles inside the curricle, slipping as deep into the shadows as he can, conscious of onlookers, and watched Turku pass him by.

Barrick sensed they were close when the coachman steered the curricle down a quiet path, where thick layers of birch trees began to curtain them on the sides, their trunks a silver white, bright against the dry grass. They reminded Barrick briefly of snow, and how winter was impending ever so slowly.

Eventually the trees cleared up to an opening where a large brick building came into sight. It threw Barrick off immediately, he’d imagined a large house, a mansion even, to which it was but there was something off about the shape of Lady Henrikka’s house. It was wide, and flat looking, dull grey bricks piled heavily upon each other, topped off with equally dull tiles that barely protruded into a point for a roof. Barrick thought maybe it was simply an old plot of land that were to be rebuilt upon, maybe just a temporary home for Lady Henrikka. Maybe, dare Barrick hope, that was why he was called?

His hopes however are quickly extinguished the moment the horses of the curricle halt at the gates of the mansion. It is at that distance then does Barrick notice the windows, to which at first blended in with the white frame now were clearly white painted bars hammered outside the window panes.

Barrick sat up, finding a stiffness in his shoulders that wasn’t there before He imagined the coachman had heard the deep breath he took in because he speaks, “No need to be worried, Mr Nieminen. The Lady will explain it all to you.”

There’s a painful and long creak then, the sound of metal whining as the gate shuddered to an open, two men pulling on either side. Barrick watched as the bars at the bottom clawed against the rubble, leaving scars in the ground as if the gate was reluctant to open to him.

When the curricle began to move again Barrick suddenly became aware of the uneasy feeling growing in the depths of his chest. It amplified at the sight of men in white clothing, large buttons riding up to their collar, walking into the large wooden doors of the front.

Then everything comes to a sudden halt when Barrick see’s a small but neatly engraved sign standing tall from between flower beds reading;

Welcome to Zakrevsky Private Hospital.

At that point, Barrick quickly realised that he had not arrived at Lady Henrikka’s house at all, but instead, her asylum.

Seoul, 2016

There was nothing more painstakingly boring than being locked up inside a hospital room. Everything was so blank and white like it was just begging for Mark to make a mess. He tries to control himself, all the whilst staring at the potted plants that decorated his windowsill, wondering whether damp soil could stick to walls.

He never gets to test out his theory though, he’s never alone in his room long enough to wreck havoc.

“How are you feeling Mr Tuan?” His doctor asks just as he has for the last week, three times a day.

“I’m fine, doctor,” Mark replies automatically. “When can I be discharged?”

“Not yet, Mr Tuan,” The doctor, a middle aged man that looked like he’d just gone through his third divorce, said as he went to check the IV drip. “You do know you died, right? We’re still trying to diagnose the cause, and we don’t want to risk anything discharging you.”

They’ve also had this same conversation for the last week, three times a day.

If they were really going to make Mark stay here till they found a cause, then either he was going to be here forever, or transferred to a mental hospital. Mark wasn’t particularly fond of either options.

“Doctor, I’ve been here for a week and you said everything was functioning normally,” Mark huffs and sinks deep into his pillow.

“Yes but even a cancer patient’s heart can beat normally,” He replies.

“You think I have cancer?”

The doctor gives him a flat look, “It was an example. Either way Mr Tuan, I cannot discharge you - not until we’re a hundred percent sure.”

“Not even ninety percent?”

The doctor doesn’t respond, checks something on his noteboard and then walks out the room. Now Mark is left alone in the room with his thoughts of destruction once again.

Not entirely alone, Barrick muses.

Mark rolls his eyes, I almost forgot you were here.

I did not want to be of inconvenience.

Ha, too late.

Your attitude towards me is contradictory.

I’m pretty sure blocking you out for fifteen years and not wanting you in my head is on pretty consistent lines.

I could not have come back if it weren’t for you - something has changed. You have changed.

Mark doesn’t respond to that because they both know it’s true, and Mark doesn’t want to admit it either outwardly or inwardly.

He gets up then, irritated with Barrick, with this room, with himself, and grabs his IV drip and drags it behind him for a stroll. The hospital is huge, the first time he got up and went to search for the bathroom he got lost for an hour, maybe this time he can get lost long enough for them to decide he can be discharged.

“Good morning, Mr Tuan,” Nurse Kim waves from behind the desk. Nurse Kim is one of those people that constantly smiles, not out force but like she was born with the ends of her lips turned up. She is also one of the few things that don’t make Mark want to skin himself from the scalp down out of entertainment. “How you feeling?”

Mark leans against the desk, perching on his elbow, trying to looks suave as you possibly could in a hospital gown and smiles thinly. “They won’t discharge me.”

She gives him a sympathetic look, “You did die Mr Tuan, people’s hearts don’t just stop.”

“I’m pretty sure they can,” Mark mumbles under his breath. “Well either they find a cause they’re satisfied with or I’ll die in here.”

“Don’t think like that Mr Tuan,” She says sweetly, stapling a pile of papers together. “The doctors are doing their best for you.”

“I know, I know,” He huffs. But he couldn’t help but feel like he was wasting time in here. There was something tugging at him, a need to go out and do...something. Barrick’s been telling him something has changed, and he could feel it, but he didn’t know what did change, or what was going to. It was like holding a box in your hand and you couldn’t open it to see what was inside.

All he knew was that he wanted to see Jinyoung, as if the answer was going to be attached to him like a sign with neon lights. He wonders if Jinyoung even knows he’s in here. They must all be wondering where he is. Mark can’t imagine Youngjae went out and announced that the professors heart had stopped and so he’ll be on leave for a while.

Youngjae and Insook had visited almost everyday but even then there was a limit on how many times they could ask how he was and if he needed anything. Luckily, they had not informed his parents (only because they didn’t have their number) but Erica did grow worried after a while of not responding to her text or calls.

Mark decides to continue his stroll, having wound up in the podiatry department twice, opting to just stare at the new born babies through the large window pane. He wonders for a brief moment who these children will become, who they were, and who they’ll turn into. Whether it’d be past lives, or their current lives, or future lives, he wonders how they will, and would have turned into the person they became, and will become.

Human’s are extraordinary, Mark finds himself thinking.

This thought is then interrupted by the shrill shriek of a female. It’s coming from the next hall, the cardiology department where Mark was staying. Curiosity and boredom leads him back to the front desk where Nurse Kim is standing awkwardly while some girl throws a fit on the floor.

“I want to see my brother!” She screams, hysterically and all. Everyone’s basically watching her as she kicks her legs and tugs at her long blonde hair-

“Mihyun?” Mark barks and she suddenly stops, her bright brown eyes land upon him immediately and suddenly a smile shoots on her face.

“Professor!” She squeals and gets up to her feet. She then eyes the nurse and smiles awkwardly, “I mean...o-oppa…” She laughs awkwardly as she makes her way towards Mark.

“Mr Tuan, do you know her?” Nurse Kim asks, eyeing Mihyun suspiciously.

Mark looks between the nurse and Mihyun with a brief moment of confusion before slowly putting a hand to Mihyun’s head, “Yes, she’s my sister, thank you.”

Mihyun wraps herself around Mark’s arm and they quickly head into his room, the IV drip rattling behind them.

“What’s going on? What are you doing here?” Mark asks as he goes to settle onto the side of his bed.

Mihyun takes a deep breath and places one palm to the wall, “What’s going on? What’s going on? You disappear for a week, and Jinyoung almost loses his mind - not that he wasn’t on that course anyway.”

“Is he alright?”

Mihyun purses her lips and then whips her phone out.

“Who are you texting?”

“Jinyoung.”

“Why?”

“He’s in the hospital, we’ve been searching around this huge place for like two hours now.” Mihyun huffs, tapping away furiously.

“Two hours? What? How did you even find me?”

“We followed Professor Choi here yesterday - he wouldn’t tell us anything, saying he didn’t want us to worry but boy that did not bode well with Jinyoung,” Mihyun says and then stuffs her phone away. “I’ve spoken to some of them you know, well tried to at least.”

His memories?

Mark scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, “So he’s told you?”

“Yeah, pretty much everything,” Mihyun says and goes to sit on the guest seat beside Mark’s bed.

“I’m sorry about lying to you,” Mark says, looking away.

“It’s alright, I know why you did it. Although to be honest I thought it was because you were hiding something,” Mihyun says, she says it in a way like it was still a thought that ran through her head.

“What would I hide?”

Mihyun smiles at that, “We’re all hiding something professor. Some more obvious about it than others.”

Mark’s lip twitches into half a smile, “I agree.”

“So is the reason why you’re here a secret then?”

“Ah, no, not really, but it’s not easy to explain either-”

The door slams open then and Jinyoung is in the opening, his breath heavy and his hair a raging mess. Mark and Mihyun both stare at him as he trudges into the room gasping for air.

“Are you okay?” Mihyun asks, getting up from her seat.

Mark continues to stare at Jinyoung, like he’s looking at him for the first time.

“I. Just ran. From. The- the other side. Of the hospital.” Jinyoung gasps and staggers quickly to the chair.

“You didn’t need to rush, jesus, it’s not like he’s going to disappear.” Mihyun huffs, her hands on her hips.

“Unfortunately,” Mark mutters.

Jinyoung looks up then, and their eyes meet and he holds his breath.

Something’s changed,, Mark thinks.

What do you mean? Barrick replies.

He looks different…

He has not changed.

But he looks different.

No, you simply see him differently now.

Why? What did you do?

I did nothing. It was you who changed. You died Mark, and once you’ve experienced death, the anxiety and fear that you once clung to became nothing but whispers. Jinyoung was once a source of worry for you, a key to a box you had left shut for a very long time, and so you feared him, and blocked him out as you blocked me out once. Now it seems you’ve relieved yourself of the fog, and see him for what he is, a boy, a man.

I thought I’d be able to tell...who he was. Not who he is.

He is no one but himself.

How are you able to block out your memories from me?

Barrick does not respond and Mark brings himself back to the world where Jinyoung is staring at him as if he’s found something he’s been searching for. Which, in hindsight, he has.

“Professor,” Jinyoung smiles, softly, delicately and Mark’s eyebrows tighten together as an odd emotion runs through him. “How are you? Are you okay?”

Mark parts his lips to speak but he can’t seem to find the words.

“He seems to be okay,” Mihyun interjects but Jinyoung doesn’t take his eyes off Mark. “Saw him walking around before we bumped into each other.”

Mark tears his eyes way and gives Mihyun a flat look, “Bumped into each other? You were throwing a tantrum on the floor.”

“Tactics - I found you, didn’t I?”

Mark snorts, “You did.”

“What happened?” Jinyoung says, his voice stitched with worry.

“Ah...well...I don’t really know,” Mark laughs half-heartedly, peaking at Jinyoung from the corner of his eye. “My heart apparently just stopped-”

“What!?” Mihyun and Jinyoung both exclaim.

“What- you mean, you died?” Jinyoung asks, leaning in closely.

“Ah...yeah, but I’m alive now?” Mark replies, as if it was going to ease any of the tension.

Jinyoung slumps back in his seat, his eyes going blank and Mark could almost see the tracks his mind was taking off at. Mihyun begins to pace then, the look on her face mirroring Jinyoung’s.

“Is there something you both aren’t telling me?” Mark asks, he thinks they’re not going to reply, looking too deep in their thoughts but Jinyoung looks up and Mihyun stops mid-step and they both give each other a look before returning it towards Mark.

“You know how I told you earlier...that I was speaking to some of his...past lives?” Mihyun starts, her fingernails between her teeth as she speaks. “Well, it was honestly just over a week ago. Jinyoung was telling me all about you know, the memories, the dreams. And then suddenly…” She trails off, as if she couldn’t find the words to explain.

“I was taken over, briefly,” Jinyoung continues. “It was a calm one, but- it wasn’t like the others. This one wasn’t like I was reliving memories…”

“It was like the person itself was alive,” Mihyun suddenly jumps and then goes to sit on the bed beside Mark. “She...spoke to me, said my name and everything.”

“What?” Mark murmurs and turns to Jinyoung for confirmation.

“It’s true. Do you remember? The blueprints on my wall? I told you they were from Finland but my memories were never enough to know who I was. All I remembered was what I had seen; newspapers, books, the drawings. But then...something happened, like a switch , I knew who I was, I remembered every little detail, every person.” He looks at Mark, his eyes wavering. “She spoke, but I was still there - it wasn’t like the others, where their memories became too powerful they pushed me away. She asked for a moment and I gave her the space and she...spoke.”

“English, thank god - she started yapping in Finnish but realised eventually we couldn’t understand a word. Well, I couldn’t,” Mihyun grumbles.

“She warned us, or tried to, she kept talking about someone dying…” Jinyoung in a breath. “We didn’t have a clue, she didn’t say a name or anything, she just begged me to protect him and then left.”

“Next day, you weren’t at your lecture,” Mihyun says, her lips pressed into a scowl. “The day after you weren’t there either. We tried calling your phone but it was off, we started to panic, I guess. So we went to ask Professor Choi. He said you were fine but that you couldn’t come back for a while. He wouldn’t tell us more just to not worry us but it made us worry more not knowing what happened. We even tried to ask the old lady at your place but she was never home when we visited, so as you know, yesterday we followed the Professor here.”

Mark took a hand to his hair and slowly brushes his fingers through the strands. He realises then that it was a motion of comfort, not one he had conjured by himself, but one he had adopted from Barrick.

It reminds me of the sea.

The way the breeze brushes through your hair.

Like the air is comforting you.

“I see.” Is what Mark finally says and by the looks on their faces, it’s the last thing they were expecting. The thing is though, Mark isn’t the same person he was a week ago. What once a conversation on past lives, on remembering death scared him to his bones it was like he couldn’t breathe, now was a matter of reason. Mark wanted to know; why does he remember Barrick? Why did he die? How is Jinyoung linked to him?

Jinyoung with all the lives sparking inside him like a set of fireworks ready to go off.

“I guess the first question is, how can someone who has died - a being made up of just memories be able to let’s say ‘live’ and even foretell the future?”

Are you referring to Jinyoung or me?

Both?

“Didn’t you say before? That a person is predominately made up of their memories?” Mihyun says, she’s been making plaits with her hair and undoing them, just to redo them again. “It’s possible then for them to live through Jinyoung, if he let’s them.”

“Yes...ultimately his consciousness should be able to suppress the other memories-”

“But who am I?” Jinyoung interrupts. “I don’t know what memories belong to me as much as they belong to them. How do I even know if it’s me talking right now?” Jinyoung lowers his head ever so slightly, but Mark catches the worry in his eyes, the worry that he was losing himself to ghosts.

“They belong to you too, Jinyoung,” Mark says comfortingly. “They make up who you are, and you are you with or without them. Just as you are the result of your surroundings, what’s maybe formed your original memories, you are also a result of the memories you were born with. If you try to separate yourself, you’ll just suffocate.”

Jinyoung looks like he’s about to cry but he quickly blinks and spreads a smile on his face, “Have I ever told you, you have a way with words, professor?”

Mark returns his smile, “Once or twice.”

“Next topic is I guess your little death fiasco?” Mihyun asks, her chin in her palm.

“Death fiasco…” Mark repeats. “I’m sorry, but not even I know what happened and the doctors can’t find a cause.”

“But why did…she know?” Jinyoung sighs.

“Can’t you just, I don’t know, ask her?” Mihyun says with a shrug.

Jinyoung looks from her to Mark and shakes his head, “I still haven’t got control of this all yet. There’s too many of them in my head, at most all I can do is let them come when they do, not like I can really reject them in the first place.”

“So we’re assuming I’m the person she predicted was going to die? Why me?”

Mark, stop.

If you won’t tell me, I’ll find out for myself.

Mark, I beg you-

“I don’t know,” Jinyoung said. “When she said ‘protect him’ I saw a young guy, blonde, blue eyes. He wore old European clothes so I assumed he must have already died.”

“You said you remembered everything from Finland, so you must know who he is then?”

Jinyoung’s face suddenly turns a soft pink, “Uh yeah...he, I think, he was my like- you know, lover or something?”

“You were gay?” Mihyun spat.

“I am not!” He snaps and then jolts, his wide eyes flickering to Mark quickly before readdressing Mihyun. “I mean back then, I was a female so it was just, you know.” Mihyun grins and Mark wonders just what exactly she’s figured out to look so smug.

“So? Did he die or something? Couldn’t protect him and she regrets it? Maybe just a coincidence- yeah nope,” Mihyun shakes her head, her frustration evident on her face. “This is really confusing me now.”

Mark tries to sympathize with her, after all believing something exists is one thing, and trying to understand it is another.

“But either way, I still don’t understand what it has to do with Professor Tuan?” Jinyoung mumbles, wrinkles folding on his forehead. Mark knew that look, the kind of look men at sea had searching for the lighthouse amidst thick fog and dark skies. The kind of look he’d imagine he had all this time.

Barrick, what are you trying to hide?

I’m trying to protect you.

From what?

Memories are not the only thing you inherit when you decide to accept me. You’ll feel every emotion I’ve felt, every thought in mind, everything will come to life in your senses. I do not want to burden you with it Mark, and if you become aware of who is around you...I am afraid we will intertwine deeper than we should.

You have things you do not want me to feel then? Or know? Like your lover?

As you had told Jinyoung, I am part of who you are - but there is a limit, Mark.

Mark takes a deep breath then and looks at Jinyoung. “What was your name? In Finland.” He suddenly asks, feeling Barrick stir inside him.

Jinyoung looks at Mark and clears his throat, “I was the Governer-general’s daughter during the Grand Duchy, Henrikka Arseny Zakrevsky.”

Turku, 1827

Barrick’s been holding his breath since he entered through the hospital’s front door. He didn’t want to admit it, but the first image he had once seeing the sign read ‘asylum’ was patients strapped down and screams echoing through hollow hallways.

Instead, the first thing he saw was large polished stair cases transcending from the second floor balconies, their banisters twisting and twirling elegantly at the ends. Extravagant potted plants are scattered around the entrance, large leaves elegant against the soft coloured flowers.

“Do not worry Mr Nieminen,” The coachman said, Barrick found he’d removed his top hat and cloak, revealing the finely tailored suit beneath. Where his beard was speckled with white hairs, his hair was still a deep shade of black all the way through. “All patients are confined to their rooms unless escorted by a nurse, although if it is just between the two of us, not many people that are here ought to be.”

“What do you mean?” Barrick asked, following the coachman as he began to venture his way down the first hallway to his left, just below the staircase.

“Lady Henrikka told me not to speak too much, but -once again- if it’s just between the two of us, I do not tend to listen to her much,” Barrick heard a smile in his voice. “This asylum only caters for the wealthy and powerful, or rather serves as a prison?”

“A prison?” Barrick echos.

The coachman stops just before a door at the end of the hallway. It’s dimly lit here, the wallpaper a deep beige and the carpet a warm mahogany colour, the candle lights casting shadows upon the door they stood before.

“Room fifty eight belongs to Lady Henrikka,” The coachman informed with a look in his eye Barrick didn’t really understand. “As to what I said, do not ponder upon it too heavily, the Lady will answer any of your questions.”

“What makes her assume I have questions?”

The coachman does not hold back as one side of his mouth turns upwards into a crooked smirk, “The Lady shall see you now.”

The door suddenly opens then, and not from Barrick’s side, instead he finds Lady Henrikka in the entrance, an unpleasant expression upon her face. “The lady has been waiting an awfully long time. What took you so long Ruuben?

“My lady...he lives on the other side of town, which is over an hour’s worth of travel and our horses are not made of iron,” The coachman huffs, and Barrick tenses up. He’d never seen a servant talk back the way he had, in fact never heard a servant gossip like him either.

Henrikka gave him a flat look before rolling her eyes, letting them land upon Barrick. That was when he registered what she was wearing; she wore deep brown trousers, similar to the type women would wear when horseback riding, and a white tunic, fastened at the waist with a leather belt. Her dark hair was loose, and waterfalled down her shoulder in soft waves. Barrick had tried to hide his shock but as usual, the aloofness Barrick had somehow mastered growing up seemed to falter in Henrikka’s presence.

“Come in Barrick, you don’t mind if I call you that, do you?” Although her features were fine like the edge of a knife and her eyes sharp, her voice was soft and light, it seemed to remind Barrick of winter nights. “You can call me Henrikka of course, actually, I’d insist on it.”

“Of course…” He contemplated saying her name but held back his tongue.

“Ruuben, please fetch some tea, and food - I’m absolutely starving,” Henrikka groaned as she the heels of her boots and made her way into her room. Barrick hesitated at the door frame for a moment, not expecting the coachman, or Ruuben, to leave the two of them alone.

“As you wish,” Ruuben said with a mocking tilt of his head and then flashed Barrick a smile as he placed one firm palm to his back and pushed him in, the sound of the door clicking behind him almost deafening.

The first thing Barrick noticed about Henrikka’s room are the books. No, in fact, it’s the only thing he can seem to notice. They’re everywhere; they pour out from shelves that hit the ceiling, they’re piled upon each other from the ground up creating walls, they’re scattered upon the coffee table and hug the back of the sofa’s.

“In all fairness,” Henrikka began as she made her way round to the sofas, dropping hard onto the leather cushion. “This is what clean looks like.”

“I had not said anything,” Barrick mused, trying to keep the look of amusement off his face.

The sofas were made of a dark red, like blood once it had dried, the light from the candles reflecting from its leather surface. On the other side of the room was a wooden desk, its legs thick made for cabinets and drawers, it’s top fitted with compartments for stationary. It wasn’t a Finnish design, he was sure of it, rather Barrick would trace its origin from England.

There’s a two doors just opposite Barrick as he made his way deeper into the room, to which he assumed one was a bathroom, and the other, her bedroom.

“It’s written all over your face, as much as you try to keep it off,” Henrikka retorted and made a gesture for him to sit across her from the coffee table. Barrick accepted her offer, a little more comfortable in her presence then as he became more accustomed to the fact her sharp features did not match her tone.

“An expert in books makes you an expert in people?”

“You cannot be an expert in books, Barrick,” Henrikka laughed as she unties a ribbon from her wrist, which had been hidden from beneath her tunic and took it to her hair, brushing her locks up into a ponytail. “But if you mean I am accustomed to reading people as I am to my...novels, then yes I suppose I am.”

“The last thing I assume these books are, are fiction - if you don’t mind,” Barrick asked as he made his way to pick up a book from the coffee table before him. She nodded and he took the liberty of opening it to a random page. “You are interested geography?” Barrick asked, flipping through a book of what seemed to be journal entries from Finnish travelers, a lot of them predominantly on their experience in the deserts of the Arabian peninsula.

“Geography, history, science, maths, literature…” Henrikka hummed with a flick of her ponytail, the end brushing against the back of her neck. “The world leaves itself in the form a tiny characters on a piece of paper, isn’t it wonderful? It’d almost be a sin to leave it all unread.”

“I agree, although I cannot say I share your passion for reading,” Barrick replied, his attention caught on the spine of a book with a language he did not recognize. “What language is this?”

Henrikka gave the book in his hand a long look before flicking her green eyes to Barrick, “Arabic, a language that belongs to the people of the desert and the heat.”

“Is it for your collection? Or can you read it?”

A twitch of a smile played on her lips, Barrick watched the way her facial expression shifted with a fiery concentration. “I can read it.”

“Amazing…” Barrick said, fascinated as he opened the book and traced his finger against the words that looked like nothing but lines and dots to him.

“It seems you have not heard the rumours, although I’d assume if you had, you wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Henrikka said the words with a hint of both bitterness and sadness, but when Barrick went to look at her face, he found it held no emotion.

“Rumours?”

“Have you not been wondering? Why my home is in fact a hospital room?” A prison, Ruuben had said.

“I had but I thought it not polite to ask,” Barrick replied and softly shut the book before him, settling it beside him onto the sofa.

Henrikka laughed, a sound stuck between a giggle and a scoff, “Not polite - oh, you do not disappoint me Barrick. You say the most amusing things with such a straight face...” A smile played on her face for a while, Barrick quickly took the opportunity to sketch into his memory, he had a feeling that it was a rare sight to see. “But I suppose I’m glad you did not have some assumptions of me before you met me.”

“Is this about what Carl had said at the ball? If you do not mind, please forgive him, the man talks before he thinks, although I can’t say he thinks at all.” Barrick said with a slight bow of his head.

“Carl...ah yes, well don’t worry about that. He wouldn’t be the first one to call me a lunatic-” A knock came from the door then and Ruuben emerged with a silver cart, a fine set of porcelain tea cups and a tea pot laid out elegantly upon the top. “Ruuben, what took you so long?”

“Water boils, my lady,” Ruuben retorted and Barrick had to bite the inside of his cheek from letting a smile rip against his cheeks.

“God, for an old man, you’d think you’d want to make most of your time,” Henrikka huffed, swatting her hand as a signal for him to hurry over the tea.

“Serving you for the rest of my life means whatever time I have left is pointless,” Ruuben said nonchalantly as he began to pour the tea from the tea pot, holding it’s lid with long fingers.

“No one is forcing you to stay Ruuben,” Henrikka snapped as she snatched the first cup.

“Actually you specifically asked the General for me when you were brought here, my Lady,” Ruuben said as he offered Barrick the second cup.

“You also make it sound like I had a choice when ‘the General’ shipped me here,” She murmured into her cup.

Ruuben gave Barrick one last look as if to wish him luck and bowed towards Henrikka, “I shall take my leave now, dinner will be served within the hour.” He said finally, turning to take the cart with him, leaving the room in a matter of seconds.

“If you don’t mind me asking, I had heard you were born here?” It wasn’t that Barrick wasn’t curious about Henrikka after their meeting at the ball, but he wasn’t too keen on hearing the details from Carl, who seemed to be set out on ripping her apart.

“I was born in Savonlinna, what they say about me being a bastard child is true - my father was traveling down from the Russian borders towards Helsinki when he decided...to spend a night with my mother,” Her tone is monotone as she explained, and somehow it made the clink of her cup touching its plate even harsher to hear than it should have been. “She wrote him letters for several years, a single woman raising a child...it wasn’t easy, especially since no one wanted to marry a woman already...touched.”

She her lips and settled back into the sofa to give Barrick a cool look, as if she were telling a story about someone else, a stranger. “It was when I was ten did my father finally come to collect me. Apparently his wife had been burning the letters my mother wrote for years and he’d only found out.” She scoffed then. “He took me, and left my mother - not that I’d really expect him to marry her but...well anyway, long story short I grew up within my father’s mansion in Helsinki for most of my life. It wasn’t till my brother died a few years ago was I to come public.”

“So why are you here?”

Henrikka half-smiled and went to pick up her teacup, she didn’t go to take a sip from it however, she just held it between her fingers as she spoke, “My step-mother - I guess amidst her grief she almost went insane, understandable. But she hated how my father instantly began shifting things towards me, his house in Russia, inheritance...if she hadn’t liked me before, she most certainly did not like me after. Growing up a shadow in that house, I was allowed to be kept to my studies and my books, no one bothered me and I kept out of the public. However, it was that very same fact that got me in here. My step-mother began rumours; I was an ill-fit woman for marriage, a bastard child that killed her brother for money, a lunatic. In the end, it became so bad my father felt I had to be locked up for the sake of gossipers.”

She let out a heavy sigh like she was bored, and placed her teacup back onto the table. “It’s almost hilarious, how much the world can change, and shift and grow, and how humans are still subjects to their own emotions. You’d think intelligence would take us further, but our consciousness and feelings always get’s the better of us.”

“They put you in here because you...read?” Barrick muttered, dumbfounded.

Something in Henrikka’s eyes glittered then and a different kind of smile took over her face, “In this day and age, and in times before, women have been been killed and locked up for far less. But you’re right, with someone like my father, with all his wealth and power, it wouldn’t be easy to put his only living child away in a place like this.”

“You see Barrick, before I continue to explain myself, I felt like I need to inform you of why I asked for you.” Henrikka said, leaning closely, her elbows perched on her slim knees. “Yes, I had heard of you from Sir Bassi, in fact your name has come round the circle my father socialises with but you had never really interested me that much. It wasn’t until I saw you once, at a market just the north of the centre of Turku, a couple of months ago. Of course I did not know it was you as the Barrick I had overheard but I know you.” She looked at him straight in the eye, her green eyes an abyss Barrick could have easily fallen into if he hadn’t had some form of control of himself. “You may leave today convinced I am in fact the lunatic people whisper about, or you may come back and visit me more often. Of course I hope for the latter.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Barrick, although I may look like this, I am in fact several hundred years old,” She said the words like they didn’t hold an iron weight to them, an amused smile on her face and Barrick blinked four times before she continued speaking. “I’ve been born with memories that belong to others, men and women who have lived and died. I was twelve and I knew the ache of old age, I have seen the world in my mind and yet I have never stood foot on anything but Finnish soil. And I have met you, several times, hundreds of times, and I have lost you. I don’t plan to make that mistake again this time, after all I have quite a favourable position in this life.”

Barrick wanted to say something, anything but just air, like dust clouds could puff out from the gaps between his lips. Henrikka watched him closely, her eyes searching deep into his own as if she could see something he couldn’t.

“You are talking about...reincarnation?” Barrick said, or at least he thought he did, he couldn’t really tell if he thought or said the words.

“Yes…” She replied, almost cautiously. “I have lived many lives, and they have remembered just as I have.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you remember?”

Henrikka blinked, a long look of surprise on her face. Somehow she had not expected his reaction, in fact, she must have expected for him to quickly rise up from his seat and leave the asylum without another look over his shoulder. But something compelled him to stay; was it insanity? Curiousity? Or a bubbling infatuation with a women who swam in books so deep she may be living in her own fairytale?

He didn’t cross out lunacy immediately, but he wasn’t quick to jump to it either. “Is that why you’ve been locked up here?” He asked, realising he wasn’t going to get an answer for his first question.

“Yes…” She replied absentmindedly as if she was still trying to catch up, not prepared for this turn in the conversation. “I grew up speaking languages I had not learned before, it did not...bode well with others. I was a curse in my home town, and a lunatic in my father’s house. It was easy for my stepmother to send me here.”

Barrick flickered his eyes back to the book written in Arabic and then turned back to Henrikka who surveyed him behind glazed eyes. “What are you trying to figure out?”

There’s a moment of silence between them until Henrikka took a hand to her pointed chin and smiled, “I was just thinking how every time we meet you never remember, but somehow you’re always the same.”

“And what’s that?”

“Collective, open-minded, and kind,” She said the words softly, and the love in her voice almost had Barrick sway to believe her words. “Even though you are questioning it now, it is the very fact you have not completely marked me as insane that gives me hope. I’ve done this many times after all, in many different lives, and every time I go around the bush, and take my time to know you, I waste so much time creating this false sense of reality; that we are simply strangers that fall in love, and every time I end up losing you.”

Barrick took his own hand to his chin and rubbed at it, the inside of his head oddly silent. “So we’re lovers?”

“We were.”

“And we will be?”

“You speak of it as if it were fate, but we are not fate, Barrick.” Her voice suddenly turned a deathly solemn, as if speaking from a tunnel so deep there was no light at the end. “Every life we’ve had and continue to have we have always had a choice. The only thing that has been set in stone, is that no matter how we may meet, or how we may feel for each other, we will never be together long enough before we must search for each other again.”

“But I do not remember,” Barrick said, his voice monotone and his body still.

“No, you do not. So I suppose it’s just an eternity for me searching for you,” She said with a small intake of breath. “and you forever forgetting.”

Seoul, 2016

Jinyoung was about to answer Mark’s damp soil question if it weren’t for Mihyun snatching the potted plants out of his hands too soon. After he had told Mark who he was in Finland, someone had taken him over, whilst a creeping coldness had taken Mark.

We were lovers?

No, Mark-

“Professor, please help!” Mihyun squawked as Jinyoung tried to crawl over the window sill, reaching desperately for the handle.

Mark watched the two of them struggle, a tangle of hands and sprawled legs and sighed heavily. “What are you doing?” Mark murmured as he rose off the bed and leisurely made his way to a suicidal, out of control Jinyoung. “Enough.” He says the single word with about enough exhaustion to relay twenty years of stress and goes to grab Jinyoung from the back of his collar.

He basically chucks him, flings his worryingly thin body across the room and against the bed like he were a rag doll and watched him as he clattered to the ground. Jinyoung’s mumbling now, his eyes spinning across the room as his whispers disperse into the air too quick for neither Mihyun or Mark to catch.

“Mihyun, could you leave the two of us?” Mark asked, his fingers rubbing against the side of his temple.

You were hiding her from me, you were hiding Jinyoung from me.

I was trying to protect you.

No, you simply did not want to face her. You did not want to admit she is here. You may be in my head Barrick, but I’m also in yours.

“Are you sure?” Mihyun squeaks. “What if he goes ape-?”

“I can handle it.” Mark says, not taking his eyes off Jinyoung. There’s a moment where Mihyun’s silent questions fly across the room but Mark avoids them with arms crossed over his chest and lips pressed firmly into a line. He doesn’t know exactly how long it takes before he hears the door click shut but when it comes, he feels his shoulder instantly deflate.

Mark takes a slow step towards Jinyoung’s limp figure and takes a seat on the ground before him. His ramblings continue, his eyes distant, and Jinyoung looks like he’s found the edge of the world, ready to simply fall. “Jinyoung, come back,” Mark murmurs half-heartedly, his hand reaching for Jinyoung’s. “Come back.”

The second their skins touch, Jinyoung’s body jolts like electricity snapped through his veins. He blinks like he’s awake, like he’s here, but Mark knows it isn’t him. The moment their eyes meet, Mark knows who it is, and in that instant Barrick violently revolts within him.

Mark!

What happened Barrick?

Mark, enough, this is not what I am here for.

You’re wrong, this is exactly what you’re here for.

Jinyoung moves, slowly, but it wasn’t Jinyoung, it was someone else. Everything from the way he held his shoulders, to the way he angled his jaw, to the sharp look in his eyes, it was Jinyoung and it wasn’t. It was his movements, but they didn’t belong to him.

“It has been a long time,” Jinyoung whispers in Finnish, his eyes tracing down to where their hands met. “Such a long time.”

Barrick, what happened?

I won’t tell you.

“You know what’s a stronger emotion than the thirst for revenge, Barrick?” He whispers the words like he were reciting a poem.

“Henrikka,” The name slips past Mark’s lips as if it’d been held there for years and he could finally release it. Like a chain around his neck he wasn’t aware of that slipped off.

“Do you know Barrick?” She asks like it was rhetorical because she knew he knew. “What is stronger than the thirst for revenge?”

“Regret.” Barrick says.