In many lifetimes, I still come to you.

“My eyes adored you though I never laid a hand on you,

My eyes adored you like a million miles away from me,

You couldn’t see how I adored you,

So close, so close and yet so far.”

—Frankie Valli, Closeup. 

---

He stifles a yawn threatening to take over. Slaps his face twice. The pain stings a little. But the sleepiness lingers, and soon his head lands on his arms. A snore (or two) escapes from his open mouth.

It always start like this; he arrives dressed in a hanbok. There’s a horse by his side. There’s a man in the brightest neon green hanbok, eyes him like he’s the sun. He mounts on the horse, gallops through fields of paddy. Most of the time, he rides like the wind, carefree. Jovial laughter rips from his throat.

On days where lucidity melds into his dreamscape, Seok-hyun notices all the minor details that slips out from his mind. The landscape often changes, but the forest doesn’t. Among the dense trees, he thinks there’s someone watching.

Once in a while, he feels the presence lurking in his dream. At the corner of his eye, he notices the outlines of peach-coloured hanbok and long black braided hair. Her face’s obscured. She tends to loiter, teetering at the edges of the forest.

Always gazing, but her lips are sealed. Not a word ever leaving . Every time he comes close, she retreats deeper into the dark forest. 

---

It takes him three dreams, before he works up the courage to approach her.

He abandons the man he called ‘Eunuch Jang’, sprints into the forest. He pounces on her hard, takes her by surprise. It’s his dream, after all. The pain’s not real. She’s not real.

“Aha!” Seok-hyun screams to her face, lips curling into a victorious smile. She blinks, in response. hangs wide open, and only “Oh” comes out.

He eyes her, carefully going over her features. Fair porcelain skin, puppy-like brown eyes and lips pale pink. Pleasant. That’s the word, he finds her likable. Though no flicker of emotion on her face. He frowns.

“Nice to meet you,” is all he could think of saying, plasters a huge smile on his face, “finally.”

He gets off from her, extends a hand. She grasps his hand, and Seok-hyun hauls her to her feet. She dusts imaginary dirt off from her blue hanbok.

“So, what’s a pretty lady like you doing in a place like this?” Seok-hyun questions, lips twisting into a playful grin.

She studies him, keeps shut. Curiosity dancing in her dark brown irises. 

He waits for an answer, toss a quick glimpse over his shoulders. She follows his line of sight, catches Eunuch Jang heading for their direction. His jaw drops open.

“Oh, crap,” he blurts out, “we got to go now. I’m not going to grab your hand, or do the cliché thing, since this calls for it but I’m gonna just say, come away with me if you want to live,” flashes a cheeky grin at her and bolts.

He sprints and ducks as Eunuch spreads his arms wide to block him. He doesn’t stop until he’s hunched over, pants heavily. For a dream, everything’s too realistic – even to the minute point that sweats trickling down his spine.  

Seok-hyun peeps one eye open, notices the peach hanbok in front of him. Not a single drop of sweat on her in sight. “That’s not fair, you don’t sweat at all.”

She stoops to his level, purses her lips. Cocking her head to a side, bites her lower lip, “You’re different,” is all she says, perplexed swimming in her dark eyes.

He straightens to his full height, lets the grin on his lips widens, “Of course, I’m one of a kind. You don’t get me anywhere in the world.”

A strong hand shakes his shoulders, he whips his head around to see a large and bushy moustached face looming over him.

“Go home, Park. The hospital’s on call room is not your bed room,” the older man chides, his medical officer of three months, Dr Seo Bok-shil.

“But I like it here,” he mumbles back, “My dreams are consistent.”

When he reaches home after long hours, collapses on to the floor and waits for the dream to take him. There is no pretty girl in peach hanbok to smile at him. Yet hers is a face he vividly recalls. Grabs a paper and pen, he sketches her - to immortalise her in a form he could see. 

Once done, he studies it underneath the fluorescent light and decides she is a pretty girl. “Who are you?” Seok-hyun whispers to himself. 

---

The second time Seok-hyun waylays her, he makes sure she has no way to run. Traps her inside an office cubicle. It’s a sight to behold, her in blue hanbok and she’s sitting on the armchair, leans to it. Him in his shiniest hanbok and black gat. Together they’re misplaced like a snowman in summer. 

“We can’t keep meeting like this and you not telling me your name,” he says, breaking the silence between them and adds, “At least have the common courtesy to provide me with a fake name.”

“Jo,” she supplies.

“Just Jo?”

“Just Jo,” she parrots back, a teasing grin snakes its way to her face. The first semblance of an emotion since they met.

“Okay, ‘Just Jo’,” he snaps his fingers, the office melts into place of lush scenery, where two horses wait on top of the hill, “want to ride with me? It’s boring for us to stand here. I got to go back to my job sooner or later.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “Why not?”

She grabs his wrist, and they rematerializes on top of the horses. “This is so cool,” he hoots, rears his horse and they ride together. 

---

They often go through crazy adventures together, set to the backdrop of New Joseon. Once or twice, he finds himself clothed in a mechanic jumpsuit. She ditches the hanbok for a nurse uniform.

In that dream, he works in an ancient car workshop inherited from his father. His name’s not Park Seok-hyun, but Kang Dong-woo.

In that dream, she’s a nurse for a hospital not far from his father’s workshop. She tells him, she’s Joo Soo-yeon.

They flirt, through handwritten love letters and late lunchbreaks in the corner ramen shop. Exchange laughter and stolen chaste kisses, underneath the war-torn skies. He sings and dances in this unusual courtship they have. Over the dream world.   

She merely smiles. A smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and she tells him, in the softest of whispers he hears all the time, “Don’t stop, I like it.”

There are too many dreams strewn over restless nights, he can’t remember which is which. Sometimes, he’s in New Joseon, draped in the finest quality of hanbok. Now and then, he’s an inspiring sportsman with a racket hanging over his shoulder. Usually, he’s the mechanic whose face’s covered with grease and black soot.

But she’s there. Ever present, there’s mischievous twinkle in her dark eyes. Her lips set into a welcoming smile. One, she’s in a nurse’s uniform. Another, she wears the hanbok regally. In one peculiar dream, she is a traffic police officer. 

In one of those dreams, he’s orchestrating a dance for a foreign envoy. She holds a musical instrument, fiddles with its string and composes a tune he’d long forgotten but suddenly remembered.

“That sounds so familiar, where did you learn that from?”

“From y-a person I knew.”

“Huh? Really?” Seok-hyun exaggerates his pouting, “So, what’s the kind guy he is?”

She giggles, “He’s a bit like you. Tall, fair, and has a knack for dancing.”

“Tall? How tall? Taller than me?” Seok-hyun harrumphs, crossing his arms across his chest. “Who’s the better looking guy? Me or him?”

She casts a side-eye glance, “Both of you. Are you jealous?”

“No,” he answers a little too quickly for his liking, “I mean, I bet I’m the handsome one.”

“You don’t need to be. He’s a family member,” she clarifies, laughing harder that she nearly chokes.

“Your brother?” Seok-hyun guesses. 

She shakes her head, “No, he’s not my brother,” a hint of sadness oozes from her nonchalant answer. 

Her answer floods his chest with relief, still he keeps a poker face, “I see.” Before he has the chance to reply, rude awakening stops him. Same routine, as he forces his sleepy legs to move. Seok-hyun rushes to the emergency code blaring in his station. He got lives to save.

---

With the patient stabilised, he treads down the hall. A nurse stops him, requests his presence, “Ah, Dr Park. Dr Seo wants you to round this ward.”

He frowns, “He did? I thought it is Dr Go’s turn.”

“She needs someone to cover for her. Family emergency.”

“All right, thank you,” he sighs and starts his rounds. It takes him about five minutes each per room, most patients suffer head traumas, until he reaches the last few where the comatose patients are. 

“Next up, patient 521,” Seok-hyun says to another yet comatose patient.  

He pushes the door open, heads for the patient’s charts and reads her vitals hasn’t improve since she was admitted. Hears the monotonous beeping of breathing machine. He glances up from the clipboard. Sees the tubes protruding out from . Not the tubes that catches his attention, but that birthmark on her wrist. 

It sparks an awareness that makes him double guesses his vision. He leans close, notes her hair’s shorter. Her face pale in comparison to the healthy glow of Jo’s. Her lips are cracked from the stale air. He stares longer until his vision blurs from the lack of blinking.

He knows he’s not dreaming. That his hunch’s right. Patient 521 and Jo are the same girl.

He crinkles his nose, walks up to the control. Adjusts it so, that her lips won’t crack, her hands won’t be too cold when one touches her. Casts one last glance at the clipboard, he sees her name ‘Chae Yoo-joo’ and commits it to his memory. 

---

He dozes off after a long day, thanks to his last shift, a five hour surgery. He’s back to being Kang Dong-woo, slides out from underneath an Opel. Turns to his wrist watch, lunch’s upon him. He finds her sitting by their favourite spot, she waves at him.

Seok-hyun plops himself down, rests both arms on the table.

“What got you in a sourpuss mood today?”

“Chae Yoo-joo,” he replies, brows nearly touching his hairline, “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“That’s who I am in this life,” she replies, cryptic. Reaches out for the chopsticks ahead, tears the chopstick apart and starts to stir the ramyun noodles.

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Am I? You’re the one spending your time sleeping in the hospital when you have a home to go back to,” she replies coolly.

He opens his mouth, but shuts up when his brain comes up empty on a good comeback. “It’s easier to meet you when I sleep in the hospital,” he mumbles quickly, “Plus, I don’t dream as much as I do if I sleep at home. I cannot recall the details.” In this life, is she talking about reincarnation? Is that a thing now? He shakes his head at the sheer ridiculousness of her words. She’s part of his dream. But she’s also patient 521.

“If you’re Chae Yoo-joo in this life,” he makes quotation marks with his fingers, stresses on the word ‘life’, “then who are you originally?”

A chuckle escapes from , “The clues are in your dream. Use your brain. You’re smart.”

He scoffs, “My dreams?”

“You didn’t think these dreams of yours are all just whimsical dreams, did you?” Her lips quirks up a sly grin, a hand waves absentmindedly around the shop. 

He sits, with that dumb look he unintentionally wears, seeing her forehead creases with a frown. 

She sighs, puts away her chopsticks and pushes the bowl to a side, “The earliest period your dreams takes place in New Joseon, right?” She flicks her wrist; the shop fades and swirls into an unfocused background. All he knows is that they’re far away from the ramen shop. He’s not a mechanic. She’s not a nurse.

He looks down on his body, with morbid fascination. Dark blue gonryongpo adorning him, fits his figure nicely. The sight is akin to a skill lost to muscle memory, he’s regaining it all back, but not to the level he’s acquainted with.

The table between them gone. His eyes glued to sajoeryongbo sewn on his shoulders and the front of his robe. “This is the crown prince’s attire, why am I wearing this?”

He raises his eyes at her. 

She wears purple hanbok, her long free hair tied into a single braid, with an ornament pin on top of her head. “Because you were a prince. The genius in literature and the arts.”

He laughs, “No, I don’t believe it. You’re telling me that I was a Joseon prince,” and releases a snicker.

“It’s up to you to believe me,” she shrugs her shoulders, turns to face the Gyeongbokgung Palace. She opens with small paces, he trails after her, as she enters the palace.

Together, they stand in front an empty throne. There’s this look in her eyes, a faraway glance that makes her older than her twenty-three of age. Eyes that seen too much, experienced through so many lives that she might be telling the truth.

“Literature always came easily to you. You love arts too much that you’d be a dancer, a singer or an actor given the chance. Ever wonder why you wake up in the morning, with Déjà vu sits on your bones and yet you can’t tell why?” 

“How did you—what you’re a psychic?” Seok-hyun queries, his voice’s light and mocking.

“I always had this self-awareness since I was young, to know that my origins began in a different period, in New Joseon,” she returns, “Much like you.”

“Then who am I?”

“You already know who. Literature. The arts. I can’t keep giving you the carrots all the time,” she finishes.

“Hey, Seok-hyun,” a voice fills his ears and a sharp finger jabs his arm.

“W-what?” Seok-hyun stirs from his nap. In his half-dazed vision, he sees doubles of his fellow interns. Dr Jung Min-kyu and Kim Hyun-ji standing over him.

Min-kyu’s head wobbles from left to right, “What are you doing here in this room?”

“Can’t you see? He’s taking a nap. Duh,” snaps Min-kyu’s girlfriend, “But seriously, you’re supposed to sleep in the on-call room, not in a patient’s room,” she chides at Seok-hyun lightly.

“The on-call room was full,” he lies, “And she’s always alone, I thought I should keep her company.”

They both cast glances at the bed, brows disappearing into their hairlines, “You know her?” Min-kyu asks.

“You never say anything,” quips Hyun-ji.

“I don’t. I just feel like she’s lonely.”

“Well, let’s keep moving before Dr Seo gets a wind of your new habit of sleeping inside a young female patient’s room.”

---

His parents visit him during the weekends. Mom brings her famous home-made kimchi. Dad being dad, ensures they’ll have enough soju for the night. They carry on with the tradition to watch musical shows, even though mum and dad relies heavily on subtitles.

The male lead stumbles in several scenes, flailing in his dance steps. Dad hollers at the television, “Oh, where did they get this guy? He’s a pretty face, but he can’t dance to save his life.”

“I bet you could do it.”

“I’m a lousy dancer, mum.”

Mum tsks tsks at him, “No, you weren’t. Since you were a kid, you danced like it’s nobody’s business. You took the lead from your teacher during the school’s annual flower festival.”

“Yeah, you created these complexes dances that even your teachers were impressed. They even call you ‘Little Munjo’ after Prince Hyomyeong because it’s like you were channelling him when you created all those dances.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” he replies, takes a sip of his soju.

“You were only six back then.”

“You were a fantastic storyteller too,” dad pipes up, as if suddenly remembering a crucial plot point. Dad shrugs his shoulders, “Then you outgrew your interest in literature and in arts, in general.” 

It’s like a light bulb in his brain gets an electrical shock, lights up. Synapsis firing as he makes the connection. He jumps to his feet, leaves his parents to watch the television and his fingers rapidly pulling information on a certain crown prince.

September 18^th, Hyomyeong was born—Seok-hyun will celebrate his 24^th birthday this year on that day. This has to be a coincidence, right. He consumes information, after information. Some of which eerily similar to his current childhood. Flashes of a bygone era once he pegs for fanciful imagination might be his long-lost memories.  

He was a son to a king. He was a husband to a crown princess. He was a father to a king. He was a Joseon prince after all.

His name lands on Prince Hyomyeong’s spouse. Only one name.

Jo … Pungyang Jo clan. Queen Senjeong. It has to be her.  

She’s not lying after all. 

---

They’re walking side by side, down the bamboo-forested path of the Gyeonggijeon Shrine. The stars scattered across the dark skies, over their heads. The moon shines down their path. The crickets and cicadas create a blend of musical sonata to the tune of a sageuk drama’s soundtrack.  

He wonders if Hwan takes after them both, or only him, or her. He glances at her, tries to conjure an image of Yi Hwan, based on the portrait he’d seen and her. But not a single picture jumps to his mind. 

“How’s he like?”

“Who?”

“Our son.”

There’s hesitation in her answer, she comes to an abrupt stop, “You can read the Annals, it’s all there,” she replies tersely and mechanical-like.  

Realising she’s stopped, he strides to her spot, “No, I want to know through you. You were there. When I died,” he sheepishly reiterates his intention, “You were still there when he died.”

She swallows her breath, the end of her lips twisting into a small smile, “H-he grew into a handsome boy. He’s too much like you. Keeps a cheery smile, even when your mother wouldn’t relinquished her control over the court.”

“That’s a relief to hear.”

The landscape around him shifts into a garden that stings familiarity. He stretches a hand, traces his fingertips on the bush edges. Real. It feels real, like the leaves he’d often racked during autumn. Spots a swing nearby. He plops himself onto the swing he owned in another life. Again, all this is surreal and tangible. Co-exists in the same plane. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget he’s in a dream.

“Did I really die young?” Seok-hyun questions, rubs his chin. Harder to wrap his mind around reincarnations in a science-dominated modern era. And yet, he’s a living proof. 

She shakes her head, “No. Or I think you did, in another world. Not this.”

“What happen to me? I cannot remember. The history books didn’t say much,” presses her for more information. History books ironically belongs to the winners of history. In their case, history books lies. Or not. Who knows? All this is mind-boggling for him.

“You went on to live a life you deserved, with the woman you loved,” she says, a rueful smile tugging the end of her lips. It looks strained on her face, and she says, “I bet you had a wonderful family. Lots of children and grandchildren,” her tone wistful.

“How did that happen? I mean, if you are a prince, it is not like you can leave the palace like leaving a hotel.” 

“Oh, you faked your death. It was not hard, considering the times were Joseon in the 1800s.” 

“What about you?”

She points a finger at her chin, doe-like eyes widens, “Me?”

He gives a curt nod, “I left to live a life I wanted, left the palace. But we were married, weren’t we?”

“Y-yes, we did. It wasn’t a marriage. Just political business affair,” she replies, looks away from his face, stares into a distance. Into a past that he couldn’t recall.  

“It doesn’t sound like it was just ‘political business affair’ to you,” he notes, waves a hand absentmindedly in the air.

Her head bobs up and down forceful, she answers a little too quick, “No, it was just that.”

“Liar, I read what happened to you,” Seok-hyun counters, narrows his eyes at her, “You suffered. You lost your only son at a young age. Your personal happiness gone. You were stuck and embroiled in political game of clans,” he points out, “so why did you end up suffering while I lived happily?”

She keeps her eyes on her fingers, like it’s the most interesting thing between them, “That was just how it works. It was a different time,” she retorts, nonchalantly.

“He’s a jerk.”

“Who?”

“The guy you married.”

She chuckles, melodically. And he thinks why would past him didn’t even give her a chance. 

“He’s a man of his time. Palace can be a suffocating place. He grew up in that environment.”

“Even so, he should have just shouldered on the responsibilities,” he bristles, “he sounds like a guy who just ran off from home to be with his lady love.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree then,” Yoo-joo returns, amused than anything. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and the silence slithers like an unsuspecting snake between them. 

“So, what’s this place? It looks familiar to me,” he chimes, opts to change the subject. 

“You don’t recognise it?” tumbles out ungracefully from Yoo-joo’s mouth, her eyes blinks rapidly, and he shakes his head, one brow arching up.

“This is your favourite place. Past you,” she clarifies, gestures around the garden.

He makes a sweeping gaze around the garden. Blooming and colourful flowers pepper the green shrubs and thick trees. A secluded place but it seems so ordinary. “What’s so special about this?”

Her brow furrows, she purses her lips and says, “You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Nope,” he pops the ‘p’ in his mouth, fiddles with the string beads of his gat.

“You told me that I shouldn’t step a foot here. I always wondered what it like was to be in this garden with you,” she pauses, shifts her sight from his face to the trimmed bushes, “without you being closed off the way you often were.”

She reaches out to touch flower petals, as if lost in her thought. Lightly caressing the flower petal with a thumb.

“So, how do you feel now?”

“It’s perfect,” she says, now staring at him, with unshed tears pooling in her eyes, her smile’s the brightest he’d seen on her. It’s a strange sight, that there’s a smile on her face bears two meanings but it tugs all the strings in his heart and knocks the air out from his lungs all the same.

He taps at the empty side on the swing, “You should sit next to me. Get the full package.”

The smile on her face falters a little, “I’m on borrowed time, Seok-hyun,” she informs, her voice takes on a hard edge of finality. 

“What do you mean?” He jumps to his feet, gazes down at her.  

“You’re a doctor, make an educated guess,” she teases him, mockery and playful interwoven in her tone.

“No, I just met you.”

“We met a couple of times. We’ve crossed paths in so many universes,” she tries to console him, “Kang Dong-Woo and Joo Soo-yeon, remember them?”

“That’s not fair,” his voice takes a harsh turn, scares him and yet she doesn’t flinch, “I don’t want the other universes. I’m not in that. I’m not me.”

She tilts her head to aside and grins, “When is life ever fair?” 

He glares at her hard; how is it she smiles while he’s on the verge of screaming at her to stop being stupid. 

“The one thing I know of you, which exists in any version of you,” she mutters, her fingers grazing his check, “You’ll always find a way to live. Like my Yeong.”

She pecks on his cheek, “Goodbye,” and her voice loses its clarity, as though one stuffs cotton into his ear. She fades, time around them halts and he sees everything. Her colour pales, her hand feels nothing more than a light breeze on his skin.

The garden disappears, leaving only black in its wake. The ground beneath his feet crumbles, and he falls. He jerks up from his desk, wipes his drool with the back of his hand. His vision doubles, and he pinches his eyes to clear his sight.

Yoo-joo! He dashes, forgoing the lift for the stairs. Runs as fast as his legs could bring him. He trips, slams his knee against the steps. The sudden jolt to his knee cap stuns him momentarily. He forges on, ignores the flaring pain. Limps to her floor, drags himself across the corridor ‘till his feet stops before her closed door.

But the door’s not close. There’s a doctor in her usually empty room. Her parents are outside, hugging each other tight. His ears miss the sound of the monotonous beeping.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Seok-hyun voices out. He’s not screaming, he knows he’s not. But it feels loud. Louder that there’s an echo in each word. His eyes darting across the room. Sees the doctor about to unplug the machine.

He scrambles at the doctor, his superior, and shoves him away from the machine. “No!”

“Who are you?” her father shoots, anger in his red-rimmed eyes.

“I’m her—” his trails off. What is he to her? Her past-life husband? Her friend? They only met through the dream world. How could he explain that?

“Get away from our daughter,” her mother yells, through the smeared mascara.

“Nurse, get Dr Park away from this room. Call security. We’ll talk later,” Dr Seo barks in harsh half-whispers. He resumes to taking the tubes out from . The nurse escorts him out from the room, and brings him to the nurse’s station.

“Do you know her?”

“Hmm?” He gazes at the older nurse, as she hands him a Band-Aid. She points a finger at the blood-soaked trousers, “for your knee.”

“The girl. Chae Yoo-joo. Do you know her?” She repeats, softly and perhaps a hint of pity. “She didn’t have many visitors for the past year, until you came along.”

“I-I am—no, was her friend,” he lies. The truth is strange, complicated. Ludicrous. No one will ever believe his story.  

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, pats his arm and leaves him alone. 

---

He attends her funeral. Hides himself among the sea of people dressed in black. He doesn’t enter. Doesn’t show his face at her parents. Instead he waits outside. Sits across the road, alone. With a black umbrella in hand, in case it rains.

He sees familiar faces. Faces of a past that he can’t be sure whether he dreams of it, or it’s really his as Park Seok-hyun. Some wave, some smile, but most just curtly nods out of decency. So he waits.

It’s when her parents calls it a night, steps out from the funeral parlour that he slips past them and enters. He takes a seat ahead of her portrait. Studies her portrait, it’s a photo of her high school graduation.

He’s so used to seeing her in a hanbok. That she dressed in a school uniform strikes a chord, one that he’s unable to connect. He close his eyes, pictures of her in a peach hanbok that she’s so fond of.

“Hey,” her voice rings in that quiet parlour. But it doesn’t ring like it did in his dreams, all melodious and joy. Here, her voice has a haunting quality to it.

But he replies anyway, “I miss you.”

“I thought so.”

“I want to see you.”

“I thought so too.”

“Will you say something different than that?” Seok-hyun snaps in annoyance, runs a hand through his messy short hair.

She chuckles, one perfectly brow arches upwards, “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything.”

She sighs. “What are you doing here, Seok-hyun?”

“I wanted to give you a proper goodbye. I didn’t get to—” his voice trails, there are cracks appearing in his tone. Sobs aching to leave his mouth.

“Say it then. I’m waiting,” she doesn’t pressure, instead permits a smile on her face.

He takes a deep breath, struggles to keep the tremors away from his voice, “I’m sorry for how Yeong treated you in the past. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to meet properly in this time. I just wish we get to do a do-over.”

She hushes him, presses her finger on to his lips. It tingles, her touch. Unlike the one in his dream, which felt solid and soothing.

“I never hated the crown prince,” she reassures, “despite all that I went through. I accepted it. It was partly my fault. I did on the behalf of my clan back then. I never regret the path I took.”

She doesn’t uphold the mistakes he made in their past lives. That guilt sitting on his shoulders lessens, but not by a huge margin. Still, his tears trickle down his face. The silence between them stretches into white noise.

“Can you promise me?” Seok-hyun asks, doesn’t give her a chance to interject, “When we meet each other in the next life, please approach me,” and opens his eyes, “I want to have a fresh start with you.”

“I will, with a condition,” she counters, that smile still blinds his eyes, makes his heart skips three beats.

“What?”

“Live life to the fullest, like my Yeong. And we’ll meet again.”

“Deal.”

She leans forward, their lips touching, he closes his eyes again involuntarily. Commits everything to his memory. Maybe, just maybe, he hopes to meet her again in dream land. But he knows, the possibility of meeting her again after today, is just wishful thinking.

They break apart. He’s alone again. With her portrait. But the weight on his shoulders stop pressing against his muscles. A small smile tugging the end of his lips, mirrors the one in Yoo-joo’s. He comes to his feet, takes out a copy of sketch he’d drawn months ago and lays it underneath her portrait.

“Until we meet again, have a nice long sleep,” he murmurs, turns on his heels and walks out from the parlour.

Park Seok-hyun’s going to live his life to the fullest. He’d promised.