2017

Seoul, South Korea

===

            The ice king novelist woke up from his long deep sleep. His head felt so damned like hell. The memory of his previous life got so much of energy of him.

            ”Finally you open your eyes, Sukkie.”

            His headache hasn’t subdued, yet the first person he met was his most terrible kind of friend. ”How long have I slept?” Asked the novelist to the man who sat at the couch in that large bedroom.

            ”Half an hour.”

            ”You must be kidding me, Jongsuk-ah.” The novelist replied while his hand massaged his temple.

            ”I’m not.”

            Has the time stopped? That remembrance of his previous life, it wasn’t enough to be in the half an hour time running of his sleep. He let out a groan as not only his head, his heart started to hurt. The pain he experienced in his dream felt so real.

            ”What happened to you?” the man who named Jongsuk asked the novelist who still laid on his bed.

            ”Mwo?” the novelist asked back.

            ”You seemed so deep in your sleep. You even cry in your sleep.”

            ”Eh?”

            Silence enveloped both of the men in that room, making the time walked so slowly. Only their breaths sound filled that quiet room, nothing less nothing more. The novelist sat up on his bed, then took his eyeglass on the desk near his bed. Put it up that round frame eyeglass on, then he looked at his watch. It was past midnight, 00.42 am to be exact.

            ”You still have a feeling towards her, I assume.” Jongsuk said, broke the silence in that room.

            Her? Who? The novelist’s brain still couldn’t process any single information he got so well. He even didn’t remember what happened to him before he got unconscious many minutes ago. The dream he has before just like an eraser that completely erased all of his memories before he woke up from his long yet short sleep.

            ”Shin Hye,” Jongsuk stated plainly.

            Just heard that name, his cinematic records of his own memories that already cut off, scattered, all united again, formed a perfect cinematic records, given him back his memory about what have happened before he got unconscious.

            ”Shin Hye,” the novelist uttered that name in his lowest tone. ”What happened to her?”

            A heavy sigh slipped out from Jongsuk’s lips after heard the dumbest question he ever heard in his life, came out from his best friend. Jongsuk looked at his friend in silent. The novelist named Jang Keun Seok aka Jongsuk’s friend, was the one who found the beautiful painter first than anyone else related to her. He’s the one that has informed that cruel reality. ”What do you mean with “what happened to her”, babo?!” Jongsuk questioned his friend with a high tone. ”You’re the one who found her, lifeless. You’re the one who brought her home, escorted her to her last rest place.” Jongsuk stopped, as his eyed began to watery. Not because of remembered of the late beautiful painter, but because of the quietness of the novelist in front of him. In Jongsuk’s eyes, his friend looked already losing his own mind because of the death of their special girl, Park Shin Hye. Jongsuk got up from his seat, then began walked out from that room without said a single word. But before he left, he stopped right on the doorknob. ”I think you need time to regain your sense back, Keun Seok-ah.” Jongsuk said without faced his friend, then left that place.

While the said man, Jang Keun Seok stilled in his room. His brain still unable to process something… but one thing he knew was the girl that has grown with him, together with him for years was gone. She’s gone, before he could saying something that has been hidden inside his heart, and that fact ached him. It ached him hundredth time than when he lost her in his previous life.

”What should I do?”

”I never accept your proposal. It was my director who accept it.”

He still remembered it clearly when he said those words coldly toward her.

”Is that so?”

            He also still remembered her low delicate voice said those words in disappointment as she bit her lower lips continuously, her bad habit. Thinking about it felt like his heart has shattered. He felt numb for a while and now it hurts so much. He’ll be a mess without her, he already knew it since he decided to stay away from her in the first place, but he didn’t know that he will be like that. He’s a total mess, without her.

            A knock on his room’s door followed with his secretary’s voice broke the quietness of his room. ”Writer Jang, I’m in.” Secretary Song entered the writer’s room with a tray filled with a glass of his favorite freshwater and some kinds of medicine. Secretary Song put it on the table beside his bed. ”Writer Jang, you looked unwell. I bring your medicine…”

            ”I don’t need it.” Writer Jang’s short words cut his secretary’s.

            ”But, Writer Jang…”

            ”Leave me alone.”

            Secretary Song didn’t dare to speak a word to her employer as she heard those three words came out from him. She left the writer just like his command in silent. Slowly, Writer Jang rose up from his bed then walked toward small room beside his bedroom. He opened up the door, then soon his eyes caught the old canvas stood silently in that small room.

            ”The last time I use you was three years ago, when I’m still with her. Now… let me meet her… again.” His trembled hand took the paintbrush near the canvas then scrabbled on the canvas, made a silhouette of his dream girl, Park Shin Hye.

===

February, 11th 2017.

Park Shin Hye woke up after heard her noisy alarm rang continuously. She looked at her room for a while, she felt strange. How she ended up in her room? She remembered it well that the last thing she saw was the bright light that blinded her eyes then all things turned black. Was it all… dream?

”Aigoo… Hye-yah! Let’s get out from that bed! You said that you have many things to do today, yet you still glued on your bed.” She heard her mother lectured her with the same exact words she heard a week before she got that accident, with the same expression of her mother she saw before.

She ate the breakfast which was her mother prepared for her in silent. A plate of omurice with same decoration on it like she experienced before.

”Gwaenchanayo? You looked weird since you woke up earlier,” her mother asked her with a worried face.

”Hmm… gwaenchanayo, Eomma.” Shin Hye answered with a small smile while munched her omurice.

Were that all things just a dream? But it’s too real to call it as a dream. Has the time turned back? But why? And how?

Many question filled Shin Hye’s mind as she looked at her mother who ate her own breakfast in peace. ”Eomma, didn’t you feel that you’ve experienced the thing you do right now?” Shin Hye voiced out her most questionable curiosity.

”What kind of your question is, Hye-yah? It’s not our first time have breakfast with omurice.”

”No… not that. I mean… this morning. You came to my room just to wake me up, then you lectured me with that sentence you said before…uhm… how I said it to make you understand…” Shin Hye tried to explain her puzzled mind to her mother but it’s looked futile. Her mother didn’t understand a single thing Shin Hye has said.

”You must too exhausted because of your next exhibition’s preparation that made you said nonsense like this, Hye-yah. Make sure you take a proper rest tonight.” Her mother lectured her again.

”It seems that only me that remember.”

===

            Writer Jang looked blankly on his laptop screen. He turned back time a week before that accident happened. It was when the writer started positioning his fingers on the keyboard of his laptop, the door of his study opened, revealed his director’s stupid face. Just like it should happened, like the time he first experienced it.

            ”Writer Jang, let’s going out.”

            Writer Jang has known that his director will said that sentence, and his respond to his request was… ”Eodi?”

            ”You will know it later.”

            I’ve already known it. Writer Jang closed his eyes as his director stood in front of him, put his stupid smile on his face. Without Writer Jang’s permission, Director Ahn took the writer’s car key which was placed on the table.

”Today, we will ride your car, ne?”

            Writer Jang just eyed his director lazily, then started typed on his keyboard, ignored the older man. He did the things that should be done, just like the previous time when he got asked to go out by the director.

            ”Keun Seok-ah?” this time, Director Ahn called the writer’s born name in desperate tone.

Writer Jang didn’t took a glance at Director Ahn. His fingers kept typing while his eyes behind the round-framed glasses focused on the worksheet he worked on. But then, his fingers stopped as the director pushed the power button of the writer’s laptop, made the laptop got shutdown. With a bit annoyance, Writer Jang looked up at his director’s face.

”Stop working for now, and go out with me,” Director Ahn said or it could be called as commanded to the young writer, then gave the car key back to its owner. With a soft sigh, Writer Jang shut his laptop, then got out from his study.

===

            Along the ride, Writer Jang didn’t utter any single word. Fifteen minutes later, he will meet the girl that supposed to be gone from this beautiful world. His grip on the steering wheel tighten as he remembered what kind of words he said to her that day, in the previous time.

            ”Are you alright, Writer Jang?” Director Ahn who sat on the passenger seat asked him.

            ”All of the places in Seoul, why you asked me to go to that gallery?” Writer Jang asked the same question he asked to his director just like in the previous time.

            ”Who knows?” Director Ahn hung his answer. ”Sometimes, you need something new to refresh your mood, isn’t it?”

            They stopped, as the traffic light turned its color in red. The red light took a long time to turn into yellow then green light. In the moment they waited, Writer Jang pictured the moment when he met the beautiful painter in her gallery, just the two of them. She looked beautiful and girly in her soft-pink knee-length dress. Her long black hair got tied loosely on her back with the ribbon in the same color as her dress. But not like her lovely look, the conversation both of them having was miserable.

            ”It is green, Writer Jang.” Director Ahn’s voice brought the writer back to the earth, as the writer moved his car steadily.

            The front building of the gallery has appeared in Writer Jang’s eyes as he made a turn toward the gallery. He parked his black Porsche smoothly, then got out from it, didn’t forget to lock it before left it at the parking lot. While his director has left him, Writer Jang walked slowly toward the doors of the gallery. The painting of sea birds flied on the sunset sky greeted him as he stepped in his foot in the gallery. A friendly greeting “welcome back” addressed to him as he got further in that decent gallery. He could saw his director talked to a lady at the corner of that lobby, far enough from his place.

            ”May I accompany you to have a look in this gallery, Sir?”

            Writer Jang turned around to face the owner of that girly voice and found the owner of the gallery stood right several steps away from him. A shock appeared in her brown eyes, but soon got swayed with a lovely look ones.

            ”Keun Seok Sunbae.” She said it in low tone, but it’s loud enough to be heard by the owner of that name.

            ”I come here just to grant that old man wish.” Writer Jang said shortly, without gave a look at the girl who asked him before.

            ”I see.”

            Silence engulfed both of them as none wanted to break the awkwardness between them. Though in that moment, Writer Jang looked the girl named Park Shin Hye from the corner of his eyes. Soft-pink knee-length dress, long black hair got tied loosely in soft-pink ribbon, light make-up on her already beautiful face, she’s nervous as he saw she played her fingers and bite her lower lips.

            ”Cheogi… how if we walk around?” Park Shin Hye offered with shy voice.

            ”Sure. I think, it isn’t a bad idea.” Writer Jang replied.

            Just like that, both the young painter and the writer walked to other room which displayed many kind of paintings. They started with the left side of the gallery, which was displayed total seven paintings with urban theme. An abandoning old building at the coastal, colorful street lights on busy night at the center of city, placid street which surrounded by coffee shops, busy people walked in the rainy day, blue hour over the tall buildings, a high school girl read a book in the bus stop station, and sakura petals that lied on the road in the spring time.

            ”You and your novels, always be the inspiration of my paintings.”

            The same sentence got voiced out at the same time, at the same situation. It was when Writer Jang looked at the painting of a high school girl read a book in the bus stop station. The scenery of that painting was reminded him of one scenario in one of his best seller novels, titled “Ref:rain”, told about a girl who previously got titled as “human killing machine” during the world war II, after the war ended, she’s asked to live her life as a normal human. But, along her journey to be normal human, she found many kind of things that moved her inner thing called “heart”.

            Writer Jang still kept silent as he decided to leave that room and moved to another room. The next room they stepped in was the room which was displayed five paintings in the fantasy theme. One painting that caught the writer’s attention the most was the painting that placed at the left corner of the paintings row. A man, clothed in yellow-gold dopo inside the gold colored feather-shaped pattern black dapho, stood at the bridge, alone. The man closed his eyes, a crescent moon hanged on the dark sky. A white silhouette of long-haired girl hugged the man from behind, eyes-closed, a smiling face, perfected the painting.

            ”You…like that one, Keun Seok sunbae?” Shin Hye asked.

            ”You always create masterpiece, it’s all the people said about your paintings. But for me, it’s just sketch without soul in it.”

            Writer Jang left the beautiful painter after saying that harsh words to her. He has used to say any kind of harsh words towards her, in order to make distance between them, to make her hate him, even it is hurt his own heart.

            While the young beautiful painter stood still at her place even the novelist has left that room. The situation was right like it happened in the past time, the previous time she experienced it. The writer and his director visited her gallery, she offered a company to the writer. The writer looked intensely at the high school girl read a book in the bus stop station and the man with his imaginary girl at the bridge under the moon light. Also, that piercing words which was slipped out from his mouth. Even she has known he will say it, but heard it for the second time was still hurt her heart. Was he hate her so much?

            Park Shin Hye walked slowly to the lobby of her gallery, as she saw the writer and his director has given their good bye to the receptionist there. She looked at her place, the writer who always filled her dreams every night left her gallery.

            ”Shin Hye, what’s wrong? You looked a bit gloomy,” her manager came out of nowhere to her place and asked her.

            ”Gwaenchanayo, Manager Han. Have you gave them the proposal?” Shin Hye asked her manager back.

            ”Of course. The director said that he will give us the answer after… uhm, maybe three days from now?”

            She nodded her head as the respond, even though she has already known what kind of answer she will get from that proposal. The writer will hold his novel signing at one of her galleries, but it wasn’t because his own will.

            ”I entrust you for the rest of preparation, Manager Han.” With that, Shin Hye left that place, walked toward her studio, to make a new one painting. Along the walk, she kept asking herself. Among many kind of situation I experienced as long as I life, why I have to have a time leap in this situation?

===

            It has been half an hour since they left the gallery, but the writer still unwilling to direct his black Porsche to his own residence. Both Writer Jang and Director Ahn still inside that black luxury car, went along the busy road of Seoul. Director Ahn who sat on the passenger seat started feeling bored, as the atmosphere around them was cold yet so quiet, it has fully froze the patient inside the mid-forties director.

            ”Where are we heading, Writer Jang?”

            ”I don’t know.” The writer answered shortly. That kind of answer made the director sighed in defeated.

            ”Something happened between you and the beautiful goddess painter Park Shin Hye? Earlier, both of you entered the painting showroom together, but then you came out alone. Even she didn’t bid a good bye to us.”

            Writer Jang stomped on the brake pedal slowly as the traffic light turned into red. He ignored the man who sat not far from him, pretended that he never heard the question spoken out from that annoying director of his.

            ”Tsk… you always avoided the conversation that involve her. I don’t know since when you start ignore her, but… both of you have a very nice relationship back then.”

            Here we go again, the materialistic man who sat at the passenger seat has started lecturing him. ”What’s make you being so cold to her?”

            ”It’s not your business, Ahn Sajangnim.”

            Writer Jang stepped on the gas pedal, moved his black Porsche among hundreds vehicles on the road. He increased the speed, passed cars one by one so smoothly. Sometimes, Director Ahn wondered if the young man who sat at the driving seat wasn’t a novel writer, he must suited to be a racer, a handsome one of course. But soon, Director Ahn’s fantasy had to end as Writer Jang took a turn then stopped his car in one of placid park. The writer killed the engine, then got out from the car without leaving any single word.

            ”No wonder if the “ice king novelist” suited him well.” Director Ahn mumbled as he got out from the car too then followed his beloved writer’s trace. 

            The young novelist sat there, on the bench under the oak tree. He took off his navy colored coat, laid it on his own left hand. His dark brown eyes looked at the beautiful yet calm lake in front of them. Couples of white feathered swan swam beautifully, created some ripples on the water lake.

            ”You looked restless, Keun Seok-ah.” Director Ahn said as he sat beside the writer.

            ”Am I?”

            ”What’s bothering you?”

            ”Nothing.” Writer Jang’s lied. There were so much things crowded his mind, but he chose to have it all to himself. He’s not the type of a man that would opened to someone else so easily.

            ”You’re so awfully bad in lies, Keun Seok-ah.” The director paused, he could sense that the writer whom sat beside him looked at him, gave him a questioned look. ”Since the first time I initiated to have a gallery visit, you looked so worried, worried about something… or someone?”

            The writer took away his attention from his director, gave his attention back to the lake in front of him. ”Am I like an opened book to you?”

            ”How much years that I have been spent with you, Keun Seok-ah? You’ve already like my own little brother.” The director looked at the young writer, then spoke what’ve been stuck inside his brain. ”Too careful yet could made it more dangerous. Women, if you ignored them, they will leave you when you start worry towards them.”

            ”Today… you sure talk too much, aren’t you?”

===

In our next life, I won’t let go of you. I promise. So, let’s meet again, in our next life.”

            She stopped her paintbrush scrabbled many colors on the white canvas. She put back the paintbrush on the small table stood beside her. Yesterday night, she has the same mysterious dream she had before. She sighed, all the events she experienced seems ridiculous yet too difficult to call it’s a reality than a fantasy.

            ”You make another painting, Shin Hye-ssi?”

            Shin Hye didn’t turn her head just to face the owner of that voice, because she has known that she will hear that question, from her manager.

            ”I just feel bored, Manager Han. How’s the preparation of my next exhibition?” Shin Hye asked her manager with the same words she said in the past, while her hand picked the paintbrush up then scrabbled again on the canvas.

            ”Don’t worry, Shin Hye-ssi. We have finished all, even the slightest things.”

            Shin Hye nodded her head, focused her attention on her painting.

            ”Also, I have something good to you Shin Hye-ssi,” Manager Han said with a smile.

            Shin Hye stopped for a while. The news that supposed to be a good news, after she knew the truth behind it, that news turned into a bad one. ”What is it?”

            ”About the novel signing at your gallery, Writer Jang has agreed to it. His agency will give us . . .”

            ”Really?” Shin Hye said it lowly, unlike when she said it in her past which full of joy in her voice.

”Shi