400 years later

It had been a long time since the earth had smelled so green as it did now. Jinyoung took in a deep lungful of it, wallowing in the sensation of the fresh air filling him.  It was such a priceless thing, and something he had learned to treasure in a different way over the past century. After seeing the world nearly devastated, it wasn’t possible for him to take the things he’d once taken as a given for granted.

So right now, he drank in the blue expanse of the sky. The green and gold stalks of millet swaying in the breeze. The rustle of leaves on the trees. The crystalline waters in the aquafeeders pumping gradually into the land, drop by drop giving it back its life and restoring it to the verdant paradise it had always meant to be.

“I’m home,” he whispered into the quiet air. Although in his heart, this was only partially true. He hoped to be truly back home soon, but for now it was enough to be back in his home country. It had changed on him again, as it always did, but he didn’t begrudge it this time. Last time he had left, it had only just begun to rebuild after The Cataclysm that had undone the world as it had been. Now it had been reborn, fully realized into something whole and beautiful in a way it hadn’t been since the beginning.

He walked down the dirt path, passing through the millet farms and the accompanying aquafeeders for miles until he reached the path leading into the city. And much to his surprise, Seoul still very much looked like a city, through all its changes. The skyscrapers still existed in the forms of vertical forests, buildings with walls covered in various forms of plant life, and shrubs and trees growing from their roofs. Train lines still wove through the city in the form of the rebuilt electric railway, which had now entirely replaced automotive travel. The streets still bustled with people, though they were very much the products of post-Cataclysm society. They didn’t elbow past each other or toss their coffee cups onto the streets for someone else to deal with. They were conscious of how they moved through the world, and careful with how they treated it.

Around the city, floating digital screens broadcast the latest news. The Department of Growth was accepting donations in honor of Conservator’s Day for districts still in need of resources. Area of Europe hit hard by the Cataclysm were now showing signs of recovery thanks to assistance from nations that had seen less damage. President Hyesun and the Disaster Advisory were issuing directives about a potential typhoon that might hit the northern region in a few days.

Jinyoung grimaced. He hoped he might prevent that same typhoon before he left by dealing with Korea’s remaining instability problem. Still, the President’s directives and the redevelopment of the structure of the city showed how well the people had learned this time. The devastation of The Cataclysm had taught everyone a resounding lesson in what practices they could not carry with them as the world rebuilt, and had also taught them how best to protect themselves from further damage. Most of the lingering natural disasters had tapered off after the land as a whole had withered—most of the gods that Mayumi had not succeeded in returning to the earth in her lifetime surrendered on their own when they at last recognized that the death of the earth was imminent if they did nothing. But in Korea, where a god still lingered and the threat remained, the people had already had to use what they’d learned to preserve their hard-won land and keep it safe.

At long last, he reached a columned building that was woven with flowering vines, its gardens bursting with fruit trees and carefully kept pollinator flowers that he could see bees eagerly darting between. This, then, was The Green House, the restored seat of power of the united Korean government.

He walked up to the front gate and showed his letter of introduction to the guard. He could see the recognition immediately register on the guard’s face as he read Jinyoung's name on it. There was a moment of pause as the guard gaped at him, and then the gate clicked open and Jinyoung walked through.

The interior of The Green House, much like the exterior, was made up of living green walls of plant life, and Jinyoung could even see a few butterflies fluttering between the different flowering plants. An overhead sprinkler system kept a steady stream of mist falling on the vegetation. A woman sat in the lobby out of the way of the mist, scrolling through a digital screen projected in front of her. When she looked up and saw Jinyoung, she looked momentarily confused, up until he pulled off the cloth mask he’d been wearing to reveal his face.

“Y-You!” she yelped. “You…you look just like him!”

Jinyoung smiled politely. He’d been getting this reaction ever since he stepped off the boat, and had gotten used to it already, though he’d taken the precaution of the mask in Seoul proper, not wanting to draw attention to himself on the busy street. “I’m told the family resemblance is very strong,” he said. Identical, even, he thought to himself.

“You must be the Conservator’s grandson? The one President Hyesun is expecting?”

“That would be me.”

“Just a moment, then, sir!” She moved her fingers across the digital screen, hovering over the Telecom button before turning to look at Jinyoung again. “I just want to say, sir, that I greatly honor your grandfather. We owe everything to him. He is like a god to us-”

“Thank you for your words,” Jinyoung said, interrupting her. “But remember that the last thing the Conservator would have wanted was to be treated like a god.”

The woman flushed. “Yes. Of course. Be not a worshipper, but a steward. I apologize.”

“Not at all. I can see for myself what an amazing steward you and the leadership of Korea have been. You should be very proud of yourself.”

She beamed. “Thank you, sir. I’ll let the President know you’re here at once!”

After she’d announced Jinyoung’s arrival over the telecom, the assistant led Jinyoung down the hallways and into the executive office where the president was seated at her desk. , like the administrative assistant’s, also fell open upon seeing Jinyoung. Jinyoung had even gone through the trouble of dyeing his hair a little—and he’d never dyed his hair before in his life—to keep the resemblance from looking suspiciously uncanny, but he supposed it had all been for nothing. The Conservator had reached legendary status, and even though none of the people here had been alive when Jinyoung had been to Korea a century ago, they still knew his face.

President Hyesun corrected her expression and rose to her feet with a smile and several low bows. “So you’ve arrived, Steward Park! I hope your journey was smooth?”

“Yes, very.” Jinyoung returned his bow. “And call me Jinyoung, please.”

“You are your grandfather’s namesake, then?”

“Yes, apparently the people in my family seem to have run out of creativity when it comes to names.”

“It may be because of how greatly you resemble your grandfather. To look at you, it seems instead that the Conservator has returned to walk among us again.”

Jinyoung shook his head. “His work here is done. You don’t need a Conservator anymore. The land has been conserved. He would have been so proud of what Korea has become.”

“It is an honor to hear you say so.” President Hyesun returned to her seat and gestured for Jinyoung to sit across from her. “Have you been able to see much of the country since your arrival?”

Jinyoung nodded. “I took a little tour of the Department of Regrowth’s farmlands surrounding the city.”

“And what did you think? We used many of the methods devised by your grandfather and the citizen’s council he organized.”

“I thought the farms looked magnificent. The Conservator would have loved to see all these crops and plants thriving as they are now.”

“It was thanks to him that this was possible. I remember my own grandfather telling the stories about how the earth withered and everything began to die. He thought The Cataclysm would truly be the end times, especially as the people in power did nothing more than fight and argue and cast blame rather than finding a solution. Everyone thought the world leaders would spend the last days warring over who would become king of the ashes in the last days of humanity.” Hyesun smiled. “But then your grandfather came. He rallied the people under the cause of survival. He taught them how they could restore the earth and bring life back, and what the cost would be if we didn’t. He and the global citizen’s council literally saved our world.”

“They did what needed to be done for the sake of humanity.”

“That’s putting it in incredibly modest terms. I’m sure you are tired of hearing it, Jinyoung. But The Conservator honestly was the greatest of all men this earth has ever seen.”

Jinyoung smiled in return. “I don’t know about that. He’d be the first to tell you that he’s just as foolish as any other man. He was simply lucky enough to have learned to love before it was too late, and to love the world too greatly to see it fall.” His fingers strayed to the ring on his finger, his smile softening further.

Hyesun’s eyes fell on the ring. “I wasn’t aware that you were married,” she said.

“Widowed,” Jinyoung corrected.

“Oh? I am deeply sorry. Such a tragic thing to happen to one so young.”

“It’s a tragic thing no matter one’s age,” Jinyoung said softly. “But the truth is, I’m a bit older than I look. My love and I had a good, long life together in our own way, and no matter how much time passes, he’s never far from my heart.”

“A very beautiful sentiment. And I always remind myself that we’re lucky to exist on this earth to love and lose. No tragedy would ever be so great as losing the whole of humankind itself.”

“I agree.” Jinyoung took a breath, dropping his fingers away from his ring. “President Hyesun. As I mentioned in our earlier communication, I came here to ask you for a favor.”

“Yes, I understand.” She looked at him a bit anxiously. “You know I would never deny a member of your family anything they asked for. Our debt to the Parks runs deep in this nation. In this entire world, I should think. But I do worry that I have nothing sufficient to give you to honor that debt.”

“I would never ask for anything that you wouldn’t be able to safely part with,” Jinyoung said solemnly. “I’ll be frank with you, President Hyesun. I was made aware that you had salvaged a religious text from a wreckage site a few weeks past.”

Hyseun stared at him in alarm. “But that information hasn’t been made public!”

“I know. I was contacted by a member of your administration who thought I should be informed of the discovery.”

“Please understand, Jinyoung. I would have contacted you myself. I know your grandfather and the citizen’s council and the world at large had very strong opinions on this matter after The Cataclysm. That worship of gods had limited place in a world where stewardship of the land would be our true salvation. And with so many books damaged and lost in disasters, there was no better time for the principles and codes of the world to be reborn.” She pressed her hands down on the desk. “But this book is nothing serious, Jinyoung. It’s just old Korean myths. Traditional stuff, the kind of things people had mostly forgotten, even before The Cataclysm. Trust me when I say no one will resume worship of these beings. The only value it has is as a cultural artifact. Korea has very few left after what happened. Do we really need to sacrifice this one, just because it’s religious in nature?”

Jinyoung shook his head. “President Hyesun. I respect your thoughts on the matter. I know how heartbreaking it was for so many historical items to be lost around the world. But Korea’s history itself has not been forgotten. All the valuable successes and triumphs and failures and challenges and lessons learned by our ancestors have carried on in memory and been rerecorded wherever needed. But those stories…those myths.” Jinyoung swallowed. “They served their purpose, once. They gave humans a sense that they were being looked after. That not everything was in their hands, but that the heavens were carrying some of their burden for them, but…President Hyesun, those stories don’t have that purpose anymore. Everything is in our hands, and we can’t have people relying on the heavens and ignoring the earth as they did once.” He took a steadying breath. “The gods in those stories aren’t needed in the same way they once were. And they don’t need to be remembered as they once were, either. They've played their part. Let them rest, President Hyesun. Let the world begin again without them.”

Hyesun looked for a moment like she would protest, but then nodded slightly. “I suppose you’re right. This world can’t carry everything from the old one on its back or we’ll head straight for another Cataclysm. I don’t want that to happen again. Besides, the book is incredibly waterlogged to begin with. The salvagers who recovered it were too afraid to open it, lest they damage it further. I was going to send it to an archivist to see if it could be repaired, but…I suppose you would like me to surrender it to you instead?”

Jinyoung nodded. “Yes. That was my request.”

“Very well.” She opened a digital screen from her watch and fired off a quick message. “I’ll have it brought you before you leave. Although, now that I think of it, if you have no accommodations planned, I would be happy to host you here. Tomorrow is Conservator’s Day, and it would be an honor to have you at the national banquet. You could give a special speech on your grandfather to our guests.”

Jinyoung shook his head. “I’m sorry. Tomorrow, I won’t be here anymore.”

“Oh? Where will you be going?”

“To Inje first.” Jinyoung bowed his head. “And then, I plan to return to the place I was born, at long last.”

He felt the weight of the book in his bag the whole train ride to Inje. He thought it would feel slightly more climactic—this was, after all, the moment he had been working towards for most of his life. There should have been a rush of adrenaline, or a sweeping feeling of relief.

But he felt neither. It felt instead like the way reaching a destination felt in every day life. There was a sense of contentment, but the exhaustion of the long journey hung over him. He was ready to rest. The past centuries had taken a lot from him, and he was tired.

And the book, when all was said and done, was just a book. Whatever grains of truth existed in them, the stories were just stories. They had wound up meaning very little in the grand scheme of things. The version of him which existed in the book was only a fraction of the man he had become. The world truly didn’t need him in that form anymore. It didn’t really need him anymore in his current form either. A century ago, he’d done his part in leading the world to survival and orchestrating the revival of the dying earth as The Conservator. Humanity had joined with him and adapted, and was now caring for itself without him holding its hand and guiding it. In moments when it felt lost, it had the memory of The Conservator to urge it down the right path. It did not need The Conservator’s “grandson” to keep the movement going.

And that was all right with him. He had been needed by humanity; that was why he existed. But that journey was ending. He was needed somewhere else. The winds of change were blowing, and he felt them from within as he always did. Time to go. Time to go.

He arrived in Inje to find it mostly unchanged, outside of the things that had effected every area, such as the lack of automobile traffic and the increase in green spaces. Inje had not been hit hard by The Cataclysm. The mountains had formed a natural protection, the scientists suggested, and the natural landscape had always thrived there in comparison to areas that had seen greater urbanization. But Jinyoung knew that the natural protection of the mountains went deeper than they knew.

Through everything, the old hanok still stood, though it had needed repairs a few times over the years. The grass surrounding it which had died during The Cataclysm was now long and verging on unruliness. He wasn’t concerned with t it back, though. That would be someone else’s decision, as would the existence of the house, once the money stopped flowing in to maintain it. He was at peace with that. It had been a good home, but like all things of the earth, even it couldn’t stay the same forever.

He unlocked the front door, slid it open, and took a deep lungful of the air inside. It was stale, naturally, but he didn’t mind. Memories were already washing over him. He could almost hear the echoes of voices in the house, as if it had been just yesterday and the traces of old presences were still lingering.

He carried his bag into the main room, which was once again bare, stripped of most of the possessions that had once filled it. There were still logs in a little metal rack by the fireplace, though, left by him the last time he’d used this house as The Conservator. Jinyoung set some logs in the grate, and with a little help from the travel documents in his bag, he was able to get them burning with a lighter he’d brought with him.

With the fire crackling, he pulled the book President Hyesun had given him from his bag. The Song of the Creation of the Universe, the cover read. As the President had said, the book was severely water damaged. A few pages fell out as he cracked open the spine, and most of the pages remaining had huge portions where the ink was too smeared to even begin to read.

But the part containing his name remained intact. Jinyoung read it aloud by the firelight. “…and due to Seokga’s unjust victory, unjust elements began to appear in the human world. The world was peaceful under the rule of Mireuk, but Seokga took over the human world through trickery. Humans were good and honest, but the unjust deity gave birth to evil and sin.”

In times before, these words would have made him furious. Now, he could only laugh at the extent of the untruths. He believed now what he had denied before. That the world had always been unjust and would always be in certain ways. That humans were never purely good or honest, and it was unfair to expect them to be. And though he had committed a fair number of sins in his existence, he had done no great evil all the way up until the end. He had done the greatest kindness for the world that he could think of, and he was at peace with the choices he had made.

There would always be cruelty in humanity. He would not have been able to change that, even if he’d tried. But there would always be kindness to see humanity through whatever unjustness there was. That was the only faith they really, truly needed.

He threw the book into the fire, watching the flames consume it until there was nothing left. It had been the last existing copy of the myth to have survived. With it gone, he could feel it in his heart that his task was almost complete. There was only one last string tethering him. And he didn’t have to go scouring the world looking for it. He knew exactly where it was.

Before he left, he turned towards the little family shrine Mayumi had made for him, in the Japanese style. He knelt down in front of it, gazing through its open doors to the little pictures she’d set up within. In the smaller frames, there were their dearest loved ones from their journeys: Jackson, Yugyeom, BamBam, Youngjae, Jaebum, the Nans, and Mayumi herself, who’d passed away at the age of 118, ending the bloodline of the god Susanoo.

At the center of those images was one of Mark. It was from his graduation, the one he’d taken with Jinyoung before having to rejoin his parents. In it, he smiled from ear to ear, lit up by the breathtaking joy that comes with being happy and in love. To this day, it still brought Jinyoung to tears to look at it. The love had never faded in the slightest with time, nor had the pain of loss. But through that pain, he’d carried a much greater joy with him. He felt Mark every step of the way, felt him delighting in his triumphs and encouraging him when things got hard. He had never been alone for a single moment. All the same, he’d felt a deep, aching kind of loneliness for him. It tore through him, even now.

But the time was coming. So he smiled through his tears and reached out to Mark’s image, taking it in his hands. He opened up the back of the frame and took out the image, which was folded in half. He opened it up, revealing the hidden part of the picture. It was of himself, pressed up against Mark’s cheek, smiling with equal joy and love and pride. He put the picture back in its frame and placed it back in the shrine. This time, when he gazed up at it, he saw the two of them together. Where they belonged.

“I’m coming to you,” he whispered, brushing away his tears. “Wait for me. I’m almost home.”

He rose to his feet, shutting the cabinet doors of the shrine. It was time for his very last journey to begin.

With every step closer to the mountain, he felt it awakening, reaching out to him. He walked faster and faster until finally he could hear it, its voice dancing on the wind. You are here. You have come back to me. I waited for you all this time. I waited for you, my dearest one.

Tears spilled from Jinyoung’s eyes. “I’m here,” he choked out. “I’m finally here with you. Take me to you. I’m ready.”

He practically flew up the mountain, the earth lifting his feet higher and higher, the entire range of land rejoicing at his return. He laughed and cried as he went up and up, feeling the earth pulsing like a heartbeat beneath his feet. “I’m here,” he kept on saying, and he heard it echoed back at him, You’re here, you’re here. The exhaustion fell from him, and the loneliness dissipated. There was no sadness at this journey’s end. It was a homecoming. He was finally, finally returning to his home.

When at last he made it to the same overlook where Mark had returned to the earth, the world around him stilled. This moment was his—the ending he alone had decided for himself. It was time, and he was ready. He pulled the paper from his bag and lifted it to look at one last time.

It was Mark’s poem, the one from all those years ago, the last page in the world bearing the name Seokga. Jinyoung smiled at the mere sight of the words, remembering the first time he had read them. How fitting that the same thing that had opened his heart to love would now be the thing to send him off to be with the one he loved for eternity.

He took the lighter from his pocket and lifted it.

“Wait!” a voice boomed. “Seokga!”

There was a sudden gust of wind, and a moment later, a figure materialized in front of him. It was a man with long hair and a closely trimmed beard and piercing, harsh brown eyes.

Jinyoung stared back at him levelly. It was strange. After millions upon millions of years, he was now in the presence of the being he’d so desperately hated and would have torn down the heavens to seek vengeance against and yet felt nothing at all but simple indifference. In a way, it was even fitting for him to show up. But all Jinyoung wanted was for him to be gone so he could dedicate the moment to whom it truly belonged.

“Hello, Mireuk,” he said. “Here to get the last word in?”

“You wound me, Seokga. As you are about to break the curse I put on you, I thought I should at least acknowledge that your task is on the verge of completion.”

“Yes, I’m well aware. You could have spared yourself the trip.”

“But I thought it important for us to speak once again. It would be a shame for either of us to part from the world on bad terms. With the world on the mend, why should we not mend fences, dear brethren?”

“The world went millennia with us on bad terms. It doesn’t care. I certainly don’t.”

“But…” Mireuk’s eyes traveled up to the paper in Jinyoung’s hands. “I have a proposal to suggest, Seokga. I know you would hate to burn something so precious to you. What if I told you you didn’t have to?”

Jinyoung lifted an eyebrow.

“The thing is, dear brethren, I’ve realized it’s my time to return to the earth. It’s become abundantly clear I am neither wanted nor needed, and since you went ahead and destroyed my last chance of having humanity remember my existence, I can see no point in lingering around.”

“How generous of you to decide this now, and not years earlier when the land was being ravaged by disasters caused by instability you were responsible for.”

Mireuk ignored this. “As it so happens, Seokga, my returning to the earth will automatically break your curse without you needing to burn that poem of yours. If you just hold off the time it will take for me to return to my point of origin, you may pass in peace with the memento of your lover intact.”

Jinyoung stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing in incredulity. “You mean I will pass in the way and moment of your choosing, dear brethren,” he said with a snort. “You really are here to get the last word. To end things on your terms. This is just you grasping at straws, trying to find a way to make yourself feel like you’ve won before it’s all over.” Jinyoung lifted his chin, standing great and tall over the diminished figure of Mireuk. “You think this piece of paper is what matters to me? This earthly thing? Do you think the words aren’t already engraved on my heart a million times over, that even if this physical document were gone, I wouldn’t remember them as easily as I remember the words of your curse?” He laughed again. “No, Mireuk. I don’t need you to break my curse. The only need I’ve ever had for you was as a reminder of whose care Korea would fall to if I failed or gave up. I did neither. I lived well and strongly. I loved in ways you never understood from your throne in the heavens. You never cursed me. You gave me exactly what I’d always wanted. Humanity.”

Jinyoung lifted the poem and raised the lighter with it. Mireuk’s expression grew panicked, but Jinyoung was beyond caring, even though this was in a sense his final victory. His entire body and all his thoughts were focused on Mark. “I feel it inside of me,” he whispered. “An itch for you, my love. It’s time for me to be with you again. And so-”

He lowered the page onto the flame. “NO!” Mireuk screamed, his face contorted in rage and anguish at this last defeat. But Jinyoung was no longer there to see it. His task was complete. The mountains rose to envelope him, returning its spirit back into itself.

He was gone.

Mireuk, the Great God, stood alone upon the earth as the heavens opened up and rain poured down upon the mountain peak. He gave another scream of fury but there was no target left to direct it at but himself. Through the rain, he thought he could hear a voice. It was the voice of the land, but with notes of other voices woven into it. There was such overwhelming joy in the sound that he couldn’t bear to listen to it. He howled again, drowning it out. But still, he knew the voice—the voice of the land, the voices of lovers at last reunited— was there underneath all of his anger, underneath the earth itself, resounding in the heart of it all.

And so it was. And so it is.

A/N: And so it is! Thank you so much for reading this story, and though there were sad times, I hoped you walked longer in joy than in sorrow :)