She found out, quite a little later than expected, that when riding a moving vehicle through an expressway, when she stares at the roadside metal railings, she could only see a fluid line of silver. And when she focuses on it, she can actually see the rivets that connect the rail to the road that supports it.

That fluid metal line, along with the connecting rivets, when she stares long enough, becomes a blur. Up and down as the vehicle speeds by.

It happened too suddenly, she didn’t know when, she knew that she lost her laughter somewhere in that blur.

Seo Joo Hyun wrapped her scarf more snugly around her neck as she alighted from the bus. The winter chill came earlier than she anticipated. It will snow soon, she noted with a shaky breath then, walked towards her destination.

For 3 years, winter has been her most favorite season – the one that embraced her into a new life. But such is the irony of life, the one that gave her a gift also was also the one who took away the only family she has. She paused to look at the photo of her older sister then closed her eyes, uttering a little prayer to whoever that would care to listen to her.

It’s been 2 years since Joo Ae decided to join her family in the afterlife, though heartbroken, Joo Hyun decided that it probably was better that way. The gods had already given them more than enough time to enjoy their new life together anyway. Even with the latest medical advances Seoul has to offer, they both knew that it was only a matter of time that she had to endure her new world alone.

5 years of bittersweet winters.

It’s better this way, she reminded herself.

She blew on the glass softly, sending her love along with it. With one last look, she turned and walked away.


-


Joo Hyun passed by the park she used to frequent with her sister. The first time they went here, they both sat amazed at how different the world they were used to, to this one. Quietly, they tried to absorb just how lucky they were to be able to even just sit there.

It was 6 months since their escape when she started her work in an organization which helps refugees like them to adjust to the new environment. She has been assigned to the division which deals with helping people with post traumatic stress disorder. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend how much better off they were when they came out of the North. At least, they came out whole, not like the people who are desperately trying to bring their broken pieces together.

She drew in a lungful of the winter’s air, hoping the cold would calm her racing thoughts. But the cold just brought her another wave of memories – of winter’s breath, clear eyes, and warm hands. She relented, just for today, to sink into the thoughts she had been trying to ignore for the past 5 years and took out the well-cared for name patch from her bag.

Jung Yong Hwa, she traced the characters carefully, reminiscing to that night when he promised that he would come back to her.


{ --

It’s been 6 days since they arrived in Seoul and they’re currently holed up in a temporary safe house provided by the government, they are to stay there until their papers were completed. At that moment, she felt reality slowly sinking into her bones and she couldn’t be any happier.

Tomorrow, she was due to visit Joo Ae again on the hospital to check up on her progress. The doctors promised a full recovery in a few days more. It’s been raining blessings ever since and she doesn’t know how to contain the thankfulness that’s overflowing from her body.

“You’ve been awfully quiet tonight,” she heard Yong Hwa’s voice cut through the winter’s night. She turned her head and found him leaning on the balcony rail beside her. The way the moonlight falls down on his face and highlights his features still doesn’t fail to take her breath away.

He let out a laugh, his perfectly imperfect set of teeth showing, “you’re staring. Not that I dislike it but, I’ve been trying to talk to you and I hoped that you’d be talking to me.”

“Ah. Sorry,” she lowered her eyes for a moment and looked back at the night, “I’m still trying to get used to not seeing that many stars at night. Seoul is such a bright place; it has its own stars twinkling everywhere.”

“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” she felt her left hand being cradled in Yong Hwa’s bigger ones. It doesn’t surprise her anymore, it has been that way since he held her hand inside the forest – they held each other’s hands like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Joo Hyun smiled at the warmth his hands afforded her before turning towards him, “it’s more than amazing.” Redemption and him, both.

It’s been that way almost every night, people gave them time to be alone, knowing something magical was happening between them. Everybody knew but, more importantly, both of them knew though no word had been spoken about it.

His eyes looked clearer that night and she felt more aware of him, the air felt thick with something she can’t put a word to. All she knew was something important was going to happen.

And it did, the moment Yong Hwa took both of her hands in his and brushed his lips on top of each one. His lips lingered longer than what she felt was necessary and she wanted him to say something, anything, to free the rioting butterflies in the pit of her stomach. But he didn’t and just took her hand to cup his cheeks, as if he’s committing the feel of them against his skin into his memory.

It took a few more beats of her heart before he finally opened his eyes and looked straight at her, her hands still on his face.

“I want to remember your face at this moment,” his eyes scanned her face, “the way your eyes shine, the pink that’s dusting your cheeks and, the smile on your lips.” He wrapped her arms around his neck then pulled her body closer to him.

He touched his forehead to hers, the winter’s breath coming out of his mouth mingled with hers. Then, without preamble, with the sudden courage that coursed through her body, she planted her lips on his. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the surprised expression she was sure that he had on his face. A million incoherent thoughts rushed in her mind, the butterflies in her stomach thrashed wildly and, her pulse drummed madly in her ears.

She was about to pull away, trying not to regret the sudden action her reckless courage brought about until she felt his embrace tightening around her and his lips forming a smile in their kiss. He began to move, slowly, lightly.

No questions are needed to be answered for they know that this kiss was all they answer they needed. From the moment she decided that she would leave the world she was used to, to this moment that she allowed someone to take her love, she felt like she is floating in a dream. She had expected nothing and yet, it has become the reality that she’s living in right now.

Yong Hwa gave her a light kiss one last time before pulling away, peace shown in every inch of his face. His eyes fluttered open almost at the same time as hers and she willed herself not to look away to hide her embarrassment.

“And I, definitely want to remember that,” he grinned down at her before taking her hand and leading her to the flat, wide bench at one corner of the rooftop. She had remained quiet, trying to see how the night would unfold.

He hasn’t let go of her hand, he squeezed it once in a while as if assuring himself that she is still with him, by his side. She concentrated on his eyes and watched as a fluttering of emotions passed across them.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” he started carefully, “I’m going to their army this time.”

“Why?” she asked after some time, letting the news settle in her mind.

“They said that they needed to talk to me. I think, maybe, it will be some kind of debriefing. I was an officer in the other army, after all, though I was just a lowly sergeant.” His eyes already had a film of sadness in them, “and honestly, I’m scared. I don’t want to go back to that time, I want to stay here with all of you. With you.”

They want me to enlist, were the words written in his eyes.

She reached out with her other hand and  his hair, arranging the fringes that have fallen over his eyes, fighting for time to let herself find the right words to say, which was proving hard because she didn’t know how to react to that. She knew that he was giving her the right to hold on to him with his confession but, she also understood that sooner than later, there was a price that they have to pay for their new found freedom.

Whatever luck that they have now, she didn’t want to push because it could turn so suddenly, they won’t know what hit them and they’d probably find themselves thrown back to the place they ran away from.

She felt Yong Hwa tug at her hand lightly, as if sensing that her silence had gone on for too long, and placed a piece of cloth on her upturned palm. She closed her hand around it, unexpectedly afraid of what she might see.

“Joo Hyun-ah,” his voice was soft as cotton that she had to strain her ears to hear him, “that’s my army name tag in your hand, the only thing I kept from my uniform. I want you to hold on to that.”

To hold on to me, she read in between the lines.

“It’s the last piece of my past,” he tilted her chin up to make her look at him, “in the hands of my future. I want to believe that – no, I know that you’re my full circle so, please wait for me. They told me that it’s only 2 years and I have to complete it since I’ll be a citizen anyway.”

She took a deep breath and committed into memory the scent of that night – of the winter chill, roasted chestnuts and his warmth.

“I want to be selfish, Yong Hwa,” she started and looked into his eyes, the sadness in her reflected in them, “but I know I can’t. I want to say that you can’t go there, not now but, I don’t want to take too much of what was given to us. As long as you promise, I will promise, too. I’ve given you all the trust I have since that night you became our savior.”

He clutched her hands to his chest and she saw tears pooling in his eyes and was actually surprised at how much emotion she can induce from him when it was barely a week since they were strangers to each other.

“I will come back, as fast as I can, I promise you that. Then you, me, Joo Ae noona, and heck, even Gong Shik ahjussi will build a life that we deserve. We’ll live a quiet life in the countryside and plant, I don’t know, sweet potatoes maybe, and breed ducks.” He let out a small chuckle, “I’ll come back, don’t you ever forget that.”

The morning came swiftly and just like some kind of winter breeze, he was gone. The only thing he left her was a whisper of a blossoming love.

--}


Joo Hyun jumped a little when she felt a hand touch her on the shoulder, the name she has not uttered almost rolled off her tongue but she realized that it was only her neighbor that jolted her from her daydream.

“We already finished preparing the memorial in your apartment,” the girl was called Mi Young, she had a smile that turned stormy days into summer, “Jong Hyun said that I’d probably find you here and he was right. Again. I think I won’t be hearing the end of it when we go back.”

She let herself be led away and she listened absently to Mi Young’s happy chatter about her husband and the students she taught in the small English school near their neighborhood.

She met the couple, Lee Jong Hyun and Hwang Mi Young, when they were just over a year and a half into their marriage. They have just moved in the apartment beside the one she shared with her sister and thanks to the couple’s naturally friendly nature, they all became fast friends.

It was also the couple who became Joo Hyun’s pillar when Joo Ae finally succumbed to her broken heart and longing to be with her family. That was the time when Joo Hyun knew that she would never be alone again. Though she also knew that even though Mi Young and Jong Hyun would always be there when she needs someone, it will never be the same as having a family of her own.

The running joke among the four of them is that eventually, she would get married to Kang Min Hyuk, Jong Hyun’s best friend, because they share exactly the same birth date down to the year they were born. But eventually, Min Hyuk had to move on from their childish teasing and is now seeing a wonderful girl named Yoon Bo Ra. They had all suspected that it was becoming serious when he hinted that they would be seeing a lot of Bo Ra around soon.

She reminded herself to ask Min Hyuk about this when they see each other. She really wants to meet the person who turned shy Min Hyuk into a lovesick puppy. Jong Hyun, Mi Young and her could never stop him from gushing about Bo Ra every 5 minutes.

She was close to making up her mind that she was bound to devote her life into helping people get their lives started in the South. After all, she argued, there was nothing wrong in dedicating herself to assist people in starting over again as she did hers.

She knelt before the prepared altar and uttered a few words of prayer after Jong Hyun and Mi Young had finished with their turn. She tried to hold in her laughter as she spied from her peripheral vision, Mi Young scolding Jong Hyun for asking over and over again about the octopus. It was times like this that she envied them the most. She wondered how it would have been if Yong Hwa did return to her as he promised.

Shaking her head, she stood from her position in front of the make-shift altar and smiled towards Jong Hyun, signaling that the octopus was his for the taking. She decided that needed to keep her mind occupied to keep it from venturing into memories 5 years past. It would not do her any good anyway, to keep going back to it.

“Yah, Lee Jong Hyun, you’re disgusting,” Mi Young’s voice cut through her thoughts, “stop eyeing the memorial food.”

“But Joo Hyun already said yes! Right, Joo Hyun? Right?”Jong Hyun scrambled over to her side, rubbing his arm where Mi Young attacked him with slaps.

Jong Hyun continued to hide behind Joo Hyun but seems to have gathered enough courage to tease his wife, “Ya, Hwang Mi Young, why can’t you be calmer like Joo Hyun?” Which promptly earned him a well-aimed pillow to the face.

Joo Hyun watched the couple bicker for a bit before giving up and decided to open the television; it was almost time for her favorite drama anyway. “Still the news…,” she mumbled to herself as she finally found the right channel, she felt Mi Young settle excitedly beside her.

“Won’t the news be finished yet? Shin Ae already has found out about Eun Seo and Joon Seo’s affair, this is so exciting!” Mi Young was shaking her arm and she can’t help but let out a laugh on her friend’s obsession with the drama. It has already caused a few small fights between the married couple. “And really,” Mi Young continued, “I don’t know how you find Song Seung Hun more good-looking than Won Bin– “

“Yah!” she heard Jong Hyun shout from her apartment’s kitchen, stopping for a moment on thinking how he would eat the memorial octopus to voice out his jealousy.

Joo Hyun can only shake her head at the two, there was no stopping them anyway. So she just focused on the latest news which proved to be the worst thing she could’ve been doing at the moment as she heard the announcer say the name that she has kept locked in her heart for 5 years running. She turned up the volume and stared at the video of a man shaking hands with a few politicians.

“… formerly an officer for the North Korean regiment, Jung Yong Hwa returns to South Korea after a series of successful discussions about the issues in the country that he left 3 years back. His book, Daybreak has been declared a runaway hit…” Joo Hyun let the announcer’s voice drown in her ears as she looked at the face that has haunted her constantly.

She looked at his face on the screen and immediately felt like she was about to explode, the familiar feeling of longing reverberated through her body a thousand times fold. This was not how she imagined she’d see him again and most definitely how she taught herself to feel when she would see him again.

“Joo Hyun-ah, are you okay?” Mi Young’s worried voice cut through the soaring emotions that was flowing through her. “You looked like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She shook her head and tried to answer in the steadiest voice that she can manage, “It’s nothing. I just remembered something that I should’ve done at work earlier. I’ll – I’ll just… can I go ahead and rest? You can watch the drama here, if you want to. I suddenly felt so tired, sorry.”

Mi Young looked at her doubtfully but eventually gave in, “If it’s okay. We’ll just lock the door when we go out. Just go drink some water first before you rest.” She saw Mi Young’s eyes flick to the television for a moment but, the program has already changed.

Joo Hyun stood up and gave a grateful smile. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water hurriedly, not even bothering to answer Jong Hyun who looked at her with concerned eyes. She rushed to her bedroom and locked the door, praying that she could also lock the feelings out her heart.


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