Jinri spends a lot of time on the Love Locks Bridge now. She doesn't live in New York anymore. Now it's Europe, Paris to be exact. She visits the bridge to look down at the water and calculate how she should jump in order to ensure her death. It's been 20 years and she still hasn't decided how she wants to kill herself yet.

After an hour she heads back to her apartment. It's a Monday, so she should be going to work at the hotel now. She's a maid this time, mindless cleaning will get her mind of him is what she thinks. It doesn't actually work.

She's pushing a cart down the halls of the third floor, knocking on doors opened by shirtless men who welcome her in with a eating grin. Of course she just scoffs at them and continues on to the next door only to be greated the same thing once more. It’s gotten to the point where she doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t look back at them. Jinri doesn’t care for any male’s advances anymore.

The third floor has now been stocked properly with shampoos, conditioners and all the other frilly things that maids must restock the rooms with. She heads to elevator, hits the up button and gets on her way to the fourth floor. Of all the careers should could’ve chosen from, she choose to be a maid. Sometimes she thinks she should just quit and enjoy the city while she’s here, but the Archs say she must maintain a job, a cover, in order to help people. Besides, Jinri must keep something consistent in her life besides pain. And off she rolls onto the fourth floor platform.

20 years. If the cycle were to repeat again, around this time Chanyeol would show up. But she hasn’t seen him, it’s almost December already. And for the next five years, Jinri promises that she will look for him everyday. 20-25 years. That’s how long it takes for her love to come back to her, she decides. It’s a long time and the Archs might even relocate her to somewhere she might possibly never get to see his face again.

And as fate might have it, she sees him again on this day.

Jinri is walking down the fourth floor, two doors in and on her third. She knocks, her usual stoic expression on. “Good morning, did you need any-” Her eyes widen at the sight of man before her. It’s him. It’s Chanyeol with his dimpled smile, but this time his hair is messier looking and he isn’t wearing a shirt, he’s barely even wearing pants. Something in her prays that it isn’t because he has another girl in the room. He ruffles his hair, trying to pat it down. “Did you need anything sir?”

“Uh, give me a minute.” Chanyeol closes the door in her face and she hears loud bangs, some muttered curses and a couple seconds of a hair drying blowing before he opens the door again, this time donned in a full set of clothes. “You can come on in now.” Jinri doesn’t hesitate to walk in, dragging her cart behind her as she moves to the bathroom to begin restocking. It’s just silence, except for Chanyeol occasionally clearing his throat. He’s the first one to speak and Jinri isn’t surprised, he always was.

“Sorry about earlier. I just woke up and I thought it was the room service guy.” He chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. She cracks a smile and shakes her head at him.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not my first time seeing something like that. Most guys answer the door that way.” Jinri states with a nod of her head, she’s taking her time to clean his room just marveling in the fact that he’s here and he’s the same old Chanyeol. He’s always managed to stay the same happy guy she’s fallen in love with over and over again.

Chanyeol’s eyes widen as he listens to her speak. “Seriously? You see that a lot? Like everyday?” She nods and continues fluffing his pillows. “Wahh…” He’s in absolute shock as he realizes she barely even flinched looking at his disgruntled hair and chest. “Well then, Ms…” He leans backwards to look at the name on her name tag, “Ms. Jinri. I believe that a gentleman should not be as idiotic as to show so much skin in a first meeting with a very proper lady. So as an apology, I would like to formally invite you to dinner with me this evening at… What time do you get off?”

Jinri blinks. Did he really just ask her to go eat with him again? She’s starting to think things go wrong whenever they meet and strike up a conversation at a diner. She’s always loved diners because of him. But nevertheless, she replies. Jinri can’t help it, she’s still hopelessly in love. “Eight. I get off at eight.”

“Great! I shall pick you up in the lobby at eight and we can go eat at the diner at 6th street.” He smiles and Jinri swears she’s melting again just like the first time she saw his smile in 1948. “Oh and don’t wear that uniform. Wear this.” He hands her a pair of cateye sunglasses with studs on the sides. She doesn’t question it.

That day she clocked out two hours earlier than she was supposed to, claiming to feel sick and light headed. She rushed back to the apartment, ready to have a conversation with a certain messenger. “Woohyun! Woohyun come down,  I need you!” He appears in a shimmer of blue and white lights, donned in a white polo and white khaki shorts.

“What Jinri?” he says, slightly annoyed. She figures he must have been in either a tropical country on break or he’s been helping out some other annoying guardian angel. She leans more on the first choice considering his dress.

“Chanyeol. I saw him again. Woo, I think it’s fate. It has to be! I’ve met in three generations already!” She’s ecstatic, grinning so much that her face is starting to hurt. Jinri is practically shaking him by the shoulders with the amount of enthusiasm she, alone, exhibits. He doesn’t match her enthusiasm in the slightest.

“Jinri, how many times do we have to talk about this? You can’t fall in love, it isn't allowed? Have you not learned your lesson?” Woohyun sighs, shaking his head at her in disbelief.

“Woohyun, three times can not be just a coincidence!” Jinri shoots back. He falters for a moment. “Ask Fate, he’ll tell you that I was meant to give up my wings for Chanyeol. Ask him.”

Woohyun blinks at her sudden request, but nevertheless he agrees. At that point, he realizes that there isn’t much he wouldn’t do for little Choi Jinri. “Just think about this okay? ‘You shouldn’t have to break yourself and move the pieces. If he was designed for you, he would fit.’”

She nods. “That’s what you don’t see Woo. I’m not changing, he isn’t either. We’ve fit for three different lifetimes.” Jinri looks down and plays with her fingers, taking a moment to herself before she looks up to meet his eyes directly. “The only thing that’s breaking me is the Archs.”

It’s three dates, or five days, later when Jinri hears from Woohyun. “Jin, Fate says this isn’t his work.” And Jinri is suddenly bounding towards Chanyeol’s hotel room, not bothering to yell through traffic or give a second thought to the boy’s whistling at her red short shorts. Her running is useless, by the time she’s in his hotel room, his body is already limp and he’s got a pill bottle in his right hand. She didn’t even get to hear his voice one last time like in the alleyway in 1972.

She kisses his forehead before walking out the door, looking back and letting a single tear slip out before running outside and into the rain. Jinri admires the rain now more than ever as it masks the tears pouring down her face.

That night, she burns all the clothes she has. The poodle skirt of 1948, the spunky bright red pants of 1972 and the sequinned sunglasses of 1992. Jinri doesn’t want to love Chanyeol again.

--rach at insomnia.