Blueprints

            Ryeowook was playing the piano in our living room, in our house on the Other Side to kill time before we had to meet with the elders.  Tempted by the sound, I walked out of the study where I’d been doing some research and began singing along to the music.  Ryeowook joined in then and our voices were in perfect harmony with one another.  In a couple of our previous lives, we would sing together as well, but for the most part that was just something that we did here.  It was one of our talents.  Music was something that we highly focused on in our time away from Earth; we learned instruments, we wrote music, and we sang almost every chance we got.  I walked over to the piano and watched Ryeowook as he played, smiling down at him.  He looks so beautiful when he’s concentrating on his music, bent over the keys, his fingers gracefully moving over them.  It looks so effortless to me, although I know he works hard at it. 

            Right in the middle of our singing, there was a brief tap at the door and then Henry walked into the house and smiled, hearing us sing.  He didn’t interrupt, but just stood there and leaned in the doorway, listening to the music until the song came to an end.

            “Ah, you two have such angelic voices.  I don’t understand why you’ve never been singers before on Earth.  You’d be so good at it,” he remarked.

            “That’s true,” I said, having never thought of it before.  “You’re not so bad yourself, you know.”

            “I’m a bit better at song writing then at singing though.  You two sound incredible,” he said.  “Anyway, I thought I’d head to your meeting with the elders with you.  I have one shortly after yours.”

            “Are you being sent back soon as well?”

            Henry nodded.  “Pretty soon.  Perhaps we’ll be brothers or something.”

            Henry often ended up in our lives somehow.  Sometimes he was a younger brother or cousin to us, a time or two he’s been our son, and sometimes he was a friend or acquaintance.  Most of the time we’re close to him in some way though.  In the last life, he was Ryeowook’s young nephew, so Ryeowook died when he was still little.  If he was going to be sent back at the same time, it was probable that he was going to be in that life with us in some way.  I certainly hoped he would still be close to us in this next life, since we were so accustomed at that point to treating him like a younger brother or son.

            “Well, you can definitely walk with us,” Ryeowook said, getting up from the piano.  “We were just about to head out the door.”

            “Amber doesn’t want to come?”

           “She’s a little ways out from reincarnating yet,” he informed us.  “So she wanted to do some traveling while she was still here.”

            Ryeowook nodded and waved us all to the door and we headed out on our way.  It wasn’t a long walk to the Romanesque building that the elders conducted their meetings and, as always on the Other Side, it was a beautiful, sunny day.  I reached down to grab Ryeowook’s hand as we set out down the walkway.  We could have just as easily wished ourselves there and been standing in front of the building in the next instant, but sometimes it was just more pleasant to be out in nature and taking the time to do something the natural way you remember doing it while you lived. 

            “What have you been up to lately, Henry?” Ryeowook asked.

            “I checked on Donghae and Hyukjae the other night while they slept,” he said, referring to time on the planet, because it was never nighttime on the Other Side.  “Donghae still has nightmares that carryover from the last life, you know, and he died in a fire.  So I talked to him while he was still half-asleep and settled him down.  I think he’ll completely grow out of it by the time he hits school age.”

            “They usually do,” I commented.  “Memories of the last life don’t usually linger very long.  Although some things never go away depending on how traumatic the experience was, like Ryeowook is almost always terrified of heights because he fell off a cliff in one life and broke his legs and died of infection.”

            “Isn’t he afraid of a lot of really random stuff, like goats and dogs and loud noises?” Henry asked.

            “I was chased by guard dogs once,” Ryeowook informed him. 

            “What about the goats,” I teased.

            “Shut up,” Ryeowook mumbled, his face growing pink.  “I got bit once.”

            I shook my head.

            “I never heard what any of them were going to be doing in Korea,” Henry suddenly said.  “No one said what their job was going to be or what they were being sent to learn.  And Teukie and Heechul were gone even before I got back here, so I never got to see them.”

            I nodded.  They were preparing to leave again when I’d returned and we never ended up getting the chance to meet up.  That’s always a disappointment because they’re like older brothers to me.  On occasion, they have been.  I’ve even been Leeteuk’s son before.  And Heechul’s several times, since he likes reincarnating as a woman so much as well. 

            “No one told me either,” Ryeowook said.

            “Changmin would tell me no matter what, even if the elders said not to, but he hasn’t even gone in for his meeting yet.  He goes in a day or two,” I added.

            “Even Sungmin was so closed mouth about it and I can usually sweet talk him into telling me anything,” Henry said, pouting.

            “I don’t have to sweet talk him and he usually confides in me, but he didn’t breathe a word of it,” Ryeowook said.  “I wonder what’s in store for us.  I hope it’s not another war.”

            “Did they imply last time that this would be our last incarnation?  Don’t most of the others who have stopped reincarnating—who just act as guide spirits now—tell you that their last lives were one of their most pleasant ones?  I swear that’s normally what I hear,” Henry said.  “So let’s stay optimistic.”

            “Perhaps the end of the world will come during our lifetime,” Ryeowook said, thinking out loud.

            “Quit freaking out Henry,” I quietly whispered to my partner, elbowing him.

            Ryeowook nodded and sighed heavily.  He knew how impressionable the kid could be and despite the fact that everyone is an adult on the Other Side, to Henry’s constant disappointment, we never stopped treating him like a child. 

            We made good time and reached the building in plenty of time for our individual meetings with the elders.  We were in separate rooms and wouldn’t be able to go in to each other’s meetings to plan our upcoming lives.  When we reached the entrance, I lightly grasped Ryeowook’s hand and pulled him closer.  I leaned towards him and brushed my lips against his.  “Good luck with your meeting.”

            “You, too,” Ryeowook said, smiling.

            “I’ll wait outside for you,” Henry said, walking towards the gardens.

            “Okay,” Ryeowook said, heading down a different hallway than I was. 

            I walked along the marble floors until I reached the wooden doorway with the number thirteen in silver on it and rapped on the door.  A voice told me to enter and I turned the knob and walked inside.  There was a group of seven seated in a semicircle, lounging in cushioned chairs.  In the middle of the room sat a sapphire blue chair with velvety upholstery.  I was invited to take a seat and I made myself comfortable.  After all these times, I was no longer afraid of what life had in store for me.  I figured I’d been through just about everything and I wasn’t broken yet. 

            “We’re here for the review of your last life, Kyuhyun,” a woman with long dark hair informed me as she looked over a scroll in her thin hands.  “Assuming you met all your goal requirements, work off any bad karma that remains, and manage not to gain anymore new bad karma, you should be finished learning what you set out to learn on Earth.”

            That did make me happy and I couldn’t stop from smiling, but I didn’t interrupt her.

            “In this upcoming life, you will be born to loving Christian parents in South Korea whose main interests lie in education.  You’ll also have an older sister, Ahra.”

            “Ahra,” I said, nodding.  She has been a sister to me before.  This is no new role to her.  In my last life, she was a childhood friend. 

            Another woman broke in to continue, folding her dark hands together in her lap as she spoke.  “While your parents’ interests are in education, you and your sister will excel in music.  She will become an instrument player and you a singer.  While most people will simply do this on a small scale, like singing at church or in school musicals while they’re young, you will make a career out of this and be part of a large singing group.  It will be one of the most famous groups in all of South Korea and you will end up travelling the world with your bandmates.”

            At hearing this, I nearly fell out of the chair.  In my experience, most people only got one life where they are rich and famous and I’d already been royalty once.

            “Do not think this life will be easy just because you are world famous, however.  You will still have to work hard,” a bearded man warned.  “There are so many people in this group, it basically requires all of you to find jobs outside of the singing in order to support yourselves.  But of all the members, you will be the youngest and one of the most popular ones.”

            “Is Ryeowook in the group as well?”

            “Yes and you are destined to meet and become lovers very young,” said a gentleman with long blond hair.  “I will warn you, though, since you will both be coming back as men, this will also prove to have some issues as well, although perhaps not as many as you once faced in prior lives.”

            I could not stop smiling.  I was going to be doing what I loved most on the Other Side as a job on Earth.  That hardly seemed like work to me.  And then I was going to be reunited with Ryeowook at a young age.  “This seems like a dream.”

            “There’s only one thing we should warn you about,” the first woman said, looking over her scroll.  “There are a few different exit points for this life and one of them is shortly after you become famous and become romantically involved with Ryeowook.  There will be a car accident involving a few of the members.  Depending on circumstances at that time, we may take you and possibly even Leeteuk back early.”

            “How early?” I asked, suddenly on edge.  I do not fear death for myself, I’ve been through it dozens of times, but I know what it does to those who love you.

            “You would not even be twenty years old yet,” she informed me.  “Although we feel that you would still have enough experience to complete your cycles on Earth.”

            “No,” I said, shaking my head.  “If Ryeowook and I are already involved, you can’t do that to him.  It would break him.  I just lived through that in my last life.  Please…just tell me what I need to do to avoid it.”

            “There isn’t anything,” the man with the blond hair said.  “It completely depends on the unity of the singing group that you’re in at the time.  If they are more united going into this tragedy, you’ll live through it.  If not, then your death and possibly the death of their leader is what they will need to become a more united group and to improve later on.”

            “We can’t completely foresee how this will play out until you all meet and begin interacting together.  Some of the members will be very stubborn.  As you are the youngest, you will be the last one to join the group and not everyone will be as welcoming as Ryeowook is when you arrive.  Even after a great deal of time, the group acts as a bunch of individuals interested in their own needs instead of a unified group moving in sync.  If the members begin to think and feel as a whole before the accident, then your life will be spared.”

            “What are the chances I’ll live?” I asked.

            The elders glanced at one another.  Finally a short woman near the end spoke up.  “In about thirty percent of the scenarios, you live past the accident.  Leeteuk survives over seventy percent of the time.”

            I hid my face in my hands, trying not to let the emotions overwhelm me.  I quickly calmed myself down so I could make it through the rest of the preliminary meeting, but the accident and the possibility that Ryeowook could lose me at a young age as I’d just had to do in our last life sat in the back of my head the whole time.

            Before I got up to leave, the elders stopped me.  “Now, you may have noticed that we didn’t let the others tell you about this life ahead of time, so we would like you to remain quiet about it to the others that don’t know about it yet either,” the woman with the long hair warned.

            “No matter how much Henry begs,” the bearded man said, with a smirk.

            “And don’t tell Ryeowook about the accident,” the dark woman said.  “As he is rather cheerful about this upcoming life already and you wouldn’t want to ruin his good mood with something that may or may not happen.”

            I only nodded.  Indeed, I had no intention of telling him.  Perhaps keeping such a secret was cruel, but if this was only a possibility and not an inevitable outcome, I felt I could still do something to prevent it.  Even if that one thing was attempting to unit a group that didn’t think as one. 

            Of course, our memories of the Other Side never carried over to our living lives on Earth—which is why it was so damn hard sometimes—but in my experience, I found, that if you concentrated and meditated on a thought long and hard before you incarnated on Earth again, it would come back with you and manifest itself as needed.  This was the only way I could possibly save myself and spare Ryeowook the same pain I had to live through the last life. 

            When I found Ryeowook, he was already outside trying not to tell Henry anything about his upcoming life.

            “Are you going back as a man or woman?”

            “A man…but that’s probably the only thing I can tell you.”

            “In Korea?”

            “I can’t tell you that.”

            “Probably,” Henry said.  “That’s where all the others are.  If I don’t get to go, I’m going to be so mad.  So will Amber.”

            I walked over to them and kissed Ryeowook’s cheek.  “How did yours go?” I asked.

            “Very well.  Much like yours, I imagine,” he said.

            I nodded.  For some reason, they’d clearly told him nothing about the possibility of losing both me and the leader of the singing group, Leeteuk, in an accident.  No wonder Leeteuk tried to avoid contact with us before he left.  He didn’t want to accidentally let something slip.  But was it possible that Heechul knew as well?  If Leeteuk died, he would become the new leader of the group.  The elders told me that much as we went over the specific plans.  I wondered if Heechul would even be comfortable in that role.  Leeteuk and he were like brothers.  Losing him would not be easy for him either, following in his footsteps would be next to impossible.

            “We are leaving in only a few weeks,” I warned.  “We should head back home and start making preparations.”

            “True,” Ryeowook said, smiling.  “Say hello to Amber for us when you see her.”

            “Ah, you’re going right away?  But you haven’t told me anything!”

            “We must,” Ryeowook said, patting his head.  “There’s so much to do.”

            “Fine,” Henry said, pouting, as we began to walk off.  “But I’ll see you before you leave.”

            “You better,” I said, grabbing ahold of Ryeowook’s hand and heading back for home.

            “Ah, the last time and this time we get to sing and be together.  Won’t this be great?”

            “Super,” I said, trying to look genuinely happy.  Ryeowook was going to be the hardest person to fool, but I needed to pretend that nothing was wrong.  Worrying would get him nowhere.  “I can’t wait.”