By Zephyria Choi Hong-seo rubbed the hand that had wiped away his tears on his thigh. Then, he slowly opened that hand and looked down at his palm. He was looking down at a hand that wasn’t his own. The body had changed. It wasn’t the old body he had etched with his fingertips, saying, “I love you.”That body had lost its life, been cremated in a distant foreign land, and was enshrined as remains in that ancestral shrine.” Even though my consciousness was perfectly alive here.
A shiver ran through my entire body from the chilling realization.
The memories and emotions of Choi Hong-seo continued to flow, extended within this body. They were all intact, without any missing parts. The only meaningful experience in my life, the feelings and will towards the object of that experience, remained the same. Only the shell that encased my consciousness had changed.
Choi Hong-seo slowly clenched his left palm again.
The situation is… different from back then. No situation could be as tragic as that time.
I have to tell him that I want to share my terrible past, which will surely cause him pain, and that because I said I loved him, I want him to use his status and power to resolve it. I have to tell him that the past will leave stains on him too, due to the revenge of the devil who planned it, but that he must also endure that.
If it wasn’t for having to say such things, I felt a surge of courage that I could confess anything to him.
I called Yong-jae first, who was probably watching this bench from the driver’s seat. After telling him I was going for a short walk in the park created at the ancestral shrine, I waved my hand in the direction of the car.
The walking path, created in a green space maintained in a nearly natural state, wound its way up the low mountain behind the ancestral shrine. When I visited last time, I had seen a few residents out for exercise, but perhaps due to the sudden drop in temperature, there was no one in sight.
Choi Hong-seo entered the park, far enough not to be seen from the parking lot, and took out his phone from his jacket pocket.
Carrot Seller.
I had received calls from him before, but I had never dared to call this number first from ‘Yoon Hye-an’.
I remembered dialing this number one by one to make the last call to him as ‘Choi Hong-seo’. The number I had stared at, unable to press the final digit, eventually.
As if mocking my resolve, which I had built up while slowly counting to five, the automated message that the phone was turned off came through.
Although I was momentarily discouraged, there was no time to delay. I felt I had to push forward now, while I had the courage.
I had been in contact with Manager Kang to arrange schedules and locations while proceeding with the consultation with the New York doctor he had prepared. That number was still saved. I connected to the number saved as ‘Manager Kang’. He might have been a more difficult and frightening person to Choi Hong-seo than Vice President Lee Hae-sung, but I didn’t hesitate.
“Hello. I am… Hyean.”
[Yes, hello.]
In that short greeting, I sensed a question of ‘But why are you calling?’ I faltered for a moment but clenched my fist and took a step forward.
“I know this is an imposition, but… could I possibly speak with the Vice President?”
[May I ask what this is regarding?]
“There is something I absolutely must tell the Vice President. It’s a truly… truly important matter. But the Vice President’s phone is off.”
I’m not just bothering you for no reason. I have the Vice President’s personal contact information… I carefully tried to convey that.
[I apologize, but it is beyond my authority to connect calls to the Vice President or relay messages.]
As expected, a dry, mechanical response came back. Choi Hong-seo stopped walking. He held the phone with both hands.
“Is there no way? Please. The Vice President… told me to come and see him… to come and find him directly. But I can’t reach him. It’s true.”
My voice trembled. While it wasn’t intentional to evoke pity, it was far from enough to stir Manager Kang’s sympathy. Whether my voice trembled or the person in front of me died, Manager Kang would act according to principle. Even Choi Hong-seo knew that much.
Knowing that, I couldn’t back down. He told me to come find him, yet he turned off his phone. It clearly indicated his refusal to speak with me. If so, I had no choice but to plead with Manager Kang.
“…Please believe me. Just a moment, enough time to arrange a meeting, please… How can I see the Vice President? That’s all I need to know. Please.”
Manager Kang, who had remained silent instead of cutting me off immediately, spoke plainly in an unchanged voice.
[If the Vice President told you to come find him directly, it must have meaning. If he then blocked communication channels, that would also have meaning.]
“……”
[He doesn’t say things without reason.]
“……”
[This is all I can tell you. Goodbye.]
The call with Manager Kang, which felt like my only connection to Lee Hae-sung, was cut off.
It seemed contradictory that he would tell me to come find him directly, yet block all means of meeting. But Manager Kang was right. Lee Hae-sung was not a man who spoke carelessly. He was certainly not someone who would say things that didn’t make sense based on his mood and put people in a difficult position.
Meaning… meaning…
As I ascended the gentle slope, I replayed his words from that day, from beginning to end.
“If you want to see me, then this time, come find me yourself.”
“……”
“Keep your promise.”
Promise. What promise was he talking about? A promise from my past as Choi Hong-seo?
“So, save me.”
“……”
“The princess will wait with her eyes closed.”
Did he mean he would wait somewhere, at an appointed place?
From the top of an old, dilapidated castle beyond the thorny bushes, from a small house where the seven dwarfs had left for work with their lunchboxes, or perhaps, in a desolate, ruined castle that instilled fear in the villagers, in the form of a magically cursed beast. In long solitude.
Where are you? Where should I go to find you? Even though you know I’m an idiot.
Loving him this much, I felt pathetic for my own inadequacy in not being able to uncover the ‘meaning’ of his words.
The walking path led to a bridge over a narrow stream flowing down from the mountain. I stopped there for a moment, held onto the railing, and looked at the scenery. The wind swept across the Han River, and beyond the river, a low mountain rose, similar to this one. Contrails, long cloud tails, streaked across the cleanly wiped sky. I couldn’t see any airplanes. I looked up at the cloud that sliced diagonally across the sky’s flank, from west to east, like a wound.
Suddenly, my grip on the railing tightened.
Rampas.
Hae-seong.
Comet.
A tremor shook my entire body.
So excited that I dropped my phone twice when I took it out of my jacket pocket again.
We had promised many things. All of them were promises that remained unfulfilled. But I felt a certainty that this was right. One of the secrets he had told only me.
I tried to slow my breath, which kept wanting to race ahead, and launched an internet app. The home screen, not sophisticated but charmingly crafted with care, was familiar. A pop-up window appeared slowly.
Rampas Personal Exhibition
《Come Back》
20xx. 11. 5 ~ 11. 19
Come back. To return.
At the appointed place, he was waiting for ‘Choi Hong-seo’ to find him, not anyone else. Even if the one he was waiting for wasn’t ‘this Choi Hong-seo,’ this time, I would give it to him. I would give him the certainty that would make him believe in the impossible. That he loved me, and still loves me. That was the impossible thing, and yet it happened, a miracle. This is just a little more miracle added to it.
“For example, an expression like you have something to say just now, or this… looking at me with blind affection.”
He was saying that he saw you, Choi Hong-seo, beyond Yoon Hye-an’s body. He was asking me to show him something that would make him believe in the impossible. To save him from this confusion.
Even though he had told me so clearly and distinctly from the beginning, I was the fool.
On the way back to the parking lot, Choi Hong-seo’s steps, which had been hurried, were almost running by the end.
“You’re back? Hyung, what’s the rush…”
“Yong-jae.”
“Yes, Hyung.”
“I’m going to America for a bit.”
“What? America, suddenly? The America I know? When?”
“I’ll look for flights and leave as soon as there’s an available seat.”
“Did you… remember something?”
Hearing Yong-jae’s words, I remembered that Yoon Hye-an was from America. Choi Hong-seo shook his head.
“No, that’s not it… There’s something I need to go and confirm directly. It’ll only take a few days.”
Speaking in a tone that suggested caution about revealing details, Yong-jae didn’t ask any further questions.
“This week’s script study has also been postponed… Yes, there are no problems with the schedule.”
That’s right. The script study scheduled for the weekend had been postponed. The production company hadn’t given any specific reason, and Choi Hong-seo hadn’t wondered about it when he received the notice. While he was disappointed that the chance to meet him was gone, he was also relieved. He didn’t have the confidence to handle people’s curiosity about what happened after he followed Lee Hae-sung to the Gutdang, and what happened after he and Lee Hae-sung came down the mountain alone. He had been deliberately ignoring Park Dong-ha’s messages asking about that day.
But now that I think about it, that too seemed like a measure influenced by Lee Hae-sung. It didn’t matter if I was interpreting it too favorably.
On the way back to Seoul. The contrails had already disappeared, and the long scar across the sky’s flank had healed seamlessly.
Things like never having flown on a plane without a manager, never having traveled alone overseas, being terrible at English, or freezing up whenever a foreigner spoke to me. None of those were problems.
That red brick gallery between downtown LA and Long Beach.
How many times had I imagined going there alone? I was confident I wouldn’t get lost even in my dreams. Whether it was thorny bushes, a tall castle, or a dragon lying in wait on the path there. For the princess.
■