Archive of Our Own

between space and time, there is a universe. in that universe, there is sea, land, and life. in that sea there is an island, it’s small but it’s enough, and in that island, there is life. life belonging to a girl.
a girl with hopes, dreams, prayers.
a girl who believed in fate, had hoped for a good life, dreamed of never-ending love, prayed for eternity.
but fate is just that.
fate.

it cannot be controlled or foreseen. it cannot be changed or stopped.
it’s fate.
the girl knows this all too well.
her hopes and dreams are washed away like footprints in the sand. forgotten.
her prayer had been answered but what is eternity without love?
what is eternity when it is spent alone?
what is eternity when there is nothing to live for?

it’s only right that the girl with so many hopes and dreams and prayers would get to see eternity.

jung jinsoul.
her own name feels foreign on her tongue.
her name, nearly forgotten amongst the millions of others. nearly lost in the sands of time.
she struggles to remember her own name.

jinsoul doesn’t have much.
she has three things: the sea, the sky and eternity.
she has her name but what use is it if there is no one to call her?
her name belongs to her just as the sand belongs to the sea and the clouds belong to the sky.
the sky is endless. it has been around since the beginning of time and will continue to subsist until the end of time. the seasons come and go like the clouds but sky remains the same.
the sea is infinite. a vast ocean of stillness and consciousness, aware of the changes brought about by time but unbothered and unchanging.
she thinks the blue she sees in the skies and in the seas are mirrors of herself.
jinsoul doesn’t have much. all she has is eternity and nothing more.

time slips past her like sand through the crevices between her toes. it tickles but it doesn’t bother her. it doesn’t affect her.
the seconds bleed into minutes and the minutes bleed into hours and the hours bleed into eternity. it doesn’t stop.
everything becomes a blur and suddenly the days don’t matter. the years become the same and the decades pass and time is no longer relevant.

there is a vast expanse of blue, white and green. the hues blend and saturate together to colour the sky, the ocean and the forest.
the trees whisper songs jinsoul cannot understand.
the sea tells tales jinsoul does not want to hear.
the sky is silent. it does not whisper; it does not sing. it cries, it grieves.
it’s a lonely thing, being infinite and endless.
between the sky, the sea and the trees, there is only her. not a single person in sight. just her.
jinsoul doesn’t usually get visitors.
no one wants to see the girl on the island. the girl who had hopes, dreams, prayers.
occasionally though, someone does end up unlucky enough to wash up on the shores of her island. they’re always either sick from the heat or delirious with hunger.
mortals weren’t unwelcome but jinsoul would rather wallow in solitude than be reminded that the world continues to move forward while she is stuck in the same never-ending cycle of loneliness. she’d rather be alone than be reminded the world has forgotten about her.
and maybe it was some sick twist of fate— jinsoul wouldn’t have been surprised— but she always ends up helping them. she helps them out of pity, they always have so much to see, so much to live for. she helps them out of pity for herself, she’s seen what she wanted, she has nothing to live for. she helps them, if only to feel the slight satisfaction of knowing she was the means to an end for someone else.
the visitors serve as a reminder of what she so desperately wants.
an end.

jinsoul gives to them what she cannot give to herself. relief.
sometimes it takes the form of light touches, short breaths and gentle kisses, sheets draped across her figure carelessly.
other times it takes the form of sharp metal, broken glass and harsh words, red staining her fingers.
it always ends the same.
jinsoul is always left alone.

she’s so used to being alone she almost doesn’t notice the body that washes ashore.
it’s always just been her. the girl on the island.
the people that visit— the mortals sent to her island never stay long enough for jinsoul to truly remember them. they had faces and titles but none jinsoul ever bothered to remember.
they’re too easily forgotten.
she’s so used to being alone that she almost doesn’t notice the silence that follows her.
it’s always just been her. the girl on the island.
the mortals sent to her island never remember her. she’s known as just that. the girl on the island. no title or label to remember her with. her name is lost and soon forgotten in the vast seas. no one ever bothered to remember her.
jinsoul is too easily forgotten.

“what’s your name?” her name. no one’s ever asked her that. they don’t care. to them she’s just the girl on the island.
that’s all she is and that’s all she’ll ever be.
but the girl with wet messy hair and tired eyes is asking her with such curiosity it makes her think otherwise. the girl is peering up at her, waiting for an answer. waiting for her to say something. why won’t she say anything?
“what’s your name?” the question is asked once more. more urgent, more curious this time. no one wants to know her name. she’s just the girl on the island. her name isn’t important.
“can you talk?” it’s a ridiculous question. of course she can talk. the girl takes a step back and frowns at her. she thinks that maybe the girl will drop it and ask about other things but she doesn’t. instead she holds her hand out— it’s rough and calloused and so unlike the soft features on her pretty face. her nails are chipped and brittle from days spent out in the ocean.
“i’m jo haseul.” the girl declares.
jo haseul.
jo haseul.
jo haseul.
the girl’s voice breaks through the walls of silence on the island. it’s clear and confident. it’s evident from the girl’s voice that she has hopes and dreams.
her hand stays in the air, waiting. waiting.
waiting is something jinsoul’s familiar with. she’s spent an eternity waiting for an end. she’ll spend an eternity more knowing it won’t come. she doesn’t like waiting.
“i am jung jinsoul.”

haseul’s footprints are small and light in the sand.
although her steps were confident, the patterns it left in the sand told another story. frantic footsteps disturbed the peaceful sand, rushing, unknowing, unsure of where to go.
jinsoul’s gaze followed haseul’s footsteps, amused by the difference between her footprints and the visitor’s. it was almost as if they were practicing for what will ultimately come— haseul leaving and jinsoul trying to follow but cannot because haseul is too frantic, too unsure of where to go. so she stares at the footprints in the sand and waits for it to stop going in messy circles that lead nowhere.
when haseul finally, finally asks for help jinsoul smiles.
even as jinsoul leads her back into her island haseul is still ahead of her by two, three steps.
she watches the girl’s footprints, knows that it will disappear soon, washed away by the sand. soon there will only be the faint outline of her feet, and soon it will be forgotten.
she watches haseul, knows that she too will disappear soon, washed away in the sands of time. she wonders what mark haseul will leave once she is gone.
jinsoul’s footprints are big and heavy in the sand. the sea washes away the marks it leaves behind relentlessly, trying to erase every trace of her.

“how long have you been here?”
“a while.”
“how long is that?”
the question makes jinsoul stop in her tracks. someone like haseul would never understand. someone like haseul wanted concrete answers. something finite. eternity was too abstract a concept and too loose of an answer to satisfy someone like haseul.
“forever.”
haseul frowns at that. forever wasn’t something she was familiar with.
“what are you doing here?”
jinsoul doesn’t have an answer. she doesn’t know. she’s here because she has no choice. she exists because her heart is still beating and her brain is still thinking and her bones haven’t turned to dust. she’s here because of fate.
“have you ever tried to leave?”
haseul is annoying, jinsoul decides.
“shut up,” jinsoul says. it was meant as an insult— an aggressive remark— but the phrase makes haseul laugh. she doesn’t press any further though, she lets the subject drop and asks about the trees and the weather instead.
jinsoul supposes this was better than the silence that plagued her. it’s oddly comfortable, walking by haseul’s side, her constant questions keeping the loneliness at bay. before she knows it the silence had completely gone away.
haseul asked a lot of questions jinsoul didn’t have answers to.

time slips past them since haseul’s first arrival. the girl had done just about everything she could from hunting jinsoul’s precious birds to fishing in jinsoul’s sacred river.
haseul thinks she’s helping. she thinks she’s doing something meaningful, breaking and burning the things jinsoul had spent so long taking care of.
jinsoul knows haseul is near when she hears the noise. it’s not just one sound, it’s a cacophony of swords and knives hanging from her belt or laughter followed by a devilish grin or the scraping of wood and bark and twigs snapping as haseul returns from hunting or chopping up wood.
haseul thinks jinsoul is impressed when she returns with a dead boar in hand. her chest is swell with pride and her smile is wider than ever. jinsoul was just about ready to take haseul’s sword and kill the girl herself for tracking in dirt and blood all over her clean floors.
jinsoul glares at her but haseul only tilts her head to the side in confusion.
“you don’t like it? i can go back and hunt something else-”
“you- what are you- you’re a goddamn-” jinsoul struggles to find the words to say. sitting in silence and having no one to talk to for decades will do that to a person.
“bastard?” haseul supplies with a cheeky grin, but then jinsoul surges forward, her fingers find the collar of haseul’s shirt and suddenly she’s pulled forward, staring up at cold eyes with a blush on her face.
“stop hunting.” jinsoul sneers and haseul almost mirrors it.
haseul cleans up the blood on the floor. she realizes jinsoul doesn’t like blood, doesn’t like the colour, doesn’t like the stains it leaves.

red is the colour of blood.
the colour of pain and hate and anger.
underneath her skin, there is red running through her veins. the colour keeps her alive.
there’s so much of it.

haseul is more than just unanswered questions and frantic steps on the sand. she’s more than just blind confidence and brute strength.
in the time they’ve spent together, in the time haseul has spent on the island, jinsoul has come to learn and know most, if not all, of haseul’s quirks and peculiar ways of going about things.
haseul is restless, jinsoul thinks when she sees haseul going off into the forest again. she wonders if it is because she no longer wants to be on the island, wonders if she ever considered staying or if she had always wanted to leave.
sometimes haseul goes days without resting, lugging wood from the forest to the beach, building some sort of contraption that sinks not too far away from the shore.
jinsoul wills her heart not to ache at haseul’s frowning face, tired and upset at her efforts bearing no fruit.
haseul is very smart, jinsoul thinks to herself. the girl was always so certain of everything she said and did. but while haseul was smart, she did not know a single thing. she did not know what she wanted or where to go.
there were times jinsoul would find haseul hunched over scrolls and writing scriptures in languages jinsoul didn’t understand. haseul would tell her stories and she would listen, though she often found herself focusing more on haseul’s voice and laughter, her smile and the scrunch of her nose, rather than the story itself.
haseul had a lot of stories to tell. but at the end of every story haseul always sounded bitter. it wasn’t enough for her. she wanted more. people like haseul always wanted more. the world had so much to offer and haseul wanted it all. jinsoul couldn’t give her that, and she wonders if that was why haseul sounded so sad, so disappointed.
she notes all the details about haseul and tucks it away deep into her brain, in her heart. it’s these details that make up who haseul is in her entirety. it’s these details that jinsoul finds herself lost in when she thinks of the girl. it’s these details that jinsoul clings onto so desperately because she knows she cannot hold on to haseul herself.
because when haseul is gone, when there is nothing left of her for jinsoul to hold on to, at least she will have parts of her, bits and pieces of who haseul is.

haseul looks at jinsoul like she’s not just a girl on an island.
haseul looks at jinsoul like she’s someone worth remembering.
it scares her.

“do you do this often?” haseul asks once she’s stepped on the raft jinsoul uses to fish occasionally.
“do you ever stop asking questions?” jinsoul grumbles.
but jinsoul doesn’t mind the questions. she doesn’t mind haseul’s curious nature. she doesn’t mind her need to know things, know everything there is to know.
haseul tries to fill the silence between them because silence means stopping, pausing, and that means wasting time, time that haseul doesn’t have because she is only human. so she fills in the empty spaces, fills in the silence with words that will be lost and forgotten, fills in the blanks and gaps between them by moving close, close and closer, and asking questions, because there’s so much to learn about jinsoul and haseul wants to know. she wants to know.
maybe haseul doesn’t want to talk about the weather or the trees or the raft, maybe she just wants to listen to jinsoul’s voice.
haseul doesn’t say anything for a while after that. jinsoul starts to get concerned, it was unlike the girl to be so silent. it’s when jinsoul turns to face her that haseul pushes her off the raft with a playful smile on her face. jinsoul falls into the sea head first.
being underwater felt a lot like being with haseul. everything was muffled, nothing else mattered. the sea demanded all of her attention.
when her head breaks the surface, she’s met with a grinning haseul.
there’s something about the way haseul is looking at her— the warmth in her eyes, the way her eyebrows are furrowed, the shape of her nose, the grin on her face— it leaves jinsoul out of breath but she convinces herself it’s because she was just underwater.
“i hate you,” jinsoul declares.
a hand reaches out to help jinsoul out of the water and back into the raft, it’s strong and warm and gentle and jinsoul doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t ever want to let go, wants to hold that hand forever; haseul reaches another hand out to move the wet hair out of jinsoul’s face but instead jinsoul uses it pull haseul into the water. haseul falls head first into the water, and jinsoul follows her.
the two of them play in the water, raft and thoughts of fishing long forgotten as they swim around. warmth fills their hearts and laughter fills their ears.
the waves push them closer together, their knees and shoulders bumping under the water, hands brushing over each other as they moved around to stay afloat.
jinsoul is in a daze as haseul leans in close, too close, and brings her fingers up to jinsoul’s jawline. her touch is hot though her fingers are cold. haseul looks at her, waiting, waiting. what is she waiting for?
haseul pulls her hand back and jinsoul swallows the lump forming in her throat and tries to push away the disappointment she feels.
jinsoul doesn’t dare lean in close, doesn’t dare close the gap between them. it’s not that she’s scared, it’s that she knows what will happen, knows that it will end badly. but haseul is bold and knows no fear, she swims forward and grabs jinsoul’s arms and pulls her in, pulling and pulling until the blanks and gaps between them have been filled and they’re no longer apart, no more empty spaces between them. she’s pressing her body flush against jinsoul’s and bringing their lips together.
salt.
jinsoul can taste it on haseul’s lips. there’s bitterness and sweetness mixed together; she feels lightheaded from haseul’s lips on her own. haseul’s body is warm against hers and it feels right. like they were meant to be this close.
the waves push and pull around them but they stay connected, hands intertwined and lips meeting occasionally.

jinsoul thinks love is blue, like the marks on her skin, like the skies, like the sea.
love is blue.
there’s so much of it.

blue isn’t haseul’s favourite colour, she hadn’t given the colour a second thought until she met jinsoul.
blue reminds haseul of the sea.
haseul thinks of blue when she sees jinsoul’s flushed cheeks, bright eyes and bitten lips. she thinks of blue when she hears her name fall from jinsoul’s lips.
she thinks of blue when she thinks of jinsoul.
when she closes her eyes she sees blue.

fate has its ways of moving forward, of bringing things together and taking it apart when it was time.
jinsoul knows this too well.
haseul seems to believe she can control it. she’s attached to the idea she can change what has existed before her and will continue to exist long after she’s gone.
jinsoul doesn’t believe her. doesn’t want to believe her. doesn’t want to start hoping again, only to have that hope crushed and taken away from her once more.
fate has a strange way of working out.
jinsoul knows this too, but she’s since forgotten.
haseul will help her remember.

“have you ever tried to leave?” haseul asks one day when they’re sitting on the couch, jinsoul’s head on haseul’s lap as the girl strokes her hair mindlessly.
“i can’t leave,”
“but have you ever tried to?”
jinsoul sits up then, her gaze meeting haseul’s and she’s once again staring into her eyes. it was shining with an intensity jinsoul wasn’t familiar with. it wasn’t hopelessness or desperation. it wasn’t anger or resentment. jinsoul didn’t know what it was. it was like looking into the sea.
“do you want to leave?”
no one’s ever asked her that.
no one’s ever cared enough to ask.
does she want to leave?
“jinsoul?” haseul asks again, this time with a firm hand on her shoulder, her touch is gentle and she’s close, too close and jinsoul feels like she’s been plunged in cold water.
“you can leave if you want,” jinsoul clenches her jaw. she knew this was coming, knew haseul was going to leave eventually.
jinsoul tries to get up, she wants to busy herself with something else. but haseul grabs her hand and pulls her into her embrace. her touch is warm and soft and it should be comforting but haseul is gripping her so hard, so tightly, like she was afraid jinsoul would disappear if she didn’t hold on to her. jinsoul feels like she’s suffocating and she probably is, but haseul leaves small kisses on her forehead, on the outline of her jaw and breathing isn’t so important anymore; she inhales haseul’s scent and takes comfort in the fact that haseul is there, with her, and there’s no empty spaces between them.
haseul doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to. jinsoul knows what she means when haseul pulls her close, a stray hand finding its way to jinsoul’s thigh and squeezing reassuringly. the touch anchors them both in the waves of time, forever changing, forever moving forward.
i don’t want to leave you.

stay with me.
jinsoul doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to. haseul knows it’s what she wants, what she’s always wanted.
she doesn’t say it, wouldn’t dare to, because she knows haseul would never stay. she simply lets her eyes fall on haseul’s smiling face. she feels lightheaded, has felt lightheaded since haseul first leaned in close all those years ago and she thinks the feeling won’t ever go away, hopes that the blue that surrounds them doesn’t blend and saturate into other colours.
jinsoul stares at haseul more than she looks at the ocean these days. she stares at haseul’s lips pulled back into a small smile, teeth biting her bottom lip. she stares at haseul’s eyebrows raised upwards.
she doesn’t quite get it. doesn’t get why haseul looks so happy. doesn’t get why haseul is happy.
jinsoul thinks it doesn’t matter. as long as haseul is happy.
nothing else mattered.

just a little longer, they both pray silently, desperately, to the gods that have forsaken them.
but time is running out and time is something haseul does not have in great quantities. she cannot afford to waste time, not when there’s so much to see, so much to learn, so much to be.
haseul wants the world and jinsoul cannot give it to her.
all jinsoul has is eternity and nothing more.

haseul asked a lot of questions jinsoul didn’t have answers to.
jinsoul declines and declines and declines, insists she doesn’t want to leave, convinces herself it’s fine if haseul leaves her as she lets herself be pulled into haseul’s embrace when the girl leans in for a kiss.
haseul’s familiar hands are wrapped around jinsoul’s delicate frame. it comes as no surprise to either of them that this is where they feel most comfortable, this is where they feel the safest.
it’s not that jinsoul wants her to leave, it’s that jinsoul wouldn’t choose anything over what they have, wouldn’t dare leave haseul’s side, wouldn’t let go if haseul asked her to.
jinsoul’s cheeks burn when haseul pulls away, and she pushes down the feeling of hopelessness, lets herself be filled with the warm radiating from the other girl. she can’t answer her now so she sets it aside, hoping to answer haseul honestly, earnestly, one day.

they sit on the sand at night. they stared and stared until they could no longer tell apart the sea and the sky.
jinsoul thinks there’s no difference.
the sky was to the sea what haseul was to jinsoul.
jinsoul listens to the song of the waves, she watches the water dance. she doesn’t notice when she drowns it out and decides to listen to the steady beating of haseul’s heart instead. it makes jinsoul’s own heart dance like the waves in front of them.
jinsoul thinks there’s no difference.
the girl’s heartbeat calmed her the same way the sea did when her thoughts were too much.
it’s different tonight, though. jinsoul’s thoughts aren’t filled with red, it’s not angry and invasive. tonight, haseul fills jinsoul’s thoughts. it’s sweet and soft. jinsoul welcomes it.
she likes it better this way.

haseul promises to return one day.
many moons pass and jinsoul wonders if haseul has lost her way.
the girl on the island sits on the shore waiting for a love that will not return.
jinsoul spends eternity alone.