Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jinu jerked upright like someone had yanked him out of a nightmare. His heart was pounding so hard it almost hurt, and every breath scraped its way into his lungs, sharp and uneven. The memories of what had just happened, of Rumi, of Gwi-Ma, of that last moment. It still burned behind his eyes, refusing to let him breathe.

He turned his head, slowly, like he wasn’t sure what he’d see.

A mother and her child were curled up beside him, both fast asleep. Their breathing was soft, almost fragile.

‘The family I abandoned…’, His lips moved on their own, a broken whisper. His eyes widened. He felt it then, that crushing mix of guilt and longing; like the years had folded in on themselves and left him bare.

The ceiling above him hadn’t changed. Straw. Rough and brittle, thrown together like it didn’t care whether it kept out the cold. For a moment, he just stared at it, taking in the familiar shapes of shadow and light. This was home, and yet it wasn’t. It felt too real. Too wrong.

Why am I here? Did Gwi-Ma bring me back?

Maybe it was a second chance. Maybe, just maybe, he could fix what he’d ruined. But, he was still a demon after all.

The residue of the Hunmoon clung to him, odd and sticky. It curled before it vanished, drawing his eyes to the tarnished grim reaper clothes he wore. His hand skimmed the fabric. Black. Heavy. Cold. It was a reminder of what he had become, of what he had given up. He gave up this family.

Yet on his wrist was a the opposite - a reminder of Rumi.

Then, with a single thought, it melted away. The dark fabric fell like water, pooling, and in its place came something unfamiliar, a dirt-stained beige jeogori and baji , tied with strings frayed from wear. The fabric scratched at his skin, just like he remembered. The weight of those clothes wasn’t just cloth - it was everything he used to be, exept for that bracelet that hung on his right wrist. It grounded him.

“Now what?” he muttered under his breath, his voice hoarse.

He sat cross-legged on the straw mat, staring at nothing, waiting for the sun to rise. The silence wasn’t comforting. It pressed in on him, made every thought louder, sharper. The same question circled in his head, dragging him down like a hook in his chest: What happened to Rumi?

He should be dead.

He’d given her his soul. Everything. And yet, here he was - 400 years in the past. What did that mean?

Through the single smoke-hole in the roof, he watched the world change. Looking down upon his inability to process previous events, the sky transformed, slowly, from night to dawn.

The first sound to break the quiet was his younger sister’s voice.

“Morning, older brother,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. Her words were hungry, warm, as she pulled herself away from their mother’s side.

Her voice…her voice. It was sweeter than he remembered, soft in the way only a child’s could be, untouched by time, by pain, by everything he’d seen. It hit him like a punch, because she really was here. Sitting there. It was so different to the constant flashbacks he’d see of her. She was much more lifelike. She was real this time.

“Good morning,” Jinu said, though his voice trembled, almost cracking.

Chapter Text

Jinu stood there, motionless. Barring a hat, draped in the heavy cloak of a grim reaper, (not the theatrical kind children whispered about) something greater, far more quieter, more horrific. The kind you only saw standing above you in your final moments. His skin was an unnatural shade of violet, dulled and lifeless like a corpse submerged too long in water. Veins curled across his flesh in bruised, dark stripes - two thick lines dashed directly over the bridge of his nose.

Was this the afterlife? Had her sickness got her already?

His face was unreadable from this far away. No flicker of recognition. No warmth. Just coldness. Detachment from the living. He looked at her like he had never known her.

She couldn’t breathe. This made no sense.

Her hands trembled violently, fingers twitching as if rejecting her own body. These weren’t her hands they looked to be foreign, brittle things that shook with an emotion she couldn’t yet name. Dread, or fear. Or some terrible, emotion in between that didn’t yet have a word.

What was this?

Each time she blinked, he didn’t disappear, she didn’t wake up. No illusion. No nightmare she couldn’t force her brain to be rid this away. He didn’t flicker or dissolve like dreams should. He just stood there and with every passing second, every heartbeat that echoed too loud in this body’s chest, it hurt more. Like a knife twisting slow. Like the very sight of him - her son, her Jinu - in this monstrous form, was a fresh wound being reopened over and over. Oh.. how could her mind make something like this. Her Jinu would never become this.

Her legs gave out.

Behind him, the air was wrong. The world itself seemed to twist and bend, the shadows lurching unnaturally. A low, unsettling hum rang through her ears, too shallow to be wind, too rhythmic to be silence. It was as though the darkness around them was alive.

He stepped forward.

She stumbled back on instinct. These legs catching on nothing, but still she faltered.

Then, just for a second, his eyes shifted. Just a fraction. Just enough for her to see.

Sorrow.

It nested there, quietly, like a candle’s flame trying not to go out. She knew those eyes. As different they are now, with glowing irises, she could still recognise her son’s features. As she had seen them wet with tears when he scraped his knees, when he was too proud to cry, when he stood by his father in his final moments. Her Jinu had sorrow like this. Her Jinu had soul, unlike this being.

But this… this thing in front of her…

His hair was cropped short, uneven at the edges, like it had been hacked off by a blunt knife. His ear was pierced. One dangling earring glittered like cold defiance under the unnatural lighting.

Her breath hitched. Her throat closed.

No. No, that wasn’t him.

Her Jinu would never do such things. He always had his hair tied back tightly in the top-knot. Always working so hard to look after Suni and her after his father left them.

“What is this. Who are you.” she whispered, word by word, though her voice broke halfway through, the words scattered like ash.

She didn’t know who she was speaking to. Him? The thing wearing his face? The nightmare creature that was haunting her. It had to be a gwishin.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t speak. Just stood there, watching her fall apart from the inside out. He looked more confused that anything.

Her legs finally gave, and she sank to her knees, the earth cold and unwelcoming beneath her. She pressed her shaking hands to her face, as if that would somehow unsee what stood before her. But her face was oddly shaped. These weren’t the features she usually bore.

And Jinu, this version of him, this echo of her child, this ghastly being haunting her, it did not disappear, it smiled.

~~~~

Eventually Jinu and Suni’s mother woke up. She blinked awake,her eyes filled with relief , and for a brief moment, she looked almost terrified. Jinu could only stare. His breathing became raspy with shame. This was the mother who once loved him. Who he betrayed.

For a small moment Jinu’s mother observed his face almost as if she was comparing his features. Her eyes lingered there for seconds before they softened the way only a mother’s could and then she pulled them away.

‘You’re up early,’ she murmured looking as if she was still caught in what ever dream had woken her up, voice hoarse,she pushed herself upright on the straw mat. She held her arm out to her stomach, as if to banish the hunger she felt.

Jinu hesitated, ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he awkwardly stated, trying his hardest to not look away from her eyes. Her tired eyes.

She nodded, even in exhaustion, Jinu’s Mothers movements were always soft and deliberate, as though they were graceful dance moves to a song only she could hear.

She got up from the mat without a sound, yet the hem of her chima brushed the floor, sighing as she arose. With a gentle motion, she reached past Suni (who was sitting patiently) and grabbed a few pieces of firewood stacked near the mudded walls. The smell of char and old smoke lingered in the corners of the room.

Without another word, she began her morning routine. The same repeated rhythm duty. She stoked the embers, swept aside yesterday’s ash, each motion precise and smooth.

Suni hastily moved to her feet and began helping their mother with anything she was told to. Lighting the flame. Checking the water. Washing a few cracked bowls. Their mother was keen on teaching Suni on how to care for their few belongings.

Jinu still sat there, watching them from the edge of the room.

His eyes drifted to the bipa leaning against the wall. It looked new and shiny yet the strings were off and sagging. He reached out, fingers brushing across the polished wood. The shape was very comforting, familiar in a way nothing else here was, but the sound was wrong. He plucked one string. Then another. The tuning was very off.

He frowned, adjusting the pegs, constantly twisting his head. Slowly, tentatively, he played a scale, trying to coax the notes back into something that sounded more familiar and better.

Behind him, he could hear breakfast taking shape (the bubbling of a thin porridge, the occasional scrape of a ladle against metal, the noise of rice being washed). Suni’s voice was sweet as she asked about salt. Their mother answered softly, steady as always.

It was so mundane it almost broke him.

And then he was handed a bowl.

It was small. Chipped along one edge. Hands rough with work passed it to him like a gift, and inside: rice porridge, scattered with pieces of acorn. It won’t be enough to fill, but just enough to survive.

He held it in both hands like it might fall apart.

He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t know how.

He just sat there, staring into the bowl, unsure if he deserved it.

It terrified him.

He took a bite.
The porridge was watery, a little bitter, bit disgusting, but made by people who once loved him.

Then, he got up and left to go to the market.