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Yoonchae discovered she could not die on the banks of the Yangtze River. The arrow meant for her heart had missed by inches, and the soldiers who threw her body into the water had not bothered to check if she still breathed. Logically, her body and soul should've been lost at sea. Her lungs filled with river water and her vision darkened, but dawn came eventually and she woke on a muddy shore, coughing up water that should have been her grave. The wound in her shoulder had closed itself sometime during the night. She pressed her fingers against smooth skin where torn flesh had been and understood---she would not be granted the mercy of an end.

Life I: 1247, Song Dynasty

The village accepted her as a wanderer.

Yoonchae learned to lie about her origins and keep her head down, and for two months this worked perfectly well until the magistrate's daughter arrived to oversee the rice harvest. Meiyok wore silk robes embroidered with peonies and her hair was pinned with jade ornaments that caught the light when she moved. She was fourteen years old and already engaged to a merchant's son in the capital. Yoonchae, who was cleaning fish by the river when the procession passed, did not think anything of the girl beyond a vague recognition that wealth insulated some people from suffering that had simply defined Yoonchae's own short life. She returned to her work and thought nothing more of it.

Unfortunately, Meiyok thought quite a bit more. She returned to the river the next day without her attendants, and Yoonchae looked up from her basket of fish to find the magistrate's daughter standing on the bank with her embroidered slippers sinking into the mud.

"I wish to learn how to catch fish," Meiyok announced, possibly accustomed to having her wishes granted.

Yoonchae gutted another fish and did not look up. "Go home, young mistress."

"I don't want to go home."

"Your father will worry."

"My father doesn't notice when I'm gone." Meiyok picked her way closer to the water's edge. Her slippers were already ruined. "Will you teach me or not?"

"No."

Meiyok sat down on the bank anyway, arranging her robes with care. "Then I'll watch until I figure it out myself."

This pattern repeated itself for a week before Yoonchae gave up and showed her how to bait a hook, if only to make her leave faster. The lessons did not make Meiyok leave faster. To all intents and purposes, they had the opposite effect entirely, and soon Meiyok was spending more time at the river than at the magistrate's residence. She talked constantly.

"My father wants me to marry a merchant's son in the capital," Meiyok said one afternoon while struggling with a tangled fishing line. "His name is Zhang Wei and he's twenty-three years old. I've never met him."

Yoonchae untangled the line without comment.

"Don't you think that's strange? Marrying someone you've never met?"

"It's common enough."

"Common doesn't make it less strange." Meiyok watched Yoonchae's hands work through the knots. "Have you ever been married?"

"No."

"Have you ever wanted to be?"

Yoonchae handed back the untangled line. "Pay attention to what you're doing."

Meiyok accepted the deflection with a small smile, but her questions continued over the following weeks. Yoonchae learned that Meiyok did not want to marry the merchant's son, that she found poetry boring, that she had once stolen a mooncake from the kitchen and blamed it on the cook's daughter.

The betrothal was broken in the eighth month. The merchant's business had failed and the engagement dissolved with it. Meiyok told Yoonchae this while they sat on the riverbank watching the sun set over the water.

"Zhang Wei's family lost everything," Meiyok said impassively. "My father dissolved the engagement this morning."

Yoonchae continued baiting her hook. "That must be disappointing."

"Must it?" Meiyok turned to look at her, and the dying light caught in her eyes and turned them amber. "I never wanted to marry him."

"What you want rarely matters in these arrangements."

"No," Meiyok agreed quietly. "It doesn't." She fell silent for a moment, watching the water. "What do you want, Yoonchae?"

The question landed between them with unexpected weight. Yoonchae's heart beat unnaturally, something that had been dormant since she woke on the muddy shore and discovered she could not die. "It doesn't matter what I want either."

"I think it does." Meiyok's voice was soft. "I think it matters very much."

Yoonchae did not answer, and eventually Meiyok let the silence settle between them. They watched the sun disappear behind the mountains, and when darkness fell they walked back toward the village without speaking.

The magistrate announced his daughter's new engagement two weeks later. A provincial governor from the north, wealthy and influential, had seen Meiyok during a diplomatic visit and made an offer that could not be refused. The wedding would take place before winter. Meiyok received this news with the same composure she applied to most things, but that evening she came to the river and sat beside Yoonchae without speaking.

"I leave in three weeks," Meiyok said finally.

"I know."

"Will you miss me?"

Yoonchae's hands stilled on the fishing net she was mending. "You should go home, young mistress."

"Stop calling me that." Meiyok's voice wavered, "My name is Meiyok."

"I know your name."

"Then use it." Meiyok stood abruptly, brushing dirt from her robes. Before Yoonchae could respond, she pressed something into her palm. "Keep this. Please."

Yoonchae looked down at the jade hairpin---smooth, cool, and far too valuable for a village fish cleaner to own. "I can't accept this."

"You can and you will." Meiyok's chin lifted in such a stubborn way that Yoonchae had eventually learned meant no argument would change her mind. "Consider it payment for the fishing lessons."

"This is worth more than a hundred fishing lessons."

"Then I underpaid you." Meiyok smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. "Goodbye, Yoonchae."

She left before Yoonchae could return the hairpin. Yoonchae should have returned it the next day. She kept it instead, hidden in the folds of her clothes where no one would see. Meiyok came to the river every day until her wedding, and every day Yoonchae felt the weight of the hairpin against her skin and said nothing about it. They talked about meaningless things in an excuse to delay time, as though such meaningless words could ever keep Meiyok from leaving. Yoonchae thought perhaps she was going mad, because surely only madness would explain the way her heart seized every time Meiyok smiled at her.

The wedding procession left on the first day of the ninth month. Yoonchae stood with the other villagers and watched the palanquin disappear down the road. Meiyok's face was painted white and her hair was arranged in the elaborate style of a bride, and Yoonchae's heart had shattered into a million pieces. She walked back to her small room and took out the jade hairpin and held it until her palm ached. Immortality, she decided, was a punishment designed specifically for her. She could walk for a hundred centuries and she alone will pick up the shattered pieces of her heart until her fingers bled.

 News arrived three weeks later. The wedding procession had been attacked by bandits on the mountain pass. The governor had survived. Meiyok had not. The bandits had thrown her body into the ravine and it had taken the soldiers two days to recover it. Yoonchae heard this news from a merchant who had heard it from a soldier who had heard it from someone else. She listened with her face blank and her hands steady. When the merchant finished talking she thanked him for the information and returned to her work.

She left the village that night. The jade hairpin stayed behind, buried by the riverbank where Meiyok had pressed it into her palm. Yoonchae walked north without any destination in mind and tried not to think about the fact that she would continue walking long after everyone she had ever known had turned to dust. The wound in her chest where something had broken did not heal the way her physical wounds did. She carried it with her, and it felt, in a distant way, like the only honest thing she owned.

Life II: 1456, Florence

Yoonchae had learned by then that immortality required a certain amount of practical adaptation. She could not stay in one place long enough for people to notice she did not age. She could not form attachments that would require explanation when those attachments grew old and she did not. She moved through the world as a ghost moves through a house, present but not participating, and this arrangement suited her perfectly well until she took work as a servant in the Medici household and met the painter's apprentice.

The painter's name was Giotto and his apprentice was a girl of fifteen who wore boys' clothes and kept her hair cropped short. Yoonchae learned this on her first day of work, when she brought wine to the studio and found the apprentice mixing pigments with quick, practiced movements.

"You must be the new servant," the girl said without looking up from her work. "Set the wine on the table, would you?"

Yoonchae did as instructed and turned to leave.

"Wait." The girl looked up and smiled, and Yoonchae felt the universe erode underneath her shoes. "I'm Margherita. Though everyone calls me Megan. What's your name?"

"Yoonchae." Her name sounded rough as it tumbled out of her lips.

"That's an unusual name. Not Italian."

"No."

"Where are you from?"

"Far away." Yoonchae's hands tightened on the empty tray she carried. "I should return to my duties."

"Of course." Megan's smile widened. "I'm sure I'll see you again."

It was impossible. Meiyok---or rather, Megan---had died two hundred years ago in a ravine in China. Her bones had long since turned to dust and whatever soul she possessed had moved on to whatever came after. This girl with paint-stained fingers and an easy smile was not her. Could not be her. Yoonchae left the studio and told herself she was being ridiculous. The resemblance was superficial. A trick of the light, nothing more.

However, the resemblance persisted and it haunted every corner of Yoonchae's dreams and visions. Megan had the same cadence and mannerisms. Could she perhaps be losing her mind? Was it even possible to ever meet a person that looked and felt exactly like another from two centuries ago? Such a foolish question. If only there had been another immortal to discuss this with.

Be as it may, Yoonchae still found herself inventing excuses to visit the studio. She brought wine when no one asked for it. She lingered to watch Megan grind lapis lazuli into ultramarine blue. She listened to Megan talk about perspective and proportion and the way light fell across flesh, and she felt the same sensation possessing her that she had felt by the river in China.

The painting Megan was working on depicted the Annunciation. Mary knelt in prayer while the angel Gabriel delivered his message, and Megan painted Mary's face with a concentration that bordered on reverence. She mixed and remixed the skin tones until they matched some internal vision Yoonchae could not see.

One afternoon, while Yoonchae was pretending to dust the shelves, Megan turned to her abruptly.

"Would you model for me?"

Yoonchae nearly dropped the cloth she was holding. "What?"

"My usual model left for Rome last week. I need someone for Mary's hands." Megan gestured at the painting with her brush. "Yours are perfect. Look at them—they are similar to paintings of old. Exactly what I need."

"I'm busy."

"You're dusting shelves that don't need dusting." Megan's eyes held the light of a thousand candles. "I'll pay you."

"I don't need your money."

"Then do it because I'm asking nicely." Megan set down her brush and wiped her hands on a rag. "Please? Just a few sessions. An hour each time."

Yoonchae should have refused. "Fine. One week only."

"Perfect." Megan's smile rivaled the sun and all the stars that lived and died. "We can start tomorrow."

For the next week she sat in the studio while Megan sketched her hands from different angles. They talked while Megan worked, or rather Megan talked and Yoonchae listened.

"I ran away from England when I was thirteen," Megan said one afternoon, her charcoal moving quickly across the page. "My father wanted me to marry a baron's son. Can you imagine? Me, married to some fat old baron's son who probably couldn't tell a paintbrush from a broom handle."

"Your father must have been furious."

"Oh, he was." Megan laughed, but there was an edge to it. "He disowned me. Told me I was no daughter of his. I took it as a compliment, honestly."

"You don't regret it?"

"Not for a moment." Megan looked up from her sketch. "Do you regret anything, Yoonchae?"

The question struck painfully. "Everything."

Megan studied her for a long moment. "That's a heavy burden to carry."

"Yes," Yoonchae agreed quietly. "It is."

Megan returned to her sketch without pressing further. Against Yoonchae's better judgement, she had internalized Megan's quiet hum of sympathy. Megan could never understand the true depth of this burden. Could she?

The painting was finished in the spring. Mary's hands were folded in prayer and on her face showcased either fear or acceptance,  though it is up for much interpretation as all pieces of art are. Megan declared it her best work yet. The patron agreed and paid handsomely for the piece. Giotto announced they would celebrate with wine and roasted meat, and Megan invited Yoonchae to join them. They drank too much and ate too much and Megan laughed with wine-stained lips and Yoonchae thought, with a clarity that felt like violence, that she was in love.

She left the Medici household the next day. She packed her few belongings and walked out of Florence without saying goodbye. Megan came looking for her anyway, found her on the road south, and demanded to know why Yoonchae was leaving.

"Where are you going?" Megan was breathless from running, her cheeks flushed.

"South."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer you're getting." Yoonchae adjusted the pack on her shoulders and continued walking.

Megan grabbed her arm. "Wait. Did I do something wrong? If I offended you—"

"You didn't."

"Then why are you leaving without saying goodbye?"

"Because it's easier this way."

"Easier for who?" Megan's grip tightened. "Take me with you."

Yoonchae stopped walking. "What?"

"Take me with you. I've always wanted to travel. I can paint anywhere. I'll earn my keep; you won't have to support me. We could—"

"No."

Megan flinched as though she had been slapped. "Why not?"

"Because I travel alone."

"You're lying." Megan's voice shook. "You're lying and I don't understand why. What are you so afraid of?"

Everything, Yoonchae wanted to say. I'm afraid of watching you grow old while I stay the same. I'm afraid of loving you again and losing you again. I'm afraid I've already failed at keeping my distance. Instead she said, "Go home, Megan."

"I don't have a home."

"Then go back to the studio. Giotto values your work. You have a future there."

"I don't want a future without you in it." Megan's eyes were wet now, and Yoonchae wanted nothing more but to kiss those tears away with her own lips.

"You'll have to learn to want something else."

Megan's face shuttered closed. She released Yoonchae's arm and stepped back. "Fine. Go then. I won't stop you."

She turned and walked back toward Florence without looking back. Yoonchae watched her go and felt the wound in her chest tear open a little wider. She continued south and tried not to think about the way Megan's voice had broken when she asked to come along. The arrow from two hundred years ago now paled in comparison with the pain in her heart.

The plague came to Florence that summer. Yoonchae heard about it from travelers heading south. She did not ask about casualties. She did not need to ask. Some knowledge arrived without words, settling in the bones before the mind could catch up. She kept walking south and told herself it did not matter. Megan was not the girl from the river. She was someone else entirely. The fact that they wore the same soul was irrelevant.

Speaking of irrelevance, Yoonchae discovered that grief did not lessen with repetition. Verily, it compounded, building on itself until the weight of it threatened to drag her under. She carried it anyway. What else could she do?

Life III: 1642, Edo Japan

Yoonchae stopped trying to avoid her by the third life. The attempt was futile anyway.

Megan found her regardless of where she went or how carefully she hid. In this lifetime of hers, she was the daughter of a merchant in Osaka, and Yoonchae was working as a laborer in the docks when they met. Megan was delivering a message to one of the ship captains and Yoonchae was hauling crates of tea onto the dock, and their eyes met across the crowded wharf and Yoonchae knew immediately.

The recognition was mutual this time. Megan walked over and stopped directly in front of her, blocking her path. "Have we met before?"

Yoonchae set down the crate she was carrying. "No."

"Are you certain? You look familiar."

"I have that kind of face."

"No, you don't." Megan tilted her head, studying her. "I'm Megan. My father is Tanaka Hiroshi, the silk merchant."

"I know who your father is."

"But you won't tell me your name?"

Yoonchae picked up the crate again. "Yoonchae. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Actually, I need help carrying a package to my father's warehouse." Megan pointed toward a large wooden box sitting near the captain's ship. "Would you mind?"

Yoonchae wanted to refuse. Refusing would have drawn more attention than compliance, however, so she nodded and followed Megan to the package. They walked to the warehouse in silence, Yoonchae carrying the box while Megan led the way through the crowded streets.

The warehouse was full of silk and porcelain and other luxury goods destined for markets in Kyoto and Edo. Megan's father was undeniably wealthy. Megan herself wore fine clothes and moved through the world wanting for nothing.

"My father wants me to marry a merchant's son from Kyoto," Megan said as they walked back toward the docks. "The wedding is planned for next spring."

Yoonchae listened to this information with a face carved from stone. She had heard variations of this story before. "Congratulations."

"Don't congratulate me on a prison sentence."

"Marriage to a wealthy merchant is hardly a prison."

"Shows what you know." Megan's voice held an edge of bitterness. "The man is forty years old and has three other wives already. I'll be the fourth. Bah, I'll merely be a decoration to show off at parties!"

Yoonchae said nothing. What could she say? The details changed but the structure remained the same. Megan would fall in love with her despite every effort Yoonchae made to prevent it. Megan would die. Yoonchae would continue living and eventually Megan would return and the entire miserable cycle would begin again. Understanding the pattern did not make it easier to endure.

Nevertheless, Megan began visiting the docks regularly. She brought Yoonchae tea and rice cakes and sat on the crates talking while Yoonchae worked.

"Do you ever want to leave Osaka?" Megan asked one afternoon.

"No."

"Truly? Everyone wants to leave somewhere."

"I've left enough places already."

"Then you understand." Megan broke off a piece of rice cake and offered it to Yoonchae. "I want to see the world beyond Japan. China... Korea... Maybe even farther west!"

Yoonchae took the offered cake. "Forget such ideas. Travel is dangerous and expensive, and you have responsibilities to your family."

"You sound like my father."

"Your father is probably right."

Megan laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Even if the cage is lined with silk?"

"At least it keeps you alive."

The engagement was broken in the winter. The merchant's son had been caught in a scandal involving gambling debts and a forbidden liaison with a courtesan. Megan's father dissolved the arrangement immediately. Megan received this news with relief and celebrated by bringing Yoonchae an expensive jar of plum wine.

"I'm free," she announced, setting the jar down on the dock with a triumphant smile. "At least for now."

"Your father will arrange another match soon enough."

"Let him try." Megan uncorked the wine and took a drink directly from the jar. "I'm done being obedient."

"That's a dangerous attitude."

"Is it?" Megan passed the jar to Yoonchae. "You don't seem particularly obedient."

"I'm a dock worker. No one cares what I do."

"Lucky you." Megan leaned back against a crate, watching the sun set over the water. "Sometimes I think I knew you in a previous life."

Yoonchae's hand tightened on the wine jar. "What makes you say that?"

"The way you look at me sometimes. Like you're seeing someone else." Megan turned to study her. "Like you're sad about something that hasn't happened yet."

"You're imagining nonsense."

"Am I?" Megan's voice was soft. "You always look so sad, Yoonchae. Why is that?"

Yoonchae felt her throat close around words she could not say. "Go home, Megan."

"I'd rather stay here."

They sat together until the stars came out and the night grew too cold to remain outside. When Megan finally left, she touched Yoonchae's shoulder briefly. It felt like fire.

A new engagement was arranged in the spring. A samurai this time, newly elevated to his position and looking to establish himself through an advantageous marriage. Megan's father was pleased with the match. Megan herself looked ill when she delivered the news.

"My father found another match," she said without preamble, her eyes fixed on the ground. "A samurai. The wedding is in two months."

Yoonchae nodded and continued hauling crates. "I see."

"That's all you have to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything." Megan's voice rose. "Tell me not to go through with it... or... tell me to refuse... Tell me—" She stopped abruptly, her hands clenched into fists.

Yoonchae set down the crate she was holding. "It's a good match. Your father is wise to arrange it."

Megan stared at her. "You can't be serious."

"I'm perfectly serious."

"I don't want to marry him."

"What you want doesn't matter."

Megan flinched as though struck like she had a lifetime ago. She left the dock without another word and did not return for three days. When she did return, her eyes wordlessly pleaded into Yoonchae's almost desperately.

"I'm running away," she announced. "I've saved money from my allowance. I know a ship captain who will take me to China for the right price." She took a deep breath. "Come with me."

"No."

"Why not? You have no ties here. No family. You could leave tomorrow and no one would miss you."

"Exactly my point. I have no ties anywhere. I prefer it that way."

Megan moved closer. "You're afraid. I don't know of what, but you're terrified. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me."

"Go home, Megan."

"Come with me instead."

"Marry the samurai and forget about running away."

"I can't." Megan's voice broke. "I can't forget you. I don't know why, but I can't."

Yoonchae's heart twisted itself in the most unnatural of ways. "You'll have to learn."

Megan slapped her then, hard enough that Yoonchae's head snapped to the side. When Yoonchae looked back, Megan was crying. "I hate you," she whispered, and then she was gone, running back through the crowded docks.

Yoonchae stood there with her cheek stinging and told herself she had made the right choice. Letting Megan leave would have been selfish. Megan would grow old and die eventually whether she married the samurai or ran away to China, and at least the samurai could give her comfort and security. At least she would be safe.

The wedding took place on schedule. Yoonchae did not attend. She heard about it from the other dock workers who gossiped about the elaborate ceremony and the expensive gifts. She continued hauling crates and tried not to think about Megan in silk robes, bound to a man she did not love.

The earthquake came in the summer. It struck at night when everyone was sleeping, and the fires that followed consumed entire neighborhoods before anyone could respond. Yoonchae survived because she always survived. She dug herself out of the rubble of the collapsed warehouse and walked through streets filled with smoke and screaming. She searched for three days before she found Megan's body in the ruins of the samurai's estate. The building had collapsed and trapped everyone inside. Megan had died quickly, crushed under falling timber. At least there was that.

Yoonchae carried the body to a temple and paid for the proper rites. The monks asked if she was family. Yoonchae said no. They asked why she was paying for the funeral. Yoonchae did not answer. She left Osaka after the cremation and walked until her legs gave out. When she woke she continued walking. The wound in her chest had torn completely open by then. She stopped trying to close it.

Life IV: 1789, Paris

Revolutionary France tested even Yoonchae's considerable capacity for detachment. She had lived through wars and plagues and natural disasters, but the Revolution possessed disarray that made previous upheavals seem almost orderly by comparison. The violence was both random and calculated. The ideals were noble and the execution was brutal. Yoonchae kept her head down and survived because survival was what she did.

Megan was a baker's daughter this time. Yoonchae met her in a bread line during the worst of the food shortages. Megan was arguing with the baker's assistant, her voice carrying across the street.

"This flour is half sawdust," Megan said, holding up a loaf. "You're selling sawdust bread to starving people."

"Then don't buy it," the assistant snapped back.

"Oh, I'm not buying it. I'm reporting it." Megan raised her voice so the entire line could hear. "Everyone deserves to know they're eating sawdust."

The argument ended when the baker himself emerged, red-faced and furious. "Go home, Megan, before you cause more trouble."

"The truth isn't trouble, Papa."

"Go. Home." The baker pointed down the street.

Megan went, but not before kicking over a basket of stale rolls on her way out. The crowd in the bread line murmured with a mixture of amusement and approval. Yoonchae, who had been standing in line trying to ignore the argument, felt her soul, mind, and body constrict with a familiar dread.

They encountered each other again at a revolutionary meeting. Yoonchae attended these gatherings because attendance was noted and absence invited suspicion. Megan attended because she believed in the cause with the fervor of someone who had never seen an ideal survive contact with reality. She gave a speech about equality and bread prices that earned approving shouts from the crowd.

"Citizens," Megan called out, standing on a crate so everyone could see her. "We are told there is no bread because there is no flour. But I have seen the warehouses. I have seen the grain hoarded while we starve. People, wake up! This is blatant theft!"

Approval from the crowd had made itself known through shouts. Megan continued, her voice rising with passion. "We did not overthrow kings to bow before merchants. We did not shed blood for the right to eat sawdust. Liberty means nothing if we die of hunger. Equality means nothing if some feast while others starve."

More shouts of agreement. Yoonchae listened with her arms crossed and her face neutral. When the meeting ended, Megan approached her, still flushed with the energy of her speech.

"You're new," Megan said. "I haven't seen you at the meetings before."

"I'm not new to Paris."

"But new to the Revolution?"

"I'm here because attendance is expected."

Megan's eyes narrowed. "That's honest, at least. Most people pretend to believe." She studied Yoonchae for a moment. "What did you think of the speech?"

"It was agreeable."

"Agreeable? That's all?"

Yoonchae met her gaze steadily. "The Revolution will eat itself eventually. Idealism makes a poor shield against the guillotine."

Megan laughed. "A pessimist. How refreshing. Everyone else is so drunk on slogans they can't see straight." She held out her hand. "I'm Megan."

"Yoonchae."

"Will you come to the next meeting, Yoonchae the pessimist?"

"I don't have much choice."

"Good. At least I'll have one honest person to talk to." Megan smiled once more.

Still and all, Megan kept seeking her out. She appeared at Yoonchae's door with pamphlets to distribute. She invited her to more meetings and rallies. She introduced her to other revolutionaries naively, ignorantly disregarding the possibility of trust being weaponized. Yoonchae went along with it because refusing would have been more suspicious than compliance. She distributed the pamphlets and attended the meetings and listened to Megan talk about liberty and justice as though these concepts were simple matters of implementation rather than impossible ideals constantly undermined by human nature.

The Revolution turned violent in the way revolutions inevitably do. The moderates were arrested and the radicals took control and suddenly having the wrong friends or saying the wrong words could result in denunciation and execution. Megan became more cautious in her speech but not in her actions. She continued attending meetings and distributing pamphlets and arguing with anyone who suggested the Revolution had gone too far. Yoonchae watched this with growing dread. She had seen this pattern before in different contexts. Idealism made martyrs but it rarely made survivors.

Someone had accused Megan of being a counter-revolutionary sympathizer based on a comment she had made at a meeting three weeks earlier. The accusation was flimsy and probably politically motivated, but that did not matter. Megan was arrested and taken to prison to await trial. Yoonchae heard about this from a mutual acquaintance who delivered the news with careful neutrality, no doubt not willing to risk anything else.

Yoonchae went to the prison that night. She bribed a guard with money she could not afford to spend and was given five minutes in Megan's cell. Megan was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She looked up when Yoonchae entered.

"You came." Megan's voice was hoarse. "I didn't think you would."

"I'm getting you out of here."

"That's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible."

"This is." Megan stood slowly, as though her legs might not support her. "The only way out is through a trial I won't win. You know that."

"I'll find a way."

"No, you won't." Megan shook her head, and the movement was so tired it hurt to watch. "This is how it ends. I knew the risks when I spoke out. I'm not sorry."

"You should be."

"Why? Because I might die? Everyone dies eventually." Megan moved closer until they were standing face to face. "At least I'll die for something I believed in."

"That doesn't make you less dead."

"No," Megan agreed quietly. "But it makes the death mean something."

Yoonchae gulped miserably. "Don't give up."

"I'm not giving up. I'm facing reality." Megan reached for Yoonchae's hand, and her fingers were cold. "I'm glad you came. I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"For being my friend. Even though you never seemed to like me very much." Megan smiled, and there was such sincerity in it that Yoonchae felt the wound in her chest tear open even wider. "You always looked at me like I was someone you used to know. Someone you lost. I never understood it, but I appreciated it anyway. It made me feel less alone."

The guard knocked on the door. Five minutes was up. Megan squeezed Yoonchae's hand once and let go. "Thank you for coming," she said again. "Don't waste time trying to save me. Save yourself instead."

Yoonchae wanted to argue, to promise she would find a way, but the words died in her throat. She left the prison feeling hollowed out, scraped clean of everything except grief.

Yoonchae left the prison and spent the next two days trying to arrange a rescue that had no chance of success. She bribed guards and made inquiries and pursued leads that went nowhere. When the trial date arrived she stood in the courtroom and watched Megan be sentenced to death. The execution was scheduled for the following morning. Yoonchae attended because bearing witness seemed like the least she could do.

Megan walked to the guillotine with her head high. She did not look at the crowd. When her eyes found Yoonchae in the gathering, she smiled beautifully like she did all previous three lifetimes. Then the blade fell and it was over and Yoonchae stood there in the crowd feeling nothing at all. Numbness was a mercy. She accepted it gratefully.

She left Paris that night and vowed never to return. The Revolution continued without her. Eventually it consumed itself exactly as she had predicted, but that knowledge provided no satisfaction. Yoonchae walked through the countryside and tried not to think about the way Megan's hand had felt in hers, cold and small, but lovely in the end. She tried not to think about anything at all.

Life V: 1847, Irish Countryside

The famine turned green fields into mass graves. Yoonchae had witnessed starvation across centuries and continents, but Ireland's Great Hunger was wordlessly cruel—the potato blight was democratic in its destruction while British policy responses remained calculatedly insufficient. People died in their cottages or collapsed on roadsides while attempting to reach workhouses that could not feed them. Survivors became walking cadavers, their hollow eyes and skeletal frames barely registering as human. 

The relief station where Yoonchae worked distributed soup too thin to sustain life for more than a few days. She ladled portions into wooden bowls and watched the line stretch endlessly down the muddy road. Children died in their mothers' arms before reaching the front. Old men collapsed mid-queue and were dragged aside by those too weak to lift them properly. Yoonchae measured out inadequate portions and tried to ignore the mathematics of futility—every person fed today would likely die tomorrow, and the ones who survived today would simply die next week instead.

Megan arrived during the third week with a group of Protestant reformers from Dublin. Her face carried pale determination, seemingly had not yet learned that good intentions dissolved rapidly under the weight of systemic failure. She wore plain clothing and carried herself with a stiff posture. Yoonchae recognized her immediately. The face was different and the accent had changed and the clothing bore no resemblance to silk robes or revolutionary garments, but the essential architecture of her remained consistent. Yoonchae looked away before their eyes could meet.

Avoidance proved impossible. They worked identical shifts and slept in the same overcrowded boarding house. Megan introduced herself the first evening with a tired smile and an outstretched hand. Refusing would have been inexplicable, so Yoonchae shook it.

"I'm Megan," she said. "From Dublin. You're—?"

"Yoonchae."

"Just Yoonchae?"

"Just Yoonchae."

Megan accepted this without pressing further. "Have you been here long?"

"Six weeks."

"It must be difficult work."

"All work is difficult."

"Yes, but this—" Megan gestured at the station, at the skeletal figures, at the pervasive stench of death that clung to everything. "This exceeds ordinary difficulty. I don't know how you bear it."

"You bear it by bearing it." Yoonchae turned back to the soup pot. "Endurance has no secret. You continue until you cannot."

Megan fell silent. Yoonchae hoped this would end the conversation, but hope had never been a reliable strategy. Megan sought her out during meal breaks to ask questions about boiling water and whether certain herbs might alleviate dysentery symptoms. She inquired about Yoonchae's past and accepted vague answers without demanding elaboration. She talked about Dublin and her father's shipping business and theological debates concerning whether suffering possessed redemptive qualities or merely existed as cruelty without purpose. Yoonchae listened and responded when necessary and tried very hard not to care.

The fever came in the sixth week. Typhus spread through the relief station faster than any quarantine attempt could contain it. Megan collapsed while carrying water to the sick ward. Yoonchae found her on the floor with her bucket spilled and her face burning. She carried her to the boarding house and laid her in bed and spent the next three days attempting to keep her alive through sheer determination—a strategy that had never worked before but persisted as the only option available.

Megan's fever broke on the fourth day. She woke confused and weak but alive. Yoonchae fed her thin broth and ignored the trembling in her own hands while holding the spoon.

"You stayed," Megan said. Her voice barely carried across the pillow. "You didn't have to."

"You would have done the same."

"Yes, but—" Megan's eyes were glassy with exhaustion. "You don't even like me."

Yoonchae set down the spoon with more force than the action required. "That's not true."

"Isn't it? You barely speak to me. You look at me sometimes and your face—it's as though you're seeing something terrible." Megan's voice carried no accusation, merely observation. "I remind you of someone you lost. Don't I?"

Indeed. Yoonchae turned away. "Rest. You need your strength."

"I'm sorry," Megan said. "Whoever they were, I'm sorry you lost them."

Yoonchae did not correct the assumption. She left the room and did not return until Megan was asleep. When she finally came back, she sat in the chair beside the bed and watched each breath. Every inhalation was a small victory. Every exhalation reminded her that victories were temporary.

Megan recovered slowly. She returned to work despite Yoonchae's protests and collapsed again within a week. The second fever was worse. Yoonchae moved her to an isolated room and tended her alone. Other relief workers said it was foolish to waste resources on someone so obviously dying. Yoonchae told them to mind their own deaths and kept vigil.

Megan woke on the eighth day lucid for the first time in a week. Yoonchae was beside her immediately with water and a damp cloth for her forehead. Megan took a few sips and managed a weak smile.

"Still here," she whispered.

"Still here."

"Thank you. For everything." Megan's hand found Yoonchae's on the blanket. Her grip was weak but deliberate. "I wish we'd had more time to know each other properly. I think we could have been good friends."

"...We are friends."

"Are we? You've barely spoken a dozen words to me that weren't about water or broth." Megan's thumb traced circles on Yoonchae's wrist. "But you stayed anyway. That must mean something."

"It means I don't leave people to die alone."

"No. I think it means more than that." Megan's eyes closed again. "I'm glad it was you. At the end. I'm glad you were here."

The fever took her that night. Yoonchae held her hand through the final hours and felt each stuttering breath grow weaker until there were no more breaths at all. When it was over, she remained in the chair and stared at nothing until dawn. Other workers found her there in the morning. They removed Megan's body and asked if she wanted to say any words. She shook her head. Words seemed inadequate for what she felt, so silence appeared more honest.

Yoonchae left Ireland three days later. She walked to the coast and took a ship to America. Looking back had never helped anyone, so she did not look back.

Life VI: 1915, Western Front

The Great War made mockery of the word "great." Yoonchae served as a field nurse because armies always needed medical personnel and no one asked too many questions about women who volunteered for such grim work. Trenches stretched across Belgium and France in endless lines of mud and barbed wire and rotting corpses. Men died of infection and gangrene and gas attacks. They died from wounds that festered because antibiotics had not been invented yet. They died because artillery shells lacked the capacity to discriminate between officers and enlisted men, between bravery and cowardice.

Megan appeared at the field hospital on a Tuesday morning wearing a British Army uniform several sizes too large. Her hair was cut short in a failed attempt to pass as male, and she carried a bullet wound in her thigh that had already begun to fester. Yoonchae cleaned the wound and applied what antiseptic they had while Megan bit down on a leather strap to suppress screaming.

"You're lucky," Yoonchae said when the wound was bandaged. "Another day and we would have amputated."

Megan spat out the leather strap. "That's your definition of lucky?"

"Yes."

"Christ." Megan laughed weakly. "What's your definition of unlucky, then?"

"Dead."

"Fair point." Megan leaned back on the cot and closed her eyes. "How long until I can return to my unit?"

"Your unit thinks you're a man named Michael Thompson."

"That's not an answer."

"You can't go back." Yoonchae began cleaning her instruments. "If the wound doesn't kill you, the officers will court-martial you for desertion and impersonating a soldier."

"I didn't desert. I was wounded in action."

"No one will care about the distinction." Yoonchae set down the scalpel. "Your best option is to stay here until you're healed, then disappear."

"Disappear where? Back to England?" Megan opened her eyes. "My father disowned me when I refused to marry the man he chose. I have no money and no prospects. The army was supposed to be my chance at something different."

"The army is a grinder that converts men into corpses."

"Better than being ground down by poverty or marriage." Megan's voice was sharp. "At least in the trenches I had purpose."

Yoonchae said nothing to this. She had learned over several lifetimes that some people required their illusions to survive. Nevertheless, Megan stayed at the hospital because she had nowhere else to go. She recovered slowly and made herself useful by assisting with basic nursing tasks. She changed bandages and carried supplies and held down soldiers while Yoonchae performed amputations without anesthesia. She did not complain about the work or the conditions or the constant presence of death. Actually, she seemed to take grim satisfaction in being useful.

They worked together for three months before Megan asked the question Yoonchae had been dreading.

"Have we met before?" Megan was grinding morphine tablets into powder when she spoke. "You seem familiar somehow. Not your face exactly, but, bah, something about you is just speaking to me."

Yoonchae continued stitching a soldier's chest wound. "We haven't met."

"I know we haven't. That's what makes it strange." Megan measured out a dose and added it to a bottle of saline solution. "It's as though I know you from somewhere I can't remember. A dream, maybe, or a past life if you believe in that sort of thing."

"I don't."

"Neither do I, usually." Megan corked the bottle. "But sometimes when you look at me, I feel as though you're seeing someone else. Someone you loved, maybe, or lost."

Yoonchae's hands stilled on the suture. "You're imagining things."

"Probably." Megan moved on to the next task without pressing further. How many times have they done this dance?

The gas attack came without warning on a Tuesday morning in early spring. Wind carried chlorine gas directly over British positions. Men stumbled back from the trenches with their lungs burning and their skin blistered and their eyes streaming tears that were also blood. The field hospital was overwhelmed within hours. Megan worked alongside Yoonchae, moving from patient to patient efficiently, but by afternoon she was coughing.

Yoonchae noticed immediately. "You've been exposed."

"Just a little. I'm fine." Megan's voice was hoarse. She coughed harder.

"You need to lie down."

"There are too many patients. I can help."

"You can't help if you collapse."

Megan ignored her and continued working. She made it another hour before her legs gave out. Yoonchae caught her before she hit the ground and carried her to an empty cot in the corner. Megan's breathing was labored and her lips were turning blue. The chlorine had damaged her lungs beyond what her body could compensate for.

Yoonchae stayed beside her through the night. There was nothing to be done except wait and hope, but hope seemed cruel under the circumstances. Megan woke occasionally, disoriented and struggling to breathe. Each time, Yoonchae was there with water or a damp cloth or simply a steady presence.

"You don't have to stay," Megan said during one lucid moment. Her voice was barely a whisper.

"I know."

"But you're staying anyway."

"Yes."

Megan's hand found Yoonchae's. "I don't understand you. You act as though you don't care about anything, but you're here. You're always here."

"Don't try to talk."

"I need to." Megan coughed, and blood flecked her lips. "In case I don't get another chance. I want you to know that working with you these past months has meant something to me. You've meant something to me."

Yoonchae felt the familiar tearing sensation in her chest. "Save your strength."

"For what? I'm dying." Megan's grip tightened. "Don't pretend otherwise. We both know."

"You might—"

"No." Megan interrupted softly. "I won't." She closed her eyes. "Will you stay until the end? I don't want to die alone."

"I'll stay."

"Thank you." Megan's breathing grew more labored. "For everything. For seeing me. Even when I didn't understand what you were seeing."

She died an hour before dawn. Yoonchae held her hand until it grew cold, then stayed beside her until the morning shift arrived. Other nurses asked if she needed a break. Yoonchae shook her head and returned to work. There were always more patients. There was always more work.

The war continued without Megan. Eventually it ended the way wars do, with treaties and celebrations and men returning home to try to forget what they had seen. Yoonchae left the field hospital and walked until she found a place where no one knew her name. She stayed there for a while, then moved on. Moving on was what she did.

Life VII: 1955, Los Angeles

Hollywood in the fifties was all surface and sparkle. Yoonchae worked as a seamstress for one of the major studios, repairing costumes and hemming dresses for actresses who did not know her name. The work was tedious and the pay was mediocre, but it required no explanations about her past and no pretense of ambition. She showed up on time and did her job and went home to a small apartment where no one bothered her.

Megan was a script supervisor on one of the productions. She appeared in the costume department one afternoon carrying a torn dress and looking harried.

"Can you fix this?" Megan held up the dress. "The actress caught it on a door handle during the last take, and we need it for the next scene."

Yoonchae examined the tear. "Twenty minutes."

"You're an angel." Megan set the dress on the work table. "I'm Megan, by the way. I don't think we've met."

"Yoonchae."

"Nice to meet you, Yoonchae." Megan glanced at her watch. "I have to get back to set, but I'll send someone to pick up the dress. You're a lifesaver."

She left before Yoonchae could respond. The interaction was brief and professional and entirely forgettable. Yoonchae repaired the dress and sent it back to set and thought nothing more of it until Megan appeared again the following week with another wardrobe emergency.

"I'm starting to think you're our lucky charm," Megan said while Yoonchae fixed a broken zipper. "Every time something goes wrong with costumes, you fix it so fast no one even notices there was a problem."

"That's the job."

"Maybe, but you make it look easy." Megan leaned against the work table. "How long have you been working here?"

"Three years."

"Three years, and I've only just noticed you." Megan shook her head. "I must be terrible at my job."

"Your job is to watch the script, not the costume department."

"Fair point." Megan smiled, and Yoonchae felt the ground shift. "Still, I'm glad I finally noticed. You're good at what you do."

She finished the zipper and handed back the garment without meeting Megan's eyes, pretending the compliment did not affect her one bit. "It's done."

"Thank you." Megan took the garment. "I'll see you around."

She did see Yoonchae around. Megan started taking her lunch breaks in the costume department, sitting on the edge of a work table and talking about the production or the weather or nothing in particular. Yoonchae listened and occasionally responded and tried not to notice how familiar Megan's presence felt.

Three months into this routine, Megan invited her to a party. "It's just a small thing at my apartment," Megan said. "Some people from the crew. You should come."

"I don't go to parties."

"Why not?"

"I don't enjoy them."

"Have you tried?"

Yoonchae looked up from the hem she was measuring. "No."

"Then how do you know you won't enjoy it?" Megan's tone was light but insistent. "Come on. It'll be fun. Or if it's not fun, you can leave early and I'll never bother you about parties again."

Yoonchae considered this. The smart thing to do was refuse. The smart thing was always to refuse. "What time?"

Megan's face lit up. "Eight o'clock. I'll write down the address."

Yoonchae arrived at eight-thirty and planned to leave by nine. She made it to nine-forty-five before Megan cornered her on the balcony.

"You came," Megan said, joining her at the railing. "I wasn't sure you would."

"I said I would."

"You also said you don't enjoy parties."

"I don't."

"But you're still here." Megan leaned against the railing beside her. "Why?"

Yoonchae did not have a good answer to this question. She looked out at the Los Angeles skyline instead of meeting Megan's eyes. "I don't know."

"That's honest, at least." Megan was quiet for a moment. "Chae, I have a question."

"You can ask."

"Why do you always look at me as though you're seeing something terrible? It's—I don't know. It's as though you're waiting for something bad to happen."

The observation was too accurate. Again with this conversation. Yoonchae gripped the railing. "I'm not."

"You are, though." Megan's voice was gentle. "You've been doing it since we met. And sometimes I catch you watching me when you think I'm not looking, and your expression is so—" She paused. "It's as though you're mourning someone who isn't dead yet."

This again! "That's ridiculous."

"Is it?" Megan turned to face her fully. "Because from where I'm standing, it seems pretty accurate."

Yoonchae said nothing. There was nothing to say that would not reveal too much.

Megan reached out and caressed her arm gently. "I don't know what happened to you, or who you lost, but I hope you know you don't have to carry it alone. If you ever want to talk—"

"I don't." Yoonchae stepped back, breaking the contact. "Thank you for the party. I should go."

She left before Megan could respond. She walked back to her apartment and told herself she would not return to Megan's parties or her lunch breaks or her casual conversations. She would be professional and distant and uninvolved. This was the smart thing to do. This was the only thing to do.

Withal, she returned to work the next day and Megan was there with another wardrobe emergency and a tentative smile. Yoonchae fixed the problem and accepted the invitation to the next party and let herself fall into the familiar pattern of caring about someone who would inevitably leave.

The car accident happened six months later. Megan was driving home from the studio when a drunk driver ran a red light. The collision killed her instantly. Yoonchae heard about it from one of the other crew members who delivered the news with genuine sadness and careful concern for how Yoonchae might take it.

Yoonchae thanked them for telling her and finished her shift. She went home and sat in her apartment and stared at the wall until morning. When dawn came she returned to work. When people offered condolences she accepted them with appropriate solemnity. When they asked if she was all right she said yes.

She stayed in Los Angeles for another year before the memories became unbearable. Then she packed her few belongings and moved to San Francisco. She found work in another costume department and tried not to think about Megan's smile or the way she had noticed Yoonchae watching her. She tried and failed, but failure was nothing new.

Life VIII: 1983, New York City

The AIDS crisis turned New York into a war zone without acknowledging it was a war. People died in hospital beds or in their apartments, abandoned by families who were ashamed or afraid or both. The government ignored the epidemic until ignoring it became impossible, and by then thousands were already dead. Yoonchae volunteered at a clinic in the Village because clinics needed volunteers and she had nothing better to do with her immortality.

Megan was an activist this time, similar to... another lifetime that Yoonchae had lost track of. These centuries were taking a toll on Yoonchae. Anyway, Megan showed up at the clinic with a box of donated supplies and a fierce determination to make a difference. Her hair was cut short and she wore jeans with rips in the knees and a leather jacket covered in pins demanding action and funding and basic human decency. She was twenty-six years old and already exhausted from fighting battles that should not have been necessary.

"Where do you want these?" Megan asked, hefting the box.

Yoonchae pointed to the supply closet. "In there. Second shelf."

"Got it." Megan carried the box inside and emerged a moment later. "I'm Megan, by the way. I'll be bringing supplies every week if that works for you."

"It works."

"Great." Megan pulled out a notebook and pen. "Do you have a list of what you need most? I can try to prioritize the fundraising."

Yoonchae recited the list—gloves, syringes, antibiotics, bandages, morphine. The usual litany of insufficient medical supplies that defined working in a crisis. Megan wrote everything down with careful attention to detail.

"I'll see what I can do," Megan said when Yoonchae finished. "No promises, but I know some people who might be able to help." She glanced around the clinic. "How long have you been volunteering here?"

"Two years."

"Two years." Megan put her chin in her hand and hummed in thought. "That's... longer than most people last in this kind of work."

"Someone has to do it."

"Not everyone sees it that way." Megan tucked the notebook back into her jacket and her gaze for a moment. "I'm glad you're here. Really. We need more people who actually give a damn."

She left before Yoonchae could respond. True to her word, she returned the following week with another box of supplies and a list of questions about what the clinic needed. She returned the week after that and the week after that, and soon she was spending more time at the clinic than just dropping off supplies. She helped with intake paperwork and held hands with dying patients and organized fundraisers that brought in enough money to keep the clinic running for another month.

Yoonchae tried to maintain professional distance. She tried to treat Megan the same way she treated every other volunteer—with polite efficiency and nothing more. This worked for three weeks before Megan cornered her during a quiet moment in the supply closet.

"Chae, I got a question." Megan was counting boxes of gloves when she spoke.

"You can ask." Strange déjà vu.

"Why do you volunteer here?" Megan set down the box she was holding. "Most people volunteer out of guilt or obligation or because they know someone who's sick. But you're different. It's like... you've been doing this forever!"

Yoonchae had grown desensitized whenever Megan got close to the truth. They had done this too many times. Yoonchae continued taking inventory. "I've been doing it for two years. That's not forever."

"It feels like forever, though, doesn't it?" Megan leaned against the shelves. "Being surrounded by death all the time. Watching people die and knowing you can't save them. It wears on you after a while."

"Yes."

"So why keep doing it?"

Yoonchae considered the question. She could lie, but Megan would see through it. She could tell the truth, but the truth was too complicated. She settled for something in between. "Because someone has to bear witness. Because these people deserve to have someone remember they existed."

Megan was quiet for a long moment.

"That's the saddest thing I've heard in a long time." Megan pushed off from the shelves. "You know what? You should come to one of our protests. We're organizing a demonstration at City Hall next week. Demanding more funding and better treatment. You should be there."

"I don't do protests."

"Why not?"

"They rarely accomplish anything."

"Maybe not immediately, but they matter." Megan's voice was passionate. "They keep the pressure on. They remind people that we're still here, refusing to die quietly."

Yoonchae wanted to tell her that people always died eventually, quietly or not, but she kept this observation to herself. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking." Megan smiled. "Just think about it."

Yoonchae did think about it. She thought about it enough that she found herself at the protest the following week, standing in the crowd while Megan and other activists chanted and held signs demanding action. The protest was loud and angry and ultimately ineffective—city officials ignored it and police broke it up after two hours—but Megan looked satisfied when it was over.

"You came," Megan said, finding Yoonchae in the dispersing crowd.

"I said I would think about it."

"And you decided to come." Megan's smile was bright despite the exhaustion visible in every line of her body. "Thank you. It means a lot having you here."

Yoonchae did not know how to respond to this. She simply nodded. Megan accepted it and launched into an explanation of the next planned action. Yoonchae listened and committed the details to memory and tried not to notice how familiar this all felt.

Three months later, Megan collapsed at the clinic during her usual supply delivery. Yoonchae caught her before she hit the floor and helped her to an exam room. The doctor who examined her was gentle but firm in his assessment—Kaposi's sarcoma, advanced stage, likely less than six months to live.

Megan took the news with surprising calm. "Well," she said after the doctor left. "That's that, I suppose."

"You should start treatment immediately."

"What treatment?" Megan's laugh was bitter. "There isn't anything that works. We both know that."

"There are experimental trials—"

"That might give me a few extra months of feeling wretched before I die anyway." Megan shook her head. "No thank you. I'd rather spend whatever time I have left doing something useful."

"Dying isn't useful."

"Neither is clinging to false hope." Megan's voice was gentle but firm. "I'm not giving up. I'm being realistic."

Yoonchae felt the familiar tearing sensation in her chest. "There has to be something—"

"There isn't." Megan reached out and took Yoonchae's hand. "Hey. Look at me."

Yoonchae forced herself to meet Megan's eyes.

"I'm okay with this," Megan said. "I knew the risks when I started this work. I knew I might get sick. It doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything."

"No. It just speeds up the timeline." Megan squeezed her hand. "Everyone dies eventually. At least I'll die knowing I fought for something important"

Yoonchae wanted to argue that fighting did not make death less final or less cruel, but she swallowed the words. Megan needed to believe her death would mean something.

Megan continued working at the clinic for as long as her body allowed. She organized more protests and fundraisers even as the disease ravaged her system. She lost weight and strength and eventually the ability to walk without assistance, but her determination never wavered. Yoonchae watched all this as she grieved like she had all these centuries. She had seen courage before in various forms across various lifetimes, but Megan's particular brand of stubborn defiance felt both familiar and unbearable.

Yoonchae was beside her in the hospital room when her breathing slowed and finally stopped. There was no dramatic last moment or profound final words. Megan simply closed her eyes and did not open them again. Yoonchae sat beside the body for an hour before calling the nurses. When they asked if she wanted to say anything, she shook her head.

She left New York three days after the funeral. She took a bus to Philadelphia and found work at another clinic because working was easier than thinking. She stayed there for six months before moving to Boston, then Chicago, then Seattle. Staying still meant remembering, and remembering was unbearable. You'd think she had learned her lesson, but regardless if she understood or not, immortality gave her no choice.

Life IX: 2004, Seoul

Yoonchae worked as a translator for a small publishing house, converting English novels into Korean and Korean novels into English. The work was solitary and detail-oriented, which suited her perfectly. She showed up at the office every day and spoke to no one unless necessary and went home to a studio apartment in Seoul where she lived alone.

Megan was an English teacher at a private academy. They met at a bookstore in Itaewon where Yoonchae was browsing the foreign language section and Megan was looking for teaching materials. They reached for the same grammar textbook at the same moment and their hands collided.

"Sorry," Megan said in English, pulling her hand back. "I didn't see you there."

"It's fine." Yoonchae responded in the same language. "Take it."

"No, you had it first." Megan gestured at the book. "I can find another copy."

"There isn't another copy. This is the last one."

"Then you should definitely take it."

Yoonchae picked up the book and examined the cover. "Do you need this for teaching?"

"Yes, but I can order it online. It's not urgent."

"Here." Yoonchae held out the book. "I don't need it as much as you do."

Megan accepted the book with a smile. "Thank you. That's really kind of you." She tucked the book under her arm. "I'm Megan, by the way."

"Yoonchae."

"Nice to meet you, Yoonchae." Megan paused. "Your English is excellent. Are you from here?"

"I've lived in many places."

"That sounds interesting. Where else have you lived?"

Yoonchae listed a few cities—Paris, New York, Los Angeles. She omitted the centuries and the context. Megan listened with genuine interest, asking questions about each place and what had brought Yoonchae to Seoul. Yoonchae answered with careful vagueness and Megan accepted this without pushing for details.

"Well," Megan said when the conversation reached a natural pause. "I should let you get back to browsing. Thanks again for the book."

"You're welcome."

Megan started to leave, then turned back. "Hey, this might be forward, but would you want to get coffee sometime? I just moved here a few months ago and I'm still trying to meet people. No pressure if you're not interested."

What could she do? Megan will always find her in every lifetime. Might as well say yes.

They met for coffee the following week at a cafe in Hongdae. Megan talked about her students and her struggles with learning Korean and her attempts to navigate Seoul's bureaucracy as a foreign resident. Yoonchae listened and occasionally contributed observations about the city or suggestions for restaurants. The conversation was easy in a manner that surprised her. Most conversations required effort to maintain, but with Megan the words flowed naturally. Perhaps after learning everything about how Megan acted and spoke over the centuries, her body had already adapted without requiring her brain.

Once a week turned into twice a week, and soon Megan was texting her to meet up for meals or movies or just to walk along the Han River. Yoonchae told herself this was simply friendship, nothing more, but she knew better. She had lived through enough lifetimes to recognize the warning signs. She knew this was love, will forever be love, is love. 

Six months into their friendship, Megan invited her to a work event at the academy. "It's just a dinner thing with the other teachers," Megan explained. "I could use a friendly face."

"I don't know any of your colleagues."

"That's fine. You'll know me." Megan's tone was tender. "Come on. It'll be fun. Or if it's not fun, we can leave early and get real food somewhere else."

Yoonchae went to the dinner. She sat beside Megan and made polite conversation with the other teachers.

After dinner, they walked along the river. City lights reflected off the water and couples strolled past holding hands. Megan was quiet for a while before speaking.

"Chae, I got a question."

"You can ask."

"Why did you say yes to coffee that first time?" Megan kept her eyes on the water. "You seemed like someone who doesn't say yes to things very often."

Yoonchae considered the question. "I don't know."

"That's not much of an answer."

"It's honest."

"Fair enough." Megan was quiet again. "I'm glad you said yes. These past few months have been... nice. I feel as though I can be myself around you in a manner I can't with most people."

Here it was again, that inevitable fall. "Why is that?"

"I don't know. Maybe because you don't expect anything from me. You just let me be." Megan finally looked at her. "That's rare. Most people want you to be a certain way or fit into a certain box. But you've never done that."

"I don't have the right to expect anything from you."

"No one has the right to expect anything from anyone." Megan's voice was soft. "But people do it anyway." She paused. "I'm grateful I met you. I wanted you to know that."

"...You don't need to thank me for basic friendship."

"Maybe not. But I'm doing it anyway." Megan smiled again. How many of these smiles can she take in this cursed eternity?

The accident happened three weeks later. Megan was crossing the street in Gangnam when a motorcycle ran a red light. The impact killed her before the ambulance arrived. Yoonchae received a call from the hospital asking if she was listed as an emergency contact. She said yes. The nurse gave her the details and Yoonchae thanked her, ending the call with a sign.

She went to the hospital and identified the body. She called Megan's family in America and delivered the news. She handled the paperwork and the arrangements because no one else was there to do it. When everything was finished, she went home and sat in her apartment and stared at nothing.

Just another death.

Life X: 2024, Los Angeles

Yoonchae had lived through centuries of human behavior and none of it had prepared her for five young women trying to share a single bathroom while managing conflicting schedules and divergent personalities. The group had formed six months earlier as part of a survival show that turned aspiring trainees into a manufactured girl group. Yoonchae had been selected as one of the final members. She did not question this outcome because questioning outcomes had never changed them.

Other members occasionally commented that she seemed distant or hard to read. Yoonchae did not correct this impression.

The problem was that Megan kept trying to connect with her. She would sit beside Yoonchae during meals and ask questions about her day. She would suggest they practice together or watch a movie or just hang out. Yoonchae deflected these attempts with polite refusals or monosyllabic responses. She could not afford to care about Megan. Not again. Not after nine lifetimes of watching her die.

"You know," Megan said one evening after practice, "you're really good at keeping people at arm's length."

Yoonchae continued packing her bag. "Mmm."

"You've been doing it since we formed." Megan leaned against the practice room wall. "I get it if you don't like me. That's fine. But we have to work together, so it would be nice if we could at least be civil."

"Yes."

Megan crossed her arms. "Look, I'm not trying to force friendship or anything. I'm just saying that it might be easier for both of us if you didn't treat me as like I'm poisonous or something..."

"I don't treat you like anything."

"You treat me as though I'm someone you can't wait to get away from. Every time I try to talk to you, you find an excuse to leave. Every time we have a break, you go off by yourself. It's like... it's like you're avoiding me specifically."

Yoonchae zipped her bag with more force than necessary. "I'm not avoiding you."

"Then what are you doing?"

"...Professional."

"Professional doesn't mean unfriendly." Megan's voice softened. "Have I done something to upset you? Because if I have, I'd rather you just tell me instead of pretending everything is fine when it clearly isn't."

Yoonchae wanted to tell her that she had done nothing wrong. That she had never done anything wrong across nine lifetimes. That the problem was not Megan but the universe's insistence on bringing them together only to tear them apart. She wanted to say all of this but the words caught in her throat. "You haven't done anything."

"Then why won't you talk to me? Why do you look at me sometimes like---" Megan paused. "Like... you're waiting for something terrible to happen."

"...I don't."

"You do. I've seen it. We've all seen it." Megan pushed off from the wall. "You look at me sometimes and it's like you're seeing someone who isn't there. But whatever it is, it's not me."

Yoonchae felt the careful walls she had constructed over centuries begin to crack. This dance again. It was quite frankly getting very tiresome. "You should go."

"Why? So you can keep avoiding this conversation?" Megan's voice was frustrated but not unkind. "I'm trying to understand you. That's all. I want us to be able to work together without this weird tension, but I can't fix something if I don't know what's broken."

Megan ran a hand through her hair. "We're going to be working together for years, probably. It would be nice if we could at least figure out how to exist in the same space without you flinching every time I walk into a room."

"I don't flinch."

"You do, though. I don't know how to explain it." Megan's voice was quiet. "I don't understand it, but I'd like to. If you'd let me."

Nine lifetimes of grief and longing and futile hope spilled out before she could stop it. "You can't understand."

"Why not?"

"Because you never remember. Because every time I lose you, you come back and you don't remember any of it. And I have to watch you die again and again and there's nothing I can do to stop it. So yes, I'm keeping my distance. Because caring about you is a death sentence, and I'm tired of mourning someone who doesn't stay dead."

Megan stared at her with wide eyes. This is the most she's heard Yoonchae ever talk this lifetime. She is clearly surprised that Yoonchae had already been very fluent in English and she wasn't some clueless Korean girl. "What—what are you talking about?"

Yoonchae felt the enormity of what she had just revealed crash over her. She grabbed her bag and headed for the door. "Forget I said anything."

"Wait." Megan caught her arm. "I'm not letting you leave after saying something like that. What did you mean? About losing me and me not remembering?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It clearly matters to you."

Yoonchae pulled her arm free. "Let it go."

"No." Megan's voice was firm. "You just told me you've been watching me die for multiple lifetimes. I'm not letting that go."

"You shouldn't believe any of it. I'm just tired. I'm saying things that don't make sense."

"You're grieving." Megan's eyes searched her face. "How long have you been carrying this?"

"It doesn't matter."

"How long, Yoonchae?"

The question broke something fundamental in her. "Centuries. I've been carrying it for centuries."

Megan absorbed this with visible effort. "You're saying you're immortal."

"Yes."

"And we've met before. In other lifetimes."

"Nine times. You've died nine times, and every time you come back and you don't remember anything." Yoonchae felt tears on her face and did not bother wiping them away. "You always find me. You always fall in love with me. And you always die, and I always survive, and the cycle continues."

"That's—" Megan stopped, clearly struggling to process this information. "That's a lot."

"Yes."

"And you've just been—what? Dealing with this alone? For centuries?"

"What else would I do?"

"I don't know. Talk to someone? Find another immortal? Literally anything besides carrying all of this by yourself?" Megan's voice was gentle. "That's unbearable." Megan sat down on the practice room floor, as though her legs would no longer support her. "So that's why you've been avoiding me. Because you think I'm going to die."

"No, I know. It happens every time."

"How do I die? In the other lifetimes?"

Yoonchae sat down across from her, exhausted from centuries of holding everything in. "Different ways. Drowning. Massacre. Guillotine. Fever. Gas attack. Car accident. Disease. Motorcycle." She paused. "It doesn't matter how it happens. The result is always the same."

Megan was quiet for a long moment. "That's... horrible. I'm so sorry."

"You don't need to apologize for dying."

"No, but I'm sorry you had to watch it happen so many times." Megan reached across the space between them and took Yoonchae's hand. "That must have been excruciating."

The touch was gentle and careful and completely devastating. Yoonchae pulled her hand away. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't be kind to me. Don't try to make this easier. You'll just die anyway and I'll have to watch it happen again."

"Maybe." Megan's voice was steady. "Or maybe this time is different."

"It's never different."

"But you don't know that. Not for sure." Megan leaned forward. "I can't imagine what you've been through. But shutting yourself off from everyone isn't living. If I'm going to die anyway, wouldn't you rather have the time we have instead of spending it avoiding me?"

Yoonchae felt the logic of this argument even as she wanted to reject it. "You say that now. When it's hypothetical. But when it happens—"

"When it happens, I'll be dead and you'll grieve and eventually time will pass and you'll survive because that's what you do. But at least you'll have memories of this lifetime that aren't just you keeping your distance."

"It'll just end again."

"Everything ends eventually. Immortality doesn't change that." Megan stood and held out her hand. "Come on. Let's go get food. You can tell me about the other lifetimes if you want, or we can just eat in silence. Either way, I'm not letting you sit here alone."

Yoonchae stared at the offered hand. Nine lifetimes of experience told her to refuse. Nine lifetimes of grief and loss and unbearable longing told her to walk away. She took Megan's hand anyway.

They went to a small restaurant near their building and ordered too much food. Megan asked questions about the previous lifetimes and Yoonchae answered them honestly, and as detailed as she could remember. Centuries dulled her memories, it was only natural she would forget. Though, she could never forget the consistency of Megan.

She told her about the magistrate's daughter and the feudal lord's courtesan and the revolutionary baker's daughter. She told her about the relief worker in Ireland and the soldier in the trenches and the script supervisor in Hollywood. She told her about the activist in New York and the teacher in Seoul. Megan listened to all of it without interrupting.

"So I always find you," Megan said when Yoonchae finished. "In every lifetime, I always find you."

"Yes."

"And I always fall in love with you."

"Yes."

"Have you ever loved me back?"

The question settled between them with considerable weight. Yoonchae felt nine lifetimes pressing down on her chest. "Every time. I've loved you every time."

Megan was visibly trying not to cry. "Maybe that's the point of all of this."

"The point is that I watch you die nine times."

"The point is that you get to love me nine times. And I get to love you back, even if I don't remember the previous versions." Megan reached across the table and took Yoonchae's hand again.

Yoonchae scowled. "You'll still die."

"Probably. But not today." Megan squeezed her hand. "So what do you say? Want to try actually getting to know each other this time? Instead of you keeping your distance and waiting for the inevitable?"

Huh.

They started over. Megan just smiled and told the other members they had figured out how to be friends. Yoonchae did not correct her.

Six months passed. Then a year. Then two years. Megan did not die. She got sick occasionally with normal illnesses that resolved themselves with rest and medicine. She had a few close calls—a near miss with a car, a bad reaction to cinammon—but nothing fatal. Yoonchae found herself in the unfamiliar position of having to recalibrate her expectations. Maybe this time was different. Maybe the universe had decided to grant her a reprieve.

They were sitting on the dorm's rooftop one evening, underneath the stars, when Megan brought it up. "You've been less tense lately."

"Have I?"

"Yeah. You don't look at me like I'm about to disappear anymore." Megan was lying on her back, looking up at the stars. "It's nice. Seeing you relax."

Yoonchae sat beside her, their bodies sharing heat. "You haven't died yet."

"Not yet." Megan's tone was light. "Give it time. I'm sure I'll find a way to mess up the pattern."

"That's not funny."

"It's a little funny." Megan turned her head to look at her. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think maybe the universe kept bringing us together because it wanted us to figure something out. And maybe this is it. This lifetime. Maybe this is when we finally get it right."

 "...I don't believe in destiny."

"You don't have to believe in destiny to recognize a pattern. We keep finding each other."

"Oh?"

Megan sat up so they were face to face. "I know you've spent centuries bracing for the worst. But what if this time the worst doesn't happen? What if we actually get to have this?"

"Have what?"

"Whatever we are or could be." Megan's voice was soft. "I'm in love with you, Yoonchae. I have been since the beginning of this lifetime, and apparently I've been in love with you in every other lifetime too."

Yoonchae felt tears on her face again. "You'll still die eventually."

"Yes. But maybe not for a long time. " Megan wiped away her tears with careful fingers. "What do you say? Want to try actually being together this time? Instead of you loving me from a distance because you're afraid to lose me?"

Every rational thought told Yoonchae that this was a mistake. That she would regret this when Megan inevitably died and left her alone again. Nevertheless, she leaned forward and kissed her, and for the first time in nine lifetimes, she allowed herself to hope that maybe this time could be different.

Megan kissed her back, gentle and sure, and for a moment Yoonchae forgot about centuries of loss and grief. She forgot about everything except Megan's lips on hers, Megan's hand in her hair, Megan alive and present and choosing her despite knowing how the story always ended. They broke apart eventually and Megan smiled like she always did in all these centuries.

"So is that a yes?"

Yoonchae didn't know if she wanted laugh or cry. "Yes."

"Good." Megan pulled her close. "Because I meant what I said. I love you. This lifetime and all the ones before and probably whatever comes after."

"I love you too," Yoonchae said into Megan's hair. "I've loved you for centuries. I'll probably love you for centuries more."

"That's all I needed to hear." Megan tightened her grip. "Hey, Yoonchae?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sure the constellations had different names over the centuries. Do you want to know what my favorite ones are?"

"Tell me."

🐚: “Right I have something to tell you”

🐚:“I just really like looking at the sky, you know???”

🐚: “But a few days ago, as soon as we arrived at our accommodation, I looked up at the sky”

🐚: “The stars were sososo much clearer than usual.”

🐚: “So I was in awe, and Megan was explaining the constellations to me while we were looking at them”

🐚: “A shooting star flew by!!!!!!!”

🐚: “I seriously almost cried.”

🐚:“Tears welled up.”

🐚: “I immediately made a wish.”

🐚: “They say wishes don’t come true if you say them out loud”

🐚: “So I’ll tell you if it happens, haha.”

“The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you.”

- Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù