Chapter Text
“But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze
My footsteps on the ground
You'll see my face in every place
But you can't catch me now
Through wading grass, the months will pass
You'll feel it all around
I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere
But you can't catch me now
No, you can't catch me now.”
Some giggles woke him.
Even with his eyes closed, he could feel his wife's face shielding him from the sunlight filtering through the window. “I can’t believe you overslept,” she said as she gave him small and quick kisses on his face, none of them on his lips. Joonggil kept his eyes closed and dragged Ryeon onto his lap. She was warm and smelled like flowers, a sugary aroma, but not enough to be cloying. The campaign at the border had finished weeks ago, but his body still had to recover. Even with the sound of his wife's giggles ringing in his ear, he could feel her hesitation to touch him too much, afraid one of his injuries might be infected.
“I’m getting better, buin,” his voice trying to show comfort as his hands tried to touch as much as he could. The greatest comfort of all. The warmth of his beloved.
His wife remained on top of him, the light weight of her body pressing down on him, her face on his neck, giving him little pecks. Joonggil could feel the softness of her mouth. One of her hands was on his left side, gently massaging him, while the other repeated the action on his leg.
Joonggil snorted with amusement. He loved it when she touched him, and she knew it very well; that is why, in these moments when his body was bruised, she looked for ways to offer him intimacy without hurting him.
He didn't even want to get up, his eyes heavy in the intimacy and closeness of his wife, their bedroom turned into a den for both.
“Buin,” Joonggil began to whisper, just for her ear. “Give me a kiss, one on the lips,” his tone was pleading.
His wife laughed softly. “Not yet, husband, wait a little longer.” The words from her mouth were silk on his skin.
Before Joonggil could continue his attempts, a deafening silence struck him.
Suddenly, his wife's weight disappeared from his chest, although Joonggil never felt her get up. Before he could protest, he felt as if the air were crushing him. His wife's warmth vanished suddenly, the sweet smell became frivolous, and the sheets no longer felt soft, but blurry.
Deep in his reverie, he felt another phantom blow on his chest, the feeling of falling off a cliff. Joonggil jumped out of bed, his vision clearing enough to recognize where and when he was.
Jumadeung, 1894. And Ryeon. And Ryeon.
She wasn’t there. And he didn’t know where she was.
Hell, or in the Land of the Living. The ramifications of both options made Joonggil about to throw up.
He held himself up on his knees as he gasped for breath and tried to regain his balance, his body exhausted, even after dreaming of his wife, the small consolation of seeing her in his dreams, but the blow of reality, deep in his soul: knowing that she was not nearby.
The Jade Empress was never clear about Ryeon; he ruefully understood: on one hand, she didn't want to give him hope of seeing her again, and on the other, she didn't want Joonggil to live tormented by what Ryeon might be doing, thinking, or suffering in whatever state of samsara she was in.
Methodically, almost mechanically, he put on his Reaper's garb. The black jeonbok was comfortable enough for his missions in the land of the living and formal enough to acknowledge his place in the Jumadeung hierarchy.
Being the Escort Team Leader was an honor and a source of pride. After 60 years of service, his predecessor, before his reincarnation ceremony, patted him on the shoulder respectfully, with a look that seemed to apologize for placing the weight of leadership on his shoulders.
Unfortunately, the waves of pride he should have felt were empty, almost as if the ocean in his heart were stagnant, unable to create any roar that would fill his chest with engulfment.
“I couldn't fulfill any of my dreams if you weren't by my side,” he could hear his own voice as Ryeon's tear-streaked face burned into his mind.
On days like these, around the anniversary of his own death, it became torture. The only benefit of being the Leader was that he could excuse himself to continue working—he didn't want any thoughts about the “what ifs” of his existence to cross his mind.
The corridors of Jumadeung reflected the nature of its activities; the hanoks were open-air wooden floor halls for ventilation, with tall rock monoliths and golden statues with emerald details symbolizing the gods who protected this place.
Sometimes he wanted to hate her for leaving him behind, knowing that she was his entire world. But again, he could never fully grasp his wife's pain. Being the heiress to her family, being Joonggil's wife in a house that did not tolerate pride or abilities outside the norms of her gender, being a victim of abuse by invaders, by her own people, and by her own family.
But mostly, a victim of Joonggil's pride. If only he had thought about his wife, how she felt, what she really wanted.
All roads to hell were paved with good intentions. For Joonggil, killing anything that threatened his wife was something he would do even if it went against his own morals. And for Ryeon, thinking she could free him from her burden and suffering by leaving his life, committing a crime against herself.
By the time he arrived at his office, his assistants were leaving endless new reports about the souls that would be escorted during the week. With a respectful bow, they both left his office, leaving him in silence. Joonggil only spoke when necessary, a little fearful that the ghosts of his past would also disrupt his work.
He had to escort five souls that day, two of whom were children. The mountains surrounding the fifth station of the escorts in Wonju seemed to swallow up the reapers in the forest. The geopolitical situation in the region seemed to be worsening, with the Chinese, the Japanese, and the class revolution in their own country seemingly cornering the Korean peninsula. Even without any direct war, the number of souls to escort continued to increase.
The first soul was a woman in her fifties. The small house near the sea had a beautiful view at sunrise, but the peaceful scene was interrupted by the occupant's strong coughing. Her body arched under the force of discomfort, her eyes fading as her soul was about to leave her body. There was no sign of an acquaintance. She appeared to be a single woman who had devoted herself to the sea, her eternal companion, provider, and ultimately, the cause of her lung disease—a complete circle of a single lifetime.
The woman leaned back against the bedspread in her pain. Joonggil had never enjoyed watching people die, but his duty as an escort was to witness and honor their last moments among the living, then guide them to the underworld to complete their cycle of judgment and reincarnation.
Joonggil opened the small scroll. “Lee Jihan, born on March 15, 1844, at 3:44 p.m., her soul has been collected,” he said firmly as her soul settled into its new form. She looked at her dead body with tears in her eyes, but without the normal response of rejection that commonly appeared in souls who died from illnesses that took their lives suddenly.
“You're the one who's going to make me take my punishment,” she said, shrinkingly, when she finally turned to Joonggil, who just shook his head sympathetically.
“My duty is to collect your soul and escort you before the divine courts, where your actions in the world of the living will determine your punishment or your acquittal to be reincarnated into a new life.”
She just nodded. Joonggil motioned with his hand to leave the house and take her to Jumadeung.
The road to his station along the Samdo River was silent; there was an atmosphere of acceptance in the soul being escorted. “When you arrive at the station, another guardian will accompany you to the courts. They will be your advocate in the trial, so if you have anything to say for the Gods to consider before their ruling, tell them.” Upon arriving at the place, Lee Jihan simply bowed in gratitude and followed her assigned reaper to the courts.
The journey back to the world of the living was a little more tense than the previous one. Several members of the escort joined him. The scroll was disheartening: six murder victims. The assailant had been drunk, filled with rage, and had attacked his drinking companions. While his subordinates would escort the victims, Joonggil had to deal with the criminal, who, cowardly and realizing the brutality of his actions, stabbed himself in the heart, a futile action in the face of the punishment that awaited him in Hell.
Joonggil tried not to think too much about these types of cases, as the mention of suicide always ended with the image of his wife's tear-stained face burned into his eyesight. He understood the differences between this man's crimes and his wife's, one fueled by cowardice and the other by harassment. But even with that clear distinction in his mind, his mouth felt bitter at the injustices of the system. His wife and this man were the same type of criminal in the eyes of the Gods; both had committed the same crimes, taking the lives of others and their own.
Buin, where are you? Are you in the world of the living, being happy, or in the clutches of Hell?
The man remained on the floor, in shock, Joonggil's intimidating figure only making him cower, his knees hitting the floor hard as his hands clasped together in supplication. “Please, please, I didn't mean to, it was a mistake,” he repeated repeatedly in the silence.
“Choi Doosik, born on January 28, 1859, at 11:34 a.m., your soul has been collected,” Joonggil took the criminal's arm to lift him and force him to follow him to the Gods. The man was helpless in the face of his efforts but allowed himself to be dragged away.
There was nothing Joonggil could say, his words tainted with hypocrisy in the face of his own tragedy. Judging a suicide seemed to betray his own wife, even two centuries later.
Every time he had to guide a soul who preferred death over a tomorrow, he could not help but wonder about his own wife's escort. Would they have taken the same care that Joonggil took with souls? Or would she have been dragged away by the escorts to the Gods?
His wife was a woman of conviction; she had the pride not to let anyone walk all over her, she had the empathy and the desire to teach, hunt, and encourage all the members of her village.
But what good was that if everyone turned their backs on her until the end?
His face wrinkled at these thoughts, but he had to force himself out of his bitterness so as not to further disturb the soul in his care.
After several minutes, the man let go of Joonggil and walked behind him with his head hung low, a sign of shame and regret. Faced with Joonggil's warnings about his assigned reaper and the courts, the man's soul seemed to weigh even heavier on his shoulders, but he nodded silently as he crossed the bridge to Jumadeung with the sun at its highest point at noon.
Before Joonggil resumed his journey to the next soul, one of his subordinates approached him with some scrolls embroidered in red, a sign of errands related to new assignments.
The reaper bowed slightly before reaching his side. “Leader Park, an emergency assignment regarding the Violent Deaths Unit. A family was murdered by a Japanese defector on the border in Hamgyeong. The four stations in that area are busy with rogue souls and have requested our assistance.”
Rebellious and rogue souls. War brought with it souls that refused to perish and denied being in another, unearthly space. Murders, rapes, and crimes against life itself had been on the rise at the border; neither the Japanese nor the Chinese invading forces had any decency in Joseon.
Joonggil gave him a scroll from the Natural Deaths department and two from the child protection unit.
“Give me the scrolls for the three souls. I will go escort them from the border,” Joonggil sighed again. “Assign three of your subordinates to escort the souls I oversaw. Remind them to treat them gently, especially the younger ones.”
The reaper nodded, left the scrolls in his care, and hurried off to fulfill his new task.
Joonggil instantly transported himself to Hamgyeong Province. The ability has recently been granted to high-ranking guiding team reapers for rescue missions and conflicts with the underworld borders of neighboring countries.
Unlike the previous souls, the house of the victims to be escorted was small, built to hide in the forest; they were a family of peasants.
The door to the house was damaged, clearly forced open from the outside. Upon entering, the small living room and kitchen showed signs of conflict, with spilled blood and pieces of fabric that he could disgustedly identify as belonging to the woman and her young daughter.
The son of a bitch who had done this had not only come for food but had taken advantage of the situation to satisfy his desires and kill to avoid any inconvenience.
He found the first body near the oven, at the back of the small dwelling. The woman's Grey hanbok was twisted, stained with blood, torn from the struggle she must have put up. There was a fatal cut below her ribs.
A meter away from her was her daughter, a girl no older than five. Unlike her mother, the girl's face was stained with tears, blood, and dirt. Her clothes seemed to have been torn, but not to the same extent as her mother's. The criminal had broken her neck.
And yet, there was no soul there. Until he could hear small sobs coming from inside the forest. Joonggil's steps were slow and steady; his priority was not to disturb the souls.
Both the woman and the girl were crying, kneeling beside his last assignment, the man of the house, husband, and father.
His throat had been stabbed; he was drowning in his own blood. Both women screamed in pain, tears of despair at the impossibility of touching the man's dying body. It was not until he breathed his last breath that Joonggil was able to proceed.
“Kim Yuna, born on March 17, 1871, at 6:28 a.m. Hwang Seong, born on December 14, 1866, at 10:34 p.m. And Hwang Eun, born on June 22, 1889, at 12:35 a.m. These souls have been collected for escort.”
Hwang Seong rose from his body and stood in front of his wife and daughter to protect them, his mind too distressed at the shattered image of his family, but with the instinct to protect them as far as his soul could.
Joonggil made no move but softened his voice. “You and your family have passed into the underworld. I am the reaper in charge of escorting you to the Gods,” his tone was persuasive.
“I know you don't trust me, you're confused, but your only desire is to be with your family.” he took a few more steps closer and offered his hand.
The man did not take his hand, but he stopped covering his wife and daughter and looked clearly at Joonggil, his dark, intimidating clothes, but his confident aura.
“Follow me. You can carry your daughter if you wish,” Joonggil began to turn to start his walk to the nearest station in the province, about 20 minutes away.
As evening began to fall, near the station, the man began to speak timidly.
“Are they going to separate us? Will the invader who did this to us pay?”
Joonggil did not slow his pace as he walked. “If the Gods give you all the path of reincarnation, the ritual will be held at the same time, and your souls will meet in the world of the living. As for who did this to you, it is not my duty to judge him, nor to escort him until his time to die arrives. It is up to the Gods to decide what punishment he must serve in Hell.”
The faces of the two adults relaxed instantly. The girl, who was curled up around her father's neck, was no longer trembling, her emotions linked to the stillness of her parents.
The station was small, efficient enough for the sector's escorts to spend the night, eat, and safely escort souls, but not so well equipped that the reapers from neighboring areas would be attracted by its magic.
As they passed through the small portal, they found themselves at the foot of the Samdo River. The bridge was empty, with only a couple of their subordinates escorting souls and others in charge of the archives carrying large bags full of scrolls and books from their departments.
The three souls, silently holding hands, entered the great hall of judgment. In these cases, when immediate family members died at the same time, their reincarnations were equally parallel. Who knows what fate has in store for them, but they will remain united after all.
It was difficult to see scenes like this, to think about how chaotic the world has become, with cruelty, war, and pessimism crushing everything in their path.
Before Joonggil retired to his rooms, he felt a note in his head—the Jade Empress.
“To my office in 5 minutes, alone.”
The shrine where his ruler resided was majestic without being ostentatious. However, the heart of the palace was not the meeting place but the small garden behind it, to which only she had access.
Her Majesty wore a simple hanbok, the fabrics combining the black of the reapers and the jade green of her own rank. She was watering her plants while, in a small pot, the white flowers with pink and purple details seemed to take on a life of their own, moving without any wind to stir them.
“Beautiful, don't you think? They can only germinate and bloom in spring, but after being well cared for, they can survive on their own during the other seasons.” Joonggil simply nodded at Ok Hwang's words as she continued her delicate work while speaking, "Are you still unable to sleep peacefully?
“As you know, the spring season is coming, and spring is special because I can sleep reasonably well,” he sighed before continuing, “most of them are dreams from my past life, they are homely, they make the other seasons of the year plagued with nightmares dust,” a small grunt escaped him, “I know I did not request my visit just to talk about my unfortunate sleep routine, Your Majesty.”
The Empress just smiled and sat down on the small bench among the flowers. “It's been exactly 256 years, 174 years since you joined Jumadeung, and yet your soul is still wounded. You can't blame me for worrying about your well-being. After all, you are my stellar reaper,” she smiled as she pointed to the bench in front of her for Joonggil to sit down.
He narrowed his eyes as he listened to her and couldn't help but ask, “Will I be able to see her again? Even if it's from a distance, will I be able to? It would be selfish of me to ask for more than that, but...” He sighed painfully before the Empress.
“You'd be surprised what fate has in store for you, Joonggil,” she took the small pot for Joonggil to hold, “take care of it, it's yours now, it will help you harmonize your space, don't worry, it will survive, you can talk to it and water it to keep it lively.” Joonggil stood silently observing the small flowers.
The colors were familiar, the color patterns that Ryeon would use in the comfort of their home, the meadow near his house where they both had little encounters on their days off, where they could talk and laugh without expecting reprimands from their family members, and the smell of her sheets before sleeping in them.
“Anemones, they're wildflowers,” he whispered to no one in particular. Ok Hwang smiled as she nodded.
“It won't be easy. Fate has many things in reserve for you, some perhaps closer than you think. The only way to overcome them is to have clear goals. I haven't forgotten my promises. I believe it will work.”
Joonggil turned his head slightly, confused. The Director just shook her head. “You'll understand soon. It's up to you to make it work.” With that, she pointed to the door. The conversation was over.
Before Joonggil left the room completely, he could hear the Director's secretary leaving some papers on the bench. The last thing he could hear was, “The transfer request we sent to Ha Daesu has been returned with his stamped approval, also, the transferred enforcer will arrive in a few hours.”
Joonggil used his limited free time to place the flowerpot on the windowsill of his room, securing it to the wall to prevent the wind from knocking it over. The location offered both sun and rain to the plant. He enjoyed his meal alone while the scent of anemones filled his small space. His position as leader had given him a little more privacy compared to the shared spaces in the escort.
He had the night off until there was an emergency to deal with or supervise. In the meantime, he sat on the floor near the window, where his new unblemished flowers swayed, adapting to the slight change in climate, the transition from frosty winter to spring.
Joonggil's body began to vibrate with anticipation; spring was always welcome. As he had previously told Ok Hwang, it was the only season of the year when sleeping did not become a source of suffering, a continuous wave of loneliness and regret. The season brought with it fierce winds that seemed to sweep away all Joonggil's memories of her.
Spring would bring new dreams with his wife, in the happiest moments, where neither legacy nor future was a problem for either of them.
The breeze was cool, preparing the flowers to bloom. Joonggil waited each season to see her again. He was tired of glimpsing his wife on the scrolls, on the bridge, deep in the forest, and in the colorful meadows. He longed to feel her again, to hug her and apologize, to kiss her and promise her that he would never disappoint her again.
And even if fate allowed him to see her again, even if it was in the world of the living, he was willing to watch her from afar, to see her blossom from a girl willing to break down any barrier before her into a woman of great conviction.
Joonggil lay on his back on the ground, his arms open as if gravity were crushing him, his eyes and cheeks drenched in silent tears of longing, regret, and above all, love.
His basic nature might not know his future, but every night, he looked at the forest, and in a silent prayer, he hoped that his wife would find her way back to him.
Please.
Please.
Let her come back, just let her come back.
Joonggil closed his eyes and let the melody of the wind in the tree branches caress him, as if the gods were pouring all their power upon him.