Work Text:
Abandoned
It had been three years since you turned eighteen. Three years of you walking past the train station every day, old clock above the ticket booth striking eleven in the morning, second hand slowly ticking clockwise until it hit the twelve and you turned your back, moving on before it even had the chance to touch the next second.
Three years of you meticulously checking your birth certificate. Were you really born on that day? That year? Was there a mistake? A switch at birth that hid your real birthday? A change in the stars and the Lunar calendar while you were away? You asked your parents a thousand times, checked the hospital records a thousand more. You always received the same answer. No, there was no mistake. Yes, the calendars are correct. With no more leads, the little evidence you had pointed to one sign.
It was cliché, the way you refused to accept the facts. Even pitiful how you persistently rushed to the train station every single day, rain or shine, late for work, school, family obligations, all to see if he was there at eleven on the dot, like he always was. Like he always used to be.
All your previous lives he was. With the changing of time, the re-sculpting of history and all its landscapes, he was there. Once he showed up in a tail coat, white gloves shoved deep in his pockets. Another time on a horse, its long mane plaited to keep the hair out it’s bright eyes. But nothing could compare to the first time you met.
You had just came through the bush, arms laden with nuts, herbs, and berries all for a stew you had planned for your village. It was unwise for someone untrained, unmarried to traverse the wood but you found a freedom in moving about alone. There were more small animals willing to peek out of their holes, tails bushy and fur bright, if they only heard one pair of steps crunching through the foliage. Birds were less cautious of a singular human picking up food from the grounds and from trees as they hummed under their breath. Your clothes even matched the scene, strewn together with bits of fur and moss to keep off the afternoon chill.
He was bare chested, hair a matted mess as strong winds pushed it into his eyes. He ran unannounced from around the base of a tree, shocking you into dropping your dinner, nuts rolling off into the grass. You had never seen him before, pretty sure he was not some traveling relative of one of the villagers. His distinct features were sharp unlike those native to your people so he must’ve been a foreigner. Eyes bright and intrigued as they looked you over, he kneeled down onto one knee.
Frozen, you looked into the bushes, half expecting more strange men to run out and drag you away. You had heard tales of people being taken as spoils of war between the tribes out to the west but never expected the fighting to reach your village so quickly. The mountains acted as a barrier between territories with wild beasts lurking at night to stop any sudden attacks.
Before you could even take a step in preparation of running away the man grabbed hold of your right hand. Gasping, you looked down to see him placing the food you had dropped back into your palm one piece at a time. Once done he looked up at you through dark lashes, still on his knee, a small smile lighting his face. You couldn’t help but to return it.
He always showed up on your eighteenth birthday at the same spot—way before the train station was built and even long afterwards—exactly at eleven in the morning. He came seemingly out of nowhere, the exact same smile always ready for you on his face. Why would this life be any different?
But as the first day of the beginning of your fourth year of expecting him—waiting for him—came to a close you gripped the edges of your hair, flopping onto your bed. You wouldn’t go by the train station anymore. Wouldn’t be that person standing on the station platform with a lost look as they scanned the crowd. You had to move on with your life. It was time.
You had to acknowledge that you were abandoned.
Somber
Two years later and the dreams had yet to let up. You spent your mornings going to graduate school, afternoons taking phone calls at your job, and evenings writing about it all in your journal. But your nights—your long, dreadful nights—were spent with him.
He always appeared in a different attire, sometimes ones that did not match the landscape. You once waltzed with him in 1813, the medals on his 1920’s soldier’s uniform flashing in the candlelight. He showed you to the back of a black and white picture show while rain poured down roads treaded into existence by barefoot nomads from the south. The worst nights were when he came to you looking exactly as he did in your last life, like the last time you saw him in 1990, but you both were transported back to the forest where it all began; the sound of nature harshly contrasting with the clothing and hairstyles evolved through time and human advancement. It made sense, in a melancholy kind of way, that where you began would meet where you ended. Those were the most recurring dreams and the hardest to wake up from.
Two years and you had cut off all ties with your family and friends. The older you got the more you felt that the world wasn’t right.
At this age, a young 23, you would usually be in some bar with him, attempting to out drink him when you both knew you couldn’t. It would be right after a night full of laughter and right before he took your hand and led you to whichever house he had built in whichever century in whichever country, its walls still sturdy through the test of time.
The two of you would end each day with no plans for the next, long since realizing there was eternity to explore the world together. Enough time to live recklessly, deal with the consequences, and then start a new with ample experience making you both the wiser to the world’s smoke and magic. Technology was advancing with each life. Soon he would’ve been able to wrap an arm around your waist as he took you to explore the stars.
These thoughts and dreams did nothing to hasten the healing of your heart. Time and again you made up scenarios as you sat on the edge of your bed. You wondered what would have happened if you continued to wait for him at the station. Would you have walked up one day under the hot sun to see him standing there a little confused and embarrassed, smile shy with some excuse about mixing up the date? Could he show up on your twenty-eighth birthday, some glitch in fate causing the ten year gap? You didn’t, and couldn’t, know.
An eternity of meeting and parting again and again and again, never once questioning why things happened thus and for how much longer.
It took only five years without him for you to realize just how uncertain your fate truly was. He never thought of tomorrow so naturally neither did you, always reassured by his small smile as he looked into your eyes. Never once did you plan your future because it was taken for granted that it would no doubt include him by your side, fingers forever gripping yours.
It only took five years of sadness—immersed in painful thoughts of the past—suddenly giving way to the unknown for you to be engulfed into an unprecedented amount of raw fear.
Jonghyun
Time ticked by and the fear slowly turned to guilt and regret.
You realized how much you slandered the gift presented to you, never once through all that time looking too deeply into the fine print of having a soul mate.
The first time you met him you must have made the right decision by not running from him. It somehow bound the two of you together, created a lifeline to help bring him to you over and over. Thinking back, its a miracle that you even remembered your past lives. Specifically, in each life, the memory of your first meeting is what allowed you to gravitate toward the same spot the day you turned eighteen.
All your countless remembrances revolved around him, not one moment breaking away from the gleam of his eyes to appreciate all that came with this kind of immortality.
You can’t recall if you ever took the time to thank the heavens for the chance to be with him. You never thanked anyone, actually, just expecting him to always find you.
Was all the experience gained through the ages used for anything other than knowing which parts of France had secret doors in which to be whisked away? You had lived through many plagues and witnessed illnesses born and spread but not once offered any advice to doctors regarding prevention methods. He had shown you an abundance of the world’s wonders, a few that could spread light on the mysteries of early mankind. You knew the location of artifacts, some belonging to you in the past, that would advance archeological research. But what have you done with this knowledge? Nothing.
After the fear had subsided, you were left feeling empty. There was so much potential over so many opportunities and you had never taken action. You predictably reunited with him on your eighteenth birthday and everything after that was about creating memories and adventures, never about creating change, giving back, giving thanks.
It was ironic how easily each time you cut off ties with the world just to explore it on your own. Even now you had separated from your family and friends, taking time off of work to wallow around in your apartment.
This could only go on so long. He wasn’t coming back. You knew that. There was a chance you wouldn’t come back next time around either, not if fate had a sense of humor. The only thing left was was your memories and this life. Using both you would have to make due.
Over the next three years you made changes. The first thing you did was call your family and invite them for dinner. The bonding was awkward at first but after a few months you noticed the people in your life from before you were eighteen reaching out to you, reconnecting. Your friends returned, your parents were happier, and you finally decided to quit your job to travel the world.
You opened the dozens of houses you had watched him build since what felt like the beginning of time to the public, turning six into hospitals and four into orphanages. Museums took hold of the rest and made them available during history tours, promising to preserve them in all their glory.
You penned a book about medicine and lost arts of healing under a pseudo name. You left anonymous tips regarding the location of hidden artifacts in each country you visited, making sure to write in detail about the life of their owners. You even went so far as to visit your stashed finances, donating most to the town where it all began. There were specific instructions to replant the forest around the mountains.
The day before your twenty-sixth birthday you returned home to a warm welcome from your loved ones. That was a new memory you never had before, especially after leaving across the globe for some time.
You sat on the couch all night retelling everything you had learned, somehow throwing in knowledge from past lives here and there, too. Neighbors heard that you had returned and also stopped by, listening attentively to what you had to share.
By the time you had started to fall asleep, the stars growing pale in the upcoming sunlight, you felt that there was so much more to share—to teach—but nowhere near enough days in a life. The last thought you had before you closed your eyes was how thankful you were to even have this little amount of time to make a difference.
The next morning you awoke to an empty living room. Everyone must have snuck away to his or her rooms as you dozed off. Stretching, you looked at your phone realizing it was ten fifty, the morning of your birthday. Knowing it was another year without him didn’t hurt as much as it used to but for some reason today you were feeling nostalgic. It must have had something to do with being back home after three years. Moving off the couch and slipping on your sneakers you headed out the door.
You walked up the stairs to the platform two minutes before eleven. You didn’t look into the crowd like every other time you had come here in those first few years since you turned eighteen. This time you leisurely ran your fingers over the fresh white paint of the banister along the stairs. You also noticed the old clock above the ticket booth had been replaced as you requested. The weeds between the tracks were removed along with that ruined car dumped behind the tall grass across the street. There were various changes, improvements, and it was all thanks to you.
You were pulled from your musings by the horn of an incoming train. The wooden planks of the platform started to quake under your feet with the power of the turning wheels. You made a mental note to have them reinforced. You watched as the train slowed down, finally stopping in front of you. The doors squeaked open while the engine let off a bout of steam. For a second nothing moved inside; there was no one moving to board the train and nothing to indicate anyone was getting off.
The conductor yelled through a loudspeaker announcing the arrival of the eleven o’ clock train. As the microphone disconnected a shadow moved inside the train, heading towards the open doors. One sneaker stepped off onto the platform directly in front of you, followed closely by another.
You held your breath, frozen to the spot just like all those years ago at the unexpected sight of him. He always did appear seemingly out of thin air.
“J-Jonghyun?”
The man dropped down to one knee, hands reaching out to collect your right hand. You felt something small and round fall into your palm, no doubt in your mind that it was indeed a berry or a nut.
Curling your fingers in to hold the food more tightly he smiled his genuine small smile up at you, looking straight into your eyes through the curtain of his dark lashes.
“Happy birthday. I’ve been waiting for you.”