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Yoo Joonghyuk leaves on a Wednesday, and he will be gone by Saturday.
On Thursday, twenty-five years after the end of the scenarios, Lee Seolhwa finds herself reminiscing as she gazes out the window of the orphanage she had founded with her husband and Shin Yoosung.
It’s almost surreal that the world is recovering—that society had recovered—from the tragedy that had befallen their world and many others. Though she can no longer heal with a touch or craft pills that would save someone from the brink of death, Lee Seolhwa had wanted to help people, and she had found a way to do so in the way she had felt mattered most.
She remembers the day she had sat with Yoo Joonghyuk and asked him what he wanted to do, now that the world had been saved. Yoo Joonghyuk had stayed silent for a moment, his gaze distant, before he had replied that he didn’t know. He had also been struggling to come to terms with it all.
Lee Seolhwa had watched as Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes flickered to the indirect message that suddenly appeared in front of him, and she had seen the way his entire expression softened in an instant. After all that time, there had still been one star watching over them.
“Did he say anything important?” Lee Seolhwa remembers asking, and she remembers that Yoo Joonghyuk had only snorted with a shake of his head.
“The fool thinks I should become a chef,” he had said wistfully, “but I don’t think I will.”
“I don’t know if I can go back to being a doctor either,” she had admitted quietly. Lee Seolhwa had known that anything she could do now would feel helpless when compared to her feats during the scenarios.
Yoo Joonghyuk had looked at her then, thoughtfully, and said, “Maybe we should help the children.”
Lee Seolhwa remembers looking out at the sunset and smiling, understanding what he was saying even without words. “There are a lot of children who have lost their parents. Maybe we can do something about that.”
And so they did. It took years, but their endeavour had paid off, and they treasured this orphanage more than most things.
In the end, though no one but her had expected it, he had become a teacher. That wasn’t the first job anyone would have imagined for Yoo Joonghyuk—the man who had beaten the Dokkaebi King and ended the apocalypse with his own two hands—but it was the job he chose for himself. After all, he had always taught Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon with patience and was more of a parental figure to his little sister and Shin Yoosung.
It fit him, in a strange way. It didn’t fit him perfectly the way the hilt of his sword fit in his hand like it belonged there, but it was a role he had grown into over time. Maybe he had simply craved unpredictability, and the children had never failed to provide it. Whatever the case, he seemed happy.
On Friday, Lee Seolhwa sits at the kitchen table of an empty house and remembers the day that she asked Yoo Joonghyuk to marry her. Contrary to popular belief, he hadn’t been the one to propose—though no one had ever believed her when she told them.
It had been six years after the scenarios had ended, and they had met in their spot once more. She doesn’t remember anymore just when it had become ‘their spot,’ but they had kept meeting there, month after month.
“Mia keeps saying that I’m getting older,” Yoo Joonghyuk had said out of nowhere, breaking the comfortable silence. “I know my attribute makes me look older than I am, but I don’t think I will ‘die alone’ the way she thinks I will.”
Lee Seolhwa had hummed, a soft smile on her lips. “Is that so?”
His lips had curved into a mysterious smile as he looked up at the single star still twinkling above them. “Yes. I’m never truly alone.”
“Is he pestering you to find someone again?” She had glanced over at him, and watched as he laughed.
“How did you know?”
She remembers closing her eyes, then. “I didn’t, but it seemed like something that constellation would say.”
“He keeps asking if I am happy,” Yoo Joonghyuk had mused, “but I don’t think that he and I have the same concept of happiness.”
Lee Seolhwa had admired Yoo Joonghyuk for years for many reasons, and she would even go so far as to say that she loved him. Out of everyone in Pacheonmang—save for Yoo Mia—Lee Seolhwa had believed that she knew him the best, and she had realized instantly that the idea of disappointing the star who had supported him for so long was gnawing at his soul.
“Joonghyuk, perhaps we should get married.”
“What?”
Lee Seolhwa remembers the look of shock on his face, one that was—and still is—so unfamiliar to her. For a man who had always been so composed, he expressed more than he realized. It’s a memory she still thinks fondly of, even over a decade later.
“Well, it would prove to both the ‘Demon King of Salvation’ and Mia that you aren’t alone, and I know that you don’t talk to anyone else like this,” she had admitted, glancing at him softly.
Yoo Joonghyuk had hesitated, then, before he had opened his mouth to speak. “Seolhwa, I… I do love you.”
His gaze had flickered up to the sky where only one star remained to shine through the darkness, and his lips had twitched into a slight frown when there was no indication that the constellation had heard. There hadn’t been any indirect messages in weeks—it had been one of the first things he had mentioned as they had settled in to watch the sunset—and Yoo Joonghyuk had been concerned that the star had finally gone silent for good.
Lee Seolhwa remembers feeling amused, seeing Yoo Joonghyuk finally look conflicted after so long. During the scenarios, thanks to the help of that lone star illuminating the sky, Yoo Joonghyuk had always seemed so confident. Only then, just over half a decade since the world’s end had been averted, had she seen him look so lost.
“I love you and I trust you, but I don’t think I can ever be in love with you.” His voice had been quiet—vulnerable, even—like he was afraid of something.
“I know.”
“You do?”
She had laughed a bit before leaning back with a sigh, looking up at the sky. “Joonghyuk, you were never subtle, you know. I asked you this knowing that you were in love with a star.”
He had bitten his lip, looking down at the ground and fidgeting with his fingers. “That doesn’t bother you?”
If she had tried hard enough, Lee Seolhwa could have barely recalled laughter and soft touches, kisses and whispered promises in amongst the sheets, but the time before the scenarios had been little more than fragments of memory by then.
“I don’t think I could be in love with you either, even though I love you,” she had responded, and his shoulders had relaxed with her words. “But there’s no one else I would trust as much as I trust you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk had taken a deep breath and waited, his eyes finding that star and staying there, before letting it out. “Alright.”
Seven years after the end of the scenarios, they had kissed for the first time at their wedding—just two people who loved each other, but who weren’t in love.
On Saturday, Lee Seolhwa goes to visit their friends, leaving the orphanage in the hands of their employees. Well, her employees, now that her husband will never come back. She doesn’t know yet what she’ll tell them when they ask where he is, but she’ll figure it out before Monday.
Lee Seolhwa doesn’t know what time he will go, but she knows that he will be gone before the day ends. As she walks, she can feel the ghost of his hand in hers, and she can hear the echo of his voice as he tells her in a fond voice what the ‘Demon King of Salvation’ has said this time.
She closes her eyes, and she knows that the ghost of Yoo Joonghyuk will haunt more than just her. He’ll be in the backyard training ground at Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung’s house, and he’ll be in the classroom teaching the kids. He’ll be in the complex taking long strolls, and he’ll be standing at the stove in his little sister’s kitchen. Even when Yoo Joonghyuk no longer walks the earth with them, he’ll live on in stories.
If the Star Stream had taught them one thing, it was that stories endured long after flesh and bone were gone.
On Saturday—just before midnight—Lee Seolhwa lights some incense, and she prays.
On Wednesday, when the time had come for Yoo Joonghyuk’s attribute to take him away forever, Lee Seolhwa sent him off with a smile. She knew where he was going, as well as what he intended to do. After all, he had sat her down at their kitchen table only a few days ago and told her everything.
“I want to see him just once, before the end,” Yoo Joonghyuk had whispered, as though hesitating to voice this selfish desire of his.
“Then go,” she had said quietly as she held his hand. “I hope you get your wish.”
Yoo Joonghyuk had smiled at her, a rare sight for most, and she had tried to commit it to memory for the last time. “Thank you, Seolhwa. I’m sorry for leaving you like this.”
“Don’t worry about me, we knew this was coming,” Lee Seolhwa had said with a laugh, feeling like she could be more honest now than ever before. “I’m happy for you, and I hope that your Salvation is everything you’ve imagined him to be and more.”
Her husband had said nothing, but he squeezed her hand and that was enough. Still, Lee Seolhwa had known that there was one last thing holding him back. It had been an easy decision to make—if this could be her final kindness to the man she loved, then she would do it without hesitation.
“Don’t worry, I’ll watch over everyone for you, so rest easy.”
Yoo Joonghyuk had squeezed her hand again, and she knew that it meant more than he was willing to say. He had always cared so much, and even at the end, he needed permission to allow himself to leave everything behind and be selfish.
Yoo Joonghyuk had looked out the window then, his eyes immediately finding the star like they always did. “Maybe in another world things could have been different.”
“That we could have been in love, you mean?” Lee Seolhwa had wondered, tracing patterns on the table with her finger as she hummed.
“I suppose so.”
“No, it’s alright,” Lee Seolhwa had chuckled softly while shaking her head. “It’s not like you to get sappy like this, and we both know that as long as that star exists, your heart will be in his hands. All I hope is that in those other worlds, you can be happier than in this one.”
“I am happy,” Yoo Joonghyuk had replied with a soft laugh. “That fool asks me so often that the answer is second nature by now.”
“He’s right, you know,” she had said quietly. “You might be happy, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t be happier.”
“I wonder if a world like that is possible,” Yoo Joonghyuk had said, so quiet that—even now—Lee Seolhwa still wonders if she was supposed to hear it.
There had been a comfortable silence in their kitchen, until she had allowed herself to break it for the last time that night. “Joonghyuk, if I can be selfish, then I hope that we will be friends again there too.”
Her husband had smiled again, gentle and fond. “I believe that we would be.”
Yoo Joonghyuk leaves on a Wednesday, and he will be gone by Saturday. On Sunday morning, Lee Seolhwa looks out at the sky, and it is dark.
Satisfied, she turns away and hopes that they are happy.