Chapter Text
Perigee is the point in the Moon’s orbit where it is nearest to Earth. A natural occurrence where the Moon’s gravitational pull is at its strongest. A cycle that happens every 28 days. Moon at its perigee is the universe’s manifestation of its power and might to keep the safe distance between the two celestial objects. So what if the Moon tries to get closer to the Earth? It will be a colossal disaster.
[Seoul - 2019]
“Bless me father for I have sinned,” was the only line Ahn Jeong-won was able to say inside the confessional when the priest halted him and invited him elsewhere.
Jeong-won glared at the said priest, who - for him - wasn’t acting like one. Normal priests wouldn’t stop him from seeking spiritual guidance nor bring him to a fried chicken restaurant at the police station alley. But his older brother would.
“Hyung!” he couldn’t help but sound like a whining kid. He has an urgent matter at hand and he definitely didn’t drive for two hours just to watch his older brother guzzled a basket full of fried chicken drumsticks.
“Jeong-won, if this is still about those dreams, you already know my answer to it,” his hyung said all-knowing.
“It’s just dreams. Our souls can’t transfer from one body to another. We would be resurrected but not reincarnated,” Jeong-won recited the exact same words his older brother used to explain his situation.
And every time he heard his matter-of-factly elucidation, Jeong-won would calm down. But not this time. The dreams were becoming more and more unsettling.
“Plus those dreams only happen when you’re stressed out,” his older brother added, using a drumstick to point at him. “Have you consulted a doctor about it?”
Jeong-won dismissed his brother’s attempt at being funny. It’s not a laughing matter anymore for him.
“I’m not under stress recently,” he said. In his mind, he had perfectly reasoned out his sudden emergency consultation with his brother. So he whined once more, “why did I dream of that woman again?”
Jeong-won couldn’t exactly remember when these dreams started. He couldn’t even remember if the woman was even in the first dream. All he knew was that these dreams didn’t bother him before. It wasn’t until the faceless woman came into the picture.
It started with her silhouette. Like some Rorschach blots that were open to interpretation. It could be a woman or it could have been any other creature. But his mind and intuition insisted that the unrecognizable ink-blot-like figure was that of a woman.
Then the silhouette embodied a three-dimensional figure. It was more recognizable as another human being than before. Her face, however, would always be covered by a thick layer of fog-like haze. And it would only happen at the exact point her figure would appear in his dreams. It was as if anywhere she stood, her presence would definitely cool the ground to a degree in which every particle around them seems to freeze in the air, only to be thawed by the warmth that radiates from him.
That’s why, at first, he thought she was a ghost. A wandering spirit, his brother would always correct him. Because she always had a chilly presence comparable to a dead creature and he, on other hand, would always inhibit a warm alive body. For a while, he would settle with this conclusion. That he was just probably having a nightmare. Except that it didn’t feel like one.
If they were nightmares, he could just dismiss them by praying. If they were nightmares, his heartbeat would be frantic from being frightened. He would be scared out of his wits and would never wish for it to happen again. But every time he would wake up from spending time with the faceless figure, there would always be a lingering ache in him and an unexplainable yearning to stay there longer. He wouldn’t feel the need to see her face.
And it was so close to happening last night. But Jeong-won failed. The dream stopped just as soon as the mystical fog that separated them started to dissipate. He felt so frustrated that he needed to vent it out.
“Maybe,” his brother started saying, pulling Jeong-won out of his reverie. And Jeong-won concentrated on his hyung because it looks like he finally found a better explanation for the weird phenomenon that kept on happening to him.
“Maybe,” his brother repeated, holding on to Jeong-won’s expectant eyes before disappointing him with his next words. “Maybe, they are just mere salacious dreams?”
Jeong-won’s brother didn’t even blink when he said that. He made it look like he was really giving Jeong-won a piece of serious advice. Jeong-won knew better. He wasn’t.
“Hyung! Can a priest even say that?” said Jeong-won, calling his brother out.
His brother remained unbothered though. He added, “That or you’re subconsciously panicking about your new workplace.”
Jeong-won sighed in surrender. His brother might appear unaffected by his dongsaeng’s distressed cries but he certainly knew the right words to say to him. And that was why he would endure the long out-of-city drive to seek his guidance. His older brother, sometimes, felt like he knew him better than anyone else.
“You and aboji shared a lot of memories there,” his hyung stated. And Jeong-won bobs his head in agreement.
Jeong-won knew there’s a part in him that’s nervous about transferring to Yulje. But he dismissed it or tried to. And his brother had finally made him accept the fact that he’s being anxious about working at his father’s hospital. He clenched his fist as he struggled to hold onto his emotions.
And when his brother told him this, “he would be happy seeing you there.”
Jeong-won released his clenched fist along with the tears he had been holding. And his brother silently let him be.
His brother had washed him with unrivaled rationality that Jeong-won almost forgot all about the dreams. Jeong-won was certain he could finally move on and project things in a way that made more sense. After all, it was much more reassuring to think that he was just not yet done grieving his loss rather than believing the illogical part of his brain that kept on creating irrelevant visions.
Jeong-won was certain he would eventually forget those dreams. Because that’s how dreams were supposed to be. Every memory created while sleeping should disintegrate like ashes scattered in the wind once he wakes up. It wasn’t supposed to mess your mind and haunt you in your waking hours. That’s, of course, if it was just really a mere dream.
=====
What happens when the moon orbited closer to the Earth? A colossal disaster. Or at least, that’s how it was described in the last article Jeong-won read.
He was looking for a way to entertain himself while Yulje Hospital’s General Surgery Department Chief introduced him to his new workplace. Describing Doctor Kwon Sun-jeong as talkative would be an understatement. He started with some history of how the foundation started. Because apparently, he saw it all.
And Jeong-won listened to him silently. Nodding his head at some point just so it would seem like he was still keen to listen to his stories. He tried to. But this introduction was already taking too long. However, Jeong-won didn’t have the heart to tell him that.
That’s why he let his mind wander. The article, which was some compilation of researches by a dystopian screenwriter he liked, walked him through what it would be like to have the moon orbit in the same distance the International Space Station orbit the Earth. Unlike normal science articles, the blog post was written with a much descriptive narrative. Thanks probably to the writer’s film background.
If the moon would come close to the Earth, its gravitational pull would be so strong it would create enormous floods all over the world. Like that of the great flood in Noah’s story from the bible. Except that it would spare no one. There would also be earthquakes from the internal heating caused by the close encounter of the moon and the Earth.
But the writer assured the readers that the moon, as suspected, would look beautiful and complement the Earth’s sky. However, no one would be able to photograph that. In conclusion, the writer said it was nice to imagine what it would be like if things were different but it’s better to let things the way they are.
Jeong-won was already done recalling the article he read but Dr. Kwon was apparently not yet finished. It was relatively easier for Jeong-won to imagine how the world could end instead of listening to Dr. Kwon’s stories about the hospital and Jeong-won’s dad.
It’s one thing to talk about it with his close confidante – aka his priest-who-doesn’t-act-like-one older brother – but talking it with an almost stranger is another. Well, Dr. Kwon wasn’t exactly a stranger. He would see him from time to time in conferences or whenever he would go to Yulje to visit his dad or his medical school batch mates working there. Still, that couldn’t make their current subject easier for him to tackle.
Jeong-won sneaked a glance at his watch, surprised that he was just there at Dr. Kwon’s office for only half an hour long. It felt longer than that.
And as if the heavens finally listened to his internal grumblings, Dr. Kwon stood up from his seat and Jeong-won was also up on his feet in seconds.
“Let’s meet some of your fellow professors,” Dr. Kwon said, already on his way out of the room.
Jeong-won thought Dr. Kwon had already exhausted his tale-as-old-as-time stories. But Dr. Kwon still had a lot of other stories to tell. And this time, Jeong-won couldn’t think of any other random but interesting article he read on the internet to distract him.
“Your father spent more time in this wing than his own office,” he said, his hand gesturing to the hallways as if they’re walking the same path as his late father did. “He would rather converse with his fellow doctors than stare at papers in a closed room. His secretaries would always knock in every break room just to find him.”
Jeong-won tried to smile at Dr. Kwon’s latest anecdote. He was supposed to imagine it fondly, right? But Jeong-won couldn’t remember his father without feeling a pang in his heart. A lot of could-have-been memories were lost because they’re too busy living their own life, thinking they would always have next time. His chest started to constrict but Jeong-won finally found a reprieve as Dr. Kwon finally stopped on his tracks and unabashedly opened a door.
Jeong-won only had a few seconds to school his face into a wide smile before Dr. Kwon announced his arrival to whoever it was lounging at that moment inside the General Surgery’s room. “Guys, say hello. Today is his first day. Professor Ahn Jeong-won of Pediatric Surgery,”
“Anyeonghaseyo,” Jeong-won greeted with a small smile and a bow.
There were only three people in the room at that time. Jeong-won, actually, expected only one or two. He knew how busy it could get in this department. But there were two men, who looked older than him but younger than Dr. Kwon. And a young woman was standing beside them with a bitten bread on her hand.
“This is Dr. Jang Gyeo-ul the only resident in GS,” Dr. Kwon introduced as if he saw the direction Jeong-won was looking at.
“I see,” Jeong-won mumbled before stepping closer to the resident and held his hand out. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Ahn Jeong-won.”
He carefully beamed at the woman with the disheveled hair; he was reminded of how his friends would always tell him that his best face was his smiling face. And that he looked scary when he scowls, which they say he subconsciously do when he concentrates on things. He always deal with children so he made sure he had that smiling face on.
That same smiling face didn’t seem to reach Dr. Jang. She seemed startled by his arrival. Jeong-won noted the unfinished bread she carelessly placed on her table. A feeling of sympathy for her suddenly filled his heart; he probably disturbed her precious break time.
How come she’s the only resident in the General Surgery Department? Jeong-won silently asked as he continued to offer his hand to the reluctant resident.
When she finally accepted it, an uncanny tingle started to crawl from his hand to all over his body. It was as if he already held this hand before. He kind of knew that his big hands would almost envelop all of hers. It was followed by the familiar strong grip from her hand that’s slender and…cold. Like a foggy morning.
Jeong-won’s thoughts were stopped from going astray as he then moved on to meet his fellow professors in the room. They offered him to sit down for coffee and as much as Jeong-won wanted to go back to his office to finish unpacking, he just couldn’t refuse their offer. They were all chatty. Lee Ik-jun, his friend and another new associate professor, would definitely suit this department. They were all jolly like they haven’t been on-call for hours or some, for days already. Except, of course, to the resident behind him who continued to work while eating – no scratch that, munching on her bread like a little kid.
Jeong-won nodded and tried his hardest to look interested in Dr. Lee Ji-hoon’s rundown of the other professors in Yulje Hospital. He already read their dossier. Even though he declined to manage this hospital, he still had to check the credentials of all the doctors to see if there were anyone who could be of help on the VIP ward. But he was much more interested in the busy resident behind him. He couldn’t remember seeing her name on any documents he read. Or he wasn’t really paying attention when he was browsing? So why did it felt like he experienced all of this before?
Jeong-won cringed inwardly at how cliché he sounded. And the two professors in front of him thought it was because of Dr. Hwang’s non-existent sense of humor.
“Yah, I told you not to drop your jokes on his first day,” Dr. Kwon warned them in an obvious teasing manner.
Still, Jeong-won felt guilty. “Aniya, I’m used to it,” he explained with a specific friend in mind.
They were talking and laughing like that when the resident stood up from her seat. Dr. Jang excused herself, telling them it’s time for her to assist in Dr. Park's rounds. The other three professors went on to say their own version of a reminder for her not to work so hard. They sounded more like fathers bidding goodbye to their daughter on her first day of school rather than a subordinate doing her job.
When Dr. Jang left the room, Jeong-won had this baffling urge to run and stop her from leaving. It was as if her retreating back triggered something inside of him that he couldn’t explain. His mind suddenly remembered how a moon’s close encounter to the Earth could start turmoil in its inner core. That’s the only analogy he could think of to describe the mayhem in his mind.
And the only thing he was sure of at that moment was: it’s the same feeling of yearning that would engulf him every time he woke up from his strange dreams.
[Hanyang - 1800s]
The night sky seems so much brighter than normal nights. A contrast to what he was feeling at the moment.
He trudged purposefully in ankle-deep snow. He had to get there before she leaves. He could hear the footsteps behind him, probably struggling to follow his long strides.
This was why he sometimes felt this palace was suffocating. He couldn’t leave his quarters without an armful of servants following him wherever he goes for whatever reason.
The only one who could keep up with his stride was a man in a scholar’s robe. A man who had been trying to convince him it was an idiotic idea to walk out into the snowstorm. But he had to. He had to see her for one last time.
“Jeoha,” his supposed friend grabbed him by the arm despite the respectful way he addressed him. “You probably know my sister better than me. So you already know that when she decides on things nothing or no one can change her mind. That’s how Shim Dal-ui is.”
He shook his arm away from the concerned scholar’s hold and declared, “I need to see her face just for one last time.”
He wasn’t sure if it was because he sounded hopelessly pleading that his friend decided to finally let him be. He continued on his path but not before he heard his friend stopping his line of servants and asking them to give him some space.
He left them that way and doubled his step when the palace’s gates entered his line of sight. And so did the woman who’s the main reason for this urgent night-time mission.
“Meomchwo!” he declared in panic as he saw the humongous wooden doors opened.
His loud voice broke the silence of the night. He only said one word and their surroundings stop in their motion. That’s how powerful his words were. And everyone’s eyes were on him except for the woman who he badly wanted to look at him.
When he finally reached them, every person in his sight bowed down. Including the supposedly defiant Dal-ui. She curtsied and her eyes remained trained on the snow-covered ground.
Out of all the things that he could have noticed, his mind really chose to take note of how thin her clothes were. It was just a plain white hanbok with only an outer furry cover to protect her from the cold. He clenched his fist in frustration. How this woman could bravely announce that she’s leaving the palace in the middle of a snowstorm and look like this? No matter how she loves winter, she would never survive traveling long distances in this icy weather.
“Jeoha,” the woman spoke, finally breaking the silence that befell them after his unannounced arrival, “I don’t want to be disrespectful but I have to leave now.”
He scoffed at how she addressed him. He wanted to scold him then and there. But everyone’s ears were on them. Any notion that he still cared for this woman could bring more disaster in their already catastrophic relationship.
But that’s what he’s here for, right? He convinced himself silently. That’s why he stormed off his quarters without thinking because, for one last time, he wanted to be true to himself. For one last time, he wanted to just be a simple man and not just someone who had to maintain an image for the role he was born in.
“Just give me five minutes,” he said and the other people surrounding them took it as a cue to give them some privacy. Or at least a semblance of it. They remained stoically standing just meters away from them.
And when finally they were left within their small private radius, nothing came out of his mouth. Not a single word.
“Jeoha,” the woman attempted to call him
“Stop. Calling. Me. That,” he said through gritted teeth. He sounded too harsh but the woman in front of her didn’t even flinch.
How could she be so ignorant of how that respectful remark had been making him feel miserable? Of course, she wouldn’t know. They haven’t been talking in a while. They stopped sharing each other’s innermost thoughts in the middle of the night. They stopped exchanging books to read and leave short letters in between the pages. All because it was instilled in him that the crown was the most important thing in the world. Nothing should come first for him except for the crown. Even his heart. Especially his heart. He had come to accept that he has no control over his own life.
He was the one who chose to cut ties. But he didn’t choose this. He was supposed to just watch her from a safe distance. He was prepared to watch her be happy on her own. He didn’t expect that keeping her at arm’s length was a selfish act. He didn’t know it would be too much for her. He saw how unhappy he had been for the past few weeks.
And so, when she announced she’d leave Hanyang to get some fresh air, he didn’t see anything wrong about it. He didn’t know, until this night, that her trip wasn’t temporary. She was leaving him for good.
Every time he recalled this winter night, he would always be bombarded by other questions he should have asked.
Do you need anything else that would make your trip comfortable? That would make him sound more concerned and caring.
Do you really have to leave? That would make him sound desperate but he wouldn’t care anyway because he was truly desperate that night.
Or he could just have simply asked, Let me go with you, Dal-ui.
But instead, he asked the most stupid question he had ever heard, “Did you regret loving me?”
Of course, she would. He was so sure of it. He caused her a lot of emotional pain from the push-and-pull and his frustratingly fickle mind. Not to mention, the trouble her family had to go through just because of their association.
But when Dal-ui finally looked up and meet his pleading gaze, he already knew her answer
“Yi Seong,” she called his name the way she always would; the way that would always tighten the hold she has on his heart.
“Yi Seong,” she repeated as if she knew that would be the last time she would be able to call his name like that. And without any traces of fear, she bravely declared, “No, I don’t regret loving you. I never did and I never will. Be it in this lifetime or the next.”
And she devastated him much more than he already was. Because he had to hold his ground and stop himself from pulling her in his arms. At that time, he thought that decision would save her; would free her from the invisible shackle he tied her into.
Only that it didn’t.
If only he knew that pulling her to his space would literally save her, then he could have done that.
Suddenly, everything became chaotic. There were shouts and cries and heavy footsteps all over them. And he was just there standing a few inches away when an arrow pierced through her back and out into her chest. Everything happened in mere seconds.
His arms immediately extended to catch her flailing body but strong armored arms pulled him away from the tragic scene. He was resisting but his body was being dragged away so easily.
She must have been cold, he foolishly thought as Dal-ui’s body hit the ground. The white snow had turned into crimson red. And all he could think of was that it was cold to stay like that with her thin clothes.
He called her name, pleading for her to get up. Surely, she could do that on her own. He kept on convincing himself. Trying his hardest to deny any other reason why she stayed lying down on the cold hard ground.
Then everything turned into a blur. His shouting started to sound muffled until he could no longer hear himself.
And the only thing left was silence.
The deafening silence woke Jeong-won up.
He was breathing heavily. He instinctively looked at his clock to try and timed his heartbeat. He couldn’t be having a heart attack at the moment. His logical mind was sure of that but he couldn’t seem to calm himself down.
Jeong-won never had a vivid dream like this before. So clear and so real that he had to check his own body just to assure himself it was just a dream. That he was in his pajamas and not in a blue hanbok similar to that of royalty. That yes, it was midnight but he was in his bed instead of a palace ground. And that no, there wasn’t any woman inside his room. He was all alone with his dream that had made his whole body tremble. He clenched his fist as if it would stop his body from shaking. He closed them tightly until he could feel the pain from his nails on his palms.
He thought he inadvertently hurt himself so he opened them quickly and checked. But there was no blood on his palms. Just an image that wasn’t from his dream. It was at that point that he realized that the woman he shook hands with earlier had the same face as the woman in his dreams lying and dying in red snow.