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My Dear Friend

Summary:

I am in no ways a writer, I just started coming up with this idea for a "second season" that was canon compliant to the MLSHR months ago --and I'm finally writing it down before I forget it all.

This story begins with Go Hajin, waking up back in her South Korea 2016, only moments after dying as Hae Soo, in Goryeo.

How does she rebuild her life in South Korea, after the mess she left it in? What things have changed about her personality --and are those changes for the better or worse? Does it feel like a piece of herself is missing? Will she remember Goryeo or was it all just one long dream now that she has returned to South Korea?

“…Maybe everyone in the world had nightmares,
How can I cry by myself?
There’s a place I wanted to return to,
Now even my footprints seem unfamiliar to me,
My dear friend,
Thank you for being you.”

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Home

Chapter Text

“…Maybe everyone in the world had nightmares,
How can I cry by myself?
There’s a place I wanted to return to,
Now even my footprints seem unfamiliar to me,
My dear friend,
Thank you for being you.”

Seoul, South Korea
May, 17, 2016

 

Beep… Beep… Beeeep…

 

Light. She blinked against the white blinding light. Where was she? What was happening? Her vision and hearing were both so fuzzy. Moving her head to the left she could make out…two…three… Figures. All of them leaning over her. One of them began shouting in unintelligible noises…? Was that Jung? That must be Jung… huh… she must’ve only fainted… She let her tired eyes close again… a small smile formed on her lips… She’d live another day… that would give Pyeha one more day, and one more chance to see her and.…

 

Beeeeep. Beeeep. Beep. Beep.

 

What was that frustrating beeping noise?

 

“Yoouuuurrr fiinnnnalllyyy awwwakkeee!”

 

“Haaajjjinnnn! Itsss..

 

Hajin? …That’s… me.

 

“…Jooonnn”

 

Joon? …That was the name of her younger brother. She must have misheard Jung. but why on earth was Jung carrying on so…? Was something amiss with Seol?… What else would change his disposition so much…?

 

Was Pyeha, finally here? Did he forgive her? Did he read her letters and finally come to see her?

 

Her heart raced at the possibility. She opened her eyes once more and using all her strength fought to sit up.

 

Blurry vision cleared.

 

… Joonie? What was Joonie doing in Goryeo?

 

“My Jinnie! Jinnie… You’re awake….You were gone so long… I…” She knew that voice…

 

"Oemma...?"

 

The voice stopped suddenly and only sobs of emotion from that side of the room could be heard.

 

Hajin, glanced to the other side of the hospital bed.

 

Mom was here too...?

 

Reality crept in. Now it was her turn to cry. Emotions that had begun building at the back of her throat reached a terminal capacity --emerging as little sobs highlighted by streams of tears … I'm… home?… after enduring 10 years in that hell hole of a palace and I'm finally back… back… in my Korea?

 

Her heart sank.

 

Pulled under by the waves of emotion.

 

The room spun away from under her.

 

Her eardrums pounded.

 

Oxygen.

 

She needed oxygen.

 

Gasps. Then sobs.

 

All of them...

 

Pyeha… Gwangjong… Fourth Prince.

 

Jung.

 

Beak Ah.

 

Soel.

 

Dead.

 

What had happened to her baby Seol? she'd just held in her arms, minutes ago? Would never got to see her first steps, or hear her first word. Never hear the words, “Mama.” Who hold her when she cried after falling and scraping her knee for the first time? Jung? Was Jung, a good and caring father? ...Did he keep his promise? Did Seol ever know who her actual father was? Did Pyeha ever hear Seol call out to him as, “Dada?”

 

She would never know. She would never know.

 

Hajin clutched at the sheets with weak hands.

 

Dead. They were... were.... Seol... her baby... de-

 

The tears flood into sobs, gut wrenching sobs. He never came. She'd left him alone in the palace —the one place they'd both grown to hate. Her worst fears had come true. He had truly tossed her out of his heart… and now… they would be forever isolated by the cruel prank of time.

 

He never came… No goodbyes…. Nothing…. gone… but… but… why… did it all now just feel like it was a dream now?… one long… horrible dream… but it had all felt so real… just… just minutes ago?

 

For what felt like an eternity, Hajin sat sobbing mother's shoulder.

 

—————————————————————————————
Seoul, South Korea
May, 18, 2016

 

“…my only Queen”

 

Hajin struggled to sit up in the hospital bed. Covered in sweat, again.

 

She’d woken up from a a night of trying to get Gwangjong, the 4th king of Goryeo to turn around and see her… while he just coldly continued to walked away from her. She had tried to chase after him, but her limp had been so bad that she had to crawl… in the end he had turned around and revealed a face half covered but a crude metal mask.

 

The Goryeo part had made since, since she’d just been there…? Hadn’t she? Was that all just a vivid dream too…?

 

But why had the historical figure of Gwangjong, been in her dream? Why was he wearing a mask?

 

A quick glance around room. The hospital. She was lying in a hospital bed. Hajin, bit her lip. I'm going crazy. I can't tell the difference between dream and reality.

 

She ran a limp hand through greasy hair.

 

Sighing and blinking back feeling needing to cry again, She struggled to roll over to one side of the bed facing the window. The view wasn't spectacular, in fact is was quite the opposite, as the window revealed a rather grey view of Seoul. A view that always brought her back to reality.

 

There were other more pressing things to worry about like her impending heart surgery to fix a congenital heart murmur that had been otherwise unknown before her year long coma. And then there was the intensive physical therapy that they were going to start soon. After laying in bed for a year all her muscles had atrophied.

 

However, looking out the window at the cloud formations she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had actually been a mother. It had been a long and hard labor because she'd been so weak —but it had been forgotten by the overwhelming joy of holding her baby. Seeing her daughter’s shining eyes blink back at her and feeling her tiny fingers wriggle and curl around her one of her own had filled the empty husk that had remained after... after...? What?

 

The child had been so beautiful. Hadn’t she given the child a name? The baby had been a girl —hadn’t it? The baby had looked just like him. Him? She couldn’t actually remember what "him" looked like now that she was awake...

 

This memory of him was one of those vague shadowy memories of a dream that the harder you think about it the more elusive it becomes —like all the subtle details of a photograph that keep shifting. She could clearly picture him standing with his back to her. His hair immaculately swept up into tight top knot. Her work. Her work? He wore a full length royal hanbok loosely belted at the waist in the Goryeo style of a royal. Royal? How did she known that random fact? Had "him" been a royal?

 

When she had first woken up. Which was apparently a miracle according to her mom and all the hospital staff (since she’d been a coma for over a year), she’d been able to remember everything clearly as if she had really experienced it. She’d been there. She’d experienced falling in love quickly and then again slowly. She’d experienced what it felt like to have someone love you so much they’d placed their life on the line for you and then the searing pain of rejection by that very same person. She’d even been willing to place her life on the line for a woman that she’d looked up to as a mother and she’d even been married….

 

But to whom....? The... king? Which...one? Hadn’t there been more than just one in the dream?

 

——————————Go Hajin———————————————
Go Hajoon’s Apartment, South Korea
October, 03, 2016 — Morning

 

Still even five months later after a year in a coma. She would find herself panicking. She had woken up this morning five months after being discharged from the hospital a total mess because she couldn't find her hanbok. How was she supposed to go to work in the Damiwon without her uniform?! She couldn’t even imagine how much trouble she be in if she was even a few minutes late to the palace morning routine. Already there was a number of small bruises on her knuckles from Court Lady Oh’s cane. All of them from her many previous minor infractions of rigid palace rules that she’d somehow managed to make in her first few weeks as a Junior Court Lady.

 

But after a quick glance down at her hand to expected bruises --Huh? What? Where are...?

 

She'd frantically dug through her closet for about another few minutes before her she remember that it was all just a dream. There was no Damiwon, no palace and no Court Lady Oh --they were all made up by her overly active brain trying to make sense of the emotional trauma she'd experienced before her year in a coma.

 

This episode was fortunately not as scarring as the ones that had plagued her when she’d first woken up.

 

She let her eyelids close as she focused on slowing down her heart rate. Breath by breath. This practice was becoming a normal routine as the number episodes were becoming fewer.

 

B reath in, it’s October 3rd, 2016, breath out.

 

Breath in, I’m living in Seoul, in an apartment, I share with my brother, breath out, not a palace.

 

Breath in, I was in a coma for a year, breath out, not in Goryeo.

 

Breath in, it was only dream, Breath out, none of those things actually happened…


The bland black and white plastic wall clock that always hung slightly askew ticked in rhythm with her heart.

 

Her eyelids flicked open.

 

She was just Go Hajin, a pre-med student.

 

Late for her Anatomy and Physiology exam.

 

She bit her lip.

 

Cracking her neck to the side while stretched her arms above her head in an effort to fully shake off the feeling from her dream

 

Court Lady Oh? that was a new one. She vaguely recalled dreaming about the Goryeo period last night.
Casting a glance around the messy room to have a look at her self in a mirror. What are you going to do with that greasy hair? She was wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of joggers and had dark circles under her eyes.

 

She let out an audible groan.

 

Aigoo… I'll have to shower, and… her thoughts were interrupted by a loud growl from her stomach… I'll need to eat something… ughhh… had normal life been this difficult... before? Why hadn't her hard work payed off? She'd finally landed a job working as skin care specialist for a plastic surgeon in one of the trendier neighborhoods —but since Jaehwa. Hajin pulled a face in the mirror at the thought of that pig. --that sick son of bitch went off the deep end --and because I'm his "girlfriend" my reputation got smeared alongside his… the motherfucker...

 

The day after she had come out of the coma, her mother had started badgering her about going back to school to study medicine in the US. Using her near death experience as an excuse for Hajin, to “re-start” her life and choose a “better” path. Eventually she’d agreed to it because, honestly, her mother was right —the universe had granted her a second chance —perhaps she shouldn’t let it go to waste. And after using her time in the hospital to study, she had managed to get into a less prestigious university in Seoul. However, it did have a transfer agreement with some state school in the US. She would take her first two years of undergrad here in Seoul, along with english language proficiency courses and then if she was able to keep her GPA above a 3.3 she would transfer to the state school in the US where she would be given a decent scholarship for the last two years.

 

That was the plan.

 

Things had been good the first term with her renewed desire to change her destiny or some odd shit like that had driven her and she had been able to maintain the desired GPA. however, since this second term had started her life had become a bit of a cascading mess. Starting with her lack of interest in completely any or her homework. And hating the hour and half long commute via bullet train and bus to and from the school from her mom’s apartment outside Seoul. Her mother had fluctuated between hovering mother hen and your classic Asian parent. And at 25 years old and a near death experience she couldn’t handle it anymore. How was she supposed to become a doctor, take it easy and find a good boy to marry at the same fucking time?! One frustrated night she’d packed one bag, taken a taxi and shown up on her brother’s doorstep in Seoul. He had managed to land a job as a junior detective in some unremarkable district in Seoul and had moved into a small 2 bedroom flat in some equally unremarkable neighborhood in Seoul. Knowing his workaholic tendencies —there was definitely no way that he’d managed to find a roommate yet. He’d instantly agreed to let her stay and she never left.

 

During her time in the hospital they had grown closer, Go Hajin and Go Hajoon or Joonie as she called him, had never been that close growing up. He was her studious kid brother, and she was his hang-loose older sister. But either out of guilt or fear of losing her again, Joonie, had faithfully shown up in the hospital nearly everyday.

 

He was all she had. She’d tried to reconnect with her old friends, they’ed gone out clubbing couple times, but after couple of drinks she’d called her brother and asked him to pick her up —leaving the club early. A first it had seemed to fill the void.

 

But, in the end it had made her feel worse.

 

She’d run into Mikyong at one of these outings —since they still moved in the same friend group, and yet somehow she hadn’t even cared that her boyfriend had cheated on her with Mikyong causing her to spend a year in a coma. At first she had been furious at them, but… honestly… it some how didn’t seem to matter now… like school, her mother and even Jaehwa…

 

In fact the more she thought about it she couldn’t even find it in herself to be angry at Jaehwa.

 

Maybe she was going crazy.

 

This right now… this… didn’t feel like living. It was as if someone had sucked the color out of her world.

 

—————————Go Hajin————————————————
Seoul, South Korea
October, 07, 2016 — Midnight

 

Rain.

 

Hajin stumbled a little while trying to climb a flight of steps and ended up falling on her butt. How had her life come to this?

 

After being convinced by a couple of her classmates that after sitting next to them for the past month she still didn’t know their names that it would be a good “de-stressor” to going clubbing that evening after a particularly hard Organic Chemistry exam. The start of the night had been fun, but after a number of party foul shots she’d decided that she was done for the evening and had ended up walking home —alone, drunk and in the rain without an umbrella.

 

Glancing around to get her bearings in the —where even am I? Aishh… Hajin drunkenly fumbled with her purse to pull out her phone. Why didn't I call Joonie from the club... that's right... the full moon... She'd told Joon earlier this evening that she was just going to use the light from the moon to find her way back to his apartment. Wiping the rain off her face she laughed contemptuously at her previous self for her "fool-proof plan.

 

however, the moon this evening really was so full and... sad. Squinting to look up against the falling rain --familiar words form on her lips.

 

“When the water has run dry, sit and watch for the rising clouds.”

 

What did those words even mean? Why would you just sit down and wait for rain…?

 

I guess I should just call Joonie... I'm even starting to say strange things

 

The cold rain on her face had sobered her up enough and using the concert wall the help her stand back up, She turned around to get a better reading on her bearings. Didn’t Joonie work around here somewhere? Had she mindlessly walked this way out of habit?

 

Cursing at the sudden bright light of her phone screen on drunk eyes, a sudden movement across the street catches her eye.

 

A lone male figure also walking without an umbrella.

 

"Shit."

 

Panic. This part of the city —though near the district police station —wasn’t known for being the safest.

 

Oh god, this is how my story ends. A pathetic, crazy and drunk Jane Doe. Murdered by some homeless bastard for drug money on a rainy night. She didn’t even know what time it was… hadn’t Joonie said something to her about the most violent crimes happening at… ahhh… 2am? Wait, that was deaths in hospitals and nursing homes.…

 

"Uggghhh… idiot" Brain, why are you using this moment to space out?!

 

Out of habit she patted her chest.

 

The dim light of an old street little blinked.

 

Patting her heart some more.

 

This is Seoul, there’s CCTV everywhere. Right? No one would be that stupid…?

 

… why wasn’t Joon picking up?!

 

Quick glance back across the street told her the lone figure had stopped moving. He's definitely homeless. Oh God, is he staring at me now?!? This is it… she’d have to make a run for it…

 

“Noona? You there?”

 

“Yahhh! Joonie! There you are. I’m drunk. Its raining, and I’m not that far from your work… Can you come pick me up?!”

 

“You okay?!”

 

“Where are you? I told you call me from the club whenever you needed a ride”

 

Before she could reply that she was probably just panicking over nothing, Joon’s practiced calm voice cut in.

 

“I’m leaving the house right now… I’ll be there in a few minutes —can you get to the police station? You’ll be safe there. Avoid dark alleyways, and unlit corners… do you want me to stay on the phone with you in case of anything?”

 

Hajin mumbled an affirmative. The rumble of a motor through the receiver comforted her heart in the knowledge that Joon was -definitely- on his way.

 

“Noona, just keep walking up the hill, turn left onto the first street after the weird staircase on the right —you’ll know it when you see it. Noona, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Don’t panic. Take a few deep breaths while you walk…”

 

“…When you get to the station, just tell the officer at the front desk you’re my sister —they’ll understand" Great, so everyone at his work knows about Joon's crazy older sister "… Kai, might be working late —and he'd definitely offer you a cup of camomile tea if you--" Camomile tea would be nice right now... "...-wise you'll end up with that awful instant coffee in the vending machines."

 

 "Do you see the weird little staircase up ahead of you?”