“The sea I saw here nine years ago must have flowed to the East Sea by now.”
It wasn’t really meant for anyone to hear, but Jeongeun and Hyeonsu, walking beside me, were within earshot.
“What are you talking about? Why are you so sentimental today? Yeah, if we go by what you’re saying, wouldn’t it have only flowed to the East Sea? It could have flowed here and there and ended up in the Atlantic, or maybe even come back here, just like you, Haru.”
Surprisingly, Jeongeun’s last comment lingered softly in my heart.
Not just passing through, but coming back… returning to its place. Like me.
“Honestly, sister, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be driving in this mountain village now; I’d be a professor at S University. And about that… Huh? What’s that over there? Why are so many people gathered? Sister, do you see that?”
My gaze followed Hyeonsu’s pointing finger to where he was looking with wide eyes.
“Uh… Ah, you mean in front of the clock tower? Oh my, really. Why are people only gathered on that lawn? Did a celebrity come?”
“Um, doesn’t seem like a celebrity. People are just crowded, not rushing or shouting. What’s really going on?”
It was hard to guess why the crowd had gathered from a distance. But Jeongeun and Hyeonsu, through and through broadcast people, were already exchanging words and starting to walk in that direction. Reluctantly, I followed them.
“Ah, no need to rush over there. I’ll run ahead and ask what everyone’s here for.”
After walking for a while, seemingly frustrated by the slow pace, Hyeonsu left us behind and ran ahead. Jeongeun and I followed him slowly.
From afar, we could see Hyeonsu talking to a woman standing at the back of the large crowd. He was nodding his head, apparently managing to have a conversation.
Soon, we saw Hyeonsu running back towards us, and Jeongeun quickly asked him.
“Kim Hyeonsu, what’s going on? Why are all these people gathered here?”
“Sister, do you see her? The woman taking photos at the front right now?”
Hyeonsu pointed, and I turned my head in the direction his finger indicated. Indeed, far ahead of the line of people, a girl in a school uniform was posing for a photo.
“Yeah, I see her. What about it? What’s she doing?”
“Oh, that’s because there’s a famous Japanese movie director named ‘Matsu’ who attended this school. When he became famous, a short 10-minute film he made while studying here also gained popularity.”
“Ah…….”
“And one of the most memorable scenes from that movie was shot right there. A scene where a Korean girl in a school uniform stands with her back to the sea breeze, staring intensely at someone, eyes wide open, just like that woman over there.”
Hearing what Hyeonsu was saying and understanding the underlying meaning, my ears started ringing, my mouth dried up, and my hands and feet began to tremble.
Next to me, Jeongeun and Hyeonsu, unaware of the depth of my connection to this, chattered brightly about this director Matsu, suggesting we take pictures there too. But my attention was already elsewhere.
I faintly remembered that day nine years ago, when he lifted the camera towards me as I roamed around this campus. How I stood frozen, watching him. We were definitely together here that day.
“Wow, so the director Matsu is a Korean-Japanese. His real name is Kim Jun.”
Jeongeun quickly opened her phone and started typing in the director’s name, then finally uttered it out loud.
At the moment his name, confined to my memories, resonated through the humid air, he seemed to declare his presence in reality, not content with just being a figure in my memories.
Once again, I found myself recalling Jun’s face at twenty, looking blank and surprised.
“But, the name Kim Jun…….”
Jeongeun seemed to realize that the director’s real name was the same as my first love. She glanced at me as if to confirm, then shook her head as if dismissing the thought and returned her gaze to her phone screen.
“Sister, can I see too?”
Hyeonsu leaned in to see the small screen Jeongeun was holding.
“Kim Hyeonsu, use your own phone. Do you really want to look at this small screen with me?”
“Ah, searching takes time. But wow, he’s younger than I thought? Only 29 years old, and a movie he directed and wrote the screenplay for nearly swept the director and screenplay awards at last year’s Japan Film Festival. His debut became a breakout success.”
I felt strange. During the 9 years I hadn’t seen Jun, what path had he taken to reach his current position?
Suddenly, the weight of Jun’s time without me and the lightness of my absence in his life hit me simultaneously. The mere thought of him felt like my heart was being scraped raw by something sharp.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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