May You Come Back To My Side - Chapter 2

he incessant beeping was starting to get on her nerves. What was it that was making such a noise? Insufferable, infernally annoying...Utterly incongruous, modern, noise in Joseon.

Ji-young’s eyes snapped open and she gasped.

She wasn’t in Joseon. She was in a hospital. Hopefully a hospital in modern era Joseon, namely Republic of Korea. Because she didn’t have the fortitude for more travel. She’s been through time today, already.

She frowned.

Wasn’t she?

Or has it all been a dream while she lay in a hospital somewhere.

It couldn’t all have been a dream. Could it?

The hospital room door opened and she gasped again.

“Dad!”

Her father smiled. “Hello there, sleepyhead.” He walked in and sat slowly on the bed beside her feet. “How are you feeling?”

“I...don’t know.” How was she supposed to feel? “What happened?”

He chuckled. “A spot of turbulence hit and you knocked yourself out cold in the plane bathroom. Smashed the mirror to bits. Luckily none of those bits made it into you. The flight attendants dragged you out, and you spent the rest of the flight on the aisle floor.”

“How...how long have I been out?”

He pondered the question for a moment. “Well, the plane landed a couple hours ago, you must’ve gone lights-out not long before landing or they’d have made a detour somewhere, so...” He looked at her with a comically quizzical expression. “What? Feeling queasy?”

Just a few hours? She’d spent months in Joseon. Didn’t she? God, was it all a dream? The fight for survival in the freaking Medieval Korea, the cooking competitions, the friendships, bonds she’d woven, Heon...

She scoffed. Of course, it had all been a dream. The whole MasterChef Joseon was a dead giveaway. Perfect. Just perfect. She’d fallen in love, really in love, for the first time in her life and the guy ended up being just a dream.

“Figures.”

Her father cocked his head. “What figures?”

“Erm...That I’m such a klutz to knock myself out in the stamp-sized plane bathroom.”

Her father chuckled. “I don’t think it was a klutz-moment per se, just an incredibly unfortunate one-off.” He leaned closer. “You feeling okay? Should I ask the doctor if I can take you home?”

She nodded, forced a smile. “Sure.”

 

She was sitting at the table in her father’s kitchen, watching him putter around the stove, trying to discern what he was making by scent alone, but to no avail. It was like her nose wasn’t working properly. Or her sight.

Everything that should’ve looked familiar, seemed foreign, different...Off, somehow. The colors were muted, scents just shy of wrong, sounds muffled as she was looking, smelling and hearing through a flowing wall of molasses.

She really must have hit her head hard, because that wasn’t normal for her. Maybe she had a concussion, though the doctor told her she was fine. She had definitely hit hard, because her head was hurting. Damn, her entire body was hurting, as if she’d slammed against the ground in a probably long-gone forest, having been freed from the netter trap by a flying arrow...

She shook her head to dislodge the memory—no, merely a snapshot from a dream—making it hurt even more. Her head because of the shaking...And her heart because it had only been a dream.

“Here you go,” her father said, placing the plate in front of her with a flourish. “Dig in. You need it.”

It was a familiar comfort food—buckwheat noodles with doenjang sauce, but her throat closed up tight and her hands shook as she went to pick up the chopsticks.

Her father chuckled, sat beside her and took the chopsticks from her fingers. “Here.” He expertly rolled the noodles onto the chopstick with the help of a spoon, oblivious to what was going on inside her.

“I guess you never get too old to be spoonfed, huh?” He grinned and brought the chopsticks to her lips.

Closing her eyes, she opened her mouth, savoring the familiar, yet oddly foreign taste on her tongue, memories—no, snippets of a dream—assailing her mind.

Deep, dark eyes latching onto hers as she brought the noodles, neatly rolled around the chopsticks, to his mouth. The slight pout of his lips as he savored the taste, closing his eyes. The sigh turning into a muffled moan as the richness and depth of flavor hit home. The almost childlike awe in his eyes when he looked at her after that first morsel. The gusto with which he tucked into the pasta, shoveling the noodles into his mouth as if he couldn’t get enough...

“What is it, gongjunim?” her father’s voice penetrated the mist of memory.

The term of endearment, he’s rarely used since she grew up, twisted her insides. Here he was, her father, the only family she had, making her his go-to comfort food dish, feeding her like she was a baby, and she couldn’t get out of her head for long enough to appreciate it.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I’m just tired.”

He nodded, placing the chopsticks on the empty plate. She’s eaten it all without even noticing. “You better go get some rest. I’ll do the dishes.” He looked at her pointedly. “This time.”

She offered him another forced smile and dragged herself upstairs, where she thankfully collapsed into her bed, suddenly incredibly drained.

...she slowly walked down the steps and into the courtyard, watching their sad faces, the tears on Gil-geum’s cheeks. Her friends, her second family.

“Guys...”

“Safe travels, Cook Yeon.”

“Don’t forget us, Cook Yeon.”

Thank you for everything, Cook Yeon.”

“Miss!” Gil-geum threw herself into her arms. “Don’t forget me.”

“I could never forget you.”

She turned, and there he was, his face stoic, eyes pained.

“I don’t want you to leave”.

“I know, but I have to.”

He nodded. Swallowed. “I love you, Ji-young.”

I love you.

...may you come back to my side.

Ji-young snapped up in bed, the words echoing in her ears, beating in her blood.

“Just a dream,” she whispered, wiping away tears. “Nothing but a dream.”

She dropped heavily back on the bed. Of course, it was nothing but a dream. Time-travel was stuff of fairy-tales, romance novels and Hollywood. It didn’t exist in real time. Just like Gil-geum, Song-jae, Gon-gil, Cooks Eom, Maeng, Min and Shim didn’t exist. Just like Heon didn’t exist. Her overworked and tired brain had probably conjured them all up in order to get some rest after she knocked herself out cold.

There was no such ruler in Joseon history as her dream Heon. At first she’d compared him to Yeonsangun, the worst tyrant in Korean history, but the fact was, if she had travelled back in time (which she hadn’t) and met the real historical king she’d either be dead in an instant or raped...Or both.

She shuddered. Probably both.

The real Yeonsangun would not have let her speak and act as freely as she had in her dream, he would not have enjoyed her company, would not have enjoyed her cooking, and he most definitely would not have kept a journal with all the dishes she’d made him, butchering their names in the process.

She smirked. Then her eyes flew wide.

The book!

She jumped out of bed, rushed to her bag and upended it, contents spilling on the carpet. Passport, phone, cosmetic bag...And, lastly, the Mangunrok.

“Holy shit!” she hissed, picked it up and brought it to the bed, looked at it in the glow of her night-light.

The cover and pages were yellowed, golden binding bolts dulled by age, but the calligraphy of the title was so achingly familiar. And so was that butterfly pendant. The same dream guy-king bought her on their ‘market date’.

“It looks the same,” she murmured, “just 500 years older and with added coffee stains.” She grimaced.

Hands trembling, she opened it, fully expecting the world around her to glow golden.

Nothing happened.

She brushed her fingers on the meticulously-precise caligraphy, peered at the inscription...Same, but importantly different.

My dearly beloved Ji-young, if you were to read this someday, may you come back to my side.

“It can’t be...”

She leafed through the book, gulped at the food sketches, the phonetical spelling mistakes of the dishes she made Heon...

“It wasn’t a dream.”

She read on, skipping the mundane, diary-like notes about envoys, lost drafts, people she didn’t know...

Even as I shake my head to cast it off, your face and voice dissolve into dust, scattering over me. This longing binds me so tightly that I cannot escape—it feels like an unbelievable fate.

Time and again I try to break free from her grasp, yet at a sudden glimpse of longing, I run without rest. Her fleeting smile and voice ensnare my body, and once more, her face and voice scatter before me like gentle dust.

Beyond all else, what I cannot resist is the shining light that surrounds her.

Such moments have grown all the more frequent.

Even when I discuss affairs of state, even when I am about to fall asleep, the voice of the chief royal cook keeps returning to me.

Her face—these days, the thought of seeing it makes me look forward to each morning I awaken.

Strange, that  I, the king, should worry for another’s safety and feel my heart so full of longing each day.

If Mother had seen her, she would have loved her just as I do.

Tears plopped on the words obviously written after she was gone...

I sought the fair maiden but couldn't find her. Awake or asleep I longed for her.. and when I couldn't, my yearning grew boundless until I could no longer sleep and only tossed and turned in restless longing.

Her form drifts like fragrance, and as the verses are written, she is the one I long await.

In my solitude, destiny itself is woven together like fragile threads.

While out hunting, bow in hand, her image flickered before my eyes and I ran without pause. Her presence pierced through my whole body. Yet once more, her face and voice became as soft as drifting powder, scattering my very being in the air...

It hadn’t been a dream. He hadn’t been a dream. He had loved her. He had missed her, longed for her, after she was gone, wrote to her, asking her to come back. Come back to him.

“Oh, God.”

She remembered that moment in the plane bathroom. She’d read the first words aloud...

Crossing her fingers, she cleared her throat. “My dearly beloved Ji-young, if you were to read this someday, may you come back to my side.”

Nothing.

No golden light, no world-tilting...Nothing.

She was still sitting on her bed in her old PJs, holding a book written as a love letter to her by a man long dead.

She curled up, clutching the book, the only connection to him she had, to her chest and sobbed.