This is the story of Ryujin & Yeji from childhood, through Itzy, and into retirement. During that time, an intense and sometimes painful love blossoms, made difficult by the demands of fame and the search for meaning and purpose during Itzy and afte...
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Morocco.
Dreaming about the desert means dreaming about rivers: rivers of warm sand winding and slithering between the dunes.
Why does she like it? Who loves the desert? Who loves nothing?
It's not that she likes vast spaces in the conventional way. If you're not careful, loving can become possessing or owning. What you care about then dries like a fallen leaf. For her, walking in the desert is simply walking in empty space, in a vacuum. Then she can hear her thoughts loud and clear. Thoughts she should have heard and paid attention to years ago.
Through eons, the dunes shift around as if there is no gravity, with no purpose or plan, and it is an ancient process. She likes to lose herself in the emptiness and the hiss of sand blowing.
She likes to know that empty places are always there for her when things get crazy and she's struggling to hold on. Sometimes it seems like it is harder now then it was back when they performed around the world.
Being alone and walking in the desert is easier because she has her love back in the tent.
She walks around a tall dune and finds a large boulder. She climbs up and sits on it, kicking her feet back and forth against the rock. She isn't like her love, someone who wants to find eternal peace. She wants to find somewhere far away where she can sing, where they can hold hands and kiss, and laugh, and run through deep sand. It's not that complicated for her.
The sun is beginning to set, and it is time to go back to their tent. She smiles: she is recharged, a low but powerful current flowing through her body. She feels like she could close her eyes and fly into the desert air.
It gets dark faster than she thought it would. The moon is not out. A million stars are overhead, but their light seems to trickle away as it nears the sand.
After hiking for half an hour, she realizes that she is lost. She clambers to the top of the tallest dune in the area, and squints hard to look for their tent.
She sees a faint green glow twinkling in the distance, and hikes toward the light.
In a short time she can see the outline of their tall tent. As she gets closer, she sees the silhouette of her love in the doorway. She begins to run toward her as fast as she can. In the dark it looks like the green light from the tent is shining through her eyes.
She jumps into her arms, wrapping her legs around her. She holds her tight, strokes her hair, and says:
I'll always follow you, like footsteps in warm sand, my Yeji.
