Maybe in Another Life

I found a reason for living in the present

We ate lunch in silence. But the silence wasn't uncomfortable like how it'd been in the past after we fought. I chose not to ask him any more questions, and he, naturally, didn't divulge anything either. But I was okay with that. For now.

When I went back to my room I took out Halmeoni's book with the photos inside. I meant to put the photos on the beach back in the book, but my curiosity got the better of me. I turned over all the photos looking for more clues. It was mostly just dates and locations until I came upon the last photo, the one of Halmeoni laughing in the water. "Give me a chance to love you and I promise I'll do my best to make you smile every day." By the handwriting, I knew she hadn't written it. And by the sentiment, I had a feeling I knew who did. Yoongi, at some point in his seemingly ageless life, was in love with my halmeoni. I laughed at myself for being so naive. The clues had been there the whole time. Even where she placed the photo had significance. Chapter 10, of Gulliver's Travels was when Gulliver came upon the Struldbruggs people. They were immortal beings in their society.

So did that mean...

The person in the photo was Yoongi... with my halmeoni and halaboji 68 years ago. And yet, both my halmeoni and halaboji passed away as elders, and Yoongi looked only a few years older than me.

If it was Yoongi in the photo, then it was entirely possible that Jackson and the rest were also themselves in the photo and looked exactly the same now as they did then.

But how was that possible? Magic? Witchcraft?

I desperately wanted to know more, but I knew with Yoongi, bombarding him with questions would only push him away. That much was clear. It was like a riddle I wanted to solve, but with every clue, more unanswered questions followed.

Trying to understand why Yoongi was so secretive brought me to Ruby's which only brought me back to Yoongi and more secrets and more questions. What was Yoongi to Halmeoni? What was Yoongi at all? How did Jackson and Ruby's play into all of this? And if at one point they were all friends, what changed? And if I could trust Yoongi, did that mean I couldn't trust Jackson? Why? And if I couldn't trust Jackson, what about the rest of the people at Ruby's that I had grown to call friends? What about Mingyu?

Mingyu.

Did he even know what Jackson was? What about the rest of the guys at Ruby's? Was Jeonghan even actually his cousin or was this all some elaborate lie that only I wasn't aware of?

I might not get the details from Yoongi, but I hoped that Mingyu would be straight with me. If he didn't know, we could figure it out together, and if he did know...he was the only one I could trust to explain it to me.

💜

I let a week pass before going back to Ruby's. Despite having talked it out a little bit, I still didn't feel like fighting with Yoongi about going there. I understood there were larger reasons why he didn't want me hanging around them, but until I knew for myself, I decided to trust my judgment.

"I didn't think you were ever going to come back. Thought maybe Yoongi locked you in a tower or something."

Mingyu and I decided to take a walk instead of hanging around the bar. There was a tiny park, right in the center of town- short enough that you could walk around it 5 times and not break a sweat.

We decided to have lunch there, Mingyu making us both sandwiches at Ruby's before we left.

"Well, I'm sure if he had it his way, I wouldn't be here."

"So what happened when you got home?"

Explaining to Mingyu the conversation I had with Yoongi was hard. Part of me wanted to just blurt the whole thing out, but a better part of me knew that any sane person wouldn't believe any of my theories for a second and thus, I had to be strategic.