Crash Landing on You - Edelweiss Diaries

Prelude

Suggested reading music: Time of JungHyuk for Seri

There was no going back - not in life or in loving her.

The bus came to life and a gust of cold breeze rushed in through the window. Ri Jeong Hyuk was headed home, with his fellow comrades, numbed to the reality that awaited him at Pyongyang.

"How would I live after you leave like that?" Her sobs rang clear in his ears and he closed his eyes as a piercing ache spread through his chest. He couldn't help but wonder if his drunken confession had sprung hope in Se Ri. Until then, she'd always been understanding that he will have to return to Pyongyang, once the issue of Jo Cheol Kang was addressed. Though he'd seen through her smiles, he wanted to believe that Se Ri could go on without his presence in her life.

However, today, as he saw her diffuse into a bag of tears, while she dashed to cross the DMZ ignoring her own safety, the illusion of solace lifted from his heart.

A shiver ran through his fingers, as another image of the North Korean and South Korean agents holding each other at gunpoint surfaced. She had escaped death by a hair's breadth. But she would have died a thousand deaths had he died too when he braved to shield her from harm.

In that instant his life became precious. For her sake. 

He'd not pondered about living after losing his brother. Now, a steadfast will was borne from the reckoning that he'd asked that she desperately pray and wait. Just as he wanted that she live on, it was essential that he be alive, when she deeply wanted him in her life.

As he peered past the trees that lined the road to the capital, the biting wind slowly woke him to the truth he was racing to a place that didn't guarantee his life. He closed the window and gripped onto the seat in front of him.

He never believed love would find him. At least not in the way that his love for Se Ri would also bear a chokehold for him. His affections for her made him sensate to the myriad of emotions that had been lost to him for a while. Her smiles washed over him as a stream of warmth that chipped away at the wall of indifference he'd ensconced into. Despite the origins of their relationship in enemy grounds, her abiding dependence on him had both puzzled and intrigued him. Eventually, the urgent need to protect her had taken on a force that had defied his sense of self-preservation too.

He'd crossed the border as a man who had nothing to lose. In contrast, he was returning home as one who had everything to lose. Today, was the beginning of a life that needed him to be alive at any cost. He had to when his every breath of air was a wisp of hope she held on to keep living.

Life wasn't kind to him, nor was the act of loving her.