Wind of Change (Crash Landing On You fanfic)

Part 4

Life was much better for Ri Jeong-hyeok than it had once been.

He was fortunate in being peculiarly well-adapted to his strange circumstances. He had a vivid memory. He was someone for whom his interior life had always borne as much significance as the exterior, if not more. And years of repression of all natural feeling had given him a remarkable facility for compartmentalising. He thought of Se-ri every day, but most of the time, it was not painful.

The hardest part was not knowing. Anything could be going on with Se-ri. He only learnt about her life in retrospect: they each kept a diary recording their days apart, which was shared with the other when they met. The insight that gave him into Se-ri's everyday life was incalculably precious, but he knew she kept the worst from him – as he did from her.

While he pored over her past, she was moving through her present into an unknown future, without him to watch over her. Jeong-hyeok could not help worrying about all the disasters a jealous fate could visit upon her. Se-ri could be in an accident, and he would not know. She could fall ill, and he would not know. Her depression could flare up, with catastrophic consequences – and he would not know. The first he would know of any tragedy would be when he arrived in Switzerland and she was not there.

The annual journey to meet her was always fraught with apprehension, therefore, as well as the anticipation of joy. This time, helpfully, the phone he'd been given decided to throw a fit – it was as though the powers that be thought his technology should also have an artistic temperament. He texted her the moment the plane touched down, as always, but his phone reported Message not delivered no matter what he tried.

No matter. Jeong-hyeok would see Se-ri soon. He was sure she was fine.

First, it was necessary to perform. His first concert was not until the next day, but Jeong-hyeok knew he had been granted this role not only or even chiefly for his musical ability. The qualities that made him suitable for showing off had been as important – his appearance, his demeanour, his ability to project sophistication in three languages and not be confounded by foreign cultural references.

Thanks to his parentage and his prominence as an artist, he was granted the privilege of being left to himself for most of his time in Switzerland, but that had to be paid for. Upon arrival, he was allowed a brief stop at a hotel to change and freshen up before he was whisked to a welcome reception.

He was scheduled in for three events, back to back. He probably wasn't going to see Se-ri at any of them, he told himself, as a preventative against hope. The various institutions that hosted these events were apt to be wary about inviting guests from both Koreas to the same party.

Most likely he would not see her till the evening, when he was able to get to their house. Maybe not even then. He couldn't be certain she was already in Switzerland. It was not like they could align their arrival times. But Se-ri almost always got there before Jeong-hyeok, just in case: "I couldn't bear to waste a single day of you," she'd said once.

When she appeared at the second event, it felt like destiny, again, drawing them together in the face of all the odds. He recognised her immediately, even though she was across the room, with her back to him.

Se-ri was wearing her hair up, for once, knotted in a bun low on her nape. All limbs were present and accounted for. She was in a dress he hadn't seen before, white with a pattern of little blue flowers, in a more relaxed style than the dresses she generally wore in Switzerland. It reminded him of the Se-ri he had known when she'd stayed with him in the outpost village. Oddly, she was carrying a large, practical-looking bag. Hefty straps criss-crossed her back.

Se-ri turned around, and Jeong-hyeok saw that it was not, in fact, a bag. A small downy head could just be glimpsed above the fabric of the baby carrier.

Jeong-hyeok had been smiling at the memory of that month with Se-ri in the village. The smile dropped off his face.

For an insane, electrifying moment, he thought, She's had a baby. We have a child. A child ...

He'd barely registered the man next to Se-ri. He was young, white and handsome; to the extent Jeong-hyeok had noticed him, he'd assumed he was some sort of intern, or perhaps a student of one of the music schools. But before Jeong-hyeok could assimilate the idea of a world in which, magically, he had been granted the one thing he wanted and knew he could never have, the man leaned over and kissed Se-ri on the lips.

Se-ri squeezed the man's hand, smiling up at him. She was luminous, like a beloved woman, like someone who possessed everything her heart desired. Jeong-hyeok had once believed that look was reserved to him.

The man moved away. Jeong-hyeok was not sure he'd be able to pick him out of a line-up of dark-haired white men, which was strange given he had just laid waste to Jeong-hyeok's life.

Se-ri was coming towards him.

Jeong-hyeok could feel that his face had gone rigid. Panic flooded him. He couldn't speak to Se-ri, not right now, not until he'd had the chance to absorb this blow. He could not disgrace himself here. The man who had brought him to the party stood three steps away and he would not be understanding.

But even as Jeong-hyeok's mind protested, he found himself turning to her, as a sapling reaches for the sun. Se-ri was the only one who held in her gift relief from the terrible pain lying in wait. There must be some explanation. Jeong-hyeok knew, with the abject humility of the bereaved, that there was nothing he could not forgive her, so long as she still loved him.

"Comrade," said his handler, "shall we go now? The Malaysian embassy's reception is in half an hour's time. It's not far, but there may be traffic."

Se-ri had spotted the handler and veered off. She and Jeong-hyeok avoided each other as much as possible around other Koreans. Knowledge of their relations on either side of the border was most likely to create difficulties.

"Yes," said Jeong-hyeok automatically. Se-ri was talking to a French balletomane. He couldn't see her face, so he couldn't tell if she was glad of the escape, relieved that she need not face Jeong-hyeok just then. "Let's go."

***

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Presumably Jeong-hyeok talked, smiled, did what was expected of him. He had no memory of it later.

When the reception at the Malaysian embassy finally concluded, Jeong-hyeok parted from his handler outside the building. Half of the Malaysian string quartet that had performed at the reception were leaving at the same time.

"Eh, you talked to that fella, right?" said the cellist to the violist, jerking his head towards Jeong-hyeok's retreating back.

"Which fella? Oh, the kdrama guy?"

"Is he an actor? Franz said he's a pianist."

"I just meant he looks like the guys in kdrama," said the violist. She sighed. "He's damn hot wei. But weird."

"That's because he's not from the BTS Running Man side lah. He's from the other side. You know, the Kim Jong-un KLIA assassin side."

"Serious?" The violist twisted around, but Ri Jeong-hyeok was long gone. "No wonder. He was so weird."

"Is it? Franz said he's a nice guy. Normal."

"No, no," said the violist, with the authority of firsthand experience. "He was like a robot. His eyes were, like, super dead inside, you know? But that's why lah. I thought he's from Seoul. I asked him to recommend where to eat barbeque there."

The cellist looked at her with disapproval. "You better not talk so much at these functions. Lucky thing you didn't cause an international incident."