Finding You

CHAPTER 9

By the time Eon Jin stepped out of the shower, the final song in her classical music playlist had already reached its end. She wrapped herself in a white terry cloth robe, her hair in a towel of the same fabric, then picked up her phone that was resting on top of her vanity.

She checked the recommended songs by the app, but decided to search for an album she usually played whenever she felt the exhaustion of her daily chores as a mortal and a quasi-deity kicking in. In no time, a modern instrumental subtly filled the confines of her bedroom. The song was aptly titled "Belonging" from an Irish-Norwegian band called Secret Garden.

She sat in front of her vanity and stared at her reflection in her mirror as she dried her hair gently with a towel. So many years passed, but aside from the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and her mouth, not another wrinkle was added to her fair, diamond-shaped face. Her hair was always the same dark brown color, which she never bothered to treat or style based on the ever-changing fad. There were very few touches of gray nestled in the voluminous locks, but apart from those, not a single strand turned silver in the past three hundred and seventeen years.

It was during these moments of solitude, with no choice but to be confronted with her realities, that she felt somehow still wanting to be like the others around her. She wanted creases on her face to gradually show, her hair to turn to gray one strand at a time, her skin to slowly lose the plumpness from her youth - all to prove that her time was finally passing by again.

Instead, she was frozen at the age of thirty. There was no moving forward and no turning back, unlike the mortals around her whose fate was to come and go.

The song ended and she once again resigned to the fact that because of the unusual circumstances she got herself in, she was perpetually an outcast. To wish for a sense of belongingness was already out of the question.

It was quarter past nine when she finished her evening rituals. Knowing that sleep would not come to her anytime soon, she decided to open a fresh bottle of wine to relax. She poured the Pinot Grigio to a tall goblet, then picked it up by the stem to gently swirl the white wine, allowing it to open up. She took a sip of the fruity, alcoholic drink and was instantly reminded of azure skies, beaming sunlight, and a picturesque meadow filled with flowers in full bloom.

She settled herself on the taupe chaise lounge facing the ceiling-to-floor windows of her living room, the flowing, full circle sweep of her black nightgown made of chiffon and silk draping on the side, while she replayed the recent conversation she had with Tae Pyung in her mind.

"To me, it's like a déjà vu," he told her while they were on the drive back to the station. "It's like I've already lived through those moments, although I have been seeing or hearing them for the first time."

Eon Jin rested her elbows on the car's windowsill, her finger tapping on her lips as she listened to Tae Pyung's explanation.

"Those are definitely not memories," Tae Pyung told her. "It felt like I was in the past. We're talking centuries ago."

Eon Jin nodded in understanding. Of course, it can be fragments of a different lifetime. But it was not his current self's memories; it was hers.

The question was why she was in his moments of déjà vu.

"Do you believe in reincarnations?" he asked her as they stopped at an intersection after the traffic light turned red.

"I do," she replied. "Are you under the impression that we knew each other in a different lifetime?"

"Looks like it," he sighed. "It even feels like it."

"What do you mean?"

Tae Pyung closed his eyes and tilted his face upwards, the back of his head resting on the cushion of the driver's seat, as he reflected on his experience.