He dreamed.
No, it wasn't a dream. Seoyeon knew the difference between dreams and memories. After living for ten thousand years, one learned to tell them apart. This was a memory. The oldest memory. The clearest memory. The only memory that had not worn away even after ten thousand years.
It was the beginning.
Back when Seoyeon was not yet Seoyeon. A time when he had a different name, a different face, different flesh and bones. The only thing that remained the same was his poverty. When an immortal descended from the celestial realm and took on a human body, he could possess only what that body possessed. The body Seoyeon had taken belonged to a poor scholar living in a house at the edge of town, its walls collapsed.
The scholar was preparing for the civil service examination. He had talent. He memorized anything he read in a single pass, and once he took up a brush, the words flowed without hesitation. His teacher called him a genius. The scholar did not believe him. He thought there was no way a genius could be this poor.
There was a family in the village that worshiped the Water God. It was the most powerful family in the region. They had three sets of gates, a hundred servants, and on the days of ancestral rites, a thousand lanterns floated down the river. Whenever the scholar passed in front of their house, he lowered his head. He thought lowering one's head was not a habit but a matter of courtesy.
There was one daughter in that family.
He first saw her when he was fifteen. He was reading by the river when someone behind him snatched away his book. When he turned around, a child who looked about twelve or thirteen stood there. She wore silk clothes, and a silver hairpin was stuck in her hair. They were things the scholar had never touched in his life.
"What book is this?"
The child asked. The scholar did not answer. He reached out to take back the book.
"I'll give it back if you teach me."
She hid the book behind her back and laughed. When she smiled, her eyes curved like a crescent moon. The scholar tried not to look. He knew it was dangerous to watch someone of a different station laugh for too long.
"It is this humble one's book. Please return it."
The scholar spoke. The child tilted her head.
"This humble one? Why are you talking to me like that?"
"You are the daughter of a great family, and I am merely a scholar."
"So?"
She looked genuinely confused. For the first time, the scholar was flustered by that expression. It was not the need to explain the difference in their stations that unsettled him. It was the existence of someone who truly did not understand it.
From that day on, the child came every day.
When the scholar read, she sat beside him and listened. When he practiced calligraphy, she sat beside him and copied him. When he ate, she sat beside him and ate too. The scholar's meal was barley porridge, while hers was a three-tiered lunch box brought by a servant. She pushed the lunch box in front of him and asked him to eat with her. The scholar refused. Then she said she would eat barley porridge too. The scholar refused that as well.
"Why?"
"It is not food for you, my lady."
"I can eat whatever I want."
She really did eat the barley porridge. She grimaced after one spoonful, but finished it all the same. The scholar said nothing as he watched her. But that night, for the first time, he felt ashamed of his own meal.
The years passed, and then passed again.
The child grew. Thirteen became fourteen, and fourteen became fifteen. The scholar grew too. Fifteen became sixteen, and sixteen became seventeen. The child still came every day. She came in the rain and in the snow. No matter how coldly the scholar treated her, she came.
The scholar paid her no attention. Or rather, he pretended not to. At some point, on the days she did not come, the riverside began to feel too quiet. When he realized that, the scholar grew angry with himself.
It was a feeling he could not bear.
The child was the only daughter of the family that worshiped the Water God. The scholar was a poor scholar living in a house with collapsed walls. If he passed the examination, he could become an official. But even if he became one, he would never reach the threshold of that household. The scholar knew it. Even so, he could not stop his feelings from growing. So he became even colder. His coldness was armor. He was afraid that what lay beneath would show if he took it off.
Then, one spring.
She came to find the scholar. No—she was no longer a child. Now a young woman, she came to him. She was different from usual. She was not smiling. Her eyes were red.
"They've arranged my engagement."
She spoke. The scholar did not stop writing.
"Congratulations."
"Congratulations? It's not something I wanted."
The scholar did not answer. Afraid she would see his trembling brush tip, he dipped it in ink again.
"Do you know who it is? It's the Wi family. A family even more powerful than ours. They say he's liked me since we were children. He came today and even knelt in front of me. He told me how much he liked me and how well he could treat me."
The scholar was listening. He was listening without missing a single word.
"But I..."
Her voice cracked.
"While he was kneeling, all I could think about was you."
The scholar's brush stopped. Ink spread across the paper. He stared down at it—the ink spreading, spreading uncontrollably.
"I know I'm being selfish."
She continued.
"I know you've never once said you liked me. I don't even know what you think of me. But I'm someone who has to do what I want. If I don't, I'll die. I really will."
The scholar could not raise his head.
"Take me with you. Stop this marriage."
The scholar could not answer. It was not because he was unable to. It was because there were too many things he wanted to say. That he wanted to take her away. That ever since the day they first met, he had been afraid of the days she did not come. That the look on her face as she ate barley porridge was the most beautiful thing in the world. The words rose to his throat, but they did not leave his mouth. They could not. All the scholar could offer her was a collapsed wall and barley porridge. Even if he passed the examination, it would not amount to a hundredth of what a man from the Wi family could give her.
She waited for the scholar's silence. She waited a long time. And before that waiting could end, a servant's voice came from outside. They were looking for her. There was no time.
"Tonight. Under the pagoda tree outside the city gate."
She spoke. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but her voice did not waver.
"I'll wait there. If you come, take me away. If you don't..."
She did not finish. She turned and ran. The servant's voice was drawing closer. The scholar watched her back as she ran, the hem of her silk clothes fluttering in the wind. It was the same back as the child who had snatched away his book when they first met and hidden it behind herself.
The scholar stared down at the ink that had spread.
On the paper, the ink had already spread beyond control.
Seoyeon opened his eyes.
He saw the ceiling. It was the ceiling of an inn in the southern county. He had delivered the official document and was staying the night. The moon was visible outside the window. A crescent moon. The face of the person whose eyes had curved like a crescent moon rose in his mind.
Seoyeon closed his eyes.
It had happened ten thousand years ago. Ten thousand years had passed, yet her voice from that night—"I'll wait there"—still lingered in his ears. It had never once grown faint in all that time.
The illness in his lungs was quietly growing. Seoyeon could feel it. Its roots seemed to have sunk a little deeper.
He thought it was all right.
But the thought that it was all right came a little later than it had yesterday.