We chose each other

It was the night in the vibrant city of Seoul, back then. The day he had blacked out in the streets and woken up as a bear.

He saw himself getting out of the back of the car yelling at the chauffeur for ruining his meeting and making him late to the airport. The man was miserably apologising. He watched himself brush the man off. He winced seeing how rude he was being.

He hurried down the street towards the stadium where he needed to meet the leaders to sign off the last bit of his rights to the game. Lost in his own self-importance, he saw himself fail to notice the shaman gracefully making her way through the bustling throng.

Jaewoong winced before he even saw it. Knowing what was coming.

Their collision was abrupt and jarring, causing both of them to stumble. He watched himself scowl and uttered a dismissive remark, disregarding the woman's presence. The shaman's eyes darkened with a mixture of sadness. The scene twisted with red hues and blue hues swirling together. “You were quite a lot back then, hmm, lost in your world. Not caring if you hurt someone. I could sense the seed of sadness twisting into a cruel and rude nature. Your soul turning black once those two feelings mixed and left nothing else there.”

"I am Hae-Won, the guardian of ancient spirits, and your malevolence has awakened their ire,  young man. Can you not see an old lady on the ground and not offer a bit of kindness her way?" The version of the shaman in the vision said.

Jaewoong scoffed at her words. Turned away and left her there. The first rain drops began to fall around them. He continued walking but time froze. The shaman got up slowly and held out a hand on her back the other she reached forward and slowly began to chant. Jaewoong’s body froze and he watched a light envelope him until he was gone and when the light dissipated there was only a stuffed bear. The shaman walked forward. “You will remain this way, as a bear if you cannot show and remember what it is to be human you can take on the form of your name. Maybe then you will see what it is to be human. You have ninety one days to fight that pain. To stave off the darkness before it consumes you. If you cannot remember what it is to feel, what it is to hurt for someone else. To ache for them, then there will be nothing for you in the end. A bear you will be until your soul turns black and you cease to exist.” She bent down and picked up the bear. “Don’t worry little one. I think they are wrong. I see good. I see what once was. Maybe it can be once more again. But that is your choice. I think it will take more than your choice to return. Maybe another person as well.” She chuckled and petted the bear's soft fur then walked off away with the bear. The two of them disappeared from the vision and the bubble faded away.

She smiled softly.

“It seemed like that person there didn’t have anything left but darkness. But the person in front of me knows now that the world is not just hard and filled with pain. But that pain doesn’t have to be theirs alone. Sometimes bad things happen because of you, but that does not mean that is all you are. You were driving the car. But it was raining, it was a cliff. You didn’t know that fighting with your parents would make every single one of you distracted enough to not notice, that you would lose control of the car.”

“Do you think that if you knew your father was depressed and your mother was divorcing him that you might not have argued? That you might have been safe that night? Do you think that everything could have been changed if you had been just a little less selfish and seen their pain over your own?” She asked as if reading his mind.

‘Maybe she was. Heck she was a shaman.’  They could do all sorts of things. Including punishing him for his wrongdoings.

“Maybe not. But you were there that night. There is nothing good left in me. That’s why I am here getting punished. Because even if you know that... I mean even if I am not responsible for my parents deaths, I am still not a good person, I am still being punished.” Jaewoong said.

“Ahhh, pe, pe, pe, sometimes what seems like a punishment is simply a sheep struggling to find its path again after becoming lost. Jaewoong-ah only you thought of this as a punishment.  There are many lessons and risks we must take in our lives. Many choices that form the paths that lead to our futures. Sometimes what seems to be our burden can also be our gifts. Hmm.” She said,

He raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe, in this case there was more than one lost sheep that needed loving, and more than one sheep that needed help to find it's way.” She shook her little shamans stick.

“Think about it.”

He sucked on his bottom lip. Back then when Minjun had come up to him. ‘There had been something there.’

If he was being honest. Minjun had just felt. ‘Like…like, he wasn’t sure, but it had caught him off guard. Maybe an echo of his own pain.’ And when he had said he would win him, that he was just going to get him in one try. He had felt like he wanted to wipe that smug pretty little smile off his face. And when he had used every ounce within him to bounce off the claw, and Minjun’s face had fallen he hadn't felt so excited in so long.

But Minjun had come back. He had come back in tears, and Jaewoong’s heart had bounced again just like when he had bounced off the claw. But this time the pain that had echoed inside him was clear as day. The first feelings he had felt in a really long time. And then he had said those words. And Jaewoong's insides had split with a pain that really was a mirror of his own. Hadn't he thought those words too. Back then a year ago when his parents had died.

"Auntie, can't you just tell me everything is going to be okay?" Jaewoong remembered himself ask outside the hall. His auntie turned away from him.

"I can't... It would be a lie Jaewoong. Why did only you survive? Why did my sister have to be taken away from me." His auntie burst out in tears and ran away from him.

Jaewoong felt tears stream down his own face as eh was left outside the funeral hall. "Couldn't you have just lied." He whispered and fell to the ground.

Jaewoong felt tears well in his eyes. Minjun had made him feel something again. He had reminded him of the pain in that moment. Of how truly desperate one had to be to wish, above all else that their feelings could be washed away if someone just told them it would be okay. That they could just erase their aching heart and the cracks that led into the very fibre of their being with a simple promise. No one could give him that promise back then and in the moment Minjun had cried out for help. He had wanted so badly to make that promise. He had wanted to lie and hope that someday that lie would turn to truth. Because he knew how badly the pain of needing that lie was hurting him inside. He remembered that moment both of those moments and the heavy feelings interlaced atop each other.

“For a split second hadn’t you both made a wish?” She asked, breaking his memory.

He had wished… He had wished to be human again. So that he could help take away Minjun’s pain. And in that moment he felt Minjun. He felt emotions for the first time in months.

‘If you win me. If you touch me. Will I be able to make you feel something? Some comfort so that you are not alone? If its with you, you who hurt and feel the same pain as me. I think I would be okay to spend my last moments.’ And every moment since his world had been filled this yearning desire for every touch Minjun gave. Because every touch between them was filled with every bit of emotion he felt he had been missing since his parents' accident.

"Is it because I wished to be human? Did I just have to wish all along?" Jaewoong looked back up. “ Wait... How did we chose each other? What does it mean? Can he save me at the end of thirty-one days?” He asked. But he was talking to an empty rooftop.

Jaewoong sighed.

“Why is it that every time I run into you, I end up confused? Aren’t Shaman’s supposed to be helpful?” He asked the rooftop.

But she didn’t come back, and she didn’t answer him again.

***

The shaman sat at her table sipping a cup of tea. She chuckled softly, her eyes twinkling with humour.

"You two are so close to figuring it out Jaewoong. So close. Just open up a little more. Your flower has almost bloomed."

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