The cherry blossoms were falling.
A petal carried on the river wind settled on Seoyeon's shoulder, then was blown away again. Seoyeon did not look at it. After seeing flowers bloom and wither some ten thousand times, a flower was just a flower. The sense that they were beautiful had worn away long ago.
From horseback, Seoyeon looked down at the road that followed the river. He was on his way to deliver an official document to the southern county at the lord's command. It was neither urgent nor important. The errands assigned to the Seo family's youngest son were usually like that. Tasks no one expected anything from and no one cared about.
Seoyeon found it comfortable.
A life without expectations was quiet. A quiet life passed quickly. A life that passed quickly ended quickly. That was all Seoyeon wanted from this lifetime.
Several days earlier, Seoyeon had planted an illness inside his own body. It was the kind that took root in the lungs. An illness made from immortal energy—no physician would find its cause, and no medicine would work. His cough would gradually grow more frequent, his body would slowly waste away, and his breathing would grow shallower until, sometime in winter, he would quietly close his eyes.
He thought it was the most human kind of death.
He had lived for ten thousand years. In that time, Seoyeon had died by the sword, drowned, and burned to death. In some lifetimes, he had died on a battlefield; in others, from poison. The ways of dying were varied, but the moment he opened his eyes again was always the same. A new body, a new name, a new age. And memories that never changed.
Her face.
Seoyeon closed his eyes. The horse walked the road on its own. In all those ten thousand years, the clearest thing was always that face. A woman he had met in a village beneath a mountain when he first descended into the human world. A woman whose eyes curved like crescent moons when she smiled. The woman who had made Seoyeon resolve to cast away everything he had as an immortal and live as a human.
A Hundred Years Together.
Growing old together. Watching their wrinkles deepen together. Losing their teeth together, growing stooped together, and one morning failing to wake up together. That was all a being who could live for ten thousand years wanted. A mere hundred years. Those hundred years weighed more than ten thousand.
But she loved someone different every time.
With every reincarnation, she failed to remember Seoyeon. With every reincarnation, she took another man's hand, and with every reincarnation, she died loving him. Seoyeon had watched it happen. From afar. Unable to say a word. Watching her smile in another man's arms, Seoyeon could not tell whether what he carried inside was longing or a curse.
In ten thousand years, the times he had met her could be counted on one hand. In some lifetimes, Seoyeon had spent his whole life searching, only to never find her. In others, he found her only moments before she died. Seoyeon called her name while holding her cooling hand, but she closed her eyes without recognizing him.
So Seoyeon had decided to give up in this lifetime.
He would not search. He would not wait. He would simply fall ill, live an ordinary life no one would remember as the youngest son of a noble family, and die.
Seoyeon opened his eyes.
The river came into view. It was broad and slow. Cherry blossom petals drifted across its surface, and willows drooped on the opposite bank. It would have been a beautiful scene. If Seoyeon had still been the person he was ten thousand years ago.
Then he saw something.
Someone was standing on the riverbank. A man. No—someone dressed as a man. The distance hid their face. But there was something strange about the way they looked down at the river. It was not the posture of someone admiring the view. It was the posture of someone who had made a decision.
Seoyeon turned away.
It was none of his business. If there was one thing he had learned from living ten thousand years, it was that nothing was more futile than interfering with someone's decision. Those who wanted to die would die. Those who wanted to live would live. Intervening between the two changed nothing.
Splash.
Seoyeon heard it. He did not turn around.
He tried not to.
But his body moved first.
Leaping from the horse was not a decision. Running toward the riverbank was not a decision. Jumping into the water was not a decision. Something moved before the weariness of ten thousand years could stop it. Seoyeon did not know what it was. He only knew that his hand reached out first, caught the body thrashing in the water, and dragged it up onto the riverbank.
The person pulled from the river lay facedown on the bank, coughing. They were dressed in men's clothes. Their official cap had come off and was drifting away on the water, while wet hair covered their face. Seoyeon did not see their face. He did not try to.
“Are you all right?”
Seoyeon spoke in a dry voice. It sounded less like the voice of someone who had just saved a life than a greeting offered to someone who had fallen in the road.
The coughing stopped.
Then the person raised their head. Eyes appeared between the strands of wet hair. Seoyeon saw them. Not the whole face. Just the eyes. Eyes soaked with water, yet burning with fire.
“Who asked you to save me?”
Their voice was hoarse, but it held no gratitude. It held anger. Shame. The raw hostility of someone who had tried to die but failed, directed at the person who had saved them.
Seoyeon looked into those eyes.
He had seen countless eyes over ten thousand years. Eyes that begged to be saved, eyes that pleaded to be killed, eyes that saw nothing at all. All of them had blurred with time. In his memories, they had faded into the same color.
But these eyes were different.
Seoyeon did not know why they were different. They simply were. After ten thousand years, for the first time, the eyes of this person—who had fallen into the water, been pulled out, and was now angry at their rescuer—held Seoyeon's gaze.
Seoyeon said nothing. Water dripped from his wet clothes. A cherry blossom petal settled on the person's shoulder. Seoyeon looked at it. At the petal clinging to the wet clothing. Earlier, he had not seen the petal on his own shoulder, but he could see the one on this person's shoulder.
It was strange.
Seoyeon turned away. He had somewhere to go. He had to deliver an official document to the southern county. He did not need to know who this person was or why they had jumped into the river.
“Next time, choose a deeper river.”
That was what Seoyeon said as he climbed the riverbank. His horse was waiting on the road. Seoyeon brushed the water roughly from his clothes and climbed onto the horse.
He heard nothing from behind him. He did not look back to see what the person was doing.
But as he urged the horse onward, Seoyeon had one thought.
There was an illness planted in his lungs. An illness that would slowly grow and bring this lifetime to an end. Until a few days ago, he had hoped it would grow quickly.
Now he thought it would be all right if it grew a little more slowly.
He did not know why.