Archive of Our Own

He wanted to touch her. But he feared she was only a dream.

He wanted to touch her. But he was afraid she would recoil from him.

He wanted to touch her. But he couldn’t bring himself to move.

The want was a burning, searing ache in his very bones. But the fear had paralyzed him.

How many times had he dreamed she’d returned to him, reached out for her in joy, only to suddenly wake and remember she was gone? How many times had those dreams become nightmares, where he did get to hold her, but she had no memory of him, or rejected him?

It had been so long since he’d held her, kissed her, felt her warm breath on his face, her heart beating steadily against his own. What would he do if this too, was just another torment?

As he stood frozen, tears welled in her eyes. She took in a shaking breath that exhaled as a sob, then she threw herself forward at him.

Shin caught her against his chest, automatically wrapping his arms around her. She was tangible, warm, real. He buried his face against her hair and inhaled her, uncaring of the tears now falling unchecked down his own face. “My love,” he whispered brokenly. She was really there, solid beneath his greedy hands.

They shifted, bringing their foreheads together so they could breathe each other in. It was too much, it was not enough. How long had it been? How many ages had passed since he’d held her? It felt like an eternity. He never wanted to let her go.

As if she was reading his thoughts, or was just having the same ones, she gripped his shoulders and jumped, wrapping her legs around his waist. It sent a thrill through him as it always did. His hands slid down to support her thighs and he was jolted to find them bare.

School skirt.

His eyes shot open and he realized they were out in the open, for anyone to see. At this point in his long life, he didn’t much care what the world thought of him, but he knew the picture they presented - a girl in her teens by all appearances, in a passionate embrace with a middle aged man. And her thighs… the skirt riding up, daring the wind to raise it just a little higher. He grumbled jealously and gripped her tighter. “Hold on to me,” he whispered.

She obeyed without question, and with a tug of his magic, he brought them inside the hotel, to his room. Eun Tak shuddered in his arms, took a breath to steady herself, and then looked around in awe. She grinned at him.

“I knew you could take people with you like that, since you’d offered it to Deok Hwa that one time, but you’ve never done it with me before!”

Shin smiled back, his heart swelling at the sight of her happiness and wonder. “For most, the experience is jarring to say the least. I did not think it was something you would enjoy, so I never offered.”

“Not jarring,” she protested, shaking her head. “Magical.”

“Then I’ll move us this way any time you wish,” he promised.

She grinned at him again, this time the expression softening to something deeper. She unwound one of her hands from where it had been tangled in his hair and brought it to his cheek, stroking across the bone before tracing his brows, his lips. “I’ve missed you.”

He didn’t say that he had missed her too. She knew. She had to know. Every fiber of his being had longed for all the years she’d been gone. She pressed a kiss to his lips, slow and soft. Shin barely repressed a groan of delight. He wanted to stay like this for eternity. Just like this. With her wrapped around him, sharing breath, hearts beating in tandem.

But as she shifted her head to deepen the kiss, something else trickled into his mind. Subtle changes in her from the last time he’d held her. Her hips were less rounded, her cheeks slightly fuller, her legs slimmer. She was his Eun Tak, but her body was so young.

He broke the kiss, though his entire being protested. “Uh, Eun Tak…”

She cocked her head at him questioningly.

“How old are you right now?”

She smiled, understanding. “I suppose that depends,” she said consideringly. “I am 48, and 19, and also centuries beyond reckoning.”

He raised a brow at her. “My body is 19, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Shin sighed and sat them down on the couch. He couldn’t bear to separate her from him, but he did manage not to sit with her fully in his lap. “So young,” he said quietly. Beside him, Eun Tak laughed.

“Perhaps,” she conceded, “to an eternal guardian.”

“You are my bride, my wife, my lover… and yet you are also a child. We should slow down. I want-” he swallowed thickly, but forced himself to go on. “I want everything, with you. I want all of it, all at once, every single word and touch and experience that we missed together… but that wouldn’t be fair to you. I don’t even know your name, in this lifetime.”

Eun Tak squeezed his hand. “I am Park So Min, in this lifetime.”

“Park So Min,” Shin repeated. It was a pretty name, but he didn’t think it suited her the way Ji Eun Tak had. Still, he would learn, for her. “Is that what you’d prefer to be called?”

She took his hand and slowly shook her head. “It’s strange… for so long, I didn’t realize these memories really were memories. When I did figure it out, it felt like my past life was a dream. One that had felt so real in the moment but was hazy upon waking. But now… seeing you… it seems that these nineteen years as Park So Min were the dream, and that I am finally waking up as Eun Tak again. Kim Eun Tak.”

Shin’s chest tightened at the sound of his name coupled to hers. The name she had taken when she became his wife. He shifted on the couch, reclining against the arm of it and pulling her with him so that she was resting against his chest. Hesitantly, unsure it was allowed even after what she’d just said, he ran his fingers through her hair.

“It must have been difficult, growing up with memories of your past life.”

“Not nearly so difficult as growing up with my aunt, last time.”

“Tell me about it,” Shin asked. “All of it. From the moment you walked through the door.”

Eun Tak snuggled closer to him. She thought back, through the fog of a lifetime’s memories, and then further still. “There was a long staircase. Surrounded by nothingness. But not - not a frightening nothingness. It was, comforting, somehow. And the stairs… I felt compelled to climb them, even though everything inside of me wanted to run back through the door and into your arms once more.”

Eun Tak remembered how difficult that first step had been, even with the comforting nothingness and the compulsion pushing her. She remembered how sobs had shaken her frame, the sobs she’d managed to suppress in front of Shin finally escaping her. But remembering the agony on his face as she left, she couldn’t bring herself to admit that to him. She didn’t need to add to his pain.

“Eun Tak.” Shin tilted her face up for a moment, meeting her eyes. There was understanding there. “All of it. The good and the bad. I want no secrets between us. Our lives have been filled with pain, and loss, and loneliness, but going forward we are going to fill them with so much more. So tell me your story in its entirety, holding nothing back.”

She nodded slowly, pressing her cheek to his chest, above his heart, once more. “It was hard,” she admitted. “I knew it was the right thing to do, I knew that I should go, but… I stayed there, unable to let go, for a long time. I had held you only moments before, but already I missed you. I could not regret the choice I’d made, the decision to save those children’s lives at the cost of my own, but I regretted the pain I’d caused you, and the misery I’d brought upon myself. But, eventually, I climbed.

“I do not know if the place I went to was heaven, but it was bright and quiet. At first I thought, perhaps, as a miscellaneously omitted person, there was no afterlife for me, no way to reincarnate, and panic gripped me. But then, I saw someone walking toward me. My mother.” Tears filled Eun Tak’s eyes at the memory. “I thought she would have already moved onto her next life, that I would have missed her. But… she waited for me.” It had been the only comfort she could have received, at that moment. Her mother’s arms around her were the only things that could have lessened the sting of losing her life with Shin. “We hugged, we cried, we laughed. She wanted me to tell her everything, in my own words, even though she had been watching over me. And though I didn’t want to say much about those years with my aunt after she died, I was so happy to tell her about my time with you. She remembered you, and how you saved her. Saved me.

“We talked about it all. I met my friend, too, that had been her friend. And others, people I had helped move on as ghosts, people that had been of my family that died before I’d known them. It was… it was wonderful, even though through it all, there was this emptiness inside me.

“I don’t know how much time passed. It seems that time goes differently, in that place. Eventually, even with the happiness that being around my mom and the others gave me, I couldn’t bear the loneliness any longer. I asked my mother if she was ready to go onto her next life, too, and she said that it wouldn’t be right for her to go first again and leave me behind. That this time, she would see me off first. I thought how funny it would be, to be older than my mother in our next lives, though I knew she wouldn’t remember me.”

“Maybe she would. After drinking the tea, she should have lost her memories of her life. But she remembered you.”

Eun Tak shook her head. “She did drink the tea, she told me. But apparently, the supermarket granny paid her a visit, and told her that she would keep her memories until the time when she could see me again. A last gift, she said. After I left, I’m sure my mom’s memories of her old life left her the way they were supposed to.”

“I’m sorry,” Shin whispered. “It is difficult, having everyone you love move on while you carry their memories.”

“Not everyone I love moved on,” Eun Tak said. “There was still you to come back to. And I’m glad, that she didn’t have to keep the memories of a lifetime that had happiness and love, but also pain, and fear, and loss. I’m glad she will move onto her next life with a clean slate, and not be burdened by the past.”

Shin thought that Eun Tak was a much bigger person than he was, to be able to let go without resentment. Then again, he had been letting go for over nine hundred years. The cumulative burden had become painful for him.

“And so, you were reborn.”

Eun Tak nodded. “I don’t remember my infancy, or much of my earliest childhood. My first memory is of seeing a picture of a maple leaf and crying without understanding why. I missed you, but I didn’t understand how I could miss someone I’d never met. Sometimes, if I had a bad dream, or I got hurt, I would call out for you.”

Shin held her tighter, wishing that he would have been able to hear those calls. Wishing that he could have answered each one, and comforted her, eased her every hurt.

“At first, my parents thought you were my imaginary friend.”

The word parents made dread ice Shin’s veins. She was in a school uniform. She had parents in this lifetime who would be missing her. “Your class - I didn’t even think - They’ll be wondering where you are. We are going to have to get you back to them before your parents worry.” He couldn’t bear the thought of letting her out of his sight, and was already wondering how he could go back with her, what explanation he could give for not wanting to leave their daughter’s side-

Eun Tak laughed and shook her head. “No, I won’t be going back. Not for a while, at least. And not without you. I am done with school for now, and I don’t plan to go through college again just yet. You’re going to have to support your high school drop out wife,” she said with false lament.

“We can say you were educated privately. The papers won’t be hard to make. But your parents?”

“It was a strange childhood, as you can imagine, growing up with an entire lifetime of memories in my brain. Like I said, at first they thought you were my imaginary friend. I wondered myself, at times. I wondered if I’d invented you in my mind, or perhaps you were a story I was destined to write… but no mere story could feel so real. Thankfully, I was born into a Buddhist family, who could understand that it was possible to be reborn with memories from your past life, though it was rare. I was a teenager when I finally accepted the truth of it. When I was able to sort out my mind enough to separate the memories of this life from my past one, and when I was able to fully understand the sense of longing I always felt. We never spoke of it, but between my unusual childhood and my behavior as a teenager, my parents understood. They will not be shocked when I vanish for a while only to return with a handsome husband named Kim Shin.”

“A teenager…” Six years. Six years she had known who she was, and still lived without him by her side. “You could have summoned me, when you first realized.”

Eun Tak looked up at him with a grimace. “And have you appear before me with my body only thirteen years old? No. It was difficult enough, knowing that I was yours, having the mind of a grown woman in a strange, child’s body. But to have had you there…” She shook her head. “Would you have been able to embrace me? To kiss me?”

It was true, that Shin would not have been able to treat her like a lover, when her body was still so young. Even knowing that she was his Eun Tak, he could not have. Not at such a young age. “I would have been as a brother to you, an uncle, a father. Whatever you would have allowed.” Sex had never been the most important part of their relationship, after all, even though their short time as lovers had made him wonder how he had ever managed to keep himself from her.

She shook her head again. “I was too greedy. I would have allowed it. I would have wanted it. All of it. But I could not ask that of you. It was difficult enough, recalling how hesitant you were with me when I was twenty. I could not be beside you and have you treat me that way again. I am your bride. I would not have been able to wait, if you had been before me. So instead, I waited by myself. I counted the days. I explored new studies in school, things I hadn’t learned last time. I lost myself in memories of you. I sat in the rain longing for you, and I sat in the first snow longing for you. I ate rice cake on my birthday each year without blowing out a candle.”

“We have many birthdays to make up for, then.”

“Next time,” she said, “maybe next time, I will not be so selfish. After a lifetime of loving you, of being at your side as your wife, I might be able to bear those years waiting for my body to mature and simply being with you. But forgive me for my weakness this time only.”

“Next time,” Shin agreed. They would have eighty years together in this life. He would make sure she lived a long time, and he would not be parted from her for a moment of it. When she returned in her third life, it would be easier to spend a few years living as family, rather than lovers. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d kept celibate, and certainly not the longest time. After her death, the idea of him taking another lover had been obscene. He had kept to himself instead, and waited. He would wait an eternity for her, if it was what was required.

“Your turn,” she said excitedly. “Tell me everything. I want to know everything that I missed.”

So Shin told her. About the good and the bad, in its entirety. He told her about the first days after her death, and the emptiness in his chest that never went away. About his struggle to keep his promise to her not to drown the city in rain, and how he kept reminding himself that it was not goodbye forever, but goodbye for now. He told her about the first time he bought her something, with the expectation that he would be able to give it to her when she returned, and how it had become a full obsession, filling warehouses with the things he bought to give to her when she was reborn.

He told her about Sunny’s death, and Yeo’s assignment as a reaper ending at the same time. And how he had seen them together, years later, though he didn’t stop to speak to them. They had finally found happiness free of the sins of the past, and he would not destroy that. Rather, he would watch from afar, and knowing that they were happy, leave them to their peace.

He told her about some of the miracles he had performed over the years, and how they had come to fruition. She laughed when he told of the lady he’d stopped from accidentally destroying her neighbor’s garden, and how it had led the two to fall in love. And she grew quiet when he talked about the ghosts he’d helped move on, and how it had made him feel just a little bit closer to her doing so.

“Can you still see ghosts, in this life?”

“No. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad about it. For so long in my past life I wished that I wouldn’t see them any longer. And then, when I stopped seeing them, it was because my connection to you was weakening. It felt like, not being able to see them made us even further apart. Sometimes, I would stare at the spot on my back where your mark used to be and wish that if I prayed hard enough, it would return. Not to call to you, but just to be connected to you in some small way.”

Shin lifted the collar of her shirt and looked down at the nape of her neck, where the mark had been before. Now, there was nothing but unmarred skin. Between his touch and his gaze, Eun Tak shivered. “I understand,” he said, shifting his eyes to meet hers. She licked her lips, and blushed.

“Even though it had faded by the end so much that I couldn’t save you, I liked seeing it there.”

“Perhaps, a tattoo?” Eun Tak suggested. Her smile was mischievous, but her eyes were hooded.

Shin scoffed. “The only thing allowed to mark this beautiful skin is me, do you hear?”

“Then maybe you should leave a different kind of mark for me.” Her gaze dropped to his lips.

“Should I?” His voice was rough, half question, half plea. Slowly, Eun Tak nodded. Shin cradled her face in his hand and tipped it to the side, giving him better access to the crook of her shoulder. Carefully, he leaned his head forward until his lips met her skin. It was softer than silk, warm, and electrified with her pulse. He pressed a kiss there, then another. He opened his mouth and let his tongue stroke the place his lips had caressed. She shifted against him, legs moving restlessly. She tasted sweet. Need rose up in him like a tidal wave, surging hotly in his blood. His teeth caught her flesh and he bit down. When she gasped, he traced the marks he’d just left with his tongue. Then he sucked, hard, and she cried out his name, body trembling against him.

“Eun Tak.” He pulled back to look at her face, seeing the desire there that reflected his own.

“Kiss me,” she demanded.

He could do nothing but comply, kissing her fervently, with all the longing, all the passion, all the love he’d felt in the decades she’d been gone. She kissed back just as ardently. Soft little sounds of pleasure escaped her on each exhale, and he drank them in. How had he lived without this? Without her?

His body was reacting to her, tensing in anticipation, readying itself to take her. He wondered, would she still fall apart beneath him the way she had before? Would she taste the same? Would she respond to the lovemaking he’d learned to give her in her past life, or would he need to learn her all over again, finding out what this incarnation of her liked best? A thick haze of lust filled his mind, and he broke the kiss, shaking his head to try and clear it. “Eun Tak,” he gasped, hanging onto his control by a mere thread.

“Take me to bed,” she whispered.

Shin stared into her eyes, looking for uncertainty, or hesitance, or even reckless boldness that she might regret later. Instead, the eyes looking back at him were steady and clear. These were not the eyes of a girl on the cusp of womanhood, but ageless eyes that had known a lifetime’s worth of joy and sorrow, and still more beyond that.

His question, of if she was sure, died on his lips. Instead, he stood, picking her up easily with him as he did. Her legs automatically came around his waist and she kissed him again. With unerring steps, he took them to the bedroom. Before he had even laid her down, she was eagerly pulling at his sweater, tugging it over his head. When he settled her against the pillows, he did the same, pulling off her tie and undoing the buttons of her blouse. The sight of the school uniform still made him uncomfortable, but he ignored it, instead focusing on removing her skirt. If he never saw her in a school outfit again it would be only too soon.

Either unaware of his conflict about her clothes or simply eager to move beyond them, Eun Tak undid the placket of his trousers and pushed them down his hips.

Now, they were almost completely skin to skin. Only her panties and his boxers were between them. Shin began trailing his kisses down her body, his goal clear. He pressed his lips gently to the mark he’d left on her shoulder. He ran the tip of his tongue between her breasts, then laved the peaks of them. He kissed each rib and across her belly. When he reached the edge of her underwear, he caught the delicate fabric with his teeth and tugged down.

She had to lift her hips to help him shimmy them off, and they both ended up giggling at the absurdity of his foreplay. But her laughter died away as he caught her ankle in his grasp and began kissing her again, this time back up her body. Her calf, the sensitive spot behind her knee, the inside of her thigh… Her legs fell open to allow him to settle between them, and Shin took the invitation gladly. He teased her slowly, running his tongue along the outer edge of the sensitive skin without dipping into where she wanted him most. Every breathy moan was a treasure to him. When, finally, he slipped his tongue between those secret recesses of her body and caressed the throbbing core of her, she cried out and her thighs tightened around his shoulders. It seemed she did still like the things she had before - but possibly also some new ones, as well. He couldn’t wait to discover them all. To rediscover all the pleasures he’d given her before, and to learn these new ones too.

He brought his hand up, slipping two fingers inside her to curl up to that spot -

She tensed, her moan bitten off in a hiss. Shin froze. And it occurred to him-

“You’ve never done this before.”

Her head snapped up and she glared at him, though the flush on her cheeks and wide pupils dulled the effect of it. “Did you forget the night we spent here? Or all the nights in your bed at home? Or our wedding night?”

Shin shook his head. “This body.”

Eun Tak huffed, clearly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, withdrawing his fingers gently and kissing her thigh in apology. “I should have been more careful.”

“I didn’t ask you to be.”

“And so?” He shook his head again, kissing her other thigh. “There will be time for wild passion. There will be time to rush. But this is not the time. Not when this body has yet to know my touch. My possession. I want you to only ever know pleasure in our bed, Eun Tak. Let me give you that, even if it means we must go slowly, this time.”

“Slowly, but not to stop,” she said forcefully.

Shin grinned. Eager as ever, his bride. “Yes,” he agreed. When she nodded, he lowered his head once more and took his time coaxing her back to breathless abandon. He started with only one finger first, her body welcoming him with eager slickness. The second he added slowly, carefully, keeping her right on the edge of her peak. Though he knew it wasn’t his hands she wanted, he still added a third before increasing the pace of his tongue and letting her fall into release.

He eased himself back as she was shuddering beautifully through the aftershocks.

“You said we were not stopping,” she protested breathlessly.

“And we did not.”

“Shin!”

“You know,” he teased, even while removing his own underwear, “you must be the only woman brought to orgasm at her lover’s mouth who complains that it’s not enough.”

She blushed even brighter, though her face had already been red. He grinned and she swatted at him.

“So mean,” she said, pouting.

“Mean?” he asked in mock outrage. “Me? Mean? As though you did not just nearly smother me with your thighs? Aieesh, this woman.”

She swatted him again, glowering. “You know what I want.”

“I do,” he agreed. “I never said that I would not give it to you.”

“You are a heartless tease.”

“Am I?” He reached between them to check that she was still slick enough to welcome him, and then gripped his throbbing length and rubbed the tip against her. “Am I really?”

“Yes,” Eun Tak gasped. Her nails found his back, biting into the skin deliciously as she pulled him closer. “I’m ready.”

“Patience.” He kissed her, just a peck of lips, and fitted the head of his cock against her. “Patience,” he admonished again. He kissed her a second time, longer, deeper. Her body was still clenching and releasing from her climax, and each time she relaxed, he slid himself ever so slightly deeper. “Patience, my love.”

“Yes,” she finally agreed, willing to give him the time he asked, as long as this was how he did so.

When he was finally, fully sheathed inside her, they both caught their breath. Shin rested his forehead against hers, more desperate to continue than he was willing to admit. She felt like heaven around him, and it had been so long since he’d been able to love her this way. Already, he could feel his body straining toward release.

Before, he’d been able to coax her to a second peak without the use of his hands if he’d used his mouth first. But he wasn’t sure that would still be true, and he didn’t know if he would last long enough to find out. Instead, he slipped his fingers through the slickness where they were joined and then stroked across her. She cried out and jerked, her muscles clamping around him vice tight, and Shin had to bite his tongue not to spill right then and there.

“Too much!” she gasped.

He shifted his fingers, trying slightly to the side, then softer. Still, she shook her head. He was about to withdraw his hand completely when she reached between them and turned his wrist, positioning him so that the heel of his palm rested against her. She pushed down, and he increased the pressure slightly. She moaned. He moved his hand in a small circular motion, keeping the gentle pressure, and she gripped his shoulder so hard he was sure there would be furrows there for a week.

In pleasure-drunk wonder, he continued the movement while he started to thrust into her. She was so beautiful that he almost couldn’t bear the sight of her. His bride. His heart. His one love. She accepted him into her body as though they were made to fit together, as though he belonged here, between her thighs. It was overwhelming, the feeling of sudden fulfillment after so long of sadness and missing her. It was humbling, watching her accept him, welcome him eagerly. It was enthralling, seeing her pleasure mount, knowing that he was the cause of it. He felt tears prick his eyes and blinked to keep them at bay.

When she began tightening around him in anticipation of another climax, Shin sped up his thrusts, burying himself deeply into her over and over again until she came undone with a scream of his name. He followed not a moment after.

As the blinding pleasure ebbed, Shin found that the tears had managed to fall against his will. He started to press his face against her neck to hide them when he realized she, too, was crying. She cradled his face in her hands and brought him close.

“I love you,” she said through the tears. “I love you so much.”

He kissed her, softly. “I love you, too.”

They stayed like that for long after, holding each other close, quietly weeping at the miracle that was their reunion.

***

“I’ll make calls in the morning, to get your papers started. Will you want an ID with the name Eun Tak on it, or will you keep the one you have now?”

It was later, after they had kissed until they were certain to chafe, and they had cleaned up from their lovemaking. Shin was laying against the pillows with Eun Tak laying against his chest.

“I could just change my name legally, rather than put someone through a lot of hassle to make up new documents.”

“It will take some time, though.”

“We have plenty of that, you know,” she reminded him.

“Then the school papers, at least. You meant what you said about staying by my side, didn't you?”

“I did. I feel bad about relying on you financially, despite how willing I was last time, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

Shin tsked her. “I want nothing more than to tease you about loving me only for my money, but here you are almost as rich as I am.”

“Definitely not. The family that raised me was poor, and though I worked through my school years, I wouldn’t have kept that money for myself, not when they had so little and I knew you would be able to provide for me later.”

“Your family will never want for money again,” Shin declared. “You were loved, while we were apart. I would offer them the world simply for that. But I meant what I said. You are not penniless, Eun Tak.” When she only blinked at him, uncomprehending, he smiled. “What do you think happened to the money your mother left you? You hardly spent any of it, even in the time I’d been erased from your memory.”

“I thought… I assumed it would - I don’t know. Pass to my next relative, perhaps.”

Shin nodded. “Which would be your husband, who had no intention of touching it. It has been invested over many, many years. What was once a large sum has become nothing short of obscene.”

Eun Tak gaped at him.

“Did you think I would spend it? What sort of man do you take me for?” He pressed a hand to his heart as though offended. Eun Tak swatted his faux pout away.

“Do you really mean it?”

“I do.”

Still, she stared at him, trying to grasp the reality of it. In both her lives, money had never come easily. And when it had, she’d been unable to spend it. Now, Shin was telling her that she would never worry about money again, not because she was his wife, but because she had money of her own. “Then, in that case, I’ll provide for my family. You’re not obligated.”

Shin glowered at her. “You won’t deny me the privilege of taking care of my in-laws, vixen. I have much to repay them for, and no one will dare say that Kim Shin is a bad son-in-law.”

“You are a thousand year old goblin,” Eun Tak reminded him, as though he’d forgotten.

“Even still. Moreso, perhaps.”

Eun Tak shook her head at him, but let the subject drop.

“Are you living in Canada, now? Or are you back in Korea?”

“I was just getting ready to go back to Korea, actually. Now, we can go together and reopen the house.”

“Is the Yoo family still tending to your affairs?”

Shin nodded. “For a while, it seemed the line might end, but Deok Hwa became a rather energetic family man. You’ll meet his children, grandchildren, and one great-grand child. Not all of them know what I am, of course, only the eldest male descendent, but all of them know me in one way or another.”

Though he seemed happy enough to talk about it, there was something sad in the silence that followed, so Eun Tak once again took the conversation another direction.

“So what do you have planned for us, for the next few years?”

Shin looked down at her. “You’re asking me?”

“You said you bought me warehouses full of gifts. I assume you made plans, too, for when I would return.”

“You have a history of disrupting my plans,” he said warily.

Eun Tak shook her head. “Not this time. I’ve had enough of mischievous behavior. This time, I’ll follow your lead.”

Shin studied her suspiciously. “So you say. We’ll see. You might change your mind when you grow bored.”

“How could I ever be bored with you?”

“Because I want to spend the first year at least doing nothing but looking at your face, laying in bed with you, kissing you, cooking with you, folding laundry with you, and making love with you.”

Eun Tak blushed. “That sounds very cozy.”

“And you’re very energetic. So if you plan to run off and do something wild as soon as you get restless, you’d better warn me now.”

“Hmm… It’s true, I am energetic. I guess you’ll simply have to find another way to keep me occupied.”

Shin gaped at her.

“Something that will leave me completely worn out.”

“Yah! Do you hear yourself right now? Who gave you permission to be so bold?”

“Shin, I’m a woman deeply in love with a man she’s been parted from for many years, in the body of a hormonal nineteen year old. But I suppose I have to remember that you’re an ancient old man. If you don’t think you can keep up…”

“I never said that! I may be old, but my body’s still in its prime! Hey, don’t you laugh at me. Come here, I’ll show you who can’t keep up!” He rolled them on the bed, pinning her beneath him even as she laughed and eagerly wrapped her legs around his hips.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked with a smile. “Show me your enthusiasm, my Shin.”

He kissed her, and proceeded to do exactly that.

***

Ten years can pass like an age or in a blink, depending on the circumstances. Somehow, the last decade with Eun Tak had been both. Time with her went by faster than it ever had in his long, lonely life. And yet, now that he had her, he could scarcely recall the unbearable years he’d spent without her.

He and his bride had finally made a life together. True to her word, Eun Tak had stayed by his side almost constantly those first few years. They had had the joy of rediscovering each other, inside and out. The days were spent in happiness and laughter, and the nights were spent in pleasure and love. They enjoyed domestic bliss, beautiful in its simplicity. After a while, they began venturing out further than the shops. Shin performed miracles for deserving humans. They went to visit Eun Tak’s parents, who had been just as understanding of the sudden turn of events as she’d expected them to be.

There were no children from their love, but as much as Shin would have thrilled to see his seed grow inside her, to hold a child that was equal parts Eun Tak and himself, he could see how the lack was a blessing. Of all the people Shin had buried, his child would never be among their number. Eun Tak would not have to leave this life with her children and grandchildren to mourn her, only to find them already passed on by the time she returned. Instead of children of their own, they shared their love with the children they came across. Eun Tak spent her money generously to help others. Homeless shelters and children’s hospitals gained anonymous benefactors. Orphanages were showered in presents after a curious couple came to visit. Eun Tak found joy in bringing light to what could sometimes be a dark, cruel world.

Eventually, she had started talking about going to college again, to learn more, or possibly to find a new trade. Shin convinced her to wait. Instead, they traveled the world together. There was so much Shin wanted to show her, to share with her.

Already, she was twenty nine again, the same age she’d been the last time she was taken from him. They had, at best, another seventy years before she would leave him. It seemed such a cruelly short amount of time.

There had been nights, in the long, lonely years he’d waited for her, when his treacherous mind had whispered dark thoughts, asking him if it was worth it - worth the pain he endured while he waited for her, when the years they could share were but a handful compared to his eternal life. Was it worth having given up his chance to end his immortality when, at the end of her fourth life, all that awaited him was the agony of knowing they could never be reunited again?

But, his heart had always known the answer. She was worth an eternity of loneliness, just to be able to cherish the memory of her.

As he held her in their bed, listening to her peaceful slumber, feeling the rise and fall of her chest, Shin found, for the first time in his long life, that he was truly grateful to god. Every turn that he’d felt was a cruelty, every time his wishes had been denied, every pain he’d endured, had led him to this, to her. Shin closed his eyes and held Eun Tak a little tighter, thinking that, if he ever saw god again, he owed him his thanks.

Just as sleep was about to take him, there was a shimmer in the air, and suddenly Shin found himself no longer in his bed. Instead, he was seated on a low slung couch in what looked like a high class bar, though it was nearly empty. Beside him, Eun Tak was starting to wake, jolted at being so suddenly shifted. And across from him -

The elder King Wang sat, wearing his finest regalia.

Shin blinked, trying to clear away the illusion. When he opened his eyes again, Wang was still there, smiling enigmatically at him.

“No, you haven’t traveled back in time or gone mad,” that familiar voice said.

Shin simply gaped at him. Eun Tak had finally gotten her bearings and looked between them curiously.

“Then, what is this?”

“This?” Wang glanced around and waved a hand negligently. “This is simply a bar where god occasionally goes for a drink.”

“God?” Eun Tak asked.

Wang inclined his head in agreement and introduction. “Though, this visage is only a temporary one. A friend from Kim Shin’s past. I thought he deserved to see a friendly face. Perhaps even a fatherly one - though I didn’t go quite that far. Baby steps, as they say.”

“What… is going on?” Shin asked. Fear welled up in his heart. He could protect Eun Tak from anything on earth, but not from god himself.

Wang made a tsking sound. “So quick to doubt again.” He shook his head. “Ah, well. I suppose it can’t be helped. This was rather abrupt, after all. But I brought you here to offer you a reward.”

“A reward?” Shin said skeptically.

“For what?” Eun Tak asked.

“I told you once, that god merely asks questions. You humans make the answers. With you, Kim Shin, I asked a question. What could make a man who didn’t believe in a merciful god become grateful to him? And now, finally, I have my answer.”

Shin recalled, vividly, the conversation he’d had with god when he was in Deok Hwa’s body. And he remembered what he’d thought just before starting to fall asleep. Part of him wanted to be outraged, that a thousand years of suffering was just an experiment to god. But then, hadn’t he been musing, only minutes ago, how it had been worth it? How could he be angry at such a question, when the answer had been Eun Tak?

Shin slipped off the couch and went to his knees before Wang. It was a position he’d taken many times in front of the real king. He bowed low, touching his forehead to the floor before sitting back on his heels.

“Thank you,” he said earnestly. “For every moment of pain, for every experience both good and bad, for every minute of my long life. Thank you for allowing me to find the answer. To find her.”

“You suffered much,” Wang acknowledged. “Even with help, your existence has known more sorrow than joy. And you are my child, as much as you are Hers. So now, I will grant you the chance to answer another question for me.”

Eun Tak put her hand on Shin’s shoulder and squeezed lightly, giving him her support.

“What question,” she asked.

“How long will an immortal guardian and his bride choose to walk the Earth?” Wang said seriously.

“Choose?”

“Yes, choose. If death did not come looking for the bride, if there was no separation after a fourth life cycle, if they could seek death, whenever they wished, how long would they choose to remain, performing miracles among mankind?”

“I… I don’t understand,” Eun Tak said.

“As of now, you share your husband’s immortality, Kim Eun Tak. You will not be granted his powers, no, but then,” he smiled, “you have never needed them, in order to create your own miracles. There will be no more death and rebirth for you, and no need to fear being parted eternally after your fourth life. However,” he held up a finger, “it will not be an eternal immortality. Should you wish it, you can open the door.” He waved his hand, and a door appeared. It looked almost like the one at the Grim Reaper’s tea shop, but it was all black. “When and if you choose to open this door, you will return to dust and be granted oblivion.”

The door opened, and a beautiful woman in red walked through. She smiled warmly at Shin and Eun Tak. “And if that comes to pass,” she said, taking a seat at god’s side, “I will gather your atoms and scatter them across the night sky as stars. So that, for as long as humanity exists, they can look up at the stars and feel a love that endures beyond life, beyond death, beyond the reckoning of even god himself.”

Wang huffed. “You always seem to get the last word,” he complained lightly.

The woman just smiled at him.

“You mean it truly?” Shin asked, disbelieving despite the two deities who were making the promise. It seemed impossible to be given so much, to have Eun Tak and be able to keep her forever.

“What is said by god will not be undone, not without unmaking the very fabric of the universe. Yes, Shin, it is granted to you. To you both.” She looked at Eun Tak with that same smile, and for a moment, she looked like an ancient woman. Eun Tak gasped. Then the image was gone, and the beautiful face was there once again. “Eternity is yours, my children. To share.”

Eun Tak surged forward and hugged the woman tightly. Shin flinched, but the god only smiled and hugged her back, stroking her hair. Beside them, Wang huffed again.

“Why is she the only one who gets hugs? Haven’t I been benevolent as well?”

Eun Tak sniffled, wiping happy tears away. She turned to Wang and would have hugged him as well, had Shin not caught her hand.

“Hey,” he objected, pulling her back.

The gods just laughed. “Haven’t you taken up enough of their sleep? Send them back now.”

“The thanks I get,” Wang grumbled. He raised his hand, and before he could finish the gesture, Eun Tak pulled away from Shin and caught his hand in hers.

“Thank you,” she said earnestly. “Thank you, for everything.”

Wang’s face softened, and he traced the knuckle of his free hand down her cheek. “You are welcome,” he whispered. “Live well, goblin’s bride.” Then he stood back, and in the space of a blink, Shin and Eun Tak found themselves back in their bed.

“Did… did that just happen?” Eun Tak asked breathlessly.

Shin stared at her for a moment, processing everything. Slowly, a grin spread across his face. “I think… I think it did. You’re - you’re immortal. You won’t die. You won’t have to be reincarnated to return to me. We won’t be parted after your fourth life. Eun Tak-” His joy was so overflowing that he couldn’t continue to speak.

Tears filled his eyes and he blinked through them, unwilling to lose sight of her even for a moment. “Eun Tak. You’re mine for eternity.”

“My Shin,” Eun Tak said through tears of her own, “I have always been eternally yours. But now, you’ll be mine for eternity as well.”

“Yours,” Shin whispered. There was no greater honor, title more auspicious, no higher privilege, than to be hers. To belong to her, wholly. He brought their foreheads together, sharing breath, their noses brushing. “Forever.”

“Forever,” Eun Tak repeated. “Mine.”

***

A century later, Shin was straining above Eun Tak, pushing her toward her fifth peak of the night. In her mortal life, Eun Tak wouldn’t have thought such a thing possible. But eternity changed things. It gave them time, to learn each other so well that they could do the impossible. To share depths of each other that no mortal beings could have time to discover. To love so deeply that it became as integral as breathing, as their hearts beating.

“Look at me, Eun Tak,” Shin commanded. As always, she was helpless to resist. Her eyes opened, and she watched him as he continued driving into her, continued stroking her, continued igniting pleasure she wasn’t sure she could bear. “Again, my love,” he whispered. “Again.”

He wasn’t always insatiable. There had been times, across the decades, when they had put aside their physical love for a while. In the beginning, they could not bear to be parted. But over time, they learned that they could exist without such desperation. They came to believe, truly, that they had eternity. Eun Tak found that, without the worries of human life, she enjoyed continuing education. She had earned a dozen degrees and learned a dozen more trades. She painted, she wrote, she sang. She continued to do everything she could to fill the world with just a little more gentleness, a little more kindness.

They learned to love together as well as apart. Shin had given her one of his gifts, the second night after they met again - a necklace that was a small container, and inside, three matches that could be struck on any surface to light. Even if she was across the world from him, he could be with her in a blink. There was comfort in that knowledge, in the security of it. They learned to grow, and to cherish that growth in each other, to find joy in discovering some new facet of each other.

It was a delight, to come back together after time apart, and learn each other all over again, all the while falling more deeply in love with those parts of them that hadn’t changed.

But there wasn’t only joy in reuniting. It was tenfold more in being together. In living side by side, in facing each new day together. In sharing all the little moments as well as the grand ones. In sharing contentment and sharing desire.

No matter the circumstances, Shin’s passion for Eun Tak never waned. His enthusiasm only grew, sparked anew each day. And Eun Tak wanted him just as ardently. It was why, as he rocked into her, stroking her already over-stimulated flesh, she found herself unraveling a fifth time after all.

As she did, he shifted, drawing his hand away and speeding up his thrusts. She was carried along by it, her release drawn out by his chase of his own. The bedframe knocked against the wall and the lights flickered.

“Eun Tak,” he breathed raggedly. Unable to stop herself, Eun Tak surged up and kissed him. He automatically wrapped his arms around her and sat up on his knees, bringing her with him. As they kissed, he moved her exactly where he needed, his pace never faltering, until he slammed her down at the same time he bucked his hips forward and spilled inside her.

Eun Tak cried out, echoes of her release rippling through her. Shin pressed his forehead to her shoulder and panted. His body shook with the force of his pleasure.

“I love you,” he said quietly, when he’d regained his breath.

He didn’t need to say it. She’d heard the words countless times over their long life together. But he did say it. Because, in spite of the eternity that was theirs, he never took her for granted. He treated each day with her as a treasure, one he cherished above all else.

Perhaps someday, they would go through the door and seek respite from immortality. Perhaps, in another dozen centuries, in a thousand. But for now, a no longer lonely guardian and his bride would walk the earth, side by side, hearts filled with love.