Before I fell here, I had a worry. People were so selfish, caring most about their own feelings, and someone as weak-hearted as I ended up suffering every day. I even felt a sense of inferiority for not being able to be cruel, and perhaps found it easier to study in the library than to mingle with people and get hurt.
Back then, I couldn’t have known, but now, with so much time to reflect alone, I found myself wondering from a completely different perspective: was I really incapable of being selfish?
So even as I risked danger following General Hunmu to search for that old woman, the question confronted me once again.
‘Am I really incapable of being selfish?’
Watching General Hunmu from behind as he walked through the forest, relying solely on his torch in the pitch-black darkness, many thoughts crossed my mind.
However, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon these steps, and the guilt of feeling so deeply sorry weighed on me.
I wasn’t sure if I, who always put him in difficult situations and asked only the hardest favours, could ever repay his kindness. If there was ever a moment when the words 'thank you' failed to come out because I was truly so grateful, it would be now.
As we pushed through the forest, wet with night dew, I recalled how Bin had taken my place and gone to bed early, just in case something unexpected happened.
I told her to cover herself all the way up to her head and pretend to sleep just in case a high-ranking court lady or even the king came by.
Praying that the king wouldn’t come tonight, I quickened my pace as I followed General Hunmu more closely.
But why did General Hunmu decide to help me like this again? He had always been such a resolute man.
“I think it’s over there.”
Breaking the silence, General Hunmu pointed through the darkness at a humble hut. Sure enough, a lone hut stood there, guarding its space in the chilly night without a single light.
But it didn’t seem like anyone was there. There should have been at least a lantern lit, yet the pitch-dark hut looked almost like a ruin.
Recalling the elderly woman who had quickly disappeared with her small steps, I wondered if coming all this way had been in vain. The dam of my heart felt dangerously close to breaking at any moment.
But why was the weather so overcast? It hadn’t been this cold when I left earlier, but maybe because I was in the forest, it felt as if it would rain all through the night.
“Is anyone there?”
When we finally arrived at the front of the hut, General Hunmu spoke. It had felt utterly hopeless with no sign of anyone, but fortunately, a pair of straw sandals had been left at the doorstep.
“Who is it…?”
Jolt.
Not long after General Hunmu spoke, the voice of an elderly woman came from within. It was definitely the person I had been searching for, and my neck stiffened, making me feel like I might grab the door handle at any moment.
“I have something to ask, so please open the door.”
“At this late hour…”
Her phlegmy voice carried through, and before long, a light came on inside the hut. Then the silhouette of the grandmother, straightening her clothes as she prepared to step outside, came into view.
Thump.
Thump.
Ah, how long I had waited for this moment.
I set aside my guilt toward General Hunmu and exhaustion from climbing the steep, winding mountain, and all my sight and hearing sharpened, focused entirely on the elderly woman.
Creak.
“!”
My mouth fell open. I finally found her.
At last, I found the elderly woman I had last met outside the library before going to the subway. At the sight of the torch General Hunmu held and the clothes he wore, her face was filled with surprise.
“…I… I… you know me.”
The words came out before I could even greet the elderly woman. My lips fumbled, stammering as I tried to speak, and General Hunmu stepped aside to let us talk.
“Pardon?”
Even after changing out of my hanbok into worn-out clothes, the elderly woman seemed to recognise at once that I was someone of high standing, and she spoke with courtesy.
But something was strange. She faced me as if I were a complete stranger, without the slightest surprise. Of course, she seemed a little bewildered as to why I had come to find her, but there was not the faintest sign of recognition.
Her face, her eyes clouded with age, and the deep, hard-earned wrinkles of life; they were unmistakably hers, yet she felt strangely unfamiliar, as if she were someone else.
“I… you know me, don’t you?”
"How could I possibly know you, Miss…? Even if you had once asked me to read your fortune, an old woman like me remembers people only by their date of birth.”
“That’s not it…”
“This place is humble, but please, come in… It looks like it might rain, and the air is chilly.”
Squinting with one eye, the elderly woman groped about as she cleared the bedding inside. General Hunmu also glanced up at the dark sky. Seeing not a single star, his expression darkened. It really did look as if rain were coming.
Seeing this, I rushed inside the room where she had just been sleeping, determined to hear something from her as quickly as possible.
"Don’t you remember me?"
I asked before General Hunmu even followed me in.
The elderly woman stared at me in the dim light and shook her head. Now that I looked closely, there was one clear difference: the eerie feeling I had sensed when I first met her was gone. Of course, there was still something frightening, but it was very different.
“I am not sure. Could you tell me your date of birth?”
“No. Grandmother, I’ve never had my fortune read by you. You definitely saw me in another world, not here.”
“Pardon…?”
With General Hunmu by my side, I explained as desperately as I could.
“When I was leaving the library, I kicked a tin can and it hit your foot. Of course, that was my fault, but I was in a terrible mood that day. No, that’s not the important part. Afterwards, I tried to go home on the subway, but suddenly I felt dizzy, collapsed, and when I opened my eyes, I was here.”
“I really… don’t understand what you’re saying… a tin can…? What is that?”
“Haa…”
“It seems you have mistaken me for someone else.”
“No! It was you, Grandmother. Even your eyes… everything. Grandmother, it was definitely you. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”
Rumble!
At that moment, thunder and lightning struck suddenly. Then the sound of rain pattering down outside reached us.
General Hunmu sprang to his feet, his face etched with dismay.
“Finish your conversation quickly. I will prepare the path.”
Perhaps relieved to hear that the person I was looking for wasn’t this elderly woman, General Hunmu disappeared into the forest, torch in hand. It seemed he intended to clear the rocks and weeds before the rain got any heavier.
But there was no need to stay any longer. Her face was definitely that of the old woman, yet it seemed she wasn’t the one I was looking for. If she didn’t even know about the tin can, how could the story go any further?
“Haa…”
I had gone to great lengths to come here, even asking Bin to impersonate me, and now, faced with this outcome, I swept my hands over my face in frustration.
“I was certain… it was you... I thought that if I came here, I might be able to find a way to return... I thought that if I came here, I might understand why I ended up in this place."
“...”
“I’m sorry for coming so late… It seems I mistook you for someone else.”
The rain, which had begun with only a few scattered drops, gradually grew heavier. But when I lifted my bowed head, our eyes met, and I flinched.
It was the same eerie feeling I had felt when I first met that old woman.
The view was dark, General Hunmu was absent, and seeing the elderly woman with one eye clouded white in the darkness was almost as terrifying as a scene from a horror film. Yet nothing was more frightening than remaining any longer in this world.
"Grandmother, do you really... not know me?"
“I do not know, but… my older sister might.”
“What…?”
“...”
“Your older sister? You have an older sister? Grandmother, this is really important to me… I’m not from this world. I have to go back. I must go back.”
Unlike when General Hunmu was present, the elderly woman’s expression held a knowing, tense air, never softening. Her gaze drifted over my dyed hair, so unlike that of the people here. Yet she did not open her mouth to speak right away.
Thinking I had to do something, I knelt all the way down on my knees.
“Grandmother, please. If you really were the person I met back then, it was me — I was in a terrible mood that day and kicked the tin can. I should have properly apologised to you… Grandmother… why have I ended up here? If you know the reason, please tell me…”
"It seems you met my older sister, not me, so there’s nothing I can do to help."
“Huh…? Your older sister? You mean it was your older sister I met? But I’m not even from this world. The world I lived in is somewhere else. I’m someone from another world.”
“...”
“I won’t tell anyone what I hear today. I just need to return. Please, tell me something —anything.”
The elderly woman, watching me kneel fully on my knees, glanced once at the door through which General Hunmu had left. Then she slowly closed her eyes and opened them again.
“I told her not to be so spiteful… Tsk, tsk…”
The elderly woman soon straightened her bent back with effort and took down the basket she had placed up high.
Inside the basket, wrapped in multiple layers of white cloth, were objects clearly meant to be hidden from others. The moment the cloth was lifted, I opened my eyes wide and grabbed the basket at once.
“Are these really things from the world you came from, Miss?”
Familiar objects I hadn’t seen in a long time were neatly arranged inside the basket: cheap promotional pens and fans handed out on the street. They were items anyone could get for free. Back then, I’d been so annoyed when people tried to shove them into my hands. Yet now, I gazed at them with a face full of indescribable emotion as the elderly woman explained that they were things her older sister had brought.
Even as I listened to the story being told, it was utterly unbelievable.
“In this world, twins are often seen as an omen of misfortune, and it is common for one to be killed at birth. If one is spared, that is considered fortunate, since more often than not, both are killed. My older sister and I are twins. We narrowly escaped death several times.”
“Ah…”
“We were separated when we were young, but later we met again at a temple, and we became shamans who listened to the words of the gods. Yet because we still had to hide the fact that we were twins, one of us had to live in hiding for life. We took turns reading fortunes to survive, but a few years ago, my older sister fell gravely ill with a severe fever and barely survived. My older sister, I mean.”
A trace of bitterness passed over the elderly woman’s face. Even without her explaining in detail, her expression and low voice alone conveyed just how harsh a life she had lived. I could feel it.
“Somehow she survived that brush with death, but after that, my older sister changed. She had grown tired of spending her life reading fortunes for others and serving the gods. For us, it had always been enough just to scrape by and put food on the table, but that near-death experience changed her.”
“How did she change?”
“One night, after telling me that I should finally live in peace, she suddenly disappeared. She then threw herself into a waterfall in the forest not far from our home, intending to end her own life.”
“!”
“But then, something astonishing happened. Even now, I wonder if it was a punishment from the gods for my older sister. It was something that should never, ever have occurred.”
“The older sister who leapt into the waterfall… then that means…”
“That’s right. She went to the world where you lived, Miss.”
“!”
“But my older sister knew the way back. At first, she nearly starved, but once she learned how to return, she would bring things like these and tell me about that world. She asked me to go with her, but I was too afraid. Even now, if I could stop her, I would. To go against the flow of time… it feels like committing a terrible sin against heaven.”
“What is the way back?”
"I didn’t hear all the details. But she said that once every few months, on the night of the full moon, if someone leaps into the waterfall, they can be swept into the rift caused by the gods’ mistake and be brought there. However, since one person has already disappeared from this side, someone from that side must be sent in return. She said it’s the only way to maintain balance if you want to stay longer than the allotted time, and that the positions cannot be completely swapped. It merely buys a little extra time to remain there.”
“Then… are you saying she sent me here so she could stay longer in that world?”
The elderly woman did not answer immediately. But her silence was, in itself, an affirmation.
“When was the last time you saw her? I heard there was another man who fell into this world besides me…”
“Do you think my older sister was the only one who tried to take her own life? If she could do it, then anyone could have crossed space and time. As for that man, I do not know.”
“…Why did your older sister send me here?”
“She harboured much resentment toward the world. Even when all she wanted was simply to stay alive, she cursed her own life at every turn, wondering why there were so many who sought to kill her. To her, the world you came from, a world she had never seen, seemed far better than this one."
“Haa…”
“She must not have wanted to return. That is why she sent you here in her place.”
“But I didn’t even jump into the waterfall. I was going down into the subway… and suddenly felt dizzy.”
“My older sister and I are shamans. We hear the voices of the gods and see what ordinary people cannot. Sometimes we even cast curses with our powers, so do you think that would have been difficult for my older sister?”
“…I can’t believe it.”
“Can it really be believed that you are standing here before me, Miss?”
“Grandmother’s older sister… when will she come here again? Should I leap into the waterfall on the night of the full moon?”
“No one knows exactly how often the rift appears at the waterfall. But since it’s been quite a while since I last saw my older sister’s face, I believe that day will come soon.”
Creak.
No sooner had the elderly woman finished her story than General Hunmu opened the door. By then, the rain had intensified, and he appeared soaking wet. He said a heavy downpour was coming tonight and urged me to get up.
The elderly woman had finally opened her heart and told me about her older sister. I wanted to stay a little longer, but since I didn’t know the exact way to return (back to the palace), there was nothing more I could ask.
It felt as though I had heard a lot, yet I hadn’t actually received the information I truly wanted. Unable to press for more, I rose up and with my complicated feelings written plainly on my face, I bowed my head in thanks. Having slipped out of the palace secretly, I couldn’t help but be unusually preoccupied with thoughts of the king.
“It’s late at night, and I haven’t brought anything with me…”
Just as I began apologising for troubling her so late at night, General Hunmu suddenly pulled some coins from his sleeve. Startled, I looked at him, but he handed them in my place.
“We apologise for troubling you so late at night.”
He spoke with courtesy. Taking that opportunity, I too was able to bow my head and offer my respects.
Seeing our behaviour, the elderly woman silently placed the money down, then straightened her bent back and told us to take care on our way.
In the pouring rain, General Hunmu wrapped my head tightly with cloth and secured the hems of his baji (trousers). Though we had finally made it here, the thought of descending this pitch-black forest to return to the palace already filled me with anxiety and made my chest feel tight.
Still, I tried to soothe my heart, thinking of what a miracle it was that I had made it here at all.
“Miss.”
It was just as I stepped into the rain. I suddenly heard the elderly woman’s voice from behind, dampened by the downpour.
Blinking rapidly against the rain, I turned to see her holding the bundle of coins General Hunmu had left, muttering in a soft voice.
“Since I have received something… I should do something in return as well. Even if it rains like today, if you endure and persevere, things will get better.”
“What?”
“General, please always take care of your health.”
She had not been told his rank, yet she used the title ‘General.’ She then told us to go down carefully and closed the door behind her.
I looked at General Hunmu, wondering what she meant by her words just as we were leaving, but he gripped his scabbard and hurriedly moved forward, saying that if we lingered any longer, the path down would be blocked.
Stepping on the muddy, rain-soaked ground, I was once again reminded that my expectation was correct: that if I jumped into the waterfall, I could return.
Not always, but on the night when the full moon appeared.
I didn’t hear the details exactly, but as I went down the rainy path clutching General Hunmu’s scabbard, my mind wandered with many thoughts.
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