.ninety seven.

-

"The universe wanted to bring your souls together again. Perhaps you both suffered a lot in the previous life, and the universe wants to compensate you in this one."

-

Minji slowly went back to look at the paintings of the princes, and she was glad to find out that So had become king. Though he seemed like a tough person on the outside and didn't talk to anyone much, she knew that he cared about Eun, and Eun loved his brother a lot as well. So had only been able to visit them a few times, since he was often away from the palace. But Minji knew his intentions were good. The children loved him as well, and they loved him too. They always asked for him and whenever it was one of their birthdays, he'd shower them with love and presents. So had a good heart and Minji thought it was well-deserved that he eventually became king.

He had the star of a king after all, just like her Soo Hyun did.

She stood with her back to the entrance of the gallery, not wanting to part with the paintings because it offered her closure. It made her feel that everything she had lived was not just some coma induced dream. She had really been there. As she continued looking at the painting of the royal siblings all together, she heard footsteps approaching and she felt her heart freeze up.

Back in Goryeo, when she could not see, she had learned to tell his footsteps apart from anyone else's. These footsteps were identical, thought light and hesitant upon seeing another person inside the gallery. But she knew that it had to be him. Her Eun. She turned her head quickly with excitement, thinking that he had found her and that their wish came true. That they had found each other in the next life.

Instead, her heart dropped when she found a young man wearing sunglasses indoors. He also wore a bucket hat and a black mask. The only thing visible on his face were his eyes, and she found some familiarity in them, but she also found no recognition of her in his eyes. If she knew him, and if he was her Eun, in this life he did not recognize her. He did not know who she was. They were his footsteps and perhaps his soul had found her without him realizing. But they were both there. She stood without saying a word, only watching as he entered the room slowly. Though her heart told her that it was him. 

After six years in Goryeo of being unable to see, she had trained her ear to tell apart his footsteps from anyone else. There was no doubt in her mind that it was him. Yet he said nothing when he saw her in the gallery. He had absolutely no clue to who she was. He didn't know that they had been married in another life, that they had children, and had loved each other very much. He was oblivious to it all. But then why had he been drawn to that gallery, on that day? It had to be the pull of destiny, trying to push them together again. 

And would they even get along in this life?

She remembered when she was fourteen and he was seventeen in Goryeo, they hated each other that first day. Would it be the same in the present time?

Minji knew she was overthinking things and that it was most likely that she was the only one of them who remembered their past life. Or if she wanted to go by any logic, he also could have been someone she saw briefly at the lake and his face was one of the last things she remembered when she fell unconscious. The brain was a strange enigma like that. But everything that happened in Goryeo had felt so real and she did not want to accept that it could have been a dream.

When she had been staring at the boy for too long, eyes widened in surprise, he took it upon himself to find out why she was so surprised to see him. He had other thoughts in his mind as to how and why she knew him. His voice came out low and hesitant at first. "Hey...do we--do we know each other?" He stuttered slightly and Minji found another similarity that made her think it was definitely him.

His voice.

Eun's voice was like a melody to her ears, and she knew there was no other voice that could ever match his. He had a singer's voice. 

But with that one question from him, she confirmed that he did not know her. She was a stranger to him and it sent a prick in her chest. The tears started pooling up in her eyes once more, but she did her best to contain them, as she didn't want to scare him off. If this was the one and only time she would ever encounter him in their present time, she wanted to enjoy it while it lasted, and make it last as long as possible. She wanted to remember every detail of him, now that she had her sight back. 

Minji gave a frantic shake of her head and informed him sadly. "We don't know each other." She decided to lie to him about it because she knew he would never believe her if she told him otherwise. "You just remind me of someone I used to know."

He smiled at her beneath his mask, she could tell by the fact that his mask stretched on the sides just slightly. Gesturing to the paintings in front of them, which he hadn't even looked at yet, he explained to her why he was there. "I came to see the exhibit out of curiosity." When Minji only stayed quiet and listened to him, he continued. "My group mates came by the other day when they were sight seeing and they claim I'm in one of the paintings. They didn't even say that one of the people in the paintings looks like me. They said it is me. They are convinced."

So he is aware that he's identical to my Eun, Minji thought to herself. 

She nodded her head slowly in understanding and watched him as he walked forward, spotting the painting with the royal siblings in it. She saw the way his eyes widened with surprise when he spotted the tenth prince. He thought that his friends were exaggerating about him being in one of the paintings, as it sometimes happened. But they had been right. The boy in the painting was literally him.

As he pointed to the tenth prince for her to look, he said, "Its true. That really does look like me." With a chuckle, he added, "I think I'm much more handsome though."

Minji giggled at his words. Even his sense of humor was the same. He was definitely her Eun in the present time. She remembered that time, down by the lake when he told her that he was dripping with good looks. 

She remained standing there, looking at the group painting of the siblings as he continued walking down the gallery. He was once again amazed as he saw the image of him and Han together, how much he seemed to look like the tenth prince. But when he got to the last painting, the one of him and Minji, he looked back at her with utter shock on his face. He still had not taken off his sunglasses or his mask, and he thought she did not recognize him through that. But now he was starting to think that she had been staring because she recognized him from the portrait.

With a shaking hand, he pointed to the couple in the small painting. "That's you...in the painting."

Minji nodded silently, but again did not admit that she was the girl in the portrait. "That does look like me."

"And the boy in the painting looks like me." He said, a bit breathless in his surprise. "We were married in a past life, you and me."

But she knew his words weren't entirely serious. He saw the coincidence in their appearance. They both looked like the couple in the painting, but he didn't realize that it was actually them. He didn't know that they had been together in a past life. To him, it was merely some coincidence that they were both there and that they both looked like the tenth prince of Goryeo and his wife. 

He stayed for about twenty minutes in the gallery, and he took a picture of the painting, the one with the two of them in it. He had the thought that he was going to show it to his friends later. He smiled at her politely as he passed her on his way out, and she didn't stop him. What would she say him? That he was her husband? Minji had to let him go and hope that she would get to see him again, sometime soon.

-

Baekhyun returned to the dorms without being spotted by anyone, which was getting more and more difficult nowadays. Ever since their comeback with XOXO, and later Growl, it was like the group's popularity had blown up. They had fans before, but now it was almost impossible to go anywhere without being seen. Their song Growl  was so popular that some people even took to calling it Korea's National Anthem. Baekhyun couldn't say that he minded the fame and the popularity, he actually liked it because it made him feel like he was special and important. But sometimes he missed the days where no one knew his name.

He removed his glasses, hat, and mask with a tired sigh and dropped it on the table that sat by the entrance of the lounge. Their dorms in the SM apartment building were structured very much like university dorms. They had their rooms on one side of the hallway, on the right side. Each room was for two boys and they each shared one bathroom. Then there was something they called the lounge room, which was where they had a television, two couches, a fridge, a dining table, a sink, a stove, and some cabinets. The room was vast and the whole back side had a glass wall that allowed them to see out into the city. Since they were on the fourth floor, they had a really nice view of the city skyscrapers. At the end of the left side of the hall was their laundry room where the boys had to wash their own clothes. 

Chanyeol and a few of the other boys looked up from the television. They were playing an old Nintendo 64 Mickey Mouse racing game. At the moment it seemed that he was racing against Lu Han and the other boys were waiting for their turn. They had more modern video games, but sometimes they wanted to play the old school games.

"Did you go see the museum exhibit, Baekhyun-ah?" Yixing wondered with excitement.

He was the one who had spotted the tenth prince in the painting and immediately made the connection that he looked identical to their Baekhyun. The other boys thought so too as soon as he pointed it out.

Baekhyun replied with a nod of his head and began to retell his experience at the museum. "Yeah. It was so weird though because when I walked in there was a girl there, and she was looking at the same paintings." By now the video game had been paused and they were all listening attentively to what he had to say. "From the moment I walked in, it felt like she recognized me, even under the mask and the glasses. So I walked up and started looking for the painting you all told me about. Then I saw it. I really do look like one of the princes in the painting. But then I realized why that girl was staring."

He trailed off for a moment and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He unlocked it and scrolled through his camera just a little bit and found the picture he was looking for fairly quickly. He turned his phone screen over for his friends to see. 

"There was a portrait of a young couple and I swear the two people were me and that girl." As he said that, he swiped to the next picture. Where he had taken a picture of the girl secretly. 

The other boys looked at the picture in awe. There she was, standing there looking at the painting with tears in her eyes. And as they looked at her, they also noticed that she was the same girl as the one in the painting with Baekhyun. Except it really wasn't them because this was over a thousand years after that portrait. It was just two people in the past who happened to look just like them. And what a coincidence that the two of them were there on that day, at the same time.

"What if it was fate, Baekhyun-ah?" Lu Han asked.

Yixing agreed with a nod of his head. "The universe wanted to bring your souls together again. Perhaps you both suffered a lot in the previous life, and the universe wants to compensate you in this one."

But Baekhyun scoffed and gave a shake of his head. He didn't believe in those kinds of things like the universe and destiny. If it all happened, it was because of some coincidence. It had to be that. 

-

i was going to try to post this yesterday before leaving to disneyland. but i didnt get to finish it. but i finished it now and i will start working on the next chapter. so double, and possibly triple update today. i honestly just want to get this story over with, so that i can start on my other ones.

im going to try to continue one unfinished one, and start on one of the new ones at the same time.

i just want to finish anything i have not finished yet.

i hope you liked the story, and i hope you like this update. minji and eun meeting in the present time. now he will be known as baekhyun though. because that it his name in the present.

-clary