"The Language of Forever"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD
Jeong Mina knew exactly what V's handwriting looked like.
She had seen it on contracts, revisions, notes to editors, and the increasingly ridiculous manuscripts he insisted on submitting at the last possible moment.
So when a thick manuscript appeared on her desk, she immediately assumed it was Volume Three of History Was Never This Serious.
She smiled.
"Finally."
She opened the first page.
Then stopped.
There was no history.
No jokes.
No footnotes.
No sarcastic observations about kings.
Instead, there was a poem.
Mina turned the page.
Another.
Then another.
She slowly sat down.
"What have you done, V?"
The manuscript was enormous.
It was a collection of poetry unlike anything she had encountered in her decades in publishing.
The poems began in ancient forms.
Some used archaic language and structures that would have been familiar to scholars but nearly incomprehensible to younger readers.
Then, gradually, the language changed.
The imagery remained.
The story remained.
But the poetry became simpler.
More conversational.
More modern.
Until, toward the end, the poems read almost like the thoughts of someone sitting alone at three in the morning, trying to understand why loving someone could hurt so much.
Mina kept reading.
There was an immortal dragon.
There was a woman.
And there were countless lives.
The woman returned again and again.
Each time younger.
Each time with less time to live.
And each time, the dragon found her.
Loved her.
Lost her.
Waited.
Then found her again.
Until finally, the dragon made the decision that broke Mina's heart.
He would stop searching.
He would let her live.
Not because he loved her less.
Because he loved her enough to let her choose a life without him.
Mina put the manuscript down.
She wiped her eyes.
"You're an idiot."
She knew immediately that it had to be published.
The book was released quietly.
There was no elaborate campaign.
V didn't appear on television.
He refused a major launch event.
The title was simple:
The Language of Forever
The publisher expected respectable sales.
Perhaps a strong showing among older readers.
Maybe some university interest.
What happened instead stunned everyone.
The book became a cultural phenomenon.
Older scholars recognized the early poems immediately.
They began discussing the classical structures.
Young readers became fascinated by the later poems.
They highlighted passages.
Posted photographs.
Discussed meanings online.
And then something strange happened.
The generations began needing each other.
Young people went to language institutes where elderly scholars taught classical Korean.
Students arrived with copies of the book and asked questions.
"What does this expression mean?"
"Why is the poem structured like this?"
"Why does the language change here?"
The older scholars, in turn, encountered expressions from the final poems that they didn't understand.
They began asking younger people.
"What does this phrase mean?"
"Why would someone write it this way?"
The young explained.
The old listened.
And then the conversations continued.
Soon, university students were sitting in cafés with retired professors.
Grandparents were discussing poetry with teenagers.
Young people began taking an interest in old forms of Korean poetry.
Older readers began learning contemporary expressions.
The boundaries between generations softened.
One newspaper called it:
The Book That Made Korea Talk to Itself.
Another called it:
A Bridge Between Centuries.
Mina thought both descriptions were inadequate.
Because the strange thing about the book wasn't that it was old-fashioned or modern.
It was both.
It began in the distant past and slowly walked toward the present.
Just like its protagonist.
An immortal being watching the world change around him.
Learning new languages.
New customs.
New ways of expressing love.
But always carrying the same feeling.
Le-Ann read it alone.
She had hidden the copy beneath a pile of clothes in her room.
She didn't want the other members asking questions.
She didn't want Jiwoo looking over her shoulder.
She certainly didn't want anyone knowing how deeply the book affected her.
At first, she smiled.
The earliest poems were difficult.
She recognized the rhythm.
The imagery.
The ancient language.
Some of it felt strangely familiar.
Then she reached the middle.
The language became easier.
The poems began describing a woman returning to the world.
Again.
And again.
And again.
She knew.
She knew before she reached the end.
The dragon wasn't fictional.
Not really.
The woman wasn't fictional either.
It was them.
Their lives.
Their memories.
Their centuries together.
Their separations.
Their reunions.
Their ridiculous little moments.
The temple.
The mountains.
The gardens.
The food.
The laughter.
And finally, the decision.
The dragon would stop searching.
He would let her go.
Le-Ann's eyes blurred.
She turned the page.
Another poem.
The language was completely modern now.
No ancient metaphors.
No elaborate structures.
Just a person admitting that sometimes loving someone meant allowing them to walk away.
Le-Ann covered her mouth.
Tears fell onto the page.
"V..."
She kept reading.
The final poem was almost painfully simple.
The dragon didn't ask her to return.
He didn't ask her to remember.
He didn't ask her to love him.
He simply wished her a long life.
A happy life.
A life in which she could become whoever she wanted to be.
Even if he wasn't part of it.
Le-Ann closed the book.
She pressed it against her chest.
For a long time, she cried silently.
Not because she was unhappy.
Because she finally understood.
V had never truly stopped loving her.
He had simply changed what his love meant.
He had spent centuries searching for her.
And now he was asking for nothing.
Not even another lifetime.
Le-Ann looked down at the book.
"You're such an idiot."
She laughed through her tears.
Then she opened it again.
She read the first poem.
Then the last.
Then the ones in between.
And somewhere between the oldest words and the newest ones, Le-Ann realized what V had given her.
Not a farewell.
Not exactly.
A record.
Proof that they had existed.
That they had loved.
That their lives had mattered.
A bridge between everything they had been and everything she might become.
Outside her room, the other members were laughing.
Life continued.
Le-Ann wiped her eyes.
She knew she should put the book away.
Instead, she turned back to the beginning.
She wanted to read it again.
And for the first time, she wondered if perhaps V had misunderstood the final lesson of their story.
He had spent centuries finding her.
Perhaps this time, he needed to learn that she was capable of finding him too.
