Eternity [ryeji]

Chapter 23

“It was just a protest! Thousands were arrested alongside me! I didn’t commit murder nor have I assaulted or robbed anyone! Why are you getting so worked up about this?”

“Because it made me look like an idiot!”

“W-wha…” Ryujin blinks and stops arguing, unsure how to respond. Yeji’s answer is not what she was expecting.

“Dad told me,” Yeji says after taking a deep breath to calm herself down. “At first, I was angry that you kept such an important detail about yourself from me but after thinking things through last night, I came to the same conclusion you did. It wasn’t a major crime. It’s not as if you hid something terrible. So what if you decide to tell me about it later? I told my father exactly that but the real reason why it hurts is because I was defending you, us, when Dad told me about it and he totally caught me off guard,” she explains, deflating. “I was so confident, so sure that this is it, that you might be the last. I told him that we have a connection, that you’ve always been honest with me and that I believe you. I was trying to show him that I know what I’m doing and that this is worth every risk but then…” She sighs, shaking her head as she looks down at her hands. “I feel like an idiot. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this is too fast.”

Ryujin stands up, approaches Yeji, holds both her hands and squats down in front of her as she looks up at her. “I’m sorry. I would eventually tell you but I just… I thought it could wait,” she says softly, feeling terribly guilty. “Thank you for believing in me and for defending us.”

Yeji lifts her head, looking straight into Ryujin’s guilty eyes.

“Don’t feel like you’re an idiot because you’re not. I’m the fool here. I should’ve told you but…” Ryujin squeezes Yeji’s hands, stands up and goes back to her seat. She needs some distance in order to be able to tell her story clearly.

“Here’s the truth. There’s another story behind those arrests. The first anti-nuclear weapons protest I took part in was in 1961. I was arrested in Trafalgar Square along with a thousand other people. I didn’t know it then but she was in that crowd and was arrested too. We only found out much later and we thought it was quite a funny coincidence. Then in 1979, nuclear weapons made a comeback and so did the protest marches. She wanted to join because she still believed in the cause and the threat. At that time, she was still in perfect health so we marched and got arrested again,” she explains.

“It became a unique story that she would tell her friends and family. She said that we were fated to be together before we even met.” Ryujin pauses, taking hold of the flower. “I didn’t want to tell you this because I don’t want you to feel more burdened or pressured than you already have. When you told me that you wanted to be the best and that you felt like this was some kind of competition, I decided to wait until you feel more secure. I don’t want you to think that you’re fate’s back up or that you’re some kind of runner up or life’s plan B because you’re not.”

Yeji silently listens, her anger now replaced by slight guilt and more affection towards the woman sitting near her.

“I’m sorry. I really am. Please don’t doubt me or us? I know there’s still a lot I need to tell you but I never meant to hide anything from you. Not on purpose, at least,” concludes Ryujin. “I want this to work too and even if it doesn’t, I would never want to hurt you.

“Feel free to check with your father again. I’ll give you her name. She will be in the list of the arrested protesters. I can even give you her friends’ names. You can ask them about how she met that woman she lived with for nearly twenty years. I think they’re still alive. Probably in their seventies now.”