Chapter 18
One year
Li frustrated with the dangling carrot of the moon cycle coming and going of the thing that brought him but still not being able to cross over back home to his Kiso Mountains village his rice farms cherry blossom trees his beautiful wife his son who without a foubt is almost a yesr old tears burning his cheeks and yet slightly deeper connected to his fruend the ancestors he kew would disappear but leave a profound matk on him once he returns
The moon cycles, a cruel tease, had come and gone, each one a shimmering, rippling promise of home that slipped through Li’s grasp like water. He’d watched the invisible become visible, a fragile veil of light that pulsed with the rhythm of his own desperate heart. He was an explorer, a man of science, and this phenomenon, this gateway, was an enigma that gnawed at his soul. He’d felt the jolt, the pull, the tantalizing glimpse of his Kiso Mountains, the emerald rice fields kissed by the blush of cherry blossoms, the comforting warmth of his wife, Sun-jin. And his son, his little Li, who, without a doubt, was now almost a year old. Tears burned his cheeks, a familiar sting of frustration and longing. The ancestral spirits, the ones he’d grown to know and respect in this strange, distant time, had warned him of their eventual departure, a truth that now sat heavy in his chest. Their wisdom, their quiet strength, had become a profound anchor for him, and the thought of their inevitable fading, like the ephemeral shimmer of the rift, brought a fresh wave of sadness. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that when he finally returned, if he returned, he would carry their mark, a silent testament to their shared journey.