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# Chapter 68: Silence on Water
The car headed toward the Han River.
When Kang Riou’s hands turned the wheel, Sae-ah realized her body was moving. Left. Right. Gravity lost its direction. The car’s side tilted toward the guardrail. Metal screaming. Sparks. And then—stillness.
The car caught on the guardrail. It didn’t fall completely. It simply stopped. Tilted. Above the Han River. 5:22 AM.
Sae-ah wasn’t breathing. Somewhere along the way, she had stopped. Her lungs had ceased. As if she were thirty meters beneath the surface. Like when her mother was a diver. Holding breath underwater, holding, holding until that moment when everything burst.
She heard Kang Riou’s voice beside her. It wasn’t a voice so much as a sound. The kind that comes from a broken instrument. Impossible to tell if it was a scream, a cry, or laughter.
“I’m insane.”
Two words. That was all Kang Riou could manage.
Sae-ah exhaled slowly. Through her nose, not her mouth. Long and thin. Like a signal that death was passing by.
“Open the door.”
She spoke. Her own voice sounded like someone else’s. Composed. Cold. Emotionless. She understood—this was the voice of survival. When emotion disappears, humans become most clear.
“I can’t open the door.”
Kang Riou answered. His hands fell away from the wheel, suspended in the air. Trembling. Those fingers were speaking the language of death.
Sae-ah looked outside the car. The Han River flowed five meters below them. The dawn water was black. It wasn’t water—it was an ending. The end of everything. The end of sound. The end of pain. The end of lies.
“Are you going to kill us?”
She asked. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A sentence confirming fact.
“I don’t know.”
Kang Riou’s voice trembled. Real trembling. Not acting anymore.
“I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I didn’t mean to kill you… I just…”
His words didn’t finish. They hung in the air like an incomplete sentence.
Sae-ah moved toward the steering wheel. Slowly. Very slowly. Like calming a wild animal. Kang Riou’s hands pulled further away. Sae-ah placed her own hands on the wheel.
His hands fell onto hers. Warm. And cold. Simultaneously. Like a mixture of the living and the dead.
“Even if you want to die, you can’t.”
Sae-ah said.
“Why?”
“Because your fingers are still trembling.”
Kang Riou looked at her. In the darkness. In the darkness of dawn. His eyes were full of water. Not tears—actual water. As if his entire body was becoming the Han River.
“I love you.”
He said.
“No.”
Sae-ah answered.
“Why…”
“You love my voice. The sound that your lost fingers created. You love what’s inside me, not me. You never saw me as a person. You saw me as your mirror. A broken mirror.”
The silence in the car deepened. It was the silence of water. The silence that descends into the depths. Sae-ah thought of her mother’s diving. How long divers could hold their breath. Usually two minutes. At most three. Anything longer is death.
They were now at two minutes.
“What do I do?”
Kang Riou asked. His voice had become a child’s voice. No longer an adult’s. A child’s voice that doesn’t know its choices.
“You turn the wheel. You back the car up. And we get out.”
“What happens after?”
“There is no after.”
“You mean we separate?”
Sae-ah didn’t answer. Instead, she placed her other hand on top of his trembling one. Both hands. Like a prayer.
Kang Riou’s hand trembled more. Then it moved.
He turned the wheel.
The car backed slowly. It pulled away from the guardrail. Metal scraped against metal. Sparks flew. Sparks on the dawn road. Sae-ah watched them. They were beautiful. Beautiful even as they burned themselves away.
The car returned completely to the road. To safety.
Kang Riou turned off the engine. His fingers continued trembling. Even after releasing the wheel, they trembled. The trembling didn’t stop.
“I still don’t know what I did in Berlin.”
Kang Riou spoke. Suddenly. Like something that had been held back for too long finally breaking.
“You?”
“Junho. My friend. We were both in Berlin. At the music academy. And one day…”
His words didn’t finish. Again, the sentence remained incomplete.
“You don’t need to tell me what you did.”
Sae-ah said.
“But you don’t know—”
“Because I can see that you haven’t forgiven yourself. Because your fingers keep trying to return to that moment.”
Kang Riou looked at her. This time, really looked at her. Not as a shadow, but as a person. As a single woman sitting before him.
“I used you.”
He said.
“Yes.”
“Then why are you pushing me away? Why are you leaving?”
“Because I feel you pushing me. While you seem like you’re trying to save me, you’re actually trying to find your lost self in me. You never saw me as a person. You saw me as your mirror. A broken mirror.”
Sae-ah’s voice wasn’t cold. But it wasn’t warm either. It was the temperature of water. The temperature of the Han River. The temperature of the point where life and death meet.
“Then what are you?”
“I was fire. The fire you ventilated. The fire that kept burning because you kept pushing. And fire burns away. Not because of you, but because that’s the nature of fire.”
Kang Riou looked ahead. Toward the Han River. The water continued flowing. Morning was approaching. The sky was changing from black to navy. Stars were going out one by one. Dawn was ending.
“I can’t give back what I took from you.”
Kang Riou said.
“You already have.”
“What?”
“Me.”
Sae-ah opened the car door. Dawn air entered. Cold air. Air that smelled of survival.
“You need to listen to your music now. What your fingers wanted. Why they’re trembling. If you lost Junho, then you need to listen to Junho’s music. Not your own. Not your guilt.”
Sae-ah got out. From the car. Above the Han River at dawn.
“Sae-ah.”
Kang Riou called her name. For the first time. The first time with such clarity. Her name. Sae-ah. A woman. A human. A musician.
Sae-ah didn’t turn back. She walked forward. Toward the Han River. Breaking through the dawn air.
“What you wanted from me wasn’t love. It was eternity.”
She spoke without looking back.
“You wanted my music to never end. You wanted me to keep burning. To light up your guilt. But all fire goes out. All songs end. Everyone is alone.”
Kang Riou remained in the car. With trembling fingers. With eyes full of water. And for the first time, truly for the first time, he knew what he had to do.
He had to move his fingers. Sitting before the piano. He had to play Junho’s piece. Not his own. Not the piece he made from his guilt. The piece Junho left behind. Real music.
Sae-ah sat on the sidewalk by the Han River. 5:37 AM.
Her phone rang. It was Hayul.
“Where are you right now?”
Hayul’s voice was almost a scream.
“By the Han River. Near Hapjeong Station.”
“Are you alone? Where’s that Kang Riou bastard?”
“In the car.”
“What? Why are you out there? What happened?”
Sae-ah didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at the Han River’s water. It continued flowing. Unchanged. Without stopping. That was water’s nature. Stop and it rots. Flow and it lives.
“Sae-ah. Answer me.”
“You were right.”
“Right about what?”
“I was abandoning myself. Slowly. Like fire.”
Hayul’s silence came through the phone. It was the silence of understanding. The understanding only old friends can have.
“Come home now. I’ll pick you up.”
“No. I can walk.”
“Are you crazy? At 5:30 in the morning?”
“Yes. I’m crazy. But maybe a little less crazy now.”
Sae-ah hung up. Hayul was about to say something, but Sae-ah couldn’t hear it. She had ended the call. She had cut all connections.
And she walked.
Past Hapjeong Station. Toward Hongdae. Toward the convenience store.
Dawn Seoul was awake. As always. Street cleaners swept the pavement. Taxis searched for passengers. Someone was finishing their night shift. Someone was beginning a new day.
Sae-ah walked among them. Invisible. As if she wasn’t there. That was how to survive in Seoul. To move while invisible. To be dead while alive.
There was a tattoo on her neck that Hayul had done. Below her collarbone. A matchstick drawn in ink. A small flame in its hand. She touched it with her fingers. Ink on skin. Permanent. Unforgettable.
“Who am I?”
Sae-ah whispered. On the dawn street where no one listened.
“I’m not fire. I’m not smoke. I’m just me.”
The convenience store appeared. GS25. White fluorescent light. She had spent nights here. Months here. And she would continue. But now it would be different.
Now it would be for herself.
Sae-ah stood in front of the convenience store and looked at the dawn sky. Changing from black to navy. Soon it would be blue, then orange, then finally yellow. The sun was rising.
All nights end. All fires go out. But then new light comes. That is the cycle of the world.
Sae-ah entered the convenience store. 5:45 AM.
At this hour, it was empty. One night-shift worker. That was all. The worker saw Sae-ah. His coworker. And he knew something was different. Her eyes. Her posture. Her entire presence.
“Hi.”
Sae-ah said.
“Oh? You’re not scheduled today.”
“I know. I just came.”
Sae-ah went behind the counter. Her place. Her space. Standing there, she looked outside. Dawn Hapjeong. Still dark streets. Streets soon to brighten.
And in that moment, a sound came from her mouth.
Not a song. Not words. It was something in between. A voice. Pure voice. Coming from the deepest part of her body.
The night-shift worker heard it. And he moved. He stopped his work and turned toward Sae-ah.
Sae-ah continued. She didn’t close her mouth. She kept making that sound. Not for anyone to hear, but for herself.
That was the true purpose of a voice.
Kang Riou was still sitting in the car. Ten minutes had passed since he turned off the engine.
His fingers were still trembling. But now he understood what it was. Not fear, but thirst. A thirst to make music. A thirst his fingers were crying out for.
He started the car. The destination was clear. Home. His home. Where that piano from Berlin was.
He left the Han River. Leaving the dawn river behind.
And for the first time, really for the first time, he was afraid. Of sitting before the piano. Of placing his fingers on the keys. Of playing Junho’s piece. Of hearing what that music would say.
But fear was also a form of music.