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# Chapter 71: The Weight of a Name
Min-jun was still standing in that spot. The warm light of late afternoon filtered through the pottery studio’s window, sketching his silhouette in gold. Eun-seo watched him, turning over the words she’d just spoken. His name wasn’t Min-jun. It was Tae-oh. When that name had left his lips, his voice carried a weight like soil being pressed over a coffin. Outside the studio, Seoul’s distant traffic hummed faintly, mingling with the smoke drifting from the kiln.
“Tae-oh,” Eun-seo murmured again, testing the name. It felt foreign and yet strangely familiar—like something that had been submerged beneath the surface of another name, only now revealing its true shape.
Min-jun—no, Tae-oh—remained fixed on the window. His shoulders seemed to curve inward more than before, as if someone had placed an invisible weight across his back. His hands stayed in his pockets, one thumb hooked over the edge, moving with his shallow breathing. The earthy smell of clay filled the studio, carried on the heat rising from the kiln.
“Why did you change your name?” Eun-seo asked. It took him a long moment to respond, as if he were drawing words up from a deep well. When his lips finally parted, his voice seemed to vibrate through the very air of the studio.
“Five years ago. In Seoul,” he said. “I was living as Tae-oh. A ceramicist in Hongdae. I was fairly well-known. Published in magazines, regular exhibitions, plenty of collectors.” His voice filled the space. Eun-seo tried to picture it—Min-jun as Tae-oh. But no matter how hard she imagined the galleries and the nightlife of Hongdae, that version of him didn’t align with the man before her now. This Min-jun was too quiet, too careful, as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible, to dissolve into the world itself.
His eyes flickered with something like searching. He turned to face his past, cutting through it like his hand now cut through the studio air. His past and present were worlds apart.
“And?” Eun-seo pressed gently.
Tae-oh turned slowly. His face came into view again. Whether from the kiln’s glow or the weight of emotion, his face looked as fragile as unfired clay. She watched carefully as his mouth opened, as his voice emerged.
“That version of Tae-oh wasn’t a good person,” he said. The words fell like shards of pottery. His voice trembled with something Eun-seo recognized immediately—not mere self-criticism, but guilt.
“What do you mean?” she asked. But she already knew. As an editor, reading people was her profession. She understood the subtext beneath his words. This wasn’t self-blame. This was confession.
Tae-oh sat down at the work table, his hands trembling visibly. He seemed aware of it but made no move to hide it, as if his hands were simply following what his heart demanded.
“I was incredibly ambitious,” he continued. “I knew my work was good, and I wanted to prove it. Bigger, faster, more. I wanted to control my life the same way I controlled clay—completely, with my own hands.” He paused, staring at his palms as if they belonged to a stranger. “In that process, I… I hurt someone.”
Eun-seo’s chest tightened. She knew how much weight that single word carried. How many stories could hide behind it.
“Who?” she asked quietly.
“A girlfriend,” Tae-oh answered. “I can’t say her name now. But she loved me deeply. And I… I turned that love into a tool for my ambition.”
Eun-seo breathed slowly, deliberately. “How?”
“She was a talented painter. Really talented. But she lacked confidence. So I suggested we exhibit together—her paintings with my ceramics. I made it seem like I was helping her.” His voice dropped lower. “But the truth was, I incorporated elements of her work into mine. Made my pieces the center of attention.”
The studio seemed to grow quieter. Or perhaps Eun-seo simply couldn’t hear anything beyond his words anymore.
“Did she find out?” Her voice was steady, clinical—her editor’s voice, stripped of emotion.
“Eventually. Someone told her after the exhibition that I’d stolen her ideas. She…” He paused. “She fell apart.”
Tae-oh’s voice had become barely audible.
“She stopped painting. We ended things. I continued with my exhibition. And it was a success. A huge success. But I couldn’t bear the weight of it.” Finally, he looked at her. His eyes reflected the afternoon light like the wet surface of clay. “I couldn’t carry what that success had cost.”
Eun-seo stood and approached him. She looked down at him for a long time, studying every line of his face, every mark, every scar.
“So you came here.”
“Yes. The night before the opening, five years ago, I destroyed every piece I’d made. Then I left Seoul before anyone could ask questions. A new name. A new life.”
She sat beside him. Between them was nothing but the smell of clay and the heat from the kiln.
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t want to know. Because that’s something I can’t undo.”
Eun-seo took his hand. It was warm—the hand of someone who shaped clay, who transformed earth into form. But now it trembled.
“So now?”
“Now I live the only way I can. Quietly. Without hurting anyone. Without controlling anything. Just… existing.”
She understood then. This was what the name Min-jun meant. This was why he treated himself with such caution. This was why his pieces remained unfinished, why he couldn’t exhibit.
He hadn’t forgiven himself.
“Min-jun,” she said, and realized how deliberately she was choosing that name. “You’re not hurting anyone now.”
“No, Eun-seo. You don’t understand. How dangerous I am—”
“No,” she said firmly, and her voice was no longer objective. “Dangerous people don’t know they’re dangerous. You know. And you’ve punished yourself for five years because of it.”
Min-jun looked at her, his pupils trembling.
“Have you thought about finding her? Apologizing?”
“I can’t. She’s… she doesn’t paint anymore. She’s married now, has children. If I appeared, it would shake everything.”
Eun-seo understood. It was a form of self-awareness, yes. But also another kind of escape. A refusal to fully accept his guilt. Still, she didn’t judge him for it now.
“Then what now?”
“Now…” Min-jun gripped her hand more firmly. “Now you know everything about me. And you’re still here. That feels like the greatest gift I could receive.”
But Eun-seo knew this wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning—the start of Min-jun reconciling with his past, and the start of her defining who she was in relation to him.
She didn’t let go of his hand.
“You have to keep making pottery,” she said.
“What?”
“You have to finish pieces. Exhibit them. You deserve that.”
Min-jun’s face went pale, as if she’d insulted him.
“I can’t.”
“You can,” she said firmly. “And you will.”
She released his hand and stood, looking at the ceramics lining the studio walls. Incomplete forms. Like unfinished sentences. Like conversations that had stopped mid-breath.
“What are these?”
“Unfinished things.”
“Why?”
“Because if I finish them, they have to go out into the world. And then I might become Tae-oh again.”
Eun-seo turned back, her gaze steady.
“You’re not Tae-oh anymore. You’ve already changed. These five years, you’ve been changing constantly. And the Min-jun I see… he’s a good person.”
Min-jun looked at her for a long moment, as if seeing her for the first time. Really seeing her.
“You’re really special, Eun-seo.”
“I’m not special,” she replied. “I’m just seeing you. That’s all.”
They spent the rest of the night in the studio in silence. Sometimes Eun-seo picked up pieces, and Min-jun told her their stories. This one he made in summer, that one in winter. This one thinking of his grandmother, and that one…
“This one?” she asked.
Min-jun studied it. It was different from the others. Finished. As if some resolve had been poured into it.
“This one… I made it thinking of you.”
Eun-seo’s breath stopped.
“I haven’t been here that long.”
“The first night. When I saw you.”
She held it in her hands. It was warm, as if the kiln’s heat still lingered within it.
“This one’s finished.”
“Yes.”
“Then exhibit it.”
He shook his head.
“It’s for you.”
She drew it close to her chest. It was heavy. But the weight didn’t burden her. It was a necessary weight. Like an anchor.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
They remained in the studio as night deepened. The kiln’s warmth gradually faded, and the light shifted to a deeper gold. And Eun-seo understood something then.
This was trust. This was knowing everything about someone and refusing to let them go.
At eleven, they finally left. Min-jun walked her home along the river. The night water was black, like a furnace that accepted everything. Eun-seo wondered how many stories that river had heard. How many secrets it held.
And now she was part of those secrets.
Min-jun took her hand. For the first time, it wasn’t hesitant. It was simple and clear. Like a promise.
“Will you come tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes. Every day.”
“Why?”
She looked at him there by the river, beneath the starlight.
“Because you’re not alone anymore.”
Next chapter preview: The moment Min-jun finally commits to completing a new work. But in that process, his past will find him once more.