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# Chapter 80: The Beginning of Every Choice
After Min-jun finished speaking, only the sound of the river remained in the studio. Eun-seo stood motionless, gripping her bag’s strap tightly. His words—“It’s because of you”—drifted slowly through the air, stirring something in her chest. Outside the window, the late autumn river flowed at its own unhurried pace, and with each ripple, Eun-seo’s heart began to move as well. Her hand traced the cold glass of the window, and she felt her inner world crossing with the waters beyond.
The river visible through the glass was more than just flowing water. It symbolized the passage of time, marking the threshold of a new chapter in her life. As she drew closer to the window, her reflection appeared in the pane—and it was different from the face she’d worn in Seoul. Not softer, not paler. More alive.
“I got a call from Seoul.” Eun-seo’s voice was quiet, yet it carried more weight than silence.
“Yesterday. The publishing director. The plagiarism case is completely resolved. The prosecution’s investigation is over. My name is cleared. I can go back to my old position.”
Her voice was emotionless, but Min-jun understood. That was how the deepest feelings revealed themselves. She gazed out the window, feeling her past and present collide.
“How long did you wait for that news?” Min-jun’s voice was low. He understood what she felt.
“Three years. Or four, really. Since the day the plagiarism scandal broke. There were things I couldn’t do. I couldn’t edit manuscripts. Couldn’t go to the office. Couldn’t even use my own name.”
Eun-seo’s hand descended along the window, feeling the cold glass against her skin. Some truths could only be borne when they were cold. She turned to Min-jun, sensing his gaze upon her.
“But now…” Min-jun began. His hands wanted to touch clay, but they held back. That too was endurance.
“Now I can go back?” he asked.
“Yes.” One word. But it said everything. Eun-seo’s shoulders rose and fell, and she took a deep breath. Min-jun saw that breath. He realized she’d been holding it all this time. For four years.
“When?” he asked.
“Next week. Starting Monday, I’m to begin reviewing manuscripts from new writers. Like before. As if nothing ever happened.”
Eun-seo finally turned from the window. Her eyes looked at Min-jun, yet they gazed somewhere else—into the past. At that narrow editing office in Seoul. At the joy of seeing books published. At the day it all fell apart.
“That’s… good news.” Min-jun said. He meant it. But behind that sincerity lay another: the fear of losing her.
“Yes. Good news.” Eun-seo murmured, as if trying to convince herself. As if confirming an answer she already knew.
In one corner of the studio sat unfinished ceramics—the ones Min-jun called “not yet.” They were incomplete, but they were alive. Still searching for form. Still waiting for someone’s hands.
“So… when will you leave?” Min-jun asked, his voice barely audible.
“I don’t know.”
“Have you decided to go?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why did you come here and tell me this?” Min-jun’s question was simple, yet it pierced through all the complexity. Eun-seo couldn’t answer. Because she didn’t know either. Why she’d come to this studio. Why all her plans had crumbled the moment she stepped inside. Why she couldn’t bring herself to feel happy.
“My grandmother…” Eun-seo began slowly.
“She spoke to me last night. She heard the phone call—when I was taking it. I didn’t know she’d heard. She came to my room and said, ‘Eun-seo, you need to distinguish between what you want and what you think you should do.’”
Eun-seo’s voice trembled. This time, emotion was unmistakable.
“So I thought about it. These past three years—did I really want to return to Seoul? Or did I just want my name back? Those are different things, but I think I’ve been treating them as the same.”
Min-jun remained still, listening not just to her words but to the spaces between them.
“Reclaiming my name and returning to Seoul are different. My name is already clean. So what do I actually need now?” She spoke as if asking herself, walking slowly through the studio, past the unfinished pieces. Her hand touched one—a rough yet smooth surface, imperfect, yet containing something genuine.
“Why do you make ceramics?” she asked suddenly.
“To sell them?”
“No.”
“To be recognized?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Min-jun was silent. But that silence was an answer. Eun-seo understood.
“Because your hands need to move. Because when your hands move, your heart moves too.” She murmured her own answer.
“But can that become a livelihood? Can you survive that way?”
“I don’t know,” Min-jun said.
“But does that matter?” Eun-seo asked. It was a question that would change everything. A question that would never be asked in Seoul, where everything mattered—position, salary, business cards, credentials. But here in Ha-cheon, it became a question: “Does that matter?”
Eun-seo couldn’t answer. Instead, she kept walking along the studio walls. Beyond the window, the river was visible, evening light falling upon it. Golden. Or yellow. Or perhaps it wasn’t a color at all—it was time. The time of sunset. The time of seasons changing. The time when everything transforms.
“You said you’re here because of me.” Eun-seo spoke, still facing the window.
“Yes.”
“That’s irresponsible. It means you’re making me responsible for your existence here.”
“I know.”
“But I can’t stay here.”
Finally, Eun-seo looked at Min-jun. Her eyes were filled with tears—not tears of sadness, but of clarity. Tears of understanding who she was and what she needed to do.
“I can’t rest here. I’m an editor. It’s not just my profession—it’s my existence. I find good writing and bring it into the world. Without that work, I’m nothing. These four years taught me that losing my work is a greater pain than losing my name.”
Min-jun didn’t move. He was hearing what he’d already known.
“So you’re going?”
“Yes.” But even as she said it, uncertainty lingered in her voice.
“When?”
“I don’t know yet. I need to talk to my grandmother. And…”
Eun-seo stopped. That pause said everything.
“And you.”
Min-jun heard those words. This wasn’t an ending. It was a beginning. The start of new conflict. The start of new choices. The start of time that changes slowly rather than shattering all at once.
“Your letter…”
Eun-seo took the letter from her bag. It was still in its envelope.
“I read it again. Several times. And I realized—you were writing about the past. Why you destroyed your ceramics. Why you came here. That was the past. But I’m asking about now. Why are you here now?”
Her voice grew stronger.
“And you answered: ‘Because of you.’ That’s also about the past—how you came to meet me and ended up here. But the future? If I leave? Will you destroy everything again?”
Min-jun couldn’t answer. Because it was a question about a future he didn’t know.
“I don’t know,” he said. It was the most honest answer he could give.
“I don’t know either. Whether I’ll go or stay. How long I’d be gone. If I’d come back. If this is all temporary or something different.”
Eun-seo held out the letter to him.
“But reading your letter, I realized something. You’re like me. You’re uncertain too. Every day you make ceramics, asking if it’s the right choice. Yet you keep making them because it’s the only language your hands can speak.”
Min-jun took the letter. His hands trembled as he held it.
“What’s my language?” Eun-seo asked.
“Editing. Writing. Listening to someone’s words and making them clearer. It’s the only thing I can put into the world. So I have to go. I have to do that work. Without it, I’m nothing.”
Her voice was firm, though her eyes glistened.
“But…” she said again, and this time her voice broke.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
The air in the studio stopped. Time stopped. Even the river seemed to pause. In that moment, as those words fell, everything began again.
Min-jun walked toward her. The letter still in his hands, trembling. But his steps were certain. The final steps. And he stood before her, close enough to feel her breath.
“Then what happens to us?” he whispered.
It was the only question he could ask. The most important one. The hardest one.
Eun-seo didn’t answer. Instead, she took his hand—the hand holding the letter, the hand that shaped clay. She placed it against her chest.
“Your hands will show you what they make. And they’ll show me what mine can write. So when I leave, you keep making. And when I come back, I’ll keep writing. And someday, somewhere, what our hands create will meet. In some form.”
Min-jun heard these words. Not a promise—promises were impossible. It was hope. The weakest kind of hope. Yet the truest kind.
Outside the studio window, the sun was setting. In late autumn, it sets quickly, as if time itself moves faster. And while the sun descended, the two of them held hands. Without speaking. Without moving. Simply being together.
The darkness in the studio deepened. But their hearts, slowly, began to brighten.