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# Chapter 126: Ready to Return
Spring faded beyond the bus window, replaced by endless green fields. Eun-seo tapped her fingers lightly against the glass, toggling her phone screen on and off. The battery indicator blinked red—nearly dead—and her eyes caught on Mingjun’s last message. Two days ago. 11:47 PM.
“Could we meet tomorrow?”
When she’d read those words, Eun-seo couldn’t type anything back. She’d just stared at the screen. Sitting at her desk in that editing office near Gangnam Station in Seoul, his single question had kept replaying in her mind. She understood now that a single text could reshape the entire world.
Three hours since the bus left Seoul. The landscape outside had transformed in gradations—apartment complexes giving way to rural fields, paved roads to dirt paths, human voices to birdsong. Eun-seo had noticed every shift. Like a scene change in a film, her own heart seemed to transform alongside it.
An elderly woman sat beside her, seventies at least. She kept lifting and setting down a black plastic bag. Eun-seo watched the gesture until she caught the scent—grass, wild greens from the market. Mugwort. Shepherd’s purse. The kind of thing. She thought of Bok-soon, her grandmother’s neighbor in Hacheon-ri. That woman’s voice echoed in her ear.
“Ah, you’re back from Seoul already! Your face is so bright now, really. What did that pottery boy do to you?”
Eun-seo bit her lip. There was no hiding anything from Bok-soon. That woman’s eyes were like X-rays, piercing straight through. And worst of all, she had a talent for pinpointing exactly what you wanted to keep hidden.
It had been ten days since returning to Seoul. When the publishing house proposed a new project, Eun-seo had wanted to refuse at first. But once the manuscripts started piling on her desk after final review, that familiar sensation awakened. The rhythm of prose flowing like music between the lines. An author’s personality embedded in each word choice. The breathing space between paragraphs. Her fingers had automatically reached for a pen.
Editor. That was her identity. Meeting someone through words rather than face-to-face—that work made her most whole.
Yet even while doing it, her mind was always elsewhere.
Eun-seo watched her battery dip to 1% and dug through her bag for a charger. It had fallen to the floor. As she bent to retrieve it, the elderly woman beside her extended a worn power bank.
“Use this, dear. You need it when you’re traveling.”
Eun-seo accepted it with thanks. The woman smiled—a quiet, knowing smile that reminded her of her grandmother. The kind that seemed to understand everything.
When her phone came back to life, Eun-seo opened Kakao Talk. She reread Mingjun’s message. “Could we meet tomorrow?” That message had already spanned two days, then three. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She didn’t know what to say. Maybe silence was better.
But she couldn’t do that. She was already on the bus.
Eun-seo typed slowly. Deleted. Rewrote. Deleted again. Her final message was very short.
“I think I’ll arrive around 4 PM.”
Three minutes later, his reply came. The speed of it startled her—as if he’d been waiting for her message.
“Understood. I’ll see you at the studio.”
Eun-seo lowered her phone. Her heart was racing fast. It wasn’t anxiety. It was anticipation. And that anticipation made her realize how much she’d changed.
Months ago, she’d gone to the countryside to rest. To heal burnout. To overcome insomnia. To prove she still mattered. But now, sitting on this bus, she wasn’t returning for any of those reasons. She had a reason to return. A person. Mingjun.
During those ten days back in Seoul, Eun-seo realized she’d been living two lives simultaneously. By day, she was an editor. Reading manuscripts. Calling authors. Discussing projects in conference rooms. All of it familiar, comfortable, work she did well.
But at night, she thought of herself walking the riverside path. Sitting beside Mingjun in his studio, watching him work the clay. Sitting before her grandmother’s table, miso soup cooling, saying nothing. Those moments occupied her heart more than any major accomplishment.
At her editing desk, her fingers worked while her mind was elsewhere. Reading emails, she wondered what Mingjun was doing. Was he still going to the studio at 2 AM like he used to? Or had his schedule normalized? Was it because she was gone, or something else?
Those thoughts ate at her slowly.
The bus slowed through a small town. Eun-seo gazed at the passing scenery. A small rural village. A weathered supermarket. A convenience store by the bus stop. A few residents moved along the street—all at a slower pace, as if time flowed differently here.
She realized how fast she’d moved in Seoul. Running down stairs. Boarding subway cars. Rushing to meetings. Constantly checking her phone. Everything was speed. She’d thought speed was competence.
But Hacheon-ri had taught her something different. Slowness was also a skill. Time to think. Space to breathe. The luxury of truly seeing someone’s face.
Eun-seo picked up her phone and scrolled through her conversation with Mingjun. Three months of messages filled the screen. Mostly short exchanges. “Did you eat?” “Yes, I did.” Ordinary daily talk. But something existed beneath it. Unspoken things. Silence between the texts. That silence was the loudest thing of all.
As the bus passed through a region, Eun-seo reread her grandmother’s message from a week ago.
“Eun-seo, when are you coming down? My meals taste bland eating alone. Oh, and I keep seeing that pottery boy on the riverside. He keeps going back and forth by himself. I don’t know what he’s waiting for.”
Eun-seo laughed reading it. Her grandmother was direct. She seemed to know what Eun-seo was thinking better than Eun-seo herself.
In truth, even in Seoul, Eun-seo kept thinking of Hacheon-ri. Lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling. At 3 AM, 4 AM, when sleep wouldn’t come. She’d walk the riverside path in her mind. She’d imagine Mingjun’s hand holding hers. It had really happened, but in Seoul it felt like a dream.
As the bus turned onto a rural road, Eun-seo’s heart began racing faster. About an hour left. To Hacheon-ri. To the studio where Mingjun waited.
She opened her phone’s camera and looked at her reflection. Her face looked pale—probably the fluorescent bus lights. But her eyes were bright. A different kind of brightness than in Seoul. Not exhaustion. Anticipation.
Eun-seo lowered her phone and looked back out the window. The bus was crossing a river. Was it the Seomjin? Or one of its tributaries? The water sparkled beneath spring sunlight. Willows along the banks swayed. The pale green of early spring, not yet fully arrived.
Looking at that water, Eun-seo realized how much she’d missed it. This landscape. This pace. This air. And someone to see it all with.
The elderly woman moved again. She pulled something from her bag and handed it to Eun-seo. A rice cake. Handmade, simple but crafted with care.
“Been traveling long? Eat this. You need energy.”
Eun-seo accepted it with a bow. Gratitude filled her chest beyond words. This was what she’d learned in Hacheon-ri. Kindness without speech. Love shown through action. This stranger treated her like her own granddaughter.
Eun-seo bit into the cake. Sweetness spread across her tongue. Warm. Soft. Fresh. Made by someone’s hands. Someone’s actual hands.
She looked at the woman. The woman was gazing out the window, smiling. As if she already knew everything Eun-seo needed to do.
The bus passed a small station. Eun-seo checked the time. 3:15 PM. Maybe forty-five minutes more. What was Mingjun doing now? Working in the studio? Waiting by the window? Walking the riverside again?
Eun-seo’s finger hovered over her phone. She almost texted him, then decided against it. He already knew she was coming. There was nothing left to say. Just arrival.
The bus was quiet. Engine sound. Tires on asphalt. Occasional coughs from other passengers. Eun-seo closed her eyes. She wanted to remember this moment. On this bus, on the road to Hacheon-ri, her heart beating this loudly. It was the clearest her existence had ever felt.
In Seoul, her heart hadn’t beaten like this. Burnout had dulled even that. Her body couldn’t keep up with itself. But now, in this bus, her heart announced itself most vividly.
Eun-seo opened her eyes. The passing landscape grew more familiar. The town with its weekly market. The riverside café. The small convenience store. Everything sparkled as if welcoming her home.
The bus took the final curve. Eun-seo’s stomach dropped. Almost there. Minutes away. She would see Mingjun. See his face. Hear his voice.
She started gathering her things. The elderly woman spoke.
“Going to meet someone, aren’t you?”
Eun-seo looked at her. Then nodded slowly.
“Yes. I am.”
The woman laughed. That laugh said everything. She knew. And she was blessing this.
“Go well. And if you like that person, don’t keep going back and forth. That gets tiring.”
Eun-seo laughed at that. The blunt wisdom she’d learned in Hacheon-ri. It was the greatest comfort.
The bus arrived at the Hacheon-ri stop. Eun-seo stood and thanked the woman once more. She waved like a grandmother seeing off her granddaughter.
Eun-seo stepped off the bus. Spring air touched her face. And she knew. She had really come home. This was home. This village. This person. Her home.
She shouldered her bag and began walking toward the riverside path. The studio was across the river. Mingjun would be waiting there. And she wouldn’t leave again. Not for Seoul. Not for anywhere. Not until this became her home for real.
The river she’d seen through the bus window was now before her eyes. Water flowed slowly. Like her own time. Slow. Steady. Never stopping.
Eun-seo stopped on the bridge crossing the river. She could see the studio on the far side. Still distant, but she knew. Someone was there. And she would go to him.
One step. Then another. Slowly, but surely.
Leaving and returning are not the same. Eun-seo understood that now. Leaving means walking backward. Returning means walking forward.