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# Chapter 219: A Sea of Wounds
Eun-seo felt the weight of Tae-oh’s name. His given name was Min-jun, but his true name was Kang Tae-oh. She tried to understand the meaning behind it, yet his name revealed nothing—like smoke drifting through air, it told her nothing of his past, nothing of his present, nothing of his future.
The air in the workshop trembled strangely. As if his voice had altered the very molecules around them, Eun-seo’s heart began to beat deep within her chest. The warmth of tea drifted through the space, and she breathed it in, desperate to know his name, to know everything about him. If she could understand his name, she could understand his past. If she could understand his name, she could understand who he was now. If she could understand his name, she could understand what lay ahead.
“What wound are you carrying?” she asked quietly, her voice gentle with the weight of understanding. Tae-oh exhaled—a long, heavy breath that seemed to move the air itself, as though he hadn’t breathed properly in five years. The breath came out like something trapped finally escaping.
“My sister… she’s my family,” he said, his voice low. The words deepened the scars already etched across his heart. Eun-seo listened, trying to piece together the meaning of his name, but it remained too simple, too ordinary. It told her nothing.
They couldn’t meet each other’s eyes. Both of them needed time to understand their own hearts. Eun-seo wanted to know everything about him—his name held the key to his past, to his present, to his future.
The air vibrated with unspoken emotion. His voice seemed to reshape the very atmosphere around them, and Eun-seo’s pulse quickened. She wanted to understand him. She wanted to know his soul, his everything.
“I’m trying to understand you,” she whispered. Her voice was barely audible, but it carried the sincerity of her intention. Tae-oh sighed again, and the workshop seemed to hold its breath with him—as though he had been suffocating for five long years, and now, finally, some of that trapped air was being released.
“What can I possibly say?” he asked, his question hanging between them like a wound that wouldn’t close. Eun-seo heard the pain in his words and tried once more to understand what his name meant. But it remained simple. Ordinary. It revealed nothing of his past, nothing of his present, nothing of his future.
Neither could look up. Both needed time to make sense of what lived within them. Eun-seo reached for his name the way one reaches for understanding itself—if she could only know his name completely, she could know him completely. His past. His present. His future.
The workshop air trembled as though his voice had restructured reality itself. Eun-seo’s heart raced. She wanted to understand him. She wanted to know everything.
“I’m trying to understand you,” she said again, her voice a quiet anchor in the darkness between them. Tae-oh breathed, and it sounded like someone finally allowed to surface after years underwater.
They stood in the gathering silence, two people drowning in their own thoughts, each needing time to comprehend the vastness of what lived inside them. Eun-seo sought his name like a key to unlock his soul. If she could know his name, she could know him—past, present, future.
The air vibrated. His voice had changed something fundamental in the space between them. And still, Eun-seo reached, trying to understand the man before her, trying to bridge the distance with the simple, desperate act of listening.