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# Chapter 157: The End of Burning
When Sae-ah released her mother’s hand, it felt less like a choice and more like inevitability. Her fingers unfurled slowly, like a flame extinguishing. Her mother gazed at Sae-ah’s face. In those eyes, something still lingered. What she had called surrender. But it wasn’t simple surrender. It was a decision.
“Sae-ah.”
Her mother spoke. Her voice grew clearer, like a diver breaking the surface of water, breathing air for the first time.
“I need to tell you something. Really.”
Sae-ah didn’t answer. She had no strength to speak. Or rather, she wasn’t ready. Everything her mother had already told her—about Father, about the Jeju sea, about her own life—felt like enough. Yet her mother was about to say more. Sae-ah was afraid. She felt her body couldn’t bear any more truth.
“That man, Kang Ri-woo. Do you know what he is to you?”
“Mom…”
Sae-ah tried to speak. But her mother continued.
“Do you think that man loves you? Is that what you call love?”
Her mother’s voice rose. The heart monitor began its irregular rhythm again. Beep-beep, beep-beep-beep. The kind of pace that would summon medical staff.
“Calm down. Please, calm down.”
Sae-ah stood up without thinking, moving like an automated system. To soothe her mother. To take her hand again. But her mother pulled away, roughly.
“Don’t you understand yet? What has that man done to you? Why is he doing this to you?”
“Why are you like this?”
Sae-ah’s voice came out almost like a scream.
“You don’t even know Kang Ri-woo. Why are you saying this?”
“I know.”
Her mother spoke. Something enormous was hidden in those three simple words.
“I know.”
Sae-ah’s blood ran cold. In that precise moment, she sensed it instinctively. What her mother knew. But she didn’t want to hear it spoken aloud.
“Have you ever met your father?”
Her mother asked.
“You don’t know what your father is. What kind of person he is. What he did to you.”
The air in the hospital room felt congealed. Sae-ah couldn’t breathe. As if drowning. Or more precisely, like her mother. Like a haenyeo. Holding her breath underwater.
“Your father…”
Her mother began. Then stopped. Closed her eyes. Opened them again. In that pause, something was decided.
“Your father was afraid of your very existence.”
That sentence cut through the room like a blade. Sae-ah received it. Her knees buckled. She sat in a chair. Sat without having meant to sit.
“He was afraid of your voice. Your singing. Those melodies you hummed in your sleep.”
Her mother’s voice grew quieter, but clearer.
“And he tried to fix you. To silence your voice. To stop you from ever singing.”
Sae-ah couldn’t move. As if she were turning to stone. In this hospital room. Under this fluorescent light. By the sound of her mother’s voice.
“So I took you away. To Jeju. Do you remember?”
Sae-ah remembered. Faintly. Childhood memories are always like that. Unclear, as if belonging to someone else’s life. But there was something in them. Darkness. Fear. Escape.
“When I took you away, your father told me something. ‘If you take that child, don’t come back.’”
Her mother’s tears fell. A different kind than before. Not tears of sorrow, but tears of rage.
“So I didn’t go back. And you grew up. You sang. You lived.”
Sae-ah opened her mouth, then closed it. She repeated the motion several times. Like a fish. Like her mouth no longer belonged to her.
“But what are you doing now?”
Her mother asked.
“You’ve abandoned your song. You’ve lost your voice. And now you’re being dragged toward that man, Kang Ri-woo. Just like your father did.”
“That’s not true.”
Sae-ah said it. But her voice didn’t come. The words wouldn’t form.
“You really don’t see it? What that man is doing to you?”
Her mother asked again.
“He’s trying to ‘save’ you. But you don’t need saving. You’re already alive. You’re already burning.”
Sae-ah’s eyes trembled. Tears threatened to come, but wouldn’t. As if even her eyes were beyond her control.
“You’re burning yourself away for Kang Ri-woo. And you call that love. But it’s not love, Sae-ah. It’s death. It’s slowly disappearing.”
Footsteps sounded beyond the door. Someone passing through the corridor. Even that sound felt like an omen of approaching misfortune.
“I’m only asking you one thing.”
Her mother spoke. She reached out her hand again. This time, Sae-ah took it.
“Don’t go to him. Not anymore. Please.”
Sae-ah held her mother’s hand. It was trembling. Or rather, her own hand was trembling. Both. Every hand in this family was shaking. It wasn’t a disease. It was a curse. A curse passed down through generations.
“Mom.”
Sae-ah barely managed to speak.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Her mother didn’t answer. Instead, she placed Sae-ah’s hand over her own heart. Right where the heart monitor beeped. Over that irregular pulse.
“This is all I can give you. Feel my heart beating for you. This is love. This is real love. Everything else is fire. Just fire.”
Sae-ah felt her hand on her mother’s chest. The heartbeat. The irregular one. What doctors called stress-induced arrhythmia. But now, in this moment, it felt like her mother’s heart was speaking to her. Beating irregularly for her daughter.
Time passed. How much, Sae-ah couldn’t have said. Minutes or hours. Time moved differently in this hospital room. Like underwater. Like in the Jeju sea.
Her mother’s breathing became regular again. She’d calmed down. Perhaps from the medication. Or perhaps because she’d said everything she needed to say.
Sae-ah looked at her own hand. It was still trembling. Like Kang Ri-woo’s hand. Like her father’s hand. Or rather, like her own. Her own trembling. Her own curse.
The fluorescent light flickered again. One second, two seconds, three seconds. Sae-ah counted them. Again. And again. As if counting was all she had left to do.
Where was Do-hyun? In the hallway? Or had he left the hospital? Sae-ah needed to find her brother. And she needed to promise herself she wouldn’t go to that man, Kang Ri-woo. But even in that moment, her phone rang. A notification appeared. A message from Kang Ri-woo.
“When are you coming?”
Sae-ah saw the message. But she didn’t answer. Instead, she put the phone down. As if she’d touched something burning.
The hospital room door opened. It wasn’t medical staff. It was Haneul. Haneul from the tattoo shop. His face was full of concern.
“Sae-ah.”
Haneul spoke.
“Are you okay?”
Sae-ah couldn’t answer. How could she judge whether she was okay or not? She was still burning. Unable to distinguish whether it was love or death.
“Haneul.”
Sae-ah barely managed.
“What did I do wrong?”
Haneul didn’t answer. Instead, he held her. Under the fluorescent light of the hospital room. In sight of her mother and brother. And for the first time, Sae-ah felt that she wasn’t truly alone.
But that feeling didn’t last long. Because her phone kept ringing. Messages from Kang Ri-woo. Continuously. Endlessly. Without stopping.
“When are you coming?”
“Reply to me.”
“Where are you?”
“Should I come find you?”
The messages filled the screen. Like waves. Like the tide of the Jeju sea. Waves that wanted to swallow her whole.
Sae-ah picked up her phone. And started typing. But she didn’t know what to write. “I won’t come”? “Let’s end this”? Or once again, “I’m sorry”?
In the end, she wrote nothing. Instead, she powered off the phone completely. The screen went black. Like a flame extinguishing.
But that wasn’t a solution. Because Kang Ri-woo already knew. He knew where she was. That she was at the hospital. And he would come. Sae-ah knew it. The way she knew her own heartbeat.
The fluorescent light flickered again. One second, two seconds, three seconds. Then bright again. This repetition. This endless cycle. This was Sae-ah’s life. Light extinguishing and returning. Somewhere between death and life. Burning yet not burning. Trembling yet unable to speak.
Sae-ah looked at her mother. She was already asleep. Or pretending to be. But there was something in that face. A decision. Finally, Sae-ah understood that she too needed to decide something.
But what that decision should be, she still didn’t know.