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# Chapter 81: How to Resurface
Her mother held Seo-ah’s hand, examining each finger as if sorting seaweed from the ocean depths. Seo-ah’s hand was cold—whether from the dawn wind off Jeju or from something deeper, she couldn’t say. Her mother placed that hand against her own chest, letting Seo-ah feel the heartbeat. The proof of being alive.
“You’re alive, Seo-ah.”
Her mother spoke. Was it a question or a declaration? Seo-ah couldn’t tell. Her mother’s voice held both—command and plea woven together. What her mother wanted to give her wasn’t hope. Hope was too fragile, too easily shattered. What her mother wanted to give her was heavier, more solid. Obligation. Responsibility. The bare fact of survival itself.
Seo-ah’s tears fell onto her mother’s hand. She didn’t know where they came from—grief, anger, or simple exhaustion. Over the past months, she’d lost the ability to distinguish her own emotions. Everything had tangled into one gray mass, drained of color by Kang Ri-woo’s hands, by his version of love.
“What are you doing?”
Her mother’s voice suddenly sharpened. When Seo-ah looked up, her mother was already standing, having released her hand.
“Get up.”
One word. That was all. But that single word contained everything her mother was—all the will, all the determination a diver in her mid-sixties had needed to survive underwater.
Seo-ah rose slowly. Her body felt heavy, as if submerged in water. But she was already underwater—not dragged down by Kang Ri-woo’s hands, but having entered voluntarily. And she’d stayed too long.
Her mother pulled her outside. Past the living room, past the entrance, into the open air. The Jeju dawn was cold. Wind came from the sea, salt-laden, carrying her mother’s scent. The scent of her childhood.
“Breathe,” her mother said.
“Mom…”
“Breathe. Now.”
More forcefully this time. A command.
Seo-ah inhaled deeply. Cold air filled her lungs. Oxygen flowed through her veins. Her body began to wake—like the moment of surfacing from underwater. That sensation. That urgency. That feeling of coming alive.
They headed toward the beach. Five minutes from the house. The path her mother took every morning. The path Seo-ah had followed as a child. Twenty years had passed, yet nothing had changed. The stones remained. The grasses still grew between the rocks. A place where time stood still. A sadder place because of it.
When they reached the beach, the sky was still dark. The stars had faded, but the sun hadn’t yet risen. That in-between time. The boundary between night and day. The darkest hour and the most pregnant with possibility.
Her mother sat on the rocks. Seo-ah sat beside her. They sat in silence. There was no need for words. Everything had already been said through body language, through her mother’s silence. You must survive. You must.
“When your mother lost your father,” her mother suddenly spoke, her voice distant as if rising from underwater.
“Hmm?”
“I went mad. Truly. I didn’t eat for a week. Didn’t drink water. Just lay in bed.”
She continued. “On the fourth day, something cried in the morning. You cried, Seo-ah. You were only three. You didn’t know your father was dead, didn’t understand that your mother wanted to die. You were just hungry.”
Seo-ah looked at her mother, whose gaze remained fixed on the darkness ahead, as if searching for something there.
“That’s when I understood. Your father’s death wasn’t only my problem. Because you existed. Because Do-hyun existed. If I died, you would die too. I understood that.”
Her mother’s voice steadied. “So I got up. I started eating. Started drinking water. And I went into the ocean. Started gathering seaweed again.”
This story—Seo-ah had never heard it before. Her mother didn’t speak of the past. She left it underwater and lived only in the present. But now she was retrieving it. For Seo-ah. To show her which path to take.
“That’s what love is, Seo-ah,” her mother said. “Love isn’t beautiful or soft or warm. Love is sometimes cold, sometimes cruel, sometimes hopeless. Because love is living. Continuing to live. Not just for yourself, but for someone else too.”
The sun still hadn’t risen, but the sky was growing lighter. From black to blue. From blue to gray. Colors shifting slowly. Seo-ah’s vision cleared alongside the sky. For the first time in a long while, she could see Jeju’s ocean properly.
“What did Kang Ri-woo give you?” her mother asked.
Seo-ah didn’t answer. Her mother didn’t repeat the question. Instead, she waited—the way one waits for seaweed to float to the surface.
“…Money. Opportunity. And…” Seo-ah barely managed.
“And?”
“Pain. He gave me pain too.”
The words came out almost inaudibly, but her mother heard.
Her mother gently lowered Seo-ah’s collar. Bruises marked her neck, darkening into black. Violence that her body remembered. Facts that her body testified to.
“What is this?”
Her mother asked, already knowing.
“…Kang Ri-woo—”
“Did you call it love?”
Seo-ah’s silence was answer enough.
Her mother raised the collar again and embraced her. She didn’t place fingers on Seo-ah’s neck. Instead, she stroked her back—all of it. The entire spine. The center of life. Everything alive.
“You have to come up,” her mother said again. “From him. From that debt dressed up as false love. You have to surface, Seo-ah. You must.”
The sun began to rise. Slowly. As if emerging from underwater. It started red on the horizon, turning orange, then yellow. Color spread across the entire sky. Seo-ah watched Jeju’s sunrise for the first time in ages. She couldn’t remember when she’d last seen it.
“What will Mom do?” Seo-ah asked.
“What?”
“Kang Ri-woo. What he did to me. You said you wouldn’t report it to the police. But Mom… what will you do?”
Her mother looked at her for a long time. Like meeting someone for the first time.
“What I’ll do comes next. Right now, you need to surface. From the water.”
She continued. “After you come up, after you breathe, after you survive—then we think about what comes next.”
Seo-ah understood the weight in those words. Her mother wasn’t requesting survival. It wasn’t an invitation with choices. It was obligation. Responsibility—to her mother and Do-hyun. And most importantly, to herself.
“Mom, I have to ask you something.”
“What?”
“If I surface… then what? After I come up, what comes next?”
Her mother didn’t answer. Instead, she pointed to the sun—rising higher, illuminating everything it touched. The stones. The waves. The grains of sand. And the sky.
“Once you surface, you have to hold your breath again. To gather more seaweed. To live another day. That’s life, Seo-ah.”
Her mother spoke. “Love is the same. Love isn’t a single surfacing. You keep diving back down and coming up again. Through it all—holding your breath, hurting, rising, breathing. Again and again.”
Seo-ah listened. This was the deepest truth her mother could tell. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t beautiful. But it was real. The truth a mid-sixties diver had learned through her body.
The phone rang. The old house phone on the wall.
Her mother stood. “Let’s go home. Someone keeps calling.”
Walking back, Seo-ah took her mother’s hand. Her mother’s hand was rough—weathered by salt water, marked with scars from gathering seaweed. A surviving hand. A hand that had continued living. A hand that would save another.
The phone was still ringing when they arrived. Messages from Do-hyun filled her phone. “Sis, what are you doing? Answer me. I’m sorry—did I do something wrong? The police came to the house. What’s happening?”
Seo-ah’s face went pale. Police. Her mother had reported it. Even though Seo-ah hadn’t spoken. Even though she’d refused. Her mother had already decided. Like any diver, she knew exactly when to surface.
“Mom…” Seo-ah began.
“Yes. Mom reported it,” her mother said flatly. “And I told you. You need to surface. Now it’s your turn, Seo-ah.”
Seo-ah’s hands trembled. Was this the end? Or the beginning? She couldn’t say. But one thing was certain: she couldn’t stay underwater anymore. She had to surface. And once she did—no matter what followed—she had to breathe.
The sun had already fully risen. Jeju’s morning had begun.
Seo-ah’s new day had begun.
# Rising from the Water
It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t a request with options. It was obligation. Responsibility. To her mother and Do-hyun. And most of all, to herself.
The realization came in the dead of night. 11:23 PM—the exact time stayed with her. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, Seo-ah thought: How much longer will I stay like this? How much longer will I hold my breath?
The thought shot through her like electricity. The trembling that started in her fingertips spread through her entire arm. She sat up and checked the clock. 11:24. Only one minute had passed, yet time felt endless.
As soon as morning came, Seo-ah went down to the beach to find her mother.
Jeju’s dawn was cold and fresh. The air stung her skin—like someone gently tapping her cheek. Seo-ah took a deep breath. The salty tang mixed with the scent of seaweed. This smell had been part of her since childhood. Every morning with her mother smelled like this.
Her mother was already there, warming up at the water’s edge. The movements of a woman in her mid-sixties, yet impossibly fluid. Arms circling, legs lifting. A body that had spent decades underwater. It no longer moved like a human—it moved like a fish. Like water itself.
“Mom,” Seo-ah called.
Her mother turned. In the sunlight, her face was deeply lined. Seo-ah knew what each line meant—the mark of countless hours underwater. The wrinkles around her eyes came from squinting against the light. The lines at her mouth from clenching her teeth against the cold. The lines on her forehead deepened with every breath she held.
“What are you doing?” her mother asked. Her voice was fresh—like she’d just surfaced from the water. Maybe, Seo-ah thought, her mother was always underwater. Even on land, even in sleep, her mother’s spirit was forever swimming in the depths.
“Mom, I need to ask you something,” Seo-ah said. Her voice trembled. She was startled by how weak it sounded.
“What?”
“If I surface… then what? What comes after?”
Seo-ah asked. She believed her mother would understand—not a material question, but an existential one. What does it mean to surface? What does life look like after?
“After I come up, what’s there?” she asked again, louder this time.
Her mother didn’t answer. Instead, she moved. Slowly turning, she pointed. Not just at the sea, but at the sky.
The rising sun.
The sight of it crossing the horizon was always new. Orange became red, then yellow again. As it transformed, the sea changed too. The ocean that had been black began turning deeper blue, finally becoming bright turquoise.
Everything the sun touched suddenly came alive.
The stones. The gray pebbles now revealed themselves as brown, black, sometimes red. Each stone had its own color, as if someone had deliberately painted them.
The waves. The rippling surface flashed gold. As the waves pulled back, they scraped the sand with a sound. Shaa, shaa. A sound repeated for centuries.
The grains of sand. Countless tiny particles glinted in the light, each one a small mirror. Seo-ah wondered: Do these grains also carry responsibility? Is it someone’s duty to keep them here?
And the sky.
Growing brighter. From dark navy to pale blue. A cloud or two drifted past, its edges tinted pink in the sunlight.
Everything was changing. And the change was beautiful.
“Once you surface, you have to hold your breath again,” her mother said flatly. Her voice carried no emotion—like a news anchor reading a weather report.
“To gather more seaweed. To live another day.”
She continued: “That’s life, Seo-ah.”
Seo-ah heard her. And she felt the weight of those words. Everything her mother’s voice carried. The weight of more than sixty years lived. Countless hours underwater. The repetition of diving and surfacing, diving and surfacing again.
“Love is the same,” her mother said again.
“Love isn’t a single rise to the surface. You keep going down and coming back up.”
In that moment, Seo-ah’s eyes grew warm. Her mother knew. She knew why Seo-ah had stayed underwater. Who she’d stayed for.
“You hold your breath, you hurt, you come up, you breathe. Then you do it all over again.”
Her mother’s hand rested on Seo-ah’s shoulder. Rough. Weathered by salt. Scarred from years of gathering seaweed. Yet the warmth of that hand was real.
Seo-ah felt it—heat beginning at her fingertips, traveling up her arm, reaching her chest. Like someone who’d just surfaced being warmed by the sun.
This was the deepest truth her mother could speak. Seo-ah knew it.
It wasn’t romantic. Not the kind of dialogue you’d find in movies or dramas. Not a love confession. Not words of forgiveness.
It wasn’t beautiful. It was rough, harsh, sometimes even cruel.
But it was true.
The truth a mid-sixties diver had learned through her body. Acquired through her flesh and spirit, diving down and surfacing every morning. The kind of truth that couldn’t come from books or lectures.
Only from living it could you know.
Seo-ah grasped her mother’s hand. Held that rough hand between both of hers. To feel its warmth more deeply. To understand it more fully.
“I understand, Mom,” Seo-ah said. Now she felt she truly comprehended the meaning. What it meant to surface. What it meant to breathe. What it meant to live.
They stayed like that for a while. Her mother’s rough hand and Seo-ah’s young hand held together. The sun shining on them. The sound of waves continuing. Shaa, shaa.
Then it happened.
Her phone rang.
Not Seo-ah’s cell. The old house phone on the wall. A gray plastic relic from twenty years ago. The buttons stiff with age, the screen half-cracked. But the ring was still loud and sharp.
Uh-uh-uh.
Something shifted in her mother’s expression. Seo-ah could feel it—a decision being made. Like her mother, who’d been in deep water, suddenly choosing to surface.
“Let’s go home. Someone’s been calling,” her mother said. Her voice remained calm, but now it held something else. A new resolve.
Walking back, Seo-ah took her mother’s hand again. Didn’t let go. As if trusting that her mother would pull her up from the depths.
Her mother’s hand was still rough. Weathered by salt. Marked with scars from gathering seaweed. A surviving hand. A hand that kept living. A hand that would save another.
“Mom…” Seo-ah murmured.
Her mother didn’t answer, just kept walking. But she squeezed Seo-ah’s hand tighter. As if saying: I’m here. Don’t be afraid.
When they arrived, the phone was still ringing.
Ah, ah, ah.
Seo-ah’s heart trembled with each sound.
Her mother picked up.
“Hello?”
“Sis! Sis, what are you doing! Answer me!”
Do-hyun’s voice. It was shaking. Terror and confusion mixed together.
“I’m sorry, did I do something wrong? Sis, please answer. The police came to the house. What’s going on? Where’s Mom? Why isn’t Mom here?”
Seo-ah’s phone rang too. Text messages flooded in.
[Sis what are you doing]
[Answer me]
[I’m sorry]
[What did I do wrong]
[The police came to the house]
[What’s Mom saying]
[Sis?]
[SIS!!!]
Seo-ah’s face went pale.
Police.
Her mother had reported it.
Even though Seo-ah hadn’t told her. Even though she’d refused. Her mother had already decided.
Seo-ah understood.
Her mother had decided to pull her from the water. Her mother understood that she couldn’t stay submerged any longer.
“Mom…” Seo-ah’s voice shook.
“Yes. Mom reported it,” her mother said. No regret. No apology. As if she’d simply done what was natural. As if diving down and surfacing was the most ordinary thing in the world.
“And I told you. You need to surface.”
She continued: “It’s your turn now, Seo-ah.”
Seo-ah’s hands trembled. Her entire body trembled. Her heart raced.
Was this the end? Or the beginning?
What exactly did it mean to surface?
She couldn’t say.
But one thing was certain.
She couldn’t stay underwater anymore. She had to come up. And once she did—whatever the cost—she had to breathe.
That was what it meant to live.
The sun had already fully risen.
Jeju’s morning had begun.
Seo-ah’s new day had begun.
And that new day began not in underwater darkness, but in a world full of sunlight.