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# Chapter 1: Where the River Bends
The bus wound along the Seomjin River in lazy curves. Eun-seo watched the landscape slip past the window, feeling Seoul recede with each passing mile. She counted telephone poles. Lost count. Started over. In the rhythm of that repetition, the world beyond the glass slowly transformed. The forest of apartment buildings fell away, and hills rose to meet the horizon. Not mountains, really—hills, unnamed and scattered with persimmon trees still bearing green fruit. Spring was taking its time arriving here. In Seoul, cherry blossoms bloomed and fell within a week; here, winter still had its teeth sunk into the season. The wind drifting through the open window carried a chill, and its scent was unmistakably different from the air she’d left behind.
The bus was warm—no, hot. The heater’s doing. Eun-seo lowered the window further. The cold air against her throat felt good, the kind of cold you wanted to breathe in until your throat ached. The landscape rushed past: mountains, fields, and the river. Sometimes she could hear the river’s voice beneath the engine’s drone.
Someone in the front seat was peeling a tangerine. The scent spread through the bus, mixing with the smell of vinyl seats. It was nothing like the Seoul subway—that was the smell of thousands of bodies, skin and clothes and breath all compressed together, intimate without any intimacy at all. This was different. Tangerine and earth and the green smell of open hills. It made her sad, though sadness wasn’t quite the right word. It was more like the sudden awareness of something important, paired with the knowledge that it couldn’t be taken back.
“What am I doing?” Eun-seo thought, watching the world go by. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Checked her watch. 2:47 PM. Back in Seoul, something was happening. Someone was in a meeting. Someone was drinking coffee and checking emails. Someone was eating lunch. None of them were thinking about her. Four weeks had passed. Four weeks was enough time to forget someone.
The bus pulled into a small station—barely worthy of the name. Just a weathered building with peeling green paint and a few benches out front. Empty benches. Eun-seo imagined herself sitting there, waiting for a bus, watching the sky. But the version of herself in that image wasn’t really her. That place seemed too peaceful. Yet she realized she’d already found and lost that peace.
Her grandmother’s house was a ten-minute walk from the terminal. Eun-seo had measured that distance many times—not in person, but in her mind. Left from the last bus stop into a narrow alley. Past a small supermarket. A right turn. Google Maps had shown her the way five times over, though her feet had never walked it. The place was still unfamiliar to her.
The bus slowed. The passenger ahead stood, gathering his things. The signal that they’d arrived. Eun-seo rose too. She didn’t have much luggage—three years of living in a Seoul apartment fit into one rolling suitcase and a backpack. Getting fired from the editor-in-chief position happened fast. Packing up your life happened faster. Too many things you didn’t need. Not enough things you did. She grabbed her bags and stepped off the bus.
The terminal was a small plaza. Two taxis sat on the asphalt, one driver smoking. Eun-seo walked out of the plaza toward the narrow alley. It matched Google Maps exactly. She didn’t pull out her phone. She already knew the way—or rather, her body knew it. That seemed like the more accurate way to describe it. This place was the beginning of something new.
Walking through the alley, she took in her surroundings. Old buildings mixed with new ones. Three-story houses, small shops with faded signs, occasional modern structures. This place was changing too. Everything changes. Only the pace differs. She felt that change as she walked, felt herself growing accustomed to the unfamiliar.
The supermarket appeared ahead. “Hacheon Mart” in white letters on a green sign. She turned into the alley beside it. Even narrower. Just wide enough for a single car. Walls on both sides, rooftops and antennas visible beyond them. And smells—rice cooking, doenjang-jjigae simmering, someone’s laundry detergent. These scents mingled to create the smell of a neighborhood.
She turned right. The alley widened slightly. And there it was: an old hanok with gray brick walls. A tile roof. A persimmon tree standing alone in the courtyard, its branches still bare, not yet dressed in leaves. Someday it would be covered in green, but not yet. For now, it was just waiting.
Eun-seo stood before the gate. The handle was old iron, cold and rough, bearing the marks of decades of hands. She pushed slowly. The gate creaked—a sound she’d heard before, many times over video calls with her grandmother, though she’d never visited in person.
The courtyard appeared. And then her grandmother.
Grandmother Yoon Jung-soon was watering flowers in the corner of the yard. She turned at the sound of footsteps, slowly. Glasses sat on her face, and Eun-seo watched her eyes search, then find. A small change when they did—the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. It was the most greeting her grandmother could manage.
“You’re here.”
“Yes, Grandmother. I’ve arrived.”
Eun-seo set down her luggage. The rolling suitcase made a sound against the asphalt. Grandmother set down the hose. Water began to flow across the yard. She watched it for a moment, then walked toward Eun-seo slowly, her steps unsteady but not wavering.
“Did you eat?”
“I didn’t eat on the bus.”
“Then let’s eat.”
That was all she said. No other greeting. No gesture to hurry inside. Just “let’s eat.” Eun-seo understood her grandmother’s language. Everything was contained in food. Hello was food. Are you okay was food. You belong to this house was food.
Eun-seo followed her grandmother inside. She removed her shoes in the entryway. The wooden floor stretched ahead, old and worn. It creaked the moment she stepped on it. Old wood remembers every footfall and releases those memories as sound. That’s what Eun-seo thought, anyway. This floor held the memory of her grandmother’s steps, her mother’s steps, her grandmother before her. All of them, walking this same wood.
The kitchen was beside the main room. Grandmother turned on the gas stove. A pot was already sitting on the burner. Doenjang-jjigae—she could tell by the smell. Soybean paste, red pepper, squash, and something else. It had been simmering for at least an hour. An hour of preparation to welcome her granddaughter.
She ladled rice into a bowl and poured the stew over it. The doenjang-jjigae was deep, the broth dark brown. Tofu floated in it, completely soft. The squash too—everything had surrendered to her grandmother’s hands.
Eun-seo sat before the meal. Grandmother didn’t sit across from her. She began washing dishes in the kitchen. While Eun-seo ate, her grandmother moved about. It was her way—being together without being together.
Eun-seo lifted her spoon. She took a mouthful of stew and put it in her mouth.
It was hot. And delicious.
She closed her eyes. Without opening them, she took another spoonful. She thought Grandmother might say something about being careful not to burn herself, but Grandmother said nothing. Only the sound of dishes being washed. Water running. Spoons clinking.
While eating, Eun-seo looked out the window. The persimmon tree in the yard was visible. A tree waiting to bear fruit. Someday it would. How long until then? But the tree knew. It knew what to do and when to do it. Only humans didn’t know. Only humans were always in a hurry.
Eun-seo continued eating.
When night fell, the village grew quiet. Eun-seo lay in the room her grandmother had given her. It was small. One window. One wardrobe. One quilt. That was all. Simplicity created tidiness, and tidiness created comfort. She stared at the ceiling.
She checked the time. 11:32 PM.
In Seoul, something would still be happening at this hour. Someone drinking. Someone working late. Someone sleeping beside another person. For the past three years, Eun-seo had spent every night like this working. Reading manuscripts. Editing. Meeting deadlines. That work had kept her alive. Or so she’d thought. That it had kept her alive.
What am I going to do now?
She thought it, eyes closed, as a familiar anxiety crept in—the kind that would keep her awake until two in the morning.
But the country air worked differently. Eun-seo fell asleep before two o’clock came. It wasn’t deep sleep, but it was sleep. And that was enough.
When morning came, the persimmon tree in the yard was still waiting. Now Eun-seo waited with it. Not knowing what she would do, or when she would leave.
That’s how spring came. Slowly, to the small village of Hacheon-ri.
At four in the morning, Eun-seo woke.
It was a habit from Seoul. Insomnia. The doctor had called it “sleep phase disorder” and prescribed medication. She hadn’t taken it. She felt like the pills would deepen her anxiety. Better to stay awake.
She got up and dressed. She slipped quietly out of her grandmother’s house, minimizing her footsteps on the wooden floor. But the wood betrayed her. It creaked. She froze, listening for any sound from her grandmother’s room. Nothing. Grandmother was still sleeping.
Eun-seo stepped outside. It was still deep night, that hour before dawn. Stars filled the entire sky—stars she’d never seen in Seoul. She stood there looking up for a long time. Thinking.
What am I doing here?
The village of Hacheon-ri hadn’t woken yet. Only the distant sound of a dog barking. Very far away.
End of Chapter 1