Take Off

Manager Han lightly shook the can in her hand. Throughout her story, her gaze had remained fixed on the river before her. Perhaps she was layering the past over the flowing water.

"It didn't work out in Hong Kong either, in the end. I got a job at a gallery and worked day and night. He seemed stimulated at first — I thought his creative drive might return — but before long he started to wander again... We ended up forcing ourselves onto each other... until we were both worn ragged, and only then did we decide to go our separate ways. He returned to Korea, and I stayed in Hong Kong."

Perhaps because so much time had passed. There was no unquelled agitation in Manager Han's voice — none of the wounds that grinding fights with a loved one leave so clearly on the self. She sounded simply calm. Yet she couldn't quite hide the scratched-looking marks revealed in the gaze she fixed on the flowing river.

It was one of those rare occasions when we finished work at the same time and walked home together.

After getting out of the underground parking garage, Manager Han suggested a walk by the river, and we each picked out a drink at the convenience store and headed toward the Han River.

From the apartment to the Han River trail, it was just a short tunnel away. Since the height of summer hadn't officially begun yet, the riverside was comfortably cool after sunset.

After strolling leisurely along the bike path for about ten minutes, we were lucky enough to find an empty bench — and that was where Manager Han's story began.

It wasn't a long story. She didn't go into the details of the marriage and divorce process. But one could sense that complex values were tangled up in it — values that couldn't simply be labeled a "failed marriage."

After all, he had been Manager Han's partner in love, romance, and marriage, as well as a fellow human being who understood her and shared her dreams.

"I didn't know... that you were married... or that you separated."

I mumbled, fiddling with the can in my hands. Manager Han ruffled my hair.

"Whether I was married or not — that information isn't necessary for us to paint together... and your parents aren't the type to gossip about other people's affairs, are they? They probably didn't go telling a little kid something like that."

Then, with a light sigh, she took a sip of her drink.

"You didn't know about the marriage, so of course you wouldn't know about the divorce."

As if trying to lighten the weight that the mention of my parents had brought, Manager Han smiled faintly toward me — but I couldn't return it. It had truly been a long time since I'd heard someone mention my parents, but that wasn't the reason. Right now, I was thinking more about Manager Han than about myself.

"Back then, I was truly desperate, and I was certain. Now I know how precarious the certainty a twenty-one-year-old has about life really is... but what could I do? That's something you only understand after time has passed. If there were people who could skillfully suppress their present desires by calculating future regrets in advance, the world's population would probably be only half of what it is now."

Manager Han continued.

"My personality — the kind that goes all out the moment something captures my interest — was even worse back then because I was young. Everyone around me desperately tried to dissuade me, saying that just dating instead of marrying would be enough... but the feeling couldn't be satisfied with just dating. I kept wanting a way to be bound to him more completely somehow..."

Her voice trailed off. She withdrew her gaze from the river and looked down at her lap, then gripped the can tightly and added,

"If he had been an Omega, I could have gotten him pregnant. I thought about it to that extent."

Then she turned to look at me and smiled — as if that past passion was something embarrassing and fleeting. As though she were laughing off the unripe emotions of adolescence.

While living within Phantom, I had guessed to some extent from the members' conversations and the subtle atmosphere, but as expected, Manager Han was a female Alpha. If the partner was an Omega, pregnancy was possible regardless of primary gender. But for Manager Han to become pregnant, she would have needed to pair with a male Alpha. I didn't know the specifics, but even with a male Alpha, pregnancy wasn't guaranteed at 100 percent. The opposition to Manager Han's marriage from those around her had probably not been solely due to their young age. Involuntarily, Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung came to mind.

"So I don't regret getting married itself. Whatever the outcome, I know that back then we were in a state where we couldn't not do it. It's true that marriage was as urgent as life itself at the time, and if I hadn't been able to get married then, I probably would have kept regretting it, given my personality. He felt the same way. That we could marry and live as a painter and art dealer couple — the best partners, soulmates for life — I was certain of it, without even one percent of doubt. Back then. When that kind of clear conviction occupies your entire mind, how can you possibly postpone a decision?"

A young couple, drawn powerfully to each other not only romantically but as human beings, who dared to marry against everyone's opposition. It was a story similar to that of my mother and father — though the endings were different for each.

Manager Han's couple collided until there was nothing left, grew sick and tired of each other, and ended things themselves. My mother and father, on the other hand, had sustained exactly the ideal relationship they had once dreamed of through each other — until one day, an unforeseen accident from the outside violently snatched it away, completely against their will.

Which couple's ending was more tragic — it was not a question one could easily answer.

"For people to truly understand each other... it's far more arduous work than I ever thought. I understand now why they say a person is a universe unto themselves. It's complicated. But sometimes there's no logic or reason to it either. It's bound to be hard to understand. If the person involved doesn't even know the reason themselves, how could I, an outsider, possibly understand? The same goes for them looking at me."

For me — who had never even dated, let alone been married, who had never once liked someone — this was a somewhat difficult topic. Even so, I thought I could faintly grasp the suffocating feeling of not being able to read the intentions of someone complicated and hard to figure out.

"Watching that person — for whom painting was as natural as eating three meals a day, who couldn't even imagine a version of himself that didn't paint — gradually fall apart because of painting... that felt like a kind of love, too. Sometimes, love that takes the wrong path ends up corroding both people, doesn't it? Like the love between him and me. His love for painting, unable to expand or develop, burrowed inward, consuming him, and eventually led him to give it up entirely... That was the ending we reached."

Love that goes awry and corrodes both the other and oneself. Yet a love so intense that one couldn't endure it without crashing headlong into that object, consuming oneself until all energy was spent.

Just because that end was separation — could such an experience truly be defined as failure? I couldn't give a definitive answer to that. But I did feel certain of one thing: that level of fierce emotion wasn't a common experience everyone went through.

I recalled what the Director had said when he advised me about my relationship with Inwu hyung — that I seemed the type to value a romance where partners got to know each other slowly and connected deeply.

I didn't yet know what kind of person I was when it came to dating and love. But vaguely, I had the sense that perhaps I wasn't that kind of person. Perhaps I was someone who could easily surrender to a momentary curiosity or impulse.

But unlike Manager Han, unlike my mother and father, I didn't think I was the type of person who could summon the courage to crash headlong into a fierce emotion — one that threatened to swallow me whole, one that simply couldn't be refused. It seemed like I didn't have that kind of courage right now.

"In Hong Kong, and then after returning to Seoul... watching many artists over the years, the thought that gradually solidified was this: even with talent, if the mental fortitude to keep nurturing that talent isn't there to support it, results won't come. He clearly had innate talent, but he crumbled — constantly doubting himself, comparing himself to others, and sinking into frustration."

I lifted my head and looked at Manager Han's profile.

"A desperate, tenacious, and consistent drive to keep painting no matter what happens. You need that to break through a certain point and shine... and I clearly saw that kind of energy in eleven-year-old Seo Yeehyeon."

Manager Han's face slowly turned toward me as well.

"You can eat, breathe — yes, do all of those things — without painting. You won't die. You know that's not what I'm talking about, Yeehyeon. I just want you to think honestly about whether painting is necessary for you to live — not as just one among countless people, but as the unique Seo Yeehyeon, with your own individuality. Only that. Before it gets any later."

Looking honestly at oneself.

Perhaps it was because I could no longer be honest with myself that I had stopped painting. Because I had preserved my heart, sealed my mouth, and closed my eyes. There was nothing more to say. No — I didn't want to say anything. I wanted to hide many things instead.

As I listened to Manager Han, what pressed in around my chest and demanded I make some kind of decision wasn't, strangely enough, painting. It was something bigger, something that included painting. A concept that hadn't quite landed yet — but if I had to put it into words, something like... life.

Manager Han's last words settled heavily in my chest — like a steady, undeniable, solemn warning, like a boulder slowly sinking to the bottom of a flowing river and remaining there, unmoving. Before it's too late.