Pull Out

Seo Yeehan — Hani, as he was sometimes called — used to say it like a personal mantra: that even if he didn't want to be a fisherman, he could never give up a piece of fresh sashimi eaten right there on the boat with a glass of soju.

Anyone who had tasted that would have to agree, but for Yeehyeon, something even more special was a cup of instant coffee drunk while standing at the bow of a returning fishing boat, watching the distant harbor shimmer as it slowly drew closer. Focusing on the bittersweet warmth spreading through his labor-weary body and the heat seeping through the paper cup, the weight of everything waiting on land felt a little lighter. For just a moment, he even thought that a life without resistance — simply swaying with the waves — might not be so bad. Like his grandfather and his uncle.

While it wasn't exactly a full catch, the haul was plentiful enough that he wouldn't have to hear his grandfather's rough, curse-laced complaints about "the sea running dry" on the way back. Late autumn was a good season — domestic mackerel grew rich and oily, making them popular. Even on a small boat, if one worked diligently and paid attention, there was enough to bring in decent money and help the household.

Even as his grandfather grumbled — his face more flushed than usual as he swallowed his coffee like soju, saying that even if their boat had a full catch, so would everyone else's, and prices would drop anyway — Yeehyeon listened quietly.

"The scrawny kid has turned out to be quite capable."

His grandfather's weathered face, etched as if with salt and the biting wind in every wrinkle, turned toward Yeehyeon and smiled.

"I figured you'd be even weaker after going to Seoul to paint."

"Yeehyeon just doesn't have much flesh on him, but he's always been sturdy enough. His hands are nimble too."

His uncle, sitting on the storage hatch organizing small tools, chimed in. Though Yeehyeon had only helped with tasks requiring no special skill — hauling nets or tossing the sorted fish into storage — the evaluation was generous, perhaps because expectations had been low.

"Then should I work on the boat?"

"Nonsense."

Though it had been a joke, his grandfather — the man who had once insisted so forcefully that Yeehan work on the boat — set his lips in a firm line immediately.

"If he has the talent to pay off that much of the family debt by drawing pictures, what business does he have on a boat? He'll be a bigger deal than his own father ever was."

With that, he glanced toward the harbor, crushed the ember of his cigarette between thick fingers, and slipped into the pilot's cabin. Following his grandfather's retreating back with his eyes, Yeehyeon looked ahead and saw a familiar figure lingering on the pier.

His father was standing at the mooring spot where Yeehyeon used to sometimes come and wait for the boat before he left the village.

"He doesn't show it openly, but he seems to be in a good mood lately since you arrived. He's not the type who usually comes out to a crowded harbor."

His uncle, loosening the ropes while preparing for docking, placed a hand on Yeehyeon's shoulder with a faint smile.

Among the bustling sailors, his father's face — staring this way with his hands buried deep in his jacket pockets — was expressionless, without a single crack, contrary to his uncle's claim that he seemed to be in a good mood.

But Yeehyeon had no intention of denying that his father had changed somehow, and that at least concerning his father, his immature act of running away that rainy dawn — turning his back on his father and leaving with Yeehan — had not been entirely pointless.

"We'll manage moving it to the fish market — you can go."

"But there's still a lot..."

"It's work we've done together our whole lives. You think we'd panic just because your hands are free?"

His uncle chuckled as if Yeehyeon had said something silly and ruffled the back of his head. After an awkward smile, Yeehyeon was the first to jump onto the pier, catching the rope his uncle threw and tying it tightly around a concrete pillar. His posture had become somewhat more competent after a few days of practice, but the rope still stung when it rubbed against his soft palms.

Since it was a good travel season, the area around the pier was busier than usual even on a weekday, with quite a few tourists gathered. The rough shouts of sailors hurrying to move their catch to the fish market, telling tourists trying to take photos against the backdrop of the romantic evening sea to move aside — all of it melted into the fabric of the pier. A vivid, tenacious grip on life, a vitality he hadn't felt even in the overcrowded streets of Seoul, pulsed everywhere like freshly hauled creatures.

Crossing through the middle of the fish market with his father to leave the pier, Yeehyeon suddenly realized he didn't dislike this place as much as he had thought. Perhaps he even leaned closer to liking it.

One might click one's tongue and point fingers at someone who chose a passive death from boredom or listlessness, but no one could carelessly condemn the desperate struggle to live, as long as that person was still human.

It was better to desperately push forward than to let go and step back just to save face. That wasn't squalor — it was urgency for life, and that, precisely, was the intense, saturated color of living he had craved amidst the monochrome silence.

Hadn't he decided to leave this place, to leave his father's side, precisely because he was sick of the silence — trying to carve even a hairline crack into that empty peace where nothing ever happened?

Looking at it with that thought, every corner his gaze touched appeared different from before. The fish market, which had once seemed like a damp, sticky mire reeking of fish, now struck him as a fresh stimulus that stung his lungs and eyes. The expressions of the people, which had only seemed rough and blunt, were also varied and intense. People shouting as if they stood beneath a collapsing sky, yet laughing as if they hadn't a single worry in the world.

This place hasn't changed. It must be me who has come back differently.

Yeehyeon, silently weaving through the bustling crowd with a bitter smile — a step ahead of his father — suddenly stopped. His gaze froze.

It was Mr. Lim, talking with the director of the fishery cooperative, whose face Yeehyeon also recognized. Mr. Lim wore his usual serious expression.

He spotted Yeehyeon too, and over the cooperative director's shoulder, his gaze fixed on him — eyes briefly widening.

Just as Liu had said — he was behaving himself.

He had clearly received news of Yeehyeon's return, yet there had been no movement from him for days. Yeehyeon hadn't paid him much mind either. Compared to the pain of what he was currently navigating, worrying about Mr. Lim felt laughable. Even if the man tried to physically threaten him, there was nothing to fear. If anything, if Mr. Lim tried to provoke him now, Yeehyeon felt he might bare his teeth and lunge — it would be a perfectly timed outlet for the anger he had nowhere to put.

Mr. Lim looked at Yeehyeon — who stood still and held his gaze without flinching — with a bitter expression, then averted his eyes first and walked off with the cooperative director.

"Let's go, Father."

Yeehyeon nudged his father's back as he came to stand beside him, and they left the fish market.

It had been three days since he arrived here.

Using boredom as an excuse, Yeehyeon had gone out to sea all three days, and when they returned to shore each evening, he went for a walk with his father before dinner. It was more like Yeehyeon following his father than anything else — his father walked in silence, never waiting for him when he fell behind, never looking back to check the distance — but there was undeniably a crack there, a fine hairline, a sign of change that hadn't existed before. His father appearing on the pier today was part of that.

His father crossed the center of the village and walked without stopping all the way to the southern hill, where imposing villas and mansions stood, including Mr. Lim's house — the opposite direction from the northern village where his grandfather's house was located.

With both hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets and his head bowed, showing no interest in anything around him, not even glancing at the scenery, focused entirely on the act of walking, his father easily covered the steep uphill climb that would normally take a leisurely hour in just thirty minutes.

Because it sat at a much higher elevation than the northern village near the harbor, the summit of the southern hill offered an unobstructed view. But among the villagers, there wasn't a single idle person who would deliberately climb all the way up here just to gaze at the sea they called "dreadful."

Four or five benches were arranged haphazardly around the railing enclosing the cliff's edge — put there for tourists — and his father, who always climbed to that edge as though following some distant, calling voice, would sit on one of those benches and stare blankly at the water for anywhere from thirty minutes to a full hour.

Though Yeehyeon had followed his father thinking he should at least try to throw something out there, at first he simply sat quietly, watching his father's profile.

But he soon realized it. Perhaps his father was the most suitable person to confide in.

Someone who would never relay what they heard to anyone else, and who wouldn't criticize any story told to them — that was the kind of listener everyone wanted.

Yeehyeon began to recount everything since arriving in Seoul, skipping some parts and elaborating on others, speaking without much structure. He continued until his father finally stood up to leave.

Though his father showed no outward reaction, Yeehyeon found himself wondering what was going on inside. At first he had hesitated, choosing and discarding words — but after confirming that his father showed no reaction even to the story of him falling for a man who was a Golden Alpha, he grew bolder.

He talked about meeting Manager Han again, and about Yuni and Juhan. He moved through encountering Alienation at Liu's house, the Hong Kong business trip where he had met Suki Kim, Liu helping Morae and Yeehan escape... and yesterday, he had spoken about Chicago and Boston.

Sometimes... he would have dreams that felt more achingly missed than his actual memories. When he traced those dreams back, as always, Yeehyeon talked about Liu with a smile on his face.

Liu's confident ease as he shone among people. The pitiful confusion he had shown after setting that ease aside to use violence on Yeehyeon's behalf. And then the mention of marriage — which had made Yeehyeon's heart plummet — though he had barely managed to hold onto his composure and deflect it.

What had Liu been thinking when he mentioned marriage back then?

What was clear was that it had been a desperate choice — the kind made by someone carrying a problem far more tangled and vast than Yeehyeon had understood at the time, something so enormous it had become unmanageable.

As the sun sank behind the mountains and the distant sea darkened, Yeehyeon slowly clenched his fist on his thigh, watching his father's profile. Today was the day to talk about what came after that.

The evening sea breeze whipped against his entire body. His jacket flapped. His hair flew in all directions.

"Right now, I'm placing a burden on you, Father."

"......"

"I'm passing the weight of a story I should be carrying alone... onto you. Because some part of me resents you, and I want you to feel that weight too. I want you to understand what it feels like to suffer."

"......"

"But isn't that still... better than us sharing nothing at all?"

He had given up on speaking out of fear that the silence would be painful — but now that he had started, it wasn't as agonizing as he had expected. He wondered why he had been so afraid.

Yeehyeon licked his lips, looking at his unresponsive father.

"Even if..."

His voice trembled.

"Even if I'm turning into an Omega... are you still not going to say anything?"

His father's gaze, which had been fixed on the open sea, finally drifted down to the waves crashing against the rocks at the base of the cliff — but there was no other reaction. Facing his father's silence, Yeehyeon felt a strange calm settle over him. He pressed the palm of his right hand against his thigh for no particular reason and let out a short, self-mocking sound.

"They say I'm half Omega. Which means I'm half not Omega. Half Beta, and the other half not Beta..."

His own words felt like sophistry, and Yeehyeon let out another weak, dry laugh.

The fact that he had once crossed the sea now spread before them and traveled to another continent alongside Liu. All those moments, memories, and emotions they had shared felt like an absurd lie he had come to believe after losing himself too deeply in his own imagination. It seemed like something no one would ever believe.

This time, it was Yeehyeon's eyes — not his father's — that turned toward the horizon at the far edge of the sea.

"He told me, Father..."

"......"

"The first person I ever... loved..."

His vision began to blur. He tilted his chin upward, trying not to let the gathered tears fall — but he couldn't stop his voice from trembling.

He tried to stay calm. He couldn't. Anger rose when he looked at that face, but that wasn't all there was. If it had only been anger — if the cold, certain conclusion had been simply that he never wanted to see him again — perhaps it wouldn't have hurt so much.

"I... I don't know what I should do."

He couldn't forget it. The way Liu had looked at him — carefully, as though even looking was a kind of sin — tracing his face with such caution, finally forcing out the words I love you as though humbly surrendering to something immense and unavoidable, without any explanation or excuse.

"I want to forgive him... but I can't bring myself to forgive him... Even though I can't forgive him, I want to... I don't know what to do."

There was something almost absurd about confiding his most desperate need for forgiveness to the very person he could least forgive — the one he had walled off with the sturdiest silence he possessed. But this time, he couldn't even manage a sneer.

Yeehyeon closed his eyes beside his unresponsive father. Because he had tilted his head back, tears slid down from the corners of his eyes toward his temples and ears. The tears that had burned hot at the corners of his eyes had already gone cold by the time they reached his ears.