Price of Silence

From the resort in Jimbaran to Double Six Beach, the drive took over forty minutes. The straight-line distance wasn't far, but the road closest to the beach was too narrow for cars, forcing a longer route along winding inland roads.

Liu parked in front of a café building whose walls showed bare plaster threaded with climbing vines, then walked toward the beach, passing a row of parked motorcycles.

Out of habit, he pulled the sunglasses from his left pocket, put them on, and started walking further north.

The various beach bars had claimed half the sand with beanbag chairs, parasols, and vividly painted tables. Among Bali's many beaches, Double Six was especially famous for its sunsets. Though the prime viewing hour was still more than two hours away, people already jostling for good spots had settled in with cocktails, quietly waiting for the sun to go down.

Lim Morae and Seo Yeehan.

Both were working as full-time instructors at a large surfing school. Their days were packed from the morning session through late afternoon, and once lessons ended they had to review recorded footage of students' form to provide additional guidance. In exchange for the school covering room and board, they were also expected to mingle with students and guests as staff — helping maintain the atmosphere. From what he'd gathered, it was hardly a life of leisurely surfing in a tropical paradise.

They could have worked part-time or found jobs that left more breathing room, but that kind of income would barely cover day-to-day expenses.

Going by the amount they transferred to Liu through Yeehyeon each month, they seemed to have made up their minds to push hard for a year or two and pay off the hundred-million-won debt as quickly as possible.

Liu arrived at the beach bar run by their surfing school and took a seat in one of the beach chairs set out in front of the wooden building, which had been built in traditional Balinese style. A staff member in a white piqué polo and shorts came over immediately with a menu. Liu asked for a bottle of his preferred beer and an ashtray, then drew out a cigarette and put it between his lips.

While the beer arrived, he held the filter between his teeth unlit and looked out at the sea. The waves were calm — rolling in from the distant water at a steady height, then sliding away as the sand swallowed them.

Watching them, the urge to smoke faded on its own. He dropped the unlit cigarette into the ashtray and took a long, cold sip of beer, his eyes following the surfers moving on the water.

His loose linen pants flapped in the sea breeze, and sand worked its way between his feet and the leather sandals. The resort's particular heat and languid haze seemed to loosen something inside him that had felt knotted tight for nearly a year in a harsh winter.

He leaned all the way back in the chair, pulled his legs up, and stretched them out long. Ankles crossed, hands clasped behind his head, his eyes closed on their own.

He didn't know why he had decided on this place.

He had been to Bali three or four times before, yet once he settled on a two-week vacation, nowhere else even came to mind.

Perhaps he had wanted to check on the two of them himself, in Yeehyeon's stead. Or perhaps — by making indirect contact with people who knew a past Yeehyeon he himself had never known — he had been looking for some faint comfort, some tenuous thread of connection.

Either way, since they didn't know his face, there was no harm in confirming they were well. Just in case. In case a day ever came when he could pass word along to Yeehyeon.

Among the beginner surfers in the shallows not far from shore — repeatedly standing up and falling off their boards with an instructor's help — one figure catching a wave caught his eye.

The calm water didn't call for any flashy technique, but the smooth, sweeping arc of that surfer's movement held something different. It was so effortless and natural that it was almost hard to believe the person was on the water at all; the waves seemed to simply carry them toward shore. Above all, even from this distance with the expression completely invisible, the sense that they were fully inside the moment — wholly present on the sea — came through in every movement. Liu was certain that was Morae.

He couldn't help but think of a younger Yeehyeon, who — much like himself now — might have sat alone on this sand and watched Morae and Yeehan ride the waves freely.

Even though that time was already gone, he wished the deep loneliness of it — like being submerged in the dark silence of the ocean floor — could transfer directly into his own chest. His desire to have shared Yeehyeon's past was just as strong as his wish to be part of his future. He had wanted to claim even a single one of the many sleepless, restless nights as his own. Even now, in this moment, that longing hadn't changed.

She walked out of the sea, and contrary to her name, she seemed to resemble the vast ocean meeting the sand more than the shore itself. He had seen her face in photographs, but he hadn't expected to recognize her at a glance — wetsuit on, hair completely plastered with water.

It seemed she had just wrapped up a lesson and perhaps given a quick demonstration at a student's request, because once she came ashore she exchanged a few words with two or three other Koreans waiting nearby, then slowly led them toward the bar.

From behind his sunglasses, Liu followed her movements, and as the group drew closer he felt as though she recognized him — that the smile she sent his way was directed at him specifically. It had to be a delusion. Even if she did recognize him, she wouldn't be wearing the expression one has when unexpectedly running into an old friend.

But perhaps it wasn't a delusion, because just as Liu reached for his beer bottle, she stopped directly in front of his beach chair.

"Oh? Mr. Rabbit!"

"……"

Behind his sunglasses, Liu furrowed his brow. He wasn't sure if he had heard her correctly or what she meant. She looked as though she were about to explain, then shook her head and gestured for him to follow.

Inside the bar — exotic and dim, furnished with plush sofas and cushions in Oriental prints — she wiped her tanned, water-beaded face and grinned, pointing at the wall.

"……"

Mixed in among torn magazine scraps, a map of somewhere in the world, and Polaroid photos of various smiling past visitors, were a few of Yeehyeon's drawings.

They were sketches drawn casually in ballpoint pen on paper slightly smaller than A4 — probably torn from a spiral notebook — but they were unmistakably Yeehyeon's work at a single glance.

Next to a drawing that was clearly Yuni nuna and Juhan was a sketch of Liu himself, outfitted with a large pair of rabbit ears, looking down at a pocket watch dangling from his vest.

He had flown all this way hoping to ease his longing for him, even a little. But not like this. He had been completely unprepared to find traces of him in a place like this.

The woman standing beside him tilted her head, still looking at the drawings.

"Of course you'd recognize them, right? Yeehyeon really does have talent."

He understood now what it meant for emotion to crash over you like a wave. The patience he had held onto for nearly a year crumbled all at once, and he felt as though he were being pulled back to that moment — the two of them staring out at the rain-hammered sea. That moment when he had wanted, by any means, to remind Yeehyeon of the love still living inside him, even if it meant trading away his own past to earn his pity, to cling to him and beg him not to leave.

The cold dampness of the sea radiated from the woman standing beside him. Liu covered his eyes.