[Chapter 3] Grey horizon~
The man came back the next day.
And the day after that.
He never bought very much — a bundle of dried fish here, a packet of seasoning there, the kinds of small purchases that gave a person just enough reason to linger without committing to anything.
Halmeoni took his money each time with the same unhurried calm, and each time, he'd linger for just a moment before moving on into the rest of the market.
And I noticed.
I didn't mean to. But I did.
The village had already begun talking about him the way villages talked about anything new — with warmth and curiosity and the particular thoroughness of people who had
known each other their entire lives and were therefore very interested in
whoever they didn't know yet.
Ahjumma Park's new guest.
Came alone. Quiet. City man, definitely. Polite enough. Kept to himself mostly.
"Handsome,"
old Jungsik-ssi had declared at the dock two mornings ago, with the authority of someone stating a fact rather than offering an opinion.
Nobody had disagreed.
I just kept coiling my rope and said nothing.
~~~~~~
Our first official interaction was on a Thursday evening.
I'd spent the morning at the market with Halmeoni, the afternoon helping Ahjumma Choi re-tile part of her courtyard wall — slow, satisfying work, the kind that made hands pleasantly tired.
I was wandering my way through the village as the light was gently going golden, taking the long way along the water the way I sometimes did when I wasn't ready to go home to the quiet yet.
I almost didn't see him until he was nearly level with me.
He was sitting on the low stone wall that ran along the waterfront, a small notebook open in his lap.
Not writing in it.
Just sitting with it open, looking out at the water with an expression I couldn't fully read from this angle.
I slowed before I could decide not to.
I should keep walking. There's no particular reason to stop. We had only exchanged maybe—ten words in total across three separate mornings and none of them had amounted to anything beyond the ordinary courtesies of a small market.
The guy clearly valued his solitude. I respected that.
But I stopped anyway.
"The sunset is better from the east end," I said. "If you follow the wall around the bend there's a spot where you can see the whole horizon."
The man turned.
For a moment he just stared at me with those quiet, considering eyes — dark and steady, the kind of eyes that seemed to be doing several things at once behind them.
Then he looked away—could've sworn I saw him swallow— then in the direction I had indicated, following the curve of the wall.
"How far?"
"Ten minutes walking." I shifted the strap of my bag. "Maybe less."
The man looked at the horizon again, then back at the notebook in his lap.
He closed it slowly.
"You don't have to show me," he said. "You can just describe where it is."
But I had already half turned toward the east end of the wall, and some part of me — the part that couldn't seem to pass a person struggling without stopping — had already decided.
"It's easier to show you," I said simply.
"I'm going that way anyway."
What a lie. But he didn't know that.
He stood, tucking his notebook under his arm, and fell into step beside me without another word, I kept my eyes on the path ahead and told myself very firmly that the warmth suddenly setting quietly in my chest was nothing more than the last of the afternoon sun.
~~~~~~
We walked without talking for a while, which I found— for some odd reason—I didn't mind.
Some people needed to fill silence and some people didn't and the man was clearly the second kind, which was its own sort of comfortable.
The wall curved east and the village noise faded gradually behind us, replaced by the sound of water and wind and the distant call of a gull.
When we rounded the bend the horizon opened up completely — wide and uninterrupted, the sun sitting heavy and low over the water, bleeding orange and deep rose into the blue.
He stopped walking.
I stopped beside him.
For a long moment neither of us said anything.
The light moved the way it did at this hour, slowly and then all at once, colours deepening as we watched.
"You come here often?" The man asked, and it came out sounding like a genuine question rather than the pleasantry he might have meant it to be.
"When I need to think," I replied. It was true.
"Does it help?"
I thought for a moment. "Sometimes," I said. "Sometimes you just have to sit with things for a while before they make sense."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," he said. Like the word meant something more than agreement.
The sun continued its slow descent.
Somewhere behind us, a fishing boat was making its way back to the dock, its light beginning to glow faintly in the gathering dusk.
I watched it move across the water and suddenly thought about my mother, the way I did sometimes at this hour — not with the sharp breathless grief of the early months but with something softer and sadder, the way you think about something you had loved that the world had simply decided was finished.
I didn't realise he'd gone quiet until the man spoke again.
"Thank you," he said. "For showing me."
I turned.
The last of the light was catching the side of his face, and there was something in his expression — open, unguarded in a particular way people be when they thought nobody was paying close attention.
"It's nothing," I said. "Naeun-ri is good at this. You just have to know where to look."
The man looked at me. Our eyes met directly. He held his gaze for a moment.
"I'm starting to think so," he said quietly.
I looked away first, back at the water.
The warmth in my chest sitting heavy.
It just stayed there, steady and unhurried, like it had decided it wasn't going anywhere.
~~~~~~~
I learned his name on our way back.
Yikyung
Just that. No family name offered, no further detail.
Yikyung, he said simply, in response to me offering my own name first because the silence had started to feel like it needed something to fill it.
"Riwoo," the man repeated, like he was checking the shape of it.
Then — "I thought it was Daun?"
I glanced at him.
"Oh, that. It's a nickname the villagers gave me. I don't really remember when — I've just always been called Daun by them. For as long as I can remember."
"What does it mean?"
I went quiet for a moment, mild embarrassment creeping up my neck.
"The beautiful one," I said. "Or a beautiful person. It's actually Areumdaun, so—."
"Ahh." Yikyung exclaimed.
He looked at me
I could sense it from the corners of my eyes. Not the brief, polite glance of conversation, but something longer and more deliberate — like he was taking in every angle and features on my face.
I pretended I couldn't see he was staring holes into my face.
We reached the edge of the market lane where our paths diverged —I, toward home, and Yikyung toward Ahjumma Park's guesthouse.
He stopped.
"Thank you and Goodnight, Riwoo." He said.
"Goodnight." I replied.
I walked home through the darkening village with my hands on the strings of my bag and the sea breeze at my back, and tried very sincerely not to think about anything in particular.
It was mostly unsuccessful.