1. The Airport After Five Years: The Temperature the Heart Remembers
The arrival gates of Jeju International Airport burst open, and a tide of people rushed out. Amidst the swell, three figures entered the space. There was In-wu, pushing a cart laden with heavy, immigrant-sized suitcases that bore witness to a long-term stay. Beside him was his wife, Hwa-seon, impeccably dressed in a tailored, composed coat. Cradled securely in her arms was their two-year-old daughter, Soul.
‘For five long years of this cruel confinement, I had to endure this recurring, savage nightmare of returning to this very spot. I knew with excruciating certainty that this vicious sentence of yearning would never end—not until I confirmed with my own eyes the frigid, heartless words my wife had spoken: that she had betrayed me and fled.’
In-wu gripped the handle of the luggage cart so with such ferocity that the blood drained from his knuckles, turning them a ghostly white. The temperature his heart remembered was still white-hot and raging, but the air of reality that met him now was ice-cold, like a sheet of iron.
2. [Flashback 1] Five Years Ago: The International Departures Gate
To In-wu, the Jeju International Departures gate five years ago had been nothing less than a massive guillotine. He had paced back and forth in front of the gate, like a restless phantom that could not find its resting place, a 구천 (wandering spirit) fated to roam between worlds. His palms were sticky with sweat and a suffocating trepidation, and clutched in his hand were two airline tickets for Tokyo. Those crumpled papers were the entrance tickets to the paradise they had chosen, having resolved to abandon every morality the world held.
He had continued his ghost-like pacing, the two tickets in his grip succumbing to the pressure until they were nothing but shapeless, hopelessly wrinkled scraps. The boarding announcement for Tokyo had echoed hollowly through the vast terminal, but in the end, her shadow never appeared. In-wu, with his head bowed low in a crushing defeat, had set his leaden feet into the end of the boarding line. It was not a grand escape for love; it was a miserable, ignominious deportation. It was a farewell without a proper send-off, and a vicious, unannounced abandonment.
"Passengers for the Tokyo bound flight JL92, a Korean Air codeshare, please begin boarding at..."
The boarding announcement continued to drift from the airport speakers, filling the empty spaces of the large waiting hall with its uncaring, mechanical drone. In-wu had strained his neck towards the entrance, his gaze almost snapping with tension as he desperately scoured the crowd for that one person, Hyun-seo. But the time had run out, and Hyun-seo never came.
Finally, as the last seconds expired, In-wu, with his head bowed low, had committed his body to the end of the boarding line, a hollow shell without a soul.
3. [Flashback 2] The Frigid Cold of Shinjuku and the White Solitary Cell
The taxi, having escaped the airport, began to speed along the road flanking the dark Jeju sea. The ocean outside the window was deathly silent, as if holding its breath. Yet, as In-wu sat in the passenger seat, his mind was racing back five years through time and space, becoming filled with the sharp, chaotic noise of the Shinjuku Park Tower entrance.
After his exile to Japan, In-wu’s time had frozen in place. Amidst the forest of skyscrapers towering over the Shinjuku Park Tower, In-wu had stood as still as a petrified statue, remaining there until countless seasons had changed, the sun had set, and the world all around him was completely plunged into an inky darkness. The people of Tokyo, cloaked in their glamorous coats, had rushed past him without a second thought, completely indifferent to the sorrow of this foreigner/outsider.
On a certain winter day, when he could no longer count how many days had slipped past, he had returned to the front of the Park Tower, only to find himself there as a completely ruined man, a 폐인 (derelict), clutchng a bottle of cheap whisky in one hand. Above his glassy, unseeing eyes, a single flake of large snow had danced down from the brooding, leaden sky and landed on his icy forehead. It was a cold 조소 (sneer/mockery), a final seal that snatched away the very last vestige of warmth he possessed.
When the alcohol had completely devoured his soul, he had finally been locked away in a solitary white cell, surrounded by pale padding on all sides, in a mental hospital on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Engulfed in withdrawal symptoms that caused the muscles of his entire body to twist and convulse in violent spasms, In-wu had scratched at the walls with his fingernails until they broke and bled. It was haysen, then a resident-in-training , who had opened the door to that living hell where he was screaming with blood-stained hands. Along with her emotionless, frigid gaze, the colorless sedative had begun to flow through his exploding veins, and for the first time, In-wu had tasted a serenity deeper than death itself. Hwa-seon was a cold 구원자 (savior), the one who had come finding him amidst the inferno, holding a syringe as her scepter.
4. [Present] Soulmate: The Name of an Illusion
"The Jeju night…… it really has changed a great deal."
At the sound of In-wu’s low, cracked voice as he gazed out at the scenery outside the taxi window, Hwa-seon, who had been sitting silently in the backseat, cast him a slight, subtle glance. The gaze in her eyes was identical to that analytical, professional coldness he had first seen five years ago in the hospital's white solitary cell.
"It's been seven years since you first met that so-called 'soulmate' of yours. Now that you're about to see her again, how do you feel?"
Hwa-seon asked the question with an exquisite indifference, as if she were speaking about some random stranger's story. It was a precise, cutting calculation, beginning the count from the very first moment In-wu had met Hyun-seo seven years ago and ignited with that uncontrollable passion.
"Did you…… also believe in the existence of soulmates?" "No. I’m a doctor. I don’t believe in such unscientific and overly romantic words."
At Hwa-seon’s reply, which was entirely void of even a single trace of emotion, In-wu offered a 쓸쓸한 (lonely/bitter) and self-deprecating smile.
"You, my dear, sometimes live life with so little flavor. Perhaps destiny-driven love or soulmates are indeed illusions that do not exist in this barren, 척박한 (infertile/harsh) reality, just as you say. But we artists, we cannot survive without pursuing such fantasies. It's the only way we can endure this hell-like existence, this vicious inner hunger that you, Hwa-seon, seem to have been born without."
Hwa-seon did not offer a rebuttal to In-wu's words. She merely stroked the hair of their daughter, Soul, who had fallen into a deep sleep upon her lap, and as she turned her own gaze towards the window, she whispered in a low, almost imperceptible tone.
"Whatever the past may have been, isn't the present the most important thing for us now? And what's more important is that I am here now as your wife, believing in you and standing by your side in this place."
In-wu didn't offer any further response and shut his mouth. Those peaceful times when he would take the medicine she prescribed and receive treatment while basking in the warm afternoon sunlight on a hospital park bench. It was an undeniable truth that Hwa-seon was the salvation that had dredged up his ruined body and brought it back to the surface. But in a certain corner of his heart, the massive void where Hyun-seo had torn herself out was still not mended, and it throbbed with a 시린 (searing/icy) pain whenever the cold wind of Jeju blew his way.
The taxi, having stifled the coarse roar of its engine, finally shuddered to a halt in front of the house from his faded memories, the place that had been 박제 (preserved/taxidermied) in his mind.
As In-wu's family alighted, a heavy, humid silence, unique to the Jeju mountain valleys, descended upon the air in front of the gate. In-wu, facing the gate where the mold and moss of time had blossomed into a sea of green, found himself frozen in place, unable to take a single step, as if time itself had ground to a halt. The 환청 (auditory hallucination) of the voice that had always greeted him whenever he had opened this gate five years ago now rode the night wind and coiled itself with excruciating clarity around his ears.
‘I love you, In-wu. Let's never, no matter what happens, ever part from each other.’
At Hyun-seo’s voice, which struck his eardrums with such 애절한 (sorrowful/pleading) yearning, In-wu's pupils trembled violently. He lifted his trembling hand and placed it upon the ice-cold handle of the gate. Was it true that she had really betrayed me and failed to appear at the airport for the Tokyo flight? As Hwa-seon claimed, was that burning promise and the exchange of souls nothing but a massive hallucination created by alcohol and art?
The cruel nightmare that had begun seven years ago and crushed him for five of them—the true face of this atrocity, and whatever truth it held, whether Hwa-seon was hiding it or attempting to expose it—the time for that masking to be stripped away was finally beginning to flow out through the cracks of the (creaking) gate.
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