River's mother was waiting for him at Jeongseon Station, looking smaller and more fragile than he remembered. When had she gotten so many gray hairs? When had those lines appeared around her eyes?
"River-ya," she said softly, pulling him into a hug that smelled like the laundry soap of his childhood. "You look terrible."
"Thanks, Eomma," River said, but he was smiling. His mother had never been one to soften difficult truths.
"Too thin. Too pale. Like you haven't seen sunlight in years." She pulled back to study his face. "When did you last eat a real meal?"
River thought about the expensive restaurants he frequented in Seoul, the perfectly plated dishes he consumed without tasting. "I honestly can't remember."
His mother clicked her tongue in disapproval. "Get in the car. I made your favorite soup."
The drive to his childhood village took thirty minutes on winding mountain roads. River had forgotten how quiet the world could be without the constant noise of traffic and construction. Here, you could actually hear individual sounds - birds calling, leaves rustling, the distant sound of a stream.
"The village has changed," his mother said as they drove past fields dotted with small farms. "Many young people moved to the cities. Some of the old houses are empty now."
"What about Halmoni's house?"
"Still empty. I go there once a week to clean and air it out, but..." She shrugged. "I kept thinking you might want to visit someday."
River stared out the window at the landscape of his childhood. Everything looked smaller than he remembered, but also more beautiful. The mountains that had seemed like the edge of the world when he was young now felt like protective arms wrapped around the valley.
They passed the elementary school where River had learned to write his name. The small market where his grandmother used to buy vegetables from farmers she had known for decades. The community center where the whole village would gather for holidays and celebrations.
"Mrs. Kim still runs the market," his mother said, following his gaze. "She asks about you sometimes. Says she remembers when you used to help your grandmother pick out the best vegetables."
River smiled at the memory. His grandmother had taught him to choose produce the way other people chose precious stones - feeling for firmness, looking for vibrant color, smelling for freshness. Skills that seemed almost mystical to his eight-year-old mind.
"Does she remember me?"
"Of course. You were the boy who asked a million questions about why some tomatoes were sweeter than others."
They pulled into the driveway of his childhood home - a modest house with a small garden that his mother tended with the same care his grandmother had shown. Nothing fancy, nothing Instagram-worthy, just a simple home where people had lived and loved and shared meals for three generations.
River's room was exactly as he had left it when he moved to Seoul for culinary school fifteen years ago. Posters of soccer players, old textbooks, a small desk where he used to do homework while smelling his grandmother's cooking from the kitchen below.
But it was his grandmother's house next door that drew his attention. A traditional hanok with a tiled roof and wooden walls, surrounded by the vegetable garden she had tended until the week before she died.
"The garden's overgrown now," his mother said, noticing where he was looking. "I try to keep it up, but I don't have her touch with plants."
River stared at the wild tangle of what had once been neat rows of vegetables and herbs. Even from here, he could see tomato plants gone to seed, squash vines sprawling across the paths, herbs growing in enthusiastic chaos.
"Can I go inside?"
"Of course. It's still your grandmother's house. She left it to you."
River had forgotten that. In the whirlwind of building his career, he had never thought about what to do with the property. It had just sat here, waiting.
That evening, over his mother's simple vegetable soup and perfectly steamed rice, River felt something he hadn't experienced in years: satisfaction. Not the hollow achievement of a good review or a successful service, but the deep contentment of eating food made with love by someone who cared about his well-being.
"This is delicious," he said, and meant it.
His mother smiled. "It's nothing special. Just vegetables from the garden and rice from the Kim family farm."
"That's what makes it special."
They ate in comfortable silence, the kind of silence River had forgotten was possible. No phones buzzing, no staff asking questions, no constant mental list of tasks and responsibilities.
After dinner, River walked the short path to his grandmother's house. The key was where it had always been - under the ceramic turtle by the front door. Some things never changed in the mountain villages.
The house smelled like memories. Wood polish and dried herbs and the lingering essence of thousands of meals cooked with love. Everything was exactly as his grandmother had left it - her aprons still hanging on hooks by the stove, her ceramic bowls stacked neatly in the cupboard, her recipe notebook lying open on the kitchen table.
River picked up the notebook and smiled. His grandmother had never measured anything, but she had tried to write down her recipes for him before she died. "A pinch of this, a handful of that, cook until it smells like home."
Instructions that would have driven his Seoul kitchen staff crazy.
River opened the back door and stepped into the overgrown garden. In the fading light, he could make out the shapes of what had once been his grandmother's pride and joy. Tomatoes the size of apples growing wild on untended vines. Herbs spreading like fragrant weeds. Squash and cucumbers hiding under broad leaves.
Everything was chaos, but it was alive. Growing without schedules or perfect conditions or careful management. Just growing because that's what plants do when you give them good soil and leave them alone.
River knelt down and pulled a tomato from the vine. It was imperfect - oddly shaped, with a small split in the skin. In his Seoul kitchen, he would have thrown it away without a second thought.
Instead, he bit into it.
The taste exploded in his mouth - sweet and acidic and intensely alive. It tasted like sunshine and soil and rain. It tasted like something that had grown instead of being manufactured.
For the first time in years, River tasted something that made him remember why he had fallen in love with food in the first place.
Sitting in his grandmother's wild garden, eating an imperfect tomato as the first stars appeared over the mountains, River felt something crack open inside his chest.
Not break. Open.
Like he was finally ready to let some light in.