The first year after Seo-jun was a landscape of soft, persistent greys. Min Jae moved through it with a quiet, mechanical grace. He tended the garden because the plants required it. He ate because his body demanded it. He walked the shore because the habit was etched deeper than grief. The world had lost its saturation, its sharpness. Sounds were muffled, flavors dulled. He was a ship with a missing rudder, drifting on a calm but directionless sea.
Ha-ru and Hae-won visited often, their presence a temporary warmth in the cool, echoing house. They tried to pull him into the future, talking of Hae-won's university applications, of Ha-ru's latest research paper. Min Jae listened, nodded, asked the right questions, but it was as if he were watching their vibrant lives through a thick pane of glass. He was happy for them, profoundly so, but he could no longer touch that kind of happiness himself. His joy was a memory, vivid and cherished, but locked in the past.
