Morning came earlier than I expected.
The sky was still pale when I lifted my small suitcase in front of the house. There wasn't much inside some clothes, a notebook, a folder of documents. Everything I needed to leave, and almost nothing tying me down.
My father stood by the closed workshop door, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, an old habit whenever he didn't want his hesitation to show. My mother adjusted my collar carefully.
"Don't forget to eat," she said.
I nodded.
There were no long instructions. No tears.
Just a distance slowly opening.
My father stepped closer and handed me a thin envelope.
"It's not much," he said. "But enough to start."
"Thank you."
He looked toward the road leading out of the village. "The city won't wait for you," he said. "But don't run either."
I nodded again, deeper this time.
I looked once at the house the peeling paint, the quiet workshop, the smell of oil that had shaped my life. Then I turned away.
The bus moved.
Low buildings gave way to billboards. Dirt roads turned into long stretches of asphalt. The engine hummed steadily unlike my heart, which beat slowly but firmly.
I opened my notebook and wrote a single line.
Today, I left without promising to come back.
Busan greeted me with a different kind of cold.
Not the weather
but the stares.
People walked fast. No one looked at anyone else. Traffic lights decided everything. There was no space to hesitate for too long.
The terminal was larger than I imagined. Louder. More alive.
I stood still for a moment as streams of people passed me by, like a river that didn't care about a small stone in its path.
This is the outside world, I thought.
And I'm not special here.
That realization was strangely calming.
That night, I stayed in a narrow room. Thin walls. A small window. The distant sound of trains. I unpacked slowly, arranging my things as if order could tame the city.
I turned on a small radio. The sound was rough. A foreign language flowed out.
I understood more now.
Not enough.
Not yet.
Before turning off the light, I wrote again.
Here, I will learn without being seen.
Here, I will fall without being saved.
And in the city that didn't care, I slept.