The Birth of Faith
“Here, this is sea bream. Sea bream. Delicious, right?”
“Yes!”
“Oh my. You eat sashimi so well. Here, try dipping it in the sweet chili paste too.”
“Dad said sashimi should be eaten with soy sauce!”
“Our Cheol-jun was taught well.”
Cheol-jun eagerly stuffed his mouth with the sashimi.
He had heard about it a lot from his dad, Jaegang, but this was his first time actually eating it.
And it was a whole new world.
As he chewed the tender, springy flesh, it melted away on his tongue.
“Here! Eat some meat too!”
It was meat grilled by Uncle Hyeong-man, who had been wrestling with the charcoal fire!
It looked completely different from the meat he usually ate at restaurants.
“Haha. Eating grilled meat out in the open like this is the real deal. Try it!”
“Thank you!”
He picked up a piece, lightly dipped it in the sesame oil and salt sauce, and popped it into his mouth.
Cheol-jun’s eyes went wide, and he gave Uncle Hyeong-man a big thumbs-up.
The taste was absolutely heavenly.
“He really is such a lovely eater.”
“Haha. There’s never a moment when he isn't adorable.”
Cheol-jun’s chopsticks moved without a moment’s rest.
He had no idea that eating outdoors could be this delicious and fun.
When he was very young—before he met his dad, Jaegang—he had eaten outside every single day, and his greatest wish had been to eat inside somewhere.
He was learning firsthand how a person’s perspective on the exact same thing could change completely depending on their circumstances.
Watching Cheol-jun’s cheeks puff up with food with warm, fond smiles, Uncle Hyeong-man and Aunt Yeon-mi clinked their soju glasses together.
Cheol-jun focused even harder on eating.
“By the way, are we just going to leave that kid over there like that?”
“Once he wakes up, he’ll crawl back over on his own.”
“Haha...”
“I mean, what on earth happened to make him drink? He’s usually someone who never touches alcohol if I tell him not to...”
Aunt Yeon-mi glanced at Cheol-jun, who shook his head vigorously, his eyes wide and his cheeks still stuffed.
Cheol-jun had absolutely no idea either.
He had just been playing in the sea, and when he came out to get a drink of water, the older boy was already completely wasted.
“Anyway, where are you sleeping tonight?”
“There’s a guesthouse above the raw fish restaurant. I’m going to sleep there.”
“Haha. Won’t that be uncomfortable?”
“Then you sleep there, Oppa. I’ll sleep in the camper van with Cheol-jun.”
Cheol-jun quickly shook his head.
Aunt Yeon-mi wrinkled her nose slightly and playfully glared at Cheol-jun.
“Oh, seriously. Why is he so aloof? Did he inherit that from his father too?”
“Haha... It’s natural for him to feel a bit awkward. Kids his age start getting self-conscious. Look at earlier—he even told me to get out so he could change his clothes.”
“What’s there to be self-conscious about? I’m basically his mom.”
“Haha...”
Aunt Yeon-mi suddenly looked toward the beach.
All the parasols had been folded up, save for one.
The older boy from earlier was fast asleep underneath it.
They had asked the beach parasol attendants for permission to leave him there.
But Cheol-jun realized for sure this time that Aunt Yeon-mi was someone truly incredible.
Whenever she asked someone for a favor, they would do absolutely anything for her.
All it took was an autograph and a selfie, and any problem was instantly solved.
It finally hit him that Aunt Yeon-mi was a very famous celebrity.
“Oppa, if he wakes up late and looks lost, let him sleep in the camper van. I saw there were three beds inside.”
“Yeah, got it.”
“Sigh, honestly. He’s going to be the death of me.”
“Haha...”
“What am I going to do with him? Did you see him earlier? Crying his eyes out and then suddenly screaming at the top of his lungs to sing?”
“I was shocked. He was incredibly bad at singing.”
“He only sings like he’s tone-deaf when he’s drunk! He’s amazing when he’s sober. He’s in a composing slump, but his singing is still top-tier.”
“Haha. Here, try this. It’s very fresh.”
“The sashimi here is really good. You picked a great restaurant.”
Cheol-jun stuffed his mouth with enough sashimi to puff out his cheeks and chewed while staring blankly at the solitary open parasol.
Cheol-jun had also heard the older boy singing earlier.
Just as Uncle Hyeong-man said, he was indeed terrible.
He had wondered how anyone could dream of becoming a singer with that kind of skill, but it was a relief to hear he was good when sober.
Gulp.
This time, he stuffed his mouth with meat.
It really was on a completely different level from the meat at regular restaurants.
He was genuinely sad that his stomach was getting full.
Chew, chew.
He turned his head to look at the beach again.
Perhaps because he had seen the older boy crying so hard earlier, his eyes kept drifting back to that open parasol.
He decided that once he finished eating, he would go over to the boy’s side and look at the stars.
There were so many stars here.
It was incomparable to the night sky in Seoul.
It was all because of light pollution.
“Cheol-jun! Eat this too! The flatfish is good here as well.”
“Thank you!”
Why was his stomach so small?
There was still so much delicious food left, yet he was already full.
Cheol-jun rubbed his bloated belly with his palm, feeling deeply disappointed.
“...Ugh.”
He tossed and turned.
“...Huh?”
He bolted upright!
Looking around with a dazed expression, Min Chan-woo gasped in shock.
...Where am I?
Whoosh.
The sound of crashing waves.
A desolate sandy beach.
Pitch-black surroundings.
A hard plastic sunbed.
“Ah...”
As memories of how he ended up here slowly trickled back, a specific thought surfaced first, causing Min Chan-woo’s brow to furrow.
I felt like I was so close to grasping something earlier...
After listening to what that kid said, a sudden spark had flashed through his mind.
He should have grabbed hold of it, but in a split second of carelessness, he had let it slip away.
He had already finished about one can of beer by then, and the sheer frustration of losing that spark had made him emotional, leading him to crack open a second can without thinking.
And after that, his memory was a complete blur...
“Ah... I’m doomed.”
Min Chan-woo squeezed his eyes shut.
Fragments of memory were beginning to return.
That kid patting him, stroking his head... Sobbing...? Patting?
“Oh, I’m going crazy...”
It seemed he had just created an embarrassing memory that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
As he clutched his head and began tearing at his hair...
“Are you awake, Hyung?”
“Whoa!”
“Hehe.”
The child, who had been lying on the sand, sat up and beamed at him.
Facing the boy’s bright, innocent smile only made those cringeworthy memories flash back with even greater clarity.
He wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and hide, but this desolate beach offered absolutely no cover.
So, he simply hung his head low.
“Hyung, are you crying again?”
“...No.”
“So, I have this friend who plays Baduk. He was having a really hard time too, you know? But now, he plays incredibly well.”
“...”
“If you practice hard, Hyung, you’ll do great too. Aunt Yeon-mi said earlier that you’re actually a really good singer.”
“Haha...”
Min Chan-woo let out an involuntary chuckle.
Had he ever had a conversation like this in his life?
Since his debut, this was the very first time he had met someone who mistook him for a mere trainee.
Honestly, it had been a bit baffling at first, but gradually, the feeling shifted into something novel and intriguing.
A conversation with an elementary schooler who had absolutely no idea who he was.
This was truly a unique experience.
The corners of Chan-woo’s mouth curled up slightly.
“Right. If I work hard, I’ll be able to stand on stage someday too, right?”
Cheol-jun studied Chan-woo’s face for a moment, then smiled warmly.
He was glad the older boy seemed to be feeling better than before.
“Yes! The song you sang earlier was really bad, but that was only because you were drunk, right? Oh, but Aunt Yeon-mi said you absolutely have to be good at singing because... Ah, never mind.”
Min Chan-woo chuckled softly.
“Ha... Seriously... I know. I’m not good-looking and I’m short, so I really have to be a good singer.”
“...”
The boy scratched his head awkwardly, and Chan-woo suddenly looked around.
It was the middle of the night, and there was no one else on the beach.
Looking out at the distant horizon, he saw countless stars twinkling above it.
The alcohol hadn’t fully worn off yet.
The quiet beach.
A sky so breathtakingly beautiful it felt surreal, and a sea shimmering under the moonlight.
A single listener who knew absolutely nothing about him.
A moment woven from a series of coincidences that would never happen again.
Suddenly, the elusive spark he had lost earlier brushed past his mind, sending a gentle flutter through his heart.
He felt that if he didn’t capture this emotion right now, he would never be able to recall it again.
Chan-woo turned his head to look at Cheol-jun.
Cheol-jun blinked his round eyes.
“Do you want to hear me sing?”
Cheol-jun nodded eagerly.
“Oh! Yes!”
The sea, cycles, and the night sky.
Infinity, where the beginning and the end meet.
Chan-woo closed his eyes, barely managing to recall the melody that had flashed through his mind for a fleeting second after his conversation with the boy earlier that day.
Then, he began to hum softly.
The very first note, forgotten for so long.
A time before the dazzling success that made him feel like he owned the world, and before the suffocating slump that made him feel like he had lost everything.
A boy’s youth, when simply plucking a guitar string filled his heart with a thrill as if he had uncovered one of the world’s greatest secrets.
The words infinity and cycle gently caressed Chan-woo’s frozen senses.
The melody he was humming now was certainly not a calculated answer meant to please anyone else.
There were no calculations to climb the charts, nor any chords designed to captivate the public’s ears.
It was enough to have a sound as small as the grains of sand tickling the soles of his feet, and as light as the breaking sea foam.
A perfect emptying, starting from zero and returning to zero.
Once he let go of the obsession that he had to constantly push forward, something came washing back to him, circling around like the ocean.
He finally seemed to understand.
The meaning behind the boy’s words—that the sea had remained ageless for billions of years because it erased itself and started anew at every single moment.
That the massive wall of a slump trapping him was, in truth, merely a low tide, a temporary pause before he could venture into a deeper ocean of music.
The soft hum gradually began to carry the weight of the starlight.
The sensation of his own existence shrinking, scattering like cosmic dust.
Yet, far from being terrifying, it was a pleasant sense of unity, as if the entire universe were flowing right through him.
Chan-woo no longer thought of the notes on a sheet of music.
With his eyes closed, he hummed, focusing only on the rhythm of the stars that existed beyond the horizon, invisible yet undeniably there.
It was not a song for anyone else; he simply carried an instinctive resonance that celebrated the very act of being alive, sending it drifting far, far away on his breath.
At some point.
A fourteen-year-old boy holding a guitar appeared on that tranquil horizon.
Having achieved nothing, he had nothing to lose.
Having no name to be compared to, he knew nothing of comparison.
Having no awareness of how the world viewed him, he feared the world not at all.
The boy, who could be driven to madness with joy by the smallest things and weep without reason over the tiniest details, smiled warmly.
And then.
He waved, saying it was time to part ways.
Only by letting go can one be filled again.
The quiet humming settled over the night sea.
It tangled with countless grains of sand.
Becoming a memory of the ocean, it etched itself into the entire universe.
It was fine if no one listened.
Indeed, because there was no audience, he felt all the more free.
Well, there was one listener, but that listener had no idea who "Rian" was.
So, it didn't matter in the slightest.
‘Goodbye...’
A farewell to the boy with the guitar slung over his shoulder.
‘Hello.’
A warm greeting to his twenty-five-year-old self, still in that awkward stage of not quite being a full adult.
The humming came to a sudden halt.
Chan-woo’s lips trembled.
His eyes welled with tears.
Even though the song had ended, he did not open his eyes.
Though he felt a lingering trace of regret, he wanted to preserve this feeling exactly as it was, whole and unbroken.
He was deeply grateful to the boy, his sole listener, for waiting so quietly.
After a brief moment, he let out a soft breath and was about to slowly open his eyes—
—when suddenly, a clear, beautiful humming reached his ears.
Another universe was beginning to approach his own.
Cheol-jun was staring at Min Chan-woo with wide eyes.
He felt that the older boy’s humming was the spitting image of the thoughts he had while gazing at the sea and the sky.
It had started from somewhere incredibly far away, so small it was barely visible, but in an instant, it washed over his feet and rose all the way to his heart.
It felt as sorrowful as bidding someone farewell, yet in a flash, it transformed from a parting into a breathtaking welcome.
It was mind-blowing that the rambling stories he had blurted out had been translated so perfectly into music.
‘Wow, so even trainees are this incredible. This Hyung is really good at singing.’
He had only felt pity for him earlier, but looking at him now, he seemed incredibly cool.
‘How can he do that?’
Cheol-jun quietly closed his eyes and recalled the oceans etched into his memory.
The deep blue sea he had seen at the port of Dandong, the sea he had encountered in Dalian, and now this blue sea embracing him on the beach of Goseong.
Though the locations were different and the feelings entirely distinct, they merely scattered and gathered, faded and resurfaced—in the end, they were a single ocean that had never once been parted.
In Cheol-jun’s universe, the thing this older boy was struggling so hard to let go of wasn’t actually going anywhere.
That something had simply become a droplet of water that had traveled for tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of years, pooling now in the older boy’s tears—and those tears would eventually return as a memory of the sea to wash over him again tomorrow.
‘This Hyung missed that part.’
When the boy’s song stopped, Cheol-jun did not want to shatter the quiet resonance.
So, he waited in silence.
Pondering how he could express the things he felt right now through sound.
Deliberating on how he could harmonize with the universe the older boy had just shown him.
Right now, the boy standing before him was Cheol-jun’s teacher.
A teacher who, for the first time, showed him how to express thoughts and feelings through sound.
He was a completely different kind of teacher from any he had met before.
He was truly magnificent.
Cheol-jun wanted to harmonize with the older boy’s newly unfolded universe right away.
And so, he wanted to fill in the missing pieces of that universe.
Sound drifted from Cheol-jun’s nose along with his breath.
An endless horizon.
An infinite cycle where the beginning becomes the end, and the end becomes the beginning once more.
If the older boy’s humming felt like sending something far away, Cheol-jun’s humming felt like reassuring him that it hadn’t actually gone anywhere.
Because, in the end, everything circled back to become one through this very sea.
That was the nature of his hum.
‘Oh, quantum mechanics felt kind of similar to this.’
Cheol-jun’s humming grew louder.
‘I should look into it in more detail later.’
Cheol-jun’s clear humming warmly enveloped Chan-woo’s universe.
Like two different waves meeting to create a larger swell, the child’s innocent universe gently blanketed the young man’s wounded one.
The boy’s profile, completely understanding his melody and filling in the eternity beyond it, shone translucently under the moonlight.
There was no time to even be astonished.
Chan-woo was too busy sorting through the emotions he felt from the child’s humming.
Because, perhaps, this could fill the one part he had felt was slightly lacking.
Was there no need to let the boy go?
Had the boy already returned to Chan-woo’s side?
No, he had never left in the first place.
Just as the sea had never stopped being the sea, and thus was always one?
Only after barely managing to collect his emotions did Chan-woo finally look at the child with startled eyes.
“H-how...”
The boy turned his head and beamed.
“Hehe, my song was pretty good too, right?”
Chan-woo’s tear-glistening eyes shook violently.
“Wow, Hyung, I think you could become a singer right away! You were so cool!”
It was the moment a new faith was born within Chan-woo.