You never hated your hometown, but you also never had any special attachment to it. You've always wanted to be somewhere else. You wanted to leave. There's this suffocating feeling with the realization that you will keep growing or existing in the same place where you were born. It's like being seventeen and still wearing the same shoes you were wearing when you were seven.

If you keep leaving will you continue living? As if the only way you can keep surviving is if you keep changing. You kept changing, but you never evolved. The desire for leaving turned into a fascination for death. Suddenly, from being an innocent child drowning in ambitions and hope, you're an angsty, jaded pubescent. You changed your mind a million times each day. You were convinced you stopped growing a long time ago and you're just growing old now. Foolish. You were not precocious, you were just mentally ill.

You were young and your brutal, or perhaps innocent, honesty never concerned itself with the consequences. You grew a little older and you suddenly don't want to talk anymore. You buried your honesty to die. Silent, passive, and stuttering. You felt everything and you felt nothing. Your thoughts ran rapidly, but they never made sense.

Helpless. Incapable. The days are dull and unchanging. You wanted to be liberated from all of these. You wanted death, but you also envy the future. The darkness was exhausting, but it was obscurity that gave you home. Then, it occurred to you once again. You don't need a home. You were not supposed to be attached to places. You have to keep leaving in order to continue living. You realized that you might not have a strong attachment with your hometown, but it is a place that will always bring you comfort. Indeed, it is a comfortable home, but you also have to grow, discover, and learn.

Time has passed. You are uncertain how long has it been, but you are certain how much you wanted to live now. Death is only a reality to you now, not a desire nor a fascination. You no longer envy the future, but you hope and strive for it. The childhood that you have forgotten, you don't try to recall it anymore, but you are living it. Just like the innocent assertiveness of a child, you are convinced that you are capable of being everything. You laugh more these days. You have joy and immeasurable dreams. You have faith in spite of all the uncertainties.

Are you liberated? Perhaps, not completely. Perhaps, you are just Mr. Gu, who has decided today to throw away his bottle of liquor instead of drinking it; who has given himself and others the chance to receive mercy instead of constant rough punishment. You might just be Mi-jeong who has chosen grace instead of hostility, who has finally understood now her own capability. You are Gi-jeong who has more love now than judgement; she never hid her honesty, but she speaks more of life now than mere brutality.

Or you are just Chang-hee. He was not able to acquire the riches and power he wanted, but he was enriched with the wisdom of life. He did not have to climb a thousand won mountain, the mountain he was searching for was inside him already. It was somewhat ridiculous that his life was continuously fulfilled by the deaths that he encountered. Through the leaving of others, he lived a meaningful epiphany.

Trudging on step-by-step; five seconds, seven seconds, until at least, five minutes of joy each day. Liberation is not solely a one process. Though, surely, we will entirely grasp it one day.