Part 1

Summer - Hanareum, the Hesitant One
Autumn - Choi Min-ah, The Person Who Hates Dreams
Winter - Lee Hae-deun, who doesn't go to Everland
Cold Winter - Why We Huddle Up

Part 2

New Year - A Little Brighter Light
Spring - When the spring rain washes away the dust
Summer again - the river is rising

Author's Note

“Sometimes I get addicted to medicine.
There are times like that.
Even good intentions can stumble.

How could we know all that?
“We’re only in our thirties.”

There are three narrators in Part 1 of the novel.
Arum, Minah, and Haeden.
The first speaker, Areum, is a hesitant person.
But he is also the character who, while hesitating, most sincerely pursues self-discovery.
Areum and Haeden met while taking a doll repainting class taught by Minah, and the three became close during the class and remained friends even after the class.
After that, Areum starts working at the repainting company that Minah started, and she feels a sense of accomplishment in her work and gains some fame as her work is shared on social media. However, after taking pictures at Haeden's suggestion, she realizes that what she really loves is photography.
As Areum finds herself becoming increasingly insincere at work, struggling between what she is good at and what she wants to do, she eventually tells Min-ah that she wants to quit the company, but she is not sure if that is the right choice.
And by doing so, he wondered if he could accept leaving Mina.

The feeling of liking something and wanting to do it again is so heavy.
That could be the case.

_Page 40

Meanwhile, Mina is someone who has found exactly where she belongs.
To escape from her mother, who instilled in her a sense of shame as a daughter, and to become financially independent, she wanted to pursue art, but she looked for a job that would make her money as quickly as possible.
She is a “woman with a cold appearance and nimble hands” who stands at the podium and organizes teaching materials without a single fuss, but she is also a person with wounds that no one knows about, like the scars on her arms that she herself made.
Min-ah wants to be a person who is unwavering in all aspects, but when Areum leaves her company to pursue her passion, and when she hears news of her mother's illness, she finds herself gradually wavering.


Sadness exists in a corner of the heart in the form of a solid resin, and then melts and flows away at a certain melting point.
It can turn into liquid and spread throughout the body, or it can even spill out as tears.
The melting point of sadness can be someone's word, a body heat, a bus stop at sunset, or a long weekend day spent alone in a daze.
Pages 66-67

Haden is a person who quietly does what he wants to do.
During her wandering days, she took Min-ah's doll repainting class with Areum to calm her mind, but she realized early on that what she originally wanted to do was photography and started her own work.
He resents his violent father, who worked at a construction site, while trying hard to deny that he misses him.
So he works with unfinished buildings that are either collapsing or under construction.
He ridicules his own contradictory self, eating only tomatoes, which are supposedly good for his health, and smoking cigarettes while doing squats, but he also knows very well that this is just who he is.
Haden begins to work with Areum and discovers both good qualities and difficult aspects about her, but he also feels that Areum, who has a transparent heart unlike his own, is becoming an important person to him.


But you know what?
There are people who cannot express what is on their minds.
Even if you can't speak, there's something in your heart.
Some people know that feeling, and some don't.
There are people who know but can't say, and there are people who don't know but say similar things.
Even if I don't say it, what I feel is real.
Page 112

Although they are three people who met through work and entered society, their relationship, which had been a balanced triangle as friends and colleagues, begins to strangely waver when Areum leaves Minah's company and starts working with Haeden in photography.
For those who have reached a turning point in their lives, many things happen at once.
In Part 2, as the seasons unfold, Areum changes careers, Minah heads to the operating room with the same illness as her mother, and Haeden experiences the death of his father and prepares his first photo book.
They rely on each other, but also hurt each other, misunderstand each other, and miss each other. At Haeden's words that they need a "white color" for their photo album, they head to Sapporo in the middle of winter.
And the trip becomes a turning point in their relationship.


A record of the times depicted in delicate sentences
A coming-of-age story of our time, seeking connection through new relationships.

『Tokyo』 vividly portrays the lives of young people in their twenties and thirties living today.
In the past century, when family was the primary focus of our relationships, today, as complete individuals, relationships with others have become increasingly important.
The story begins with a seemingly innocent question: can people you meet through work become friends?
The story begins with such concerns and progresses as it seeks to connect with others in modern society, expanding into a story of growth for the youth of this era who mature through relationships.
The three people in 『Tokyo』 live through the course of a year, from summer to fall, winter, spring, and then back to summer, and are recorded in Kim Hwa-jin's delicate and lyrical sentences.
“I am sure that readers who finish this novel will suddenly long for some future.


As Jeong I-hyeon said, “A dazzling moment of season spent with Kim Hwa-jin’s first novel,” reading Kim Hwa-jin’s novel is not just about listening to a story, but rather like spending time with real people.
The reason Kim Hwa-jin can portray such a 'real' life is probably because of his love for others and his upright perspective.
He senses people's minds like a sensitive photosensitive plate and writes them down as if he were developing them.
An interest in others, perhaps even called persistence.
If literature ultimately leads to an understanding of humanity, isn't an interest in others a talent more crucial than any other in literature? This unfounded affection for people is author Kim Hwa-jin's exceptional talent, and it's why his future novels are so anticipated.

When people who are not good at expressing their worries and sorrows gather to read novels, I sometimes witness moments when they unconsciously pour out their suppressed worries and sorrows, even though they didn't intend to.
I like those moments that novels create, when they let out the tightly sealed feelings.
_From the author's note