As the day draws to a close, there comes a moment when the surroundings suddenly become silent.
People flow by like waves and I stand here alone.
Where should I go? What did I hope for? I ran without rest, but when I looked back, I saw ruins everywhere I walked.


Park Min-woo, a successful architect, stands at the end of his life and looks back at the long shadows cast on the road, reflecting on the days he has lived.
A single 'puppy grass' seed flies into his daily life, where it seems like there is nothing left to change or dream about.
That small seed brings back the mountain village of Dalgol where he spent his boyhood, the girl who made his heart flutter in those distant days, and the people he used to hang out with in Dalgol, like Jaemyeong, Jjaekkan, Tomaki, and Seopseop, causing a crack in his world that seemed so solid.


Jung Woo-hee, a young theater director now approaching his thirties, lives in a semi-basement studio apartment.
She works part-time at a restaurant and a convenience store, and devotes herself to the theater stage to pursue her dream.
She dreams of love to escape her bleak reality, but the world does not allow her the luxury of that.
And the 'Black Shirts' who, tired of such a harsh world, take their own lives at a young age...

This novel is a short story.
But the depth of life contained in this short story is immeasurable, and the story it contains is broader and richer than any full-length novel.

That's what Buddha said.
A full circle of human history takes a hundred years.
Aren't we all getting off without even making one full circle?
In a hundred years, most of the people here will be gone.
Everyone in the world will be new. --- p.27

All the hometowns in the world have disappeared.
At my words, Senior Kim looked out at the distant sea and then turned his head to look at us.
You guys took all that away.--- p.28

People often say that you regret your first love after meeting her, but even if you meet her when you are both old and ugly, you are not in a position to be disappointed in her when you think about what you did.
Just as the Dalgol we lived in is nothing more than a stuffed animal in our memories that has already disappeared from the earth, what has passed cannot return. --- p.102

I thought I was already broken and there was nothing more I could do.
I thought it was a rite of passage, my way of sending him off.
The next day, I parted ways with him on the street and walked a few stops, forgetting to even catch the bus.
As I walked while crying, passersby glanced at me and passed me by.
I muttered out loud.
Goodbye Park Min-woo, you're cut off from me.
That's how I sent him off that day. --- p.171

I had a strange feeling, as if we were connected by some kind of invisible string.
She wrote that her son was fired from his job and worked various part-time jobs before taking his own life last winter.
It seems like it only took about an hour to get here.
Her eventful life, spanning decades, flowed into the past along with my hour. --- p.175

Oh, I forgot.
I named my child Minwoo.
Kim Min-woo.
I wished he could be happy, even if he was poor and had a hard time like us.
But what did we do wrong?
Why did they make our children like this? --- p.176

My only pleasure these days is opening up a map on my computer, looking for new housing sites, and imagining building a house in a custom location.
But there is no family in that house to stay with. --- p.195

I stood there dumbfounded, like someone hesitating in the middle of the road, not knowing which direction to go.

--- p.195