Novelist Jeong Dae-geon, who began his career by winning the 2020 Hankyung New Year's Literary Contest with his novel "GV Villain Ko Tae-kyung," has published his second novel, "Rapid Stream," as the 40th installment of the Today's Young Writers series.
『Rapid Current』 is a novel set in Jinpyeong, a provincial city famous for its reservoirs and valleys, and depicts the meeting and love between Dodam and Haesol, two seventeen-year-old friends.


The relationship between Dodam and Haesol begins when he jumps in to save Haesol, a boy who was immediately impressed by Dodam while he was swimming with his father, from almost drowning.
After a fateful and romantic first meeting, the two talk about everything and become close without any secrets, but their first love is not as smooth as calm waters.
Like a vortex that sucks you in without you knowing it, their relationship takes a different turn due to a chance incident.
One day, when Dodam and Haesol's relationship was developing into a romantic one, circumstances that seemed to indicate that Haesol's mother and Dodam's father were having an affair were revealed. Angered by this, Dodam followed them with a lantern on the night they were supposed to meet secretly.
And there, an unexpected accident happens.
From that day on, the relationship and lives of Dodam and Haesol, who had been everything to each other and had no secrets they could not share, changed in an instant.
What kind of relationship did Haesol's mother and Dodam's father have? What happened to Dodam and Haesol that day and night?

Dodam kept making eye contact with a boy.
Among the people who came to cool off at Jinpyeong River, there was a boy who immediately caught Dodam's eye.
An unfamiliar face.
A smooth body with white skin and no blemishes.
Big, clear eyes that seem curious about everything in the world.
Dodam stared at the boy.
The boy also felt the gaze and stared blankly across the wall.
Dodam, who was embarrassed, raised his eyebrows as if asking what he was looking at.
The boy who lost the snowball fight ran away into the water.
--- p.15

Haesol also followed Dodam into the water.
The stream water was as cold as ice.
I really felt a whirlpool as if my body was being sucked into the water.
I went down to the bottom of the dragon pond, about 3 meters deep, towards the submerged Dodam.
Haesol opened her eyes wide and looked at Dodam as if she felt the energy being sucked in too.
Dodam nodded and smiled.
Haesol also laughed.
It felt like there were only two of us in the world.
(……) Haesol wanted to kiss Dodam’s lips, which she had never touched before.
As Haesol approached, Dodam reached out his hand.
The two held hands for a moment in the water.
--- p.33

“Dodam, maybe those two are in love.”
Haesol spoke carefully as if trying to appease Dodam.
As if it were an inevitable feeling and therefore an indulgence.
“So, you want me to give you a blessing?”
Dodam snorted.
Someone said that love is like a traffic accident.
Okay, let's say you might get into a car accident.
But if you don't take responsibility and don't get punished, then it's a hit-and-run.
If deceiving and hurting one's family was love, then Dodam could not accept it.
I wanted to crush it with all my might.
--- p.63

Dodam resented Changseok, who was left with a huge question mark.
Did Chang-seok and Mi-young truly love each other, or was it just a playful act of lust?
How are the two different?
There was no longer any Changseok to answer.
Haesol also disappeared.
Dodam was unable to come to his senses as a loss so great suddenly struck him in a life where everything seemed to be in place.

Dodam waited for Haesol's call the whole time.
I definitely said I would contact you.
Since Haesol didn't have a cell phone and I didn't know where she had moved to, I had no choice but to wait for her to contact me.
At the same time that I wanted to see Haesol, I didn't want to think about how Haesol felt as an orphan.
It hurt so much.
Eventually, the arrow returned to him.
The terrible feeling of the anxiety I've always harbored becoming reality.
The guilt that all of this was due to the ominous imaginations he had habitually imagined.

--- p.82