“We’re not broken, we’re just a little bit messed up.
“What’s tangled can be untangled again.”

The love edition of Jeong Dae-geon's novel "Rapid Current" has been published.
This is a special edition planned to celebrate and commemorate the 200,000-copy milestone of 『Rapid Current』, published in Minumsa's Today's Young Writer series in December 2022.
To express our gratitude to the readers who cherish and love 『Rapid Current』, we included on the cover a painting by author Jinju Lee that seems to metaphorically show the relationships between the main characters in the novel.
In the painting, the love between the two people appears to be sinking deep in the water, among the aquatic plants.
However, the two people, who are embracing each other as if they will not allow even a single drop of water to enter through the gap, look more like they are protected in a trench they have built together rather than being in silence.


Books that are older than two years from their publication date are usually classified as 'interval'.
The term “section” is the opposite of “new book”, which means a newly published book.
It's common, and even quite common, for a special new release to become ordinary, or sometimes even stand out, becoming a steady seller.
However, it is not easy to see a book that has already been classified as a section and has 'flown away' reappear.
In the competitive publishing world where countless new books are released daily, it is not uncommon for a relatively new writer to become a bestseller, virtually entirely due to the selection and support of readers, but it is certainly rare—or, in a word, an event.

What is it about this book that has struck readers so deeply?
Many readers of "Rapid Current" confess that they were swept away by the novel's current and floundered.
Some say they read this novel with tears in their eyes, while others say it was like the Norwegian Wood of their generation, recalling the passionate but empty moments of their youth.
Some readers say they found comfort and courage, and some even confess that it gave them the opportunity to finally confront and reconcile with their long-standing wounds.
A novel that you read with tears, the wanderings of youth, comfort and courage, and a hand of reconciliation.
Readers remember "Rapid Current" with truly diverse reactions.


"Rapid Current" opens with the refreshing and innocent first love of a teenager, progresses through the anxious and desolate wanderings of one's twenties, and reaches a mature understanding in one's thirties, covering a rather long period of time compared to the novel's physical length.
As a teenage boy and girl grow into adults in their thirties, the narrative of "Rapid Current" follows the path of a dive that begins at the surface, descends to the depths, and then rises back up again.
In the process, the pink romance becomes an ashen trauma, a gemstone of profound color.
Just as the species that live at each depth change as the water depth changes, the genre that flows between the two people also changes.
Sometimes it unfolds in a mysterious atmosphere like a thriller, and sometimes it sinks into an excessive or suppressed psychological conflict like a youth story, and finally, it reconciles with the stains of the past and gains confidence and courage.

As we watch these two people making their way through each other's existence while wandering, we encounter the failures and wounds of the past, the loneliness and isolation.
When we face life's challenges beyond our control and yet never give up on what is precious, and thus never give up on ourselves, we can discover the path to love in our wounds.
So, it is quite true to say that 『Rapid Current』 is a story about love, but it is even more true to say that it is a story about wounds.
The beginning of love may be with the passive verb to fall, but in every moment thereafter, love is maintained only through the active verb of the will to keep it.
Love is always in the choices we make, moment by moment.

“We are not broken, we are just messed up.
“What is tangled can be untangled again.” This is the metaphor of love that readers read and discovered in “Rapid Current,” and it is also the metaphor of life that the author wanted to convey through “Rapid Current.”
It is the act of putting effort into untangling a tangled knot without cutting it.
There is hope in that sincerity that people with similar wounds can reach a deeper love through those wounds.
When a writer presents hope in a narrative, that narrative survives in the hearts of readers and becomes a real story in the world.
Hope resembles the round shoulders of two people embracing each other.
It resembles a small trench with a circular opening in it.
There is no way to avoid the rapids.
But there are ways to survive in the rapids.
Love saves people.
The popularity of 『Rapid Current』 is proof of this.

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.19

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.37

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.67

Haesol's watch stopped.
The world went on while I attended class, memorized, took tests, and earned credits like a machine, feeling nothing.
In a campus full of youth, Haesol thought about death every day and felt like she had already grown very old.
Even more so than the old professor who lectures.
If it is the privilege of the young to forget death and live as if they will live forever, Haesol has lost her youth.

--- p.111

Seonhwa said she left because she couldn't bear Haesol's anxiety.
Dodam was used to anxiety.
Perhaps Dodam loved the anxiety itself that was intertwined with Haesol's fate.

--- p.283

That's when I realized.
The word love means that the past tense has no power and must always be in the present tense.

--- p.292