Those summer afternoons were spent in isolation, in my own space, with the green of the season deepening and the heaviest thing in the world. For me, solitude was no longer an option. A life without Woonwoo heralded only loneliness.

I’ve experienced the loneliness of losing family members and being left behind by their absence, and I’ve lived my life alone, in a solitude holding no one close to my heart. Loneliness and solitude cannot coexist. Only those who have chosen solitude know that.

Solitude is a gap to be emptied, and loneliness is a lack to be filled. For solitude is not resignation, but closer to non-possession, and loneliness is like a jar with a leaky bottom. My imperfectly solid void, built up by running away from loneliness, became desperate to contain a whole being.

Stretching his arms out over the eaves and feeling the rain on his fingertips, Woonwoo suddenly straightened his knees and tilted his upper body.

“Huh? A green frog!”

“Where? Didn’t you see wrong?”

“There, over there! Oh, oh–it’s hopping!”

“It really is.”

“Where did it come from? Did it always live here?”

I stared at the side of his face, open-mouthed and smiling brightly.

Where did you come from? Where did you come from for it to feel like you’ve always been here?

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