We walked for what felt like a long time, just talking. About my mom and dad and their marriage in the woods with chickens, and then how his parents collapsed in the middle of a huge home renovation that was never completed. (His mother wanted an exercise and yoga room, and his father wanted a wine cellar. They ended up with a divorce.)Jungsuk's skepticism, at least about this subject, was a comfort to me, and made it easy for me to tell him about my mom and Wooyoung's view on love and marriage and how, unfortunately or not, they'd been passed on to me.

"I don't believe in love," he told me, as we passed the last of the hotels and began to see apartments to the corners. "I'm not sure about marriages as an institution."

"Maybe you'll be the more barefoot, chicken-breeder, lifetime partner but no ring kind of person," I suggested.

"Because that's what happened to guys like me from Sangya who take orders."

"Maybe it is."

He laughed again, throwing his head back. You had to love - okay, maybe just like - a person who could revel in the humor of something so fully. It made me want to laugh, too.

"I can get behind the idea of a good marriage," I said, as we stepped around some abandoned beach chairs. "Like my best friend Gayeon, her parents. They run a food truck company, have five kids between two and eighteen, and their lives are total chaos. But they can't keep their hands off each other. I've never seen two people more in love."

Jongsuk looked up at the sky. "When it works, it works, I guess."

"That's entirely too vague for me. I need to know how it works," I said. "Preferably with diagrams and bullet points. I want proven facts."

"Wow. That's a big ask," he said.

"It is," I told him. "But some people get it, right? That proof of something, someone, really is forever. My mom wouldn't have a business otherwise."

"I don't think anybody ever really knows what's going to happen," he said. "We're all just out there hoping for the best."

I thought of all the weddings I'd worked, from the small church ones with finger foods to the huge, ballroom venue king where no expense was spared. How  sure were any of them, really, even after checking every box: aisle walk, vows, rings, first dance, toasts, and cake? Like  going through these motions, or variations of such, were the way of guaranteeing something would last. But I, of  all people, knew this just wasn't true. We loved a third wedding, after all.

A few minutes later, I saw a bonfire burning ahead, a few dark figures standing around it. We went around them, but could still hear their voices, as well as music coming from a truck, doors open, parked in the sand by the dunes. Once past, I was surprised to see the beach ahead of us narrow to a thin strip, the tides running over a few sandbars there. In the dark, I'd just assumed it went on for miles. We kept going, all the way to the edge.

"Well, here we are," Jongsuk said. "The end of the world."

I smiled, turning slightly to take in the full view. "It's different than I expected."

"The big stuff always is." he said.

Behind us, I heard a swell of music, something easy and slow; it had to be by the bonfire. Where we were, though, it was caught in the wind and carried, just distant enough to seem ghostlike. Or maybe that was the wrong word. Perhaps I wouldn't have  used it at moment, but only now.

Jongsuk walked out a little farther into the sand and water, the wind catching that shirt, again sending the back billowing behind him. It was like he was glowing, more alive than anything I'd ever seen, when he turned to me, holding out his hand. "Okay, I'll only ask this once, I promise. Want to dance?"

Could I hear the music, still? In my memory, the answer is yes. But in retrospect everything is perfect, as are all the other details of this night. At that moment, though, everything was brand-new, including the way I felt as I stepped forward, locking my fingers into his as he pulled me in closer. Me and Jongsuk, dancing in the dark at the end of the world. It was like I knew even then, at the start, that it would be hard, so hard for me to lose. The big stuff always is.