Chapter One

The twenty first of December; tall and dense fir trees tower the pathway leading to the clearing at the top of the mountain. Every step the young man takes as he plods up the track is heavy and sombre. Both his attire - a brightly yellow turtleneck with cobalt colored jeans - and complexion, being quite fair with a tint of crimson in his cheeks and lips, sets him with an ethereal appearance when contrasted with the greens of the erected flora surrounding him. His silky brown hair, illuminated by the sunlight, is getting damp with sweat and settling on his forehead. With a few more steps the path starts evening out and Choi Youngjae lets out a relieved sigh knowing that the temple in the clearing is close at hand. He halters his already reverbed steps for a moment to take in the sight of the elevated firs aligned along the path, the small moulds of cairns travellers must have made along their hikes, the sound of ravens and other diversity of birds filling in the silence of the altitude, the scent of slightly wet and acrid moss . . . he couldn't help orating outloud the verses as a speck of moisture appears in his eyes:

"mountain rivulets

flanked by ferns

- a whiff of wellness"

'A whiff of wellness', he repeated the phrase as the thought of it echoed back in his mind with a potent resonance, causing a sudden and sharp ache in his nerves as some already tensed string is vigilantly plucked. It seemed as all the distraught chords in his body were beckoning him not to return to that din of frenzied sensibiliy what people called the city. Though Youngjae never minded his treads on some forlorn streets and avenues in the city at night, the morns and noons were unbearably heavy and rushed. And disappointingly enigmatic to say the least, for that template of life served him with fresh problems and misunderstandings every single morning and the day broke before he could bring himself to resolve them, until they just piled incalculably upon him. He felt abject desolution even with a distinclty promising future ahead of him. His academic laurels in syncretic fusion with his esteemed lineage marked him as the bright young asset of the Choi estate. All of this to what effect! He could envision guaranteed financial security and bliss but what of felicity? The happiness so intimately knitted with his one and only concealed passion - singing? Choked at this thought that he has hiotherto addressed many a times, he gasped for air and took a moment ot tranqualize himself. Till now he hadn't understood why his feet had drifted to these hilly woods, but now a resolve came to his mind. With a voice slighly trembling with agony, he sings his heart out one last time before he completely abandons the idea of ever pursuing music. His vocals, infused with the whole wallowness of his being, intensify at the lyrics:

"Is it useless hope? The wind is blowing even stronger

I'm alone on this hill where the storm has come."

Little did he know that what he considered his forsaken lyre had a deeply moved audience. With the song's end, his eyes dried up too. As if the song carried in itself the wailings of his battered heart that spreaded its malice to the wind and left him with a dried up void solely filled with the concerns of his future endeavors detached from the warmth of his passions, his inner fire now sailing with the wind. Tears, however, rolled elsewhere. That single audience, witness of a crushing demise and paralyzed rebirth of a dream, stood speechless and smeared with tears he could never fathom he could shed for a stranger.