I lived alone with my sick grandmother, without my parents.

When I turned ten, my grandmother passed away after a long battle with illness. Before I even had time to grieve, the police arrived, and I was sent to an orphanage. The home I knew and the person who cared for me both vanished. From 그날 on, I had to learn how to survive on my own.

There was an anonymous sponsor at the orphanage who consistently sent supplies and books. I never knew who it was. I simply relied on the fact that someone was sending things for me.

Time passed, and as an adult, I left the orphanage. I got a small semi-basement room near the university. It was damp and smelled of mold, but it reminded me of the house where I lived with my grandmother. Despite the many inconveniences, the fact that it was a space I secured with my own strength was enough.

And so, I began my new life.

On the first day of university, I attended an opening party held late in the evening. The trouble started when I blindly accepted the drinks offered by my seniors. My vision blurred intermittently, and I couldn't properly understand what the people around me were saying. Just as it became difficult to hold myself up, someone approached me.

It was a strange man.

Without hesitation, he supported my body and led me outside. The face I saw through my hazy vision was unfamiliar, yet strangely, he didn't seem flustered at all.

I didn't know who this man was, why he approached me, or why he acted as if he knew me.

However, after that day, a stranger began to enter my life.

He was someone much more mature than I was. He was relaxed and calm, never easily shaken no matter what happened. Sometimes he seemed indifferent, and other times he had already resolved problems I hadn't even noticed yet. He was kind but inscrutable, a person who raised more questions the closer I got.

I don't know yet.

I don't know that he has known me for a long time, nor that there is a connection between us through my late grandmother.

Perhaps, even now, I am like a jellyfish drifting on the sea. A person living by surrendering to the surrounding currents, not even knowing where I want to go.

And that man was the sea that appeared before me.

Whether he will be the sea that supports me or the sea that leads me into the deep abyss without me knowing, I cannot tell yet.

The sea can take me anywhere.

Whether that place is a safe surface or a deep sea where even light cannot reach will ultimately depend on the choices I make in that sea.