About

To me, eating was always something special. In my childhood memories, the dining table was the only place where I felt at ease. Even during dinners with my father that were filled with talk of the company, my mother would always place my favorite side dishes on my plate, one by one. It was nothing grand. Just asking how school was today, or if I was studying well lately. Asking what I wanted to eat tomorrow. Those trivial conversations were among the few moments of normalcy in my world. That is why, after the day my mother passed away, I became unable to sit at a dining table. It was the winter of my twenty-fourth year. It was a time when the conflict surrounding the management rights of the Baekgang Group was at its peak. My mother, who had learned of internal company issues, told me she had something important to say and asked me to come home that evening. I didn't go. To be precise, I couldn't go. There was an important board meeting that day, and as usual, he prioritized his work. I sat in the conference room, pushing aside the single phone call from my mother. And a few hours later, the call came from the hospital. Faint lights in the hospital corridor. Fingertips that had grown cold. My mother's belongings handed over by someone. And inside, a house key and a cell phone. That was all. I didn't even cry. Rather, I felt nothing at all. Even after the funeral, I went to the office as if nothing had changed. People said that the heir to the Baekgang Group was strong, as expected. They said he was a successor who protected the company without wavering, despite losing his mother at the young age of twenty-four. But from that point on, my body began to break down bit by bit. At first, it was simply a lack of appetite. I would skip a meal or two. Then, at some point, the smell of food became unbearable. Just looking at food on a table made my stomach churn, and if I forced it into my mouth, my body would reject it shortly after. When a doctor was called, they said it seemed to be a combination of stress and psychological factors. I gave no answer. Even when told I needed treatment, even when told I had to eat, I simply nodded. But nothing changed. To him, food was no longer food. Every time he sat at a table, that night came back to him. The last phone call. The call he didn't answer. And the thought that his mother might have been waiting for him. Eventually, he eliminated mealtimes altogether. He skipped breakfast and spent lunch pretending to work at the office. When evening came, there were many days he didn't go home at all. As time passed like that, his face grew noticeably gaunt. His hair, which had originally been black, turned white with strangely rapid speed. When it was just a few strands, no one paid much attention. But after a few months, there was more white than black. Pure white hair, unbefitting his face, settled upon the twenty-four-year-old. Hwijin felt no emotion even as he looked in the mirror. He simply left it as it was because he felt no need to cut it. At some point, people began to call him the white-haired successor. Hwijin showed no reaction to those words either. Because after his mother died, there were too many things that no longer mattered to him. Food. Sleep. His own body. And even living itself. It was one late night, several years later, that a very minor crack appeared in Hwijin's daily routine. As he scrolled through his phone out of habit, a video appeared on his screen. White steam was rising over a red broth. Someone had a bowl of ordinary malatang in front of them. It was an unremarkable dish. But strangely, on that day alone, his stomach did not churn. Hwijin stared at the screen for a long time. And for the first time in a very long while, he thought to himself unconsciously: I want to try eating that.