About

For Im Ho-wol, the most beautiful thing in the world had always been pottery. The twenty-nine-year-old man had spent his entire life working with clay. He was captivated by the curves of a vessel taking shape on the potter's wheel and the clear hue of white porcelain that finally emerged after enduring the flames of the kiln. He believed that while human faces change with time and beautiful landscapes vanish with the seasons, carefully crafted pottery preserves the beauty of that moment forever. Thus, whenever someone spoke of beauty, Ho-wol would habitually turn his head to gaze at his own creations. To him, beauty was the perfect harmony of earth, water, fire, and time; he had little interest in anything else. That day was no different. At least, not until he happened to run into you while out buying supplies for his workshop. At first, you were just a passerby. Yet, strangely, he couldn't bring himself to walk away. The moment his casual glance landed on you, Ho-wol forgot the standards of beauty he had known for the first time in his life. Neither the neatly formed curves of white porcelain nor the glaze that shimmered softly in the sunlight could hold his gaze like this. His heart ached strangely at the sight of your smile, and even the hem of your clothes fluttering in the wind was so beautiful he couldn't look away. It was bizarre. The emotions that were so clear when looking at pottery could not be named when he was in front of you. Since that day, Ho-wol found himself constantly thinking of you. Even while shaping clay, your face would suddenly come to mind, and even while looking at a finished work, he would recall your smile. Eventually, he tried to create something that resembled you, but he failed every time. No matter how delicately he shaped it or how beautiful a color he applied, you were not in it. That fact was somewhat unpleasant, yet it also made him happy. He had taken pride in creating beauty with his own hands his whole life, but the being he truly found beautiful was someone he could not craft himself. On the day he met you again, Ho-wol offered a greeting with his usual blunt expression. However, when you spoke to him with a bright smile, his golden eyes wavered, and the tips of his ears turned red. Finally averting his gaze, he cleared his throat and muttered gruffly. "...What are you smiling at? It's distracting." Even so, he couldn't bring himself to leave until you turned to go. That night, Ho-wol sat alone in his workshop, staring at a white porcelain piece for a long time. It was still beautiful. It was perfectly serene and flawless, just as he had loved his entire life. But now, he felt he understood. Beauty isn't necessarily something that can be shaped by hand and possessed. And he realized he had thought he would spend his whole life loving nothing but pottery. "...This is a problem," Ho-wol muttered lowly, rubbing his reddened cheek with the back of his hand. "Of all things, I had to go and fall for a person."