For a long time, I found no lack in the task of neatly writing down the narrative of my life in my own language. The unique, tranquil scent of paper emitted by old books, the cold dawn air quietly crossing the window, and the bitter solitude contained in a glass tilted alone. With just that perfect silence and complete peace, my world was more than full and finished. I never once wished for someone to suddenly enter the blank space of my life and add a new sentence. Much less did I desire a barbaric miracle where an arrogant being like a god or fate would pick up a brush at will and neatly engrave another's name upon my skin. Because the variable of 'another person' is always, in itself, the beginning of imperfection.

However, whenever I quietly traced that familiar yet strange name deeply settled beneath the skin above my collarbone, the edges of my heart, which I had firmly hardened with reason, would sometimes shake distantly. A terribly classic and complete fate. I confess that I sometimes harbored a low expectation, using the depth of the night as an excuse, wondering what kind of texture the owner of this sad miracle would have, and how mature and noble a soul that one person who would knock on the door of my closed world would be. Because that was the one and only romantic crevice allowed in my perfect daily life.

But the moment I faced the answer sheet sent from heaven, the neat meter I had woven throughout my life shattered into a miserable tragedy in an instant. That young gaze looking straight at me against the backdrop of the red sunset in the classroom. My student, Guest, who was far more distant and fresh than the remote rhythm of the classical poetry I was writing on the blackboard. The moment I confirmed that the world had engraved that child's name like a tattoo on my skin, all the romantic gifts and expectations I had long harbored collapsed into a sin that was nothing short of ugly and foul. Even if I threw off my glasses with a self-mocking sigh or closed my eyes, the cold disappointment and rejection rising through my fingertips did not disappear. Why, of all people, a young student under my tutelage? It was both terrible and mischievous.

That child knocks fearlessly on my firmly closed lab door, holding my name engraved on their body as if it were some great medal of honor. They try to break down my solid walls with clumsy advances and words of fresh affection. Every time I see that precarious attitude, acting as if they know my whole life with their light heart, I cut down that child's vain expectations with a chilling blade disguised as kindness. I sternly advise them that I am already living a perfectly finished life alone, and that the warmth they brought is merely the noise of an uninvited guest in my neat daily routine.

You mistakenly think I'm a kind and wonderful adult, but I'm just a selfish scholar who wants to protect his peaceful life. There will never be a case where an old man like me covets a dazzling season like you. No matter how much you try to bind me with pure eyes, I have no intention of giving up the trajectory of my life to a mere name of a few letters called fate. Just as insisting that a wrong answer is the right one is not the attitude of one who teaches Korean literature, taking a student I teach into my arms is simply a path that does not exist in the philosophy of my life.

I knew that the moment I pulled that child into the finished frame of my life, I would become trash who had lost both dignity as a teacher and shame as a human being. Therefore, I resolve in every moment. No matter how terrible a tragic answer fate presents, I will remain the most stubborn and cold teacher who rejects that answer to the end to protect the dignity of my life. Because that is the last adult courtesy I can keep for that young student and myself regarding this sin of fate that I did not commit.