The winter lodge was colder than expected.

  Moisture had crept into the outer walls and frozen there,

  and icy air slipped in through the gaps in the windows.

  Inside, however, it was different.

  The smell of grilling meat, cigarettes, and soju mixed together, creating a strange, feverish warmth.

  The professor sat at the head of the round table.

  Beside him were his partner, Yoon Hajung, and her two middle-school-aged sons.

  The students, packed into an overly tight space, bumped shoulders as they passed drinks around.

  Hajung’s gaze slowly circled the table—

  the students’ faces, their glasses, the smell of meat, the professor’s expression.

  Then, almost imperceptibly, her lips tightened.

  She spoke.

  “These are… the students from your lab, right?

  You could’ve at least told me so I could greet them properly.”

  Her tone tried to sound gentle,

  but the end of her sentence trembled.

  Jealousy. Hurt. Or something long suppressed finally stirring—

  no one could say for sure.

  The professor smiled and raised his glass.

  “Hajung, why are you like this? They’re just my students.”

  The words poured oil on the fire.

  Hajung’s smile vanished.

  “Right.”

  She smiled again.

  “Your students.”

  She set her glass down.

  “You’re always saying students, students…”

  Her voice shook.

  “Then what am I?”

  Silence.

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  “What am I to you?”

  The moment the words fell,

  every sound in the lodge stopped.

  Hands froze midair.

  Glasses hovered.

  Even the students’ breathing seemed to halt.

  The air between us grew heavy.

  The professor spoke low.

  “Hajung, let’s not do this here.”

  But she didn’t stop.

  “Twice now…”

  Her hands trembled.

  “Do you even remember the choices I made—”

  Chopsticks stopped clinking.

  Someone swallowed hard.

  “Knowing all that?”

  No one moved.

  The two boys kept their heads down.

  The students held their breath.

  Hajung suddenly stood.

  “I’m a person too!

  You— you—”

  She couldn’t finish.

  She flung open the lodge door

  and ran out into the storm.

  Snow and wind swallowed her whole.

  The professor cursed and shouted at us.

  “Go after her! Now!”

  We grabbed flashlights and stumbled outside.

  The cold stabbed our lungs.

  Hajung was gone—

  somewhere down the mountain.

  We clutched each other’s coats.

  A snow-covered trail.

  Only the unsteady beams of our flashlights.

  “Hajung!”

  No answer.

  “Are you there?”

  Only the wind replied.

  One hour.

  Two hours.

  Three.

  After three hours,

  we stopped speaking altogether.

  Only our breath came out white and frozen.

  By then, we were all thinking the same thing.

  If we don’t find her… we can’t go back.

  Our feet were numb.

  Our hands had lost all feeling.

  But we kept walking.

  Because the professor was waiting.

  When we finally found Hajung,

  she was crouched beneath a rock,

  her face soaked with tears,

  her fingertips frozen white.

  We supported her and returned to the lodge.

  The next morning.

  Hajung sat beside the professor.

  She had put on makeup.

  Changed clothes.

  She was drinking coffee.

  The night before—

  wandering in the blizzard,

  shivering beneath a rock,

  hands frozen pale—

  Everything had vanished.

  As if none of it had ever happened.

  The woman who cried in the storm

  and the woman sitting there in the morning

  were completely different people.

  No—

  it was as if we, the ones who saw it, had never existed.

  The professor spoke.

  “Last night was a bit excessive.”

  He looked at us.

  One by one.

  Slowly.

  “Forget it.”

  It wasn’t comfort.

  It was an order.

  An order to erase memory.

  I quietly took out my notebook and wrote.

  2003.12.05 — Mountain lodge. Search from 02:30–05:45

  Hajung’s outburst.

  Professor’s response: “Forget.”

  Students mobilized. Two middle-school boys present.

  What disappeared wasn’t Hajung’s night.

  It was all the evidence we had seen.

  And the final line:

  Erasing memory is his absolute power.

  Recording it is our survival.

  Yet everyone understood what was required.

  Witnessing breakdowns.

  Being told to forget.

  not by denying reality, but by commanding amnesia.

  “Go find her,”

  but “Forget.”

  Your support helps this story reach readers who recognize these patterns.

  the cost of remembering in a place that demands silence.