The breakup at the bistro had been quiet. Luc hadn't fought him; he had simply tilted his head with that same 'universal' sorrow, his eyes reflecting the candlelight until Seol-Hwi couldn't tell if the man was actually sad or just playing the part of a jilted lover perfectly.
Luc had reached for his hand one last time, a reflex of intimacy, but Seol-Hwi had already pulled away, his skin crawling at the thought of being just another 'mon cher' in a long list of characters.
Two weeks later, Seol-Hwi handed in his resignation at the Embassy. He sold what he could, packed a single suitcase, and bought a one-way ticket to Charles de Gaulle.
He didn't go to find Sebastian, and he certainly didn't go for Luc. He went because he was haunted by a terrifying thought: 'What if the problem isn't them? What if the love I'm looking for doesn't exist in their world at all?'
He needed to see the source. He needed to stand in the middle of Paris and see if the air itself was made of the same beautiful, empty gestures that had dismantled his life in Seoul.
Paris in autumn was a grey masterpiece. Seol-Hwi checked into a small, cramped hotel in the 11th arrondissement, a place where the floorboards creaked like old bones.
He spent his first few days walking. He didn't use his French unless he absolutely had to. He became a ghost, watching.
He sat at a sidewalk café in Le Marais, nursing a café crème, and watched a couple at the next table.
The man reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind the woman's ear. He smiled—the same heavy-lidded, intense look Luc had used. A few moments later, he saw a businessman hold a door open for a stranger with the exact same graceful, slight bow Sebastian had mastered.
It was everywhere. The 'gentlemanly' care, the tactile warmth, the effortless charm. It was the background noise of the city.
'I was a fool,' Seol-Hwi thought, the steam from his coffee dampening his face. 'I moved to a different country just to reshape my entire soul to fit into a template that was never meant for me.'
This kind of love... It didn't match his soul.
He felt a heavy, dull ache in his chest. In Seoul, he could blame his 'mistranslations' on the distance.
He could tell himself that maybe, if he were in France, the nuances would make sense. But standing here, in the heart of it, he realized the terrifying truth: There was no secret layer. The gestures were the language. There was no 'hidden love' tucked beneath the surface of their politeness. The politeness was the end of the sentence.
He was staring at his hands, tracing the lines on his palms, when a voice broke through his thoughts.
"C'est occupé?" (Is this taken?)
Seol-Hwi didn't look up immediately. He knew the script. If he looked up, he would see a face that was either 'Sebastian-cold' or 'Luc-warm.'
He would hear a compliment about his eyes or his focus. He would be invited to a dance he no longer wanted to learn.
"No," Seol-Hwi said, speaking in Korean. He didn't know why he did it. Maybe he just wanted to hear a word that didn't feel like a trap.
The person didn't leave. Instead, the chair scraped against the pavement as they sat down.
"Korean," the voice said, not in French, but in a slow, slightly accented Korean that sounded like someone who was both a native and a beginner. "It has been... a long time since I heard that sound."
Seol-Hwi finally looked up.
The man across from him was older, maybe in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that looked incredibly tired. He wasn't dressed like a diplomat or a businessman. He wore a stained apron and held a cigarette that he hadn't lit yet.
He looked like he belonged to the city, but he didn't have that polished, performative 'French-ness' that Seol-Hwi had grown to fear.
"You're a translator," the man said, still in Korean. It wasn't a question, but like a fact he had been told.
Seol-Hwi blinked, his heart giving a small, cautious thud.
"How do you know that?"
"You have the look," the man shrugged, leaning back. "You look like you've been carrying two worlds on your back and you've finally realized that neither one of them has a place for you to sit down."
He pulled a lighter from his pocket but didn't spark it. He just held it, looking at Seol-Hwi with a blunt, unadorned honesty that felt like a cold splash of water.
"I know this is strange coming from a stranger, but I feel since we're both Koreans, I can at least share this secret with you,"
Seol-Hwi didn't know where this was going and he honestly didn't know if he should be listening, but the man spoke anyway,
"I've lived here for thirty years," the man continued. "Married a French woman. Raised French children. I speak the language better than I speak my mother tongue now. But do you want to know a secret, kid?"
Seol-Hwi nodded, his breath catching.
"I still don't know if my wife loves me," the man said, a small, sad smile touching his lips. "Or if she's just being very, very polite."
The air in the café suddenly felt very thin. Seol-Hwi realized he was looking at his future. He was looking at the end of the road for a man who spends his life trying to translate the untranslatable.
"So," the man said, finally clicking the lighter. "What are you going to do now that you've run out of words?"
Seol-Hwi bowed his head. He didn't know who this man was or why he approached him but... He had given him a little sense of clarity.
"I will pay for your coffee," he said and got up.