“Professor Ahn Sooyoung, Professor Jung Junjin, hello. It must have been a long journey thank you for coming.”
“!”
“!”
The person who approached them was the very girl they had come to see.
Go Hana walked up, looking slightly fatigued.
Ahn Sooyoung’s eyes sparkled with anticipation as she spoke.
“Our Go Hana… Looks like you’ve caused another sensation? Can I look forward to the awards ceremony tomorrow?”
“Haha, a sensation? I just did my best.”
“Is that so? Then… could you explain the piece to us?”
Go Hana simply smiled and shook her head.
“I’m not allowed to go inside.”
“…Just go in and feel it for yourselves.”
“…Alright.”
Jung Junjin, standing beside her, responded matter-of-factly.
“Then let’s go in.”
“Yes.”
“…”
Go Hana simply watched as they walked away.
*
A dark road stretched out in a straight line.
At the beginning of that road stood a boy.
No, there were only traces of a boy.
Scattered belongings.
Worn-out clothes, dirt-covered sneakers, and a children’s notebook filled with scribbles. The remnants of the boy’s existence were stacked inside a small, insignificant room.
It looked as though someone had once told him to clean up the mess and he had reluctantly learned how, but only half-heartedly. The objects were simply left there, abandoned in an empty space.
In one corner of the room stood a pillar.
As the boy grew, so did the marks recording his height.
Someone must have drawn those lines with a fond smile…
The boy had grown taller and taller,
until he finally became a strong young man.
He was born, and he lived an ordinary life.
*
Ahn Sooyoung walked along the dimly lit path and spoke.
“…This isn’t just one drawing.”
“…?”
“Hana was already better than most artists in terms of writing skills since elementary school. So, this isn’t just a single drawing. Looking at the various elements, it seems like it was drawn by a boy…”
“If you look at this room alone, it feels as if a boy once lived here.”
Jung Junjin observed the traces of the ‘boy.’
Notebooks with blank name fields, filled with scribbled, illegible doodles. Some pages were so sparsely used that the empty spaces seemed like a waste.
But to any art student, these were familiar marks something everyone had etched at least once. That was why the two realized this space held the memories of ‘a certain boy.’
A boy who loved to draw.
Memories of a time that was lacking, immature, yet still happy.
“…”
“…”
*
The path continued.
But its color had faded more than before.
The traces of the “warm presence of others” that once existed were now gone. The warmth of the third person had disappeared, leaving behind only the obsessive structure of the first person.
Countless monitors, countless TVs were densely arranged like exhibits in an art gallery. And on their screens, a gaze wandered through a desolate street.
Beside them, numerous sketches of plants and still life were plastered all over the walls cluttered and messy, like insects clinging to a tree.
‘He’ seemed to have finally started drawing properly.
Using a cheap notebook, he was slowly filling it with sketches.
But aside from his drawings, there was nothing left to anchor him to reality. No keepsakes of memory remained. He walked like a ghost, existing only as a wandering gaze.
And yet, he kept walking.
Because another day had begun.
But there was no destination.
He simply roamed the familiar streets, lost in aimless wandering.
*
Jung Junjin murmured.
“…This man is very tall.”
“Huh?”
“These monitors and drawings—they’re arranged in a way that makes the gaze move upward. And the perspective seen through the screens is also very high. Almost as if he’s around two meters tall.”
“In the boy’s room earlier, it seemed like he was about 180 cm tall…”
“It looks like he lost a guardian—someone who could record his growth. There was no one left to do it.”
“…”
“Records only exist if someone acknowledges the other person’s presence. Without that, ‘this man’ had no choice but to express it through his own gaze.”
For a moment, Ahn Sooyoung thought of Ko Hana’s personal information. But she had heard that Hana’s uncle, who was practically her parent, was in good health.
…Then,
Whose story was this?
A virtual experience…? But could something like this be arranged so naturally?
Ahn Sooyoung looked ahead at the remaining path.
It still stretched like a single-line maze, with no end in sight. And it was gradually narrowing soon, only one person could barely squeeze through.
For some reason, that path felt… ominous.
As if things weren’t bleak enough already,
The road ahead was getting even narrower.
“…”
“…”
*
A lonely hell.
That’s the only way to describe this path.
A road that must be walked alone.
Beyond the tightly packed glass walls on either side, there are only obsessive sketches and flickering screens. Even if you turn your gaze to escape the suffocation, all you see are prison-like rooms and figures wandering through dusty ruins.
Between the gaps in the glass walls covered by sketches and screens,
there are others—people walking through a maze, just like us.
But even if we see them, we cannot speak to them.
And that is maddening.
Like prisoners locked away,
we can only look forward,
following the endlessly ascending path.
Sketches that never became finished works,
landscapes that offer no glimpse beyond,
visions that fail to take shape.
This stifling road makes me want to run away, when will it finally end?
Frustrated, I shout out loud.
Answer me…..who are you?
Who are you to have lived such a life?
“…”
But the ‘man’ who was never allowed to exist cannot respond.
He can only confess to his audience, silently and desperately.
…Asking them to walk with him.
*
Finally, light appeared!
“!”
“!”
Ahn Sooyoung gasped for breath as he finally escaped the suffocating path. The life of a “man” had been unbearably stifling.
And when he looked to his side,
he couldn’t help but hold his breath once more.
“Gasp…!”
“Professor Ahn, be careful.”
“T-This is…”
Jung Junjin calmly stepped back.
They were standing at the highest point of the exhibition hall.
The end of the maze was an artificial cliff. Though safely enclosed by a railing, far below them, they could see the endless glass labyrinth they had walked through.
Looking around, Ahn Sooyoung spoke.
“The highest place…? Reaching the peak? Becoming the best? Is that what this means? A man who suffered for so long, only to finally reach the top…”
“…That’s not it.”
Jung Junjin pointed to the bottom of the cliff with his finger.
“This man is dead.”
“What?”
“Look over there.”
There was an empty space, carefully avoided by the surrounding glass maze—
a hidden area unseen from within.
At its center,
they found the last traces of the man.
Shattered white powder lay in the shape of the large man who had walked with them.
His final attire was a tattered, scorched work uniform.
“…”
“…”
At last, they could see the truth of “the man.”
This place was the grave of a man who had never truly existed.
In the end, he had achieved nothing and died.
The weight of that helplessness
pressed down on both professors.
“…”
But…
When they lifted their gaze,
what unfolded before them was not only tragedy.
The view from above….
The lights of countless monitors flickered between the maze they had just escaped, spreading in vibrant colors. The endless repetition of signals, divided into zeros and ones, became the whispers of the man.
Like the ancient masterpiece The Starry Night.
Everything had meaning.
The steps and movements of those wandering the maze intertwined, forming a vast shape. The fierce struggles of countless people were infinite, like the stars in the universe.
An indescribable sight.
The two professors condensed it into a single sentence.
“His life was beautiful.”
“…Yes.”
*
“…”
“…”
Overwhelmed, the two professors stepped out of the exhibition hall.
It had only been a few minutes, but it felt as if they had experienced reincarnation.
Or as if they had been pulled into Dante’s Inferno.
An intense journey across worlds,
and at the end of it, the discovery of the meaning of existence.
Ahn Sooyoung and Jung Junjin felt their legs trembling from the overwhelming inspiration.
“…”
“…”
“Ah, Professor! Over here!”
Go Hana came running from the fountain, a sandwich in hand. She gave a small, tired smile, looking slightly more refreshed.
“Now that I think about it, have you eaten?”
“…”
“…”
The two professors looked at Go Hana,
then, just as the other visitors had,
they turned their gaze to the title of the exhibit.
<Walking Together.>
“…”
“…”
Their minds were filled with nothing but questions.
The intense brilliance of the man who did not exist refused to leave their thoughts.
“…”
“…”
Thus, the first day passed, and the time for the awards ceremony was approaching.