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'Do you live around here?' the owner slurped her coffee and asked.

'Yes. Chestnut Burr Village Complex Four. I've lived there a little over a year.'

The woman's face lit up and her eyes widened. 'That's really close to me. We've probably crossed paths a few times.'

'We won't have done. I'm always at home.' Jungmin smiled weakly.

'Me too. It actually hasn't been long since I was pulled out of my cave.'

Jungmin bit down hard on her lip. I'll pull you out of your cave. A friend had said this to her a long time ago. I'm doing this for you— words that would make anyone uncomfortable. While they professed to be the good-natured friend, to Jungmin it felt like a threat, that she needed to let that person in, even though she didn't have the slightest room to do so.

'But the cave isn't all that bad. Am I right?'

The woman's next words came unexpected. Without knowing why, Jungmin felt safe around her, and she nodded slowly, her hands still clasped around the cup.

So they could decide on lesson dates, the workshop owner asked Jungmin about her schedule. Jungmin said she was off work most of the time. A nice way, of course, of saying she was unemployed. If you admitted you were jobless, people would then generally want to interrogate every last detail of the preceding events. Then, finally, they would act concerned and say, 'Gosh, you really have been through a lot', having reached the conclusion that Jungmin was either someone with an uncertain future, or otherwise incapable of adapting to society. The owner, however, was sparing with her words and simply said, 'Nice to be in charge of your own time.' She didn't try and dig up her private matters, and so, Jungmin realised, there was no need to be nervous around her.

'How about Tuesdays and Thursdays, twice a week to begin with? For two weeks you'll do handbuilding with me, the goal being to get friendly with the clay. After that, we'll move one of the weekdays to the weekend, and put you in the Saturday class with the office workers. My name's Johee, and you can call me seonsaengnim. This is Jihye-ssi, she's your workshop sunbae.'

Once she'd finished speaking, Johee ripped out the August page from the desk calendar. She then circled the days Jungmin would come, and handed her the sheet. It was thanks to this square piece of paper filled with numbers that Jungmin came to understand just how long a month could be.

JUST SIXTY PER CENT

'How about Tuesdays and Thursdays?'

The words swirled around Jungmin's ears, like the afterimage of a strip light that flickers in the eye long after it's extinguished. She set an alarm before going to bed the night before. Looking at all the alarms saved on her phone, in five-minute intervals from 7 to 9 a.m., she was reminded of that intense period of her past life. At the same time, she felt a sense of relief that, despite her current state of inertia, there was no need to live like that anymore. She'd been given permission to rest again.

Her eyes opened to the sound of the alarm, and the first thing she remembered was what Johee had told her: to make sure she had a decent meal before coming to the lesson. For the first time in a long while, Jungmin ate a proper lunch before leaving the flat. She hadn't anticipated that learning something new would send the blood pumping round her body like this. The sparkle of this golden light was unfamiliar. A colour that Jungmin was sure she couldn't possibly possess.

In between each of Chestnut Burr Village's four housing complexes was a huddle of little shops. The ground floors were mostly Korean restaurants, convenience stores and old cafés, while the floors above contained residential flats. The floating population was small, with the age bracket leaning toward the higher end, and so you could easily get the impression that there was nothing for young people to do here.

The workshop was down a street right at the far end, where the primary school and Residential Complex Two faced one another. Today Jungmin's clothes were weather appropriate, so this time she wasn't sweating buckets like she'd been caught in the rain. She carefully examined the outside of the workshop and found a sign hidden behind the ivy.

SOYO

ceramic art &

Letters in unfussy black type, set against a white background the same colour as the building. Jungmin followed the smell of baking clay and opened the door. There were lots of people in the workshop today. A little kid and a high school student were messing around with the clay, and beside them was Jihye, the woman she'd drank coffee with the time before. Jihye approached her first, her manner warm and welcoming, and introduced the members.