For a long time, I had no shortage of ability to neatly write 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 outside 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 new sentences. Much less did I want 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 on my skin. Because the variable of 'another person' is always the beginning of incompleteness in itself.

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 waver 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 only romantic crack 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 on my skin like a tattoo, all the romantic donations and expectations I had long harbored collapsed into an utterly ugly and foul sin. 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 receiving my teachings? It was cruel and mischievous.

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

They mistakenly think I'm a kind and wonderful adult, but I'm just a selfish scholar who wants to protect my 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 a path that does not exist in the philosophy of my life.

I knew that the moment I pulled that child into the completed frame of my life, I would lose both my dignity as a teacher and my sense of shame as a human being, becoming nothing but trash. That is why I resolve every moment. No matter how terrible a tragic answer fate presents, I will remain the most stubborn and cold teacher who rejects that answer until the end to protect the dignity of my life. Because that is the last courtesy of an adult I can keep for that young student and myself regarding this sin of fate that I did not commit.