When the Light Forgets to Fall

From When the Light Forgets to Fall: The Life of Yun Seojin

by E. Seo-Jun Kang

A baby cries under the flickering hospital light in Insung, South Korea, born during a cold February morning. His name: Yun Seojin.

The air is thin and smells faintly of antiseptic. Nurses bustle quietly, but their voices are muffled, distant. No one notices the way his tiny fists curl in uncertainty.

At home, the courtyard is crowded with relatives. Everyone talks at once, smiles and laughs overlapping, but Seojin hears only the spaces between words — a quiet that feels bigger than the room. His first memory is silence. Not toys, not colors, not warmth. Just a haunting emptiness under a neem tree, where shadows stretch like fingers and fear creeps softly, unnoticed.

At just two months, he undergoes surgery — an appendix removed before he even learns to crawl. He sleeps through the pain like a shadow sliding across a wall. No one claps when he wakes; no one asks how he felt. He only feels the quiet.

By age 2.5, Seojin is admitted to school. One day, forgotten by everyone, he sits on the stone steps waiting… hours pass. He never cries. The playground is alive with laughter, but it’s a sound from another world. He rocks slightly on the spot, the soles of his shoes scuffing the concrete. His eyes follow every moving thing — a bird, a butterfly, the spinning wheels of a toy in another child’s hands — but nothing touches him.

Though fearful of darkness and loud animals, he always watches cartoons. Pokémon, Digimon, Winx Club — worlds where danger ends, and heroes rise. Fantasy becomes his only safe place. He knows every story, every line, every transformation sequence. He whispers along with the characters, sometimes laughing quietly when no one is watching.

Evenings are his sanctuary. Under the soft glow of the living room TV, he wears a Superman cape, draped awkwardly over his small shoulders. His fingers trace the edge of the fabric as he watches the heroes soar. Alone, he whispers to himself:

"Maybe one day… I’ll fly."

The neem tree in the courtyard still watches him. Its branches sway in the wind, shadows stretching across the walls. Seojin sits there sometimes, imagining it’s a friend who can hold his fear, his silence, his loneliness.

He does not yet understand friendship. He does not yet understand love. He only understands waiting — waiting for someone, something, a world that might notice him.

And in the quiet, he begins to dream. Not for applause. Not for recognition. Only for the simple, impossible hope that one day, he might belong.

Author’s Note

Thank you for reading Episode 1 of When the Light Forgets to Fall.

Every story begins in silence — this was Seojin’s.

— E. Seo-Jun Kang