A Heartfelt Tribute to the words of Baek Sehee
It was a typical afternoon at Kochi's Blossom Book Fair when a yellow and purple book caught my eye, standing out on the rusty top shelf of the quaint second-hand bookstore. Intrigued, I picked it up, and the book immediately resonated with an unfamiliar yet intense feeling within me. The title read, "I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki." How subtle, isn't it? Like a thin line that balances the depths of despair and the undying urge to end everything with the simple, comforting pleasure of life—eating Tteokbokki. It didn't take me long to flip through the pages and silently witness Baek Sehee's conversations with her therapist. The narrative was raw and unfiltered, with words slashing through like a thousand papercuts. Dysthemia it said, not once but several times, describing the feeling of emptiness that drowns her from time to time. I read something like this: "I wasn't deathly depressed, neither was I happy. I could be laughing at a friend...