The Algorithm of Spring

63

Maya's rooftop stretched out before her, its painted green surface faded and weathered. Wooden boxes housed perilla leaves and struggling vegetables, their edges softened by time and rain.

She sat on her usual bench, the one she'd dragged up here months ago after finding it abandoned on collection day. A black sugar bubble tea sat beside her, untouched—a small indulgence inspired by Professor Kim's students.

Her body ached from the hours spent on the gallery floor, but her mind refused to quiet. Below, Seoul continued its endless flow while her own life had fractured. A group of magpies squabbled among the plant boxes, their harsh calls bouncing off concrete. Somewhere in the tangle of streets, temple bells marked the hour.

She thought of Professor Kim's canvas—how tensions between colours created something both unsettling and beautiful. The crimson fighting against the gold, neither winning nor losing, existing in permanent dialogue. When had her own work begun to lose that tension? The push-pull between order and chaos, between control and surrender. The systems she'd been using had gradually smoothed away the friction that once made her work feel alive. Perfection had become a trap she'd walked into willingly—long before HarmoniQ imprisoned her creation behind their digital walls.

She sipped the bubble tea. Its sweetness reminded her of being young, like the way Jia and Min-ah looked at their futures—all possibility, no shadows. Maya remembered that sense of limitless possibility. Before Florence. Before Beijing. Before she understood what her choices would cost.

She closed her eyes, letting the late morning air wash over her. The magpies resolved their dispute with a final burst of chattering and moved on. HarmoniQ might know her records, might know every secret she'd tried to bury—they could quantify her decisions, but they couldn't understand their weight. The strength hidden beneath the shame.

A few minutes later, a temple drum struck its slow, deliberate rhythm. Maya felt it in her chest, steady as her heartbeat. She thought of Professor Kim's students watching their mentor transform chaos into meaning—and of all the women who'd made difficult choices in quiet rooms, carrying their secrets like armour.

The sun climbed higher, casting hard-edged shadows across the green-painted concrete. Maya stood, her tired body protesting. She'd come up here hoping for answers, but found something else instead—a quiet certainty that she would survive whatever came next, just as she had survived every hard choice that brought her here.

Whatever HarmoniQ thought they knew about her past, they didn't understand this: the deepest wounds hardened you—like roots splitting stone—slow, patient, and unstoppable.

She left the half-finished drink beside her bench. The sweetness wasn't what she needed now. What she needed had been with her all along.

Behind her, the rooftop remained a quiet witness—its green paint yielding to time, and small stubborn blades of life pushing through the fissures.