한국어

That Night, the Bus Never Came

After a war ends, a woman waits for her loved one's return, writing letters that may never reach him.

This is an English translation of a story originally written in Korean by the Hwasee.bang community, one sentence at a time.
Each sentence was submitted separately and chosen by community vote before the next one could be written. Nobody knew how it would end.
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The war was definitively reported to be over. Yet this silence felt all the more unsettling because of it.

Long after the war ended, his reply still had not arrived.

So I recalled memories with that person.

I remembered a single cigarette he used to smoke so gently, smiling beside me.

Missing him so much—him who would not return—I tried writing several letters filled with this longing.

One page, two pages. Unsure where to begin, I repeated the cycle of writing and discarding.

Writing letter by letter, I soon filled two pages: 'I know you will come back.'

I placed the letter in an envelope. Then I stared blankly at the recipient's name. Soon tears formed at the corners of my eyes.

Still, there was no word from him. Yet stubbornly, I pleaded with someone to send this letter.

The letter was never sent.

10 sentences Translated from Korean
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