What happened to the boy in the novel `Rain Shower`?

“This girl was young but quite daring. Before she died, she said, ‘When I die, please bury me in this exact sweater.’ “

It is the end of “Sonagi (a rain shower in Korean),” a short tragic story of a rural boy and an urban girl written by Hwang Sun-won (1915-2000). The girl rode on the boy’s back to cross the stream which rose suddenly due to a rain shower. Her pink sweater had a dark red stain when she was on his back. What happened to the boy after the sick girl died?

To mark Hwang Sun-won’s 100th birthday, five writers who graduated from Kyung Hee University where Hwang taught – Jeon Sang-gook, Park Deok-gyu, Seo Ha-jin, Lee Hye-gyeong and Koo Byeong-mo – showcased sequels. They were contained in the summer edition of the “Daesan Culture” published by the Daesan Foundation.

In Jeon Sang-gook’s “Doing Autumn,” the boy named “Hyun-soo” became an eighth grader. Though the girl died, she still lives in his heart as a young girl. The middle school boy did not trash the pebble that the girl threw at him. While the girl in his heart says, “I wish we had a rain shower today,” Hyun-soo thinks, ‘You won’t come even if there is a shower.’” His homeroom teacher meets his eyes. You can peak into the boy’s growth in the girl’s voice, “Why do you keep thinking about the teacher?”

In Seo Ha-jin’s “A Rain Shower Again,” three years have passed since the girls’ death. The boy goes to the grave of the girl in a pink sweater at night. He sings songs and talks for her. One day, he meets a girl who looks exactly same as the dead girl with a family name of Yoon. When she was identified, a rain shower begins to fall.

The boy became an adult who now works at a factory in an urban area and smokes. In Lee Hye-gyeong’s “Indelible Red Clay Water,” the writer depicts a boy who is now an adult but unable to forget the girl. After looking at a female student who looks like the girl in a magazine, he tears the paper away and puts it in his pocket. “His heart which shrank when he was treated as a part of a machine was unfolded like a morning glory in the sunshine while he fiddled with the paper.”

“The Star of Human Beings,” Park Deok-gyu describes a monologue of a girl from a star who left the earth in a fantasy novel. In Koo Byeong-mo’s “Hyesal,” a boy cannot cross stepping stones after the girl’s death.

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