Jin didn't go to sleep after the message, despite feeling a bit drained from the journey.
He sat on the wall by the river for a little while longer, until the drums on the far bank changed to a faster beat and a cheer rose up over the water. Then he stood, dusted off his pants, and walked back into the city.
The streets were even busier now that it was fully dark. The lanterns glowed brighter against the black sky, and the smell of food hung so thick in the air that he could almost taste it. Every corner had something going on.
Most of it was small. A man folded a piece of paper into a bird, breathed on it, and the bird flapped off his palm and flew three circles around a little girl's head before landing in her hair. A woman with no instrument at all hummed into her cupped hands, and the sound that came out was a full string orchestra, twenty instruments playing at once. Two old men played baduk on a board where the stones moved on their own whenever one of them pointed.
