Yiyeon, a promising high-school sprinter, is promised a spot on the corporate team 'Hansae Runners'—on one condition: she must win the National Sports Festival in the fall. Just days before the meet, she is diagnosed at 14 weeks pregnant. Afraid and cornered, she tells no one. Then a woman appears, demanding why she would carry a child she can’t take responsibility for. Since she has told no one, Yiyeon is suspicious—until the woman claims she is Haena, Yiyeon’s daughter from 2063. Haena explains that to cure her own daughter Yojo of a rare disease, she needs maternal-line DNA. Attempts using Haena’s genes failed; even extracting DNA from Yiyeon’s body in 2063—already deceased—failed. The only hope is Yiyeon’s birth mother. But Yiyeon grew up in an orphanage; finding her mother will not be easy. Armed with scant clues about the orphanage and her mother, Haena sets out to search—only for Yiyeon to insist on joining. Somehow, this woman who calls herself her daughter feels achingly like the mother who once left her.

A luminous, tender bond forged across time. Mothers is the second novel by Jung Ian, also an active screenwriter. Jung received the New Creator Award at the BIFF Asian Film Market E-IP Pitching in 2016, and Mothers is likewise poised for adaptation across film and television.