This paper looks into the nature of rumors found in the short stories of An Hoe-nam and Yŏm Sang-sŏp written about departures and returns in the time period surrounding 1945. By doing so, the aim is to shed light on the transition from the ordering of sovereign power under an imperial structure to the Cold War system built around the nation-state, and what impact this had on the lives of individuals. The literary texts examined here are An Hoe-nam’s short stories “T’angaeng” [Coal Pits], “Chŏlswae kkŭnŏjida” [Broken chains], and “Sŏm” [Island] that mainly deal with the departure and return of Koreans who were forced into labor in Japanese coal mines. Among Yŏm Sang-sŏp’s works, the main focus is on “Hollan” [Chaos], “Moryak” [Plot], and “Haebang ŭi adŭl” [Sons of Liberation], each based on Yŏm’s experience of becoming aware of Korea’s liberation while in Manchuria, then travelling via North Korea and eventually arriving in Seoul. While movement in An’s work takes place from Kyushu to Chosŏn, Yŏm’s work move from Andong, Manchuria, through Sariwon in North Korea, to Seoul, juxtaposing the two different directions of movement in returns and departures before and after 1945. Autobiographical in nature, each novel is rich in rumors. Facts morph into rumors, joining the two in an impossible competition. As the news of liberation passes through this conduit of rumors and is then passed on, meaning is changed and the rumors determine the route of departures and returns the characters decide to take. The creation of the rumors themselves also reveals the situational and emotional truth of the times. This truth included the hope that each character had in the country’s liberation but was never fulfilled by the nation, the fear of other races that spread through every meeting point between different ethnicities at a time of great change in national power structures, and identity switches that occurred as the Korean national identity faltered and overlapped with others. While departures and returns from the south played a role in spreading racial fear among peoples, movement to and from the north combined identities and led to the switching of identities between people of different ethnicities. With rumors, the act of listening then becomes synonymous to the act of interpretation and manipulation, which was a common phenomenon that surrounded the “rumored” liberation, alongside frequently observed identity switches. Considering these patterns, it would have been impossible for the sovereign power to take on a single unified voice, and to establish a fixed identity as a nation state. The alternative option is to continue asking the performative question of “what should this experience be called?” and listen to the rumors found in the text written during the times, which will allow a closer and more detailed access to the situational and emotional truth of the period before and after 1945.