Han River Hearts

by luv_my_bed

Summary:

“In a city of nearly ten million, the chances of seeing someone again—someone you didn’t plan to see—are statistically insignificant. Roughly 1 x 10^-12, if you’re being generous. However, emotions don’t care about probability, as hearts have always been horrible at math."

Bumping into someone once is a coincidence. Twice? Curious. But three times, especially in a city as big as Seoul, starts to feel like fate…or something dangerously close to it.

After crossing paths with the same mysterious man on more than one occasion, Seong Gi-hun can’t shake the feeling that the universe is working in mysterious ways. The stranger says little, wears a ring, and offers no name—but somehow takes up more space in his thoughts than anyone who ever stayed.

So, he does what any writer with a half-broken heart and a tight deadline would do:

He turns him into a story.

Through weekly entries in his newspaper column, Han River Hearts, Gi-hun documents each fleeting encounter, each tangled emotion, hoping that somewhere out there in Seoul, a certain “Mr. Big” is reading.

Chapter 1: A Mist, a Memory, and a Glance

A person will meet over twenty thousand individuals in their lifetime, but in a city of over nine million, bumping into people is a given. It happens every minute, every hour, and every day when living in a city such as Seoul. The chances of running into one of those random individuals you’ve encountered for a second time are slim, but not zero. However, when you’ve encountered this same person for a third time, it feels less like chance and more like fate playing a slow and deliberate game. 

At least, that is what Seong Gi-hun convinced himself. 

It happened three times. Not on purpose. Not on Noondate or Hinge. Not in a fancy restaurant where delicate white sheets adorn the tables and elegant wine is poured. But on a Tuesday afternoon, a Thursday morning, and a Saturday night. It happened while running from the rain in ratty sweats and sunglasses, grocery shopping with his mother, and drinking glass after glass of soju while trying to dodge the world. 

The first time was confusing. The second left him curious. And by their third encounter, Gi-hun started to question whether the universe was playing a lazy game. 

In a city where it is easy to disappear, to slip into the crowd and never be seen again, this man somehow kept reappearing in Gi-hun’s life. Perfectly timed. Very convenient. Just as a flickering flame that emitted heat, Gi-hun was drawn to the man’s warmth, or coldness, rather. He couldn’t help but keep coming back to the dismal light of the small flame.

But it left him to wonder: 

When you keep crossing paths with the same person, is the universe nudging you forward toward a new path, or away from it? 

 

---

 

The slump in Gi-hun’s shoulders grew heavier as he walked down Sejong-daero, his pace between a shuffle and a sigh. The street mocked him with its natural and effortless beauty, with stately trees, glass-front restaurants, and perfectly styled women in ballet flats and pastel-toned coats. Each glided past like they belonged to a world where he was a tourist. Everything about the scene—the quiet luxury, the seamless symmetry—made him feel like the smallest person in the entire precinct. 

Sweat stuck to the nape of his neck as the humidity bore down on him. The ends of his hair curled around his ears and his hat became drenched with perspiration. He wasn’t dressed in the usual armor of curated silk and expensive loafers, the outfit he usually wore for visits to his editor. Instead, it was tattered sweatpants, an oversized hoodie with one string stretching longer than the other, and a pair of sunglasses that was missing its right temple. His outfit was less about looks and more about emotional concealment. 

Gi-hun clutched a folder under one arm—the draft for that week’s column, dog-eared, slightly crinkled, and bleeding red ink from all the suggestions his editor insisted he consider. It was only Tuesday and his final draft wasn’t due until Friday, but the words became heavier with each rewrite, each revision. Each edit was like peeling away a layer he wasn’t sure he wanted to share. Every sentence felt like a half-truth and every insight felt stolen. 

There was a particular panic that set in each week when it was time to write his next column. It was a type of panic that formed when the only thing he had ever been good at suddenly left him speechless. It wasn’t because he had nothing to say, however, it was because, for once in his life, he was too close to silence. The kind that follows when no one says “I love you” back.  

His column centered around those three little words. It was about the magic of hearing it. The love at first sight feeling. The if-you-know-you-know energy of bumping into someone you were sure you’d never encounter again. It was about timing and the herald opportunity of second chances. 

It was about hearing those three little words from someone in a city so vast. 

But now? All Gi-hun could write was: 

In a city of nearly ten million strangers, I bumped into one myself—someone I once knew very well. It was me, and I barely recognized the man I saw. 

He scratched it out. 

Then rewrote it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

And again until he finally left the sentence in the rough draft, only for it to be marked through with red ink. The red ink was final. It left no room for reconsideration. 

Gi-hun exhaled harshly as he thought back to the bleeding draft in his hands. Maybe the problem wasn’t that he had nothing to say. Maybe it was fear of what the truth might sound like when it was finally spoken. 

That was when the first drop splashed. 

Not harshly, not with grandeur. Just a single cold splash of something other than sweat against his cheek. Followed by another. Then another, and within seconds, the clouds gave away and cracked open above him. 

Gi-hun stood still. He watched as the sidewalk blossomed with open umbrellas and the rain began to fall in earnest. The already crinkled manuscript absorbed the rain like a streak of shame, curling at the edges, splotching the ink, sagging under the weight of trying to uphold what was left, just as Gi-hun did. 

He looked around. No open doors, no inviting lights. Just the choice to run or let the city soak his pride. 

He did neither. 

Instead, he stepped under a narrow overhang of a darkened storefront, something between a stationary shop and a small design studio. Its glass was cloudy, lights off, but the awning was just wide enough to feel like shelter. 

He stood there, damp, disheveled, and unraveling by the minute. The damp edges of his hair stuck to his sharp cheekbones, the ink from one of the pages bled onto his wrist like a bruise. There was a particular quiet that only happened in the rain. It’s a silence not made of absence, but of pause. Of things brimming with anticipation, waiting to start again. Slower and softer. 

Then came the sound of footsteps. Slow, deliberate, and unbothered by the splashing of rain on wet concrete.

A man stepped into the shelter beside him. Medium height. Composed. His coat, a dark gray wool, that seemed to be perfectly tailored, was beaded with rain like stars on constellation points. He didn’t speak, just stood next to him like he had been doing it for years. Standing beside Gi-hun like he belonged there. 

Gi-hun observed him out of the corner of his eye: broad shoulders, strong profile, jet-black hair that was perfectly slicked back. Handsome was the only word that Gi-hun could use to describe the man. He smelled faintly of something expensive, something definitely out of Gi-hun’s price range. The man turned slightly, seeming to notice Gi-hun’s observations, but said nothing. 

Gi-hun turned back to the city. The rain continued to pour in a sleek silver curtain just inches from their shoes. The city started to rush again. The shock of the abrupt rain quickly faded, and the slow and soft brought a wave of muted honking and soaked streets. However, under the narrow awning it was just them. Two strangers. Briefly paused during a commute in their daily life. 

“Do you always get caught in the rain without an umbrella?” 

Gi-hun turned sharply toward the stranger next to him. The man was still watching the rain fall, his voice low and steady. Not rushed nor hesitant. Just observant, with a dry warmth that enveloped Gi-hun like an unsuspecting coat. Like something he didn’t know he needed. 

With his voice flat, Gi-hun let out a reluctant laugh. “Only on days I decide to tempt fate. Or wear sweatpants.” 

The stranger turned his head just enough to glance at Gi-hun—his hair wildly mashed beneath a baseball cap, his shoulders slumped and posture defensive. A slight quirk touched the edges of the man’s mouth, as if the beginnings of a smile had begun to form. 

“Fate would have offered a hood, at least.” 

Gi-hun stared at the man, blinking at his statement. After a moment, he puffed a short but exasperated breath. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his dirty sneakers squeaking against the slippery sidewalk. “You’re awfully calm for someone who’s just as drenched as me.” 

“You stop minding the rain once you realize it doesn’t care about you.” 

The two strangers fell into a bout of silence. Comfortable, charged, and thinly stretched, just as the falling curtain of water in front of them. Just beyond the awning, just beyond the little world the pair had created in such few words, Seoul continued. Slicked with neon, impatient cars, and the echoing of conversations they were not a part of. 

The man’s gaze drifted to the battered papers in Gi-hun’s hands. Papers he was holding on to like a coveted lifeline. “Law school?” 

Gi-hun furrowed his brows at the man before following his gaze to the worn folder in his hands. He shook his head profusely. “No, no. I write. Columns, mainly. For the newspaper.” 

The man nodded once. No surprise in his expression. No raising of his eyebrows. No polite encouragement. Just a quiet acknowledgment of what was said. 

Gi-hun waited for a follow-up question, a comment, anything. Nothing came from the man but quaint silence.

“It’s not all that great, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s mostly deadlines and criticism on a weekly basis,” Gi-hun supplied. “Not many people read the newspaper anymore. It’s mainly newsletters or podcasts or something else…But I’ve been writing for years, so I’ve seen it all.” 

Still nothing from the man. Just a slight tilt of his head, as if the rain was more interesting than his commentary. 

“I write for the Seoul Sentinel. Have for years, like I said. A sort of weekly column about the city and what not.” Gi-hun didn’t want to tell this stranger that he wrote about sex, dating, and disasters. It’s not something you usually tell someone after knowing them for ten minutes. 

The man still gave nothing. No polite gestures or even an unimpressed “oh?” The only flicker of emotion that passed over the stranger’s face was a streak of something. Maybe amusement, maybe boredom. Gi-hun couldn’t tell. He hated that he couldn't tell. 

Writers are readily trained to find a story in silence. However, sometimes silence isn’t a metaphor for anything. Sometimes it’s just a random man who doesn’t want to talk. 

“But, yeah. Anyway, I write.” Gi-hun attempted to flash a toothy smile at the man. He shifted again, awkwardly this time, brushing stray wet beads from his forehead and glancing at the drizzle as if it could rescue him. 

The man moved, reaching into his tailored coat. He pulled out a navy blue object bound together by a flimsy strap. He held it out to Gi-hun, his grip steady. 

“You need the umbrella more than I do.” 

The gesture was unceremonious, efficient, and frankly surprising. It was as if the entire interaction was for the sole purpose of the delivery. For the purpose of a single quiet favor. 

Gi-hun looked at the man, confused by his gesture. Confused by his words. “I really cannot accept this. You’re dripping wet.” 

The strange man extended the umbrella further and, quietly, said, “So are you.” 

With a hesitant hand, Gi-hun took the umbrella. Their fingers didn’t touch, didn’t even come in proximity of touching, but there was a weight in the exchange. Gi-hun bowed deeply, hoping his back wouldn’t lock up in the process, and—just like that—when he rose, he found that the stranger had stepped back into the street and was swallowed by the gray drizzling curtain. 

In a city this size, when someone hands you kindness without a certain reason or ulterior motive, you wonder if it’s luck or a type of foreshadowing. And then spend hours wishing you had asked their name before the moment ended and the entire interaction faded into the background of your day.

Notes:

Hey everyone,

Thank you so much for giving this story a chance! This is my first time posting my writing, like, ever, so please be kind to me as I navigate the world of authoring and posting on ao3!

And, if you read the tags, this story is inspired by Sex and the City. You don't have to know anything about the TV show to read this fic. I thought that Gi-hun and In-ho would have an interesting dynamic if they were like Carrie and Big. So, I put my two degrees to use and wrote it.

Another thing I would like to mention is pay close attention to the italicized words. Those sentences will come back later in Gi-hun's column!

I know some of the things mentioned in the summary weren't addressed immediately in this chapter, but I am aiming for our knowledge of Gi-hun to be limited for now (kind of like Carrie), and for us to be living in the moment with him.

I do have a few chapters of this story already written and planned out. I do not have a definite chapter count, so that number is subject to change.

But, anyway, thank you again for reading this story, and I would love to hear from you guys!

Chapter 2: A Market, a Moment, and a Meaning

Summary:

A second encounter. Quiet, unassuming, but charged with a feeling Gi-hun can't quite name. Amid everyday rhythms and small details, he wonders if it's fate or a pattern repeating itself.

In a city that never hides its edges behind a mask, where the sharp scents of the world linger with the snap of morning bargains, real stories unfold in the spaces between. Between crates of peaches that pile on top of another like forgotten promises and the weary eyes of passersby. It’s these imperfect moments—in the rhythms of a mother’s steady hands and a son’s hesitant, begrudging steps—that we find what’s unfiltered and unpolished, but somehow, utterly true. Because sometimes, life isn’t about looking perfect; it's about showing up anyway—mismatched and still holding on. 

The second time was quieter. 

There were no sudden downpours or thunderstorms. No dramatic gestures or rain soaked conversations. It was just the steady buzz of action and the feeling that something was happening beneath the noise. Gi-hun hadn’t expected to see him again, not after their brief, drenched encounter. But there he appeared, in the middle of a narrow street, flanked by crates and the clatter of plastic baskets, holding a grocery bag like it was the only thing tethering him to the moment. 

There was something quietly intimate about that morning. In the way the mysterious man kept tugging at the rolled sleeves of his shirt. In the rhythm of his mother’s practiced movements. In the simple fact that neither of them had to fill the silence completely for the moment to take root. 

It wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t fate shouting from the rooftops. 

But it was the second time. 

Because when someone shows up again, in the messy, unfiltered corners of your life that you try to hide, you start to wonder: Is it persistent fate or a budding pattern you haven’t figured out yet?

 

---

 

The market spilled onto the narrow street like a whispered secret in broad daylight. Crates of soft peaches were stacked beside wilting herbs. Vendors shouted prices in an almost melodic tone. A harmonious chaos encased the air that was steeped in steam, soy, and oil. It was, truly, Seoul at its most unfiltered. 

Gi-hun continued to trail a few paces behind his mother, who moved with a military-like focus. She had stuffed a pair of onions into a reusable shopping bag and plucked at produce, sniffing the fruits with thrift and skepticism. She shook her head lightly at a persimmon, returned it, and picked up another. There was a certain rhythm in her movements. A pause, a squint, a haggle, and a sigh. Gi-hun couldn’t keep up. 

He clutched his own grocery bag as if it were a life preserver. His thin suit jacket flapped behind him like a faded and washed out flag, with the seams on the precipice of falling apart. His jeans sagged low, the belt missing, and the hem uneven. Somewhere deep down, he knew that in this market, a grandmother was surely criticizing his appearance. 

He hadn’t meant to be out in public looking worse for wear yet again, but there he was, standing in the middle of Ssangmun-dong, toeing a puddle of murky water next to a box of daikon radishes and wondering how many steps it would take to vanish into a lesser corner of the world. 

His mother barked something, holding up a handful of ripe tomatoes like a question. Gi-hun shrugged and offered a noncommittal grunt in response. His only goal that morning had been to write. Or, at least, attempt to. But the blank Word document offered no help in achieving that goal, so he agreed to the trip out of guilt and the desperate need to feel like he had a beating pulse. 

Gi-hun turned, letting his eyes drift over the stalls, the faces, and the vendors. A woman waved to customers as she gestured to marinated roots out of a blue bucket. A child balanced a basket over his shoulder like a sword. A teenager fanned themselves with a plastic sign. Two pigeons picked at an abandoned fish carcass. 

And then—

Just past a stack of peaches, half-hid beneath a faded green tarp—

Gi-hun saw him. 

At first it was just the back of a man—casual, leaning over a display of fruit. Nothing dramatic. Nothing slow-motion. Just the slope of his broad shoulders and the unbothered way he picked at a plum and examined it as if he had all the time in the world. 

His breath hitched slightly before he even realized why. 

In a city of nine million people, in a place centered in the less-savory part of Seoul, in a place where the smell of rotten fish and fruit wafts in the air, you tell yourself it’s never him. The man you met once—a month ago, during a storm, under an awning, holding the kind of silence that sticks with you—would never appear again. 

Gi-hun squinted and tilted his head, attempting to see the man’s face. Was it him? The outfit was different, more relaxed. The setting seemed impossible, though. This stranger didn’t seem like the type to browse a crowded market before 9 a.m., especially not in a neighborhood with rust-stained signage, old buildings, alleyways, and vendors yelling over truck horns. 

But yet, there was something unmistakable present in the man. The calm. The composed posture. The absence of rush. 

It is not always the face that you remember, that’s something that can fade from memory just as quickly as you retained it. Sometimes, it is the way someone stands. The way they take up space like they’ve never had to apologize for it. The way their presence causes a hitch in your breath and palpitations in your heart. 

He hesitated, half-shielded by a stand of stacked red apples. 

If it wasn’t him, he would look insane. Just another confused man approaching a stranger with a nervous charm and sagging pants. 

But if it was him …

Gi-hun’s fingers tightened around the grocery bag. 

It’s one thing to dream of a stranger. It’s another to run into him again when your hands smell of scallions and you’re standing next to your elderly mother. But, then again, what are you supposed to do when the stranger you hadn’t forgotten turns out to not be a stranger at all—but a repeat occurrence? A misfire in reality, with too perfect posture and an umbrella you still haven’t returned. 

With a shaky breath, he stepped forward. 

As he moved closer, he noticed that it was the stranger from before. 

And, for a brief second, he nearly turned back around. He could disappear behind a crate of sweet potatoes and pretend he never saw the stranger. Pretend he hadn’t written a dozen narratives in his head in the time it took the man to pick up a plum. 

But instead he crossed the narrow aisle between the stalls, nearly tripping over a crate of bok choy and—

“So, do you just appear wherever I forget an umbrella?” 

The man looked up. Recognition flashed in his eyes briefly. Not shock, not confusion. Just acknowledgement, like seeing an old book on a different shelf in the library. 

“No rain today.” 

Gi-hun glanced up at the morning sun. “Clear skies. For once this summer.” He waited a beat before speaking again. “I still have it. The umbrella.” 

“Good, I hate waste. It would have been a shame if it ended up in a subway trash bin.” 

The stranger’s voice was softer than he remembered, or maybe it was the soft light of the morning—making the scene feel more intimate than it was. He placed a plum into his bag with a kind of reverence Gi-hun couldn’t quite decode. He handled fruit like he handled the conversation: deliberately, gently, as if rushing would ruin the sweet and savory flavor. 

Gi-hun gestured his hands around the area. “This part of the city doesn’t really fit you.” He glanced towards the tangle of stalls, the flickering menu boards, and the elderly women gossiping over dried anchovies. 

“Sometimes I like places that do not pretend to be something they aren’t.” 

The man said it simply. No performance. No grand gesture. Just the facts, like it was something Gi-hun should already know. And, again, that pause of silence. Comfortable for him, torture for Gi-hun. 

Gi-hun searched the stranger’s face for some trace of a name, a clue, anything, but he gave him nothing. Again. 

The man was like a novel with the first chapter torn out. Familiar in the wrong ways, but too tempting to put down. The book was open, waiting to be read, and Gi-hun hated that he wanted to keep reading. 

“So what is this then? Every time I see you, I look like I’ve barely survived my own day. ” Gi-hun smiled, rubbing the nape of his neck. “I would call it persistent fate, but I think it’s becoming a pattern now.” 

“If it’s fate, it has a good sense of humor.” A smile flickered at the corner of the man’s mouth. A real one this time. Less enigma, more mischief. Like something in Gi-hun’s words dared him to enjoy it. 

Gi-hun laughed at the quip then immediately felt too loud in the hush of the stall. He swiped stray strands of hair from his forehead and studied the man in front of him more closely now. His sleeves rolled to the forearm, paper bag tucked under his left arm, sunglasses hooked onto the collar of his black T-shirt, like he’d done it without thinking, without care. 

They shared a smile. This time slower, less startled, more curious than the pleasant ones from before. 

And then, just as Gi-hun started to speak, his mother’s voice sliced through the air—sharp and insistent. He didn’t turn around. He just sighed and gave the strange man one more look, a little too long, a little too hungry. 

“I should go. My mother is calling for me.” Gi-hun waited for a beat, watching the man’s reaction. “I still don’t know your name, by the way.” 

The stranger tilted his head slightly, as if considering whether Gi-hun deserved it yet. Then, maddeningly enough, he just smiled. He smiled with his uneven lips that pulled tightly over his teeth. He then shook his head, picked up another plum, placed it in the paper bag, and walked away. 

Just like that. 

The strange man walked away without so much as a “goodbye.” 

Gi-hun stood there, blinking at the spot where he’d been with a furrowed brow. His fingers curled around a bruised plum he didn’t remember picking up. 

Twice. In a city filled with ten million stories on a single sidewalk. Twice. And I still didn’t know his name. 

He turned back toward his mother, who was now arguing over aged fish. Gi-hun walked slower this time, the sounds of the bustling market dulled by something else, something uninvited and vaguely absurd. 

Perhaps it was nothing. A fluke. A misread code. Or maybe…maybe it was just an umbrella after all. Not a sign. Not a beginning. Just a borrowed gesture in a borrowed city. 

Notes:

Hey everyone,

So... season three definitely didn't happen!

Anyway, thank you for the kudos, bookmarks, and comments! I thoroughly enjoy reading the comments left behind and getting an email about new kudos in the morning, lol!

I did change the chapter count because I have the majority of the story mapped out with ideas and plot points, so I do have a solid idea as of right now. However, it may increase a chapter or two, depending on how the story unfolds as I write.

There is one more chapter about the encounters and then, as I like to say, rubber meets the road in terms of the plot. So, bear with me for one more chapter.

Again, thank you for reading and I would love to hear from you!

Chapter 3: A Secret, a Silence, and a Stranger

Summary:

On a night when the city won't let him forget, Gi-hun crosses paths with the mysterious stranger for the third time. In a bar made for vanishing, he questions whether the stranger is fate, coincidence, or a reflection of everything he still doesn't understand about himself.

Some cities sleep. Seoul doesn’t. 

It dims. It exhales. But it never truly shuts its eyes, especially not in the hours when the day’s sharp edges are dulled by alcohol, laughter, and the quiet ache of people trying not to feel lonely. That’s when the hidden reveal themselves—bars without names, people without faces. Places that exist enough to disappear into. Strangers who feel familiar only because they aren’t asking you to be anything more than present. 

Some nights aren’t about being seen. They’re about slipping into somewhere that doesn’t ask questions. A room dim enough to forget what you’re pretending to move on from. 

Gi-hun hadn’t meant to end up there that night. But rejection, loneliness, and the idea of friends was persuasive—especially when it disguised itself as casual plans and secondhand laughter. And there were still traces of hope, of something he wasn’t supposed to have a quiet thought of. But memory doesn't care what you’re supposed to do. It lingers in the quietest corners—like a whisper behind your ear, or the weight of a name you don’t know. 

And just when he thought the hope had settled into something completely symbolic, there he was. Again. 

The third time. 

Because bumping into someone once is chance. Twice is a coincidence. But three times? In a city like Seoul? 

That’s when you start wondering if a beautifully dressed enigma is dangling in front of you to remind you of everything you still don’t understand about yourself. 

 

---

 

The bar was one of those establishments in Seoul that seemed to only materialize after dusk. A place that was stitched into a quiet alleyway, dimly lit but not cavernous, with faded jazz curling softly through the air like smoke from an expensive cigarette. It was a place that knew its angles. A place where mystery could settle in and be undisturbed. 

Gi-hun had stepped in from the late summer’s heat, the darkness of the night clinging to his skin like foreign silk. His cheeks were flushed from the heat, his hair slightly undone by the breeze, and his tongue still tasting the salted tang of dinner’s grilled mackerel, courtesy of his latest act of research for his column. A date gone wrong, with expensive wine, strained smiles, and a less than interested woman. 

He looked at the bottles that lined the back wall of the bar. Green glass and worn labels, those bottles were like quiet soldiers, waiting to storm into the battle of easing the pain of a helpless soul. Those eager soldiers mainly consisted of flavored soju, some whiskey, and the occasional sake. 

Gi-hun had been there before. The tables were small with mismatched decorations. The lighting was soft and dim enough to blur the imperfections—of skin, of company, of memories. He spotted a booth by the window, three of his friends had already staked their claim to it before he got there. They were already deep into laughter, drinks, and stories. He hung back, observing the moment. 

Jung-bae’s laughter rose like a bell, high and breathless from laughing too hard at one too many jokes. Sang-woo appeared to be mid-rant about something he deemed important, waving his hands slightly as he tried to explain the situation to the table. And Ali, ever unbothered, was nodding along to Sang-woo’s words without question. 

Gi-hun lingered near the booth, just a slight ways from it. He watched them for a moment—not as a participant, but as the casual bystander. The table appeared to glow, an easy rhythm between friends that could light up the entire room. It should have felt like enough. 

But something in the corner of the room caught his attention. A stillness. A silhouetted shape. 

Two men seated at a low table near the back, half shaded beneath the moody amber light. A bottle of peach soju was settled between them. The other man—younger, more animated—spoke with his hands. His laughter spilled out easily, like he hadn’t learned how to control his filtration of joy. The older man—familiar, composed—sat quietly, not completely withdrawn but not entirely self-contained. 

He was already there. 

Gi-hun’s breath hitched slightly. It wasn't surprise, not really, it was recognition. Not of him, exactly, but of the atmosphere that gathered around him. Unbothered, slightly distant. It was like he belonged to a story that hadn’t finished writing itself. 

He didn’t wave. He didn’t speak. He just stood still for a moment, watching the two men as the warmth of his friends’ conversation echoed in his mind like a distant memory. 

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that doesn’t appear when you’re alone, but when you’re surrounded by people who care for you, and still…you feel the gravitational pull of someone else’s silence beckoning you from across the room. 

He pulled himself from the corner and stepped slowly toward the bar. Ordered a bottle of soju he wouldn’t finish, and watched the server pour a single glass with care. He could hear his friends laughing and talking behind him, oblivious that he was there.

The stranger wasn’t looking at him, and still, somehow, he felt seen. 

Gi-hun let the chilled glass linger in his hand, the soju sharp on his tongue. What filled his cup wasn’t liquid courage, but liquid delay. 

The table with the two men remained unchanged. The younger man was still animated, his hands continued to gesture mid-story. The older man was still listening—or not—his gaze was fixed somewhere indeterminate, as if he was watching something unfold beyond the edge of the room. 

We notice strangers, not for how they look, but for how they stay still. How they hold themselves when no one is asking them to perform. 

Gi-hun turned slightly, his eyes flitting back to his friends. Ali had moved in beside Sang-woo, their heads bowed over something on a phone. Jung-bae filled each shot glass to the brim with calculated perfection. They still hadn’t noticed him, or his pause, and he didn’t blame them. The pull he felt was quiet. It was a singular thread, not a thick rope. 

His hand tightened around the glass. 

He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for. An acknowledgement? A look? A sign? But the man hadn’t looked up once. 

Still, Gi-hun loosened his grip on the glass and moved. 

Not directly toward him. Not exactly. 

Just toward the space that separated them. 

He walked slowly—not with hesitation, but with a silent certainty. The kind you have when you know the moment isn’t loud but it matters. The room perceptibly hushed around him as he moved. The bass of the jazz blurred and the glass in his hand felt heavier, like liquid concrete had settled rather than soju. 

The table came into view: two men seated across from one another, a gradually depleted peach soju bottle between them, and steam rising from a plate of grilled appetizers. 

Gi-hun almost didn’t recognize him, not right away. The inkling of second guessing himself started to settle again, but then the older one turned his head slightly and—

It was him. 

Not just a resemblance Gi-hun saw in the dark. Not just a maybe. 

Him. 

The stranger from the rain. The man from the market. The one with an umbrella and a sharp gaze that lingered too long. Only now, he was in motion—alive in real time, and not confined to Gi-hun’s memory. He stopped a few feet away from their table. He hadn’t planned on approaching. He hadn’t planned on seeing that man again at all, at least for a third time. 

Neither man noticed him yet. He stood there, not hovering, but present. Observing. 

The younger one continued to speak quickly. A joke, probably. He nudged a small dish of something toward his companion—pickled radish or maybe something marinated. The man didn’t touch it. 

And then his eyes lifted. 

He saw him. 

For a moment, nothing happened. Gi-hun didn’t smile, he didn’t frown. They simply regarded each other, like two people spotting a recurring motif in a dream they hadn’t realized they were sharing. The younger man looked up as well, finally catching on. He glanced at Gi-hun and then back to his companion. 

The younger one mumbled something inaudible, something that wasn’t meant for Gi-hun’s ears. The older one didn’t respond, didn’t speak. His eyes didn’t leave Gi-hun’s. 

Gi-hun stepped forward. His breathing increased, his heart rate jumped, but he continued to walk toward the table and to the man who he had written a thousand narratives about in his mind. 

“I think we’ve crossed paths before.” Gi-hun spoke with a pause. Not heavy—just stretched. He could feel the stranger’s eyes continue to bore into his own. 

A squeak of a cushion and the sound of scooting came from the other end of the table. The younger man had moved, gesturing to a spot between him and his companion. “You can join if you want.” He said it with easy confidence, just as someone who had been raised in a culture of shared tables and open chairs would. No suspicion. No assumptions. Just space and soju. 

Gi-hun looked at the space around the low table. For a moment, he considered walking away and leaving it as another passing glance. Another mystery left untouched. 

Instead, against all inhibitions, he sat. 

Many silences are awkward. Others are intentional. But, every once in a while, you find one that is vaguely familiar—like stepping into someone else’s dream and realizing it fits you too. 

They didn’t speak at first. 

Gi-hun poured himself a small shot of soju from the bottle, the ritual giving him something to do with his hands besides fidget. Neither of the men protested. The younger one resumed eating, tapping a chopstick against the rim of his glass and hummed something almost tuneless under his breath. His short bangs moved slightly with each small gesture and his eyes widened at every other bite of food. 

The man across from him—the one he couldn’t name or seem to forget—remained still. His own glass rested loosely in his hand, untouched. His gaze drifted, not toward him, but around the room, as if he was trying to locate something out of sight. 

Gi-hun glanced between the two men. Brothers. The resemblance between them was evident, especially with both men having their hair less than styled. At least he could say he learned something about the mysterious stranger tonight, if nothing else. 

The table itself felt ordinary: metal legs that were slightly uneven, small bowls half-full of banchan and other dishes littered the surface. A folded napkin soaked through from a water ring was at the center of the table, beside the soju bottle. The table appeared normal, but the air between them was anything but. 

Some moments don’t announce themselves. They don’t shimmer with warning or ask you to pay attention. They just appear, quietly, and change without asking permission. 

He studied the stranger’s hands. Deliberate, calm, unhurried. 

And then he saw it. 

A flash of gold. 

It was subtle, but unmistakable. Light caught every curve of the simple band on his left hand as he reached for the soju bottle. Gi-hun’s breath caught once again. For a second, everything in the room—the jazz, the chatter, the steam, the distant voices of his friends—blurred around the edges. 

A wedding ring. 

The shape of commitment. Of “off-limits.” Of “don’t.” 

Gi-hun had seen it before. The wives who weren’t satisfied with their husbands, the husbands who weren’t satisfied with their wives. They all had approached him in the same manner. The same look in their eyes. The same pleading voice, asking him to help them escape, if just for one night. He walked away each time with a screaming conscience and a story for strangers to read. 

But then—

His eyes narrowed slightly. It wasn’t the ring finger. Not quite. It was adjacent. Slightly off. Almost like a decoy of sorts. Or a dare. 

The disorientation was brief, but sharp. Something so small tilted the floor beneath him for a second. A ring in the wrong place was like a secret with its sleeve showing. Daring you to ask. 

Gi-hun said nothing. Neither did the stranger. 

The younger man glanced at Gi-hun. A slight dip in his brow formed as he briefly studied Gi-hun’s face. He looked back to the stranger—his brother—and downed the rest of his soju glass. The young man opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something, but an abrupt buzzing stopped his words. 

It was his phone, vibrating rapidly. The younger man glanced at the screen, reading the caller ID, and abruptly stood up. “I should take this call,” he said before hesitating. “It’s Inspector Kim.” The man’s eyes darted toward Gi-hun for a millisecond before returning to his brother. 

The stranger nodded slightly, giving his brother permission to leave. In a blink, the young man was gone and disappeared into the darkness of the room. 

It was just them now. 

Still, neither of them moved. 

Gi-hun sipped his drink. The peach soju tasted light and sweet on his tongue. 

“Do you always wear it like that?” Gi-hun tilted his head toward the simple golden ring. His voice was quiet. Un-accusing. More curiosity than confrontation. 

The stranger looked down at his hand, then back at Gi-hun. No expression shifted on his face. No emotions seemed to infiltrate. It was like a stone wall had been erected and refused to crack. 

“Sometimes.” 

“Is it supposed to mean something?” 

The stranger was quiet for a moment. “Not everything needs a meaning. At least, not anymore.” 

The absence of explanation—when you’re already this curious—becomes its own kind of invitation. Or warning. 

The stranger stood without ceremony. Left a few bills on the table. And, for a moment, Gi-hun thought he might say something. Anything. 

He didn’t. 

As he turned to leave, he paused briefly—just enough for him to know he had. Then he disappeared into the soft blur of bodies and light. 

Gi-hun didn’t follow. 

 

---

 

The night air was still thick with humidity. The sidewalks were still warm from the day and the streetlights glowed a golden facade onto the road as the occasional car hummed past. A group of teenage students spilled out of a convenience store, laughing loudly. A delivery scooter zipped past. The scent of fried chicken wafted through the air.

Gi-hun took each detail in as he leaned across the metal railing of the balcony. Barefoot, knees touching the cold steel rods, and hair whipping slightly in the light breeze. Distant lights blinked in soft patterns—neon halos, faint rooftop smoke from a neighbor, and the low hum of a city refusing to sleep. 

He puffed on his own cigarette as he looked down at the glowing screen in his hand. A rejection text was opened on his phone. The woman from earlier, the one who lost interest in the date as soon as she heard what he did for a living, sent a long, self justifying paragraph. 

Gi-hun briefly skimmed the message before sending a single thumbs up. In all honesty, he had forgotten about the date. The moment he saw the mysterious stranger, every taste of wine and fish from earlier in the night had faded. 

Still, he needed something else to write about, and one simple, detached date wasn’t going to cut it with his editor. He closed the messenger app and opened Hinge. A handful of new likes. Two conversations left on read. A match with a smiling investment banker who loved traveling and “deep conversation.” Swipe. Swipe. Heart. Nothing. 

He opened Noondate. The same thing. Faces blurred into each other. Filtered smiles, curated bios, a carousel of people trying too hard. He swiped absently, not really looking, not really hoping that a certain face, a certain man, would appear on his screen. He just moved his thumb through the motions, like flipping pages in a book he had already read. 

A new profile loaded. He paused. Not because she was different—she wasn’t, not really—but because something in her photo reminded him of a woman he used to know, a woman that said “I do,” but then walked away before the ink was completely dry. 

It wasn’t the same face, but the same expression. A kind of soft defiance. Gi-hun tapped onto the profile, more out of instinct than interest, and then let it sit. He didn’t like or message. He just stared for a moment, then exited the app. 

His cigarette burned halfway to the filter. He tapped the ash over the edge of the ledge and looked down at the street below. People moved in pairs, friends laughed, shadows drifted by under neon signs, and couples walked with their hands wrapped around each other’s. The neighborhood was loud, even from where he stood. 

He opened his notes app. Typed two simple lines. Deleted them. 

He didn’t need another date. He needed a certain man. 

He needed a story. 

 

---

 

Han River Hearts

By Seong Gi-hun

Seoul Correspondent

Special to the Sentinel

 

"Calculating the Big Unknown” 

 

A person will meet over twenty thousand individuals in their lifetime, but in a city of over nine million, bumping into people is a given. It happens every minute, every hour, and every day when living in a city such as Seoul. The chances of running into one of those random individuals you’ve encountered for a second time are slim, but not zero. However, when you’ve encountered this same person for a third time, it feels less like chance and more like fate playing a slow and deliberate game. 

It left me to wonder: 

When you keep crossing paths with the same person, is the universe nudging you forward toward a new path, or away from it? 

I’ve seen him three times now. Once in the rain, once in the market, and once in a dimly lit bar. Each time unplanned. Each time it felt like the world briefly quieted, as if time bent inward just enough for us to notice each other.  

In a city of nearly ten million, the chances of seeing someone again—someone you didn’t plan to see—are statistically insignificant. Roughly 1 x 10^-12, if you’re being generous. However, emotions don’t care about probability, as hearts have always been horrible at math. 

Maybe I’ll never know his name. Or what the ring on his finger means. Or why he looked at me with eyes of regret, like he was already mourning something that never got the chance to begin. Like he was already saying goodbye. But not all men are meant to be known. Some are meant to be felt—briefly. Like the final trace of heat in a glass, still warm from the drink that once filled it. 

There are people—men—who enter your life like dialogue. Sharp, undeniable, and impossible to ignore. And then there are the ones who arrive like mist. Soft, quiet, and already clinging to your skin before you realize they’re there. 

He didn’t offer a name, he only left questions. But when someone’s presence feels this vast, when the mystery of them fills every quiet space, you give it a name. 

Mr. Big. 

Because in a city this crowded, it’s rare to feel the loss of someone you barely met. And yet somehow, he takes up space. Not loudly, but undeniably. Like steam on a mirror. Like a thought you didn’t mean to keep. 

In his wake, I have nothing but unanswered questions. A ring on the wrong finger. A name left unspoken. A presence that felt like it might disappear the moment I asked too much of it.  

But I gave him a name, I gave us a page. Not because there was closure, but because there was a beginning I couldn’t stop rereading. 

Even here, in the still corners of Seoul’s less than finest neighborhood, where the city exhales and forgets to perform, he lingers. Not in memory, but in mystery. Because some people don’t need a story to take up space, they just need to be big enough to haunt it. 

Mr. Big. 

Notes:

Hey everyone,

Thank you for reading this chapter! I think out of all the chapters in this story, this was one of my favorites to write!

We have finally reached the end of the encounters and are onto the actual building/development of the story. I am very excited to continue posting these chapters, as I really like how the story is turning out so far.

If you haven't noticed, updates will probably be every 2-3 days for now. I have further chapters pre-written, so I'm working on the end of the story and planning it out.

If you would like updates for when the fic will be updated, I can tag my Tumblr account in the notes of the next chapter. But, beware, I have had my account for nearly seven years and I've never posted on it. So, if you're interested, I can do that.

But, anyway, thank you for reading and your support! I would love to hear from you guys!

Chapter 4: A Spark, a Moment, and a Ghost

Summary:

In the weeks following his last encounter with the man known only as Mr. Big, Gi-hun spirals inward. Haunted not by what was, but by what could have been. Each new connection feels hollow, and he begins to realize the sharpest grief isn't from losing someone, but from losing the version of yourself that hoped they'd stay.

In love, we rarely fall for people. We fall for possibilities. The idea of who someone could be. The way they made us feel for one fleeting moment. A glance. A sentence. A silence that felt loaded with so many things. 

It had been weeks since Gi-hun had last seen him—the man with the umbrella. The man at the market. The man at a dimly lit bar with a ring and a mystery. It had been nearly two months since he had seen Mr. Big, but somehow, he’d stayed. Not in Gi-hun’s life, but in the space between his thoughts. 

People had come and gone since. Respectable. Attractive. Even kind. But none stood a chance against a memory that had no facts, only feeling. 

How do you compete with the idea of someone? How do you measure up to a man who never stayed long enough to disappoint you? 

Mr. Big had become less of a person and more of a projection—an unwritten character Gi-hun dressed up in borrowed mystery, thrifted charm, and poetic silence. And he kept writing this Big character, again and again, in the margins of his thoughts. 

He had turned the mysterious stranger into fiction. And fiction always felt better than reality. 

Until it didn’t. 

Because there is a high in chasing a feeling. A euphoria in thinking that maybe the universe is nudging you toward something rare, something not seen very often. But when the hope wears off, when the dopamine has run its course through every receptor, when the chase ends not with a kiss but with a stranger’s face…the fall back to reality is quiet. And devastating. 

Gi-hun wasn’t sure if he was haunted by him—or by the version of himself that he got to be whenever the mysterious man crossed his mind. 

But, what Gi-hun did know, with a kind of aching clarity was this: 

He had written a hundred versions of Mr. Big. 

And still, he remained a stranger. 

 

---

 

He was the kind of man who looked too curated, not born. Crisp white collar, faint cologne that smelled of bergamot and quiet dreams, and a voice that hovered between the edges of charming and annoying. His laugh came too easily. His speech was articulate, attentive, and he was just the right amount of amused by Gi-hun. It was the type of date that his friends, especially Sang-woo, would surely approve of. 

They were seated at a tiny cafe tucked behind a quiet ally in Bukchon, where the city’s hum felt like a far away thought. Paper lanterns glowed softly above them, casting an amber light across the wooden table and the gentle curve of Gi-hun’s teacup. The air was warm, but breathable. It was touched with the lingering scent of roasted barley and pine. Somewhere, a wind chime stirred. It was the kind of evening that didn’t beg for romance, but made space for it anyway. 

The sharply dressed man said something about his time as an investment banker in New York. Or maybe it was Los Angeles. Gi-hun wasn’t sure. He smiled, nodded, and lifted his cup at the appropriate moments. But the ache had already started to settle in his chest. Low, heavy, and solid. 

Seven dates since the last encounter. Seven passable, charming, and competent individuals. Each left an unsettled feeling after their departure. A gaping, gutted feeling that circulated through each atria and ventricle of the heart. Like consuming a stimulant that leaves your veins empty and your pulse craving a real, natural beat. 

Across the table, he laughed again. A warm, generous sound that would make anyone’s stomach burst with a warm feeling. Gi-hun wished he could feel it, but all he felt when hearing the honey-soaked laugh was cold emptiness. 

Is delay the deadliest form of denial? Maybe…or maybe it’s just the quiet way we protect ourselves from the things we’re not ready to face. Because, sometimes, waiting isn’t about hope. Sometimes it’s about fear dressed up in patience. 

When the night ended, he offered to pay for the Kako T ride that Gi-hun had ordered. Gi-hun smiled politely and declined. The date didn’t ask if he wanted to see him again. Neither did Gi-hun. 

With a silent head nod and a half-hearted wave, Gi-hun stepped silently into the back seat of the taxi alone. The driver nodded without much conversation, only a quiet greeting and confirmation of his destination. Gi-hun leaned his head against the cool window of the car, watching the streets of Samcheong-dong blur in bright, muted tones. 

The settled feeling in his chest—the dull space left by seven dates that all felt like safe landings without any real takeoff—wasn’t heartbreak. It was something quieter, something lonely. Like forgetting the sound of laughter, or reaching for something no longer there. He wasn’t mourning any of his previous dates. He wasn’t grieving over a stranger’s face. He was mourning the part of himself that used to believe in sparks. 

But there had been a time. 

A time when he would have felt the spark instantly. A time when he would have dissected every detail of a night like this—drafted sentences in his head for his next column, clung to the possibility of a “what-if.” There had been a time when he would have heard the words, “I love you” back. 

But now? Now he just wanted to get home and wash the memories of the night away. 

The idea of love is discussed like a flash of lightning. Sometimes a brilliant strike flashes. Brief, electric, and unforgettable. Other times, only the echo of a charged flash is left, leaving only the hum of what almost was. 

The car slowed at a red light. A couple crossed the street holding hands, speaking in a language only they understood. Gi-hun looked away. Not out of jealousy or frustration, but out of fatigue. A soft kind of resignation that had silently crept in when no one was looking. 

It wasn’t about the polite, perfectly edited date. It wasn’t about the vast presence of mystery. It was about him, sitting alone in a taxi, trying to remember the last time he felt like himself. 

A night—years ago—with her. An argument neither was willing to concede. She walked out barefoot, furious, and exuding a frustration only she could have. Without a word, a glass of something was handed over and then a quiet settled. Ten minutes passed in silence, but it wasn’t empty, it was charged. Her whole being leaned in—not for answers, but for the simple comfort of being understood. 

That was the last time he remembered feeling something real. The last time things felt real between them, with her. Something that made his heart beat louder than his thoughts. 

Then a flash of him appeared before Gi-hun. 

Eyes of regret. A golden wedding ring on the wrong finger. Styled hair and expensive cologne. The silence that caused a slight flutter of excitement, of anticipation. The silence of the unknown. 

Gi-hun shut his eyes tightly. He had felt something then. Something fleeting, something unattainable, but something. It wasn’t about any one man, not totally, it was about the absence of that spark, of himself. 

The quiet grief of living without it, the ache of wondering if he’d gotten used to the numbness. 

To be haunted by someone he barely knew. To measure every connection against the weight of a presence that never fully arrived. To replay a silence that somehow said more than words ever could. The man hadn’t given him much. Just a pause, a breath, and a fleeting calm. But, in a city that never seemed to stop humming, even a moment of stillness can feel like intimacy. 

Because love doesn’t appear in a single moment. Sometimes, it fades slowly, until all you’re left with is the echo of what once was. 

 

---

 

That night, at Gi-hun’s apartment, the cursor blinked with quiet condescension. With every harsh movement of the cursor, it felt like a reminder of everything he hadn’t said, every silence he’d tried to turn into meaning, every pause he’d tried to make poetic. The screen was blank, but his heart and mind weren’t. 

Gi-hun moved the cursor in lazy circles around the screen of his laptop, hovering over unnamed folders. Half a dozen drafts were settled inside each. Half a dozen thoughts. Half a dozen experiences. He briefly read through each unfinished column. One was titled “The Cheating Curve,” another simply read “Evolution.” 

Each column started in a different place—an overheard conversation on the subway, a half-remembered dream, a story from a friend, a moment he had mistaken for clarity. Some began mid-sentence, like he had been interrupted by the weight of his own doubt. Others were just titles and blank space, almost like an emotional shorthand for things he wasn’t ready to write. 

They were pieces of him, scattered and unedited. Each draft left a trail back to a version of himself no longer fully recognized. Some were angry. Some were raw and gritty. Others were wistful. A few read like letters he never sent. 

How do you finish a thought that was never fully yours to begin with? How do you close a chapter when no one turned the page? 

He closed the folder, but the feeling lingered. An ache—just like before—below the surface. Not about the loss of a spark. Not anymore. This was about the silence he kept filling with other people’s voices. The ones he dated. The ones he imagined. The ones who left before he could ask them to stay. 

Gi-hun’s eyes drifted to another folder, one he remembered creating vividly. He hadn’t opened it or added to it in over a month. It had no label, just the default timestamp and the feeling of dread that came with it. 

He clicked. 

Inside were fragments, just as the folders before. Paragraphs. Sentences that had once been whole but were now severed from their meaning completely. Some were sharp, others delicately careful. Each written in a tone he only used when trying not to sound confused. Or hurt. 

Loving someone who never fully arrives is like holding your breath in a room with no windows. 

The unspoken words of “goodbye” were the only words we seemed to know. 

You can’t build a life on almosts, on brief chances. But you can grieve for one. 

He read the lines over and over in a slow and careful manner, as if they belonged to someone else. Maybe they did. Maybe it was a past self who still clung to the thought of being chosen meant something. A version of Gi-hun who thought that if he waited enough, wanted hard enough, the man he kept writing about would become a reality instead of the one who always vanished between the lines. 

They weren’t columns, not really. They were words of relics. Shards of an infatuation that had frayed at the edges long before anything had the opportunity to start. No names were mentioned out right, but he knew exactly who haunted every word. 

Mr. Big. 

Gi-hun’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, his fingertips pressing lightly onto the keys. 

Some men don’t leave with the slam of a door. They vanish into the crowd like a stream—no sound, no trace, just the slow, unbearable realization that they’re already gone. 

He moved to press the delete key immediately after finishing the sentence. Briefly, as if the words weren’t human enough. 

He minimized the window instead. 

The words stayed. Because he knew that spark was present in the words. He knew that his own voice was there. 

And maybe—just maybe—the dull ache in Gi-hun’s chest settled, even if for a brief moment. 

 

---

 

Stepping into a bookstore he hadn’t meant to enter, carrying books he knew he would never read, Gi-hun adjusted the collar of his shirt against the sticky heat. The day felt heavy and stale, more than it should have. Or maybe it was him. Maybe he was the one feeling that way instead of the world surrounding him. 

Gi-hun wasn’t sure why he walked into the store. To kill time, perhaps? Or maybe it was to feel something other than the heaviness of the world bearing down on him. The books in his hands were just props. Distractions that took the edge off of his nerves. He ran his fingers down the spines of the books and read the backs of novels he wouldn’t buy. There was a delicate sense of comfort in pretending he was looking for something. In pretending he knew what he was doing. 

Because deep down, he wasn’t sure what he needed or what he was doing—only that he had stumbled his way through life this far without finding a direct purpose. Without finding it. 

He could use every excuse in the book. He could say he’s there because of his column, for research, but he knew better. Everyone knew better. 

Absorbed in a moment of contemplation, Gi-hun rounded the corner of the fiction section, gazing at the colorful book jackets, a slim paperback in his hand, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Broad shoulders. Jet black hair. An essence no one could forget.

Mr. Big. 

Same build. Same tailored design. Same effortless pace, like he knew exactly where he was going, what he was doing. 

Gi-hun’s heart caught somewhere between a memory and a reflex. He hadn’t thought he would see the man again. He kept hope, of course, but after the last secret-filled encounter, the light of hope had faded against his better wishes. A pit in his stomach formed when he recalled the man walking away from the low table that night, with his eyes casted downward and the oddly placed wedding ring gleaming brightly on his left hand.

Gi-hun could feel the weight of his thoughts, his mild obsession, of the man beginning to weigh down on him more. The various column excerpts. The mindless narratives he had created. The flimsy navy blue umbrella that still haunted his closet. 

The absence of his presence. The way it lingered louder than his few spoken words ever had. The strange intimacy of silence—how it could fill a room faster than a person. 

The possibility. The maybe. The almost. 

Perhaps the cruelest aspect of longing is not what was lost, but what was never allowed to become. 

Again, without meaning, without thought, he moved. He followed the stranger out of the store and onto the street. One block. Then another. He was walking. To where? Gi-hun didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to let the man fade into the crowd again. 

His sneakers scuffed against the pavement, in sync with the stranger’s steps. It felt involuntary, like his body had remembered something his mind hadn’t caught up to yet. A feeling, a rhythm, a flicker of something masquerading as fate. 

Gi-hun kept his distance. Close enough to follow, far enough to pretend he wasn’t. At one point, the stranger paused to check his phone. Gi-hun stopped too, pretending to read a flyer taped to a lamp post—something about a poetry reading or a lost pet, he wasn’t sure. His eyes never really focused. 

With each step, Gi-hun began to unravel, again, in public, just like he was the first time they met. The fantasy that he had created had begun to rewrite itself as well. 

What would I say if it was him? Would the man say anything at all? Would he smile with those uneven lips like he did before—or worse, not remember me at all?

Gi-hun wasn’t following a person. He was following a feeling. 

A big feeling. 

And, at that moment, it didn’t matter if it was him. If it was Mr. Big. 

Because the ache was real. And sometimes, that’s all you need to believe in something again. 

Block after block blurred into the background as Gi-hun walked with hope pressed tight against his ribs. By the fifth block, a slight panic began to rise, but he reminded himself again that it didn’t matter if it wasn’t him. It was the possibility that kept him moving. The fragile, flickering hope that maybe—just maybe—something unfinished could finish. That a loose thread might be tied. That something could begin. 

That Gi-hun still lingered in Mr. Big's memory the same way he lingered in Gi-hun’s. 

By the seventh block, his palms were clammy. The heavy, stale air from earlier had become too thin. His thoughts were too loud. 

And yet, Gi-hun kept walking. 

Because sometimes, when you’ve been haunted by a question, the silence feels more unbearable than the answer. And even a stranger’s back can start to look like closure. 

By the eighth, Gi-hun’s pace slowed. The city moved around him—car’s rushing past, conversations rising and falling—but he felt outside of it. Suspended. Like time was holding its breath. 

By the ninth, he already knew. Not with certainty, but with a quiet intuition that settles just beneath the skin. The stride wasn’t quite right. The shoulders looked a bit too narrow. The hair was a little too undone. Something in the way he turned his head—it wasn’t him. 

But hope is stubborn. 

So Gi-hun followed him one more block. Just to be sure. Just to exhaust every last avenue, every last thread of maybes. 

And then—he stopped. Turned.

Not him. Not Mr. Big. 

No streak of familiarity in his eyes. No shared ache. Just a stranger, offering him a quick, convoluted glance before walking on. Detached. Unbothered. Unaware that he had held the weight of Gi-hun's entire emotional detour in the curve of his spine. 

Gi-hun stood still, unsure whether to laugh, cry, or apologize to the part of himself that still believed in cinematic timing. 

Shame pricked at the edges, but not for long. Because beneath the embarrassment was something truer: longing. 

He hadn’t been chasing just a man. He’d been chasing a feeling, a high, a euphoric state—one that used to live inside him, but hadn’t visited in a long while. 

And maybe that’s the hardest part of grief. Not mourning the loss of someone, but mourning the version of yourself that existed when they were near. But, then again, how are you to mourn a version of yourself that you never got to see. Never got to experience.

Gi-hun turned around. No closure. No confrontation. Just the sound of his own footsteps heading back toward a life he never meant to pause. This time, without anyone to follow. And somehow, that felt like slipping further away from the version of himself who once believed in being found. 

Notes:

Hey everyone,

I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. It was a tad bit difficult to write, as I wanted to really capture Gi-hun's struggle with his thoughts of In-ho (Mr. Big). I find it very interesting to write about his psyche, as even in canon, he seems to have internal battles. I love writing about Gi-hun spiraling, lol!

I really enjoyed writing the ending of the chapter, as I think that it is a fitting scene to show just how infatuated Gi-hun is with the idea of In-ho, or at least, the idea that he has created of In-ho in his mind. I also wanted to show that he still is a bit broken about his ex-wife. All of these elements will come back in later chapters too, so keep that in mind!

Again, thank you for reading! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

I would love to hear from you guys!

Chapter 5: A Column, a Cigarette, and a Craving

Summary:

Gi-hun continues to wrestle with the quiet ache of a love that never fully bloomed—a spectral presence more felt than known. As the memories of his brief encounters with Mr. Big linger like smoke, he confronts the elusive nature of longing: the blur between reality and imagination, and the grief that comes with the painful process of moving on. Between muted city lights and greasy food, Gi-hun learns that some ghosts don't need chasing—they only need to be seen.

Some grief doesn’t arrive like a tidal wave. 

It drips in. 

Through the cracks. 

Through the pauses in a conversation. 

Through the silence after hearing a word—a sentence—that used to mean something. 

Mr. Big lingered within Gi-hun’s mind, creating a distance more deafening than any confession ever could have. He lingered not in messages or memories, but in the way Gi-hun’s chest continued to tighten. The way his mind became flooded with anticipation every time he saw a square-jawed stranger on the street. The way his stomach fluttered at the slightest notification on his phone, hoping that Big had somehow found him. 

That’s the thing about almosts. They don’t leave clean. They haunt the ordinary. 

Mr. Big was no longer a person. He was a timestamp in a column. A metaphor. A bruise Gi-hun had pressed on so often, he couldn’t tell if it still hurt or if he just liked the dull reminder. 

And slowly, the ache stopped demanding to be named. It stopped asking for the right to be present. 

It quietly faded into the background and just…existed. A quiet hum beneath the noise. A sharp inhale that never quite became an exhale. 

Grief wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it sounded like nothing at all. 

Like an unfinished sentence. 

Like a cigarette burning out in a greasy ashtray. 

Like a man standing beneath a flickering light, reading your heart in black-and-white ink and walking away. 

And that was the cruelest part. 

Gi-hun wasn’t just grieving a person he never knew. He was grieving the silence that followed. 

The part where no one ever said goodbye. 

 

---

 

 

Han River Hearts

By Seong Gi-hun

Seoul Correspondent

Special to the Sentinel

 

“The Ache after the Arc” 

 

There is a certain kind of love story that never has an arc. No beginning, middle, or end. Just a spark—a flash—and then nothing. And yet, somehow, it leaves behind more questions and baggage than the grandest love stories ever do. 

The idea of love is discussed like a flash of lightning. Sometimes a brilliant strike flashes. Brief, electric, and unforgettable. Other times, only the echo of a charged flash is left, leaving only the hum of what almost was. 

However, when we talk about heartbreak, it's tied to time rather than a sudden flash. Years together, memories made, rings exchanged, last names changed, and lives bound together forever. But what about the heartbreak that happens after one conversation? One glance? One night that felt like it should've been the start of something, but never was? 

The kind of longing that doesn’t scream. The type of grief that builds its case over time. 

A type of hurt that just stays. 

I’ve had those who remembered my birthday, my mother’s name, my worst habits. I’ve had those who promised to stay forever, but leave as soon as things got difficult.  

But I’ve also mourned strangers. 

Ghosts. 

People I barely knew, who still managed to carve themselves into my mind with the precision of a neurosurgeon. Not because of who they were, but because of who I thought they might be. Who I let them become inside my head. 

Mr. Big. 

That’s the most dangerous kind of love. The one that’s imagined. The version of them you construct from one gesture, one perfectly timed smile, one regretful look at a bar that made you feel…seen. Or known. Or at least like a better version of yourself. 

We don’t always chase the person. Sometimes, we chase the version of ourselves we become when they look at us a certain way. When silence felt full. When the air felt changed. When possibility felt like oxygen. 

The whiplash of that kind of almost-love, almost something, is quiet. It doesn’t scream. It follows you into grocery stores, into conversations, into the spaces between sentences. And, maybe, that’s what hurts most of all—when you realize you’ve created an entire persona, an entire character, around someone who barely said a word. 

And when it’s over before it even begins, there is nothing to bury. No autopsy. No answers. No memories to pick apart piece by piece. Just a question mark you carry like a bullet in your coat pocket. 

We know how to grieve a breakup. But how do we grieve a beginning that never began? How do you finish a thought that was never fully yours to begin with? How do you close a chapter when no one turned the page?

How do you grieve a figment of your imagination you convinced yourself was reality?

Sometimes, we forget that mystery can linger longer than love. That it’s possible to feel wrecked by someone who was never truly yours, who will likely never be yours. And that closure isn’t always a door that shuts—it’s often the moment you stop knocking.

And maybe the cruelest trick of all is that mystery lingers longer than love ever would. Longer that it ever could.

 

---

 

Gi-hun read the column one more time before submitting the final draft to his editor. Not to proofread—he’d done that hours ago—but to feel it. To feel the weight of his own words, the train of his own thoughts, to trace sentences like scar tissue, searching for the places that still throbbed. He read the column again because he wanted to make sure it still hurt in the right places. 

The version of himself who had written those words just a few short hours ago felt distant now. A little raw. A little pathetic. But mostly, honest. 

He closed his laptop, shutting it slowly. And for a moment, he felt the weight of having nothing left to write. It was a freeing feeling, at least for a moment. Before the panic for next week’s column arrived. 

He cracked a window open, even the air outside was damp and vaguely metallic. Maybe he wanted to hear the world breathe in a place that forgets to exhale. Maybe he was hoping the night breeze would carry something in. Or carry him out. 

In the distance, sirens wailed softly and the sound of the occasional bicycle zipped past—Seoul never slept, not really—but in his Ssangmun-dong apartment, there was a hush that felt almost earned. 

Gi-hun left his phone face down on the nightstand. No scrolling for fresh faces. No phantom texts. Just the quiet flicker of city lights on his ceiling and the distant hum of a life still living. The ache was still there in his chest, below his skin—coiled and wrapped around his ribs. But it had dulled into something less sharp. 

Not closure. 

Not healing. 

Just a kind of emotional exhale. And in the quiet just before sleep, Gi-hun realized something: 

The ache hadn’t softened because he was gone from Gi-hun’s memory. It had softened because he’d finally let himself say everything that had been building inside him. He finally said everything he hadn’t. 

And, for now, on this damp, metallic night—where the city moved like a distant tide around him—it was enough. 

 

---

 

Gi-hun woke to a low chime. 

Not the intrusive kind—just a soft buzz against the wooden nightstand, like the world politely asking for his attention. 

Squinting into the light of his phone, he saw it. A text from Sang-woo. 

“ Well. Damn. ”

Gi-hun blinked, still half-asleep, his cheek creased from the pillow. He let his mind catch up and the words sink in for a moment. His late night column entry must have been printed that morning. He looked back to the text message, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Those three syllables carried more weight than most reviews. 

Another ping came soon after. 

“ Also—who is Mr. Big? And why haven’t you mentioned him to me?”

That made him laugh, low and real, the kind that reverberates in the chest. Not because the mystery had been solved, or that Sang-woo was apparently catching up on months-old columns—but because it somehow made him feel less alone in it. 

Like someone had peeked inside the quiet chaos of his head, looked at the internal battle that had been waging for over two months, and decided to stay a minute. There was something reassuring about being seen—especially after writing about someone who never looked back once they disappeared, who constantly invaded every waking thought Gi-hun had. 

Gi-hun sent three laughing emoticons and tossed the phone beside him. He rolled on his back, eyes tracing the familiar cracks in his ceiling like constellations. The morning light was muted, filtering through the gauzy curtains in strips of soft gray and gold. Outside, Seoul rumbled on like it had the night before—buses hissing, doors slamming, someone yelling into a phone—but inside his apartment, time moved like honey. 

The kettle clicked on in the kitchen, one of the only reliable habits he had left. He didn’t move, not yet. He just lay there. Present. 

There was no social media buzz. No sudden spikes in emails. No dating app matches. Just the quiet relief of having said what needed saying. 

Because some things aren’t about attention. They don’t ask for applause or outrage or analysis. Some things are quieter than that. 

Some things are less about who reads them and more about who you stop writing around after they’re done. 

Gi-hun stayed in bed for a few minutes longer, the sheets pulled just high enough to feel like armor. For the first time in weeks, there wasn’t a headline forming in his mind. No metaphor chasing him into the shower. No ghost tapping on the edge of a blank document. 

There was just stillness. 

And in a city that never really stops, sometimes that’s the loudest peace you can get. 

 

---

 

The light had shifted by the time Gi-hun had thought to check his phone again. It was sitting face down on his nightstand, right where he’d abandoned it after Sang-woo’s second text. 

The coffee he had made that morning had gone cold. The afternoon sun had dipped below the neighboring rooftops, leaving the apartment wrapped in that dusty shade of blue-gray that made the corners feel softer. That made everything feel dim, still, and unfinished. 

He glanced at the screen. One missed call. One voicemail. His editor. 

Gi-hun pressed play. 

“Seong, it’s me. Wanted to talk about your column. It was good. Sharp. Vulnerable. Next week, let’s pivot a bit. Something lighter. A palate cleanser of sorts. Let me know if you have any questions—or if you’re still breathing. Talk soon.” 

The voicemail ended with a soft click. Efficient and measured. Just enough room for care without letting sentiment bleed through. The column was a clean hit. One of his better pieces. And a reminder: next week, something lighter. A “palate cleanser.” 

Gi-hun stood still, phone loosely gripped in his hand, the words hanging in the air like steam after a hot shower—vanishing, but still warm. That was the thing about writing from the heart: once it’s out, people call it brave. Then they ask for something breezier. 

He didn’t blame his editor. That was the rhythm of this life—bleed one week, banter the next. 

He set the phone down on the counter and moved toward the balcony, letting his hand rest briefly against the cool glass before pushing the door aside. Outside, the city shimmered in soft yellows and blues. Cars rolled by. Signs blinked in a tired cadence. Life continued with a practiced indifference only a city could master. 

Was he breathing? Was he okay? 

The question sat with him like the coldness of ashes after a fire was gone. 

He hadn’t become emotional when writing the column. But he had flinched. He had pulled the ache out of his body, line by line, and pinned it to a page like a specimen—something once living, now labeled. And now, it was strange. How something that had once sat so heavily in his chest, a series of thoughts that once flooded his mind, now lived outside of him. 

Out in the world. Folded between horoscopes and real estate ads. To be read by people he would never meet. To be read by people he wished he could meet. 

He wondered if anyone was reading it on a train. If someone saw themselves in it. If someone felt understood. Gi-hun wondered if he was reading it. If somehow, some way, Mr. Big had found himself with a copy of the Seoul Sentinel and was reading the impact that he had on a total stranger. 

But, Gi-hun didn’t need to know. He didn’t need to wonder. Not today. Because for once, he hadn’t written to be known. He hadn’t written to fulfill a deadline, not really. He had written to remember something he was starting to forget: 

That longing can be its own kind of love. That obsession can fade into a ghost.  

Gi-hun didn’t call his editor back. Didn’t text anyone. He didn’t pour a drink. Didn’t start working on next week’s draft. He just stood there, his body leaning against the ledge, the silence pressing in.

Life moved on without him needing to narrate it. 

Mr. Big would still live in the corners of his mind. In the way Gi-hun’s chest tightened at the sight of a navy umbrella, in the spaces between other people’s names, in the version of himself he only became when he imagined him. 

But he wasn’t chasing the euphoric feeling anymore. He was just letting it be. 

Some pieces demand a part of you. Others return one.  

But this one…did both. 

And for once, that felt like enough. Not a victory. Not a wound. Just enough. 

 

---

 

The place was loud, fluorescent, and un-apologetically greasy. 

Faded posters lined the walls alongside handwritten menu specials—half in Korean, half in English, and mainly smudged. A neon chicken mascot blinked in the corner, missing an eye and part of a beak. The air was thick with rich oil, vinegar, and something sweet that clung to Gi-hun’s clothes before the second round of soju even hit the table. 

They were in Gangseo-gu—just far enough from the gloss of central Seoul to feel honest, to feel free. Expensive cars lined the street, but the buildings hadn’t been renovated since the 90s. Gi-hun liked it. Jung-bae barely noticed. 

With a bang on the table, Jung-bae set his soju glass down. “Alright,” he said, elbow-deep in sticky, red-glazed wings, “here’s the thing. I bet on this horse named ‘Bibimbap Breakdown.’ You see the problem here?” 

Gi-hun blinked at him, unimpressed, while gingerly peeling the skin off of a drumstick. “Sure.” 

“The horse sounded fast. Fiery. Like she had something to prove.” 

“Sounds like every person I’ve dated recently.” Gi-hun popped a piece of the greasy skin into his mouth. “But I still wouldn’t bet my rent on it.” 

Jung-bae shook his head, shrugged, and reached for another glazed wing. “Look, I thought the horse had that spark. Like it would win big or ruin the entire track.” 

Gi-hun bit down on the drumstick. “And,” he said through a mouthful of chicken, “did your stallion win?”

“Came in last,” Jung-bae groaned as he wiped his sauce-ridden fingers. “But, damn, the horse was elegant.”

Gi-hun smiled. He swallowed the mouthful of chicken he had bit off and took a sip of soju. The alcohol was warm from being too close to the fryer and tasted faintly like licorice and smoke. It burned in all the right ways. 

We all bet on the wrong thing sometimes. A horse. A friend. A relationship. A future that only ever existed in our heads. 

The food was too greasy. The air was too dense. Gi-hun’s wild hair curled on his forehand. But at that moment, it felt good to laugh with Jung-bae. It felt human. 

Jung-bae leaned back, squinting. “You’re thinking about something.” 

Gi-hun tilted his head. “No. Just…breathing.” 

Emotions soften in the company of someone who lets you express your true self without explaining. 

They finished the bottle slowly, drinking more than they meant to. Letting the neon, the buzz of sidewalk chatter, and the scent of vinegar and frying oil settle around them like a worn blanket. After a while, Jung-bae stood up and huffed. Gi-hun watched as his friend patted down his own torso, as if he was searching for something. 

“Need something?” Gi-hun asked, his words slurring slightly from the soju. 

“Nah,” Jung-bae grumbled. “Just searching for my cigarettes. I bought a new pack yesterday…” he trailed off as he continued to pat himself down. “Could’ve sworn—dammit.” He pushed his chair back with a dramatic screech and stood, checking under the table. A greasy napkin stuck to the bottom of his shoe. 

Gi-hun reached into his own breast pocket, pulling out a near-empty pack of Raison BLUE. “Yours are probably in the cab. Here,” he said, holding out the blue and white carton. 

Jung-bae took it without looking, the kind of exchange that didn’t need thanks anymore. The blue cat on the cigarette carton swirling its tail in temptation, in anticipation of the next light, the next relapse. It was a design that was created by someone who knew how to brand regret with charm. 

“You’re a saint,” Jung-bae mumbled around the crumpled cigarette. 

“Not hardly.” Gi-hun sipped what was left of his soju. It was lukewarm now, the licorice taste had faded into something sharp, something that made his throat tighten. 

They say comfort soothes the soul. But late at night, under fluorescent lights and the haze of chicken grease, one had to wonder—when did comfort become just another word for familiar pain? 

The shared bottle of soju sat heavy between the bone pile of chicken wings and a soaked folded napkin. Everything felt half-used, like the night had already ended and they were just seeing the end credits roll in real time. Smoke curled lazily between them, catching in the neon and softening the edges of the plastic signage above. 

Gi-hun lit a cigarette from the end of Jung-bae’s. The fire passed between them wordlessly. 

“Do you ever wonder,” Gi-hun asked, exhaling slowly, “if we keep doing this because it's comforting, or because comfort has turned into another form of pain?”

Jung-bae didn’t answer right away. He leaned back in his seat, eyes half-lidded like he was nearly asleep, and blew a perfect ring toward the broken mascot sign. “Six of one. Half a pack of the other.” 

Gi-hun looked at Jung-bae, tired and amused and slightly buzzed. Somewhere nearby, a delivery scooter sputtered to life. Someone laughed too loud in the alley. The city kept humming like always. Like it didn’t care if you unraveled a little—as long as you cleaned up after yourself. 

Maybe that was the real comfort: knowing that in Seoul—knowing that at home—in all its cluttered and chaotic rhythm, would hold you no matter how many nights you lost track of what you were trying to escape. 

Because sometimes, comfort was sitting at a greasy table at night, surrounded by bones and even worse metaphors, holding space for the next collapse. 

And if you’re lucky, every once in a while, someone handed you a cigarette and didn’t ask why your hands were shaking. 

Jung-bae crushed his cigarette in the makeshift ashtray of a paper towel holder, brushing off invisible crumbs from his clothes. “Let’s go. Before we start ordering another round.” 

Gi-hun followed, grabbing the carton with the smug blue cat and slipping it into his breast pocket like an artifact from a night that wouldn’t leave him. The outside air hit him immediately—humid, heavy, the kind of early fall stickiness that clung to your skin and made the city feel like it was breathing right against your neck. 

The street was half-lit and humming—quiet but never still. A taxi idled with its blinkers on, a drunk couple argued in the distance like they were performing for an invisible audience, an animal scuttled by in a nearby alley. 

Gi-hun stepped onto the curve, his jacket smelling of old oil and pepper paste. The scent stuck with him like an echo of the night. Messy. Comforting. A little sad. 

“I read this week’s column, you know,” Jung-bae started, leaning against the gritty wall of the back alley beside the chicken shop. “It was good. I liked it.” 

Gi-hun glanced over briefly, caught off guard. The street lights flickered above them, casting long shadows across concrete. “Yeah? Didn’t think you were still reading?” 

“I wasn’t,” Jung-bae shrugged. “My wife told me to read it. Asked if you had mentioned anything…” he trailed off, biting his lip. “But it felt…honest. Like the old stuff. Back when Eun-ji was around.” 

Gi-hun curled his lips in an expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, the denim grating harshly against his slightly calloused skin. 

Sometimes, it takes honesty to mind you where yours went. You start out writing about the city and other people’s messy lives and dramatic confessions. But somewhere along the way, the pen turns inward—and then, your own heartbreak is the punchline. Or the plot. 

Jung-bae shifted his weight. “You wrote it like you meant it,” his tone was softer now. “Even the part about…Mr. Big or whoever that is. I could feel it.” 

Gi-hun looked down, toeing a crack in the pavement. The mystery guy. Mr. Big. The maybe-fate, maybe-folly man he’d kept finding—and losing—in the folds of the city, in the folds of his mind. 

“He’s probably nothing,” Gi-hun muttered. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Sometimes it's the still moments—a lingering look, a shared silence—that leave you spinning. Maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it wasn't an obsession or infatuation. Maybe it wasn’t a feeling worth naming anyway. 

Jung-bae didn’t press. He never did when it mattered. He just patted Gi-hun roughly on the shoulder and started to disappear back into the fluorescent din of the chicken shop. “I’m going to settle our bill. I’ll be back in a few.” 

Gi-hun tilted his head down in acknowledgment. He lingered outside, the night pressing against him like a question he hadn’t quite asked yet. He pulled the carton of cigarettes out and looked regretfully at the last stick. The edges of the carcinogen were torn. Cured tobacco began to spill out from the end. Still, he plucked it out and raised it to his lips, lighting it in an instant. 

Another cab rolled past, the hum of traffic momentarily rising above the clatter of plates inside. Gi-hun scanned the golden illuminated street. Just more city. More people he’d never know. He took another drag of smoke and flickered his eyes to the police station across the street. No one was being arrested. No one was forced out of a cop car. 

But there—half-shadowed under the flickering light of the station sign—stood a man. 

Still. Casual. Familiar in a maddening way. 

His black coat slightly crumpled under his tactical vest. A slim cigarette in one hand. And in the other—the unmistakable fold of the Seoul Sentinel. 

Gi-hun’s column. His face. His ache, in printed black and white ink.

He was reading it. 

He was reading him. 

Mr. Big. 

You think you’re writing to forget. But some pages carry weight. Enough to cross borders. Enough to cross oceans. Enough to bring back the ghosts that haunt your every thought. 

His pulse kicked. His lips loosened around the cigarette in his mouth. The smoke stung his eyes, but he didn’t blink. It was him. It had to be. No edits, no projections. The man, not the myth he’d built in his silence. 

The moment you start to let go, the moment you try to find some kind of internal peace, the moment that you try to stop thinking about them, is always the moment they appear. 

Gi-hun stayed rooted on the sidewalk, his mind waging war, his eyes widening by the second—yet his feet couldn’t—wouldn’t—move. 

Across the street, Big didn’t move. He stood beneath the flickering signage, reading slowly, carefully—like the words were something sacred, not printed in black ink on cheap paper. Gi-hun’s words. Gi-hun’s name. Gi-hun’s voice folded quietly into the columns of the Seoul Sentinel. 

He didn’t wave. 

He didn’t call out. 

He didn’t cross. 

There are moments that don’t ask for attention. Only acknowledgement. That something happened. That someone mattered. That somewhere, out there, the story still lingers. 

A breeze passed by, lifting a piece of paper against the curb, stirring the cigarette smoke that wrapped around Gi-hun like a gauze. Mr. Big still hadn’t looked up. 

For a second, Gi-hun thought maybe he never would. Maybe the universe wasn’t pushing him toward a new path. Maybe the universe had offered this moment not for reunion, but for recognition. For proof that even silence can leave something behind. 

Many pray for moments like that. They wish every night for their lost love to return to them in cinematic timing. But, then again, one has to give legs to a prayer to make it come true. But not Gi-hun. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. 

Then, just as softly as he’d appeared every other time in Gi-hun’s life, Big folded the paper—neatly, precisely, like a man still trying to control how things ended. He tucked it under his arm—Gi-hun’s smiling head shot visible from the crook of his elbow—and turned. He walked back into the station without looking back. 

Gone. 

Gi-hun stood there for a moment longer, the ember of his last cigarette now cold between his lips. 

Not every ghost needs to be chased. Some need to be seen. And sometimes, that’s enough.

But it wasn’t. 

It would never be enough. 

Gi-hun dropped the cigarette. Crushed it beneath his heel. And exhaled. He let the moment settle like dust, then turned—quietly, without a word—and started walking. The ache in his chest reappeared. Stronger. Heavier. Blocking each chamber of his heart. 

Some departures don’t need announcements. Only the sound of footsteps finally moving in the opposite direction. 

Notes:

Hey everyone,

Thank you so much for reading! I really enjoyed writing the column entry for this chapter. I thought it encased a lot of emotion that some people (myself included) could relate to. I also loved writing the ending of the chapter as well. I like how easy dialogue can flow between Gi-hun and Jung-bae, so I enjoyed fleshing out their dynamic in this chapter.

And Gi-hun having his "And suddenly, there he was, wearing Armani on Sunday. Mr. Big," moment!

Also, sorry for the later update. I know I said 2-3 days, but I've been playing tennis and watching Wimbledon in my spare time, so I've put off posting this chapter for a day lol! (which does give me an idea for my next story!!)

Anyway, thank you again for reading. All the kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, and comments are very much appreciated!!! Here is my Tumblr if you want to follow! Please recommend this story to your friends too!

I would love to hear from you guys!!

Chapter 6: A Passing, a Pulse, and a Name

Summary:

Gi-hun convinced himself that he had made peace the inevitable—that Mr. Big will always haunt the corners of his life, lingering in the margins and shadows, until someone arrives who quiets the ache the same way he once did.

That is, until the ghost he fictionalized reappears, very real, holding his words. What follows isn't a confrontation, but a reckoning: with memory, identity, and the story that refused to stay buried on print.

Obsession is a gentle word when what you’re doing is constructing an entire narrative in your head with someone who hasn’t said a single word back. It sounds romantic—tragic, even—until you realize you’ve memorized the shape of something not real. 

You start filling in the blanks for them. You play both parts of a conversation you never had. 

But the worst part? 

You convince yourself it’s intimacy. 

And Gi-hun—he knew this. 

He had dressed Mr. Big up in column ink and closure, and still he returned. Not with flowers or answers, but with a crinkled newspaper, Gi-hun’s words printed clean and exposed, and an expression he couldn’t read. 

Gi-hun told himself the ache was over. It was tired, exhausted, not real. But then he saw him . Not in a dream. Not on the page. But in real time, again. In real shoes and real breath. And something inside of him cracked. Not from total heartbreak, but from recognition. Because this wasn’t about him anymore, it was about who Gi-hun had transformed into from the absence of being seen. 

So he gave legs to a prayer, wrote the ending himself, and spoke aloud a name he’d never dared ask for. 

But Gi-hun knew. It was never about the name. It was about being real. 

And now, finally, he was. 

 

---

 

You write one thing. You put it on the page. You bleed, just enough to call it catharsis. And for a moment—one soft, clean breath—you believe you have bled your entire cardiovascular system out. You believe you’ve let every poisoned blood cell lay bare on the page. You believe every ounce of grief has been flushed from your system, stained in velvet red ink on a blank canvas. 

But grief doesn’t file itself away. And ghosts don’t read endings. 

Gi-hun had written him out. Word by word. Line by line. 

He had folded him into a syntax of memory, fictionalized him just enough to give the illusion of closure. He turned the heavy ache into a metaphor. The absence of spark into dramatic tension. The lack of his own voice into a kind of measured control. 

He had pressed send, closed his laptop, and told himself that he had laid everything bare. He had said everything that needed to be said. Gi-hun had done what writers do—transformed longing into something publishable. He had turned his own feelings, his own emotions, into a profitable story for lonely women and men to read. 

And for a moment, a few light hearted days, he believed it. 

He walked lighter. Drank heavier. Let his phone die without panic. He even laughed at a stupid joke Ali had made. 

Gi-hun had nearly convinced himself that after the column entry—“The Ache after the Arc”—that whatever that was, whoever he was, would soon be folded into the past like a shirt no longer worn. 

He was convinced that Mr. Big would always haunt the corners of his mind as a lingering “what-if,” a shadow in the margins, or something, or someone, he’d never meet again outside the pages of his column.  

Until he reappeared. 

Not in a memory. 

Not in a dream. 

But in real time. In real shoes. Standing under a police station signage, holding Gi-hun’s very real words in his very real hands. 

And suddenly, forgetting felt like the setup to a cruel punchline. Like the joke had always been on him. 

The heavy ache from before didn’t return. 

It detonated. 

Instead of coiling around his ribs and centering in the chambers of his heart, it spilled into every space Gi-hun had carefully arranged with distraction. Deadline. Soju. Half-finished book. Another column, another column, another column. And yet, it only took a few seconds—one glance, one newspaper—for everything to crash down. For the loose thread hanging from Gi-hun’s body to begin to unravel once and for all. Completely. Silently. 

Obsession never really leaves. It just lies dormant until something wakes it up. A look. A name. A ghost holding a page folded in half. The ache of longing transitioning into something sinister. Something twisted. 

It haunted Gi-hun’s every thought. 

His column. His heart, disguised as insight. The little head shot no one else ever noticed. 

And what haunted Gi-hun the most wasn’t that he unexpectedly saw it. It didn’t bother him that he offhandedly saw him reading the column while taking a drag from a cheap cigarette. It was the fact that he didn’t react. He stood there, feet cemented to the ground, watching as the man of his frayed and haunting infatuation read the words in which he inspired. 

But what also bothered Gi-hun was the lack of reaction from Big. It bothered him that he read and folded the column and walked away like the words hadn’t been more than a passing read for him. Like it never existed at all. No twitch of an eyebrow. No quick upturn of the lips. No crease of the forehead. 

Just quiet smoke from a slim cigarette and the passing of cars nearby. 

It bothered Gi-hun—how he had written something raw, something unfiltered, something pulled directly from the ache flaring inside his body—and treated it like a receipt. A casual glance. A folded page. No pause. No change in posture. Just…reading. 

Like it didn’t matter. 

There’s nothing more humiliating than baring your soul on the page and realizing that the person it was meant for might have skimmed it. 

The thought gnawed at him, unrelenting. 

But he may have forgotten you.

That voice—quiet, insistent, the one that arrived only when he was still enough to hear it—had been whispering it for days. 

What if he didn’t remember the umbrella? The small, drenched awning? The droplets of rain that dotted his tailored clothes like stars? 

Or the market? The plums? The signs? The constant bustle and hustle of those around them?

Or the dimly lit bar? The bottle of peach soju? The grilled appetizers? The ring? The hesitant way he walked away from Gi-hun without so much as a smile?

What if, to him, Gi-hun was just another voice in print? 

Another person writing about love in all the wrong places. Another person looking for love in too many faces. Another person who felt like love was something that had the right to be defined. 

Maybe there had been no flash of recognition this time. No pause. No moment of remembrance crossing his features. Just a man reading his column in passing. 

And somehow, that stung more than silence. 

 

---

 

He spiraled quietly. 

There were no grand breakdowns. No tears shed. No episodes of momentary psychosis. Just the constant hum of questions Gi-hun couldn’t turn down. A loop he rewound so many times, it stopped feeling like memory and started to sound like sacred scripture. 

Gi-hun imagined him rereading the piece. Slowly this time. 

Maybe he paused at the third paragraph. Maybe he smiled. Maybe he flinched. Maybe he showed an ounce of emotion in this fantasy. 

Then he imagined the opposite—him skimming it absentmindedly between the other pieces in the Seoul Sentinel, forgetting it before the page was even turned, which was strangely close to reality. 

And the worst possibility of all: that he read it without recognizing himself in it. That he read it, and didn’t feel a thing. That he had no idea that every ounce of raw emotion and craving seeping from Gi-hun’s words were about him. That a stranger he had bumped into three times had created an entire persona for him without even knowing his name. 

Gi-hun wondered what his name felt like in Mr. Big’s mouth. Whether he said it aloud or just let it settle behind his teeth, unspoken. Or if his name was so heavy on Big’s tongue, that he couldn’t help but chant it out like a mantra every time it appeared on the page. He wondered if seeing his name printed there beneath a column meant to bury him made his stomach drop, or barely ripple. 

He told himself—over cigarettes, in unsent messages to Sang-woo, in the quietest hour of the morning—that it wasn’t about Big anymore. 

It was about his arc. His growth. His voice. His spark. 

But that was a lie he dressed up in empowerment. 

Because, in reality, every night he rewrote the last sighting in his head like he was editing reality itself. 

Tweaking the lightning. Sharpening his delivery. Giving himself better lines. 

He directed the scene like a man trying to win an argument with a memory. And still, the coiled ache remained. Not just because of who Big was—but because of who Gi-hun had been when he first looked at him. When Mr. Big first gave Gi-hun the navy umbrella under a flooded awning. When he didn’t speak, but his regretful eyes still said everything. 

It wasn’t about the man. Not really. It was about the feeling he summoned—the one that made the rest of life feel gray scale in comparison. It was the relief of the ache that was missed the most. 

At least, that’s what Gi-hun told himself. 

So he lingered. 

He lingered in conversations Gi-hun had exited halfway. In stairwells with weak signal, refreshing every app on his phone, hoping that something might pop up. In front of the mirror, rehearsing indifference like it was a second language. 

He took the long way home nearly every afternoon, made special trips to Gangseo-gu, ate at the chicken shop across from the station once a week, and pretended not to notice that every road seemed to curve back to him. 

Sometimes he lingered longer than he needed to—he ordered more soju than a solo dinner required. Other times, he walked past the station without stopping, and pretended that the detour was practical, coincidental. Like the kind of lie you tell yourself so often it starts to feel like geography. 

We all have our own version of this. A route we invent to get closer to what we lost. A place that lets us keep pretending the past is still unfolding. 

Gi-hun never went inside the station. That would have been too direct. Too real. But he’d watch from the back alley beside the chicken shop. He’d watch from the windows of stores. He’d watch the flicker of the lights above the station. The rhythm of comings and goings. Hoping, maybe, that Big would be there again—that he would be standing there, carrying a newspaper with Gi-hun’s face on it, and waiting. 

But the truth was, Gi-hun didn’t know exactly what he wanted from Mr. Big. A smile? A look? Something more? 

Definitely something more, but maybe all he wanted was proof that a version of Big existed outside of print. Outside of his mind. 

But, then again, maybe he didn’t want anything. Maybe he just wanted to know that this stranger still existed in his story—even if only in vague margins. 

 

---

 

The same table from before. The same sticky surface. The same smudged menu. The same flickering mascot. The same walls stained with time and soy sauce. 

Gi-hun sat alone this time. No Jung-bae.  

The oil still clung to the air, with a heavy and unmistakable presence—somewhere between comfort and nausea. His glass of water sweated beside a plate of untouched wings, the same too-slick, too-sweet glaze glinting beneath the overhead light like lacquered guilt. 

He didn’t order them because he was hungry. Rather, he ordered them because he remembered eating them when he still believed forgetting was possible. 

Sometimes we revisit places not to relive the memory, but to confirm we survived it. To see if the ghosts show up…or if you do instead. 

The TV on the wall played a muted news program. Two older men across the restaurant discussed the latest baseball scores. A teenage couple two tables down laughed too loudly, clinking their glasses over shared fries, the sound cutting into Gi-hun’s solitude like static. 

He picked at the napkin in his lap. Peeled it into thin strips. 

His phone sat face-down beside the plate, screen black and gone cold. 

He wasn’t waiting, not really. But a part of him always was. Maybe it was a habit. Maybe it was hope, dressed up as coincidence. 

He glanced around. 

The same fluorescent hum. The same heat from the fryer in the back, rising in waves. The place hadn’t changed since that night—but he had. 

The detonated ache wasn’t sharp like it was before, it felt tired. It made every crevice it spilled into tired and exhausted. Worn in, like the chair cushion beneath him. Slightly sunken in the middle where bodies had sat too long. 

Obsession doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it just hums—low, constant. Like background noise you’ve learned to live with. You stop noticing until you’re alone in a room that’s too quiet, and it’s the only thing left in the air. 

He stared at the wings one last time. Cold. Glossy. A monument to appetite lost. 

Then he pushed his drink away—untouched—and stood up. Not with purpose, not yet. But with a weight in his body that told him movement was the only option left. 

The ache didn’t leave the table when Gi-hun did. 

It followed. 

 

---

 

Gi-hun didn’t rush. 

The door gave a low groan as it shut behind him, sealing the warmth and grease inside. 

Outside, the air hit his skin like a second thought—cooler than it should have for an autumn night, thick with old rain and dying leaves. He stepped off of the curb and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. The flame jittered in the breeze before catching a flicker in the corner of his mouth. 

The sidewalk was mostly empty. The shops next door were shuttered for the night. Above him, a faulty sign buzzed as if it had something to say but couldn’t find the words. 

He leaned against the same brick wall as he’d leaned on with Jung-bae, as he did the other countless times he had come to the shop to watch the station across the street. 

The night was almost a reflection of that night—only this time, the silence felt heavier. 

No sharp commentary. No shared drag of a cigarette between friends. 

Just him. 

Some places don’t haunt you because of what happened there. They haunt you because of what didn't.

Gi-hun looked across the street, expecting nothing. Or rather, expecting to not expect him anymore. It had become a game of disappointment each time he did. Each time, he didn’t show. And each time, the ache exploded.  It had become a ritual, almost. A small glance, a small scan to be sure, and then walk away with pretended indifference. 

A passing bus blurred the view, its lights smearing across the damp pavement like streaked mascara. He took a drag of his cheap cigarette. The smoke curled back toward his face, just like it had before. 

But instead of stinging and sudden appearances, there was nothing. 

Gi-hun’s eyes dropped to the pavement. His heartbeat settled into something closer to calm. The ritual was complete. No man. No newspaper. No sign of relief. He began to walk away, his hands tucked tightly into the pockets of his coat. 

But then—

Something pulled him. 

A second glance. A second scan of the sidewalk. 

Just to be sure. 

And there—a figure. 

Half-shadowed beneath the station awning. Still. Upright. Familiar. 

Not moving. Just existing. 

Gi-hun’s eyes locked onto the coat first. Then the shape of the figure’s shoulders. The way they leaned—not out of fatigue, but out of ownership, like the city bent slightly to them. 

His breath caught in his chest. Every inch of him blanched against the possibility of being wrong again. But then the figure shifted. 

Just slightly. 

Just enough for the streetlight to catch the side of their face. 

It was him . 

Not a projection. Not a memory. Not an invention of his ache. 

It was Mr. Big. 

Again.

Some ghosts don’t fade, they only sharpen with time. And some people, no matter how many times you let them go, still know exactly where to find you.

This time, the street between them didn’t look like much—just concrete, crosswalk lines, a soft flicker of light spilling down from a lamppost. It wasn’t an entire ocean that beckoned Gi-hun to cross and become lost in its current. 

But, still, the small distance felt like a mile. 

Gi-hun stayed frozen, cigarette burning between his lips once more, his breath caught between fear and inevitability. 

This was the setting. 

It wasn’t exact, but it was close. 

The same chicken shop. The same hour of night. The same actions. The same scent of oil and cigarette smoke clinging to his hair. 

The script felt eerily familiar. 

I’d rewritten this moment too many times to count. What I’d wear. What I’d say. How he’d look at me. How I’d look away first—like I had won something. 

But none of those versions included his aching heart kicking hard against his ribs. None of them included this kind of stillness—of hesitance. 

He could turn away again, like he had before. Go back to his apartment and let the ghost remain a ghost. 

Time didn’t slow, but something within Gi-hun did. He let the smoke sit in his lungs before exhaling, steadying himself. The ache, the obsession, the rewriting of moments—it all pulsed behind his ribs. But this time it didn’t coil. It settled. 

But tonight, something in him was done with waiting. With haunting. With ache dressed as romance. This time, he wanted to write the ending himself. 

So—he moved. One step. Then another. A slow crossing. Each footfall steady and deliberate. 

Mr. Big didn’t move. He wasn’t reading this time. He wasn't pacing or smoking. He was just…there. Standing outside the police station. Same posture. Same crumpled coat. Same copy of the Seoul Sentinel from before, tucked under the crook of his elbow. 

He didn’t see Gi-hun. He wasn’t looking. 

And somehow that hurt more. 

The rhythm of Gi-hun’s heels on the pavement matched the quickening in his chest. Each step felt louder than it should have been. Each slight movement echoed like a question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. He was halfway across the street before he looked up. 

A small shift. A glance. 

His eyes found him—and held. 

And in that split second, something dislodged in Gi-hun’s chest. A quiet, dangerous thrill. The kind that lives in the gap between fiction and fact. Between a name and a person. Between everything written, and everything left unsaid. 

His pulse surged, faster than his thoughts could keep up. 

There is a beat your heart makes before it betrays you. Before it remembers what it used to feel like around someone else’s silence. It’s not love. It's recognition. And it’s louder than any sentence I ever wrote about him. 

He kept walking. Slow, steady, with the ache continuing to bloom. 

Big didn’t smile. Didn’t move. He watched Gi-hun approach, like he wasn’t quite sure if he was real. 

When Gi-hun finally stood in front of him, the city hushed completely. Not literally—but in the way it does when something groundbreaking is foreshadowed. The hum of tires over asphalt. The soft buzz of conversation. The low throb of a distant radio inside a passing cab. All of it fell away. 

Gi-hun didn't smile either. Didn’t reach for softness. With his expression unreadable and his voice lower than he ever heard himself sound, he broke the world of silence between them. 

“I…I don’t know if you remember me.” 

The words hung there, fragile and strange, like they belonged to someone else entirely. As if he hadn’t already written and rewritten the moment in his head. As if he hadn’t watched this very man vanish and reappear like a pattern he was too afraid to name. 

How do you forget someone who never really introduced themselves, but still managed to live in the back of your mind like a ghost that paid rent on time. Is that what I am to him? Because he’s that and certainly more to me.

Big could have answered the statement in a thousand ways. He could’ve laughed. He could’ve given him a name and walked off with an uneven smile plastered on his lips. 

But instead, he let the silence after Gi-hun’s words stretch a little longer. 

Let him sit in it. 

Feel it. 

And then—softly—Gi-hun added,  “Sometimes I think I made you up.”

A beat passed. Big looked at Gi-hun, really looked. And this time, his expression shifted—just slightly. Something between recognition and regret. “Sometimes I think I made me up too.” 

There are moments that don’t answer questions. They just confirm you were asking the right ones all along. 

Gi-hun shifted slightly, like the pavement had suddenly become too unsteady beneath him. 

Big stood still. 

A foot of space between them, but it felt narrower than memory and wider than everything else. 

He looked at Gi-hun again—slower this time. Not searching. Not avoiding. Just seeing. 

“I wasn’t expecting you.” 

Big’s first words of the night were that of surprise. Gi-hun tried to push back the feeling of slight disappointment. Of hurt.   

“I wasn’t planning on being here.” That was true, but also not. Gi-hun had planned nothing, but also everything. He had walked there by accident. Or fate. Or whatever name people give to things they’re too tired to explain. 

With a slight shift, the newspaper that had been resting under Big’s arm appeared in his hand. His fingers wrapped around the crinkled paper, his knuckles vaguely white. “You wrote about me.” 

A statement, not a question.

Gi-hun hesitated. He couldn’t read the man’s tone. Was it anger? Annoyance? Or was it playful amusement? 

“Not exactly,” he paused then added—quiet but deliberate, “I wrote about the ache that showed up when you didn’t.” 

Big’s sharp, unreadable demeanor seemed to lighten for a fraction of a second. He let out a kind of breath that didn’t quite qualify as a laugh. “Fair enough.” 

The silence returned—but this time it wasn’t awkward. It was full, brimming, and just what Gi-hun had been longing for. 

Some conversations don’t unfold. They press. They pulse. They hover in the space where every word feels too late, but still necessary. 

The paper crumpled under the weight of Big’s fingers. “I’ve read the column three times.” 

Gi-hun glanced down at his own smiling head shot on the page, his bleeding words printed below. He had published a few columns since that one, but they had been superficial, fake, and devoid of emotion. Just pieces to buy time until his next big collapse. 

“Did you understand it?” Gi-hun hesitated. Not because he didn’t know how to respond, but because he wasn’t sure he deserved to ask if Big understood the words he brought from the depths of Gi-hun’s heart. 

“I understood parts of it. The rest…felt like it was written for someone else. Someone braver than me.” 

“It wasn’t….” Gi-hun trailed off. It had been written for a version of this man he had created in his mind, not the real man standing in front of him at that moment, not really. 

A beat. 

“You wrote like someone who didn’t expect to be heard.” 

“I didn’t. But I wrote it anyway.” 

Big nodded—once, slow. Like that admission meant something. Like it was the realest thing either of them had said all night. 

“You called me a ghost. A figment of your imagination.” 

“You were.” 

“And now?”

Gi-hun tilted his head, his eyes narrowing slightly—not with anger, never with anger, but with the kind of clarity that comes only after the obsession has burned through you and left you clean. 

“Now you’re just a man on the sidewalk.” A little sharp, a little blunt. Gi-hun almost smiled. Almost. Like the amusement of living out his fantasies had come true. 

A small twinge of emotion crossed Big’s face. A twitch on an eyebrow, a small crease appearing on his forehead. “So that’s it?”

“No.” Gi-hun stepped closer—just an inch, just enough to feel the air shift between them. “This is where the story stops pretending it’s fiction.

Some men vanish. Some return. But the most dangerous ones—they show up after you’ve finally told yourself they never existed at all. 

Distant voices from inside the station could be heard. Big briefly darted his eyes away from Gi-hun and looked back toward the building. Their world had narrowed to the width of their conversation and the length of his words. When his dark eyes flickered back, his expression was less guarded, his voice lower. 

“This Mr. Big character…” His eyes were fully on Gi-hun, the weight of his irises undeniable. “Does he have a real name?” 

It was the question that haunted Gi-hun’s conscience. It was a question that he had asked in his head a thousand different ways. In drafts. In dreams. And now, here he was—asking it back. Turning Gi-hun’s own mythology against him. 

But this time, he didn’t blink. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t falter. He let the question sit in the air just long enough to feel it crack open. 

“I don’t know,” he took a breath, and with a quiet, defiant softness. “You tell me.” 

A flicker crossed Big’s face, like he didn’t expect Gi-hun to hand it back to him so cleanly. Like he hadn’t planned for the possibility that he truly deserved to know his name. But his eyes never wavered from Gi-hun’s face. 

Big slowly lifted his hand–palm up, wordless. 

A quiet gesture. Not for his hand. For his phone. 

A beat passed before Gi-hun registered what he was doing. He glanced down at his coat pocket, the outline of his phone visible. His fingers hesitated. This wasn’t a grand gesture. It wasn’t a confession. It was something quieter. More deliberate. 

He reached into his pocket and placed his phone in the palm of Big’s hand—screen unlocked, uncertain but willing. Big didn’t ask for anything else. He didn’t look smug or triumphant. He just started typing, his thumb moving carefully across the screen in swift swipes. 

It felt absurdly intimate, watching him enter something onto a device that had already chronicled Gi-hun’s quiet obsession with him. His sleepless notes. His drafts. His unsent texts that centered around him. Now, here he was, inserting himself into the narrative without a single word. 

He handed the phone back without comment. On the screen: a new contact. 

Gi-hun studied the characters of the name. The fated detail that had been eating at his heart. That caused his world to spiral. That made the absence of himself come back. 

The name he never asked for, never earned, never let go of. 

The name he’d tried to guess, romanticize, avoid. 

And now—it was just…there. A line on a glowing screen. Nothing cinematic about it. No thunderclap or flash of lightning. 

And yet—

Sometimes the smallest truth is the loudest. And sometimes, the answer you swore feels almost hollow once it arrives. Not because it doesn’t matter—but because you realize it never could carry the weight of everything you built around it. 

Gi-hun looked back at him. Still standing there. Still watching. Still somehow real. Still not saying the name aloud, and maybe he never would. Maybe Gi-hun didn’t need him to. 

Maybe knowing was enough. 

Maybe it never was. 

He slipped the phone back into his coat pocket. Not like it was a sacred relic, but like it was his now. 

And for the first time in a long time—Gi-hun didn’t feel haunted. 

He let the man before him linger in his vision before he recalled the shining letters of the contact name. 

Hwang In-ho.

Notes:

Hey everyone,

We're finally getting somewhere lol!

I hope this chapter makes sense. My goal was to convey what/how a mild obsession/infatuation will make you feel. Because, trust, I've been there and done that. I know that In-ho is usually the one portrayed as being obsessed, but I really wanted to explore Gi-hun's complexity on this theme.

Also, I did up the chapter count to 15. While writing the ending, I saw that there was no way I could fit everything into only six more chapters, so I added three more.

But, seriously, thank you all for reading! I appreciate the comments, kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, and all other forms of support you guys have given me!!

Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general (I promise I will start to post on there!)

Chapter 7: A Sip, a Scar, and a Story Untold

Summary:

Gi-hun inches closer to understanding the man behind the mystery—but instead of answers, he finds shadows. Over whiskey and quiet glances, the man of his constant infatuation reveals just enough to haunt him, leaving him with more questions than clarity.

In a city full of noise, it's his silences that echo the loudest.

There are certain people who carry absence like it’s still a presence. Who sit across from you and bring the weight of someone else with them—someone you’ll never meet, but somehow fills the space between every word. 

Grief doesn’t always look like tears or trembling. Sometimes, it looks like composure. Like restraint mistaken for mystery. Like a man with careful hands and polished shoes, who folds his napkin just so. Who looks like he’s in the room—but isn’t entirely. 

Love should be the loudest thing in the room. It should make itself known—grand, obvious, cinematic. It should overshadow any ounce of grief or sadness. 

Gi-hun believed that—for a while, at least. 

But grief is more consistent. It lingers long after love has left the building. It formulates itself in a myriad of ways and you don’t see it coming until you’re already sitting in its shadow. 

He used to think that love was a space to be filled. That the right words, or the right alcohol, could coax the truth of love out like a poem. But with him, love was not loud. It was not grand. It was shown in regretful glimpses. It was intentional. And maybe even protective. 

Hwang In-ho didn’t speak in details. He spoke in the negative space. A tap of the glass, a shift in the jaw, a frequent glance down at his hands when the conversation turned too sharp. 

He wasn’t emotionally unavailable—this was different. He wasn’t closed off entirely. He was carved open somewhere deep and sealed shut on the surface. 

There was a stillness to the man that felt earned. And maybe that’s what scared Gi-hun. Stillness like his usually came from a great fall, great damage. 

Gi-hun wasn’t looking to cushion his fall or to carry his baggage—not yet. He wasn’t that naive anymore. But he also wasn’t ready to be a shadow in someone else’s love story. 

And yet, there he was, leaning in, asking question after question to the man that haunted his own mind. That caused Gi-hun his own form of grief. 

He was looking at the ghost of his dreams in the eyes and asking questions he both did and didn’t want to know the answer to. 

Have you ever been in love?

 

---

 

The city was quiet in a strange way that only 11:14 p.m. could be—when Seoul seemed to forget its own pulse for a fleeting, momentary second. The kind of hour where the buzz of the refrigerator feels louder than your thoughts, and the streetlights cast more timid questions than light. 

Gi-hun sat cross-legged on his bed, his laptop long since closed, that week’s column forgotten by the way-side. He stared at the ceiling like it might offer answers, or at least a sign. Outside, the blinking of distant city lights reflected softly against the windowpane. A soft melody for a night unraveling. 

They say mystery is half the seduction, but what they don’t say is how hard it is to let a mystery stay unsolved. 

Gi-hun had made a promise—to himself, and maybe to the gutted ache in his heart. That he wouldn’t try to know him before he chose to be known. That he would let the magic breathe. 

But the image of him looking at Gi-hun with a faint smile plastered on his lips and his nimble fingers deftly entering his contact information into Gi-hun’s phone, made the ache in his chest dull and a feeling of warmth creep into his stomach. 

And then again, curiosity was always the one-night stand you never regretted, even when you woke up lonelier than before. It doesn’t care about pride, 

He reached for his phone, tugging at the long charger that was hooked to it. His thumb hovered over the screen. For a moment, he hesitated—hoping the moment, the feeling, would pass. But it didn’t. 

Tap. Unlock. Facebook.

He paused, staring at the blank search bar as if it were a confession booth. 

His name had lived in Gi-hun’s head for days like an echo in a stairwell—repeating, reshaping. But when typed out, it looked…ordinary. It didn’t look like the sacred characters he once imagined it to be when he didn’t know. Like any other man. Like someone who could leave. 

Gi-hun typed: 

Hwang In-ho

The page loaded slowly, as if it too, was unsure. 

When loaded, Gi-hun was greeted with a profile as blank as an interrogation room. A simple profile picture, no cover photo. Just a faint outline of a life: a few tagged photos—blurry, mostly from what looked like birthday dinners and department functions—and a job title. 

Mr. Big’s profile didn’t match the enigma Gi-hun had created for him inside his head—not completely, at least. His eyes then drifted to the “about” section of the profile. 

Senior Superintendent at Seoul Metropolitan Police. 

Fuck. 

Of course. 

The mystery man wasn’t just mystery. He was power. Order. Control. 

Things Gi-hun had always craved…and distrusted. 

He stared at the screen, his reflection faintly visible in the glass. 

There he was—part fact, part fiction. A man with a name, a rank, a record. And still, somewhere, unreadable. 

It then hit Gi-hun all at once—how much he didn’t know, and how much that suddenly mattered. It wasn’t just that he was “in the police.” It was that he was high up. Command-level. A man who likely held secrets tighter than his morning coffee. Someone used to watching, not being watched. Managed narratives. Controlled the scene. Quietly disappearing from the center of things just as the action picked up. 

And Gi-hun—Gi-hun was a columnist. A documentarian of desire and disaster. Someone who made meaning out of mess, whose job it was to find the story beneath the silence, even if that was at the expense of his own self. 

But Big’s profile was nothing but silence. It wasn’t just privacy—it felt strategic. Almost surgical in its absence. A white space with handcuffs. 

He clicked through the tagged photos again, slower this time. Mr. Big was always just slightly out of focus, standing behind someone taller, or cropped at the edge of the frame. Not hiding, but never quite present either. Like a man whose entire life was a redacted file. 

Just visible enough to prove he existed, but never enough to offer clarity. And maybe that’s the harshest kind of presence—the kind that lets you believe you almost knew him. Because what do you do with a man who only ever shows up in pieces? Who appears in the margins, the background, the spaces where something fuller should be? 

There were no signs of a family—only a few images of the brother Gi-hun remembered from the dimly lit bar—but that meant nothing. Gi-hun had learned long ago that the most important parts of a person’s life were often the ones least likely to be posted. No soft-lit wedding photos. No partner tagged at office dinners. No kids in matching hanboks on Chuseok. Nothing that suggested a wife, current or past. And yet, he still recalled the ring—gold, simple, and on the wrong finger. The middle finger, not the ring finger. 

Gi-hun had tried to tell himself it was cultural. Stylish. Maybe a habit. But with his mannerisms, his response to Gi-hun’s question about the ring's meaning, and scrolling through his profile, that sliver of metal began to feel less like fashion and more like a question. 

Senior Superintendent, Seoul Metropolitan Police. 

Education: Seoin High School, Korean National Police University

Hometown: Suwon

Relationship status: Single

Single. 

A word so clean it felt almost sterile. As if grief, divorce, or heartbreak could be wiped away with a single dropdown selection. Gi-hun shifted in his chair, his phone screen casting a cool light across the dark walls of his apartment like an interrogation camp. 

What did it mean to become obsessed with someone whose entire life lived behind locked doors and departmental firewalls? Someone who presented only what he had to, and nothing more? 

He was two years Gi-hun’s junior, yet he felt decades older. Not in the way he looked, never that, but in the way he carried his pauses—like there were things inside him still echoing into the abyss. Gi-hun had always been drawn to mystery, to the people who didn’t give it all away up front. But there was a difference between mystery and absence. And this—whatever this was—was starting to feel more like a void. 

Maybe that was the danger. The deeper you look, the more you realize mystery isn’t always an invitation. 

Sometimes, it’s a warning. 

Gi-hun’s eyes flickered back to the word single for a moment longer as if it might have been a trap of sorts, something that would fall under pressure. Then, with a slight sigh, he swiped out of the app, the Facebook tab disappearing like a curtain. 

He opened his contacts, his thumb swiping over the letters H-W-A-N-G I-N-H-O, and there he was. No profile picture, no more information besides his name and phone number. It was like he was still a half-stranger, a half-shadow. 

He opened a new message thread. Blank. A new canvas waiting to be painted with their words. 

Gi-hun’s fingers hesitated over the keyboard. 

Hi. 

Delete. 

I was thinking about you. 

Delete. 

After four chance (fateful?) encounters…maybe we try one on purpose. How does the bar from before sound? 

He stared at the message. Then added:

Let me know, please.

And, for a second, Gi-hun didn’t move. As if sending would shift the Earth’s gravitational force. 

But that was impossible to do. 

So he hit send, then placed his phone face down on the coffee table in front of him. It was like closing a book you weren’t ready to finish—but couldn’t stop reading anyway. 

 

---

 

Hwang In-ho (11:46 p.m.): 

 

             Yes. 

 

---

 

It was raining—again. Soft, undecided rain. The kind of drizzle that kissed your shoulder but never quite soaked you. Seoul was in one of those moods where everything felt cinematic, on edge. It was like the city was leaning in toward Gi-hun, listening to every breath. 

He arrived ten minutes early. He always did when he was afraid of being too late for something he, not so secretly, craved for. 

Gi-hun closed the flimsy, navy blue umbrella he held before entering the building. 

The dimly lit bar hadn’t changed in the months between. The same low amber light. Same jazz-styled playlist. Same bartender who stood in front of a weighted army of bottles. The low table from before, the one that once held a depleted bottle of peach soju, was waiting. So he took it, ordered a glass of water, and tried not to keep glancing toward the door. 

Maybe the fifth time’s the charm. Or maybe the real charm was in never expecting anything at all. 

Then—he walked in. 

Not dramatic. Not slow motion. Just…real. 

Navy coat. Damp hair that caused his bangs to spread across his forehead. That familiar unreadable expression that lived somewhere between curiosity and regret. 

He saw Gi-hun. Politely smiled. Sat down. 

After four chance encounters, they met on purpose–for once. Same time. Same place. 

And suddenly, the mystery wasn’t what he was hiding. It was what came next: 

Gi-hun learned that Mr. Big—no— Hwang In-ho was a very peculiar man. 

He loved the taste of his whiskey straight, like he’s punishing it. Neat. No ice. No apology. Just the burn of it, swallowed like regret. He explained that it tasted better that way—“ more honest.” But on Sundays—always Sundays—he traded it in for a small glass of Chablis, which he sipped slowly, almost reverently, like he was making amends. Like the foreign wine carried the weight of memories he hasn’t spoken of, and probably never will. 

He wore cuff links on days when no one would notice him. Not flashy ones—silver, minimal, often brushed matte like they were trying not to call attention to themselves. But they gleamed, if you looked close enough. Gi-hun had. He remembered noticing them under the drenched awning. That was the thing about Mr. Big—no, Hwang In-ho —he didn’t dress to impress an audience. He dressed to maintain control. Even his tailoring felt like a fortress. 

He read The Korean Economic Daily in print, not digital, and folded it neatly into quarters when he was finished. The gestures are meticulous, almost ritualistic. Like every day begins with paper, ink, and order—no surprises. 

“Digital feels like a performance,” he’d explained to Gi-hun without looking up from his own glass of water. “Print feels like a record.” 

A record. Of what, though?

He enjoys classic literature, too. Not the kind one would quote at a dinner party—but the kind you actually read, digest. The kind with underlines and margin notes in tidy, pencil-stroked Hangul. Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, Camus. Not out of pretension, but out of quiet kinship with the men who wrote about ruin and responsibility. As if the tragedies of other people—imagined or not—offered him a safe place to escape the weight of his own. 

And now, staring at the man himself—so antiseptically curated, so silent in many ways—Gi-hun felt the weight of all the things he kept tucked into metaphorical coat pockets. In-ho was the kind of man who lived his life with redactions. Not because he had something to hide, but because concealment was his native language. He wore it like cologne—subtle, masculine, unmistakable. 

There is something magnetic about a man who’s hard to pin down—like chasing a shadow you swore was real just moments ago. The kind of man you mistake for meaning because he’s silent in nature. The kind who listens just enough to make you feel heard, but speaks just enough to stay unknown. 

Gi-hun had learned about Hwang In-ho in fragments. Simple facts he chose to share. Feelings. Observations. Guesses. 

A tilt of the head when he doesn’t want to answer a particular question Gi-hun posed. A smirk instead of a smile when he seemed amused but won’t directly say why. They way his fingers tightened slightly around his glass when he held something back. Every pause in conversation felt loaded, like In-ho was editing himself in real time. 

He would pivot when Gi-hun asked too much. Tapped backspace rapidly to avoid the answer. 

And yet, he always replied—eventually. Not always with words, but with a look. A shift in posture, a story about a colleague that wasn’t really about a colleague. With In-ho, everything was a suggestion, never a declaration. 

The glasses of water between the two had been depleted. They both nursed glasses of alcohol. For Gi-hun, a glass of original soju. For In-ho, a glass of Golden Blue whiskey. Neat, with no ice, like he explained. 

Gi-hun watched the green soju bottle on the middle of the table sweat bullets of condensation, the droplets of water collecting in a perfect circle at the bottom of the rounded end.

He downed the contents of his small glass and looked toward the man of his haunting infatuation. “I still don’t know what you do on your days off,” Gi-hun said, half smiling into his glass, not quite looking at In-ho. “You know, being a cop and all…” 

In-ho pulled his gaze slowly away from his own amber beverage, like he was weighing the question before deciding if it deserved a real answer. 

“I let the city breathe without me,” he said, then sipped. 

Gi-hun blinked. “So…you sleep in?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I wake up early. I just don’t participate.” He didn’t elaborate. And somehow, that said more than if he had. 

In-ho cracked a faint smile. It flickered and vanished just as fast as it appeared. It wasn't flirtation. It was something quieter. Something that asked to be left undefined. 

Gi-hun watched his hands—he had beautiful hands, always deliberate, always knowing where to rest them. He wore a watch on his right wrist that shined under the light. His fingers tapped a delicate tattoo onto the wooden grain of the table. His thumb grazed his glass of whiskey every few seconds. 

But when the light caught it just right, Gi-hun was reminded of the biggest mystery of In-ho’s enigma. The smallest detail that was the most noticeable: the golden wedding ring setting on his left hand.

Not the ring ringer. The middle one. 

Not tucked away. Not hidden. 

It caught the light like it wanted to be seen, but dared you to ask. Just like it beckoned him before. 

Under the soft, dim light and surrounded by the low hum of other patrons and jazz, it felt…intentional. Like a whisper of the past was trailing behind him. 

Gi-hun poured himself another glass, some of the alcohol spilling over the edge of the glass carelessly. He stared at the ring, studying the curve of the metal band over In-ho’s finger, the curve of his smooth knuckle. And before he could stop himself, Gi-hun’s voice slipped out: 

“Does that mean something?” 

The same question from before. The same head gesture. The same haunting idea. 

In-ho didn’t look shift his gaze right away. He just stilled. 

Then came the pivot. He reached for his glass, swirled what was left, then gently set it down. A small breath. The faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. 

Gi-hun waited. 

In-ho looked at him. Really looked. The same piercing, regretful gaze that felt like it read past what you were saying and into why you were saying it. 

Then, softly: “It used to.”

Used to. 

Gi-hun knew the feeling. He knew the emotions of “used to” and “not anymore.” He had experienced it. First hand. He knew the weight a ring full of hurt and regret carried. But, he tilted his head, just enough to press. “Used to,” he repeated. “But not anymore?”

In-ho looked like he might elaborate. He hesitated again. That damned hesitation he was so fond of doing. Like something behind his eyes might unravel. But instead, his lips parted—his tongue flickered over his top lip—and closed again. He blinked, reached for his phone on the table, tapped the screen once, maybe out of habit. 

He was deflecting. Just as he did with every other question he didn’t want to answer. He was editing his response in real time. 

Gi-hun saw it. Saw the way he nervously toyed with a loose thread on his coat. The way his hands slightly shook as he tried to return them to their original position. 

Gi-hun saw him try to find every avenue possible to avoid answering the question, just like he had before. 

After a solid moment of silence, In-ho spoke up. “I keep it because I want to,” he said, not looking at Gi-hun this time. “That’s all.” 

The answer felt rehearsed. Polished. Like a press statement, not a confession. 

But at least he hadn’t walked out. 

Gi-hun tried to meet him there—tried to leave it alone—but something in him bristled. “You say a lot of things like they’re period endings,” he said gently. “But sometimes I wonder if they’re just…ellipses.” 

That earned him the briefest of glances. A flicker of a gaze filled with sadness, not warmth. Regret and betrayal. But it wasn’t Gi-hun he was directing his betrayal at—he could tell that much. It was somewhere else. Someone else.

There’s a look people wear when they’re haunted by something that won’t let them go—or something they won’t let go. He wore it like a scarf tucked under good lighting. 

And Gi-hun hated how much he liked it. He hated how much he wanted to dive into the expression and find its root. He wanted to reach across the table and crack him open like a secret, and ask what year it was inside his head. But Gi-hun didn’t. He never did. 

The silence between them pressed close again, a third presence neither of them knew how to comfort. 

He watched the way In-ho’s hand circled his whiskey glass once again. The way the curve of his palm slipped against the ornate pattern of the glass. The way his finger twitched against the rim every so often, like they remembered something before his mouth allowed it. 

Gi-hun pushed again. “Why the middle finger?” 

In-ho glanced at it, then back at him, brows drawing slightly. “It felt…honest.” 

Honest? What could that mean? It meant something. Like the way a line in a poem lingers after the meaning lands.

“Honest how?” Gi-hun asked, softer now, like he was already expecting the inevitable answer. 

In-ho didn’t flinch. He released his grip on the glass and leaned back in his chair, exhaling. He looked at Gi-hun as if he was weighing whether to crack the vault or keep it bolted shut. 

“It was her’s,” he said, and this time the words weren’t smooth. They were raw. Short. Final. 

A beat passed. 

“My wife’s.”

There it was. The missing piece in the mystery. And yet somehow, it only made him harder to solve. 

Gi-hun blinked. The words landed sharp but quiet. Like hearing bad news on a beautiful day. 

“She passed,” In-ho added. Not gently. Just plainly. “Nearly ten years ago.”

Gi-hun nodded, slowly. 

Grief is the one thing you can’t flirt your way out of. It lingers in the breath between sentences It stains the pauses. And suddenly, you aren’t sitting across from a riddle—you sit across from an open wound. 

“I’m sorry,” Gi-hun whispered, and for once, without hesitation. 

“Don’t be. I’m not,” In-ho replied too fast. Then caught himself, rephrased. “I’m not sorry I still carry her. People force you to make grief tidy, to fold it like laundry. I never learned how.” 

He didn’t look at Gi-hun when he said it. But the truth of it stretched across the table, electric and uninvited. 

Gi-hun knew the grief of divorce. He knew what it was like to pack up a life that hadn’t died but simply stopped growing. He knew the weight of walking away from someone still breathing, still reachable, and yet entirely unreachable. 

There’s a particular violence to absence when the person is still alive. Still texting you about taxes or arguing over a simple issue, but not saying goodnight. Still existing in the same city or country, just not in your world. 

But death—death was a different kind of absence. One you couldn’t argue with. You couldn’t call death when you’re lonely. You couldn’t bump into it in line for coffee or stumble across it on social media looking happier than it ever did with you.

He watched In-ho as he sat still, eyes somewhere in the past. Somewhere nearly a decade ago. 

And for the first time since he met him, Gi-hun didn’t want to solve him. He wanted to leave the mystery intact—because now, he understood some questions weren’t puzzles. They were memorials. 

Still, curiosity—like longing—was a stubborn ache. 

“That’s…” Gi-hun trailed off.

That’s love. 

There was no other way to describe the dedication, the regret, the sense of betrayal that In-ho felt. Gi-hun knew that. He had seen it first hand. But a part of him ached at the thought. 

In-ho turned to him, finally. Met Gi-hun’s eyes. And for a moment, the mask slipped. The regret, sadness, and betrayal that had lingered on his face all night had faded into a raw, emotional canvas. 

Then, Gi-hun asked it, quietly: 

“Have you ever been in love?”

A small pause. 

Then, with no irony, no hesitation—just a crack of something real: 

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” 

He said it like it belonged to someone else. Like the words were still warm from having lived in his mouth unsaid all these years. And just like that, the temperature of the room changed. 

Gi-hun sat back in his seat, hands curled softly around the denim fabric of his jeans. 

There is a kind of intimacy in a love confession that feels more bare, more naked than sex. And maybe more dangerous. Because once someone tells you they’ve loved before, you can’t help but wonder—

—if they ever will again.

 

---

 

Han River Hearts

By Seong Gi-hun

Seoul Correspondent

Special to the Sentinel

 

“Abso-Fucking-Lutely”

 

There’s a look people wear when they’re haunted by something that won’t let them go—or something they won’t let go. 

He wore it like a scarf tucked under good lighting. The kind of mark only visible when you’re close enough to notice the tension beneath someone’s charm. The shadow in their laughter. The pause before they answer. 

It was polished, presentable, invisible—unless you were looking for it specifically. 

And I was looking. I saw it the moment the damned ring from before glinted in the light. 

It wasn’t on the ring finger, where tradition tells us to wear permanence. It was on his middle finger—bold, deliberate, and a quiet rebellion against forgetting. A gold band, warm and gleaming, catching the low bar light like it asked to be seen. But I didn’t fall into its temptations right away. I stared at it between sentences, between sips of water and soju, and wondered what it meant, who it signified belonging to. 

“It was hers,” he told me. 

The woman he married. The woman who died. 

A decade ago, he said. 

Plain as weather. Steady as fact. 

And suddenly, I wasn’t trying to solve a man. I was sitting in front of a wound. A wound that left a gnarly scar that ached with unfathomable pain. 

It’s strange how a single sentence can crack the surface of someone so composed. And even stranger how calm the aftermath is. There was no tearful monologue explaining how she passed, no sweeping cinematic moment. Just a quiet acknowledgement that the man sitting across the table did not hold the usual suspects of commitment issues or emotional reluctance, but instead a cloud of quiet grief. Not loud, not earth-shattering. But quiet in the way that lingers. That stays behind in objects and silences. That sits in the seat across from you, wearing his smile like a borrowed suit. 

We talk so much about the grief of breakups. The heartbreaks that leave us checking our phones, refreshing our profiles, waiting for closure like it’s a package delayed in the mail. 

But this—this was grief that didn’t check in. Didn’t send one last text. Didn’t give you the chance to hate them for leaving. 

This was grief in its purest form: presence. 

Still-there love. 

Love that had laid dormant for so long. 

Love with nowhere to go. 

And it raised the question: will love ever conquer grief? 

Can a heart that once opened fully for someone who never came back, ever open again? Or will every effort be in vain? 

There is a kind of intimacy in a love confession that feels more bare, more naked than sex. And maybe more dangerous. Because once someone tells you they’ve loved before, you can’t help but wonder—

—if they ever will again.

I asked him, quietly, because I had to. Because we always have to ask the questions we’re afraid of the answers to. 

“Have you ever been in love?” 

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate. Just looked me in the eye and said: 

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” 

It was spoken with conviction. With memory. With something burning in his chest that no amount of time had cooled. He said it with a gutted ache that matched mine. 

And I—who came looking for connection, for clarity—was just left with more murkiness than before. 

It made me wonder, ask more questions. 

I wondered if I was just a visitor in his life. A brief interruption to the silence he had learned to live with inside. I wondered if his heart had a locked room in it with her name on the door. And if there would ever be space for someone else—not to replace, but to sit beside the memory and not be swallowed by it, to not be compared to a ghost. 

We talk so much about love. About its power. It's magic. Its ability to heal and remake us. 

But we don’t talk enough about what happens when love and grief live side by side. When you meet someone who seems to be kind, present, even interested—but you know, deep down, that the best of them is still tethered to a past they aren’t ready to surrender. 

It makes you doubt your future and your intentions. 

So I left that bar not with a broken heart—not yet—but with another ache. 

Not jealousy, not envy. 

Just the sobering knowledge that love doesn’t always leave when people do. And that some rings aren’t about promises. They’re about permanence. 

We want to believe that love can save us. 

That it can restore faith in humanity and in people. 

That it can triumph over death, over distance, over time. 

But what if love and grief aren’t enemies battling against each other for a place in our hearts?

What if they’re twins? Born of the same desire to hold on? 

And what happens to the person who comes after the ghost? 

Maybe love doesn’t conquer grief. Maybe it walks beside it. 

And maybe the bravest thing we can do isn’t to chase the man who’s still grieving—even though you’ve been infatuated with perfect, whole image you created of him—but to sit with him in the dark and simply say: 

I see her too.

Notes:

Hey Everyone,

I hope you've enjoyed the chapter! It was very fun and interesting to write. I wanted to dive into In-ho's grief over his wife and the layers of symbolism that the story has (umbrella, ring, ghosts, In-ho no longer being called "Mr. Big," etc...).

I try my best to make this story as layered as I can. There are a lot of unspoken emotions between Gi-hun and In-ho right now, but both of their feelings will come to light soon. It may take some trial and error, though lol!

Also, I don't think it ever directly said where In-ho is from, just that he was born in the Gyeonggi Province, so I chose Suwon, as it is the capital and the largest city in the province.

And extra kudos to anyone who can find out what song lyric I built a paragraph around. It's about how In-ho takes his whiskey.

Anyway, thank you all for reading! I love to see your comments and support!! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Please recommend this fic and I would love to hear from you guys!!!

Chapter 8: A Dead Wife, a Blue Bubble, and a Mistake

Summary:

A question lingers longer after it's asked. Old friendships resurface, silence deepens, and memory proves to be the most unshakable companion. One message is sent by accident—perhaps the truest one of all.

In the haze of what's said and unsaid, Gi-hun finds himself staring into the space between presence and absence, wondering if longing was ever meant to be mutual.

There are women we meet only in memory. Ghosts we never knew in life, but who find ways to haunt us all the same. 

Gi-hun had never met Hwang In-ho’s wife. He didn’t know what kind of perfume she wore or how she took her coffee. He didn’t know if she liked rain or feared thunderstorms or if she, too, had once begun to fall for a man who mistook silence for strength. But lately, Gi-hun found himself imagining this woman. Not as a rival—not yet—but as a presence. A shadow in the corner of every crevice in In-ho’s mind. A woman who still held part of him, even in death. 

When you’re seeing a man haunted by grief, how do you compete with a memory? Worse—how do you know if he even wants you to?

It was a kind of ache that lingered longer than a simple kiss. The kind that followed Gi-hun home, back to his own apartment, back to the quiet folds of his life. 

He didn’t know the woman. Only what wasn’t said about her. And somehow, that made it worse. Grief makes a ghost out of someone who was once flesh and blood—and Gi-hun couldn’t shake the feeling that every time he saw In-ho’s gaze dim and fill with regret, he was seeing her. 

Which, by pattern, was every time he looked at Gi-hun. 

But somewhere, over cigarettes and old friends, the burden of In-ho’s grief softened. Just a little. Gi-hun’s own ache didn’t vanish, but it stepped back momentarily—like a shadow retreating under softer light. 

You can’t compete with the dead. You can only hope the living are still paying attention. 

And between two cushions, Gi-hun opened his phone. The thread was still there. Still a canvas waiting to be painted. 

Still… him 

And for a moment, he considered typing something honest. 

Then his hands slipped. 

And in the space where hesitation once lived, only the blinking cursor remained. 

 

---

 

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” 

The memory didn’t arrive and settle in gentle waves—it slammed. With no warning, no softness, no invitation. Just that line, repeating over and over again in Gi-hun’s mind like a scratched vinyl record. Like a cursed melody. 

It wasn’t just what he said. It was the way he said it. Like the truth had finally broken the surface. 

Gi-hun didn’t remember the exact details of the love confession anymore, just what he felt afterwards. The moments blurred into a colorful frenzy. Every word he or In-ho spoke had become filler. He just remembered how he felt hearing those words come out of In-ho’s mouth. How he felt when a grief stricken man declared his love for his deceased wife after so many years of repressing it. 

Some moments feel like invitations. Others feel like warnings dressed as memories. 

At the time, he hadn’t said anything. He smiled, maybe. He let the silence swallow the weight of his answer. But In-ho’s words had rooted deeply in him, like something foreign, something invasive. And now, they bloomed in the quietest parts of his life. Again. 

In bed. 

In elevators. 

At red lights that never changed. 

The character of Mr. Big had once taken up every inch of his mind at one point. It had infiltrated his life to the point of obsession, but now it was Hwang In-ho that seeped into every crevice of his conscience. His words. His love. 

Gi-hun wanted to believe he knew what love was. He wanted to believe that he knew the feeling of adoration that dripped from In-ho’s voice. He had signed a marriage license, made vows, cried on kitchen floors with someone who once knew every little thing about him. 

But that love had ended. 

They had their moments. Some good. Some bad. But their love stepped away, just like two people closing the chapter of a shared story. Like it had been written in pencil all along, with the ability of being erased as soon as it was written. 

But when it ended, it wasn’t grief he felt. It was a relief. A quiet, cold, clean, guiltless relief. 

Love doesn’t just shatter, it leaves you uncertain. And that uncertainty feels more dangerous than any heartbreak ever could. 

But this? This conversation in the still of a Seoul night, in a room dimmed by old grief—it felt like stumbling onto a page someone had torn from another life. In-ho’s life. And in that, there had been a woman. The one whose ring he still wore. The one who he spoke about with a voice full of care. The one he still clearly loved and clung to. 

The dead wife. The myth. The undercurrent. 

Gi-hun didn’t know her name. He had never seen a photo. He didn’t know how she died or where she was buried. But she existed—vividly—in the pauses between In-ho’s sentences, in the sadness that overtook him every time he gazed at Gi-hun. 

There are women who leave a mark. And then there are the ones who leave behind a haunting. I wasn’t sure which one she was. I only knew I wasn’t her. 

In-ho had looked away after the words left his mouth, like he’d given away too much. Like he regretted not keeping the words of  “abso-fucking-lutely” where they’d been safe. That much Gi-hun could recall.

But Gi-hun stayed silent. He didn’t ask for more. Didn’t press when he should have. However, that didn’t stop the conversation from echoing louder now in the silence that it ever had before. 

Love doesn’t always just break a person. Sometimes it just fades like horrible wallpaper—until one day you wake up and wonder why you ever put it up in the first place. 

With In-ho, it wasn’t love yet. It wasn’t friendship either. Not quite. But it wasn’t nothing. It was something murkier. Half-formed. Lodged under Gi-hun ribs like a question he couldn’t answer yet. A possibility. The beginning of a belief. But belief in what? 

That this budding relationship, built off of the words of five encounters and endless thoughts, could become something real? That maybe, despite all his shadows and silences, In-ho might choose him in the end? Or was it something more dangerous—that Gi-hun had already fallen for the version of In-ho—Mr. Big—that he had created in his mind. The character that only existed between sentences. 

What they had was not solid, but it had weight. The kind that pressed against Gi-hun when he tried to sleep. The kind that lingered in his aching chest, long after the door had closed behind him. 

Falling in love isn’t what is scary. It’s knowing that—deep in your bones—you might be falling for a version of someone you created inside your head out of brief scraps, rather than the real version of them. It might be the fact that the real version has already given the best parts of themselves away, and that you’ll never be more than an echo of what is lost. 

Gi-hun exhaled. Long. Unsteady. 

The truth had hung in the air between him and the silence ever since he arrived home from their purposeful encounter. It hung like a suspended thread. 

Gi-hun wasn’t afraid of heartbreak, he knew the feeling all too well. 

He wasn’t afraid of loving too hard, he’d done that too many times to count. 

But he was afraid of being the after. 

The footnote. 

The man who came next. A rebound for someone to feel something after a period of absence. 

And more than that—he was afraid of not potentially being loved back with the same ferocity In-ho had once given to someone who no longer breathed. 

 

---

 

It was a different apartment. A different time. A different Gi-hun. 

The light back then came softer through gauzy curtains—ivory ones Eun-ji had picked out at a discount home goods store. Not because she liked them, but because Gi-hun had. Because he had slid his hands over the fabric and held it up with reverence, smiled, and said “These feel like us.” And she smiled back. Hollow. Detached. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes. 

Gi-hun remembered that particular morning in fragments now. The kettle hissing. The radiator clinked as if it was trying to form a sentence. Him standing barefoot in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, a tea towel slung over his shoulder as he worked over the stove. The smell of butter and morning and commitment wafting gently through the air. 

Eun-ji leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter, her brow furrowed in concentration as she poured boiling water over a small glass dripper. She always made coffee like it was a ritual, not a habit—grinding beans fresh, timing the bloom, tapping the sides like a stubborn heart that needed coaxing. 

He looked up and smiled at her. Not the kind that says you’re breathtaking , but the kind that says you’re mine and I like you first thing in the morning, even as you are.

She smiled back. Automatically. Hollow. Like a practiced ritual. 

Something caught in Gi-hun. Eun-ji didn’t notice, or maybe she had, but she had long since stopped asking if something bothered him. 

“Toast?” Gi-hun called over his shoulder, already pulling the bread from the box. 

“No. Just eggs.” 

He stopped, his hands already grasping two pieces of bread. He looked down at the wheat-grained surface of the slices and sat them back down. He sighed gently, not loud enough for her to hear, but just enough to ease the tension in his shoulders. 

Eun-ji hummed something soft—a song from some American band that she loved and he tolerated. Gi-hun walked away from his post at the stove, slid his lanky arms around her waist from behind, pressing his cheek between her shoulder blades. She was warm. Familiar. 

He wanted to fill the hollowness of her smile with something meaningful. Something with purpose. 

She didn’t say anything. Just covered his hand with hers for a brief second. 

For a moment, Gi-hun let himself believe it could last forever. Not in a fairy tale way. In a socks-on-the-floor, shared futures, and tender moments kind of way. But the inkling of a thought lingered in the back of his mind. 

It’s just a matter of time

He attempted to erase the thought, pushing it into the void of his mind once again. He tried to turn Eun-ji in his arms, cupping her face in his hands. His thumb brushed under her eye—the dark orbs that had become increasingly distant. The gateways to the soul that had started to reaffirm that particular thought. 

“Are you okay?” Gi-hun asked, almost too softly. 

Eun-ji nodded. Too quickly. 

“I’m fine. Happy,” she said. Her voice indicated that she meant it. 

Any yet. And yet…

The problem with being loved unconditionally is you start to wonder if the person ever really saw the conditions. The cracks. The corners. The darkest parts. Or if they just loved the idea of you enough to overlook them. 

The eggs started to pop in the pan. She untangled Gi-hun’s arms from her waist and moved past him to flip them. He watched her back, the way she always stood with one foot slightly turned out. The scar on her elbow from falling off a bike as a child. All the things he knew. All the things she let him know. 

There was comfort in it. But comfort, he was learning, didn’t always mean connection. 

They ate together at the table, knees bumping under the wood. He told her about a ridiculous story Jung-bae had mentioned and how he was going to use it in that week’s column. She had laughed at the right moments. He reached for her hand halfway though and squeezed it once, but he could feel the limpness in her grip, and let go. 

There was love between them. There was no question. 

But that love had begun to feel like a prior commitment—familiar, rarely examined, and addressed with reluctance. 

She loved the shape of me. But I don’t think she ever asked why I took that shape in the first place. 

Later, when Gi-hun was leaving for a meeting with his editor, he kissed her goodbye at the door. A soft, gentle kiss. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear like he always did. Like he had since they were teenagers. She almost said something— don’t go? Maybe… There was a hitch of hesitance in her lips, in the way she looked at him with regret, betrayal. But it wasn’t directed at him. It was somewhere else. Someone else…

Instead of saying anything out of the usual, she simply said: 

“Have a good day.” 

“You too,” Gi-hun replied, just like he always did. 

And just like that, the door clicked shut in front of him. She had dismissed him before he even got the last syllable out of his mouth. He stood there for a moment, looking at the door. He pressed the palm of his hand against the metal, and felt the stillness of the object press in. It wasn’t loneliness. It wasn’t even unhappiness. 

It was quiet. 

Too quiet. 

Love doesn’t always leave with the slam of a door. Sometimes it leaves slowly. One missed question at a time. One unshared thought. One kiss that doesn’t quite reach the eyes. 

 

---

 

Gi-hun wondered if Hwang In-ho went through the same emotions with his wife. If he had those quiet moments of intimacy and love with her. If he ever felt a twinge of distance in her gaze. The hollowness in her smile. The coldness of her touch. 

But Gi-hun doubted it. 

He doubted there was distance at all. 

He imagined them—In-ho and the women he’d never met—folded into each other like pages in a well-worn book. He pictured a kind of seamlessness, the easy language of shorthand they never had to explain. People who belonged to each other in a way Gi-hun had never felt with anyone, not even his ex-wife. 

And the doubt grew from there. A slow creep. Vine line. 

Had he loved Eun-ji in the way this man—this complicated, unreadable, multifaceted, maddening man—might have loved his deceased wife? Fully? Helplessly? 

Gi-hun wasn’t sure. 

What he was sure of—painfully, achingly sure—was that Hwang In-ho had already been in that kind of love. The real, all-consuming, messy type. The type that makes everything else happening in life feel like a poor translation. And Gi-hun…he was walking into the afterlife of that love. A dusted memorial that looked like vacancy dressed as a second chance. 

It’s one thing to be infatuated, to begin to fall for someone who’s been hurt before. It’s another to fall for someone who’s already mourned the great love of their life. Because no matter how alive you are, you’ll always be second to a ghost. 

Gi-hun blinked back a sudden sting behind his eyes. Envy is a quiet emotion. It doesn’t announce itself with range or grand gestures. It just lingers, like a splinter under the skin. And Gi-hun, for all his grace and wit and defiance, couldn’t help it. 

He had thought it wasn’t envy when he first processed In-ho’s words. He thought it was just a stinging streak of sympathy, of kinship with a man who he had longed for. But it stayed longer than it should have. It tightened in his chest like something unspoken. It wasn’t just sympathy. It was possession. A small, selfish part of him that wanted to be the only one who knew how In-ho grieved, how he shut down when pressured, how he disappeared into silence like a ritual. 

Gi-hun wanted to believe In-ho’s sadness was his to soothe. That the parts of him still stitched to the memory of her might one day unravel for him. But instead, his grief had a name. A shape. A history and a face. And Gi-hun was left with a bitter taste he hadn’t expected: the realization that you can’t compete with the dead—especially not the dead who were loved well. 

Because In-ho had once chosen her. With intention. With love. With everything. 

And Gi-hun didn’t know if he’d ever be more than a budding confidant, teetering on the precipice of tension. He didn’t know if he would ever be more than an echo of what In-ho already lost. 

He sighed. His lungs expanded and contracted with a heavy motion. He exhaled with the kind of breath that didn’t just leave his diaphragm, but came from somewhere deeper. The quiet, aching place where curiosity tangled with hesitation. 

He picked up his phone, the black screen cold and indifferent. He unlocked it, opened the messenger app, and tapped on their message thread. Gi-hun stared at the last text in the chat. A message that he had sent.  

“ Thank you for tonight.” 

It was a quiet echo, filled with the brutal finality of the small words written below his own blue text box. 

Read at 10:46 p.m.

Gi-hun typed and deleted. 

He didn’t know how to respond to the simple words below his own. 

Read. 

A final nail in the coffin for some. The beginning of the end for many. 

He had harbored over the little words for days now, trying to read into it more than it should. It meant nothing, right? Maybe he forgot to respond. It was late after all. Maybe it didn’t require a response. It was just a simple meeting between two new friends…

But it wasn’t. Not really. 

He finally settled the pads of his thumbs on the keyboard and tried to gather his thoughts. 

Did it mean anything to you? 

Delete.

What were Sundays like with her?

He recalled what In-ho mentioned about Sundays. He settled for the simple things. A weaker alcohol. A smaller presence in the city. A day where the world would continue on without Hwang In-ho living in it. A day where he wouldn’t “participate.” 

Gi-hun wondered if he had those habits a decade ago, when his wife was still alive. Still breathing. Still participating. 

He stared at the message. Then his thumb rapidly pressed the delete key, the “X” blinking on and off with each deletion. 

It was too obvious. Too pointed. Too raw. 

And In-ho would think he was fucking insane. 

Gi-hun groaned, twisting his head in small circles. He placed the phone down on the cluttered desk, a few post-it notes fluttering to the floor with the sudden motion. He pressed his palm flat over the back of the case, like he was holding a physical manifestation of his coiled ache. 

The city outside had begun to turn silver. That particular Seoul hour where the sun hadn’t quite set, but the streetlamps had given up waiting. And in the hush between dawn and dusk, Gi-hun sat with the full weight of another man’s grief, his own longing, and an aching infatuation sitting on his chest—suffocating him with no mercy. 

We don’t compete with the past because we think we’ll win. We do it because we hope the present still counts for something. And yet, when the past looks like love without fracture, and you’re just beginning to fall—it’s hard not to wonder if your heart will ever be enough. 

 

---

 

“Have you ever been in love?” 

Sang-woo stopped midway through a drag of his cigarette, his lips still half-parted. His fingers drifted away from his mouth and paused in the air, a curl of smoke traced lazy loops into the cool Seoul dusk. He looked at Gi-hun wildly, like he’d asked if gravity was optional. 

“What the hell kind of question is that?” 

Gi-hun shrugged, tugging at the brim of his blue baseball cap just enough to cover his eyes, shielding himself from a question that wasn’t really a question. Not for Sang-woo. Not for himself. 

He was perched on the edge of Sang-woo’s balcony—half rare and half romantic if it had been with anyone else. Below them, the city buzzed softly: scooters zipped between food stalls. Flashy signs blinked themselves awake. A businessman argued into a headset while weaving through foot traffic. 

Sang-woo leaned back in one of his metal patio chairs, legs propped on the iron railing like he owned the skyline in front of them. The lingering cigarette between his fingers dangled, its ember pulsed like a heartbeat, waiting for a response. He exhaled slowly, the smoke continued to curl toward the dusk like it, too, was trying to avoid answering. 

“I mean, sure. Once or twice. Nothing too serious…” 

Sang-woo’s voice trailed off like the aforementioned smoke. Casual, like he was brushing lint from a black wool coat. He leaned forward to tap ash into a chipped ceramic dish.  

Gi-hun didn’t speak right away. A kind of silence settled—one that wasn’t awkward. It was old. Worn. Like a silence they’d sat in before. Many times since their childhood days. 

Sang-woo rarely romanticized anything. Love was just another chapter, maybe a tiny footnote, in his life. It was never the headline. 

Sang-woo settled back in the chair, returning to his original position. “There was this girl in my macroeconomics class at SNU. Then there was another at work a while back, but even then—I don’t know. I was in it. Until I wasn’t."

“Until I wasn’t?” 

Was that how love worked for most people? A light switch flipped off one quiet night when no one was watching. 

Gi-hun stared at the street below. He couldn’t bring himself to respond. He knew that whatever he said at the moment would feel dishonest somehow.

With his gaze sharpened, Sang-woo turned toward him. “How’s work?” 

Gi-hun shut his eyes. This was work. Love was his job, his source of income. His entire personal life was the source of monetary gain. His feelings became paragraphs. His heartbreaks became prose. And every failed emotion turned into rent money. 

He swiped a few strands of stray hair from his forehand, a subtle shield of action. “Fine,” Gi-hun said softly, his voice nearly lost in the city noise below. 

But Sang-woo didn’t press. He knew Gi-hun that well. He knew that “fine” usually meant “intruding somewhere private.” 

Maybe that’s the curse of turning your life into a column. People think you’ve already processed the pain just because you’ve written it down. But truthfully? Sometimes the edits cut deeper than the first draft ever did. 

Sang-woo flicked ash again. “I finally caught up to all your columns,” he said, his eyes locked on the skyline. “Read them on my breaks. You’re writing well now, by the way. Reminds me of before.” 

Gi-hun looked over, wary of what was coming next. 

Sang-woo tilted his head, just slightly. “But…it seems like you’re not telling me a lot.” 

The words landed gently, but they landed. 

There are people who know your story. Through words, through columns. And then there are people who remember who you were before you learned how to tell it. 

Gi-hun swallowed. His voice came out quiet, like he hadn’t used it in days. 

“We never see each other,” he said, not accusing—just deflecting. “It was July the last time. The bar. That bar in Mapo. You wore that god-awful pinstriped shirt that Ali laughed at."

Sang-woo cracked a small smile. “That was expensive.” 

“It was still terrible.” 

They both laughed, but it was brief. The silence after was heavier. 

It’s strange how absence can go unnoticed until someone names it. And then suddenly, it's everywhere. In the pauses. In the skipped check-in’s. In the way one of your best friends, the person who is like a brother to you, has to read your heartbreak in print to know how you’re doing. 

“So…just tell me, hyung. Who is this guy you’ve been writing about? You ignored my last text when I asked.” 

Gi-hun paused. He felt exposed. Bare. Naked. Like he’d left the front door of his heart cracked open and someone finally noticed the draft. The hat on his head suddenly felt too heavy. He could feel each individual strand of hair on the back of his neck. His chest was too tight.

There’s a particular kind of panic that only comes when someone you care about asks you a question you don’t want to answer honestly.

He tried to laugh it off—something breezy, something originally Gi-hun—but it caught in his throat before it reached the surface of his tongue. 

“I don’t know,” he said, too quietly again. “He’s someone I wasn’t supposed to know. Not really.” 

Sang-woo narrowed his eyes, his gaze focused on Gi-hun over the top of his glasses. “You’ve written about him like he’s a myth. A man made from everything perfect in the world. But lately…” He paused and studied Gi-hun like a lawyer gathering facts. “Lately, it sounds like that persona has faltered.” 

Gi-hun looked down, shifting his weight against the metal railing of the balcony. 

“It…It has,” he said. “He’s not what I imagined him to be. He’s…a bit different from the image I created of him.” 

Sang-woo didn’t speak right away. He didn’t need to. Gi-hun could feel his keen gaze watching the side of his face. Listening in that quiet way old friends do—beneath the words, beneath the layers. 

Some men take up space in your bed. Others take up space in your memory. And then, there are the ones who set up permanent residence in your sentences, like their mailing address is you. 

“Does he know?” Sang-woo finally asked. 

Gi-hun shook his head. “No, I hope not.” he paused for a moment. “But he does read my column. I saw him reading it once.” 

“Jesus, hyung,” Sang-woo muttered, crushing his cigarette fully. “He’ll find out eventually if he still reads your column.” 

Gi-hun looked up. “I know.” 

And he did. But In-ho knowing didn’t make it easier. If anything, it made it worse. He didn’t want to pressure a still-grieving man into something new, something unfamiliar, into something Gi-hun wanted.  Because this wasn’t some passing arc from him, this was the ghost he kept writing into every closing line. The mystery he didn’t want to solve. 

Sang-woo moved his legs from the iron railing, placing both feet on the ground. He adjusted his position in the chair, moving his weight. “Do I know him?”

Gi-hun hesitated. His throat tightened like it was bracing for impact. And maybe it was. 

He looked up, finally, his eyes tired. “Hwang In-ho.” 

A brief flash of recognition streaked through Sang-woo’s eyes. He blinked. “Huh.” 

Gi-hun waited—for concern, for the laugh that might undercut the weight of the name. 

“I’ve heard the name before,” Sang-woo said slowly, running a hand over his short bangs. “Works in the police force, right? A few members of the force bank with the firm. I hear he runs his station like the Marines.” 

Gi-hun didn’t say anything. Rather, he couldn’t say anything. His silence wasn’t uncertainty or surprise—it was self-preservation. 

“I also heard he’s up for a promotion soon, too. Superintendent General or something?” 

Gi-hun nodded, but still didn’t speak. 

It was strange hearing his name spoken aloud. Like watching someone else read your dream out of a newspaper. It didn’t belong to his world—not really. And yet, here he was. Showing up in Sang-woo’s vocabulary. Becoming real in terrifying ways.

“You’re serious about him,” Sang-woo continued, not quite asking. “Even if you don’t want to be.” 

“I don’t know if I can be,” Gi-hun finally croaked. “He’s…” Gi-hun searched for the word, but there were too many to describe In-ho. “Complicated. And private. And there’s this weight on him, like he’s always five seconds away from disappearing.” 

Sang-woo studied him. “Is it the mystery that’s pulling you in?” 

Dammit. 

Of course, Sang-woo would figure it out. The cause for every thought in his head to be about Hwang In-ho. Gi-hun was drawn to the enigma of In-ho from the start. His silence. His mystery. 

Sang-woo could always read Gi-hun for filth. 

Gi-hun laughed slightly under his breath. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s the way he looks at me.” 

Love wasn’t always grand. Sometimes it was a whisper between silences. A glance across an awning. A smile at the market. A ring catching in the light. A column of emotions settled in their hands. A bare love confession that wasn’t directed at you, not yet. 

Sang-woo didn’t say anything right away. Then: “I assume you know he’s a widower, right?” 

Gi-hun flinched, just slightly. Not enough for Sang-woo to notice, but he always seemed to. “I know” 

A little too well. 

“Just—be careful.” Sang-woo’s voice softened, the way it did when he was speaking to the version of Gi-hun no one else saw. The one without columns. The one without punchlines. He spoke to the Gi-hun that he once saw as a child when their mothers called them home for dinner. 

Gi-hun gave a small nod and shuffled his feet. He gestured to the open pack of cigarettes that laid beside Sang-woo, indicating he wanted one. 

Beyond the iron railing, the hum of Seoul’s night crept in. Somewhere far off, a car horn bled into the sound of footsteps. Gi-hun wondered if those footsteps could be his—if they could be In-ho’s. The pulse of a city never really stopped for anything. Not even the slight cracking of a heart. 

 

---

 

“Just—be careful.” 

Gi-hun turned the key in his apartment door and let the words linger in his head. They rattled around in his conscience like loose change in an old coat pocket. Be careful. A phrase he never thought would come from Sang-woo’s mouth, let alone directed at him, spoken with a gentleness that wasn’t often expressed between them. 

Sang-woo, whose usual tone usually leaned toward pragmatic, almost surgical, had said it so softly. No sarcasm. No hard edges. Just a warning wrapped in concern. And that made it stick.

Does he know something I don’t? 

Gi-hun shook his head at the thought. 

The night was significantly cooler since he left Sang-woo’s apartment. The sidewalks were like slick ice, his breath visible in the October fog. It was quiet, with barely a rustle of the leaves, as most of them had started to fall. The seasons changed softly without thunder or spectacle. It was just a quiet reminder that nothing, especially the city, ever really slept. 

Gi-hun kicked off his shoes at the door, tugged his coat off his shoulders, and made his way to the couch. The room felt too still. Too sterile. It always did after a conversation that lingered longer than it should have, which was more often than not nowadays. 

His hand drifted to his pants pocket. He felt the weight of his phone heavy against his thigh. He reached for it, pulling it out of its denim enclosure. 

There it was, again. The thread. Their thread. Now pinned to the top of his iMessage app like a wound he couldn’t stop touching. 

Hwang In-ho

The last message was still the simple, neutral “Thank you for tonight.” Nearly a week old now and In-ho still hadn’t responded with real words, only his silence. 

Nothing since then. 

Gi-hun opened the message again, like he hadn’t already done so fifteen times since he sent it. 

He started to type again. Stopped. Started. 

There Gi-hun was, in the same predicament as earlier in the week. At a loss of words. Not knowing what to type and not being able to express his true thoughts. He didn’t want the silence between them to be loud or sharp. He didn’t want it to feel deliberate, but it did. It had to. 

“Were you thinking of her that night?”

Too weird. Deleted. 

“Did I make you forget, even just for a second?” 

Fucking creepy. Deleted. 

He stared at the blinking cursor. It mocked him with its pulse. Instead he typed out: 

“You disappear really well, you know that?” 

Gi-hun looked at it. His thumb hovered over “send.” His hands shook slightly—not from fear, but from that quiet tremor that comes when you’re standing too close to something you might regret. 

He studied the message again and again. Every word was weighted. Not dramatic, not even accusatory. Just true. Painfully true. 

But truth isn’t always something you should hand over so freely. Especially not to someone who has a graduate degree in the art of absence. 

His thumb continued to hover heavily over the screen. The weight of indecision pressed down on him more than the message itself. 

Gi-hun sighed. His grip loosened—

—and the phone slipped. 

It tumbled between the couch cushions, wedging itself between threaded fabric. 

He scrambled, reaching for it with an urgency that betrayed how much he still cared. 

The screen blinked back at him. 

Sent. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (11:29 p.m.)

You disappear really well, you know that?

 

Gi-hun’s breath hitched. For a moment, he just stared. Wide-eyed and mouth gaping. He hadn’t meant to send it. Not yet. Not ever. And yet, there it was. Delivered. Exposed. Hanging in the air like laundry left out in the rain. 

His heart thudded once. Twice. Three times. But he knew—In-ho would read it. 

And somewhere in the quiet of that thought, in the fluorescent hum of his apartment, he finally felt the weight of Sang-woo’s words settle over him fully: 

“Just—be careful.” 

Because ghosts don’t always stay dead. 

Sometimes, they text you back. 

Notes:

Hey everyone,

Thank you so much for reading! It was a joy to write this chapter. I tried something different with the flashback with Eun-ji. I tried to recall Gi-hun previous experience with love, and him trying to compare his fading marriage to the look in In-ho's eyes.

I also enjoyed writing the scene with Sang-woo. I think that Gi-hun would tell him certain things that he might not with Jung-bae, and that there would be this unspoken understanding between them no matter what.

I definitely haven't been in Gi-hun's situation before with the text message...

Anyway, thank you all again for your support! Every comment, kudo, bookmark, and subscription brings me immense joy, so please continue to read! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Chapter 9: A Response, an Ache, and a Comparison

Summary:

After the accidental slip of his hands, Gi-hun finds himself face-to-face with In-ho. With what begins as a conversation about distance slowly unravels into something deeper: grief, memory, and the blurred lines between what's real and what's written. As old wounds resurface and new ones form, Gi-hun is left wondering if moving forward means letting go...or simply choosing what's real.

It started with a slip. 

Not the kind one could recover from with a witty retort or change of subject. The kind that bypassed logic, bypassed pride, and came straight from the bloodstream of want. One moment his hands gripped the phone tightly, his thumbs hovering, and the next, the message was gone. Sent. 

And maybe that’s the thing about people who vanish: part of you always hopes they’ll reappear right where you left them—unchanged, waiting. But they don’t. They come back stranger. Heavier. And sometimes, they come back carrying the memory of someone else. 

In-ho’s response wasn’t grand. It was just enough to knock the air sideways in Gi-hun’s lungs. Under the jaundiced hum of a chicken shop that had no business being romantic, the unscheduled unraveling occurred. The almost-truths. The way In-ho’s eyes didn’t quite meet Gi-hun’s when he needed them to. 

It wasn’t that Gi-hun wasn’t enough. 

It was that he wasn’t her. 

Again. 

The woman In-ho had loved. The woman who had died. 

The woman whose words, somehow, still lived on in the margins of Gi-hun’s own. 

That night, late under the fluorescent haze, Gi-hun realized he wasn’t just writing about In-ho—he was being read through the memory of someone else. His column. His voice. His longing…it all reminded In-ho of her. And maybe that’s why he kept coming back. Begrudgingly, mysteriously. Maybe that’s why he never stopped Gi-hun. Maybe that’s why he came every time Gi-hun called. 

No grand finale. Just a soft quip about next week’s column and a ringing warning of not wanting the real, messy version. A flicker of pain behind practiced detachment was left, and a door that closed more gently than Gi-hun expected. 

And still, the ache continued to throb. Not sharp—just persistent. 

Like grief. 

Or being seen too late. 

 

---

 

Gi-hun didn’t move for a while. 

He stayed there—half slumped on the couch, hair sticking slightly to his stubbled cheek, the weight of the unsent-now-sent message pressing down on him like a too-warm blanket in the middle of summer. 

A streak of discomfort pounded in his chest. A discomfort that reminded him that he was still alive. 

Still human. 

Not in the triumphant, life-affirming way—but in the painful, reluctant kind. The kind that settles in your ribs and hums behind your eyes. 

Gi-hun always believed words had power. Whether that be words of kindness, affirmation, anger, manipulation, or even a love confession. But sometimes, it wasn’t the polished and edited words that did the most damage. Sometimes, it was the accidental ones. The ones that slipped out by mistake—like truth often did—between thought and hesitation. 

“You disappear really well, you know that?”

The sentence sounded less like a jab now and more like a confession. Not of love, but of absence. Hadn’t he made that apparent to In-ho before? He had described the ache that formed when he hadn’t shown, when only the memory of his sad gaze was left lingering. Of the hole left behind. Of the outline he’d carved into Gi-hun’s days just by not being in them. 

He sighed and dragged his limp body off the couch. Gi-hun felt as if every limb in his body was feeling the effects of the text. That his muscles knew what big fuck-up he had just made. 

Silent footsteps followed in his wake as he moved into the kitchen, like distancing himself from the scene of the crime might undo it. But his phone stayed. Tethered to him like a dog to post. He set it beside the sink while rinsing his hands under the water, letting the hot liquid scald his skin and pull his mind somewhere else. 

But the heat of the water didn’t work. It only left his skin raw. 

Gi-hun glanced at the screen every few seconds. Nothing. 

He turned off the water and leaned against the counter. Crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. 

He hated himself for sending it. But he really hated himself for needing a reply. 

And yet—

What was it that he needed In-ho to say? 

That he’d seen the message and felt something? That he missed Gi-hun? But how can he miss a man he barely knows? Did he want In-ho to tell him directly that he wasn’t just one more person orbiting his grief like some emotional understudy? 

Gi-hun blinked, remembering that sad gaze. Remembering that way In-ho’s eyes sometimes drifted mid-conversation—like he was listening to someone else. Someone gone. 

In-ho hadn’t made eye contact that much, had he? 

She must have been an extraordinary woman, to hold a man like that, even in death. To linger so deeply in the spaces he inhabits—the silence between words, the weight behind his eyes. 

But it wasn’t just about the wife. The wife wasn’t the one making these decisions. She wasn’t the one bumping into Gi-hun and leaving him on a string. It was about him. The way he withheld. The way he emerged and shared when it suited him, as if emotional intimacy was something he rationed like sugar during war times. 

Still, Gi-hun waited. 

Three hours passed. 

The city turned a darker shade of noir in the autumn. It looked beautiful and bruised all at once—it’s starry night creeping through blinds and balconies like the soft edges of thoughts. 

He nearly missed the buzz. His mind was too preoccupied by the rapid beat of his heart. Gi-hun thought it might have been a phantom vibration, or a hallucination born from hope.

But then he saw it.

His phone’s screen brightened with the alert of a new message. The green text box held an all-too familiar name. 

Hwang In-ho. 

Gi-hun swallowed harshly before grasping the phone, his throat burning at the action. Carefully, he swiped up on his lock screen and opened the thread. 

 

Hwang In-ho (2:18 a.m.):

     Sorry. It’s been a busy week. 

 

That was it. 

No emoticons. No exclamation point. Not even a “ how are you ?”

Seven words that managed to stretch like silence even further. 

Gi-hun reread it like it might change. That hidden between the spaces of the letters was the answer to a question he never dared ask: 

Was I ever more than a distraction? 

You read them again—once, twice, like repetition might soften the blow, like the meaning might shift under the right kind of stare. But they don’t change. They never do

He didn’t answer his internal question. Nor did he answer In-ho’s vague response right away. 

Gi-hun slid down onto the floor, his back leaned against the kitchen cabinets, staring at the message like it might thaw into something warmer if he waited long enough. But it didn’t. It stayed chilled. Crisp. Professional. The kind of text you’d send to a colleague. 

Or a casual friend. 

Not someone who you trauma-dumped to over whiskey and soju. Not someone who you kept gazing at with a mixed, confused sense of longing. 

Sorry. It’s been a busy week. 

Gi-hun could reply nothing. Let it fizzle. Let the dignity of silence have its moment. Give In-ho a taste of his own treatment. Let In-ho harp over the four letters of “ read” to the point of obsession…if that was even a possibility. 

But something in him needed to say it. Not for In-ho’s sake—but for his own. For the version of himself that appeared every time In-ho needled his presence into Gi-hun’s being. 

He didn’t want that thrill—that high— to disappear. 

Because when something keeps echoing that loudly in your chest, in your mind, what choice do you really have?

So he tapped back into the thread. Breathed once. Steadied his hands. Then typed. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:25 a.m.):

It’s fine.

 

He gazed at those two words like they meant more than they actually did. 

But maybe they did. 

Maybe they always do. 

Because “it’s fine” was what you said when it wasn’t. When silence had settled in like dust and you were too tired to wipe it away. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:26 a.m.):

You disappear really well, you know that?

 

It was a mistake the first time he sent it. It had slipped—like most truths do—out of his hands and into the light. But now, hours later and one dry response, it kept circling back. 

Gi-hun read it the way one might read a headline you already know the ending to. 

Over. 

And over. 

Not because he expected himself to sound different over text or a different reply from In-ho—but because it sounded like the most honest thing Gi-hun had ever said to him. And maybe that was the problem. He kept saying things he meant to this practical stranger. 

Three typing bubbles appeared seconds after Gi-hun hit the “send” button. They moved for a fraction of a second. 

Gone. 

Back again. 

Gone. 

Gi-hun bit his lip, chewing on the delicate skin of his bottom one. Maybe that was the end of the conversation. Maybe In-ho would end the very brief, very uneventful thread with only one total response. 

Gi-hun’s thumbs moved before he could process what he was doing. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:30 a.m.):

But I guess that’s your thing. 

Unfinished entrances and even quieter exits. 

 

That one, he didn’t gape at. Just hit send and leaned back against the counter, the phone face up in his palm. 

Typing. 

Not typing. 

Typing again. 

 

Hwang In-ho (2:34 a.m.):

     I didn’t mean to vanish. 

 

Gi-hun eyed the phone, his heartbeat slowing. He could leave it there. He should have left it there.

But he never really knew where “there” was with In-ho. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:36 a.m.):

But you did. 

For the fifth time. 

Like you always do. 

 

The cursor blinked again. Gi-hun’s thumb hovered. There was more he could say—

Come back. 

Let’s stop pretending. 

I still want to see you. 

I’m going fucking insane over you. 

Instead, he let the unsent messages sit in his mind. But it wasn’t a closed door that shut off those words. It was one that was not quite opened yet, but with the right draft of wind, it could be. 

 

Hwang In-ho (2:38 a.m.):

     You say that like it’s a skill. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:40 a.m.):

Isn’t it? 

Most people just fade. You ghost. 

Literally. 

 

Gi-hun didn’t mean for it to sound almost tender. He didn’t want anything in that moment to sound soft or caring. He wanted to lock his feelings away behind bars and never let them see the light of day. He wanted to hurt In-ho. Make him obsess. Suffer. He wanted to inflict some of his own pain on the man. 

If that was even possible. Because when you’ve been through enough pain, do new wounds sting or do they just leave a numbness that will never be felt? 

Typing. Pause. More typing. 

 

Hwang In-ho (2:42 a.m.):

     Maybe I don’t know how to stay. 

 

Gi-hun sat with that one. Let it sink under his skin and hum like static. 

Was that a move? A flirtation in disguise? Or was he actually being serious? Because who says that if they’re not suggesting more? 

He could’ve sent back a joke. Could have turned the whole thing on its head with a sarcastic jab. But Gi-hun didn’t want to deflect. Not this time. 

Was it an invitation into the chaos of him—or a warning to stay out? Either way, it lingered. The chaos was intriguing. Some men send flowers, others send signals wrapped in emotional riddles. And Hwang In-ho was one of the latter. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:43 a.m.):

Then let me fix that. 

Meet me sometime. 

No umbrellas, no accidents, no alcohol—just us. 

I’ll be there.

Gi-hun watched the words fold into the thread like a breath he couldn’t take back. 

He gripped the phone tightly in his right hand and tilted his head back. His occiput gently knocked against the wooden cabinets. Gi-hun gazed up at the ceiling, looking at the cobwebs and cracks that littered the surface. He needed to fix that. Or maybe he would pay the young Northern girl that always hung around the train station to do it. Either way, it didn’t matter at the moment. Nothing mattered besides the damned phone in his hand. 

It’s strange—how vulnerable a sent message can feel. Like you’ve handed someone a glass version of yourself, and now you just wait…to see if they’ll hold it or let it fall. 

He didn’t pace. Didn’t fidget. Just stood in silence, listening to the room, to himself, to the nothing that was suddenly everything. 

Three minutes later, his screen lit up. 

Read at 2:46 a.m.

His pulse quickened again. Not in panic this time—just anticipation. The kind that comes right before something changes. 

There’s always a pause people take when they’re deciding whether to protect themselves…or let you in. 

The typing appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. 

Gi-hun held his breath. 

Then—

 

Hwang In-ho (2:48 a.m.):

     I’m on graveyard shift every night this week. 

 

He read it twice. Three times. A fourth to just be sure. 

Gi-hun had prepared himself for the most certain inevitable, but what he read wasn’t a no. It wasn’t a yes either. It was just logistics—like feelings could be scheduled around shift rotations. 

Still, In-ho answered. And that, in Gi-hun’s world, meant something. 

 

Seong Gi-hun (2:51 a.m.):

The chicken shop across from the station is good. 

Can you meet there one night?

 

He didn’t over-complicate it—didn’t say “dinner” or “just us” or “please leave your dead wife at home” —though all of it sat unspoken between the lines. 

Maybe not the last one. Definitely not the last one. 

He watched the cursor blink. Three dots. Gone. 

He waited. 

Not like a teenage girl waiting for a date to confirm, but like someone waiting for a ghost to decide if it still wanted to haunt him. 

 

Hwang In-ho (2:53 a.m.):

     If they haven’t closed yet. 

 

Another set of three dots appeared. 

 

Friday. 

10:45. 

If you want to go forward. 

 

There was no flourish. No over-explanation. Just precision. Just a choice. And yet—it felt loud. Louder than anything In-ho had said to Gi-hun. Louder than the love confession to his dead wife. Louder than the silence he oh-so loved to bask in. Louder than any sentence he could have ever spoken. 

Gi-hun smiled. Not wide. Just enough. 

Maybe the romantic thing isn’t someone showing up with flowers. It’s someone finally showing up with certainty. 

Seong Gi-hun (2:54 a.m.):

I’ll meet you there. 

 

---

 

The familiar fluorescent lights buzzed about Gi-hun, a constant, low hum that matched the dull ache in his chest—the back of his skull. Everything around him felt a little too bright, a little too exposed. The same broken mascot still flickered in the background. The hum of a forgotten sports match on TV sounded. The mostly empty tables still gleamed with grease-slicked oil. The smell of pepper paste was faint in the air. 

Gi-hun sat at the same plastic table near the window as before. The ghost of all his secret observations, his conversation with Jung-bae, and each mixed emotion he experienced came crashing back, cascading down his ribs and pooling in his stomach with a warm heat. 

He sat with his legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. He glanced at his wrist watch every so often. It was 10:38. In-ho wasn’t earlier nor was he late—not yet, at least.

Gi-hun hadn’t ordered. 

The cashier, an older woman with a sympathetic expression plastered on her face, had glanced at him a few times. But she just smiled, polite and with pity. She had seen Gi-hun before  multiple times. She had seen him at the peak of his infatuation—when he arrived early in the morning or lingered late at night, watching the police station sign flicker in all its glory. 

His phone rested beside him, screen dark. Untouched. No notifications. 

Outside, the city yawned. A taxi crawled by, headlights dulled through glass. Seoul, soft and half-asleep, breathed around him. 

The days since the accidental message passed like oozing molasses. Slow, unhurried, and impossibly thick with anticipation and things unsaid. Every hour had a dense, clingy texture. Each one stretched longer than it had any right to, like the universe had decided to test his patience in the cruelest way possible. 

Time could heal anything, that’s what has always been said. But sometimes it just keeps the wound open longer, like a bad conversation on pause. 

Gi-hun ran the message over and over in his head. 

Friday. 

10:45 

If you want to go forward. 

Gi-hun wanted to go forward. 

God, how he wanted to go forward. 

Not just with In-ho, but with everything. Past the fears, past the half-starts, the flinching, the grief. Past the ghosts—both his and In-ho’s. 

The message had sounded like certainty. But, Gi-hun had come to quickly learn, certainty could vanish in  a gust of wind—or worse, a silence too long to recover from. 

He glanced at his watch again for what seemed like the hundredth time that minute. Time was inching closer and there was still no In-ho. Gi-hun shifted in his seat. Adjusted his coat on the chair behind him like it made his mind more rooted somehow. 

We never talk about what it means to wait. Not the practical kind—on subways or in checkout lines. But the real kind. The kind where you suspend yourself between hope and disappointment. 

A man in a delivery jacket swept the floor behind him. The soda machine hissed softly. A fryer clattered in the back. No one said anything. No one asked him if he was still expecting someone. 

But he was. 

He always would. 

One doesn’t come to a place like this for the chicken. They come here hoping for a quiet miracle. Of someone showing up, not because you begged them to, but because they wanted to. And maybe he would show. For a sixth encounter. For another chance to get to know each other without the frills of an enigma. 

The door chimed. Gi-hun didn’t look up right away. 

There’s always that last second—right before you turn your head—when everything still belongs to possibility. 

Then he looked. 

And there In-ho was. 

Tired. Disheveled. Quiet. 

But there. 

He stepped in—not with a smile, not with an apology for being almost late. Just heavy boots and a tactical vest half-zipped over a sweat-damp black under shirt. His uniform looked lived-in. His eyes, slightly sunken. His skin carried the weight of a shift that still hadn’t let him go. 

He saw Gi-hun immediately and made his way over, the thick-heeled boots thudding against sticky linoleum. No greeting. No explanation. Just a long exhale as he slid into the plastic chair across from Gi-hun like the seat owed him nothing. 

“I’ve got thirty minutes,” In-ho muttered, his voice hoarse. “A smoke break, technically.” 

Gi-hun nodded. “I haven't ordered yet.” 

“I’m not hungry,” In-ho said, staring at the laminated menu anyway. “Everything here tastes the same.” 

“Maybe that’s the comfort of it,” Gi-hun quipped. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Predictability.” 

In-ho scoffed, but his face stayed expressionless. 

Gi-hun looked at him, really looked at him. The man who used to live only in metaphor and margin notes. Who once showed up in his columns as a riddle wrapped in poetry. And now, here he was, flesh and fatigue. With grief weighing down on his shoulders. Less mystery now and more…mess. 

“I asked the cook to keep the fryer on,” Gi-hun said. He didn’t ask that, actually. But saying it made the moment feel less tense. Less breakable. 

In-ho nodded, once. Looked at him. Not past Gi-hun. Not through him. At him. And for a moment, Gi-hun thought something was coming. An apology. A reason. Something real. 

But it passed, like all things do. It became just a flicker behind his eyes. 

“I almost didn’t come,” In-ho added. His eyes flickered back down, addressing more to his hands that gripped the menu than to Gi-hun.

A hot streak of pain flashed through Gi-hun—the familiar ache coiled deep in his chest, the one that always seemed to ease whenever In-ho was near. It was back again, now quietly detonating inside each chamber of his heart, thrumming beneath the surface of his veins. 

It’s funny how the hardest part of being hurt is remembering how much you once belonged. 

In-ho looked up, meeting his eyes for a brief second again. And there it was: the same expression of regret, of sadness. In-ho’s eyes were cloudy with a figure he could no longer see. The weight of a decade old ghost sat on his shoulders. Gi-hun swore he could see some kind of spirit hanging above In-ho’s head. 

But Gi-hun was tired. 

Tired of that same look. Tired of the same regret, betrayal, and anything else damning in In-ho’s eyes. 

Gi-hun was tired of In-ho’s wife. 

He inhaled slowly, letting his lungs fill with oxygen carefully. He should’ve snapped. He should’ve  ended it all. He should’ve gotten up from the table and blocked In-ho’s number. He should’ve pulled every column he wrote about the man from existence. But “should have’s” are synonyms for regret, and Gi-hun didn’t want to have any of those. 

Not anymore. 

“But you did,” Gi-hun finally said. 

“Yeah.” A pause. “That doesn’t mean I should have.” 

Should have.

And there it was. Regret. Audible, obscene, and vaguely familiar. 

The line landed between them like a dropped cigarette, still burning at the tip. 

Gi-hun didn’t say anything. Just leaned back in the plastic seat, crossed his long legs, and rubbed his jaw like he was erasing a thought before it could turn into an action. “You look like hell.” He wasn’t trying to deflect. His pain was already out there. Printed, inked, and surely already known by In-ho. He wasn’t trying to hide. 

“I feel like it,” In-ho answered, glancing toward the door, the window, the broken mascot. Anywhere but Gi-hun’s eyes. “It’s been a busy week at the station.” 

A busy week. 

All too familiar. Words that Gi-hun had read over and over in reasoning about In-ho's absence after their night of drinks. Words that In-ho had used as an excuse. 

Words that were used as a deflection. 

“Is that why you didn’t want to come? Because I remember you using that same line when you didn’t text me back.” 

Another flicker. In-ho picked at a loose thread on his undercoat, like if he focused hard enough on that, the question would answer itself. “Don’t start,” he muttered. “Not here.” 

“Where, then?” Gi-hun asked. Not angry. Just tired. “We can’t start something that never was.” The words came out flat, but his voice wavered at the end—like a truth he’d finally allowed himself to say aloud. 

In-ho didn’t answer. 

There’s a special kind of loneliness in grieving something you never had, but this time, it’s grieving something you had a glimpse at. A relationship that lived in glances, silences, missed timings, in crushed and dejected fantasies. 

It doesn’t get a funeral. It just lingers. Until one of you stops pretending it was ever real. 

Gi-hun looked at him again. He saw the tired lines under In-ho’s eyes. The creases at the corner of his eyes. Was it from being outside too much? Age? Or the overwhelming burden of grief?  

“You show up like this every time,” Gi-hun continued. “Every time we see each other, you act like this. And I’m supposed to be…happy that you’re here?” 

Maybe it was the frustration of longing. Maybe it was the building of months worth of tension. Or maybe it was the ache in Gi-hun chest talking. But whatever it was, it was raw, unfiltered, and fucking exhausting. 

“I didn’t ask you to wait.” 

But you wanted me to. That was the thing with In-ho. He didn’t ask—it was like everything was expected. 

Gi-hun scoffed almost bitterly. He stood up from his seat, the plastic screeching against the linoleum floor, and walked to the counter. He ordered two combos of something, he wasn’t entirely sure. His mind was still at the grease-soaked table, relieving the tone of In-ho’s voice. 

When he returned to the table, he half expected to see an empty seat across from his own. However, In-ho was still there. Silent. Not moving. Gi-hun slid the tray across to him without a word. 

He watched as In-ho picked at a wing, dragging it across the parchment paper of the tray in oily streaks. Gi-hun watched his fingers, the callouses along the knuckle, the faint scar near his wrist. He had hands that held too many stories, too many memories, and gave none of them away. 

“You don’t talk much. You don’t look at me,” Gi-hun mused. “I keep wondering if you were always like this. Or if I just wrote you differently.” 

In-ho didn’t look up, of course, but Gi-hun saw the muscle of his jaw tighten. “What do you want me to say? I didn’t ask you to write anything.” 

I didn’t ask you…

“No, I know you didn’t. But you didn’t stop me. You still haven’t. Not yet, at least.” 

Love—infatuation—or whatever bruised and tortured version we were playing with, isn’t always a declaration. Sometimes it’s the absence of a no. The silence that lets the story keep writing itself, even when the ending’s unclear. 

Gi-hun could have let the conversation drift. Let the night stay manageable with whatever boiling tension was dripping between them. But something in him—an ache that had lived in his chest for far too long—was ready to unfurl. 

“You let me keep writing,” he continued, voice barely above a raspy whisper. “You read every word. You show up. Not always. Not willingly. Not fully. Like tonight. But you show up enough. Enough for me to think…”

Gi-hun trailed off. 

In-ho knew.

That was the worst part—he knew. 

And yet, he still said nothing. 

In-ho’s eyes continued to stay locked to the table, but his gaze flickered up for a second. A brief, minute second, and something in him cracked. “I kept reading them,” he said. “Even when I wanted to stop.”

A pause. Gi-hun knew which column he was referring to. He knew it was that one. The one from their last encounter.

Abso-fucking-lutely. 

“Especially then.” 

Grief and guilt don’t come with instructions. And men like In-ho—they fold their feelings into tight corners and call it survival. 

“I thought,” In-ho went on, voice low, “If I stayed quiet long enough, you’d stop. You would move on. You would forget whatever you imagined me to be before it became something I’d ruin.” He laughed under his breath. A tired, bitter thing. “But every time I read your words…” He shook his head. “They felt like hers. ” 

Gi-hun froze. His brow furrowed, his lips parted. 

The fluorescent light above them buzzed faintly, like the room was holding its breath. 

He looked up fully at Gi-hun. “I didn’t stop you, because I didn’t want it to stop.” 

In-ho’s voice had dropped so low, so ragged, Gi-hun wasn’t sure if he meant his column…or the echo of a woman long gone. 

There it was—in real words from his mouth. The ghost I couldn’t compete with. Not another woman, but a memory. One that sounded like me. Wrote like me. 

Gi-hun blinked, trying to steady himself, but the ache twisted sharply in his chest. He could feel it pulse through his bloodstream, infecting every blood cell in his body. 

“You saw her in me.” It wasn’t a question. 

In-ho didn’t answer right away. But the way his fingers tightened around the greasy chicken wing he had been picking at was enough. 

“She was a writer too,” he said eventually. “Not published. Not like you. But she kept journals. Letters she never sent. Margins filled with questions no one ever answered.” 

His eyes stayed locked on Gi-hun’s. 

“You wrote things she would have written.” In-ho’s eyes softened. “In the same stubborn voice. The same ache. It was like hearing her again.” 

A beat passed. Then another. 

“And I couldn’t look away.” 

Gi-hun inhaled, sharp and shallow. “So all of this,” he asked tentatively, his voice cracking, “was just…you chasing a ghost?” 

“No,” In-ho dropped the piece of chicken back on the tray. He leaned in a little, his eyes slightly glassy. “It was me beginning to let her go.” 

What do you do when someone falls in love with a part of you that never was entirely yours? When you become a mirror, reflecting not who you are, but who they lost?

Gi-hun didn’t know what hurt more—being chosen because of the parallels…Or finally being seen because he was different. But something in him didn’t believe In-ho’s words. Something deep in his chest—lingering at the back of his mind—doubted In-ho had begun to move on at all. 

He could see In-ho studying him, quietly. 

“You never answered my question.”

Gi-hun looked up, his expression foggy with distraction and confusion. “What question?” 

In-ho didn’t blink. “The one where I asked what you wanted me to say.” 

There was a pause, almost heavy enough to pull every ounce of oxygen from Gi-hun’s lungs. 

“I don’t know,” Gi-hun finally admitted. His voice sounded distant now—even to himself. It was a far cry from the pressing tone from only ten minutes before. “Someting that feels more real than what you just said.”

“You think you want real. But real is messy. You’d hate it.” 

You admit that I remind you of your dead wife, but you tell me seconds later that I wouldn’t want “real.” You’re so confusing. 

Gi-hun's eyes snapped back to In-ho’s. “No,” he said—firmer now, like his voice had climbed out of the fog of confusion. It came out like a knife pressed too hard to skin. 

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” In-ho added, quieter now. It seemed he said it more to himself than to Gi-hun. 

Maybe not, but fatigue eventually sets in after exhausted repetition. Of filling silences with meaning and getting nothing in return again and again. 

“You said in your text, ‘If you want to go forward,’” Gi-hun rasped. “And I do.” The grittiness in his voice didn’t match the resolve in his eyes. “I’ll meet you there,” he said, “in whatever you decide to say. Real or not.” 

Sometimes almost-something-but-not-quite-love doesn’t need a destination. It just needs two people willing to walk toward something, even if they have no idea where it leads. 

In-ho didn’t speak right away. He just held Gi-hun’s gaze fully for the first time that night—like he was memorizing something he wasn’t sure he had the right to remember. If he had the right to move on. 

Then his eyes flickered toward the clock on the wall. 

11:15 p.m.

And that was his cue, apparently. 

In-ho stood, slow and deliberate. No dramatic gestures, just the soft scrape of his chair against the worn floor. 

Gi-hun straightened up, his mind still reeling. “You’re leaving.” 

In-ho paused, not quite looking at him. Not quite looking at anything there. But he was looking at something. Someone. Then, with a half-turn of his head, a small tilt on his uneven lips appeared. 

“I’m looking forward to next week’s column.” 

A shadow of a smile. Barely there. But Gi-hun caught it. 

Then In-ho was gone. 

Some men say goodbye with a word. Others say it with absence. But the worst kind? They leave you with a comparison to their deceased wife, a warning to not want anything real, and a smirk with just enough hope laced in it to keep the ache alive. 

 

---

 

Han River Hearts

By Seong Gi-hun

Seoul Correspondent

Special to the Sentinel

 

“Forward, in Theory” 

 

The worst kind of goodbye is the one that doesn’t sound like one at all. It’s a goodbye that has no dramatic crescendo. No tearful plea. No sense of finality. It is a goodbye that has just a pause. A look. A half-smile tossed over a shoulder like loose change. 

It’s a goodbye that leaves you with a sense of hope, with a sense of continuation. It’s a goodbye that has an open ending waiting to be written. 

But sometimes, the ending is never written, and all that is left of that goodbye is a blank page with both your names written on it, waiting for the next scene of dialogue 

I sat across from a man who once made my pulse quicken at the mere thought of his face, by him just entering the room. And now? I could barely feel my feet on the floor. That’s how far I had fallen. I was drifting in the abyss, somewhere between memory and madness, with madness taking the lead. I was between what I wanted him to do and what he actually said. 

He told me my words felt familiar. 

Like hers. 

The wife. 

The ghost I’ve never met, but who has haunted me for weeks. The spirit of a woman who has pressed down on my shoulders and held me captive under her memory. 

He didn’t say her name again, but he didn’t have to. We were both prisoners of this ghost’s spell, and her memory pressed against the table like a third presence. 

I mentioned before that I left our previous encounter not with a broken heart—not yet—but with something else in my chest. But now I think—I think that I’ve found the real heartbreak. It’s not that she existed, but that she existed in the space between us. A specter wearing my voice. A memory wrapped in the shape of my sentences. 

He said he didn’t stop me from writing because he didn’t want it to stop. But he didn’t say what “it” really was. He also didn’t say—what neither of us could say—was that it never really started. 

At least not in the way that it counts. 

Not in the clean, definitive way love is supposed to begin. With clarity. With certainty. Ours was built on ghosts and silence. 

Tonight I told him I wanted to go forward. 

I meant it. 

I just didn’t realize how impossible forward can feel when someone keeps looking backward. 

And yet, just before he left—before our time together had seemingly run out—he smiled. An upturn of his infuriating crooked lips. Paper-thin. A smile that people use when they don’t want to hurt you but already have. He said, “I’m looking forward to next week’s column.” 

Like I was still writing about him. 

Like I hadn’t been trying to stop. 

But the truth is—I was. I am. 

Even now, this…all of this…is still about him. Every sentence. Every story. 

And maybe that’s the problem. 

I keep writing about a man who leaves every time with some mysterious exit, hoping the right arrangement of words will make him stay. 

And maybe that’s my addiction: not the man, but the feeling, the ache. The space he leaves behind. The silence I keep trying to fill with well-placed longing. 

I was under the impression that stories could save. That writing could transform absence into meaning. But now, I’m not so sure. Because when he walked out that door—again—it wasn’t just a man leaving. 

It was the hope I had stitched into every unwritten ending. Every bet I had placed on myself. 

And all I could think was: 

God, I hope next week’s column finally has nothing to do with him. 

But here we are. 

Here I am. 

I hope you enjoyed this column, Mr. Big. 

Notes:

Hey Everyone,

Evil situationship final boss over here lol!!!!

But, in all seriousness, do NOT get yourself into a situationship with an emotionally repressed man. It does not end well...(trust me, I just got out of a 13 year situationship two months ago and I know). Also, thank you to Stevie Nicks for bringing back hope for those of us who are still delusional (If you go forward, I'll meet you there...).

Anyway, thank you all for reading this chapter! Your support and kindness mean the world to me! I will be updating the tags as well, so if you see a new tag or two, it's because I've added some to fit the current direction of the story right now.

Please comment, bookmark, leave kudos, etc... the whole nine yards! I appreciate all your support! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Thanks so much!! <3<3<3

Chapter 10: An Umbrella, a Bruise, and a Knock at the Door

Summary:

A forgotten object resurfaces, dragging memory with it. A young stranger offers unexpected clarity in the dim corners of a subway food court. And just when Gi-hun begins to believe in symbols more than people, the man he couldn't write out of his system shows up. Uninvited, unreadable, and maybe too late.

Or maybe...not.

Gi-hun hadn’t meant to find it, but the umbrella surfaced like a half-truth—one of those objects you don’t remember keeping, and one you never quite let go.

Jammed behind coats and unspoken things, it came loose, a crooked rib jutting like a confession. He hadn’t looked for it, not really. But it was there: damp with memory, stubbornly intact. The only thing In-ho had ever left behind that felt uncalculated, honest. That was the thing with him. He rarely stayed long enough to leave fingerprints, but somehow, he always left deep bruises where he pressed too hard on Gi-hun’s heart. 

The young girl came next. Sharp-eyed, bird-boned, too young to be that guarded. She slipped into his day like static, tugging at something Gi-hun hadn’t realized was loose. They sat together, two strangers beneath fluorescent lights, speaking in guarded offerings. She asked nothing of him, and somehow that made it feel like everything. 

And somewhere between the sharp sting of antiseptic and a shared, lukewarm bun, Gi-hun understood: the umbrella wasn’t about him anymore. It was about what Gi-hun carried. What he still hoped might keep him dry. 

And then came the buzz. The knock on his apartment door. 

Not loud. Not hesitant. Just…inevitable. 

There are some things you brace for, but never really believe will arrive. He was one of them. Standing there, breath clouded in the hallway air, wearing the look of a man who maybe, just maybe, came back not to haunt—but to stay. 

Gi-hun didn’t know what In-ho wanted. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

But he opened the door. 

 

---

 

Silence. 

Not the peaceful kind. Not the meditative, warm, thick kind that wrapped around you like a hug. Instead, it was a silence that bore down on Gi-hun. A silence that pressed. It clung to the walls of his apartment, stretched between the floorboards. It was ingrained in the counter tops. It was sown into the cushions of the couch. It was a silence that soaked into his skin like fog. 

He sat at his desk, laptop open, staring at the pulsing cursor against a stark white screen. He hadn’t written a word. Not since that night. Not since “I hope you enjoyed this column, Mr. Big.” Gi-hun flinched, almost imperceptibly at the thought, like someone had whispered words behind his ear. 

God, had he actually written that?

It read like a dare at the time. It was something that In-ho wanted. He wanted to be seen in that column. He said what he said on purpose. He did what he did to get a rise out of Gi-hun. It was like In-ho wanted to watch Gi-hun unravel in his column again. Like it was a silly game where he felt entertained to watch Gi-hun act that way. 

But he wasn’t forced to act that way. He wasn’t forced to write about In-ho at all. 

He shouldn’t have given In-ho the satisfaction of getting his way. The ending—that line—read more like a scar in the following days after publication. But Gi-hun gave In-ho the satisfaction, and he hated that he would do it again. And again. And Again. 

He shook his head as if to clear the thought—that damned line—from his head. As if that would undo the tone, the implication. The way he’d used his own byline to chase someone who specialized in leaving blank spaces. 

His fingers wobbled over the keys of the laptop. He pressed down on the keyboard until his fingers turned white. A streak of illegible hangul appeared on the blank document. At least something wasn’t blanched in silence anymore. 

Gi-hun pulled away from the laptop and closed it. He pushed back from the desk like he might fall though it, and balanced on the back legs of his office chair. His eyes skimmed the apartment, looking for something to tether himself to. 

The apartment was so quiet it felt padded. No buzz from the refrigerator. No hum of traffic clawing its way through Seoul’s arteries. Not even the neighbor’s usual muffled yelling. It was as if the entire city had gone into hiding—and Gi-hun was the only one not invited. 

Maybe that was where In-ho was. Maybe he was hiding with the rest of the city. 

There was no message. No accidental “I liked the column this week.” No delayed reaction to last week’s essay where Gi-hun had carefully slipped in so many lines only he would recognize. Not even the bubble of three dots that indicated he was typing. 

Just…nothing. 

And that frustrated Gi-hun beyond his core. But it was expected. Anything was to be expected with In-ho. A love confession to his dead wife one meeting, a comparison to the said woman the next. And, almost contradicting everything he said, warning Gi-hun to not want the real thing. 

“ But real is messy. You’d hate it.” 

He had the real thing with his wife, right? Then why wouldn’t In-ho want something real with the man that reminded him so much of her? 

Maybe it was the kind of love that people eulogize. The kind that drapes itself in tragedy and becomes immortal. 

The question lodged in this throat like a splinter. He hated how much he’d thought about it. Hated that his brain was still trying to logic its way into being wanted. 

Maybe Gi-hun reminded him too much. 

Maybe that was the point. 

Maybe Gi-hun was the echo—not the origin. A placeholder for something that could never be rewritten. And maybe that’s why In-ho reeled him in each time and set him free with a harsh slap against water like a fish. 

A chill passed through him that had nothing to do with the late autumn weather.  

He looked outside. Nearly bare trees, brown leaves covering the ground, rain pattering softly on the windows like it was trying not to disturb him. 

Gi-hun sighed. He had a meeting with his editor in less than an hour at the Sentinel’s high-end office in Sejong-daero. He eyed the rain again and rubbed the palms of his hands against his temples and pressed down. He definitely was going to be late. 

He needed to get dressed, look human, and find the energy to smile as his editor tore into him for not having a draft of that week’s column. 

His words. His heart. 

In-ho. 

Gi-hun tilted forward, returning the chair back to all four legs. He pushed off and walked to his closet and reached automatically for his usual gray suit coat—but paused. The rain. He needed a hood. Something with a cover. 

He bent down, rummaging through the closet floor where old jackets and forgotten shoes had been stuffed away and crumpled by time and disinterest. His hand landed on something smooth, cold, flimsy. 

Plastic handle. 

Curved like a question mark. 

Navy. Slightly cracked where the fingers curled. 

And just like that, Gi-hun was back in a different storm. 

That afternoon months ago. The busy, soaked street corner. The man who stood beside him as rain poured down around them like he’d invented the concept of silence. 

You don’t realize, at the time when it’s happening, how much silence can say. How it can press itself between two people like heat. Or how someone could look at you like you were a riddle they didn’t want to solve—just hold in their mouth for a while and hope you played along in their little game. 

In-ho had held the umbrella out to him before he disappeared from Gi-hun’s grasp for the first of many times. He remembered noticing his wristwatch under his tailored coat sleeve, how it didn’t tick. How rain beaded off of the fabric like constellation points. How his gelled hair was still perfectly crisp despite him being drenched. 

He had handed Gi-hun the umbrella like it was nothing. Like he could stand to get wet, but not to see Gi-hun soaked. A complete stranger at the time. 

It’s ironic now. He couldn’t possibly stand to see me soaked by a little rain then, but now he doesn’t care if my heart is shattered into oblivion. 

How people can change. 

Gi-hun had forgotten where he had placed the umbrella. It had become lost during the time between their encounters, falling to the way-side like everything else in Gi-hun’s life. 

The umbrella trembled slightly in his hands from the sheer absurdity of it all. All this time, this physical reminder of In-ho was lodged in his home, in his safe haven. Even back then, when he thought that he could move on from Mr. Big and leave him and his absence, it was still there.

He held, in his hand, physical proof that some part of In-ho had never left him. 

The silence roared now. 

The rain didn’t feel like company. Just another sound he couldn’t touch. Another absence he couldn’t fill. 

And still— nothing. 

He stared at the umbrella in his hands for a moment before something began to bubble and rise inside him. Not grief, he was fucking tired of feeling that. Not longing, because if Gi-hun could leave behind every ounce of the emotion he felt for In-ho, he would. 

It was something murkier. Something that caused his vision to tunnel and his breathing to shallow. 

What am I to you, really? A column to read, to digest at your leisure? A man to vanish from again? 

Or am I her? Did you treat your dead wife the same way you treat me?

How many more chances do we have before we both fuck everything up? 

Gi-hun suddenly pulled the umbrella open in the middle of his apartment, superstition be damned. It was absurd, like he needed proof it still worked.

Like he still needed proof that In-ho had ever been real. 

Water from the last time it had been used shook loose from its folds and hit his bare foot. Cold. 

Gi-hun let it stand open in the center of the closet. 

Let it loom. 

Let it mock. 

Outside, the rain picked up. Inside, Gi-hun didn’t move. 

There was a meeting to get to. A deadline to work toward. But he just stood there, barefoot and breathless, staring at the umbrella grasped in his hand like it was the last honest thing he owned. 

Like it was the first and last honest thing In-ho had ever done for him. 

 

---

 

The rain continued to batter Seoul, painting the street in silver streaks and swallowing the city’s neon lights into puddled reflections, like the city itself was trying to remember something it once promised but had forgotten. 

Gi-hun moved through the city like he was lost on an overgrown path full of weeds and the unknown. It was like he didn’t know where he was going—because he really didn’t. He was already thirty minutes late for his meeting and dreaded sending a text to his editor suggesting they reschedule. 

But Gi-hun wasn’t going to do that. His column was the only catharsis he had, so he would attempt to make the meeting in late fashion. His shoes were damp, his thoughts louder than the traffic. The umbrella hovered above him like a ghost he was still trying to not think of. 

Gi-hun cut through a narrow street, half-sheltered by awnings, then stepped into the open just outside the subway entrance. Signs buzzed overhead in a rhythmic manner. He lowered the umbrella, shook it, and collapsed the flimsy cloth. He tucked it under the crook of his arm, and watched as his shaggy appearance reflected across puddles below. 

Gi-hun started down the steps. One foot, then another—

And then—a tug. 

Sharp. Sudden. At the crook of his elbow and bicep.

For a second, he didn’t register what was happening. All Gi-hun saw was a blur of movement—a figure in a tattered denim jacket darting past, the familiar weight of something missing in their wake. 

His hand flew up to the empty space between his arm. 

The umbrella. 

Gone. 

And with it—something else. Something he hadn’t realized he’d been holding on to until it was yanked from him like a nerve. 

It was just an umbrella, right? A cheap canopy of nylon and bent spokes that had seen better days. 

But the absence between Gi-hun’s arms and fingers felt like a phantom limb. Like it was a physical attachment to his body. His heart. Gi-hun should have let the thief run. He should’ve laughed bitterly, called it karma, or irony, or a bitch, or whatever it is called when the universe played dress-up in metaphor. 

But he didn’t. 

Because it wasn’t just an umbrella. Gi-hun knew that from the moment he found it crumpled in his closet. 

It was the only thing In-ho had ever given him that didn’t come with conditions. The only thing he handed over without needing to explain himself. It was Gi-hun’s only physical reminder that In-ho existed in his life besides the vague, almost-hollow text messages. The umbrella was an extension of In-ho. And with an extension of the man, it felt like he was there—beside Gi-hun. 

Maybe it was his fingers Gi-hun’s hand wrapped around instead of an umbrella handle. Maybe he was the one sheltering Gi-hun from the elements and not the nylon cloth. 

But it wasn’t just an umbrella. It was an extension of In-ho. 

And no matter how much it frustrated Gi-hun, he couldn’t let him go. 

So he ran. Not for the umbrella. But for the version of himself that still had hope for a response. A hope that In-ho would stop playing this wicked game of grief and manipulation and go forward. That he would be the one asking for something real. 

Even now. 

Even after all the words he said. 

Gi-hun still wanted him. 

He ran. 

“Hey—hey!” Gi-hun shouted, already halfway down after the thief. A businessman’s umbrella clipped his shoulder. Someone else cursed an expletive at him, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. The tunnel of the subway station was slick, hot, and crowded. It pulsed with fluorescent light, but all he could see was the back of a patched-up jacket and that umbrella. 

People stared like he was insane. A few moved out of the way. Others didn’t. He nearly tripped again over someone’s duffle bag, but he caught himself and kept going. 

The thief darted toward the turnstiles, a sharp change in direction from their previous path. Gi-hun could see as the assailant’s black and white sneakers slid on the tiled floor. He could see the thief throw their arms out in an attempt to balance themselves. He could see them start to slip. 

Gi-hun slid across the floor himself, taking advantage of the thief’s fall. He stretched his legs out in long strides, trying to get there before they got up and surely vanished into the crowd for good. 

He could feel himself getting closer and closer. The thief's fallen figure was hunched over the floor in a fetal position. He was almost there. The metal turnstiles were in sight—

A white-hot flash of pain streaked down his skin. 

Gi-hun collided with the ground. He went sprawling across the tile. His shoulder and hip throbbed in sudden pain. His bag flew open. Keys, laptop, notebook, and everything he carried scattered the floor like broken punctuation. His knee hit the ground with a dull thud. A rush of cold air swept through as a train arrived nearby. 

Gi-hun’s eyes, which were locked on the ceiling in a dazed shock, darted toward the thief, searching frantically for a sight of the navy umbrella. He watched as the thief started to get up, slowly but surely. Gi-hun couldn’t let them find the umbrella before he did. 

He pushed himself up with a repressed groan, now soaking wet and with his hair stuck to his cheek. He launched himself toward the thief, grabbed their tattered coat, and yanked. Not hard—just enough to tip their balance and jerk the thief upright. 

The thief stumbled sideways, their face still hidden, and hit the floor again with a dull thud. Gi-hun hovered above, breath ragged, his hat somewhere a few feet away, water dripping down his jawline. 

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t noble. 

But it was enough. 

There—just past the edge of a vending machine, lying in a shallow puddle of water that had collected—was the umbrella. Bent slightly at one rib. Still closed. Still Gi-hun’s. Still him. 

He let go of the thief’s jacket and moved swiftly toward the umbrella like it might vanish if he blinked, hands shaking as he scooped it up and clutched it to his chest. 

Only then did he turn back. 

The thief had raised their head. It was a girl—barely more than nineteen from what Gi-hun could tell. She was sitting up, the patched-up and tattered coat clinged to her frame. Her eyes flickered from Gi-hun to the umbrella, and then to him again. 

Wide, cautious, but not unkind. 

She didn’t run. 

Gi-hun stared at her for a long moment. It was the Northern girl he always saw hanging around. The one he considered paying to clean the cobwebs from his ceiling. Rainwater dripped from his elbow. His heart was still pounding from the chase—or maybe the near grief of losing the object. 

“You’re the pickpocket I see hanging around here all the time.” Gi-hun said, almost like he needed confirmation. 

The girl blinked, confused for a second, then recognition settled in. 

“Oh. You’re the writer.” 

Not an apology. Not exactly an accusation either. Just a fact. 

Gi-hun wasn’t sure how the girl knew what he did, but it didn’t matter. He sat down on the cold, wet tile across from her and stretched his legs out. 

Neither of them moved for a while. Trains came and went, their thunder muffled beneath whatever strange, shared quiet had fallen over the station. The umbrella lay between them like some relic of a war. 

Finally, a quiet voice cracked the moment. “You’re bleeding.” The young girl said, nodding to Gi-hun’s hand. 

He looked down. Skin torn, blood welling in his palm, a deep red against his wrist. It hadn’t even started to sting yet.

“Oh…didn’t notice,” Gi-hun mumbled. He attempted to wipe the base of his palm against his jeans but decided against it. It was better to have a reminder. A fresh, bloody reminder of what In-ho had indirectly done to him. 

How many of our scars are self-inflicted? How many come from chasing something we were never meant to catch? 

The young girl continued to stare at the angry red line across Gi-hun’s palm. She looked at him with masked confusion, as if she was trying to decide whether it was a battle wound or a warning sign. 

Gi-hun flexed his fingers, curling them in his palm. He could feel the sting start pulsing in tandem with his heart beat. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t experienced before. The stinging would soon subside and all he would be left with was the healing scar of a wound left untreated. 

But that wasn’t anything new, either. 

The girl spoke up again. “Why the hell did you chase me for that?” she asked, her voice almost quieter than before. “It’s just an umbrella.” 

Gi-hun didn’t respond right away. His breath still hadn’t caught up to him. The platform around them pulsed with indifference—commuters stepping over his laptop, brushing past without a glance. Somewhere, a voice announced a train delay. The air smelled like wet metal and overworked brakes. 

His eyes flickered back to the umbrella. 

Still closed. 

Bent from the fall. 

A newly formed crack in the handle, which looked like the one beginning in his heart. 

But it was still Gi-hun’s. Still him. 

He felt something twist inside his chest. A slow, sharp turning. “...it’s not,” Gi-hun said, more to himself than to her. 

The girl tilted her head, her chin length hair swaying slightly. Not mocking. Just watching him like Gi-hun was a puzzle she hadn’t meant to pick up. 

Sometimes it takes the small tilt of a stranger's head to realize how visible your damage is. 

“You hungry?” Gi-hun asked suddenly, surprising himself. 

She frowned. “What?” 

“I’m not going to turn you in,” Gi-hun said, picking himself up slowly. He knew that every muscle in his body would be sore later. “But if you’re going to steal from me, the least you can do is eat something in my general vicinity while I figure out what the hell just happened.” 

The girl stayed silent for a moment, not moving. Hesitating. Then she nodded. 

 

---

 

The pair sat at a bolted-down plastic table that was tucked into the edge of the subway’s underground food court. It was the kind that tried to mimic a real cafe, but the overhead lights shined a little too bright and the linoleum never quite lost its smell of damp concrete. 

The crowd had dulled into something quieter, something more fragile. A few stragglers were hunched over paper bowls and cheap chopsticks, their phones glowing blue in front of their tired faces. No one expected to witness anything real or of meaning in the quiet corner. 

Gi-hun’s eyes drifted away from the stragglers, sliding over to gaze at the steamed bun in his hand—not earning it so much as holding onto its warmth, like a small apology he couldn’t voice. The soft dough had gone cold, but he hadn’t noticed. 

He had canceled the meeting with his editor. It was a practical decision at the time. Or maybe it was cowardice dressed as self-respect. Either way, he regretted it. Not because he wanted his latest nonexistent draft to be torn into pieces, but rather it meant admitting Gi-hun still wanted his story. Intact, unedited, and unfiltered by publishers.

Sometimes we tell ourselves we’re setting boundaries, when really, we’re just avoiding the places that still hurt. And sometimes, the smallest things—like a missed meeting or a warm bun gone cold—are the clearest proof that we’re still orbiting something, someone. 

Across the plastic table sat the young girl. She tore through the triangle gimbap Gi-hun bought her with frenzy, like she was chasing it with something. Hunger? Pride? Or maybe both? 

He watched her, but not with pity. He couldn’t feel pity for the person who tried to steal from him just an hour ago, but with curiosity instead. The kind you reserve from someone you recognize, even if you can’t place how. Like it was a connection beyond meetings. 

“I see you sometimes,” Gi-hun said after the girl had finished scarfing down the last of her food. “Near the cigarette stand. You’re always wearing that coat.” He nodded to the said clothing, watching as she reached for a tattered patch and covered it with her hand. 

She glanced up through her bangs. Her eyes were unreadable. Dark, steady, holding the kind of knowing that made Gi-hun feel suddenly small. 

Could she know? Could this girl possibly know the reason why I chased after her for a damned umbrella?

“I see you too. You walk like you’re trying to catch a train that has already left.” 

That gets a sound from Gi-hun—a half-exhale, part laugh, part sigh. “Yeah. That sounds right.”

They sit like that for a moment. The air between them was soft and muted by the hum of their surroundings. A distant clatter of shoes on linoleum, a muffled conversation from elsewhere. Gi-hun looked down at the cold and forgotten bun in his hand. The plastic wrapper crinkled in his uninjured hand as he eyed it for a moment. Its skin was wrinkled and the steam had long vanished. He looked back at the girl. She still looked hungry, almost malnourished in a quiet, invisible way. 

He wasn’t going to finish it anyway. 

Without a word, he reached across the table and handed it to him. Her fingers hesitated for only a breath before curling around the offering, the way someone might accept kindness with practiced disbelief. 

The young girl sat like that for a moment, chewing and not saying anything more. Her eyes were focused on the food before her like it was a lifeline. Like it was something tethering her to the moment at hand. The freckles on her nose scrunched as she took each bite. 

Somewhere, a wet sneaker squeaked on tile. The platform rumbled above them like a memory not yet processed. 

The girl took a smaller bite of the bun and leaned back in her chair, her voice breaking the silence in a tone that seemed almost amused. “I see your face around the city all the time. You’re on the subway ad…the one that says, ‘ Seong Gi-hun knows real love and isn’t afraid to tell it.’ ” 

She raised an eyebrow, glancing sidelong at Gi-hun. 

“I always wonder every time I see you—do you believe that?” 

Of fucking course. 

Gi-hun had forgotten about that particular ad. He had grown numb to seeing his smiling picture plastered beside the words “ knows real love,” and “ every Friday in the Seoul Sentinel.” It was an ad that had been floating around for years, ever since he started the column. And, fuck, he really wished it had been taken down. 

He let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh—and quite nearly a sob—but it caught in his throat before it could become anything. His gaze dropped to the floor, then to his hand—the one that was scraped, the one still stinging with an angry red mark, the one without a bandage yet, the one that still remembered falling. 

The girl’s words hung in the air like toxic smog that wouldn’t dissipate. 

He swallowed. 

“Some days,” he said slowly, “I do believe it. That I know what real love is.” He paused. “Other days…I think I’m just trying to make the story line up with the idea that I have about love.” 

His voice thinned out, not quite breaking, but close. 

With Eun-ji, it felt like real love. It was constant, predictable. It checked all the boxes of how a romance should begin. 

But with In-ho…it didn’t feel like real love. It wasn’t constant. It pulled away and came back. It left me breathless, then empty. It made me want. And sometimes, wanting feels more powerful than having. 

He looked over at the girl chewing, her jaw slow, her deep eyes focused on the food again. A small mercy—someone with a simpler need. 

Gi-hun turned back to look at something else, anything else. His eyes lost focus somewhere around the chipped edge of a table nearby, where the laminate had peeled back just enough to snag skin if you weren’t careful. 

He traced it with his gaze like it might offer a form of clarity. It didn’t. 

“I want it to be real. I really do.” Gi-hun’s voice barely rose above a rasped whisper as the words left his mouth. 

There’s a moment, after the truth leaves your mouth, when your body wants to pull it back in—to fold it up, press it flat, make it easier to carry. But some truths are too wrinkled for that. Some truths come out looking exactly like what they are: 

Hope in its most exhausted form. 

Gi-hun blinked slowly, as if his body was still catching up with the weight of what he’d just said. 

The girl briefly flickered her gaze at him and kept chewing. She didn’t snicker or narrow her eyes in judgment. And that was almost a kindness. 

She was nearly done with the bun now, licking a bit of sauce from her thumb like she didn’t want to waste a thing. Gi-hun watched her, his voice gentler this time. “What’s your name?” 

She hesitated. Not out of fear—it was more like disbelief that he wanted to know. 

“Sae-byeok,” she said finally. 

Gi-hun smiled, something tender flickered in his expression. “That’s a good name.” 

Sae-byeok shrugged, unconvinced. 

There was a beat. Then: 

“What did you chase after me?” 

Gi-hun glanced down. The umbrella sat on the seat beside him, closed tight and dripping onto the floor. A navy blur, frayed at one edge. “I didn’t realize until you ran off with it,” he muttered, “that it was the only thing I had left of someone. Of something real.”

Sae-byeok crossed her arms at her chest. It wasn’t a smug gesture. It was a gesture that indicated that she was listening. Like she was good at letting silence do the heavy lifting. 

“I think I’ve been using it like…like evidence,” Gi-hun continued. “Proof that he existed. That he did something real for me. That it wasn’t all just this—” he gestured his uninjured hand vaguely, toward the city above them, or maybe the coiled ache that continued to reside in his chest, “—hallucination I wrote into reality.” 

But he was. Almost. The way he first appeared in places he didn’t expect him. The way the city seemed to bend around his presence. Like some kind of fever dream that walked and talked and left me reeling. 

Almost real. 

Gi-hun’s fingers curled slightly around the edge of the table. He looked back at Sae-byeok who had gone quiet. A streak of hot embarrassment flashed through his chest. His ears flushed from heat and shame. Gi-hun ducked his head down. “Aish, I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear about this…” 

A small, twisted grin appeared on the girl’s face. “I don’t. But you’re interesting, ahjussi. Is this what you write in the paper?”

Gi-hun let out a breathy laugh, surprised by how quickly it caught in his throat. His hand moved instinctively to brush his wild bangs out of his face, to shield himself from the moment—vulnerability always stung worse when it was witnessed. 

“Something like that.” 

He peeked up at Sae-byeok, whose grin hadn’t faltered. There was something in her expression—wry, amused, but not unkind. Like she’d seen enough of the world to know people did stranger and worse things than talk to kids about almost stolen umbrellas and hallucinated men. 

There are dangerous men in the world. Men who will torture and murder. Men who will do anything in their power to gain control. And then there is the most dangerous kind of man when it comes to love—the one who gives you just enough to believe it. Not because he’s trying to lie, but because he’s trying to believe it, too. 

“Sometimes I write things down to figure out what I feel,” Gi-hun said after a moment. “Sometimes I write because I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll forget what was real.” 

Sae-byeok chewed on Gi-hun’s words. Her eyes burned as she digested their meaning. “And the umbrella? 

Gi-hun looked at her, the corners of his mouth twitching. “That’s the part I still don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe it was real. Maybe it was just…the only thing he has ever willingly given to me.” 

When someone only gives you shelter in the rain, it’s easy to mistake it for love. But when love isn’t just protection, it’s presence. And presence doesn’t disappear the moment the sun comes out. 

Sae-byeok nodded slowly, as if what he said made perfect sense, in the strange way only teenagers and heartbreak survivors could understand. 

“Sounds like you should get a new umbrella,” she said matter-of-factly. 

Gi-hun smiled, bittersweet. 

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Maybe I should.”  

 

---

 

The soft hum of Ssangmun-dong bled through the open balcony door of Gi-hun’s apartment. A swift, chilling breeze traveled through the area, settling in the bathroom where Gi-hun was perched—on the edge of the bathtub, knees bent, and his shirt crumpled on the ground at his feet. One hand pressed a make-shift ice pack gently against his bruised hip; the other hovered over the fresh scrape on his right palm with a cotton pad soaked in antiseptic. 

His skin stung. His shoulder ached. His entire body was sore to the touch, but it wasn’t enough to distract him. 

Not from his thoughts. Not from himself. 

His laptop, open and waiting, blinked in the other room—a blank document mocking him. The cursor pulsed once again like a metronome. Each beat seemed to ask: Where is the story? Where are you? 

But Gi-hun didn’t know where the story was. He didn’t know what fictional plot line it was buried in or how to uncover it. He didn’t know where he was himself. Maybe he was back at the small cafe with the young girl. Maybe he was at his mother’s apartment, helping her fix dinner.

Or maybe he was back in time, seven months ago, under a drenched awning, accepting a flimsy item that would change the direction of his life for the next several months. 

He dabbed at the scrape again, pressing too hard against the raw skin. He winced. The silence was thick and solitary. The antiseptic bit deep into the wound, but it was nothing compared to the sting he had been carrying in his chest for months now. 

The cotton pad was stained a faded pink as Gi-hun’s trembling hands pulled it away from the wound. 

It’s funny how pain concentrates. You can fall on concrete, bleed from the hand, bruise at the hip—but the place that hurts the most is always the one they never touch. 

Gi-hun moved the bag of ice from his hip to his shoulder, a hiss slipped through his teeth. He looked down at his hip. Purple and blue hues had begun to bloom across the top of his hip bone, stretching up to his pelvis. It hurt like a bitch, but the low roar of traffic and sirens from the city below took Gi-hun’s mind away from the pulsing pain. 

Silence used to be peace. It was room to breathe. Room to write. But the kind of silence that was settled in the room wasn’t generous. It was heavy. Suffocating. The kind that made you wonder if the thing you’re missing was ever really there to begin with. 

And then, when he least expected any other sound than that of the city to appear—

Bzzzzzt. 

The buzzer sliced through the air like a razor. Gi-hun jolted at the noise, the ice pack slipping from his shoulder. 

He wasn’t expecting anyone. Not Jung-bae, he was home with his children. Not Sang-woo, he was working. Not Ali, he would have called beforehand. And it couldn’t be the young girl—Sae-byeok. She didn’t know where he lived…

No delivery. No plans. Nothing. 

Gi-hun rose cautiously, heart beginning to kick against his ribs. He grabbed his crumpled t-shirt and slung it over his shoulder. His hair was still slightly wet and clung to the back of his neck like glue. He crossed the apartment barefoot, the ice pack abandoned on the sink. 

He looked through the peephole. 

Familiar eyes. Slicked back hair. Uneven lips. 

It was him. 

In-ho. 

There’s a specific kind of madness that comes with longing. The way you rehearse every possible version of this moment and it still feels completely unprepared when it finally arrives. 

Gi-hun stared through the glass hole like In-ho might vanish if he blinked. 

He had dreamed of this—of him. Standing there with that quiet look he constantly wore, the city’s noise clinging to his coat, his eyes set in that familiar half-regret, half-longing way. 

He had envisioned it so many times before. In the dead of night. Between paragraphs. The spaces where his mind wandered when it shouldn’t. Always the same: In-ho buzzed. Gi-hun opened the door. He always said the things he was never brave enough to speak aloud in reality. 

But in fantasy, his heart didn’t race with panic. 

In fantasy, he didn’t feel like the stitches of a metaphorical wound were beginning to tear. 

Hope has a cruel sense of direction. It brings people back to your door just after you’ve learned how to stop waiting. 

Gi-hun hesitated, pressing his forehead lightly against the door, his breath fogging the peephole. In-ho hadn’t reached out. Hadn’t said a word. He said he was looking forward to the column—to how Gi-hun portrayed him—and still he hadn’t even uttered a word of praise or resentment. 

And now here he was. Square jaw, regretful eyes, and a ghost hovering over his shoulders. 

Gi-hun bit his lip harshly, hoping the pain would draw him away from the man at his door. 

But it didn’t. 

Nothing could. 

In-ho was at his door waiting to be let in. And who was Gi-hun to refuse? 

He gingerly placed his uninjured hand on the doorknob and turned, slowly, carefully, as if to protect his entire being from crumbling. 

In-ho stood there, hands in his pockets, the hallway light pooled around him. 

“Hello,” In-ho greeted. 

It sounded like an apology. A half-hearted, shitty apology. 

Gi-hun looked at him—studied him, really. The late hour was written under his eyes, the collar of his shirt looked slightly askew, like he’d rushed to put it on but didn’t want Gi-hun to know. 

“What do you want?” Gi-hun muttered, his voice flat and impatient. 

He watched as In-ho’s eyes trailed down his bare chest, his gaze settling on each of his new bruises. He studied each purple mark for a moment before moving to the next. It was as if he…cared? Gi-hun could see his eyes harden with something inexplicable each time In-ho studied a new bruise. 

“Did something happen?” In-ho asked, stepping forward past the door frame. His hands crept up carefully, like he wanted to touch each of Gi-hun’s injuries individually. 

You happened. 

Gi-hun shook his head. “No. Nothing happened.” 

A lie. A small one, but still a lie. It wasn’t anything Gi-hun hadn’t done before and it was something he would do again in the future.

A pause. In-ho’s eyes burned into Gi-hun’s. He felt small, like he did earlier under the weight of Sae-byeok’s heavy gaze, but this was different. It was a gaze that said, “ You can’t lie to me. I know what happened.” It made Gi-hun shrink back into his apartment, away from In-ho’s outstretched hands. It made his stomach curdle like spoiled milk. It made him want to slam the door in In-ho’s face and forget he was ever there. 

But he couldn’t forget In-ho. Gi-hun was doomed to have the man haunt him for the rest of his life. 

But a small part of him didn’t mind it. 

In-ho’s eyes flickered down to the angry scrape on Gi-hun’s hand, now raw and pink. 

“Have you tried to treat it?” 

Something caught in Gi-hun’s throat. He tried to swallow, but the lump of something made it impossible. He nodded instead, pulling his hand behind his back so In-ho couldn’t attempt to grasp it. 

“I read the column.” 

Gi-hun blinked at the sudden change in subject. His face didn’t soften. So he had read the column. Gi-hun had given In-ho the satisfaction of letting him be seen once again. 

It always started like this. Not with clarity. But with confusion posing as feeling. 

In-ho studied him for a second longer, his weighted gaze bore down on Gi-hun like the headlights of a car. He couldn’t move. He was caught between fight-or-flight, and his instincts told him to run. Hide. Do anything but face the man of his infatuation. 

But he couldn’t do that. He had to take a chance. He had to give legs to a prayer. 

And still…he stepped aside and let In-ho in. 

Into his safe haven. Into his heart. 

In-ho took one step, then another like he was already familiar with Gi-hun’s space. It was like it was muscle memory for him, and maybe it was. Maybe he remembered how easy it was to float around the crevices of Gi-hun’s psyche and how simple it was to invade the man’s privacy. 

The scent of the hallway followed In-ho—something wet, cold, damp. October wind, possibly? Or maybe it was the scent of something unfinished. 

Gi-hun closed the door gently. Not like a welcome. More like a slow act of surrender. 

In-ho turned slowly to look back at Gi-hun, his eyes catching the bruised edge on Gi-hun’s hip as he shifted. 

“What happened?” 

“I tripped.” A beat. “I was chasing a feeling I thought might be you…or, well, a physical reminder of you. An extension of you.” 

In-ho’s brow twitched with something unreadable. Tenderness? Love? Hate? Infatuation? Regret?

Who the fuck knew. 

“You fell?” 

Gi-hun shrugged. “It’s becoming a habit.” 

He shows up in the aftermath. Never during the disaster. Never the cleanup. Just the echo. 

Gi-hun’s voice dropped an octave. “Why are you here?” His voice rasped at the last syllable as he reiterated the question. He needed to know and he needed to know now. 

In-ho stepped forward again, just an inch, but enough to make Gi-hun internally flinch. 

You’re not supposed to physically recoil at the slight indication that the man of your longing wants to touch you, are you? That’s a sign of fear. Or maybe…it’s a sign of anticipation. 

The body doesn’t always know the difference. It just tenses. Prepares. Waiting for impact. 

“Because I wanted to tell you in person.” His voice was steady, but something was buried underneath it. Something unbuttoned. 

Gi-hun looked at him, his chin tilted like he was daring In-ho not to finish. “Tell me what,” he gritted out, almost spitting with his words. 

“That Mr. Big did enjoy the column.” 

It was almost funny. Comical. 

Almost. 

But the way it came from In-ho, the way he said it—low, laced with irony and something else Gi-hun was too tired to name—struck a nerve. Gi-hun’s face didn’t move, but something behind his eyes, in the back of his mind, flickered. 

And just like that, we were back to speaking in metaphors. Back in roles. Back in characters. Back in made up illusions of each other. 

The man standing in front of Gi-hun, ever so close, wasn’t In-ho anymore—he was Mr. Big. 

The man who disappeared on a whim when things become too close, too real. The man who returned every time with an even heavier air of silence surrounding him than the last. The man who read Gi-hun’s story—his heart—but willingly chose to never enter it. 

Gi-hun crossed his arms, his forearms touching the skin of his naked chest. His gaze was steady. 

“Is that all Mr. Big wanted to say?” 

In-ho exhaled, his almost perfect jaw tightening a fraction. 

“No.” 

He stepped forward again. Slower, more controlled. It was like he was approaching a rabid animal, waiting for the eventual infectious bite to come. 

“He wants to go forward, and wants you to meet him there.” 

Gi-hun’s breathing stopped. He could feel the color begin to drain from his face. A cold, wet feeling starting at his head and trickling down to his feet. 

Those words. 

If you want to go forward. 

How they repeated in Gi-hun’s mind at every opportunity. 

How he desired to go forward himself and meet In-ho there. 

But something caught in his throat again. The ghost. The ring. The look of regret. 

The damned comparison. 

In-ho said he had begun to move on, but Gi-hun didn’t believe him. 

Not for a minute. Not for a second. 

And here he was, in Gi-hun’s apartment, asking for the real thing even though he said himself to not want it. 

“You warned me,” Gi-hun said through a locked jaw and gritted teeth. “You said not to want ‘real,’ because it’s messy. I’d ‘hate it.’ That you couldn’t give it.” 

“I know.” 

“So what changed?” 

Gi-hun searched In-ho’s face like the answer might be in his eyes. Like the real answer would be there and not whatever bullshit excuse he came up with. 

“You did,” In-ho whispered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

There it was again. The illusion. That I am the one who changes them. That love is transformation. 

But what does it mean when you’re tired of being someone’s awakening? What does it mean when you want to be the thing they already know?

Gi-hun uncrossed his arms, grazing his uninjured hand across his bruised hip. A reminder. A twinge of pain. Something to ground him before he fell into the depths of Hell with Satan himself. 

“Tell me,” Gi-hun said, quieter now. “Are you here because you want something real with me …or are you here because you can’t stand the thought of someone so similar to your wife out there getting it from someone that isn’t you?” 

Venom seeped through Gi-hun words. He hoped they dripped like acid on In-ho’s skin. He hoped they burned and left unbearable scars. He hoped they hit a nerve. He hoped they unsettled a coiled ache within In-ho’s chest that he hadn’t felt in years. 

Because they did in Gi-hun, and it made him feel better. More alive. It settled the ache in his own chest. 

In-ho opened his mouth. Closed it. 

That was enough for Gi-hun. 

“Get out,” he grated as he pushed past In-ho, intentionally brushing his shoulder as he moved.

The soft pads of his steps were heavy with restraint as he walked back to the bathroom. The sting in his palm was nothing compared to the one beginning to bloom again beneath his breastbone. He needed the mirror, the harsh fluorescent honesty of it all. He needed to finish treating his physical scrapes and bruises before any more emotional ones could be inflicted. 

He needed to be away from In-ho. 

The faucet squeaked as he turned it on. The sting of cold water met his skin like false clarity, like what he had been experiencing for the last several months. Behind him, Gi-hun heard a shift—footsteps, uncertain weight, a hesitation that almost sounded like guilt. 

“I said to get out.” 

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

In-ho stood in the doorway like a man trying not to reach. Watching. Observing. He didn’t say anything. 

Gi-hun’s reflection looked back at him—flushed cheeks from anger and adrenaline, red scrape on his palm, the start of a dark bruise blooming at the edge of his shoulder. He was a man who had fallen, not just literally, but figuratively for the same person. Repeatedly. 

He turned off the faucet. 

“You shouldn’t be in here,” Gi-hun said, his voice quiet but pointed. 

Still, In-ho didn’t leave. 

Instead, he stepped inside, closing the door gently behind him like he had a right to the intimacy of his space. 

And maybe he did. He invaded every emotionally intimate part of my mind, so what’s the difference with physical space? 

Gi-hun sat down on the edge of the tub, returning to his position before In-ho had knocked. He pressed the half-thawed ice pack to his hip again. The coldness of the pack gave him something to focus on that wasn’t the weight of In-ho’s pressing gaze. 

There’s a moment when you realize the person standing in front of you isn’t the one you’ve been talking to in your head all this time. Because the man I fantasized about coming back…

He would have known what to say. 

He would have brought closure. 

Or clarity. 

Or, god forbid, kindness. 

But In-ho didn’t say anything. 

And silence has never been known for its tenderness. 

Gi-hun didn’t look at him when he said it. “You could’ve texted. You could’ve called. You could’ve given me something. Something real. ” 

Still nothing. Just the sound of In-ho shifting his weight. He opened his mouth like he might finally speak, but no words came out. 

Just that look. 

That haunted, complicated look that said everything and nothing all at once. 

We ask for honesty like it’s a gift. But when it shows on our doorstep, we don’t know what to do with it. Especially when it doesn’t come wrapped the way we imagined. 

Gi-hun looked up. In-ho looked slightly damp, his coat streaked with remnants of the rain from outside. There was a small scrape near his temple that Gi-hun hadn’t noticed earlier. Was it from work? He looked tired, more than usual. The deep lines under his eyes make him look more like a man rather than a mystery. 

And that, somehow, hurt more. 

Gi-hun whispered it, because anything louder might have broken him: 

“What do you want from me?”

This time, he didn’t expect an answer. But something shifted. Silence, he had come to learn, can be louder than any confession. And In-ho’s silence was roaring. 

His eyes were steady on Gi-hun’s. No smirk. No performance. Just…presence. He stepped forward and leaned down. Just enough for Gi-hun to catch his breath. And then, with the slight suction of air and rustling of a rain-streaked coat—

In-ho kissed him. 

It wasn’t desperate, not at first. It was tentative. A question without words. 

His lips brushed Gi-hun’s like a memory—soft, reverent, unbearably slow. The kind of kiss that feels like someone is trying to memorize you. Memorize every crevice and crack in your skin. Memorize the hollow feel of your mouth. Memorize the muscle of your tongue. 

Gi-hun didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. He couldn’t. 

In-ho pressed forward—deeper this time, like he couldn’t help himself. Like restraint had only been a courtesy he could no longer afford. 

His hand came up, brushing the side of Gi-hun’s jaw with the backs of his fingers first, then sliding to cup his neck. The calloused digits leaving a rough, tingling sensation in their wake. His thumb grazed the hollow just beneath Gi-hun’s ear, taking a lock of wild hair and wrapping it around the base of his thumb. 

Gi-hun’s whole body was locked in place, his eyes fluttered shut out of reflex, his fingers curled tightly around the edge of the bathtub as In-ho continued to press down. 

Gi-hun could feel his knees begin to weaken. The scent of In-ho—faint cologne, city air, something distinctly him—flooded his senses and caused his body to melt. 

And just like that, every angry sentence he’d written in his head, every self righteous mantra he’d rehearsed about never letting In-ho have that power of him…dissolved. 

They say muscle memory can outlive trauma. That the body remembers what the mind refuses to relive. 

And I remembered him. 

God, I remembered him. 

Not just the memory of In-ho, but the feeling of being encased in his little game, of being the fish he reeled in and set free, just to come back each time new bait was thrown. The illusion that someone like him could want someone like me, in the light. Not just in the shadows between broken promises. 

In-ho’s lips lingered against Gi-hun’s waiting, asking. 

And then—Gi-hun kissed back. 

It wasn’t deliberate. It wasn’t brave. It was instinctive. Cellular. Like the action of kissing In-ho was imprinted in every chromosome within the nucleus of his cells. 

A quiet whimper left his throat as he reached for In-ho, his fingers curling up into his coat. Their mouths met again, this time it was with heat and history, anger turned into hunger, fear turned into friction. 

Gi-hun felt a hand slide down his spine. Possessive, but firm. His heart beat against his ribs like a warning bell. 

He ignored it. 

When they pulled apart, breathless, foreheads touching, the silence between them was heavy and electric. 

Gi-hun didn’t ask what it meant. He didn’t dare. 

Because he already knew the answer: it meant everything. 

And maybe nothing. 

In-ho looked down at Gi-hun. His pupils blown wide, his breath ragged. 

But Gi-hun saw it: hunger. 

And who was he to deny him?

He pulled In-ho back in, grasping the nape of his neck, curling his hands in the hair that laid flat. He kissed him again—just to see if it still burned. 

It did. 

And somewhere, in the back of Gi-hun’s mind, he already knew: 

This wouldn’t end gently. 

Notes:

Ugh, Gi-hun, listen to those warning bells in your chest!!!

Anyway, thank you all so much for reading! This is the longest chapter yet in the story, so that is why it took me a couple of days to write/revise. I really did enjoy planning and writing this chapter out, so I hope you all enjoy it as well!

There may be some progress between the two now...just maybe ;) But who knows what will happen next. Will In-ho still be a horrible person? Probably. Will Gi-hun be left confused and broken? Most definitely.

Your support and kindness mean the world to me! So don't hesitate to comment, bookmark, leave kudos, etc... the whole nine yards! I appreciate all your support! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Thanks so much <3<3<3

Chapter 11: A Touch, a Truth, and a Note

Summary:

What begins as a moment of calculated impulsiveness unspools into something quieter, deeper. A moment stolen in soft light. A body pressed to another just long enough where pleasure masks vulnerability, and where every word after feels a little too close to truth. But even lies told in whispers can start to feel real when spoken against skin.

Somewhere between low-voiced confessions and unraveling thoughts, Gi-hun lets himself believe. Just for a second. Just long enough to fall for something that was never promised.

Notes:

Changed the rating for this one!

They say sex complicates things. But what about the kind of sex that simplifies everything—if only for a moment? 

There’s a kind of intimacy that sneaks in sideways. Not through candlelit dinners or perfectly timed confessions, but through the tilt of a chin, the clatter of a belt hitting the tiled floor of a bathroom, or the breathless silence after a moan that shouldn’t mean anything—yet it somehow does. 

It’s one thing to break a rule. Another to break a rhythm. But what happens when you break a barrier you didn’t know you were holding up? 

Gi-hun didn’t want it to mean anything. He tried to push down every feeling of want and longing in his body. He wanted to chalk it up to just being release. Contact. A body filling the void he so longed for. But somewhere between the clench of fingers and the ache in his thighs, between quiet confessions and words that felt too easy, something shifted. They broke a barrier that wasn’t just physical. 

The night became a softness he hadn’t expected. The conversation that followed, a kind of thread stitching them into something dangerously close to real. 

But real doesn’t always become reality, does it? 

And in the morning—half-asleep, still warm from memory—Gi-hun reached out

But not everything you fall into stays. 

Some endings don’t just knock. 

They just leave a note. 

 

---

 

Someone will get hurt. 

Gi-hun knew it in the way In-ho’s fingers tightened around his waist, in the way his mouth tasted desperate as it moved agonizingly slow against his own. He felt it in the way their bodies molded together and collided into one—not with elegance or grace, but with a heavy need. Gi-hun’s back, achingly sore, collided with the bathroom sink as In-ho hauled him to a stand. The faucet rattled with shame, with warning, but neither paid attention. 

The bathroom fell away into the background. There was no ambient hum of the fridge, no tick of the heating pipe. Just breathe. Hands. The raw honesty of skin meeting skin. The heat of longing and regret meshing into one, unrecognizable emotion. 

Gi-hun’s shoulder throbbed. The skin around his hip ached. The dull stinging of his palm pulsed faintly beneath the sweep of his fingers as he gripped In-ho’s jaw. He was still shirtless—had never bothered to put one back on after tending to his bruises—and the chill of the apartment licked at his bare stomach, the muscle fibers of his abdominals tightening like strings pulled taut on an unspoken ache.  

All he could focus on was the way In-ho’s palm had found the curve of his spine once again. The way his thumb dragged lightly along the edge of Gi-hun’s rib, like he was reading a language he used to speak. 

Maybe he spoke that language with her. 

The shadows from the streetlight outside flickered through the slats of the blinds, striping In-ho’s face in soft gold. And in that half-light, Gi-hun could almost pretend that it was real. That In-ho wasn’t someone who’d vanished before. That this wasn’t Gi-hun leaping heart first into the pits of Hell, waiting to be burned by the eternal flames that gleamed below. 

But when In-ho looked at him— really looked—his body betrayed any hesitation that had settled. Heat flooded Gi-hun’s stomach. His knees weakened even further. All the quiet spaces he had carved out to protect himself had collapsed like matchstick scaffolding. 

They say the Devil was the prettiest angel of all. 

He kissed In-ho. Slower. Less searching. More claiming than anything. He wanted to mark In-ho as his. As the man who he had finally captured. The man he had lured away from the pale ghost that sat on his shoulders. 

Gi-hun wanted to claim—wanted to prove—to the metaphorical ghost of In-ho’s wife, that her husband was his for tonight and she could leave. 

But that’s fucking crazy. 

He wanted to remember this. Because maybe In-ho wouldn’t stay. He never had, so what’s to say he would this time?

He said he wanted to go forward and for me to meet him there. But he said that before, in the text message thread. And he still left. 

But he showed up on his own accord this time.

And that was enough for Gi-hun. Because tonight, In-ho was there. With him. And it mattered more than he wanted to admit. 

“Gi-hun-ssi,” In-ho muttered against his jaw, the word nearly swallowed by the sound of Gi-hun’s breath catching. It was the first time In-ho had ever said his name aloud. It was the first time Gi-hun had heard the syllables of his name touch the delicate skin of In-ho’s lips. 

And it was with that damned honorific. So formal. So unfamiliar. It was like Gi-hun was a casual acquaintance and not someone who had obsessed over In-ho for months. The shape of his name, rolling off of In-ho’s tongue, melting in his mouth, came out as controlling. It came out not like a question, but a verdict—final, inevitable, the kind that was delivered in a courtroom gone quiet. 

Gi-hun, the silent judge to his confession, offered no objection. He didn’t answer. Instead, he let his hands trail from In-ho’s jaw down the front of his shirt, scraping at the sides of his neck roughly. His fingers unzipping the rain streaked coat and unbuttoning the black button-up that lay beneath, one by one—slowly, like unwrapping a memory. 

He had seen In-ho like this before, in flashes, in dreams, in his imagination. But now, Gi-hun let himself take it in: the way In-ho’s chest rose with each breath, the faint scar on his left shoulder that peeked through his half-buttoned shirt, the tension beneath his skin like a held note. 

In-ho shivered lightly under the touch, goosebumps appearing in the wake of Gi-hun’s harsh scrapes. 

The ache between the built—unspoken and heavy. Both aches reaching out of their chests and tangling together, molding into one unrecognizable pain. 

For relief.

For comfort. 

For tonight. 

In-ho stepped back, just far enough away for Gi-hun to stop his nails from making new raw marks. He could see it in In-ho’s eyes. The way the dark brown irises pooled with hunger, with grief, with regret, with lust. Gi-hun already knew he wasn’t searching for permission, but for a presence. 

Gi-hun swallowed roughly, the earlier flush of his face bloomed across his chest and traveled further down. 

In-ho had to know. He had to see it, right?  

With a gentle, delicate touch, In-ho ran his hands down the sides of Gi-hun’s core. He traced the defined obliques, pressed on a newly formed bruise, and settled his hands at the waistband of Gi-hun’s jeans. He looked at Gi-hun again, searching. 

And Gi-hun knew what he was looking for. 

With a rough nod of his head and a hoarse “okay,” In-ho dropped gently to his knees. He didn’t speak, only looking into Gi-hun’s eyes like it was the only thing he needed. 

Gi-hun’s mind flickered like film behind his eyelids. Every heartbeat too loud. Every breath a syllable. As In-ho leaned in, hands steady on his sore hips, all Gi-hun’s thoughts blurred into one long, breathless ache:  

Let me have this. Even if it doesn’t last. Even if it’s not real. 

It became a strange kind of surrender, letting In-ho kneel before him. 

Not the type he’d written about over and over again. Not the glamorous, flirtatious, choreographed type that lived in the minds of all. It was messier, hungrier, and slipped past the barriers of language like a secret too sacred to name. 

It was a surrender born not of fantasy, but of need. 

The cold porcelain of the sink pressed into Gi-hun’s back as his fingers gripped the rim ever so tightly, shaking with certainty and disbelief. He could feel In-ho’s breath fogging against the waistband of his jeans, his fingers gliding over the zipper with deft swiftness. There was a soft smell—the faint salt of rain clinging to In-ho that fueled the tension in his jaw, and the taste of charged air between them. 

Gi-hun wanted to remember this moment, not because it was perfect, but because it wasn’t. 

Because it was real. 

It was the boiling point of tensions. Drawn out glances that lasted too long. It was words that said one thing but hands that hovered too close. It was countless encounters, countless thoughts, countless aches and pains combined into one. 

It was a product of a gleaming ring, the ghost of a dead woman, and the reminder of what once was. 

It was messy and toxic. But it felt so right. 

When In-ho took him into his mouth, it was slow—agonizingly so, like the first drop of cold rain after a long summer drought. Every inch was a tease, a drawn-out surrender of emotions. His lips traced along Gi-hun’s length with reverence, with hunger, like he was trying to memorize the shape of desire itself. The air felt hotter, heavier, pulsing with something unspeakable, something that made Gi-hun’s mind stutter. 

He was spiraling. 

His thoughts began to move faster than his body ever could. What did this mean? Was it redemption? Closure? Every lick, every bite—did it carry an answer, or only more questions disguised as pleasure? 

Was In-ho trying to become someone that could stay? Was he convincing himself, in that moment, that love could bloom in the minefield that is his fucked up mind? Or was he already collecting relics of shrapnel, preparing for the explosion he knew was inevitable? 

The thought dissipated from Gi-hun’s conscience with a slow drag from In-ho’s tongue. A low, involuntary groan vibrated though Gi-hun’s chest. A flood of warmth spread through him, not just of arousal, but of something deeper. Something terrifying. It was something so intimate, so full of want. It made his spine arch and his breath catch. 

It felt like hope dressed in borrowed skin. 

But In-ho was here. 

He had come back. 

And that’s the best Gi-hun could tell himself.

Gi-hun peered down carefully, like the sight before him was something sacred—something fragile and burning all at once. In-ho, eyes half-lidded, mouth parted in quiet devotion, looked up at him like worship had a body and a pulse. His hands continued to anchor to Gi-hun’s hips, tracing circles into the dips of his waist. 

Their eyes met. Gi-hun’s still blown wide, still in the haze of disbelief, as if he couldn’t quite trust that this— he —was real. In-ho didn’t look away. He held his gaze, steady and unflinching, like he was daring Gi-hun to feel it all. To like it. Every tremble, every scar, every breathless beat of want and desire curling between them. 

Gi-hun stared down into the eyes that had haunted his dreams. The eyes that had caused him so much pain in such a short amount of time. He hated the dark, bottomless pits that looked back at him. He hated the way they looked so full of longing and tenderness. He hated the way those eyes were ingrained in his mind. 

But he also loved it. 

Gi-hun loved the way they looked at him. He loved the way that they spoke everything broken and unsaid between them. He loved the way those eyes softened pathetically every time they met his own—like they were asking for forgiveness in every gaze. 

In-ho’s eyes held Gi-hun like a secret they couldn’t bear to lose. Like he was something worth returning to. But it was unbearable, the way love and resentment could live in the same breath. The same gaze.

And yet, Gi-hun breathed him in. 

With a slow blink, something passed between them—a flicker of something unreadable, something guarded. Gi-hun loosened his grip on the sink’s rim and inched his uninjured hand closer to In-ho’s face. He hovered, just for a moment, before cupping his jaw, thumb brushing over the corner of In-ho’s full mouth. 

Gi-hun’s touch was tender. Hesitant. It searched for anything within the smooth lines of In-ho’s skin. Anything steady. Anything real. 

In-ho leaned into the caress, his jaw tightening a small degree, his haggard breath leaving intimate whispers against Gi-hun’s length. It was a small, unspoken surrender that sparked something low and fierce inside Gi-hun’s core. 

To see In-ho like that, leaning into his palm, wanting him , watching his every reaction…It created a raw pull Gi-hun couldn’t resist. Just like every other time he longed for the image of In-ho, he couldn’t get enough. 

Like a drug addict hooked on heroin, In-ho was the poison. He was the too clean, too sweet, too perfect to resist rush of euphoria that burns through your veins with each fix. In-ho was the needle, and the slow, cold slide into my bloodstream that offered oblivion rather than clarity.

Gi-hun pulled his hand away from In-ho’s jaw, leaving his skin cold and empty, like pulling warmth from a flame he’d been too close to for too long. In-ho didn’t chase the touch. He didn’t gravitate toward Gi-hun’s hand like it was his lifeline for survival. It was like the touch was just another thing that could be taken for granted. 

Something fickle. 

Something not worth chasing after. 

Something that would vanish by morning like the rest of the words they never spoke aloud. 

And that—more than anything—made Gi-hun ache. Because for him, it was worth chasing. It always had been. 

Not a moment went by in Gi-hun’s mind where he didn’t want to chase after In-ho. Through silence, through wreckage, through every contradiction that made the thought of this impossible. He would have followed him into fire if it meant In-ho had just turned around and asked. 

If it meant he could have In-ho. Totally. Undeniably. With no ghosts involved. 

But In-ho never asked. He never said anything of importance. His silence said enough for him. 

And Gi-hun was tired. Tired of running toward someone who only ever moved further away. Tired of someone who never saw him, but saw someone else each time he looked at Gi-hun. 

But, then again, I’m an addict. A gambler. And I need a fix. 

It was pathetic how easily he folded for In-ho. Even the idea of In-ho—Mr. Big—the ghost of his imagination, could unravel him in a second. 

And Gi-hun was unraveling. Silently. Unknowingly. But he was falling apart under the presence of In-ho. He was chasing a high he knew would wreck him, but the ache that lived deep in his chest was comparable to withdrawals. Every glance, every conversation, sank its teeth deeper into Gi-hun. 

He wanted peace. He wanted freedom. But he was hooked on In-ho, and there was no stopping that. 

Gi-hun just needed more. 

He shivered, pressing his back further into the sink. He arched into In-ho’s mouth, the world dissolving until all that remained was the slick heat of In-ho’s tongue on him and the trembling weight of unspoken need. There was a sense of urgency in the way In-ho sucked, like a hunger coiled beneath the surface of his skin that demanded release. 

Every touch, every breath, every flick of In-ho’s tongue was a confession. A fragile, desperate plea for something . Gi-hun wasn’t sure what that something was, but he hoped it was more than the silence that had grown between them. 

Gi-hun’s fingers flexed. He could feel the joints beg for something to grasp, something to hold. He looked down at the un-gelled head of hair below him. He placed both hands on either side of In-ho’s head and grasped at his hair. He anchored his fingers and pulled. Hard. Needing. Wanting.

A small moan vibrated across Gi-hun’s dick. In-ho had seemingly liked it. If nothing else came from the night, Gi-hun learned that the man of his mild obsession liked to have his hair pulled. 

It was such a small thing—trivial, almost—but Gi-hun clung to it like a truth. He barely knew anything about In-ho. He didn’t know his favorite color or author. He didn’t know his likes or dislikes—not really. He didn’t know anything about his family besides the brother from the bar and an unnamed wife. 

In a night built on questions and want, Gi-hun wanted fact. Something solid. Something his hands could hold even if In-ho himself remained just out of reach. And he had found it, even if it was something as small as that. 

Gi-hun could feel In-ho pick up his sense of urgency. His breath caught, his body tightening, the pleasure edging on unbearable. Gi-hun was close. Too close. 

The kind of closeness that made everything surreal—the slick heat, the soft wet sounds, the way In-ho’s fingers dug into his thighs like he needed something real to hold onto. Every nerve ending in Gi-hun’s body lit up in warning and want, pulling tight like a bowstring ready to snap. 

Gi-hun didn’t want it to end. Not yet. Not ever. Not when In-ho’s mouth, his tongue, felt like absolution, like a prayer he hadn’t meant to whisper but was too deep inside to take back. 

His hand tugged at In-ho’s hair again, not with urgency, but with reverence—like he could somehow slow time by anchoring himself there. In-ho hummed again, low in his throat at the pressure, and the vibration nearly undid Gi-hun.

Gi-hun squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw clenched, fighting the inevitable like it mattered—like holding out for a few more seconds might somehow make the moment more than what it was. But his body betrayed him. The heat coiled tighter. His hips bucked, involuntarily, need overriding hesitation. 

In-ho’s name left his lips. 

Broken. 

Breathless. 

Holy. 

And still, In-ho didn’t stop. 

He took it— all of it—with dedication that felt almost cruel. That felt almost fake. Like he knew exactly how it would ruin Gi-hun and was doing it anyway. He looked up at Gi-hun, his lips still wrapped around Gi-hun’s cock with the sense of devotion that made his skin crawl. But his eyes…

His eyes told another story. 

There was no longer a trace of longing or want in them. They no longer spoke about everything broken and unsaid between them. What remained was something hollow. Calculated. Like regret taking back the reins of what In-ho truly wanted. Like it was an act, a performance in a string of borrowed encounters. 

We’ve finally fucked it up. This was the last chance. 

Gi-hun let out a shaky sigh and pulled back, leaving In-ho’s mouth gaping and empty. He continued to look down at the dark-brown pits. 

Those eyes. Those damned eyes. So pathetic. So cold. So manipulative. 

So mine. 

He pulled at In-ho’s hair again, gently this time. He untangled his injured hand, the scrape on his palm throbbed with a dull pulse of pain, and guided it back to In-ho’s jaw. He trailed his thumb over a streak of saliva pooled from In-ho’s lips and wiped it away. 

They stayed like that for a moment, In-ho on his knees, looking at Gi-hun with eyes full of regret and brimming with manipulation. Gi-hun, with his hand threaded in In-ho’s hair, his thumb tracing In-ho’s jawline carefully. 

Gi-hun wanted to say something. Anything. But the words caught somewhere in the throat he’d moaned through. 

In-ho pulled away from Gi-hun’s touch, settling back on his knees. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his expression raw but unreadable in the bathroom light. He pushed himself up, standing close to Gi-hun, their sternums almost touching. 

But Gi-hun realized he didn’t have to say anything, because he knew what came next. 

And it wasn’t safe. 

 

---

 

The bed was soft. 

Softer than Gi-hun ever remembered his own bed being. 

Or maybe it was just the contrast. The cold, unforgiving porcelain and tile of the bathroom still seemed to linger in his spine. The echo of In-ho’s mouth, the way his tongue had moved like memory and muscle, how he caused Gi-hun to unravel mentally and physically under the touch, still buzzed low and deep in his core. 

Now, the quiet settled. The shift. The place where the ache began and all reasoning was thrown out the window. 

In-ho guided him backward onto the mattress, their bodies slick from sweat and steam, hair mused, his breath warm against the hollow of Gi-hun’s throat. There was no rush. Just gravity. Just inevitability. 

Just like always. Slow, unhurried, enough to savor the moment for what it is. 

Gi-hun’s breath hitched. His body trembled beneath each press of In-ho’s careful mouth. His lips trailed down Gi-hun’s body like a man moving through water—weightless and fluid. His uneven lips left behind a path of warmth that sank into Gi-hun’s skin like bruises waiting to form. 

Every flick of tongue, every ghost of breath, promised closeness but delivered confusion instead. 

It felt good. Too good. The kind of good that hollowed you out from the inside. The kind of good that made you forget all your inhibitions and promises you made to yourself. 

In-ho moved over him, and Gi-hun let his knees fall open absentmindedly, without thinking—without resistance.   

It felt like second nature now, this quite kind of surrender. Not out of trust, because I don’t trust a word In-ho says. Not even out of lust, because our relationship is past that. It was something quieter, darker. Like giving in to the tide because you’re too tired to swim, to keep your head above water. 

In-ho’s fingers traced the inside of Gi-hun’s thigh through the fabric of his jeans. Feather-light at first, then firmer—pushing the tips of his fingers deep into the skin, hard enough to leave marks. Gi-hun’s breath caught in his throat as In-ho’s other hand drug upwards with slow, deliberate intention, tracing inch after inch of skin flushed with anticipation and dread. 

Gi-hun couldn’t stand the feel of In-ho’s palm—his hands—on his own skin. It was as if he were a stock of cattle, waiting to be branded. In-ho’s hands were like hot iron, marking his skin with a specific name. A specific ownership. It was like In-ho was claiming belonging over something he never deserved. Never had. 

But he’s always had me. From the very beginning. 

Gi-hun turned his head to the side, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He couldn’t look at In-ho. Not now, maybe not ever again. He couldn’t bear to see the hollowness present in In-ho’s eyes as he peeled Gi-hun’s being back, layer by layer. He couldn’t bear to see a man so manipulative, almost undeserving of him, tear him completely apart.

In-ho leaned down, kissed just below Gi-hun’s collarbone, and whispered something unintelligible into his skin. Gi-hun didn’t ask him to repeat it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. A shiver ran through him—not from the cold, but from how easy it was to fall back into this unsteady rhythm with In-ho. The “will he stay this time?” or “will he leave me broken again, waiting for me to come back the next time he throws out new bait?” 

Gi-hun always knew it would be the latter. But a part of him hoped In-ho would change this time. He was the one who approached Gi-hun. Kissed him. Sucked him. And on the verge of fucking him, after all.

Please, just stay. For once. 

Then he felt it—In-ho’s hand slipping between his legs, slow and sure, fingers brushing against him with maddening precision. Gi-hun inhaled sharply, twitching, his body already betraying him. 

“Are you always this ready for me?” In-ho murmured, low and slightly amused, like he knew exactly how far gone Gi-hun was. 

Always. 

Gi-hun’s jaw tensed. He hated how easily In-ho could draw reactions from him, how quickly his body softened under the weight of that voice, that touch, when it was gentle and directed at him. 

In-ho’s pressing hand drifted away from Gi-hun and toward the night stand drawer. He reached over, opened it without asking, like he owned it. Found the condom. The lube. 

He held them up, the blue foil glinting under the soft light of the bedroom. 

“Do you have frequent nighttime visitors?” he asked, his voice swelling with…jealousy? Amusement? 

Gi-hun turned his head toward In-ho, his eyes finally meeting those dark brown gateways for the first time since the bathroom. They still looked cloudy, hollow, but there was a twinge of something there. Something—Gi-hun might dare say— real ?

He narrowed his own eyes, a bitter laugh caught somewhere behind his teeth. 

The audacity. You know the answer, In-ho. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he shot back—equal parts desperation and deflection. 

Because the truth was, he didn’t. He hadn’t. 

No one else had ever made it past the front door in years, except the ones who had a key. 

A key to his heart. 

And, Gi-hun feared that no matter what happened, In-ho would always have one. 

In-ho didn’t respond with words. Just a slow inhale through his nose, his gaze steady and unreadable. 

Then his hand moved. Purposeful. Possessive. 

Gi-hun barely had time to breathe before In-ho had tugged at the waistband of his jeans, pulling them completely off. The action forced a choked sound from Gi-hun—half-shock, half-need—and his spine arched into In-ho’s touch before he could think better of it. 

His body betrayed him first. His mouth second. 

“Fuck,” Gi-hun exhaled, the word barely more than steam. “Don’t—don’t play with me.” 

But In-ho already was. He already had been for months. 

In-ho’s shirt was the first to go, peeled away in silence. Next was his pants, disappearing into the abyss of the floor. The sound of skin on skin was suddenly too loud—hot, breathless, bare. In-ho kissed like a man trying to fade into the act, and Gi-hun let him. He let the teeth scrape his throat, the hands slide over his waist, the grind of In-ho’s hips against his own like a threat and a promise. 

Gi-hun hated how much he wanted this. Hated how quickly the rest of the world faded as In-ho devoured him deeper and deeper. He hated how his breath hitched as In-ho touched all the right places—confident, knowing. 

“Tell me to stop. Please, tell me to stop,” In-ho whispered. All air of jealousy or amusement from earlier was replaced with a low, gravel-slick whisper. But he didn’t stop moving. 

“Please tell me to stop.” 

What the hell does that mean? Is this punishment for him? 

Gi-hun didn’t say a word. 

His pulse throbbed in places he couldn’t name, places In-ho hadn’t touched yet. 

And when In-ho pulled back, his lips leaving Gi-hun’s skin, and rolled the condom on with practiced hands and slicked his fingers, Gi-hun found the answer to his question. 

There was a flash in In-ho’s eyes—like he wasn’t there, not really. Like he was seeing someone else. 

Gi-hun’s heart stuttered. 

That fucking ghost. 

“In-ho,” he murmured, all honorifics out the door at that point. His voice cracked, “Look at me.” 

In-ho raised his head, his sweaty bangs splayed across his forehead in a stringy pattern. Their eyes met. And for a second, In-ho was there . 

Then he pushed in, slow and unforgiving. 

One slick finger, then another. He moved forward, claiming space between them without hesitation, tearing Gi-hun apart. 

Gi-hun grasped, nails digging into the sheets, the intrusion searing but grounding. He wanted to scream, to stop this, to beg for more. He didn’t know which urge was stronger. 

Everything in him was stretched thin. His nerves pulled tight like wire, pleasure blooming beneath his skin like the bruises on his hips. In-ho moved inside him with a slow, steady rhythm, and Gi-hun’s whole body trembled with the effort of holding himself together. 

The fingers left, leaving an uneven and warm sensation to wash over Gi-hun. He knew what was coming next, but nothing could prepare him for the swell of sensation that came with In-ho entering him fully. 

It hurt. Everything seemed to hurt when it came to In-ho, but this type of pain didn’t sting the way it usually did. It was a kind of hurt that stripped him down, peeled away the layers he’d spent building up. Not just with In-ho, but with the others. The failed dates. The Hinge hookups. 

Eun-ji.  

Every thrust carved deeper into something he didn’t know was still tender. Still wanting. Still alive. 

His breath hitched again, sharp and broken. 

Gi-hun couldn’t think. He could barely feel anything except In-ho—every inch of him. The sweat slicked their skin. The press of his toned chest. The low, restrained groan from In-ho’s throat. Gi-hun was unraveling, thread by thread, and In-ho knew damned well that he was holding the knife. 

How did we get here? 

How did I let him in? 

Why does it feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this and mourning it at the same time? 

In-ho’s hips shifted, hitting something deep inside, and Gi-hun’s eyes flew open with a gutted cry. His hands reached up, without thinking, and clutched In-ho’s face—wanting him to stay here, present, real. 

But In-ho’s eyes were distant. Soft. Too soft. Cloudy with something that felt like grief. 

Gi-hun’s heart broke a little at the sight. 

Still, he arched into the next thrust, chasing every flicker of connection he could get. He traced In-ho’s face. Kissed him like he wanted to memorize every fleeting feature of his mouth. Like maybe, if he kissed In-ho hard enough, he wouldn’t vanish when the morning came. 

In-ho’s thrusts stuttered, slowed for a minute. He slipped his right hand away from Gi-hun’s hip and clasped over the fingers that traced his face. He grabbed at Gi-hun’s wrist, pulling his hand away from his face, holding it in the air. 

That’s when Gi-hun noticed it. 

The ring. 

The gold glinted. The ring was soft and cold around his wrist. 

How could I not have noticed? He’s wearing the ring that belonged to his dead wife while he fucks me. 

What a bastard. 

In-ho tugged Gi-hun’s hand down to the space between their heated chests. 

“Don’t,” In-ho whispered. Quiet. Final. 

He removed his hand from Gi-hun’s wrist and continued to thrust. 

Gi-hun shut his eyes completely. He couldn’t look. Not anymore. 

Mr. Big didn’t want to go forward. That was a ploy to get into his pants, but Hwang In-ho wanted to break him down until there was nothing left for anyone else. 

All Gi-hun could utter in response was a timid, pleading, pathetic: 

“Please.”

He didn’t know what he was asking for. 

Forgiveness? For what, though? He shouldn’t be the one asking. 

Truth? That would be helpful. 

To be enough? Oh, how he wished…

In-ho didn’t speak. Just shifted his weight, leaned in closer, and captured Gi-hun’s bottom lip between his teeth in a kiss that felt like both a false promise and apology. 

Gi-hun felt himself tightening, pleasure boiling to the surface, dangerous and un-containable. 

I love you, Gi-hun’s body screamed. 

I hate you for all the pain, the obsession you’ve caused me to endure, his mind pleaded. 

But he didn’t say that. He never would. Because his mind never agreed with his body. 

Because the way In-ho moved—the way he held him down, the way he kissed without looking—Gi-hun wasn’t sure if In-ho was making love to him. 

Or a ghost he’d never met. 

And that uncertainty showed through the pleasure like a glass window. Still, Gi-hun let go. Let his body fall over the edge, let In-ho carry him into the darkness of hurt and uncertainty. 

Because even if it wasn’t real—

Even if In-ho wasn’t really there —

It was the closest he’d ever been to something that felt like true love. 

A sick, twisted version of it. 

And the thought made Gi-hun’s breath come out in ragged bursts. Sweat beaded at his temple, his hair curled around his forehand in damp locks, his body strained with every slow, grinding thrust In-ho gave him. His thighs ached from the tension, muscles burning from holding himself so tightly in place. 

But why care now? 

In-ho’s rhythm had grown more desperate, hips snapping forward with need he couldn’t swallow down anymore. Their skin slapped in wet staccato, the heat between them thick and inescapable. Gi-hun felt his release clawing up in his spine, white-hot and urgent. He didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want the inevitable to happen. 

How he hated the feeling of being manipulated. Of being broken and branded. 

But how he loved the feeling of In-ho’s attention. 

There was something else bubbling inside Gi-hun’s chest. Something that was sharp and lodged beside his coiled ache. 

He reached up. 

Fingers threaded in In-ho’s hair, thumbs grazing the edge of his jaw—not to hurt, not to stop—but to hold. To anchor. To make sure In-ho saw him. 

Saw him.

And then, with his hips lifting to meet each thrust, Gi-hun rose from the mattress, mouth brushing the shell of In-ho’s ear. His voice was low, unsteady, shaking from pleasure, pain, and impending heartbreak. 

“If you leave…” Gi-hun breathed, barely louder than a ghost. “Don’t come back.” 

In-ho’s entire body stilled. His thrusts faltered, stuttering at the edge of release. For a second—just one—Gi-hun swore he felt In-ho hesitate. Felt In-ho see the truth hiding beneath the threat. 

I’ll survive if you go. I’ll make do. I always have. I always will. 

But then the silence shattered. 

In-ho’s pace turned ragged, erratic—driven by something deeper now, like he was trying to outrun the meaning of the words, or burn through them with every last thrust. Their bodies met again and again, chaotic and consuming. Gi-hun didn’t feel the hand grasping his cock until—

A wash of pleasure crashed over him, crying out as the wave consumed him. His body seized, constellations bursting behind his eyes, fingers still clutching In-ho’s hair like a lifeline. 

In-ho followed with a groan, spilling into the condom, burying his face in Gi-hun’s shoulder as his body trembled. 

And then, just for a moment, everything went still. 

Sweat. Breath. Silence. The weight of everything unsaid pressed between them. 

Gi-hun didn’t know if he wanted to pull In-ho closer…or push him away before In-ho did it himself. 

Because that rhythm—

That falter—

That look in In-ho’s eyes before the end—

It felt like something real had slipped between the barriers of the past. 

It felt like hope. 

But Gi-hun knew better. 

Because with In-ho, hope always felt like goodbye.  

 

---

 

Outside the window, Seoul breathed. It inhaled, letting its metaphorical lungs fill with oxygen, its diaphragm expanding to the fullest. And then it exhaled. It let out the carbon dioxide that had collected, and let out any other waste that had formed within its congested system. 

The city inhaled the good, the respectable. It exhaled the waste, the junk. 

The room had become warm with the scent of sweat and sex, an atmosphere heavy with something unspoken—like the desire hadn’t fully left, just curled into the corners and watched from afar. The sheets beneath them were tangled, damp, a soft reminder of the intimacy, the unraveling, that had unfolded. 

Raw, reckless, and real in a way Gi-hun hadn’t felt in years. In a way he never wished to feel. 

In-ho lay beside him, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths. His hand rested on Gi-hun’s stomach, fingers splayed like he was trying to remember the shape of something he’d long forgotten. Or maybe like he was already trying to let go. 

One could only wish…

Gi-hun stayed still, his eyes drifting back to the ceiling as if looking at it again would offer answers. But, as before, it didn’t. It only offered stillness. No future. No promises. 

It had only been minutes since they’d come undone together, breathless and sweat-soaked—but something about it already felt like it was slipping through Gi-hun’s fingers. Like the moment had a decaying half-life. 

In-ho hadn’t left yet. 

But he would. 

Gi-hun could feel it already, like the ache that coursed throughout his body, he could feel the weight of inevitability settling in, building behind his ribs. 

He turned his head slightly, his eyes still locked on the ceiling. “I don’t know anything about you.” 

But it was true, Gi-hun barely knew anything about In-ho. He didn’t know the small trivial things about him. His favorite color, his hobbies, his interests…

His wife. 

Gi-hun only knew what In-ho told him, or what he found out himself through stalking his Facebook page. 

In-ho’s cloudy gaze flickered toward him. 

“You show up at my door…” Gi-hun paused. “You ruin me. You wreck me. And I don’t even know your favorite color.” 

In-ho blinked, seemingly caught off guard. “It’s blue,” he said, after a beat. 

Gi-hun flickered his gaze at In-ho directly. “Dark or light?” 

In-ho smirked, his uneven lips rising in a small but tired grin. “Midnight.” 

Gi-hun let out a breath, barely a laugh. “Of course it is.” 

“And you?” 

“Gray.” 

“Of course it is,” In-ho echoed, a little softer. 

There was a strange, tentative comfort in the exchange. Like children trading secrets beneath a blanket fort. 

He’s just using you. Trying to find ammunition to hit you where it hurts. 

Gi-hun swallowed the thought, his eyes still on In-ho. “Favorite book?” 

“Too many to name.” 

Gi-hun raised his brow. “Then what are you currently reading?”

“Han River Hearts ,” In-ho replied without hesitation. 

Is he being serious?

Gi-hun blinked. “Is that a joke?” 

In-ho met his eyes with a new, unreadable expression present—somewhere between teasing and honest. “What if it’s not?”

“Besides my column.” 

A pause, then: “The Beautiful and the Damned.” 

Gi-hun exhaled a quiet laugh through his nose. “Of course it is.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Just—classic tragic taste.” 

Something in In-ho’s eyes softened. Something flickered behind them. It was like the words were a reminder. Maybe someone had told him that before…

“Maybe I like stories where things don’t work out.” In-ho’s hand, the one with the ring, reached up to Gi-hun’s hair, twirling a lock between his fingers like he had earlier. “I like your hair this way.”

Gi-hun didn’t respond right away. He watched In-ho’s face, the slight tension in his jaw, the way one hand twirled his hair and the other continued to splay over the planes of his stomach with a feather-light touch.

He wanted to ask about the wife, the woman who haunted both their minds. He wanted to know more about the ring that rested coldly on his right middle finger. He wanted to know why silence overtook him like a wave sometimes instead of words. 

“I don’t even know what type of music you like.” 

In-ho turned his head slightly, his cheek pressing into the pillow. “I like jazz. Blues, too. Woong San. Na Yoon-sun. But I also like the Americans. Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline.” He paused, letting the answer linger between them. “What’s your favorite song?”

Gi-hun thought for a moment. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d played music just to hear it. Most days, the city was enough. A disjointed orchestra of honking cars, buzzing streetlamps, and the soft, constant drag of life happening around him. Bus brakes sighing like they’d given up on something long ago. The typing of a laptop, writing a column that should have been finished days ago. 

He blinked, gaze unfocused, mind reaching backward—not for a song, exactly, but for a feeling. 

Eun-ji always liked American music…

“There’s this one,” Gi-hun said slowly, like he was piecing it together as he spoke. “Fleetwood Mac. I never knew the title. She used to hum it when she cooked.” 

In-ho didn’t ask who she was. He already knew. 

I wonder if Eun-ji haunts his mind as much as his deceased wife haunts mine?

“I never understood the lyrics, either. Never bothered to translate them,” Gi-hun added, his voice an octave quieter. “Just the rhythm. It’s stupid—I didn’t even like it then. But now…” He trailed off, then gave a weak smile. “Now, I miss it. Like a sound I forgot I loved until it disappeared.” 

In-ho studied him, his face still an unreadable canvas but not unkind. It was like he knew what Gi-hun was talking about, on some odd, personable level. And Gi-hun looked back at him, realizing how strange it felt to share something so trivial—so small and ordinary—and how raw it felt. 

But that’s what you're supposed to do, right? You’re supposed to tell the person you…love? Care for? Are obsessed over? You’re supposed to tell them the small things about yourself without feeling so open and vulnerable. 

Gi-hun shifted, displacing In-ho’s fingers on his stomach. He watched as the man’s hand shifted down to hover over a fresh bruise on his pelvis. His other hand glided over various locks of hair. Gi-hun swore he could feel the ring touch each individual strand. 

It wasn’t uncomfortable, the silence, but it was charged. Fragile. Brimming with unspoken hurt. 

Then In-ho asked, his voice low. “Were you close?” 

It was a simple question. Four words, barely more than breath. Gi-hun turned the words over in his mind, like a pebble in his palm. 

“Were you close?”

Of course, we were close. Close enough to know each other’s favorite breakfast order. Close enough to hate her sometimes and still remember the love that once was. Close enough to memorize the pause she made before uttering my name. Close enough to remember the exact moment everything began to fall apart. 

“She was my wife. A long time ago. She’s moved on now. Has a new husband and lives in Los Angeles, I think.”

Gi-hun let the silence explain the rest. Let it explain his lingering bitterness, but how it didn’t matter anymore. Not with In-ho at his side. 

“And you?” Gi-hun asked, the question lingering at the tip of his tongue. But there was another question hidden behind his teeth. Not about In-ho, but about her. “Do you have any family? Siblings?” 

Gi-hun could feel In-ho drum his fingers across the other man’s pelvis, the pressure alternating with each movement. He could see In-ho’s face crack, just a fraction, but enough to know he had touched something sensitive. 

In-ho didn’t answer immediately, just staring at Gi-hun. He blinked slowly, then turned his face toward the ceiling, like he, too, was searching for answers. “One. A younger brother. Half-brother.”

A brief flash of memory appeared in Gi-hun’s mind. The young man at the bar with In-ho all those months ago. The one with short bangs and similar facial structure. 

“We don’t talk much, though.” 

Gi-hun frowned, the weight of the answer pressing against his chest. “Why not?”

Another long pause. “He’s significantly younger. A disconnect in generation, maybe. We drifted apart after…” In-ho trailed off, his voice faltering at the end. 

He didn’t need to say anything else. Gi-hun knew. He knew what In-ho was referring to. 

After your wife died. 

Say it. 

Please, say it. 

But the words hung unspoken between them, along with everything else. It was heavier than any silence could hold. Heavier than the silence at the bar. Heavier than the silence at the chicken shop. Heavier than the silence in the bathroom. 

Instead, against all inhibitions—again—Gi-hun reached out, his hand finding In-ho’s wrist from the hand that toyed with his hair. The hand that held the ring. In-ho’s fingers twitched under Gi-hun’s touch, like he was holding onto something fragile, something he wasn’t sure he wanted to let go of, but couldn’t keep either. 

Gi-hun swallowed hard, heart hammering in his chest like a warning. But he did what he always did best: he ignored the alarm bells. 

“I don’t know how to fix it,” In-ho whispered, admitting quietly. “How to fix any of it.” 

Gi-hun watched as tears pricked at the corner of In-ho’s eyes. He knew In-ho wasn’t just talking about his relationship with his brother. He was talking about something else, or maybe multiple things. 

It’s a trap. It has to be. 

With his voice softened, almost a whisper, Gi-hun fell into the trap head-first. “Sometimes, there’s no fixing. Just learning to live with the cracks.” 

In-ho’s eyes turned to meet Gi-hun’s again—clouded, vulnerable, raw, pathetic. For a moment, the walls he’d built around himself wavered. The barriers of the past cracked once again, and Gi-hun saw something real shaking through the shadows. 

“Because maybe,” Gi-hun continued, “that’s enough.” 

He squeezed In-ho’s wrist, the hand that acted as a hot branding iron earlier now trembled with something broken. Something Gi-hun would never understand. 

Because in that fragile space between grief, hope, and something real, sometimes the greatest healing is simply not being alone. 

In-ho was quiet for a long time. So long, Gi-hun thought maybe he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. But then—

“She had liver cirrhosis.” 

The words landed with a dull, terrible softness. Like the calm before a siren. 

Gi-hun blinked. “What?” 

In-ho’s gaze flickered back to stare at the ceiling. “She was pregnant with our child. During her pregnancy, she developed acute liver cirrhosis. The doctors gave her the option of terminating or suffering through it and risking death.” 

Gi-hun didn’t speak. He didn’t breathe. Every small movement felt like it could break whatever words came next. 

“She was adamant to save the child. She told me…if there was only enough room for one of them to make it, she wanted it to be the baby.” The silence in the room deepened. It pressed against the walls like summer humidity, thick and invisible and unbearable. “I didn’t agree. It was her choice, of course, and I respected it. But, still…” In-ho trailed off once more, his voice tapering at the end of sentence like it still lingered on his tongue. “I begged her. But she wouldn’t change her mind.” 

Gi-hun’s fingers curled tighter around In-ho’s wrist, his own hand trembling now.  

“She made it to thirty weeks,” In-ho continued, voice quiet. “Collapsed in the kitchen one morning. Her lips were blue by the time the ambulance came.” His voice wavered, then steadied. “They did an emergency C-section at the hospital. The baby survived…for two hours.” 

Gi-hun could feel cold, salty trails of tears slip against his cheeks. He didn’t realize he was crying until the first drop hit the pillow below him, making a damp spot in its wake. He didn’t try to wipe them away. 

In-ho continued to stare ahead. His voice had flattened into something distant—like he’d told the story too many times to feel the same way anymore. Or maybe he’d folded it down so small it no longer had edges. 

“I lost them both. Just like that.” 

Gi-hun turned, shifting his body to face In-ho, their chests millimeters apart. He reached out, not in a heated frenzy like before, but in a comforting manner. He placed his unscratched palm over In-ho’s bare sternum—right where his heart should have been. The heart Gi-hun assumed was blackened and withered with anger and the joy of hurting others, hurting him. A heart he assumed, at time, was non-existent. 

But it wasn’t. 

It was there. Quiet. Controlled. 

Like everything else about him. 

In-ho looked down at the touch but didn’t flinch. He didn’t grab Gi-hun’s hand like before and tell him to stop. He just let Gi-hun hold him there—anchoring him, maybe. Or anchoring himself. 

“I’m sorry,” Gi-hun whispered. He had said it before, all those weeks ago at the bar. When he feared that his rival would be the ghost of a dead woman. He still wasn’t sure that she wasn’t, but sometimes all anyone can offer in the face of ruin are small words of comfort. 

In-ho nodded slowly. Then closed his eyes. 

And for the first time, Gi-hun didn’t feel like he was holding a man made of mystery or exit wounds. 

Maybe this is the turning point. Maybe this is what he needed to say to move on. To begin new. 

Maybe he’ll stay. 

Gi-hun didn’t believe the thought. He never would. 

In-ho’s breathing had evened out after a few minutes, but Gi-hun knew he wasn’t asleep. Grief doesn’t rest. It settles, like dust over timeworn things. Like silence after confession. They lay like that for a while, chest to chest, no more questions left between them. Just warmth. Just the kind of closeness that hurts more when you know it’s temporary. 

Gi-hun’s eyes lingered on In-ho’s face. In the low light of his bedroom, In-ho looked softer. The angles gentler. He no longer looked like a curated, strict police officer. He looked almost like a young man who had been through too much to name. His lashes cast shadows over his cheeks, his lips parted just slightly. 

Human. So achingly human. 

How can a man who looks this soft, this human, drag me through his little game? How can he have the face of a god one minute and the horns of Satan the next? 

Gi-hun wanted to memorize him—his stillness, his nearness, the fragile weight of this moment. As if holding it carefully enough might make it last longer. 

But he knew better. 

He always did. 

Because with In-ho, even intimacy had an expiration date. 

Sleep crept in like a tide, slow and inevitable. Gi-hun blinked heavy-lidded, the pull of rest stronger than his will to resist it. The day had worn on him like an old, wet coat—heavy in all the wrong places, impossible to shrug off. He let himself go—not because he trusted, but because he had nothing left to hold onto. 

The last thing he saw was In-ho’s face. Still. Silent. 

There. 

But even as his eyes slipped closed, a cold certainty pressed against the edge of his thoughts. 

“If you leave again…Don’t come back.” 

When he woke, In-ho would be gone. 

And he wouldn’t chase after him. 

 

---

 

The sun had barely crested the rooftops of Ssangmun-dong, but Gi-hun’s apartment already felt colder than the morning air outside. 

Gi-hun stirred, the remnants of sleep clinging to him like fog. His hand laid flat on the bed beside him, on sheets that were faintly warm, but unmistakably empty. He sat up slowly, stomach turning before his brain could catch up. Something in the air had changed. The weight of absence was always the first to arrive. 

The memories of last night flashed through his mind. Hot breath, gentle caresses, heated moans. The questions, the conversations. 

The feeling of the inevitable. The feeling that it was over. 

Gi-hun stood up from the bed, throwing the covers off of him quickly. He knew that In-ho was long gone. He knew that he could search his apartment high and low, but there wouldn’t be a sign that In-ho was ever there. 

He hobbled into the kitchen, his body sore from his fall the day before. He needed to get away from the bed, from the scene of the crime. As he walked slowly into the center of the room, he looked to the counter top where his laptop was open, screen black, waiting to be typed on, but something caught his eye. A single square of yellow paper rested on the blackened screen, like it had landed there by accident. 

But it hadn’t. It had been placed there on purpose. On a place where Gi-hun would see it. 

Gi-hun narrowed his eyes and grabbed the note, placing it between his pointer and index finger. 

Three sentences. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.” 

His breath caught in his throat. 

He expected it to happen. He expected In-ho to leave. He knew it was coming. 

But this? 

A post-it note. 

What the fuck? 

Notes:

I did say it would get worse before it got better...

There's a lot to unpack in this chapter. The emotional and physical vulnerability of both. Gi-hun finally talking about Eun-ji. In-ho telling Gi-hun about his wife. Gi-hun literally falling apart mentally as he's getting head. Gi-hun's shorter voice overs/thoughts.

While it did finish on a bit of a tragic note, I think there is a bit more clarity in their relationship now. It's something that will keep In-ho up at night and possibly push Gi-hun in the right direction (leaving In-ho's ass). But who knows...In-ho might come around in the end (doubt it).

A big thanks to my best friend (who is literally the Samantha to my Carrie) for helping me plan out the smut for this chapter. I hope no one at the park overheard us talk about this lolll!!

The ending of this chapter is one scene that I knew I wanted to write since I came up with the concept of the fic, so I'm glad I was able to incorporate it. And I will stand on the hill that In-ho listens to Patsy Cline!!

But, anyway, thank you all for reading!!! Your support and kindness mean the world to me! Please don't hesitate to comment, bookmark, leave kudos, etc! I appreciate all your support! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Chapter 12: A Parting, a Blade, and a Lighter Crown

Summary:

In the wake of something that refused to be named, Gi-hun moved through the night in quiet, deliberate motions—placing an object back into the hands it came from, revealing a truth to those who mattered, and cutting away what no longer belonged. Small acts, strung together, became their own kind of release. And by the rise of morning, the past had fewer places to hide.

Some messages never need to be shouted. They don’t need to be paraded around with glorified pride. 

They fold themselves quietly into the smallest, most unexpected corners of life—an unnoticed scrap of paper, a forgotten object leaning against a wall, a sudden shift in reflection. Moments that ripple softly through the edges of a night, touching parts that one tries to not see. 

In a low-lit room filled with familiar faces, laughter floats like smoke, fragile, fleeting, as words hang between sips and shared, knowing glances. Somewhere in the midst of it all, a weight begins to lift—not with loud declarations, but in small, deliberate acts. 

A hand reaches out, a thread is cut, an old tether is laid down. 

There’s a strange kind of grace in unraveling the past quietly, letting pieces fall where they may. In moments as such, loss and freedom tangle in a quiet dance, the kind that doesn’t need words. 

And somewhere beneath it all, Gi-hun felt the stirring of something new—a breath, a space, a promise whispered only to himself. 

And maybe that’s the hardest part, not letting go itself, but learning how to make space for what comes next. Who you should be. Who you are meant to be. 

 

---

 

Han River Hearts

By Seong Gi-hun

Seoul Correspondent

Special to the Sentinel

 

“Message Received” 

 

It is said that the worst part of heartbreak is the silence that follows. The absence of the person. The complete detachment. The cutting of the strings that intertwine their life with yours. 

But I don’t think that’s true. 

I think that the worst part of heartbreak is the moment before — when you know it’s coming. It’s impending doom weighing on your shoulders like a heavy anvil, pressing against your deltoids with the force of a moving truck. But you let the weight crush you anyway. You let it rip into your heart, your soul, and every fiber of your being. 

However, there is a particular cruelty in that kind of intimacy. 

It is when you bare everything. You strip down to show every real, raw part of yourself. Your bruises, your stories, your skin—but somewhere deep in your gut, you already know that nothing will be enough to make them stay. You already know they’re going to leave the moment their eyes meet yours. 

That is the cruelty. 

It is not ignorance, but permission. You give them the most fragile pieces of yourself, hoping that maybe, they’ll choose to keep them safe. 

But they don’t. They never do. 

They use those fragile pieces as shards to injure, to hurt, to kill. They use every piece of yourself you have given up as ammunition to hit you where it hurts. They do it without warning, without notice. They do it knowingly, but also unknowingly. They do it in a way that will cause you to let down every barrier you erected to impede a situation as such. 

They do it in a way that will cause you to pick up the bloody shards of yourself that were used against you for months. Years. Decades. 

And just like they always do, he came without warning, like rain. Like always. And I let him in. 

Foolishly. 

Stupidly. 

He came not just into my apartment, but into me. Into all the soft places I’d carefully walled off. Into the ache I’d been nursing like an old injury that flared every time I tried to move on. 

Words weren’t enough. He looked at me with eyes of devotion, like the world had collapsed outside my door and I was his only saving grace. His hands were hot like iron, marking me with a brand of belonging, planting a gash between the dips of my shoulder blades. My body memorized him in panic, like it knew something my mind didn’t want to admit. It was as if I were a horse, waiting at the gates of the stables, ready to be marked with a freeze dried brand of inevitability. 

He touched me like I was the answer to some twisted, sick question that had been living inside his mind for years. An inkling of a belief, a high, that he had chased for a decade. And, for a second, I let myself believe that I was the answer. That I was the change in his belief. Like I was the turning point in his belief in humanity. 

But I wasn’t. I was a number. A tally mark etched somewhere deep inside him, barely distinguishable from the rest of the gutted scar tissue that resides in his heart. A heart that is black, withered, and broken with no vacancy. 

I clung to him like someone afraid of drowning. I realized we weren’t just moving together, we were holding back the tide of an overpowering tsunami. 

He uttered things he’d never said aloud—about grief, about guilt, about the kind of love that leaves you in ruins. I told him about the way loneliness builds up in your body, how it seeps into your bones until you start to mistake it for hunger. 

We were confessing. 

Confessing to a sin that neither of us could repent for.

Confessing to a surrender that we wouldn’t give to anyone else.  And I thought—God help me—that maybe that mattered. 

He looked at me with hollow, regret-filled eyes. He looked at me like he saw me, but I now know he was just seeing through me. Or worse—past me. Past my shoulder and looking at a pale figure that haunts his mind at every turn. One that possesses his heart. His soul. His fucking right middle finger, where the indention of his golden wedding ring leaves cold bruises against my skin. 

“If you leave…Don’t come back.”

I drifted into the abyss with his breath still warm against my ear, the curl of his bangs touching my chin, my body inching toward him like a magnet. But I knew that when I awoke, he would be gone. His warmth will have receded, and all evidence of his presence would be non-existent. 

Part of me believed he would stay, that he would change his mind. 

But he didn’t. He never did. He never will. 

I woke to a silence so loud it split me in half and caused my stomach to curdle like sour milk. His side of the bed was faintly warm, but the weight of absence is always the first to arrive. His scent, the masculine cologne he wore and the salt of rain, was already fading. No text. No call. No trace. 

Just a yellow Post-it note, stuck onto the screen of my laptop like an after thought. Like an invoice. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.” 

I waited for the words to make sense. As if heartbreak ever does. As if the people who leave us broken are the ones who know how to explain it. 

And in that moment, I realized something even more painful than the note itself: 

The most devastating thing about heartbreak isn’t what they leave behind. 

It’s that you knew they would do this—that you expected it to come in some form, some fashion—and you still handed them the sharpest parts of you, hoping they’d be careful. You pricked your finger over their points, expecting them to draw blood over yours.

But he didn’t. 

He handled my points with three simple, concise sentences. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.” 

So what does one do with the love, the feeling of obsession, that wasn’t enough? Does it pass onto the next person? The next date? the next infatuation? 

Does the truth you finally utter, the truth that didn’t make them stay, linger in their mind? 

Does the night that felt like everything, followed by the morning that proved it meant nothing, still mean every action was in vain? Does every touch, every surrender, every sound mean nothing? 

I used to believe closure came in conversation. 

But maybe the truth is, nothing ever really disappears—it just changes shape, finding new ways to haunt you. 

Maybe it comes in something smaller. A look. A breath. A ghost. 

Or on a damn sticky-note. 

The part of love that sticks just long enough to hurt. That follows you everywhere. That can fit neatly into a 3x3 inch note. 

But I can’t be contained to such a small margin. 

I can’t meet you there.

Because I’m not a horse. Not a number. Not yours. 

 

---

 

Thwack. 

Gi-hun pulled his shaking palm away from the wooden tabletop, the yellow Post-it note quivering where he’d slammed it down. Its edges caught the low bar light, its corners curled like it was smirking at him. It was as if the note itself had burned an invisible indention into the grain, like the wood itself might remember the words better than him.

Outside, the rain came down in sheets, smearing the outside lights into watercolor streams across the window. Droplets slid down the bar’s fogged glass, nervous rivulets, distorting the outside world into bleeding shapes. It had rained everyday for the past week, every day since that night. It was like the universe itself was crying for Gi-hun. 

The air smelled faintly of sesame oil, grilled meat, and damp wool coats.The umbrella Gi-hun grabbed without thinking, without realizing, leaned against the wall beside him. Navy, unremarkable, worn, and bent just enough to show it had seen storms. He hadn’t thought about where it came from. Not yet. 

All reminders of something—someone—I’d rather not think about. Someone I’d rather forget. 

Gi-hun didn’t speak. Instead, he reached for his soju glass, finding it half-empty, and tipped it back without tasting it. He let the burning sensation travel down his esophagus and settle in his stomach. 

Grounding. Tethering. Unrelenting. 

The note sat on the table like a dare. It was like a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode with the wrong move, the wrong word. 

The three of them—Jung-bae, Sang-woo, and Ali—looked at the note with a type of cautious curiosity that was usually reserved for wild animals, unsure if it would bite. Unsure if Gi-hun had already taken a chunk of flesh with him. 

Gi-hun could see the way Jung-bae’s eyes flickered to the tremor in his hand, the way his fingers lingered just above the square as though it might leap away if he let it. He could see the way Sang-woo’s brows drew together, deep and sharp and assessing. The way Ali tilted his head, peering at the note like a riddle that refused to be solved. 

None of them reached for it. 

“Go on,” Gi-hun finally said, his voice brittle. “Read it.” 

Jung-bae leaned forward first, lifting the note delicately between two fingers, like it might leave a stain of regret on his hands if he touched it any other way. His eyes scanned the three short sentences. His lips parted in something between surprise and shock before passing it to Sang-woo. Sang-woo, who scanned it just the same, let out a short, humorless laugh before sliding it toward Ali. Ali’s gasp was soft but genuine, his fingertips brushing the paper as if he could smooth the words away. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.” 

The note landed back on the table, absurdly small, obscenely loud. The four men stared at it like it was a weapon responsible for murder. Somewhere in the corner of the bar, a fresh bottle of soju cracked open, its cheerful pop and the sound of laughter cutting through the thick silence. 

“That’s it?” Ali asked, his voice small, like there had to be a missing page. 

“That’s it,” Gi-hun said, steady in the way one can only be when they’re holding their breath. 

I wish there was more. An explanation. A reason. But nothing. 

Just more silence. 

Sang-woo pushed his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t believe you when I read about it in your column. Post-it notes are for reminders, memos, or grocery lists. Not whatever this is…” 

Jung-bae reached for the sweating bottle of soju that sat beside the note, pouring himself another shot. “My wife writes better notes in my lunch box than that.” 

Gi-hun narrowed his eyes, “At least your wife’s notes have verbs.” 

Ali reached for the note again, picking it up as if it might bruise. He read the note, his eyes moving back and forth over the scribbled Hangul. “It says ‘don’t hate me.’” He looked at Gi-hun as if the words were a lifeline. “That has to mean something, right?” 

“Something.”

Such a small, weightless word. A placeholder for meaning when you can’t find any. 

Jung-bae knocked back the shot he poured and set the glass down with a decisive clink . “I think if this guy wanted to be understood, he would have used more than three sentences.” 

Gi-hun could see Sang-woo cross his arms out of the corner of his eye. The way his hands tightened over his biceps in a knowing, predictive way. Like he knew that In-ho would do this all along. That he would leave Gi-hun empty and searching. 

“Just—be careful.” 

“A man of few words, this Mr. Big,” Sang-woo drawled out, letting the aliases linger at the tip of his tongue. He looked at Gi-hun over the rim of his glasses, the look pointed and sharp. “At least he’s concise.” 

Gi-hun didn’t answer. He clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze on the note. The three short sentences stared back like they’d been carved into his soul, his heart, his ache. He could feel, in the slow churn of his mind, the way his conscience tried to understand how absence could fit in the space between “I’m sorry” and “Don’t hate me.” 

Jung-bae traced the rim of his glass with one finger, his face slightly flushed. “Concise is one thing, but being a dick is another.” 

Ali leaned forward, his voice softer but edged with a kind of determined optimism. “Maybe he thought it would hurt less this way.” 

Gi-hun’s mind drifted back to that night. The hushed gasps, the stinging pain, the raw words uttered between them. He thought back to how hollow In-ho’s eyes were, the way he hesitated, the way his movement stuttered when Gi-hun whispered to not come back if he left. 

We like to think heartbreak comes with a monologue —something cinematic, scored by violins and smooth jazz. But sometimes it’s three sentences on a note, left behind like a receipt you didn’t know you’d been handed. It’s the way you knew it would happen, but chose to push the knowledge aside. 

In-ho knew it would hurt, Gi-hun concluded, but maybe the note was better than hearing it from the man himself. Hearing those words come out of the same mouth that took him with such devotion just hours earlier. 

Sang-woo refilled his own glass, then topped Gi-hun's without asking. “Sometimes, brevity is the soul of wit. If that’s the case, then Mr. Big is a regular Oscar Wilde,” he said, a small smirk forming on his lips. “Except—” he gestured to the note, “wit requires a punchline. Which is something he doesn’t have.” 

Gi-hun looked up from the note, staring at Sang-woo with a bewildered gaze. “Is this your version of comforting me?”

“My version,” Sang-woo said, swirling the soju glass, “is reminding you that a person who leaves on paper what they can’t say to your face is not worth your time. They are not worth being careful over.” 

When someone leaves you with nothing but seven words, it’s not the brevity that kills you—it’s the finality. The punctuation mark that closes a door you knowingly left open to let a cold, chilling, hurtful draft in.

Gi-hun leaned back against the hard cushions of the booth, his eyes now fixed on the ceiling instead of the note. “It’s not even a complete sentence,” he said, his voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “‘I can’t.” He shook his head. “What does that even mean? Can’t what?” 

Can’t move on from his wife? Can’t commit to me? Can’t stop playing this silly, manipulative game? 

“Can’t commit, can’t communicate, can’t stop running away,” Jung-bae held up a hand and ticked off each one like a shopping list. “If I treated my wife like that when we were dating, I wouldn’t even be married now.” 

Gi-hun looked back at the note, the yellow paper had become frayed from having been folded and unfolded too many times in the past week, its corners almost completely bent, the sticky tack—that once plastered it to his laptop—was nearly gone. “It’s the shortest story I’ve ever written. The shortest I’ve ever been in,” he murmured.

“If that is the case,” Ali said after a moment, trying to reframe Gi-hun’s words into something hopeful. “Then it might be best to close the book. I believe you’re too good to be a footnote in someone else’s story, sir.” 

“You deserve better than this, hyung,” Sang-woo spoke up, his pointed, knowing gaze still baring into Gi-hun. “There are more people besides Hwang In—” Sang-woo caught himself, lips tightening “—Mr. Big,” he finished flatly, the almost-name dissipating in the air. It was said, not so much as a consolation, but as a fact. Stated plainly, like telling someone it was raining outside. 

Gi-hun reached out hesitantly, his fingers still trembling, and touched the note. He traced the scribbled words, feeling the slight indentions of pen against the soft paper. The paper was smooth, almost absurdly so, as if it had been written on purpose to leave no mark except the one it left on his heart, his soul, his ache. The one In-ho had meant to leave. 

“You know what’s funny?” Gi-hun said, stopping his tracing and pulling his hand fully away from the note, as if breaking contact might somehow sever the tether to the past. His eyes didn’t meet anyone’s gaze at first; they fixed on the faint water droplets that ran down the shared green soju bottle. 

“There are some relationships where you know how they’ll end. You see the ending clearly before you even have a decent conversation. But with him, I never could. I never saw the part where it crumbled or where it ended happily. All I ever saw was him walking away. Always walking away.” 

Maybe that’s the worst part about heartbreak. Not knowing you’ve fucked it up completely until the moment they’re gone. 

The weight of Gi-hun’s words settled over the table like slow-moving fog, thick and stubborn. It hung in the air alongside the sharp tang of soju and the curling tendrils of cigarette smoke that drifted lazily. Outside, the rain continued to pour, hammering against the windows in a steady, constant rhythm. 

For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sounds were the soft clink of glasses against wood and the occasional laugh or murmur from the other patrons. Time seemed to stretch, folding in on itself like the curled note that still burned on the table. 

Finally, Jung-bae broke the silence, his voice low and rough around the edges, slurred slightly. “Well, at least now you know. You’ve got the map out,” he said, his eyes flickering toward the note with reverence, “even if the destination sucks.” 

His words wrapped around Gi-hun, heavy but oddly comforting—a cruel kind of truth blanketed with the warmth of honesty. He watched the dim glow of neon outside continue to blur, his mind spinning circles despite the stillness around him. 

It was Ali who reached out, tentatively brushing the note again like he was trying to feel the weight of the heartbreak trapped in those few crumpled words. “It is possible,” he whispered lightly, “the hardest part for you, sir, isn’t knowing the ending—but it’s learning how to say goodbye to the story you thought you’d have.” 

Gi-hun blinked at Ali, letting the words ricochet in his head. His mind drifted back to the way he’d built In-ho up in his head: Mr. Big, the elusive, magnetic force that appeared in the quietest corners of his life, who seemed to orbit just beyond reach. He’d spun narratives around him like a novelist crafting the perfect plot—an enigma wrapped in charisma, a thrilling mystery with just enough light to chase. He’d obsessed over every glance, every half-smile, every moment that could mean something more in his delusional mind. 

But Hwang In-ho? He was real. Flawed. Weighted down by his past—the grief, the silence, the ghost that sat on his shoulders and dictated his every move, the presence no one dared name out loud, the glinting ring that told more than In-ho himself. The stories Gi-hun imagined began to unravel with each further meeting, each fleeting encounter, stretched thin by the truth of his baggage. 

In-ho choosing to leave, choosing to walk away after everything he had done and said, wasn’t just about the end of a relationship. It was about mourning the myth Gi-hun curated and loved more than the man himself.

And that was something harder to do than any divorce or heartbreak he’d ever known. 

Gi-hun’s eyes drifted away from Ali and settled on the umbrella that leaned against the wall. Navy, bent at the ribs, unremarkable to anyone else—but to him, it was something else entirely. It was the only physical extension of him that he still had, a fact he had accepted a while ago. The only tangible proof that Hwang In-ho—Mr. Big—had ever stepped into his life. 

He thought of the fall in the subway—the chaotic rush of footsteps, the wet tile beneath his slipping feet, the way his balance betrayed him and sent him sprawling to the cold floor, the way Sae-byeok looked at him with confusion and borrowed disbelief. The bruises that blossomed like dark flowers on his ribs and shoulder, reminders not just of the fall, but of that night. 

That night. 

The night their bodies had tangled with raw and complicated intimacy. The night Gi-hun’s mind unraveled like a spool of thread. A desperate grasp for connection, for something real. A moment where bruises felt less like pain and more like proof—proof that they had been there, together, even if only briefly. 

But now, the umbrella sat there quietly, a silent witness to all the things left unsaid and undone. 

A witness to the beginning and now the end. 

The only way I can truly mourn him—truly move on—is to get rid of this. To fold it up, hand it back, and close that damned door for good. Because holding onto the umbrella is like holding onto the possibility of him—of us. And sometimes, letting go is the only way to find peace. 

Gi-hun reached out slowly, his hands inching toward a different object. His fingers trembled as they curled around the handle of the umbrella. The rain continued to drum against the windows, steady and unrelenting, but inside, Gi-hun felt the first flicker of something like that resembled euphoria. 

Something like a different kind of addiction. 

The addiction of being free. 

Without another word, Gi-hun turned away from the umbrella and snatched the yellow Post-it from the table. With a quick motion, he crumpled it into a tight, jagged ball. 

“Consider that my official verdict,” he gritted out, more to himself than to the others. He flicked the paper toward the floor. The soft thud echoed like a small victory. 

Sometimes the only way forward is to trash the past.

Jung-bae, already reaching for the half-filled bottle, topped off everyone’s soju glasses with a practiced hand. “Then let’s get piss drunk,” he said with a grin, “Gi-hun’s paying.” 

Gi-hun let out a half-startled squawk, swatting Jung-bae’s hand away with mock indignation. His face lightened up with emotion for the first time in a week. For the first time since that night. “What are you talking about? I’m not made of money, you know.” 

Jung-bae laughed, the sound warm and rough like gavel sliding underfoot. “Relax. You don’t have to be the cheapskate of Ssangmun-dong tonight.” 

Ali raised his glass, holding it with both hands. “To Gi-hun-ssi’s bad decisions and even better stories.” 

They clinked their glasses together, the sharp ring slicing through the low hum of the bar. Around them, life hummed like distant music, punctuated by the occasional soft clatter. Outside, the world pooled with color, the glow softened by the constant mist. 

For a moment, at least, the world slowed. 

And in the blur of soju and rain, Gi-hun found a breath—a pause between what was lost and what might still be waiting outside the doors of the bar. 

Freedom. Euphoria. A chance to move on. 

 

---

 

The air of the bar clung to Gi-hun’s skin, faint and warm. The tendrils of cigarette smoke trailed behind him like a ribbon that had lost its gift. The words of his friends, their laughter, their support, swirled around the crevices of his mind, just as the night air did. Cool and mischievous, the chill of the late autumn weather had a frigid bite that was already peeling away his inhibitions. 

He wasn’t drunk, not entirely. Just swayed enough that the city felt softer around the edges, the way it sometimes did in dreams. He was swayed enough to feel the rise of euphoric freedom. To feel the rise of bravery seep into his skin and flood his inebriated body. 

Gi-hun pulled out his phone, ordered a Kakao taxi, then cancelled it before it was even confirmed. The thought of a driver breaking the spell, breaking the sense of bravado he felt in the moment, felt wrong. He didn’t want to be whisked away back to his lonely apartment, sealed in a box of stale air and phone-glow. Instead, he clutched the tattered navy umbrella under his arm—a strange little anchor—and started walking. 

The heels of his sneakers pattered against the pavement, sometimes in sync with his steps, sometimes not, like even his shoes had had one too many. Streetlights crowned Gi-hun in gold, puddles offered warped, rippling portraits of the sky. Somewhere down an alley, a cat darted between two garbage bins, its eyes catching the light like coins tossed into a fountain. A busker, barely visible in shadow, coaxed a thin, wandering tune from a harmonica, the notes weaving in and out of his ears like an old secret trying to be heard. 

Gi-hun could have been anywhere, in any life. And for a moment, he was—no burden weighing on his shoulders. No anvil pressing down on his deltoids. No coiled ache wrapping around his ribs and sinking into his heart. It was just him, his footsteps, and the umbrella tucked in the crook of his arm. It rested against his side, heavy but familiar—the last physical thread tying In-ho to him. The night stretched on, uncertain and endless, but the station remained his compass, the only place he knew he had to reach. 

It left a sense of certainty within Gi-hun that you could hold. A certainty that makes you believe in individuality. 

Not a horse. Not a number. Not yours. 

Neon lights fractured into kaleidoscopes on rain-slicked pavement. The hum of distant traffic and muted conversations blended with the steady drip of water from awnings. Gi-hun’s steps carried him forward, but how far, he couldn’t say. The blocks blurred into one another, the rain dripped down onto his forehead, soaking him completely—the way the world does when you walk without thinking, caught between tipsy and sober. 

Each stumble, each pause to steady himself on a streetlamp or a cold brick wall, pulled him deeper into the night. His breath fogged in the cool air, mingling with the faint scent of exhaust and wet asphalt. Time felt slippery as the ground beneath him, slipping past in the swirl of neon and rain that surrounded him. 

And with every step, the urge grew louder—not just to return the umbrella, not to see In-ho in person, but to reclaim himself. To fold up the past and leave it behind, wrapped in the rain and the night. 

To be free. To feel like I can walk the streets of Seoul without him haunting my every thought. 

The harsh fluorescent lights of the police station's flickering sign spilled onto the wet sidewalk like a spotlight on a stage he never wanted to be on. The building loomed, solid and unyielding, a stark contrast to the fluid haze of the city behind him. 

He paused outside the entrance, the umbrella clutched between his bicep and elbow, feeling its weight settle into something final. The damp air pressed against his skin, cold and real, pulling him back from the lingering fog of intoxication. 

He looked back to the chicken shop, his safe haven, his hideaway for all those weeks. He watched as people entered and exited the doors of the restaurant without care, without fear. Through the window of the station, the quiet hum and the muted shuffle of officers going about their night shift was apparent. He searched the room through the glass, but he found nothing. With a deep inhale, Gi-hun grabbed the handle of the door and walked into the station, his footsteps echoing softly against the floor. 

He stepped up to the front desk, his hands beginning to tremble as he inched closer. The fluorescent bulbs wrapped around him like a shroud and shined too brightly in his eyes. He looked at the officer manning the desk. A young man behind the counter, with a ponytail pulled taunt at the center of his head and sharp features, looked up at Gi-hun with softened surprise. 

“Is Hwang In-ho-ssi here? Or, uh, Chief Hwang…” Gi-hun asked, his voice trailing off and slurring slightly with the haze of lingering soju. 

The young man’s eyes widened as Gi-hun spoke, as if he’d dropped a secret in his lap. “You’re Seong Gi-hun!” He jumped out of his rolling chair, a grin spreading across his face. “I—my sisters read your column. They talk about it all the time.” 

Gi-hun blinked, half amused, half focused. “Yeah…that’s me,” he said, pressing on. “In-ho-ssi? Is he here?” 

The young man nodded, finally lowering his voice to something less starstruck. “Chief Hwang? Yeah, he’s in his office.” He pointed to a door above their heads, a stairwell leading up to the office. Just then, the sharp echo of a door shutting and the echo of heavy footsteps rang down from the said stairwell above, drawing all gazes toward the landing. 

Gi-hun’s eyes widened as he watched the man responsible for so much of his pain appeared, descending slowly down the stairs, his facial expression blank except for furrowed brows. For a moment, the quiet hum of the station seemed to blur away. Gi-hun’s gaze locked onto him, the memories flooding back in a wave of ache and something fierce—something unresolved. 

Walk down here, you bastard. Don’t run away this time. 

“Gi-hun?” In-ho called down from the stairwell, his voice low, almost hesitant. His eyes flickered to the umbrella in his hand, then back to Gi-hun’s face, searching. 

The young man, unfazed by the charged moment, kept talking. “My sisters were going crazy over your column this morning. It’s all they’ve been talking about for the past week. I’m sorry about that guy who left the sticky note. That’s awful. Whoever he is, he’s a total—” The young man looked toward In-ho, who now stood beside the front counter. He caught In-ho’s glare and cut himself off. “Dick.” 

In-ho shot the young man a look that could silence a raging tornado. “Officer Kang.” His voice was sharp, final. 

Before Gi-hun or the young officer could respond, In-ho reached out and grabbed Gi-hun’s arm, pulling him toward the exit. It was the first time they’d touched since that night, and In-ho’s hands were still hot—like an iron searing memories into his skin. 

The door swung open behind them, spilling the pair onto the street. Gi-hun stumbled slightly at the force of his grip, his heel catching on the lip of the sidewalk. In-ho didn’t slow. He guided—no, steered—Gi-hun down the street as though the city itself might try to claim him back. They didn’t stop until they reached the shadowed mouth of a narrow alley—a place just out of sight, out of earshot. Somewhere between privacy and disappearance. 

Light filtered in fractured shapes across the mouth of the alley, the sound of traffic hummed like static in the distance. Gi-hun could feel the imprint of In-ho’s hand on his arm, a heat that refused to fade even as the bitter cold licked at his bare skin. 

A couple passed by the alley, huddled beneath an umbrella, their laughter muted by the fabric canopy, unaware of the two men that were hidden just meters away. Gi-hun wondered if they looked like that, him and In-ho—two people close enough to touch, but with a gulf large enough between them you could sail a ship.

In-ho didn’t say a word. His jaw was set, the muscles in his forearm flexing each time his hand tightened slightly on Gi-hun’s arm. He knew that grip—possessive, protective, and just a bit dangerous. A grip he had used himself, a grip that had been used on him metaphorically and literally. It was a kind of touch that said I’m not ready to let go, even if he had already done so once. 

Gi-hun couldn’t take it. He didn’t like the feeling of being trapped, of being held in hands so controlling. He didn’t like being touched with hands that had left never-fading marks on his skin. 

“Let go,” Gi-hun said, breath catching. 

In-ho did, almost instantly, but stayed close. His face unreadable in the dim light, his perfect hair flopped against his forehead with the dampness of the rain. 

Gi-hun pulled the umbrella from under his arm like he’d been carrying a weapon, shoving it toward him. His heart beat with anticipation, with bravado. He wanted this to happen. He had been waiting for this moment. The moment to move on, to file Hwang In-ho in the past. 

“Here. This is yours. Take it. I’m done carrying it.”

In-ho’s eyes flicked to the umbrella pointing into his chest, but didn’t move to take it. “Gi-hun—” 

“No,” he cut in, a little too fast, too sharp. The word echoed against brick. “You don’t get to drag me out here in the middle of the rain. You don’t get to appear out of nowhere and pull me out like I’m—” Gi-hun stopped himself before saying yours. “Like I’m some kind of dirty whore.” 

Still, he didn’t take the umbrella. “You’d rather I hadn’t?” 

Gi-hun laughed, small and bitterly. “I’d rather you decide. One way or the other, I’m not here to make a scene,” he paused for a moment, collecting his breath. “I’m not some fish you can hook and reel in when it’s convenient.” 

Something shifted in In-ho’s stance—maybe confusion, maybe restraint—but his tone stayed low, even, unhurried. “It wasn’t like that.” 

Liar. 

“Then what was it?” Gi-hun pressed, stepping closer. He could smell faint traces of the cologne he wore, his shampoo, soap that hadn’t quite erased the day. “Because from where I’m standing, it feels a lot like you just want to keep me on ice. Just cold enough to stay.” 

The words hung there, suspended in the distance between them like a taut wire. In-ho’s mouth opened, but whatever he was about to say didn’t make it past the shape of Gi-hun’s name. 

Gi-hun shoved the umbrella deeper into In-ho’s chest, twisting the pointed tip right where his heart lay. “Take the fucking umbrella.” 

A twinge of something passed across In-ho’s face. Something unreadable. Something silent. 

“You’ve been drinking.” 

You don’t get to care now. Not anymore. If you even did to begin with. 

“Don’t,” Gi-hun snapped, his breath warm with lingering soju. He remembered In-ho’s words, echoing them back. He twisted the umbrella tip once more, making sure to garner a wince. 

In-ho looked down at the handle, the black rubber end that Gi-hun gripped with white knuckles. He still did not take it. “Why are you giving me this?” His voice was calm, almost too calm, like he thought they were having a reasonable conversation. 

“Because it’s yours,” he gritted out. “And I’m tired of holding onto things that aren’t mine.” 

Will never be mine. 

Confusion, maybe, or even irritation passed across In-ho’s face. “It’s just an umbrella.” 

He knows. He knows it’s not just an umbrella. He remembers giving it to me, under the awning, all those months ago. 

Gi-hun smiled, sad and angry. “Nothing’s just ‘an umbrella.’ You of all people should know that.” 

In-ho didn’t answer. Didn’t step forward or back. Just stood there, the rain whispering somewhere beyond the alley, his silence heavy enough to press against Gi-hun’s ribs. 

Gi-hun’s voice dropped. “Did you think I was just going to keep doing this? Waiting? Again?” 

In-ho’s brows knitted—barely—but his gaze never faltered. “I didn’t—” 

“Didn’t what? Didn’t notice? Didn’t care?” Gi-hun shook the umbrella vigorously. “I told you to not come back if you left, but I didn’t think you would do it. I didn’t think you would actually leave,” he said, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. A white lie, but one he needed to say in order to stab In-ho in the heart. “But you did. You always do.” 

In-ho glanced back to the umbrella. He raised his hands carefully, grasping the pointed end with his right hand. The hand that still held that ring. Gi-hun closed his eyes, not daring to look at the glinting object. He couldn’t. Not ever. Not while the pain and memories were still fresh. Not while the cold metallic surface still left raw, metaphorical bruises on his skin. 

“Gi-hun…” In-ho’s tone was level, but his eyes—restless. “You’re drunk.” 

“And you’re a coward.”

Gi-hun watched as the rain caught In-ho's lashes, his mouth turned downward in a confused grimace, parting like he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. 

“Forget it,” Gi-hun said, stepping back from In-ho. He let go of the umbrella, the warmth of the handle disappearing from his palm. “Go back to your ghost. She seems to need you more than I do.” 

In-ho’s hand closed over the umbrella fully. His fingers clasped it slowly, like he wasn’t sure if it was a peace offering or a weapon. 

Gi-hun turned without waiting for a reply, the sharp slap of his steps on the pavement ricocheted in the narrow alley. The light to the outside world was closer, a world in which he hadn’t seen in such a way since that summer storm. Each breath he took was electric—tinged with the sharp taste of soju, the cold bite of night air, and something new. 

Something like freedom. 

His thoughts spun like the neon reflections beneath his feet. The umbrella was gone. The last tether tying him to a story he was ready to close was out of the way. The story of a man who came and went like seasons he never quite caught. A love that burned fast and vanished quicker, leaving only scorched marks.

He thought back to Ali’s words, uttered just hours ago.

“The hardest part isn’t knowing the ending—but it’s learning how to say goodbye to the story you thought you’d have.” 

For so long, he’d been obsessed not with Hwang In-ho, but with the idea of Mr. Big—the myth, the dream, the narrative he had woven to make sense of the chaos happening in his mind. But in the rain-damp alley, the illusions had shattered. 

His footsteps carried him away from the shadows, past streetlights and the world that felt both vast and intimate, a strange paradox that made Gi-hun’s chest swell. He was untethered—no longer a horse branded, no longer a number. Not his. 

Gi-hun breathed deep, the light mist kissing him, the cool night wrapping around him like a new layer of skin. The ache in his chest—the one that had appeared since his first encounter with In-ho, began to settle. Not with the presence of the man, but instead with his absence. It was a fragile truce with himself. A first step toward moving on. 

He didn’t know where he was going exactly, only that the police station, the chicken shop, was behind him now. The umbrella was gone from his arm, and with it, the pressing anvil on his shoulders. 

It was the last weight he had been carrying, or so he thought. Gi-hun’s fingers drifted to his forehead, swiping drenched locks out of his eyes. He remembered In-ho, twisting those curled edges between his fingers, circling around his thumb, lingering near the ring. 

He paused on the sidewalk, shutting his eyes tightly at the memory. His hand lingered in his damp hair, as if trying to will the remaining weight from his scalp. The wet, tangled strands felt like the last thread connecting him to everything he was trying to let go of. 

With a steady breath, he pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over the contacts until he found the number he needed. Pressing the green call button, he waited for the voice on the other end. 

When it answered, he simply asked, “Can you cut hair?” 

And for the first time in a long time, Gi-hun felt lighter. 

 

---

 

It is said that hair holds memory, that every inch is a record of where you’ve been, who you’ve been with. If that’s true, then mine has been carrying the last year on its back. Every encounter. Every conversation. Every kiss and touch. Every time I waited for a text that never came. And In-ho liked it this way. 

Gi-hun watched his reflection in the mirror. He looked wrong, out of place in the bathroom—sitting in a kitchen chair, its metal legs planted on the pale tile like it had wandered into a room it didn’t belong in. But he sat there anyway, spine straight, a thick white towel draped over his shoulders and tucked around the back of his neck. His hair was still damp from the rain, curling slightly at the ends where it brushed the towel. 

Somewhere behind him, the faint rasp of metal on metal. A measured breath. The sound of someone shifting their weight just enough to make the floor creak. Sae-byeok didn’t speak, neither did Gi-hun. The quiet between them felt deliberate, the kind that holds shape if you let it. 

He could feel the cool metal edge of the scissor blade brush across his nape, its metallic tang mixing with the salt of rain. A lock slid free, falling onto the towel like something that had been clinging too long. 

In the mirror, Sae-byeok caught Gi-hun’s eyes just for a second. She wasn’t smiling, but there was no pity either—just a stillness in her freckled face that let her keep going. 

The end of a relationship—situationship, whatever-ship—is comparable to death. But sometimes, it’s more like an amputation. You don’t bury it, you cut it off before it rots the rest of you. 

Another snip. The sound was sharper, a punctuation in the silence. He remembered In-ho’s hand reaching up, twirling a lock between his fingers in their post-coital haze. He remembered him saying he liked his hair that way. Long enough to wrap around his fingers, short enough to bare Gi-hun’s neck to the elements. 

He stared at himself and recalled all the ways he’d bent toward In-ho without even noticing. How many strands were knotted with him, and how much of himself he might find once they were gone. 

Hair slid down Gi-hun’s shoulders in damp clumps. The towel grew heavier. 

Sometimes we think love lives in the heart. But more often than not, it lives in the small, stubborn places—the lengths we keep because someone once said they liked them, the things we never questioned until the day we have to. 

Sae-byeok’s hands were steady. Another lock fell. And another. The mirror filled with someone unfamiliar. 

Gi-hun didn’t flinch. 

“Are you sure about this?” Sae-byeok asked, her voice low. Her fingers combed through the back of his head gently, careful as if they were touching a wound. 

Gi-hun huffed. “Too late now to ask that. You’ve cut off half of my hair already.” 

A faint, rare smile tugged at the edges of her mouth, the kind that came from recognition rather than humor. “You know you could just…grow it back.” 

“Not everything grows back the same,” Gi-hun said, eyes still locked on the mirror. “Sometimes you cut it, and it comes in different. Coarser. Lighter. Not what it once was.” 

Another soft snip, and the towel collected pieces of the man he had been. 

Sae-byeok’s gaze met him in the mirror, her dark eyes bearing into Gi-hun’s with reverent curiosity. “You’re not just talking about hair.” 

“I’m never just talking about hair.” 

She held his gaze for a few seconds longer before returning back to her work. “Do you want me to leave a little length in the front? So you don’t end up looking bald, ajusshi.”

Gi-hun uttered something between a laugh and a scoff, the sound small in the bathroom. “Sure, but if you mess up, I’ll have to shave the rest myself.” 

A small chuckle came from Sae-byeok, the sound warm and low like she didn’t do it often. Her hands didn’t waver. The scissors glided through the damp strands at Gi-hun’s forehead with a gentle rhythm, each snip marking a small severing of more than just hair. 

Gi-hun’s breath came slow, steadily. His sense of bravado had dulled since the encounter. It had washed off of him with the rain and the final shedding of a weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying so heavily. 

“I never thought it would come to this,” Gi-hun murmured, almost to himself. “Cutting away what I thought was part of me. I didn’t do this when I got divorced. I don’t know what’s different this time…” 

Everything is different. The feeling is different. The intensity. The pleasure. The obsession. 

Sae-byeok paused for a heartbeat, her hands stopping at the fringe she was cutting at his forehead. “Maybe it’s not about losing part of yourself,” she said quietly, “but making room for who you’re meant to be.” 

Gi-hun closed his eyes, the towel a soft comfort against his neck, the faint scent of the night lingering on his skin. For a moment, the mirror reflected not just the unfamiliar man with shorter hair, but the possibility of someone new—someone unburdened by the presence of Hwang In-ho and his ghosts. 

“I’m tired,” Gi-hun admitted, his voice barely a whisper. “Tired of carrying him everywhere.” 

“Then let him go,” Sae-byeok said bluntly. 

Another lock fell, and Gi-hun felt a strange lightness, as if each strand released was pulling him farther away from the shadow that had clung to him so tightly. 

When the final snip came, Sae-byeok stepped back, scissors folding closed with a soft clink. Gi-hun ran a hand through his hair, now shorter, refined around the edges, microbangs fanning across his forehead. He caught Sae-byeok’s eyes in the mirror again and saw something gentle there—a quiet respect for the fight he was waging, even if it was just with himself. 

“You did good,” Gi-hun said simply. 

Sae-byeok nodded wordlessly and removed the towel from Gi-hun’s shoulders, freeing the evidence of what once was. He stood slowly, the chair scraping softly against the tile, and for the first time, he felt like he was stepping into something lighter—less burdened, less haunted. 

He stepped out of the bathroom, the rain outside had softened to almost a complete stop. The lights of the city flashed through the balcony door. The apartment was still, the muted hum of the city slipping in through cracked silences. 

The hardest part about heartbreak isn’t cutting away the past, not totally, but it’s deciding to never pick it back up again. 

His fingers drifted back to his head, brushing absentmindedly through the shorter strands, feeling the edges—a little rough, a little wild, a little uneven. 

He pulled out his phone, the screen glowing softly in the dim light of the apartment. He opened his contacts, scrolling down rapidly, his heart fluttering uneasily as he looked for a familiar name. 

Hwang In-ho. 

Gi-hun paused, thumb hovering millimeters over the screen. 

No more what-ifs. 

No more encounters. 

No more games. 

His thumb pressed firmly on ‘Block.’ A quiet click confirmed the act—an invisible door firmly shut. 

His chest rose and fell, a fragile calm setting in. 

Not a horse. Not a number. Not yours. 

I will no longer meet you there.

Gi-hun slid the phone back into his pocket, the weight of finality as tangible as the rain-wet strands that lay on the bathroom floor. Outside, the city whispered on, indifferent but somehow full of promise.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt ready to listen.

Notes:

Yes, Gi-hun! Stand your ground!!!

While not as outright introspective as the last, I still enjoyed writing this chapter for a number of reasons! I really feel like the symbolism added another layer to Gi-hun's mindset and where he is emotionally right now, and that it added a new element to the story. I also liked using the, "Not a horse. Not a number. Not yours" line. I remember when sgtwt went crazy over it lollll!!

The next update might be longer than the 5-6 day pattern that I am on now. I am moving into college this week, and I have a packed schedule for the next couple of weeks/weekends. But do not worry! I will finish this story in orderly fashion and have it completed within the next 2-3 weeks, so please continue to read and reread!!

Anyway, thank you for your support and kindness! It means the world to me!! Please don't hesitate to comment, bookmark, leave kudos, etc. I appreciate all your support! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Chapter 13: A Distance, a Light, and a Reminder

Summary:

Seven months later, Gi-hun mastered the art of appearing fine—laughing when expected, dating without feeling, and writing columns that skimmed the surface of his own wounds. But some ghosts don’t fade with time; they wait. And when the past finally brushed against the present, he realized healing was never the same thing as forgetting.

Time doesn’t move the way people promise it does. They say distance dulls desire, that wounds scab over, that ghosts get quieter with every passing day.  

But Gi-hun learned that time doesn’t heal—it rearranges instead. 

It turns sharp edges into softer ones, hides beneath layers of habit, and teaches you how to walk like you’ve never fallen. 

Over half a year had passed, but some distances refuse to be measured in days. Months later, and Gi-hun still caught himself holding his breath when the shadows moved a certain way, when the air thickened with the scent of cologne he swore he’d forgotten the scent of, when silence settled in the space between heartbeats. 

He told himself he was fine—he even looked fine, sometimes. The columns were written, the parties attended, the conversations endured. People laughed beside him, sometimes with him, and he laughed back just enough to be convincing. 

He dated, too, if one could call it that. Names, faces, drinks, and quiet departures. One blurred into the next, filed away like research notes in a study he no longer believed in. 

It should have been enough. It should have been progress. 

But grief has a way of looping back on itself, disguising longing as memory, memory as meaning, and meaning as proof that maybe you hadn’t imagined any of it at all. 

But you had. You created an entire relationship out of fragments and pieces handed to you out of pity. 

Somewhere between healing and relapse, between forgetting and pretending to, Gi-hun found himself standing still while the city roared around him. It was easier that way, to move though life as if the past wasn’t still moving parallel to him, close enough to touch but far enough to pretend it wasn’t there. 

 

Until, one night, it was. 

 

---

Time is supposed to heal. It’s supposed to lessen the pain, scar raw tissue, and fade never ending marks. But really, all it does is teach you how to limp without looking injured—how to conceal the festering wound from others. 

It had been seven months. 

Seven months after the note. Seven months after that night. Seven months after everything that made Gi-hun question whether the entire relationship was a fever dream born of a never-ending illness. 

The coiled ache in Gi-hun’s chest had downgraded itself into something he could fold into a day without breaking stride. Not gone—he didn’t think it would ever be gone—but no longer the sharp, breathless pain that hijacked mornings or strangled him in line at the market. It was now a dull, bitter aftertaste he sometimes noticed in the space between subway stops or the brief flash from the corner of his eye. 

His columns were back on schedule, the rhythm restored like muscle memory. Deadlines met, word counts satisfied. Readers would see the same voice, the same person, the same glossy detachment that had always been there, and assume the writer behind it was thriving. But Gi-hun knew the truth: the pieces weren’t born out of urgency or hunger anymore. They were filler—rent checks disguised as epiphanies. He wrote because he had to, not because he had something to say. Not anymore. 

That’s all healing is, really. Learning to live with what you never got back. Because some losses don’t just fade—they redraw the map beneath your feet. 

Seoul had its unspoken boundaries now. Streets, restaurants, and the entire suburb of Gangseo-gu were exiled from his mental map because they belonged to him. It was his territory. His stomping grounds. His presence. Even passing the outer edges of the district felt like a dare Gi-hun wasn’t willing to take.

In his private logic, he decided the absence of In-ho’s name was its own kind of retaliation. If he read him—and Gi-hun suspected he still did because In-ho was an asshole like that—he’d have to wonder whether Gi-hun erased him completely, or worse, never planned to write him at all. 

His friends said he was “back out there,” which was technically true. Dating had become a kind of anthropological fieldwork. He swiped and matched and nodded through drinks with men whose profiles promised wit but delivered damp anecdotes. He messaged women who lingered on the edges of his attention—brief sparks of conversation that fizzled before catching fire, as if their words reminded him of a certain woman…

Most of the dates—encounters, or whatever they were called—were over before the last ice cube melted in his drink. Some stretched into a second date out of politeness, one progressed into a third out of curiosity, and another even limped to a fourth before collapsing under the weight of mutual indifference. 

Gi-hun collected them like research notes, because that’s what they were, not voids to fill a gaping hole in his soul. There was the overconfident storyteller, the man allergic to silence, the woman who thought negging was still a viable strategy. Every dinner was a chance to catalog clichés, a living archive of modern courtship gone slightly wrong. But there was no heat in it, no current running under the table. Just two people trading biographical bullet points until the check arrived, or someone made an excuse and left. 

Gi-hun’s life, in the technical sense, was fine. He wasn’t entirely lonely, not exactly. But nothing had color. 

He had believed, all those months ago, when he cut his hair and returned the umbrella, that life might bloom with vibrancy to it. He thought that the color of the world, the color of Seoul, would be amplified with his new addiction to freedom. 

But then the alcohol wore off, and he was left with a dulled, muted world and a splitting headache. 

Even summer, with its green foliage encasing the city like a living cathedral, felt more like an old paragraph than the season itself—a filtered version of what it used to be. He noticed the warmth in the air the way you notice the absence of pain: as fact, not a feeling. The city hummed around him, but Gi-hun moved through it like someone walking underwater, his senses muffled, edges blurred. 

The heat should have burned away the cold inside me, but instead it only made the distance between who I was and who I wanted to be feel wider, more impossible to bridge. 

Gi-hun’s days followed a careful choreography he had erected, one that he could execute without thought. Morning coffee from his old brewing machine, where it broke down every other cup. A commute through streets that felt safe in their anonymity, chosen precisely because they led nowhere near In-ho. Afternoons spent wrestling sentences into shape, the workman kind of writing that had nothing to do with inspiration and everything to do with paying for groceries. 

Still, he laughed at parties, listened to Jung-bae gripe about his wife, listened to Sae-byeok spill stories about this girl she met—the kind of half-remembered, half-imagined romances that felt vivid only in the telling. But the laughter didn’t linger the way it used to. He left gatherings with the same, clean unmarked feeling he had walking in, as if nothing touched him anymore.

Sometimes, late at night, he’d catch himself scrolling without purpose—through news headlines, distant acquaintances’ vacation photos, old messages he hadn’t opened. It wasn’t longing for him exactly, but for the version of himself that could be lit up by something. Someone. Even if it had burned him in the end.  

On a Wednesday night—the most neutral of weeknights—he met one of the half-hearted encounters, Min-ju, or maybe it was Ji-eun. The name slipped through Gi-hun’s mind like fleeting melodies, familiar yet indistinct. 

Just another name. Just another face. 

They’d chosen a dimly lit wine bar where shadows softened edges and made every glance feel deliberate. The man—Min-ju, he confirmed—was already seated when he arrived, scrolling through his phone with a quiet intensity that nudged a memory too close for comfort. The sharp jawline, the careful way he pushed his slicked hair back. But he shut the thought down quickly, as if denying it made it less true. 

“Gi-hun-ssi?” his date said, standing just enough to be polite. His smile was practiced, familiar in an unsettling way. The scent of his cologne was subtle—wood, lingering, masculine—a quiet claim to the space between them. 

They ordered drinks. Min-ju picked a Malbec because he was a “Malbec guy,” which Gi-hun noted in his mental logbook of statements that should never be uttered aloud. He asked Min-ju what he did for work, and forty-two minutes later, Gi-hun had a comprehensive understanding of the man’s career trajectory, office politics, and the exact square footage of his new apartment. 

Gi-hun smiled in the right places, asked follow-up questions, even laughed once—a small, obliging laugh that could be mistaken for interest. But his mind wandered. He found himself cataloging the décor instead: the flicker of candlelight in the wine glasses, the slow rotation of a ceiling fan, the way the waitress’s hands were stained faintly purple from opening bottles all night long. 

It’s easier to focus on the edges of the moment rather than the hollow center. 

When his date finally asked about him, Gi-hun kept it vague. “I write,” he said, offering nothing more. It wasn’t coyness; he simply didn’t feel like telling the longer version. His work was an acquaintance he saw out of habit, not someone he wanted to introduce to new people. It was best that way. 

By the time the check arrived, Gi-hun had already drafted two potential column openers in his head. Neither of them were about Min-ju. 

Outside, they exchanged brief smiles. “We should do this again. Call me,” Min-ju said. Gi-hun offered a shrug and noncommittal smile of someone who would forget their date’s name in an hour. 

Walking home, he realized he hadn’t thought about In-ho once during the date, not really. He hadn’t thought about In-ho all day. That was progress, he supposed. But he also hadn’t thought about Min-ju during their date, either.

When he arrived at his apartment, Gi-hun kicked off his shoes, tugged his hat off, and ran a hand through the uneven shortness of his hair. He liked his hair that way: short, rough, uneven in places that mattered. It took less maintenance and patience, which was something he was habitually short of. Seoul was in its usual lull—traffic humming in low gear, streetlamps making everything look a little more aesthetic than it really was. 

He opened his laptop, the cursor pulsing on a blank Word document. It wasn’t because he had anything to say—not anymore—but because habit was stronger than the impulse to skip it. The night’s date was still fresh enough to mine for material, though he wasn’t interested in writing about Min-ju so much as the phenomena he represented. 

“What is it about dating that makes us talk in taglines?” he typed. 

It was a safe opening. Intriguing enough to captivate audiences, relatable enough to keep his editor off his ass. 

He thought about his date’s “Malbec guy” statement, and about how every person he went out with seemed to carry around a small personal slogan—whether it was something that would be used in a TV advertisement, or the personification of silence itself—something prepackaged for strangers, like they were advertising themselves in fifteen words of less. 

“Do we truly choose our wines, our passions, even the stories we tell, or are they quietly curated for the eyes and ears of those we long to reach? Do we shape ourselves into the person we want to be? Into the version we hope they’ll recognize?” 

His finger moved on autopilot, shaping a column that was half social observation, half gentle satire. He gave the people no names, only archetypes: The Resume Reader, The One Who Orders for You, The Woman Who Loves Cats, The Guy Who Lives With His Mother. 

When he finished, he reread the piece. It was polished enough. Amusing. It would land fine with his readers and leave them something to talk about until next week. But as dragged his finger across this mouse pad to save the file, he realized he hadn’t revealed anything true. Not about dating, not about himself, and certainly not about why his life felt like it was written in gray-scale. 

There had been a time when I would have used the column as an outlet of catharsis. A place to express the need, want, and desire of something true. A place to confess, a place to pour out the hunger of something real. 

But now? 

Gi-hun closed the laptop. Somewhere next door, someone was laughing. Not the polite and rehearsed kind that had flooded his ears for months, but the kind that tumbled out without warning. He sat there, at his desk, trying to remember the last time he’d done that without thinking about who might be listening. He sighed, scrubbed his gently calloused palms across his face, and pushed his chair back with a screech. 

His nights were no different from his days. The same careful choreography was executed no matter what time of day. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and moved through the steps of winding down for the night as if his body were a separate, obedient entity. His half-empty coffee cup from that morning sat on the counter, the glass catching the glow of the streetlamp outside like it had swallowed a tiny moon. 

In the bed, the room felt too still. The hum of the radiator, the faint hiss of tires on asphalt—all of it pressed in like background noise he couldn’t turn off. He picked up his phone, scrolling absently through various apps until the headlines blurred, then set it on the nightstand. 

Lying in the dark, Gi-hun’s mind drifted without his permission, back to a time nearly a decade ago. He thought about Eun-ji and the way she used to fall asleep. The slight dip in her breathing just before it became steady, the half-turn on her side that always pulled the blanket with her. He wondered if she still did that, somewhere in a bedroom in Los Angeles. 

Why the fuck are you thinking of Eun-ji? 

He caught himself. Rolled onto his back. Focused on the ceiling as if looking hard enough could anchor him to a life more vibrant. 

You’re desperate. 

He didn’t miss her. Not anymore. It was just that she’d once been the last thought before sleep for many years, and had been the one he thought of the most before him . 

But old habits die hard, and they come back to haunt you from time-to-time. 

Eventually, with his mind clear, his breathing matched the radiator’s low, patient rhythm. Sleep came slowly, but it came, grasping him from the edge of consciousness and pulling Gi-hun under. 

 

---

 

It was an evening when the air couldn’t decide what season it belonged to—the sky still held onto a thin, late-spring light, contrary to the mid-June breeze that carried heat and mugginess. 

Gi-hun walked at a pace just shy of languid, his heels striking the sidewalk with muted confidence. His hair ruffled from the faintest breeze coming off of the Han River, the hem of his dress shirt swayed in time with his steps. Street trees held the last of sunlight in their leaves, casting gold-green shadows across the concrete. 

He was on his way to another date, more out of obligation to his so-called research than any real hope. Just another case study to examine—to see how people meet, talk, and almost connect. It was almost part of his job description: witness, recorder, survivor of modern courtship. 

This one was a woman named Seo-yeon. They met on an app Gi-hun barely remembered downloading. Their messages had been brief, functional. She had suggested a new gastropub in Gangnam, which meant a longer walk than he preferred, but he told himself he could turn it into a column if nothing else. 

Most first dates are social experiments with better lighting—two people testing if their curated versions of themselves could share a table without collapsing. 

All in the name of research. 

He wore a dark jacket and his favorite worn-in sneakers, put-together enough to seem intentional, relaxed enough to slip out early. His phone was in hand, the map app open, though he already knew the way. But his mind was elsewhere. The date itself barely registered—he was already composing the possible anecdotes he’d collect: the host greeting him, the angle of the candlelight, whatever verbal tic this woman would inevitably reveal. He thought about the way these nights had become background noise in his life. 

The streets were oddly quiet. No motorbikes weaved through traffic, no late-shift crowds spilling out of convenience stores, no hell-raising teenagers loitering outside businesses. It was just Gi-hun, the steady rhythm of his footsteps, and the faint hum of Seoul in low gear. 

But that’s when he noticed the patrol car. 

At first, it was nothing more than a flicker in his peripheral vision—headlights catching the edges of storefront windows like fleeting reflections on water. It stayed a respectful distance behind him, just another vehicle treading through the quiet streets. 

He glanced back, more out of habit than suspicion, and then turned his gaze forward again, brushing off the unease that flickered briefly at the edge of his mind. The city was full of cautious drivers, after all, slow and patient in their rhythms.

Still, he found himself listening for it—the steady hum of the engine behind him, the faint change in pitch as it shifted gears. The sound followed him through a narrow side street he chose to go down, weaving between the rise and fall of Gi-hun’s footsteps. 

You can always tell when someone is following you. Not because of what you see, but because of what your body does before your brain catches on. The subtle tightening of your shoulders. The way your stride adjusts just enough to test the distance. The way you start to feel hunted like measly prey. 

Gi-hun kept walking, letting the lights from store fronts spill across his path in fractured colors, telling himself it was nothing. The streets of Seoul were full of ghosts—most of them harmless, most of them not even aware they were haunting anyone, but he felt a prickling along the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the summer humidity. 

He told himself not to look again. Not yet. The second glance would mean he cared, that he was worried, and caring would make the situation real. 

But when Gi-hun reached the corner and stepped into the glow of the crosswalk signal, the low beam of headlights swung across his peripheral vision. The patrol car eased into the turn, not hurried, not hesitant—just deliberate. It slowed as it approached, hugging the curb like a shadow that had grown wheels. He could hear the faint crackle of the radio inside, see the pale reflection of his own movement sliding across the windshield. 

What did I do? I didn’t jaywalk, nor did I cut in line, skip out on a bill, or commit any of the small urban sins people get away with every day. 

Then, with a sound both casual and pointed, the window began to roll down—not a tentative inch, but all the way, letting the night in. 

His foot faltered on the pavement. The rhythm of his steps broke, the way a record skips when the needle catches. He felt it before he saw the driver—an almost cellular recognition. A recognition he once thought was embedded in his DNA, his body bracing against something it couldn’t name yet

First came the line of a jaw, half in shadow. Then the set of broad shoulders, relaxed but too aware. The faint smell of masculine cologne Gi-hun swore he had forgotten. And finally, the voice—low, measured, saying his name in a way that pulled it from somewhere deep. 

His gaze lifted slowly, unwilling, and the rest of him came into focus. 

In-ho. 

It wasn’t shock so much as whiplash—the sense that the past hadn’t just caught up to him, it had been waiting ahead the whole time. 

No. 

No.  

What the hell is this bastard doing here? 

Gi-hun’s body reacted before his mind could catch up—heart fluttering, stomach curdling, blood running cold. He shook his head slowly, willing himself to keep moving, and quickened his pace, almost jogging across the intersection. 

The car matched his step, inching along at a crawl, engine low and measured, like it was studying him as much as he was noticing it. Every instinct he had told him to turn, to bolt, to run and ignore the magnetic pull that never quite left him.

His pulse thrummed in his ear, loud enough that he imagined In-ho could hear it too. The streetlights cast long, trembling shadows that stretched and shrank with every quick step he took. The hum of the patrol car’s engine merged with the buzz of neon signs and the faint hiss of tires, layering the city in a tense, fragile rhythm. 

Gi-hun flexed his fingers against his hip, feeling the khaki material stretch beneath his palm, as if it could anchor his body against the impossible weight beside him. 

It’s nothing. Just a coincidence. Someone else. Stop imagining it. 

But it was evident that it wasn’t a coincidence and that the man sitting in the driver's seat of the patrol car was Hwang In-ho. 

Every vessel in his body screamed to confront him, and yet every thought warned Gi-hun to keep moving, to not let him see the stirrings he thought he had buried nearly a year ago. His steps stuttered, the toe of his shoe catching the uneven cracks of the sidewalk. The distance between him and the patrol car felt both enormous and unbearably tight, measured not in meters but in the sudden, electric awareness that the past had just pulled up beside him. 

And then the headlights swiveled slightly, tracking him like they belonged to someone who knew exactly where he would be. The moment stretched, taut and delicate, until he could no longer ignore it. 

Finally, Gi-hun stopped. Pivoted on his heel to face the car, forcing his voice flat, detached. 

“What do you want?”

In-ho didn’t answer right away. Just sat there, one hand draped over the steering wheel, eyes sweeping over Gi-hun like he was measuring the distance between them, cataloging what time had changed—and what it hadn’t. 

Then, casually, like they were strangers who had just crossed paths, he asked, “Where are you headed?” 

Where am I headed? After everything, that’s what he wants to know? Not why, not how, not even an apology—just a question so casual it makes me want to scream. As if I’m a passerby, and not the man who he reeled in like a fish. 

Gi-hun huffed out a sound that resembled an offended scoff. He shook his head and started walking, his steps clipping against the pavement in quick, deliberate beats. But In-ho’s car continued to creep alongside him, matching his pace, inching closer every few seconds, staying parallel to the curb. It was a kind of persistence that wasn’t loud, but still managed to take up all the space in the air. 

Gi-hun kept his eyes ahead, refusing to give In-ho the satisfaction of a glance, though he could feel the man’s gaze—steady, weighted, like he was daring Gi-hun to look back.

He stopped short again, the sound of his footsteps vanishing completely into the city’s hum. Gi-hun closed his eyes tightly, flexed his fingers once more, and faced the patrol car’s open window.

“On a date.” 

A pause hung there, taut as tripwire. 

“That’s where I’m going,” Gi-hun added, sharper now, like he needed the extra syllables to make it true. “I’m heading to a date.” 

For a moment—a heartbeat—In-ho didn’t respond. He just watched Gi-hun, the muscle in his square jaw tightening and releasing, tightening again. It was a look that didn’t belong to someone you’d willingly given up, someone you already said goodbye to. It was ownership, memory, and something Gi-hun thought was dangerously close to regret. 

Regret. 

You don’t get to feel that now. Not ever. 

Something unreadable flickered across In-ho’s face. Not enough to call a smile, not enough to call a frown. Just a neutral expression that boarded on something else. 

“I’ll take you,” In-ho said at last. 

Gi-hun let out a dry, humorless breath. “You won’t.” 

But the sleek patrol car didn’t move. Neither did Gi-hun. The engine purred, steady and low, the sound crawling under his skin. He told himself to walk. To turn away. To be done with this. 

Instead, he found his legs moving without thought, and himself rounding the hood before he knew what he was doing. Gi-hun opened the passenger door, and slid in without another word. The smell hit him first— In-ho. Still clean, still expensive, still masculine, still threaded with the ghost of rain-soaked nights he’d sworn not to think about. 

In-ho pulled out into the street, one hand draped loose on the wheel, the other tapping once against the gearshift before going still. Neither of them spoke. The silence felt like a third presence in the car, pressing against his ribs. But this silence, this third presence felt different. It felt less weighted, less damning. 

When Gi-hun finally risked a glance, he noticed it. Everything about the man was the same. Same slicked back hair, same uneven lips, same too-perfect jaw, same quiet confidence in every movement—except for one, tiny, important thing. 

No ring. 

The ring that stayed on at all times. The ring that haunted Gi-hun’s nightmares. The ring that left cold, metaphorical bruises on his body. 

The ring that stayed on during sex. 

Gone. 

What the hell? 

Gi-hun could see a faint outline of the ring’s shape. Barely there, but visible to those who looked hard enough. The outline looked almost gone, like he hadn’t worn it in months…

In-ho caught him looking, his eyes sliding over to Gi-hun. Their gazes met for the briefest second, then he turned back to the road. 

“You cut your hair,” In-ho said, but there was a strange weight to it, like it wasn’t about his hair at all. 

Gi-hun turned his head toward In-ho, narrowing his eyes. He tilted his jaw up, unsure whether to nod or shrug. “It grows,” he simply said. 

But inside, Gi-hun could feel an age old sting float back—how easily In-ho slipped into noticing him, observing the changes like no time had passed. 

Addiction is a disease. A relapse can be fatal. But one little slip wouldn’t hurt, right? 

Gi-hun hated the part of him that wanted to seep back into the addiction In-ho created. 

In-ho’s eyes stayed on the road, but his voice softened in a way that only made it worse. “Looks good.” 

Should I just go bald now?

Gi-hun swallowed hard, forcing his gaze out the window. The city blurred past in streaks of light and shadow, every passing block pulling him deeper into the quiet he swore to never sit in again. And yet, he could feel the way the air shifted between them—like the incoming night had already decided they weren’t just two people in a car. They were something unfinished, and neither of them knew if they wanted to close the distance or make it permanent. 

When the car finally eased to a stop outside of the pub, Gi-hun could already see his date through the window—she was a beautiful, charming woman. She smiled at nothing, checked her phone. A normal woman in a normal life. The kind of thing he’d told himself he wanted again. 

In-ho didn’t say anything, just shifted into park, one hand still on the wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead. 

Gi-hun reached for the door handle, but his fingers lingered there, the cool metal under his palm cementing him to the moment. Opening it would mean stepping back into the life he’d built without In-ho. The life that was in gray-scale, the life that gave him slight contentment. But staying, falling back into the addiction, relapsing over one brief encounter—well, Gi-hun wasn’t sure. 

You can tell yourself that you’re happy to the point you almost believe it, but you still hear the silence under your own words—the parts you don’t want to admit. 

In the end, Gi-hun forced himself to push it open. The night air rushed in, sharp and different, and for a split second he thought he heard In-ho breath in, like he was trying to hold on to Gi-hun’s scent before he was gone. 

But the sound was gone as soon as it came. Gi-hun closed the door with a harsh bang. 

 

He didn’t look back. 

 

---

 

The date went like all the others. 

Seo-yeon was a nice woman. She worked in the media, though on the business side, and carried herself with the kind of effortless polish that came from both privilege and practice. Her family’s ties to an old chaebol group gave her stories a built-in gravity, even when she delivered them lightly over a dark-red cosmopolitan. 

Gi-hun smiled when he was supposed to, nodded in all the right places, and laughed when the rhythm called for it. He contributed to the conversation just enough to seem engaged, but when the conversation turned toward himself, he kept it vague. 

Writing, columns, the way he carved himself open in public—Gi-hun never knew how to explain it without over-complicating the true nature of what his writing meant. Evading the truth and hiding behind half-blurred details always seemed to work best. 

Seo-yeon was funny, charming even. And yet the whole evening felt like it was being watched from a distance, as if Gi-hun were playing the part of someone else entirely.  The alcohol helped. So did the pub’s food. But under it all was a low thrum of boredom, the kind that made him wonder if the chair across from him belonged to someone else entirely…

There’s nothing lonelier than sitting across from someone and realizing you’d rather be anywhere else. Not because they’re awful, but because they’re not the one you…want? Hope for? 

By the time Gi-hun stepped out into the night air, he was pleasantly warm, mildly tipsy, and ready to make the trek back to Ssangmun-dong. He smiled at his date, kissed her cheek in a clumsy fashion, and then—almost on impulse, almost out of curiosity—he let it shift into the faintest brush of lips against lips. It was soft, polite, and restrained. More research than romance.  

He pulled back with a small smile, as if taking metal notes already. 

Enough to write about this week, maybe. Enough to remind myself I’m still capable of wanting something normal. Someone normal. 

Seo-yeon squeezed his hand before stepping into her cab, and Gi-hun let himself drunkenly imagine—just for a second—that he might follow up with the woman. A second date that casually limped into a third. A fourth. 

Something different, someone different. 

Then he saw it. 

The dark patrol car from earlier idled at the curb. Engine on. Lights low. Waiting. 

Gi-hun’s expression fell flat. His stomach twisted, heat crawling up his chest. He could feel the time-faded ache begin to bloom once more. 

Of course it was him. 

He didn’t need to squint to know. Every nerve in his body already recognized the shape of him behind the glass. 

Gi-hun’s sneakers slapped against the pavement, sharp and certain. A rise of drunken bravado flushed through him, just like the night he returned the umbrella. Though, for one fleeting second, he thought about veering off, pretending he hadn’t seen In-ho. But Gi-hun knew him. He’d just keep following, keep stalking, idling slow and restless until Gi-hun finally broke. 

So he approached head-on, anger rising with every step. 

He didn’t give In-ho time to roll the window down before he began banging his fist on the window, angry and frustrated. “Why are you here,” Gi-hun spat, a slow creep of red inching upward on his face. 

The glass slid lower, deliberate, like In-ho was in no rush to answer. His face appeared in the silver of streetlight—calm, unreadable, the same man who could undo Gi-hun with silence. 

“I was waiting for you,” In-ho said, like it was the most obvious truth in the world. 

A bitter laugh escaped Gi-hun’s throat. “Waiting? You don’t get to wait for me.” 

Not anymore. Never again. 

In-ho leaned toward the window, closing the gap between the driver and passenger seats. “Gi-hun—” 

“Don’t call me that..” 

In-ho licked his bottom lip. “Gi-hun-ssi, listen—” 

“No,” Gi-hun cut him off. “I won’t do this. I’ve moved on. A long time ago. And you should as well.” 

“Don’t say that,” In-ho said, his voice low, steady, pathetic. “You and I—” 

The angry flush in Gi-hun’s body spread across his face. Bile rose in his throat. He felt his vision narrow, tunneling on In-ho’s sharp features. 

You and I? 

“You and I… You and I nothing. ” Gi-hun’s voice rose, sharp enough to draw a glance from a passerby. “You cannot keep doing this. You cannot keep jerking me around!” 

Gi-hun’s breath became haggard, uneven. His pulse thrummed against the artery of his neck. He could feel the tension seep into his skin, his muscles, his bones. 

“Do you have some kind of tracker under my ear that lets you know when I’m happy? Gi-hun waved his hands frantically. “‘Gi-hun might be happy, it’s time to step in and shit all over it.’” 

In-ho flinched, slightly, his eye twitching. He didn’t move. “This time is different.” 

Different? What a joke. 

Gi-hun let out a strangled laugh that boarded on manic. “Different? It’s never different. It’s months of never being different. It’s encounter after encounter of you being the same pathetic asshole.” 

For a moment, silence. Just the thrum of In-ho’s engine, the weight of his gaze. 

“I made a mistake,” In-ho said, barely above a whisper, almost pleading. “Don’t shut me out like this.” 

Gi-hun shook his head, stepping back, clutching his forearms. “‘Shut me out?’” You’re the one who shut me out. I barely know anything about you, In-ho. You never let me into your life, your head. You’re a fucking mystery to me, even now.” 

In-ho’s face returned the same stoic, calm, unimpressed. It was like the flinch never happened. That the words never cut lashes into his flesh. It infuriated Gi-hun. 

He paused, panting. Gi-hun inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. “I’m already gone, In-ho. Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. Don’t try to contact me, ever again. Forget you know my number. In fact, forget you know my name.” 

For a split second, In-ho’s face registered something Gi-hun had never seen cross his features: blank, unguarded shock. His jaw loosened, dark eyes widening just enough to betray a flicker of hurt, before the habitual clam slid back into place. 

Gi-hun didn’t wait for an answer. Just turned, his steps striking the pavement like an exclamation point he’d never get to rewrite. 

 

---

 

The pavement absorbed Gi-hun’s anger in quick, clipped strides. Each step was purposeful, like he was cutting through the city itself, like each step was an argument he couldn’t stop making. Seoul continued to bloom around him—neon, strangers, cabs—but Gi-hun felt as though he were moving through glass. Nothing reached him, only the reflection of anger pierced the veil. 

He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t. 

The wanting, the feeling of longing, had always felt like a story, and he’d always been the protagonist: the man chasing, the man waiting, the man mistaking pain for proof. 

Gi-hun stopped walking, his feet planted on the sidewalk. His breath hitched as his eyes flickered around the area. The neon pharmacy cross, the blur of headlights, the tide of strangers brushing past—everything felt both hyperreal and impossibly far away. Gi-hun didn’t know where the hell he was. All he could see—all he could imagine—was In-ho. Behind him, in front of him, around every corner he turned. 

Just like before. 

His hand slipped into the pocket of his khakis almost on instinct. A cigarette? No, he’d smoked his last one hours ago. His phone? He needed to find his way home, somehow. He gripped it tightly, pulling it from his pocket. The screen lit up, casting a pale glow across Gi-hun’s face, and for a second he just stared at it, thumb hovering above the glass. 

What was he supposed to do? Call someone? Who? He didn’t have friends who he could dial this late for comfort. He didn’t have someone who would understand the weight of this—the way In-ho looked at him like he was both gravity and the fall. 

Right? 

Gi-hun swiftly tapped on his phone, pulling up a contact that was familiar and impossible all at once. His thumb trembled, close to pressing it, close to collapsing. But what would he even say? I’m sorry, but can you come pick me up? I need help, can you do this for me? 

One swipe, one tap, and Sang-woo’s name hovered at the top of his favorites. Just a press away. 

His thumb lingered there. 

Sang-woo would answer. He always answered. He’d tell Gi-hun what he already knew—that Hwang In-ho wasn’t worth this, that he deserved more than scraps and borrowed affection. That he didn’t deserve to fall back into a dangerous addiction. But right now, Gi-hun wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear it. Because hearing it would mean accepting it, and accepting it meant that the story was officially over. 

No more hopeful feeling that In-ho might appear back in his life. No more twinge of underlying hope. He would have to confront the dreary, dull feeling of his life once and for all. 

Over. 

His throat tightened. The city moved around him, uncaring. And he stood still, a figure in the current, wondering if reaching out would make him weak—or if it was the only strong thing he could do. 

Gi-hun whispered aloud, barely audible, as if testing himself: “Can you come pick a guy who’s allergic to bad habits?” The joke fell flat against the muggy night air, unanswered. 

His thumb pressed the screen at last. 

 

---

 

The crunch of tires pulled Gi-hun gaze away from the ground, tilting his head up. Headlights slanted across the asphalt, cutting through the neon blur. Sang-woo’s car rolled to a stop beside him, engine low and steady, as if he had always known Gi-hun would call. Gi-hun stood from his crouching position on the grimy sidewalk, and moved towards the car. 

Sang-woo leaned across the wheel, giving Gi-hun that familiar, patient look—a mix of warmth and sharpness that made his chest unclench just a little. Sang-woo didn’t say a word as Gi-hun climbed in, just watched as he slid the door shut behind him. 

Gi-hun leaned back into the upholstery, letting the seat cradle him, the leather cold against his sweat-damped shirt. He let himself exhale, though his hands fidgeted in his lap. He didn’t have to explain anything right now. He didn’t have to justify the age-old ache creeping back in, the fear, or the faint echo of longing he wasn’t claiming again. 

Gi-hun turned his head, meeting Sang-woo’s profile in the dashboard's soft glow. His gaze was fixed ahead, but Gi-hun could feel the weight of what went unsaid between them. Not judgement. Not pity. Just knowing. He almost wanted Sang-woo to speak, to pull Gi-hun out of himself. And yet, there was relief in his restraint, in the way his eyes flickered toward Gi-hun only briefly, out of the edge of his glasses, just enough to register his state without demanding he explain it.

The city buzzed around them—honking cabs, a group of college kids laughing too loudly, a bike weaving recklessly—but inside the car, it was quiet. Quiet, but not lonely. 

Finally, Gi-hun exhaled. “It was him.” 

Sang-woo didn’t need to ask who. He didn’t need to. 

“He was just…there,” Gi-hun continued. “In his damn patrol car, trailing me like I was a suspect. Like he had every right to show up.” 

Sang-woo’s grip tightened, just slightly, on the steering wheel. He kept his gaze locked on the road, his silence giving Gi-hun room. 

“I thought I was done. I was done. And then one look—” Gi-hun stopped, the words sharp at the end of his tongue. “One look and I remembered why I feel so hollow. Why I’ve felt empty for the last half-year.” He twisted his fingers together in his lap. “It’s like I’m back at square one.” 

Still, Sang-woo said nothing, only the slight clench of his jaw. The same even, almost patient quiet. 

Gi-hun turned toward him, his eyes blown wide, searching. “Say something.” 

He glanced at Gi-hun, his eyes rough and unflinching. “What do you want me to say, hyung? That he’s changed? If you go back it’ll be different? You know I can’t lie to you like that.” 

Why didn’t I listen to you to begin with?

The words cut raw marks in Gi-hun’s chest with their honesty. He slumped back into the seat, his head knocking against the headrest. “How does he always know when to find me? It’s like he has a radar for my happiness.” 

Sang-woo’s mouth pursed in a tight line. “Maybe he does. But that doesn’t mean you have to answer the signal."

The car fell back into a weighted, thick, all knowing silence. It was bogged with all the years Sang-woo had watched him crash and burn in the same cycle. 

Gi-hun turned his head, staring at the passing city through the window. “I don’t know how to stop,” he whispered, more to himself than to Sang-woo.

Sang-woo’s gaze stayed forward, his lips were still pursed tightly. “Start by not mistaking a man showing up for his own personal vendettas as a man showing up for you.” 

“For you.” 

In-ho never showed up for me, had he? Had he even showed up for himself? Or did he show up to prove something? 

The words landed hard. Gi-hun closed his eyes tightly, seeing starry bursts behind his eyelids from the pressure. He didn’t respond. His silence returned, steady as the road beneath them, as if promising Gi-hun would hold the weight until he could breath again. 

The truth has a way of circling back. 

Gi-hun raised his head from the headrest and leaned toward the cool glass window, pressing his temple against it. In the static of his thoughts, he recalled the balcony, cigarette smoke wafting with city smog, and Sang-woo’s voice. 

“Just—be careful.” 

The memory threaded itself into the present until he could barely tell the difference. That night, the words had rung in his head, but they soon disappeared with the appearance of In-ho. But now, here he was, cracked open in Sang-woo’s passenger seat, his warning ringing in his ears like it had been waiting for this moment all along. 

Gi-hun’s throat tightened. He shifted, turning toward Sang-woo. “If you knew…” His voice wavered before finding its edge. “If you knew he was like this, why did you let me continue?” 

Sang-woo didn’t glance over. He didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes ahead and jaw set. For a brief second, Gi-hun thought that he would stay silent, the way he seemed to do when words would only bruise. 

Finally, after a moment, he sighed. “Because you didn’t want me to stop you. You wanted me to listen.” 

Gi-hun blinked, his chest stinging. The words lashed at his mind, his heart, his ache. Had he wanted Sang-woo to stop him before? No, of course he hadn’t. He wouldn’t have dared to. 

Sang-woo was right. Of course he was. Gi-hun had wanted the story, the addiction, the ache, the danger of it all—all of it material, all of it something to hold onto. And Sang-woo, for all his wisdom, stood by and watched him walk into the fire. 

Gi-hun’s eyes burned. A flush of anger threatened to creep on his face. He looked away from Sang-woo quickly. “And now?” he whispered harshly.

Sang-woo’s gaze flickered toward him briefly, his expression flat and unreadable in the glow of the dashboard lights. “Now,” he said slowly, quietly, like he was telling a forbidden secret, “I’ll keep driving you until you’re ready to stop giving in.” 

The words lingered in the space between them, heavy but grounding, like ballast keeping Gi-hun from floating away into the wreckage of himself, of his life. 

Gi-hun carded a hand roughly through his short hair, tugging at the roots. This was not an act of rescue from Sang-woo, nor was it an act of interference—but it was the unbearable act of witnessing. 

The drive wound down in silence. Gi-hun barely noticed when the cabaret of neon gave way to the softer residential glow of Ssangmun-dong. When Sang-woo finally pulled up to the curb of his apartment building, Gi-hun didn’t move. He sat still, staring at the familiar rusty, almost run-down brick facade as though it belonged to someone else’s life. 

He patted his pants pockets, fumbling for his keys. His fingers shook as he gripped the cool metal of the key-ring, trembling as he pulled it from his pocket. However, Sang-woo’s hand was already there, palm open, fingers outstretched in front of Gi-hun’s face. Gi-hun blinked and wordlessly dropped them into Sang-woo’s hand. Sang-woo slipped out of the car, rounded to his side, and opened the door like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. 

Gi-hun raised a brow, but didn’t object. Sang-woo never expressed acts of kindness often. 

He must think I’m going insane…and he wouldn’t be wrong. 

The night air continued to press in close. Gi-hun followed Sang-woo up the steps, the heels of his well-worn sneakers dragging against the concrete, the exhaustion of anger beginning to settle into his bones, as well as the start of a mild hangover creeping into his head. 

At the door, he reached for the keys in Sang-woo’s hand, but Sang-woo gripped them together. With the quiet efficiency of someone who knew him better than Gi-hun sometimes knew himself, Sang-woo slid the right one into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open. 

The apartment was dim, shadowed except the faint glow of a lamp left on near his desk, shining a tempting halo around the silver case of his laptop. Gi-hun stepped inside, but lingered at the threshold, as if the very air in the room carried a memory he dared not recall. 

But Gi-hun couldn’t help it. He remembered the way In-ho looked that night—rainwater dripping down his clothes, his hair slicked back in uneven lines, his jacket clinging to him like a second skin. He’d buzzed at Gi-hun’s door, the ring cut sharp, like an alarm that could never be silenced. 

The fact that he came on his own…for what, though? 

It was not Mr. Big he was met at the door that night, it was Hwang In-ho. A man soaked through, his chest rising and falling in a cool, collective manner. His eyes, hollow and pleading, looked at Gi-hun with a kind of naked desperation that was cruel in its dishonesty. 

Gi-hun returned back to the threshold, his mind still a fog from pain and confusion. He turned to Sang-woo, half-expecting a lecture, a knowing jab, something sharp to slice through the fog. But Sang-woo only looked at him—steady and soft, with a weighted gaze he had since childhood that always seemed to say more than words could bear. 

“You don’t have to—” Gi-hun started, his voice hoarse and cracking. 

Sang-woo shook his head, his bangs rocking across his forehead. “Go in,” he said. 

Gi-hun did. He crossed the room, set his wallet and personal belongings from his pocket onto the counter, and eyed the glow around his laptop. 

An ethereal gesture. It’s like fate is tempting me to fall back into addiction. 

He turned back to the door, expecting to see Sang-woo gone, but he was still there, holding the frame like a quiet sentinel. Gi-hun wanted to say thank you or I’m sorry, or even you were right. But the words tangled in his chest to the point of no escape. 

Gi-hun could see Sang-woo shift on his feet, his knuckles turning white around the door frame. He didn’t feel the silence or gaze with comfort or questions. That wasn’t his way. He, instead, studied Gi-hun for a long, quiet moment, his eyes softening in a way when he knew Gi-hun was hurting but couldn’t say out loud. 

Just like when we were kids. On the play ground. At school. 

Finally, Sang-woo spoke, his voice low and steady and grounding. “Hyung…don’t let him take more than he already has.” 

Sharp and merciful, the words filled the surrounding room all at once. 

Sang-woo gave one last look, once last nod, and pulled the door closed with a careful click, leaving Gi-hun alone in the hush of his apartment. 

When the echo of Sang-woo’s footsteps disappeared from outside the door, Gi-hun slid down the side of the counter until he was sitting on the floor, the crown of his head skimming the marble overhang. He pulled his knees to his chest. The lamp by his desk flickered faintly, the halo shining in and out in bouts. Dark shadows pressed against the walls like unanswered questions. 

He pressed his fingers over his face, letting his palms settle at the edge of his jaw. Gi-hun waited for tears to come, for the climax of a year’s worth of tension and pain and struggle to peak. But nothing came. Only the voice in his mind that sharpened the way it always did when pain became thought. 

Did I ever really love In-ho? Or was I addicted to the pain? The exquisite pain of wanting someone so unattainable. Someone who I thought wanted me. Maybe the cruelest trick of all is mistaking pain for proof, and silence for something more than emptiness. 

Gi-hun stared at the dark shadows, pressing his fingertips deeper into the flesh of his own face. He sat there, hunched and small, as though the walls might fold in and swallow him whole. The darkness, the memories, the night itself, pressed densely into his skull. His skin. His conscience. 

But beneath it all, a sharper thought flickered. 

A match struck in the dark. 

Gi-hun straightened his neck and lifted his head. Slowly, his body followed. He rose from the floor with the heaviness of someone standing up from grief, his knees aching, his palms warm from where they’d pressed into the line of his own jaw. But there was purpose in the movement, a current threading, a thought through him that hadn’t been there minutes before. 

He crossed the room. The halo surrounding the laptop seemed to beckon him closer, like it had been waiting for him all along. He ran his fingers over the back of his desk chair, pulled it out, and slid into it. He reached toward the laptop, the keys cool beneath his fingers. For a moment, he just stared at the blank screen, the cursor blinking—steady, alive, patient, eager. 

And then, like an old instinct waking in his bones, the words came. Not polished, not perfect, not a cash grab inspired by a half-hearted date, but his. The spark returned, faint but steady, and with it a feeling he thought he’d lost: 

Light. 

He began to write. 

Notes:

Hmmm....I wonder what Gi-hun will write for his next column????

This chapter was not only difficult to write and plan, but it was very emotionally layered as well. I've proofed this chapter and re-read it so many times it's not funny lol! I wanted to express how bad Gi-hun's addiction for In-ho's presence is and how it has affected his quality of life. I also wanted In-ho's actions to spark something in Gi-hun, like hope or the tunnel for redemption in his eyes.

But In-ho is still a grade-A asshole, so he'll have to do so much to redeem himself (if he ever does!)

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I'm all settled into college and classes have started, so another thing has been added to my plate lol! But thank you for your support and kindness! It means the world to me!! Please don't hesitate to comment, bookmark, leave kudos, etc. I appreciate all your support! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.

Chapter 14: A Draft, a Dial Tone, and a Door Left Open

Summary:

Some chapters don't end so much as they blur between past and present, holding on and moving forward. As Gi-hun navigates unfinished endings, an unexpected phone call, an unsent reply, and a column he can't quite close, he begins to understand what still lingers...and why.

There’s a quiet moment between letting go and holding on. 

It doesn't come with fireworks or crescendos, no sweeping declarations or clean breaks. It’s softer than that, almost imperceptible—a shift so small you only notice it when your chest feels lighter, or heavier, and you can’t tell which. 

Gi-hun could feel it, though he couldn’t name it yet. 

There had been the date he was barely present for, the unknown number he didn’t want to read but couldn’t stop thinking about. He’d blocked them once, twice, again and again, but blocking wasn’t the same as forgetting. It never is. 

On his laptop, an unfinished ending waited, the blank page after the words pulsing taunt. The words collapsed under their own weight, folding back into questions he wasn’t ready to answer. The small reminders that drove Gi-hun crazy, the reminders that seemed to follow him everywhere. 

Was holding on the same thing as not letting go? Or were they different kinds of surrender? 

Then came the call. A voice, familiar and foreign all at once, pulled him backward and forward in the same breath. 

Clarity, Gi-hun realized, doesn't arrive like lightning. It trickles in—through conversations you don’t plan to have, memories you thought you’d buried, and songs you forgot you once shared. 

Clarity is about acknowledging the part of yourself that you haven’t—and maybe never will. 

And maybe that is its own kind of closure. 

 

---

 

hrh_column_draft.docx

DRAFT TITLE: “The Ex-Factor”

Last edited: 2:17 a.m. 

Changes Saved

 

For months, there has been this dull, unnamable ache lodged somewhere between my lungs and my throat. I feel it when I wake up. I feel it when I fall asleep. It’s in the clinking of a glass I didn’t finish, in the laughter I force out at dinners I don’t want to be at, in the names of men and women I can’t even remember the next morning. 

It is inescapable, this ache. And no matter what I do, no matter how far I run, the edges of my life still smell faintly of you. 

And I hate you for it. 

But I hate myself more. 

How many months does it take to forget someone you never really knew? Someone you never really had? 

How many nights does it take you to finally admit you deserved more than crumbs? 

How many times do you tell yourself, “I’m over him,” before realizing the lie tastes bitter every single time you swallow it? 

And why—why, even now—am I letting you have more of me than you already took? Why am I letting you live under my skin, curl between my ribs, and sink your talons into my flesh? 

You did this to me. 

I let you do this to me. 

That’s the part I can’t write my way out of. The part I can’t erase or backspace out of my life. 

You walked in and rearranged my entire life without asking, without even meaning to. You made yourself the center of every thought, every breath, every delusional possibility—and then you left. You just left. 

Do you know what it feels like to beg? 

Do you know what it feels like to be given crumbs and still starve?

Because in the beginning, I begged. I begged for scraps of you—scraps of attention, scraps of time, scraps of your twisted love. And when there wasn’t love, I begged for pain, because at least pain was something. At least pain meant there was still a pulse, still some proof. 

But now, months later, the begging is over, and somehow the ache isn’t. 

I thought walking away would free me, that it would erase the brand you marked me with. But still, somehow, you’re here. 

The weight of you lingers in my chest. 

The absence of you lingers louder. 

“You and I…nothing.” 

The words burned my tongue with dishonesty as I spoke them. Because nothing doesn’t haunt you in your sleep. Nothing doesn’t live at the bottom of a soju glass at midnight. Nothing doesn’t burn in the orange ember of a cigarette when the night is too quiet to stand. Nothing doesn’t crawl beneath your skin when a stranger’s hand brushes yours and, for one brief, stupid second, you almost believe you can feel something again. 

But you do. 

You’re in the bottom of a soju glass at midnight. 

You’re in the orange ember of a cigarette, burning slowly and refusing to die out. 

You’re in every hand I don’t hold, every kiss I don’t take, every time I almost—almost—let myself believe I could feel something again. 

Almost. 

Always almost. 

But almost doesn’t mend a wound. Almost doesn’t stitch the pieces back together. 

Almost doesn’t save you. 

Do you have any idea what it’s like to live like this? To live half-alive? To measure out the days in ghosts of all the things you never said? 

How many chances do we give someone before we finally learn they will never choose us? How many times do we forgive them for cutting us open just to see if we bleed? 

I know you hated—or loved—me in your own way. But your way was jagged and cruel and carved me open until I didn’t recognize myself anymore. Your way was half-built on promises and locked doors I kept throwing myself against, bleeding for an answer that never came. 

And I stayed. 

I stayed because I thought wanting you was enough for both of us. I stayed because I thought if I kept trying, you’d see me. 

But you never did. You never saw me. 

And now, months later, here I am—still bleeding, still writing, still trying to stitch myself together on a page that doesn’t care if the ink runs. 

A question I have asked for months, for years is: Do we ever really get over the great loves of our lives? Or do we just learn to live around the wreckage? 

Because I have tried. 

I’ve dated. I’ve kissed strangers. I’ve laughed when I didn’t mean it. I’ve let people hold my hand just to see if I could trick my body into forgetting what yours felt like. 

But the thing I’ve come to learn about great loves is they don’t leave, they instead rot in the walls of you. They crawl into the cracks of who you are and stay there, humming, breaking you open in quiet ways you don’t see until years later. 

And maybe you don’t think of me as a person anymore, just a high that you chase. Or maybe you do, late at night, when your home is silent and you remember the way I said your name like a prayer I was trying not to lose faith in. 

Maybe you still dream of her instead—your wife, your first great love, the one you couldn’t save. And I wonder if you think of me the same way, now. If losing me feels like another door you forgot to close.

And maybe I’m just another ghost you don’t have the stomach to carry, just to follow. 

I don’t know which possibility hurts more. 

But I have to believe that we don’t ever really let go, that we learn to write around the holes they leave behind, tip-toeing around the edges as if we’re afraid to fall in again. 

But I believe the hole can close. Those wounds can be mended. That we can forcibly learn to stop bleeding.

That endings— 

 

---

 

Gi-hun’s fingers stopped moving. He hovered his hands above the keys for a moment, each digit trembling slightly, before falling limp against the edge of the laptop. They ached—raw and tender, the skin rubbed down from hours of pressing against unforgiving plastic. Tiny crescents of half-moons marked the pads of his fingers where he’d been pounding the words out, as though they could make them truer. 

The cursor blinked at him. A steady, mocking metronome against the white page. 

Gi-hun flexed his fingers, wincing at the stiffness that had set into his knuckles. He hadn’t realized how long he had been typing—hunched forward, chasing sentences he couldn’t quite catch, rewriting the same lines over and over until they dissolved into something heavy. 

His wrists felt heavy, his shoulder knotted, the sharp ache in his chest now mirrored onto the screen in tiny characters. He pressed his thumbs into the base of his palms, trying to massage life back into them, but the tenderness made him flinch. 

The spark was there. The light had shown through his chest and reflected back on the screen in front of him. 

But the ending…

“That endings—” 

His fingers had frozen over the keys when he reached the realization.

Endings what? Are they always bad? Good? What can be the end of a relationship that never had a solid foundation to begin with? Surely it can only hurt…

Gi-hun leaned back in his chair, the wheels rolling slightly at the movement. He exhaled deeply, his breath coming out in shallow puffs, caught somewhere between exhaustion and something dangerously close to grief. 

The dark shadows of the apartment still crept upon the walls, amplifying the silence. All was quiet except the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional distant yelp of someone outside. 

He then stood, restless, pacing barefoot across the hardwood, still in his dress shirt and khakis from the night. The cool boards grounded him, but only barely. Sentences circled him like vultures. 

Some endings bury you alive. 

Some endings set you free. 

Some endings never end at all. 

Gi-hun picked up the blue and white cigarette carton that laid on the desk. The curled cat emblem beckoned him to choose one. He flicked the top open, plucked a cigarette out, and rolled it between his fingers, but didn’t light it. His hand trembled faintly. 

When he finally sat back down, he stared at the cursor once more, as if it might force the ending out of him. It didn’t. 

With a sharp inhale, Gi-hun shut the laptop. The screen hitting the keyboard with a deafening thud . 

The weight of silence filled the room again. 

Gi-hun reached for his phone out of habit, out of something to occupy his mind away from the open ending that waited for closure. He thumbed the screen awake, expecting nothing but the usual noise of notifications he’d ignore. 

A text from Sang-woo checking in, a missed call from Jung-bae, a few KakaoTalk notifications, several unread emails, but there it was—a notification from a dating app at the top of his screen. It was from Seo-yeon, the put together, almost too-perfect woman who he kissed just hours earlier. 

In front of In-ho, of all people. 

The text was short, but well thought. 

I had a great time tonight. You’re a charming man, Gi-hun. I would love to see you again. 

Gi-hun’s thumb hovered over the message. He glanced back to the closed laptop, at the words inside—his heart in print, fractured and bleeding onto the page—then back at the message. 

For a moment, Gi-hun hesitated, as if answering her would mean betraying the man who still ached, still lingered in places that he shouldn’t. 

But why do I care what he thinks, still? 

But there was a part of Gi-hun who wanted to believe—in fate, in possibility, that everything happens for a reason—that made him move his thumb anyway. 

He typed slowly deliberately. 

I’d like that. 

And before he could take it back, he hit send. 

The phone dimmed as it lay slack in Gi-hun’s palm. The shadows crept around him again, but this time, a halo of light didn’t surround the laptop like divine fate. But somewhere, behind the darkness and the silence, the unwritten ending still pulsed like an open wound. 

 

---

 

They agreed to a restaurant outside Dongdaemun.

The pads of Gi-hun’s fingers sweltered in the summer heat as he gripped his phone. They left damp, ghostly traces on the glass of his phone as he scrolled through Seo-yeon’s messages, rereading the thread they’d built over the days since his unfinished column attempt. He skimmed the timestamps, the late-night exchanges, the gentle teasing—then he paused on his own replies, half-hearted witticisms, clever one-liners he’d polished like stones before sending. 

It was strange to Gi-hun, looking at his words from the outside. Detached. As though someone else had crafted them—someone hungrier for connection, more hopeful than he felt currently. His words to Seo-yeon had come from pain. They had been written in the residue of something else—an aftershock of In-ho’s appearance, seeing the look of unguarded shock on his face, when his column-writing frenzy had become his only form of release, the unfinished ending to a column that bled from his own open wound. 

Under the haloed lamplight, every sentence he’d typed, every word the thought, had been an outlet. A column that had formed into a patchwork of wit, and hurt, and confession. It was designed to fill the spaces where grief might otherwise seep in. To combat the hurt with physical pain, to beat it out of his mind.

But sitting there, under the dim glow of another restaurant’s mood lighting, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his own words, his own thoughts and feelings were watching him, as if the open-ending to the column was pulsating with anticipation. 

Seo-yeon had gotten there early, just as before. Her phone rested neatly, face-down, on the ornate table; her posture, casual but intentional. She spoke in flirtatious tones that seemed natural to her. 

She leaned forward, chin propped lightly on her hand, her smile lazy, warm, and perfectly straight. It is the kind that doesn't need rehearsing. Her laughter came easy, spilling over the rim of her wine glass, like it belonged there along with the plum colored lipstick mark that littered the edge. 

Gi-hun mirrored her—or at least tried to. He let his voice rise and fall where it should, let his smile curve at all the right beats, let his nimble fingers brush the edges of her fingers like he was considering her, considering this, considering the possibility of us. 

But you’re not. You’ll never entertain the idea of an “us” with this woman. 

But inside, there was static. 

Gi-hun’s hollow laugh was foreign to his ears, just like all the times before. Sharp in places where it should have softened, dull where it should have landed. He could feel the effort of it—the pull in his narrow cheeks, the timing rehearsed and strained. A performance he’d done so many times he almost convinced himself that the act was real. 

Almost. 

Seo-yeon was easy in her skin, easy in this moment, while Gi-hun’s thoughts kept drifting elsewhere. Back to the blinking cursor. Back to the unfinished sentence he’d left behind. Back to the dark patrol car that tailed him. Back to the man who cracked him open. 

That endings—

“Tell me something no one else knows about you,” Seo-yeon said suddenly, tilting her glass toward Gi-hun, her voice low and playful. 

Gi-hun blinked, buying himself time with another sip of wine he didn’t need. His gaze slipped over her shoulder, tracing the world outside the glass window, where amber string lights hummed softly in the night air. 

Something no one else knows? 

That I’m still bleeding? That I’m still half-lived. That I said yes to this because I thought maybe I could write my way out of the ache, but the ache followed me here. That sometimes I think I’ll never want anyone again, not really, not in the way I once wanted him. 

Instead, he smiled—practiced, slow, deliberate. Almost as if he was taking a page out of his book. “I once got drunk in Eurwangni Beach and woke up in a boat I didn’t remember getting on,” he said lightly, watching Seo-yeon’s eyebrows lift slightly. “I spent nearly six hours pretending I meant to be there.” 

She laughed, warm and genuine, leaning closer. “Reckless. I like it.” 

Gi-hun laughed too—softer, almost convincing even himself. 

She reached across the table, fingers brushing his briefly as she poured him another glass of wine. Gi-hun let her, though he wasn’t sure he wanted it. The condensation pooled beneath his glass, dampening the cuff of his sleeve. 

She was trying. She was interested. An Gi-hun was trying, too—or at least he was supposed to be. 

He caught himself staring at her hands, slender and sure, and for a brief second, disorienting second, another set of hands flashed through his mind—hot, heavy, branding his skin like a cattle prod. The way they used to anchor him and undo him in the same breath

His chest tightened. 

He smiled again anyway. 

Seo-yeon didn’t notice 

Until his phone buzzed in his palm. 

 

Unknown Number (7:35 p.m.): 

     Unblock me. Please. 

 

Gi-hun could feel a cold trickle roll down his spine. His throat tightened before his brain caught up. A single inhale, quick enough to sting, and then—scoff. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, forcing out a sound that felt more brittle than amused, and drawing a confused glance from his date. 

In-ho. 

That asshole. 

His thumb hovered for only half a second before he hit block and shoved the phone facedown on the table like it burned. 

He turned back to Seo-yeon, forcing the kind of smile he used to be better at faking. She was saying something about her last work trip to Jeju—how the sand there was black like volcanic glass—but her words felt muffled, warped around the static building in his chest. Gi-hun nodded anyway, tracing the rim of his wineglass with the edge of his thumbnail. 

Two beats later, his phone buzzed again. 

Another number. 

The reflection of the phone’s glow on the tabletop caught the corner of his vision, dragging his eyes down before he could stop himself. 

 

Unknown Number (7:37 p.m.): 

     I want to talk. Please.

 

Gi-hun’s stomach flipped so violently it almost made him nauseous. 

He didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. The din of the restaurant blurred into a low, indistinct hum, almost as if he was under water. His thumb hesitated only long enough for him to feel the faintest tremor, then he pressed block again. 

A quick, surgical cut. No hesitation this time. No room for weakness. 

Fuck off. 

He shoved the phone into his jacket pocket, stuffing it deep enough that he’d have to dig to reach it. But Gi-hun’s hands were still unsteady, betraying him, rattling the stem of his glass when he lifted it to his lips.

Seo-yeon had noticed. Her brows pinched, just for a second, before smoothing back into that perfectly polite, curated expression. 

“Is everything okay?” she asked softly, smiling as she spoke. Her too-perfect teeth shined brightly as her plum colored lips pulled taunt around them. 

“Huh? Uh—perfect,” Gi-hun said, too quickly, curling his fingers around the stem like he could will himself to be steady. “Everything is perfect.” 

From the edge of his peripheral vision, Gi-hun could see a well-manicure hand reach out across the table. When it brushed against his on the table, gentle, teasing, his pulse didn’t quicken from desire or longing. It was something else entirely—a tight coil in his chest reappearing, slithering across his ribcage like a snake, sharp and restless. It was like his body was fighting against the touch, like it knew a ghost had wandered back into the room long before his mind would admit it. 

A ghost whose touch he’d rather feel.  

Her fingertips grazed the edges of his knuckles, deliberate but unassuming. Her touch was warm—grounding, almost—and Gi-hun hated that he had to remind himself to relax into it. 

He told his body to respond, to lean into the easy gravity between them. To laugh when she teased him about his drink order, to keep his gaze steady when her eyes flickered over Gi-hun’s mouth. But every movement felt rehearsed, his smile stretched a fraction too wide, his laugh a beat too late, like he was auditioning for the role of someone who still knew how to want. 

Instead, there was the low, traitorous churn beneath his ribs, the phantom of another hand, another graze, a hunger he hadn’t yet managed to starve out. He forced another sip of wine, hoping it would dull the edge, burn it quiet. 

And then—

A flicker. 

Over Seo-yeon’s shoulder, just beyond the pool of amber lamplight, a profile caught Gi-hun’s eye. 

Slicked back hair. Broad shoulders. The same unshakable composure, like someone who had nothing to prove and yet demanded to be seen. 

His heart stopped so suddenly it hurt his chest. 

In-ho. 

Except—no. Not In-ho. The man turned, and the illusion fractured: heavier set, deep eye bags carved under unfamiliar eyes. Relief flooded Gi-hun in a rush so dizzying he had to grip the table to keep steady. He laughed under his breath, low and shaky, pretending to focus on Seo-yeon’s words, when another silhouette entered his periphery—short stature, sharp lines softened by dim lighting. Again, he felt it, that visceral snap, like an old nerve remembering an old wound. 

You’re paranoid. Obsessed. It’s not In-ho. 

Gi-hun tried to tell himself that. He repeated it like a mantra, grounding himself with each syllable. 

But then his gaze landed on a man seated across the room. Medium height. Familiar posture. The same quiet arrogance stitched into the way he leaned back in his chair, like the entire world bent around him without him needing to ask. 

Gi-hun’s throat went dry. 

Their eyes met. 

This time, it wasn’t an illusion. It was In-ho. 

Watching him. Watching them. 

And the gleam in his gaze—sharp, dangerous—made Gi-hun’s blood run cold. His stomach dropped, heat crawling up his neck so suddenly it felt like he’d been caught committing a crime mid-act. 

Gi-hun willed his gaze back to Seo-yeon, forcing his hand to stay loosely draped around the stem of his wine glass instead of curling into a fist. 

“Are you sure you’re feeling well? You look suddenly ill.” 

He blinked, realizing he hadn’t responded to whatever she’d just said. 

“Yeah, of course. Sorry. Long day.” 

She nodded, accepting it without further pushing, and launched into another story about a client meeting gone wrong. He tried to listen—he really did—but his ears were ringing. 

Because he could feel it. 

In-ho’s presence. 

Even without looking, Gi-hun knew where he was, could sense the weight of his dark gaze threading across the room, hot against his face. Every nerve ending was awake, humming under his skin, and he hated himself for it. 

Another thing to add to the self-hatred list. 

He picked up his fork, a fancy piece of metal, and stabbed half-heartedly at the last piece of salmon on his plate, pretending interest he didn’t feel. 

“—and then my boss looked at me like I was supposed to fix it,” Seo-yeon was saying, shaking her head. “They think I have a magic wand.” 

Gi-hun nodded again, slow, automatic, keeping his eyes trained on the wall just past her shoulder. “Sounds…exhausting.” 

His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Far away. 

The glass clinked gently as he set it down, fingers trembling despite his best effort to steady them. He tried, once, to sneak a glance toward In-ho—just to confirm he was actually there, to prove to himself that he wasn’t completely crazy just yet—but the moment Gi-hun’s eyes flickered up, he caught In-ho already watching him. 

Gi-hun looked away so quickly he nearly knocked over his wine glass. 

“Careful,” Seo-yeon murmured with a soft laugh, steadying the glass before it toppled. Her fingertips brushed his, warm and careful.

He forced a smile, hating that he didn’t deserve his gentleness. Because part of him wasn’t there. Part of him was still across the room, trapped beneath the weight of another man’s stare, caught somewhere between old wounds and unfinished sentences. 

Seo-yeon kept talking, her voice low and pleasant, the edges of her words blurring as Gi-hun drifted in and out of attention. 

And still—he felt it. 

In-ho hadn’t moved. Hadn’t left. 

What a freak. 

But Gi-hun couldn’t deny himself that a spark of lightning flashed through him at the thought of In-ho being so close. His presence pressed against Gi-hun like a stormcloud he couldn’t outpace, heavy and unrelenting, bleeding into the space between every beat of conversation. 

When the server came by to ask about dessert, he shook his head quickly—too quickly—as though sugar might tip him completely over the edge. 

Seo-yeon studied him for a moment, something quiet passing through her gaze—not suspicion, exactly, but curiosity, the sense that she was trying to read a foreign language not yet translated. 

Gi-hun felt it, the weight of her attention, and tried to smooth his expression into something softer, more present. But his fork had been resting untouched on the edge of his plate for twenty minutes, and the crooked half-smile he offered her didn’t reach his eyes. 

“You’re somewhere else,” she said gently, her voice without accusation. 

Gi-hun focused his eyes on her, startled, fumbling for an answer. “I—no, I’m here.” 

But I’m not. I haven’t. Not the first time, and certainly not this time.

She didn’t press, just nodded faintly, setting her own glass down, fingers curling loosely around the ornate tablecloth. The silence stretched between them, taut but unspoken, and Gi-hun hated how it made his skin prickle, aware of every shifting breath, every distant click of cutlery. 

Aware of his gaze. His eyes staring into my soul. 

It wasn’t just a date. 

It was him. It was In-ho. 

The phantom gravity of In-ho somewhere over the woman’s shoulder, somewhere in the room, watching Gi-hun closely, gnawed at his core. 

Seo-yeon readjusted in her chair, her expression unreadable, but there was no sharpness in her gaze, no ego bruised by his distance. If anything, there was a patient stillness, as though she had just arrived at some private conclusion. 

Just like Eun-ji once did. How similar these two women are…

“Gi-hun-ssi,” she said softly, like easing into the truth rather than cutting him with it. “I think we should call it a night.” 

The words lodged in his chest. “I—what? Did I…say something wrong?” 

She shook her head, almost smiling, and reached for the bill the server had slipped discreetly onto the table. “No. Nothing like that.” 

Gi-hun sat frozen as Seo-yeon unfolded the leather check holder, sliding her card inside before he could protest. “Wait—” 

She glanced up, cutting him off gently. “We’ll split it,” she said. “Fair’s fair.” 

His confusion deepened, twisting into something unsteady and warm in his throat, but Seo-yeon didn’t look away, didn’t soften the quiet finality in his voice. She was…steady. Kind, even in retreat. Finally, as she signed the receipt, she spoke again—and this time, her words landed like stones dropped into still, stagnant water. 

“I read your column.” 

The air seemed to catch. Gi-hun never told her what his column’s name was or what it was about, but when your face is plastered to a subway advertisement, it’s hard to fully escape your work. “You—” his voice faltered, almost collapsing under itself, “—you did?” 

His date nodded once, offering a faint, rueful smile. “You write beautifully,” she said, measured and sure. “But I don’t think you’ll ever write about me that way.” 

Something in Gi-hun stilled, fragile and raw. 

“You’re a good man,” she went on, pushing the signed bill aside, her tone as even as her gaze, and deep as her lipstick. “From what I’ve gathered, anyway. And I hope…” she hesitated, not out of being unsure, but because it was something that would pierce Gi-hun’s coiled ache, “...I hope you find that one person to write about.” 

She waited a beat, then added, softer still: “Again.” 

Gi-hun opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His throat was tight, clogged with words he hadn’t sorted, and hadn't even let himself feel until now. By the time he found something to say, Seo-yeon was already sliding her chair away from the table. She gave a polite, quiet bow before stepping away from the table. 

“Goodnight, Gi-hun-ssi.” 

And then she was gone, disappearing into the press of strangers outside the glass, leaving Gi-hun alone with a half-finished wine glass and the awareness of In-ho like static in his chest. 

He didn’t look toward In-ho’s table. 

He didn’t have to. Because he was already there, taking Seo-yeon’s place, pouncing on the opportunity to grab Gi-hun’s attention. 

And he did. 

 

---

 

Two tall glasses of water sat sweating between them.The waitress had just walked away, but neither Gi-hun nor In-ho noticed. Their gazes were locked on each other, narrowed and gleaming with maybe hate, maybe love, and maybe something unreadable. 

Gi-hun’s hand rested on the rim of his glass, fingers tracing its slick edge as if anchoring himself to something solid and steady. Across the table, In-ho hunched over his own glass, his shoulders tense, elbows close to his ribs like he was bracing for the impact of a wreck. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Gi-hun said finally, low, flat. “I told you to forget you even knew me.” 

You shouldn’t be anywhere near me. Not anymore. 

“I had to be,” In-ho said, his voice rough around the edges, its pitch a low grumble. “You wouldn’t answer me. I called. I texted.” He paused, a muscle ticking in his square jaw. “You blocked me,” he stopped, exhaling sharply, “I bought another phone just to reach you.” 

Gi-hun’s eyes flicked to him then, sharp and incredulous, his laugh was small and humorless. “I noticed. Burner phones now? Is that where we’re at?” 

In-ho leaned forward, forearms pressed to the table, fingers splayed like he was holding his entire being together by sheer will. “You left me no choice. What was I supposed to do? Just…let you go?” 

Gi-hun’s jaw tightened, but his expression didn’t change. 

No choice? 

The words ricocheted through his skull like shrapnel. That was In-ho. Always In-ho. The man who detonated his ache, his life, and stood there afterward, hands outstretched, as if the rubble hadn’t been his doing. 

No choice? But you had a choice, and you chose silence. You chose to vanish. You chose to tear me apart and leave when it mattered. You chose to haunt me from a distance while I learned how to breathe without you in the room. 

And now, there In-ho was, sitting across from Gi-hun, acting as though gravity had dragged him back into his orbit, as though this wasn’t just another collision course designed to leave Gi-hun in pieces. 

Gi-hun took a slow breath and lifted his water glass, more for control than thirst, the cool condensation sliding against his fingertips. “What you were supposed to do,” he said finally, voice steady but stripped of warmth like a cold day in December, “was exactly that. Let me go.” 

For a moment, the words hung between them, dense and suffocating, as though the air itself refused to move. Gi-hun could see the way In-ho’s eyes searched his own—desperate, frantic, pleading—but there was no anchor for him to hold on to. No fish for his line to reel in. 

Gi-hun’s gaze didn’t falter, but something inside of him crumbled at the edges, sharp and silent. In his head, the unfinished column pulsed like a warning light. The blinking cursor, relentless. Taunting. 

Write the ending. Be brave enough to bury it.

But he couldn’t—not yet. Not when the ghost of him was still sitting right there, breathing the same air, spilling pathetic utterances. 

In-ho’s fingers tightened on the tablecloth, wrinkling the pristine edges with his grip. “I tried,” he said, softer but no less raw. “I did. But I couldn’t. Every night, I’d sit there staring at your number, wanting to call, to text, and when I couldn’t—” In-ho stopped abruptly. “I bought burner phones. Those messages you received tonight. That was me. All of it.” 

Gi-hun blinked, a slow deliberate motion, as though forcing himself not to flinch. 

“I didn’t know how else to reach you,” In-ho continued, his voice almost splintering under the weight of its own confession. “You weren’t answering me, you’d blocked me everywhere. So I bought those phones. I followed you. I needed to know if you would still respond. If you still…” He trailed off, unable—or maybe unwilling—to finish. 

Gi-hun’s pulse pounded in his ears, loud enough to drown out the restaurant's low hum of conversation. The ever-present ache in his chest—the one that coiled around his ribs and tightened around his lungs like a snake—constricted his heart. He forced his voice to stay calm, almost flat, even as his throat went dry. “And when I did? When I got into your car and you drove me to my date, what did you think?” 

In-ho’s Adam's apple bobbed, the motion tugging at the skin of his throat. He swallowed hard, fingers flexing against the table like he wanted to reach for Gi-hun, like he wanted to touch the hand that lay a mere centimeters away from his own, but he knew better. 

“I thought it meant there was something left,” In-ho said finally. “That you hadn’t forgotten about me.” 

The silence stretched, heavy and unbearable. Somewhere in the corner of the restaurant someone laughed, another cheered, and the noise of champagne corks popping flooded the room, but none of the sounds reached Gi-hun’s ears. The only thing his ear’s registered was his own ragged breathing and the calm shallowness of In-ho’s. 

“What can I do?” In-ho spoke up, his voice still smooth, but soft enough for Gi-hun’s chest to tighten a fraction. “What will it take for you to forgive me?”

Gi-hun stared at him, blank, his mouth drawn into a flat, unforgiving line. To anyone else, he might have looked indifferent—tired, even. But the slight wobble of his chin, the shallow rise and fall of his chest betrayed him. 

“What can I do?” 

What can you do? 

Gi-hun’s fingers tangled together, gripping each digit like a vice grip, pressing slowly on his own knuckles to concentrate. He could say so many things at the moment. He could request something ridiculous, something tragic, or he could simply tell In-ho the truth. 

“You can start over,” Gi-hun said evenly, his voice barely audible over the clatter of dishes around them. “Maybe with someone else. Try to see other people’s perspectives. Find closure within yourself. And, eventually, just say ‘I’m sorry’ when the time is right.” 

That was the best Gi-hun could offer. It was a half-truth. A half-lie. 

Because what he didn’t say—the part that clawed at the back of his throat—was that there was no starting over for him, not really. Not when every attempt, every path to healing, led back to In-ho. He couldn’t tell the man that he would never get over him, that he would never write the ending to their story. 

Because each version of their ending felt like a lie. 

He told In-ho to move on because he couldn’t. 

“I’m sorry,” In-ho said immediately, like he’d been holding it in his throat for months. 

Gi-hun shook his head, a small, deft motion. “No, you can’t say it yet. You have to do the others first.” 

“I can’t start over.” In-ho’s hands balled into a fist on the table. “I can’t do this with anyone else.” 

“Then you’ll never have me.” 

His voice was steady, but Gi-hun could feel the glass closet around him begin to crack, splintering into sharp fragments from the inside out. He turned away before In-ho could see his face, gaze falling on the blue of passing headlights outside. A car, maybe? Or just some pedestrian, oblivious to the fact that entire lives were collapsing behind the restaurant’s glass window. 

The unfinished column sat in the back of his mind like an anvil pressing against his shoulders. The cursor at the end of the document had mocked him earlier, daring him to write the ending he couldn’t bring himself to confront. If he finished it, he wasn’t just ending a column—he was ending this. Whatever this had been. Whatever ghost of them was left. 

“Did you really move on, Gi-hun?” In-ho’s voice was quieter now, almost childlike. “Did you forget me?” 

His throat constricted. He kept his gaze fixed outside, unblinking, jaw clenched until it ached. He wouldn’t give In-ho the satisfaction of an answer. 

“Because I didn’t,” In-ho whispered, leaning ever so close. “I thought about you. Every day. Every night. I saw your face in every person who walked through the police station. Every woman who talked to me. Every man who passed me.” His breath shook as he ungripped the tablecloth and ran a hand through his gelled hair, the stands falling loose onto his forehead. “I saw you, Gi-hun. You haunt me, and I want to make it stop.”

Gi-hun’s chest rose sharply, air catching in his lungs, a stitch forming in his side, but still he didn’t turn to face In-ho. If he did, he wasn’t sure he’d survive it. 

The stalking. The burner phone. The messages. His face, sitting across from Gi-hun like nothing had shattered. He thought of the column again—the one that was waiting to be finished. Maybe it will never be finished. 

Because endings aren’t just sentences. Endings are choices. And this one…this one feels like it can kill me.

Gi-hun’s gaze finally turned to In-ho. If he were to die, he would rather do it while staring into the dark pits that caused his pain than spend the rest of his life glancing away, pretending it never happened. 

“Go home, In-ho,” he said softly. 

For a moment, In-ho didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, it seemed. His jaw tightened, the muscles shifting like he was swallowing words he knew better than to speak. His hand twitched like it was searching for something solid to hold on to. Restless. Uneasy. 

He looked at Gi-hun, his mouth opening, beginning to form the start of words before Gi-hun’s look cut him clean through. Not sharp. Not angry. Just…done. 

“You should go,” Gi-hun repeated, quieter this time, like the words were designed to collapse between them instead of carrying across the table. He knew that In-ho would do whatever he said, and it was not a choice he wanted to make, but the only one Gi-hun could survive. 

In-ho lowered his gaze on Gi-hun’s face, looking distantly into the man’s features. Gi-hun felt his dark, almost watery gaze prick at his skin. In-ho nodded once and pushed his chair back. The sound scraped the floor, loud enough to make Gi-hun flinch. He left without looking back, the air behind him folding closed like nothing had happened at all. 

Gi-hun stayed there, motionless, staring past the condensation that had gathered on his nearly full water glass. A waiter rushed past, someone took a seat at the table next to him. The world was unbothered in its routines. 

His hands slid beneath the table, clenched tight in his lap, nails pressing crescents into his palms. He wanted to scream, but instead he breathed. In. Out. Once. Twice. 

And when he opened his eyes again, he imagined the blinking cursor waiting for him—the unfinished column, daring him to choose an ending he wasn’t ready to write. 

 

---

 

The city kept moving, but Gi-hun didn’t. 

He walked through Seoul as if he were slightly detached from gravity, his body obeying crosswalks and traffic lights while his mind remained back at the restaurant, days before, frozen in the dim amber light and staring into In-ho’s face across the table. 

“What you were supposed to do was exactly that. Let me go.” 

And then In-ho’s silence, his expression—jaw tight, gaze shadowed, words caught somewhere behind his teeth. Gi-hun could still see the faint twitch in his hand, the way his thumb brushed over his untouched glass of water like a habit he couldn’t break. 

“Go home, In-ho.” 

But the problem was, he hadn’t. 

Not really. 

It began with the music. 

Two nights later, a drizzle sent Gi-hun ducking into a narrow record shop off a side street in Hongdae. It was a place where he shouldn’t be, where he had no business being, but he shook the rain from his sleeves as the warm scent of dust and vinyl filled the air. He was halfway to the back of the small shop when the sound hit him—a low, wavering voice, thick with static curling through the air: 

“Fly me to the moon…let me play among the stars…” 

Gi-hun stilled. 

For a moment, the sound barely registered, but then his chest tightened, and his feet stopped moving as the music wrapped around him. 

He knew the song. The voice. 

It was Sinatra, an artist that In-ho had told him he liked, with his voice barely above a whisper as he said it. As he laid bare beside Gi-hun, his bangs brushing the skin of his forehead in sweaty strands. As he played with the long locks of Gi-hun’s hair. As he said it in an off-handed manner—like it didn’t matter what he liked. 

But Gi-hun remembered. 

Of course he remembered. 

You remember everything when it comes to a particular person. Their smile, their demeanor, the way their lips curve just slightly with each smile, but you especially remember their words. And with In-ho, you remember the strange words that come out of a grown man’s mouth when his mind is broken to pieces, when he’s pleading for forgiveness.

Gi-hun drifted further inside the shop, weaving between shelves and stacks of dusty vinyl, his fingertips grazing the edge of a rack lined with thick cardboard sleeves. His English wasn’t perfect, just what he learned in journalism school. He couldn’t make out every title scrawled across the spines, but a small, handwritten sign in Hangul caught his eye: 

American Country Music

He crouched instinctively, following the stack until his hand stopped on one record lying flat beneath the rest. The cover was faded, the edges worn soft, but in the bottom corner, someone had scrawled in thick marker, beneath the English title he couldn’t fully make out: 

Patsy Cline. 

His breath hitched. 

Oh fuck. 

It wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be. 

Patsy Cline, Sinatra, both in this tiny shop on this rainy Tuesday night—both stitched to fragments of In-ho, fragments that he’d let slip in a post-coital haze. Gi-hun’s thumb brushed the sleeve, tracing letters he couldn’t quite read but understood anyway. The music swelled behind him, the voice climbing, velvet and aching. 

“Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore…” 

Gi-hun straightened slowly, forcing himself to step back, to breathe, to blink the heaviness from his lashes. 

It was just a record shop. Just a song. Just a dusty record. 

But his chest didn’t believe it. 

That was until three days later, walking down Garosu-gil, when Gi-hun caught a trace of cologne in the air and froze mid-step. 

It was his. 

The same warm, spiced, masculine cedarwood In-ho wore, threaded with something smoky, almost leathery—a scent that Gi-hun once longed to fill his senses. He spun around, searching the crowd, half-expecting In-ho to materialize from behind someone’s shoulder. But the man passing him wasn’t In-ho. Different height. Different shoes. 

Just…wrong.  

Still, Gi-hun’s chest burned like he’d been caught off-guard in a dream. 

“Just…let you go?” 

He shut his eyes tightly, inhaling the lingering traces of the cologne before shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his coat and kept walking. 

That night, he dreamed of In-ho. Not the version he knew in fractured moments, but a quieter, softer one. Domestic flashes, sharp as photographs.

In-ho barefoot in a kitchen he didn’t recognize, sleeves rolled, stirring something on the stove. 

In-ho sprawled on Gi-hun’s coach, flipping through a book, that half-crooked smile tugging at his mouth. 

In-ho reaching for Gi-hun’s wrist in a crowd, pulling him toward safety like it was instinct. 

The images bled one into the next, dissolving before he could touch them. Gi-hun woke with his sheets tangled around his legs, a knot in his stomach he couldn’t give a name to, and the whisper of music still looping faintly in the back of his skull. 

Days blurred together after that. Gi-hun didn’t know if it had been a week or just a few hours since his last micro-encounter. The hauntings stayed just like they did before: pressing, insufferable in its pain. 

A taxi drove past, its radio blaring—Sinatra again.

A book someone was reading in a cafe titled The Beautiful and the Damned. 

An old man whistled something faintly familiar outside Gi-hun’s apartment building that sounded similar to “Crazy” by Patsy Cline

Everywhere he turned, In-ho was threaded into the city like static he couldn’t tune out. 

Always following me. Always stalking me. 

Gi-hun couldn’t pretend these were accidents anymore. 

They weren’t coincidences. 

The city wasn’t haunted. Gi-hun was. 

And in the quietest part of himself—the part he tried not to look directly at—he admitted it: 

Gi-hun didn’t want In-ho to start over with someone else. He wanted him. All of him. 

But In-ho would do whatever Gi-hun told him to, blindly, without hesitation. And that terrified Gi-hun the most—because he couldn’t decide whether he wanted In-ho close…or gone, with the ending written in stone. 

 

---

 

The sky broke open without warning. One minute the streets of Seoul were heavy with humidity, the heavy dampness that sticks to one’s skin like a disease, and the next, clouds tore loose and released a violent downpour. Gi-hun ducked under the overhang of a closed café, water cascading off the edges of the awning like a curtain. 

How familiar…

It was supposed to feel cleansing, the summer rain always had that effect on him before—a sense of renewal, washing the city clean. But now—most times since that day—it felt oppressive. Thick. Loaded. Every droplet against the pavement seemed to echo a time that had passed, an ending that was too far to chase. 

He pressed his back to the cold glass window behind him, dragging in a breath as if the rain had stolen the oxygen from the air. Somewhere between the rhythmic hammering of raindrops and the chaos of car horns, he thought he heard In-ho’s voice, smooth and weightless. But it wasn’t there. He wasn’t there. In-ho’s voice was in Gi-hun’s head, stitched into his blood stream. 

His phone buzzed violently against his thigh, ringing inside of his pocket. Gi-hun fumbled for it, expecting another meaningless call, or maybe—truthfully—an unknown number calling him. He looked at the screen and was greeted with a name more surprising than the one he refused to say. 

Kang Eun-ji. 

Gi-hun swallowed harshly. For a moment, he considered letting it ring out. He hadn’t spoken to her in a very long time—maybe a year, two years? He would occasionally catch a glimpse of her life through windows of social media or mutual friends. Different city. Different country. A different woman than the one Gi-hun married. She had a family now, he remembered hearing that from a friend. 

Gi-hun tried to never linger on the thought of Eun-ji so much, but nowadays, she always flooded his mind along with the thought of In-ho. 

Something about the storm cast away his brief hesitation and made him swipe to answer. 

Before Gi-hun could utter a greeting, Eun-ji’s voice came through, “Seong Gi-hun,” her voice was smoother now, with a sharp undertone he couldn’t name, “are you writing about me again?”

He blinked, momentarily thrown, his hand curling tighter around his phone. “Eun-ji…” Gi-hun trailed off, surprised by the abrupt call, the abrupt question. “What are you talking about?”

A quiet hum could be heard on the other line. Gi-hun furrowed his brow, confused at the entire situation. “I wasn’t sure you’d pick up,” Eun-ji mused after a moment, ignoring his question. 

Gi-hun leaned his shoulder against the glass, the cool window stripping his arm of warmth. “I almost didn’t.” 

There was a soft puff of laughter on the other end—not mocking, just knowing. “I figured.” 

For a brief moment, neither of them spoke, and Gi-hun thought maybe that was all there was—a check-in carried by nostalgia and weather. A time for each of them to become who they once were, decades ago, as people who were once in love. 

But Eun-ji’s voice returned, hesitant now. Her softness was gone, replaced by a gritty roughness that resembled sandpaper. “Your mother sent me your latest writings.” 

Gi-hun frowned, the corners of his mouth dipping into a perplexed line. “My mom?” 

“She said she thought we were…back together.” The grittiness of her voice scraped the shell of Gi-hun's ear, like she had bile in her throat as she spoke the words. “I guess she heard some of her friends at the market talking and assumed it was about me without reading…” 

Gi-hun shut his eyes, letting the words skin in. His mother. Of course. Always quietly rooting for Eun-ji, for safety, for someone who could love her son without all the jagged edges he presented. 

What would she think of In-ho? 

Gi-hun dispelled the thought as soon as it entered his mind. In-ho would never meet his mother, would never step into his life without his own edges knocking into Gi-hun’s. 

“It’s not about you,” Gi-hun said finally, though there was no sting in his voice—not directed at Eun-ji, at least. 

“I know,” she said, the roughness dipping for a moment. “I just…wanted to hear you say it.” 

The rain beat harder on the pavement, the sound filling the silence between them. Gi-hun could almost picture her on the other end, leaning against her pristine counter somewhere in Los Angeles, phone pressed against her shoulder, looking out over some unfamiliar skyline Gi-hun would probably never see. 

“You sound…good,” Gi-hun whispered, surprising himself. 

“I am,” Eun-ji said. “My husband is great, the little one starts school next month, and Los Angeles has treated us well.” Eun-ji paused for a moment, as if she were weighing the words on the tip of her tongue. Gi-hun could hear the hesitance in her breath, the uptick in her breathing before she said something risky. It was something she never got rid of. “You sound…not so good.” 

Gi-hun sighed. He hated how easily she could still read him—hated, too, how comforting it was. The only other person who could do that was him. 

“I saw the line in your piece,” she said, waiting like she wasn’t sure if she should go on. “The thing you wrote about goodbyes—the ones that don’t feel like endings at all. The type that leaves you thinking there's more to come.” 

Gi-hun traced a raindrop sliding down the glass with his fingertip, watching it break apart as it fell. “It’s complicated,” he whispered because it was. 

“It always was,” Eun-ji said with something almost fond in her voice now, the harshness gone and the kind of soft acceptance that comes when time has dulled the sharpest edges of memory. 

The storm filled the quiet, thunder rolling somewhere in the distance. Neither spoke for a while. It was like they were teenagers again, basking in each other’s presence rather than filling it with words. Gi-hun remembered sitting on the stoop of his childhood apartment, bumping shoulders with Eun-ji as they waited for the sun to set and the next day to come, humming that song she loved so much. It was like that at the moment, however years and complicated emotions made it less thrilling and more nostalgic

Then, before he could stop himself, the words slipped from Gi-hun’s mouth. “Eun-ji…that one song you used to hum all the time when we were together. The American band. What was it?” 

There was a sound at the other end of the phone, and he could hear her smile faintly through the phone. “Hmm? Oh—that Fleetwood Mac song? ‘Only Over You.’ Why?” 

Gi-hun shook his head, even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “No reason.” 

But there is a reason. A reason that won’t dislodge itself like a stuck splinter. 

“You’re an odd man, Seong Gi-hun,” Eun-ji clicked her tongue, “I’ll break your mother’s heart and let her know we’re not back together.” And then, as if she were all knowing, a small sound of genuine laughter sounded through the phone. “Send a picture of this Mr. Big fellow when you have the chance. I want to know if he’s handsome or not.” 

The call ended before Gi-hun could utter a response. He pulled the screen away from his ear, looking at the blank lock screen before tucking it back into his pocket as thunder cracked overhead. He moved forward but didn’t step out from under the awning just yet, starting instead at his reflection in the rain-smeared glass. 

I wish I had a fucking umbrella. 

Gi-hun tugged the hood of his jacket over his head and stepped out into the storm, the city swirling around him in a distant haze. 

 

---

 

The cursor blinked like a heartbeat at the bottom of the document, as though it was waiting for Gi-hun to decide whether this was the moment he would finally write the ending or just simply another pause. The soft hum of the air conditioner masked the quiet chaos inside his chest as the final draft of his column glowed on screen. 

He scrolled slowly, retracing each sentence like he was touching old bruises to see if they still hurt. His eyes caught on a paragraph he almost deleted three times, the one where he wrote about begging for scraps of In-ho’s attention, in a voice just shy of trembling. He ran the cursor over the paragraph, highlighting it in blue, on the precipice of deleting it, when his phone made a cruel buzzing sound against the wooden grain of the desk. 

Gi-hun’s gaze slid toward the screen on the coffee table. Another unknown number. 

Fuck. 

He hesitated before reaching for it, thumb hovering over the preview. 

 

Unknown Number (4:57 p.m.): 

I’ve listened to the whole discography of that American band you mentioned, trying to find your favorite song. But how can I when you don’t even know? 

 

Gi-hun’s heart stalled for a moment, mid-beat, then lurched. A violent little skip that made his breath catch. The weight of the words pressed against his chest, his detonated ache, heavy and deliberate. 

It was In-ho, texting him again. Like a virus that would go away, he pestered in his insistence. 

Gi-hun looked at the words again. He knew the song now. He knew because he had asked Eun-ji. Because in that quiet, rain-drenched phone call, he had heard the answer: ‘Only Over You.’

How fitting. 

His thumb hovered over the keyboard, drafting and erasing. 

“It’s ‘Only Over You.’”

Delete. 

“I know now.” 

Delete. 

His hand stayed there, locked in hesitation, but the reply never left his phone. 

Somewhere, maybe in his office at the police station, maybe sitting at home with his uniform gone, his hair undone and a glass of whiskey sweating beside him, In-ho was waiting. Waiting for Gi-hun’s reaction, for a sign, for permission to believe in whatever fragile thing still tethered them together. 

But he didn’t block the number this time. 

Instead, Gi-hun sat the phone face down on the table, the silence expanding in the space between them like breath held too long. There was something dangerous about leaving the door open like that, but there was hope, too—the quiet kind that never announced itself, that slipped through the cracks when you least expected it. 

Gi-hun turned toward the laptop, his fingers hovering over the trackpad, his chest still tight with unsent words. He reread the ending of the column—the unfinished dash that indicated more to come—hesitated, and then felt the spark of light reignite in his chest. 

“Maybe endings don’t always have to be tragic. Because the hole, like any gaping wound, can be closed. It can be mended with time. Maybe, with the right words—and the right actions—you can rewrite the prophecy. And with a right ending…maybe it can be renewed. 

Gi-hun stared at it for a long moment, then downloaded the PDF, attached it to an email to his editor, typed the words ‘ sorry it’s late!’ and hit send. 

Submission. 

For a beat, he sat there, leaning back in his office chair, letting the silence of his apartment settle. Then, slowly, Gi-hun picked his phone back up, unlocked the screen, and typed: 

 

Seong Gi-hun (5:25 p.m.):

I know now. ‘Only Over You.’

This time, he didn’t delete it. 

He hit send. 

The message left, small, irreversible, and purposeful, carrying with it the fragile hope he had been trying so hard not to name. 

And for a long moment, the ache in Gi-hun’s chest eased. 

Notes:

One more chapter left!!

This chapter was a joy to write! I loved planning and outlining this chapter so much. I think my doc for this outline was over ten pages!

I think that the small micro-encounters/the phone call with Eun-ji let Gi-hun have some clarity regarding his decision and the ending to the column. Him writing the end to the column is comparable to him writing the ending to his and In-ho's relationship, and he couldn't do that.

Also, guys, burner numbers are notttt the way to go to contact your ex if you're blocked. Just let them go (not In-ho, though lolll!)

I'm very excited for the ending of this story, so stay tuned!

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for your support and kindness! It means the world to me!! Please don't hesitate to comment, bookmark, leave kudos, etc. I appreciate all your support! Here is my Tumblr. You can follow me there for new chapter updates, questions you might have about the story, or just your thoughts in general.