At thirty-one years old, Kang Min-jae had become very good at being fine.
His job was fine.
His salary was fine.
His apartment was fine.
His health, according to the mandatory examination his company made everyone suffer through each year, was also fine.
His relationship had been fine too.
Until four days ago.
Min-jae stood barefoot in the middle of his kitchen, staring at a pale yellow mug sitting beside the sink.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about it.
It had a small cartoon bear printed on one side and a hairline crack running underneath the handle. The thing had cost perhaps twelve thousand won from some shop in Hongdae three years ago. Maybe less. He couldn't remember.
It wasn't even his.
That was the problem.
Min-jae stared at it for several seconds before opening the cupboard.
Then he stopped.
He had been about to put it away in its usual place.
The second shelf.
Left side.
Next to his black coffee mug.
His hand remained on the cupboard door.
"…Right."
He let it close again.
Seo-ah hadn't taken everything.
Most of her clothes were gone. Her makeup had disappeared from the bathroom. The little white charger she always accused him of stealing was no longer beside the bed. The slippers she kept near the entrance were gone too.
But there were remnants.
The mug.
A bottle of shampoo he would never have bought himself.
A packet of raspberry tea in the cupboard.
One elastic hair tie behind the television.
Small pieces of someone who had spent three years gradually becoming part of his home and then, over the course of one miserable Wednesday evening, stopped being part of his future.
Min-jae rubbed a hand over his face.
Friday night.
He should eat something.
That sounded like the sort of sensible adult decision a thirty-one-year-old ought to make.
He opened the refrigerator.
Kimchi.
Water.
Half a carton of eggs.
Three cans of beer.
Some side dishes his mother had given him the previous weekend.
A plastic container he was reasonably certain had been in there long enough to qualify for independent citizenship.
Min-jae closed the refrigerator.
"No."
Cooking demanded optimism.
He currently had none.
His phone buzzed on the countertop.
For one ridiculous second his chest tightened.
Seo-ah?
It was Kim Sang-ho from work.
Don't forget Monday meeting got moved to 8:30. Director wants revised Q3 numbers.
Min-jae stared at the message.
Then he typed:
Got it. Thanks.
He added a thumbs-up emoji because apparently this was adulthood.
Eight years of education after high school, including military service and university, multiple failed careers before he'd even technically had a career, six years of corporate employment, and the final result of human civilisation was Kang Min-jae sending a thumbs-up emoji about quarterly numbers at eight twenty-seven on a Friday night.
Outstanding.
Sixteen-year-old him would have demanded a refund.
He tossed the phone onto the sofa.
The apartment was quiet again.
That was what bothered him most.
Not dramatic silence.
Not the oppressive kind people described in movies after someone died.
Just ordinary silence.
The refrigerator hummed.
A car passed somewhere below.
The upstairs neighbour dragged something inexplicably heavy across the floor.
Min-jae's television was off.
Seo-ah wasn't sitting on the sofa complaining about what they should order for dinner.
She wasn't asking whether he wanted to visit her parents next month.
She wasn't scrolling through apartment listings and showing him places that were either impossibly expensive or suspiciously cheap.
She wasn't doing anything.
Because she didn't live here anymore.
Technically she never had.
Not officially.
She simply spent enough nights here that the distinction had stopped mattering.
He wandered toward the sofa and sat.
The cushion beside him sank slightly beneath his hand.
He remembered her sitting there four nights ago.
Back straight.
Hands folded together.
Not crying yet.
That had been the first sign something was seriously wrong.
Seo-ah cried easily.
Sad films.
Happy films.
Dog videos.
Videos of soldiers surprising their parents after long deployments.
Once, inexplicably, an advertisement about rice cookers.
But that night she'd been completely composed.
"Do you want to marry me?"
Min-jae had stared at her.
"What?"
"Not eventually."
She had looked directly at him.
"Not someday. Not when things settle down. Not when work gets less busy. Do you actually want to marry me?"
"Of course I do."
The answer had come instantly.
Because it was true.
He loved her.
He'd imagined marrying her hundreds of times.
He'd looked at rings online.
He knew approximately how much they had between their savings accounts.
He had quietly calculated what kind of jeonse deposit they might manage with help from both families.
He knew Seo-ah preferred spring weddings because she hated being cold in formal clothes.
He knew she wanted two children but would settle for one if raising two became too expensive.
He knew all of that.
Seo-ah's expression hadn't changed.
"Then when?"
And there it was.
The question Min-jae hated most.
When.
"When we're a little more stable."
"You've said that for two years."
"I mean—"
"You got promoted."
"Assistant manager isn't exactly—"
"You got the raise you were waiting for."
"Seoul housing prices—"
"We don't have to buy immediately."
"I know."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
Min-jae had opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
That, more than anything else, had ended it.
Seo-ah's shoulders had lowered.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
As though she'd been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally decided to put it down.
"I know you love me."
He remembered that sentence perfectly.
He suspected he always would.
"That's almost what makes this harder. I know you love me, Min-jae. But sometimes loving me feels like another part of your life you've put on autopilot."
He'd wanted to argue.
He hadn't.
Because somewhere beneath the instinctive panic, beneath the fear of losing her, he'd recognised something in her words.
Something horribly familiar.
Seo-ah had always been the person suggesting things.
Trips.
Restaurants.
Meeting their parents.
Looking at apartments.
Talking about children.
Discussing whether she should change jobs.
Asking where he saw himself in five years.
Min-jae's contribution had usually been agreement.
Sure.
Sounds good.
Maybe later.
We'll figure it out.
We have time.
There was always time.
Until there wasn't.
He leaned back now and covered his eyes with one forearm.
"Idiot."
The apartment offered no disagreement.
That was another thing Seo-ah would have done.
She would have told him not to talk about himself like that.
Then called him an idiot five minutes later for leaving wet towels on the bed.
He missed her.
Four days.
Pathetic.
Three years together and he was apparently surprised that four days wasn't enough to rearrange the shape of his life.
Min-jae lowered his arm.
On the opposite wall hung a framed photograph taken in Busan the previous summer. He and Seo-ah stood beside the beach, sunburned and grinning while wind blew her hair across half his face.
He looked happy.
He had been happy.
That was important.
Because Min-jae had never been one of those people who could divide his life neatly into Before Everything Went Wrong and After.
Nothing had gone catastrophically wrong.
That was almost the problem.
His life had simply become increasingly acceptable.
One reasonable decision after another.
One stable choice after another.
Until one day he'd looked around and realised he had constructed a life he couldn't really complain about and couldn't seem to care about enough either.
It hadn't always been that way.
Once, Kang Min-jae had wanted something so badly it hurt.