Chapter 1: Phantom Likes
Rain patters against the taxi window like static on a dead channel, and Gangnam's billboards smear neon fuchsia across the glass every time we slip under an overpass. The city relentlessly offers its beauty—perfume ads, LED angels, a twenty-meter-tall K-pop idol blowing a kiss—yet all I feel is the pinch of my phone case digging into my palm. At 110 bpm, I force myself to stay calm.
I refresh my feed. The blue heart icon blinks, hesitates, then the count drops—492 244…492 243. A tiny sigh escapes me, more reflex than sound. You can't even hold their attention for a full commute, the chorus hisses. You're bleeding relevance by the minute. My thumb flicks open the comment pane:
**** slut banker gets what she deserves 👍
house of cards tumbling lol 🤣
DIE IN JAIL 🇰🇷⚖️
I screen-capture each one—evidence, Exhibit A, B, …infinity—hoping that cataloguing every insult will reveal the precise equation of my unworthiness. Another vibration: a group-chat notification mushrooms over the first, then two more, until text bubbles stack like hail on the windshield. My wrist buzzes in sympathy—115 bpm, then 118.
The driver's eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror—polite, curious. I muster the professional smile that once closed billion-won deals. "Traffic's fine," he offers, misreading the tremor in my exhale.
"Great," I reply, my voice even—just a placid surface over a rip tide inside.
I pivot the phone to film-proof privacy and flick to analytics: thirty-eight followers lost this minute. My stomach clenches around emptiness and old vodka fumes. Notifications keep detonating: DMs, tagged stories, an ex-colleague's quote in a tabloid article I shouldn't read but do anyway. Headlines scroll: INSIDER-TRADING SCAPEGOAT? My name in bold. The irony is surgical—they gutted my reputation to cauterize the bank's wound. Each ping lands like a hammer stroke behind my sternum.
Screen brightness dimmed to one bar, I open the camera roll—my private "Reward" album. Cartier bracelet, ₩5,800,000: the cost of last year's ulcer medication, ₩720,000. Maldives resort selfie, turquoise water as vivid as a lie: the hidden price was six stolen Ambien tablets and an unremembered 3 a.m. panic attack. Swipe, swipe, swipe—glittering proof that I once knew how to purchase applause. My throat tastes of stainless steel.
A glance at the vanity mirror perched atop the cab's rear view confirms my performance: foundation flawless, winged eyeliner mathematically precise—except for one pinprick smear at the outer corner. Sloppy. You're slipping. I dab it away with a tissue faintly scented of pine and metal—where did that come from? Goose-flesh ripples along my arms, as if someone just exhaled against my nape.
Forty-two missed calls, zero true friends. I murmur the tally; numbers soothe—at least they're honest. Now it's 120 bpm.
I picture tipping back the untouched martini from tonight's client dinner, glass frost kissing my lips, ethanol burn on my tongue. The phantom burn triggers a pulse of nausea that folds me forward. I squeeze my eyes shut. Stage-one withdrawal, the clinical corner of my brain notes. Resting tremor in eight hours if you don't dose. My palms glisten.
The seat-belt clicks as we merge onto the riverside expressway. To our right, the Han unfurls like black mercury under sodium lamps. Ahead, the arches of Mapo Bridge rise like vertebrae of a sleeping leviathan; headlights tattoo watery light across its pilings. My chest quiets—my heart still drums, but my mind hushes as my senses tunnel in on those railings. Soon.
Radio static mutters through the speakers, the pop station dissolving into crackle. Beneath the noise I catch the faintest hum, a woman's voice holding a single, wordless lullaby—silver and impossible. The hair on my scalp prickles. The driver smacks the console; the hum vanishes.
We pass the bridge. I watch the amber lights recede in the side window, each globe strobing my reflection: flawless, hollow…flawless, hollow. My smartwatch vibrates—123 bpm—and a new alert: Mum: answer me right now. I tap "read" and mute the thread. Then I open Settings → Location → Share My Ride. One press and the icon greys out; no one can track my route anymore. My pulse slips back to 119 bpm—an illusion of control.
Rain intensifies, drumming the roof. The wipers beat in binary: go/don't…go/don't.
The driver clears his throat. "Where to, miss?" His Seoul-standard dialect stretches kindly, as if giving me room to breathe.
I inhale. The cabin smells of vinyl, coffee grounds, and—again—that faint metallic-pine note, like mountain air trapped in steel. Goose-flesh rises anew. Someone—or something—is here with me.
My lips part before I know what I'll say. "Just…keep driving."
Silence thickens. He nods once, flicks the turn signal, and we merge left. City lights skate over the ceiling like fireworks underwater.
In the dark glass I watch my own face, awaiting judgment, but the mirror stays dumb. Maybe this is freedom: no set destination, follower count hidden, map unpinned. Or perhaps it's just a long on-ramp to oblivion. Either way, I feel lighter than I have in months.
Beneath my seat, the Birkin bag—₩8 000 000 of calfskin status—rests like a bomb yet to arm. Tonight, I simply place a steadying hand on its lid, as though checking a pulse, and let the city slip by in blurred pinks and greens.
Rain, neon, heartbeat. Drive.
Chapter 2: 4 a.m. Handbag Inventory
03:42 a.m.
The taxi eases onto a deserted lay-by just before Mapo Bridge, its hazard lights ticking like an anxious metronome. Rain spiders across the windshield, turning Han River neon into melting calligraphy.
"Is this alright, miss?" the driver asks, his eyes gentle in the rear-view mirror.
"Perfect." My voice sounds borrowed—polished for polite voicemail. I peel forty thousand won from a money clip, enough for the fare and the silence to follow. Coins clink in his tray; I keep the receipt. Paper trails are for the living.
I step onto slick tarmac, stilettos clicking once—twice—before I slip them off. The pavement kisses my soles with icy grit; pain is information, proof that my body still answers. Behind me, the taxi pulls away, its taillights shrinking to twin garnets in the mist. When they vanish, the night feels vacuum-sealed.
03:48 a.m.
A cracked acrylic bench huddles beneath a faltering sodium lamp. I settle, tucking bare feet onto the slats, my designer coat spreading like a fallen flag. My hands shake—just slightly—a stage-two tremor I log with clinical detachment.
Heartbeat: 104.
Respiration: shallow.
Proceed.
Rain drips from the lamp housing in erratic Morse. I unfasten the crocodile-skin Birkin and upend its entrails into my lap: lipsticks, titanium cards, receipts, a tangle of satin and metal—my life rendered as purse sediment. The smell of expensive leather exhales into the damp, rich as a confession.
03:56 a.m.
I begin the audit, arranging artifacts in neat rows on the bench—surgical trays for self-dissection.
Corporate ID card—●● Bank, embossed logo, retail value negligible; destruction value incalculable.
Platinum mileage card—annual fee ₩900,000; last used to upgrade a flight I never boarded.
Limited-edition silk scarf—₩600,000; impulse buy after my first bonus. The pattern shows cranes in crimson flight; the irony pecks at me.
Montblanc Meisterstück—a graduation gift from Father, ₩1,200,000; 18-karat nib. I hesitate, placing it parallel to my thigh, a category of its own.
Mobile phone—₩1,500,000 plus a river of data, its screen now strobing with spiteful notifications.
Louboutin pumps—₩1,350,000; glass-heel illusion, Cinderella priced for predators.
Black card—limitless credit, bottomless debt.
Designer wallet (cash inside)—₩20,000 remains; the rest became liquid courage hours ago.
The drizzle thickens, beading on lacquered plastic—jeweled droplets on a corpse's eyelashes. I whisper the running total: "Twenty-one million, three hundred and seventy…" The number floats up like a helium balloon and pops against the low-hanging clouds.
Each object summons a memory: the scarf's boutique mirror flashing approval, the card's champagne toast on a rooftop bar, the pen signing a deal that buried a junior analyst to save my bonus. Each recollection is a suture snapping inside my chest.
03:59 a.m.
I divide the relics. Keep: passport, cash, pen—because Father's quiet pride once mattered. Discard: cards, phone, ID, scarf, wallet fat with loyalty points. Unsure collapses into nothing; the rain decides, stippling everything with equal indifference.
The phone buzzes—one last gasp.
where r u slut
rot in prison
die already
Battery: 2 %. I watch the screen fade to black, my reflection swimming in it—wide eyes, smeared mascara, a hollow algorithm. Click. Silence. A lifeline and a noose severed at once. I drop the handset onto the Discard pile; it lands with a muted thud, as final as earth on a coffin lid.
04:04 a.m.
Wind slithers upriver, carrying a scent that does not belong in Seoul: cold pine and clean stone, like a mountaintop after first snow. It presses against my lungs—breathe—a suggestion, almost a word. I jerk, scanning the embankment. No footsteps, no voices, only the rhythmic hush of rain on the Han. Vertigo rocks me; perhaps the alcohol is finding new ways to haunt me.
Heartbeat: 112.
Focus.
I scoop the Discard items into the flimsy plastic poncho the hotel concierge handed me. The bag crackles—a cheap sound around priceless things. Knot, tighten. Evidence ready for water burial.
The Montblanc remains on the bench, its ebony barrel glistening. Father's voice drifts up from memory: sign only what you've read twice. Good advice I ignored. I slide the pen into my coat's inner pocket and feel its small weight settle against my ribs like a retained bullet.
04:08 a.m.
The streetlamp fizzles, plunging the bench into half-shadow. Rain graduates to a thin silver sheet. I rise slowly, plastic sack in one hand, shoes dangling by their straps in the other. My soles meet the wet asphalt; a shiver scuttles up my calves, but the dizziness clears. Ahead, the pedestrian stairway climbs toward Mapo Bridge, its handrail slick as a surgical blade. Beyond that, the river glows—black glass troubled by rain-rings.
I start walking.
Each step is an equation solved: one breath minus one burden equals something like peace. Behind me, the bench holds nothing but a ghost-imprint of my weight—a dark rectangle soaking deeper in the drizzle.
At the foot of the stairs, I pause and listen. The city hum is distant, muffled by water and dawn's approach. No sirens, no taxis, no feed. Only the river calling in sibilant consonants: come, come, come.
I answer by placing my bare foot on the first step.
04:10 a.m.
Upward. Toward steel. Toward silence.
Chapter 3: Mapo Bridge Steel
At 04:11, each time my bare foot met a service‐stair rung, it rang like a struck gong—metal, bone, metal, bone—and I counted the echoes to stave off vertigo: twelve… thirteen. Rain needling the back of my neck felt colder up here, unfiltered by street‐level exhaust. Halfway up, a CCTV camera swivelled, its red eye winking. A heartbeat of hesitation, my hood shading my face, then I climbed onto the deck—just another ghost in a city that never stops recording.
At the top, the wind greeted me, scraping drizzle from the Han's graphite‐glass surface and painting my cheeks with cold mist. Dawn was still an hour away; sodium lamps along the rail gleamed dull gold, each post crowned with an LED panel from the city's "Bridge of Life" campaign. The messages scrolled cheerfully: The wind is really nice today, isn't it?…You look tired. Want to talk?…Someone misses you right now. I answered only with silence. Fingertips tracing every bolt head and bead of water, my pulse steadied to the distant hum of traffic—seventy beats, seventy engine notes. Rain slicked the walkway, turning lights into molten coins underfoot. I paused mid‐span, resting my plastic bundle of discarded treasures—cards, phone, loyalty points—on the deck. Climbing onto the lower beam, I shivered at steel colder than river water or regret. Vertigo swelled, then ebbed as I anchored my palms on the top rail. A scent drifted through the steel—pine needles in frost, impossibly distant from Seoul—before fading back to diesel and wet concrete.
With slow fingers, I untied the crimson scarf knotted around my wrist—cranes now drowned in burgundy—and looped it once around a railing bolt, sealing a silent vow. Then I tipped the bundle into darkness; the river folded it under without applause. On the beam, space felt razor‐narrow and cathedral‐wide at once. I set my Louboutins heel to heel atop the rail—two crystal headstones glinting in drizzle—then curled my toes against ridged metal as tremors fluttered through my calves. Drawing a steadying breath, I swung my leg over the post and found purchase on the outer beam, my coat billowing like a sail. The river greeted me with a hush so deep I almost believed it was peace. Heartbeats slowed—seventy… sixty‐nine—just numbers descending toward zero. I inhaled once more, cataloguing the iron taste of rain, the ozone hum of overhead wires, and a faint pressure in my chest that felt like a name I did not yet know. Clean ledger. Zero balance. Leaning forward, I stepped into the dark.
Chapter 4: The Voice under the Traffic
At 04:18:03, I whispered, "Zero. Exit." My knees gave way and the world tipped with me, bridge lamps streaking into molten comets as wind roared like ocean surf in a conch. Below, the Han yawned open—a black mirror hungry for my outline. Then, impossibly, a scent of high-country pine pierced the diesel mist, followed by a low thrum blossoming behind my sternum, as if a second heartbeat had slipped between my own. Mid-tilt, I froze. A whisper surfaced beneath the traffic's growl—rounded vowels older than any subway announcement, intimate as lips against an eardrum: Little crane… give me the reins and breathe. Terror snapped me alert; "Auditory hallucination," my clinical mind barked, yet my body refused to obey gravity's call.
"What are you?" I rasped, wind stealing the words. One who can carry the weight, the voice answered, feminine yet vast, One breath, and the choice is yours. Nod, and I steer until you are able. Shame rose hot: was I inventing angels to evade a clean ledger? I squeezed my eyes shut, but the pine scent deepened, threaded with snowmelt clarity. No lies, little crane. Refuse, and gravity resumes. My leg muscles quivered; the scarf-tassel knotted to the rail thrashed like a wounded bird.
Tears I hadn't known were waiting sprang free as Father's Montblanc, nestled over my heart, pressed like a question. I was so tired. Bones tired. Could this—whatever she was—be another door? At 04:18:15, I nodded—and heat unfurled through my ribs, knitting trembling muscles into stillness. I inhaled on a four-count—one… two… three… four—and the vertigo ebbed to a manageable murmur.
Guided by a presence I felt rather than commanded, I swung both feet back onto the walkway. The discarded bundle glistened at my feet; glass heels still crowned the rail behind me like tiny crystal cenotaphs. Breath in, breath out—each cycle led by that quiet guardian. My heart settled to ninety… eighty-five… eighty. River still calls, the voice murmured, but not tonight.
I stood motionless, water streaming off my coat, my own thoughts watching from a mezzanine. The LED panel beside me scrolled, Have you eaten?—its benign concern almost breaking me into laughter or sobs. By 04:19, I was stepping away from the mid-span altar of steel, the night air tasting less of exhaust and more of wet stones after rain. Behind me, the panel updated once more: It's good to see you. The bridge lay at my back, and our lungs—our lungs—kept drawing breath that, at last, did not hurt.
Chapter 5: One Step Backward
The instant my soles touch the rain‐slick concrete, the borrowed calm shatters. A tremor races from my ankles to my jaw, rattling teeth against teeth as adrenaline deserts my bloodstream, leaving ice in its wake. Steady, the other voice instructs—low, silver‐smooth, resonating somewhere behind my breastbone. "I'm standing on a bridge talking to myself," I whisper, the words puffing white in the damp air, absurd proof of life. "Put me back." My knees buckle, but my body does not fall. My hands—my hands, yet unfamiliar—slide behind me to brace against the guard‐rail, my shoulders locking into a truss. Metal hums beneath my palms, cold as the river I nearly joined.
The earth is still beneath us, Ha-eun answers. Breathe with it. A four-count rhythm unspools inside my chest—one… two… three… four—and my lungs obey even as panic screams its siren song. Tears I cannot catalog blur the LED panel above my shoulder: Let's talk. I sink to my knees, my coat slapping the wet walkway and hair plastering across rain-shiny cheeks. The concrete smells of mineral dust and diesel—solid, indifferent, alive—and every shiver cuts deeper than the last, my trembling ripening toward convulsion.
Who are you? The thought fires as words I am too tired to speak. Grace. Survival. Call me Ha-eun, comes the kind but unyielding reply. You wished for rest; I can steer while you heal. "Am I dead?" I rasp. Not tonight. The certainty in that verdict invites a sob I do not permit. "I didn't agree to possession." Your nod welcomed me. You may reclaim the reins whenever you choose. Simply will it, and I withdraw. The promise hangs luminous as a streetlamp halo—terrifying, bizarrely courteous—while rain drums a syncopated tattoo on the railing and a distant taxi horn wails Doppler‐thin.
Another breath. Another. My pulse has slowed to something human—eighty beats, maybe fewer. Yet my body remains theatrically weak; my forearms wobble when I push to stand. I feel Ha-eun correct the sway—ankle muscles tightening, weight redistributing—like an expert driver nudging a skidding car back into lane. Together, we stoop and retrieve the plastic poncho bundle of discarded life. Two Louboutins still perch on the top rail; in that instant, the urge to snatch them—proof I once mattered—flares hot and dies when Ha-eun murmurs, Markers for another hour. Sirens chatter in the city's distance, and the LED panels blaze a brighter loop as though dawn has bribed them: It's good to see you. The irony tastes metallic on my tongue.
We reach a maintenance stair veiled in shadow. Ha-eun guides us down the narrow zigzag, steel treads trembling with the traffic's rumble overhead. Halfway into the gloom she releases the puppet strings. Your legs, your choice. I take one step alone—vertigo pounces, bile surges—and I crumple into a squat, vomiting sour foam onto rust-striped concrete. Rainwater trickles over my knuckles, sluicing the bitterness away. Easy, little crane, the voice urges, a palm of warmth pressing outward from my sternum. Withdrawal, exhaustion. It will pass. When the spasms subside, I drag a soaked sleeve across my mouth. "Why help me?" I rasp. A wing shelters because it can. Your breath is not debt; it is possibility. I laugh—a bark half-hysteria, half-wonder—and Ha-eun replies, Then begin a new ledger.
Thunder mutters upriver as a pale peach blush spreads along the horizon. Dawn encroaches; witnesses will soon populate the footpath above, phones poised for tragedy porn. Ha-eun speaks before I can: We must move before the light claims us. Shoes, water, distance. Distance. The word lands with gravitational heft—farther than paparazzi, further than indictment, beyond the rotted core of Seoul that fed my hollow glamour. My pulse stutters, then steadies beneath Ha-eun's borrowed cadence. "Okay," I whisper, voice raw. "Drive." Her approval resonates as a subtle lift of the diaphragm—an exhale partly mine, partly not. We rise together, shaky but upright, and face the stair's lower mouth. The glass heels glimmer like tombstones against the greying sky, and I leave them behind. For the first time, I feel leaving as relief.
Foot by bare foot, we descend into the hush beneath Mapo Bridge, where night's last shadow clings to concrete pylons and the river's breath smells faintly of iron and beginnings. Ahead, the city—still unaware—prepares its first coffee drip and first hateful comment. Between that world and this fragile dawn stands a pact inside my ribcage: two voices, one battered body, and a single, deliberate breath. The next inhale is ours. The next step is backward from death—and forward toward whatever waits in the dark mouth of the stairway.
Chapter 6: Splash of Silk
A faint blush of dawn nicks the eastern clouds as we emerge from the maintenance alcove, concrete sweat clinging to our skin. My breath drifts in ragged plumes, each exhale frosted by the Han's chill. Ha-eun's presence hums inside my ribs—a quiet metronome steadying the jitter in my pulse—but my body still wobbles with every barefoot step.
Light is coming, she warns without breath or sound. We must finish.
Rain-slick stair treads glint beneath sodium lamps as I climb, palms grazing the corroded handrail and coat hem slapping my calves. At the top, the pedestrian span yawns empty, washed clean by drizzle. An LED panel greets us in pale blue letters:
A NEW DAY STARTS WITH YOU
I mutter, "Let it start without me," and shuffle toward the midpoint where last night's ghost still lingers. There—just ahead—the silk scarf flutters from its bolt like a drowned banner, cranes bleeding color in the damp. Beyond it, glass heels perch on the rail, twin shards of starlight abandoned in the gloom. I ignore them; their reckoning belongs to another minute.
Fingers trembling, I work the knot loose. Rain-heavy fabric slides through my hands, cool and serpentine, carrying the weight of corporate dinners, envy-lit photos, a life measured in likes. I lay the scarf atop the swollen plastic poncho bundle cradled against my hip—inside lurk the phone, the ID card, limitless credit, every barcode of the person I can no longer afford to be.
Cast what no longer serves, Ha-eun murmurs.
My throat tightens. "Good-bye, envy-made-flesh." The words barely carry above the hiss of motorway tyres below. I lean into the rail; water beads chase one another along the steel before dropping away. For a second, the city's sting returns—fear of cameras, of consequences—but the guardian stands back, letting the choice be wholly mine.
Both hands open and silk unfurls in the air, a pale blossom against the bruised sky. The plastic bundle tumbles after, catching the scarf in its fall. There is no dramatic splash—just a muted plop, swallowed at once by the current. Concentric rings widen, overlap, and dissolve. Then nothing. The river accepts without comment.
We watch until fabric and plastic drift under the bridge's shadow, tiny fugitives riding east toward the sea. Ha-eun counts our breaths in fours, a lullaby tempo steadying the tremor in my calves. Somewhere upriver, a gull cries, already bargaining for breakfast.
Objects drift faster than footsteps, she notes, her tone almost amused. By the time daylight seeks them, they will speak to salt and foam.
Strategic, coldly kind—I realize this voice thinks in distances and tides, not just in heartbeats. Relief—or something like it—spreads warm beneath my soaked coat. If I cannot trust myself, perhaps I can trust the current and the presence guiding me.
A sparrow rasps from a riverside pine. Pink light lifts the undersides of clouds, turning the Han from ink to pewter. Rush-hour horns mumble at the city's edges, and neon adverts downtown flicker toward slumber.
"It's starting," I whisper.
And we are not finished, Ha-eun replies. Shoes, water, distance.
I glance over my shoulder: glass heels glinting like commemorative glassware, a silkless bolt weeping rain in lonely rivulets. Proof someone stood here, loved luxury, and let it go. I turn my back on the rail and descend the access steps into the riverside park, pavement mirroring the modest sunrise in fractured puddles. Bare soles slap wet concrete—each step a quiet declaration that I am still moving. The horizon blooms warmer, peach edging toward gold. Ahead, the path bends toward willow shadows—cover enough to plan our next theft of anonymity.
Behind me, the river carries my old life out to sea, a silent splash of silk lost to the widening light.
Chapter 7: Glass-Heel Suicide
Wet pavement kisses my bare soles with grit and shards of cold as I clutch the Louboutin stilettos by their ankle straps—crystal-studded heels knocking together like hollow metronomes. Ha-eun counts in my chest—In two three four, out two three four—and my pulse settles just below a hundred. I keep walking south along the riverside path, sodium lamps bathing everything in a nicotine-orange glow.
A car whooshes overhead, its spray pattering on my hood like stray buckshot. I lift one shoe to eye level, watching lamplight refract through clear acrylic—ten centimeters of engineered envy. The memory detonates unbidden: the bank's marble lobby, junior analysts swiveling at each click, the ₩1,350,000 price tag paid in four years of spine-shrink and stomach acid. "They made you taller," I whisper. "Never safer." The heel glitters as if mocking me.
Ahead, the guard-rail drops away, revealing a maintenance gap yawning over the river. The Han's breath rises cold and metallic, promising oblivion without witnesses. Ha-eun senses my decision before I speak. If they burden you, offer them to the water. I nod, step onto the low guard bar, and hurl the shoe. Time slows as the stiletto spins, scattering droplets like sequins before ricocheting off a steel girder with a brittle clang. Gravity then drags it into the black skin of the river. No applause—only the drizzle's hiss.
Adrenaline lances through me, sharp and cleansing. In the same breath, I launch the second shoe, no ceremony this time. It arcs cleanly before splashing into the Han alongside its twin. Landing back on solid ground, I exhale so hard my chest aches. A diamond-bright sliver glints on the concrete—one of the shattered studs—and my arch finds it squarely. Pain rings up my tendon like a tuning fork, and I stumble to my haunches. Blood beads vivid against pallid skin, instantly thinned by the rain.
Press the edge, Ha-eun instructs, her tone gentle. I obey, thumb staunching the ooze while rainwater and iron scent mix beneath my nose. Her power blunts the shock but leaves the sting—proof she is guardian, not anesthetic. A laugh bubbles out, half-sob, half-giddy. "I just murdered my last pair of perfect shoes." Then walk imperfect—and living. I cling to that phrase like driftwood in a storm. Living. Imperfect.
Rain plinks across the river as dawn ignites a pale ribbon under the clouds. Birdsong stiches through the air, tentative as if testing the day's tensile strength. I ease onto the curb, legs shaking, and let my coat tail cover the bleeding foot. The cut is shallow, bleeding slow now. We sit in hush—two breaths, then three—feeling the weight of missing heels lift from shoulders and spine. Without them, I am shorter, lighter, painfully real.
Shoes, water, distance, Ha-eun reminds me, pragmatic as a compass. "Subway's that way," I say, nodding toward the faint glow of Mapo Station beyond park trees. Dawn's lilac light bruises the skyline, office towers half-asleep. Somewhere inside, colleagues will sip overpriced coffee and wonder where their star analyst vanished. Let them wonder. Envy-made-flesh lies in shards at the Han's bottom, sparkling for carp. I am only Seo-yeon—barefoot, bleeding, breathing—and a quiet guardian steers me from the shadows of my ribs. We limp toward the nearest streetlamp, ready to confess to a new morning.
Chapter 8: Streetlamp Confession
The first streetlamp beyond the riverside park buzzes like a trapped bee, its sodium halo slicing a lone circle through the dawn-grey drizzle. I limp into that light and stop, shoulders sagging under its sudden intimacy as blood freckles the pavement—tiny poppies blooming where my towel-wrapped foot has leaked through. Pain level? Ha-eun's question thrums inside my ribs, low and even. "Manageable," I lie, though the cut pulses with every heartbeat. A shiver jerks through me—half chill, half withdrawal—and my knees wobble. Brace the pole, she murmurs, and I catch the lamp's metal spine with both hands. Its surface is slick, cool, reassuringly solid; rainwater hiss-slides beneath my fingers. "Coat's done for anyway," I mutter, tearing a strip of fabric from the inner lining. My hands shake like crossed wires until Ha-eun counts my breaths—one… two… three… four—and I wind the strip around the towel and arch, knotting it tight. The makeshift pad throbs, but the bleeding stops.
At 04:52 we start down Mapo-dong's backstreet, a canyon of shuttered cafés and dark office façades. Streetlamp pools appear and vanish, each a small stage; the river's hiss fades behind brick, replaced by the click of a traffic signal for no cars. Why did you climb the rail? the guardian's voice asks, neither demanding nor accusing, merely holding space. Silence stretches for ten footsteps until rain spatters my hood and drips along my nose. "Because numbers are lighter than lies," I finally admit. "A single push balanced the ledger." Whose ledger? "Han Jin-su's, the bank's—mine. They pinned the insider leak on me: forty-three hate articles in three days." Memory burns—screenshots, comment floods, vodka's blunt mercy. "After the fifth bottle, I realized I couldn't outpace the math. So I subtracted myself." You carried more than one soul can bear, Ha-eun answers, and for the first time I hear sorrow beneath her composure. A throb of headlights sweeps the pavement; I flinch as a jogger rounds the corner, earbuds glowing cyan. Ha-eun tugs me behind an estate-agent billboard, and the runner's rubber soles squeak away. My pulse slams at 120, then drops under the guardian's four-count.
At 04:56 a closed GS25 looms, its neon sign still snoring. Two vending machines stand guard, their coin slots gleaming. I fish ₩1,300 from my pocket—thumb, index, middle finger—and drop the metal into the slot. A bottle thuds behind plastic. Another coin yields a miniature pink hand towel. I crack the cap, rinse the cut, and cold water bites as crimson trickles onto the drain. Ha-eun guides my breathing while I fold the towel lengthwise and tie it sandal-style around my foot. When the bottle is half empty, I drink: water mineral-dull and perfect.
By 05:04 we pause under a flickering streetlamp preparing to yield to sunrise. My breath ghosts upward, warmer now. "I don't trust myself not to try again," I confess. Then borrow my faith until it grows, she replies. "If I want control back?" Three taps, inside left wrist. I drum the rhythm—three taps on rain-chilled skin—and Ha-eun surrenders for a heartbeat, letting me sway under my own command before restoring balance. The lamp clicks off, conceding the sky to peach-pale dawn, and we set off, coat hem flapping around my makeshift shoe.
At 05:07 Mapo-gu Office Station yawns before us—escalators still frozen, shutters half-raised like drowsy eyelids. Fluorescent tubes flicker awake, pooling sterile light on empty tiles. Your step, little crane, Ha-eun says, receding enough for me to feel the full weight of that first stair. The foot protests; the towel squelches, but I manage, gripping the rain-cracked rail. Above, the city's first train sighs into the station, brakes squealing like a distant gull. Tile walls echo its arrival, beckoning us into an underground womb of stainless steel and fluorescent ghosts. We descend—two voices, one limping shadow—carried forward by fragile confession and the promise of borrowed faith.
Chapter 9: Subway Ghost
The concourse smells of last night's bleach and this morning's stale bread as fluorescent tubes buzz overhead, washing the ticket machines in harsh aquarium light. I shuffle forward on one towel-wrapped foot, counting coins aloud—"Five hundred… one thousand… fourteen fifty"—to steady my fingers. Metal clinks into the slot; the printer whirs out a flimsy cardboard ticket that already feels damp in my palm. ₩16,250 left: a number small enough to fit inside my pulse. In—two—three—four, Ha-eun intones, guiding my jittering lungs. On the third breath I tap my wrist three times, earning the right to feed the ticket into the turnstile myself. The gate wings blink green. Autonomy tastes like copper on my tongue—sharp, but real.
At 05:10 a lone cleaner mops the far end of the platform, earbuds flashing blue. I melt into the shadow behind a pillar as Ha-eun angles us out of the CCTV's red eye. The public-address speaker crackles overhead: —Next train to Cheongnyangni arriving in one minute— its cadence braided with the guardian's inner whisper. "Was that you or them?" I murmur. Echoes overlap, she answers, and for a heartbeat the platform feels hollow, as though only ghosts converse here. The train's headlights bloom in the tunnel mouth and doors sigh open to a garishly bright, almost empty carriage—just one hunched office worker sleeping upright two rows down. I hobble to the window side, cradle my injured foot on the vinyl seat, and tuck my coat hem over my toes.
We burst from underground onto the bridge track as dawn peels grey skin from the sky, leaving a peach glow that kisses the Han's ripples. My reflection flickers in the glass—hair twisted into a flawless chignon, blazer crisp, heels unscuffed—the version of me who strode marble lobbies. She lingers a half-second too long before frittering into ragged reality: rain hair, hood, towel sandal. Old skin clings like steam, Ha-eun murmurs. Let it pass. My breath snags and my heart rate spikes, but she does not seize control; instead she sets a task: Name three truths of this moment. "Seat is cold through the coat," I whisper. "Pulse throbs in my foot—eighty-eight beats." I rub the empty water bottle's ridged waist. "Plastic, dry, no give." As the last detail lands, the panic ebbs, retreating to the spaces between rail joints.
When the train sighs into Seoul Station at 05:27, its fluorescent tubes flickering awake, I tap three times—inside left wrist—and Ha-eun yields, smoothing my limp into a tired shuffle among nurses, porters, and a teenager dragging a cello case. Bakery air—yeast and sugar—drifts from a twenty-four-hour stall, dizzying in its sweetness under harsher lighting that exposes every rain blotch on my coat. No one looks twice. On the escalator toward the shopping arcade, I let Ha-eun steer the first steps, then tap again to claim the ascent: each lift of the wounded foot stings, but the promise of covered soles outshines the pain. Halfway up, the station's morning chime rings—an expectant F-major echoing through steel ribs and tiled lungs—heralding a day that barely disguises itself as ordinary. Ahead: shoes, small change, and a road pointing north.
Chapter 10: Sneakers & Change
Seoul Station's under-arcade pulses like an exposed artery—LED ads flicker, espresso machines hiss, and commuters cluster in damp crescents around fans that blow equal measures of pastry and bleach. My towel-wrapped foot drags across slick tile, leaving a faint red ghost that the janitor's mop will soon erase. Left at the neon shoe sign, Ha-eun guides, her voice a silk thread in the clamor. Beneath a flickering DISCOUNT SNEAKERS ₩9 900 banner, I tap my wrist three times and rasp, "Excuse me—white, two-forty." The ajusshi notes my blood-speckled towel, grunts, and hands over off-brand canvas shoes and thin ankle socks for an extra ₩1 000. Coins rattle—five hundred, five hundred, five hundred—until ₩10 900 is gone, leaving ₩5 350 in my fist.
Footsteps before kilometres, Ha-eun reminds me as panic flickers. I collapse onto a bench, peel away the sticky towel, slide on cotton socks, and pull on the cheap sneakers, the canvas rasping my skin until the pain settles into a manageable nuisance. A scuffed mirror catches my reflection—hood shadowing hollow eyes, torn coat hem, anonymous white shoes—and I mourn the woman who once measured worth in stiletto rise. Armor forged from mercy, not price, the guardian murmurs.
I stand, weight stable, limp reduced to a hitch, and pace a testing loop; the sneakers squeak approval, and for the first time since the bridge, I believe I can outrun a question. "Next… ticket," I breathe, tucking my remaining coins and passport into my inner pocket like fragile eggs.
We thread into the widening stream of travelers and ride an escalator toward the bus-ticket hall, where honest sunlight ignites engines beyond glass doors, hungry for distances measured in mountains rather than decimal points. Ha-eun steadies my rhythm, but it is my own foot that lands, sure on the lobby's warm terrazzo—ready to bargain with the road itself.
Chapter 11: Ticket Northbound
The main concourse thrums like a locomotive heart as departure boards spit amber numbers into the rising daylight—each flick a verdict in won. I scan the columns—Seoul ⇢ Gangneung 06:20 ₩13 500—and feel the coins in my pocket shrink to ballast: five thousand, three hundreds, fifty. Not enough for any line on the board.
Trade memory for miles, Ha-eun suggests, calm as paper fanning coals. A bruise-blue alley gapes off the concourse, lit only by a pulsing neon shoe and a harsher rectangle of light: GOLD / ELECTRONICS • 24 h—the pawn shop. My stomach folds, but my sneakered foot moves.
Inside, fluorescents hum over glass counters lined with lenses, watches, and a brass trumpet with one sticky valve. Mr. Jang—greying crewcut, eyes like abacus beads—looks up from his ledger. "Buying or selling?" I fish the Montblanc from my coat's inner pocket—its lacquer midnight blue, the cap band still nicked from my father's desk—and set it between us.
Jang's thumb twists the barrel, tests the nib on a scrap. Ink unfurls a perfect cerulean line. He nods curtly. "₩70 000." The number stings. Three taps to my wrist; Ha-eun loosens her hold but stays near. "Eighty," I say, voice carrying her steady cadence. "It's the Meisterstück, limited Seoul edition." He squints, weighs sentiment against resale, then slides eight crisp ten-thousand notes beneath the glass. "Cash only."
The pen leaves my fingers—cool metal parting like the last of Seoul's skin—and for a heartbeat, loss eclipses breath.
Memories travel lighter than objects, the guardian murmurs, a hand at my inner sternum.
Outside, dawn has wrestled the sky into washed denim. I count the money twice—₩80 000 fresh, ₩5 350 wrinkled—then inhale deeply to steady the quiver behind my eyes.
At the express-bus counter, I queue behind a young office worker who orders, "Gangneung, please," and receives a stub printed: travel time two hours ten. When my turn comes, the words spill without rehearsal: "One to Gangneung, earliest departure." "₩13 500," the cashier says without looking up as the printer chatters. A ten-thousand and a five-thousand slip across; change clinks back—₩1 500 in two coins. The thin, thermal-printed ticket reads Seat 27 • 06:20 • Gate 3, irrevocable.
Diesel breath drifts through automatic doors and loudspeakers bark another city's name, each sound nudging me further from glass rooftops and vodka-soaked nights. I sit on bench row C, sneakers barely grazing the floor, and open my palm's wallet: ₩38 850 remains—one fifty-thousand, one ten-thousand, three coins. Enough for ramen, maybe half a motel; beyond that, a blank ledger and a moving horizon.
Ha-eun answers my silent tremor with warmth—no words needed. The choice was mine.
At 06:05 I lay the ticket on my thigh—white slips against dark denim—and trace the printed characters: 강릉, mountain ridge meeting the sea. The ink feels weightier than any share price I ever chased.
Clock digits above the gate click to 06:06. In fourteen minutes I will board a bus I never planned to ride, toward a life I cannot yet name. I exhale once, sharply, and fold the ticket into my pocket—heart's side, not money side—while engines idle like slow giants waking just for me.
Chapter 12: Departure Board
The concourse clock ticks over to 06:06, and the digits on my paper ticket—06:20 • Gate 3 • Seat 27—gleam like a fuse already lit. Above me, the departure board spits amber symbols into the cool air:
GANGNEUNG 06:20 ON TIME
Fourteen minutes: a lifetime, a heartbeat. My sneakered foot throbs, heat unfitting the station's recycled chill. I clutch the ticket so hard its edges curl.
To my left, a porter rattles past with a chain of luggage carts, each clang ricocheting through my skull like coins dropped on marble. Two seats away, a university couple unwraps kimbap triangles—seaweed crackling, laughter fizzing. They don't see me. Or they pretend not to. Either way, I'm grateful.
Light—dark—breathe—release, Ha-eun murmurs, matching the strobing pixels that refresh the board every few seconds. I inhale on "light," hold through "dark," exhale on "release." The rhythm steadies the jitter under my skin.
At 06:10, the aroma of burnt coffee grounds slides across the hall. My stomach lurches. The paper cup in a nearby boy's hand tilts to reveal flawless latte art, and guilt tastes like acid at the back of my throat. My left hand spasms; a 100-won coin skitters from my palm and rings against the tile. Three taps on my thigh signal Ha-eun's careful grip as the tremor subsides before anyone notices.
First ripple only, she reminds. Name it, then let it pass.
At 06:12, I fix my gaze on the board:
BUSAN 06:15 GATE 1 BOARDING
GANGNEUNG 06:20 GATE 3 ON TIME
Pixels blink—some dull, some fiercely lit. Light—dark—breathe—release. My pulse synchronizes with the pattern until the nausea retreats to a tight knot behind my ribs.
At 06:15, a man behind me mutters into his phone, "Gate change yesterday. They moved the Gangneung coach to Gate 5." Panic spears me upright. I check the board—Gate 3 still holds—then check again. Watch numbers, not rumors, Ha-eun whispers, and tension leaks from my shoulders like spent steam.
At 06:17, I run mental arithmetic like the analyst I once was: ₩38 850 in pocket, subtract ₩800 for a water bottle, subtract nothing for food—there will be no food. ₩38 050 remains. The math is clean, even as my breath trembles.
Another flicker—this one inside my eyes—as the letters on the board smear like wet ink. The hall pulses, soft-focus. Light—dark—breathe—release. I sip the last half-mouthful from my crushed water bottle. Plastic cracks, echoing the tiny fracture in my skull where a headache hatches.
At 06:18, the board refreshes in bold green:
GANGNEUNG 06:20 GATE 3 BOARDING
The word pushes a gust of diesel-tainted air toward us. The porter pivots his rattling carts in that direction. My knees unlock; I stand. A wobble, then balance. "One minute," I whisper. North is calling, Ha-eun answers, her voice warm against the chill slithering down my spine.
At 06:19, glass doors slide apart with a hydraulic sigh, revealing Gate 3 bathed in newborn sunlight. Engines idle beyond, coughing blue smoke that curls like faded silk. I step into the slow-moving current of passengers—ticket clenched, pulse racing. The couple with kimbap drifts ahead, unaware of the silent orbit I share with my unseen guardian.
Ten meters to the platform. Somewhere beyond it, mountains wait to swallow the woman I was and leave room for the one I might become. Light—dark—breathe—release. We cross the threshold just as the loudspeaker crackles, "Gangneung, now boarding." And the countdown ends.
Chapter 13: Paper Cup Coffee
Gate 3 is a shallow canyon of glass doors and idling diesel, where passengers in padded jackets shuffle toward the driver's clipboard as barcode scanners chirp in quick succession. I hover at the edge of the queue—ticket sweating in my palm—until a neon-red vending machine beneath the departure clock catches my eye, its HOT button pulsing like an artery. Steam curls behind the Plexiglas panel, and the air smells of scorched sugar and something that once dreamed of being coffee. Light—dark—breathe—release, Ha-eun murmurs, but the choice is mine. My fingers fumble ₩500, ₩300, and ₩50 from my coat—₩850 total—to buy warmth. The queue advances, so I step sideways, slide the coins into the machine's cold mouth, and press Café Latte 300 ml. A paper cup clatters onto the tray as thin brown liquid hisses in, filling the flimsy cylinder three-quarters full.
Almost scalding my skin, the cardboard cup feels conspiratorial; I lift it to my lips, inhale cheap powdered milk, bitter concentrate, and powdered hope. The first sip blisters my tongue, sweetness treacly thick, yet I swallow and feel warmth chase the chill along my spine. "It's awful," I croak, voice still raw from silence, "and perfect." Temple barley tea wearing city perfume, Ha-eun replies, a smile folded into her words, and for a heartbeat I almost smile back.
The second sip turns inside my gut like a key in a rusted lock—nausea spikes, my hand twitches, coffee splashes the rim. Three taps on my thigh, and invisible hands settle over mine, steadying the cup against my sternum. Five breaths. Sip the air, not the drink. I obey, inhaling steam, counting to two, exhaling through parted lips; the tremor eases but waits beneath like a cat beneath a blanket.
Coins jingle back into my pocket—₩50 change, thin as forgiveness—and I run the math silently: ₩38 850 minus 800 equals 38 050, enough for water later—maybe. An announcement chime ricochets along the gate: "Gangneung, 06:20, final boarding." A security guard scans tickets with quick laser flicks; I tuck mine between my teeth, clutch the coffee, and limp forward. His scanner beeps approval after a brief glance at the bandage shadow above my sneaker, and the coach door yawns open, breathing diesel and dawn.
Metal steps vibrate under my shoes as steam spirals into the cold like a fragile flag marking the last instant of Seoul. I claim it with one final sip—burn, sugar, nausea, life—and move down the aisle toward Seat 27 while the engine growls a promise of mountains. Light—dark—breathe—release, Ha-eun hums. The cup quivers in my hands, so does the world, but the bus door thuds shut, and forward is the only direction left.
Chapter 14: First Tremor
The coach's engine shudders awake beneath the floor, a giant throat clearing diesel smoke. Morning light seeps through the tinted window beside Seat 27, turning the plastic coffee lid in my hand to amber. I tighten my grip; the cup rattles, splashing a brown tear onto my jeans. Not nerves—a sudden, violent tremor. My fingers stutter around the cardboard sleeve as if someone is jerking the strings. Heartbeat rockets. Sweat beads on my upper lip despite the air-con's cool hiss. The tremor surges again, rattling shoulder to wrist. Coffee sloshes over the rim—burning a thumbnail crescent on my skin—then drips onto the aisle.
In—two—three—four, Ha-eun murmurs inside the rush. Out—two—three—four.
"I'm fine," I breathe, but the words wobble like a loose wheel. Control slips from my grasp like a wet bar of soap. Elbows glue to my ribs, knees press against the seat in front, and my thumb finds the acupressure point three finger-breadths above my wrist—sharp pain centring me. Focus on the point. Breathe with the engine, Ha-eun instructs, voice low and steady beneath the static in my skull. I follow because there is nothing else to do.
Across the aisle, the university girl from the boarding hall leans toward me. "Miss, are you okay? You look… pale." Her concern is soft, human. My lips move, but it is Ha-eun who answers through me: "Just low blood sugar. Could I borrow a sip of water?" Relief softens her features as she passes her unopened bottle. The first mouthful tastes of chlorine and mercy; it stays down, barely. The tremor peaks—muscles flutter in thighs, chest, jaw—until the acupressure holds like a thumbtack in raw wood and Ha-eun's counting runs parallel to the engine's idle—steady, mechanical, fearless.
Water, breathing, pressure—the jagged frequency smooths into a fine shiver, cold enough to pass for a chill. A nearby salary-man half-turns with curious eyes; I lower my head and let my hair fall forward. A tissue appears in a gentle offering: "For the coffee spill," she says. I dab at my jeans, hiding the shaking within the motion. The tremor slips away as we pull from the curb and sunrise blooms over the Han. Footsteps thump down the aisle as the driver counts heads with professional detachment. Ha-eun tilts my chin, painting a wan half-smile on my lips. Crisis slides past unnoticed, my lungs burning as if I'd sprinted the coach's length. With three deliberate taps on my thigh, control flows back in a throb of exhaustion. Every muscle feels freshly unwrapped from cramp—I hand the empty bottle and tissue back with a shaky "Thank you," and the university girl offers a shy wave before slipping her earbuds back in. Inside, I speak the admission I have dodged for years: Withdrawal. It's only starting.
Acknowledged, Ha-eun replies, warm as a hand on my fevered forehead. Mountains ahead; hold through valleys.
The coach merges onto the expressway—wheels thrum over seams in the asphalt—da-dum, da-dum—steady as Ha-eun's breathing count. Guardrails catch the newborn sun and fling it back in streaks of gold. City towers shrink in the rear window, replaced by the broad, bright horizon of the East. I sip the last centimeters of lukewarm coffee, set the cup in the seat pocket, and feel my hands still—my pulse a frightened animal, but inside its cage. Northbound: two hours and ten minutes of road, of valleys, of holding on. I close my eyes and listen to the highway heartbeat carrying me away from the river, away from the ledge, toward something that might—just might—survive the tremors.
Chapter 15: Jjimjilbang Voucher
The coach exhales a final sigh of brakes, and the morning light of Gangneung floods the aisle. Outside, gulls wheel over a low concrete terminal streaked with sea salt. My knees buckle when I stand too fast, and the paper cup I've been crushing flutters to the floor like a spent moth. Three hours until the mountain bus, Ha-eun reminds me—shelter, warmth, water. I tighten my shoulder-strap and follow the trickle of passengers toward the station hall, each step sending a wince through my blistered foot.
The departure concourse smells of diesel and instant jjajangmyeon. Fluorescent tubes buzz overhead, washing rows of empty plastic seats in harsh light, while beyond the glass doors a salt-tinged breeze presses in from the East Sea. A blinking tourist booth advertises MORNING REST JJIMJILBANG VOUCHER ₩12 000, its red and green letters mimicking traffic lights for the exhausted. Affordable, Ha-eun murmurs, hot water for the wound, safe floor for the tremors. Courage gathers in my chest as I limp to the booth, cash throbbing in my pocket.
The clerk—rail-thin, sky-blue vest, eyes glued to his phone—barely looks up. "Rest voucher?" he drones. I slide crumpled bills through the slot. He prints a thermal strip and hands me a pink locker key shaped like a tiny paddle. "Includes towel and soap. Two-hour max for the discount, but nobody checks." His gaze drifts to the bandage above my sneaker before flicking away. I sign the log under another name—Lee Hae-jin—and balance my remaining ₩26 050 with a sigh.
Across the street, the sauna's frosted doors slide open with a soft hiss. Warm, humid air heavy with eucalyptus and fermented rice greets me. An elderly ajumma collects shoes, clucks at my limp, then presses an extra towel into my hands. "No charge. Foot bleed, use this," she says, already scolding a boy for running on the wet tile. Small mercies are still mercies, Ha-eun whispers as I bow and clutch the towel like an amulet.
Inside the women's washing room, steam clouds my vision. I lower myself onto a plastic stool, peel off the bandage, and expose the raw crescent of skin. Hot water arcs from the handheld shower, stinging the cut so cleanly it almost feels holy. Soap foams pink where blood dilutes; I scrub until the water runs clear and my hands shake from the effort. "Alive hurts," I whisper to the faucet. Pain is proof, Ha-eun answers, gentle but unyielding. I rinse again, pat the foot dry with the given towel, wrap it in the fresh one, and breathe until the shaking steadies.
Beyond the lockers lies a low chamber lined with coarse pink salt. I sink onto the glimmering crystals; they shift with a quiet crackle, molding to my spine and limbs. Heat rises in forgiving waves, untying muscle knots in silent persuasion. Ha-eun counts my breaths—four in, seven hold, eight out—until my heartbeat drifts apart from the highway's memory. Salt stalactites overhead catch dim light and pulse silver, then fade as sweat beads on my forehead, carving tracks through dried crystals.
At 11:00, a vertigo ripple rolls through my gut. The ceiling tilts; salt pebbles shiver under my palms. I tap my thigh three times—help—and control glides to Ha-eun like a door opening in darkness. She shifts my body onto its side, pulls my knees up, and presses a steadying hand to my abdomen. The wave crests—hot, nauseating—then slides back, leaving only a weak tremor. You called early, Ha-eun notes with quiet pride. That is strength, not failure.
The main sleeping hall is a cavern of low lights and faint television murmur. Quilts lie folded like resting animals across the heated floor. I choose a corner and settle beneath a cedar-scented blanket. Fingers still tingling, I pull my palm-sized journal from my coat pocket and scrawl one wobbling line: Still breathing 11:30. Ink dries. Eyes close. Ha-eun recedes to a heartbeat-shallow whisper, granting me the rare luxury of dreamless sleep.
A soft alarm vibrates at 13:10. Slanted light draws pale stripes across the floorboards. My skin glows damp but cooler; fever broken. I unwrap the foot, fashion a makeshift gauze of toilet paper and locker-tape, then pull on clean socks. A cash check confirms ₩26 050—enough, barely, for a rural coach and a bottle of barley tea. I exchange the locker key for renewed shoes and step into the foyer where the ajumma nods at my steadier walk. Outside, noon sunlight flashes off bus mirrors, and the sea's breath carries a tang of possibility. Next stop, mountain, I tell her. North and upward, she agrees, her voice threaded with the warmth of distant pine forests. Together, we cross the street into bright, salt-kissed air, leaving eucalyptus steam behind as a new journey begins.
Chapter 16: Salt-Rock Room
Locker 37 sticks before it rattles open, revealing a threadbare robe, a coin-bright key bracelet, and an empty shelf—my entire kingdom for ₩12 000. I slide the bracelet onto my wrist, its cheap felt replacing the platinum watch I pawned three summers ago. The night attendant, paunch pressed into a sagging mesh chair, glances up from his phone game and says flatly, "Face is gray, miss. Salt room first—ten minutes, no more." His warning lands like a gavel: even strangers can see I'm unraveling.
The door into the salt-rock chamber exhales iron-rich heat that feels older than the building itself. Pink Himalayan crystals coat the floor like crushed rose quartz, and the air tastes of baked stone and minerals. My vision swims, coffee sloshing in an empty stomach. I kneel, toes digging into coarse salt, then ease onto one of the heated slabs. The warmth seeps through robe and spine until it becomes my new pulse—but the tremor returns, first in my fingers, then my forearms, and finally the hideous full-body shake I remember from the bus.
My heartbeat races: one twenty… one twenty-three. Ha-eun counts aloud inside my skull, a metronome against the chaos. I fumble for the bottle of electrolyte water we bought downstairs, but the cap refuses to cooperate and my hands jiggle like marionettes with tangled strings. When my three-tap signal fails, I hiss, "Just—do it," and Ha-eun slides into control. Her fingers twist the cap, raise the bottle, and tip a cautious trickle past my cracked lips. The lukewarm, citrus-tinged liquid tastes disgustingly sweet, and my stomach lurches.
"Swallow," she orders. "Rule one: I cannot move you against a firm refusal. You asked—drink."
I obey. Sparks crackle through my muscles, then ease them by a fraction. Ha-eun presses our thumb into the PC-6 acupressure point three finger-widths above my wrist. We breathe in four, hold two, exhale six—and my heartbeat slows to one-hundred.
Sweat pours, stinging the slim tower tattoo on my wrist until it glitters with saline tears. The ink was meant to honor ambition; tonight it glows like a warning beacon. Around us, patrons snore softly and a late-night talk show bleeds canned laughter through the sauna's echo—proof that the world keeps trading and breathing while I melt on this slab of imported salt. Yet I do not pass out. The breath count holds, and the tunnel of my vision widens.
Control drifts back to me like a tide pulling off wet sand. I flex my fingers—my tremor reduced to a timid quiver. Gratitude wells up, then morphs into terror: without Ha-eun, I would seize; with her, I fear becoming her puppet forever. My eyes flick to a wooden plaque on the wall, Hangul letters burned deep: "Salt purifies what water cannot." I let the proverb settle. Perhaps I came here to be brined—like cabbage before kimchi—stripped bare to ferment into something that can survive a winter.
"Five minutes," the attendant calls through the door. Time to move before I break the discount rule. Legs shaky but responsive, I shuffle toward the cooler sleeping hall, trailing a constellation of pink crystals in my wake. Ha-eun guides my weight transfer from heel to heel like a dance instructor within my bones. We reach a free mat where a half-moon clay pillow—cool and ridged—waits at the head. I collapse, cheek against its rough surface, salt tang clinging to my hair as heat pulses through the thin quilt. Darkness folds over the edges of my vision.
"Rest," she whispers, already distant. "Dreams will come. I will keep count."
The last thing I feel is a slow stroke of reassurance along my forearm—warmth fading into the clay's chill—before the Salt-Rock Room dissolves into night.
Chapter 17: Clay Pillow Dreams
Clay beads press into my cheek like a thousand blunt fingerprints. The nap hall's light is dim—just enough for silhouettes: bundled bodies, rising quilts, steam ghosts curling from half-opened mouths. Above, a ceiling fan stutters through the eucalyptus haze, each blade stroke softer than the pulse that still throbs behind my eyes. For the first time since Mapo Bridge, my limbs surrender; they pool into the mattress as though heat has liquefied the bones.
Sleep, Ha-eun whispers, her voice settling over me like the quilt's final fold. I will mind the hours.
Clay warmth slides across the line of consciousness, and when my eyelids close the colour behind them is stage-light white.
I am eight again, standing on a wooden riser that smells of shellac and fear. My blue hanbok jacket scratches beneath my arms. A concert grand piano hunches to my left, its lacquered body drinking in the spotlight. Beyond the footlights sits an audience of mirrors—row upon row of oval faces polished to reflect only me, each surface holding a jittering echo of my own wide eyes.
"Seo-yeon-ah," my father's voice says from the wings, smooth but tight, "remember, missing a note is laziness."
The house lights dim. My pulse becomes a metronome.
I lower myself onto the bench, adjust the skirt so it will not crease, and place my right thumb over the A key. "Für Elise" begins with a breath. The first arpeggio lands clean, the second almost so—but on the next pass my ring finger clips an adjacent black key. The discordant clang ricochets off those mirror faces, and each pane fractures, splintering my reflection into cutting shards.
Father's jaw locks. I hear it, a bone hinge snapping shut.
Cold floods my spine. The bench grows taller, the keys stretch away like a marble road. I reach, miss again, and now every key I touch bends into a soft, tarry ripple.
Ivory dissolves beneath my fingertips, seeping upward until the entire keyboard is a trough of glossy black ink. My hands drip darkness; notes slide off into the pit. Panic is a sour metal on my tongue. The mirrors drink it in and grin with a thousand razor edges.
"I'm sorry, Appa," eight-year-old me pleads, voice drowned in auditorium hush.
From somewhere behind the curtains a second piano enters—same melody, one octave lower, steady as a mountain river. Each tone lands sure and unhurried. The house lights shift from surgical white to a dawn-gold glow. Ink thins, recedes; the grand's keys solidify beneath my palms.
Begin again, Ha-eun murmurs, invisible, but her notes keep time for me.
I inhale. My child-hands, ink-stained but whole, press the opening phrase. Slowly this time. Between each triplet I count a full beat. No mirrors shatter; they dim into smoky glass, hiding their judgment. In the wings my father's silhouette softens, shoulders loosening as though someone unlatched a harness from his chest.
Music swells, richer than I have ever played it. Somewhere among the rafters, a skylark's trill joins the tune, and the stage dissolves into a pine-ridged hillside. Early sunlight combs the needles. A tiger, stitched from lantern light, pads between trunks, watching but not striking. I end the piece on a single lingering E, and silence lands as gently as falling ash.
Not perfect, Ha-eun observes, yet the melody survives.
And the tiger bows its striped head in agreement.
The dream pulls backward until I am both performer and audience. I watch my own sleeping body curled on the jjimjilbang mat, hair damp with salt sweat, robe slipping off one shoulder. The quilt glows faint orange where it covers the heated bed of beads. In that half-place between dream and waking I hear temple percussion—a low gong—far outside the bathhouse walls.
Wake when the sun kisses the gong, Ha-eun tells me, her voice now a bell inside my ribs.
My eyes open to darkness that is not dark: the muted ambience of the nap room. The clay pillow is still warm, my mouth cotton-thick. Phone screen reads 12 : 45. I fumble it free, open the memo app, and type with clumsy thumbs:
mistakes = pauses
That is all the truth I can hold without breaking it. I save, slide the phone under the quilt, and drift again—this time into a shallow, dreamless pool.
A faint vibration stirs me at 13 : 10. The phone alarm's shimmer tone is gentle, yet enough to nudge me upright. Pulse: eighty-eight, slow and even. No tremor in my hands—only a pleasant heaviness, like wet sand after a wave.
I sit. The room is brighter; someone has opened a vent, letting in a ribbon of sea-salt air that smells of drying nets. Bodies rise and stretch around me, life rolling forward. My bandaged foot throbs, but the pain is an understandable language now, not a scream.
"Song survived," I whisper, pressing the clay ridges one last time, "and so did I."
Clay to road, Ha-eun answers, voice warm, and road to mountain. Eat before we travel.
I gather robe, locker key, and the memo in my phone, and step toward the hall where the scent of miso broth drifts like an invitation to rejoin the waking world.
Chapter 18: Miso at Dawn
The clay-pillow warmth lingers in my joints as I hobble across the jjimjilbang foyer. Fluorescent tubes fizz overhead, bleaching the eucalyptus-chlorine air. When I slide the wooden key bracelet onto the counter, the dawn-shift attendant barely glances up from his sports stream.
"Exit stamp?" he asks.
I nod, throat papery, and accept the plastic card he presses against an ink pad. The red rectangle reads 10 : 35—13 : 13 REST in crooked capitals—proof that three hours of my new life have already passed. My legs tremble, but it is fatigue, not tremor. A crucial difference.
Down a concrete stairwell, a hand-painted arrow promises 식당 CAFETERIA. The corridor smells of old barley tea and wet sandals. At its end a single steel vat exhales clouds of savoury steam. The broth's scent—fermented soy and rice starch—wraps around me with the tenderness of quilted heat.
Choose, Ha-eun murmurs, yet her presence recedes, leaving the decision squarely in my pulse-ticking hands.
I count my coins on the lacquered counter: ten-thousand note, handful of hundreds, the prophecy-magpie 100-won piece. ₩26 050. Enough for a bowl. Enough to keep moving.
"한 그릇이요," I rasp, voice half-rust.
The cafeteria ajumma—grey perm, floral apron—dips a ladle into the vat and fills a yellow plastic bowl until grains and diced tofu crest the rim. "뜨거우니까 조심해." Careful, it's hot.
Price flashes on the register: ₩3 500. I part with three green notes and five silver coins; the magpie stays nested in my palm. Cash left: ₩22 550.
I carry the bowl to a corner table. The metal spoon slips from my sweating fingers, clanking onto linoleum. Before shame rises fully, the ajumma appears, wordless, replacing it with a clean one. Her only commentary is a soft "괜찮아~," stretched like elastic kindness.
Steam fogs my cheeks. I blow twice, then take the first sip. Salt and miso flood the canyon of my emptiness, coating my tongue with umami warmth. Rice grains dissolve against the roof of my mouth; tremors stretch—three seconds—four—before returning as a faint quiver.
You fed the flame, Ha-eun whispers, approval glinting like mica in dark soil.
I match my breathing to the slow roll of broth down my throat: inhale for five counts, exhale for five. Each cycle sinks the fever deeper into the hot stones beneath the building.
Around me life murmurs on. A radio set somewhere above the dish pit plays a trot ballad; chopsticks clack rhythmically; two teenage girls giggle over melon ice bars. None of them know a banker tried to drown herself yesterday. None of them care. The anonymity tastes sweeter than the congee's scallion garnish.
I finish every grain, tip the bowl, and chase it with a paper cup of lukewarm barley tea. When I stand, my head swims—but only gently, like a tide meeting a breakwater, not the undertow that dragged me on the coach.
At a kiosk beside the terminal exit I purchase a 500-millilitre bottle of water and a single roll of ginger candy—insurance against the road's next lurch. ₩1 700.
New balance: ₩20 850.
Phone battery: 29 %. I type a memo while the receipt curls warm against my thumb:
Fed myself — first win.
The words sit beneath yesterday's entry Mistakes = pauses, forming a two-line manifesto.
The bus station's doors slide open with a sigh, and a strip of salt wind sweeps through, lifting the fine hairs at my nape. Afternoon sunshine shatters on the windshields of idling coaches, scattering coins of light across the wet pavement.
Gate 5's digital clock bleeds red digits: 13 : 52. Thirteen minutes to boarding.
I pause at the threshold and look back. The jjimjilbang's orange signage flickers against the white sky—a refuge already receding into memory. Shame tries one final tug: You spent money on comfort.
I press the ginger candy into my tongue, feel heat bloom. "I also spent it on living," I whisper, and release the thought like breath in cold air.
Forward, little crane, Ha-eun says, her tone neither pushing nor pulling—only opening a path.
I step onto the loading ramp, sneakers whispering over yellow safety paint, water bottle cool in one hand, ticket in the other. My pulse is eighty-eight, steady as the shore I can almost smell beyond the parking lot. Ahead waits the mountain coach, Seat 27, and a road that rises north into green country I have never dared to claim.
The broth still warms my chest. I carry it with me, a quiet furnace, as the doors hiss wide to let me begin again.