Chapter 19: Number 27 — Window Seat
Gate 5 smells of diesel and sea salt, a briny breath that drifts in from the coast road beyond the terminal. I join the short queue shuffling up the aluminum ramp, ticket clenched between damp fingertips.
The bus driver—square shoulders, sun-creased eyes—tears the stub with a pistol-shot CRACK and stamps the remainder.
"Gangwon line six-oh-two, passenger nineteen," he recites.
The number echoes in my chest like an oath. I flinch, then nod. One deliberate step onto the vinyl aisle, and Seoul slips a little farther behind.
Seat twenty-seven, left side, second from the back.
Ha-eun's voice is only a brush of wind against my thoughts, a suggestion rather than a tug. I scan the rows: teal upholstery gone threadbare at the headrests, overhead vents whispering stale air. Row 27 waits half-occupied—window seat empty, aisle seat claimed by a dozing grandmother in a faded pink hanbok. Her silver hair is braided and coiled like a sleeping magpie's nest; a net bag of chestnuts rests in her lap.
I inch sideways, duffel pressed to my ribs. The floor tilts slightly as the driver checks mirrors; my water bottle slides out between straps, clattering toward the grandma's sandaled feet.
A papery hand darts, steadies the bottle, and offers it back without opening her eyes.
"감사합니다," I whisper. My voice sounds small, but not broken.
She answers with a faint smile, already slipping back into that soft, rhythmic breathing of seasoned travelers. I slide into 27-A, shoulders shrinking inward to claim the sliver of window space. Diesel vibrations reach up through the frame, settling into my bones like a second heartbeat.
The bus lurches from its bay at 14 : 06, reversing past the terminal's glass façade. For an instant my reflection rides beside me—hollow-eyed woman in a thrift-shop parka, canvas sneakers, hair still damp with sauna sweat. She looks fragile, but alive. That is new.
Backup—beep—backup—beep.
Mirrored Seoul commuters drift behind the moving glass, ghosts of a life measured in data rooms and designer heels. I turn from them and let the seat swallow my spine.
Phone battery: 29 %. Thumb hovering, I toy with the idea of one text—Alive. Don't look for me.
Delete. Tap-tap-tap. The message dissolves like foam on river water; the risk of digital fingerprints is louder than loneliness.
Expressway on-ramp. The driver guns the engine, merging between two freight trucks. The sudden sideways pull jerks me back to Mapo Bridge—rail clanging, wind howling below a black river. Panic flares hot. My fingers clutch the armrest, muscles locking.
Four in, six out. Again.
Ha-eun's cadence syncs with the turn signal's click-click-click until the merge completes and the bus levels out. No guardian takeover this time—only guidance. My breath steadies on its own, a trembling colt finding its gait.
Progress.
At 14 : 25 the coach climbs through low coastal hills. Through the smeared window fields of early-spring barley tilt under the sun, green as jade. The grandmother stirs, adjusting the cloth knot beneath her chin. A gentle roasted scent drifts across the aisle as the net bag leaks a single glossy chestnut onto my shoe. She does not notice; sleep reclaims her.
I pick up the nut, set it beside her bundle. Its warmth lingers on my palm longer than physics should allow.
Water bottle to lips—slow sip, just enough to wet the ginger candy on my tongue. The sugar and heat mingle, warding off the dull throb gathering behind my temples. Outside, a crow arcs over a flooded rice paddy, wing tips brushing its own reflection.
Look outward, little crane. The road lends new eyes, Ha-eun murmurs. I rest my forehead against cool glass, letting scenes spool past: roadside shacks selling squid, a boy on a rusted bicycle racing shadows, pine ridges stacking like paper cutouts against an enormous, rinsed-blue sky.
Engine drone and sun-pulse weave a soporific lullaby. The seat hum becomes a basso line beneath it. For the first time since I surrendered the bridge, my awareness drifts outward instead of inward—past pain, past self-audit, into the simple rhythm of kilometer markers ticking by.
Breath slides slow, steady. The window brightens—then dims—as afternoon clouds slide across the sun. Diesel sings below my feet. Somewhere ahead mountains wait, pocketing tiny towns that do not know my name.
My eyelids slip, just once. When they lift again, the coach is an arrow on a ribbon of asphalt, pointing north into a widening band of sky.
I tighten my grip around the water bottle, and the bus carries us on.
Chapter 20: Stray Magpie Prophecy
The afternoon sun is a pale coin sliding along the bus windows, washing every passing rice paddy in thin gold. Engine rumble and asphalt hiss have lulled half the coach to sleep, and row 27 drifts inside the same warm hush—until a low melody floats across the aisle.
"아리랑, 아리랑… 아라리요—"
The grandmother beside me has woken. Her eyes remain half-lidded, but the song vibrates through her chest like the burr of a small, steady drum. Each note settles into the seat-backs, into my bloodstream, until I feel the tune before I understand it.
She finishes the line with a gentle throat click and turns. Soft creases radiate from her eyes, map lines to somewhere older than the expressway.
"Aigoo—little bird all alone." Her Gangwon accent rounds the words, makes them almost mossy. "You fly north for spring, yes?"
For a moment language tangles behind my teeth. Then I manage, "조금… 쉬러 가요." Just resting. My voice cracks on the first syllable but comes out intact.
The elder chuckles, a sound like dry leaves stirred by breeze. "그려, 그려. 쉬긴 쉬어야지." Rest you must. She tilts her head, studying the shadowed hollows under my eyes as if they are a weather report. "Stray magpie," she declares suddenly, switching to a quaint dialect term—가엑꼬기, gaekkogi. "Flock is gone, but wings still know the way."
A heat that is not fever creeps up my neck. Magpie. In Seoul the bird is a nuisance that steals fries from convenience-store tables. In old stories, though, magpies bridge impossible distances, stitching sky to earth with their black-and-white feathers. To be called one feels—strangely—like praise.
Say thank you.
The suggestion is no louder than breath; still, it is Ha-eun.
"감사합니다, 할머니," I murmur.
The grandmother's hands—knotted by decades of weather and work—unravel the drawstring of her net bag. Inside, roasted chestnuts gleam like lacquered marbles. She plucks one, cracks the shell with a practiced twist, and presses the bright kernel into my palm. The nut's warmth pulses against my skin, an echo of her heartbeat.
"Listen," she says, voice dropping to story cadence. "Once a magpie tried to cross the Han River in freezing rain. Feathers soaked; she dropped from sky, thought she would drown. But she washed ashore up in Taebaek. Pines there groomed her, gave her new coat, even darker and even brighter. When spring arrived, she flew back over the Han, laughing." The elder's eyes crinkle. "Lost path is still a path."
The bus pitches gently through a curve; her story rocks with it, steady as tide. I roll the chestnut between fingers slick with callus and healing blisters. Somewhere inside my ribs something loosens—a knot I have cinched tighter since Mapo Bridge.
"Wait—one more," she says, rummaging deeper. This time her hand emerges not with food but with a silver 100-won coin. Under the fluorescent strip light its ridged edge winks like a scale. She offers it as solemnly as incense. "Year of good flame," she states; I see the date—1988, the year Seoul's skyline sprouted fireworks and English banners, the year my parents still believed the country—and I—were unstoppable.
"When the mountain tiger roars," Halmeoni continues, "spend this on bell-tea. Door will open." She folds my fingers around the coin. Her grip is surprisingly strong, bones like iron nails hammered long ago.
Inside my chest, Ha-eun's presence brightens—a cool scent of pine sap under the diesel. Tiger watches, little crane; keep the coin.
I tuck the gift into the small zip pocket with the jjimjilbang receipt and the broken chestnut shell, the pocket I have begun to think of as a fledgling nest.
Halmeoni leans back, humming again. I catch fragments:
"…새가 날아든다, 복을 싣고 온다…"
The bird flies in, carrying fortune on its back.
Pulse: eighty-eight. Breathing: slow, uncoached. I rest my head against the windowpane. Beyond the guardrail the land changes character—ploughed flats rise into rolling dikes, then serrated foothills draped in skeletal pines. Clouds gather as if called, throwing patches of travelling shadow over the bus roof.
I run my thumb over the coin's milled edge, tasting roasted chestnut on the back of my tongue. Stray magpie. A bird of both worlds—wild and domestic, nuisance and omen. Maybe even a bridge.
Halmeoni's humming slips into a whistle and fades. Soon her head tips, mouth slack with gentle snores. Around us office workers and teenagers sway in unison to the coach's rhythm—one loose, temporary family shot forward through afternoon light.
Up ahead the mountains thicken, dark mouths of tunnels punched through their bellies. The first one looms in the windshield, a perfect black zero. I watch its outline grow until it fills the glass, until the shadows reach into the aisle like welcoming arms.
Coin warm in one pocket, water bottle cool in the other, I straighten my spine and breathe in—one count, two counts—and let the bus plunge into night.
Chapter 21: Tunnel Flickers
The bus noses into the first tunnel without warning—one heartbeat we skim beneath a milk-white sky, the next we are swallowed whole. The windows turn from countryside postcards to black mirrors, and for a split second my face floats on the glass like a pale moon: hollow eyes, hoodie drawn tight, skin the colour of unlit wax.
Close the outer eyes, Ha-eun murmurs, her voice a cool finger on the back of my neck. Breathe through the ribs, not the throat.
I inhale to a slow count of four, feeling the diaphragm stretch against the belt buckle, then let the air seep out just as gradually. Fluorescent tubes along the ceiling strobe in the tunnel's low–frequency rhythm—on, off, on—each flash tattooing ghost frames over the darkness. The seat vibrates beneath my spine; somewhere ahead a toddler squeals, delighted by the echo that answers him from concrete walls.
The lights flare again. In the mirror of the window I glimpse not the bus interior but a trading floor, all chrome and plasma screens. Phones blink red like open wounds, and every ring drills into the base of my skull. The memory arrives uninvited—voices shouting sell, sell—and I tense for the impact of shame.
A velvet dimness drops across the vision, as though a shutter snaps closed.
Let that screen sleep, Ha-eun says. Not now. The pandemonium fades to a distant hiss, like surf retreating over stones.
I realise my fists are balled in my lap, nails biting crescents into skin. I uncurl them, flex tingling fingers, then test the breathing again: in four, hold two, out six. It works; the pulse nested in my throat loosens its frantic flutter.
From the aisle seat, Halmeoni's head tilts and her lips part. A hum slips free—nothing more than a thread of sound, yet it echoes down the long concrete throat above us:
"아리랑 아리랑… 아라리요…"
The melody drifts, weaving through diesel drone and tyre hiss. I let it wrap around the breath count—six mellow rises, six soft falls. Even the toddler quiets, as though the tunnel itself wants to listen.
Shadow births sprout under mountains, Ha-eun whispers. Remember that, little crane.
The bus lanterns flicker once more, and the darkness inside the tunnel deepens to thick velvet. It is not the suffocating black of the river night, but something dense and almost protective—like soil folded over a seed. Safe enough, perhaps, for something bruised to mend.
"I don't belong here," I whisper, though I'm not certain whether I mean the tunnel, the bus, or the still-living world.
Paths do not ask for belonging. They only ask you to walk, she answers.
A beat of silence, then Halmeoni's hum brushes that same line again, steady as a heart valve. In the next flash of white I catch her profile: eyes closed, a ghost of a smile as if she hums for herself alone. The silver coin she gave me presses cool against the inside pocket of my hoodie, unspilled chestnuts rustling beside it. Stray magpie, she called me. A bird that bridges places.
The tunnel spits us into daylight without ceremony. Sunshine smacks the glass; I blink hard as colour floods back—jade rice fields, a ragged fringe of pine, mountains crouched like blue cats on the horizon. A green sign whips past: 강릉 115 km. Numbers—undeniable proof that Seoul is sliding behind me by the kilometre.
The others on the coach barely stir. Salaryman up front snores through an open mouth; two teenagers swat game-console screens in syncopated silence. Their ordinariness feels alien, yet merciful. No one is watching the half-dead woman mouthing breathing counts in a hoodie one size too big.
Another tunnel mouth yawns ahead: a round, black zero punched through granite. As we plunge in, the fluorescents pulse faster, chasing shadows along the aisle floor. My reflection returns to the window: washed-out, hairline damp with sweat. I tug the hood deeper and press thumb and middle finger together—grounding spot, Ha-eun said—feeling the faint throb of radial pulse beneath skin.
When the lights strobe, I expect more flashbacks, but this time nothing emerges except the present moment—the hiss of tyres, the hum of Arirang, my own breathing synced to both. The void offers me its silence, and I take it.
Minutes—or seconds?—pass like that, measured only by the pulse and the hum. Then, abruptly, the bus bursts into day again. Brightness fills my pupils until tears well. I swipe them away with a sleeve; the cotton comes away damp with more than moisture.
My fists have closed unnoticed. Half-moons of blood bloom where nails broke skin. Crimson pearls glint in the sunbeam slanting through the window, vivid against the grey fabric—proof that the body is still pumping, insisting on life one contraction at a time.
I open my palm, watch the droplets mingle with sweat, feel the sting as skin flexes. A heartbeat later the pain steadies, settles—mine, undeniably mine.
Ahead, the road unwinds like a dull silver vein across the valley floor, and somewhere beyond the next ridge waits a rest-stop heavy with frying oil and garlic steam. Hunger stirs, unexpected and sharp.
The tunnel darkness has not vanished; it lingers in the shape of the coin's cool weight and the breath-count I carry forward. But the daylight is larger.
I wipe the blood off on a napkin, fold it small, slip it into the pocket with the coin and the chestnut shell. Evidence. Reminders. Small anchors for the next curve of road.
The bus grinds a gear lower and leans into sunlight. Behind me, Halmeoni's hum pauses, reshapes into a sigh, then starts anew—soft, patient, sure. I breathe on the six-beat rise and on the six-beat fall, and let the flickers recede behind us into the dark.
Chapter 22: Highway Ramen Stop
The coach exhales like a tired bull, doors yawning to let us spill onto cracked asphalt striped with engine oil. Afternoon sun bounces off chrome tour buses and neon signboards, turning the highway service plaza into a day-glow carnival. Garlic steam drifts on a knife-cold February wind, and my empty stomach clenches so hard I stagger.
Salt and broth—this time the body speaks before the memory, Ha-eun murmurs.
I follow the smell through a double glass door plastered with cartoon pigs. Inside, fluorescent tubes flicker over stainless counters, orange plastic stools, and a din that ricochets between tiled walls: chopsticks clicking, ladles thwacking, toddlers whining for ice cream. My breath hiccups under the noise, but Halmeoni's soft palm finds the crook of my elbow, steering me to the last stool at the counter.
"앉어, magpie-ah," she says, breathy with dialect and chestnut warmth.
I perch, calves trembling. A refrigerated display case hums at eye level, its rows of green-glass soju bottles haloed by LEDs. Condensation pearls slide down crystalline necks, each drop shouting remember how easy it is. My fingers twitch toward the glass.
Salt, broth, not poison, Ha-eun reminds me, voice low as temple wood-wind.
Four-seven-eight. I inhale past the sweet sting of alcohol memory, let the richer scent of porkbone and scallion push it aside. When I exhale, the craving leaves with the breath—ragged but gone.
Behind the counter a cook with a grease-speckled bandana slams noodles into bubbling water. He barely glances up. "라면? Or 수육국밥?"
"라면… one," I manage. The syllables feel like I've borrowed someone else's tongue.
He jerks a chin toward the register. "Pay first. 4 300."
I peel the bills from my dwindling stack—₩ 4 000 in notes, three coins that sting my palm with their cold weight. Cash drops into the tray with a metallic clack. I keep the receipt, add it to the pocket where coin, chestnut shell, and jjimjilbang stub nest like odd siblings. ₩ 16 550 left to outrun an entire city.
A steel ladle dips, rises, and emerald rings of scallion spin across molten broth. He slides the bowl toward me. "Don't let it clump," he says, softer than I expect. Then, louder, to no one in particular, "Eat, you're skin and bones."
Ha-eun retreats, leaving my hands untethered. Chopsticks hover, test the air, tremble—but only a little. I coax noodles free, lift the first tangle. Steam fogs my glasses, and the garlic-sesame scent punches memory open: eight-year-old me at the kitchen table with Appa, both of us slurping midnight ramyeon between stacks of ledgers he refused to leave at the office. I was proud then, allowed a grown-up's snack. He had smiled without reservation—once.
The first mouthful sears my tongue. Salt, fat, starch flood veins like low-voltage electricity. Tears spring, slide into broth. I keep eating. Slower. Steadier. The trembling eases until the chopsticks obey without argument, and something inside clicks into its old hinge—body accepting care from the body.
Halmeoni cracks a roasted chestnut against the counter edge, the shell splitting with a soft pop. She sprinkles a pinch of salt from a foil packet into my open palm.
"밤은 속 달랜다," she says—chestnuts soothe the gut. Another crack, another warm nut. "Eat, gaekkogi." She calls me stray magpie again, and it no longer sounds like a verdict; it sounds like membership.
I nibble the sweet meal, chase it with broth. Heat pools in belly and fingertips. Hand-to-mouth rhythm becomes a meditation, every swallow a small vote for staying alive.
The cashier leans over. "Beer set? Nine thousand, special."
I answer too fast, too loud. "아니요!" My own voice shocks me. Then, softer, "No, thank you." The words leave a trail of pride on my tongue, stronger than the soup.
Halmeoni's eyes crinkle. "Good bird." She taps her chestnut bag like a drum, then hums the same Arirang phrase she carried through the tunnel. The melody floats above sizzling woks and ringtone chirps, a single reed in a river of noise, and somehow it is enough.
Buses honk outside—two sharp blasts, our five-minute warning. I gulp the last of the cloudy broth, bow my head to the cook. He only grunts, already reaching for another block of noodles.
Outside, the wind knifes through my damp hoodie, but my core stays warm, ramen-glowing. Halmeoni totters on the curb; I slip an arm beneath hers. For a moment the roles reverse—magpie supporting mountain elder—and the exchange feels perfectly timed, like two notes sharing the same string.
You fed the flame, Ha-eun whispers as we climb the steps. Remember how that tastes.
I do. Garlic, smoke, and a sweetness hidden beneath—like chestnut under shell. As the doors hiss closed and the plaza's neon recedes into afternoon glare, I tuck the new memory beside the lucky coin. The road curves north, and the warmth in my stomach travels with me, a small, steady lantern against whatever tunnels still wait ahead.
Chapter 23: Tobacco Snow
Ramen warmth still glows in my belly when the coach sighs to a halt one more time. A luminous sign the size of a billboard flashes 봉평휴게소 in bubble-gum pink, and before the doors fully open, a vapor of diesel and cold mountain air slips inside. The driver barks, "Seven minutes—stretch or smoke, your choice." He's already clutching a crumpled cigarette as he leaps down the steps.
I follow, half-curious, half-restless. Beyond the food court we just left, a fenced corral squats beside the parking bays. Above its tin roof, a cube-shaped vending contraption whirs like an over-eager snow blower. Blue LEDs scroll the words 눈꽃자판기—ICE SNOW COOLER.
A lorry driver in grease-flecked coveralls feeds a 500-won coin into the slot. With a cough of machinery, the cube spews clouds of shaved ice that glitter under leftover afternoon sun. Flakes swirl around the smokers' heads, catching in jacket folds, melting into collar seams— instant winter in a two-meter circle of pavement.
The lorry man laughs, face ruddy. "Hot lungs need cold snow," he tells nobody in particular. He cracks open a fresh pack of cigarettes, offers it to the cluster—and to me.
"Need one?"
The cardboard edge hovers centimeters from my fingers. Tobacco scent unfurls, rich, dark, almost sweet—so different from hospital antiseptic and stale train-station smoke. For a heartbeat I imagine taking one: lips pursed on filter, lungs filling with something that is not grief, not gin, just smoke. Perhaps I could swap addictions the way people trade desk toys, keep the hands busy, tame the gnawing space where the bottle used to sit.
Inside, a silence. Ha-eun waits, neither urging nor forbidding. Her stillness leaves the choice squarely on me.
Cold ice crystals pepper my cheeks; I taste one on my tongue. It is nothing—just shaved water that vanishes before it can quench or drown. The vision in my mind morphs: white flakes turning tar-black inside lungs that never get to feel spring. I remember the soju fridge from earlier, the glint of glass, the way I said 아니요 and walked away. That "No" is still warm, still mine.
I close my hand around empty air, bow slightly. "아니에요, 감사합니다." No, thank you.
The driver shrugs, lights his own. Flame flares, tobacco crackles. Smoke coils through the artificial snow, twining into dirty gray ribbons. I step back, drawing my scarf to my mouth. The wool smells faintly of roasted chestnut—Halmeoni's kindness lingering like a ward.
Warm scent over cold ash. Good, Ha-eun murmurs, approval slipping through syllables like a silk thread.
Across the corral, our coach driver stomps out his cigarette butt and claps gloved hands. "Six-oh-two, five minutes!" His exhale is a dragon's plume that joins the machine-made flurry; real smoke and fake snow mingle until neither looks entirely honest.
I retreat beyond the fence. Melted flecks dot my sleeve, tiny wet crescents that disappear before I can wipe them away—evidence dissolving faster than guilt. My pulse is steady, only a soft percussion in my ears.
Four-seven-eight breathing, just in case: inhale cold mountain air past the ache of wanting something, hold, then release. By the third exhale my fingers no longer itch for a lighter I never carried.
Above the parking lot, gnarled pines screen slivers of late-winter sky. Somewhere beyond those ridges lie the valleys I'm running toward—fields, cabbages, and a café that doesn't yet know it needs an extra pair of trembling hands. I imagine the air there: resinous, wood-smoke-sweet, empty of freeway exhaust.
Soon, Ha-eun says, the word brushing the inside of my ribs like a feather.
A horn bleats. Passengers shuffle from neon kiosks and vending rows, cradling bags of honey-butter chips and paper cups of sweet milk coffee. I fall into their current, boots crunching on salt pellets meant to keep the plaza ice-free. The lorry driver tips two fingers at me, cigarette glowing low. I return the nod, a silent thank-you for the offer I refused.
Up the steps, my palm rests lightly on the steel rail still cold from morning frost. Halmeoni is halfway up, small frame bowed under her floral bundle. I cup her elbow, steady as her chestnut proverb, and we climb together. She doesn't speak, yet her shawl smells of wood smoke and orchard leaves—the opposite of tobacco snow.
The coach doors breathe shut behind us. Through the window I watch the snow machine's final puff scatter across the corral, white specks tumbling like torn pages in wind. They land on the ash-stained concrete, melt, and vanish. The smokers stay, drawing gray from orange tips, unaware or unconcerned that winter ended in less than a minute.
"가엑꼬기, 잘했어," Halmeoni whispers as she sinks into her seat. Good job, stray magpie.
I slip into 27-A. Chestnut warmth clings to my scarf; smoke ghosts linger at the edge of my senses but cannot break through. The engine rumbles, gears engage, and asphalt starts rolling backward. I glance at my hands—no shake, no ash, only two faint wet spots where snowflakes tried and failed to linger.
Another small star added to my private constellation of victories: broth instead of booze, breath instead of smoke. The sky beyond the windshield fades from steel to pewter. Ahead, a row of claw-toothed peaks rises like black paper cutouts against the light.
We ride toward them, away from smoke and false snow, toward whatever the mountains decide real winter should feel like.
Chapter 24: Bent Photo Booth
The rest-stop concourse buzzes like a small neon hive—arcade bleeps ricochet off tiled walls, popcorn sweetens recycled air, and rows of claw machines glow hot-pink beneath the roof's fluorescent glare. Our driver has granted a final ten-minute breather before the bus pushes deeper into the mountains. Halmeoni stays dozing in her seat; I, buoyed by the twin victories of broth and tobacco refusal, drift toward the noise just to feel its brightness on my skin.
A dented sticker-photo kiosk slouches at the end of the arcade row, half hidden behind a stack of cardboard prize boxes. A sun-faded banner taped across its cracked plexiglass door promises 추억포토 500원—MEMORY PHOTOS 500 ₩. Someone has punched a fist-sized crater into one side panel; wires peek through like frayed nerves. The screen inside plays a loop of cartoon hearts, inviting couples to immortalize themselves in glitter frames. Couples are in short supply at five-oh-seven on a weekday, so the booth sits vacant, humming softly to itself.
I slip through the accordion door, more for the privacy than the pictures. Inside, the plastic seat is still warm from some earlier occupant, and the cramped air smells of bubble gum and old electronics. My shoulders drop; the booth muffles the arcade din to a cottony hush. A mirror under the monitor shows a woman I almost recognize—hair flattened by hoodie, eyes no longer bloodshot, mouth neutral, not scowling.
Stay as long as you like, Ha-eun murmurs, voice a quiet ripple across my ribs. She offers no guidance beyond that and recedes, leaving me to my own pulse.
I exhale, a slow contented ribbon of air, and close my eyes.
BAM!
The whole booth judders. A pair of high-school boys outside—identical buzzcuts, matching varsity hoodies—slam into the dented side while wrestling for a plastic sword they've just fished out of a claw machine. Their laughter is half apology, half thrill.
The kiosk's monitor flickers from idle hearts to a bold countdown: 3…2…1.
Wait—no, I didn't press—
Flash.
First frame: I'm frozen mid-flinch, eyes wide, mouth parted.
The boys' shadows retreat, apologies shouted through the thin wall, but the timer marches on.
2…1
Second flash catches the absurdity hitting me. A laugh breaks free—rusty, startled, wholly mine. It lurches out of my chest like a songbird escaping a chimney, and for an instant I forget tunnels, ramen broth, Mapo Bridge. I am just a stranger in a crooked booth swallowing a ridiculous moment whole.
1
Third flash. I try to compose myself, lips pressed together, but the grin refuses to obey. It curves up anyway, tugging a tear into the corner of one eye—half joy, half disbelief. The spotlight blinks off; the monitor pings Processing—please wait.
My heartbeat tap-taps against the plastic seat. The tiny printer rattles and spits a narrow strip onto the ledge. Four miniature photos dry under flickering light: terrified owl, startled magpie, laughing girl, shy survivor. I stare at the strip as though it belonged to someone else. She looks… alive.
A slot blinks for payment—500 won. I fish coins from my pocket, careful to avoid the smooth edge of Halmeoni's silver prophecy coin. Instead I drop an ordinary nickel-colored piece into the chute. It clinks, tiny and definite—proof that I can pay my small debts in full now, even when nobody is watching.
Good, Ha-eun whispers, amusement glinting beneath the word. Not every gift must be free.
I tuck the photo strip between phone and passport, feel its glossy stiffness against my palm. The inside of my chest hums—some filament relit.
Outside, the twins are still mock-duelling with their prize sword. One bows theatrically when he sees me emerge. I respond with a quick nod: acknowledgement, no more.
Pop music drifts from ceiling speakers; its cheerful synth pairs oddly well with the smell of frying corn dogs. I run fingers through flattened hair, and the mirror on the booth door catches me mid-motion. There—another sliver of smile. Maybe I am still photographable.
A shrill whistle echoes down the concourse. The driver has begun his final roundup. Passengers shuffle like sleepy cattle toward Gate C. I fold the photo into my scarf pocket and jog, sneakers skidding over glossy floor. Air outside is sharper now; pink dusk nicks the western sky.
At the coach steps, the driver eyes his watch. "Cutting it close," he mutters, but there's no bite in it. I climb aboard, lungs bright with action.
Halmeoni lifts her head when I slide into 27-A. Chestnut fragrance greets me first, then her soft smile. I settle the scarf around my neck, edges crisp where the hidden photograph presses. Seat belt clicks—a quiet, metallic promise that I will stay for the next miles.
As the engine rumbles awake, I thumb the strip in my pocket once, twice, assuring myself it's real. Four grainy windows of proof: terror, surprise, laughter, hope. They belong to me now, for the long road north, for whatever waits beyond these ridges.
Outside, arcade lights recede into a blur of color. Inside, my heart keeps time with the tires—steady, forward, alive.
Chapter 25: Bus Mile 147
The horizon has slid from bruised rose to iron violet by the time the green sign marked 147 km flickers through the headlights and vanishes behind us. A soft murmur runs the length of the coach—seatbelts shifting, a thermos lid clicking—as though every passenger felt the odometer roll in their bones. I press two fingers to the window glass; it thrums faintly with the tyres' hymn, four beats to a breath.
You don't deserve another kilometre.
The thought arrives uninvited, slanted and cold, as if it crawled out of the shadowed aisle.
I close my eyes. Numbers bloom behind my lids: red tickers plunging across the trading-floor screens, phones ringing like alarm bells no one could shut off. The memory smells of burnt coffee and fear. You knew the algorithm was faulty, ran it anyway, smiled when the bonus hit your account. The italics of my conscience carve each word deeper.
Across the aisle, the teenage gamer twins are finally silent, blue glow of their phones dimming under seatbacks. Halmeoni beside me sleeps on, breaths steady as a metronome—three counts in, three counts out. I match her rhythm, palms flat on the photo strip tucked inside my notebook.
Its glossy edge digs a ridge into my skin. Four tiny frames: owl-eyes terror, startled grin, full laugh, shy smile. The warmth that flooded me in that cramped booth tries to surface again but hits the granite wall of reproach.
You laughed while strangers checked their pensions and found smoke.
You jumped the bridge rail—left cleanup for river police.
You're a deficit ledger—nothing more.
My stomach clenches; the bus air seems to thin. Ha-eun's presence unfurls then, cool as dawn mist. "Numbers can be repaid," she whispers, voice vibrating along my ribs, "but breath, once spent, is unrecoverable. Guard the breaths."
A ledger appears on the back of the seat in front of me, super-imposed over its fabric pattern. Left column—DEBITS—fills itself:
Insider swing trades, ₩2.3 billion lost by others
Father's face the night he read the indictment
Mother's silence
Glass heels over Han River rail
The list glows angry carmine. My pulse chases it.
Right column—CREDITS—blank at first, then lines scratch themselves in timid ink:
Halmeoni's chestnut warmth
Ramen broth, paid with honest coins
Refusal of soju, refusal of smoke
Laughter in a broken booth
The arithmetic is pitiful; red outweighs black a hundredfold. Yet the credits are there—ink drying real and permanent. I add another line myself, whispered into the humming dark: + One more kilometre without poison.
The bus drifts beneath a sodium lamp and shadow again. Outside, peaks rise like hibernating beasts, their flanks already dissolving into low silver vapor. A sign flashes by—동해 89 km—Donghae 89—and then fog wraps the road in gauze.
Inside, the cabin dims. Overhead reading lights flicker alive, pearl pools on teal upholstery. Halmeoni's breathing steadies me; I imagine the sound is a soft stamp approving today's balance sheet.
A sudden cough erupts from the front—our driver clearing his throat before cracking the intercom. "Fog ahead. We'll slow for the switchbacks," he says, voice sandpaper-calm. The speaker clicks off; engine tone drops half an octave.
I slide the notebook from my bag. The prophecy coin, chestnut shell, jjimjilbang receipt, and now the folded photo strip rest together like odd siblings. I nestle the strip safely beside the coin, then close the cover with a quiet clap, as if sealing a promise.
Add credits, I tell myself—no italics this time, just a deliberate thought in my own plain voice.
Through the windshield aisle gap I watch the first tendrils of fog lick the road, headlights splintering into pale halos. The mountains are sending up their evening ghosts, and we are driving straight into their lungs.
My heart is steady. Ninety-two beats. Ninety. Eighty-eight.
The ledger isn't balanced, but the columns are open, and the bus keeps moving.
I lean back, letting the darkness thicken around the coach until only those curling headlights remain, twin lanterns carving a slow path through cloud. Ahead—somewhere beyond the white—wait the switchbacks, the climb, the next kilometre that will ask what I intend to write in the black.
I inhale, imagine placing a fresh line beneath the credits column, pen poised, ready for whatever the mountains invoice next.
The fog swallows the glass, and the chapter of road behind us closes, page by page.
Chapter 26: Fog Switchbacks
Rain freckles the windshield in uneven Morse, then the world ahead simply disappears. One moment I can see the guard-rail ribboning away; the next the coach noses into a wall of milk, headlights shrinking to two hazy cones no longer touching pavement. Mr Kim, our driver, mutters a flat "아이구, 태백이빨또물었네"—Taebaek has bared its teeth again—and drops the speed to twenty-five.
The fog is so dense it has weight. It presses against the glass, slithers in through the air-con vents, coats each breath with the taste of wet stone. Somewhere under my seat a thermos rolls and clunks. My fingers tighten on the armrest until plastic creaks.
A suitcase slams in the overhead rack as we lean into the first hairpin. Metal on metal, then the dull boom of luggage resettling. Gravity tugs me sideways; Mapo Bridge flashes behind my eyelids—steel rail, black water, weightless drop.
You never landed only because a voice caught you by the collar.
Heartbeat spikes to one-twenty.
Four… lungs stretch against hoodie fabric. Seven… ribs hesitate at the peak. Eight. Air slips out slow as fog. The ledger mantra follows: Debits shrink when breath stays. I repeat it, a pulse that steadies my own.
Ahead, headlights catch a road sign: an arrow curling back on itself, 속도 30 km in yellow. Another switchback. The coach heaves left, tyres whining over slick asphalt. In the row in front, a toddler's sob rises—thin, panicked; his ears must have popped with the climb. I keep counting aloud under my breath, barely a whisper, but the child's gaze locks on my lips. We inhale together. One… two… three… His cries stutter, then dwindle to hiccups that match my exhale. A strange, warm thrill: my breath calming another tiny, frightened set of lungs.
Beside me Halmeoni straightens, half-awake. Her voice, papery yet sure, slips into the hush: "산신이여지켜주소서…" Mountain spirit, keep us. The prayer unspools in a cadence older than the asphalt under us, and with it drifts a phantom whiff of pine resin—Ha-eun's silent reassurance. In the fog outside I imagine a striped shadow pacing the cliff edge, gold eyes fixed on our wobbling steel animal.
The road levels just long enough for my pulse to settle around a hundred. Then the rear tyres skid on wet gravel—only half a breath, but the bus fishtails before Mr Kim coaxes it back with a curse and a downshift. Passengers gasp; a paper coffee cup rockets down the aisle, bursts at my feet, splashing lukewarm bitterness onto my jeans. The smell is sharp, earthy, real. I focus on it instead of the lurch in my stomach.
Ledger, I remind myself, fishing the lucky coin from my pocket. The silver disc is cold, edges crisp against the soft underside of my wrist where my pulse hammers. Debit—fear relapse. Credit—still here. The column gap narrows by a hair.
Fog thickens again, then thins in ragged curtains. Through each tear I glimpse silhouettes of black pines like rows of watchful spears. Rain tap-taps the roof; wipers keep their metronome: thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip.
At the next curve Halmeoni's prayer fades into a hum—half Jeongseon Arirang, half lullaby. The toddler, now slumped on his mother's shoulder, breaths in time with her. No one speaks; even the gamer twins have paused their game, screens dark in their laps. In the stillness my earlier guilt seems smaller against this pooled humanity, all of us holding a collective breath inside a glowing capsule of glass and diesel.
I close my eyes, picture the ledger again. The red side is monstrous, but the black lines glow brighter than before: chestnut kindness, ramen warmth, cigarette refusal, photo-booth laughter, toddler soothed, breath kept. The coin's chill steadies at my pulse point, like a decimal comma reminding me where new numbers will line up.
Fog unzips at last. Headlights spear forward and strike distance—first a reflective kilometre stake, then the skeletal outline of a pine ridge, then faint village lights stitched low in the valley. Mr Kim exhales into the microphone. "Halfway down the dragon's spine, folks," he drawls, and a ripple of laughter—thin but genuine—shivers through the cabin.
I let go of the armrest. Blood returns in tingling waves. The coffee stain blooms dark on my jeans, a sloppy oval that will dry into a reminder: there was a jolt, but I stayed seated, breathing, present.
We glide round one final curve; the fog parts like curtains drawn after a show. Beyond the guard-rail the mountains fall away, revealing scattered constellations of farmhouse lights and the faint silver braid of a river. Somewhere out there, a sign waiting in the mist will tell me the name of the town I did not plan to find.
I slide the coin back into my pocket and rest my palm flat over the warmth it left behind. The engine hums, the wipers slow, and inside my chest the ledger ink dries black and steady.
Ahead, the night road coils onward, but the worst of the teeth seem to be behind us.
Chapter 27: Postcard Town Sign
The fog frays at last, unraveling into ribbons that drift across the windshield like slow white fireflies. Through the gaps I glimpse a valley sprinkled with lights—too few to be a city, too many to be wilderness. The coach follows a gentle curve and the wipers pause just long enough for an emerald flash to break the darkness:
→ 성북면 2 km / Pop. 3 236 / Elev. 615 m
The green metal sign glows beneath a single sodium lamp, its bold Hangul crisp against the night. A shiver runs from nape to ankles. A number smaller than my high-school graduating class will soon hold all my breaths, mistakes, and tomorrows.
Halmeoni, awake now, taps the fogged glass with her chestnut shell. "Magpie, nest soon," she says, eyes bright under the dome light. The shell clicks twice—an improvised semaphore of blessing—and disappears back into her palm.
The road straightens, sliding into a cracked asphalt pull-in the size of a convenience-store parking lot. Mr Kim eases the bus alongside an unlit platform and sets the brake with a hiss. "Fifteen-minute stretch," he calls, voice rough from the climb. "Last leg to Jeongja village after that."
Doors wheeze open. Damp mountain air rushes in—sharp with pine, wood-smoke, and something sour-sweet I can't place at first. Kimchi vats, my brain supplies a beat later, surprised.
I follow the trickle of passengers onto the platform. Rain has tapered to a mist that beads on streetlamps and spreads haloes around every bulb. A deserted taxi rank squats beneath peeling paint; beyond it, a karaoke bar sign flickers between HAPPY and APPY, half its neon letters dead. The hush feels mineral, as if sound itself has condensed into stone along with the mist.
For a moment I only stand and breathe, the notebook in my parka pocket knocking gently against my hip. The photo strip is inside, and the coin, and the first chestnut shell—all tiny proofs that the world has not ended. The cracked tarmac glistens under weak light, every puddle mirroring a sky I can't see.
Halmeoni shuffles beside me, net bag of chestnuts over one arm. Her breath blooms white in the chill. "First time up here?" she asks.
"Yes, halmeoni."
"Good air." She inhales deeply to demonstrate, then presses a warm chestnut—still wearing its paper jacket—into my palm. "Crack it on the first snow. Gives 힘 to skinny birds."
"Thank you." The nut radiates quiet heat through the shell, through the coffee-damp denim, straight to my ribs.
A silver minivan noses into the lot, headlights low. A middle-aged man hops out, waving. Halmeoni's son, maybe. She grips my wrist one last time, eyes friendly yet sharp as mountain gravel. "Remember your ledger, magpie. Chestnuts add up." She releases me and totters toward the van, humming the bright refrain of Arirang that lifts like embers into the mist.
The bus crowd mills—stretching spines, lighting cigarettes, snapping selfies against nothing in particular. I could step into the restroom, wipe coffee from my jeans, ask someone how far the next southbound coach runs. I could still reverse this, aim myself back toward the smooth neon of Seoul before anyone knows I vanished.
The karaoke sign blinks APPY, APPY, APPY, as if urging me to finish the word with my own silent un-. I glance toward the bus; its interior glows amber, empty seats waiting like open parentheses.
Two more kilometres into dark, or back to city lights? My pulse answers first, a quiet thrum of anticipation not dread. Forward.
I climb the steps and reclaim row 27. The seat fabric is still warm from my body. Through the window I watch Halmeoni's van merge with the road and disappear behind a curtain of pines. Her last chestnut rolls in my palm, its skin the colour of polished mahogany.
Ledger credit added, Ha-eun whispers—not spoken, more like the scent of pine sweeping across a lake. I slip the chestnut into my coat pocket, next to the prophecy coin. The pockets feel like a child's treasure box: nonsensical from the outside, vital from within.
Mr Kim swings back into the driver's seat, shuts the doors, and nudges the bus into gear. As we pull out, the headlights wash over a derelict billboard crouched at the exit of the lot. Its paint peels in long curls, but I can still read the promise beneath:
TAEBAEK COAL MUSEUM—REVIVAL PROJECT PENDING
Someone has sprayed a diagonal slash of red across the word REVIVAL. The letters sag under rain streaks, yet somehow they refuse to fall.
The coach noses onto the two-lane road. Raindrops bead on the glass and refract the lone streetlamp until it multiplies into a necklace of trembling suns. Beyond, the valley swallows us, the pines closing like theatre curtains around a stage not yet revealed.
Inside the bus, the engine settles into a low, steady hum. My heart matches it. For the first time since the bridge rail cut into my palms, I feel neither chased nor cornered. Just carried—toward a place small enough for my ledger to fit, large enough for a stray magpie to build whatever kind of nest it needs.
Outside, darkness gathers, but the green sign is still vivid behind my eyes, its numbers precise and reassuring: 3 236 is not infinity. It is countable, breathable, possibly survivable.
The wipers start their patient sweep. Rainwater streaks across the window, turning the valley lights into gold threads stitching the night together. We glide deeper into mist, engine humming, chestnut warm, ledger balanced one line closer to black.
Next stop, first breath.
Chapter 28: First Breath of Gangwon
The bus door sighs open as if relieved to have reached the end of its vigil. I descend the three metal steps and land on gravel that pops beneath my sneakers like dry cereal. A single street-lamp glows above the flag-stop, its cone of orange light folding the mist into slow-moving silk. The coach huffs, brake lights flare, and then the great engine grumbles away, shrinking to a red ember before the fog closes behind it.
Silence rushes in—thick, almost physical. No subway howl, no taxi horns, only the faint shush of a river I have not yet seen. I shift the duffel on my shoulder and turn a slow, cautious circle beneath the lamp.
To my left stands a two-storey concrete box wearing a dead neon crown: HAPPY NIGHT NORAEBANG. Half the letters flicker; the other half have surrendered entirely, so the sign reads HAP Y N HT. A cracked barber pole spins lazily beside it, stripes faded to ghost-pink and ash-blue. On the opposite curb a pharmacy sign blinks as though stuttering through its final lecture—PHAR… PHAR…—before it, too, gives up.
Beyond the pools of light, the valley is a suggestion, a charcoal wash where mountains overlap the afterglow of sunset. Damp air beads on my cheeks; it tastes of wood-smoke, cold earth, and something pungent, salty-sweet. I inhale again, deliberately, letting it fill the back of my throat. Kimchi brine—fermenting somewhere nearby—and raw cabbage leaves, cut and stacked for tomorrow's market. Unlikely comfort. Seoul's air always smelled like ambition burnt to ozone; this air smells like living things that refuse to hurry.
First breath, I tell myself, and the words fog the night.
A narrow lane angles away from the main road. Sodium bulbs perched on leaning posts reveal neat, regimented rows of cabbage heads, their outer leaves wet and shining as if lacquered. Mist hangs above the furrows in low sheets; when a breeze stirs, the vapor drifts between the rows like pale farmers inspecting their crop. I imagine them bowing, satisfied, before dissolving back into night.
Closer to me, a hardware store crouches behind a padlocked accordion gate. A sun-bleached banner droops across the facade: COAL TOOLS LIQUIDATION—EVERYTHING MUST GO!. The exclamation point is missing its dot, so the sentence ends in a blunt little line, half apology, half threat. Beside the entrance, a mannequin torso in a cracked acrylic window models a blazer two decades out of fashion. Its plastic face is turned toward the cabbage fields, toward a future that passed by without stopping.
Under the next lamp I pause to shift weight off my sore shoulder. Coffee has dried to a tide-mark on my thigh. My spine aches from the switchbacks, yet my feet feel light— buoyant, almost. Seoul is more than two hundred kilometres behind me now; the last of its neon static has drained from my blood. I press a palm to my ribs and register the slow, steady drum of my heart. Ninety? Maybe eighty-eight. A good number, considering.
Pine rises on the breeze, faint and resinous. Ledger credit added, Ha-eun murmurs, though her voice is not a sound so much as a change in texture—air smoothing around the syllables.
I walk on. The road surface changes from gravel to patched asphalt; drainage grates glisten with runnels of runoff and, when I pass one, the scent of ferment rises stronger, alive with lactic bite. It should be unpleasant; instead it feels like walking through a kitchen at dawn when someone is cooking a meal meant to last the winter. A small, ridiculous grin tugs my mouth. I breathe deeper, ignoring the chill that creeps beneath my collar.
A dog barks somewhere upriver, sharp and solitary, quickly answered by another bark farther off, as if the valley conducts sound with extra clarity. The echo reminds me how far every voice carries in this bowl of mountains. Anonymity will be fragile here; gossip, inevitable. Yet isolation cuts both ways—people will notice if I disappear again. For the first time that possibility is not a threat but a promise.
The karaoke building looms ahead. Up close, its bricks glisten with decades of rain, and the neon transformer hums like a hive of sleepy bees. A short flight of concrete steps climbs to a frosted glass door. Through the pane I see a cramped lobby, a vending machine, and, above the machine, a paper sign printed in red: 모텔·고시원위층 VACANCY (Rooms Upstairs). My planned cheap refuge.
I stop at the bottom step, duffel strap biting into my shoulder, and glance back the way I came. The flag-stop lamp has softened to a muted lantern in the mist. No cars pass. No trains rumble. Just that distant bark, the pulse of the river, and the faintest residual throb of bus engines long gone.
First breath; first ledger credit in this town. I exhale, set my shoe on the weather-rounded edge of the step, and start up toward the door, neon shimmer bathing my coffee-stained jeans in pink and aquamarine. Behind me, cabbage leaves squeak under the renewed drizzle, and somewhere across the valley a loosened roof tile claps once, like a hand announcing the opening of an unscheduled play.
I push the door open. Warm, slightly stale air greets me; the hum of old fluorescent tubes blends with a distant drumbeat leaking from upstairs karaoke rooms. The threshold feels less like an entrance than a heartbeat's pause between the life that ended on a bridge and the one about to begin in an attic.
I step through.
Chapter 29: Karaoke Attic
The glass door of Happy Night Noraebang exhales a ribbon of stale smoke and mint disinfectant the instant I push it open. Neon in the shape of a microphone sputters above the entrance, casting migraine-pink blotches over a floor tiled in fake marble. Somewhere deeper inside the warren, a trot singer belts out a chorus about doomed summer love; the bass line thrums in my ribs like an anxious second heart.
A woman in a faded floral apron materialises behind a waist-high ticket counter. Her hair is a helmet of lacquered black; her cigarette glows between two fingers already dusted with ash. She does not smile.
"Room?" she rasps.
I shake my head and swallow the dryness in my throat. "The attic. The sign said there's a goshiwon upstairs?"
She squints, assessing me the way a scale assesses fruit—checking for bruises that will lower the price. "Ten thousand a night. Cash. No towel, no breakfast, no noise complaint refunds. You pay, you stay." She taps a plastic cash tray with a chipped fingernail. "Understand?"
I fish crumpled bills from my jeans pocket—three thousands, one five, and a pyramid of coins that jangle louder than I like. My hand trembles just enough for the aluminium disks to tap a tinny rhythm on the tray. Sixteen thousand fifty won was a fragile sandcastle; ten thousand vanishes in a single tide. Still, when she sweeps the money into a cracked biscuit tin and waves toward a curtained hallway, relief loosens a knot between my shoulder blades. Roof secured, ledger balanced.
A burgundy velour curtain parts reluctantly, revealing a staircase so narrow my duffel brushes both walls. Karaoke bass vibrates the wooden rail; every third step creaks like it's telling on me. Midway up I pass a wall-mounted deodoriser that puffs synthetic pine into the corridor, a ghost of the real forest outside. Behind it, mildew lurks, patient and undefeated.
Upward is forward, Ha-eun murmurs—not in words but in the settling of my pulse.
At the top landing a single naked bulb dangles from wire, illuminating three doors: two numbered, one blank. A hand-written note above the blank door reads "Attic 3F — Pull hard". I obey. The door sticks, then gives with a groan, releasing a gust of air as cold and thin as airplane cabin oxygen.
The attic is smaller than some Seoul closets I once rented for handbags. Four metres by maybe two, hemmed by a slanted ceiling that forces me to stoop. A foam mattress lies naked on worn linoleum patterned with tulips long trampled into ghosts. Near the far wall a window the size of a laptop is propped half-open with a chopstick; mountain night leaks through, carrying damp moss and distant river noise. In the ceiling's apex a water stain sprawls in the unmistakable outline of the Korean peninsula, a brown question mark above my new life.
I close the door. The karaoke downstairs launches into another key-change—now a power ballad, the kind office workers howl into battered microphones after missing their last train. The melody seeps up through the floorboards, but here it sounds muffled, almost tender, like a lullaby filtered through layers of cotton.
I kneel, duffel thudding beside me, and begin the small ceremony of arrival. First the photo strip: four frames still glossy, each capturing the miracle of my unguarded laugh. I smooth the edges and place it against the wall. Next, the silver 100-won prophecy coin—cold, reassuring—set above the photos like a moon over a river. Two chestnuts follow, their shells polished by Halmeoni's fingers. Clothes, toothbrush, phone charger complete the humble shrine.
Finally, the ledger. I tear the blank end from a highway ramen receipt and write with the stub of a pencil I stole from a stationery cup back in the jjimjilbang:
Gangwon Ledger – Day 1
Starting cash: ₩16 050
Minus attic rent: –₩10 000
Balance: ₩6 050
Credits: roof, lock, breath, room to fall asleep.
The figures steady me more effectively than any sedative. Debits exist, but so do credits, and as long as I can still add to the right column the book remains alive.
A draft threads through the window, smelling of pickled brine and wet soil; it flutters the receipt, drying the ink. I tuck the slip beneath the photo strip so it won't fly away, then plug the space heater in just to test it. Nothing. I try the switch again—still dead. Cold and thin-walled, Mrs. Oh had warned. She was right; the attic will be an icebox before dawn. Yet some obstinate ember inside me flares: better to shiver under a roof I chose than sweat in designer sheets I earned betraying myself.
I pull the quilt from the mattress, shake out dust motes that sparkle in bulb-light, and fold it double. The coffee stain on my jeans stiffens as it dries, tugging when I bend my knee. I will wash them tomorrow in whatever sink I can find. For now, they testify that the day had weight, that buses and tunnels and false snow were not nightmares but events survived.
The song below ends; a tiny eruption of applause—maybe four people, maybe two—ripples up the stairwell. The next track cues, slower, organ-heavy. I switch off the bulb. Darkness collapses the corners of the room until only the frosted moon of the window glows. I crawl onto the mattress, press my back to the tulip wall, and draw the quilt to my chin.
The photo strip gleams faintly in the window's courtesy light. I reach out, fingertip brushing the glossy laughter of frame two. "Let's fill this space," I whisper, half to the girl in the picture, half to the attic itself.
A warmth settles over my ribs—Ha-eun's wordless assent, smoother than lullaby bass.
"We breathe," she finally says, the voice no louder than the mountain mist slipping through the cracked pane, "therefore we build."
Outside, the river mutters its endless syllables. Downstairs, a singer misses a high note and laughs at himself. And in the thin-walled room between them, I close my eyes around that fragile warmth and let the day unclench at last.
Chapter 30: Rice-Cooker Click
Dawn limps into the attic as a bruised strip of blue-grey, just wide enough to leak through the chopstick-propped window. I wake to my own shivering. The quilt has slipped to my knees, and the vinyl mattress has trapped a layer of breath-frost between my back and the wall. Karaoke downstairs finally died at three, replaced by the faraway gurgle of the river and an occasional rooster practising scales in the valley.
Hunger folds my empty stomach. It is a hollow, papery ache—nothing like the acid roar that used to arrive after an all-night binge, but sharp enough to demand arithmetic.
I tug the ledger scrap from beneath the photo strip. The numbers stare up like blunt facts:
Balance: ₩6 050
Goal: breakfast < ₩5 000
Outside the window an apricot halo climbs the ridge, gilding the peninsula-shaped water stain on the ceiling. Basic math first, I tell myself. Food, then the rest.
The stairwell smells of beer yeast, stale cigarette filters, and something equally sweet and rotten—like fruit left too long in a desk drawer. I tiptoe past Mrs Oh, who has fallen asleep upright behind the ticket counter. Her curlers tilt like pink question marks; an abacus rests on her lap.
Through the front door, the street looks rinsed by moonlight still lingering on puddles. The mountain air slices clean across my cheeks, and I follow the only lit sign I can see: 삼형제미니마트—Three Brothers Mini-Mart.
A bell made from two bottle caps announces me. Fluorescent tubes buzz above shelves stocked in rural logic: fly swatters next to dried anchovies, farm gloves beside shampoo sachets. A wall calendar shows a cartoon snowman and the words First Snow Festival, Nov.—someone has crossed out Festival with thick pen and scrawled Maybe.
A man in a quilted vest greets me with a nod so slight it might be a shoulder twitch. He returns to pricing onions. The cold from the open doorway follows me down the rice aisle. Half-kilo packs sit in a dusty stack—₩3 200 each, a pencilled price that already feels like history. I add a thumb-sized sachet of doenjang miso for ₩1 600 to the basket and linger over instant coffee sticks I can't afford.
At the register I lay out coins with surgical precision. ₩4 800 leaves me with ₩1 250, a number that looks weaker every time I glance at it.
"First snow soon," the clerk says while folding the rice into a newspaper sleeve. "Stove in your place working?"
"Sort of," I lie.
He drops a single barley-tea bag into the sleeve. "On the house. Warms blood."
Kindness weighs as much as the rice.
Mrs Oh surfaces as I re-enter the lobby, cigarette already lit. She eyes my parcel.
"You'll stink the corridor if you cook in there." Smoke drifts from her words. "I have a rice cooker out back. Old but alive. Hotplate, too. ₩500 deposit each."
A thousand-won coin and five hundreds disappear from my palm. The hotplate she produces is avocado-green with a single coil, its cord frayed to copper threads. The rice cooker wears grease tattoos and a sticker of Seo Taiji that must date to the last century.
"Fuse blows, you fix," she says, handing me a dented aluminium pot the size of a helmet.
Back in the attic, I set the hotplate on a stable plank of floor. The plug barely stays in the wall socket; the switch refuses my first three attempts. On the fourth twist it clicks—or more precisely, pops—like the pull of a safe's tumbler. A dull orange coil begins to glow.
Slow turn, until the click. Ha-eun's voice is as light as steam skimming a kettle lip, but its calm steadies my fingers.
I wash one cup of rice in a cracked plastic bowl, changing the water until it runs cloudy then clear, cloudy then clear. Each swirl is a small surrender of starch, a whispered apology for the years when hunger meant a delivery app and a gold card. I pour the grains into the pot, add water by approximation, and set it on the coil. Steam rises within minutes, carrying the sweet, damp smell of starch releasing its grip on itself.
When the rice blooms into a loose porridge, I tear the miso packet and swirl its brown paste into the pot. The broth clouds to winter earth; the attic fills with a smell that yanks me backward—sick-day mornings when my mother simmered juk until the apartment fogged and windows wept warmth.
For a moment my throat knots so tightly I cannot breathe. Then I lift the spoon. Salty umami spreads across my tongue, and the knot becomes water.
I slide the steaming bowl onto the windowsill—the only flat space large enough—and face the ledger.
Debit: rice ₩3 200
Debit: miso ₩1 600
Debit: appliance deposit ₩1 000
Balance: ₩ 250
Credit: Roof, heat, self-made juk.
The remaining ₩250 gleams like a coin at the bottom of a dry fountain—insufficient yet bright. I underline Credit twice.
A tin cup of barley tea steams beside the ledger. Outside, the valley wakes. Ajummas in padded jackets stride past, two to a basket, hauling cabbages the size of infants toward the morning market. Their rubber boots slap puddles; each footfall sounds like a drum hit. Somewhere a truck backfires, and a dog answers.
I sip the tea. It tastes of roasted grain and whispered gratitude. My eyelids sag, the night's missed sleep crashing through my bones. But beneath the fatigue is a steadiness I haven't felt in months—no burn of liquor, no chemical buzz, only warmth earned by my own small labour.
Below, the karaoke system coughs to life for daytime cleaning—an instrumental, no vocals. The melody lingers like a question: what song will tonight bring?
I fold the receipt ledger and slide it under the rice cooker's warm hull to dry. Steam curls up the wall and smudges the peninsula stain until the landmass looks softer, less certain of its borders.
"First ledger credit in this town," I whisper to the photo strip, still pinned above the mattress.
From somewhere deep inside, Ha-eun answers with a single pulse of contentment—neither word nor breath, but the quiet click of a lock finding its seat.
Chapter 31: Floorboard Squeaks
The attic breathes like an animal in its sleep—slow, uneven exhalations of winter air through the cracked window, faint groans from the wood as the night temperature plummets.
I roll onto my back and stare at the naked bulb overhead. It swings almost imperceptibly, each wobble sending a crescent of yellow across the stained ceiling. Karaoke closed hours ago, leaving a silence so sudden it presses on my eardrums. I should be grateful for the quiet, but quiet is where the mind grows teeth.
Tickers drizzle through half-dreams: red numbers, plummeting arrows. –7.8 %, –12 %. Investors screaming in the hush of a trading floor. My body jerks awake just as a roof-beam contracts with an icy CRACK. The sound ricochets through the crawl-space. A pulse detonates behind my ribs.
01 : 57.
I tuck the quilt higher, listening for a repeat. Nothing—only the wheeze of the heater.
Another minute crawls by. Then the bulb sputters. Once. Twice. A spider of blue arcs across the filament—
Pop.
Darkness folds over me. Somewhere inside the wall, electricity dies with a sigh that smells of burnt dust. The heater fan winds down, coughing a last gust of lukewarm air. Cold rushes in behind it, sharp as vinegar in my nostrils.
Heart rate spikes past counting. Mrs Oh's warning: Fuse blows, you fix. If I can't, she'll throw me out or worse—ask for ID. The attic suddenly feels two sizes too small. Sweat breaks along my hairline though the air freezes.
From the blackness comes a single squeak. Floorboard or rodent? Another squeak, farther off, like a cautious foot testing weight. The sound crawls across the ceiling joists until it perches above my pillow. My breath fractures. Everything inside me reroutes to survival instructions I haven't rehearsed in months: Run. Scream. Jump from Mapo Bridge again.
Blood roars in my ears. My chest locks, hot and blind. I can't seem to find the first step of breathing.
You're back in the dark stairwell,
the night the compliance team raided,
and you fled instead of staying to confess.
"Stop," I whisper; the word snaps like a dead twig. My fingers clench the quilt so hard the fabric whines.
A sound answers—not in the room but inside my skull. A woman's voice older than dust, softer than fresh snow on pine boughs.
솟대야솟대야, 해돋는다…
A lullaby I have never consciously learned drifts into being. Syllables undulate like slow river water; beneath them I hear the imagined tuk—tuk—tuk of a janggu drum, steady and circular. The melody coils around the panic, tugging at its edges. I seize the rhythm like a rope.
In for four.
Hold for seven.
Out for eight.
Breaths lengthen, shoulders unknot. The squeak repeats, but now it's only the building settling—timber exhaling January. My heart stumbles downward, from sprint to jog.
I grope along the mattress seam until my fingertips find the curled receipt—my ledger. Paper crackles, anchor-hard. I press it flat against my sternum and whisper the balance:
"₩… seven-fifty. Still alive."
Again, louder: "₩ seven-fifty, still alive."
With each repetition the numbers lose their terror, becoming coordinates on a map instead of a verdict. The attic is visible now in grey outlines; night has diluted to charcoal. I force myself upright, knees wobbling, and slide into my coat.
Phone screen blazes blue-white, the battery a pitiful 18 %. I follow its glow past the door curtain, down the crooked staircase that smells of boiled makkoli. Every riser squeals, but none as menacing as before; they are wooden birds, not spectres.
At the landing, a metal fuse panel droops open like a slack jaw. One ceramic fuse shows a stripe of soot. I pinch it free; fingertips sting with cold. A replacement leans against the frame—Mrs Oh's idea of preparedness. Slow turn, until click—Ha-eun murmurs. I thread the fuse home. Click.
The corridor lamp flares; the heater hum returns overhead. Power answers with an almost paternal grunt, and the staircase settles.
Mission accomplished.
02 : 10. Mattress sighs beneath me. My breath leaves pale ghosts in the new light. I wrap the quilt over my knees, willing warmth into bones that have forgotten it. Outside, the wind rattles the window frame; one loose screw makes the glass chatter, a faint percussion that mimics the janggu's tattoo still fading in my mind.
I uncap the pen and open a fresh corner of receipt.
Debit: fuse panic — fear, sweat
Credit: fixed fuse — breath, lullaby
Ink pools like lake water at the bottom of the b in breath. I blow to dry it, then tuck the ledger under the pillow where its crisp edge can remind me I am accounted for.
솟대야솟대야… The tune drifts again, fainter, as though Ha-eun is walking backward into some shadowed forest. I manage a whisper: "Thank you." No answer comes, and none is needed; only a curl of pine-scented air that soothes the last of the ache behind my eyes.
The rafters stop groaning. The squeak retires. Silence rearranges itself into something softer, almost cottony. I let eyelids fall. Pulse settles around a slow, rational drum.
Somewhere inside the wall a mouse, emboldened by quiet, scurries toward crumbs of rice from dinner. I smile into the darkness: we are both scavengers tonight, small creatures trying not to starve.
Sleep folds over me. Just before it seals, the wallpaper stain above the bulb seems to ripple, resolving for an instant into the faint suggestion of a prowling shape—tail long, shoulders rolling. A trick of night or the first hint of roaming dreams; either way, I am too tired to chase it.
Ledger beneath my pillow, lullaby lingering in marrow, I drift under, prepared at last to meet the fever dawn will bring.
Chapter 32: Spirits in Wallpaper
The bulb in the attic is a fickle god.
One moment it hums its tired yellow halo; the next it blinks twice, grumbles, and dies. I sit cross-legged on the quilt while the room exhales into slate–blue dusk. Outside, a January wind combs the eaves, plucking loose tin like strings on a half-tuned gayageum.
I reach for last night's emergency purchase—a thumb-length candle that smells faintly of honey even through its cheap plastic wrap. The disposable lighter coughs twice before giving me flame. When the wick catches, the attic relaxes into a pulse of breathing light: bright on the inhale, dim on the exhale, bright again. Wax pools atop the rice-cooker lid I am using for a makeshift table, trapping the scent of miso and barley steam in sugary amber.
Hunger has faded to a dull buzz; in its place is a tingling fatigue, a velvety pressure behind my forehead that warns of storms brewing in my blood. I pretend not to notice. Instead I open the cracked window an inch. Mountain air rolls in—cold, resin-sweet—and strokes the candle flame into a dancer's sway.
Far below, the town is settling. No karaoke tonight; Mrs Oh closes on Tuesdays. Across the alley someone practices janggu, the two-headed drum, steady as a marching heart: tuk–tuk… tuk–tuk… Wind threads the beat through the rafters until the whole attic seems to throb in time.
I close my eyes, listening. The rhythm matches the lullaby Ha-eun hummed during last night's panic. A coincidence, perhaps, yet the hairs on my arms lift as though greeted by a familiar voice.
When I open my eyes again the wallpaper is moving.
Not flapping or peeling—rippling, as if a slow current has begun to flow beneath the faded peonies. The water stain I once likened to a peninsula darkens, stretches, reforms into a long sinuous back. Candlelight catches on bubbled paper, painting shadows that thicken into stripes.
A tiger—impossible, perfect—prowls across the wall.
It is only a silhouette, but every line is alive: shoulder blades roll under imaginary fur, tail flicks with predatory punctuation. The beast paces from left corner to right, turns, and strides back again. With each pass the paper breathes in and out, in and out, the floral pattern fluttering like grass beneath an autumn wind.
My pulse forgets its job; lungs stall. The candle trembles in my hand, wax sliding over my knuckles. I dare not blink.
Halfway through the next crossing the tiger stops. Its head lifts, and where the knot of a wallpaper bubble curves outward, a single eye appears—green-gold, fierce, reflecting the candle's tiny flame. The gaze pins me through the gloom. I feel weighed, measured, and—strangest of all—accepted.
A breath I didn't know I was holding hisses free.
Inside, Ha-eun's voice drifts like smoke: Mountain greets you, little crane.
"That's real?" I whisper.
Silence answers—no comforting explanation, no rational dismissal. Only the drum outside, tuk–tuk, slower now, as if the town itself is listening.
My hand gropes across the floor until it finds the folded receipt—my ledger. Knees shaking, I flip to the blank side and scribble:
18:48 – Tiger spirit in wallpaper.
Debit? ▢
Credit? ▢
Just writing the words steadies my grip. Documentation makes even the surreal obey margins.
A draft slithers through the window, snuffing the candle with a wet sigh. Darkness swallows the tiger. The bulb—capricious, perhaps appeased—flares back to life in buzzing fluorescence. The wallpaper is nothing but wilted peonies again, the peninsula stain a dull bruise in the plaster. Yet the air holds an after-image, a taste of pine sap and snow on my tongue.
I kneel before the rice-cooker altar, place the extinguished candle beside the photo strip and the uncracked chestnut, and bow my head. "I don't know what you are," I murmur to the vanished stripes, "but I'll try to be worth the greeting."
From the alley a fox barks—three sharp yips—then the night falls silent, as though closing a door.
I tape the ledger note to the wall above my pillow, a flag marking the border of the known. Somewhere beyond that border a mountain watches, and a spirit bigger than grief has seen me. The thought is both terrifying and oddly kind.
Outside, the janggu beat resumes, softer now, escorting me toward whatever dreams wait behind my burning eyelids.