Chapter 70: Notebook Rule
Morning drifts across Mapo's back streets in a hush of pale drizzle and exhaust. The deluge of the night has thinned to a mist that feathers every surface with cool silver. I pause outside Park Pharmacy, fingering the crinkled receipt Yu-jin slipped into my wages envelope:
Light … Dark … Breathe … Release
Four words. Four steps between impulse and control. I inhale for the count of four, tasting iron rain and the faint antiseptic exhaled through the pharmacy's ventilation grilles. On the slow release my shoulders unlock, and I tap the bell.
The steel shutter rattles upward. Yu-jin—hair twisted into a practical bun, glasses already fogged—gives me a nod that is half greeting, half triage assessment.
"Morning," she says, stepping aside so I can slip beneath the rising grille. "Still dry?"
"Still sober," I answer, surprised by the steadiness of my voice.
A ghost of a smile crosses her face. "Then let's check that foot before you run any marathons."
Rubber gloves snap—a tiny thunderclap in the quiet pharmacy—as Yu-jin unwinds yesterday's bandage. A soft K-indie ballad drifts from a radio on the shelf; iodine rides the air like a sharp memory.
The hydrocolloid patch peels off clean, revealing pink, knitting skin.
"Textbook healing," she murmurs, dabbing cool saline along the cut. "How'd you sleep?"
"Like bricks under floodwater," I admit. "But warmer."
She presses a fresh patch in place. "Good. Now—besides sleep—what's the plan when the next craving hits?"
I shrug, pulse ticking faster. "Hold my breath and pray?"
"Let's add data to the prayer." She hands me a photocopied sheet titled Trigger Journal—columns for situation, thought, body and counter-move. "Write it down every time the itch shows up. Patterns are cowards; expose them to light and they scatter."
Exposing myself to light is exactly what terrifies me, yet my fingers tighten around the page as though it's a life raft.
The adjoining mart smells of fryer grease and printer ink. Shelves of notebooks stand at regimented attention—spiral, gluespine, leatherette—each one a blank verdict on my future. I drift along the aisle, wages envelope clutched like a fragile organ.
₩26 050 left, I calculate. Rent due next week. Groceries.
Sticker prices flicker: ₩3 200, ₩5 500, ₩12 000. My throat constricts.
A map out of darkness for four thousand, Ha-eun whispers, voice a silk thread through the jet-lag of my thoughts. Worth the fare.
Her certainty steadies my hand. I choose an A5 grid-paper pad—sturdy cardboard cover, two thousand won—then a click pen boasting twin nibs: black on one end, red on the other. Another ₩2 000 bled from the envelope, but the remaining notes feel lighter, not poorer.
At the till, my fingers threaten to shake. Ha-eun nudges, subtle as breath; I let her slide the coins—₩4 000—across the counter. The barcode beep is absurdly loud, like a judge's gavel. The cashier hardly glances up.
Outside the aisle's fluorescent glare, I tuck receipt and change—₩22 050 now—back into the envelope. The notebook's cardboard presses reassuringly against my ribs like a shield newly forged.
Steam curls from two cups of barley tea, blurring the sharp corners of the cramped table. Rainwater plinks in the gutter outside, a metronome to match my pulse.
I flip open the notebook, its first page blank as dawn. Ha-eun clicks the pen—red side—and writes at the top in neat, measured hangul:
Notebook Rule
Black ink = Seo-yeon.
Red ink = Ha-eun.
No insults. No lies.
End every page with breath count.
Pages stay private unless we both agree.
She uncaps the black end and hands the pen to me.
My throat thickens. "What if I break a rule?"
Then we begin a new line, she answers, letters tilting slightly as though leaning toward me. Not a new shame.
The weight of the pen surprises me. I add a sixth point in cautious strokes:
First entry tonight. No excuses.
Yu-jin pokes her head through the door, wiping her hands on a towel.
"Ah, homework already?" She reads the list, eyebrows lifting at rule three. "I like that one." She slides a small adhesive star—pharmacy gold version of a teacher's sticker—onto the page. "Positive reinforcement," she says, deadpan.
I laugh, a thin sound that still feels revolutionary. The star gleams.
"Remember," she adds, pouring more tea, "pens can lance abscesses shame can't reach. Use it."
The rain has stopped; puddles mirror fractured strips of sky. I step carefully, sneaker rubber squeaking on slick asphalt. The wages envelope lives in one pocket, the notebook in the other, pen clipped like a talisman.
At the corner I nearly collide with Min-ji, ponytail bouncing, café apron rolled under one arm.
"Whoa—Seoul eonni!" She eyes the notebook. "Upgrading to college student?"
"Homework from life," I answer, surprising us both with the steadiness of my smile.
"Fighting," she says, bumping my shoulder before trotting toward Mount Valley Café, shoes splashing laughter into the morning.
Her faith, casual and unasked, lingers behind her like vanishing perfume.
The door closes on the city's stir, leaving only the faint, muffled throb of karaoke bass below. Dust motes vault through a sunbeam that slices the slanted ceiling. I spread my thin blanket on the floor, lay the notebook atop it, and position the pen horizontally—black nib pointing left, red pointing right—an improvised altar.
Ha-eun lowers into a hush so soft it feels like the pause between tides, but before she recedes she writes one small word beneath the rules, red ink blooming on the grid:
I sit cross-legged, uncap the black side, and hover over the page. The lined emptiness no longer feels like judgment; it feels like open air. Somewhere beneath my ribs, a new kind of hunger stirs—one that ink might feed.
Outside, a motorcycle backfires, a child laughs, and life keeps moving. Inside, the pen touches paper, ready to begin.
Chapter 71: First Entry
The minute hand ticks past 22:15 as I ease the attic door shut with a soft click. Happy Night Noraebang, two floors below, thrums out a muffled trot ballad; bass notes crawl through the joists like distant thunder. My uniform smells of soy oil and sesame steam—proof of a fourteen-hour shift that has ground my bones to powder.
I kick off the cheap sneakers. The bandaged foot throbs, a dull drumbeat in my arch. Squatting, I press my thumbs into the tender flesh until sparks dance behind my eyes, then exhale the sting away. Only when the pulse eases do I notice the weight of the new notebook in my tote—heavier than its thin cardboard cover should allow, as if hope were made of lead.
The floor table—a reclaimed shipping crate sanded smooth—waits beneath a single bare bulb. I slide the notebook onto the scratched surface, but my fingers refuse to open it. Instead, I count the coins in my pocket; they clink like anxious teeth. ₩22 050 remains, each won a narrow plank between me and the flood. Satisfied the envelope is still safe, I tuck it beneath the tatty mattress and turn back to the table.
Mosquito season. I strike a citronella candle and its citrus sting cuts through the room's fried-food haze. Flame-light flutters across the peeling wallpaper—faded chrysanthemums and, in one corner, a crane silhouette cast by the candle holder. The crane seems to hover over the closed notebook like a patient spectator.
"Rule Two: No insults," I whisper, recalling the neat red handwriting Ha-eun penned this morning. My chest tightens. The cruelest words on earth are the ones I aim at myself, and now they are contraband.
I uncap the black end of the twin-ink pen. The click echoes off the slanted ceiling, sudden and loud. Pages crackle as I open to the first blank leaf. Grid lines march in orderly ranks, waiting to expose me.
Header first. My script wobbles, but I force it into place:
Day 1 — 118 breaths after work
Ink glistens wetly. My pulse stutters, and shame pours through the dam. Before fear can gag me, I press hard, carving words into the paper:
I don't deserve breath.
The sentence bleeds where the nib digs too deep, letters swelling like fresh bruises.
Silence afterward is thick as congee skin. Candlelight hiccups; the crane's shadow dips its head in sympathy. I stare at the jagged confession until my eyes blur. Have I already broken the rule? It is an insult—but is it truth or poison?
Footsteps clatter outside on the metal stairs—Min-ji heading home from her evening errand. Her laughter with someone on the phone rises, then fades. Life goes on beneath my attic while I sit frozen by eleven words.
My throat burns. Tears pool. I underline the sentence twice, ink ripping the fibers. The notebook shudders on the table as if flinching from the violence.
Click.
The red nib emerges, steady as a sunrise. I have not moved. Warmth blossoms behind my sternum—a heartbeat not entirely mine. Ha-eun's script unfurls beneath my black scrawl, each curve measured, compassionate:
Breath is not a reward to earn.
It arrived with your first cry and will remain while you choose.
The pen rests. My shoulders buckle under a wave of relief so acute it feels like pain.
I flip the pen, hands trembling less, and answer in small, tentative black letters:
Then why does every inhale hurt?
Red replies almost at once:
Because scars tighten when they heal.
Keep breathing; we will stretch them together.
Rain begins to whisper against the tin roof—soft, coaxing. I wipe my cheeks on my sleeve, remembering the CBT sheet Yu-jin pressed on me: Name the body, name the breath.
Black ink again:
Breaths right now: in 4 — hold 2 — out 6.
I close my eyes and obey my own instruction: inhale through the candle's citrus, hold, release past lips that taste of salt. One cycle. Another. By the fifth, the cave-in behind my ribs has stopped rumbling.
Outside, a neon sign flickers, painting the ceiling blue-pink-blue. Inside, the notebook waits, half-filled with silence that no longer feels hostile.
I steady the pen and write:
I will write again after dawn shift.
Red ink answers with a quiet promise:
I will listen.
Together we sign—SY / H-E—and draw a tiny open square beneath, a shared container for the days ahead.
I tuck the wages envelope into the notebook's back cover—responsibility sheathed inside intention—and snap the elastic band shut. Candle wax has formed a glossy lake around the wick; I extinguish it with a puff. The crane shadow bows once more before dissolving into the dark.
The room smells of spent smoke and rain-washed asphalt. Below, someone murders a ballad on the karaoke stage, off-key and exuberant. I smile—lopsided, fragile—then crawl onto the mattress, sliding the notebook beside my pillow like a guardian of paper and ink.
Tomorrow, the square will open, and the flood of words will come. For tonight, the rule stands, my breaths are counted, and—for the first time in years—I drift toward sleep curious about what I might tell myself next.
Chapter 72: Two Voices, One Letter
The attic smells of wet plywood and kimchi steam when I shoulder the door shut. Monsoon rain rattles the tin roof, each droplet a muted cymbal strike above the muffled karaoke bass downstairs. I empty my apron pockets—crumpled bills, greasy coins—into a chipped enamel mug: ₩18 400 earned in tips, still warm from other hands. The sound is satisfying, like gravel settling.
My heel protests with a sharp pulse. I peel off the damp sneakers, flex stiff toes, then light the citronella candle balanced in a soju glass. A ribbon of citrus smoke spirals upward, chasing the smell of fried batter from my hair. On the floor-table wait the A5 grid notebook and the twin-ink pen—black on one end, red on the other—exactly where I left them last night, though they feel heavier now, as if they have absorbed everything I failed to say.
Barley tea steeps in a dented kettle, its roasted scent softening the room's edges. Steam ghosts the cracked window, blurring the mountains beyond. It is time.
I click the black nib; the sound is a pistol cocking. Header first:
Letter I Owed Myself — Breath 96 → 90
The numbers steady me, small anchors on a white sea. I inhale, square my shoulders, and begin.
Black ink floods the page.
Father counted love in test scores and piano trophies. I chased decimals because decimals never changed their minds.
Han Jin-su promised mentorship; instead he needed a scapegoat. My signature, his ledger. Sixteen million won bonus, thirty-two years of shame.
Vodka tasted like victory until it tasted like nothing.
Comment count: 13 442. Variations on die, slut banker, each like glass in the lung.
Mapo Bridge rail at 04 : 18 was colder than river water. I thought silence would applaud the jump.
I write until the words smear with tears. My hand cramps, knuckles white, but the pen keeps scrawling—page after page—five, six, seven sides of feral confession. Each sentence digs out another splintered memory: the martini breakfasts, the pill-bottle clatter, the hiss of CCTV motors tracking my final steps. Rain intensifies, drumming the roof hard enough to vibrate the plaster. I barely hear it over the pulse roaring in my ears.
Letters blur, breathing fractures. The pen slips; ink streaks across the margin like burnt silk. Air refuses to enter my chest. I claw at my throat, panic spiraling tight as barbed wire. Three desperate taps on my thigh—the agreed signal.
Click. The pen flips of its own accord. Red nib meets paper with deliberate calm:
Breathe with me.
In 4 — hold 2 — out 6.
The letters are broad, even, an outstretched hand in pigment. I follow: inhale—one, two, three, four—lungs sting; hold—one, two—release—one, two, three, four, five, six. Again. The world widens by a fingernail.
Press the point below your wrist.
Our shared hand obeys, thumb digging into the PC-6 acupressure spot. A warm hum spreads from sternum to fingertips—Ha-eun's silent presence.
Name three sounds.
"Rain on metal. Bass from downstairs. Fridge motor," I whisper, voice shaking but alive. Heart rate drops—118, 110, 102—until the pen feels light again.
The storm inside subsides to drizzle. I switch back to black:
I pawned Father's Montblanc yesterday. It bought my ticket north. I don't know if that was survival or betrayal.
Red responds:
A tool fulfilled its purpose.
Your living is not betrayal.
Black:
I still want to drink when neon turns green.
Red:
Want is not command.
Record the wanting; we will map its tides.
Black ink softens, strokes smaller:
I think… I want to live. I am terrified it won't last.
Red:
Terror is proof of value.
Stay curious; breathe the next breath.
Candle wax pools around the base, amber thick as honey. Rain outside eases to a polite tapping, and somewhere a sparrow cheeps through the open eave. My eyes ache, but the pages lie quietly now—eight of them, front and back, filled with night-dark ink and steady red counterpoints.
I sign the bottom corner: SY. The red nib mirrors: H-E. Together we draw the small open square—the notebook's safe container—and close it with a gentle score of the pen.
I read the pages from start to finish. The words don't crush me; they sit heavy but solid, like stones in a foundation. I fold the stack, tuck it into the notebook pocket beside Yu-jin's CBT sheet, and press my palm over the cover.
"Yu-jin should see this," I murmur into the quiet. A warm thrum against my ribs answers—assent without a syllable.
A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight pierces the cloudbank, slips through the cracked window, and gilds a stray drop of ink until it shines like lacquer. I close the notebook, the elastic snapping with a decisive tick, and set it on the pillow where I cannot ignore it.
Tomorrow, in the pharmacy's back room, these pages will breathe aloud. For now, I brew a fresh cup of barley tea, cradle its heat, and listen to the sparrow sing above the fading karaoke bass—two small voices proving the world is wide enough for every song.
Chapter 73: Tea & Tears
The iron shutter of Park Yu-jin's pharmacy slams down with a final clatter that echoes along the sleepy main street. Evening drizzle mists the fluorescent sign before it blinks out, leaving only the muted glow of a single salt lamp inside. In that amber halo, shelves of bandages and tonic bottles look like gentle sentries guarding the back-room nook where three floor cushions wait.
Seo-yeon hesitates on the threshold, notebook clutched to her chest as if it contains a live fuse. Raindrops glitter in her bangs; café‐steam still lingers in the fibres of her grey uniform. Behind her, Kang Min-ji slips off squeaking sneakers and nudges a plastic bag shut—it holds leftover sweet-potato croquettes for later.
"Come in before the tea skins over," Yu-jin calls, voice low and practical. She pours thick ssanghwa-cha from a clay pot; its steam curls with licorice and cinnamon, masking the faint antiseptic bite of rubbing alcohol that forever lives in these walls.
They settle on the cushions—salt lamp humming, rain pattering the tin awning overhead. Yu-jin spreads a faded patchwork blanket across each lap, then meets their eyes in turn.
"Circle rules," she begins, fingers wrapped around a stoneware mug. "We don't fix. We don't judge. We breathe together. Deal?"
Min-ji nods, ponytail bobbing, but she keeps glancing at the bulging notebook in Seo-yeon's grip. Seo-yeon simply swallows, throat sand-dry, and places the book on the low table as though laying down a weapon. Inside her ribs, Ha-eun hums—a silent vibration of approval.
At 20:05 the salt lamp's glow seems to deepen, and Seo-yeon opens the notebook. Eight pages of cramped black confession lie folded like a fragile origami heart. The red ink of last night's single line—Breathe—cuts through the dark script like a lifeline.
She clears her throat. "This is… everything I couldn't say out loud." The first sentence quivers, but the words spill anyway:
"My father counted love in test scores... I learned to measure my worth in decimals..."
Min-ji's fingers worry the edge of her blanket; her breath hitches when the story slides into Seoul boardrooms, vodka breakfasts, and Han Jin-su's paper betrayal. Seo-yeon's own voice cracks on the Mapo Bridge passage: cold rail, 04:18, the river's black mirror.
The room tilts. Letters blur. A tremor ripples from shoulder to wrist; the notebook trembles like a trapped moth.
Three taps on her thigh—automatic. Help.
The pen flicks, seemingly of its own accord, and a calm red line appears in the margin: Breathe, little crane.
Yu-jin's hand is suddenly on Seo-yeon's back. "Four, seven, eight," she coaches. "In—two—three—four…" Min-ji slides a cool blue glass bead across the table. Seo-yeon squeezes it, nails biting smooth surface, while her lungs obey the count. Rain escalates into a quick percussion on the awning, as if the sky is breathing with them. Heart rate eases; letters steady.
Words return in a steadier current—betrayal, comment storms, empty bottles clinking like wind chimes in an upscale trash chute. Tears splash onto the paper, smudging some lines into blurred tide marks. Min-ji passes a tissue, her own cheeks shining. The last paragraph ends not in despair but in a thin strand of hope:
"I am terrified, but I want to live. I don't know how long the wanting will last."
Yu-jin counts five slow breaths aloud—one shared silence for every person in the circle. The clock on the wall ticks, steady as Ha-eun's unseen heartbeat. When the final exhale fades, no one rushes to mend the moment. The confession is allowed to settle like tea leaves.
"At the hospital they call this courageous disclosure," Yu-jin says finally, voice hushed. "I call it meeting yourself with both eyes open. Thank you for trusting us."
Min-ji sniffles. "I used to think you were some perfect Seoul robot," she confesses, slipping into hometown dialect. "Turns out you're a mess. Welcome to the club." The joke lands, shaky but real; a small burst of laughter crackles across the blankets.
For closure, Yu-jin sets out tomorrow's self-care pact. She goes first—"I'll remember to eat my own lunch, not just hand out vitamins." Min-ji vows to finish her application for culinary night school. Seo-yeon presses a palm to her damp pages. "I'll play the music I loved before numbers," she whispers. Yu-jin's eyes shine. From a paper sachet she produces chamomile and slips it into Seo-yeon's pocket. "For sleep, when your head won't quiet."
Thermoses are rinsed; blankets folded. Madam Kang appears in the doorway long enough to drop off a larger flask of barley tea—no words, just a maternal nod—then retreats with Min-ji into the drizzle. The street smells of damp pine and fried chicken grease, an odd but comforting duet.
Yu-jin offers an umbrella; Seo-yeon refuses. "I need to feel the rain." She steps into the night, notebook sheltered inside her coat, foot aching but obedient.
Street-lamps cast pale coronas on the wet asphalt, each halo a fragile promise. Steam rises from a gutter vent like a ghost waving her onward. Inside, Ha-eun's voice is a soft query: Ready for quiet keys?
Seo-yeon tips her face to the drizzle, breathes the cool metallic air, and turns toward the disused elementary school up the hill where an old piano waits under a film of dust and forgotten chords. The darkened road curves ahead like a treble clef, and she follows its line into the night, lighter by the weight of eight damp pages and two steady witnesses.
Chapter 74: Piano Dust
The drizzle had thinned to a silvery mist, hardly more than a breath upon the skin, yet Lee Seo-yeon refused the umbrella Yu-jin had tried to press into her hands. She wanted the night air raw on her cheeks, wanted proof that the world no longer scalded her merely for being inside it. Raindrops beaded on her fringe and slid to her jaw, cool and clean. Each step along the moon-damp lane sent a mild ache through the half-healed arch of her right foot, but the canvas sneaker held firm and the pain felt honest—unlike the invisible bruises she had carried out of Seoul.
Third left, red gate, Ha-eun murmured inside the steady hush of rainfall, her voice no louder than a remembered lullaby. Seo-yeon followed the prompt without question. Childhood muscle memory surfaced: the cracked pavement that curved behind shuttered convenience stalls, the overgrown hedge that once hid rank PE uniforms after class. Head-high cicadas rasped against the wet eaves, their song a frayed ribbon stretched between seasons.
A rusted iron gate appeared, paint the colour of congealed blood flaking beneath her fingertips. She pushed. Hinges shrieked like a startled heron, and her pulse jumped to the same pitch until Ha-eun slowed it with a whispered four-count. Wet pine needles and metallic rain filled Seo-yeon's lungs as she stepped into the deserted courtyard of the old middle school.
Moonlight soaked the crumbling façade. Windows gaped like pulled teeth; murals of smiling students had faded to pale ghosts on the corridor walls. She thumbed on her phone flashlight—screen spider-webbed but serviceable—and thin white light carved a tunnel through the gloom. Broken trophies glittered in a shattered case, and her sneaker crunched a shard embossed SCIENCE FAIR, FIRST PRIZE. The noise exploded down the corridor in ricocheting echoes, and for an instant she was sixteen again, a violin case in one hand, her mother's appraisal in the other: Keep wrists straight. Don't embarrass the family. Shame prickled, then dissolved as Ha-eun hummed a single tonic note that grounded her in the present.
The auditorium doors yielded with a reluctant groan. Dust rose in lazy swirls, caught in the cone of her flashlight like plankton in a private sea. On the warped wooden stage a lone upright Yamaha slumbered beneath a frayed velvet curtain. Its mahogany veneer had blistered with years of monsoon damp; several ivories were missing, exposing jagged wooden teeth. Yet the shape of it—sturdy, waiting—pulled at her ribs more fiercely than any boardroom bonus ever had.
She limped up the shallow steps, dragged the wobbly stool into position, and wiped the keyboard with her sleeve. A puff of grey powder billowed; it smelled of chalk, mold, and old paper programs. Her sleeve came away streaked like a coal miner's glove. She sat, back rounded, palms hovering a hesitant breath above the keys.
"Hello," she whispered to the piano, absurdly formal. Her reflection in the lacquered fallboard looked back: tired eyes, but no longer hollow. "Let's try not to hurt each other."
The first C rang brittle as cracked porcelain. She winced, flexed her fingers, and attempted a scale. The left hand lagged, the right stumbled; an accidental E-flat squealed in protest. Hollow algorithm, the inner critic hissed—its old refrain. Seo-yeon's chest tightened, breath scattering. Three fingertips tapped her thigh—SOS. Ha-eun answered with a soft hum that matched the trembling root note. In four, hold two, out six. They breathed together until the shiver eased.
"Again," Seo-yeon muttered. This time the scale walked instead of crawling, still limping but recognisably whole. She rolled her shoulders, tested the sustain pedal—hiss, creak, but functional—and let her hands find the opening interval of Gangwon Arirang. The melody, simple and plaintive, floated into the auditorium's stale air. Notes echoed off peeling paint and moth-eaten curtains, returning to her ears doubled and enriched, as if the building itself joined the song.
At the chorus her voice caught, tears blurring the yellowed keys. Yet her fingers played on, and a second thread of sound glided beneath the melody—no extra keystrokes, only resonance, but she heard it distinctly: Ha-eun's wordless harmony, woven between hammer strikes like silver thread in rough cotton. Two voices, one instrument. The intimacy stole her breath without stealing control, and something inside her unclenched with a tiny, aching pop.
The final chord reverberated, low strings thrumming against her calves through the cracked bench. In that vibrating hush a ghost overlay flashed—Mapo Bridge, LED panel glowing Have you eaten? The auditorium lurched; vertigo whipped her stomach. Fingers locked mid-air. The river's cold pulled at her ankles.
Three taps. Ha-eun rolled Seo-yeon's shoulders gently forward, anchoring her ribs over her hips. Music is breath, the guardian whispered. Her palm pressed the PC-6 point, and Seo-yeon named three sounds: the fading chord, the distant drip of roof-leak into a bucket, the chirp of a moth against the lamp glass. The bridge receded like a nightmare at dawn.
She wiped her cheeks on her sleeve, lifted her hands, and began the chorus again. This time the notes held steady, neither perfect nor broken, merely alive. When the last tone dissolved, she laughed—a quiet, incredulous puff that sent a plume of dust swirling toward the rafters.
"See you tomorrow," she told the piano. Her voice echoed, small but confident, into the rows of empty seats where long-banished classmates might once have sat.
Before leaving, she cracked two windows so the night breeze could blow mildew from the curtains. In the corridor she scribbled a line in her notebook by phone-light: Played, didn't shatter. The flashlight flickered a low-battery warning, but that, too, felt survivable.
Outside, the drizzle had ceased. Clouds thinned to gauze, allowing a pale sliver of moon to silver the path. She recorded a single bar of Arirang on her battered phone—tinny but serviceable—for tomorrow's practice, then pocketed the device and followed the road downhill.
Crickets were fading, making room for roosters that tested the eastern horizon with tentative crowing. Far off, a truck gearbox growled awake—Madam Kang's cabbage delivery, no doubt. Seo-yeon inhaled the scent of wet earth and woodsmoke drifting from someone's dawn fire. Her café apron waited, her ledger of won and worries waited, but between them and this breath stood an upright piano still warm with possibility.
Ready for cabbage duty? Ha-eun's question carried a smile.
"Ready," Seo-yeon answered, humming the Gangwon chorus under her breath as the first shard of dawn lightened the rim of the mountains. She stepped forward, feeling the tune settle into her stride, a heartbeat set to music that was hers alone—no likes to count, no numbers to obey, only the quiet promise of another morning.