Jae-min woke to the smell of something burning.
At first it stayed inside the fog of sleep—thin, bitter, easy to ignore. Then it thickened.
His eyes snapped open.
For one dazed second, he thought, Noona's making breakfast.
Then last night came back.
He was out of bed before the thought finished forming.
The apartment was quiet in that strange early-morning way—too still for a place where someone was already awake. Pale light stretched across the floor. The hallway felt cold under his bare feet as he moved through it, faster and faster, until he reached the kitchen and stopped.
Seo-yeon was standing in front of the stove, stirring a pan full of blackened eggs.
Smoke curled up in thin gray ribbons.
The eggs were beyond saving. Burnt dark across the bottom, edges curled in on themselves, dry and ruined, but she kept moving the spatula through them in slow circles as if she couldn't see any of it.
Her hair was tied up carelessly, loose strands stuck to her cheek and neck. She was still wearing yesterday's shirt, only more wrinkled now, like she'd slept in it.
Or never slept at all.
"Noona."
She didn't react.
Jae-min crossed the kitchen in three quick strides and killed the flame before reaching for her wrist. "Seo-yeon."
She flinched hard.
The spatula slipped from her hand and clattered against the stove.
Her head turned sharply toward him, eyes wide and unfocused, like she'd only just remembered where she was.
Jae-min looked at her, then at the pan. "You're burning it."
Seo-yeon followed his gaze as though she was seeing the stove for the first time.
Smoke still drifted lazily out of the pan.
"Oh."
Just that.
Jae-min swallowed and moved the pan off the burner. The smell had settled into the kitchen now, thick and ugly. He opened the nearest window, let the morning air cut through the smoke, then came back for her.
"Come sit."
"I was making breakfast."
Her voice was quiet. Flat.
"I know." He kept his hand around her wrist, gentler this time. "Come on."
She let him lead her to the couch.
She moved slowly, like her body was awake but the rest of her had been left behind somewhere. Jae-min sat her down, grabbed the throw blanket off the armrest, and dropped it over her lap without thinking.
Seo-yeon stared at her hands.
Jae-min crouched in front of her. "Did you sleep at all?"
A beat passed.
Then she gave a tiny shrug.
Not yes. Not no. Just that.
He looked at her properly then.
Her face was pale beneath the redness around her eyes. Her lips were dry. There was still a faint streak of dried tears at the corner of one eye, as if she'd cried herself to sleep and never properly washed her face after. Something about it made his chest tighten.
"You should've woken me," he muttered.
Another small shrug.
Jae-min pushed a hand through his hair and started to get up. "Okay. Fine. Sit here. Don't touch the stove again. I'll clean it—"
"Do you think…"
He looked back at her.
Seo-yeon's eyes stayed on her hands. "Do you think I was too much?"
Jae-min stilled. "What?"
She gave a laugh that didn't sound like one. "I keep trying to think if there was a sign and I missed it. Maybe I called too much. Maybe I talked about the future too much. Maybe I—"
Her voice snagged.
She pressed her lips together, trying to keep the rest in.
Jae-min's stomach dropped.
"Noona."
"He said…" Her fingers twisted together in her lap. "He said I make everything feel heavy. That being with me felt like a responsibility he didn't ask for." She laughed again, weaker this time. "I didn't even know I was doing that. I didn't know he was unhappy. I didn't know anything."
The last few words came out smaller, thinner.
Jae-min sat beside her just as the first sob broke loose.
It bent her in half.
He caught her before she folded in on herself completely, and then she was crying into him again, fingers twisting in his shirt, breath hitching every other second.
"I don't understand," she said against his chest. "I don't understand what happened."
Jae-min wrapped his arms around her and held on.
"He was fine," she cried. "Yesterday he was fine. He talked to me like normal, he—" Her breath caught hard. "He kissed me before leaving and then he sent that message like I was some kind of burden he was tired of carrying."
Jae-min shut his eyes.
He could still see the text. Every line of it. The way it made the breakup sound almost reasonable. Like this had been unavoidable. Like she had become too difficult to love and he was simply stepping away from the mess.
"I kept asking what I did wrong," she whispered. "I kept asking and he wouldn't answer. He still won't answer."
Her voice was fraying now. Thin from crying. Tired.
Jae-min didn't say anything.
He just held her and rubbed a slow hand over her back while she cried herself empty against him.
By the time the sobs started to fade, they were no longer sharp. Just weak, exhausted tremors that shook through her every now and then. Her grip on his shirt loosened little by little.
Then nothing.
Jae-min looked down.
Her eyes were closed.
She had fallen asleep on him again.
He stayed still for a while, one hand resting between her shoulder blades.
The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the muffled traffic outside. Morning had settled in properly now. Light filled the room, soft and ordinary and wrong.
Carefully, he shifted and eased her down against the couch. She stirred once when he pulled away, fingers brushing his sleeve before falling still again. He tucked the blanket around her and stood there for a moment, looking at her.
Then his gaze dropped to the phone on the coffee table.
He picked it up.
The message thread with Jihan was still open.
His jaw tightened almost immediately.
She had texted him again this morning.
Too many times.
The first was just after six.
«Are you awake?»
Then—
«Please answer me»
«Can we talk about this properly?»
«I don't understand why you're doing this»
«If I did something wrong, please tell me what it is»
«Jihan please»
And the last one, sent less than an hour ago:
«Please don't do this to me. At least answer once.»
No reply.
Not one.
Jae-min stared at the screen until his grip on the phone started to hurt.
His sister had been awake, crying, standing in a kitchen full of smoke, and Kang Jihan had looked at all of this—every desperate message, every plea—and decided silence was easier.
Jae-min locked the phone and set it down before he did something stupid with it.
For a moment, he just stood there, breathing through his nose.
Then he turned and went back into the kitchen.
He scraped the burnt eggs into the trash. Ran water over the pan. Opened the second window to let the smell out. Wiped the stove where bits of egg had dried onto the surface. None of it took long, but he dragged it out anyway, needing something to do with his hands.
When he finished, Seo-yeon was still asleep.
He checked the time, grabbed his wallet, and left the apartment.
The convenience store was cold enough to make him wish he'd brought a jacket.
He wandered the aisles without really seeing them, tossing things into a basket on instinct. Chips. Chocolate. Gummy candy. Instant noodles. Soda. Ice cream bars. Yogurt drinks. A few random pastries near the register because Seo-yeon liked sweet things when she felt terrible, even if she always pretended otherwise.
By the time he got to the cashier, the basket looked like a depressed teenager had been handed a wallet and told to make bad decisions.
He paid for everything and went home.
Seo-yeon was awake when he got back.
She was sitting on the couch exactly where he'd left her, blanket over her lap, staring at the black television screen. She turned when she heard the door.
"You left."
"I know." Jae-min lifted the bags a little. "I brought peace offerings."
That got no reaction, so he set the bags down and started unloading them onto the coffee table one by one.
"See this?" He held up a bag of chips. "Breakfast."
Seo-yeon blinked. "That's not breakfast."
"It is if life has lost all meaning."
A pause.
Then, barely there, the corner of her mouth twitched.
Jae-min pretended not to notice. "And this," he said, holding up the gummy candy, "is emotional support."
"You're ridiculous."
"There she is."
Her expression shifted at that, but not badly. More like she didn't know if she was allowed to be amused right now.
Jae-min sat beside her and handed her a yogurt drink.
"Drink."
"I'm not hungry."
"Didn't ask."
She gave him a tired look.
He unscrewed the cap and pressed it into her hand anyway. "Just a little."
Seo-yeon stared at it for a moment, then took a sip. Jae-min leaned back into the couch.
He didn't ask if she was okay. Didn't ask if she wanted to talk. If she wanted to cry again, she would. If she wanted to sit there in silence and drink yogurt while staring at a dead TV screen, he'd let her do that too.
After a while, he grabbed the remote and turned on the television.
"What are we watching?" she asked.
"Something stupid."
"No romance."
"I'm not insane."
"No sad endings either."
"Seo-yeon." He looked at her flatly. "Do you really think I'd risk that?"
That earned him the smallest breath of a laugh.
It wasn't much. It still felt like a win.
They ended up watching some terrible action movie where the main character survived things that should have killed him three times over, and one of the side characters kept delivering dramatic speeches like he was fighting for an award. Jae-min mocked half the scenes out loud just to hear Seo-yeon mutter shut up under her breath, and once—just once—she actually laughed.
A real one this time.
Small, but real.
The day dragged after that. Neither of them mentioned Jihan. Not once. But he was there anyway, sitting in the quiet spaces between scenes, in the way Seo-yeon kept checking her phone and locking it again before the screen had even stayed on for a full second.
By evening, Jae-min made ramyeon because it required the least from both of them.
Seo-yeon set the bowls on the table while he boiled the noodles. She moved slowly, like each step had to be remembered before she could do it. Open cupboard. Take out bowls. Close cupboard. Put down chopsticks. Sit.
When they finally started eating, the apartment had gone dim with evening.
The silence between them wasn't awkward. Just tired.
Seo-yeon stirred her noodles for a while before saying, "I think I want to go home for a bit."
Jae-min looked up from his bowl.
She kept her eyes on the noodles. "To Mom and Dad's."
He didn't say anything right away.
Seo-yeon let out a quiet breath and picked up her phone from the table, turning it face-up for a second before setting it back down.
"This," she said.
That was answer enough.
"I keep checking if he replied. Every few minutes." Her mouth twisted. "It's embarrassing."
Jae-min's jaw tightened. "It's not."
"It is."
"Noona."
She shook her head before he could say more. "I know what you're going to say."
"Do you?"
"Yes." A faint smile touched her mouth, then disappeared. "You're going to tell me he's a bastard and I deserve better and one day I'll look back on this and be glad it ended."
Jae-min snorted. "I was mostly going to say he's a bastard."
That got him another small smile.
Then it was gone.
"I just need to leave for a while," she said quietly. "Just until I can stop feeling stupid every time my phone lights up."
Jae-min lowered his chopsticks.
A week or two away. Maybe longer.
Long enough for her to breathe. Long enough to stop watching her move around this apartment like a ghost. Long enough for him to stop seeing last night every time he looked at her.
"Okay," he said.
Seo-yeon glanced up, like she'd expected an argument. "Really?"
"Really." He leaned back in his chair. "Mom's going to force-feed you soup and Dad's going to hover around pretending he's not worried. It'll be unbearable."
She huffed softly. "You make them sound annoying."
"They are annoying."
"They adore you."
"They adore you. I'm just there."
Seo-yeon rolled her eyes, and the sight of it eased something in his chest.
Just a little.
"I'll go tomorrow morning," she said.
Jae-min nodded. "I'll help you pack."
---
The next morning passed in that strange quiet people fall into when there's too much sitting underneath the surface.
Jae-min folded clothes while Seo-yeon packed the smaller things. Neither of them said much. Sometimes she'd pause in the middle of folding a sweater or zipping a pouch and just stare at nothing for a few seconds before starting again. Jae-min pretended not to notice. He just kept moving, kept the room in motion so it wouldn't drown in silence.
He carried her suitcase downstairs, drove her to the station, stood with her on the platform while people moved around them in a blur of voices and rolling luggage.
Seo-yeon looked tired. Better than yesterday, maybe, but only in the way a bruise looked better after it stopped swelling.
When the train announcement sounded overhead, she turned to him with that same fragile smile she'd been wearing all morning.
"Call me when you get there," Jae-min said.
She laughed softly. "You're acting like I'm leaving for a year."
"Just do it."
"Okay."
"And eat properly."
"Why do you keep saying that like I'm the irresponsible one?"
"Because you are."
She opened her mouth to argue, then just shook her head and hugged him instead.
Jae-min held her tightly.
She was warm. Familiar. Still his noona.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
He frowned. "For what?"
"For staying with me."
Jae-min pulled back just enough to look at her. "Where else was I supposed to be?"
Seo-yeon's eyes went suspiciously bright, so before she could start crying again, he flicked her forehead.
"Ow."
"Go before you become dramatic."
She gave him an offended look, but there was affection in it. Real affection. Not the empty kind from yesterday.
Then she boarded the train.
Jae-min stayed on the platform until it pulled away.
When he got back to the apartment, the silence hit harder.
No shoes by the door except his. No voice from the kitchen. No Seo-yeon asking if he wanted coffee and then insulting his life choices when he added too much sugar.
Just quiet.
He stood in the middle of the living room for a long moment, then pulled out his phone and called Min-woo.
Min-woo picked up on the third ring.
"If you're calling to brag about basketball again, I'm hanging up."
"Come over."
A pause.
"What happened?"
"Just come."
Min-woo arrived half an hour later with canned coffee in one hand and his usual careless expression already fading.
He took one look at Jae-min's face and shut the door behind him without another joke.
"What happened?"
Jae-min sat on the couch. Min-woo took the chair opposite him.
For a second, Jae-min didn't say anything.
Then he started talking.
He told him about the breakup text. About dinner. About waking up in the middle of the night and hearing Seo-yeon crying. About finding her trying to hurt herself. About the burnt breakfast. About the messages she kept sending Jihan with no reply coming back.
He didn't rush through any of it. Didn't dramatize it either.
He just told it the way it happened.
By the time he finished, Min-woo had gone completely still.
The can in his hand was dented.
For a while, the room was silent.
Then Min-woo asked quietly, "She's with your parents now?"
Jae-min nodded.
Min-woo looked down at the floor and swore under his breath.
Jae-min laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
"I want to ruin him," he said.
Min-woo looked up.
Jae-min's jaw was tight enough to hurt.
"I'm serious."
Min-woo didn't interrupt.
Jae-min leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so hard his knuckles had gone pale.
"I want him to feel it," he said. "I want him to lose sleep. I want him to wake up with his chest tight and not know how to fix it. I want him to regret ever making her cry like that."
The room felt too quiet after that.
Min-woo stared at him for a long time. Long enough that Jae-min almost snapped and told him to say something.
Then Min-woo leaned back in his chair and let out a breath through his nose.
"This is a terrible idea," he muttered.
Jae-min said nothing.
Min-woo looked at him again. Really looked at him.
And then, slowly, he smiled; It was the kind of smile that meant I know this is insane, and I'm about to follow you into it anyway.
"I'm in," he said.