Time inside a detention center doesn't move forward.
It circles.
Every morning, the guards' footsteps woke Seon-woo before the sun even stretched across the sky. Doors clanged open in a rhythm that became familiar, metal on metal, voices echoing through concrete halls, the faint hum of the fluorescent lights that never really turned off.
He slept on the thin mattress they issued him on his first night, the kind that reminded him of school camping trips, except here there was no laughter, no freedom, and no one to reassure him that things would be okay tomorrow.
Breakfast was always the same.
Rice. Soup. Kimchi.
Simple, warm, tasteless after the first weeks.
He ate slowly, not because he wanted to savor it, but because the act of chewing gave him something to do, something that wasn't thinking about Ha-yoon's face during the verdict, or the way she folded into Hae-min's arms, shaking with grief he caused.
The detention center had a yard, square, fenced, gravel beneath the feet. Some inmates paced like restless ghosts. Others sat motionless, staring at the sky as if waiting for an answer from it. Seon-woo joined neither group. He sat on the bench by the wall, hands clasped tightly, jaw set like he was holding something in place.
He carried guilt like a bone deep ache.
On some days, he replayed the night that ruined everything.
On others, he forced the memory away, suffocating it under the weight of routine, meals, cleaning duties, roll call, sleep.
What hurt most wasn't the sentence.
It was knowing that every time Ha-yoon visited, he refused to see her.
He couldn't face her.
Not with the shame he woke up with.
Not with the guilt that lived under his skin.
And so her name became something he only dared whisper when the lights were off and the room was quiet.
"Ha-yoon… wait for me… or forget me. Whatever hurts you less."
He didn't know which option terrified him more.
While Seon-woo was learning to live with the walls around him, the world outside was falling apart.
Yeonhwa Street, once the kind of neighborhood where everyone knew each other's laundry days and kids played soccer until dusk, turned into something unrecognizable overnight.
Government notices stacked on telephone poles.
Protest tents filled the sidewalks.
Rumors spread that bulldozers were coming, that entire blocks would disappear in a week.
Then came the night tires were burned.
The smoke rose like a dark banner across the sky, drifting between buildings and settling into the alleys where children used to run freely. People shouting. Windows breaking. Men and women holding signs, voices hoarse from begging to keep their homes. Police shields glinting under streetlights like cold silver plates.
What had been a warm, noisy neighborhood, the home Seon-woo grew up in, now felt like a battlefield.
People were hurt.
Old men pushed to the ground.
Teenagers coughing as tear gas rolled through the air.
Mothers clutching their children tightly as officers guided them away from the flames.
By the third night, it wasn't a protest anymore, it was a riot.
Seon-woo's mother couldn't sleep. She stayed up late packing boxes while his little sister pressed her ear to the door, listening as if she might hear the neighborhood breathe its last.
"We can't stay," his mother whispered, folding a blanket.
"We'll be safer somewhere else."
And so, quietly, almost shamefully, the family left Yeonhwa Street in the early morning, carrying memories more than belongings.
The same pressure eventually reached Ha-yoon's family.
They weren't in the center of the chaos, but they were close enough to feel the tremors. Her father lost his small business when the redevelopment destroyed the foot traffic around his shop. Rent increased. Streets became unpredictable. Safety became a question instead of a promise.
After months of trying to hold on, her parents decided to move out.
Packing their home didn't feel real at first.
Ha-yoon folded clothes quietly.
Her younger brother sat on the floor, hugging his schoolbag.
Their mother moved carefully, as if afraid that making too much noise would shatter something inside them.
The new place was smaller.
Farther.
Colder.
Suddenly life felt heavier than the boxes they carried.
Her father fell sick not long after the move, stress, exhaustion, a body breaking down after years of work. Hospital bills piled up. Appointments filled calendar squares that were once reserved for school schedules, holidays, and hopes.
Ha-yoon took it all in silently.
Her mother could only work so much.
Her brother was only fourteen.
And she, she had always been the dependable one.
She juggled three part-time jobs the same way she once juggled study groups and dreams about her major.
Café shifts in the morning.
Convenience store at night.
Weekends assisting at a bookstore.
She tried going to class between shifts.
Tried staying awake during lectures.
Tried pretending her life wasn't collapsing from all sides.
But exhaustion has a way of catching up, not dramatically, not suddenly, just a quiet realization one afternoon while looking at her notes.
"I can't do this anymore."
Her grades slipped.
Her attendance dropped.
And eventually, with trembling hands and a heart that felt like it was being wrung dry, she signed the withdrawal form.
She walked out of the academic building holding her student ID like a piece of someone she used to be.
That night, she cried in the bathroom with the water running so no one would hear.
She didn't cry because she gave up school.
She cried because she felt like she had given up herself.
Across the city, in a high-rise where the air smelled of polished floors and expensive perfume, Hae-min lived a life that looked perfect on paper and hollow in every corner.
His father, a man who made success look effortless, barely spoke to him except to ask about grades or performance. He treated parenting like a report card: check the boxes, move on.
His stepmother floated through the apartment, elegant and indifferent, offering compliments that felt like decorative furniture, pretty, cold, meaningless.
Meals were eaten at a long table where silence sat more comfortably than any family member.
His room was neat, spacious, and lonely.
Even achievements were met with polite nods instead of pride.
And so Hae-min poured everything into training, football, drills, long jogs under streetlights, anything that filled the spaces left empty at home.
On the field, he felt real.
Alive.
Wanted.
But off the field…
He watched families gather in parks.
He passed by classmates laughing with their parents.
He saw warmth everywhere except in his own house.
And as life became increasingly chaotic for Ha-yoon, he found himself caring more, watching her break under responsibilities she didn't deserve, wanting to reach for her but never knowing how close was too close.
He showed up where he could.
Stayed quiet when she didn't want to talk.
Listened when she finally did.
And each time she leaned on him, even for a second, it softened something in him he didn't know existed.
__________________
While protests raged, while families moved homes, while dreams were paused and others were born, the three of them, Seon-woo in his cell, Ha-yoon in her crowded, shrinking life, and Hae-min in his expensive loneliness, were all drifting toward a future none of them were ready for.
They didn't know it yet, but these separate battles…
these quiet Sacrifices…
these changes they never asked for…
…were all shaping the moment when their paths would collide again.
And when they did, nothing about their lives would remain the same.