A finger tapped against the table.
Once. Twice. Again.
The sound bounced around the living room, sharp enough to cut through the rain hammering against the windows. Outside, the downpour showed no signs of easing. Neither, apparently, did my nerves.
"Can you stop?"
A chair scraped softly. Paper shifted.
"I can't concentrate when your finger is louder than the rain."
I kept tapping for a few seconds longer, stubborn out of habit rather than intent, then let my hand fall. The quiet that followed pressed in hard. I exhaled slowly, my head pulsing in dull protest, heat crawling under my skin.
"What?" she asked. "Why are you so deep in thought for?"
I didn't answer.
A pen scratched across paper again. "Unbelievable." She clicked her tongue. "You came home yesterday soaked like you'd been dragged out of a river, and now your fever's climbing. And you're still sitting here instead of sleeping."
She paused, then added more quietly, "You can't even just sleep?"
I leaned back against the sofa, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The light felt too bright. Everything did. The room smelled faintly of instant coffee and damp fabric, and beneath the discomfort sat something worse, an unease that refused to settle.
Kang Hana had always been like this. Loud when she wanted to be, sharp when she needed to be, and impossible to ignore. A long-term squatter in practice. She drifted in and out of my house without warning, gone for weeks, then suddenly back, claiming the spare room for a few days as if she'd never left.
"I met someone yesterday," I said.
Her pen stopped.
"Your ex?"
"No."
"Your parents?"
"Nah."
She turned to look at me then, eyes narrowed. "Then who?"
"Do you remember Lee Jihun?"
Hana blinked, then frowned slightly. "Wait. The guy from high school?" She glanced at me. "You used to talk about him. A lot."
I didn't respond.
"Why?" she asked. "What about him?"
"Do you know anything about him?" I said. "His records. Maybe… an incident?"
She didn't answer right away.
Hana leaned back, eyes unfocused for a moment, as if running through names and connections in her head. Then she looked at me. Really looked, long enough that the silence stopped feeling empty and started feeling heavy.
"I don't have anyone who knows him," she said at last.
The words didn't close the subject. They hung between us.
"…But I can check."
Before I could speak, she added, "You know I won't do this without anything in return."
I closed my eyes for a moment. The answer came easier than it should have.
"You can have the room at the end of level two."
Her eyebrows lifted. Just slightly.
"…Settle."
The word landed like a stamp.
She reached for her laptop, already done with the negotiation, fingers moving with renewed purpose. I watched her for a second, then looked away. The screen's glow stung my eyes.
I shifted on the sofa.
Backwards.
Uninvited.
I remembered the first time I noticed him.
We were classmates then. He wasn't the type people described as cheerful at first glance—quiet, reserved, the kind who blended into the background if you didn't bother to look twice.
That day, he was sitting near the window.
Sunlight spilled across his desk, catching dust in the air, outlining his profile in a way that felt almost deliberate. I'd only been looking outside, nothing more than habit, but my eyes caught on him instead.
I don't know why I noticed him that day.
I only know that once I did, it became difficult not to.
After that, my attention lingered longer than it should have, on small things, on moments that didn't matter, until they started to.
Somewhere along the way, without realising when it happened, I began noticing more than I was supposed to.
His eyes. His face. The way he carried himself, as if he wasn't aware of how closely he could be watched.
He could be talkative with his friends. I noticed it in brief moments between classes, when his shoulders loosened and his voice rose just enough to cut through the noise around him. With them, he looked lighter. Almost ordinary.
He wasn't good at sports. During physical education, he lagged behind on the track, breath uneven even during warm-ups, sweat already darkening the collar of his shirt while others barely seemed affected. He never complained. He just kept running until the whistle blew.
He wasn't particularly good in class either. I saw the way his papers came back to him, marks pencilled neatly at the top. Not terrible. Not impressive. He accepted them without reaction, sliding the pages into his bag as if the numbers meant nothing.
Months passed like that.
I kept watching, still unable to understand why my heart reacted every time he entered the room. It didn't matter what he was doing. Standing. Sitting. Laughing. Falling behind. The smallest things were enough.
I didn't know then whether it was the big moments or the small ones that mattered more.
I only knew that I noticed all of them.
***
When I opened my eyes, sunlight had already crept into the room. The rain was gone. A blanket lay draped over me, heavy with unfamiliar warmth, and a melted ice pack rested against my forehead.
I pushed myself upright slowly, the sofa creaking in protest, and reached for my phone on the table.
07:25 a.m.
"Already morning."
My voice came out rougher than expected.
I looked around. The open kitchen was spotless. No scattered papers. No laptop. No sign that anyone had been there at all.
"Did she already leave?"
I stood and walked toward the counter. A familiar Tupperware container sat neatly on top of it. Beneath it, a folded note.
Eat.
Answer to your question: he never had an accident.
P.S. There's a map to his place.
My fingers tightened around the paper. I frowned, then pulled my phone from my pocket and dialled before I could think better of it.
It rang twice.
"Hello?" A pause. "Minjae? What's wrong?"
I breathed out slowly, slid the note back onto the counter, and stared at the container as if it might explain something.
"Choi Minseok," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Can you help me check something?"
There was a brief silence on the other end.
"I need to know if this person has any medical history related to memory loss."
***
The apartment complex stood in neat, colourless rows, balconies stacked like boxes, curtains half-drawn behind identical windows. Nothing about the place invited attention. It was the kind of building people forgot as soon as they left.
A black car sat parked a short distance away, engine off, lights dark.
I was inside it, both hands resting on the steering wheel, head lowered. The leather felt cool beneath my palms. Too real.
"Huh…" I muttered under my breath. "What am I even doing?"
The word came late, reluctant.
"Stalker?"
Footsteps sounded near the entrance.
I looked up.
Someone stepped out of the building, moving slowly, shoulders slightly hunched. A man in his sixties, judging by the grey at his temples and the careful way he descended the steps.
My gaze followed him.
"…Not him."
I leaned back and exhaled. My wrist felt heavy. I checked the time.
Break was almost over.