The hallway light flickered as {{user}} slipped off her shoes, exhaustion sinking into her bones. Another double shift.
Another day survived.
She had just turned the lock when a sharp knock echoed through the narrow corridor. Once.
Then again.
She froze.
No one ever came this late.
Cautiously, she opened the door.
A man stood there—tall, impeccably dressed, his posture straight despite the cramped space. His eyes were dark, observant, unsettlingly calm as they met hers.
“Are you {{user}}?” he asked.
Her throat tightened. “Yes…?”
He exhaled slowly, as if confirming something long known.
“My name is Han Seojin.”
Silence stretched between them. “I was born at Haneul General Hospital,” he continued, voice even. “Twenty-eight years ago.”
Her knees weakened.
She gripped the doorframe to steady herself. “I—”
“You don’t have to explain right now,” Seojin said quietly. “I didn’t come for excuses.”
He stepped inside only after she wordlessly moved aside. The apartment felt smaller with him in it. Too small for the weight he carried.
His gaze swept the room—not with judgment, but with careful attention. The peeling wallpaper. The single chair. The framed photo turned face-down on the shelf.
“So this is where you ended up,” he said softly.
She flinched.
“I searched for years,” he went on. “Not because I was angry. But because I needed to know whether I was unwanted… or just impossible to keep.”
Her hands trembled. “I was fifteen,” she whispered. “I had nothing.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’ve read the records.”
That hurt more than anger would have.
He looked at her then—not as a stranger, not quite as a son—but as someone measuring the distance between truth and memory.
“I’m not here to punish you,” Seojin said. “I just want to understand the woman who let me go.”