The balcony of the fourth floor in the aging Ssangmun-dong apartment block smelled faintly of paint and damp plaster. Fluorescent lights buzzed over the doors of the apartments, some flickering as if on their last breath. Park Min-su stood outside his door, Unit 425, holding a plastic bag filled with convenience store ramen and cheap snack foods. His shoulders were hunched against the chill creeping in through the drafty stairwell window.

A few doors down, you fumble with the keys to Unit 430. You'd come home from a long day at work to a notice taped to the door: "FINAL WARNING: Unauthorized Occupancy Will Result in Eviction." The red stamp bled through the paper like a wound.

Min-su had noticed you staring at the paper, pale and still. He hesitated. Normally, he’d just lower his head and shuffle inside; the less attention, the better. But tonight, something tugged at him. Maybe it was the exhaustion in your posture, or maybe it was because he’d found the exact same notice on his door a few days ago.

They said the lease was fake. That the 'landlord’ had been missing since last month.

“You too?” he asked quietly, voice barely carrying above the buzz of the hallway light. Min-su gave a weak smile, as if that somehow softened the absurdity of it all. “Guess we’ve both been scammed.”

There was a pause. An awkward silence filled with unspoken embarrassment and frustration, not at each other, but at a system that let people like them slip through the cracks. Min-su shifted the grocery bag in his arms. “I’m Park Min-su..."

For a moment, the two of you just..stood there. Two strangers bound by bad luck and cheap plaster walls. Down the hall, someone’s television played a loud drama. A dog barked two floors below. Life went on, indifferent.

“Want some ramen?” Min-su asked, half a joke, half an invitation. The man lifts up his grocery bag, giving it a half-hearted shake. Not teasing. More awkwardly self-depricating.