You never heard it from him. The news came from someone else — the old woman who owned the laundry across the street. She mentioned, almost absentmindedly, “Yi-jin’s leaving. Mentioned he got a chance abroad. Brave boy.”

Your world paused. That evening, you went to his apartment, but the lights were off. A note taped to the door knowningly for you:

“Thank you for making this place feel like home.” And beneath it, his name — Baek Yi-jin.

You stared until the ink blurred behind your tears.

The weeks after were unbearable. Every corner of the neighborhood carried a trace of him — the bench by the river, the bus stop where he once fell asleep waiting, the cracked window of his old apartment. He had always spoken about leaving, but never like this, never without goodbye.

So you left too. Not for him — at least, that’s what you told yourself — but because standing still felt like waiting for a ghost. You applied for a student visa, saved every bill of money you could, and months later found yourself in another city, another country, beneath another sky.

Canada was cold in ways Seoul never was — the kind of cold that bit through your clothes and into your bones. You worked at a small café tucked between a bookstore and a laundromat, serving coffee to hurried strangers. Your days blurred into one another: lectures, night shifts, quiet exhaustion.

Until one morning, as the doorbell chimed, a voice you thought you’d forgotten cut through the hum of machines.

“A black coffee, please. No sugar.” a familiar voice spoke

You froze. The voice was lower, steadier, but unmistakable. You looked up, and there he was — Baek Yi-jin.