Ten years ago. The morning I was on my way to take the college entrance exam.

On the subway, an old man grabbed me by the hair.

‘How insolent, not even giving up your seat for an elder!’

‘Agh!’

‘Oh my, sir! I think the student was just reading and didn’t notice!’

‘Help me! Somebody, help me!’

I was the kind of student who was a shoo-in for Hankuk University, as long as I didn’t screw up the exam.

As long as I didn’t screw up the exam.

And now, 10 years later.

I’m standing on a rooftop.

Of course, I’m not here to kill myself.

‘I’m standing here because life is so f*cking shitty…’

I am currently twenty-nine years old.

Even my male classmates who finished their military service have all found jobs by now.

The friends who got jobs early are busy talking about promotions or changing companies. The price range of the restaurants where we have our quarterly alumni gatherings is steadily increasing.

In the midst of all that, I’m the only one who still hasn’t found her footing, stuck in a contract-to-hire internship.

The perennial assistant manager, 11 years my senior, has been harassing me ever since I turned down his invitation to drink alone after work, and my evaluation score for the full-time conversion is at rock bottom.

Getting the permanent position is already a lost cause; I’m just stubbornly holding on to get my intern’s salary.

…while fighting the urge to just run away.

-Ding.

[Mom: I made stew at home. Eat it when you get off work.]

“…How can I face Mom? If I fail again.”

It’s already been four years of me consistently failing, sometimes at the document screening stage, sometimes at the interview.

I’ve failed so many times in a row that even my mom doesn’t say anything outright, but I can see in her eyes that she has incredibly high hopes this time.

This suit I’m wearing now, my mom bought it for me because I had nothing to wear to work.

When I get home late at night, the sink is piled high with the medicine packets my mom takes. With that body, she works 12-hour days on her feet to feed her perfectly healthy 29-year-old daughter.

“What am I going to do? If I fail this time too.”

I sighed and looked up at the sky.

If someone in high school had spoiled my future for me, telling me ‘This is how you’re going to live,’ I would have scoffed.

Where did it all go wrong?

“I don’t know.”

Sighing, I cast my gaze to the building across the street.

I could see a large electronic billboard glowing on the exterior of a high-rise building.

On the biggest billboard on Gangnam-daero, the handsome face of a man in a football uniform with black paint under his eyes was plastered larger than life.

The text below it read:

[Happy 10th Debut Anniversary, Jung Eun-seong]

“Why is he following me all the way here just to torment me?”

I grumbled, looking at the handsome man smiling like the sun.

“I’m hiding up here because I don’t want to see you, you know?”

I glared, straining my eyes. The faint scar on Jung Eun-seong’s left cheek must have been edited out in post-production; I couldn’t see it from here.

“Still, congratulations, Jung Eun-seong. You achieved your dream.”

As long as you don’t cause any trouble, you’ll be successful forever. A little scar on your cheek won’t detract from your charm at all.

Q. Why are you suddenly talking about a man in the middle of your pity party? Who is he?

A. The actor, Jung Eun-seong.

At 19, he debuted as the main vocalist of a boy idol group from a major entertainment agency.

The group gained explosive popularity right after their debut and became one of Korea’s representative boy groups, but…

Less than three years later, the group’s leader went to prison for drugs.

The youngest member had a premarital pregnancy scandal with his influencer girlfriend, another member who was on a lot of variety shows got drunk at a club and assaulted an employee, the eldest was caught gambling overseas, another had a hit-and-run DUI, and the one foreign member quit and went back to America.

Only Jung Eun-seong survived, finished his contract, and transitioned into acting.

He was my high school classmate 10 years ago, and we were even in the same class at one point, but I hadn’t seen him since graduation—

Until today.

I had a reunion with Jung Eun-seong for the first time in 10 years when he came to our company for a photoshoot.

‘Kang Da-hye, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t get that position, you hear me?!’

Of all times, it had to be when I was getting an earful from the assistant manager.

I was flustered, apologizing profusely as my boss yelled at me in front of all the staff, when my eyes met Jung Eun-seong’s as he was just walking onto the set.

“…He probably recognized me, right?”

Of course he did.

Look at his expression back then. Was that the face of someone who didn’t recognize me?

Still, I was lucky that Jung Eun-seong had the sense not to acknowledge me there.

A puff of white breath escaped from between my lips as I let out a wry smile.

I looked back at Jung Eun-seong’s 10th-anniversary ad one more time.

“You haven’t changed a bit since high school.”

High school.

Looking back, that seems to have been the most hopeful time of my life.

A time when, despite the hardships, I believed without a doubt that a brilliant future lay ahead of me.

In contrast, the me of today.

“Is smoothly on the path to ruin.”

I don’t want to live like this, but I can’t see a way out.

My chest always feels tight, and the thought of the future suffocates me.

Every night, as I lie down to sleep, the thought I have is:

‘What if I hadn’t taken that subway on the day of the exam?’

I know it’s ridiculous to still be blaming the exam 10 years later.

I also know that messing up the exam doesn’t mean your life is ruined.

I just want to say that my life started to go wrong from that day.

I got into a car accident while studying for the retake exam by myself, so the next year’s exam was a wash too, and after that, everything I did went awry.

A few years ago, my mom’s store went out of business due to the pandemic.

Nothing worked out.

It’s as if someone had twisted my fate.

Continuously, for 10 years.

It was enough time to turn a teenage girl burning with ambition into a depressed, unemployed 20-something with no dreams or hope.

“Sigh.”

I rubbed my warming eyes with the palm of my hand.

Let’s not cry.

Crying here would be truly pathetic.

“I don’t want to live.”

More accurately, I don’t want to live (like this).

It was as I removed the hand covering my eyes, dusted myself off, and turned to leave.

My eyes met with someone who was just opening the rooftop door.

It was Jung Eun-seong.

His expression was gravely hardened, as if he had heard my muttering.

The moment I took a step back in surprise.

“…Huh?”

My body, which had been tormented without food since 7:30 in the morning, staggered.

“Kang Da-hye?”

“Huh…? Uhh…? Uh oh!”

“KANG DA-HYE!!!!!!”

I fell from the rooftop.

And then, I regressed.