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Chapter 1
Dasom hesitated, then opened the portal site.
She typed the name “Chae Da-som” into the search bar and pressed enter.
The search results appeared instantly. Dasom clicked on the top article.
“Is Excessive Expectation Poison? [A Critic’s Perspective]”
Dasom’s name wasn’t in the headline, but reading the article made it clear.
This was why she had clicked on it.
“A flimsy story, messy progression, missing plausibility… Where has writer Dasom’s wit gone?”
Sentences that cut like a knife,
And comments dripping with mockery:
[Writer, your bubble’s burst. Just quit writing~]
Unable to bear it, Dasom slammed her laptop shut with a thud. She took deep breaths, trying to calm her pounding heart.
” Dasom, are you really that stupid?”
People whose jobs put them in the public eye share a common bad habit.
They pay more attention to negative reviews than positive ones.
Having succumbed to that habit again today, Dasom sprawled onto the sofa. All strength drained from her body, and only malicious comments floated through her mind.
“No, this won’t do!”
Feeling like she’d be consumed if she stayed like this, Dasom shook her head vigorously, rose from the sofa, and began looking for something to distract herself.
Her gaze landed on the half-full trash bin.
“Come to think of it, today’s Tuesday, right?”
It was general waste disposal day. Having been scolded by the elderly lady downstairs before for mixing up the days, Dasom clicked her tongue softly and straightened her posture.
“I should clean up and take out the trash.”
It was a relief to have something to do. Dasom decided to move her body instead of her head and busied herself.
She picked up clothes strewn across the floor, sorted through food delivery containers, and even ran the vacuum cleaner. Before she knew it, over an hour had passed.
Smiling proudly at the now-clean floor—a stark contrast to its previous chaotic state—Dasom gathered the trash bags.
“I’m clearing out my mind while I’m at it.”
Dasom muttered bravely, tying the trash bag securely and lifting it with one hand.
She roughly tied up her disheveled hair into a bun and, making sure not to forget, put on her sunglasses.
Fully prepared, Dasom finally opened the door. She peeked her head out first to look around, but today, strangely, the hallway was unusually noisy.
The door next to hers was wide open. It had been empty for months since the newlywed couple moved out.
“Someone’s moving in?”
Workers carrying moving boxes bustled in and out of the neighboring unit. Tilting her head, Dasom adjusted her slipping sunglasses and carefully navigated past the workers, trash bag in hand.
Sure enough, a truck emblazoned with “XX Moving & Packing” was parked in front of the building.
After throwing away the trash and dusting off her hands, Dasom lingered near the truck on her way back.
‘Who’s moving in?’
Of course, these days it was trendy to regard neighbors as unknown entities whose faces you never even knew. But still, curiosity was curiosity.
Dasom hoped, at least, to get along with her new neighbor.
It might be different for upstairs or downstairs, but next door meant a high chance of running into each other regardless.
And when that happened, it was far better to exchange awkward greetings than to pretend not to see each other.
“I don’t see them…”
But only the movers in their vests were coming and going, carrying boxes. The person who would become her neighbor was nowhere to be seen.
Dasom stood still for a moment, waiting, then eventually gave up and headed back into the building.
Or rather, she tried to.
“……?”
For an instant, she thought she saw someone. A face she should not be seeing here.
A chill ran up the back of her neck. Dasom held her sunglasses firmly in place and frantically looked around.
Fortunately, it must have been her imagination—the familiar face didn’t reappear.
“No way? Eww, it can’t be.”
It had been five years since she last saw that person. Why would he suddenly appear here, of all places?
Shaking her head, Dasom rubbed the back of her neck and continued inside the building.
Not far from where she stood, white smoke was rising.
Seated at the table, Dasom opened her laptop again. But this time, she didn’t go to the portal site—she ran a word processor.
A cursor blinked on the pure white screen, as if urging her to fill the blank space quickly.
“…….”
There was a time when filling this blank space wasn’t difficult for her. Back when she was called the rising star writer, Dasom.
When people who watched the dramas she wrote liked her and praised her.
Of course, “once upon a time” meant that time was no more.
Now, she was nothing but a useless writer, trapped in a terrible slump—unable to fill that blank space at all, unable to even answer the production company CEO’s催促s.
“Wish, this won’t do.”
The pressure was even worse than when she looked at the portal site.
Biting her lip hard, Dasom, yet again, failed to write a single letter and ended up closing the laptop.
A sense of crisis—what if she kept being unable to write?—crept in, but Dasom forced herself to look away.
“If I could get something done by doing this, that’d be one thing…”
The familiar lethargy settled in. Dasom let out a puff of sigh.
‘How much money do I have left? Should I get a part-time job?’
Living solely on the money she’d saved before, her funds were gradually running out. It wasn’t like she could ask her agency for an advance either.
Dasom pushed the laptop aside and picked up her phone, which she’d set down nearby.
“Well, not like this will solve anything anyway.”
Muttering as if making an excuse, Dasom deleted the ‘writing’ task from her to-do list. She was about to put her phone down when she paused.
Today, she’d cleaned the house for the first time in a while. Taken out the trash too.
Well, wasn’t that working pretty hard, in its own way?
“If you’ve worked, you should reward yourself.”
Dasom hesitated, then opened a delivery app.
This much should be okay. Ending her brief deliberation, she ordered delivery from her usual fried chicken place near home and lowered her phone.
Some might call it avoidance, but well. At least for Dasom, this was far better.
If she just sat staring at that blank space, she wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink again tonight.
“Do I have beer?”
Dasom moved beer from the refrigerator to the freezer to have with her chicken, then went to the living room and turned on the TV. She decided to browse through OTT and pick out something worth watching beforehand.
The OTT platform was overflowing with various content.
An advertisement for a series that had supposedly recently ranked first globally filled the screen.
“What to watch today…”
She felt like watching a movie today. She’d look for one among the films.
Pressing the remote buttons firmly, Dasom suddenly stopped her hand when she discovered a particular movie.
As if possessed, she selected it, and the information appeared immediately.
What caught her attention most was the director’s name.
“Hankyeol….”
Just uttering his name made her tremble slightly. Even now, her stomach fluttered.
Dasom stared blankly at the screen displaying the film’s information.
Of course, the poster only showed the actors, and the only thing listed about the director was his name.
But still.
Dasom rubbed the back of her neck. Probably because of that brief illusion she’d had earlier.
“It’s not like I’ll ever run into that senior now anyway.”
“I think it’s about time you understood what I’m saying, Dasom.”
Recalling the man’s voice—still vivid in her memory—Dasom smiled bitterly.
Anyway, maybe she’d watch this again today, for the first time in a while.
Just as she was about to press play, the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong.
Startled back to reality, Dasom rushed to the front door.
“Chicken’s here!”
Being a regular must mean faster delivery too.
Anticipating the warm chicken that would soon greet her, Dasom quickly approached the entrance. She flung the door wide open, ready to welcome the food.
Surely.
“Thank you!”
Without even looking ahead, Dasom reached straight out for the chicken. Then suddenly, she felt a gaze piercing down at her from above. Puzzled, she looked up.
‘I already paid…?’
Why is he staring like that? Lifting her head slightly, Dasom, unable to see the delivery person’s face, tilted her head and raised it higher.
She straightened her hunched back.
Gripped by a strange stubbornness, she craned her neck, and finally, in the moment her eyes met those of the chicken delivery man—
Dasom froze solid.
“…….”
The man standing at her front door was holding a chicken bag, but he was no delivery driver.
“This came to the wrong place.”
A low voice resonated. It was the very voice she had been recalling just moments ago.
Gulp. Dasom swallowed dry saliva and cautiously stepped back a few paces. Then she craned her neck again to look at the man’s face.
“Uh…”
Thick eyebrows framing long, distinct eyes. A straight nose bridge. Beautifully full lips arranged in perfect proportion.
The bright hallway lighting cast soft shadows across his face.
A face absolutely impossible to mistake for anyone else’s.
A distinctly charismatic face with a uniquely intense aura. Dasom stared blankly, blinking slowly.
Behind him, she saw his front door—the one next to hers—standing open.
“By any chance… Do you live next door?”
“Yeah.”
There had been absolutely no chance of running into that senior. Until just now, when one suddenly appeared.
‘No way’ had cruelly betrayed Dasom.
