Lee Jihoon is the average white-collared worker: addicted to coffee, working from nine to five at a job that pays just enough to survive in the big city, and said job doesn’t even interest him one bit – he’s only doing it because he’s getting paid for it, and that he’d spent half of his parents’ savings for college fees for a degree in accountancy that he doesn’t really want in the first place.

All he does is work: crunching numbers all day, grumble about his demanding boss, then go home to his dinky overpriced apartment that he can barely afford, and maybe have a drink with Mingyu from Human Resources after work if he doesn’t feel murderous. Rinse and repeat for the weekdays, and he sleeps his weekends off if he doesn’t have boring chores to do. Simply ordinary, and mundane enough to drive one crazy. 

So it’s fitting that he has a quarter-life crisis one day – his epiphany comes to him in the middle of auditing company X’s numbers for the third quarter of the year – he’s had enough; he’s putting his foot down; he needs a long, refreshing break to think about what the hell he’s been doing all of these years. Without a word, he stands up, dramatically slamming his hands against his desk (like how people in movies always do) but everyone else around him goes about their business of gossiping over tea and biscuits, or watching cat videos on YouTube. Jihoon looks around, suffocated by the office that he’s been inhabiting for the past few years since he graduated with first class honours from university. No one speaks to him unless it’s work-related, or if someone wants to borrow a stapler, so Jihoon figures that no one would notice if he left.

That’s exactly what he does: he grabs his belongings and headed towards the exit, in the middle of the workday in the middle of the week; and like he predicted, no one cares.

He calls up his (only) friend Soonyoung, who’s living the life as a blogpacker (blogger-backpacker if you’re untrendy), traipsing around the earth and clashing with diverse cultures. The life that Jihoon secretly yearned for: so carefree, with less worries about the world, rather than worrying about company stocks and its impact on the national economy or bills and taxes. Jihoon especially hates the latter, and he thinks that there should be a special hell for it. 

Jihoon and Soonyoung have been friends since the crib; they’re almost like twins (some kid in middle school even had the audacity to say that they look strikingly similar). Besides, they’re also polar opposites, so they complement each other well that they almost function as one human being. When Soonyoung left Korea to travel the world using his trust fund money, Jihoon missed Soonyoung’s energetic presence, but well, life goes on, your best friend leaves to see the world, so Jihoon drowned himself in his work like an accounting automaton – no wonder his life has been so boring. He won’t say it out loud, but he quite misses Soonyoung. That idiot hasn’t returned since he left a year and a half ago, and his blog’s booming on the internet - of which, Jihoon’s an avid reader of - and he seems to be the answer to Jihoon’s current problem.

“Where are you now?” Jihoon asks once Soonyoung picks up, even though he knows perfectly well that his best friend is somewhere in America – Seattle to be exact. He knows this, because he’s seen Soonyoung’s travel photos on social media; and it makes him even more depressed that he’s not living his youth freely like his best friend is.

“Seattle.” Soonyoung replies precisely, repressing a yawn. “Do you know what time it is over here?”

“No, I don’t.” Jihoon snaps. “And by that, I mean that I don’t care.”

Soonyoung sighs, used to the cold treatment by his best friend. “No wonder you’re the life of the party, Hoonie.”

Jihoon has no time to be roasted