Letting out an exasperated breath he didn’t realize he was holding, Jeon Wonwoo shut the door of the taxi and balanced his box of necessities against his hip, fishing in his pocket for any extra wads of cash he could pay the driver with. “Here,” he smiled as he bent down to the driver’s window, handing his fare. With that, the car turned around and sped off, its silhouette melting into the curve of the road. Wonwoo watched as the bumper slowly turned smaller until it was no longer visible. Facing forward, he examined his soon-to-be new apartment.

Frankly speaking, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing in the suburbs of Seoul. Originating from the countryside, he imagined the city side to be lavish; filled with the richest of the richest, with Gucci and Louis Vuitton wrapped around the arms of everyone. Unfortunately, living in the city was not fit for his budget, so he was required to live in a shabby apartment complex. It looked sketchy and the walls were a musty grey color; the paint chipping at its side. It didn’t help the angsty mood that overcame Wonwoo that the sky was shrouded in an ugly shade of grey, making the building look more unappealing. The landlady, or so he assumed, stepped out. 

She looked like the average retiree you’d see at a local market: a salt and pepper hair styled into a big bush on top of a small, wrinkly face. She had bright pink lipstick smeared onto her lips and some of it transferred to her teeth as she smiled towards Wonwoo. She wore a worn out orange shirt with a picture of a faded grey cat, but with no context about it at at all. He wondered if it died and the shirt was a way to remember its death. 

“Ah, you must be the new guy, Weon Jeonwoo!” She said, walking towards him with her loud Jesus sandals. They squeaked every time she moved towards him. 

“Actually it’s Jeon Wonwoo,” he said in a soft voice, which fell onto deaf ears. 

“Anyway,” she said, scanning Wonwoo up and down. “You’re quite the looker huh? Y’know I’m not as old as I look,” she murmured coyly.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“It was a joke.” The silence was full of tension after that. Wonwoo shifted on his feet, arms aching due to the heavy box carried into his hands. “Oh? Is that all you have? Surely, I knew you were poor but I didn’t kno-”

“No, it’s just that it wouldn’t fit in the taxi, and this is all I need for now anyway.” He knew she was under the impression that all country folk were poor. His family surely wasn’t rich, but they lived a comfortable life.  

Satisfied with his answer, she spun on her heels and headed towards the door, which he didn’t notice till now, boldly said, “Gray Apartments,” in ironically bright blue times new Roman block letters. She pushed the door ajar and the odor of the apartments wafted outside. His nostrils wrinkled at the smell of cigarettes and rotting eggs. 

“Pardon the appearance, I promise the actual apartments are in a very....livable conditions.” The landlady said, leading the way for him. She pulled out a yellowed sheet of paper out of her matching orange shorts, and at first glance Wonwoo could tell it was filled with random scribbles. “Let’s see, you’re living in unit.......2301.”

As stupid as it seems, Wonwoo actually never visited his unit in person. It was too far out from the countryside to just check out the place. He just scrounged various apartment sites to find the cheapest, yet decent looking ones. He had decided to trust his gut and the comments stating how great the place was to live in (he bet $10 it was the landlady behind different account names writing the comments). It would be lying if he said he didn’t regret his decision. 

After walking up a flight of stairs, he and the landlady reached a corridor filled with shut doors. The walls of the corridor were filled with graffiti and expletives and cockroaches crawled on the floor. Wonwoo winced and tried to push the urge to vomit at the back of his brain. That was the least of his concerns now. Adjusting his box he walked first, leaving the landlady at his heel, and stopped at the door smack dab between 2300 and 2302. He d around in his pockets, only to remember he never received his keys from the landlady. As if reading his mind, she extended her hand out and dropped the keys into his palm, to which he pushed in the key and turned it, unlocking the door. The door let out a moan as it opened, which was unnecessarily loud. 

He stepped inside, not knowing what to expect from the room. He secretly prayed the interior wasn’t as shaggy as the exterior of the building. Surprisingly, it was quite cozy for the summer time. There wasn’t an AC but there was a dusty fan in the middle of the living room, and next to it on the ground was an old stack of books, cobwebs laced onto it. The landlady pushed Wonwoo aside and entered first. 

“It isn’t a lot but I tried to make it as welcoming as possible. I know how it feels to move to a foreign place so perhaps these books could keep you some company on lonely days,” she said in a soft voice. Suddenly, she didn’t look so intimidating. She looked like a grandparent who would feed you lots of food whenever you were stressed, someone who Wonwoo always wished for during his childhood. 

He responded with a smile and set his books aside, walking towards the window. He opened the blinds and felt instantly happier as he felt he sun leak through his window, now that the sky had cleared up into a light blue. 

“Alright, I don’t have all day now.” The landlady snapped, returning to her annoying demeanor. “You can call me auntie and let me know if there are any concerns, but don’t call me more than 5 times a day because I’ll raise your rent.” He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not; probably the latter. With that, she slammed the door shut, causing the books to slide from their stacked position. 

To start off, he began unloading his box. He packed only toiletries, bedding, and some extra jeans and pajamas since school was starting in a few weeks. He figured he’d leave his pre-packed suitcase at home as an excuse to bring his friends over. It wasn’t that big of a deal anyway. 

Changing into more comfortable shorts and a shirt, he got up and looked through the kitchen cabinets. Sure, he brought spending money for groceries, but being the frugal person he was, it wouldn’t hurt to check if there was any extra cup noodles left behind by previous tenants. 

Auntie’s dead cat from heaven was probably casting its heavenly rays down onto him, because lo and behold, there was a small 3 pack of cup noodles sitting in the back collecting dust. It didn’t matter how old it could have possibly been; it had enough MSG in it for it to last a lifetime. 

He hungrily opened it and pulled out a spare thermos filled to the brim with warm water he packed to be safe, and poured it in, feeling the saliva in his mouth warm up. 

After chewing in silence and processing how his whole day was, he decided to fish out his phone and call his friends to see what was up. His family was out on a village festival, so he decided not to bother them with his calls. After being left on voicemail after dialing his first friend, Jeonghan, he decided to dial his other best friend Jihoon. 

The three were always seen stuck at the hip throughout their primary and high school days. Though all their personalities were polar opposites, they surprisingly got along. Jeonghan was known as the Casanova in school, there wasn’t a single girl in their whole grade, hell, whole school who he hadn’t “dated”- if that counted holding hands and hugging for a consistent period of 2 weeks. After that, he looked for his next toy. 

Jihoon was a weeb- he practically lived on Crunchyroll and also spent his time playing otome games.  It was split 50%, 50%, but he surprisingly managed to pass all of his classes. “The anime is..uh, educational.” He once claimed after midterm exams were released. Wonwoo, being the studious person he was, received a high score of 98. Jihoon managed to make it past 90, a remarkable feat for “anime boy”. Jeonghan, obviously, didn’t give two hoots about his exam scores and was probably seducing some innocent high school girl as they spoke. 

Flash forward to the future, an ecstatic Jeonghan picked up Jihoon’s phone. “Hello?” 

At this point he wasn’t even surprised that Jeonghan picked up. The kid always fought with his parents, which resulted in him getting kicked out of the house, so he always turned desperately to Jihoon.  

“Hey, what’s up? How’s Jihoon? You guys didn’t look through my suitcase right?” At that rhetorical question, he was almost begging for them to rummage through his luggage. 

“Ay,” he laughed in response. “What do you take us for? Of course we did! You got some pretty interesting briefs, if I must say. Who woulda thought studious Wonwoo would go for spongebob?”

On the other end of the line, the latter’s face flushed. “Shut up. They- they were on sale so I bought them!”
“Right,”

“I swear Yoon Jeonghan-”

“Okay, okay, alright.” He said in a defeated tone. “Anyway, Jihoon’s gotten pretty popular on the Overwatch leaderboard. Apparently he also messaged some girl on it, and I think she’s interested in him? I think she wanted to meet up in person too. Not sure, though.”

That was a first. Jihoon always flustered up in the presence of any girl that wasn’t part of his family. Now dating? Lee Jihoon really grew up from his infamous title. 

“Anyway, I think I have to go. My parents will file a missing child report soon.”

“Han, you’re 19.”

“Besides the point. We’ll stop by....uh.....late tomorrow? Or in two days. Dunno.”

“Alright,” he responded, and hung up. 

He hadn’t checked the time and pulled the blinds up, revealing a dark sky. He hadn’t realized how quickly time he passed since he moved in; it was almost 7:30 PM now. 

Picking up his now soggy noodles, he silently pondered while chewing. Should he stop by and greet his next door neighbors? He assumed they were his age, since nobody but Auntie would live near the city during their retirement. Maybe they were all those really extra studious kids, who yelled at everyone if they even breathed. Nah, that only happens in dramas, right? 

He spent his last hours setting up his wifi router. He did it with ease, considering the fact he was a freshman engineering major. 

His parents actually opposed his dream of becoming an engineer. They worried about the costs of tuition for college, and coming from an agriculture background for 5 generations, they weren’t too keen on delving onto a new career path in life. However, Wonwoo assured his parents he’d return successful and would buy them anything they wanted to. Easier said than done- he now had a lot of pressure on him, so he had to pay more attention to his studies than anything. 

The last few hours of the day was spent between binge watching variety TV and anxiously scrolling through EBay to see any new bids on Textbooks less than $100. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t find any hope, which probably meant he had to find a job in the upcoming week. He didn’t have to worry about that yet, he had plenty of time before school started, anyway. 

With that, he plugged his phone into the outlet and made a bed. He couldn’t afford a mattress for now, but it was pretty comfortable, considering the floor was carpeting. The carpeting was cheap, but it was better than a cold, hardwood floor. 

The first night went reasonably well, except the fact he was awoken in the dead of night by a series of unorganized knocks. 

What the ? Who was it? Was it Auntie? No way, she probably fell asleep at, like, 9 PM. He leaned over and glanced at his phone, which read “3:07 AM” in bold white letters. Who on Earth would be awake at 3 am knocking on someone else’s door? Was it a ert? 

“Open up..” a low, slurred voice called out from outside. If this was in any normal circumstance, Wonwoo would have found this voice extremely y. Unfortunately for him, he was now gripping his blankets to his chest tightly, eyes widened in fear. Should he call the police? Would auntie raise his rent because this complex was now viewed as a potentially dangerous place? The stranger was now twisting the doorknob feverishly, resulting in an endless tick of the lock. 

He wouldn’t risk it- he couldn’t afford it. For the first month, he planned for his parents to pay for his rent. He didn’t want to burden their wallets even more for this, er, misunderstanding. 

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding when he felt footsteps shuffle and walk away from the door. 

He put his phone aside and lay on his back, still paranoid if the dude would somehow unlock the door and enter. The rest of the night was hard to endure for poor, frightened Wonwoo. 

He just hoped the next day was going to be better. Sadly for him, he didn’t know what was going to be in store.