I smelled the scent of morning as soon as I opened my eyes and when I stepped outside of my room, my eyes automatically adjusted to the new interior of my living room. There was a feeling of unfamiliarity in my chest, as if my living room was a new addition to this house I moved in a week ago.

Above the television was a big photo of my family: me, my sister and mom. It was taken in our living room as we sat on our beige leather couch with big smiles on our faces. The same leather couch now sat in front of the television, between the two was a coffee table and on top of it was a vase of plastic flowers.

I let myself fall on the couch.

This was okay. My house still seemed empty but somehow it wasn’t. This living room had remnants of the things I had back in my old home and somehow, that helped. It was like there was a part of my sister and mom that sat in here even though they hadn’t set a foot into this house.

Last night, I made my first memories in this house. Mino helped me fix the living room and we helped ourselves to cups of ramen that we bought. He insisted on cooking something but he ended up giving way to his growling stomach. I honestly thought that growling stomachs were only seen on TV but I really heard Mino’s stomach growl. We laughed so hard about it and he returned the frying pan to the cabinet and heated the kettle instead.

I’m lost now. With my family’s absence, I had nowhere to go. I lost all sense of direction. It was like they took a part of me with them. I couldn’t focus on my goals, and I doubted I had some. I hadn’t come to terms with how I felt until two people pointed it out. I thought it was just a phase. I thought it was normal that I felt this way but laughing my heart out with Mino last night drew the contrast clearer.  Breathing had never been difficult, and last night, I was alive.

We watched a music show and we ended up asleep in the living room, me on the couch and Mino on the floor. I woke up due to the pain on my neck and realized that the TV was left on. Mino was snoring his off and I hesitantly woke him up. He looked like such a mess when his eyes shot open in shock. It took him a few seconds before he realized where he was and why I woke him up at 4 AM and I couldn’t help but laugh at him. I asked him to sleep on my bed but he chose to go home instead.

It was 10 AM now and if we didn’t unbox my things last night, I’d have wondered if it was a dream.

Last night left a warm feeling and it got me wondering where I had been. I was myself last night. It had been a long time since I last laughed so much that my cheeks hurt. But Mino was gone now and I wasn’t even looking forward to the presumably dry day ahead of me. People usually preferred weekends over weekdays but I despised weekends the most. I had nothing to do during such days but lie around the house and watch some dumb show on the television.

After minutes of thinking what to do, I received a text message from someone named ‘Mom’s ex’. It contained an address to it and I forwarded the text to Mino mindlessly.

After a few seconds, I still didn’t get a reply from him and I scrolled back into our text history with mostly outgoing texts from me and almost nothing from him.

I almost jumped up in surprise when the phone rang violently in my hand.