The thunderous, company-wide endorsement was a powerful salve, but wounds as deep as Jin-woo's didn't heal overnight. The haunted look in his eyes receded, replaced by a weary gratitude, but a new layer of tension had been introduced—the domestic front.
Jin-woo's small, perpetually damp studio apartment in a far-flung Seoul suburb had been a point of pride, a testament to his independence. Now, it felt like an indictment. Every time Ha-ru's driver navigated the narrow, noisy streets to drop him off, Jin-woo felt the chasm between their worlds yawn wide. Ha-ru never complained, but the sight of his elegant, tired lover sitting on his second-hand sofa in that tiny, shadowed room felt increasingly wrong.
The issue came to a head over a leak. A persistent drip from the ceiling above Jin-woo's bed had worsened into a steady stream, ruining his mattress and a stack of precious, old reports. The landlord, a disinterested man, mumbled about "getting to it next month."
