2:14 AM.
The apartment on the eleventh floor of an old building in Mapo-gu, Seoul was dark. Not because the lights had gone out — but because Ha Joon had never turned them on after sundown. He couldn't remember exactly when that habit started. Maybe two years ago. Maybe longer.
Darkness just felt more honest.
The only light came from the laptop screen on the low table. Ha Joon sat on the floor, back resting against the worn edge of the sofa, legs stretched out, a cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago still untouched to his right.
On the screen — School 2015: Who Are You — the final episode.
Again.
He had lost count of how many times he'd been here. But his fingers always found their way back to that title on nights when the silence felt too long. On nights when the emptiness of his apartment started speaking too loudly.
On screen, the scene played out exactly as he remembered. Exactly as it always had. Exactly as it never changed — no matter how many times he watched it with the foolish hope that maybe this time would be different.
It never was.
Ha Joon stared at the screen, expression flat. His jaw tightened slightly — the only sign that something was moving beneath the surface of his carefully indifferent face.
She didn't have to go through that.
The thought surfaced the way it always did. Not with drama. Just a cold observation from someone who had analyzed every beat of this story far too many times.
If she hadn't gone alone in episode three. If just one person had noticed the signs earlier. If—
Ha Joon closed his eyes briefly.
Exhaled.
Then opened them again and reached for the cold coffee. Drank without expression. Cold, bitter, unpleasant — perfect for reminding him that he was still in the real world and not inside that screen.
The real world.
He almost laughed.
Which real world? The one where both his parents were gone in a single night because a truck driver chose not to sleep before getting behind the wheel? The one where he woke up the next morning in a hospital, alone, with a nurse delivering the news in a voice too careful — like Ha Joon was a bomb that might go off at any moment?
He didn't go off.
He just... stopped. Like a clock whose battery had run out. Still standing in place. Still looking like a clock. But not moving anywhere.
He resigned from his job three months later. Invested the insurance money with cold, systematic calculation — because that was the only thing he could still do well when the rest of his world stopped making sense. The returns were enough. Not excessive. But enough to avoid dealing with the outside world more than absolutely necessary.
And Korean dramas filled what remained of his time.
Not because he'd always been a fan. But because one night, sixteen months ago, he'd absentmindedly let a title play on his laptop — too lazy to close it — and suddenly there was a character on that screen crying in a way that made something inside his chest move.
Something that hadn't moved in a very long time.
After that, Ha Joon watched. One title. Then another. Then he couldn't stop.
Not because the stories were perfect. Quite the opposite — many had endings that made his hands want to close the laptop harder than necessary. Many characters carried things that weren't fair. Many moments that should have been different but never were.
But at least there — behind that screen — Ha Joon could still feel something.
Anger. Relief. Sadness. Warmth.
In his own real world, those feelings had long since stopped visiting.
On screen, the final episode of School 2015 entered its last minutes.
Ha Joon watched. Silent. His expression unchanged — but his eyes followed every frame with an intensity he never showed anyone, because there was no one to show it to.
That character. That girl.
You didn't have to end up like this.
The credits began to roll. The closing music played softly.
Ha Joon didn't move.
He never closed the laptop when credits rolled. A strange habit even he couldn't fully explain. Maybe because closing the screen felt like leaving something unfinished.
And it was unfinished.
It never ended the way it should.
Ha Joon stared at the names scrolling across the screen — the writer, the director, the people behind a story whose ending always left something unresolved in his chest — and for the first time in a long while, he spoke aloud to himself in his dark, empty apartment.
"It could have been better than this."
His voice was hoarse. The result of too little talking throughout the day.
And then —
His laptop screen flickered.
Ha Joon frowned slightly. Tilted his head one centimeter to the right — a small movement that, for Ha Joon, meant something is off and I'm processing it.
The screen flickered again.
Then text appeared. Not from any application. Not a system notification. Not an error message. Just clean white text that materialized directly in the center of the screen — as if someone was projecting it from the inside:
■ SYSTEM ACTIVATED ■
Welcome, Kim Ha Joon.
You said it could have been better.
What if you were the one to do it?
Ha Joon stared at the screen.
One second. Two seconds. Five seconds.
His expression didn't shift into panic. There was no adrenaline surge that sent him stumbling backward. No startled cry that would wake the neighbors.
There was only Ha Joon, sitting in the same spot on the floor, with the same expression — except his eyes, which were now reading that text for the third time with careful precision.
Then he reached for his cold coffee.
Took a sip.
Set it back down.
And said, in the flattest tone a human being could produce at two in the morning:
"Alright. I'm listening."
~~~~~•