*Year - 2028*
Two years had passed since the evening everything ended. Two years since promises were exchanged in front of witnesses and signatures sealed a future that no longer had room for him. Two years since the quiet finality in Taesan's eyes erased every illusion Jaewon had once lived inside.
Time had moved, as it always did. Cities changed. Seasons turned. People continued forward with their lives as though nothing irrevocable had happened.
Jaewon alone remained caught in a place that no longer existed.
He had tried, in the beginning. Truly tried. Friends had arranged blind dates. Coworkers had insisted on introductions. There had been dinners in softly lit restaurants, polite laughter over drinks, tentative conversations about hobbies and work and travel. Faces had come and gone in a blur of courtesy and expectation.
None of them stayed in his memory.
Each encounter dissolved the moment it ended, leaving behind only the same quiet certainty. No one else fit the space that had once been filled so completely that its absence now felt structural, like a missing beam in a house still expected to stand.
Eventually, people stopped asking.
That was easier.
Now, in 2028, Jaewon worked as a barista in a narrow café tucked into a quiet side street of the city. The shop was small but carefully kept, with warm amber lighting and wooden shelves lined with jars of beans from different regions. The air always carried the comforting scent of roasted coffee and steamed milk, mingling with the soft murmur of conversation and the occasional clink of porcelain cups.
It was not the life he had imagined during university, when ambition still felt attainable and the future seemed open. Yet the café offered something he had come to value more than achievement.
Containment.
Routine.
Predictability.
Here, days followed a pattern that required no emotional risk. Morning regulars ordered the same drinks. Students occupied the window seats with laptops and textbooks. Office workers stopped in at predictable hours. Faces became familiar without ever becoming intimate.
No one asked about his past.
No one asked about love.u
Jaewon preferred it that way.
Tonight, the café had thinned earlier than usual. Winter still lingered in the air outside, pushing most customers home before midnight. By eleven forty-five, only one table remained occupied, a pair of university students whispering over shared notes and half-finished lattes.
Jaewon wiped the counter slowly, cloth moving in small circles over polished wood already clean. The wall clock above the pastry case ticked with steady precision.
He did not look at it yet.
He never did before the hour.
The ritual had begun the first year without Taesan, though he had never named it as such. Midnight on February twenty-eight arrived, and with it an awareness so sharp it felt physical. Since then, he had marked the moment every year, privately and without fail.
The students packed up at 11:58pm offering polite thanks as they left. The bell above the door chimed once and settled back into silence. The café was empty.
Jaewon rinsed the last cup, set it on the rack, and finally lifted his gaze to the clock.
11:59.
His hands rested on the counter. Breathing slowed. The hum of the refrigerator compressor filled the quiet space.
The second hand reached twelve.
A soft mechanical chime sounded from within the clock casing. One tone. Then another.
Midnight.
Jaewon closed his eyes.
For a few seconds, nothing moved inside him except the familiar weight rising from somewhere deep and settled. Not sharp anymore. Not raw. It had aged into something denser, quieter, almost architectural. A presence rather than a wound.
Taesan turning back at the restaurant door.
The final calm in his voice.
The absence that followed.
He opened his eyes again.
12:01.
He exhaled slowly and reached for the cloth.
The bell over the café door rang.
Jaewon looked up, startled. The shop was officially closed. Few customers ever came this late, and never after midnight.
Hana stepped inside, brushing cold air from her coat sleeves. She had been a regular for nearly a year now. Always arriving near closing time, always ordering something warm, always lingering just long enough to finish it before leaving with a small nod of thanks.
She paused when she saw his expression.
"Sorry," she said softly. "I didn't realize you'd already closed."
"It's fine," Jaewon replied automatically. "What would you like?"
"Chamomile," she said. Then her gaze lingered on his face. "If that's okay."
He nodded and turned toward the kettle. Water filled the silence as it heated, steam beginning to whisper against metal.
Hana leaned lightly against the counter. "You look different tonight."
Jaewon gave a small, noncommittal sound. "Just tired."
"You're always tired," she said gently. "But tonight feels heavier."
The kettle clicked. He poured water over the tea sachet, watching the liquid darken slowly.
"Long week," he said.
Hana studied him for a moment, then accepted the cup when he slid it across. "You don't have to tell me," she said. "I just thought I'd check."
He nodded once. "Thanks."
She remained there instead of moving to her usual table.
After a moment she asked, "Do you ever take days off?"
"Sometimes."
"But you're always here when I come."
He shrugged. "Good timing."
"That's not timing," she said. "That's habit."
He almost smiled at that.
They stood in companionable quiet for several seconds. Steam curled upward between them.
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
He hesitated, then nodded.
"Is there someone?" she asked.
The question was gentle, not intrusive. Still, something inside him tightened automatically.
"Yes," he said.
She did not look surprised. "Still?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
He glanced toward the clock without meaning to. "Years."
Hana nodded slowly, absorbing that. "That must be difficult."
"It's manageable," he said.
She traced a finger along the rim of her cup. "Do you ever think about trying again?"
"I did," he said. "It didn't change anything."
"Because you compare?"
"No." He shook his head once. "Because nothing feels the same."
Silence settled again. Not uncomfortable. Simply present.
"Was it mutual?" she asked after a while.
"No," he said. Then, after a pause, "Not at the end."
Hana's eyes softened. "I'm sorry."
He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. Apology was unnecessary, but kindness rarely required logic.
She sipped her tea and studied him over the rim. "You know," she said, "some people love only once."
He looked at her.
"It doesn't mean their life ends there," she continued. "Just that the shape of it stays."
He considered that. "Maybe."
She smiled faintly. "You look like someone who still carries it carefully."
He did not answer.
After a moment she set her empty cup down. "Thank you for staying open," she said.
"You caught me before cleaning," he replied.
"Still." She pulled on her coat. "Try to sleep tonight."
"I will."
She paused at the door. "For what it's worth," she added, "the person must have been extraordinary."
Jaewon looked at the counter, at the faint ring left by her cup. "Yes," he said quietly. "He was."
The bell chimed as she left. Silence returned to the café.
Jaewon wiped the counter again, slower this time. The ritual had passed, yet the aftertaste lingered. Memory did not surge anymore. It settled, steady and inevitable, like tide against shore.
He wondered briefly where Taesan might be tonight. Whether there had been dinner reservations. Whether laughter filled some distant apartment. Whether Joshua stood beside him, as always.
The questions rose and faded without resolution.
He rinsed the last cup, turned off the lights, and stepped outside into the cold air. Streetlamps cast pale circles across the pavement. The city had quieted to its late-night rhythm, distant traffic humming somewhere beyond the block.
Jaewon locked the café door and stood for a moment beneath the sign.
Two years.
The number no longer shocked him. Time had done its work, smoothing edges without erasing shape. What remained was not the consuming blaze it once had been, but something older, enduring. A love that had altered the architecture of his life and then withdrawn, leaving corridors that still led nowhere else.
He slid his hands into his coat pockets and began walking.
Above him, the sky held no visible stars. Still, he found himself looking up, as he always did on this night.
"You're probably happy," he murmured to the empty street.
The words vanished into the cold.
He kept walking.
And somewhere within, unchanged despite everything, the same quiet certainty remained. Some loves did not return. Some lives continued around their absence. And some hearts, once shaped by a single presence, never learned another form.
Jaewon walked on through the sleeping city, carrying what could not be set down.
——————— TO BE CONTINUED