“This Isn’t Love Anymore”
Half past midnight, Min-jae stood at the front door, clutching his bag with both hands. He neither turned the key nor rang the bell. From the other side came a woman’s laugh and a man’s low voice. Min-jae bowed his head very slowly and retied his shoelaces. Slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.
Ah, what was I about to do?
An hour earlier, at the company dinner, the thought had struck him like bile. “Why is your girl still living in your place?” a colleague had asked, carelessly. Min-jae had laughed it off. “I just love her, that’s all.”
But only he knew the sentence itself was a lie.
The Day She First Landed
Exit 4 of Seongsu Station, Line 2. Ji-woo dragged a red carry-on behind her.
“I’ll crash at yours for just a week, I swear.”
She said she built sets for theater productions near Daehak-ro and would leave as soon as the project wrapped. That was April 2023.
Even now, the suitcase stands untouched on the balcony.
April → May → summer slipped away, and Ji-woo quietly annexed half of Min-jae’s closet. At first she apologized: “I’m sorry, I still can’t move out.” Each time the apology grew fainter, and Min-jae’s apartment became Ji-woo’s home.
Why did I just let it happen?
A Man’s Hair in the Kitchen
December 23, 2023, the night before Christmas. Min-jae came home after overtime.
“Ji-woo, I’m back.”
…Ji-woo?
The bedroom door was ajar. In the dim light Ji-woo had dropped her phone on the floor, screen still lit. As Min-jae stepped forward, she darted out, shut the door, and disappeared into the bathroom.
That’s when Min-jae noticed a single long strand on the kitchen tiles. Not Ji-woo’s—short and thick. Undeniably a man’s.
He stood there holding it for a long time.
What is this. What the hell is this.
The Price Tag of Silence
Ji-woo still paid no rent. Utilities, internet, even groceries—all Min-jae’s. While she lived there, her bank balance quietly rose from ₩7.32 million to ₩12.47 million. Min-jae discovered this one night while idly swiping through her phone.
She has the money. She simply chooses not to pay.
Since then he dreaded going home. If there was an after-work gathering he stayed till the end. On the subway he’d get off one stop early and walk the long way.
Am I even the owner of this place?
The Moment Men Become Monsters
Min-jae had never once lost his temper. Not when he saw Ji-woo texting someone from his bed, not when she replaced every item in his wardrobe. He merely retreated.
Why?
Why?
Because he knew. He didn’t want her to leave. Not once. Her presence fed the illusion that he possessed something. Yet it wasn’t simple ownership. Min-jae understood that if Ji-woo left, he would become nobody—just an ordinary thirty-nine-year-old man alone in a 34-pyeong flat.
The Hidden Consent
In March 2024, without a word to Ji-woo, Min-jae walked out.
I left first so she could leave me.
For a month he drifted between friends’ couches. Then he came back.
He opened the door. Ji-woo was still there, eating snacks in front of the TV, as though nothing had changed in a year. Neither of them spoke.
We both know. We are using each other.
The Final Question
Someone is still living in your house. Why can’t you end it?
Perhaps it isn’t that they’ve taken your home—you’ve entrusted something to them.
What you truly fear may not be them, but the version of yourself that exists without them.