My house was gone.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again, unable to believe the reality before me, but nothing changed.
The cozy, precious one-room villa I lived in was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a massive building with golden letters spelling "TS Group" stood in its place. The reality didn't budge.
I pinched my cheek. The slight sting confirmed it wasn't a dream.
Did I see it wrong?
I had worked a grueling night shift at a delivery center, desperate to scrape together some cash for living expenses. The job listing on the part-time job site had warned that loading and unloading parcels was like descending into a modern-day hell, with endless boxes pouring in. I gritted my teeth and endured, driven by the urgent need for money. Normally, I'd have fled in a late-night taxi, unable to handle such brutal work.
So, yeah, I'd just come back from that overnight delivery job, riding the first morning train home.
I was looking forward to a hot shower, crawling into my soft cotton bedding like a hermit crab, and passing out into a blissful sleep. But an utterly unexpected variable hit me square in the face. I stood there like an idiot, blinking blankly at the entrance of the TS Group building, unable to process or articulate what was happening.
Or… did the exhaustion from that grueling labor drive me insane?
Do androids dream of electric sheep? Or do delivery workers dream of returning home?
I hadn't slept properly since yesterday morning, and my head started throbbing. It felt like the pain of Sun Wukong with the tightening headband from Journey to the West.
Clutching my aching head, I turned and walked back to the subway station. I must've gotten off at the wrong stop.
The area where my one-room villa was located was a typical rundown neighborhood. But where I stood now was the heart of a bustling city, surrounded by skyscrapers like a forest of steel and glass. I wasn't well-off enough to live in a place like this.
Ugh… should I take a bus? The subway costs money.
Holding my pounding head and dreading the unexpected expense, I trudged back to the subway station.
Ildam Station
Wait, I got off at the right stop?
Ildam Station, Exit 7. My house was supposed to be a short walk from here—just turn right and take about ten steps, and my one-room villa complex should be there. But all I saw were towering skyscrapers piercing the sky.
And TS Group? Never heard of it.
Even though I only graduated high school, I knew the major corporations in Korea—Samsung, LG, Hanwha, Doosan, Daewoo, SK, and the like. A company with a skyscraper this massive in Seoul should've been big enough to make the news, sponsor a baseball team, or at least be a topic of gossip. But TS Group? Nothing.
As I stared at the building, an advertisement on a display at the top caught my eye:
"Seize the moment." – Galaxy 11
Galaxy 11? Not Samsung Galaxy 11?
The Galaxy 11 in the ad looked identical to the Samsung Galaxy 11 I'd seen in subway station ads on my way to the delivery job. Even the tagline was word-for-word the same. If Samsung's legal team saw this, they'd be frothing at the mouth, ready to file a lawsuit. The only difference was the model: Samsung's ad featured a blonde, blue-eyed woman from Finland whose name started with "Shu-" or something. This ad had a blonde, blue-eyed man.
Whatever, that wasn't important. I needed to find my house.
And what's with my phone?
At the top of my phone, a silver logo reading "D.J" caught my eye. I was certain I owned an LG V7.
D.J? The only DJ I knew was the kind spinning tracks at a club.
This is insane.
I hadn't slept properly since yesterday morning, running around and working that brutal night shift. My body was clearly at its limit, and I must've been hallucinating. I needed to rest.
I'd earned 110,000 won from the night's work. I needed it for rent, but my health came first.
As I walked along the main road, I spotted a sauna across the street: 24-Hour Hometown Bulgama Sauna.
If my memory was correct, this spot should've had a GS convenience store, a Daiso, maybe a Paris Baguette. But that didn't matter now.
"One male, please. And I'll use the jjimjilbang too."
I grabbed a locker key and a pink jjimjilbang outfit.
Pink? Really?
Pink for a guy? Did this lady have eyes? I clearly said I was a man, and she hands me a pink outfit. The owner must be blind and deaf.
"Uh, excuse me, I think you gave me the wrong one. Shouldn't it be blue?"
She looked at me, confused. "Didn't you say you're a man?"
"Yeah, so it should be blue, right?"
"...What?"
She stared at me like I was speaking nonsense.
What the hell?
I was exhausted and didn't have the energy to argue over jjimjilbang outfit colors. I was basically a homeless refugee at this point—what did it matter?
I headed toward the men's bathhouse.
It was a weekday morning, so the men's bathhouse was quiet. A few old men sat on benches in the locker room, watching TV. The bath itself was empty. I wasn't in the mood to soak, so I just took a quick hot shower. My body was sore from overusing muscles I hadn't touched in ages, leaving me utterly drained.
Loading and unloading? Never again. I'd rather die.
I considered soaking in the bath but decided I just wanted to sleep. I realized I forgot a scrubbing towel. My back needed a good scrub.
Halfway through my shower, water dripping off me, I stepped out to look for a scrubbing towel. There should've been a pile of them near the entrance, but all I found was a water cooler. I checked the exit side, but no towels there either.
Towels weren't the priority, though.
"Excuse me, sir, where are the towels?"
"We don't give out extra towels."
No towels in a bathhouse? That's ridiculous.
Then I noticed a stack of towels behind the counter.
"What about those?"
The employee glanced at the towel stack, then back at me. "You didn't grab one when you came in?"
"No, I didn't."
"You're supposed to take one when you enter. Go grab two towels."
Take a towel when I enter? What is this, the women's bathhouse?
Still dripping wet, I walked to the counter and grabbed the towels.
What a morning. Nothing was going right. A bathhouse that rations towels? Unbelievable. Normally, towels are free to use, right? Seoul's standards were something else.
And there was no lotion, no toner, no hairdryer—nothing. Were they running the men's bathhouse like the women's because of the recession?
There was a bin for used towels, at least. I changed into the jjimjilbang outfit and headed upstairs.
As expected for a weekday morning, the jjimjilbang was nearly empty. The only notable thing was a group of old men gathered, eating boiled eggs and sikhye, chatting away. No women in sight.
Nothing else stood out.
I grabbed a small wooden pillow and entered the men's sleeping room. The dark room made my body feel heavy, like I was soaked in water. I lay down and passed out instantly.
How much time had passed?
I must've slept deeply. I wiped the drool from my mouth with the back of my hand and checked my phone. It was 4:00 PM. I'd last checked the time at 8:00 AM, meaning I'd slept for eight hours straight.
My head felt foggy from oversleeping. I stared into space, dazed, until my stomach growled.
Might as well eat here.
You gotta eat on time, right? Isn't there a saying, "A strong will eats on time"? Or is that not a saying?
I grabbed my phone and wallet, stumbling out of the sleeping room. My body ached from the night's labor, every muscle screaming.
In front of the jjimjilbang's TV, the same old men from earlier were still there, eating eggs and sikhye, chatting away.
These guys talk a lot. They say old men get chatty with age—guess it's true. Something about estrogen levels rising in middle age?
And they had perms—curly, ajumma-style perms. Seeing middle-aged men with perms reminded me of North Korea's Kim Jong-il.
But their expressions were oddly cheerful for guys lounging in a jjimjilbang on a weekday afternoon.
My stomach growled again. Of course—I hadn't eaten since morning. I bought a cup of instant noodles and three boiled eggs from the nearby snack bar, filled the cup with hot water, and sat in front of the TV.
The TV was showing a broadcast from some network called MCB—never heard of it. Not MBC, but MCB. My house was gone, Samsung was gone, and now the broadcast network was different too? Whatever, I was too tired to care.
The show featured female celebrities in a rural-themed special, carrying trays of makgeolli, tofu, and kimchi on their heads, racing to a destination. It was funnier than expected—especially when one of them tripped in a rice paddy and faceplanted into the mud. I couldn't help but laugh. You gotta laugh when something's funny, right? Holding it in makes you sick.
Beep.
Just as I was getting into it, the channel changed.
"Sang-jin, how could you do this to me?"
"I don't care! I'll do what I want!"
Slap!
Whoa, that's intense.
I was annoyed for a second about the channel change, but the new show had a man slapping a woman's face. I gasped and looked around. A man hitting a woman on TV in this day and age? The broadcasting committee would have a field day.
The scenes kept getting wilder—pouring water from a glass on the woman, the man yelling, "We're done!" It was pure, unfiltered melodrama, the kind that would blow up online. Viewer forums would be in chaos over this.
A man crying, a woman kneeling before him—100% macho melodrama. It was beyond anything I could've imagined, and I was hooked.
My Golden Child? I'll have to binge this on torrent later.
I glanced at my watch. Almost 5:00 PM.
Time to head out.
I tossed the empty noodle cup and eggshells into the trash, then headed back to the men's bathhouse to change. I stopped.
Ugh, my phone's dead. Gotta charge it first.