After Luca left that day, he didn't return for two days.
He did reply to Seo-in's first message that night—short, rushed, almost distracted—but after that?
Nothing.
Every subsequent text was left hanging in the air like unanswered prayers.
At first, Seo-in tried not to worry. She really did. Luca had mentioned an academic conference in Stuttgart; those things could take hours, even entire days, especially if he was presenting. She told herself that. Repeated it. Forced herself to believe it.
But when an entire day passed … then another…
and her phone screen remained stubbornly blank?
Fear slid into her chest like cold water.
Her mind betrayed her with every horrible possibility.
Had something happened?
Was he hurt?
Did he lose his phone again?
Was he lying in some hospital, unable to reach her?
She refreshed their chat so many times her thumb went numb.
Still nothing.
Her worry bled into full-blown panic. She barely slept, lying awake in the dim light of her room, staring at her phone like it was a lifeline that refused to answer her call. Her dinner went untouched. Her textbooks remained closed. The quiet of her apartment felt suffocating, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath with her.
Two days.
Forty-eight hours of silence.
Each one heavier than the last.
And when he didn't show up to class?
That was the moment her heart truly cracked.
Desperate, she dialed Felix at his internship.
He picked up on the third ring, sounding out of breath, like he'd rushed to answer.
"Seo-in?" Confusion laced his tone—along with something else. Something uneasy.
She didn't waste a second.
"Have you heard from Luca?"
Her voice came out frayed, sharp at the edges, worn thin by dread.
There was a pause—too long to be casual. When he spoke, his voice was careful in a way that made her stomach drop.
"...No. Why?"
That hesitation alone told her everything.
Seo-in's breath stuttered. If even Felix didn't know, then—
Where on earth was Luca?
"His last message was over 48 hours ago. You're sure he hasn't contacted you? No joke text? No random comment? Nothing?"
She hated how desperate she sounded. But the silence was eating her alive.
Felix exhaled sharply, muttering something under his breath—something that sounded very much like, "Goddammit, Luca…"
Then louder, urgent:
"Meet me at campus in 20 minutes."
The dread in his voice wrapped around her spine like ice.
She ended the call, heart pounding, slipped on her coat, and was halfway to the door—
When her phone buzzed.
A message from Anya.
[Anya] 14:38 : Seo-in, are you with Luca?
Her fingers trembled as she replied.
[Seo-in] 14:39 : No. Why? Have you seen him?
The typing bubbles popped up immediately.
Her heartbeat roared in her ears.
Then the message appeared—short, brutal, impossible to breathe through:
[Anya] 14:42 : I swear I just saw him in Berlin … with another girl.
The world tilted.
Before she could even process the words, another message arrived—a photo.
A blurry zoom, taken from a distance … but unmistakably him.
Luca.
Standing at a Berlin station.
Talking to a woman whose face she didn't recognize.
The woman smiling up at him in a way that made Seo-in's stomach knot painfully.
Seo-in's breath caught. Her pulse spiked.
Why Berlin?
Why there, when he'd said Stuttgart?
Why hadn't he replied?
Why had he disappeared?
Her chest constricted with something sharp and terrified.
And then, the worst possibility slammed into her with sickening clarity:
Did he find out about the arranged marriage?
Did he leave before she even had the chance to explain?
Her hands shook as she zoomed in on the photo again and again, searching for clues—anything that could make sense of this. But all she saw was Luca looking perfectly normal. Perfectly present.
Perfectly fine.
Fine enough to be somewhere hours away from where he was supposed to be.
Fine enough to be with someone else.
Swallowing hard, she typed back:
[Seo-in] 14:46 : Where exactly in Berlin?
[Anya] 14:47 : Hauptbahnhof—but Seo-in, are you okay? Do you want me to go after him?"
Seo-in swallowed hard. The rational part of her knew she should wait, think this through ... but the jagged ache in chest had other ideas now that dam had broken open and doubt was flooding every thought left standing…
Her next text wasn't to Anya—it was directly to Luca, sent before could second-guess herself:
Why are you in Berlin?"
Unexpectedly, Luca had disabled the blue ticks on his chat app—something he never did. Which meant Seo-in couldn't tell whether he had read her message.
But the worst part was … he still wasn't replying.
Seo-in stared at her screen, a cold realization creeping in slow and merciless, like ice threading through her veins.
He knew she was trying to reach him.
He had made it impossible for her to know whether he was ignoring her or simply busy.
That wasn't an accident.
It was a choice.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long, painful moment before she finally typed one last message—sharp, raw, brittle with everything she was too afraid to say out loud:
[Seo-in] to [Luca] 15:03 : If you don't want to talk anymore, just say it.
And then she tossed her phone onto the bed as if it had burned her skin.
Because at this point?
The silence hurt less than watching those words sit there unread forever.
***
Four days passed.
Four long, unraveling days since Luca had walked out of the apartment—and not a single sign from him since.
He had responded once, briefly, but everything after that had dissolved into complete silence.
Even worse, he had skipped classes for two days straight.
Felix had tried to help—contacting him, checking places Luca frequented, even going as far as taking a train to Berlin to look for him after hearing the rumor.
But he found nothing.
Anya, too, had tried her best.
She told Seo-in that she'd only caught a glimpse of him from afar at the station—reddish hair, familiar posture—before he vanished into the crowd like smoke. The place had been packed that day. Too chaotic. Too easy to disappear into.
Those four days were the worst of all.
Seo-in lived in a constant loop of hope and heartbreak:
waiting for a notification,
a call,
a message—anything to prove that Luca was still there.
Still reachable.
Still hers.
Every phone call that wasn't him felt like another punch to the chest. Every message left unanswered was a knife twisting deeper. She tried to keep busy. Tried to distract herself with assignments, with friends, with anything that kept her from spiraling. But dread lingered like a shadow at her heels, following her everywhere. There was no escaping it.
If he was fine—if he cared at all—wouldn't he have reached out by now?
At least to say he was okay?
At least to tell her not to worry?
The silence stretched, taut and unbearable.
Her fingers ached with the urge to send more messages, to beg him:
Please … just let me know you're safe.
But pride held her hand frozen.
It was his turn now.
His turn to reach back. To do something—anything—other than leaving her behind with nothing but questions and dread.
And as each hour passed, Seo-in couldn't tell which hurt more—
Luca's absence,
or the possibility that he didn't want to come back.