The steel door creaked softly as Hamin stepped into the cramped one-room apartment.
Dim. Quiet. A thin line of light spilled across the uneven floorboards through the torn curtain.
He closed the door behind him and locked it with a soft click.
Everything was still. As if nothing had happened.
As if his body didn't ache, or sting, or carry bruises like second skin.
He went to the bathroom and peeled off the wrinkled shirt. One button fell to the floor with a soft clink. He didn't bother picking it up.
The mirror above the chipped sink reflected a man with hollow eyes and faded bruises along his collarbone and chest. Some newer. Some older. Red. Purple. Fading into yellow.
He stared for a moment. Then turned on the shower.
The water was lukewarm. But it did the job.
He scrubbed himself mechanically — not to erase the memory of the night, because he couldn't, but to feel clean enough to face the rest of the day.
His mind, however, didn't obey.
It kept drifting back to Taeha.
Those eyes.
That quiet voice.
The way his fingers had brushed his shirt pocket — so gentle it hurt more than anything Hamin had endured the night before.
But no.
Hamin didn't cry.
He hadn't cried since the day he found his father's body hanging in their empty warehouse.
Six Years Ago – Flashback
He was barely twenty.
The first year of college had just begun. He hadn't even made it through midterms when the family business collapsed.
Everything vanished overnight.
And then so did his father.
Just like that.
He remembered the quiet note left on the work desk: "Take care of her. I failed both of you."
He didn't even have time to grieve.
His mother collapsed two days later.
Doctors called it "trauma-induced regression." Her mind had gone into a child-like state. She sometimes remembered him, sometimes didn't.
He was a boy then.
But that day, he became a man.
Six Months Later
He'd tried every kind of job. Janitor. Waiter. Delivery boy. Even washed dishes in back alley noodle shops that paid him in leftover food.
Still not enough.
One day at the convenience store, his only friend — Sunghoon — said he was quitting.
"Where are you going?" Hamin had asked, exhausted, restocking the ramen aisle.
Sunghoon smiled faintly. "To a place where I can make real money."
That night, they met Madam Jisoo.
Strict. Elegant. Sharp tongue. But her eyes — strangely kind.
"Respect your body, but don't be ashamed of it," she told Hamin. "No one's forcing you. But if you're here, you better walk tall."
Back in the Present
Hamin stepped out of the shower, towel around his waist.
The mirror fogged again.
His fingers brushed the marks on his chest absently.
They didn't hurt. Not really.
He'd been through worse.
Some clients were gentle. Some weren't. Last night had been bad — but it wasn't the worst.
Still, something about being seen by Taeha — in that moment — unsettled him.
Why now?
Why did he have to appear after all these years — after everything?
Hamin sat on the edge of the bed.
The air was quiet. The fan above clicked in rhythm.
He knew he shouldn't think about Taeha. Not anymore.
But his body remembered the boy who rejected him under the cherry trees in high school.
His heart remembered the way that boy looked at him yesterday — eyes filled with guilt, regret, something else...
And for the first time in years,
Hamin whispered aloud,
"Why did it have to be you?"