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For Seo Dal-mi, life after Han Ji-pyeong’s death felt like drowning in an ocean of silence. The days moved forward, relentless and unyielding, but she remained trapped in the past.
She had never realized how much Ji-pyeong meant to her—not until he was gone. Not until the space he once filled became a gaping void, impossible to ignore.
The world mourned him in passing headlines and business reports.
“Prominent investor Han Ji-pyeong among the victims of flight KE091.”
But to her, he was not just a name in an article.
He was the boy who had once walked into her life carrying nothing but debt and loneliness. The man who had watched over her, protected her, challenged her. The friend who had been her safety net when dreams crumbled.
And she had let him go.
When the news of the crash first broke, Dal-mi had barely reacted. It was just another tragedy in a world full of them. Another headline. Another nameless grief.
Until her mother called, voice trembling—
“Dal-mi-yah, Halmeoni collapsed.”
That was when the truth hit like a sledgehammer.
At the hospital, her grandmother clutched Ji-pyeong’s old sweater, knuckles white against the faded fabric. Tears slipped down Halmeoni’s weathered cheeks, her voice raw with grief.
“He just left for the airport. How can he be gone?”
That was the moment reality cracked open.
Ji-pyeong wasn’t coming back.
He had left Korea because of her. Because she had chosen Nam Do-san.
She had thought she loved Do-san. She had told herself Ji-pyeong was just family—a warm, steady presence she took for granted.
But when the airline confirmed his name on the passenger list, something inside her shattered.
It was too late.
Flashback: The Last Goodbye
He stood at the entrance of Sandbox, a single bag slung over his shoulder, his smile brittle as glass.
“So,” he said, voice feather-light, “this is it.”
Dal-mi swallowed the lump in her throat. “You don’t have to go. We’re still—”
He laughed, a hollow sound that cut through the air.
“What? Friends?”
The word stung.
His gaze softened. “You made your choice, Dal-mi. And that’s okay.”
“Be happy, Seo Dal-mi,” he whispered, voice fraying at the edges.
Then he smiled—dimples carved into his cheeks, eyes glistening with unshed tears—and turned away before she could speak.
She let him go.
She had always let him go.
The days blurred. She drifted through meetings and meals, her laughter brittle, her smiles rehearsed. Do-san noticed, of course.
But what could she say?
I lost Ji-pyeong. And in losing him, I lost myself.
One Month Later
On the one-month anniversary of his death, she found herself in her childhood bedroom at Halmeoni’s house. The air smelled of aged wood and ink, of memories she couldn’t escape.
She reached under her bed, pulling out a wooden box—the one that had once held letters from her mysterious “pen pal.”
Inside, nestled among paper cranes and dried flowers, was a photograph.
Ji-pyeong’s first birthday with them.
In the faded image, he sat beside Halmeoni, his guarded expression softened by candlelight. Dal-mi laughed as she placed a Go stone on the board, Do-san grinning beside her. A feast sprawled across the table—kimchi jjigae, japchae, every dish Ji-pyeong had ever shyly admitted to loving.
Her finger traced his face in the photo.
This should have been enough. The laughter, the food, the family—why wasn’t it enough for him to stay?
But it hadn’t been.
Now, all that remained was the ache of his absence—and the crushing weight of every word she had never said.