River Park stood perfectly still in front of the bathroom mirror in his Seoul penthouse apartment. 5:47 AM. Three minutes before his alarm would ring. He had been waking up at this exact time for so long that his body no longer needed the alarm.
His reflection stared back at him - sharp cheekbones, tired eyes, hair that cost more to style than most people made in a week. At thirty-two, he was considered the most successful chef in South Korea. But looking at himself now, all he saw was exhaustion.
The alarm rang. River turned it off and walked to his kitchen - a shrine of stainless steel and marble that had been featured in three different design magazines. Everything was perfect. Everything was expensive. Everything was cold.
He opened his refrigerator, which was stocked with ingredients that had been flown in from around the world. Matsutake mushrooms from Japan. White truffles from Italy. Wagyu beef that cost more per kilogram than some people's monthly rent.
River stared at all this luxury and felt nothing.
He grabbed a banana - the most ordinary thing in his extraordinary kitchen - and ate it while looking out his floor-to-ceiling windows at Seoul's skyline. Somewhere down there in those gray buildings, people were waking up to go to normal jobs. They would eat simple breakfasts with their families. They would complain about small problems.
River envied them.
His phone buzzed. The first of what would be dozens of calls today.
"River-ssi, this is Min-jun from your publicity team. Don't forget you have the magazine interview at 2 PM today. They want to talk about your plans for international expansion."
River hung up without saying goodbye. International expansion. More restaurants. More pressure. More of this life that felt like wearing clothes that didn't fit.
He got dressed in his usual uniform - black pants, black shirt, black jacket. The same outfit he had worn every day for three years. It made him look serious and professional. It also made him feel like he was disappearing.
As River walked to the elevator, he passed the wall of awards in his hallway. "Chef of the Year" three times. "Innovation in Korean Cuisine." "Rising Star of Asian Gastronomy." Each plaque and certificate represented months of eighteen-hour days, missed holidays, and a slowly dying soul.
The elevator descended from the 47th floor, and River watched the numbers count down. For a moment, he imagined what would happen if the elevator just kept going down, past the basement, past the earth, into some other world where he could be someone else.
But the elevator stopped at the lobby, and River stepped out into his real life.