"Give me a break!" he yelled.
His head swam a little, a wave of dizziness spreading through his skull. A blunt pain throbbed behind his left eye socket.
In other words, he felt like shit.
What the fuck even happened yesterday? A restaurant… an attractive woman… Ah! A date. But I don't think it went well… Fuck off! Why can't I remember anything?
He scratched his head. Agito slept on, his body splayed across the right side of the couch.
Tap—Tap
Seo-yeon walked towards the door, carrying something.
Meow—Meow
Ah. The cat…
"Where are you going?" he asked.
She halted. "The veterinarian. I think she's sick."
"Were you happy?"
A short silence followed. She nodded, a genuine smile touching her lips.
"Alright, take care," he said, waving a hand.
He went to his room, grabbed his laptop, and settled back on the couch to focus on his passive income.
BRRRR
[Shinhan Bank: Your Balance is 261,725,027 ₩]
Twelve million won. No donations. Weird, it's usually more.
Let's code some C++. The Finance Program.
He started working on backups, managing to code half of it before hitting a roadblock.
And…
Fuck. I can't concentrate. What the fuck happened yesterday? Am I sick?
TV. Yes. Let's do that. I can work tomorrow... I guess.
…
The couch felt comfy, but a heavy weight remained in his stomach, like he'd eaten something spoiled or was carrying a stone inside him.
"Korean hiker dies… Himalayas in…"
The news anchor's voice was a dull buzz. Where did he die? The Himalayas? Where, even, is that…?
His thoughts, sluggish and tangled, suddenly snapped. He grabbed fistfuls of his hair, his eyes twisting shut.
"Fuck! Fuck!"
The words tore out of him before he let out a long, ragged breath.
Did something bad happen when we were eating? Did I confess? Said something toxic?
KNOCK—KNOCK
What the fuck? Who's there now?
He moved towards the door without checking the peephole.
"Hello?"
A whole squad of his neighbors stood there. His elderly female neighbor grabbed his arm, her face etched with panic.
"Son! You need to come outside, right now! Someone broke into your garage!"
"What?"
"You also look terrible! Did something happen to your girlfriend?"
Girlfriend? She's my roommate. But someone broke in? That's never happened…
"No. I'll go with you, ma'am."
They went down together.
…
Two police officers stood outside the garage, examining the door. It was dented near the lock.
"Mr. Dong-seung. We couldn't catch the masked culprit. He likely ran when the alarm triggered. We assume the damage is minimal since the alarm scared him off."
"Uh-huh," he said, his voice flat.
The door was bent. A huge dent cratered the metal around the lock.
He followed the officers inside.
And there he saw it.
"What the actual fuck?"
His first car was broken beyond recognition. The windshield was a spider-webbed lake of glass. The body was a landscape of dents. The side mirrors were pulverized, their fragments scattered like glitter. The tires were slashed, and garish pink paint spelled out obscenities across the mangled exterior.
"That must sting, Sir," said one of the officers.
His Mercedes sat on the other side, bearing only light scratches and a few cracks on the windshield. But he didn't care. All he wanted was peace.
"Officer," he said, his hands beginning to tremble, "please… ask me for the details later. I'm shaken."
The officer nodded. "We'll send you a notice via mail."
He walked back upstairs, rubbing his temples with both hands.
"Which fucker did this?"
…
He was in the shower again, but this time it was different. The water pressure felt like a physical assault. He felt like Sisyphus, the man sentenced to roll a boulder up a mountain for eternity, only to watch it fall just before the summit. Was it because he had insulted the gods? Was this his fate, too?
"Fuck me. Yes, fuck everybody and everyone. No—fuck all of humanity," he laughed, his voice cracking. "Or just… fuck me?"
He slid down and sat on the floor, letting the droplets pelt his head, soaking every inch of his warm body, wishing the water could wash away the stone in his chest.
After finishing up, he sent Seo-yeon an SMS.
"Hey, watcha doing? Where are you?"
Half an hour had passed.
She must be busy then, I guess.
Dong-seung went inside the closet and grabbed a plastic chair. It was a gift from his uncle, and he didn't want to throw it away. His mum had once visited him and told him to remove that abomination. "You're just like your grandpa. Old-fashioned bastard." After that, she never dared to visit him again.
Just fuck off, will you?
He was now on the balcony, sitting in his favourite chair. It was cheap, but it held an… emotional value. Something that money couldn't buy. His mind still raced.
A huge amount of time had passed.
"The sun is slowly going down," he whispered to himself.
…
The news anchor was yapping again.
"Breaking News…So…Ko…Un"
What the fuck is happening? Gibberish? Is my brain broken? Everything was twisting; it felt like some god was manipulating his room. Shapes and sizes of black and white appeared.
Agito was suddenly starting to whine.
Fuck? What is happening?
His world went dark.
…
"No!" he yelled.
Everything was fine. No, a blackhole or the universe itself was glitching. Just a bad dream, probably. Agito was still whining.
The TV was still spouting static. He could see the anchor's mouth moving, but he couldn't comprehend a single word. It was as if he had forgotten Korean.
He quickly grabbed his jacket and headed for the garage.
…
Within minutes, he was on the highway, the tires humming a low-frequency song on the asphalt.
165 km/h.
Brake lights flashed like red eyes in the dusk. Trucks loomed in his vision, massive and slow, their bow waves of air rocking the car.
THUMP.
A shift in the cabin. The electric hum of the powerful motor rose to a high-strung whine, filling the silence he craved. A surge of instant torque pressed the small of his back into the seat bolster.
His speed climbed exponentially. The wind noise transitioned from a hum to a roar, then to a deafening buffet that shook the side mirrors. The steering wheel grew light, alive with minute tremors transmitted from the pavement.
210 km/h.
HONK—HONK
Angry horns blared, Doppler-shifting into oblivion. He didn't care. The sound was muffled, distant, buried under the aerodynamic fury.
He stabbed the brake pedal. The nose dived, the entire chassis squatting forward as the weight transferred. The seatbelt locked, digging into his shoulder as inertia tried to hurl him toward the windshield.
He was pushed down into the seat by the deceleration, his vision sharpening for a second.
110 km/h.
Then his right foot stomped the accelerator to the firewall. The surge of power was a physical blow, slamming him back into the leather, the G-force making his arms feel heavy as he wrestled the wheel.
251 km/h.
The electronic limiter kicked in, chopping the power as if a switch had been thrown. The world outside was no longer a landscape but a streaking, nauseating blur of color and light, the horizon tilting sickeningly with every micro-correction.
He repeated the cycle. Again. And again. Brake. Accelerate. Brake. Accelerate. A punishing, mechanical rhythm for a mind that could not quiet itself. Over fifty times.
BING—BING
A soft, incongruously calm chime.
His eyes, glazed over, drifted to the digital cluster. A yellow warning icon of a wrench and a thermometer pulsed.
Warning! Reduced Motor Output. Compressor Overheating!
He was trapped in the corner of the highway, the concrete barrier rushing towards him, a gray, unblinking eye.
EEEEEEEEEEEE—
A high-frequency whirr and a series of violent, machine-gun thumps as the stability control and traction control systems engaged, fighting his input, wrestling the car away from the wall. The steering wheel jerked, but he held it firm and countersteered away from the wall.
The air suspension stiffened to rock, fighting the momentum, turning the car into a single, rigid mass. Through the thin spokes of the forged alloy wheels, the massive carbon-ceramic brake discs glowed a dull, cherry red, casting a hellish light on the inner wheel wells. From the front end, the compressor screamed, a tortured whine working in overdrive to pressurize the systems.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP!
A new, urgent red light: a brake symbol inside a shattered circle.
Imminent Brake Fade! Electronically Limiting Speed to 100 km/h.
The car began to slow itself, a firm, insistent force against his will. He let go of the steering wheel, his hands falling limp in his lap. A part of him still wanted to see it all end against the concrete, to feel the final, catastrophic deceleration.
"End of the line," he whispered.
BEEP—BEEP
But the car had other plans.
With a series of precise, automated clicks and whirring servos, it activated the hazard lights, blinked into the right lane, and gracefully decelerated, using the last of its air pressure and engine braking to guide its own dying mass to a safe, controlled stop on the narrow shoulder.
Silence, so abrupt it was a noise in itself. The only sounds were the dying tink-tink-tink of superheated metal contracting and the hum of passing traffic, which now seemed impossibly slow.
Brake Failure! Electronically Limiting Speed to 0 km/h.
He pushed the door open and stepped outside. The smell hit him first—the pungent, metallic odor of scorched brakes and cooked electronics.
He looked at the wheels. The brakes were still glowing, a sullen orange in the dusk, radiating a wave of blistering heat. Then he noticed something odd. The car, which had settled into a low, aggressive stance at speed, was now rising.
HISSS—HUMMMM
The compressor, no longer choked by heat, was clearly audible, gasping and straining as it tried to rebuild pressure in the depleted system.
HISS
He felt a small gust of wind from the car.
It returned to its former height.
RING—RING
"Hello? Mr. Don—"
"A friend of Seo-yeon! Go grab her at…" she interjected.
Now I have to grab her, but first I need to let the brakes cool down. Then I'll finish some… business.
One hour had passed.
While waiting, he sat in his driver's seat humming his favourite song.
"But you're killing my love, and it will destroy me. But you're killing my love, my heart's disappointed."
BING—BING
Warning! Electronically Limiting Speed to 100 km/h.
Let's go.
…
A small bar outside of Seoul appeared, a huddled structure of stained concrete and neon that had long since given up flickering. It was a place for people who wanted to be forgotten. A single, yellowing 'OPEN' sign glowed above a door scarred with graffiti. The air outside was thick with the sweet-rot smell of spilled beer and damp concrete.
He hurried inside, the door groaning on its hinges.
The interior was a cave, smelling of stale smoke and sour malt. A few lone drinkers were hunched over their glasses, their faces hollow in the dim light. The bartender, a gaunt man with a towel thrown over his shoulder, didn't look up from his phone.
"Seo-yeon?"
He found her slumped at a corner table, her head cradled in her arms. An empty soju bottle lay on its side next to a half-full glass.
"Dong! Come here!"
Her friend, a woman with nervous eyes, waved him over with an awkward smile.
"Can you walk?" he asked Seo-yeon.
She just rolled her head on the table, a low moan escaping her lips.
Fucking hell. The vet? She lied. Where the fuck is the cat?
Since he wanted to quickly finish his "business", he hooked an arm under her legs and another around her back, lifting her in a princess hold. She was lighter than he expected, a dead weight of perfume and alcohol.
She frantically wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his jacket. Her breath was hot and damp against his skin.
"Dong-seung?" she slurred, her voice thick with tears. "Are you in love with Ji-ah? You never look at me."
Hah! It's my life. You can't decide whether I love or not.
He carried her out, the eyes of the other drinkers following them without interest. He carefully folded her into the passenger seat, buckling the belt across her limp form. She immediately slumped against the window, her breathing already evening out into the shallow rhythm of sleep.
He drove back to the apartment in silence, broken only by the hum of the motor and her soft, occasional whimpers.
…
The apartment greeted them with its usual, heavy silence. Agito lifted his head from the couch, his ears twitching, but didn't stir. Dong-seung carried Seo-yeon to her room. Her room was neat, save for a pile of clothes on a chair. It smelled like her—a faint mix of laundry detergent and her perfume.
He laid her on the bed. As he pulled away, her hand shot out, fingers clutching at his wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
"Don't go," she mumbled, her eyes still closed.
His own hands felt tingly and heavy, like blocks of wood. He jerked his arm away, her nails scraping faintly against his skin. The sensation was electric and repulsive.
"Let's fucking finish this," he whispered to the empty room.
He walked out, closing her door behind him. In the hallway, Agito was now standing, whining softly, his tail giving a tentative wag. The sound grated on his nerves. The cold of the apartment felt the same as days ago, seeping through his clothes and into his bones.
He started to laugh, a low, uncontrollable sound that felt like it was being torn from his chest. It was a dry, humorless rattle.
Let's fuck myself!
He moved towards the balcony, towards the railing. But his legs felt impossibly heavy, as if he were wading through deep water. Each step was a monumental effort.
"If you don't help yourself, no one will help you," his uncle's voice echoed in his head, a ghost from a simpler time. The man who gave him the shitty plastic chair. He had told him that grandpa and grandma basically disowned him. He never told him why. The family rot went deep.
His momentum died halfway to the balcony door. The fight drained out of him, leaving a hollow, aching fatigue. He shuffled back and collapsed onto the couch, the leather sighing under his weight. The world narrowed to the four walls of his living room.
BRRRRRRRRR
His phone vibrated on the coffee table. The screen lit up.
"Don't stop the music!" blared from the speaker, a jarring, upbeat ringtone in the suffocating quiet.
The phone went dark again.
Agito climbed onto his lap, curling into a small, trembling ball.
He stared at the window. The city lights bled upward into the sky, red and white and endless.
The air compressor outside hissed once — the sound of something releasing pressure.
"Good," he murmured. "Let it all cool down."
The hum of the refrigerator joined the silence.
And for the first time, he stopped thinking.