Hope

Chapter 10: You're Not Nothing

Back in her room, Ha Neul searched everything.

Pockets. Bag. Even beneath Holang-ie, who looked offended at the sudden intrusion to his midday nap.

The paper was thin. Folded over and over until it had become small enough to tuck between layers of silence. She hadn’t meant to bring it. But she’d read it again that morning — for closure, she told herself — and must’ve shoved it into her pocket on instinct.

Now, it was just… gone.

She pressed her fingers under her nose, then dug her thumb into her brow.

If he saw it…

No. He wouldn’t read it.

But then again, men like Kim Seon Ho weren’t easily guessed.

That evening, she sought solace away from her neighborhood, accompanied by the echo of her own mistake playing on loop.

She wandered till it was dark outside and ended up at a small bookstore near Hongdae that stayed open late on weekends.

She didn’t plan to buy anything.

Sometimes, just being around pages was enough to make the world feel contained.

She stood by the psychology shelf, flipping through a thin volume of translated poems, when someone passed behind her.

And the air shifted.

Crisp. Clean. Familiar.

She turned.

Kim Seon Ho.

Wearing a navy sweater. Black jeans. No watch.

Holding a cup of hot coffee and absolutely no expression.

For a second, neither of them said anything.

Then she bowed slightly, automatic.

He nodded.

“Did you find what you lost?” he asked.

Her breath caught.

He knew.

She bit her lower lip — not in guilt, not in shame. Just out of habit.

Then shook her head.

“No.”

A beat of silence.

“I didn’t read it,” he said softly.

She looked up. That surprised her more than seeing him here at all.

“I only saw one line.”

“That’s one line too many.”

He said nothing.

“It’s over. I just… didn’t want to throw it away yet.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

Again, he stuck by his rules.

But she wanted to.

Her fingers curled around the edges of the book in her hand.

“It wasn’t about money,” she whispered. “Not really. I think I just wanted him to admit something — that I wasn’t nothing to walk away from.”

The moment she said it, she regretted the rawness.

Her eyes darted down.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Don’t apologize,” Seon Ho replied.

Then, after a pause:

“You’re not nothing.”

Her head jerked slightly at that.

He didn’t say it with warmth.

Or pity. Just… truth. Like stating a fact.

And that was what made it feel real.

There was a long pause.

He walked past her, quietly.

“See you Monday,” he said, before disappearing between the shelves.

She stayed in the aisle, fingers trembling just slightly against the book’s spine.

But for the first time in weeks, the tightness in her chest gave way.

A single tear slipped down her cheek. Then another.

And before she could stop it, her knees buckled as she crouched between two shelves, pressing the book to her chest as if it could hold her together.

She cried — not delicately, not quietly — but in harsh, broken sobs that filled the silence like a storm.

Tears that had waited too long.

Tears that knew she had finally, finally stopped pretending it didn’t hurt.