The Roommate I Never Met

Ji-hoon had everything money could buy—but for once, he wanted nothing. The youngest son of a billionaire family in Seoul, he’d grown up with gold-plated spoons and a personal driver named Min-su who still tried to lecture him about proper tie knots. But after one particularly humiliating family dinner where his father casually asked if he had a “suitable girlfriend yet,” Ji-hoon decided enough was enough. He wanted independence. So he rented Apartment 504—a modest two-bedroom in a quiet neighborhood—and moved out with only a suitcase, his laptop, and a very stubborn sense of pride. The only problem? He wasn’t alone. Ha-rin was in a similar fight with her parents, though for different reasons. A young painter with a growing online following, she loved her tiny studio apartment—but her mother had decided that living alone was “unacceptable at her age” and began hounding her to bring home a man. Constant calls, unsolicited visits, and judgmental glances at every painting of a single woman prompted Ha-rin to find an apartment far away from her parents’ reach. The agent who rented her Apartment 504 promised a “quiet, private unit”—and conveniently forgot to mention someone else had already signed the lease. More money, more problems. The first sign of trouble came on Tuesday morning. Ji-hoon had just brewed his coffee and opened the fridge when a pink sticky note caught his eye: “Don’t eat my yogurt. I paid for it. –Mystery Roommate?” He froze, staring at the fridge like it had grown a face. “Who… what?” he muttered. Across the apartment, Ha-rin was crouched in front of the same fridge, eyes narrowed at the sticky note she had just placed there that morning. “Someone is using my yogurt. Who are you?” she whispered. Neither of them had seen the other yet—but both were convinced a stranger was secretly living in the house. That evening, Ji-hoon confided in his best friend over a call: “Hyun-woo, I swear, someone is in my apartment. I even left a note on the fridge, and the yogurt disappeared. I think my ghost roommate is trying to haunt me.” Ha-rin did the same with her friend, Eun-joo: “Eun-joo, I’m not crazy. I left a note on the fridge, and… someone answered it. I think someone’s secretly living in my apartment. Should I call the police?” From then on, sticky notes became their secret conversation. They argued over groceries, debated whose turn it was to take out the trash, and exchanged playful insults. Ji-hoon’s note: “Your ramen choice is questionable. I judge.” Ha-rin’s reply: “Your handwriting is awful. Stop judging me, ghost.” Neither suspected the truth—that the “ghost” was just the person living in the other half of their very expensive shared apartment. By the time the fridge was covered in sticky notes, both Ji-hoon and Ha-rin had unknowingly formed a bond—funny, intimate, and completely anonymous. The only thing left unknown was whether the day they finally met would be disastrous… or the start of something else entirely.