Chapter 1 …

The Korean barbecue restaurant was filled with the sizzling smell of pork belly and the lively chatter of people.

“Cheers!”

The clinking of glasses rang loudly.

“To today’s star, Marketing Team employee Lee Da-eun! Wait, not employee anymore, right? Manager Lee! Congratulations!”

At Team Leader Park’s enthusiastic shout, the team members raised their glasses and cheered. I stretched the corners of my mouth upward as much as I could. My face felt like it might cramp, but I had to endure it.

Today was the company dinner celebrating my promotion.

A promotion to assistant manager.

As I emptied my glass, I instinctively started calculating in my head.

200,000 won increase in my position allowance. 620,000 won in loan interest payments.

There was nothing left over.

Still, I felt like I could finally breathe a little easier with my tight living expenses.

…Well, at least it’s not a negative.

It was bitter, but I consoled myself. I decided to be grateful that, starting this month, I could loosen my belt just a little.

That was enough. Even if half of it belonged to the bank, I didn’t care.

This 300-million-won jeonse apartment was my only badge of honor. It was the last bit of pride I had—that even though I owned nothing else, I had managed to create a home for myself beneath the Seoul sky.

That was when it happened.

The phone I had placed on the table began vibrating.

Bzzz—

My eyes widened when I saw the caller’s name on the screen.

[Lady from Apartment 401]

Why was the lady from upstairs calling at this hour?

She was someone I occasionally ran into and exchanged side dishes with, and whenever we met in the elevator, she would warmly ask how I was doing. But she wasn’t the sort of person who would suddenly call this late at night.

Maybe she had pressed the call button by mistake.

I casually turned my phone face down. I didn’t want anything to interrupt this pleasant company dinner, and it wasn’t exactly the right time to respond to an accidental call.

But the vibration didn’t stop.

Just when I thought it had ended, the table began shaking again.

Bzzz— Bzzz—

I checked the screen again.

It was the lady from Apartment 401.

I was wondering whether I should press the reject button when the phone immediately began vibrating for the third time.

It was shaking on the table as if something terrible would happen if I didn’t answer right away.

A chill ran down my spine.

This wasn’t a simple mistake. There was no way a normally composed woman would call me repeatedly at this hour without stopping.

Could something… have happened at home?

As an ominous feeling flashed through me, fear seized me. Team Leader Park looked toward me as if asking what was going on.

“I’m sorry. It’s an urgent call. Just a moment.”

I stood up as though being chased.

The moment I opened the restaurant door and stepped outside, the damp night air rushed over me.

With trembling fingers, I swiped to answer the call.

“…Hello? Ma’am?”

—Da-eun? It’s the lady from 401. You’re not home right now, are you?

Her usual gentle tone was nowhere to be found. Her urgent, sharp voice struck my ears.

“Yes, I’m out at a company dinner. Is something wrong?”

—That’s not important right now! Can you get in touch with the landlord?

“What?”

—We can’t get in touch with the landlord! I heard he even cleared out his office. Everyone from our building is outside right now! Hurry and come!

Click.

The call ended.

My fingertips went cold. My heart began pounding so hard it felt as though it would burst through my ribs.

The landlord was unreachable? He had emptied his office?

No. Surely not. That can’t be.

With trembling fingers, I hurriedly searched through my contacts. I found the three letters labeled “Landlord” and pressed the call button.

Ring… Ring…

Please answer. Please.

I gnawed nervously at my fingernails as I listened to the ringing.

But after a long series of rings, all that came back was a cold mechanical voice.

—The phone is currently turned off. After the beep—

It felt as though the ground beneath my feet had disappeared.

It was real.

I couldn’t reach him.

With shaking hands, I opened the taxi app.

Estimated fare for a standard taxi: 23,000 won.

It was enough money that I’d have to skip lunch three times to make up for it, but I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the call button with trembling fingers.

Right now, my life was more urgent than money.

“……”

The moment the notification appeared saying a taxi had been assigned, I ran toward the roadside.

My bag was still inside the restaurant.

Had I told Team Leader Park where I was going?

I couldn’t remember anything.

No, I didn’t have the time to think.

When the taxi stopped in front of me, I squeezed myself into the back seat as though fleeing for my life.

The Seoul nightscape flowing past the car window shimmered strangely. And, cruelly enough, Gangbyeonbuk-ro during rush hour was practically one enormous parking lot.

[13,200 won]

[13,300 won]

The digital numbers on the meter ticked upward.

The wheels weren’t moving, yet the time surcharge kept piling up, making my hard-earned money disappear before my eyes.

At this rate, it’ll go over 30,000 won.

At some point, my fingernails had left deep marks in my palms.

Three hundred million won.

It wasn’t simply a “large sum of money.”

It was the sum of an entire youth spent scraping by—living on 3,500-won convenience-store lunch boxes, never taking even one ordinary overseas trip like everyone else, and working desperately to pay off my student loans.

While other people carried luxury handbags, I endured with a pilled-up eco-bag hanging from my shoulder.

It was the sum total of all that patience.

It was the flesh and bones of my twenties, ground down and poured into this.

And now it was going to disappear?

That was impossible.

“Ma’am, we’ve arrived.”

The driver’s dry voice snapped me back to reality.

I hurriedly handed him my card and practically threw myself out of the car.

I didn’t even hear the notification that the payment had gone through.

Pitter-patter—

As if things weren’t bad enough, the raindrops began growing heavier.

I ran through the familiar alley like a madwoman. My breath was burning in my throat, but I couldn’t stop.

In the distance, I could see the entrance to the newly built villa where I lived.

“…What is all this?”

The area in front of the entrance was a complete mess.

A4 sheets of paper were plastered all over the glass doors of the communal entrance, which was normally spotless.

[URGENT! Tenant Countermeasures Committee Being Formed]

[Landlord Unreachable. Please report if you have seen him.]

The letters were becoming blurred and black as rainwater ran down them.

It didn’t feel real.

“Da-eun! You’re here?”

Just as I stood there blankly staring at the notices, a woman burst out from the crowd and grabbed my wet arm.

It was the lady from Apartment 401—the woman I’d spoken to on the phone.

Her eyes were hollow, and her hands were trembling violently.

“That bastard landlord ran away! Apparently, he was just a figurehead! Our deposits… we’ve lost them all!”

The woman collapsed onto the ground and burst into tears.

Her cries, mixed with screams, pierced my ears through the sound of the rain.

It felt as though I’d been struck over the head with a hammer.

Her situation didn’t feel like someone else’s problem.

Because one minute from now, I would probably be crying just like her.

I passed the woman as though fleeing and stopped in front of Apartment 304—my home.

Beep, beep, beep. Beep-beep—

With a cheerful electronic sound, the door lock disengaged with an absurdly light click.

The apartment was silent.

But the air had changed.

The scent of the Black Cherry diffuser I’d placed in the entryway stung my nose.

“A successful working woman’s studio apartment needs at least one scent like this.”

It had been a small luxury I’d splurged on during a buy-one-get-one-free promotion at the supermarket.

Back then, I liked the sweet scent because it smelled like success.

But not anymore.

Now it disgusted me. It smelled like cheap air freshener sprayed to cover up a rotten lifeline.

“Urgh…”

A wave of nausea rose from deep inside me.

Every time I breathed, it felt as though mountains of debt were being forced into my lungs.

Dragging my body, heavy as waterlogged cotton, I stood alone in the middle of the living room—the place that had been my pride until yesterday and would become my hell starting today.

The Bespoke refrigerator with six months of installments remaining.

The dryer I’d gone to great lengths to buy.

The household appliances that had brought me little moments of happiness until yesterday now looked like nothing more than enormous piles of debt.

What am I going to do with all this stuff?

When the apartment was auctioned off and the day came when I was forced out, where would I even move all this heavy scrap?

At least 1 million won for professional movers.

200,000 won per month for container storage.

A moving ladder truck would cost extra.

The calculator in my head spun miserably.

I didn’t even have enough money to pay for a truck, let alone a deposit for another place.

Maybe it would be cheaper to just leave with nothing but my body.

But if I lost 300 million won and threw away all these belongings too, then there would truly be nothing left from my twenties—the years I’d struggled desperately to survive.

My entire life had become a hostage trapped inside this house.

With all my strength drained away, I collapsed onto the sofa.

The comfort of its soft cushions was terrifying enough to make my skin crawl.

I could sleep here tonight.

I wasn’t being kicked out immediately.

But what would happen when this apartment went up for auction and was eventually purchased by someone else?

Where would I live then?

My safe castle had now become a haunted house that devoured money, glaring down at me.

Bzzz—

The phone in my hand vibrated again.

It wasn’t the same number as before.

[Mom: Congratulations on your promotion, my daughter. Did you eat?]