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# 1: The Lonely Goose
Ramen was boiling.
Kang Do-hyeon quietly listened to the sound of it boiling. That was the only sound coming from the five-pyeong studio apartment. The bubbling sound, the loneliest sound in the world.
Just then, his phone rang. But Do-hyeon did not look at the screen. No, there was no need to. There was only one person who would call him at nine at night.
The person calling him now was never family or a friend. He no longer had such people in his life.
After a while, the vibration stopped, only to start again a moment later. Then it stopped again, and rang once more.
On the third call, Do-hyeon turned down the heat on the ramen and answered the phone. Even though there was no one around to hear him, he instinctively lowered his voice.
“Yes, this is Kang Do-hyeon.”
“Mr. Do-hyeon, this is Taehyun Capital. We’re contacting you because this month’s repayment is overdue again.”
The voice was smooth and mechanical. Do-hyeon closed his eyes.
“I know. Next week. No, I’ll somehow manage to make the payment by next week.”
“Mr. Do-hyeon. You said the exact same thing last month, and the month before that as well. If we don’t receive the payment this time, we’ll have no choice but to proceed according to our procedures. You understand what that means, correct?”
He knew. He knew all too well. Becoming a delinquent debtor. Seizure of his assets. After that, there was something he did not even want to think about.
“I’m sorry. Really, next week.”
The call ended. The other person did not even say goodbye. That was what came back to those who were in debt. Even a goodbye was a luxury to people like them.
Do-hyeon placed his phone on the dining table. But then his hand began to tremble slightly.
There was something else on the table besides his phone. An envelope that had arrived at his home a week ago. He still could not bring himself to open it.
The words printed on the outside of the envelope gleamed coldly beneath the fluorescent light.
Application for Confirmation of Mutual Divorce Intent.
Twenty years of marriage was being reduced to a single sheet of paper.
Suddenly, he thought it was ridiculous.
Kang Do-hyeon, a department manager at a major corporation. Looking at his business card alone, it was a life no one would have envied. Whenever he attended class reunions, he was always the one people told, “As expected, Manager Kang is the one who made it the furthest.”
And yet that same man was now eating overcooked ramen alone in a five-pyeong rental room, sleeping on a blanket spread across the floor because he did not even have a bed.
He was fifty-eight.
And the balance in his bank account was negative.
No, it was not merely that he had nothing. His life was filled with things he had to repay. He had reached the point where he envied people who were starting from zero. Because he was in a position where he had to crawl up from far below zero, from somewhere deep beneath the ground.
But there was not a single person in the world who knew about these debts.
His coworkers did not know. To his coworkers, Manager Kang was simply a frugal family man who ate modest lunches and left company dinners early.
“Manager Kang is really thrifty.”
“He pours everything he has into his family. That’s amazing.”
People always said things like that. But no one knew that the true reason behind that frugality was the desperation of being chased by debt and interest.
His friends did not know either. He had stopped contacting them long ago.
Meeting people cost money. He did not want them to discover that even splitting the bill for a drink was a burden to him. So he avoided every gathering. And that was how he gradually distanced himself from everyone.
Of course, neither his siblings nor his relatives knew.
Even during the holidays, he did not return to his hometown, making excuses that he was busy. He could not go empty-handed, nor could he smile and pretend everything was fine.
So he swallowed it all alone. Every night, alone.
It was not merely because of his pride. He knew that even if he told someone, nobody would pay off his debts for him. All he would receive was another look of pity.
Pity could not reduce his debt. So he kept his mouth shut. And carrying the heaviest secret in the world all by himself, twenty years had already passed.
Kang Do-hyeon had married at twenty-eight. Although he had not started with much, he had been happy. Before long, his daughter Jisoo was born, followed by his son Junho. His wife was devoted to the children's education more than anyone and treated him well too.
Then, when Jisoo was in middle school and Junho was in the upper grades of elementary school, his wife told him that their children's future would not be possible in this country. She said they needed to be sent to America while they were still young.
Of course, Do-hyeon had opposed the idea at first. But when his wife told him that most people around them were doing the same thing, he had no choice but to agree. He believed that a head of the household only needed to earn money.
And so his wife and two children left for America. That had been thirteen years ago.
From that day on, Do-hyeon's life became one thing. Work, send money, and work again.
He reduced company dinners, stopped buying clothes, and got by with the cheapest lunches. Every penny he earned went to America.
It was three years ago, perhaps, when his wife called him.
“Honey, I think we need to buy a house here. The kids need to settle down now too... And it doesn't seem right to keep renting forever.”
Do-hyeon took out loans in Korea. A personal credit loan, and even a negative bank account. He borrowed everything he could and sent it to them. No, even that was not enough, so he even applied for an early settlement of his severance pay at work.
The severance pay he had accumulated after twenty years of working. He sent all of it to America as well.
And that was how nothing but debt remained in his bank account.
Still, he was fine with it. As long as his family was happy, that was enough. Whenever he saw photographs of his children smiling brightly, he could even eat overcooked ramen happily.
But at some point, their contact became less frequent. No, the loss of contact had not happened all at once. Looking back, the cracks had begun a very long time ago.
During the first few years, they had still been affectionate. Young Jisoo and Junho would look for their father through video calls every weekend.
“Dad, I miss you.”
“When are you coming?”
Those words were what had given Do-hyeon the strength to endure thirteen years.
But as the children grew, the calls gradually became less frequent. As they went through adolescence, the children did not want to sit in front of a screen anymore. His wife told him, “Kids are all like that once they grow up,” and Do-hyeon accepted it as well.
But even after the children became adults, the distance did not shrink. No, they had actually grown even farther apart.
Before he knew it, Jisoo had graduated from university and become a twenty-six-year-old working woman, while Junho had become a twenty-three-year-old young man attending university. Both were respectable adults.
They were old enough to take care of themselves, make their own judgments, and make their own choices.
Yet the older his children became, the less they contacted their father. Occasionally, when Do-hyeon called them, he would hear,
“Oh, Dad. I’m busy. I’ll hang up.”
The calls lasted less than a minute. Even those only happened because Do-hyeon was the one who called first. At some point, calls from the children themselves had disappeared completely.
Do-hyeon was hurt, but he swallowed his feelings. They were grown up now, so he told himself they were busy with their own lives, busy working and studying, and reassured himself that it was only natural.
Still, whenever there was a holiday, he sent them spending money, and on their birthdays, he never forgot to send congratulatory messages. The replies were often nothing more than a short emoji, but even so, Do-hyeon tried to remain faithful to his role as a father and a husband.
Then, at some point, even his wife's calls stopped.
At first, a single day passed.
She must be busy, he thought.
Then two days passed in a row. Then three days, four days, a week...
Whenever Do-hyeon called, his wife's phone would simply ring before the call ended. And much later, the messages he received were dry replies such as, “Yeah.” or “Busy.”
Do-hyeon became anxious. A chill settled in one corner of his heart.
[Could something have happened?]
So he made a decision. He had to go see them himself.
The problem was money.
A plane ticket to America was a huge expense for him.
For someone who needed to send every last penny he could, spending money on himself felt like a guilty extravagance. But when it came to his family's safety, he had no choice.
He scraped together as much as possible from the last remaining negative bank account and bought the cheapest connecting flight he could find.
Fourteen hours of flying. Two transfers.
In the cramped economy seat, Do-hyeon could not sleep. His heart was simply racing at the thought of seeing his family again.
How many years had it been since he had last seen their faces in person?
Jisoo must have become a proper working adult by now. Junho must have grown into a dependable young man.
Thinking about the faces of his grown children, Do-hyeon felt excited.
His bag was filled with gifts.
They were not things he had bought at a duty-free shop. He could not afford that. They were snacks and ramen he had bought in Korea beforehand, the things his children had liked when they were young, along with a small piece of cosmetics for his wife.
Nothing was expensive, but Do-hyeon had spent several days thinking carefully about what to choose.
After arriving at an airport in America, he checked the address.
The address his wife had given him when she said, “I think we should buy a house.”
The house he had paid for by taking out loans in Korea and even using his severance pay.
But he had never once visited that house.
He took a taxi, and unfamiliar American streets passed by outside the window. Wide roads, large houses, green lawns.
Do-hyeon thought,
So this is where my family lives. They live in such a nice place. My hard work was worth it.
For a brief moment, his chest swelled with pride at the thought.
The taxi stopped in a quiet residential neighborhood.
A large, clean two-story house.
A well-maintained front yard.
And parked in front of the garage was a gleaming SUV.
Do-hyeon looked up at the house.
His heart swelled.
This is my family's home.
The home I created for them.
Even though I eat ramen in a five-pyeong studio apartment, my family lives in a beautiful house like this.
That alone was truly enough.
He was about to press the doorbell when he stopped.
He wanted to surprise them.
If he suddenly appeared without contacting them and said, “Dad's here,” wouldn't his grown children and his wife be surprised and happy to see him?
Just then, the front door opened.
But the person who came out was not a member of his family.
It was an unfamiliar man.
A white man who appeared to be in his fifties. He was dressed comfortably in home clothes and held a mug in his hand.
Anyone looking at him would have thought he was someone who lived in that house.
There was a natural ease in the man's behavior that made it clear he was not a guest, but someone who seemed like the owner of the house.
“Can I help you?”