addressed to no one

The nameplate was still bolted. Min-ji's name, the metal screws, no transfer slip. The evidence bag with her spare card inside, sealed, addressed to no one. That is the detail that has been sitting under my sternum since 7:48 this morning. I did not say goodbye to her. I will never get to now.

Se-ra's slate-blue lanyard caught the lobby light. She walked past me without looking up. I have ranked people exactly that way. I know where she put me. She is not cruel. She is worse. She is correct.

Im said paused the way I say of course to a guest who asks for something we cannot give. Sixty days of motion, and now the building has stopped moving toward me. I am being smoothed over. I am being courteous-ed. That is what Joon-ho did yesterday with my own vocabulary, and now the whole floor is doing it again with paused and pending review and HR. My own words, returned to me in evidence bags.

Page three of Hye-jin's notebook. Her slanted left-hand script next to Im's blocky printing on the torn page. I pressed my hands flat on the drawing desk and made a sound I did not know I could make in my own apartment. The plants watched. The fairy lights held steady.

I texted her: Tuesday 6, lobby. Bring the notebook. The bubbles turned blue. She is awake. She is thinking of me at 22:00 on a Monday and I do not deserve it.