trouvaille : minsung ✓

chapter 12

I need you

The only logical conclusion was that Jisung spent the rest of the weekend looking for apartments. The damn meager salary he just got was barely enough for a three-room apartment. Besides, he was tormented by a guilty conscience, so he didn't let himself be seen outside of his room except to do the most humane necessities. 

And he had actually found five apartments that he could finance and that (from the website) didn't look like a total dump. After a lot of phone calls back and forth, he made an appointment with all the agents to visit them. Jisung sighed loudly. Now all that was missing was the two-liner to his boss so he could take Monday off. 

"Dear Mr. Bang. I need to take next Monday off to go apartment hunting. With kind regards. Han Jisung." 

Jisung was terrible at writing formal e-mails. His boss quickly replied and gave him the okay. One less thing he had to worry about. 

But problem number one presented itself on Monday morning. It was four o'clock. And Jisung still had an hour and a half to catch his train. 

The first and best apartment he found was a good three-hour train ride away. He had to cross the city and go to the suburbs on the other side. So he changed into business casual clothes and did his hair in the small dirty mirror in his room.

 He crept down the stairs, his backpack shouldered. He peeked into the kitchen and wondered if he should eat something. The question answered itself when he heard his mother talking upstairs in her sleep and the guilty conscience weighed even heavier on his shoulder. 

So he grabbed his shoes and walked briskly to the train track. Taking the train at this hour was exhausting. 

Either drunk teens were coming back from partying somewhere, the annoyed ticket inspector who snapped at you if you couldn't find your ticket fast enough, and the unfriendly office people who had fallen victim to their horrible work schedule. 

—

To bring Jisung's mood down a bit more, his connecting train out of town was late. 

He jittered his legs, always looking at his watch and at the train tracks. If the train arrived now and he ran to the apartment location, he would still be on time.

 It came quickly after that, too. With his stomach rumbling loudly from hunger and his hands shaking, Jisung sat on the train. He couldn't be late. 

The second the train stopped he jumped out of the carriage. 

As fast as his feet carried him, he ran through the streets. He had memorized the way on Google Maps the night before. His bag slipped off his shoulders and his jacket popped open. Panting, he stopped in front of the house. 

At the front entrance stood a woman in a pencil skirt and tight braid. She had her left arm raised to eye level and was looking at her watch. "One minute and seventeen seconds late Mr. Han." 

The latter quickly straightened up and smoothed his clothes. "Sorry I'm late miss."

 The woman scanned him and raised an eyebrow."I pay special attention to punctuality."