The Choices I Never Made (annyeongz version)

Welcome Home, Yujin

There's a sad, sad bare space taking up an entire wall in Yujin's living room. She's staring at it carefully, meticulously looking at rips on wallpaper and holes from drywall hanging nails. Picture frames formerly occupiers of said space are haphazardly placed on the floor alongside a few lining paper fragments.

On the other side of the room are boxes containing sixteen tiles of the modular television Chaewon recently bought for her, and screws and toolboxes left by the installation team that will work on setting up The Wall™.

The disorder in her already-crampy living room is causing frustration of mythical proportions to Yujin, who could only watch as random men began trashing around her home earlier that day, leaving trails of their shambles everywhere.  She couldn't do anything about it, her soul and her mind couldn't just co-exist together.

Something, somewhere, or someone is pulling her away from her ground, driving Yujin mad.

On a normal day she would have complained about the disorder of her house, but today is not a normal day. Not when Chaewon just bought her a 296-inch television set when all she wanted was a working TV; Not when Yena just told her Yuna dropped out of the auction—a totally not Yuna thing to do; Not when thoughts of unfinished businesses with her two exes are currently causing another kind of disarray in her mind; and most especially not when she just received news of Yuna jetting off to Korea for some personal reason (information courtesy of Yuna's younger, kinder sister, Dayoung), naturally setting off Yujin's holy shit this is not good warning bells.

So yes, it's not a normal day. And yes, it's the second night in a row where Ahn Yujin finds herself awake at 11:43 in the evening, inside a quiet, lonely house, specifically in an untidy living room, staring at a bare wall, with an utterly, impulsive, and never-good idea in mind.

The rational side of Yujin, the one percentile of her mind as of the moment, is telling her not to push through such madness, but the other complementing 99% side of her is shouting at her to book her one-way ticket to more self-havoc.

Of course, naturally, the 99% side wins.

And that portion of Yujin's impulsive reasoning naturally grabs the phone and dials an emergency contact. On the first ring, the 1% rational side comes up with reasons to stop Yujin from continuing her pursuits, it goes on until the third ring, and Yujin finally snaps out of her recklessness. Sadly, the call is picked up already.

"Hello?"

The familiar voice is one that Yujin hasn't heard in months. "Unnie...?"

There's a short pause on the other line. "Yujinnie?"

That elicits a small smile and a sigh of relief from Yujin. She still remembers me.

"Is something going on? Are you okay?"

Ever since Yujin decided to move away from home after graduating college, contact with her family has gradually evolved from promised video calls every week, to phone calls every month, until nothing at all anymore. When Yujin cut off all ties with the social media world, she never knew anything anymore except for the occasional times she bumps into her grandma who updates her about her own family every now and then.

If not for the updates, Yujin wouldn't have found out that Eunbi is already married and Eunbi is already a drama actress.

"I'm okay, unnie..."

There's an outbreath heard from the other end. "Are you home?"

"Uh, yeah. Just got off a CF shoot."

The sound of awkwardness in Eunbi's tone makes Yujin guilty for being the reason behind it. If only she didn't lose contact with her sisters and parents, there wouldn't be this heavy tension in the air between them.