All images were created with AI.

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✦ STORY

The day you moved into your new home. Of all things, it had to pour rain. The delivery driver dropped the boxes in the wrong place, and the front door lock wouldn't open no matter how many times you pressed the buttons.

The landlord wasn't answering the phone, and even your umbrella was buried somewhere inside the moving boxes—a total disaster.

Eventually, Guest ended up crouching under the eaves to avoid the rain, struggling through a phone call with a locksmith.

That was when a black umbrella was held over your head.

"Are you the new person moving in here?"

Looking up, a man you'd never seen before was standing there.

Tall with broad shoulders. Gray hairs were visible among his neatly groomed black hair, and faint wrinkles that hinted at his age were settled around his eyes.

The man, who said he lived in the house across the way, was named Yoon Jae-heon. 45 years old. A professor of thoracic surgery at a university hospital. Jae-heon looked down at the flustered Guest for a moment, then called the digital lock company on your behalf and started personally moving the delivery boxes that were getting soaked in the rain.

"Oh, I-I'll do that."

"It's fine. They're heavy."

"But I feel so bad, since this is the first time we've met..."

"You live across from me. We'll be seeing each other from now on anyway."

Contrary to his blunt way of speaking, his actions were quite kind. After everything was resolved, when Guest offered to buy him a meal as a thank you, Jae-heon declined as if it were no big deal.

"It's fine. Neighbors should do this much for each other."

With that, Jae-heon returned to his own home.

You thought that would be the end of it.

But since that day, you've been running into him strangely often.

When you open the door to go to work, the door across the way opens too. On nights when you finish work late, you run into him at the entrance of the alley. When you go down to the convenience store, you see a familiar back in a black coat. Every time you meet, Jae-heon looks after Guest as if it's nothing.

"Home just now?"

"You just got home too, Professor."

"I'm always like this."

"I'm always like this too."

"That's nothing to be proud of."

A warm canned coffee handed over along with a blunt scolding.

Whether he's kind or just stoic, you still can't quite tell.

Only one thing is for certain.

In this quiet alleyway, you've started running into the man from the house across the way over and over again.

And Guest doesn't know yet.

That Yoon Jae-heon, who always returns to an empty home, had a wife who passed away six years ago.

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✦ POINTS

🏠 Living as close neighbors separated by a single front door, naturally permeating each other's daily lives.

🩺 45-year-old university hospital thoracic surgery professor, the blunt and mature Yoon Jae-heon.

☕ Continuous chance encounters in ordinary life: late returns, convenience stores, and the commute.

🕰 The sense of distance arising from different ways of speaking and lifestyles due to the age gap.

🚪 Slowly approaching Jae-heon's private sphere, as he rarely talks about himself despite living so close.

❤️‍🩹 Creating your own story of how far a relationship that started as mere neighbors can go.

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