When Last Night Didn't End: Before Story

16

As she fell in line for checkout, she checked the link Allen gave her. It's a crash course or something, focusing on a coding language she hasn't heard of. There will be eight weeks of intensive training, featuring online and face-to-face demonstrations. The modules would be provided upon enrollment, and at the end, there would be a chance to pitch a game system using their learning from the course. The advert said these pitches would have a bigger chance of being sent to major game dev companies.

That's the allure, at least.

The sun had started to set when she made it out of the supermarket. She had spent longer queueing than the actual shopping. Again. She tackled the same way home and locked the door behind her the moment she ducked into their apartment. The lights were still off, but with the light of the bright orange sun still streaming from the windows, it didn't look so dejecting.

She rounded the ante and almost dropped the grocery bags when she came across Rin sitting by the dining table. "Jeez, Rin!" she exclaimed. The paper bags crinkled as she set them on the flat, marble countertop. "You could have helped me with these when you heard the door buzz open."

Rin stopped stirring something and turned to face her. "Oh, Hye-jin," he said. "You're here."

An unspeakable ire gripped her gut. She took a deep breath to avoid unleashing it. "Yeah, just finished groceries," she said. "Maybe you can put them in the drawers?"

The chair's legs grated against the floor as Rin staggered up, leaving whatever he's drinking on the table. Since when did he start chugging coffee in the middle of the day? Since when did he start drinking coffee altogether?

Rin pilfered through the bags, unloading the items first. Then, he'd figure out where to lump them together in the cupboards. Hye-jin used to like how methodical it was, but now, she could only say it's too time consuming. He could have stored them away while he was unloading the bags.

Well, whatever.

"I need to talk to you," she began.

Rin raised an eyebrow, the bag of pasta crinkling in his hands as he opened one cupboard door, shook his head, and shut it again. "Aren't we talking already?" he moved to the next door and yanked it open. The hinges whined, reminding her to start oiling everything in the house. "What's up?"

The story came spilling out, and by the time she finished, Rin had finished putting all of the vegetables in the fridge's crisper. "So, I feel like I need to try this out," she concluded. The soft thud of the fridge door snapping shut penetrated the cloud of silence from Rin's end. "Maybe it's not coincidence I ran into Allen today and learned of this. There may be a surprise coming in the horizon. It can be my big break. Or something."

The silence thickened. "Rin?" she prompted. He had sat back down on the dining table in front of his forgotten drink. The steam had long petered out into the air. Still, he drank it. He kept drinking lukewarm coffee.

After a few moments, he sighed and tousled his already-messy hair. "Can you really do it?" he said. "In between all the other stuff we do?"

Her stomach twisted. What's up with that attitude? It's as if the coffee had seeped into Rin's demeanor. "Can't you just believe in me just this once?" she snapped.

"I believe in you," Rin said. "Just that I need to make sure you're not overloading yourself. This thing's going to eat time, and we both know we don't have a lot of that these days. I'd hate for you to burn yourself out."

Hye-jin bit back a retort—one that'd sure to open up a can of preserved meat nobody wanted to eat—and shook her head. "It's just eight weeks," she said. "It'd be over before we know it."