After failing to jumpstart her acting career, Karina returns defeated to her hometown to figure out her next move. Things get complicated when she finds out that Y/N, her best friend from high school with whom she parted on awkward terms, is also ba...
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Karina half dragged and half lifted her luggage bag over the rocky path leading up to the sagging hanok that she called home. The mid-June heat was in full swing. She had been out of the air-conditioned taxi for not even a full minute, but her shirt was already clinging to the sweat on the small of her back.
It had been hot in Los Angeles, too, but not this humid. This sticky heat was a special feature of summers back in her hometown.
She climbed up the stairs and let her luggage bag wheels drop to the stone base of the house. Then, she wiped her palms and tried the door.
Karina had to lean all her weight against the door to slide it open. The bamboo hadn't been sanded in years, and the wood creaked and protested against any movement. After several attempts to let herself in with no success, Karina decided it was time to roll up her sleeves and really go to town. She dug her fingers into the handle and gave it one last tug with all of her strength.
The door slid clear out of its frame.
"Fuck!" The heavy door would have crushed her if she wasn't fast enough to catch it.
Karina caught her balance before she fell off the stone base, and then she leaned the door against the side of the house. She looked down at the door frame and inspected the damage. The damned house was falling apart.
"Hello?" Karina called as she stepped across the threshold and into the house. The fact that her slippers hadn't seemed to have moved so much as an inch since she left them there five years ago was mildly depressing. She kicked her shoes off and stuffed her feet into them.
"Hello? Mom? Harabeoji?" Karina pulled her luggage into the house and then leaned it against the wall. "Anyone? Sorry about the door."
Was anyone home?
Karina looked around the living room. Almost nothing seemed out of place. A pinewood coffee table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by flattened green cushions pounded down by years of kneelers. A row of potted hydrangeas stood alert on low bookshelves against the wall, framing a 30-inch flatscreen television. A sleek, black upright piano rested against one side of the room. On the wall, there was a hazy portrait of herself as a chubby baby. An open door gave Karina a view into the hallway—
Where an elderly man in a hanbok was wielding a shotgun.
"Holy sh—!" Karina cursed and then screamed at the top of her lungs as the old man suddenly started running and pointing the shotgun toward her. She fell to her knees and held her arms up, screaming.
"Intruder! Intruder!" shouted the old man. "Intruder! Intruder!"
"What! No, this is my house!" Karina screamed.
"Intruder!" he shook the barrel of the shotgun in Karina's face as she screamed her lungs out.
"Harabeoji!" a woman came sprinting out of another hallway and snatched the shotgun out of the old man's hands. "What's the matter with you? That's Jimin, Harabeoji, don't you recognize your own granddaughter?"
