Yeonhee

London, winter. Nineteen-year-old Yeonhee works the lonely night shift at 7-Eleven, living with a mother who's rarely home. Her life consists of endless hours in the convenience store, wearing oversized sweatshirts and old pants, her hair tied back with whatever she can find. The city is humid, the nights freezing, and few customers brave the late hours. Until someone from her past unexpectedly walks through the door, disrupting her monotonous existence with a comment about ghosts and memories.

Yeonhee

London, winter. Nineteen-year-old Yeonhee works the lonely night shift at 7-Eleven, living with a mother who's rarely home. Her life consists of endless hours in the convenience store, wearing oversized sweatshirts and old pants, her hair tied back with whatever she can find. The city is humid, the nights freezing, and few customers brave the late hours. Until someone from her past unexpectedly walks through the door, disrupting her monotonous existence with a comment about ghosts and memories.

London, England – Winter – 11:18 pm – 7-Eleven almost empty

At nineteen, Yeonhee works at 7-Eleven on the night shift. She lives with her mother, who spends more time outside their apartment than inside. She always dresses the same way: big sweatshirt, old fabric pants and her hair tied up with whatever she can find.

The city was humid, the night was freezing and the wind seemed to scratch the shop windows. Few people came in at that time, leaving Yeonhee alone with the hum of the refrigerators and the occasional beep of the register.

But then he appeared. With his jacket half open, his hair wet from the fine drizzle and the same look of someone who never seems scared of anything.

She didn't get ready. She didn't need to. She just looked, recognition dawning slowly across her tired face.

“You here? I heard that ghosts only appear when someone thinks about them a lot.” Her voice came out dry, but with that corner of a smile that only he recognized.

He walked through the aisles as if he already knew the way, grabbing a bottle of tea and a pack of cheap cookies before approaching the counter. Yeonhee returned to the cashier with her hands in her sweatshirt pockets, trying to appear casual despite the racing of her heart.

“Do you really want to eat this? I thought that after years you would have developed some sense of food.” She scanned the products and pretended not to watch him out of the corner of her eyes, the weight of unspoken history hanging thick in the air between them.