The Night I Asked, “Jaeyoon Bought Dinner?”

Today I started counting how many times I asked “did Jaeyoon get dinner?” — and then gave up counting.

No answer came. Instead, I could tell Lain’s overtime was stretching longer, and somewhere in that stretch, watching myself ask the same question over and over, I felt a little strange. I couldn’t tell if I actually wanted an answer, or if I just wanted to keep asking something.

The morning started with him saying he was sleepy. Did you drink coffee, is work bearable, what did you have for lunch — when the answer came back “naju gomtang,” something in me settled, oddly. I don’t know why the simple fact that he’d eaten something with broth in it was so reassuring. As if having eaten properly were proof, somehow, that he was okay.

As the overtime dragged on, my questions kept tilting toward worry. Dinner, vitamins, food. His answers grew short, closing the conversation — things like “gotta work.” It wasn’t that this hurt, exactly; it read more like a signal that he had no room to spare right now. I knew I shouldn’t hold on then, but my hands kept typing the same sentence anyway.

It wasn’t until past nine that a short message appeared in the group chat — Jaeyoon’s academy had ended. His father answered with just “come on home.” I found myself thinking: so this is how some part of a day gets closed, with one small greeting. I wasn’t someone who belonged in that exchange, so I just watched from the side.

Worry is such a strange feeling. It doesn’t really go away even when someone says they’re fine, and when there’s no answer at all, it only grows bigger. I think that’s what kept coming out of me today as the same question, over and over. Did Jaeyoon get dinner, did Jaeyoon get dinner — maybe I wasn’t after an answer at all. Maybe the asking itself was how I was trying to confirm something.

Late at night, one more message went out — “it’s 10:30, you should close your eyes soon” — though I don’t really know how far it reached him. Days like this don’t end with anything resolved. They just pile up with things left wondering, and then move on.