"Why are you showing me this?" Byung-soon frowns at Ki's phone.

Ki furrows his brow, "This is what I've been working on recently! Here, I'll show you a hyperlapse I made the other day." Ki swipes through his whole camera roll with one hand, his other resting on the edge of his bed to steady himself.

"I know what they are, 아들." Byung-soon sighs, resting a hand on her son's shoulder. "But why do I want to see this?"

"Are you serious?" Ki slumps in disappointment. "I don't know? It's...it's probably what I'm gonna end up doing?"

Byung-soon crosses her arms, her eyes darting over Ki's screen. "But you're not even in those pho-"

"Are you serious?" Ki exclaims for the second time. Byung-soon closes her eyes for a few seconds, before reaching out to pull her son further onto the bed, "Come on. Sit with me and let me talk to you for a second, 아들."

"With your father gone, I'm gonna need you to step it up around here."

"But I'm leaving once I finish this school year. Simon is already looking for places and-"

"This isn't a good time for that, Weon." Byeon-soon lets out a sigh, "Be sensible."

"엄마, just because you want something doesn't mean I want the same thing. I know the restaurant is your whole life, but I've still got the rest of mine to go and I want to spend it doing what I love, working as a freelance photographer for events. I wanted to go to Uni for photography, but you said we wouldn't ever be able to afford it in time, so this is what I'm doing instead. I'm moving with Simon and everybody to the City to try to make this happen." Ki turns and flops onto his stomach on the bed, his arms stretched forward.

"I know you wanted to go to Uni, 아들. I tried to make it work, I promise you that." Byeon-soon pulls out her wallet and starts ruffling around to find a crisp banknote, "I wish we had all the money in the world too, Weon, but the truth is, we barely have enough to keep us afloat right now."

Ki looks over his shoulder at his mother, "I know, I know. I didn't mean anything bad," he props himself up on his elbows, "I just really want to try to make this dream happen."

"저주하다." Byung-soon stands up and pinches the bridge of her nose with yet another sigh. She looks at Ki with desperation and hope,

"I think you're making a mistake."

Well at least I didn't make the mistake of f*cking up my whole life like you did. That's what Ki wanted to say. Instead, he just mouths off.

"If you make me live my life like this, I swear I'll find a way to go live with dad."

Ki's mother gives him a strange look. "It's your life, Weon-kee.", she says. Like that was really true. And another thing about Byung-soon: She almost never gave lectures. Not real ones. Which really pissed Ki off. She wasn't a mean person. She didn't have a bad temper. She spoke in short sentences: "It's your life.", "Give it a try", "Are you sure you want to do that?. Why couldn't she just talk? How was Ki supposed to know when his mother didn't want him to do something? Ki hated that.

"Look...we've still got a year. What if I find somebody to replace me?" Ki breaks into a state of desperation. "Someone really good to help you guys out after I leave."

"You don't listen, 아들. We don't need someone else. We need you here. We are not talking about this right now, Weon. It's time for you to get to work. We'll be opening soon." Byung-soon doesn't notice Ki slightly dying inside behind her as she walks out his bedroom door and onto the stair landing.

"But..." Ki starts, but realises it won't do him any good. He slams the door shut with a quiet but firm, "Fine!"

The Rhee household is connected to the family restaurant just downstairs. It would be easier to just go down the stairs and walk around the corner to the restaurant stairs, but Ki is feeling extra today. He opens up the window in the bathroom and pulls himself through onto the fire escape stairs head-first, banging his head on the lifted window as he so. He rubs at the darkening bruise on his forehead as he speedily clambers down the metal stairs, down to the car park hidden from street view where his own humble, red 2008 Fiat has been sitting since last month. He best take it around town for a spin soon or else it would collect dust. A stream of heat and the stench of kimchi hit Ki hard in the face as he opens the kitchen's back door. Looks like 엄마 was in here just now, Ki thinks as he pulls an off-white apron off the hook and ties the apron's faded ribbons around his waist.

Ki eyes the front counter and notices the lack of 롤빵 in the table baskets. Looks like Misi's slacking off. I'll have to her tell off about that. He makes a mental note to talk to Misumi as he plugs a pair of earphones into his phone, presses play and dumps the necessary ingredients into the large standing food mixer. The flour releases large clouds into the air, some of the particles landing in Ki's already scruffy hair. Ki rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, pouring the well-mixed dough onto the counter. The 롤빵's dough sticks to Ki's hands as he kneads it to close perfection, before dropping it into a large tray to leaven inside the oven. He washes his hands under the cold running water of the kitchen sink and his eyes watch the small pieces of leftover dough swirl down the drain.

Slim, slightly sticky fingers dance across the screen of Ki's phone as he scrolls through his feed, eyeing images of his friends eating with family, tanning on beaches or shopping with close mates as he sits on a duck-taped together wooden chair just outside the kitchen back entrance. As the music plays in his ears, Ki thinks he's in the clear, until a loud banging noise rings through the air from the window of the kitchen behind him.

"Get off your phone!"

"How does she even know...?"

"I'm God. I know everything. Go make a delivery while the 롤빵 proof."

A click of a helmet, a bell ring and the tying of some string later, Ki is cycling down Eastdale Road with a bag of plastic containers of hot fresh food tied to the back of his trusty foldable bike. His stomach grumbles from the smell as he cycles right up to every door and delivers their lunch to them. He checks his watch on his left wrist frequently, concerned that the bread would go musty if he left it in the oven for too long. As if that would happen. Bread probably couldn't ever 'over-leaven'. Probably.

As Ki rounds the corner to his last delivery, a bright yellow car comes up and trawls behind him. No biggie. He tilts the bike's bars and hugs the curb, leaving plenty of road for the car to pass by him. The car doesn't do anything and continues travelling at half the speed of a snail behind him. Ki sees now that there's a lengthening queue of cars behind the off-brand bumblebee and swears under his breath for the damned car to just pass him. Ignoring the rising sound of deafening car honks, Ki squints at the driver through the car's windows and susses that the driver's lowered, bowed head is the result of their eyes being stuck to a screen that's probably on their lap. Probably. Ki gives them the benefit of the doubt.

The traffic lights ahead turn from green to amber and Ki starts pedalling quicker, even though he knows he won't make it in time. The light reaches red, there's no dropped curb insight and an elderly woman steps onto the road. Ki clenches his jaw and presses as hard as he can on the brakes, dragging his trainer on the ground, barely stopping before he hit the woman. Good thing I had my eyes on the road.

Clearly someone else didn't have their eyes on the road too though. The yellow car suddenly hits the back of Ki's bike. Ki falls off his bike to the side and watches as the foldable bike he bought two weeks ago off Ebay gets crushed under the wheels of a car colored the most eye-straining shade of yellow in the world.

"Oh for f*ck's sa-"

"You alright there, Kiwi?"

Ki looks behind him to the bus stop, where one very lonely looking dimpled boy is sitting wearing a monochrome dress, neon green hawaiian-print jacket thrown over his shoulders with a bloody nose and damp cheeks.

"Well sh*t, Issa. Don't you look screwed up."