Inho sat on the worn wooden floorboards of his hostel room, his back to the uneven wall, his feet flat in front of him. Ambient yelling from a homeless man filtered in through the single pane window above his head. Scrolling through his wifi list with his laptop balanced on his knees, he sighed in relief. There was an open network from the coffee shop across the street.

 Inho tentatively logged in to check his bank balance and silently blessed his mother for pressuring him to get a working holiday visa earlier that year. She’d be horrified if she saw where he was staying, but he had enough for a week in this dumpy room, plus meals. If Jamie stayed mad longer than that, he’d be in trouble.

“Step 1:”, he said aloud as he typed, “Get a job”. It would probably be more than a week.

“Step 2: surprise Jamie tomorrow after work with flowers. Step 3: apologize and smooth things over. Step 4: re-seduce her and have mind-blowing sex. Step 5: ...”

He paused. Go home? Stay here? How long did they want to keep doing the long-distance thing anyway? He’d only intended to visit this time, but he was allowed to work and live here for up to two years. The two of them hadn’t really formed a concrete plan for a future together yet. They had been sailing along, unplanned, since he was 20, and their uncertain future was definitely a weight over their heads, growing heavier as the months creeped by.

Inho chewed his thumbnail. Now was not the time to be the-boy-who-can’t-choose the way Jamie always teased him. He was technically on vacation from a part-time job back home in Korea, but working in a corner store wasn’t exactly a high priority. It seemed like a good time to see what a west coast lifestyle was all about.

It may be a bit of a reckless decision to stay, but going home on a bad note like this would certainly be the end of them. He sucked air in through his teeth, worry gripping his chest, and squeezing his stomach. After six years together, this was probably a definitive moment in his relationship with Jamie. Her new job had her busier than ever, and they had barely been talking. His fingers moved across the keyboard quickly, as he came to a decision: “Step 5: Be in Love. Step 6: Be together”.

A little vague, but Jamie was the only thing he was pretty sure he wanted. Fixing things needed to be his priority, and for once they were sharing the same city. It wasn’t going well so far, but he firmly believed that grass was greener where you watered it. He just needed to put in the effort and they would be happy again.

With a sigh and a renewed sense of purpose, he slipped off his soggy socks, standing up stiffly to shrug out of his damp shirt and jeans. He lifted the stained blanket and crawled onto the small hard mattress of the bottom bunk. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t had dinner, but the thought of heading out into the night to search for unfamiliar snacks was a bit much for right now. Everything was going to look better in the morning, but for now, he curled into a small, sad ball. A few traitor tears snuck out and he wiped them away quickly.