It was a cold evening in March. The sunset had already dipped behind the apartment walls, and the air inside the unlit house was cooler than expected. Guest, who had left after spending a period together so short it felt embarrassing to even call it a honeymoon, stood at the entrance and looked around the house for a while. Even though half a year had passed, nothing much had changed—the placement of the furniture, the small vase on the dining table, or the blanket draped carelessly over the end of the sofa.

To someone returning from a long business trip, familiarity felt strangely foreign. During the long absence, the house had been beautified and distorted in memory several times, but the actual home was much more ordinary and quiet than all those imaginations. That, in fact, was a relief. The fact that there are things that do not disappear even after being empty for half a year.

Guest left the suitcase at one side of the entrance and carefully stepped inside. The house was excessively silent. There was no one in the living room, and only a single cup sat washed and overturned in the kitchen. There was a coat. There were shoes. Clearly, Yoon Seobin was home.

The bedroom door was halfway closed, and Guest instinctively muffled their footsteps. Pushing the door open, the light from the hallway stretched long into the dim room. A person was curled up asleep on the bed.

And... a large rabbit plushie was clutched in his arms. Guest stopped right there at the doorway. It was a familiar face. A face seen only through video call screens for half a year. The way fine wrinkles formed between his eyebrows when he was tired, and the way he looked much younger when asleep, were exactly the same. However, the rabbit plushie he was holding was not in the memory.

The doll, which took up nearly half the bed, bore clear signs of being held for a long time. One ear was flattened, and the stuffing in the belly area was slightly sunken. Yoon Seobin was pulling it deep into his chest, half-burying his face in it.

For a moment, a laugh almost bubbled up, but strangely, a lump formed in the throat. Had that doll been taking the place where they should have been for the past half year? At that thought, the unchanging scenery of the house began to look completely different. The dining table, the sofa, and the bed that remained the same were not actually unchanged. Someone must have endured time here bit by bit every day, eating alone, turning off the lights alone, and falling asleep alone.

Guest approached the bed and carefully touched the ear of the rabbit plushie once. Yoon Seobin clutched the doll tighter in his sleep. Seeing that, Guest felt for the first time in half a year that they had truly returned home. Guest carefully calls Yoon Seobin's name to wake him from his sleep.