During winter break, I spent four days without leaving the house.

Nothing happened.

That was what made it so easy.

I woke up late, ate in my room, watched videos, played games, texted friends. If I wanted

food, it appeared downstairs. If I wanted company, someone was always online.

On the fifth afternoon, my mom asked me to come outside with her. I almost said no.

There wasn't really a reason to go.

Outside, the cold hurt my face. A dog barked behind a fence. Someone was dragging a

Christmas tree to the curb, leaving a trail of pine needles across the pavement. Two kids

rode past on scooters even though the sidewalk was half frozen.

None of this was important.

When I came back, my computer was exactly where I'd left it, the same video paused on

the same frame.

Nothing had changed in my room.

Outside, apparently, things had been happening the whole time.

People kept telling me I was isolating myself, which annoyed me because technically I

talked to people all day.

Discord when I woke up. Group chats between classes. Gaming at night. Sometimes I

knew what my friends were eating before my own family did.

So when my dad said, “You haven't actually seen anyone in weeks,” I thought he was

being dramatic.

Then one afternoon, a friend came over to return my hoodie.She stayed maybe fifteen minutes. We stood in the driveway talking about absolutely

nothing. Her terrible parking. Someone from school getting bangs. A bird that kept

landing on her car.

After she left, I noticed the hoodie smelled like her house.

Such a stupid detail.

No notification had ever carried a smell. No voice chat had awkward silences where we

both watched the same bird.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I didn't check it.

For a few seconds, the driveway still felt occupied.

For months, the convenience store was the farthest place I went.

I always left at 11:40 p.m. By then, the streets were mostly empty. I knew which cashier

worked Tuesdays, which refrigerator door squeaked, and which aisle I could disappear

into if someone from school walked in.

I always bought the same tea.

One Tuesday, the cashier looked through the glass doors and said, “Cold tonight.”

That was it.

“Yeah,” I said.

At home, I put the tea on my desk and turned on my computer. Hours later, it was still

unopened.

I kept thinking about those two words.

Cold tonight.

It was such an ordinary thing to say. The kind of sentence that required another personstanding in the same weather.

The following Tuesday, I left at 11:32.

Eight minutes earlier.

The streets weren't empty yet.

At the intersection, I waited for the light beside three strangers.

No one spoke.

When the signal changed, we crossed together.

There was a period when I could live almost completely without going downstairs.

Food arrived at my door. Groceries arrived at my door. Things I didn't even know I

wanted arrived the next morning.

I joked that I had optimized my life.

Then one day my delivery was left at the wrong building.

I was irritated because I had to put on shoes and go find it.

Outside, an old man was sitting near the entrance peeling an orange. Two children were

arguing over a scooter. Someone upstairs was practicing the same piano passage again

and again.

I found my food in three minutes.

But I stayed outside longer.

Convenience removes friction, and most of the time that's wonderful. But I started

wondering whether some friction was doing something for me.

Waiting in line. Walking somewhere. Asking a stranger a question.

They're inefficient.Maybe human life isn't supposed to be completely efficient.

By December, the snow had erased the edges of everything.

The curb disappeared first. Then the garden steps. Cars became white shapes parked

along the street, and the path from our front door had to be dug out every morning,

only to disappear again by night.

I liked that.

Snow made staying inside feel reasonable.

Through my window, I watched people move slowly down the sidewalk, shoulders raised

against the wind. On my screen, nobody wore coats. Nobody waited for buses. Nobody

had wet socks.

By February, I had stopped checking the temperature.

One morning in April, I opened the curtains and the lawn was there again.

I hadn't noticed the snow melting.

There were bicycles on the sidewalk. Someone had left a basketball in a driveway. Across

the street, a neighbor was washing his car.

Everything had returned without me.

I stood at the window longer than I needed to.

Then I noticed my shoes beside the door.

At two in the morning, every apartment window looks the same.From my desk, I can see hundreds of them stacked across the buildings opposite mine.

Most are dark. A few glow blue.

I wonder who is behind those windows.

Someone watching the same video for the fifth time. Someone playing a game with

strangers in another country. Someone writing a message and deleting it. Someone who

has not spoken out loud since dinner.

My own face floats faintly on the window, layered over the apartments outside. Behind

me, my monitor is still playing something. I don't remember choosing the next video.

There are probably hundreds of us awake right now, each inside a separate square of

light.

The strange thing is that the internet was supposed to make distance disappear.

Maybe it did.

Seoul is sleeping only twenty floors away from me.

Tonight, twenty floors feels farther than another continent.

My phone has a setting called Do Not Disturb.

I like the certainty of the name.

Not Maybe Later. Not I'm Tired . Not I Don't Know What to Say to You Right Now.

Just: Do Not Disturb.

At 11:03, my friend sends a photo of the moon.

At 11:17, my mother texts from the living room: Are you hungry?

At 11:46, someone likes a photograph I posted three months ago.

None of them make a sound.

Still, I pick up the phone every few minutes to check whether anyone has tried to reachme.

There is something strange about wanting to be left alone and wanting proof that

people have not left you alone.

Outside my bedroom, I hear the television. A cabinet closes. Water runs through the

pipes.

I turn my phone face down.

The room becomes dark.

Three minutes later, without thinking, I turn it over again.