01ㅣContact lost
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For the first time in a while, I woke up dreamless. Waking up with a clear mind not only made me feel better, but I also had a feeling today would be a lucky day. As soon as I woke up, I picked up my phone. For some reason, there was no message from my boyfriend. He used to call me every morning to say good morning. But I figured it was just a weekend morning, so I figured he'd probably oversleep, so I ignored it.
I'd always lived according to plan, and today seemed like a typical day. On a weekend morning, I'd wake up, drink a juice made with nuts and fruit, do some stretching, then contact my boyfriend and laugh. But as the afternoon wore on, there was still no word from him. I was growing increasingly anxious about him not even reading my messages.
My plans and routine were shattered when my boyfriend, who was a part of my life, stopped contacting me. My anxiety grew. I spent hours thinking, "He might not call, so let's just wait a little longer." Finally, I couldn't bear it anymore and headed to his house.
I knocked and rang the doorbell several times, but there was no answer. I couldn't even sense any presence. It was possible my boyfriend, an illustrator, had been working until dawn. Perhaps he was still asleep. My constant knocking on the door caused a neighbor to scold me. Feeling discouraged, I finally turned to head home, but stopped short.
My boyfriend once gave me his password. On the day we were supposed to go on a date, he told me he'd be a little late because of work and told me to go home first. But I couldn't remember it at all. It was so long ago.
I tried to force myself to remember, but my brain seemed to freeze. I searched through my contact history and listened to the automatically recorded calls. Honestly, I thought my boyfriend would wake up and come out of the house to see my message if I was just killing time. But time just passed without a trace, and there was no response.
While I was racking my brain, something occurred to me. Apparently, my boyfriend told me he'd set the birthdays of the illustrations he'd drawn as passwords. But he had so many, and I couldn't possibly access all of them.
After making a mistake once or twice, I was afraid I'd make a complete mistake. I wanted to check, even if he was at home, but there was no way to do it right away. Then, a solution occurred to me: go to the parking lot and see if my boyfriend's car was there. My boyfriend is the type to drive his car even to very short distances, so if he was at home, there would definitely be a car in the parking lot.
After circling the large parking lot a few times, I found my boyfriend's car. I remembered him excitedly telling me he'd just washed it a few days ago. It was as clean as new, and it looked like he'd only driven it a few times since. That meant my boyfriend was home.
Checking the car only deepened my suspicions. If it hadn't been there, I'd have assumed he was out and about, but now I can't even imagine it. The only hypothesis I can come up with is "sleeping." It was impossible for us, who used to keep in touch so frequently, to have such a thing happen.
Then, an illustration caught my eye. She said it was a drawing of me, and she'd saved the illustration's birthday as her password. As soon as I remembered it, I rushed over to my boyfriend's house. My hands were trembling at the thought of finally being able to confirm his fate. I stumbled a few times, but finally, the door opened.