As soon as I arrived home, the first thing I did was turn on the robot vacuum.
With a bright little notification sound—di-ro-rong—it began to move.
Come to think of it, I’d moved in without having the place cleaned.
‘It was clean from the moment I came to see it, so maybe it doesn’t matter.’
Looking at the robot vacuum diligently sweeping and mopping the floor, I decided to let it slide.
It would clean well enough on its own.
“Good luck.”
Tossing out a meaningless cheer, I roughly set up the computer in the room.
Thankful that the tower was small, I placed it beside the folding desk.
The monitor was absurdly large, so it was a little tough, but after carrying it around for a while, I seemed to be getting used to it.
I quickly finished connecting the computer and stared at the desk from a short distance away.
A single folding desk sitting all alone in the empty living room.
And one computer sitting on top of it.
I chuckled at the slightly awkward sight and put a cup rice meal into the microwave.
Listening to the microwave hum as it ran, I sat down in front of the computer.
“……Now it really feels like I’m living alone.”
Living alone.
Usually, people living on their own for the first time each have their own romantic notions about it.
I hadn’t ended up living alone because I wanted to, so I had no such romance, but I still knew very well why people living alone for the first time did.
The sense of liberation from leaving the arms of family for the first time.
The anticipation of having a true resting place of one’s own, unlike a dormitory.
There were probably all sorts of other reasons too.
In any case, after roughly fifteen years of living alone, I was finally feeling that romance for the first time.
“Hmm…… Furniture, if I want to buy furniture….”
What I was searching for on the internet was how to do interior decorating.
Of course, I had no intention of remodeling the house.
If that had been my plan, I wouldn’t have thrown out everything from my studio and left.
If I planned to move to another place someday, I might decorate that place, but at the very least, I had no plans to make this one messy.
What I was looking at wasn’t that kind of interior work, but ways to decorate a home with furniture.
Starting from unifying the overall color palette of the house, to choosing furniture that matched the tone and making good use of space.
As I read a post full of various tips, I found one line that seemed to have been written with resentment.
“For imported overseas furniture, make sure to check the units before purchasing…….”
That phrase was written in bold in a review posted on a blog.
And beneath that phrase was a photo.
“Why does it fit so awkwardly?”
It was a photo showing that a bookshelf was awkwardly long, so the door wouldn’t open properly.
It looked exactly like the kind of photo that would be posted on some online community with a caption like, “What the hell is this gym door? I came for PT, but I can’t leave unless I lose weight?”
Giggling, I read the long story underneath too.
To briefly summarize, it was furniture imported directly from the U.S., and since the size was written in inches, there had been an issue with the actual measurements.
Good grief. An engineer would faint if they saw this. “Stop using yards and pounds,” they’d say.
Apparently, with imported furniture, you even had to worry about all sorts of strange things.
For now, I decided not to add any furniture that used inches to my list.
After reading posts for quite a while like that, the microwave began to get angry.
Beep— beep—
“Fine, fine.”
I hurriedly took out the cup rice, mixed it roughly, and took a bite.
It was, in fact, my first meal of the day.
Chewing, I sat back down in front of the computer.
One scroll of the mouse, one bite of cup rice.
By the time I was almost done eating the cup rice, another phrase caught my eye.
“Find a room you like… and start by decorating yours in a similar way.”
Hmm. It was true that I needed to know what kind of feeling I wanted my room to have.
“As expected, guidelines are important no matter where you are.”
Guidelines are essential.
For a freshly employed office worker, and for me, who had just started living alone in the true sense.
Well, I was a used rookie who had only spent fifteen years as an intern.
So what this used rookie had to do today was obvious.
‘I should probably start by decorating the living room, right?’
Decorating the living room.
####
After confirming that there was a large furniture store nearby, I got in the car.
Naturally, I was wearing sweats.
It was only the second day, so I probably didn’t need to wash them yet.
“Phew….”
Come to think of it, after washing up this morning and then throwing everything away, there was nothing in the house.
I should look at furniture and do some light grocery shopping on the way back.
‘Don’t buy anything useless. Only exactly what I need.’
Recalling how hard I’d worked hauling my things yesterday, I firmly resolved myself.
In any case, I drove my compact car and arrived at the furniture store thirty minutes away.
Apparently, it was a large furniture store and home goods shop that had come all the way from Sweden to Korea.
I didn’t know what home goods were, but seeing the enormous building made me feel strangely excited anyway.
The living room I wanted was roughly a warm, elegant living room in wood tones.
I wanted to make it so the scenery visible through the large window and the sunlight coming through that window blended well together.
‘It was also the example that came up first when I searched.’
That didn’t mean I’d chosen it carelessly.
Black and white, pastel style—everything else was just too unappealing.
Wood tones were the prettiest.
I had seen a title that said,
“Wood tones be like: people over 40 absolutely love them fr.”
But I forcefully shook my head and decided to forget about it.
Everyone had different tastes.
‘But it’s not like I really feel that way because I got older, right?’
No way.
I, Choe Yeonbi, was twenty-one years old.
Thinking of the age written on my ID, I nodded firmly.
Was this how a martial arts master who had returned from old age to youth felt?
‘……Should I read web novels again for the first time in a while?’
After making that useless resolution, I entered the furniture store.
“Oh…….”
It was my first time in a furniture store in my life.
Maybe because the outside of the store was blue, the inside was also designed overall in blue and white.
As I rode the escalator up, I kept looking around.
I felt a little embarrassed, thinking I was the only one looking around in fascination like this, but when I glanced around, the place was full of people just like me.
‘Well, it’s a furniture store. People who come and go often enough to be used to it would be rarer.’
Thinking that, I entered the first section.
The first section was rooms.
It was a place where various styles of rooms had been decorated with furniture sold in the store.
An artist’s room filled with black.
A modern-style room with white and black mixed half and half.
A room that looked a little stylish, with white and mint blended together in moderation, and so on.
Seeing the rooms decorated to match each theme made my heart start to beat a little faster.
‘Our house too…….’
I approached a piece of furniture that looked pretty and checked the price tag.
A neat black desk. A whopping 199,800 won.
‘This thing?’
It was just a plain black rectangular desk with nothing else to it, but the price was a little brutal.
No, wait. I was Choe Yeonbi, a person with five hundred billion won in assets.
There was absolutely no reason for my hands to tremble over a mere petty sum like this.
In the first place, even if I bought every piece of furniture here, I’d still have money left over.
Though I’d run out of space.
“Honey, look at this. It’s a bookshelf, but if you push it, it slides with a rattling sound.”
“It’s the kind of bookshelf you see at comic cafés.”
“Let’s see, the price is… Huh… It’s almost 500,000 won. Installation costs extra.”
A couple moved elsewhere, looking at the furniture with slightly regretful eyes.
I didn’t really know how much other high-end furniture cost either.
That was why I had come to a large store that supposedly boasted standard prices and quality, but it seemed like other people also found these prices pretty expensive.
‘I saw in a post that movable bookshelves are good for dividing up space.’
I slowly approached that bookshelf too, pushing and pulling it slightly to check how it felt.
The texture was smooth and nice, and I liked that the color was a warm brown.
‘The design is pretty too… Wouldn’t it be okay to buy one?’
I glared hard at the bookshelf.
Then I quickly changed my mind.
‘No, no. Don’t buy it right away. Today, just plan things out.’
I hadn’t come here to buy things immediately today.
The goal was to take a full look at the furniture and find the style I wanted.
And bookmarking furniture that matched the style I wanted was also today’s goal.
On top of that, this was a DIY furniture store.
Do It Yourself.
In other words, roughly, “Make it yourself.”
Even if I bought the furniture, I had to make it all myself.
They did say there was a service that would assemble it for me, so it probably wouldn’t be a big problem. Still, if I bought large furniture here, it would probably take quite a long time to assemble.
‘Or not? Since large furniture is hard to move, would it actually be better to buy it here and ask them to assemble it?’
I fell into thought for a moment.
I didn’t know a single thing properly.
‘This is overwhelming.’
Seeing couples and families here and there earnestly looking at furniture and discussing things made my chest feel a little tight.
Even with a lot of money, I didn’t know how to spend it.
Even with a lot of money, I didn’t even know how to properly buy a single piece of furniture.
Even though I’d always been alone, life had been too busy for me to really notice, but now that I had room to breathe, my surroundings were gradually coming into view.
There wasn’t a single person to give me advice.
‘……No need to get sentimental over something I’m used to.’
Letting out a light sigh, I wandered around calmly, and then one room in front of me caught my eye.
‘Is it living rooms from here on?’
A section staged as living rooms.
Among them, my eyes locked onto a room staged in exactly the feeling I had wanted.
“This is it.”
I immediately took out my phone and took a picture.
Then I checked each piece of furniture placed there and confirmed the prices.
After punching the numbers into the calculator, if I bought all the furniture there, it came out to around 3.5 million won.
A sofa, a TV stand, a rug, a table, a storage cabinet, a side table, and even a soft, fluffy armchair that one person’s entire body could sink into.
What’s more, the only things I had to make myself were the storage cabinet and the TV stand.
And even those were items I could get assembly service for.
‘I could leave it exactly like this.’
Perfect.
I diligently noted down the names of the items and slowly headed toward the next section.
So what if I was alone?
So what if I didn’t know how to spend money?
When I thought of the life of Choe Minhu, who had floundered in work and poverty, my gloom was nothing but a luxury.
So.
‘Should I swipe just up to ten million won today?’
If I had time to be depressed, I might as well spend some money first.