Ji-hye's world had shrunk to a handful of places: the gym, the path home, the dark cocoon of her room, and the emptiness between. Every day felt like a test of how much she could carry in silence. The sound of her own footsteps echoing off the walls of the auxiliary gym had become the only applause she knew, and each hour bled into the next until she couldn't remember when she'd last spoken a full sentence to another living soul.
Her body moved on instinct—muscle memory, pain, sweat, the sting of the ball striking her palms. She couldn't slow down; slowing down meant thinking, and thinking meant breaking. The club's trainer was little more than a shadow in the corner, checking off boxes on her clipboard, murmuring the occasional direction—"Jump again," "Hold the form," "Ten more serves"—never asking how Ji-hye was doing, never asking anything at all. They both knew better.
