Chapter 1

I had no money. I had no house.
But I thought I still had something. My girlfriend of 7 years, Sora.

There are many people with money. Many people with houses.
But how many people have a girlfriend of 7 years?

Seven years is a long time. It is enough for excitement to turn into comfort, and comfort into habit. Sometimes, when I felt that habit, my chest would still swell with emotion.

Sora was a busy nurse. I usually had dinner with her once or twice a week, and before sleeping, we talked on the phone for about 30 minutes.

“Hyun-jae, you know nurse Yoo today…”

She would chatter about her day. If I fell asleep listening, my small one-room apartment didn’t feel lonely. Seven years ago, when I first came to Seoul and lived alone, I thought I’d go crazy from the loneliness…

Seven years is long enough to get tired.
But I didn’t. Sora was still pretty. Still lovely.
No—she had become even prettier than before. Maybe seven times prettier.

“Hyun-jae, I’m really sorry… but I think we should stop seeing each other.”

She said this the day after heavy snow.

“…What?”

She was so pretty, sipping her coffee. I just stared at her blankly, so I didn’t even understand what she had said at first.

“I thought about it a lot. I met you when I was twenty, but now I’m in my late twenties. I think I have to start thinking seriously.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying until now you didn’t think seriously? I always—”

“I did think! But now there are more things to consider. I hope you think about it too.”

“Think about what?”

“Hyun-jae… did you really think about marrying me?”

“I told you I did. And you—”

“Yeah, but… you see…”

The conversation spun around one point, without touching it directly. When I finally realized what that point was, the talk ended.

The point was this:

– I think I’m too good to marry you. You have nothing. If I marry you, where will we live?

I left the café in a daze.
I didn’t say, “How could you do this to me?”
I didn’t say, “So you love money that much? Why don’t you just marry money?”
I didn’t say, “Then why did we date for 7 years? Was I just an outlet for your emotions?”

I only said, “Okay. I understand.” and walked out.

Why didn’t I say anything? To save face? No. The reason was more pathetic.
I thought, “We’ve been together 7 years. Maybe she’ll change her mind later.”

As I left the café, I remembered something she had said 3 years ago:

– Hyun-jae, I don’t care if we live forever in one tiny room.

So I stayed quiet.

At the convenience store, I bought two bottles of soju and texted her:

– Let’s calm down, and think about it again slowly.

Then I stood outside for 10 minutes, waiting. The read receipt never disappeared. Instead, Sora’s profile picture changed—to the default blank picture.

“What? Did she block me? After 7 years?”

The snow crunched under my feet as I walked. The air was freezing.
As I thought about the strange weather, something rolled toward me.

A round ball.

“What is this? An onion?”

I picked it up and saw an old man ahead, carrying a huge net full of onions.

“Sir, excuse me! Sir!”

He turned around. His clothes were odd—just hemp fabric in this freezing cold.

“You dropped this. Maybe there’s a hole in your net.”

“There’s no hole.” He didn’t even check.

“Then should I put this in your bag?”

“No. Keep it.”

“What? An onion? I don’t even cook—”

The old man frowned and said seriously:

“It rolled to you because it’s in your fate. It’s time for you to receive it. Accept it.”

“My fate… has an onion?”

“Remember this. Never eat it all alone. Share it, and it will grow. It will tell you who to share it with. Understand?”

Then he walked away quickly, disappearing from sight.

I stood there, holding soju and an onion.

“What kind of day is this?”

Today, I, Yoo Hyun-jae, age 27, got dumped by my girlfriend of 7 years…
And got an onion from a strange old man.

That night, I couldn’t bear the silence of my small room.

I opened the soju, but seeing the glass made me sad. Sora had bought it, saying soju tastes better in glass than in paper cups. But now, I had no one to toast with.

I remembered the movie Cast Away.
So I put the onion in a cut bottle of water, drew a face on it with a marker, and set a soju glass in front of it.

“Was it all a lie, Onion? She said we’d face hardships together. She said poverty didn’t matter. Was that all a lie?”

I kept talking to the onion.

I even imagined Sora breaking up because she had a terminal illness. Pancreatic cancer. Leukemia. She didn’t want to burden me… so she pushed me away.

“Don’t you think that’s possible, Onion?”

Then my phone vibrated.

“…Sora?!”

But it was my friend Du-cheol.

He asked, “Did you see Sora’s Instagram? She suddenly uploaded a bunch of travel photos. With a man. The man’s wearing a luxury watch. Was that you?”

“No. Not me.”

“So then… you broke up?”

“Yeah.”

He suggested drinking together, but I refused.

I laughed bitterly. Pancreatic cancer? Leukemia? What nonsense.
The truth was simple: she left me for someone richer.

That night was cold. The wind came through the thin walls. Life is always like that. If you’re poor, there are too many things you can’t help. Even losing your girlfriend. Even being looked down on by friends.

I wrapped the onion in a blanket, worried it might freeze.

“Onion… what’s your dream? Mine was to live with Sora. To move forward little by little. But now… my dream changed.”

“Now… my dream is to win the lottery.”

The onion’s drawn face looked sad.

The next morning, I saw something strange.

The onion had grown three leaves. But they weren’t normal green onion-like shoots. They were wide, flat, and yellow.

As I leaned closer, the three leaves fell off. New shoots grew immediately—this time, blue.

Each day, new leaves grew and fell. The colors and numbers changed:

• Day 1: 3 yellow leaves.

• Day 2: 11 blue leaves.

• Day 3: 17 blue leaves.

• Day 4: 24 red leaves.

At lunch, I wrote the colors and numbers in my notebook.

Then it hit me.

“Wait… these look exactly like lottery numbers.”

I remembered what I had told the onion last night.

– Now my dream is to win the lottery.

Could it be…?

That evening, my coworker Min-young asked if I wanted to go to the convenience store with her. I closed my notebook quickly and went along.

But in my head, one thought remained:

If the sixth number comes out tonight… maybe I should buy a lottery ticket tomorrow.