Seoyoon never went back to a company.

Sometimes friends asked,

(Friend): “Now that Seoyi's a little older, don't you want to go back to work?”

Whenever they did, Seoyoon paused to think.

She hadn't hated her old working life.

She liked being recognized as competent.

She liked having a role on a team.

But she no longer wanted to get up at a fixed time every morning and hand most of her day over to a company.

Once, the company had bought Seoyoon's time with a salary.

After she quit, she had given almost all of that time to her family.

Both lives had seemed natural.

Now, she wanted to decide for herself where her time would go.

Her business was still small.

Some days brought several orders.

Some days passed without a single notification.

Products she'd expected to sell sometimes barely moved.

In the past, she might have sat there for days thinking she'd failed.

Now she didn't.

She searched for the next product.

She could try again.

That margin for another attempt kept her moving.

Then one day, the settlement statement for her first month arrived.

Seoyoon sat in front of her laptop and calculated each item.

Sales.

Product cost.

Shipping.

Platform fees.

Packing materials.

Advertising.

Other expenses.

She subtracted and subtracted.

The final amount left was:

302,400 won.

Seoyoon stared at the screen.

Just over three hundred thousand won.

Compared with 3.2 billion won, it was practically nothing.

It wouldn't even buy a particularly nice handbag.

A few family dinners could wipe it out.

And yet her heart was pounding.

She calculated again.

Just in case she'd made a mistake.

302,400 won.

It was right.

There was no luck in that money.

It hadn't appeared because six lottery numbers happened to match.

There were products Seoyoon had chosen herself.

Products that had failed.

Hours walking through wholesale markets.

Hours spent listening to lectures and taking notes.

Days she retook product photos.

Time spent answering customer questions.

Boxes she had opened again because she'd packed them wrong.

Orders where she lost money because she'd miscalculated shipping.

At the end of all of that, 302,400 won remained.

Seoyoon smiled to herself.

(Seoyoon): “I earned this.”

Saying it aloud made the feeling even stranger.

When 3.2 billion won had entered her bank account, she didn't think she'd stared at the number for this long.

That evening, she showed her husband the settlement screen.

(Seoyoon): “I made money this month.”

He looked at the screen.

(Husband): “How much?”

(Seoyoon): “Three hundred thousand won.”

He smiled.

(Husband): “Congratulations.”

(Seoyoon): “Why aren't you surprised?”

(Husband): “About what?”

(Seoyoon): “I have 3.2 billion won and I'm excited about making three hundred thousand.”

He thought for a moment.

Then said,

(Husband): “Because you earned that.”

Seoyoon looked at him.

It was a simple sentence, but it stayed with her.

He was right.

This was money she had earned.

A few days later, it was a housekeeper day.

After taking her daughter to kindergarten, Seoyoon went to the café.

It was the same place she'd visited before.

The first time she came here, she'd remembered the laundry at 10:48 and nearly gotten up to go home.

Now it was different.

She opened her laptop.

There were orders to check.

New products to research.

Plenty to do.

Seoyoon took a sip of coffee and opened the screen.

There wasn't enough time.

The thought made her laugh.

She had always been short on time before too.

Back then, there was never enough because she had laundry to do, groceries to buy, a child to pick up, dinner to prepare.

She still had to pick up her daughter.

She would still make dinner.

But now, somewhere in between, there was something she wanted to do.

That was why she didn't have enough time.

The same words.

A completely different meaning.

Seoyoon looked out the window.

Money didn't suddenly make a person happy.

The 3.2 billion won hadn't told her what she liked.

It hadn't decided what she should do.

It had simply bought her time to think about those things.

Time to outsource housework.

Time to learn.

Time to fail.

Time to try again.

And inside that time, she could slowly discover what she liked.

When she worked, the company had bought Seoyoon's time.

After she quit, her family had taken almost all of it.

Now things were different.

Seoyoon had bought her time back.

And she got to decide what to do with it.

She looked at her laptop again.

A new order notification had appeared.

Smiling, she clicked it.

Money couldn't buy happiness.

But it could buy time.

And sometimes,

the first thing a person needed was time enough to go looking for happiness.