The Seat in Car Seven

Every morning at 7:43, I board Line 2 at Gangnam Station. It has become habit to enter through the third door and take the seat at the far left. The routine started when I changed jobs, and by now it has been more than two years. He was part of that routine.

At first I paid him no particular attention. He was simply someone who was always there. Grey puffer jacket, black backpack, unremarkable height, the kind of face that refuses to be remembered — the sort of person you might find anywhere. He sat diagonally across from me, at the window on the right. Our eyes never met. He always rested his hands on his knees and looked out at the window. No earphones, no phone ever taken out. He simply sat and looked outward. Even though there was nothing beyond the glass — only the underground dark.

The first time I thought something was off was one morning in November. The train had run unusually late, and I boarded two stops early at Gyodae Station. He was already there, in that car. Same seat. Right side, by the window. Hands on his knees, facing the glass. I noticed it was strange, then let it go. He must have gotten on early, I told myself.

The next day, I boarded one stop further back at Bangbae Station — deliberately, like an experiment. And there he was again. Same car, same seat, same posture. That was the first time I tried to look at his face properly. But he was turned toward the window, and all I could see was his profile. There was a faint reflection of his face in the glass, and for some reason it was not quite clear — blurred in a way that had nothing to do with the motion of the train. The carriage shuddered, and I looked away.

When December came, I mentioned him to my colleague Seojin, who also took the same line from Gangnam Station. "Grey jacket, black backpack?" She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "I'm not sure. There are so many people like that on the subway." I described him more precisely: always by the window, no earphones, just staring out at the glass. Seojin said she'd keep an eye out, and I thought that was the end of it.

The last time I saw him was Thursday, the eleventh of December. I remember the date exactly. That morning, for no particular reason, I took a photo of his seat — raised my phone and pointed it in that direction. The window seat, the man in the grey jacket. I only remembered having taken it; the photo settled into my camera roll and was forgotten.

He was not there the next day.

At first I assumed he had caught a cold. Two days passed, then three. A week went by. I grew uneasy and asked Seojin again. "You haven't seen him lately either, have you?" She looked at me with a slightly odd expression. "I've never seen him at all. Honestly, I still can't picture what this person looks like." I opened my gallery then. I went to the eleventh of December and found the photo from that morning.

The photo was there. I had taken it, and the file existed. But the window seat in the image was empty. A vacant seat, a pane of glass, the darkness of the tunnel. I checked the date again. December 11th, 7:51 a.m. It was right. I had raised the camera toward him — and there was no one in the picture.

After that I began to fixate in ways that unsettled me. I looked into whether CCTV footage from the station could be accessed, but there was no procedure by which an ordinary person could request it. I wondered if any other regular passengers in that car might know him, but there was no way to ask. I didn't know his name, his occupation, or even which stop he got off at. Only that he sat by the window and looked out at the glass.

I showed Seojin the photo. She looked at the empty seat and said, "This is what you took a picture of?" I told her a man had been sitting there. She was quiet for a moment. "You know," she said, "I thought something was strange from the very first time you brought this up. I've been taking the same line at the same time as you for two years. And I genuinely have no memory of anyone like that. Not once." I had nothing to say.

January arrived. I still ride Car Seven. Third door, far left seat. That seat is mine, and the window seat diagonally across remains empty now, always. Occasionally someone else sits there — people who doze on their commute, or scroll through their phones, or listen to music with earphones in. Ordinary people. I watch them and feel a brief relief, followed immediately by a disquiet I cannot name.

This morning I opened the photo again. December 11th, 7:51 a.m. An empty seat, a window, darkness. I zoomed in. The interior of the car was dimly reflected in the glass — the outlines of passengers, hanging straps, fluorescent lights. And there, in the pane beside the window seat, something faint had gathered. I enlarged it as far as it would go. The pixels dissolved into blur, and nothing was clear. But I thought I knew what it was. Something like the profile of a person seated facing the window. Reflected in the glass. Like a shadow.

I set my phone down and looked out at the window. The train was moving through the underground section. Beyond the glass it was dark. There was nothing there. And yet it came to me, suddenly, that for two years I had watched that man stare out at the window every single day, and I had never once wondered what he was actually looking at. What he saw in the darkness beneath the ground. And what I was looking at now. I could not pull my gaze from the glass, and I sat there without moving until the train pulled into the next station.