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Yoo Sangah didn’t realize she’d taken Kim Dokja’s sweater until she was already home.
It had been a long day. A cold one, too. The kind of early winter afternoon where the wind made a mess of your hair and left your fingers stiff no matter how deep you buried them in your pockets. They’d been at the library all day, holed up in the quiet corner on the third floor, hunched over notes and their laptops as the fluorescent lighting gradually wore them down.
She hadn’t planned to stay that long, but it was Kim Dokja, and she’d always found it hard to leave when he was talking. He didn’t speak much, not unless prompted, but when he did, it had a way of sticking. Quiet, dry comments. Thoughtful observations about the books they were reading. Soft, sideways glances when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.
It had been her idea to get coffee after. He’d hesitated, of course. Looked at the time, then at her. She’d tugged his sleeve with a smirk and said, “Just thirty minutes.”
It ended up being two hours. They'd sat by the window, nursing half-full mugs until the sky turned from a dull gray to the deeper blue of twilight. When she got up to leave, he’d noticed her shiver and shrugged off his sweater without a word. It was a little loose on him and swallowed her entirely.
"Take it," he said. "You’ll freeze on the walk home."
She remembered hesitating. “Are you sure?” she asked, already pulling it tighter around her.
Kim Dokja had just nodded.
Now, in the dim light of her bedroom, Yoo Sangah held the sweater in her hands and frowned. She’d folded it, intending to put it into her bag to return the next time they met, but something clinked softly against the wood floor. She blinked. Tucked into the front pocket of the sweater was a small black rectangle. It was slightly scratched, with earbuds curled around it.
An iPod.
Yoo Sangah turned it over in her hands. It was the old kind, the type that didn’t connect to Wi-Fi and couldn’t be tracked or remotely wiped. She clicked the wheel, expecting it to be dead, but to her surprise, it lit up.
The background was simple: a gray-scale photo of a bookstore aisle. No lockscreen. No passcode.
It felt a little like trespassing, but not enough to stop her. She scrolled through the menus: Songs, Albums, Artists, Playlists.
Curiosity got the better of her.
She tapped “Playlists.”
There were a few. One was titled simply “Run,” another “Rain.” There was “Old Stuff,” “Night Bus,” “For Work.”
And then, at the very bottom: “유상아.”
Her thumb hovered. Her heart did something strange. She tapped it.
There weren’t many songs. Maybe twelve. Some were in Korean, others English. A few instrumentals. She didn’t recognize all of them, but one caught her eye: "La La La Love Song" by Kubota Toshinobu.
She hit play.
The room filled with soft bass and the lazy strum of electric guitar. A smooth voice followed, rich and earnest. It was the kind of song you’d play with the windows rolled down, summer air brushing your face, pretending you were someone in love.
She sat on the floor beside her bed and let it play. One song melted into the next. She felt a kind of feeling she wouldn’t have ever associated with Kim Dokja if she didn’t know him, but she did, at least a little. Enough to know he’d never say any of this aloud.
So he’d made a playlist instead.
She sat there for a long time.
She stood under the overhang of the Humanities building, hugging her arms, watching the water bead down from the roof. Across the quad, Kim Dokja was already there, standing beneath the single tree that somehow still clung to its red-orange leaves. His umbrella was dark blue. Neutral. Predictable. He hadn’t seen her yet.
She could have called out. Could have waved. But instead she watched him, his posture slightly hunched, earphones in, eyes unfocused like he was somewhere else entirely. She wondered if he was listening to the same songs she had last night. She wondered if he knew she’d found them.
A moment later, he looked up. Their eyes met. His mouth twitched into a faint smile, the kind that passed quickly if you weren’t looking for it.
By the time she reached him, the rain had soaked the edges of her coat. She offered a sheepish grin.
“You forgot your umbrella,” he said.
“I thought it wouldn’t rain.”
“You always say that.”
She looked at him, unsure if he meant anything more by it.
“Do you want to walk together?” he asked, tilting his umbrella slightly.
She nodded and stepped closer. The space under the umbrella was small, and she had to angle herself so their arms didn’t brush. He didn’t move away.
“I have something of yours,” she said after a beat.
“Oh?”
“Your sweater. And…”
She hesitated. They were halfway down the sidewalk now, wet leaves sticking to their shoes. He didn’t push her to finish.
“…your iPod.”
Kim Dokja was quiet for a long moment. “Right,” he said eventually. “It must’ve been in the pocket.”
“It was.”
He didn’t ask anything. She almost wished he would.
“I listened to some of the songs,” she added.
His step faltered just slightly.
“I wasn’t snooping,” she said. “It just turned on. I got curious.”
She didn’t say the playlist’s name. She didn’t have to.
“Did you like them?” he asked, not looking at her.
“Yes.”
“That’s good.”
They walked a little farther. Her heart was beating faster than it should’ve been. The umbrella bumped lightly against her head as he adjusted it to keep more of the rain off her.
“Why did you make that playlist?” she asked before she could talk herself out of it.
She felt him glance at her. Then away again.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I make playlists sometimes.”
“For people?”
He was quiet again.
“It had my name,” she said gently. It was hard to tell if he was embarrassed. His face gave away very little. But there was a certain stillness in the way he held himself now, like he was waiting for something to pass.
“I liked the second song a lot,” she said.
“‘City Lights’?”
“Mm. The lyrics were nice.”
“I thought so too.”
They stopped at the corner. The crosswalk sign glowed red. Kim Dokja turned to her slightly.
“You don’t have to say anything about it,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to find it.” He looked down at the puddle forming near his feet. His umbrella tilted, exposing both of them briefly to the drizzle.
“Is it supposed to mean something?”
His jaw shifted slightly. “Would it bother you if it did?”
She thought about it. The question wasn’t meant to be confrontational. He was genuinely asking. “No,” she said. “It wouldn’t.”
The crosswalk turned green. They didn’t move. Under the umbrella, something passed between them—a small understanding that something had changed.
“Oh, I have your sweater in my bag,” she suddenly said, reaching behind her.
“Keep it,” he said before she could pull it out. “It looks better on you anyway.”
She blinked.
Kim Dokja didn’t wait for a response. He stepped forward, leading them across the street. She followed, her heart pounding, warmth blooming in her chest that had nothing to do with the borrowed fabric.