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You were sitting beside the small pond in the atrium garden of the engineering building when you heard the noise. You slid your cat-shaped bookmark between the pages, closed the book you’d been reading, and set it aside on the bench. Peeking through the tall hedges surrounding you, you spotted a group of freshmen gathered in front of the only bulletin board on the ground floor, chattering like a flock of sparrows.
How did you know they were freshmen? Well, the same way seasoned workers can always spot fresh grads at job interviews.
There were seven of them—both guys and girls—talking animatedly about something posted on the board. They weren’t particularly loud, just noticeable because no one else was around. You were about to lose interest until one of the girls said,
“Hey, look! A new poster of Lee Sanghyeok sunbae-nim.” She pointed to the upper-left corner of the board. “He won another competition!”
After a round of excited murmurs, another student stared thoughtfully at the poster. “Have you guys heard the rumour?” he asked, glancing back at his friends. “If you make a wish in front of Lee sunbae-nim’s poster, your wish will come true.” Seeing their sceptical expressions, he shrugged. “At least, that’s what one of my seniors told me during orientation.”
You suppressed the urge to facepalm. What am I, a wishing well*? You glanced at the coins scattered at the bottom of the pond, feeling envious. At least the pond got some offerings.
The group fell into awkward silence, then decided it couldn’t hurt to try. You weren’t sure what you were witnessing, but it was definitely one of the strangest things you’d seen—and you’d seen plenty.
One student wished to pass the midterm. Another hoped their presentation next week would go well. A girl asked for inspiration for her paper due this Friday (and it was already Wednesday), while someone else wished his crush would finally reply.
“…-ssi,” one of the girls waved her hand in front of the tall boy standing quietly on the edge of the group, “what’s your wish?”
The boy with a small, round face blinked, eyes behind his circular spectacles lingering on the poster, then murmured so softly you could barely hear it.
The group stared at him, puzzled.
He scratched the back of his neck, his face flushing. “I just wish everyone only meets good things from now on.”
They laughed, patting his shoulder, teasing that he was as kind as ever—never making wishes for himself.
The boy smiled along with them, quietly and a bit sheepishly.
The conversation moved on, and eventually the group dispersed, heading off to their classes. Just before leaving, the boy turned toward the bush—as if sensing your gaze.
When your eyes met, you held your breath.
Then he turned and walked away, as though nothing had happened.
As mountains rise and rivers wind, may thy path be ever kind? *
Interesting.
With a multidisciplinary major, you'd been running all over campus more often than not. The past three and a half academic years hadn’t been complete hell, but dashing from one end of the university to the other to make it to class on time wasn’t exactly a light burden. One of the few silver linings was that most departments under the Faculty of Arts and Science were housed in the same building—so attending professors’ office hours was at least manageable.
Another advantage was that the Arts and Science building was conveniently located near the Business building and the main library, which made grabbing a late lunch with your friends easier.
Your crew usually gathered at the same table in the Business building’s food court, either chatting or quietly working on their own things while eating. Most of the seniors in your group had already fulfilled their credit requirements and weren’t taking many classes in their final year, so they were focused either on job interviews or grad school applications.
You’d found your academic advisor at the end of your junior fall semester and had been meeting regularly since the start of spring to work on application documents. Now, most of your energy was dedicated to developing your own research project.
Your friends sometimes joked that the campus treated you like a deity—for good reason.
Someone dropped into the seat in front of you, their bag hitting the table with a loud thump. You looked up from the book you’d been reading and watched as the newcomer collapsed into the chair, visibly defeated.
“The mentoring not going well?” you asked, flipping to another page.
Han Wangho had just returned to campus after completing his military service, but the head librarian had already roped him into mentoring newly hired assistants. He didn’t exactly hate the job—teasing rookies was a decent way to blow off steam—but…
He slouched forward, resting his head on his bag like a pillow, groaning, “Yeah. The distance between that kid and me hasn’t closed at all. Watching him jump and flinch used to be cute, but after two weeks, it’s borderline insulting.”
Someone muttered “karma” under their breath. He ignored it with as much dignity as he could muster.
He sat up to face the group. “Am I really that unapproachable? Every time I walk up beside him, he looks at me like he’s seen a ghost.”
Aesthetically speaking, no one would ever call Han Wangho unattractive. With expressive eyes, a straight nose, fair complexion, a small face, and naturally red lips curled into a warm smile, he might’ve been the most striking person among your circle. And he played social roles like a pro. With his seniors, he was the affectionate little brother who followed orders without complaint; with juniors, he was the dependable big brother who looked after them like a hawk. You’d seen both guys and girls try to get close to him—only to be gently turned away, most never realising the invisible wall he’d put up.
It made sense that he was sulking—this might be the first time his charm hadn’t worked on someone he actually tried it on. People who knew their strengths could be dangerous. You studied his side profile thoughtfully. You understood your own appeal well enough, too.
Recalling the interactions you’d observed between the kid and others at the library (Jaewan would definitely accuse you of stalking if he knew), you decided to test a theory.
“Next time you two have a shift together,” you said, flipping another page, “wear similar outfits—whether in colour or style is up to you. And use the same cologne if you did wear one.”
The group, who’d been mercilessly teasing Wangho just moments ago, fell quiet.
Wangho narrowed his eyes. “What are you plotting now, Sanghyeok-hyeong?”
“Just testing a hypothesis,” you replied with a shrug.
The computer lab slots in the engineering building varied depending on the floor. Those near the ground level were typically reserved for required course tutorials and were often packed. The ones in the basement were mainly for upper-year engineering students and graduate researchers to work on their projects, theses, or experiments.
As a drifter between departments, you usually worked in the lab on the third floor—the one with the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lobby. For some reason, the seat in the last row by the window had become your unofficial spot. No one had ever logged into that computer since the day you first claimed it. Even when the lab was occasionally used for classes, that seat remained untouched—almost like one of the campus myths.
You didn’t care much for the rumours, but the unspoken privileges they brought made you more mindful of your actions. You grew quieter in public spaces, only speaking when absolutely necessary. Your friends occasionally gave you concerned looks, but they understood. Fame, even when unintended, was a double-edged sword.
And sometimes, you thought as you glanced out the window at the figure entering the hall and heading straight for the elevator, the rumours did work in your favour.
The elevator’s ding echoed in the stillness of the third floor, followed by the sound of footsteps and the soft swing of the lab door. There he was—in a plain white T-shirt and black trousers, a black backpack slung over his shoulder, grey hoodie jacket in hand.
He didn’t notice your presence, hidden behind your monitor. He took the first seat near the entrance. From where you sat, you had a perfect view of his screen.
You paused your work, quietly observing him for a few minutes. Then you raised your brows. Judging by the code on his screen, this definitely wasn’t for any freshman coursework.
Already working on independent projects as a first-year?
You decided it might be time to reserve the front-row seat by the door, too.
Over the course of observing him these past few months, the boy’s routine proved surprisingly—or perhaps unsurprisingly, depending on your perspective—monotonous. Resting your chin on your hand at the table farthest from the counter, you pretended to read your notes while watching him shelve returned books from the trolley out of the corner of your eye.
Unlike most freshmen you knew, who quickly slackened and lost themselves in newfound freedom, his days were made up of only three elements: classes, labs, and the library. You briefly considered adding “dorm” to the list, but then realised he would practically live in the labs if his professors allowed it, so that hardly counted.
If he didn’t have class, he was either in the lab or the library; and if he didn’t have a shift, he was definitely in the lab. He rarely attended social events unless absolutely necessary and kept human interaction to a minimum, spending most of his time completing coursework, reviewing materials, reading papers, or working on side projects for professors. Thankfully, there was at least one café in every building on campus—otherwise, he might have genuinely collapsed from malnutrition.
(And judging from the list you’d compiled so far, he was a remarkably picky eater. Or perhaps it was more accurate to call them food sensitivities? You needed more data before drawing conclusions. One thing was certain, though—he had a serious sweet tooth. Some of the desserts he ate made your own teeth ache.)
The next time someone claimed your life was boring, you’d have plenty of solid evidence to prove otherwise—assuming they didn’t report you first, of course.
To your defence, it wasn’t entirely your fault that your schedules overlapped so frequently. Everyone knew how often you visited the labs and the library, and the fact that you now spent more time at the engineering building than the computer science one—well, no one needed to know that.
Most people might have called the kid boring, but you knew better.
Though he kept a blank expression in public, he was far more animated when he thought no one was watching. The wide-eyed look of surprise, the small pout when he lost a bet but refused to admit defeat, the way he munched like a squirrel while eating, or the way his eyes lit up when offered his favourite sweets. The self-satisfied grin after completing a difficult project. Even the side-eye he shot at noisy group discussions before politely asking them to quiet down.
Not to mention his habit of biting his lip or fingers when deep in thought. That was a foul move on so many levels.
You understood why Wangho was fond of him.
(And why you usually dropped by the library when they weren’t working together.)
He was harmless, gentle, sweet—and sometimes too stubborn for his own good.
You watched him pull a book from a high shelf when he noticed someone struggling to reach it. He just nodded with a small smile when they thanked him, saying nothing.
Charm should be a passive skill, right? Look how dazed that female sophomore looked now. You suspected she stood there on purpose, but without firmer evidence, the theory remained open.
You couldn’t help but tsk under your breath.
He seemed to notice, turning his head in your direction. You froze, feeling rooted to the spot.
Then he approached you—and bent down to pick up the eraser* you hadn’t realised you’d dropped.
“Is this yours?”
Your eyes met.
You nodded, dumbfounded.
He placed it gently beside your notes, then returned to the trolley and walked away without a backward glance.
A student on crutches hobbled past your table a moment later.
Suddenly, you felt warm all over.
Daylight lingered in summer, yet the sky remained dark by the time you left the engineering building late that night. Most shops had already closed, and the only illumination came from streetlamps, convenience store signs, and the occasional passing taxi. The streets were hushed; your footsteps were drowned out by the incessant chirping of cicadas.
He walked ahead of you, blissfully unaware of the gaze trailing behind.
Most on-campus dorms shut down during the summer for routine renovations. Non-local students enrolled in summer courses were temporarily moved to off-campus housing. As a Seoul native, your family home happened to be conveniently located near one of those relocated dorms. Your paths overlapped once again—purely by coincidence, of course.
Your friends didn’t need to know that.
(Jaewan was fully prepared to call the police.)
With lighter traffic during the break, the university had closed many facilities not used for summer programs. The computer lab on the third floor was also scheduled to shut down, but you had submitted a usage request before the spring semester ended. You weren’t sure whether he had applied as well, but you wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t. Maybe, just maybe, you hoped he’d benefit from some small fortune… courtesy of you.
Tonight, he was wearing a navy blue T-shirt, grey trousers, white trainers, and a lightweight black hoodie to guard against the evening chill. His familiar black backpack hung from one shoulder, the grey bunny plushie Wangho had gifted him swaying gently with his steps.
You wondered why he hadn’t left the city like everyone else.
You slowed to a stop, hundred metres behind him, as he paused beneath a streetlamp and looked up at the sky. The night’s shadows cloaked your silhouette, rendering you nearly invisible in your dark clothes. Under the pale light, his face was half-veiled in shadow—yet his longing was visible even from a distance.
It was such an unfamiliar expression; you were momentarily unsure how to react.
When he was in the lab, alone with his laptop and the lab computer, fingers flying across the keyboard, he never looked lonely. When he took late-night shifts as the sole assistant on the library’s first floor, pulling requested materials and gliding silently through the aisles, he didn’t seem isolated. He appeared calm, almost content—like someone who relished solitude.
But now, walking alone through the night with his signature uneven steps and slightly hunched back, he looked so small. So alone.
He missed home. That much was clear.
There were barely any stars overhead—just a blurry purplish-grey sky, dulled by the city’s unrelenting light. You followed his gaze, eyes fixed on the empty heavens, the question burning quietly in the back of your mind. He moved like someone trying to prove something, pushing himself relentlessly—even when no one was watching.
Well… no one except you.
Yet this rare glimpse of vulnerability, brief and unspoken, satisfied something deep and dark in you—something you hadn’t even realised was there.
You watched his lips move. The wind tore his words apart, but somehow, you heard them clearly.
You were no god.
(More like a mage lurking in the shadows, waiting for wandering souls to stumble upon your trap.)
But in that moment, you prayed that someone up there would show him a little mercy.
The café in the basement of the library was noisier than the library itself, though still quieter than those in other buildings. Students were scattered around in small groups, since the tables on the first and second floors—and all the study rooms—were already full. Group projects were a special kind of hell for most introverts, made even more unbearable by the inevitable presence of free riders.
You sat in an inconspicuous corner, safely out of sight—books in hand, drink at your side, mind drifting elsewhere. It was the group gathered at the table near the counter that held your attention.
“Your mood’s been all over the place lately,” one of your friends, Uijin, remarked while sipping his drink, his laptop opened on the table in front of him.
“Is that so?” you replied absentmindedly, face blank, lifting the empty cup to your lips before setting it down again.
The man with faint curls studied your face through his round glasses for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. You seemed in a pretty good mood earlier today, but now you look like you might punch someone—if you ever resorted to violence.”
You slipped the bunny-shaped bookmark between the pages and closed the book with a quiet sigh, rubbing the tired muscles around your eyes. “That obvious?”
“Not really,” Uijin shrugged. “You’ve been keeping your expression neutral most of the time anyway, so I doubt anyone else would notice. It’s just a… vibe?”
You pinched the tips of your fingers together, a faint numbness lingering from holding the same posture for too long. The frequency of it had been increasing lately; you still hadn’t decided whether it was worth noting or not.
Setting his drink aside, Uijin didn’t say anything else and turned his attention back to the document on his laptop. But you knew he’d sensed something was off—he just wasn’t overly concerned, trusting that you’d bring it up yourself if it truly bothered you.
Dropping all pretence, you watched the table with unwavering focus.
There were six of them, all boys. Most were working on laptops or notebooks, apparently discussing a group project. They weren’t being obnoxiously loud or doing anything inappropriate in public. It was just—
He was leaning too close.
Seated facing the counter, the kid worked on his laptop, occasionally asking or answering questions, while subtly shrinking into himself—shifting away as the person on his left kept inching closer, his right arm draped over the back of the kid’s chair. The one without a laptop or notes, simply sat there, pressing in.
The other group members kept casting uneasy glances their way. The one farthest to the left tried pulling him back toward his own seat to no avail, while the one on the kid’s right discreetly nudged the kid’s chair closer to himself.
It was reassuring to know the kid had friends who would step in when it mattered, you thought, something warm and restless stirring beneath the surface.
“I need another drink.” You picked up your empty cup and walked straight to the counter for a refill. Uijin merely hummed, eyes still on his screen.
Standing by the counter, you stared.
Sensing your gaze, he looked up—daggers in his eyes. When they met yours, he froze. You held his stare without blinking, then tilted your head slightly to the right.
He withdrew his arm, shifted back into his seat, and lowered his gaze.
You turned around to collect your drink and returned to your table.
Uijin glanced at you once.
The rest of the day passed in peace.
No one was in the lab at this hour—at least not in this particular one. The low hum of the computer fans and the rhythmic clacking of the keyboard were the only sounds filling the space. It felt unusually quiet now. Someone, probably Uijin, had set an hourly alarm on your phone to remind you to give your hands a break.
Life had gotten a little dull after he left. You stared at the empty seat in the front row for a moment before shifting your attention back to the screen. Glancing at the wrist splint on your right hand and the subtle indentation around your thumb—something only a trained eye would notice—you acknowledged how life had subtly forced you to slow down.
You knew it wasn’t Wangho’s fault that the kid decided to complete his military service before starting his second year, but you still caught yourself briefly resenting him for breaking the news.
Now that you had extra time on your hands, you weren’t quite sure how to spend it like a regular person. In hindsight, burying yourself in work hadn’t been the wisest use of time, especially considering the consequences. Spending more hours in hospitals and rehab sessions was hardly a preferable alternative by any standard.
The idle browser window on your screen displayed a recruitment notice from CTL, with the application form half-filled on the adjacent tab.
Maybe it was time to shift your focus toward something new.
There were at least two or three study rooms on each floor of the library, except for the sixth floor, which was packed with computer labs. Most study rooms operated on a first-come, first-served basis and were especially popular among underclassmen. The rooms on the third and fourth floors, on the other hand, required reservations through the library’s online booking system.
The study rooms themselves were fairly simple in layout: frosted glass walls along the middle section, a large table with built-in chargers, multiple chairs, and—depending on the room—either a whiteboard mounted on the wall or, in larger spaces, a projector or monitor.
You were seated in one of the study rooms the CTL had booked for you, arriving thirty minutes early to review your notes for the day’s session. It struck you as mildly ironic that you’d never used study rooms as an undergraduate—your group had preferred food courts and cafés for studying. Now, as a tutor, you spent a significant amount of time here.
Correction: not that much time.
You quickly learned that you weren’t particularly popular as a tutor, despite how the university at large treated you. Many tutees requested a different tutor after their first session once they realised to whom they’d been assigned. According to the feedback, merely sharing a room with you made them nervous, and asking questions—especially ones they feared might sound stupid—felt like confessing a sin. The CTL staff member always looked apologetic when informing you that you had no bookings scheduled for the following week.
From time to time, you caught your reflection in the mirror and wondered whether you looked approachable at all. Uijin insisted it wasn’t about your appearance. Wangho claimed it was your reputation. Junsik suggested you should smile more. Jaewan, meanwhile, thought you were just intimidating as hell.
You chose to ignore Jaewan.
By some divine intervention you knew nothing about, you suddenly had a regular—a new kind of tutee.
A whole new species, really.
The kind who arrived fifteen minutes early and still apologised for being late every single time. The kind who always greeted you with sunbae-nim and deliberately looked at your clothes instead of your face, just to make sure he hadn’t mistaken you for someone else. The kind with a small, round face, soft features, a tall, slender frame, and slightly uneven steps.
You swore—to no one in particular—that this was purely a coincidence.
…Or maybe it was Han Wangho.
You still remembered the look on Wangho’s face when he asked you to look after his precious mentee—reluctant, unsettled, an expression you’d never seen beneath his ever-present smile.
I noticed him long before you did, you almost said once, but it felt too close to a confession you had no right to make.
The tutoring sessions unfolded exactly as you’d imagined: quiet exchanges of questions and answers, working through concepts he hadn’t fully grasped, tackling individual assignments side by side. He was far more capable than he gave himself credit for—you only needed to nudge him in the right direction, and he would reach the answer on his own.
Sometimes, the conversation drifted elsewhere. He talked about his year of alternative service, his slow readjustment to campus life. You offered advice on choosing fall courses, carefully weighing professors and workloads. You realised he didn’t really need tutoring for the material; what he needed was someone to help him find his rhythm again—to remind him he didn’t have to sprint through academic life.
That he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone.
You watched him work through a Data Structures assignment, lips caught between his teeth as he concentrated. A tiny crack split the corner of his dry lips—something you tried, and failed, to ignore.
Reaching into the pocket of your grey oversized blazer, you slid the lip balm you’d opened earlier that day across the table, stopping it near his left hand. When he looked up, you tapped the corner of your own mouth in explanation.
His ears flushed red, but he thanked you anyway.
“It smells nice,” he murmured after applying it.
“Then keep it,” you said, your gaze lingering a moment too long on his newly moisturised lips. “It’s new, I haven’t used it. And you need it more than I do right now.”
The colour bloomed across his pale cheeks and crept down his neck, peach-like—despite the fact that you knew he was allergic to peaches, purely through observation.
“You really didn’t have to,” he said softly.
“I insist.” You waved off his attempt to return it, a strange, quiet sense of satisfaction stirring beneath your ribs as you watched him tuck it into his jacket pocket.
Rose, then, you decided.
Your thoughts drifted to the grocery list waiting for you later that evening.
You shouldn’t feel abandoned after the tutoring sessions ended.
He was kind in the way he treated you as a mortal. He was cruel in the way he saw you as a stranger.
Your presence wasn’t constant enough to drift into his life and leave a lasting mark—you understood that rationally.
And yet, you couldn’t help but wonder whether the prince would ever recognise the little mermaid if she lost her voice forever.
All kinds of sounds buzzed in the background, like a swarm of diligent bees, circling and carrying out their work. Voices murmured, keyboards clacked, paper shuffled, pages turned—melding into an unpleasant symphony. You heard it all, then let it slip from your mind.
All you could focus on was his sigh—so small, almost imperceptible.
Yet it rang in your ears, deafening, like a shout, like a sudden crack of thunder.
He looked weary. The crease between his brows ached in your chest just to see.
You moved before you could stop yourself, stepping up to the table, silencing the space like a bully demanding attention. You would confess your sin another day—but not today.
You walked out the door, not daring to look back.
Not at him. Not once.
You knew he wouldn’t notice.
You had observed for long enough. It was time to draw in the net.