The dormitory was quiet now.
The hum of the radiator in the corner, the occasional distant bark of a dog somewhere down the street, and the faint glow of city lights leaking through the window. It was late, but Seo Hana couldn't sleep.
She lay on her side, curled under a blanket, eyes half-open as she watched the shadows move across the ceiling.
Her sister's voice still lingered in her mind. The tension, the unspoken fear behind those careful words.
And then… another face surfaced.
Aryan Malhotra.
She frowned softly to herself.
Why him?
It wasn't as though she even knew him. Two accidental meetings on campus — one at the café, one tonight on the street. Barely a conversation. And yet, there was something about him that pulled at her thoughts like a loose thread.
His face lingered in her memory.
Sharp, striking features. The kind of effortless confidence that didn't come from arrogance, but something deeper. Something tempered.
Those eyes — dark, unreadable, but not cruel.
They held something else. A sadness, maybe. A weight.
Most foreign exchange assistants on campus made themselves known quickly. Friendly, eager to blend in. He was the opposite. Quiet, reserved, like a figure trying to remain unseen.
And yet… she noticed him.
And tonight, in that moment at the crosswalk — when their eyes met — it felt like he recognized her too. Not as a stranger.
But as someone… familiar.
Hana shook her head and let out a quiet laugh to herself.
What are you doing, Seo Hana? she scolded silently.
It wasn't like her to be this distracted by a stranger.
And yet, some part of her chest warmed at the memory. The way he spoke, the careful distance he kept, and that inexplicable flicker of something unspoken between them.
She sighed and turned onto her other side.
Somehow, thinking of him eased the heaviness of the evening — as if his presence, even in memory, pushed back against the shadows gathering around her.
I'll probably never even see him again, she thought, a little wistfully.
But deep down, a part of her hoped she would.
And maybe, one day, she'd ask who he really was.