Present Day – Seoul, Early Evening
The first time Yoorin saw him, he was standing in the rain without an umbrella.
Brown coat. Black scarf. Eyes like dusk.
It was outside the university archive, just past six. She had forgotten her umbrella again. The sky had broken into soft tears, and students rushed past with hoods and plastic bags.
But he stood still.
Just… looking at her.
Not in a way that was threatening.Not even curious.
As if he already knew her.
"Miss?" Jiwoo called, tugging on her sleeve. "You okay?"
She blinked. The man was gone.
Gone like a thought you meant to hold on to but slipped away the second you got distracted.
That night, she reread the diary.
She noticed something new.
"I dreamed I would meet her again. In a street full of lights. In a city that had forgotten our names.""But I would know her by her silence."
Her silence.
The way she forgot how to speak when she looked at him.
Could it be…?
No. It was impossible.
But so was remembering dreams from a hundred years ago. So was finding your own name in a diary older than your great-grandmother.
And yet…Here she was.
"If he's here," she whispered, "he'll come again."