I made the decision before I could talk myself out of it.
"Choi Bok-Jin-ssi!"
He stopped walking and looked up from his phone, searching for who'd called his name. His eyes found me, and there was a flicker of surprise.
I closed the distance between us, suddenly very aware that I was doing this. Actually doing this. Approaching a guy I barely knew because of a leaf. This was either brave or stupid, and I wasn't sure which.
"Han Ji-Mang-ssi," he said, and I noticed he'd already remembered my full name. That had to be a good sign, right?
"You have, uh—" I gestured vaguely at his head. "There's a leaf. In your hair."
He blinked, then reached up, fingers searching until they found it. He pulled it down and looked at it with such genuine confusion that I couldn't help but laugh.
"How long has this been there?" he asked.
"I just saw it land, like thirty seconds ago. You were so focused on your phone you didn't notice."
"Ah." He examined the leaf like it had personally offended him, then looked back at me with what might have been embarrassment. "Thank you for telling me. That would have been... awkward to discover later."
"No problem. Consider it payback for the sports drink transaction earlier."
The corner of his mouth quirked up. "That's not how retail transactions work."
"Maybe not, but I'm making it work."
We stood there for a moment, and I realized we were just... standing in the middle of the courtyard. At night. Alone. And I had no plan for what came next.
"Are you heading home?" he asked, saving me from my own awkwardness.
"Yeah. I live off campus, that direction." I pointed vaguely toward the residential area.
"May I walk with you? I'm going the same way."
My brain short-circuited briefly. "Oh. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's a public path, you can walk wherever you want. Not that I'm saying you need my permission to—" I stopped myself before I could ramble more. "Yes. That would be nice."
He fell into step beside me, and we started walking. He was tall enough that I had to look up slightly to see his face, and his pace naturally matched mine—just like during the run this morning.
God, had it only been this morning? This day felt approximately seventeen years long.
"Long day?" he asked, like he'd read my mind.
"Is it that obvious?"
"You look tired." He said it matter-of-factly, not unkindly. "Running at 6 AM, then working until 10 PM. That's... a lot."
"Welcome to my life." I tried to make it sound light, but it came out more bitter than I intended. "Sorry. Yes, it's a lot. But it's necessary."
"For law school applications?"
I glanced at him, surprised. "How did you know I'm pre-law?"
"You mentioned studying law earlier, and I saw you in the law library this afternoon. I was there researching for a business ethics paper."
He'd seen me in the library? And remembered?
"Oh. Yeah. Undergraduate law major, third year. Applying to law schools next year after I take LEET." I didn't mention the part about barely being able to afford LEET prep. That felt too vulnerable for a first real conversation.
"That's impressive. Law school admissions are extremely competitive."
"Tell me about it. I'm competing against people whose parents are judges and prosecutors and have been grooming them for legal careers since birth." I caught myself. "Not that I'm bitter or anything."
He smiled slightly. "You sound a little bitter."
"Okay, fine, I'm extremely bitter. But in a motivated way. Like, I'm going to use my bitterness as fuel to outwork everyone."
"That seems like a solid strategy."
We passed under one of the cherry blossom trees, still bare but promising beauty in a few weeks. The path was quiet except for our footsteps and the distant sound of traffic beyond campus.
"What about you?" I asked, realizing I'd been dominating the conversation. "Business major, second year. What made you choose business?"
His expression shifted slightly, something I couldn't quite read. "Family expectations, mostly."
"Ah. One of those situations."
"Something like that." He adjusted his glasses, and I was starting to recognize it as a nervous habit. "What about you? Why law?"
"Because I'm good at arguing and I want to get paid for it."
He laughed—an actual laugh, not just a polite chuckle. It was a nice sound, warmer than his usually reserved demeanor suggested.
"That's the most honest answer I've ever heard," he said.
"I believe in honesty. Mostly." I grinned. "Also because I want to prove that you don't need to come from money or connections to make something of yourself. And law feels like the best way to do that."
"Fighting the system from within?"
"Something like that. Idealistic, I know. But someone has to do it."
"It's not idealistic," he said quietly. "It's admirable. Most people just accept the system as it is."
"Well, I'm not most people."
"I noticed."
There was something in the way he said it that made my stomach flip. Not flirty, exactly, but... aware. Like he saw me. Really saw me, not just as the sunbae from running club or the girl working at the convenience store.
We'd reached the edge of campus, where the path split—one direction toward the main residential area where I lived, the other toward the nicer neighborhood where, I assumed, he probably had a decent apartment.
"I'm this way," I said, pointing left.
"Ah." He seemed almost disappointed. "I'm the other direction."
We stood there at the fork in the path, and I knew I should just say goodbye and go home. I was exhausted. I had class tomorrow. I needed to sleep.
But I didn't want to leave yet.
"Thanks for walking with me," I said. "Even though it was only, like, five minutes."
"It was a good five minutes." He paused, then seemed to make a decision. "Would you want to—"
His phone rang, cutting him off mid-sentence.
He looked at the screen, and his entire demeanor changed. His shoulders tensed, his expression went carefully neutral, and something in his eyes went distant.
"I should take this," he said, and there was an apology in his voice. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine. Go ahead."
He answered in a tone I hadn't heard from him before—formal, measured, almost cold. "Yes, I'm on my way now... No, I was at the library... I understand... Yes, Father."
Father.
He listened for a moment, his jaw tight, then said something in the kind of formal Korean you only used with someone significantly above you in status. "네, 아버지. 곧 도착하겠습니다." Yes, Father. I'll arrive soon.
He hung up and looked at me with what might have been regret. "I need to go. I'm sorry, I—"
"It's fine," I said quickly, even though I wanted to ask a thousand questions. That hadn't sounded like a normal parent phone call. That had sounded like... something else. "Family stuff, I get it."
"Thank you for understanding." He hesitated, like he wanted to say more, then seemed to think better of it. "I'll see you Friday? At running club?"
"Yeah. Friday. 6 AM, bring your suffering."
He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes this time. "I'll be there."
And then he was walking away, his pace faster now, purposeful. I watched him go, that phone call replaying in my mind.
The formal language. The tension in his shoulders. The way he'd called whoever it was "Father" with that specific tone that suggested wealth, expectation, obligation.
I thought about his nice clothes, always clean and pressed. The way he carried himself with that quiet confidence. The fact that he went to SNU—which wasn't cheap—and didn't seem to work, didn't seem stressed about money.
The business major because of "family expectations."
Choi Bok-Jin.
Choi.
I pulled out my phone and did something I probably shouldn't have. Opened the search browser and typed: "Choi Bok-Jin SNU business"
The results loaded.
My stomach dropped.
The third result was a society page article from two years ago, a photo from some corporate event. And there he was—younger, without the glasses, but definitely him—standing next to an older man in an expensive suit.
The caption read: "Choi Tae-Seong, CEO of Hansung Group, with his son Choi Bok-Jin at the annual shareholder gala."
Hansung Group.
One of the top ten chaebols in Korea. Electronics, construction, finance. The kind of company that had buildings with their name on it. The kind of family that got invited to presidential dinners.
I stood there in the middle of the path, phone in my hand, trying to process.
The cute, quiet guy from running club. The one who'd noticed me during our run, who'd come to my convenience store, who'd walked with me and laughed at my jokes.
Was the son of a chaebol CEO.
And I—scholarship student, working two jobs, wearing clothes from Dongdaemun market, eating triangle kimbap for every meal—had been treating him like a normal person.
Because I'd thought he was a normal person.
"Oh," I said out loud to no one. "Oh no."
This was bad. This was complicated. This was exactly the kind of situation I didn't need in my life right now.
I should stay away from him. Keep it professional. Running club only, polite distance, nothing more.
That was the smart choice. The logical choice.
But as I turned and started walking home, I couldn't stop replaying the conversation. The way he'd listened when I talked. The way he'd laughed. The way he'd looked at me, like I was interesting, like I mattered.
Like my being poor and his being rich didn't matter at all.
Except it did matter.
It mattered so much.