Episode 9
4 March 2025, Tuesday. Noon. SNU, Building 500, Natural Sciences Cafeteria.
The cafeteria on the first day was loud, packed, but alive—fried rice, kimbap, cheap soup, and coffee blending into that specific atmosphere of a "university hive." Plastic trays clattered. Chairs scraped. A dozen conversations overlapped into one steady roar.
Den didn't try to be brave with food. He picked the safest thing he could recognize without risking a cultural ambush: a sandwich and tea.
He chose an empty table far back—a strategic corner. From there, he could see who came in, and no one had to walk past him unless they really wanted to.
He sat down, unwrapped the sandwich, and leaned back. The warmth of the tea settled into his palms. The noise was even, not sharp. Not irritating—just background.
A few students glanced at him as they passed. Not rude, more curious. But no one approached.
Across the room, a group of loud freshman guys from his faculty laughed too hard at something that wasn't all that funny. One table away, in the center, Soo-yeong held court with her girls, punctuating a story with bright laughter—just a little louder than necessary, the kind designed to pull eyes.
Den didn't look her way.
At a neighboring table, Baek So-mi ate alone, posture straight, a textbook open like a shield. Her eyes flicked once toward Den—quiet data collection—then returned to the page.
Han-bin came later than most. She looked more relaxed now, but the hangover still lived in the pallor of her skin and the careful way she moved. She slipped into the edge of a girls' group, trying to blend in.
Den took another bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly.
Mi-yeon bought her food and appeared in the dining area. She walked carefully, holding her tray with both hands as if she were carrying something fragile. Simple noodles, a slice of omelet, and a small boxed juice—ordinary food, chosen with the same insecure logic that shaped her whole life.
She stopped just at the edge of the dining area.
Her eyes scanned the cafeteria slowly—painfully slowly. She looked at the loud groups, at the fashionable girls clustered together, at the empty seats that were "empty" only on the surface—because sitting there would still mean becoming a target.
Her gaze moved over places she knew she shouldn't choose.
Then she saw Baek So-mi sitting alone. Mi-yeon hesitated. Then she approached.
"So-mi-ssi," she said softly. "May I ask you something?"
So-mi looked up, expression neutral. Polite. Unhurried.
"Yes?"
Mi-yeon gestured vaguely toward the empty chair.
"I was wondering if… maybe I could join you? I had something I wanted to ask."
So-mi glanced down at her book, one finger marking the page.
"I'm in the middle of reading something for my next class," she said calmly. "Is it urgent?"
Not dismissive. Not unkind. Just clear boundaries.
Mi-yeon nodded immediately, already prepared.
"Oh—of course. It's nothing urgent," she said. "I'll talk to you later."
She bowed slightly and stepped away.
So-mi had already returned to her book.
Mi-yeon turned, her tray still balanced in her hands, and looked for another place to sit.
And then she saw Den. She looked at him, fighting herself.
If I sit with girls… they'll ask why I'm there.
If I go there… he might think I'm following him.
But if I don't go… I'll sit alone again.
And when I sit alone… someone always decides that it's funny.
Her fingers tightened around the tray.
She took a tiny step. Stopped and bit her lip. Then she took another one.
She moved slowly, like someone walking toward a decision she didn't fully trust. The tray trembled slightly in her hands, and she kept her gaze low—as if eye contact might turn her into a person, and being a person was risky.
She reached Den's table and stopped.
She didn't look up.
Her voice came out thin, careful, almost dissolving into the noise.
"Can I… sit here…?"
The room didn't truly go silent, but something shifted—attention thinning in her direction like a draft.
Kim Soo-yeong's voice cut through it, calm and cold, delivered like a statement in a lab report.
"Provincial girls are always so confident," she said, not raising her volume, but making sure it still carried.
"Always placing themselves next to cute guys when there's an opportunity."
She tilted her head slightly.
"I wish I could act that comfortably. Like some kind of western princess."
The tone was so clean, so mathematically sharp, it didn't sound like a personal attack.
Which was exactly why it worked.
Mi-yeon recoiled instantly. Her shoulders lifted, her chin dropped. The color drained from her face as if her body were trying to become smaller than shame. For a split second, she was already turning away, already rehearsing the punishment in her head.
Stupid. I was so stupid. I shouldn't have—
Den turned his head.
He showed neither aggression nor raised his voice. He looked at Soo-yeong with an ironic grimace.
"Don't worry, Kim Soo-yeong," he said. "Your crown won't fall off just because Mi-yeon eats lunch nearby."
He didn't pause long enough for her to interrupt.
"She probably chose to approach me because she noticed I looked bored eating by myself." His tone stayed mild, almost polite. "That's considerate of her."
For a moment, Kim Soo-yeong blinked—barely, but it was there. A tiny fracture in her composure. She hadn't expected anyone to respond. And she certainly hadn't expected to be framed as the one acting like royalty.
Her fingers tightened around her cup.
But she said nothing, because any further word would shift the spotlight onto her cruelty, and she was too smart to gift him that.
Den turned away from her as if she had already been resolved.
The scene was gone from her hands.
Now he looked at Mi-yeon.
She was still standing, her tray hovering, as if the floor might open under her at any second. Her eyes were wide, bewildered. She didn't understand why he had defended her. And fear ran underneath that confusion: that she had now become a reason for him to have trouble.
Den spoke to her directly, his voice simple and steady, gesturing to an empty chair across from him.
"Sit. Please."
Mi-yeon took a small breath—careful, shaky—and sat down. She set her tray down gently, as if loud sounds might attract predators. She perched on the edge of the chair as if taking up space were a crime.
But something warm appeared in her eyes.
Nearby, whispers began. She noticed that Den didn't care.
Mi-yeon swallowed.
"Th-thank you…"
She didn't lift her eyes. She couldn't.
Then she added, promising,
"I'll try to eat quietly… so I don't bother you…"
"You're not bothering me."
He said it plainly. There was no softness or reassurance layered on top. Almost careless.
And because of that—because it sounded like a fact rather than comfort—it landed deeper than any "it's okay" ever could.
Mi-yeon gave the smallest nod. Barely there. Like a fragile flower bending under a weak breeze.
She started eating.
She ate carefully with small bites and quiet movements. As if the sound of her chopsticks might disrupt something fragile and temporary. But the tension in her shoulders began to slide down, millimeter by millimeter, as though her body were slowly realizing it hadn't been expelled.
She still didn't look directly at him. She was afraid that if she met his eyes for too long, something inside her would spill over—gratitude, relief, something warmer she didn't yet trust.
But she sat a little straighter now.
Around them, a different scene unfolded—one they registered only at the edges of their awareness.
Baek So-mi kept her book open. The page didn't turn. She heard everything at their table, every pause, every quiet exchange, storing it with cold precision.
Soo-yeong's brows knit slightly. Not anger—calculation.
She understood now: Den had openly challenged her hierarchy. And he had done it for someone she considered beneath notice. That couldn't be left unanswered.
Her friends glanced at Den, trying to decode him. Who was he to behave like this? Why did he act as if none of them mattered?
After a minute of silence, watching how Den drank his tea, Mi-yeon spoke again.
"Do you… always prefer sitting… by the window?"
The question was careful, tentative. Like stepping onto thin ice.
And this time, she lifted her eyes.
Large. Dark. Uncertain. Yet there was no fear of him in them.
Only curiosity. An attempt to understand. A quiet wish to be allowed to speak.
Den looked at her and smiled.
"I don't know. I guess I sit by the windows without thinking about it," he said. "Maybe it's a habit, because I sat by the window in elementary school."
Then something mischievous flickered across his face, and he added—lowering his voice so only she could hear,
"Or maybe I just like better survival odds."
Beat.
"…in case someone here farts with unmatched dedication."
The last sentence was barely a whisper.
And yet—it knocked Mi-yeon completely off balance.
Her eyes widened in pure shock.
Then—against her will—she laughed.
She slapped a hand over her mouth instantly, trying to trap the sound inside, so what escaped was a muffled, breathless giggle, compressed and helpless.
Her shoulders shook once. Twice.
She panicked, tried to regain control, whispering urgently,
"You—! You can't say things like that out loud!"
But her eyes were still laughing.
Bright. Alive. Unguarded.
And for a fleeting moment—so brief she barely dared acknowledge it—Mi-yeon wasn't the girl who had learned to disappear.
She was just a girl sitting at a table, laughing quietly with someone who had made space for her.
A few nearby tables turned toward the sound of her stifled laugh.
Some girls looked over with curiosity.
A couple of guys grinned and exchanged glances.
Baek So-mi closed her book, stood, and left with the expression of someone who had been disturbed in a library rather than a cafeteria—offended by noise, by informality, by life happening too close to her.
Soo-yeong wrinkled her nose as if she had caught an unpleasant smell. What irritated her wasn't the joke—it was the idea that an attractive foreign student had made some invisible village girl laugh instead of flirting with her—beautiful and desirable Kim Soo-yeong.
She leaned toward Hwang Se-a and whispered sharply,
"What the hell is he doing entertaining her? Does a guy like that really have such terrible taste?"
But the most important thing was this—
Mi-yeon was laughing. And she was doing it so sincerely that it surprised even her. She wiped at the corner of her eye, trying to steady her breathing.
"Y-you're… not normal," she said softly. There was no judgment in her voice. Only warmth.
Den could see it clearly: a layer of tension she had carried for years slipping off her shoulders. That single, slightly crude joke did what months of well-meaning advice never could—it made her stop being afraid to speak next to him.
She was relaxed. Truly.
And now, when the laughter faded, she looked at him differently.
Quietly, she added, "I'm… glad I sat here."
The words came out before she could stop them. She looked away immediately, as if she had revealed too much.
A second later—almost absentmindedly, guided more by instinct than intention—Den asked,
"Yeah? Why?"
It was casual. Ordinary. No pressure.
And precisely because of that, it hit her like a tap on exposed nerves. Her eyelashes flew up. Her eyes widened—pure reflex: fear, surprise, vulnerability tangled together.
"W-what?"
She dropped her gaze instantly, retreating, as if her emotions had suddenly become visible and dangerous.
That question—"why did you sit here?"—had always meant something cruel to her. It had usually been asked to humiliate her, to tell her she didn't belong.
She had learned to hate it. But coming from Den, it sounded different.
Meanwhile, he misunderstood her reaction as confusion and repeated calmly,
"I sit by the window out of habit. Since elementary school." Then, evenly, "Why did you choose this seat?"
Her hands began to tremble. She wasn't ready. She didn't know what the right answer was.
Old instincts screamed at her to find something safe, something harmless—because the wrong answer had always led to laughter, to whispers, to pain.
But something had already shifted inside her, something he had planted without realizing it. So she took a risk.
"I…" she began quietly, staring at her tray. "I… didn't choose it… on purpose. I just…"
She swallowed.
"In other places… there were already… other girls."
A pause.
She lifted her eyes for a brief second—shame flickered there, because the truth was too simple, too raw.
"And… they don't like it… when I sit near them. And if I sit alone… everyone can see… that I'm an outsider."
Her gaze dropped again. Her fingers tightened around the juice box.
"So… I was looking for a table… where… where…" Her voice broke. "Where I wouldn't be chased away."
She blinked too fast.
"And when I saw you sitting alone… I thought maybe… I could ask. You know?"
Her breathing turned uneven.
"But if… if it's uncomfortable for you…" she rushed to add, fear flooding back in. "I can move. I don't want to bother you."
She started to stand, grabbing her tray—the reflex drilled into her by years of bullying:
Don't take up space if someone hesitates.
Leave before they push you away.
She was already halfway gone, even while standing right in front of him.
Den reacted faster than thought.
He leaned forward just a little and placed his palm on the edge of the table—not on her hand, not invading her space, simply cutting off the motion.
Calm.
"No. Don't. Please stay."
Mi-yeon froze mid-movement. The tray trembled slightly, but she didn't rise.
Inside her, panic bloomed.
I said too much.
Now he regrets it.
Now comes the polite excuse, the distance, the quiet rejection.
She braced herself for it.
But Den continued, his voice still even, unforced,
"I didn't ask because you don't belong here."
A brief pause.
"I asked because I was glad you sat next to me. I'm an outsider too."
Mi-yeon's breath caught.
Glad…?
He was glad… I sat here?
Her mind scrambled, urgently searching for a hidden meaning.
There wasn't one.
Slowly, she lowered herself back onto the chair. The tray settled on the table again.
Mi-yeon sat in silence. Her heart pounded so loudly it felt as if the room might hear it. Her thoughts tangled:
He doesn't pity me.
He wants me here.
She resumed eating her noodles again in small, careful bites.
Next to him, I feel safe.
Den finished the last piece of his sandwich and stood up without hurry—exactly like someone who didn't need pauses, didn't need to check who was watching.
"All right. I'll head to the classroom," he said simply. "Enjoy your meal."
Mi-yeon lifted her eyes—quick and fragile, like a butterfly wing flicking once.
"Th-thank you…" she answered so softly it almost disappeared, nodding automatically.
As Den turned away, he caught the smallest change in her posture: her shoulders loosened a fraction, as if his ordinary goodbye had given her permission to keep existing at that table without apologizing for it.
He walked out of the cafeteria with the same steady stride, not looking back.
Mi-yeon remained seated for a few seconds, her chopsticks paused between her fingers as if she had forgotten how eating worked. She stared at the empty chair where he had sat.
And her face—without her permission—showed it:
quiet, uncertain happiness.
The kind she rarely allowed herself to feel. The kind she distrusted. But it slipped out anyway.
She inhaled, small and shaky, then continued eating—different shoulders, different breath, as if something inside her had been slightly rearranged.