I find her in the library like usual.

The library at one p.m. has its own weather—warm from bodies, cool from vents, a slow tide of whispers moving between stacks. The second-floor open tables sit under a paneled ceiling that hums like a patient machine.

I come armed with a grease-spotted KFC bag and a stupid amount of nerve for someone who only has one final left. It's not strategy—more like gravity. I know her hours now, where the pale light falls across the economics aisle around lunch, which tables she chooses when all she wants is a wall at her back. If that makes me obvious, fine. I'm past pretending I don't orbit her.

She isn't alone.

There's a girl with her—straight black hair tucked behind one ear, headphones resting on her neck, hoodie zipped to the throat. I recognize the profile from campus, from badminton courts months ago. Munjung. The one who used to run with Tamara before something cracked between them. She and I have never been introduced.

I tap two knuckles against the table's laminate edge—soft, so the librarian won't materialize out of thin air. Munjung's head snaps up first, eyes quick and neutral. Haeri looks up slower, distraction still on her face. The smile arrives before she can stop it—small, reflex—then she tucks it away like contraband.

"Why are you here?" she whispers, like we're in trouble.

"Group project just wrapped," I say, lifting the bag a little. "I'm free until Math. Thought I'd...sit for a bit." Rest is the lie I bring to make the truth palatable.

Her eyes flick to the bag, then to the empty chair across from her. "Okay," she says, pretending it's casual. "Sit."

She gestures between us. "Munjung—this is Yujin. Yujin—Munjung." The introduction is efficient, like removing a splinter.

Munjung glances up long enough to say, "Hi," in a voice that carries a don't-mind-me sign. Back to her phone. She has the air of someone who terms and conditions everything before she invests in it. I can respect that.

I slide into the chair. It squeaks; I wince at the volume. My hoodie smells faintly like detergent from the dorm laundry room and something fried from the bag at my elbow. Haeri's cardigan is charcoal, she's braided her hair back and missed one wispy strand that keeps brushing the corner of her mouth. She doesn't notice it. I do.

"How'd it go?" she asks, voice pitched for library distance. "The presentation."

"Sharp," I say, like the name is weather. "So you can imagine."

A sympathetic grimace crosses her face—the kind you offer fellow survivors. She took that class with a different professor; she knows Sharp by reputation. Harsh grading. Questions that feel like trapdoors. "I was lucky," she admits. "Another section."

"Lucky," I echo, but I'm not thinking about the class. I'm thinking about the way her fingers align her pens like a goalkeeper setting a wall.

"And the exam?" she adds. "Math?"

"Last one," I say. "I'll be fine."

"Of course," she mutters, teasing. "Math boy."

I lean forward and, with two fingers, close her laptop gently. The click is soft and decisive. "Lunch?"

She stares at the lid, then at me. The look says: you didn't. The look also says: you did. "Later," she says, which is code for never.

"Now," I counter, nodding at the bag. "Or did you bring yours?"

She sighs in defeat like I've out-lawyered her. A plastic container emerges from her tote—rice, two eggs fried with crisp edges, kimchi in a tiny side box, a few rolled seaweed sheets. Simple, perfect. The smell is home if you've ever shared a table crowded with metal chopsticks and scolded hands.

"Good," I say. "I brought reinforcements."

I pull the bag open. Steam breathes out, salty and absurdly comforting. Chicken, fries, little tubs of gravy like secret stash. "Tactical support," I add, sliding a drumstick toward her, then a fistful of fries onto a napkin within reach.

"Why KFC?" she asks, eyebrow tilting. "You live in the dining hall."

"Today I don't," I say, breaking a fry in half. "Today I came prepared."

She tries to hide it, but the corner of her mouth lifts anyway. She takes the drumstick, tears off a piece, and adds it to her rice like she was always going to. Across from us, Munjung pops open her own container—a pale pasta tossed with something green—and scrolls her phone with the other hand, eyes flicking up just once to clock the chicken exchange before returning to her world. Background, but not blind.

Plastic forks scraping, paper crinkling, the library's heartbeat steady in the vents. I'm oddly proud watching Haeri eat without negotiating with guilt or the clock.

"How many exams do you have left?" I ask when the part where we pretend this is just lunch threatens to end.

"Two," she says, breath fogging the cold lid before she wipes it with her sleeve. "Corporate finance and advanced stats. The misery combo."

"You want help?" The joke lines itself up. "Office hours with your senior?"

Her eyes flick up, amused. "Senior?" She rolls the word in her mouth like it has a shape. "Wow. Respect. Sunbaenim."

I shouldn't like that as much as I do. Something in my chest sits up straighter, like a part of me has been waiting to be allowed the job. Covering. Looking ahead for potholes. The thing an older brother would do, maybe. I'm the youngest son; I was never required to be the shield. She is the eldest daughter; she learned to shoulder weight without being asked.

Sometimes I think if I were older this would be easier—the part where I prove I won't drop anything she hands me. But then she calls me senior and laughs like it fits, and the math of us changes. Youngest boy, eldest girl—everyone says pair opposites at your own risk. Maybe they're right. Maybe it's like trying to run against wind and finding out you love the effort because it means you're moving.

"What about winter break?" she asks, chopsticks hovering over the last bite of egg. "No trip this time. We're broke."

The fact that she wants to know my plans—my plans—does something quietly catastrophic to me. If Munjung weren't at the table, I would ask for a date with my whole chest and suffer the casualties. Instead I say, "City stuff. Lights. Anything not indoors. I don't want to get stuck staring at the ceiling."

She hums, a low agreement. "I usually stay in. Read. Music. Boring."

Boring is not the word I would use for her curled near a window with a book, socks inside out, hair falling out of its clip. My disappointment rises too fast, wrong-angled on my face, and I watch her misread it.

"Right. Boring," she says lightly, folding her napkin.

"No." It comes out quick, sharper than I intend. I catch her eyes and hold them. "I mean I'm disappointed I don't know a place where I can be with you for Christmas." The sentence lands on the table and sits there between the gravy and her notebook like it paid for a seat.

She goes very still. Blinks. Looks away with a smile trying to be smaller than it is.

Munjung glances up, scans our faces like headline, then returns to her phone. The perfect chaperone: present, uninterested.

I give Haeri the look I know she's learned to read—the one that says I can't help telling the truth when it's you. She lets out a soft laugh, barely audible, the sound private in a public place. "We'll figure it out," she says, and it's not a deflection. There's a tiny spark in it, a door cracked open on purpose. She adds a blink like punctuation, and I feel something rearrange in me, a lock deciding it recognizes the key.

We finish the food. I pretend to study by opening a book; she humors me by opening her laptop again. Grease salt lingers on my fingers; I wipe them carefully, then reach across with the napkin to nudge the stray hair away from her mouth without touching her. She notices. Doesn't comment. The flush is brief, then gone.

"Math boy," she says under her breath, eyes on the screen. "Don't forget you have an exam."

"I won't," I say, though all my attention is on her hands moving over the keys and the quiet way she lets me belong to this small square of afternoon.

Outside, the sky has that pewter tone that means the snow is thinking about it. If it starts, I'll walk her as far as she lets me. If she won't let me, I'll invent a reason to be on the same path.

I pack the empty bag, fold it flat, slide it into my hoodie pocket. She keeps working, the line of her shoulder relaxed in a way I want to memorize.

Sincerity is slow, everyone says. Fine. I've got time.

--++*++--

I never mean to end up here, tangled in a coil of fairy lights outside the Student Union, but Tamara is impossible to argue with when she's in one of her moods. She wants to join the decorating activity for Christmas, so Chloe tags along with her endless free time, Taeho gets roped in out of sheer proximity, and me—well, I'm too polite to refuse.

Snow dusts the damp ground. The VP Events is barking instructions in a sharp voice, holding a clipboard like it's a weapon. We scatter across the entrance, untangling wires, the lights catching the last of the grey daylight.

"This is ridiculous," Taeho mutters beside me, tugging on a knot like it's personally offended him.

Tamara's head whips around. "If no one does it, the whole place will look miserable by Christmas!"

He smirks, eyes glinting. "I meant dragging me out here is ridiculous."

Her sharp inhale promises a comeback, but Chloe laughs before the fight can spark. Tamara glares at him anyway, though everyone knows he enjoys winding her up more than the lights.

As I'm looping a string along the railing, Chloe pipes up, "I met a Korean guy the other day. Computer Science. Kind of new around here. Do you know him, Taeho?"

Taeho shrugs, leaning on the banister like he's been waiting for the chance to look unbothered. "Tall, weird vibe, good-looking? Yeah, I showed him around last week. Got his number. I think he's from Insadong."

And then Tamara perks up, delighted by the coincidence. "Wait, Haeri's from the same neighborhood, right? She'd be thrilled to meet someone from home."

Chloe's grin widens as she drapes a strand of lights like a necklace across the railing. "He's handsome. Maybe I should check him out."

The group bursts into laughter, even Tamara joining in with a mock gasp and a promise to play wingwoman. Taeho fishes his phone out when they ask to see his profile.

I stop listening. My hands move automatically, feeding the lights through cold metal hooks, but the conversation fades into a blur. Through the glass doors, I catch sight of a familiar figure—my math professor, her coat collar raised, stepping briskly inside. If I'm lucky, I can corner her before she disappears into her office.

Without waiting for anyone to notice, I drop the last loop of lights, wipe my palms on my jeans, and slip away from the laughter, chasing after the only thing that matters more than Christmas decorations right now: an answer that could save me in the exam.