Seo Yoon doesn't see him at first. It isn't his voice or his movement that draws her attention—it's the pause. Something in the air stutters, just slightly, like a skipped breath in the lungs of the room. She's in the philosophy aisle, trying to focus on the back cover of a book she has no interest in, when her mind detaches from the text. Her fingers stop moving. Her eyes skim a sentence three times without meaning.

Then she hears it. The soft shuffle of trainers on polished floor. The clearing of a throat. The quiet, uncertain exhale of someone trying to orient themselves.

Her body recognises it before her mind does.

She turns her head. Just slightly.

And sees him.

He's not doing anything extraordinary. He's crouched in front of a lower shelf, thumb tracing the edge of a book that looks older than it should be. His hair is a little too long, a little dishevelled. His coat is plain. But her chest tightens. Not in fear. Not in recognition.

In something older. Something stranger.

She thinks, for one terrifying second, that she's about to cry. But she doesn't know why.

Ji-ho glances up. Their eyes lock. The moment is still. Suspended.

Neither of them speaks. The bookstore continues around them—a page turns, a footstep echoes, someone coughs near the register—but here, in this sliver of silence, time folds.

He looks at her with the wary caution of someone trying to place a dream.

She speaks first.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare."

He straightens, brushing his hand through his hair. "No, you're fine. I think I was doing the same."

She lets out a quiet breath. "Weird day."

He nods. "Weird month."

She doesn't ask what he means. He doesn't explain. But something passes between them. A resonance. An echo.

Ji-ho shifts, glancing at the book in her hand. She doesn't even remember picking it up. He tilts his head slightly, a question in his eyes.

"This is going to sound odd," he says slowly, "but do I know you?"

Her heart skips. Her skin prickles.

She wants to say no. That would be easiest. Most logical. But the truth is caught in the middle of her chest like a splinter. She swallows.

"Maybe," she says. "I feel like I should know you."

He exhales. Not relief. Something else. Disorientation, maybe. "Yeah. Same."

They fall into silence again. Not uncomfortable. Not comfortable either. It holds them like fog.

Seo Yoon gestures to the chair near the reading table. "Do you want to sit?"

He hesitates. Then nods.

They sit a metre apart. Books between them. People browsing within earshot, but no one paying attention.

She glances at him. His hands are clasped together tightly.

"You look like you're about to confess something."

He laughs under his breath. "Not sure what I'd confess."

She studies him. His profile. The line of his jaw. The faint twitch in his eyebrow.

"You really don't remember me?" she asks.

He shakes his head slowly. "No. But your reaction's telling me I should rethink that."

The admission lands between them like a fault line.

She grips the edges of the book in her lap. "Do you ever feel like you're just... walking through a version of your life that isn't fully yours?"

His gaze sharpens. "I'm not entirely sure"

There it is. The unnamed thing. The creeping unease neither of them has dared speak aloud until now.

Ji-ho leans back. His throat bobs as he swallows.

"I've been having dreams," he says. "A lot of them lately. But they don't feel like dreams."

Her fingers still. "What do they feel like?"

He hesitates. "Almost like memories."

She doesn't reply. Can't. Because something in her chest echoes the same. Like an echo chamber finally meeting its voice.

He stands suddenly. "I should get back to work. Sorry. This was...Have a good day.. Goodbye"

She stands too. "No, I get it. It's... yeah."

He glances at her one last time. The weight of the unknown is heavy in his eyes.

Then he leaves.

She stands alone in the aisle, the book forgotten in her hands.

When she finally makes it outside, the wind is sharp. Her jacket feels thinner than it did this morning.

She walks in the opposite direction of her flat. Through streets she doesn't usually take. Past faces she doesn't usually see.

Everything is familiar.

Everything is wrong.

Ji-ho walks until the muscles in his legs burn.

He walks past traffic lights he doesn't remember crossing. Cafés he's never been to. Shops with signs that feel too new, too forced. He ends up at the river. Watches the water churn.

His phone buzzes. A text from Hyun-seok.

[Are you okay? You missed lunch.]

He reads the message three times. Types a reply. Deletes it. Types again.

[Sorry. I needed air.]

The reply comes quickly.

[Want company?]

Ji-ho stares at the screen.

The man has been showing up more often. At the bookstore. His one-man protest in the street nearby. Once outside his building with an umbrella when it rained. Ji-ho has never told him where he lives.

And yet... it doesn't scare him. It should. But it doesn't.

There's comfort in Hyun-seok's presence. Not quite safety. Not quite trust.

Something deeper. Familiar.

But not known.

He replies.

[No. I'm fine, I want to be alone. I'll text later.]

He puts his phone away. Leans over the railing.

Closes his eyes.

A whisper skims the edge of his mind.

Kkogkkog sumeora.

His breath hitches.

He shakes his head. Hard. Like trying to wake from sleep.

"No," he mutters. "Not now. Not this."

But the words echo.

Meolikarag boila.

The voices in his dreams. The children. The woman with no name. The boy hiding in the cupboard. The girl calling him—not by Ji-ho.

By another name.

He opens his eyes and the river is still there. Still moving. Still loud.

He grips the rail until his knuckles burn.

Seo Yoon returns to her flat and turns every mirror around.

She does it slowly. Methodically. Her hands are steady, but her breathing isn't.

She doesn't want to see herself. Not tonight. Not with his face still printed behind her eyelids.

She makes tea. Doesn't drink it. Showers. Stares at the bathroom tiles until the water runs cold.

She doesn't sleep.

When she closes her eyes, she sees him again.

Not Ji-ho. The boy in the hallway. The game. The running.

A song.

A voice.

His.

And hers.

Calling each other by names they no longer remember.

They wake the next day not knowing they've already begun to remember.

The conditioning doesn't break in screams.

It crumbles in silence.

In chance meetings.

In words left unsaid.

In the familiarity that should never have existed at all.