Episode 1 part 1                                      

3 March 2025, Monday, Orientation Day. Noon. Main gate of Seoul National University.

The morning air buzzed with nervous excitement.

Freshmen streamed along the paved paths toward the Chemistry Faculty building—some walking confidently, others pretending they weren’t completely lost. Backpacks were new, shoes too clean, smiles a little too rehearsed. 

Jeong Mi-yeon walked toward the university gates with careful, measured steps, as if the ground itself might judge her if she moved too fast. 

The campus rose ahead of her—wide paths, clean stone buildings, banners welcoming freshmen fluttering softly in the breeze. Everything looked exactly like the photos she had stared at on her old phone late at night, lying under a thin blanket in her parents’ house near Chuncheon.

I’m really here.

She tightened her grip on the strap of her backpack. It wasn’t new. She had scrubbed it carefully the night before, making sure there were no loose threads, no stains that might give her away. Her clothes were simple too—nothing fashionable—but neat, feminine, chosen with care.

The chemistry faculty at SNU was her dream. The lectures, the labs, the smell of reagents and chalk she had only ever known from books and borrowed prep materials. She had studied until her eyes burned, until numbers and formulas followed her into sleep.

She loved studying. Equations did not mock her. Reactions followed rules.

She had a scholarship. Without it, university would be impossible. Her parents had smiled proudly when the acceptance letter came, but she had seen the relief behind their joy. No loans. No impossible sacrifices. Their daughter had made it on her own.

I did it. I earned this.

And yet, with every step closer to the campus, the old fear crept in.

It wasn’t the classes she feared. It was people.

Fragments of her childhood emerged:

On the playground, she was left out, alone. Other children had bright, plastic toys that made noise.

Her doll was wooden. 

“Wooden dolls are not allowed in the game.” 

That’s what they told her. 

So she learned that silence is safe.

If she didn’t speak, she couldn’t say the wrong thing. 

If she didn’t reach out, her hand couldn’t be pushed away.

Then she got sick. She was so little, she barely remembered it now. Just a few memories, moments even, feelings.

Pneumonia. Hospital lights. The sharp smell of antiseptic. She remembered her mother’s exhausted face, the way her father tried to smile too hard. 

The catheter was necessary. The scar was small. Barely two centimeters—pale, neat, just above her collarbone.

But children noticed everything.

“What’s that?”

“Did you get cut?”

“Ew, it looks weird.”

Soon she wasn’t just poor anymore. She was damaged. Unclean. A girl with something wrong on her skin.

Mi-yeon blinked a few times, pushing dreadful thoughts away.

She adjusted the neckline of her blouse automatically, even though it already covered the scar. The motion was unconscious, practiced over years.

University will be different. 

She wanted to believe it. She needed to. Around her, groups of freshmen laughed, took photos, compared schedules. Girls with styled hair and careful makeup walked confidently, already belonging. Mi-yeon kept a small distance, letting them pass, slipping through gaps when they opened.

She caught a glimpse of older students wearing armbands—student council, orientation leaders.

Mi-yeon walked toward them.

Seconds later, someone else cut across the same line of steps.

After hours of document checks, signatures, polite bows, a young man—confused by directions and quietly swearing in Russian—finally stepped through the main gate for the first time.

Den Sokolov—or, as he was introducing himself, Den, walked at a steady pace. Tall, foreign, slightly out of rhythm with the crowd. Backpack on one shoulder. Eyes scanning the unfamiliar space with quiet alertness.

No one seemed to care about his presence. Jeong Mi-yeon most certainly didn’t. 

At the side, near the chemistry faculty registration desk, Mi-yeon stood clutching a thin paper folder to her chest. The folder held scholarship confirmation, her proof that she belonged here. Her fingers pressed into its edge unconsciously. 

She felt small. Not physically—though she was—but socially, painfully so. The crowd flowed around her like a river around a stone, splitting, rejoining, never stopping for her. Older students clustered near the desk, laughing softly, whispering, leaning close to one another. Their bodies formed a loose barrier, unintentional yet absolute. 

Mi-yeon took a half-step forward. Then stopped. They weren’t looking at her, but she could feel it—the way people’s eyes slid past her and still recorded everything. Her posture. Her clothes. The way she hesitated.

If I interrupt, they’ll sigh, she thought. Or look at me like I’m stupid.

She pulled her shoulders in, shrinking without meaning to. The neckline of her blouse shifted slightly as she moved, and for a brief, dangerous second, the thin line near her collarbone was visible. Two centimeters of pain that had followed her her whole life.

Her hand rose automatically, fingers brushing the fabric to pull it higher.

It’s nothing, she told herself. No one is even looking.

But she looked around anyway. From the other side of the stairs, Kim Soo-yeong passed by. A small crowd of students seemed to follow her.

She was impossible not to notice—elegantly styled hair, fitted clothes, phone held loosely in one manicured hand. Other girls moved with her, orbiting naturally, laughing at something on her screen. Confidence clung to her like perfume.

Soo-yeong’s eyes flicked toward Mi-yeon. It was quick. Efficient. The look of someone who didn’t need time to decide. Mi-yeon felt it land on her skin like a cold drop of water.

She already knows.

Mi-yeon thought, her stomach tightening. 

She’s decided what I am.

Soo-yeong’s gaze moved on just as quickly, dismissively, uninterested. But the damage was done. 

It’s okay. I don’t need her to like me. I just need my schedule.

She glanced back at the registration desk. The whispering seniors were still there, heads close together now, smiles sharp with private amusement. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she didn’t need to.

Wait a little, she told herself. When they leave.

Behind her, the flow of people shifted. A presence cut through the space—not loud, not dramatic, but unmistakable. Taller than most. Moving against the grain of the crowd without forcing it. For a moment, Mi-yeon sensed it before she saw it, like a shadow falling slightly out of place. 

Den passed through the entrance hall, foreignness wrapped around him like a quiet anomaly.

If Mi-yeon moved like water, slipping around bodies, Den moved like a wedge—splitting the flow, earning disapproving looks without even noticing.

Mi-yeon didn’t look at him. Not at first.

Her focus was fixed on the desk, on the seniors blocking it, on the growing anxiety tightening her chest. She swallowed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

It’s day one. Don’t mess up on day one.

The crowd continued to move. The university breathed around them—steps, voices, laughter, the hum of beginnings. Somewhere in that movement, without knowing it, two trajectories quietly crossed.

Den stopped near the registration desk, lifting his gaze slightly to read the printed lists and signs above it. Being tall had its advantages—over the heads and shoulders of the crowd, the information was visible without effort. Room numbers. Group codes. Arrows pointing deeper into the building.

Mi-yeon was still standing just a step away. Still behind someone’s back. She shifted to the side when one of the seniors finally moved, a small opening appearing like a crack in a wall. Her heart jumped.

Now.

She leaned forward slightly, eyes lifting…and Kim Soo-yeong stepped smoothly into the space. It wasn’t abrupt. It wasn’t aggressive. It was practiced.

“Oh—sorry,” Soo-yeong said lightly, turning just enough to block Mi-yeon’s view completely. Her smile was soft, almost apologetic. Almost. “I was already standing here.”

The words were polite. The tone was sweet. The message was clear.

Mi-yeon froze. Her mouth opened, then closed again. No sound came out. She felt the familiar heat creep up her neck, the tight pressure behind her eyes.

She did it on purpose. 

Mi-yeon thought immediately—and then hated herself for thinking it. 

No. Maybe she really was here. Don’t assume. Don’t make trouble.

She took half a step back, instinctively retreating. The folder pressed harder against her chest, like a shield that wasn’t strong enough.

It’s fine. I'll just wait again.

Den saw it. Small, ugly adjustment in space. A girl stepping forward with ease. Another being erased without a word.

His eyes dropped briefly—not to Mi-yeon’s face, but to the folder she was holding. The group number was printed clearly in the corner.

“107”.

The same as his. He glanced back at the board once more, confirming it, then turned slightly—not toward Soo-yeong, but toward the girl who had been pushed out of view.

“107? We are in Building 500,” he said calmly, in accented but clear Korean. 

His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t demand attention. “Third floor. Room 301. That’s where our group orientation is.”

Mi-yeon blinked. For a second, she didn’t understand that he was speaking to her. Then it registered.

Our group.

She looked up instinctively. He was tall—much taller than she expected up close. Sharp cheekbones, pale grey eyes that didn’t smile automatically, didn’t soften to make things easier. He wasn’t trying to be kind in the way people usually tried. He was just… stating information. As if it mattered that she knew.

“Oh—” Her voice came out too quiet. She cleared her throat, embarrassed. “Thank you.”

She automatically bent forward in a polite bow.

Den nodded once, already turning away. No lingering glance or expectation of gratitude. Just a fact delivered, then gone.

Kim Soo-yeong’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second.

Mi-yeon was too distracted to notice. 

He didn’t have to say that.

 Mi-yeon thought, watching him disappear into the crowd.

He could have just left.

She lowered her gaze again. 

But I mattered enough for him to speak to me.

Something pulled at Mi-yeon from inside. Not courage, more like a quiet gravity she didn’t know how to resist. She took a few quick steps and followed him toward Building 500. 

Mi-yeon didn’t walk beside him. 

Never beside. Just behind, half a pace back. 

Enough distance so no one could say that she was with him.

This is stupid, I don’t even know him.

But her feet kept going. Den walked with long, unhurried strides, cutting through the stream of freshmen without pushing or apologizing. People adjusted around him instinctively. Mi-yeon slipped into that wake like a leaf behind a boat, barely noticed.

Her body loosened a bit.

It’s quieter behind him, she realized. When everyone looks at him, no one looks at me.

She kept her eyes down, focused on the floor, on the back of his shoes, counting steps like she used to count breaths when panic crept in. She could smell something faint—soap, maybe laundry detergent. Not a perfume, something ordinary. 

Don’t get ideas, she warned herself. You are not friends with him. You’re just walking the same way.

They reached the building entrance, went through the lobby and followed other students to the third floor. Lecture hall 301. Wide doors. A sign announcing freshman orientation for the chemistry faculty. At the doorway stood two figures who didn’t need an introduction.

Ko Su-ho was unmistakable even at a distance—tall, composed, sharp-featured, his presence quiet but absolute. Beside him stood Choi Mi-rae, calm and confident, her expression warm without being overly soft. They wore the armbands of student council seniors, but more than that, they carried reputation. Standing so close to each other. Obviously a couple.

“Those two,” someone whispered behind Mi-yeon. “Student council. They’re… kind of famous around here.”

Mi-rae smiled at the incoming students. “Welcome. Please come in and take any seat. Orientation will begin shortly.” 

Su-ho nodded, his gaze briefly scanning the room, ensuring order without saying a word.

Den walked in first, barely reacting. For him, famous seniors were just… seniors.

Mi-yeon hesitated at the threshold.

Just go in. Everyone else did.