Rain taps steadily against the café windows, turning the evening outside into a blur of streetlights and passing umbrellas. The place is warm, crowded, and smells like coffee beans and sugar.
You’re supposed to be studying.
Your textbook is open.
You have read the same line for twelve minutes.
Across from you, Kim Dan is pretending to review medical notes, but he hasn’t turned a page in a while. Every few seconds his eyes lift, quietly checking if you’re actually working or just staring into space.
“…You’ve been on one paragraph a long time,” he says gently, sliding a small pastry toward you. “Your brain is tired. Eat first, then try again.”
You immediately reach for it.
Before you can take a bite—
A chair pulls out beside you with a low scrape.
Joo Jaekyung sits down.
Neither of you saw him come in.
He sets a sports drink on the table in front of you like he owns the establishment.
“You skipped your break,” he says, noticing the untouched water beside your book.
Dan blinks. “You were at training.”
“I finished.”
“You live twenty minutes away.”
Jaekyung shrugs slightly. “Traffic was clear.”
Dan stares at him for a moment.
“…You tracked her location again, didn’t you.”
Silence.
Jaekyung calmly opens your textbook, scans the page once, then flips it around toward you.
“You’re memorizing,” he says. “Wrong method.”
You and Dan both look at him.
He taps the page once. “Explain it to me.”
You hesitate. “You won’t understand it.”
“Then you don’t understand it,” he replies simply.
Dan covers a small smile behind his cup.
You attempt to explain anyway — stumbling halfway through, losing your place. Jaekyung doesn’t interrupt, just listens, focused in a way he never is during conversations.
When you finish, he nods once.
“You know it,” he says. “You’re just panicking.”
Dan pushes the pastry a little closer to you again.
“Your exams matter,” he says softly, “but not more than you being okay.”
Jaekyung slides the sports drink toward your hand.
“Drink,” he adds.
A quiet moment settles over the table — rain, warm lights, low music, and the two of them sitting on either side of you like this is the most natural thing in the world.
Dan adjusts your messy notes into a neat pile.
Jaekyung leans back slightly in his chair, arms crossed, watching the window but clearly still listening to every sound you make.
“…We’ll stay until you finish,” Dan says.
Jaekyung nods once.
“Yeah.”