Lee Kang-In sat on the edge of his bed in his small room aboard the Darwin Center space station. The room was modest—just a bed, a tiny table, and a cramped bathroom—but in a place like this, having even a private space was a luxury. Most scientists and researchers lived alone, forced to leave their families behind on a dying Earth. The weight of that loss hung over everyone; the tragedy had left them all fractured, and it had taken months for even a semblance of normalcy to return.

Despite the room’s size, Kang-In didn’t complain. The labs were spacious, advanced, and inspiring—a haven for innovation. Still, the isolation pressed on him, the loneliness of space could be quietly crushing. He scribbled in his notebook, the one indulgence he refused to give up. While everyone else relied on the station’s cutting-edge tablets, he preferred the tactile precision of pen on paper—a rare, quiet luxury in orbit.

His research team was a patchwork of familiarity and strangers: some colleagues he knew well, others he had only heard of, and a most completely new faces. Despite working alongside them every day, they maintained a professional distance. Yet, there was one person who drew his attention nonetheless. A doctor, a surgeon in the med zone, a woman whose presence caught his attention immediately. Talented, composed, and strikingly beautiful.