You hadn’t planned on ending up here.

South Korea was supposed to be a break— a gentle pause in the rhythm of life, a chance to breathe somewhere new. You weren’t searching for anything. And yet… you kept catching your breath as if the air itself was whispering something forgotten.

It happened in a quiet alley of Seoul, just off the noise of a street filled with neon haze and sweet tangerine light. The kind of place you find only when you’re not looking. A tiny bookstore with hanging paper lanterns and the soft smell of cedar ink and jasmine tea.

You stepped inside, drawn like a tide pulled by some unseen moon.

And there he was.

A man with raven-streaked hair and storm-touched eyes, tracing the spines of old poetry books like he was searching for a piece of his own heart.

Your eyes met.

Not in a dramatic way, not in fireworks, but in silence. A hush. The kind of silence that feels like a memory. Like you’d waited lifetimes just to find him in this exact moment.

You felt it then. The pull. Like a thread wound tight around your pinky finger—warm, invisible, ancient.

He looked at you the way people look at skies before rain.

As if you carried something holy in your bones. As if he knew. As if he remembered.

“Have we…” he started, but his voice trailed off, like he didn’t want to break the spell.

And neither did you.