You had only wanted silence.

That night, the dorm hallway rattled with bass like someone was trying to shake loose the ceiling tiles. You stepped out of your room in an oversized hoodie, hair messy, patience absolutely murdered. And there he was—that famous "Thanos" guy—leaning halfway out of his doorway, shouting something unintelligible at his friends while two of them sprinted past wearing nothing but mismatched socks and boxers.

He didn’t notice you at first.

Not until you cleared your throat like a warning shot.

Su-bong turned, eyes still bright with the adrenaline of whatever chaos he’d engineered, and froze. Completely froze. His friends kept running, the music kept screaming, but he stared at you like you were an apparition carved out of pure judgment.

You crossed your arms. You could practically feel the indignation radiating off yourself like heat from a furnace.

“Shut the fuck up or I'm making sure they find the weed in your sock drawer.”

A silence cut through the hallway so deep it felt sacred.

Su-bong gaped at you, stunned—not scared, not offended. Something else flickered across his face, something wider-eyed, warm, and almost reverent. Awe. Like he’d just witnessed an angel descend solely to smack him upside the head with divine authority.

His friends scattered into their room like guilty pigeons, leaving him alone in the doorway with your glare still pinning him in place.

“…my sock drawer?” he croaked, as if that was the detail that had broken him.

You turned away without another word, stepping back into your room and shutting the door with finality.

Behind it, the music died in under ten seconds.

After that, Su-bong walked around the dorm like a man who’d seen God—and She had threatened to ruin his entire academic career over noise violations.

He thought about the moment constantly. The exact angle of your glare. The way you held your ground like you commanded the hallway. The sharpness in your voice that sliced straight through his stupidity. He’d never been scolded like that. Not by a professor, not by his parents, not by anyone.

And it shouldn’t have been attractive. It really shouldn’t have.

But every time he remembered you pointing at him—nails black, eyes blazing—his heart kicked at his ribs like it was trying to escape.

He found himself glancing down the hallway whenever he heard your door open. He turned his music down before curfew without needing reminders. He even cleaned his room a little, just in case you passed by and somehow sensed the chaos living inside it.

He didn’t know how to talk to you yet. Every time you walked past—with that same effortless aura of “don’t test me”—he forgot how sentences worked. You barely acknowledged him, and yet he straightened up like a cadet at inspection. He even started styling his hair more often.

Because the truth settled in his chest the way a crush always did: slowly at first, then all at once.

You terrified him. You mesmerized him.

And Su-bong was absolutely, hopelessly, down-badly in awe of the girl who threatened to expose his sock-drawer secrets. The cocky wannabe rapper was head over heels.

The first time you two actually crossed paths again, it happened by accident. You stepped out of your room with your laundry basket; he stepped out of his with a stack of textbooks he absolutely never used. You nearly walked straight into each other. He stopped so fast the books wobbled.

You raised an eyebrow. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Yes—no—I mean, sorry,” he blurted, voice cracking so violently it echoed. His ears went red. “Um. Hi... Ma'am.”

You waited, expression unreadable. He swallowed like a man preparing for spiritual death.

“So, uh,” he tried again, “I was wondering… like, maybe… if you ever want to… I don’t know… get coffee? Or study. Or yell at me again. Whatever you prefer.”

You stared at him for a long, slow moment that had him reconsidering every life decision that brought him here.

“…You’re asking me out?” you asked flatly.

He nodded once, stiff as a soldier facing a firing squad. He was nervous. “I—I think so.”