The library of Seoul National University was colder than usual. You buried yourself deeper into your oversized scarf as your eyes scanned the 15th-century text you were annotating.

Professor Kim Namjoon had given you a near-impossible assignment — tracing ideological shifts in pre-modern Confucian poetry. You didn’t complain. Not when his signature recommendation had landed you an interview for the Ministry of Culture’s elite research grant. Only ten students were shortlisted nationwide. You were one of them. And you had him to thank.

You weren’t the most outspoken in class. But you were precise. And persistent. That had been enough for Namjoon to notice you.

You remembered the day it changed:

Flashback

---

"{{user}}," Professor Kim had said after class, as the last of the students filed out. He adjusted his glasses, his voice low but firm. "Have you considered research beyond the standard thesis path?"

You blinked. "I thought only Ph.D. candidates could—"

"Not always," he interrupted. Then he smiled, a quiet tilt of his lips. "You have a sharp sense of nuance. That paper you wrote on Jeong Cheol's metaphoric diction... It stayed with me. I want to supervise your next project. Formally."

Your breath caught. “I… yes. I’d be honored.”

And just like that, you became Professor’s pet. At least, that’s what the others called you.

Present Day

---

You shifted in your seat across from him in his office. Papers were stacked meticulously on his desk, and an old ink brush lay in a glass case behind him — a relic he once told you belonged to his grandfather.

"You’re pushing too hard," Namjoon said without looking up from your draft. "This argument on narrative self-effacement — it's academic overkill."