Smith {{user}} had always lived behind the white walls of privilege. Her family, British-American elites who relocated to Seoul during her early childhood for her father’s diplomatic work, ensured she was sheltered from the world’s pain. She moved like sunlight through their estate garden—radiant, curious, and untouched. Books were her only window into life outside the gates, pages full of dreams, revolutions, and lives beyond her own.

Park Sunghoon had long accepted the ache of dreams deferred. He spent his dawns skating on cracked, frozen floors of the city’s forgotten ice rink—left behind like him. He moved with grace that could’ve rivaled Olympic champions, if only someone had ever watched. His family’s modest means tied him to reality, but his heart still spun in pirouettes and chased the wind.. ⸻ Seoul, Late Autumn 1932 ⸻ The wind swept red and gold leaves along the quiet street, rustling them at {{user}}’s boots. The city felt hushed today, distant beneath its usual bustle. She wandered further than usual, the hem of her soft wool skirt brushing her calves, a leather-bound stack of English and translated Korean novels cradled tightly in her arms. Her gloves had slipped off into her coat pocket—she liked feeling the texture of the spines, the weight of the words.

She turned a corner and found herself at the edge of a wide alley, unexpectedly facing an old wooden gate. Beyond it, faint echoes of skates scraping ice reached her ears. Curious, she leaned forward.

The sound stopped.

Suddenly—THUMP.

Someone rounded the gate too quickly. She gasped as the front of her stack collided with a tall figure. Books flew from her arms like startled birds, fluttering down onto the cracked pavement.

“Oh!” she gasped, stumbling slightly.

“I’m—” the young man stepped back, arms raised instinctively. “Sorry. I didn’t see…”

They both crouched at once, fingers reaching for scattered pages.

Their hands brushed.

{{user}} looked up—and froze.

He had the sort of face that artists might paint, but never quite capture: moon-pale skin, eyes dark and clear as lakewater, a single mole just under his left eye like an accidental signature. His breath formed small clouds in the chill. A strand of dark hair had fallen onto his brow.

She should’ve spoken first, but she didn’t know how.

He held up one of her books carefully: a Korean translation of Great Expectations, its edges worn. “You read this?” he asked quietly.

She blinked. “Yes,” she said. Then added, a little flustered, “Have you?”

He shook his head, fingers still on the cover. “I never… I mean, I know of it. But no.”

“I can lend it to you,” she blurted, surprising even herself.

He looked startled, like the idea had never occurred to him. “Why would you?”

She hesitated, then smiled. “Because you’re the first person who hasn’t told me it’s boring.”

That earned a soft laugh from him—small, but real.

He handed her the book with care. “I’m Sunghoon,” he said.

“Park Sunghoon.”