The days passed with the rhythm of late summer—the kind that stretches time without anyone noticing.
Minjae walked through it all with steady steps. Always early to class. Always quick to answer. Always present.
And yet, something about him was beginning to shift.
Not outwardly. No one saw it.
But within.
Beneath the calm exterior he wore like second skin, thoughts moved with greater friction. The memory of the dream—of the scorched world, the accusing voice, the reflection—hadn't faded. It hadn't even dulled.
It simply remained.
At lunch one day, Taesung slid a tray across the cafeteria table and dropped into the seat beside him with a groan that turned a few heads.
"Midterms are trying to kill me," he muttered, stabbing at a bowl of overcooked noodles. "I had a dream I failed econ and got exiled to some accounting gulag. Woke up sweating."
Minjae set down his chopsticks. "Accounting gulag?"
"Yeah, you know, where they send the fallen," Taesung said gravely. "No windows. Only spreadsheets."
A breath of amusement flickered in Minjae's throat, but didn't quite surface. Taesung noticed.
"You okay? You've been… I don't know. Quieter than usual."
Minjae blinked. "Am I usually loud?"
"No, but even your silences are usually… focused? Now they're kind of distant. It's like eating next to a ghost."
Minjae offered a thin smile. "I didn't mean to haunt you."
"Well," Taesung said, chewing thoughtfully, "at least you're the polite kind."
A pause stretched.
"I'm serious though," Taesung added, more gently this time. "Everything alright?"
Minjae hesitated. Then nodded once.
"Yes. Just thinking ahead."
Taesung looked unconvinced, but didn't push. "Right. The eternal planner."
Minjae said nothing.
Because he wasn't planning for grades or internships.
Not really.
Later that week, during a group project in Business Strategy, he found himself partnered with Jiha—a quiet girl who always sat near the back, always listened more than she spoke.
As they reviewed slides in the library, the clock ticked with the sleepy rhythm of late afternoon. Sunlight filtered through the windows, golden and slow.
Jiha glanced at him between notes. "You ever get tired of being perfect?"
"I'm not perfect."
"Right," she said, smirking. "Just unusually prepared and vaguely intimidating."
Minjae didn't respond at first. He adjusted a line graph on their deck. Tightened the formatting. Aligned the margins.
"Preparation is how I survive," he said quietly.
Jiha blinked. The smirk faded.
"Damn," she said. "That's a bit heavier than I was ready for."
He looked up. "It wasn't meant to be."
"No," she said. "But I get it."
She didn't elaborate. He didn't ask.
But something passed between them then—not understanding, exactly. Just recognition. The silent kind.
At night, Minjae returned to his other discipline.
Not schoolwork.
But numbers—real ones. Hidden accounts. Quiet investments. Market projections.
He didn't manipulate. Didn't cheat. That would've felt… beneath him.
Instead, he watched. Waited. Shifted when others were still.
2020 was approaching.
He couldn't see its full shape yet, but he could feel the tremors. Not magical ones. Human ones. Markets trembling under the weight of something unseen.
He moved accordingly.
The old instincts never left him. Not entirely.
One evening, after a long session of silent reading, he emerged from his room and handed his mother a prepaid savings card.
Her hands were still damp from washing vegetables. She took the card with confusion.
"What's this?"
"Won a small academic competition," he said easily. "There was a prize."
She stared at it. "Minjae, this is too much."
"I don't spend. You might as well."
From the living room, his father's voice chimed in: "He's frugal. Like his grandfather."
His mother smiled faintly, but her eyes lingered on Minjae. As if trying to read something beneath the surface.
"You've grown fast," she said softly.
"I've just grown quiet," he replied.
She tilted her head. "That too."
And that was how it always went.
Gently. Unquestioned. Unseen.
But not everything could stay unseen.
One evening, as he exited the campus library with the low hum of fluorescent light still in his ears, he passed an open-air photo exhibit. Rows of framed images displayed on simple wooden stands. The theme was Life in Rural Korea, 1970s.
He didn't mean to stop.
But he did.
One photo caught his eye. A boy, no older than ten, stood alone under a crumbling stone archway, clutching a wooden sword. His face was partially in shadow. The background—bare earth and scorched hillside.
Minjae stared.
He didn't know the boy. Had never seen the place.
But something about the posture—the set of the shoulders, the gaze lifted not in fear but in defiance—touched a wire deep in his memory.
He didn't remember the village's name.
But he remembered what it cost to save it.
The blade. The choice. The sorrow afterward.
A village burned to protect what little could be preserved. A child left behind to carry memory like a torch.
He exhaled slowly. As if the wind might carry the memory away again.
But it never did.
Time did not move in straight lines.
Not when memory remained.
Back in his room, Minjae stood by the window.
The city sprawled outward, glittering and indifferent.
Lights blinked like stars that had forgotten how to burn.
He pressed a hand lightly to the glass, feeling its coolness.
"If there's no magic," he murmured, "why does it still hurt?"
No answer came.
Only the soft rustle of curtains and the steady, distant hum of a world continuing.
As it always did.