Chapter 1 - Easier with Company
Esme stood at the corner of an unfamiliar street, phone in one hand, the other gripping the strap of her tote bag a little too tightly. The signs above her were in Korean, and even though she’d been studying the language for over a year, the characters seemed to blur together the longer she stared at them. She had turned down the wrong alley somewhere near the last café, and now none of the landmarks she had memorized were where they were supposed to be.
Seoul in early autumn was cool and gold-lit, the kind of weather that would have felt beautiful if she weren’t quietly panicking.
She had almost decided to sit down on a bench and try to translate a map when someone walked past her, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. She startled, took a small step back, and looked up.
He was tall. Not unusually so, but taller than her by a comfortable margin, and there was something about the way he stood that made her feel like the ground beneath him was steadier than the rest of the sidewalk. Dark hair, calm eyes, a plain jacket. He had already half turned, checking on her without making a scene of it.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, in Korean, then switched, unsure which he would prefer. “I’m sorry. Hi. I’m lost. I don’t know where to head to take the subway to go back to where I live.”
He did not look impatient. He did not even look surprised. He simply paused, hands going into his jacket pockets, and studied her for a second the way someone studies a problem they already know how to solve.
“Where do you live?” His Korean was gentle, unhurried.
“Yongsan.”
“I live in that area.” A small nod, like this was already settled. “Follow me.”
Relief broke over her so quickly she almost laughed. “Thank you. I—” She adjusted the strap on her shoulder, cheeks warming. “I was shy to ask for help.”
His mouth moved, not quite a smile, but something close to it. Amused, maybe. Or just softer than a second ago. He started walking at a pace that was clearly slower than his natural stride, and she fell into step beside him.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Esme Navarro.” She glanced up at him. “And you?”
“Seo Minjae.”
“Nice to meet you, Minjae.” His name felt careful in her mouth, like something she wanted to say correctly the first time.
They walked in silence for a few steps. Not awkward. Just quiet. He wasn’t the kind of person who filled space for the sake of it, she could tell that already. He waited to see if she wanted to talk, and she found that she did.
“Did you just move here?” he asked.
“Yes.” She nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I got into Seoul National University. I didn’t want to live close to it, though.”
He glanced down at her, waiting.
“There’s a cemetery nearby.” She said it very seriously. “Not going to happen. What if at night I see a ghost?”
For a beat, Minjae just looked at her.
Then his shoulders shook, once, and the almost-smile from before finally landed—small, real, at the corner of his mouth. It was the kind of smile that felt like a reward, like she had gotten past something without knowing there was a wall.
“A ghost,” he repeated, deadpan.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not.” He was, a little. His voice stayed calm and low. “That’s a very practical reason to choose an apartment.”
“It is practical,” she insisted, and now she was fighting her own smile. “You don’t understand. I would never sleep. I would move back to California within the week.”
“Then Yongsan is the right choice.” He said it seriously, like he was validating an important decision, and she wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or genuinely agreeing. Maybe both. She liked that she couldn’t quite tell.
They reached the corner. He tilted his head toward the crosswalk. “This way. The station’s about five minutes.”
“Okay.” She kept close to his side, matching his pace. The unfamiliar city felt a little less sharp with him next to her. “Thank you, really. I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You would have figured it out.” He didn’t look at her when he said it, but his voice was warm in that even, understated way that she was already starting to recognize as his. “But it’s easier with company.”
Esme glanced up at him, at the clean line of his profile against the late afternoon light, and thought, quietly, that she agreed.
They walked another half block before she spoke again, glancing sideways at him.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Oh.” She tilted her head, thinking. “I thought we would be the same age. I’m eighteen.”
He looked down at her, and there was something faintly amused in his eyes, though his face stayed calm. “You look younger than eighteen.”
“I get that a lot.” She wrinkled her nose, not offended, just used to it. “It’s the cheeks.”
His mouth twitched. He didn’t answer.
They crossed at the light, his hand moving instinctively to hover near her elbow without touching it, guiding her without making it obvious. She noticed. She didn’t say anything.
“What are you studying?” he asked.
“Business.”
He nodded once, taking it in the way he seemed to take in everything—quietly, no follow-up questions unless she offered more.
“Are you in university?” she asked.
“No.” A short pause. “I’m a trainee.”
She stopped walking for half a second before catching up to him. “Like a K-pop idol?”
“Not yet. Trainee.”
“You know—” She hesitated, then laughed softly at herself. “You know about K-pop?”
“I hope so.”
She laughed again, this time a real one, and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “No, I meant—sorry. I meant, that’s why I chose Seoul. K-pop. I wanted to know more about the culture.” She glanced up at him, a little sheepish. “Even though I don’t really like Korean food. It’s fine. I was raised on Mexican food, so I guess I just got used to that.”
He raised an eyebrow, faint.
“Don’t judge me,” she said quickly.
“I’m not judging you.”
“Your eyebrow is judging me.”
“My eyebrow is neutral.”
She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, and he looked ahead again, the corner of his mouth doing that thing where it lifted without quite committing to a smile.
“So when are you debuting?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” His voice stayed even, but there was something underneath it she couldn’t quite read. Not sadness. Just weight. Something he lived with.
She nodded slowly, letting it sit for a second, and then said, softer, “Well, I hope you debut. And I hope your group does good.”
He looked at her then, actually looked. Not a glance, not a check-in—looked. Only for a second, but long enough that she felt it in her chest before he turned his eyes back to the sidewalk.
“Thank you,” he said.
She wasn’t sure why her face felt warm.
The subway was crowded in the polite, patient way Seoul subways always were. Esme stood next to him, holding onto the pole, her tote bag pressed against her hip. He stood beside her without holding on to anything, one hand loose at his side, perfectly balanced with the movement of the train.
She kept sneaking glances at his reflection in the dark window across from them. He was watching the map above the doors. Or maybe he was watching her watch him. She couldn’t tell.
The train jolted once, and her hand slipped a little on the pole. His hand came up—not to grab her, just to hover near her back, ready, and then dropped again once she steadied. He didn’t comment on it. She didn’t either. But her heart did something small and stupid anyway.
When they stepped off at Yongsan, the evening air had cooled. The station was busy, the sky above the exit turning that soft dusty blue that came just before the streetlights took over.
Esme pulled out her phone and squinted at the map, turning slowly on the sidewalk to orient herself.
“I got it from here,” she said, giving him a small smile. “Thank you, Minjae. Have a good night.”
She started walking.
Minjae stood at the top of the station stairs for a moment, hands in his pockets, and watched her go. Her tote bag bounced lightly against her hip. She turned the wrong corner almost immediately, then doubled back, checking her phone, before turning down the correct street with the concentrated seriousness of someone pretending she had known all along.
He almost called out after her. He didn’t.
But he watched until she disappeared around the bend, and only then did he turn and start walking in the other direction, toward the dorm, the corner of his mouth still doing that quiet, unfinished thing.
Esme let herself into the small building, the door clicking softly behind her, and climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor. Her apartment was the last one at the end of the hall. She stopped in front of the door, tapped 0-3-2-2 into the keypad, her birthday, easy to remember, and waited for the soft beep before pushing it open.
Inside, she toed off her shoes and set them neatly on the low rack by the door, and the quiet of the apartment settled around her like a small exhale.
It was not big. Two bedrooms, a compact kitchen with pale wood cabinets, and a dining table meant for four tucked against the wall near the window. But it was hers, and she liked it. She liked the way the late light came in through the sheer curtains, softening the whole room in a wash of pale gold. She liked the smell of new linen and the faint trace of the citrus cleaner the landlord had used before she moved in. She liked that it was small enough to feel manageable, and just big enough not to feel lonely.
The bathroom, though. The bathroom was going to be a problem.
She flicked the light on and looked at it the way she had been looking at it since she moved in three days ago, with a kind of resigned bewilderment. The showerhead was mounted to the wall above the sink, the drain was set into the middle of the tiled floor, and there was no separation between the wet part and the not wet part. In California, she had grown up with proper bathtubs, glass shower doors, dry counters, dry floors. Here, everything got wet. The toilet paper had to live inside a little plastic cover so it wouldn’t get splashed. It felt like the room was daring her to make a mess.
She sighed, pulled her hair up into a loose knot on top of her head, and took a quick shower, keeping the spray angled carefully away from the mirror. The water was warm and it eased the last of the tightness out of her shoulders. She stepped out onto the little mat she had bought, dried off, and pulled on a soft cotton t shirt and a pair of gray sweats that had traveled with her all the way from Los Angeles.
Her vanity was set up in the corner of her bedroom, a small white desk with a round mirror and her skincare arranged the way she liked it. She sat down, wiped her face with toner on a cotton pad, patted in her essence, then her serum, then moisturizer, working through the steps slowly, the way she always did at night. It was one of the few routines that felt exactly the same here as it had at home.
When she was done, she reached for her phone and video called her dad.
He answered on the second ring, his face filling the screen, the familiar warmth of the kitchen back home visible behind him.
“Mija.”
“Hi, Papi.”
“There you are. How did today go?” He shifted, adjusting his phone against something on the counter, and she could hear the faint sound of a pan in the background. Her mom’s voice somewhere further off.
“It was good. I just got back from orientation.”
“Yeah? Long day?”
“Kind of. There was a lot of walking.” She curled her legs up under her on the chair. “I’m about to make a quesadilla.”
“That’s my girl.” He smiled. “You have cheese already?”
“Yes, Papi, I have cheese.”
“The right kind?”
“I found some. It’s not the same but it works.”
He shook his head, mock serious. “We’ll send you a package.”
She laughed softly. “You don’t need to send me a package.”
“We’re sending you a package.”
Behind him, her mother’s voice called something in Spanish, and her dad turned his head, answered, then turned back to the camera.
“Your mom says eat something real, not just a quesadilla.”
“A quesadilla is real.”
“She says vegetables.”
“Tell her there’s cheese. Cheese is a food group.”
He laughed at that, the deep, familiar laugh that always made her chest feel a little softer, and for a moment she just looked at him, at the kitchen behind him, at the shape of home on the other side of the world.
“I should let you eat,” he said. “Call us tomorrow?”
“I will.”
“Te amo, mija.”
“Te amo, Papi.”
She sat with the phone in her hands for a moment after he hung up, the screen going dark, and then she stood up, padded barefoot into the little kitchen, and started pulling out the tortillas and cheese.
The next morning, Esme woke to the sound of her alarm and immediately knew she was going to be late.
She had hit snooze at least twice, maybe three times, and now the clock on her nightstand read a number that made her stomach drop. She scrambled out of bed, splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth in about forty seconds, and started pulling clothes out of her drawer without really looking at them.
Navy blue cap. Gray sweatshirt. Jeans. Sneakers. She grabbed her tote bag with the little cherries printed on the side, stuffed her notebook and pencil case inside, slung it over her shoulder, and was out the door before the keypad had finished beeping behind her.
Seoul in the morning was a different city. The streets that had felt gold and slow the evening before were now sharp with cool air and moving fast, everyone with somewhere to be, coffee cups and briefcases and students with backpacks all threading through each other at the crosswalks. Esme pulled the brim of her cap lower over her eyes and picked up her pace, checking the time on her phone every few seconds, doing quick math in her head about how many minutes she had lost and whether she could make them up if the subway came right away.
She was almost to the intersection when she saw him.
Minjae was standing on the opposite corner, waiting for the light. He was not alone. There were six other boys with him, all around his age, all in casual jackets and caps of their own, some with earphones in, one of them laughing at something another had said. Even in a group, he was easy to pick out. It was the way he stood. That same steady, grounded stillness she had noticed yesterday, the one that made everyone around him seem slightly more animated by comparison.
Her steps slowed for half a second.
He did not see her. He was looking at one of the boys next to him, saying something short, his expression calm and attentive, the way he had been with her when she had asked for directions. The tallest of the group was leaning down to hear him better. Another one, shorter, was bouncing on the balls of his feet like he could not stand still.
She felt something small and warm and embarrassing flutter in her chest, and immediately looked down at the pavement.
She did not wave. She did not call his name. She was late, and she was in a cap and sweatshirt with her hair barely brushed, and he was with his group, and this was not the moment. She adjusted her tote bag on her shoulder, tucked her chin, and cut left, aiming for the subway station entrance.
The stairs down were crowded, but she moved with the flow, one hand on the railing, phone in the other, and did not let herself look back at the intersection even once.
By the time she reached the platform, the train was already pulling in. She slipped inside just before the doors closed and found a spot near the pole, her heart still beating a little too fast, and she was not entirely sure how much of that was the running and how much of it was him.
She pulled her cap a little lower and stared at her sneakers all the way to her stop.
By the time Esme made it to the lecture hall, the room was already almost full. She slipped in through the back door as quietly as she could, cheeks warm, and looked around for a seat. Most of the good spots near the front were gone, and clusters of students had already claimed the middle rows with their bags and jackets spread out beside them.
She found an empty seat in the very back row, near the aisle, and slid into it with a small apologetic breath. A few students glanced up when she sat down, but none of them lingered. She was grateful for that. She kept her cap on, tugged it a little lower, and pulled her tablet and stylus out of her tote bag.
The professor was already talking, his voice steady and measured, the slides on the projector filled with the fundamentals of introductory business theory. Esme opened a fresh note page, dated it neatly at the top, and started writing. Her Korean was intermediate, and it took her a beat longer than the students around her to process some of the terms, but she had prepared for that. She wrote in a mix of Korean and English, mostly English, letting the shape of her notes be practical rather than pretty. When she did not know a word, she jotted the Korean sound down phonetically in the margin so she could look it up later.
Her handwriting on the tablet was small and careful. She underlined things. She circled things. She drew tiny arrows connecting one idea to another. Every so often she paused, tapped the stylus against her lip, then wrote again.
The ninety minutes went faster than she expected. When the professor dismissed them, she stayed in her seat for a moment, letting the crowd file out first, saving her notes and tucking her tablet back into her bag.
Outside, the campus was full of that specific mid morning energy she was starting to recognize, students clustered on benches, groups of friends walking together, someone strumming a guitar under a tree near the science building. Esme walked past all of it with her cap still low, her tote bag against her hip, and made her way to the little café tucked between two of the university buildings that she had scouted on her first day.
She ordered a honeydew boba, extra pearls, and a small pistachio macaron in a paper sleeve. The barista smiled at her when she paid, and Esme returned it, the shy, quick kind of smile she gave to strangers who were kind.
With her drink in one hand and the macaron balanced on top of her tablet in the other, she walked to the library.
The library was quiet in the good way, the kind of quiet that made her shoulders drop the moment she stepped inside. She took the elevator to the third floor, where the individual study desks were, and found an empty one by the window. She set her boba down carefully to one side, took the tiniest bite of her macaron, and let the pistachio taste sit on her tongue for a second before she opened her tablet again.
Her first assignment was already posted on the class portal. A short reading response, and a set of introductory questions about business ethics. She scrolled through the reading first, took a slow sip of her boba, and started to work.
Outside the window, the afternoon light shifted slowly across the courtyard. Inside, Esme worked without looking up, the cherries on her tote bag pressed against the side of her chair, her stylus moving quietly across the screen.
For the first time all day, she felt calm.
Esme had two more lectures that afternoon.
She sat near the back for both of them. She took her notes carefully, the same way she always did, dating the top of the page and writing in her small, tidy handwriting. She raised her hand once, to answer a question she was sure about, and the professor nodded at her approvingly. A few heads turned when she spoke, her accent softer than the students around her, more American than she could ever quite hide, and she felt the weight of those glances even after she had lowered her hand.
Between lectures she tried. She really did.
She smiled at the girl sitting next to her when they were packing up. The girl smiled back, polite, and then turned to her friend and started talking to her instead. In the hallway, a group of students were laughing about something, and Esme slowed her steps a little, hoping maybe someone would say hi, or ask her a question, or notice her the way people used to notice her back home. But they did not. They just kept laughing among themselves, and Esme kept walking, adjusting the strap of her tote bag on her shoulder.
It was not that people were mean. That was the thing she kept coming back to. No one was rude to her. No one said anything unkind. It was just that she was clearly not from here, and she could feel the small distance that opened up around her every time she walked into a room. People looked at her a beat longer than they looked at each other. Their eyes traveled over her face, her hair, the shape of her, and then flicked away when she noticed. It was not hostile. It was just constant.
In California, no one had ever really looked at her twice. She had been another girl in another crowd, one of many. Her family was well known in certain circles, but on the street, in a coffee shop, in a lecture hall, she had been ordinary. Blended in. Nobody had ever turned to watch her walk past.
Here, she was a foreigner before she was anything else. It came before her name, before her voice, before her major, before anything she actually was. It was the first thing anyone saw, and sometimes the only thing.
She told herself it would get better. She told herself it was still her first week. She told herself she was being oversensitive, that of course people looked at her, she looked different, that was not a bad thing, it was just a thing.
But by the time her last lecture ended and she stepped out into the late afternoon light, her shoulders felt heavier than they had that morning.
She walked to the subway with her cap pulled low again, her tote bag against her hip, her tablet held close to her chest. The station was even more crowded than it had been in the morning. Rush hour was starting to build, and by the time her train arrived, the platform was three deep with people waiting to get on.
The doors opened. A wave of bodies moved forward, and Esme moved with them, tucked in tight, her arms pressed close to her sides. She had learned already, in only a few days, that hesitation on a Seoul subway was not really an option. If you paused, the crowd flowed around you and you missed the train.
Inside, it was worse.
She was pressed shoulder to shoulder with strangers on every side, her tote bag squished against her hip, her cheek nearly against the back of a taller man’s coat. Someone’s backpack was pressing into her lower back. A woman’s shopping bag brushed her thigh with every small shift of the train. The air was warm with too many people breathing in the same enclosed space, and every time the car took a curve, everyone leaned in the same direction like one single body.
She managed to grab onto the pole with one hand, gripping it tight, her knuckles going a little pale. She did not know how the people around her could stand without holding anything. Some of them were on their phones, thumbs scrolling, not even looking up. One older man had his eyes closed, swaying gently with the movement of the train like he was half asleep. A businesswoman stood balanced on high heels with a coffee in one hand and did not so much as tilt when the train jerked.
Esme, meanwhile, felt like a single hard brake would send her flying into three different strangers.
The train slowed sharply at the next station and she stumbled, her sneakers sliding half an inch on the smooth floor. She caught herself on the pole and let out a small embarrassed breath. Nobody noticed. Or if they did, no one showed it.
She held on tighter after that, both hands, and kept her eyes fixed on the little map above the door, counting the stops between her and Yongsan.
Sardines, she thought. That was the word for it. Everyone squeezed in like sardines, and the train moving fast enough to make her stomach lift a little on the curves.
By the time her stop came, she was more than ready to get off. She slipped out with the flow of people, felt the cool evening air hit her face at the top of the stairs, and let out a long, slow breath.
The walk home from the station was short. She did not get lost this time. She kept her cap low, her tote bag close, and did not look at anyone, and no one looked back at her, and for the length of those five quiet blocks, she was just a girl going home.
Esme almost passed the convenience store without going in.
She had already had a long day, and part of her just wanted to get home, kick off her sneakers, and lie face down on her bed for a minute. But she remembered she had nothing sweet in the apartment, and the thought of doing more homework without something sweet next to her felt harder than it needed to be. She backtracked a few steps and pushed the door open.
The little bell chimed above her. The store was cool and bright, that specific fluorescent kind of bright that Korean convenience stores did so well, everything organized in neat, colorful rows. She adjusted her cap and started down the first aisle, tote bag on her shoulder.
Halfway toward the drinks fridge, she saw him.
Minjae was standing near the counter with his back to her, a cap pulled low over his eyes, a hoodie, sweats, sneakers. He looked casual in the way he had looked yesterday, like he was not trying to be seen. He was alone this time. No group. Just him, setting a couple of things down on the counter for the clerk to scan.
Esme’s steps slowed for a half beat.
She was almost tempted to turn around and pretend she had forgotten something, but that felt silly. He was just a person. She was just a person. She was allowed to buy grapes.
She kept walking, keeping her cap low too, and made her way through the store. Green grapes from the little chilled produce section. An orange soda from the drinks fridge, cold in her hand. A bag of gummies from the candy shelf, the fruit shaped ones she liked. She gathered them all against her chest and came back toward the counter.
Minjae was still there, finishing up. She stepped into line behind him, close enough to see the edge of his hoodie, the calm line of his shoulders. He was paying with his phone, the small chime of the transaction going through, and the clerk handed him his small plastic bag with a polite nod.
He turned to leave.
And saw her.
There was a small pause, just a beat, where his eyes settled on her face under the brim of her cap. She could tell the exact moment he recognized her, because something in his expression softened, went a shade warmer, though his mouth did not move.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” Her voice came out quieter than she meant it to.
She stepped forward and set her things on the counter, feeling suddenly very aware of the fact that her purchases were grapes, orange soda, and gummies, and that his had probably been something reasonable. She kept her eyes on the clerk while her items were scanned, tapped her card to the reader, and gathered her little bag.
When she turned toward the door, he was still there, waiting, holding the door open with one hand.
She stepped outside. The evening air felt cooler after the bright inside of the store. He let the door fall closed behind them, and they stood together on the sidewalk for a second under the yellow glow of the streetlight.
“Didn’t get lost today,” he said.
She smiled a little, glancing down at her sneakers. “No.”
“That’s progress.”
“Barely.”
His mouth did that almost smile thing again, the one that never quite committed but always felt like something.
“How are you liking Seoul?” he asked.
She thought about it. About the crowded lecture halls, the polite distance in the hallways, the sardine subway, the strangers who looked at her too long.
“It’s okay.”
He glanced down at her, one brow lifting slightly under the brim of his cap. “Just okay? A lot of people want to live in Seoul.”
She shrugged, holding her little plastic bag with both hands in front of her. “It’s too crowded. And sometimes it smells like sewer.”
He blinked. Then, for the first time since she had met him, he actually laughed. Not loudly. A soft, surprised sound low in his chest, the kind of laugh that seemed to catch him off guard. His shoulders shook once, just once, and he shook his head like he had not expected her to say that.
“The city developed fast,” he said, once he had settled. “It has an old sewer system.”
“I know.” She glanced up at him from under her cap. “I read about it.”
That got another small huff of amusement from him, quieter this time. He was watching her with something almost like interest now, the way he had watched her yesterday when she said the ghost line. Like he was recalibrating something. Like she kept turning out to be a little different from what he had first assumed.
She shifted her weight, suddenly aware of how long they had been standing there.
“I have to go,” she said, adjusting the bag in her hands. “I have homework.”
“Okay.”
“Nice to see you, Minjae.”
“You too.”
She gave him a small, quick smile, ducked her head, and started walking. She made it almost half a block before she risked a glance back.
He was still standing there under the streetlight, hands in his hoodie pockets, watching her go. When their eyes met across the distance, he did not look away. He just tilted his head, once, in a small nod.
She turned back around and kept walking, and this time her chest did that stupid, quiet thing again.
