The First Heartbeat of My Life
After that, there was never a moment during class where I made eye contact with Shin Hari or spoke with her.
“That concludes today’s lecture.”
The professor’s announcement ended the class.
With that, the first-period liberal arts course was over.
Once the professor left the lecture hall, the room buzzed back to life with chatter.
“Isn’t Senior Shin Hari leaving…?”
“She’s probably walking out with Yeonwoo oppa.”
“...So they really are dating.”
“Ah…”
Most of the attention seemed fixed on Shin Hari.
“...”
But she remained seated, perfectly still, showing no sign of getting up.
She looked lost in thought, or maybe she was simply sitting there.
Scrape.
“I’ll head out first…?”
“...”
I stood from my chair, but Shin Hari didn’t even glance my way.
Strangely, the fact that my heart wasn’t racing made it feel okay, yet part of me felt disappointed.
Why is this happening?
My heart no longer felt like my own.
“...Then I’ll get going.”
I gave a short bow and tried to slip past her toward the exit.
Squeeze.
Shin Hari caught my hand.
Her touch was impossibly soft, and for some reason it felt strangely familiar.
“Senior…?”
“...”
She said nothing.
She simply looked into both of my eyes, yet my heart began to pound as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I was too busy trying to calm it down to notice the desire burning in her crimson gaze.
“What’s going on?”
“...Did Shin Hari just grab Gu Yeonwoo’s hand?”
“No way.”
Since everyone’s eyes had already been on her, the current scene drew every gaze in the room.
Slide.
“It’s nothing. Have a good day.”
After what felt like hours compressed into seconds, she released my hand and gave it a gentle, playful wave.
The faint smile on her lips was something I knew would stay burned into my memory forever.
“...Yes. I’ll get going now.”
“Okay. See you later.”
Later?
A question formed in my mind as I left the lecture hall, but I brushed it aside and headed to the next classroom.
***
By the time all my classes ended, it was already afternoon.
As usual, I was walking back to my studio apartment alone.
“Haah…”
I let out a familiar sigh.
Passing the beautiful grassy area that was a signature of the university campus would lead me to the main gate, and from there it was a short walk home.
How do I even make friends?
Maybe I should ask Yujin for help.
That was when I heard the sharp click of familiar heels. I lifted my head.
“Gu Yeonwoo, right?”
A clear, familiar voice called my name.
“...?”
For a second I wondered if I was seeing things, but she was the only person nearby.
The same white turtleneck I’d seen that morning, a beige coat, jeans, and a face so stunning it seemed to glow.
A figure that naturally drew the eye no matter how hard you tried to look away.
A soft smile and eyes that burned like crimson flames.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Shin Hari… Senior?”
It was Shin Hari, the department goddess whose beauty rivaled a goddess.
“Yes, that’s right.”
She was two years older than me and the undisputed beauty of the business administration department.
“We saw each other earlier, right? I’m Shin Hari.”
The girl with the beautiful name spoke to me directly.
So that’s what she meant by “see you later.”
“...Hello.”
The situation was so unexpected that the words barely came out.
“Hi.”
“Is there… something you need?”
I was so nervous I couldn’t even tell if I sounded calm.
“Ah, it’s nothing serious.”
Shin Hari rummaged through her coat, pulled out her phone, and held it out to me.
“Could you give me your number?”
“...Excuse me?”
I reacted like an idiot because it was the last thing I expected.
I must have heard wrong.
“What did you say?”
“Yeonwoo, give me your number.”
The confident way she repeated it made me blink.
“...Why?”
I couldn’t imagine why she would need it.
At my reaction, she covered her mouth and smiled with her eyes.
Is she even human? Or a doll?
Every small gesture was elegant, and the curve of her eyes seemed to beckon me closer.
I stared at her, completely enchanted.
Thump!
There it goes again.
The mysterious heartbeat snapped me back to reality.
“Why? Because you caught my eye. Don’t you like that?”
“...No, I’ll give it to you.”
When the campus goddess said something like that, who could possibly refuse?
I would have bet Lee Minho’s left arm that refusing would make me the center of every rumor on campus.
Still, I wasn’t giving it to her because I had no choice.
I wanted to give it to her.
I took her phone, typed in my number, and handed it back.
Vibrate.
She tapped the screen, and my own phone buzzed in my pocket.
[Sender: 010-XXXX-XXXX]
“...Is this your number, Senior?”
“Yep. That’s my real one. My real number.”
She emphasized the word “real” for some reason, but I figured it was nothing and let it slide.
I saved the contact as Senior Shin Hari and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
“I should get going.”
She glanced at her watch.
“Ah, yes. Take care.”
“Let’s get along well from now on, okay, Yeonwoo?”
“...Yes.”
She waved and walked away.
“...”
I’d heard that very few people had Shin Hari’s real number, yet I had just exchanged contacts with her.
The fact felt so unreal that I stood there in a daze.
Even when I pinched my cheek, the pain felt real, and a single flower petal drifting down from the sky confirmed that this was, in fact, reality.
But she feels so familiar…
There was no one that beautiful around me, yet I couldn’t shake the strange sense that I already knew her.
Thump! Thump!
My heart refused to stay quiet and pounded even harder.
I need to ask.
Why my heart was racing like this, what Shin Hari was feeling, what I was feeling—I felt like I had to understand everything.
After that, my phone buzzed with notifications, but I shoved it into my pocket and headed home.
There were still two hours until the meeting time.
***
7 p.m. The playground in front of my studio apartment.
“So what’s going on? Huh? Yeonwoo. Why’d you call us out?”
The girl bombarding me with questions while showing off her social-butterfly energy was Han Yujin.
She had the personality and looks that would have made her a perfect idol.
She was Lee Minho’s girlfriend and, like him, a childhood friend from elementary, middle, and high school.
Unfortunately she went to a nearby university, so we only saw each other occasionally, but whenever I called Minho she usually tagged along.
“...One at a time.”
“Why did you text us?”
Yujin asked, her whole body radiating genuine curiosity.
It was fascinating how every emotion showed so clearly on her.
“Didn’t I say?”
“Nope. You always just state your objective and nothing else.”
It was a habit I couldn’t seem to break no matter how hard I tried.
“...Sorry.”
The half-joking criticism made me feel a little guilty.
“I wasn’t looking for an apology. What’s the matter?”
“I gave someone my number.”
“...”
“...”
Both Minho and Yujin, who had been watching me with sparkling eyes, froze with blank expressions.
“...What did you just say?”
“I gave someone my number.”
“You?”
“Yeah.”
“For real?”
At first, neither of them could believe it.
And I understood why.
“You turned down every girl who approached you in high school. And now you’re saying you gave someone your number?”
“Yeah.”
Just like Minho said, I had a somewhat flashy yet not-so-flashy history with that kind of thing.
I felt awkward saying it myself, but I’d been fairly popular in high school.
I received multiple confessions and letters, but I turned them all down because none of them felt right.
So it was only natural that Minho and Yujin couldn’t believe it.
“It’s true.”
“Who did you give it to?”
Once Yujin realized I was serious, she asked with eyes full of anticipation.
“Senior Shin Hari.”
“Who?”
“Shin Ha— What?! Senior Shin Hari?!”
Minho shouted so loudly the entire neighborhood could probably hear.
“Who is that?”
When the now-curious Yujin asked, Minho gave her a quick explanation.
“Oho?”
Yujin looked at me with something like pride and wiped the corner of her eye.
“Sniff. Our Yeonwoo is finally about to start dating.”
“...I only gave her my number.”
Giving someone your number didn’t automatically mean dating.
“Come on, you didn’t give your number to a single girl in high school. If you weren’t interested, you wouldn’t have given it to that senior.”
“...”
She had a point.
So… did that mean I liked her?
“Yeonwoo, what does your heart feel like when you think about her?”
The person who could answer my question was standing right in front of me.
Han Yujin.
With her absurdly high social skills and talent for reading people, she could probably diagnose my condition perfectly.
Swish.
I gazed up at the stars filling the night sky and thought of the senior.
The night sky looked strangely red.
It reminded me of her dazzling crimson eyes looking at me, and my heart fluttered.
“...It races.”
I answered honestly.
“It feels different from when you think of a normal person, right?”
“Yeah. Completely.”
If an ordinary person only gave me a normal feeling, just thinking about the senior made my heart pound.
“That’s what liking someone feels like. Look at you, Yeonwoo—you’ve grown up. You’re even falling in love.”
“...”
My face grew hot at Yujin’s words.
“Gu Yeonwoo, did Senior Shin Hari really ask you for your number?”
Minho, who had been quietly thinking, asked sharply like a detective on a case.
“Yes.”
“Um, Yeonwoo, could you tell us everything that happened from this morning?”
This time Yujin asked like a detective’s assistant.
“Sure.”
It wasn’t difficult.
“In the morning…”
I told them every vivid detail of the day.
She sat next to me in the morning class, approached me after all the lectures when I was heading home, talked to me, and asked for my number first.
And the smile she gave me was so beautiful it still lingered in my mind.
“Doesn’t that mean the senior likes you too?”
Yujin reached a perfectly logical conclusion.
“Why?”
“That smile—it looked like flirting.”
It was the first time I’d heard the word “flirting” come out of the ultra-social Yujin’s mouth.
When I glanced at Minho, he was nodding in agreement.
“What’s flirting?”
“...Right. You’ve never dated anyone.”
They were acting like experts when they’d only ever dated each other since elementary school.
“It’s better than never having tried, Mr. Yeonwoo.”
Yujin smiled with her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“...Guy with nothing but mental strength.”
Minho muttered quietly, but I heard him.
“Thanks.”
“Flirting is when someone tries to seduce you.”
I see.
“So Senior is trying to seduce me?”
“If a senior who doesn’t usually smile is acting like that, then yes, you should assume she’s interested. Go have a beautiful romance. I’m rooting for you. If it’s you, I think you can do it.”
“...”
Romance.
An emotion I had never experienced.
I lifted my head and looked at the night sky again.
Thump!
When I thought of the stars as Shin Hari, my heart began to race.
So this is love…
An incredibly sweet feeling.
I realized that this heartbeat I was experiencing for the first time in my twenty-two years of life was love.
I had fallen for Shin Hari at first sight.
But the person I fell for was the campus goddess, Shin Hari.
She was so captivating that the future looked pitch black.
Does she really like me too…?
In the sky, stars of every color shone brilliantly.
Dozens of them radiated light as if competing to be the brightest, pushing back the darkness.
Yet for some reason, tonight the night sky felt overwhelmingly dark—just like my uncertain heart.