A Strange Color in the Corner
Dong-oh turned his feet and headed toward the Student Union Building to kill time. He was pondering where and how to spend the suddenly freed two hours when the cold 100-won coin he had picked up on the street earlier was already wiped clean from his mind. No, he hadn’t even noticed it. Just like that.
The large cafe on the first floor of the Student Union Building was packed far more than usual at this hour. Students who had just learned of the unexpected class cancellation were flooding in, lost and clinging together like a pack.
The line for drinks stretched past the counter glass and spilled out the door. People holding trays wandered through the cafe corners like hyenas, snatching empty seats. Dong-oh ordered the cheapest iced Americano from the kiosk. He wasn’t drinking it for the deep aroma; he needed at least one to look normal while securing a spot and wasting the rest of the time on the best value.
Scanning the inner space with sharp eyes, he found a miracle—a tiny two-person wooden table tucked between the big glass windows and thick concrete pillars. Two old chairs faced each other, but the space was so cramped that adult knees would touch. Still, Dong-oh felt it was perfect. It was hidden enough to avoid notice yet offered a full view of the entire cafe.
He set his bag on the chair, sat deep into the seat, and pulled out his smartphone. He scrolled through portal news and community posts without any real purpose until an unknown app notification popped up. He habitually frowned and closed it. No interest whatsoever. He popped the straw into his mouth and stared blankly into the noise, eyes half-lidded.
Then, a face appeared in his peripheral vision at a table by the window not far away. It was too familiar, too conspicuous to ignore. Seo-yoon. The beautiful junior in his department, two years younger. They had been exchanging occasional messages since accidentally pairing up for a group project in the infamous major course last semester. It was nothing special—just assignment updates, registration tips, or bookstore recommendations. To Dong-oh, who kept his circle narrow and dry, that level of interaction was already more than generous.
Seo-yoon sat alone at the best-lit window seat, notebook and thick major textbooks scattered under sticky cute stickers, white wireless earphones in one ear, eyes focused on the screen. She gently tucked her long falling hair behind her ear with delicate fingers while writing seriously. The sight was both earnest and beautiful. Dong-oh stared at her without thinking, or rather, mesmerized. No, there was thought—barely. ‘She’s pretty today too.’ The admiration that rose from the deepest part of his chest was all there was. He couldn’t approach her right now, not with feigned friendliness, not even a word. He didn’t want to disturb her focus, and he certainly didn’t want to force their current safe senior-junior distance into something more dangerous. Unrequited love was a forever-lost game if you never confessed. He knew that all too well. So he preferred to keep the faint possibility alive at a safe distance rather than face the certain tragedy of a broken relationship.
Just then, a tall, flashy guy in a premium shirt stopped in front of Seo-yoon’s table. He looked warm with neatly oiled hair and a broad smile. In one hand he held two expensive coffees, the kind bought at the counter. He spoke gently, and Seo-yoon startled, pulling out her earphone to look up. From afar Dong-oh thought maybe she knew him, but her expression soon hardened. She forced a smile, yet it wasn’t warm. It was the cold rejection smile forced for social niceties, the corners only technically lifted. The guy ignored her clear refusal, slid her chair with a screech, and plopped down anyway. He pushed one coffee toward her laptop and started conversing as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Seo-yoon waved her hands in discomfort. The guy didn’t care and pushed the coffee closer again. She pointed at the screen and muttered something about needing to finish an important assignment right away. The guy still didn’t back off. Instead he leaned in, elbows on the table, pressing closer. Dong-oh, watching from the corner in real time, accidentally bit down hard on the straw in his mouth, crushing it. ‘Is he clueless, or is he pretending to be while pushing?’ The cafe noise drowned out their voices, but Dong-oh didn’t need to hear. Seo-yoon kept rejecting him sharply and firmly, multiple times. The guy kept talking longer and longer, refusing to let the conversation slip away. Seo-yoon’s smooth forehead tightened just a fraction. That was the exact moment. A bizarre phenomenon caught Dong-oh’s eyes. Something unseen wavered and shimmered near Seo-yoon’s white shoulder like a mirage. At first he thought it was just sunlight reflection off the windows and laptop screen causing optical illusion. Wide morning light hitting transparent glass and the smooth silver screen could dazzle tired eyes. That kind of trick was easy to fall for when staring blankly for too long without thinking. But soon Dong-oh sensed something seriously wrong. The air around her delicate body was turning murky, darkening with a strange purplish-red light, seeping and spreading like one drop of purple dye in clear water. Ghostly, formless color drifted around her shoulders and soft hair. Dong-oh rubbed his eyes hard with his hand, doubting his own vision, and opened them again. The murky purple flow didn’t vanish. If anything, when the guy opened his mouth to speak again, the color thickened and grew denser. Even darker red fragments mixed in like emotional sludge. Seo-yoon’s slender fingers froze on the keyboard. The forced smile vanished completely. The corners stayed awkwardly upturned, but her eyes turned icy and rigid. The strangest part was the edge of the purple aura around her sharpening like sharp thorns or needles, thrusting forward, then blurring and swaying back and forth. ‘What the hell is that? My eyes… what happened to them?’ Dong-oh shifted his upper body to change viewing angles. If the color was just sunlight reflection, it should move or disappear with the observer’s gaze and position. But the bizarre purplish flow moved in perfect sync with Seo-yoon’s every motion, as if glued to her. When she turned her head, the color followed. The denser and darker it grew the more the guy leaned in. Dong-oh turned his head in confusion, desperately scanning the other people in the cafe. No one else had any such color—neither the students waiting for orders nor the staff serving. The fluorescent ceiling lights were still bright white, the sunlight outside perfectly normal visible spectrum. Only Seo-yoon and the space around her were stained with impossible colors. When he looked back, the guy was now openly holding up his latest smartphone on the table, clearly demanding her personal contact like everyone could see it was his. Seo-yoon glanced coldly at the screen for a split second. In that instant the red thorns shot higher and sharper through the purple fog, like suppressed rage bursting through the surface. Seo-yoon shook her head decisively. “Sorry.” Her voice rang out sharp and loud, carrying clearly across the cafe to Dong-oh’s corner. “I really need to finish an important assignment right now. I’d appreciate it if you’d go.” Her tone was ice-cold, no trace of the polite smile left. The words were polite, but the tone left no millimeter of room for him. The guy’s face crumpled instantly, then hardened. He glanced around at the staring eyes, looked embarrassed, and stood up abruptly. He grabbed his coffee and muttered something reluctant as he left. Seo-yoon let out a deep, small sigh, shoulders slumping. The very moment she sighed, the murky purple fog around her entire body thinned rapidly like magic. The sharp red thorn-like lights dissolved into smoke and vanished into the air. Dong-oh, watching the entire surreal change from start to finish in the corner, sat frozen like stone, straw still in his mouth. ‘Could it be… the true nature of those colors?’ Disgust. Extreme irritation. Strong wariness and rejection toward the person. The few emotion words that flashed in his sharp mind overlapped perfectly with the murky purple and red shapes swirling around Seo-yoon moments ago. ‘Could… human emotions appear to me as colors and shapes?’ As a twenty-first-century modern who worshipped science and reason, this was an absurd, illogical thought he could never accept. But until this morning Dong-oh had been desperately hoping for superpowers to appear on the bus, or for some powerful ability to shatter his boring daily life. Now that he faced the strange phenomenon right in front of him, the first thought of his human defense mechanism was that his precious eyes or optic nerves had a serious disease. Dong-oh covered his right eye completely with his right hand. Even seeing the world through only his left eye, the faint color remnants around Seo-yoon were still clearly visible. When he covered his left and viewed through only the right, the result was the same. He alternated his gaze between Seo-yoon with his fingers, doing something weird to himself, then suddenly shook in alarm. Seo-yoon had turned her head and was now looking straight at his corner. Their eyes met across the air. Dong-oh startled and hurriedly lowered his hand, pretending to fiddle with his coffee cup. ‘Oh no. I got caught—someone staring from afar, alternating eyes like a crazy person.’ The senior in his department, the guy who had been staring at him like that from far away, alternating both eyes and doing weird things. Viewed objectively as a third party, the scene was quite creepy and dangerous, like a stalker. But strangely, Seo-yoon’s expression when she noticed Dong-oh’s gaze wasn’t what he expected. Instead of contempt or disgust, her round eyes widened a little, then softened and curved like spring breeze, bright and gentle. “Eh? Oppa…?”
