Chapter 9
She gazed at the mysterious pink aura still gently swaying like a heart in the space around her.
It was tempting to dismiss the pleasant feeling as nothing more than the joy of greeting a senior, but the way the color grew especially vivid and intense whenever she smiled at him, complimented his clothes, or tossed out those odd little lines made her uneasy.
She still couldn’t pin down the exact meaning of this hidden emotion color the ability showed, but one thing she was sure of—whatever he felt toward her as his senior, it carried none of the annoyance or negativity she feared. It was warm, positive, and full of affection.
Warmth alone would have been enough for simple happiness.
Yet the pink hue always appeared when she looked at him, when she laughed, or when she heard something unexpected.
While she couldn’t confirm its full meaning, one thing was clear: the soft light definitely carried no bad feelings.
“Should we grab lunch first?” Dong-oh asked, adjusting the strap of his bag.
“Yes! I already made a reservation for the cafeteria today.”
“You’re really paying?”
“Of course! Did you think I was just kidding around?”
“It’s not that… but feeding you for just glancing at old materials already makes me feel a little bad.”
“Aigoo, you came all the way from school to give me feedback on a precious weekend. This is the least I can do.”
“I happened to have some errands near campus anyway. I just got lucky with the timing.”
Dong-oh answered calmly, as if it were nothing, and added a completely made-up excuse.
It was his way of making sure she wouldn’t feel burdened, but in truth there was no errand near campus worth going out for on the weekend.
Seo-yoon smiled playfully.
At that exact moment, a faint pink aura shimmered between the warm gold currents radiating from her body and spread brightly across the space.
The two of them headed toward the student cafeteria building.
On a Saturday afternoon the campus cafeteria was shockingly quiet—no chaotic crowds, no noise, just an eerie calm.
The weekend menu was limited to only two simple options, and the vast dining hall held only a handful of students studying or attending weekend lectures, sitting far apart in distant corners.
Even at the food counter, there was almost no line to speak of.
Seo-yoon walked up to the ticket vending machine and smoothly tapped Dong-oh’s tonkatsu voucher in one go.
“Bringing a senior all the way here on a weekend and even treating you to such a simple cafeteria lunch… I feel a little bad, senpai.”
“It’s fine. This is enough.”
Dong-oh’s blunt, dry reply finally eased the tension from Seo-yoon’s face into something softer, more relaxed.
“You’re really okay with just this?”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want anything more. I’m just grateful for whatever I’m given.”
“Still, I feel bad because you should be eating meat more often, senpai.”
Dong-oh, holding the voucher, suddenly stopped and looked sideways at Seo-yoon with a quiet question.
“Why?”
“Well… you exercise, right?”
“How do you know I exercise?”
Seo-yoon’s steps halted for a second at his straightforward question.
And in that very instant, the pink aura around her face and shoulders thickened, rising higher and clearer than before, swaying gently.
“U-um… I can tell right away. Your build is so nice, senpai.”
“What exactly do you see?”
“Just… overall.”
Seo-yoon avoided his gaze, flustered, and fiddled with the fingers clutching the voucher.
Just then the auntie placed two hot tonkatsu plates on the counter. Seo-yoon handed over the voucher and quickly changed the subject.
“Oh, food’s ready! Let’s go, senpai. It’ll get cold if we wait.”
The two of them carried the steaming trays to a table by the sunny window and sat facing each other.
Today’s weekend cafeteria special was classic king tonkatsu.
The sauce was overly sweet and tangy, and the side soup had gone lukewarm.
It tasted no better than the bland, meager cafeteria food she ate during regular lectures.
Yet strangely, the crisp, savory bite of the tonkatsu seemed even better today than usual.
“By the way, when’s the presentation?” Dong-oh asked, slicing the tonkatsu with his knife.
“Wednesday afternoon.”
“Wednesday? It feels like only a few days left when you take the weekend out. It’s like the fire’s already on your back.”
“Yes. I thought once I finalized the topic the research would wrap up quickly, but while I was looking through the materials you gave me, I kept finding more things that needed explaining. The slides keep expanding beyond what I can handle.”
“I told you yesterday—Professor Kim hates long introductions and overly broad scopes.”
“Right?”
Seo-yoon’s eyes sparkled with real seriousness, the same bright gaze she used in major classes.
“Even in his lectures he keeps telling us to keep the topic as compact as possible.”
“Presentation time is only about fifteen minutes. If I cram in too much, I won’t have enough time to explain the key evidence in the main body, and I’ll lose points.”
“Same here. That’s the biggest headache. I know I have to cut things aggressively, but everything I researched feels important, so I can’t decide what to keep and what to toss.”
“That’s why we should eat first and look at the materials together.”
Dong-oh speared a large slice of tonkatsu and took a slow bite, chewing thoughtfully.
“How far have you gotten with the overall structure?”
“I’ve written the basic references, but I haven’t properly planned the slide flow or story line yet. I have a rough order in my head, but I’m not sure it fits Professor Kim’s style.”
“Then let’s start with the skeleton structure and order today.”
“But that’ll take forever, right? I feel bad taking up so much of your weekend.”
A faint gray current of guilt briefly mixed into the pink aura that had been rising around Seo-yoon’s shoulders.
Dong-oh looked up from the tray and met her eyes straight on.
“I came because I wanted to help. It’s fine.”
“Still…”
The gray aura that had been clouding around her body vanished instantly, as if melted away by his firm, reassuring words.
In its place a calm, gentle gold aura spread wide across the space.
After finishing lunch in a cheerful mood, the two of them neatly carried the empty trays to the return counter.
As they stepped outside the cafeteria, a cool autumn breeze brushed gently across their faces.
Seo-yoon looked toward the towering central library building and asked,
“Should we head to the library now, senpai?”
“We can’t give feedback while talking inside the library, can we? The typing sound alone…”
“Oh, you’re right. How about we whisper quietly instead?”
“I don’t think whispering while looking at the presentation slides is practical.”
To revise the logic structure of the material, they would have to compare notes and talk while looking at the laptop screens.
They would need to explain details slide by slide and, if necessary, read the presentation out loud like they would on the actual day.
The quiet library environment posed too many restrictions.
Seo-yoon tapped her fingers against her chin for a moment, then nodded.
“You’re right, senpai. But it’s a weekend, so I didn’t book a study room. Where should we go?”
“Isn’t the department room open on weekends?”
“The department room? Oh! Right. Even on weekends, if you enter using the door lock password, you can turn on the lights and use it! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Seo-yoon clapped her hands lightly in delight.
“Since there’ll be no one around on a weekend, we can use the big desk there and talk loudly—it’ll be perfect!”
The two of them walked side by side toward the long humanities building where major lectures were held.
The weekend campus felt eerily peaceful compared to the weekdays.
The main asphalt path that would usually be packed with students was completely empty.
Instead of the usual human noise, only the gentle rustle of leaves in the crisp autumn breeze filled the air, clear and calm.
Inside the department building the atmosphere grew even quieter.
The automatic glass door whooshed open, and the familiar scent of the department brushed against their noses alongside the faint cold that had settled after weeks without people.
The scent of old paper, dust in the hallway corners, and the sweet milky coffee aroma drifting from the vending machine at the end.
Dong-oh had walked these halls countless times over the past few years.
He came here every week for major lectures, and for exams and assignments.
Yet strangely, the humanities building felt completely unfamiliar today, as if they were in a foreign space.
The heavy iron doors of all the lecture halls were tightly shut and locked. The long hallway was silent—no footsteps, no signs of life.
The fluorescent ceiling lights were dimmed for energy saving, so the hallway felt unnaturally deep and dark.
The sound of their shoes and sneakers echoed loudly off the concrete floor and walls.
“Wow… it really is different from a weekday. It gives me the creeps.”
Seo-yoon’s voice dropped instinctively, overwhelmed by the empty hallway.
“Same here. This is my first time entering the humanities building on a weekend since I transferred back.”
It wasn’t just the absence of students roaming around.
The simple fact that Seo-yoon and Dong-oh were walking together side by side created a tiny, hidden excitement inside the familiar space of daily life.
They finally reached the department room at the end of the hallway. As expected, the lights inside were completely off.
Seo-yoon adjusted the strap of the heavy backpack she was carrying and, in her familiar natural way, tapped the door lock keypad with her password.
The door opened with a cheerful beep, and she stepped inside lightly.
The interior of the department room was simple: one long rectangular conference table, six chairs, and a white board covered in small doodles.
Tiny dust particles floated slowly like stars in the warm afternoon sunlight filtering through the blinds.
Dong-oh followed her inside and carefully closed the thick iron door behind them.
Clank.
The small metallic sound of the door locking echoed sharply in the otherwise silent, narrow room.
Seo-yoon placed her heavy backpack on the table by the window where sunlight came in best.
“I hope no one else comes into the department room on the weekend, senpai.”
“There won’t be anyone. How many people do you think come here on a Saturday afternoon to spend time alone? Everyone’s busy having fun.”
“Then we can relax and talk while we work on the assignment!”
Seo-yoon pulled out her laptop from the bag and set it on the wide wooden table.
Dong-oh pulled out the chair opposite her, then suddenly stopped.
To give real-time feedback while looking at the detailed text and slide layout on her screen, it would be much more efficient and comfortable to sit right next to her rather than directly across the table.
He moved the chair beside hers and sat down. Seo-yoon turned on her laptop and asked,
“Then, senpai, where should I start showing you?”
Dong-oh nodded and leaned slightly toward her laptop, watching the bright screen.
But the moment he sat down, he realized how close they were.
Normally the department room would be noisy with dozens of majors coming and going, ordering delivery food.
Today, however, it had transformed into a space perfectly isolated from the outside world—strangely quiet and filled only with the two of them.
Seo-yoon adjusted the angle of her laptop screen toward Dong-oh.
“First, I’ve already fixed the main title of the presentation topic. It’s the second one you recommended so strongly in the café yesterday.”
“Digital information gap and the social marginalization of the elderly… You really narrowed the scope nicely.”
“Yes. I removed the grand macro statistics from the introduction as you suggested. But after finding the specific evidence for the main body, it turned out this theory was important too, and I had to include those graphs. Now the total amount of slides is overwhelming again.”
Seo-yoon pouted and scrolled down with the mouse wheel.
Messy Korean sentences and captured images from overseas references scrolled across dozens of pages.
Dong-oh leaned forward to read the tiny text on the screen clearly.
In the process, his white short-sleeve shirt sleeve brushed gently against Seo-yoon’s delicate shoulder in her thin cardigan.
The moment his firm shoulder touched her, she froze for an instant, subtly shrinking her upper body.