Afternoons were shortening, the sun dipping lower with each passing day. Late fall's chill insinuated itself into campus air, biting sharply enough to redden cheeks and send bursts of breath into the dying light. Leaves—yellow, brown, dry—twirled on the wind and floated on sidewalks, crunching lightly underfoot in a tiny cryptic language of trees. Winter was approaching, pulling the world into a slow, quiet quietness.
But Minjae's mind did not fail. It galloped on, agitated and indefatigable, tumbling over ideas that would not settle even as the season itself began to wind down.
He walked the same routes day after day—not out of routine, but by intention. Each step deliberate, each accustomed bend a moment for reflection. The mundane seconds, the minute details—their significance greater as if they were fragments of a scene he was singular to grasp. In repetition, there was a beauty, a way of following the same route, that his mind could thicken and develop like the leaves that whirled around him.
He sat at the window in the student lounge one night. An open book on his lap, its pages fogged with inattention. The sky beyond was deepening to twilight, hues fading to blues and grays. The city lights came on—distant, isolated small pools of light against encroaching night.
He wasn't reading. His thoughts were elsewhere, enmeshed in problems too nuanced to speak.
The quiet scrape of footfalls drew near.
"Mind if I join you?"
Hana's voice was a whisper, shattering the silence without scaring it away. She leaned against the window seat, folding a checkered scarf about her, cradling two paper cups in her hands. One of them was steamy, letting loose a gentle herbal scent into the chill air.
"Chamomile," she whispered, offering him one of the cups. "You seemed like you could use something hot."
Minjae blinked, and took the cup. The heat flowed through thin paper, warming his fingers with a small benediction.
"Thanks," he whispered.
She sat down next to him and flipped open her notebook. "I've been trying to work something out," she said on an exhale, opening to a page crowded with scribbles, crossed-out lines, half-poetry, and random words. "It's personal. But I just can't seem to get the words right."
Minjae gazed at the page—a mess of rough ideas, hesitant and incomplete.
"Perhaps some things take a while," he panted, "before they begin to make sense."
She leaned her head on her hand, her breathing sending small clouds drifting in the cold air.
"You sound like someone who has already experienced a lot," she said, her tone a trifle curious.
He didn't utter a word, his eyes wandering back to the window, where city lights twinkled like starlight spread across the heavens.
After a long silence, she began to talk once more, her words stammering.
"It's funny. I feel I'm after something. But I don't know what. It's always just out of reach."
Minjae's tone was not strong, barely above a whisper.
"Perhaps it's not something to grasp."
"But something to pursue."
She faced him, a small smile curling on her lips in the dim illumination.
"I like that," she said to him.
Days went by.
One afternoon after International Economics class, Jiha saw him in the busy hallway, students flowing around them like water.
"Do you ever think about what happens after all of this?" she asked lightly, but under her interest lay a sarcastic edge. "Grades, internships, jobs—everything?"
He looked at her sideways, the corners of his lips twitching a little.
"Sometimes," he said. "But I think I do not fit in any of it."
"Why not?"
He shrugged.
"Tries to sound like I'm playing a song I never rehearsed."
Jiha didn't say anything else to him. She smiled nicely.
"Well… you play it well."
In the house, Minjae assisted with supper. The kitchen was red and hot with garlic and steaming broth. He sliced vegetables with precise care and cooked noodles to just the correct firmness.
"Minjae," she said softly, her voice breaking through the quiet. "Are you happy?"
He stopped, hands remaining on the cutting board. The question hung between them, thick and uncomplicated at the same time.
"Happiness is… complicated," he said after a long moment, voice steady but thoughtful.
She laughed softly, a sound full of warmth.
"That's a grown-up answer."
"Maybe I'm an old soul," he joked, the corners of his mouth twitching into a small smile.
"Maybe," she replied with a smile of her own. "Sometimes happiness is just moving forward without feeling too heavy."
He nodded quietly, storing her words somewhere safe in his heart.
That evening, Minjae stood in his window once more.
Below him, the city lay spread out—a vast expanse of small lights, distant noises carried up on the air: the rumble of automobiles, muted voices, the bark now and again of a dog.
Lives converging and diverging in ways he could never quite comprehend.
"I carry so much of the past," he breathed into the darkness, his voice little louder than a breath.
"But I don't know where it belongs."
The quiet answered nothing, but it wasn't empty. It was constant. Patient.
And out of that silence, he discovered a little sliver of peace.
Hana met him again the following day outside the lecture hall, flushed cheeks from spending time outside.
"Hey," she said breathlessly.
"Hey," he said.
"You look better today," she said.
Minjae smiled weakly.
"Thanks. Maybe I am."
She playfully pushed him.
"See? You're not so glum all the time."
He laughed softly.
"Maybe not."
"Good."
They went to class together.
During the next few weeks, Minjae's days were filled with little things—unspoken and irrelevant to anyone else but quietly important to him.
Hana teased in a way that avoided his chronic distrust of her and had him laughing when he hadn't expected it.
Jiha challenged his assumptions with piercing questions that forced him to rethink his ideas.
They sat in silence together, reading or drinking coffee, not needing to fill all the silent moments.
Hana occasionally brought snacks as he ate late.
Minjae once repaired her laptop when she was near a paper deadline.
No one said it was special.
No one gave it a name.
And that was the way Minjae preferred it.
Perhaps it was for the best—when things didn't need to be given names.
One afternoon, Jiha caught up with him again.
"Minjae," she breathed, "do you ever get the feeling that you don't belong?"
He whirled around, taken aback.
"Every minute," he told her.
She smiled gently.
"Me too."
They were shoulder to shoulder, the hullabaloo of campus receding for a moment.
Minjae felt the ground shifting under their feet.
He listened in silence to the news.
When countries bullied each other, he listened.
When the money trembled, he hunkered down quietly.
He shunned loose risk—but he didn't miss the opportunity to prepare.
He researched patterns of past crashes with the same intensity that others read books.
He felt a storm brewing in 2020.
How bad? When? He had no idea.
But the atmosphere was charged with anticipation.
So quietly, he prepared.
One night, Minjae read while his mother offered him tea.
"Are you happy, Minjae?"
Her question jolted him out of his reverie.
He glanced up.
"Happiness is complicated," he said slowly.
She smiled, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Sometimes, moving forward is enough."
He nodded as she exited the room.
The tea was cold, but he drank it anyway.
Her words stayed with him longer than the warmth.
Late autumn gave way to winter, the world growing quiet beneath frost and soft snow.
But Minjae felt something warmer in him.
He did not have all the answers.
He did not need to be perfect.
Maybe being here, with those who had seen him—even if just a little—was enough.
Maybe walking on, step by slow step, was enough.
Maybe that was happiness.