The snow had started to melt by the time classes resumed.
There was water on the ground under the ginkgo trees, and the sunlight hit it in little flashes. It wasn't very bright though—just weak rays that didn't last long before fading. It felt like the campus wasn't ready to wake up yet, like it still wanted to stay in winter a little longer. Everything was cold and still. Even the footsteps walking through the puddles sounded soft, like they didn't want to be too loud either.
Minjae was standing outside the main lecture hall. One of his hands was in his coat pocket, and the other was holding the paper bag that Hana gave him. He held it kind of loosely.
He still hadn't written anything in the notebook.
But he carried it with him now—folded gently, like something unfinished.
It was a strange thing, he thought, to bring along an empty page like it mattered. Yet it stayed with him, tucked into his bag or sometimes his coat, near enough to feel like a pulse. Not a weight. Just presence.
He didn't understand why.
Not completely.
"Hey," Hana said as she walked up next to him. She brushed some snow off her coat sleeves. Her breath came out in little white puffs because of the cold.
Minjae turned his head slightly. "You cut your hair."
She blinked at him, surprised. "I did."
"It suits you."
She tilted her head, considering him with a raised brow. "That's new."
"What is?"
"You noticing."
He looked at her—not just glanced, but looked—and then shifted his gaze back to the entrance, where students moved past them in distracted clusters.
"I've always noticed," he said simply.
There was a pause.
She didn't reply.
But she didn't move either.
And somehow, that said more than anything else could have.
That week, things shifted.
Not dramatically. Not with declarations or confessions or moments worth capturing.
But they shifted all the same.
Minjae found himself lingering longer in conversations—not just present, but engaged. He laughed, occasionally. Not forced. Not loud. Just... a quiet sound, like he had allowed something to surface.
He met more of Taesung's friends. Sat in on small study groups—sometimes uninvited, sometimes already expected. They made space for him even when he hadn't said he was coming.
He didn't speak much. That hadn't changed.
But when he did, people listened.
Not out of politeness or curiosity, but because something in his tone made even idle words feel intentional.
Not sharp. Not cold.
Just... precise. As if he always knew something others didn't.
It was Thursday evening when he ended up sitting on a rooftop next to Hana. The wind was cold but dry, blowing past them like a quiet sigh.
They'd brought canned coffee again. She sat cross-legged on the concrete, eyes fixed on the horizon where the city lights blurred into a soft, golden fog.
"Do you think people change?" she asked suddenly.
Minjae didn't answer right away. He watched her for a moment—watched the way her breath curled upward in faint trails.
"Yes," he said at last. "Constantly."
"But do they really?" Her voice was quiet, uncertain in a way she rarely allowed herself to sound. "Or do we just wear different masks?"
He considered that.
"You're not the same person you were a year ago," he said. "That's not a mask. That's growth."
She turned toward him, studying him in the dark. "And you?"
"I'm still learning how to be human."
She blinked, then gave him a small smile. "Sometimes you say things like you're from a different world."
He looked up at the sky, cloudy and dim.
"Maybe I am."
Later that night, in their shared dorm, Taesung walked in holding two convenience store bags of instant tteokbokki and flavored milk.
"I swear, these things are scientifically addictive," he declared. "Want some?"
Minjae nodded and started moving some papers out of the way on his desk. He needed to make room. The tteokbokki was hot, and even though it was in a plastic container, he could still feel the warmth through it. It made his hands feel nice.
As they ate, the silence between them stretched comfortably. Taesung eventually glanced over.
"You seem different lately," he said around a mouthful of rice cake.
"How so?"
"I don't know. Lighter, maybe? Like you're not carrying the weight of... I don't know, a war or something."
Minjae paused, chopsticks still in hand.
Then, with a faint smile: "Maybe I'm just adjusting to gravity."
Taesung laughed. "Okay, that was way too poetic for tteokbokki, man."
But Minjae didn't laugh.
Not out of discomfort.
Just contemplation.
He had once flown high above mountains that pierced cloud lines. Had once spoken a language of flame and stone and memory. He had known the weight of eternity.
Now, he measured time in terms of semesters. Conversations. Late-night snacks and unspoken thoughts.
Gravity, indeed.
It was past midnight when Minjae sat alone again. The room was dim, lit only by his desk lamp and the low hum of the heater.
The notebook lay open before him.
The page remained blank.
He thought of everything he had left behind. The name he once bore. The realm he had ruled. The choices that had led him to this quiet place, this human life. Not punishment. Not exile. But... consequence.
Sometimes, he wondered if anyone else remembered.
If anything beyond this world had noticed he was gone.
But in the silence of this small dorm room, there was no answer. Only the faint sound of Taesung's steady breathing from the top bunk and the whisper of wind against the window.
Minjae picked up his pen.
And, for the first time, wrote:
| I remember everything. And I still don't know if I was right
He stared at the line.
He hadn't meant to write that. Not exactly. It had slipped out—not as confession, but as truth. The kind that lived deep beneath words, the kind you could only recognize when you weren't trying to find it.
He closed the notebook gently.
Outside, the snow had started falling again.
Quiet, unnoticed.
But not unimportant.