Friday took forever to arrive.
I worked my shifts, went to classes, studied when I could focus (which wasn't often), and tried not to check my phone every five minutes to see if Bok-Jin had texted.
He had, of course. Little messages throughout the week.
Bok-Jin: Survived another family dinner. They served some kind of expensive fish that tasted like despair.
Me: That's what you get for being rich. Poor people food has flavor.
Bok-Jin: Noted. Next time I'll bring triangle kimbap to the table.
Me: Your family would probably disown you.
Bok-Jin: Worth it.
And later, Thursday night while I was working at the convenience store:
Bok-Jin: Question. Do you like Korean food, or are you open to other options for tomorrow?
Me: I like everything except the overpriced kind.
Bok-Jin: Define overpriced.
Me: Anything where you have to google the menu to figure out what you're eating.
Bok-Jin: So... reasonably priced Korean food. Got it.
Me: Perfect. I'll eat literally anything that's not ramyeon at this point.
Bok-Jin: Setting the bar very low for me.
Me: It's a strategy. Now anything tastes good by comparison.
By Friday evening, I'd changed my outfit three times, second-guessed my hair twice, and was giving serious consideration to just canceling because the anxiety was becoming unbearable.
"You look fine," Yoo-Na said, watching me fidget with my jacket for the fourth time. "Actually, better than fine. You look really nice."
I was wearing jeans and a soft green sweater that Yoo-Na had lent me ("It brings out your eyes," she'd insisted), with my hair down for once instead of in its usual ponytail. Minimal makeup but enough to look like I'd tried.
"What if this is a mistake?" I asked, voicing the fear that had been growing all week. "What if I'm reading too much into this and he just wants to be friends?"
"He literally said he wants to keep seeing you despite his family's pressure," Min-Ji pointed out from her spot on the couch. "That doesn't sound like 'just friends' energy."
"But what if—"
"Ji-Mang." Yoo-Na put her hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. "Stop spiraling. Go on the date. Have fun. Stop overthinking everything for one night."
"I don't know how to stop overthinking things. It's my default setting."
"Then think about this: he likes you. You like him. Everything else is just noise."
Easy for her to say. She wasn't the scholarship student falling for the chaebol heir whose family was actively planning his future.
But I nodded anyway, grabbed my bag, and headed out before I could talk myself out of it.
We'd agreed to meet at a Korean BBQ place near campus—not the fancy kind where they cook everything for you, but the casual kind where you grill your own meat and the atmosphere is more chaotic than romantic.
I arrived first (only by a minute, but still), and found him waiting outside the restaurant, looking at his phone. He was wearing dark jeans and a gray sweater, his hair styled casually, glasses on. He looked good. Unfairly good for someone who was supposedly just grabbing dinner with a friend.
He looked up as I approached, and his whole face brightened. "Hi."
"Hi." I suddenly felt shy, which was ridiculous. This was the same person I'd been texting all week, the same person I'd run with three times a week, but somehow standing here about to have an actual intentional dinner felt different.
"You look nice," he said.
"Thanks. You too. Very... business casual but make it date night."
"Is this a date night?"
My face heated. "I mean—if you want it to be? Or it could just be dinner. Two people. Eating food. In a restaurant."
He smiled, that soft one that made my stomach flip. "I'd like it to be a date. If that's okay."
"Yeah. That's okay. Good. Great, even."
"You're nervous."
"I'm not nervous. I'm just... highly aware of my existence right now."
He laughed and gestured toward the restaurant. "Come on. Let's go be highly aware of our existence over meat and soju."
The restaurant was exactly what I'd hoped for—busy enough to have energy but not so packed we couldn't hear each other. We got a table in the back, ordered way too much food because I couldn't help myself when someone else was helping pay, and settled in.
"So," he said once we'd gotten the grill going and had our first round of pork belly sizzling, "tell me something I don't know about you."
"That's a dangerous question. I could tell you anything. My deepest darkest secrets."
"That's the point."
I thought about it while flipping the meat. "Okay. I have a tattoo."
His eyebrows rose. "Really? Where?"
"That's a very forward question for a second date."
"We're counting the coffee as the first date?"
"Obviously. It had cake. That makes it official."
"Fair enough." He smiled. "You don't have to tell me where it is. Just surprised me. What is it?"
"The scales of justice. Very on-brand for a law student, I know. I got it after my first year, right after I found out I'd made the top percentage of my class. It felt like... I don't know. A reminder that I earned my place here."
"Can I see it?"
I hesitated, then pulled down the collar of my sweater slightly to reveal the small tattoo on my collarbone—simple black linework, the balanced scales.
"It's beautiful," he said, and there was something in his voice that made me hyperaware of how close we were sitting, of his eyes on my skin.
I quickly adjusted my sweater. "Your turn. Tell me something I don't know."
"I wanted to be a musician when I was younger."
"What? Really?"
"Piano. I was actually pretty good. Practiced every day, won a few competitions. But my father said it wasn't a practical career path for someone in my position, so I stopped."
"That's sad."
"It is what it is. I still play sometimes, when I'm stressed. There's a practice room in the music building that's usually empty late at night."
"You should play for me sometime."
"Maybe I will." He served me some of the cooked meat, the gesture casually thoughtful. "What else? What do you do when you're not working or studying or running?"
"Bold of you to assume I have free time."
"Everyone has free time, even if it's just stolen moments."
I thought about it. "I like walking. Just wandering around Seoul with no destination. Sometimes I'll finish a shift at the convenience store and just walk for an hour, looking at neighborhoods and people and the city. It helps me think."
"We should do that together sometime. Walk with no destination."
"That sounds nice, actually."
We fell into easier conversation after that—about music and movies and the weird habits of our professors. He told me about his business ethics group project disaster, and I told him about Seung-Ho's latest attempt to undermine me in class (he'd tried to "helpfully" point out an error in my argument that wasn't actually an error).
"He sounds awful," Bok-Jin said.
"He is. But he's also kind of sad? Like, he's so desperate to prove he's better than everyone that it's almost pathetic."
"That's generous of you."
"I'm a generous person. Occasionally."
We ordered soju—just one bottle to share—and by the time we were halfway through it, I felt warm and relaxed in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
"Can I ask you something?" Bok-Jin said, his expression turning more serious.
"Sure."
"What's your biggest fear? About the future, I mean."
The question caught me off guard. I took a sip of soju, buying time to think.
"That I'll work this hard and it won't be enough," I said finally. "That I'll do everything right—good grades, good LEET score, good internships—and it still won't matter because I don't have the right connections or the right family name. That the system is rigged in favor of people like..." I stopped, realizing what I was about to say.
"People like me," he finished quietly.
"I didn't mean—"
"No, you're right. The system is rigged in favor of people like me. I know that. I benefit from it even when I don't want to." He looked down at his glass. "That's part of why I wanted to tell you about my family situation. So you'd know that I'm aware of the privilege I have. And that I don't take it for granted."
"I know you don't."
"But it's still there. The gap between us. The fact that my family can make one phone call and open doors that you have to fight to even approach."
"Yeah." There was no point denying it. "But that's not your fault. You didn't ask to be born into wealth any more than I asked to be born into poverty."
"No. But I can choose what I do with it. How I use that privilege."
"And what do you choose?"
He looked at me directly, and there was something intense in his gaze. "I choose to try to be better than the system that created me. I choose to see people—really see them—not just what they can offer me or what connections they have. I choose..." He paused. "I choose you. If you'll let me."
My heart was doing that thing again where it forgot how to beat properly.
"I choose you too," I said, my voice quieter than I intended. "Even though you're probably going to complicate my life in ways I haven't even imagined yet."
"Probably. Is that okay?"
"Ask me again when the complications actually arrive."
He smiled, and we sat there for a moment, just looking at each other over the table with its scattered dishes and empty soju glasses and the grill that had long since cooled.
"I should probably get you home," he said finally. "It's getting late."
I checked my phone. 10:47 PM. How had three hours passed so quickly?
"Yeah. I have running club tomorrow morning. Unfortunately."
"Unfortunately? You're the one who made the schedule."
"Past Ji-Mang made terrible decisions. Present Ji-Mang suffers the consequences."
We split the bill—I insisted—and left the restaurant into the cool night air. The street was quiet, just a few other people walking by, the soft glow of streetlights and shop signs.
"Which way is your apartment?" he asked.
"About fifteen minutes that way." I pointed. "You don't have to walk me. I'll be fine."
"I want to. If that's okay."
"Yeah. That's okay."
We started walking, and somehow—I'm not sure who initiated it—our hands found each other. His fingers laced through mine, warm and certain, and suddenly I was hyperaware of every point of contact between us.
"Is this okay?" he asked quietly.
"Very okay," I managed to say, trying to sound normal and failing completely.
We walked in comfortable silence for a while, just the sound of our footsteps and distant traffic. I kept sneaking glances at him—at his profile in the streetlight, at the small smile playing at his lips, at our joined hands swinging slightly between us.
This felt dangerous. Not in a bad way, but in the way that falling feels dangerous. That moment when you've left solid ground and you're just suspended in air, hoping something will catch you.
"Here," I said as we approached my building. "This is me."
We stopped outside, and he turned to face me fully, not letting go of my hand.
"I had a really good time tonight," he said.
"Me too. Thanks for dinner. And for walking me home. And for... everything, I guess."
"Everything," he repeated, amused. "That's very specific."
"I'm not good at this. The dating thing. I haven't really done it before."
"You're doing fine. Better than fine, actually."
"You're just saying that."
"I'm really not." He reached up with his free hand, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear in a gesture so gentle it made my breath catch. "I like this. Us. Whatever this is."
"Me too."
We stood there for a long moment, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, could count his eyelashes if I wanted to. The air between us felt charged with possibility.
He was going to kiss me. Or I was going to kiss him. Or we were going to kiss each other. Something was going to happen—
My phone buzzed loudly in my pocket, shattering the moment.
We both jumped slightly, and I fumbled to pull it out. Text from Min-Ji: Are you alive? Do we need to send a search party?
"Sorry," I said, feeling my face heat. "My roommate. Checking in."
"It's fine. You should probably go in. It's late."
"Yeah. I should."
Neither of us moved.
"Tomorrow," he said finally. "Running club."
"6 AM. Be there or be square."
"I'll be there."
"Good."
He squeezed my hand once more, then let go, and I immediately missed the warmth of his touch.
"Goodnight, Ji-Mang."
"Goodnight, Bok-Jin."
I made myself turn and walk to my building door, made myself not look back even though I desperately wanted to. It was only when I was inside and climbing the stairs that I let myself pull out my phone and text the group chat.
Me: I'm alive. And I think I'm in trouble.
Min-Ji: GOOD TROUBLE OR BAD TROUBLE
Yoo-Na: Tell us everything when you get here.
Me: On my way up now.
I took the last few steps to our floor, let myself into the apartment, and found both of them waiting in the living room with identical expressions of anticipation.
"So?" Min-Ji demanded.
I stood there for a moment, still feeling the ghost of his hand in mine, still thinking about that almost-kiss, still processing the fact that I'd told him I chose him and he'd said it back.
"I think I'm falling for him," I said. "Actually falling. Not just interested or attracted. Falling."
"Oh, Ji-Mang," Yoo-Na said softly.
"I know. It's a bad idea. He's a chaebol heir with family pressure and expectations and I'm a broke scholarship student with no connections and way too much baggage."
"But?" Min-Ji prompted.
"But when I'm with him, none of that seems to matter. It just feels... right. Easy. Like we make sense even though we shouldn't."
They both looked at me with identical expressions of sympathetic understanding.
"You're really in trouble," Min-Ji said.
"I know."
"The good kind, though," Yoo-Na added. "The kind that's worth it."
I hoped she was right.
I really, really hoped she was right.