To Be Seen in the Dark

Chapter 1: Jasmine on a Gray Day

December in Seoul knows no mercy. It creeps beneath your coat, stings your ankles, and turns every breath into jagged clouds of frost. At twenty-five, I was supposed to feel like the world belonged to me, but instead, I felt myself being slowly ground down by the millstones of corporate ethics.

​A lawyer at my father's firm. It sounds like a dream for any graduate, but for me, it had become a gilded cage. Every day was an endless stream of lawsuits, dry figures, and other people's dramas that had ceased to touch my heart back in June.

"This is stability, Hanni-ya," my father would say, straightening my tie.

But is it really stability if every morning you just want to stay under the covers and listen to the sound of rain, the way it felt back in Melbourne? Back where my mother baked cookies, and life didn't seem so orchestrated.

​Bus No. 108 was packed to the brim. I stood there, gripping the handrail, cursing my own laziness. My father had offered me a car, offered to pay for my license, but the mere thought of navigating this chaos myself made me feel nauseous. On the bus, I could simply be.

Though today, "being" was made difficult by an ajusshi who took up a good seat and a half, spreading his legs so wide as if he were guarding an invisible treasure between them.

​I reached for my phone, hoping to vanish into the world of manhwa, but the screen met me with a black void. Damn it. I'd forgotten to charge it.

"Fine then," I whispered under my breath. "Look out the window, Hanni. Enjoy the gray concrete."

​At the next stop, the ajusshi finally got off, and I managed to take a seat. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass, watching the people rushing by. And then, suddenly, the air around me shifted.

​It wasn't the sharp sting of cheap perfume or the typical morning scent of sweat. It was the aroma of pure cleanliness. A blend of cool lemon and a subtle, barely perceptible trace of jasmine. It was the smell of expensive libraries or a garden after a night's downpour. The scent reminded me of a perfume I had encountered once before.

I involuntarily turned my head.

A girl was sitting next to me. Her jet-black, perfectly straight hair cascaded over her shoulders, its healthy sheen catching the dim light of the bus lamps.

But when she tilted her head slightly to get a better look at the page of her book, I nearly forgot how to breathe.

​It was a profile worthy of an ancient statue. A flawlessly straight nose, a sharp jawline, and lips... full and soft, as if painted by a master's brush. She was the embodiment of tranquility in this frantic city.

​In her hands - long hands with slender, elegant fingers - was a book. Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah. I had tried reading it six months ago but gave up. Too convoluted, too surreal, like a lingering dream devoid of logic.

But this girl... she read as if the meaning of life itself were hidden within those lines. She wasn't distracted by the noise, the jolting of the bus, or the stops. She was there, inside the book.

​"What did you find in there?" I wondered, unable to tear my eyes away. "In all that nonsense?"

​The announcer's voice called out my stop. I flinched, realizing I had almost missed my office. Jumping up, I frantically grabbed my bag, trying to push through the crowd toward the doors.

​Thump.

​My leather glove slipped from my lap and fell right at the stranger's feet. I reached down for it, but suddenly...

"Excuse me," a voice sounded right above me.

​It was low. Truly velvety, with a peculiar, deep vibration that made the hair on my arms stand on end. The girl was holding out my glove. Up close, her eyes seemed even larger, even darker - two deep pools reflecting my own bewildered face.

​"Th... thank you!" I blurted out, feeling a treacherous heat flood my cheeks.

​I snatched the glove, my fingers barely brushing against hers, and practically bolted out of the bus into the freezing air.

​The doors hissed shut. The bus slowly pulled away, carrying with it the scent of lemon, jasmine, and the mystery of the "untold night." I stood on the sidewalk, clutching the glove, my heart pounding as if I had just run a marathon.

​For the first time in a year, the gray Seoul morning felt promising.