Stepping through the glass door of the café, the warmth of the space and the smell of tea and roasted beans met him like a relief after the cold outside. Sol-woo was looking for something hot to soothe his vocal cords after the exhausting studio session — something that wasn’t coffee, which would only irritate his throat.
Looking toward the counter, he noticed a considerable line of customers waiting.
He settled at the end of the queue, keeping to a corner so he wasn’t blocking anyone’s way. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to his manager:
"I’m at the café next door."
Within a minute, the screen lit up with Tae-shik’s reply:
"Ok."
As dry and direct as always.
Sol-woo allowed himself a faint smile and opened Instagram. The follower count had stayed stable at the same figure, but the comments section on his photo had started showing steady movement. After hearing Sol-woo’s suggestion before he left, Ji-soo had acted quickly — editing the post’s caption to add a direct tag linking to his YouTube channel.
People discovering his video through platform recommendations were jumping straight to his Instagram out of curiosity. But not everyone was staying: in the Korean market, many users saw little reason to follow an account with just one public photo, owned by someone who didn’t yet hold the official title of trainee at a recognized agency.
While he continued scrolling through his phone screen, the line began moving at a steady pace. He looked up to gauge how much longer he had — and his attention landed for a second on the person standing directly in front of him.
She was a girl who stood noticeably tall for the average young woman in Korea. What caught Sol-woo’s attention wasn’t her height — it was how she was dressed. A cap pulled low over her eyebrows, the hood of an oversized sweatshirt pulled over it, layered beneath a puffy coat. Covered head to toe with the obvious intention of going unnoticed or avoiding being recognized in public.
At that exact moment, the girl turned slightly to look at the menu board hanging on the wall.
As she did, her face was caught by the light of the café. Sol-woo could make out her features clearly — the structure of her nose, the shape of her cheekbones, her mixed features immediately suggesting Western heritage. For someone with Sol-woo’s visual acuity, clocking that detail took seconds.
She, for her part, when her eyes crossed with his, went still for a moment. Her gaze fixed directly on Sol-woo’s. In Seoul it was practically unheard of to encounter a Korean with light eyes — and the hazel-green of Sol-woo’s gaze caught her completely off guard. She hadn’t seen a color like that in a long time.
The girl parted her lips slightly, as if she was about to ask him something — but the cashier’s voice cut her off, calling her turn at the counter.
Sol-woo gave her one neutral glance and looked back at his phone. He paid her no further attention, maintaining his usual distance and composed detachment.
She stepped up to the counter and ordered a large Iced Americano with extra ice — the trainee drink of choice, maximum caffeine with zero calories.
When it came time to pay, she pulled out her phone to use the mobile payment app. She held it to the reader — a beep of error. She tried again. Then a third time. Same result. The screen flashed a notification indicating a connection failure or insufficient balance on the temporary card.
A sudden flush crept up her cheeks all the way to her ears. The accumulated stress of weeks of rehearsals, Produce 101 evaluations, and barely any sleep crashed over her at once. Feeling the cashier’s eyes on her and the presence of the tall boy behind her in line turned a minor technical glitch into something that felt like a full humiliation. She pressed her teeth together, feeling like she was about to unravel over something completely stupid.
Behind her, Sol-woo watched the scene. He wasn’t in the mood for drama, and he had no patience to wait while she sorted out her app problem — and no desire to spend another minute longer and earn an unnecessary lecture from his manager.
Without overthinking it, Sol-woo stepped forward, pulled his physical card from his pocket, and ran it through the reader before the girl could apologize or cancel the order.
"Charge hers and add a hot Yuzu tea — to go," Sol-woo said in an even tone.
A café in a side-street spot wasn’t a meaningful expense.
The transaction completed in three seconds. The girl, flushed and caught off guard, turned to face him. Holding her iced drink between both hands, she dipped her head quickly to thank him:
"Ah... thank you so much, really. I — I’ll pay you back, let me look in my bag or—"
In her rush to bow with such haste and embarrassment, she made a clumsy mistake. The abrupt movement tilted the plastic cup — sending a stream of iced Americano shooting through the lid and straight onto Sol-woo’s chest.
Sol-woo reacted fast and tried to step back to dodge it — but not fast enough. The dark liquid landed squarely on the front of his thick coat, soaking into the fabric in a cold, spreading stain.
Sol-woo stood still for a second, looking down at the stain on his chest. Then he looked at her — eyes wide open, completely frozen by what she’d just done.
"I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!" she exclaimed immediately, bowing over and over in deep, rapid apologies.
Sol-woo showed not the slightest trace of irritation on his face. He looked at the stain, then back at her, and let out a small remark to break the tension:
"I buy you the drink and you pour it on me..."
For a fifteen-year-old girl under brutal stress, however, the line didn’t land as a joke — it sounded like a formal complaint. Conditioned to the rigid environment and strict apology etiquette of Korea, she went rigid. A thousand different ways to apologize started forming in her head, all of them geared toward avoiding getting into deeper trouble. She stood there, frozen in her own thoughts, paralyzed by panic — blocking the space in front of the counter.
From the back of the line, a disgruntled murmur rose:
"Come on, come on — we’re not waiting all night for you two."
"Ne, ne..." a couple of people in line muttered sharply, adding more pressure.
Without overthinking it, Sol-woo reached out, took her firmly by the sleeve of her jacket to pull her out of the situation, and the two of them stepped outside onto the sidewalk.
Out on the street, under Seoul’s bitter cold, Sol-woo let go of her sleeve and took a sip of his hot Yuzu tea.
"There’s no problem with the coat — honestly," he said in a measured voice. "Don’t worry about it."
Watching her so flustered and folded into her own clothes, Sol-woo felt a quiet flicker of sympathy. It was plain to see — a girl with Western features, visibly exhausted, overwhelmed by the rigidity of this country.