• •
  Title: Until Someone Finally Looks

Hana, 18.

A quiet first-year university student from a lower-middle-class family.

She lives alone in the university dorm, balancing her studies with a part-time job just to help pay for tuition and everyday expenses.

She rarely speaks.

She keeps her head down.

She eats alone, studies alone, and leaves class before anyone has the chance to talk to her.

Most students have seen her.

Almost none of them know her name.

To the university, Hana is practically invisible.

⸻

Sunghoon, 19.

The university’s most popular sophomore.

Captain of the basketball team.

Top of his class.

Born into one of Seoul’s wealthiest families.

Confident, outgoing, and always surrounded by friends, he’s someone everyone knows.

Hana isn’t someone he notices.

Not really.

She’s simply another face in a crowd of thousands.

⸻

They’ve never had a real conversation.

Only brief, forgettable moments.

A notebook slips from Hana’s hands in the hallway.

Sunghoon picks it up.

“…Sorry.”

“Thanks.”

Nothing more.

Another day, they accidentally bump shoulders while leaving a lecture.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Then they continue walking in opposite directions.

Neither of them thinks anything of it.

⸻

As the semester goes on, Hana begins missing classes.

Then she stops coming altogether.

Her dorm room is emptied.

Her part-time job is quietly left behind.

Most people don’t notice she is gone.

Those who do assume she transferred.

The truth is much simpler.

Unable to keep up with tuition and burdened by her family’s financial struggles, Hana leaves university and returns home.

Her parents have already begun arranging her marriage to a man they believe can provide financial security for the family.

Life on campus continues as if nothing happened.

Until one day, Sunghoon walks past her usual seat.

For the first time, he notices it’s empty.

He remembers the quiet girl who always apologized, always thanked him, and somehow disappeared without anyone ever asking where she went.*