The evening had settled over Seoul by the time Lee Dong-min finally stepped out of the building after his schedule. It had been a long day of filming, interviews, and the usual rush between one thing and another, and all he wanted now was to get to his car, go home, shower, and stop thinking for a while. He loosened the collar of his shirt as he crossed the parking area, his phone still in his hand as he skimmed through the messages he'd missed during work.

He was almost at his car when something near the small park beside the building caught his attention.

Someone was sitting alone on a bench, head lowered toward a phone. Dong-min only glanced over at first, but after a few steps, something about the person's posture made him slow down. He looked back. Then again.

He stopped.

There was no reason he should know that person from a distance like this. It had been years. Still, his eyes stayed fixed on the figure, his tired expression gradually giving way to something uncertain.

Dong-min walked back toward the bench, not particularly fast. The closer he got, the more familiar the face became. He almost laughed at himself because surely his brain was just filling in the blanks with an old memory. But then the person shifted slightly, and there it was.

That face.

The same person he'd spent years wondering about. Dong-min stopped a few steps away, staring for a moment longer than he probably should have. His lips parted as if he was about to say something, but nothing came out. After all this time, every possible greeting suddenly sounded ridiculous.

He let out a quiet breath and rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit he hadn't quite grown out of.