Chapter 1
I was carrying a tray of boiling soup when I saw him for the first time, and the moment stretched so violently that I nearly dropped everything I was holding.
Steam rose into my face, burning my fingers through the towel, my mother was shouting something in Korean behind me about table three needing more banchan, and I was already exhausted even though it wasn’t even noon yet—but then the door opened, the bell rang once, and suddenly the world tilted slightly off its axis.
He stood just inside the restaurant, framed by light and dust and heat, as if he’d stepped out of a different version of the day.
He was tall, not towering, but long in a way that made everything about him seem intentional, even the way he hesitated before taking another step inside. His hair was dark and soft-looking, falling into his eyes in a careless way that didn’t look careless at all, and his mouth—God, his mouth—was set in this uncertain line that made my chest tighten for reasons I did not have time to question.
I stared too long.
I knew I was staring too long.
I felt my face heat up, felt my pulse stumble, felt something inside me recognize something else without permission.
He looked at me at the exact same moment.
Our eyes locked, and it felt like being caught doing something illegal even though all we were doing was existing in the same space.
His gaze flicked over me quickly—my apron, my rolled-up sleeves, my hands—and then snapped back to my face, sharp and curious and unguarded in a way that terrified me, because I was not used to being seen like that.
I looked away first.
“Moon!” my mother snapped. “Table three!”
I moved automatically, legs stiff, heart pounding too loudly in my ears, setting the tray down with more force than necessary, aware—painfully aware—that he was still standing there, still breathing the same air, still somehow pulling at me even though we hadn’t spoken a single word.
When I glanced back toward the door, my mother was already there, assessing him the way she assessed everything: usefulness first, risk second, emotion never.
“Yes?” she asked him.
He straightened. “I’m here about the job,” he said, voice low and careful, and it sent a shock straight down my spine.
I hated that immediately.
Hated how much I noticed it.
Hated how my body responded before my brain could shut it down.
My mother questioned him quickly—availability, hours, experience—and he answered politely, nodding, smiling softly, hands fidgeting at his sides as if he didn’t quite know where to put them. I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself he was just another person passing through the restaurant, just another body filling space on a Sunday.
But when my mother handed him an apron and said, “You start today,” something sharp and strange twisted in my chest.
Great, I thought. Just what I need.
He walked toward the back, passing me so closely that our arms brushed, and the contact was brief and accidental and absolutely devastating.
He froze.
So did I.
“I—sorry,” he said at the same time I said it, our voices overlapping, and he laughed softly, embarrassed, eyes bright in a way that made me want to do something reckless and irreversible.
“It’s fine,” I said too quickly, stepping back, creating distance I desperately needed even though I hated it.
Up close, he was even worse.
His eyes were dark and warm and far too observant, his face open in a way that suggested kindness rather than confidence, and I had the sudden, irrational thought that if I didn’t get away from him immediately, he might see straight through me.
“Kim,” he said, holding out a hand.
I stared at it.
Shook it.
The moment our palms touched, something electric and impossible snapped into place.
“Moon,” I said, my voice sounding wrong to my own ears.
He smiled at me then—really smiled—and I knew, with terrifying clarity, that I was in trouble.
The rest of the shift passed in a blur of near-misses and stolen glances and unspoken awareness. Every time Kim leaned over a table, every time he asked a question, every time his sleeve brushed mine as we passed in the narrow space behind the counter, my heart reacted like it had never reacted to anything before.
I told myself it was nothing.
I told myself attraction was normal, meaningless, easily ignored.
But I watched him when he wasn’t looking.
Watched the way he listened more than he spoke, the way he treated every customer like they mattered, the way he hummed softly under his breath while wiping tables—old songs I didn’t recognize but somehow already felt nostalgic.
At one point, our eyes met again across the room, and this time neither of us looked away.
Something settled between us, heavy and unspoken.
At closing, as my parents argued quietly in the kitchen and Kim untied his apron, he hesitated near me, fingers curling around the fabric as if he was stalling.
“I’ll see you next Sunday,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
He nodded once, smiled again—smaller this time, almost secret—and walked out.
The bell rang.
The door closed.
And for the first time in my life, I realized that Sundays were about to become dangerous.
