Attention didn't arrive all at once.
It crept in sideways, wearing the disguise of coincidence.
Ji-ho noticed it first in the smallest places—pauses that lingered too long, glances that didn't immediately look away, conversations that quieted half a second after he entered a room. None of it was overt. None of it could be called hostility or admiration. It was simply awareness, raw and unfiltered, like a spotlight that hadn't yet decided where to settle.
He hated it.
Not because it distracted him, but because it distorted people.
At the editing lab, a junior he barely remembered suddenly offered to fetch coffee. At the faculty office, a professor who had once dismissed his work as "overly restrained" now asked careful questions about his process. Even the security guard at the entrance nodded with unfamiliar respect.
None of them knew him better.
They simply knew of him.
And that difference mattered.
The first official meeting took place on a Wednesday morning.
