Six years earlier.
Eunseong University, Spring Festival week.
The campus buzzed with laughter and the smell of tteok-skewers grilling under cherry trees. Posters shouted about debates, talent nights, and "Couple Café" events, all glowing beneath strings of yellow bulbs.
Yoon Ha-rin stood behind the student-run café counter, hair tied high, determination in her eyes. Her team, "Bean Squad," had been losing to the rival business-club booth for two days straight — the booth run by none other than the golden boy himself, Kang Jae-hyun.
"Don't look at his booth, Ha-rin," her roommate Na-eun whispered, tying an apron. "It's basically a shrine. The girls line up for his smile, not his coffee."
Ha-rin snorted. "Please. He probably bribes the beans to roast themselves."
As if summoned by mockery, a low, smooth voice came from behind her.
"Bribes work better than burnt coffee, Miss Yoon."
She spun around — and collided squarely into a chest far too solid for her dignity.
Warm coffee splashed up like fireworks.
Silence.
Every pair of eyes turned toward the two of them — Ha-rin frozen, cup dangling, Jae-hyun dripping espresso down his white shirt.
He looked at the stain, then at her, expression calm — too calm.
"Ah," he said softly. "So that's your marketing strategy — assault the competition."
Murmurs erupted. Ha-rin's cheeks flamed crimson.
"It was an accident!" she blurted. "And maybe your shirt deserved it for being pretentious."
A few students snickered. Jae-hyun's lips twitched upward, almost imperceptibly.
"Then I suppose I should thank you for humbling my wardrobe." He leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. "But be careful, Miss Yoon. Accidents have a way of repeating themselves around you."
That smirk — the same one she would remember years later in an elevator — ignited her temper.
"Next time," she said, chin lifted, "I'll aim higher."
---
The festival crowd roared with laughter. Even Na-eun half-hid behind a banner, shaking.
Jae-hyun wiped his shirt with deliberate slowness. "Challenge accepted," he murmured, eyes gleaming.
From that moment, their rivalry was sealed.
---
Over the following weeks, the campus turned into a battlefield.
When Ha-rin organized a charity bake sale, Jae-hyun countered with a free-latte day.
When he won the debate prelims, she beat his marketing proposal by one point.
Every encounter ended in bickering — and a strange electricity neither could name.
Sometimes, when she passed by his corner of the library, she'd catch him watching her — not with annoyance, but with quiet curiosity, as if trying to solve a puzzle he'd accidentally fallen into.
And once, just once, on a rainy evening when she was carrying too many files, he'd silently held an umbrella over her head before walking away without a word.
Ha-rin told herself it meant nothing.
But that night, as thunder rolled over Eunseong's rooftops, she dreamed of cedarwood and wildflowers — a scent that felt achingly familiar.
---
Back in the present, inside Luma Group's glass corridors, that same scent lingered again.
She didn't know that the man who once rivaled her for trophies would soon rival her heart for peace.