**Chapter Eleven - Baek Yuna POV**
*(Seo Minjae in Her Body)*
---
Chicken sandwich or ramen noodles.
I stood in the middle of the aisle staring at both options with the focused energy of someone making an actually important decision.
Ramen. Chicken flavor. With an aggressive amount of mozzarella melted into it.
Obviously.
I grabbed the packet and turned around.
And walked directly into a wall.
Except the wall moved. And had hands. And caught me by the shoulder before I hit the floor.
I looked up.
And up.
And - still up.
The man was enormous. Not in a concerning way, just - tall, broad, the kind of physical presence that reorganizes the space around it without trying. Black hair, black eyes, features that were sharp and clean and had that specific quality that made you look twice without knowing why.
He looked familiar in a way I couldn't place. Like a face I had filed somewhere and forgotten to label.
I waited for what came next. Because this was what I had learned about Yuna's world - everyone she encountered either yelled at her or made her the punchline. Strangers included. It seemed to be a universal policy.
He looked down at me.
"Sorry, lady," he said.
The voice was low. Unhurried. Genuine.
I blinked. "Oh. It's okay."
He nodded once and turned back to the shelves - specifically to the ramen section, where he was now standing with the expression of a man confronting something he had not prepared for. His eyes moved across the packets slowly, uncertain in a way that had nothing to do with indecision.
He genuinely didn't know what he was looking at.
I watched him for a moment.
Then I held up the packet in my hand. "This one. Chicken flavor. It's the best one."
He looked at it. Then took it directly from my hand with a small, completely unbothered confidence.
"Thanks, my lady."
*My lady.*
I stared at him. *Who says my lady in a 24 hour convenience store at nine in the morning?*
"I'm Yuna," I said, because it felt necessary to establish that I was a person with a name and not just a ramen consultant.
He looked at me. Something in his expression settled - easy and direct. "Jaewon."
"Nice to meet you," I said. And then, because the ramen wasn't going to cook itself: "Okay. Bye."
---
The boiling machine was in the corner near the window.
I filled my cup, added the powder, watched the water rise - and then became aware that Jaewon was standing next to me again, this time engaged in what could only be described as a standoff with the machine. He had located the button. He appeared to be uncertain about what happened after the button.
I watched him press it twice in the wrong sequence.
Then I reached over and fixed it.
He looked at my hand. Then at the machine. Then at me.
"Thanks."
"Sure." I paused. "Are you not Korean?"
He laughed - small and genuine, surprised by the question. "I'm Korean. Born in England. I've lived there my whole life." He glanced around the store with the mild bewilderment of someone operating in a country that was technically his but practically foreign. "I don't come back very often."
"Vacation?" I asked.
He shook his head slightly. "Work."
I nodded. Business, then. Maybe. He had that quality - not flashy, but solid. The kind of person who took up exactly the space he needed and no more.
We sat.
It happened naturally, without discussion - the two seats by the window, him with his shrimp ramen and me with my chicken mozzarella situation, the Saturday morning street moving quietly outside.
He looked at me occasionally. Didn't say anything when he did. Just looked, the way people sometimes do when they find something they're not entirely sure what to make of yet.
I ate. He ate. The silence was surprisingly easy.
I finished first. Stood up, pulled on Yuna's jacket, and was three steps toward the door when something detonated in my head.
*Dori.*
*The tuna.*
I stopped walking.
*The whole reason I came here.*
I turned around and went back into the aisles - tuna, tuna, where was the tuna - scanning shelves with increasing urgency until I finally found it.
On the top shelf.
I looked at it.
I looked at the distance between my hand and the can.
Yuna. One point six two, maximum. I stretched up on my toes and my fingers cleared the shelf edge by approximately nothing.
I tried again.
Still nothing.
I repositioned. Tried a different angle. Considered for one brief moment whether Dori would accept sardines as a reasonable substitute and immediately decided he absolutely would not and that suggesting it would result in consequences.
I was reaching for the third time when I felt warmth behind me.
An arm came over my shoulder - unhurried, easy - and lifted the can off the shelf without effort.
He held it out.
I took it.
Stood there for a moment, very aware that this was exactly the scene. The height difference, the reach, the soft morning light through the store window. If I had been watching it from outside I would have recognized it immediately - the specific slow-motion quality of a kdrama moment, the kind with the strings starting low in the background.
Except I was Seo Minjae and I was holding a can of tuna for a talking cat.
"All of this for a tuna," Jaewon said, and there was something warm in it. Not mocking. Just - warm.
I sighed. "Better than going home without it."
"Someone waiting?"
"My cat," I said. "He's very particular."
He laughed. Actually laughed - open and easy, the kind that came from somewhere genuine. "A particular cat."
"His name is Dori."
"Dori." He said it like he was deciding whether it suited the creature. "Cute name."
I looked at him. He looked back.
"I have to go," I said.
He nodded. No protest, no prolonging it. Just a small, easy acceptance that this was where it ended.
"It was nice to meet you, Yuna."
"You too, Jaewon."
I paid for the tuna and the ramen and walked out into the Saturday morning air, the can in my bag, the warmth of the store fading behind me.
Author Note :
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