Han Jiwon awoke to the sound of her own scream.

Her chest heaved as she clutched the sweat-soaked sheets, eyes darting around the small bedroom of her rooftop apartment in Mapo. Morning sunlight streamed through the thin curtains, dust motes swirling lazily in the air. It was an ordinary day. Yet inside her chest, her heart still raced with the weight of a memory that didn’t belong to her.

Or maybe it wasn’t a memory at all.

In the dream, she had been standing in the courtyard of a palace bathed in moonlight. Her hands were slick with blood—her blood—seeing between her fingers. A man knelt before her, his face streaked with tears, his arms wrapped tightly around her as though he could will life back into her body.

His voice echoed still in her ears, hoarse with desperation:

"Jiwon-ah… please, don’t leave me. Not again."

And then darkness.

Jiwon pressed her trembling hands against her chest as though to prove she was still alive. Her skin was warm. Her pulse is steady. She was twenty-three years old, a fine arts student at Hongdae University, not some doomed court lady from centuries past. Dreams weren’t supposed to feel so vivid—so real. And yet, every time she woke, she swore the man’s voice lingered in her bones.

She didn’t even know his name. But she knew his face as if she had known him her whole life.

---

After splashing her face with cold water in the bathroom, Jiwon forced herself through her morning routine. Coffee. Toast. Backpack slung over her shoulder. Out the door. Her building’s rusty metal staircase groaned under her weight as she descended, the city’s pulse greeting her in full force—vendors opening stalls, buses wheezing at the curb, students in uniforms rushing to schools. Seoul was alive, bustling, utterly normal.

Which made her feel all the more abnormal.

The dream has returned five nights in a row now. Always the same. Always ending with her death in his arms. She hadn’t told anyone, not even her best friend Sohee. After all, what would she say? Hey, I think I keep dreaming about being murdered in a past life, and I might be in love with a stranger who doesn’t exist?

She shook her head and started walking toward campus. The September air was crisp, carrying the faint scent of roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. For a brief moment, she managed to push the dream aside, focusing on the day ahead—her professor’s critique session, the painting she still hadn’t finished, the rent payment looming over her bank account. Ordinary worries for an ordinary girl.

But fate rarely allowed ordinary things to stay that way.

---

The campus café buzzed with chatter when Jiwon slipped inside before class. She ordered her usual iced Americano and found a seat by the window, sketchbook open. Drawing always steadied her nerves, pulling her out of the fog that lingered after her nightmares.

Her pencil danced over the page, and without meaning to, she found herself sketching him again—the stranger from her dream. Dark eyes that held both sorrow and fire. A strong jaw, lips pressed tight as if holding back words he could never say. She shaded carefully, tracing every line of the face that haunted her sleep.

When she looked down at the finished sketch, a chill ran through her.

"I’m going crazy," she muttered under her breath.

“Crazy about what?” a voice interrupted.

Startled, Jiwon snapped her sketchbook shut and looked up.

A young man stood in front of her table, tall with messy dark hair that fell just enough to shadow his eyes. He carried a guitar case slung over one shoulder and wore a black hoodie, the hood pulled low. At first glance, he looked like any other artsy university student. But when his gaze met hers, something inside her cracked open.

Her breath caught.

It was him.

The face from her dreams.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the space between them—the hum of the café fading, the chatter blurring into static. She swore her chest tightened the way it had in her nightmare, as if some invisible thread had tied itself around her ribs.

The stranger tilted his head, brows knitting in faint confusion, as though he felt it too.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice low, almost musical. “I thought you were someone else.”

And before Jiwon could speak, he was gone—moving past her toward the counter, ordering a coffee, and settling at a table across the café.

Jiwon stared, her pulse still thundering. Her fingers itched to open her sketchbook, to prove to herself she wasn’t imagining things. But the thought of someone seeing the resemblance terrified her.

Instead, she sipped her Americano and pretended to scroll through her phone. Every few seconds, though, her eyes betrayed her—daring back toward him.

He was scribbling in a notebook, occasionally tapping his guitar case as though keeping rhythm only he could hear. His expression shifted between concentration and quiet melancholy. A familiar melancholy.

Jiwon whispered to herself, “Who are you?”

---

By the time her morning lecture ended, she had convinced herself it was a coincidence. Seoul was huge, but not infinite. Faces overlapped. Dreams bled into waking life when the mind was tired enough. The man at the café wasn’t the man from her dreams. He couldn’t be.

And yet, when she stepped out of the lecture hall, she nearly collided with him again.

“Whoa—sorry,” he said, steadying her before she stumbled. His hand was warm against her arm, his grip gentle but grounding.

Her breath faltered. The same sensation surged through her chest, stronger this time—like recognition. Like relief.

“It’s… fine,” she managed, pulling back quickly.

He studied her for a moment, lips parting as if to ask something, but then his phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at it, muttered an apology, and hurried off down the hall.

Jiwon stood frozen, watching him disappear into the crowd.

That night, the dream returned.

This time, the palace courtyard was brighter, lanterns glowing like fallen stars. She was wearing a white hanbok, her hands trembling as she clutched a dagger pressed against her chest. Before her, soldiers shouted, chaos erupting. And once again, he was there—the man who now existed both in her sleep and in the daylight.

He grabbed her wrists, tears streaming down his face.

"Jiwon-ah… don’t do this. Don’t let them win."

Her voice broke as she whispered, “I’ll find you again… in the next life.”

The dagger plunged.

Her scream tore her from the dream, heart pounding as though she had truly bled out again. But this time, when she sat up in bed, she whispered his face into the dark:

“Seo Minjae…”

The name had never been spoken in her dream before. And yet, she knew it belonged to him.

The stranger from the café.

The man from the palace courtyard.

The thread ties every nightmare to her waking life.

And now, he has walked straight into her world.

Han Jiwon couldn’t focus the next morning.

Her alarm had blared three times before she finally dragged herself out of bed, her eyes ringed with exhaustion. The name lingered on her tongue as if it had been carved into her soul during the night.

Seo Minjae.

She had never heard it before, never met anyone by that name. Yet when her lips shaped the syllables, they felt achingly familiar. Like a song she had once known by heart, forgotten, and then suddenly remembered.

Her paint-stained fingers fumbled with her sketchbook as she sat at her desk. On the first page, she wrote it down in bold letters:

Seo Minjae.

She stared at it for several minutes, her chest tightening. The letters stared back at her, mocking and magnetic at once.

---

By the time she reached campus, her best friend Kim Sohee had already texted her half a dozen times.

SOHEE: Where r u??? Studio critique today!!!

SOHEE: Bring coffee or I’ll fail u myself

Jiwon quickened her pace, clutching two iced lattes as peace offerings. Sohee was already waiting outside the art building, her red-dyed hair pulled into a messy bun, oversized hoodie swallowing her frame. She spotted Jiwon instantly, narrowing her eyes in mock annoyance.

“You’re late,” Sohee said, snatching one of the lattes. “If Professor Kang kills me, I’m haunting you in the afterlife.”

Jiwon forced a laugh, but the words hit too close to home. Afterlife. The dream clawed at her thoughts again. She shook her head quickly and followed Sohee inside.

The studio smelled of turpentine and charcoal, easels scattered across the wide space. Students buzzed nervously, rearranging canvases, flipping through sketchbooks. Jiwon set up her painting—a half-finished piece of a girl standing before a river at night.

Sohee peeked at it and frowned. “You’ve been painting the same vibe for weeks. All sad eyes and dark water. Spill it. What’s going on?”

Jiwon hesitated. Should she tell her? She had never said a word about the recurring dream. Not even when she woke sobbing. Not even when she saw him in the café yesterday.

Instead, she shrugged. “Just… tired. I keep having weird dreams.”

Sohee raised a brow. “Weird like what? Flying pigs? Zombies? Or”—she smirked—“dreams about hot guys?”

Jiwon nearly choked on her coffee.

Sohee laughed, nudging her shoulder. “Called it. Who’s the mystery man? Spill.”

“It’s not—” Jiwon faltered, her gaze drifting to the window. Her heart gave a sharp, unsteady beat. “It’s complicated.”

Sohee tilted her head, unconvinced, but Professor Kang clapped his hands, signaling the critique session. The conversation was cut short, but the question lingered like smoke.

---

By the afternoon, Jiwon’s nerves were frayed. The critique had gone poorly—Professor Kang claimed her work lacked “focus of intent.” The words stung because he wasn’t wrong. She was distracted, haunted, painting ghosts instead of subjects.

Sohee offered to buy her dinner after class, but Jiwon declined. She needed air, quiet, something to clear her head.

She ended up back at the campus café, the sketchbook opened once more. Her pencil betrayed her again, sketching his face without her permission. The sharp slope of his nose. The curve of his mouth. The sorrow in his eyes.

Seo Minjae.

“Are you stalking me now?”

The voice sent her pencil skittering across the page. Her head shot up, and there he was—standing by her table again, guitar case on his back, hoodie pulled low.

Jiwon’s stomach dropped. Her mouth opened but no words came.

He gestured to the empty seat. “Do you mind?”

She shook her head quickly. He slid into the chair across from her, setting down his coffee. For a long moment, neither spoke. The tension between them was palpable, thick like invisible threads tangled in the air.

Finally, he broke the silence. “You keep staring at me. Is there a reason?”

Her face burned. “I—I wasn’t—”

His lips quirked in a small smile, though his eyes remained serious. “It’s fine. You just… look familiar. That’s all.”

Her heart lurched.

Familiar. The same word that had been gnawing at her since the dream began.

Before she could reply, Sohee appeared, holding two bags of takeout. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. “Jiwon-ah! Who’s this?”

Jiwon fumbled. “Uh—just… someone I met. At the café.”

Sohee grinned knowingly, sliding into the seat beside her. “Someone, huh? Handsome someone.”

Minjae coughed lightly, looking away. His ears turned slightly red beneath his dark hair.

Jiwon wished she could vanish.

Sohee, oblivious, extended a hand. “I’m Kim Sohee. Jiwon’s best friend and personal bodyguard since elementary school.”

He hesitated, then shook her hand. “Seo Minjae.”

The sound of his name spoken aloud nearly unraveled Jiwon. Her grip tightened on her pencil until the wood threatened to snap.

Sohee whistled. “Even your name sounds like it belongs to a K-drama lead. Are you a musician or something?”

Minjae chuckled softly, tapping the guitar case at his side. “Something like that.”

The conversation drifted, but Jiwon barely registered it. Her mind spun. The dream. The courtyard. His voice is calling her name. And now here he was, introducing himself with the exact name she had heard only hours ago in her sleep.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

It felt like fate.

---

Later that evening, after Sohee had left and Minjae had said his polite goodbyes, Jiwon lingered in the café alone. She stared at her sketchbook, at the word written in bold letters: Seo Minjae.

Her hands trembled. She flipped the page, sketching the palace courtyard from memory. Lanterns glowing, soldiers shouting, her white hanbok stained with blood. And him—always him—clutching her as she died.

The doorbell chimed as someone entered the café, but she didn’t look up. She was lost in her sketch, lost in the past that didn’t belong to her.

When she finally glanced up, her blood ran cold.

Eun Haejin stood outside the glass window.

At least, that was the name her dream whispered when she saw the woman’s face. A stranger, pale and elegant, eyes burning with something sharp and possessive. She stared directly at Jiwon, lips curved in a smile that was not kind.

And then—just like that—the woman was gone.

Vanished into the night.

Jiwon’s pencil dropped to the table. Her pulse roared in her ears.

For the first time, she realized the dreams weren’t just dreams. Someone—something—was watching her.

And Seo Minjae was at the center of it all.

Han Jiwon barely slept.

Every time she closed her eyes, the woman’s face reappeared—white skin, crimson lips, eyes glinting with cruel amusement. Eun Haejin. The name clung to her thoughts as if it had been etched into her bones long before she was born.

By dawn, she gave up on sleep altogether. She sat at her desk, sketchbook open, pages littered with fragments of her dream: the palace courtyard, the bloody hanbok, the stranger’s face. None of it made sense. But the fear was real.

Her phone buzzed.

SOHEE: U alive??? Want breakfast??

SOHEE: Wait don’t answer that. Meet me @ front gate in 20 mins.

Jiwon exhaled, rubbing her temples. She needed Sohee’s chatter, something to pull her away from the fog threatening to swallow her. She stuffed her sketchbook into her bag, pulled on a jacket, and headed out.

---

The morning air was crisp, sunlight soft against the pavement. Sohee was already waiting with two croissants in hand.

“You look like a corpse,” Sohee said bluntly, shoving one pastry into Jiwon’s hand. “You seriously need to stop pulling all-nighters.”

“It’s not that,” Jiwon muttered, tearing off a bite of croissant.

Sohee squinted. “Then what? You’ve been weird since yesterday. And don’t say it’s nothing. I know your nothing-face.”

Jiwon hesitated. How could she explain? How could she tell her best friend that she was being haunted by dreams of dying in another lifetime? That she had seen a stranger’s face in both her sleep and her waking life?

Before she could answer, music drifted from the quad. A familiar sound—a guitar, warm and resonant.

Jiwon froze.

Across the lawn, Seo Minjae sat on the low steps of the library, strumming softly as a small crowd gathered. His head tilted slightly as he played, eyes half-closed, lips curving faintly in concentration. The melody was simple, but it carried weight, each note tugging at something inside her chest.

Her heart stuttered. She knew this song.

Not from the radio. Not from class. Not from anywhere that made sense.

She knew it from the dream.

The melody was the same one that had floated through the palace courtyard the night she died.

Sohee nudged her, whispering, “You’re staring again. Is he the guy?”

Jiwon couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away.

When the song ended, Minjae glanced up—and for the briefest second, their gazes locked. Something flickered in his eyes, recognition or confusion, Jiwon couldn’t tell. He stood quickly, slipping the guitar back into its case, and disappeared into the crowd before she could follow.

---

That evening, Jiwon returned to her rooftop apartment, drained. She dropped her bag on the floor and collapsed onto the bed.

She thought about the melody. The name. The woman’s face. Every piece of it tangled together like threads pulling her toward a tapestry she couldn’t yet see.

Her phone buzzed again—this time with an unknown number.

UNKNOWN: Did you draw me?

Her blood turned cold.

She typed back hesitantly: Who is this?

The reply came instantly.

UNKNOWN: Seo Minjae.

Her breath hitched. How had he gotten her number? Did Sohee give it to him? Or—

Another message appeared.

MINJAE: I saw your sketchbook at the café. That face you drew… it looked like me.

Jiwon’s hand shook around the phone. He had seen.

Before she could think of an excuse, another text arrived.

MINJAE: Can we talk?

---

The café was quieter at night, only a few students hunched over laptops. Jiwon sat at the same table by the window, clutching her sketchbook like a shield.

When Minjae arrived, he looked different—less casual, more guarded. His hoodie was gone, replaced with a denim jacket. His guitar case leaned against the wall as he slid into the chair across from her.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Minjae leaned forward, voice low.

“Why did you draw me?”

Jiwon’s throat tightened. She opened the sketchbook, flipping to the page she had sketched the day before. His face stared back at them both, shadows and sorrow etched into graphite.

“It’s not…” She swallowed. “It’s not really you. I mean, it is, but—I saw you before I met you. In a dream.”

Minjae’s brows knit together. “A dream?”

She nodded, pulse racing. “You were there. I don’t know why. But when I saw you at the café, it felt like I’d already known you. Like I’d already—” She stopped herself before the word died and slipped out.

Minjae sat back, expression unreadable. For a long while, he said nothing. Then he exhaled, running a hand through his hair.

“That’s… strange,” he admitted quietly. “Because I’ve seen you too.”

Jiwon’s heart skipped. “What?”

“In my dreams,” Minjae said. His gaze flicked up to meet hers, sharp and unsettling. “You were crying. And there was blood. I didn’t tell anyone because I thought I was losing my mind.”

The café’s air seemed to thin around them. Two strangers, bound by dreams of death that mirrored each other.

Jiwon’s hand trembled as she closed the sketchbook. “What does it mean?” she whispered.

Minjae shook his head, jaw tight. “I don’t know. But I think… we’re not supposed to ignore it.”

Outside the window, movement flickered in the dark. Jiwon turned her head just in time to catch a figure slipping past the glass—a pale woman with crimson lips. Watching. Smiling.

Eun Haejin.

Her blood ran cold.

When she looked back, Minjae was staring too.

“You saw her?” he asked, voice strained.

Jiwon nodded slowly.

The café lights flickered once. Twice. Then steadied again.

Whatever bound them together, it wasn’t just a dream anymore.