THE WATCHER IN PLAIN SIGHT

The crisp air clung to the tree-lined avenues of Yonsei University, where students hurried between classes, their scarves trailing like streaks of color against the graying sky. The autumn light was soft, the last warmth of the season before winter claimed the city.

Among the faces in the crowd was a man who didn't quite belong.

Arjun Mehra, known here as Aryan Malhotra, the visiting research assistant from Mumbai University, moved through the campus with quiet, unassuming confidence. Yet it was impossible not to notice him. His sharp, foreign features, storm-dark eyes, and tall, athletic frame made him stand out in every hallway, every lecture hall, every corner café.

He carried himself with the effortless ease of a man who understood danger — and knew how to stay one step ahead of it.

The students whispered about him. Girls paused mid-conversation when he passed. Some feigned accidental encounters, others brazenly stared, charmed by the air of mystery and authority he exuded. It wasn't arrogance. It was presence.

But Arjun paid them no mind.

His focus was elsewhere.

On her.

He never followed Seo Hana directly. It was always from a distance — the far end of the library where he pretended to flip through old literature texts, a bench outside the humanities building while she crossed the courtyard, a table at the campus café while she laughed with her friend Chae-Rin.

At first, he told himself it was coincidence. Then, curiosity. But now… it was something else. Something he hadn't felt in years.

There was a softness about her. The way she tilted her head when reading, brushed her hair behind her ear, or greeted the elderly janitor every morning with the kind of warmth few people spared for strangers. She carried an unguarded kindness that felt foreign in his brutal, scorched world.

He hadn't planned to stay this long in Seoul. It was supposed to be a brief stop — gather intel, clean up a few names on his list connected to Ji-Yeon's network, and move on. But then his path crossed hers at Yonsei. And fate, with its cruel sense of humor, had planted a familiar ache in his chest.

She reminded him of Meera.

Not in face, or voice — but in spirit.

And yet, this wasn't sentimentality.

Weeks ago, while intercepting phone records during a break-in at a minor gang runner's apartment, Arjun had traced a call — from a burner in Busan to Seoul. The recipient was tied to Choi Hyun-Soo's residence.

Now, every instinct told him to keep eyes on anyone remotely connected. And when he found Hana's number linked through routine records… his professional caution and personal ghosts collided.

That afternoon at the campus café, Arjun sat by the window, a cup of black coffee cooling untouched in front of him. His sharp eyes swept the courtyard beyond, cataloging faces, patterns, exits — until she appeared.

Hana stepped out of the café with Chae-Rin, her laughter light and easy in the autumn air. She wore a pale beige coat and a soft blue scarf, her hair catching the sun as it fell across her shoulders.

Arjun's gaze lingered on her without meaning to.

As though she sensed it, Hana paused and glanced toward the window.

For a heartbeat, their eyes met.

A sharp, flickering connection neither of them fully understood.

Hana frowned slightly, as if trying to place where she'd seen him before. Then Chae-Rin tugged her arm, and the moment dissolved as quickly as it had formed.

She walked on, leaving Arjun with an unexpected tightness in his chest.

He didn't know what it meant.

And perhaps he didn't want to.

Nightfall came swiftly. Arjun returned to his temporary apartment in Mapo-gu, a stark, utilitarian space with a single mattress, a duffel bag of weapons, and a large map of Seoul pinned to the wall — red threads and scribbled names marking Ji-Yeon's network.

One more name crossed out tonight. Two more to handle tomorrow. A message already intercepted from Ji-Yeon's lieutenant.

The work was far from done.

And yet, even in the dim silence of his room, it wasn't the faces of the gangsters that filled his mind.

It was the girl with the soft smile. The one who tilted her head when she read. The one who met his eyes through a café window like a thread pulled from a past life.

Seo Hana.

And Arjun knew — no matter how much he told himself otherwise — his carefully drawn lines were beginning to blur.