The classroom door creaked open just enough to announce that someone had arrived late, and of course it chose the most annoying possible moment to do it. Every head in the room turned at once. The professor paused mid-sentence, her expression sharpening immediately, and Minho already knew the day had gone from boring to irritating in under a second.
Minho stepped inside quietly, trying to make as little impact as possible, which was difficult when he was already late, slightly bruised, and standing there with a bandage on his head like some kind of badly disguised disaster. He kept his shoulders low and his face calm as he gave a small bow.
"Sorry, ma'am," he said.
Simple. Polite. Hoping that would be enough.
The professor studied him for a moment, her gaze cool and cutting, the kind of look that could make a grown man reconsider his entire life. Then, with a thin expression of judgment still lingering on her face, she waved him toward his seat.
"Well," she said dryly, "how kind of you to finally join us."
A few students snickered under their breath. Minho did not react. He only walked to his seat with quiet patience, slid into place beside his friends, and set down his notebook as if nothing about his appearance suggested he had just crawled out of a fight and into a lecture hall.
His friends leaned in almost immediately, curiosity blazing in their faces.
"What happened to your head?" one of them whispered.
"Did you get into a fight?" another asked, looking far too entertained by the possibility.
Minho only shrugged, flipping open his notebook. "Something like that."
"That is not reassuring."
Minho's mouth twitched. "Relax. I am still pretty."
That earned a suppressed laugh, and the moment settled again. The professor turned back to the board, the scratching of chalk filled the room, and the lecture resumed as if nothing had happened. Minho tried to focus. He bent over his notes, pen moving steadily across the page. The ache at the back of his head pulsed now and then, but he ignored it. He had survived worse than a headache and a disapproving professor. Probably.
For a while, the class moved normally. Pages turned. Pens scratched. The professor spoke in her usual sharp, unwavering tone, and the room settled into that predictable rhythm that made every long lecture feel even longer.
Then came the knock.
It was soft, almost hesitant, but in a room that had been perfectly still a moment ago, it cut through the silence like a knife. The professor stopped speaking. Her expression shifted immediately into irritation, and she turned toward the door with the kind of displeasure only teachers could make look so refined.
"Yes?" she called.
The door opened.
And someone stepped inside.
Minho's first thought was simple and immediate: he did not belong here.
Not because of anything obvious. Not because of his clothes or the way he looked. It was something else. Something about the timing, the calmness, the way he entered as though walking into the middle of a semester, into a room already halfway through the syllabus, was completely normal. Nobody joined a class like this. Nobody arrived with that kind of quiet confidence unless they knew exactly what they were doing.
The stranger stood at the front of the room with a composed expression, neither nervous nor apologetic. The professor's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
