She stroked her belly and smiled faintly. Then she went on with strange words.

"Wouldn't the baby be more overwhelmed? Even now, synapses are being explosively formed. Limbic system development is accelerating too... My daughter is probably setting her basic response threshold for how sensitive she should be to emotions like anxiety or avoidance right now. While working hard and tilting her head."

Her tone was close to written language, like reading stage directions. Caught off guard by the unexpected odd reaction, Oreum was utterly at a loss. After that, Oreum and Somi became close friends who crossed the age gap.

Oreum opened his laptop. As he stared listlessly at the blinking cursor, Somi was already sitting opposite him, opening the tumbler lid.

"Teacher, please be careful from today...."

"Hm? Me?"

"Yes."

Somi was a kid who was deeply into Western astrology. Because of that, she sometimes gave Oreum obscure advice based on astrology. It seemed to be the same this time too, and Oreum accepted it without much thought. Somi muttered while looking over Oreum's shoulder.

"Now Pluto, the star of destruction and regeneration, is entering retrograde.... And Uranus, which means unexpected upheaval, has started touching the 7th house in your chart. It's a time when things like bonds, relationships, contracts... those things are all getting smashed at once."

Somi slowly stirred the inside of the tumbler with a chopstick-like tool. Beside Somi, there was the sound of foam swirling.

"Teacher is Aquarius sun and Scorpio rising, so.... You're the type with strong self-control and who never shows people the bottom of yourself...."

"...So?"

"Words, thoughts, skills, schedules, documents, communication. It's not just getting tangled or twisted...."

"...."

"With Scorpio rising, because of external pressure you can't handle, the deepest hidden lack inside you might be forcibly dragged out...."

Somi's gaze lingered for a moment near Oreum's lips. Destruction, smashing, lack. They were all expressions that were not at all pleasant. Oreum made an effort to manage his expression.

"Well."

"Normally you can keep secrets better than anyone else... but if Pluto starts pressing down on the orbit...."

Somi crossed two fingers to show him.

"The poison in the scorpion tail leaks out. Secrets, slipups, late confessions, hidden relationships being exposed."

"There isn't any hidden relationship."

"There will be."

"...."

Somi stated it as if recalling something that had already happened. Amused by Somi's boldness, Oreum let out a dry laugh and then asked back after thinking for a moment.

"Is it that bad?"

"How should I put it... it's not bad. But...."

Somi tilted her head to one side and gave a faint smile. It was a smile that somehow inspired a quiet sense of trust, despite being ridiculous superstition.

"In this period, an old connection will come that lasts a very long time, and you don't know that yet. One line you miss, one reply, one look... that becomes the aftershock of the future later on."

"...."

"Especially with a chart like teacher's... it's almost no different from being ambushed from behind.... Anyway, whoever comes in now is hard to let go of for a lifetime. That's both a blessing and a disaster...."

"Who is barging into my life as he pleases?"

"Yes. He already came. It's just that your brain is still measuring the response time for it. Anyway, be careful. These kinds of connections are just like drugs...."

Oreum only listened quietly and did not open his mouth again. Somi shifted the topic somewhere else.

"Was it today? The start of <Brain and Mind>."

"Yes. But,"

"...?"

"No, never mind."

The keyword connection brought to mind today's unexpected meeting. But Oreum soon stopped what he had been about to say. He had a feeling he would regret it if he let it out of his mouth. Somi narrowed her eyes. Before long, a strange name, broken apart by Somi's voice, struck Oreum.

"It's because of Eom Itae, isn't it...? The guy."

"Eom Itae?"

"Black, tall, handsome, and, how should I put it... puzzling?"

Ah. Right. That was the name. Eom Itae. Oreum murmured along with Somi.

"Eom Itae."

"Yes.... Him."

Somi spoke about Eom Itae in a flat tone.

"He retook the college entrance exam, so he's one class year below me.... I guess he came back to school this semester...."

"...I see. I thought he was from a different department because I'd never seen him before."

"He had been in the military. While you, teacher, were... sick."

When he heard Somi's hint, there was a reason it had been a first meeting. Oreum had been in higher-level classes ever since after his postdoc. Somi seemed to be searching through old memories. Oreum's sick leave was mentioned, but there was no special pity or sympathy there. That's why Oreum liked Somi. Even if she was consistently hazy, she did not make people embarrassed.

"There was a huge mess because of him before, with all the College of Life Sciences guys getting into gambling...."

Oreum's eyebrows furrowed slightly. A gambling problem had come up? By a college student, no less? To Oreum, that was outside common sense.

"He dragged a bunch of them to hold'em pubs and poker lounges and such, and they all ended up flat broke and getting scolded together by Professor Park, and it was such a mess, it was really fun...."

“So he went into the military? Because of gambling?”

“No...... I think he just went because he wanted to go early. The professors like him.... Apparently, he had never once lost his stake. I think Eom Itae was the only one who won every time, and, from the start... it seems like his family was really rich.”

A chill ran down Oreum’s back. If he was at the level of coaxing his friends to come along, that meant he couldn’t get enough of gambling, but he himself never lost? Oreum thought that anecdote was a little creepy. A well-off family, outstanding looks, a top university in the Republic of Korea, and he didn’t lose even when he enjoyed gambling. Taken together, all those elements meant Eom Itae had rarely experienced failure, and that in turn meant he had lacked opportunities to learn inhibitory emotions like guilt, regret, and frustration.

Oreum recalled Eom Itae staring straight at him in the lecture hall. It was not a gaze trying to understand what Oreum was saying, but one that seemed to be inspecting what kind of gaps he had. The silence of someone wondering what could be taken from him. The kind that would pull you in in an instant if you weren’t on guard.

“He might be a little much for you, teacher......”

“Why?”

A trap.

Somi looked at Oreum instead of answering. Her face seemed to say, didn’t you already know? Oreum inwardly agreed with Somi. I probably wouldn’t be able to handle him properly. The circuits that made up Oreum were delicate and precise, but they were poison for that kind of person. They had been designed that way from the start. While the displeased Oreum kept his mouth tightly shut, Somi stood up.

“Is your garden still okay, teacher?”

“......”

“Garden is... a metaphor, right? Lately, teacher, you’ve been pruning too much. If you keep doing that, even the important things will disappear......”

Somi’s voice sounded like a song being played from far away. Oreum suddenly felt like his throat had been grabbed shut, and he couldn’t breathe. Somi added,

“Teacher probably doesn’t like inviting anyone into the garden, but....”

“......”

“But...... Eom Itae somehow feels like he could get in....”

“......”

While leaving footprints here and there.

After finishing, Somi tapped out a few dots in the air. The dots busied themselves around the center of Oreum’s chest before slowly falling.

Footprints crossing the garden. Oreum imagined that kid’s, no, Eom Itae’s sneakers crushing the flower heads that had fallen gently onto the soil. Like before, his heart skipped a beat again. I have no intention of letting that boy into my small, peaceful world. But if Somi was right, whether or not he was invited didn’t seem all that important.

He would just come in by force.

Even though he had only met him once, it was easy enough to predict.

A headache came on. Like an alarm warning him in advance of an intruder. But there was nothing Oreum could do. Oreum let out a small sigh. He could only keep the old door attached to the garden tightly shut and hope Somi’s strange premonition was wrong.

7 a.m. After setting dozens of alarms at five-minute intervals, he barely got up. It felt less like sleeping and more like passing out and waking up. It felt as if a cloudy sediment were floating around inside his head.

Oreum had struggled with insomnia for a long time. He took psychiatric medication regularly, but the effect was slight. He was often sleep-paralyzed, too. When he struggled awake in pain, as if his body were sinking downward, it was morning. The first things he saw when he opened his eyes were his parents’ texts, department notices, and miscellaneous request emails. With sleep still not fully gone, Oreum soon staggered off to wash up.

Today was Monday, the second lecture of <Brain and Mind>. Was it because he hadn’t rested the day before yesterday or yesterday, too. Just showering had already drained him completely. For Oreum, weekends were days for making money just like weekdays. On days without lectures, he was busy with side jobs and overtime however he could be, and on days with lectures, he had to get through what he had handled on days without them, even if only at half speed. Either way, it was hell.