"Are you okay?" So-min asked, her voice trembling slightly. She had been walking behind him and reacted instinctively, pushing him out of the path of the scooter.
Chae-woo stared at her, momentarily speechless. There was something…familiar about her. Her eyes, the way she tilted her head, triggered a flicker of recognition, a whisper of a memory he couldn't quite grasp.
"Yes, I...I think so," he stammered, regaining his composure. "Thank you. You saved me."
"It was nothing," So-min said, her cheeks flushed. "Just glad I could help."
Chae-woo extended his hand. "Lee Chae-woo."
"Kim So-min," she replied, shaking his hand. As their fingers touched, a jolt of energy passed between them, a brief but intense connection that left them both strangely disoriented.
Chae-woo couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her, not just from this brief encounter, but from somewhere, sometime…else. He felt compelled to ask her more, delve deeper into this inexplicable feeling.
"Would you...would you like to have coffee?" he asked impulsively. "As a thank you."
So-min hesitated. She was drawn to him too, intrigued by the same sense of inexplicable familiarity. "Okay," she agreed, "but my treat. I work at a cafe just down the street."