My Stubborn Seoul

Chapter Two: Roommates Are Overrated

The Seoul Arts Music Academy was beautiful in the way that made Emeka immediately suspicious.

Too clean. Too quiet. Too organized. Buildings that looked like they had been designed by someone who had never experienced chaos in their life. Glass walls, manicured paths, cherry blossom trees that were probably scheduled to bloom at exactly the right time every year just to maintain the aesthetic.

Lagos would never.

He followed the group of new students through the main gates, neck craning at everything, trying to look unbothered and failing completely. A girl beside him — small, with bright eyes and a snapback pulled low — caught him staring at a fountain in the courtyard and grinned.

"First time in Korea?" she asked.

"That obvious?"

"Little bit." She stuck out her hand. "Park Soyeon. Piano. Busan."

"Emeka." He shook it. "Voice and composition. Lagos."

Her eyes went wide. "Nigeria? That's so cool. You came all the way from Nigeria for this program?"

"Full scholarship." He said it the way he always did — quietly, but with his whole chest. Because he had earned it. Every sleepless night, every recorded demo, every rejection before the acceptance. He had earned every single letter of that scholarship.

Soyeon looked genuinely impressed. "You must be really good."

"I'm exceptional," he said.

She laughed. He decided immediately that he liked her.

The accommodation block was a ten minute walk from the main building. The program coordinator — a small energetic woman named Director Yoon who spoke at the speed of someone who had three meetings after this one — handed out room assignments from a clipboard while speed-walking down the corridor.

"International students are paired with domestic students for cultural integration," she announced without looking up. "We find it produces better collaboration outcomes."

Emeka looked at his key.

Room 214.

He found the door, shifted his bags, and pushed it open.

The room was a decent size. Two beds, two desks, two wardrobes. One side was already partially claimed — a single duffel bag placed with military precision at the foot of the bed nearest the window. Nothing else. No decorations, no scattered clothes, no personality of any kind.

Emeka dropped his bags on the other bed and looked around.

Clean. Quiet. Organized.

He had a bad feeling.

The door opened behind him.

He turned around.

Of course.

The rude guy from the airport stood in the doorway, key in hand, looking at Emeka with an expression that suggested the universe had personally offended him.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"No," Emeka said.

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face said it."

The guy walked past him, set his jacket down on the chair by the window desk, and sat down. He pulled out his phone and began scrolling like Emeka was a piece of furniture that had been there when he arrived and would hopefully be gone soon.

Emeka watched him for a full ten seconds.

"I'm Emeka," he said. "Since apparently we're living together."

"I know."

"You know my name?"

"Director Yoon read the room list." He didn't look up. "Emeka Obi. Nigeria. Voice and composition."

"And you are?"

A pause. Small, like he was deciding whether answering was worth the energy.

"Seo Jihan."

"Jihan." Emeka tested the name. "Okay Jihan. Since we're going to be living in the same room for the next year I think we should establish some ground rules."

Jihan looked up from his phone for the first time. His expression was the human equivalent of a blank wall.

"Ground rules," he repeated.

"Yes. Basic coexistence principles." Emeka held up one finger. "One — common courtesy. Good morning, good night, basic human acknowledgment. We don't have to be friends but we live together so we act like civilized people."

Jihan said nothing.

"Two." Second finger. "My side of the room is my side. Your side is your side. We respect the boundary."

Still nothing.

"Three." Third finger. "No attitude. I don't know what your problem was at the airport but whatever it is leave it at the door. I didn't come to Seoul to deal with someone else's bad mood every day."

Jihan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Are you done?"

"Depends. Are you going to follow the rules?"

"I have one rule," Jihan said.

Emeka raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"Don't touch my things." He looked back at his phone. "Everything else is fine."

Emeka stared at him. "That's it? That's your whole contribution to peaceful coexistence?"

"I'm a quiet person. I won't bother you." A pause. "Try not to bother me."

For the second time that day Emeka found himself genuinely speechless. He had grown up with two older brothers and a mother who had opinions about everything from politics to the correct way to fold a wrapper. Silence was not something he was used to. People who actively chose silence were a species he had never properly encountered before.

He looked at Jihan — at the careful way he held himself, at the precise placement of his single bag, at the way he had already arranged his small space without any wasted movement — and thought that this was going to be the most interesting year of his life.

Not in a good way necessarily.

Just interesting.

"Fine," Emeka said. He started unpacking, pulling clothes out and filling his wardrobe with the particular chaos of someone who packed by throwing things in a bag and hoping for the best. "Don't touch my things. I can work with that."

Jihan glanced over once at the explosion of colour spreading across Emeka's side of the room. Said nothing. Looked away.

Emeka pulled out the small framed photo he always travelled with — his mother, his two brothers, his grandmother in her favourite yellow dress outside their house in Lagos — and set it on his desk.

He looked at it for a moment. Felt the particular ache of distance that he knew would visit him at random moments throughout this year. At meals, at night, in the seconds between waking and remembering where he was.

He pushed it back gently and turned around.

Jihan was looking at the photo.

Not staring. Just a glance, quick and almost careful, the way someone looks at something they didn't mean to notice.

When he realized Emeka had caught him he looked away immediately. Back to his phone. Expression unchanged.

But something about that one glance made Emeka pause.

There was nothing unkind in it. No judgment, no dismissal. Just a moment of seeing something and being briefly caught by it.

Maybe, Emeka thought, there was an actual human being somewhere behind all that carefully maintained coldness.

Maybe.

He turned back to his unpacking and smiled to himself, small and private.

This was going to be interesting after all.