The lab meeting began at exactly ten in the morning.

  The professor was not late.

  That alone made the air heavier.

  Everyone was already seated.

  Laptops open.

  Pens neatly aligned on the desks.

  Only the sound of breathing filled the room.

  “Let’s begin.”

  Min-ah was the third presenter.

  Her slides were organized.

  The numbers were correct.

  The controls were stable.

  The professor flipped through two slides without comment.

  He tapped his pen once against the desk.

  “For now,”

  he said, eyes on the screen,

  “the numbers aren’t wrong.”

  Min-ah exhaled the breath she had been holding.

  “But there’s a problem with how you’re interpreting these results.”

  He didn’t look up.

  The pen began tapping again.

  “The control is too clean.

  This is data that avoided failure.

  There’s no trace of exploration.

  I can’t see what you struggled with here.”

  Someone removed their hands from the keyboard.

  “Looking at this data,

  what did you think?”

  A brief silence.

  The professor didn’t wait.

  “Ah. Nothing at all, I guess.”

  Min-ah’s ears rang.

  “A thesis,”

  he continued, his voice ice-cold,

  “isn’t written by someone who works hard.

  It’s written by someone who can take responsibility for their judgment.”

  For the first time, his sharp gaze fixed directly on Min-ah.

  “If you looked at these results

  and still decided to continue in this direction—”

  He paused, as if taking a breath.

  “That doesn’t mean the data is the problem.

  It means you don’t understand

  what you’re doing as a researcher.”

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  The room grew even quieter.

  “This is graduate school.

  Your research and interpretation look undergraduate-level.

  Frankly, it’s lacking.”

  The edges of Min-ah’s vision began to sway.

  “Usually, by this stage,”

  he tilted his head slightly,

  “people have some idea of what type they are.”

  “But you,”

  he said,

  “still don’t seem to know.”

  “If you can’t make this level of judgment

  as someone being advised—”

  His words continued, unbroken.

  “Then you should seriously reconsider

  whether you have the aptitude

  to continue in research.”

  Min-ah bit her lip.

  But a deep breath escaped first.

  “I’m not angry,”

  the professor said calmly.

  “I’m trying to save time.

  Yours and mine.”

  The emotion she had been suppressing rushed upward.

  Her eyes burned.

  She lowered her head,

  but her vision blurred.

  A tear fell.

  Min-ah quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  It didn’t stop.

  “This isn’t something to cry about.

  You just need to accept where you are.”

  The professor wrapped things up efficiently.

  “This isn’t emotional.”

  “Next. Let’s move on.”

  When the lab meeting ended,

  people moved quickly.

  Chairs scraping.

  Water bottles opening.

  Small laughter.

  No one looked at Min-ah.

  She closed her laptop

  and zipped her bag all the way shut.

  “Min-ah.”

  The voice came from directly behind her.

  “Wait.”

  There was no reason given.

  It wasn’t a question.

  Everyone left.

  The office door was left half-closed.

  Sounds from the hallway seeped in faintly.

  The professor didn’t sit.

  “What I said earlier,”

  he began, picking up a document,

  “wasn’t a personal attack.”

  Min-ah nodded.

  “The world is harsh.

  In this field, if you react to this level of discomfort,

  you won’t last long.”

  As he set the papers down,

  his body moved closer.

  “That’s how everyone learns.”

  His hand touched the back of the chair

  Min-ah was leaning against.

  There was nowhere to move.

  “If even this

  makes your body freeze—”

  A brief pause.

  “Research ahead

  may be much harder.”

  The words settled like a condition.

  Min-ah’s gaze fixed on the floor.

  “I’m giving you realistic advice

  because it’s me.”

  His hand dropped.

  As if nothing had happened.

  “Understood?”

  It didn’t matter what was understood.

  She just wanted to leave the moment.

  “Yes,”

  Min-ah said softly.

  Only then did he sit.

  “Good.

  Then that’s settled.”

  Back in the hallway,

  sound returned to life.

  Printers running.

  Phones ringing.

  Someone laughing.

  At the far end of the corridor,

  a tall foreign researcher was standing.

  Pavez.

  Their eyes met briefly.

  Min-ah looked away first.

  He was holding a white document envelope,

  his expression stiff.

  He had seen her

  coming out of the professor’s office.

  Precisely.

  There was something in his gaze

  that Min-ah recognized.

  The same kind of silence.

  The same kind of helplessness.

  But he looked like someone

  not yet accustomed to that silence.

  Back at her desk,

  Min-ah opened her bag.

  Her notebook was there.

  So was her pen.

  But her hand wouldn’t move.

  “Nothing at all, I guess,”

  was too humiliating.

  “Aptitude”

  was too heavy.

  The moment refused to turn into sentences.

  Min-ah closed the notebook.

  A moment not recorded

  cannot become evidence.

  Sunlight reflected off her laptop screen, stinging her eyes.

  In this lab—

  during the day,

  when everything looks safest,

  the most things happen.

  What happened that day

  was not something Min-ah experienced alone.

  No one said anything.

  But someone

  was definitely watching.

  And that person

  is not yet used to silence.

  Private conversation becomes physical pressure.

  And silence spreads—not because no one notices,

  but because everyone does.

  Even silent ones.

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  to someone who has not yet learned how to stay quiet.