"I... I…" Taejun stammered, his voice catching somewhere between his throat and the quiet that had settled over the classroom.
All eyes were on him now, not judging, just curious, the way kids are when someone hesitates in the middle of something simple.
A few leaned forward slightly, their chins resting on folded arms, waiting to hear what he'd say.
Ms. Jang, still standing at the front, smiled gently.
"And what about you, Taejun?" she asked, her tone patient and light, like a mother gently nudging a shy child to speak.
Her hands were folded neatly, her cardigan sleeves bunched at the wrists.
She didn't push; instead, she just waited, one brow faintly raised, noticing the nervous flutter of his fingers on the edge of his desk.
Taejun hesitated.
For a second, he wasn't sure what to say.
The room felt bigger than it had a moment ago.
Brighter, somehow.
He thought of the empty house, the mess, the missing breakfast, and that moment at the crosswalk.
A flicker of shadow behind him that he pretended didn't exist. But none of that belonged here, not in this room, not with these smiling children, their laughter still lingering in the corners like sunlight.
Then something shifted in his expression.
He sat up straighter, as if brushing off a chill that no one else could feel, and smiled.
A warm, practiced smile that nearly reached his eyes.
"My day's been great, Teacher," he said, voice lifting just enough to carry across the room.
"I woke up early and had some breakfast. I even caught the sunrise through the kitchen window. It was all pink and orange, like peach candy in the sky."
A few kids giggled at that.
Ms. Jang's smile deepened, and she gave him a soft nod, her eyes gleaming with a kind of quiet pride.
Taejun laughed too, scratching the back of his head.
"So yeah… I guess I'm just feeling lucky today."
There was a soft round of approving murmurs from the class.
One of the girls even whispered, "That's so pretty," probably about the sunrise.
The moment passed gently, like a breeze through curtains.
Ms. Jang turned to the next child, and just like that, the spotlight moved on.
But Taejun sat a little taller now, shoulders a bit looser.
Something inside him had shifted, but not completely, not all at once, but enough to let in a bit of the morning light.
As the spotlight drifted from him, Taejun let out a slow breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
The classroom eased back into its rhythm, soft chatter returned like birdsong after a hush, the scent of wooden desks and sharpened pencils filling the air with something that felt familiar, almost safe.
Sunlight slanted through the windows in long, golden strips, dust motes spinning lazily in the beams like tiny, floating stars.
The next student spoke, and then the next, each child sharing their tiny joys: a new puppy, a breakfast pancake shaped like a bunny, a funny dream they barely remembered but still made them laugh.
The room bubbled gently with laughter, and Ms. Jang listened to each one like it truly mattered, as if each word spoken added a small tile to the mosaic of their day.
Taejun sat still for a while, hands tucked neatly into his lap, watching the sunlight crawl across his desk.
The warmth from the window felt like a quiet hand resting on his shoulder.
In this room, things didn't feel broken.
Not like the house he'd left behind.
Not like the strange silence that seemed to follow him lately.
Here, voices lifted, eyes sparkled, chairs scraped, giggles echoed, and crayons rolled off tables like runaway dreams.
He looked around at the other kids, some drawing quietly already, others still whispering to their seatmates, eyes lit with morning energy.
The boy next to him had offered a smile earlier.
A girl across the aisle had shared her eraser without even asking.
They didn't know what his morning had been like.
They were just there, messy, noisy, bright, and somehow that made all the difference.
Ms. Jang clapped her hands softly.
"Okay, everyone. Let's take out our notebooks and start with our journal prompt. Today, I want you to write about something that made you smile this morning."
Groans mixed with happy sighs as the class pulled out their notebooks.
Taejun reached into his bag and took his out carefully, like he didn't want to break the moment.
He tapped his pencil against the page, thinking.
Then slowly, in small, uneven handwriting, he wrote:
"This morning, the sunrise looked like peach candy, and someone smiled at me without needing a reason."
He paused, read it again, then smiled faintly and underlined it, just once, a small, warm underline beneath a memory he wanted to keep.
The rustle of notebook pages and the gentle scratching of pencils filled the room like rainfall on a quiet morning.
Taejun glanced around between words, watching the other kids immersed in their writing, tongues poking from the corners of mouths, brows furrowed in that exaggerated way only children could manage.
He caught glimpses of silly drawings in the margins, bubble letters, hearts, little suns, and clouds scrawled in bright crayon around their sentences.
It felt strange here, not perfect, not magical, but safe in that soft, ordinary way, like warm socks on a cold floor or the quiet clink of dishes in the morning.
Ms. Jang walked slowly between the desks, her heels barely making a sound against the linoleum.
She would pause here and there, bend slightly to whisper encouragement, or nod with a smile as she peeked at someone's paper.
When she passed Taejun's desk, she didn't say anything.
Just gave a small, approving smile that lingered for a moment before she moved on.
After journaling came reading time.
Ms. Jang pulled out a storybook from her desk drawer and held it up, a thick one with a faded spine and a golden title: The Cat Who Lost Its Name.
Several students gasped with delight. It was the class favorite.
She read aloud with calm rhythm, her voice expressive but never exaggerated.
Taejun followed along, his cheek resting on his fist.
The story was simple but sweet; a little cat wandering the town trying to find its forgotten name, meeting oddball characters, each offering a piece of advice that didn't quite help, but made the journey more colorful.
The illustrations were shown between chapters, held up like treasures, and each time the page turned, the class leaned forward in collective anticipation.
As the cat crossed a bridge of cherry blossom petals, something in the narration made Taejun's chest tighten, not painfully, just enough to make him feel very full and very small all at once.
He didn't know why exactly, but maybe it was the idea of being lost and not realizing it until someone kind pointed it out.
Eventually, the story paused, Ms. Jang slipping in a bright bookmark, and the class moved on to math.
Less thrilling, more groans, but still with that soft energy buzzing beneath it all.
Taejun tried his best, scribbling down numbers and drawing little stars next to his answers to make the page feel less empty.
When he got one wrong, the girl next to him, whose name was Mina, he thought, giggled, and gently turned her notebook so he could peek at hers.
He whispered a shy thank you.
She just shrugged and offered him a grape-scented sticker from her pencil case without saying a word.
Time moved in that strange way it always did in the classroom, slow and fast at the same time, like syrup sliding down glass.
One moment, he was finishing his third problem, and the next, the recess bell rang and the whole class seemed to erupt.
Chairs scraped back, laughter bubbled up, and the world outside the window suddenly felt much closer.
Ms. Jang clapped twice to remind them to walk, not run, and then smiled as they all half-skipped out the door anyway.
Taejun lingered, putting away his notebook carefully before standing.
He hesitated at the door.
For a moment, he thought of staying behind, like he often did, but today felt different.
He stepped outside.
The playground was already alive with color and sound.
Jump ropes snapped against the concrete.
Children chased each other around the slide like butterflies in fast motion.
A group gathered near the sandbox, sculpting crooked castles and laughing whenever they collapsed.
The sky above had softened from grey to pale blue, still overcast but no longer heavy.
It smelled faintly of spring grass and damp rubber.
Taejun wandered toward the monkey bars and stood nearby, unsure.
He clutched the strap of his backpack tightly, watching the others move so easily through the space, like they'd all agreed long ago that this was home.
Then— "Hey, Taejun!" a voice called.
He turned.
It was the boy who sat behind him, Dohyun, maybe?
A little shorter than him, with a crooked haircut and a bright-yellow hoodie stained with markers.
"You wanna play tag? You can be on my team!"
Taejun blinked. "M-Me?"
"Yeah! Come on!"
For a second, he froze, caught in that strange, uncertain place between wanting and fearing.
But then he smiled, small, and nodded. "Okay."
They ran, breathless, barefoot on padded turf and laughing in a way Taejun hadn't realized he'd missed.
The game was chaotic and clumsy, full of shouting and wild turns, arms flailing and rules forgotten halfway through.
Someone tripped and fell and laughed so hard they nearly cried.
A girl pretended to faint dramatically when tagged.
Someone crowned themselves the "tag king" with a twig and a paper cup.
And for once, Taejun wasn't outside the circle.
He was running in it, part of it.
He could feel the warmth in his cheeks, the fast thrum of his heartbeat, the grass stains forming on his knees.
By the time recess ended and they were all called back inside, he was out of breath and smiling, walking beside kids who called his name without hesitation.
He didn't say much, he just listened, laughed when they laughed, nodded along to their chatter about who won and who cheated, and who ran like a turtle.
As they walked back into the classroom, Taejun looked up at the ceiling and thought, quietly to himself, Today feels real. Like maybe I belong here, even if just a little.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, he didn't dread the rest of the day.
By the time the bell rang and everyone spilled back into their seats, cheeks flushed from recess and hair windswept, the classroom felt filled with a new kind of warmth, like sunlight lingering on fingertips.
Ms. Jang gave them all a few moments to settle down, her eyes twinkling with a faint smile as she waited for the last few stragglers to stop whispering and return to their desks.
Her voice carried easily as she began the next lesson, weaving between subjects with the natural rhythm of a practiced teacher.
Today, she spoke about stories, how characters change, and what it means to grow.
She asked questions about favorite books, and hands shot up like flowers reaching toward light.
Taejun didn't raise his, but he listened, he watched.
The classroom glowed with that soft, post-recess haze.
Dust motes floated lazily in the golden shafts of afternoon light.
Somewhere outside, a bird chirped lazily, the sound filtering in through a cracked window.
Children leaned on their elbows, fidgeted with erasers, and whispered under their breath.
There was a peace to it all, fragile but real, and for a time, Taejun drifted with it.
But then the lesson changed again, and slowly, quietly, something else began to pull at the edge of his awareness.
As the class wore on, Ms. Jang's voice began to change in his ears.
It became smooth and distant, like it had slipped behind glass or water.
He couldn't quite tell what she was talking about anymore, maybe something about metaphors, or teamwork in stories, or how characters reflected ourselves.
It echoed in his head like the faded remnants of a dream.
His notebook lay open in front of him, mostly blank.
A few sentences had been scratched down earlier, but now his pencil had stopped moving entirely.
It sat in the crook of his hand, forgotten.
His eyes were on the window.
At first, it was just a lazy glance.
Something casual, the way students look out windows when their minds drift, but his gaze didn't move away.
It stayed, drawn to the schoolyard beyond, where the trimmed grass met the edge of the trees.
The wind stirred the branches softly, leaves rustling in their secret conversation.
There was nothing unusual at first glance, just the ordinary quiet of the outer world, separate from the hum of the classroom.
But then his eyes caught it.
A shape, a stillness that didn't belong there.
Barely visible between two tall trees, half-concealed behind the trunks and the veil of shadows cast by their branches, was a dark figure, not formed, not fully there, but undeniably present.
It didn't move, it didn't sway with the wind, it didn't shift like a shadow might when the sun slipped behind a cloud.
It simply existed, out of place, as though the world had tried to cover it up but failed.
It was too far to see, just a smudge of black, a trick of light, easily dismissed, but Taejun didn't dismiss it.
His breath stilled.
His spine, which had relaxed during the lull of the lesson, now slowly straightened.
The pencil dropped from his fingers and rolled across the desk with a soft clatter.
His classmates continued scribbling, listening, whispering.
No one noticed the way his shoulders had tensed or how his fingers curled against the wood of his desk.
He leaned forward slightly, squinting.
The figure didn't move, but Taejun felt something, like the weight of eyes resting on his skin.
A gentle pressure, almost imperceptible, that seemed to settle right between his shoulder blades.
The longer he stared, the colder his chest felt, not from fear, not exactly, but from a deep and quiet certainty: it was watching him, only him.
The hum of the classroom faded further.
Even the warmth of the room seemed to dull, replaced by a slow, creeping hush that wrapped around him like fog.
And then— "Taejun?"
He jumped.
Ms. Jang's voice had returned, clear and close now, standing just to his right.
She was looking down at him with gentle curiosity.
Around them, a few students had paused to glance over, but most were still in their worlds.
"Would you like to share your thoughts with the class?" she asked, her tone kind, not scolding.
"You were staring quite intently. Did something outside inspire you?"
Taejun blinked.
His lips parted, but no words came at first.
The window, he glanced at it again.
The trees were there, the light just the same.
But the shape was gone; only grass and shade remained.
"I... um…" he started, eyes flicking toward his notebook, then back to the teacher.
He caught the tail end of her smile, soft and encouraging.
Around him, classmates returned to their papers, already forgetting the interruption.
"I think I zoned out," he said quietly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Sorry, teacher."
Ms. Jang nodded once, then moved on without pushing. "It happens. Just try to stay with us, okay? Keep your eyes on earth."
Taejun gave a small nod and lowered his eyes to his desk again.
The pencil had stopped rolling and rested near the edge.
The classroom settled once more into its gentle rhythm, but Taejun's mind still hovered near the window, near the trees, near the feeling of eyes that had been so certain, and yet were now gone.
And as the lesson carried on, he tried to pull himself back into the moment, to focus, to stay, to listen to the warmth of the classroom around him.
But something quiet had changed, like a thread had been tugged loose in a sweater, not enough to ruin it, just enough that you noticed it, and couldn't stop running your fingers over the spot where it frayed.