It had been three days since I overheard those whispers.
Three days of pretending I didn't care.
Three days of avoiding hallways where I might see her.
But pretending takes energy, and I was running out of it.
The world felt a little quieter lately— like even the laughter in the courtyard was happening behind glass. I still showed up to class, sat beside Yura and Hye-jin, nodded at the right times, even smiled when Mirae cracked a joke. But inside, everything was heavy.
I thought maybe if I stayed quiet enough, the ache would fade. It didn't.
And every time I accidentally caught a glimpse of Soo-min walking with Chae-young— carrying papers, talking, laughing faintly— it only deepened the hollow space inside me.
---
By Friday afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore.
I stayed late in the art room, letting the brush drag slow strokes across the canvas. It wasn't turning into anything. Just color and silence.
The door opened quietly behind me.
I didn't turn. I already knew who it was.
Her steps were soft, cautious. "You're still here," Soo-min said. Her voice was low, careful, like she was approaching a wild animal that might bolt.
I stared at the half-dry paint on my hands. "Yeah. I had work."
She hesitated before answering, "You've been… avoiding me."
I let out a soft, humorless laugh. "I didn't think you noticed."
There was a long silence. When I finally looked over, she was standing by the doorway— hands tucked into her pockets, looking smaller than I remembered.
"I noticed," she said quietly.
Something in my chest twisted at the sound.
---
"Then why didn't you say anything?" I asked, not quite looking at her. "You had time to talk to everyone else. Even Chae-young."
Her eyes flickered in surprise. "You've been listening to rumors again."
"Doesn't matter," I muttered. "I saw it myself."
Her voice softened, almost pleading. "Eun-ji—"
"She hugged you." My words came out sharper than I meant. "And you hugged her back."
She blinked, startled. "That's what this is about?"
"What else would it be about, Soo-min?" My voice trembled, half with anger, half with exhaustion. "You stopped teasing me. You stopped coming by the dorm. You didn't even message. What was I supposed to think?"
Her lips parted, but no sound came out for a moment. She looked down, then took a slow step closer.
"I thought I was protecting you," she whispered.
I frowned. "Protecting me?"
She looked up, her eyes raw. "Chae-young's my cousin. My distant cousin. Her mom and my dad are related through business stuff. My parents heard about some stupid rumor going around school— that we were… that you and I were something more than friends."
The world seemed to tilt slightly.
I swallowed hard. "And?"
"And they lost it." She laughed bitterly. "They said I was ruining my family's image. That I needed to stay away from you. They even called the dean." Her voice cracked. "I didn't want to make it worse for you."
I just stared at her. The words took a second to reach me, another to settle in, and another to break me.
"So all this time… you were avoiding me because of them?" I whispered.
She nodded, her expression full of guilt. "I didn't want to. But they threatened to cut my scholarship if I didn't listen. Chae-young was supposed to help me clean up the 'rumor.' I hated every second of it."
I felt my throat tighten. "You could've told me."
"I wanted to," she said, stepping closer. "A thousand times. But I was scared you'd hate me for it."
Tears stung my eyes before I realized they were falling. "You idiot," I said weakly. "I already thought you hated me."
She laughed softly, and it sounded half like relief, half like heartbreak. "Guess we're both idiots, huh?"
---
For a moment, the silence between us wasn't heavy anymore— it was fragile, like something waiting to be mended.
Soo-min took another step forward. "Eun-ji… I'm sorry. For everything. For making you doubt what you meant to me."
Her words hit somewhere deep. "You can't just say that after disappearing."
"I know," she whispered. "But I mean it."
I turned away, wiping at my face with the back of my sleeve. "You should've trusted me."
"I should've," she said. "And I will. If you let me."
Her voice wavered, and when I looked at her again, she looked genuinely scared. Not of me, but of losing something she didn't know how to fix.
I took a slow breath. "I don't even know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything," she said. "Just… don't walk away yet."
---
We stood there in silence, the air thick with unspoken things.
For a long time, neither of us moved. The faint sound of rain started tapping against the window, soft and rhythmic.
Finally, I asked, "Did you ever think about telling your parents the truth? That it wasn't like that?"
She smiled faintly. "Would they have believed me?"
I looked down. "Maybe not."
"That's why I thought keeping quiet would make it easier. But instead, it just made me feel like I'd lost you before I even had the right to."
The honesty in her tone made my chest ache.
---
I walked to the window, watching the rain gather on the glass. "You know, I used to think you'd never shut up."
She snorted softly behind me. "That's rich, coming from you."
I turned slightly, meeting her eyes for the first time in days. "But when you did, it hurt more than I thought it would."
Soo-min's expression softened. "Then let me make it up to you."
"How?"
"By not shutting up again." She hesitated, then added, "And by proving you're more important to me than what people say."
I bit my lip. "You don't have to prove it."
"I do," she said quietly. "For both of us."
---
The tension slowly unraveled between us— not completely, but enough to breathe again.
Still, I could feel the distance lingering like a bruise, deep and unspoken.
I exhaled, voice barely above a whisper. "You really are terrible at communicating."
She grinned faintly. "I know. Guess I needed a wake-up call."
The rain outside thickened, a steady rhythm filling the quiet room. We stood there, just looking at each other— tired, raw, but somehow lighter than before.
---
As I gathered my things to leave, Soo-min spoke again, voice softer than before.
"Eun-ji."
"Yeah?"
"I missed you."
Something in her tone cracked through the last bit of armor I had left. I turned to her, heart pounding, words caught in my throat.
Instead of replying, I nodded once and said, "Me too."
It wasn't forgiveness yet, but it was something close.
---
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Yura was asleep, her breathing slow and even.
My mind kept circling back to everything Soo-min said—the cousin, the parents, the pressure, the fear. It all made sense now, but the hurt hadn't faded completely.
Still… for the first time in days, my chest didn't feel so tight.
I reached over to my nightstand and picked up the sketchbook again. The same photo booth picture peeked out, edges worn from too much handling.
This time, when I looked at it, I smiled.
Not because the pain was gone, but because I knew what came next:
The truth was out— and maybe, just maybe, we could start over from there.