The next morning, after Aiden had walked away, the world felt quieter. Heavier.
Laura woke to the usual sunlight scattered across her desk, but the warmth didn't reach her chest. Her phone buzzed three times before she even looked at it— messages from her classmates, an unread email, a notification she hadn't engaged with.
But not one from Aiden.
That hit her differently.
He had never gone more than a day without calling in. A meme, a good-morning text that popped up out of nowhere, or a lunch reminder. Aiden was always the sound in her quiet until
now.
She slowly sat up, looking at the empty coffee cup next to her notebook. The draft of the essay she wrote was untouched, its sentences underlined a reminder of all she wanted to share with him. Now, they looked like nothing but pieces of a conversation that had already ended last night.
She sighed and recalled what he said last night—
"It hurts… watching you pursue someone who doesn't even know you."
He hadn't yelled at her. He never did. But there was something raw in his voice, something trembling, tender and sincere that she couldn't dispel.
And worst of all was that he was correct.
She had been pursuing someone she did not even know, someone who maybe would not even notice her in a crowd. And yet she could not help herself. It was not about obsession. It was about hope— that inconstant, silly thing that made her feel alive.
"Was I wrong?", she murmured to herself as she stared blankly at her own reflection on the phone's screen.
Classes were blurred by that afternoon. A heavy sigh escaped her mouth as she couldn't think straight. Her body was present, but her mind wandered somewhere between guilt and doubts. She wished to text Aiden, to apologize, to clarify, to mend things but no matter what she typed, it felt incomplete. She felt as if her words didn't matter anymore, it just felt like an excuse because she had already made up her mind. She had already chosen her path.
She ended up deleting all the text drafts she had been typing since morning.
By the time she arrived home, her mind was a tangled mess. She tossed her bag onto the couch and collapsed on it, her palms against her eyes.
She let out a heavy sigh. The entire day, she kept thinking about Aiden and what she could do to fix what she had caused. But at the same time, thoughts of Evan didn't escape her mind.
She was stuck somewhere between friendship and love. Between comfort and hope.
That was when her phone vibrated again.
She didn't even bother to check until she saw the name on the screen.
lee.evan_official replied to your story.
Her breath hitched. It took her a full five seconds to open it. Her story was simple— a picture of her desk with the caption "Dreams keep me up more than coffee ever could."
And his reply?
A single line.
"Keep chasing them. You're doing great."
Laura's heart stopped for a heartbeat and then began thumping like it was going to explode any minute. At this point, she could hear her own heartbeat.
It was short. Casual. Probably something he sent without thinking twice. But to her, it felt like the world had blinked back. It gave her a new hope.
She read it twice. And again.
Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears and hands trembled as she attempted to text back, backspacing three times before opting for something plain.
"Thank you. That means a lot."
She gazed at the screen far longer than it took to click send, her brain reeling with what this could mean. Was he being polite? Did he recall liking her post before? Or… did he actually mean it?
The thought alone made her chest ache with excitement, fear, and something dangerously close to longing.
She wanted to share this with Aiden. He had been there through everything — through the jokes, through the doubts, through the nights when she almost gave up. He would've smiled and teased her. He would've passed that usual grin he wore and said something like 'you're finally noticed by your dream boy'.
But tonight, the silence between them was too heavy to break. Too loud to be silenced.
She set down her phone, but she couldn't help sneaking a glance at it every couple of minutes. Those six words— one message — felt like the opening of a door to a different world. A world she wanted to live in.
And maybe, just maybe, she was ready to step through it.
_______________
Aiden did not open her messages that day.
He noticed them, though — the "Are you okay?" that went unread, the little heart response she had sent to his post. He sat staring at the notifications, his thumb hovering over her name, before locking his screen once more.
He convinced himself that he needed space. That it was better for him.
But the distance was cruel. It didn't just make you miss the person but it made you wonder whether they were missing you too. Whether they were thinking about you the way you do too.
He sat in his room, blankly staring at the ceiling. the city outside orange-hued at dusk. Soft music played on his phone— a song she made him listen to, one that now sounded like a farewell. He paused the song out of frustration, as he ran his hands through his hairs aggressively.
He wasn't mad at her, but himself. He was mad that he didn't realise his feelings earlier. He wondered, if only he had made a move earlier, could he touch her heart the way Evan did? Could he?
He sat against the wall, speaking softly to no one,
"You didn't even see it, did you? How much I tried to stay."
Meanwhile, Laura couldn't concentrate on anything. She had Evan's message replaying in her head every couple of hours like it was a melody she couldn't stop humming. Her thoughts were a jumble of feelings— guilt over Aiden, excitement for Evan, and confusion over what any of it meant.
Later that night, she pulled out her laptop and started writing again. Not an essay this time— just thoughts.
"Maybe we don't always fall for people.
Sometimes we fall for what they mean to us,
the life we desire,
the courage we need,
and the part of ourselves we haven't met yet."
She paused, staring at the words. They were hers, but also a confession.
She was done. She posted the text as a brief caption below a misty, atmospheric photo of her window— Seoul's night time view she had found online.
Within minutes, the likes were pouring in. Then another notification.
lee.evan_official liked your post
This time, she didn't stiffen. She smiled. A soft, shaking smile that made her heart skip a beat.
But beneath the warmth, there was still the small pain— the ache of Aiden's absence.
___________
The next day, she saw him on campus. He was lounging on the bench by the fountain, earphones in, tapping his foot lazily.
For a moment, she almost walked away. The tension still lingered like an invisible wall between them. But something inside her— maybe guilt, maybe missing him — pushed her forward.
"Hey," she said softly, approaching him with a hollow smile.
He looked up, eyes tired but gentle. "Hey."
"You've been ignoring me," she said, trying to sound playful but failing.
"I've been busy."
She sat beside him. "Liar."
He smiled, though it didn't quite make it to his eyes. "Maybe."
They sat in silence for a few moments, an awkward tension between them thickening, the gurgle of water from the fountain covering the spaces of their silence.
"I got a message from him," she blurted out before she could catch herself.
Aiden stilled. It was as if he stopped breathing for a few seconds before he uttered his name. "Evan?"
She nodded, her voice barely above a whisper. "He replied to my story last night."
He put on a smile. "That's… great, Laura."
"I didn't think he'd ever pay attention to me. It felt… surreal."
"I'm sure he did."
She shifted her gaze towards him. "Aiden, I don't want things to be awkward between us."
"They already are," he replied softly.
Her chest tightened, something inside her struck her as she looked at him softly. "I'm sorry."
He finally met her gaze, eyes red and open. "Don't apologize. Just… don't expect me to pretend it doesn't hurt. I can't go on and act like nothing happened."
The space between them had grown deeper. She longed to reach him, to tell him something that would fix everything — but there were no right words.
Or maybe everything she'd say felt like a lie.
He stood up first, grabbing his backpack and shoving it onto his shoulder. "Best wishes for your dreams, Laura."
And before she could respond, he had walked away — leaving again, like he needed to rescue himself before she hurt him again.
She stared at his disappearing figure as she whispered to herself, her eyes showing nothing but emptiness and grief. "Don't tell me it ends here." A tear escaped her eyes.
---
That night, Laura wrote again. Her journal page trembled beneath her hand.
"I wanted to be seen by the one who didn't know me. The one who was miles away.
But in doing so,
I lost the one who was always there. The one who only noticed me."
She closed the book, breathing heavily.
Across the world, a notification chimed on Evan's phone — another message from Laura, lost in his sea of unread DMs.
And somewhere nearby, Aiden sat alone on that same bench, whispering her name into the quiet night, knowing she couldn't hear it — not yet.
Or maybe… not anymore.
.