JIAH POV
"Hey, baby."
My heart drops straight through my body.
No.
No no no no.
It's not dramatic. It's physical. Like someone yanked a plug somewhere inside my chest and everything just… drains.
Pressure gone. Warmth gone. Air gone. I forget how breathing works for a second, like my body needs instructions it didn't think it would ever need.
I look at Enhyeok.
I don't mean to. My eyes just do it on their own, wide and stupid and desperate, like if I look at him hard enough he'll shake his head and mouth you're hearing things or wrong people or calm down, idiot. Anything. Please.
He looks back at me.
Calm.
Still.
Too controlled.
That's worse.
"I missed you," Ara says.
Her voice is soft. Familiar-soft. Comfortable-soft. The kind of tone you don't practice. The kind you only have when you belong somewhere.
Something cracks.
Not loudly. Not in a cinematic way. It's quiet and internal, like a hairline fracture spreading slowly through glass.
I feel it more than I hear it. A tight ache blooming behind my ribs, crawling up my throat.
I part the leaves without thinking.
Just enough.
And there he is.
Jiho.
Close. Smiling. His hand at her waist like it's always known where to go. Like it's muscle memory. Like this isn't new or surprising or secret at all.
And then he kisses her.
It's not rushed.
It's not awkward.
It's easy.
That's the part that wrecks me.
My chest caves in. I actually make a sound—small, sharp, embarrassing—before I can stop it. Like my lungs tried to scream and settled for choking instead.
My heart is beating so hard it hurts, like it's angry at me for trusting it with anything.
My ears ring. The world tilts. Colors feel too bright. The stupid flowers around us look fake, like props in a bad joke.
They're a couple.
I didn't know him. Not really. I knew the version that smiled politely and rejected me gently and let me keep orbiting because it was convenient. I knew the idea. I knew the hope. I didn't know this.
My eyes burn.
I blink once. Twice. Doesn't help. Tears gather anyway, hot and heavy, blurring the edges of everything. I don't wipe them. I don't move. I just stare like maybe if I watch long enough it'll stop being real.
My breath stutters.
In.
Out.
No—wrong.
In—no—why can't—
A hand comes down over my eyes.
Firm. Warm. Certain.
"Don't look."
Enhyeok's voice is low, right by my ear. Not sharp. Not angry. Just… final. Like a door closing.
My vision goes dark.
At first my brain fights it. I try to pull back, to see through his fingers, to get one more look like that'll somehow make it hurt less if I understand it better. It doesn't work. His hand doesn't move.
Then his other hand comes up.
He turns my head gently to the side, away from the garden, away from them, away from whatever expression is on my face right now that I don't want anyone to see.
That's when it breaks properly.
The tears spill over. Not cute. Not quiet. They just come, fast and humiliating, streaking down my cheeks and soaking straight into his palm.
My shoulders shake before I can stop them. I hate it. I hate that I'm crying like this. I hate that it's happening here. I hate that he's the one here.
"I—" My voice cracks. I don't even know what I was trying to say.
Nothing comes out after that.
My chest hurts in a dull, spreading way, like bruising from the inside. Every breath feels too shallow, like I can't quite get enough air no matter how hard I try.
My thoughts are a mess—half-formed, tripping over each other, looping back to the same stupid realization.
I wasn't special.
I was convenient.
I was loud background noise he liked keeping around.
Enhyeok doesn't say anything else.
He doesn't pull me closer. He doesn't push me away. He just stays there, hand still over my eyes, like he's anchoring me in place so I don't float apart.
My tears keep coming anyway.
Hot. Endless. Unfair.
_______________________
ENHYEOK POV
She's crying.
Not the quiet kind. Not the controlled, swallow-it-back kind people do in hallways. This is messy. Shaking.
Wet breath catching and breaking like her body forgot the order of things. My hand is still over her eyes and suddenly it feels like a mistake I already made and can't undo.
I don't know what to do with this.
My brain stalls the way it does when something goes wrong that wasn't part of the calculation.
I'm good with problems that stay problems. Anger. Noise. Fights. I know where to put my hands then. This—this isn't that.
Her tears soak into my palm. Warm. Grossly real. They slide between my fingers and drip down my wrist, and the sensation crawls up my arm in a way I don't like.
I keep my hand there anyway. Moving it feels worse. Like it would be permission for something to fall apart more than it already has.
She makes a sound—half breath, half choke—and my jaw tightens without me deciding it should.
My shoulders stay still. My feet stay planted. I don't say anything because I don't trust my mouth not to make it worse.
Say it's okay? It's not.
Say sorry? For what?
Say stop? Jesus, no.
So I do nothing.
That's not noble. It's just what happens when every option looks wrong.
Behind the leaves, voices murmur. A laugh. Footsteps. Life continuing at a volume that feels insulting.
I angle my body slightly, not touching her more, just enough to block sightlines. A habit. Reflex. Keep the mess contained.
Her shoulders jerk again. The crying spikes, then wavers, like she's running out of energy but not pain.
I can feel it in the way she sags a little, weight shifting forward, like gravity suddenly remembered her.
My hand slides from her eyes to the back of her head by accident more than choice. Fingers curl into her hair to keep her from tipping forward into the bush.
I register the softness and then shove the thought away. It's irrelevant. Everything about this is irrelevant except the fact that it's happening.
She inhales hard, drags her sleeve across her face, and pulls back.
I let her.
She stands too fast. Knees lock. Shoulders square like she's putting armor back on with duct tape and spite. She doesn't look at me. Not once.
Her face is wrecked—red, wet, angry in that hollow way—but her chin lifts like she refuses to let it show again.
For half a second, I think she might say something. A joke. An insult. Anything to stitch herself together.
She doesn't.
She steps out from behind the bush and walks away, spine stiff, footsteps uneven but determined.
No glance back. No hesitation. Just forward, like she's daring the ground to trip her and losing interest when it doesn't.
I stay where I am.
The leaves rustle back into place. The garden looks the same. The air feels heavier.
I don't follow.
I don't call her name.
I don't feel relieved.
I just stand there with wet fingers and a jaw that won't unclench, watching the space she left behind like it might explain something if I stare long enough.
It doesn't.
---------
The bus smells like wet uniforms and cheap deodorant. The windows rattle every time it hits a pothole, and the overhead lights flicker like they're tired of pretending to work.
I take the seat near the back out of habit, shoulder against the cold plastic, knees angled toward the aisle.
Two seats ahead of me, she's there.
Seo Jiah sits by the window, forehead resting against the glass. Her breath fogs it in slow, uneven patches, little clouds that appear and fade like she's testing whether she's still here.
She doesn't move when the bus lurches. Doesn't check her phone. Doesn't do that leg-kicking thing she does when she's bored or irritated.
She looks gone.
Not asleep. Not relaxed. Just… empty in a way that makes people miss their stop without noticing. I've seen it before, that stare.
People get it when something they believed in collapses quietly instead of exploding. When there's nothing left to argue with.
She really thought he'd come around.
That's the part I can't get out of my head, no matter how much I tell myself to stop. She didn't chase him like a joke. She waited like patience was a strategy that eventually paid out.
Like loyalty was a down payment. She built a future in her head where rejection was temporary and persistence meant something.
Of course it hurts like hell.
The bus slows.
Her stop.
I watch the doors open. A few students stand, shuffle out, laughing too loud. The doors hiss closed again.
She doesn't move.
I frown before I mean to. My eyes flick to the sign, then back to her. Same posture. Same fog on the glass. Same blank stare.
Why the fuck didn't she get off?
That's her stop. I know it is. Everyone in our grade knows it. She should be halfway up the hill by now, complaining about the stairs, texting someone with typos and fake caps lock rage.
The bus pulls away.
I lean back, annoyed at myself for noticing. Maybe she's going somewhere else. A friend's place. A relative. People do that. It's normal. This is none of my business.
I force my gaze forward.
Two stops later, the bell dings for mine.
I stand, sling my bag over my shoulder, and step into the aisle. The bus is quieter now. Mostly empty.
The driver hums along to something old and off-key. I pause, just for a second, and look at her again.
She's still there.
Same position. Same glass. Same nothing.
The doors open. Cool air rushes in. I step down onto the pavement and the bus pulls off immediately, engine roaring like it's eager to leave me behind.
I watch it go.
I tell myself to turn around. To walk. To forget this. She's not a child. She can go home whenever she wants.
She can sit on a bus all night if that's her plan. It's not my responsibility to track her movements or babysit her heartbreak.
I start walking.
Three steps in, I stop.
The bus is already far, taillights shrinking, swallowing her with it. Something tight curls in my chest, sharp and irritating, like a problem left unsolved on purpose.
I run a hand through my hair, exhale hard through my nose.
Ayshh
Fuck it
I turn back toward the road and raise my hand.
"Taxi."