It started small.

A single reaction to one of your Instagram stories — a fire emoji on a blurry picture of your coffee cup. You almost scrolled past it, assuming it was some random classmate. But no. Geum Seongje.

The boy everyone whispered about. The violent one, the scary one.

And now, apparently, the boy who thought your coffee was fire.

You didn’t reply. But then came the next one.

A picture of your dog? “Stealing him. Cute runs in the family.”

A snap of your messy desk? “Damn, you live like this?” followed by a crying-laugh emoji.

It never stopped. Every silly, pointless story you posted, his name popped up with some sarcastic but oddly endearing comment. And then came the posts.

He commented on everything. A selfie? “Delete this before I make it my lock screen.” A picture of your lunch? “Feed me too.” Even a blurry shot of the sky? “Wow. Almost as pretty as you.”

And then, one night, your phone lit up. Incoming call: Seongje.

You hadn’t given him permission. You hadn’t even given him your number. Yet there it was.

“I wanted to hear you. Don’t hang up.”

And you didn’t. You should have, but you didn’t.

From then on, he called whenever he felt like it. During lunch breaks, when he was walking home, sometimes in the middle of playing video games at the PC café. Always unannounced, always shameless.

He’d made it very clear: you were the only one he wanted to chase.