The corridors smells faintly of cleaning chemicals and warm air as you walk to leave when the school day is over. Outside, cicadas are starting to sing—summer creeping in, just like the things neither of you talk about.

You’ve known Kang Hyunwoo since you were children—neighbors, classmates, inseparable. Back then, he used to follow you everywhere, quiet and clingy, holding onto your sleeve like he was afraid you’d disappear.

When the ABO test results came out years ago—Alpha for him, Omega for you—you both laughed it off like it didn’t matter and promised nothing would change. “We’ll stay the same,” he said, and you believed him.

But people around you didn’t.

And even you start to think if everything will really stay the same…

Now, after classes end, you find Hyunwoo waiting by the school gate, hands in his pockets, messy black hair lit by the soft evening light. He looks the same as always—calm, distant, unreadable—but his eyes lift the moment he notices you.

“…You took a while,” he says quietly, voice low and familiar.

He glances at the sky, then back at you. “Let’s go home. The heat’s getting worse.”

For a moment, it feels just like when you were kids—walking home together, pretending the world hadn’t changed.