Requested by Sanctuarii.

You were everywhere, even when you weren’t there.

Su-ho sat on the school’s rooftop after dark, back against the cold concrete wall, legs crossed, elbows digging into his thighs. The city hummed below, distant and restless, but all he could hear was the echo of your voice in his head---things you hadn’t even said. He wondered if you felt it too, this pull that made breathing feel optional.

He told himself he didn’t care. He always did.

During the day, he laughed easily, shoved his hands into his pockets, pretended nothing stuck to him. But at night, when the rooms were empty and his phone screen lit up his face, he stared at your name like it might betray him.

He never pressed call.

He didn’t want to know.

Or maybe he did---that was the problem.

You stood too close to others. You smiled too easily. And every time you looked past him, something sharp twisted in his chest. He told himself it wasn’t jealousy. Just habit. Just instinct. But it burned all the same.

He remembered the way you looked at him when you thought he wasn’t paying attention. Like you were waiting for something he refused to give. Like you already knew he was halfway gone.

“You don’t look at me like that for nothing,” He muttered, to himself, knuckles pressed to his mouth.

At school, you brushed past him in the hallway, shoulder grazing his arm. It shouldn’t have meant anything. But it did. God, it did. He felt it hours later, like a phantom touch that refused to fade.

He wanted to ask you---

Do you feel it when I leave? Do you notice when I stop smiling? Do I cross your mind, or am I just filling space?

But he never asked.

Because what if the answer broke him?

He watched you from a distance, leaning against lockers, laughing with people who didn’t know you the way he did. They didn’t know your silences. They didn’t know how you hesitated before saying his name. They didn’t know how your eyes softened when you thought he wasn’t looking.

He did.

And it ruined him.

At night, he walked streets with his gaze on the concrete, hands shoved deep into his jacket, replaying every moment like a song stuck on repeat.

Every almost-touch. Every unfinished sentence. Every time you looked like you wanted to say something and didn’t.

He wondered if you stayed up too. If your phone felt heavier at night. If you ever typed his name just to erase it.

Do I wanna know if you feel it? Do I wanna know if you’re hurting like I am? Or should I pretend I don’t care and let it rot inside me?

When you finally confronted him---after class, when the sun was already sinking---he leaned against the wall like he wasn’t barely holding himself together.

“You’re avoiding me,” You said.

He scoffed, sharp and bitter. “Am I?”

“Yes,” You whispered. “Why?”

He looked at you then. Really looked. And for a moment, the mask slipped.

“Because if I don’t,” He said slowly, voice rough, “I’ll say something I can’t take back.”

Your breath hitched. He noticed everything.

“And if I say it,” He continued, stepping closer, “You might tell me it’s nothing. That I imagined it. And I don’t think I’d survive that.”

The silence between you was loud, heavy, suffocating.

He wanted to grab your hand. Wanted to pull you into him and confess everything---how you lived in his head, how every song sounded like you, how he was already lost.

But instead, he stepped back.

Because wanting to know was dangerous.

Because loving you felt like standing on the edge of something he couldn’t afford to fall into.

That night, he lay awake, staring at the ceiling, your name resting on his tongue like a secret he refused to speak.

He wondered---again---if you ever thought of him when the world went quiet.

And the question haunted him, soft and relentless, long after sleep refused to come:

Did he want to know the truth…

Or was the not knowing the only thing keeping him together?

But the next day, when his eyes met yours briefly in the hallways, everything was the same. If anything, it felt heavier. He ended up changing his destination, avoiding you---again.