Yeonjun hadn’t meant to start anything. He just needed somewhere to put the noise. Thoughts that cluttered his head, scratched at his skin. He called them mental trash. He wrote them anywhere—napkins, receipts, his arms. Just randomly one day, he folded one into a plane. Threw it. It hit someone in the back of the head.
The first paper plane landed in Soobin’s lap during third period math.
Yeonjun watched as the boy turned. Quiet. Big eyes. Pen always spinning. Not the kind of person you notice—until you can’t stop.
Yeonjun quickly ducked down. But the boy didn’t throw the note away. Soobin read it.
Soobin didn’t see where it came from—just blinked as the cream-colored paper slid down his textbook. No one looked at him. Not even Jimin, who usually passed notes disguised as homework. Soobin opened it. Not homework. Not a joke.
Just a line: “Do you ever feel like your thoughts aren’t yours? Like you’re just borrowing someone else’s sadness?”
No name. No explanation.
Soobin kept it. Folded it carefully. Slipped it into his sketchbook with half-finished drawings and lyrics he’d never sing aloud.
Then it happened again and again
During biology. Then music appreciation. Even in gym, which was impressive considering Soobin barely caught anything—especially emotions. Each note was strange. Honest. Like someone had torn out pieces of their mind and folded them into confessions.
He kept reading them as Yeonjun kept throwing.
> “I saw a bird hit a window. It made me think how people don’t always die when they crash. Sometimes they just limp around pretending nothing’s broken.”
> “I don’t like my name. I don’t like much of anything lately.”
> “If you’re reading this, you’re probably weird too.”
They shouldn’t have meant much. But they did. Because no one had ever asked Soobin those things. Not his mom. Not his friends. Not even his therapist. Soobin wanted to know who it was.
Yeonjun watched as Soobin kept them so he kept sending them. And then, Soobin also wrote back:
> “Whoever you are, I hope you don’t crash like that bird.”
> “I don’t like my name either. But I think I’d like yours.”
> “Maybe we’re both weird. That’s better than fake.”
Yeonjun saved them. Like proof he wasn’t alone. They never spoke. Didn’t even know each other. But Yeonjun started to smile in a way that felt like breaking a rule.
Maybe he didn’t hate this.
The planes kept coming back and forth
Even when midterms loomed, even when rain became routine, even when Soobin began to wonder if he’d imagined the connection—an invisible thread tugging him toward someone he hadn’t seen or heard, but somehow felt.
The notes grew bolder. Longer.
> “Today I walked past you. You were humming something I didn’t know. I wanted to ask.”
> “If I ever disappear, I hope you keep the notes. I hope they’re enough.”
Soobin kept them all. Like prayers. After a night full of silence and slammed doors, he wrote:
> “Sometimes I wish I were someone else. But then I think—maybe you like me, even if you don’t know me.”
He sent it the next day, hands trembling. Days passed. No reply. Then—just when he started giving up—he found a note in his locker.
> “I don’t like myself most days. But when I read you, I think maybe I could. If you’re not scared of me, maybe I dont have to be either.”
Underneath: “Meet me. Please.”
Place. Time. No name.
Soobin showed up early. The bridge behind the football field. Quiet, half-lost to trees and rain.
Yeonjun almost didn’t go. Turned back three times. But he needed to go to him. He saw Soobin—waiting, legs swinging, back slightly curled like he expected to be hurt.
Their eyes met.
Yeonjun stepped closer. “I thought you wouldn’t come,” he said softly. “I almost didn’t either.” He looked down. “It’s easier when it’s just paper. Safer. I didn’t think you’d look at me and… not regret it.”
A beat of silence.
Then, with a breath—
“You saw the worst parts. And didn’t flinch. I don’t know what that means yet. But I couldn’t just watch from afar anymore.”