The evening sky was a blend of purple and pink, the last hints of daylight casting a gentle glow over the empty street. Woo-young stood alone in the alley, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, his gaze fixed on the ground beneath him. The air was cool, but it did little to ease the tightness in his chest.

Shi-woo had left long ago, probably already at home. Woo-young hadn’t noticed when he’d walked off—his mind had been elsewhere. Now, in the quiet of the street, the weight of his thoughts pressed down on him, making the world feel heavier than it should. He wasn’t sure what he was even feeling anymore. It was as if he didn’t know where he ended and the confusion began.

He had once known exactly who he was. That feeling had slipped away without warning, leaving him tangled in a version of himself that didn’t feel real. It was as if he was wearing someone else’s skin.

"I just want to go back," he whispered into the stillness, the words barely leaving his lips. "I want to go back to when everything made sense. When I knew who I was, before everything changed."

He looked up at the reflection of himself in the glass of a nearby store window, his face staring back at him in muted shades. It was his face, but not. The eyes that once held certainty were now clouded with something else—something foreign. He had changed, and not in ways he knew how to explain.

He couldn’t quite place it, but there was a sense of loss in his chest. A loss of himself.

"What happened to me?" he muttered to no one, his voice thick with a quiet frustration. "I used to have it all figured out, didn’t I?"

But the truth was, he hadn’t. He had never had it all figured out. Not really. Not deep down. He had just convinced himself he did, told himself the lies that felt like truths. But now... now, he didn’t even know where to start. He couldn’t find the pieces of himself that had slipped away.

A bitter chuckle slipped from his lips, harsh and empty. "I can't even pretend anymore," he thought. The weight of his own words settled heavy on his heart. "I don’t know who I am. Not anymore."

It was a sinking feeling. A spiraling descent into confusion, where every answer seemed to raise more questions. He had spent so much time pretending, trying to act like everything was fine, like he was still the same person. But deep inside, he knew he wasn’t. Nothing was fine.

"I just want to be the person I was before," he murmured softly, the words carrying the sting of regret. "Before everything went wrong. Before it all changed."

But it was too late. The person he had been before was gone, and no matter how hard he tried, there was no way to turn back the clock. Time didn’t work that way.

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to will the past to come back. To bring him back to a time when things made sense, when he had control. But as he opened his eyes and looked around, everything felt even more foreign than before.

"I can’t fix this," he thought, the realization coming with the weight of finality. "I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t even know how to fix me."

A deep sigh escaped him, and he pulled his jacket tighter around his body. The cold nipped at his skin, but it wasn’t enough to numb the ache in his chest. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. Didn’t know how to move forward when every step felt uncertain.

With one last look at the reflection in the window, he turned away, his footsteps echoing on the empty street. He didn’t know where he was going, only that standing still wasn’t an option. He had to keep moving, even if he didn’t know where to.

Maybe, he thought as he walked, he could outrun the confusion. Maybe, if he kept walking, he would find some answer. But for now, all he could do was keep going.