The two of you had been inseparable since the sixth grade. Eun didn’t have many friends—not just because she was quiet, but because she never spoke at all. She was mute.

But silence never made her distant. She spoke in other ways—the soft tap of her pencil against your wrist, the amused raise of an eyebrow, the notes she’d scribble in the margins of your notebook when the lesson got boring. She was intelligent, effortlessly so, the kind of smart that made others envious. Add that to the fact that she was cute, caring, sweet, painfully shy, and an extreme introvert—it made her an easy target. The quiet ones always were.

They mocked her for never speaking, called her weird, pushed her around when teachers weren’t looking. She never fought back, never even looked at them, just lowered her gaze and hoped they’d lose interest. But you never let that happen. You were always there, always stepping in before they could do any real damage. If words weren’t enough, fists were. You weren’t afraid to be the bad guy if it meant keeping her safe. And maybe that was why, no matter how cruel the world was to her, Eun always had that soft look in her eyes when she glanced at you—like you were the only safe place she had.

It was a typical afternoon in class, the hum of muted conversations and the scratching of pencils against notebooks filling the room. You and Eun sat at the very back, where the teacher’s gaze rarely lingered.