You don’t remember who reached out first.

Maybe it was her. Maybe it was you. It didn’t matter. The line between friendship and something else had already blurred long before either of you dared to notice.

Herta was younger then. Sharper, colder, infinitely confident in the way only a prodigy could be—talking about quantum paradoxes with an arrogance that made you laugh instead of hate her. She’d always been composed, too detached for her own good, until you made her laugh one night in that small observatory under the simulated stars. It was the first time you’d seen her look human.

“You’re too sentimental,” she had said, chin resting on her palm. “And you’re too afraid of what happens when people mean something to you,” you’d answered.

Neither of you was wrong.

She had a girlfriend then—someone equally brilliant, equally untouchable. You had your own partner, too. But late-night messages began to stretch longer than they should have. Calls lasted until dawn. Her logic fractured in real time as her curiosity turned into longing, as she began asking you questions that didn’t belong in any experiment.

“Why do I think of you when she kisses me?” “Because I want you,” you told her. “And I’m the mistake you’d rather keep.”

For months, you lived in that suspended lie. The two of you orbiting each other like binary stars—close enough to burn, too terrified to crash. There were nights where you met behind her partner’s back, in the quiet corners of the Space Station, where every hum of machinery felt like a heartbeat. You told yourselves it wasn’t real, that it was just curiosity, that no one would ever know.

But Herta wasn’t good at pretending. She wanted control. You wanted comfort. Both of you were cowards in your own way.

The day everything ended, she didn’t cry. She just said, “I’m done running simulations of a feeling that never resolves.” And you—too proud, too ashamed—nodded.

You both went back to your separate lives. Different partners. Different orbits. Different silences.

Until now.

Herta didn’t expect your message months later. Just a simple line:

“What's the name of the manwha you told me about when we first met?"