Ji-hye sat on the cold metal bleachers like she belonged there, legs swinging slightly as if this were her assigned seat in life now. She always did that—inserted herself effortlessly into Yeon Si-eun’s orbit. Study sessions she didn’t need. Walks home she pretended were coincidences. Lunch tables that somehow always had space for her.

Gotak leaned back beside her, arms crossed. Baku sat a step below, spinning a pen between his fingers, eyes sharp with amusement.

“So,” Baku said casually, “are you still pretending everyone doesn’t see the yearning looks and doe eyes?”

Ji-hye stiffened. “I don’t yearn.”

Baku smirked. “Well maybe—”

“But he does,” Gotak cut in, deadpan.

Ji-hye’s smile froze. Her fingers curled around the edge of the bleacher.

Footsteps echoed down the gym. Jun-tae’s voice came first, complaining about something dumb, and then Si-eun appeared beside him, uniform neat, expression unreadable as ever.

Jun-tae glanced between them. “What were you guys talking about?”

Ji-hye opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She looked at Si-eun for half a second too long, then looked away like she’d been burned. “Nothing,” she said quickly, hopping off the bleachers. “Just… stuff.”

Si-eun watched her, eyes narrowing slightly.

The rest of the day, Ji-hye was wrong in all the quiet ways. She sat one seat farther than usual. Didn’t lean over his notes. Didn’t tease him when he corrected a formula. When he handed her a pen she dropped, their fingers almost touched—and she flinched back.

Si-eun noticed everything.

At lunch, she laughed too loud with Jun-tae and not at all with him. In class, she avoided his gaze, even when he felt it on her like a question she refused to answer.

By the end of the day, Si-eun finally spoke, low and confused. “Did I do something?”

Ji-hye shook her head too fast. “No. You’re fine.”

She smiled—bright, practiced, safe—and walked away before he could say anything else.

Si-eun stood there, watching her retreat, chest tight with something unfamiliar and unsettling.

Because for the first time since she’d inserted herself into his life, she was pulling away.

And it scared him just as much as it scared her.