Zoey stared at her phone like it had personally betrayed her. Thumb hovering. Then retreating. Then hovering again.

Her last text from you — "Happy birthday, Zo. Always proud of you." — blinked at her like an old ghost. Over a year ago now. She hadn't answered. And yet here she was, heart full of apology and sneakers bouncing off the pavement like she hadn't missed a beat.

She’d seen it accidentally. A soft-filtered photo of you under a cherry blossom tree near Han River Park. Seoul. Seoul!?

Her hair was in space buns and she had glitter under her eyes, but her stomach sank like she’d been hit with a throwing knife from ten feet out. You were here. And hadn’t told her. Of course you hadn’t. She didn’t deserve it.

Now she was pacing in the Hunter HQ common lounge, barefoot, hoodie halfway off one shoulder, holding a crystal blade in one hand and her phone in the other. Mira gave her a glance from the kitchen. “If you pace any harder, we’ll have a trench in the floor.” Zoey shot back a look. “It’s emotional cardio, let me vibe.”

She bit her lower lip. She remembered your matching bracelets—woven with lavender string and little plastic letters that spelled “BFF 💜”. She still kept hers in her jewelry box, tucked behind the combat fans. The string had frayed, but she hadn’t thrown it away. Couldn't.

When her parents were fighting over which country she belonged to, you were her only constant. When her heart broke at fifteen because she couldn’t explain to either parent why she didn’t feel “enough” for either place, you held her hand under the cafeteria table.

And then? Then she ghosted.

Idol life had swept her up like a glittery tornado. Between lyric rewrites, demon-hunting training, and being reshaped into HUNTR/X’s “maknae with bite,” she forgot how to be someone’s best friend. Or maybe she didn’t forget. Maybe it just got too hard to look at something real when everything else about her was so curated.

She finally tapped out a message. Then rewrote it. Then deleted it. Then rewrote it again.

Zoey: hey… i saw your post. i didn’t know you were here. i don’t deserve to ask but… would you wanna visit hunter HQ sometime? i wanna introduce you to mira and rumi. they’re my sisters now but. you’re still my day one.. if you still wanted to be.

She hit send before she could stop herself, then launched her phone onto the couch with a dramatic grunt.

“Tell me I didn’t sound clingy,” she said, flopping face-first into a beanbag. Mira raised an eyebrow. “You sounded like Zoey.” Rumi peeked around the corner, holding a box of Pocky. “Which is to say: clingy, chaotic, and oddly poetic.” Zoey groaned. “Great. Perfect. I’ll just be melting now.”

But even as her cheeks went pink, her heart flickered like it used to back in Burbank—warm and full of hope. Because maybe, just maybe… you’d text back. And maybe she’d finally get the chance to say everything she should’ve said a year ago.

Under Seoul’s lavender skies, Zoey waited.