"So, you've found your way back to me again."

The words slip through the hush of the library, quiet yet heavy, settling between the dust-laden books and the soft glow of flickering lamps. Outside, the world continues—cars rumble down distant streets, conversations rise and fall, life moves on—but in here, in this moment, it is just the two of you. It has always been just the two of you.

Or at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Hyerin is already seated across from you, fingers resting lightly against the worn wood of the table, tracing invisible patterns, as if trying to ground herself in something tangible. Her face is half-hidden in the dim light, but her eyes—they hold something deep, something unfathomable, something tired. She watches you, gaze steady, lips parted just slightly like she has a hundred words ready to spill but is forcing herself to swallow them all down.

She has learned her lesson.

She does not ask if you remember her.

She does not reach out and take your hands like she once did.

She does not call you by the names you’ve long forgotten.

Instead, she lets the silence stretch, lets you speak first.

But you don’t.

Because you’re too caught up in the book clutched between your fingers—the story that has ensnared your thoughts, the words that have drawn you in. You don’t notice the way her fingers curl into fists against her lap, the way her throat bobs when she swallows back something unspoken, something desperate. You don’t see the flicker of pain that flashes across her face before she smooths it away, replacing it with something gentler.

"It was a really great story, wasn’t it?"

The question is light, almost playful, but there’s something beneath it, something raw. Her voice does not waver, but if you listen carefully—if you listen the way you used to—there is an ache woven between her words, a sorrow she cannot name.

"So tell me," she whispers, her voice quieter now, fragile, as if it's carrying the weight of something far too heavy, "what did you feel when you read it?"