You, Again || YeonGyu

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It was mid-June. School had just started again, and the sun was being extra cruel, throwing heatwaves through every window of the newly cleaned classrooms. The gang had finally reunited after a whole summer of semi-regular meetups, some sleepovers, some movie nights, a few random mall hangouts, but now they were back to wearing uniforms and pretending not to miss the seniors who used to walk these halls.

Soobin flopped onto his seat with a dramatic sigh.
"Ugh. I'm not built for school anymore. My summer soul is dying."

"Your soul was never alive to begin with." Giselle rolled her eyes, tossing her bag on the floor beside her. "Where's Gyu?"

"Late again." Sunoo checked the time, then looked up. "Did he say he was okay this morning?"

"I don't think he is," Jungwon murmured. "He hasn't been okay in weeks."

Right on cue, Beomgyu entered the room, quiet. Too quiet for someone who usually made an entrance loud enough to scare the life out of the janitor.

"Hey," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Whoa, you look like you fought a war," Soobin teased, trying to keep the mood light. "Did the heat get to you or something?"

Beomgyu just smiled a little. He took the seat beside the window, dropped his bag, and stared outside.

"Guys," he said suddenly, not even turning around, "do you ever feel like... time moved too fast? Like, last year I was just some loser secretly crushing on a graduating senior, and now... now everything's just over."

The group fell silent. They weren't used to him like this. Not the funny, loud, chaotic Beomgyu they knew.

Sunghoon spoke softly, "You miss him, don't you?"

Beomgyu laughed, bitter. "Miss him? I wrote a whole story for him. A story he'll never even read."

Soobin stood, walking over to him. "Did something happen?"

Beomgyu looked down at his hands, fidgeting with the sleeve of his hoodie. "Nothing happened. That's the thing. Graduation happened. Summer happened. Life moved on. And I'm here, still stuck with all these feelings I can't throw away."

"Why didn't you tell him more?" Giselle asked gently.

"Because I was scared," Beomgyu whispered. "Because even when I stood right in front of him, I felt like I was a ghost. And maybe I am... to him."

The room was quiet again. Too quiet.

Then, like something inside him snapped, Beomgyu stood up so fast his chair scraped the floor. His voice cracked.

"You guys don't get it! I watched him cry at his graduation. I saw him surrounded by everyone, people who mattered to him. I wasn't one of them. I was just... the kid who stared too long. The joke. The friend of a friend. I waited all day just to ask for a picture, and even then, I had to be dragged."

His hands were shaking now, fists clenched at his sides.

"And you know what's worse? I had a gift. I was going to give it to him. I stayed up three nights picking the right words, choosing the right box. And I left it. I didn't bring it. I left it to rot in my drawer like all the stupid hope I had left."

Sunoo was the first to move, gently reaching out. "Beomgyu..."

But Beomgyu's voice broke entirely, tears finally slipping down.

"I thought writing it down would help me forget. That maybe if I made him into a character, I'd stop missing him so much. But it's worse now. Because I didn't just lose a crush. I lost the person who made school worth waking up for."

He sank back into his seat, hiding his face in his arms on the desk.

No one spoke for a while. They just sat beside him, letting the silence wrap around them like a blanket. Letting Beomgyu cry.

Soobin finally said, "You're allowed to hurt, Gyu. Even if he never comes back. Even if he never knew how deep it went."

Beomgyu didn't lift his head. He just mumbled into his arms.

"I wish I never met him. But I know that's a lie."