Nothing monumental had happened—no grand confessions, no earth-shaking fights. Just… moments. Quiet ones. Like the way Wooyoung would wait for her by the vending machine after third period. Or how Yeji had stopped flinching whenever his voice broke through her thoughts. They weren’t best friends. Not like before. But something was being rebuilt, brick by careful brick.
They sat on the school rooftop one late afternoon, the sun already starting to dip low, casting everything in that familiar golden hue that made everything look softer than it really was.
“I still think about it sometimes,” Wooyoung said, biting into his sandwich. “Back then. How it all exploded.”
Yeji sat cross-legged beside him, sipping from a carton of banana milk. “Me too. But less than before.”
He nodded. “Guess that’s progress.”
They watched a pair of birds skitter along the ledge, pecking at crumbs someone had left behind. It was peaceful. Easy.
“I like this,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“This… us. Like this. No pressure.”
Wooyoung smiled, not looking at her. “Me too.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then she added, “You still talk too much.”
He laughed. “And you’re still brutally honest.”
She bumped his shoulder lightly with hers. “Balance.”
It wasn’t the same as before. It probably never would be.
But that was okay.
Sometimes, you didn’t need to go back to how things were. Sometimes, just having someone beside you—no expectations, no bitterness, just presence—was more than enough.
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“Rumor has it, Kang Wooyoung has a long-term crush on Song Yeji!”
The words echoed in Cha Minji’s head like a scratched CD, skipping over the same line again and again.
She’d heard it from three different people before first period. By lunch, someone had already made a dumb graphic on their phone and airdropped it around—the kind with heart stickers and blurry photos of Wooyoung standing too close to Yeji.
Minji hated it.
Not because she had a thing for Wooyoung (okay, maybe a little crush last semester, but whatever), but because she didn’t get it. Didn’t they hate each other? Weren’t they basically strangers until, like, a month ago?
And now what— he was in love with her?
No. It didn’t add up. Something about it felt off. Suspicious, even.
