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Stiff Gingerbread Is Now My Boyfriend?

Pairing:Sunghoon x fem!reader

Themes:strangers-to-lovers, first love, student!AU, soft angst,winter melancholy

Type: one-shot

Disclaimer: This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance to real places or events is coincidental. The characters, their thoughts, and actions are products of imagination and do not represent real individuals. If inspired by other works, proper credit is given. Spelling or grammar errors may appear—thank you for your understanding.

Word count: 17k

You sit in front of Sunghoon at an absurdly long table, which is so intensely polished that it looks like an ice rink in the light of the lamps. In this empty dining room, with its cold, high walls, the tabletop seems like a race track for plates and cutlery, where your movements echoes repeatedly. Usually, this place was bustling with life. Whispers, quiet conversations, the clinking of cutlery against porcelain, the sound of plates being put down and laughter mingled with the smell of fresh bread and hot soup. Today, it resembles a chapel. Cold, unfriendly, smelling of dust, floor soap and something that could be a memory of Christmas Eve, if anyone here felt like celebrating it.

Christmas Eve is in a few days.

And you sit here like someone who has forgotten that they are supposed to be somewhere.

At the other end of the table, so far away that it looks ridiculous, almost as if from another reality, sits the teacher on duty. His face is drawn, his eyes half-closed, his lips thin as a ruler, as if the very fact that he has to sit here is a slap in the face to his career. Next to him, the janitor sits with his shoulders slumped like wet towels. His sweater is too big, his grey trousers worn out, with torn cuffs, and his shoes, once elegant, now barely holding on to their soles. He's a man who sees everything and reacts to nothing.

And next to them is the kitchen lady.

If she could be called the queen of this place, she would be it without question. Her hair is tied up in a loose bun, her apron is stained with borscht and sauce, and her gaze cuts like a knife. She knows exactly what you're thinking before you can say it. And only she can break the silence, which should be recorded in the chronicles as the longest in history.

She leans over you, placing your plate with a short, confident move.

‘Finally, someone who looks like they want to eat.’ she mutters, though it doesn't sound like a compliment at all. ‘Or at least plans to pretend.’

She hands the plate to Sunghoon. He looks up for just a second, nodding slightly in thanks. Although it's nothing, just a small gesture, you feel that he does it carefully, as if afraid that the slightest sound might break the silence between you, like a third person sitting at the table.

‘It's Christmas, and you're here like you're at a funeral,’ adds the cook, turning on her heel as if delivering the last line of a dramatic performance.

The echo of her footsteps and the clatter of dishes bounce off the ceilings, filling the space with a cold, empty sound.

You sit stiffly. Sunghoon too. He looks focused, perhaps a little absent-minded. His hair falls over his forehead in such a way that the shadows under his eyes seem deeper.

The teacher coughs demonstratively, as if trying to remind everyone of the strict rules that apply at school, even on Christmas. But no one even looks at him.

And then a thought comes to mind, striking you like cold air from the cracks in the old windows:

How did you end up here?

How is it that you are now sitting in this school dining hall, opposite Park Sunghoon, one of the most introverted boys in the whole school, while everyone else has long since gone home?

Your thoughts drift gently backwards, as if someone had gently run their finger across a piece of paper and turned back time a few hours.

You're sitting on your bed in your dormitory, your legs tucked under your chin, wrapped in a burgundy jumper that's a little too big, which you tried to wash earlier this week, but it came out uneven and is now fraying a little at the sleeves. On your feet are old woolen striped socks that were in your drawer long ago, before you came to boarding school. The room is empty, silence fills every corner and echoes off the old wooden floors, which creak at the slightest movement. The wallpaper is faded, too bright to feel cozy, too old to feel anything new. The windows are covered with heavy deep navy blue curtains, which make the building look as if it is floating between time and silence.

Your roommate kneels next to an open suitcase that looks like it has a life of its own and has decided to resist. She stubbornly tries to push one gift after another inside, and each one looks like it is fighting for freedom. You try to look away, but it's hard not to watch the show, because the suitcase groans with every move, and she snorts:

‘This is a disaster. My brother's birthday is on Christmas Eve. Imagine, he and Jesus share the same date! I have to give him a birthday present, a Christmas present, and then another one so he doesn't get offended that I forgot his birthday, but I celebrate Jesus' birthday. And then I thought that the rest of the family would only get one present, so...’

She pauses, squeezing a large package into a suitcase that creaks so loudly you can almost hear it screaming for help.

‘...so now I look like Santa Claus with a compulsive shopping problem.’

You can't help but chuckle. It's funny, in a weird, slightly bitter way. But at the same time, you feel something heavy inside that flattens all your emotions. Christmas. Home. People who want you to come back.

Your roomie finally straightens up and looks at you with a wide, overly cheerful smile.

‘Hey. You won't be completely alone here.’

You look up, a little surprised.

’What do you mean?’ you ask, though your gut already tells you what the answer will be.

‘Park is still here.’

You open your mouth.

‘Who?’

‘Sunghoon!’ she says dramatically, rolling her eyes. ‘The one from the West Wing. Always in black, strangely elegant clothes. You know, him. He's staying for Christmas Eve too.’

A second of pause. The silence in the room is thick, almost physical. All you can hear is your own heartbeat and the quiet creaking of the floor, as if the floorboards themselves knew that something was about to change.

Park Sunghoon.

The boy you only know from the corridor. Tall, calm, quiet. Quite handsome...

Your roommate shrugs and winks at you, as if saying it out loud would make it sound less scary.

‘I don't know, maybe his parents abandoned him too.’ she adds, half-jokingly, half-bitterly.

The silence that follows is long and strangely suffocating, as if the very walls of the dormitory are holding their breath.

After a moment, she claps her hands.

‘Okay, okay. Forget what I said. The important thing is that you're not alone here.’

She turns towards the wardrobe, looks for something on the bottom shelf, and when she looks at you again, she smiles broadly.

‘But I have one request.’

You raise your eyebrow.

‘Don't start screaming again at night.’

You freeze.

‘What?’ you ask slowly.

‘You know. Your nightmares.’ Her voice softens, though she tries to keep a playful tone. ‘If you start screaming, the echo will spread throughout the building. Park will get scared and fall out of bed.’

She pokes you gently with her elbow.

You don't say anything. Nightmares are something you don't talk about. For most of the year, you sleep among others, with lights in the hallway, with other people's breath. Now an empty room, empty wings, silence that hits your ears.

‘I'm just kidding.’ your flatmate says quietly, straightening up. ‘You know me.’

You nod, not trusting your voice.

Your roommate closes her suitcase with a final slam and sighs so loudly that you smile unintentionally. For a moment, just a moment, you feel warmth. The kind that disappears before you can get used to it.

You leave the dining room faster than you should, but no one notices. Behind you, you can still hear the cook complaining about trivial things, but the door closes with a soft click and everything stays there, on the other side.

An empty corridor stretches out before you. It is too wide for the number of students who remain in it now. The lamps hum quietly, as if irritated by the fact that they have to shine for a handful of stray souls. The light reflects off the waxed floor, leaving cool, milk-like streaks that lead you towards the main hall.

You walk slowly, as if you have nowhere to go. Maybe that's because you really don't.

Your footsteps echo off the stone walls. The school looks different in the evening. Not like a place of learning, but like a building full of old memories.

You pass a notice board with yellowing sheets of paper that no one has changed since September. Christmas photos, from previous years, hang crookedly. Someone has written in pen in the corner, ‘poor photo quality = poor quality of the academy’. You smile to yourself, though you don't feel any real joy.

The main hall has high ceilings and stone columns. The headmaster always says that the building has ‘historical value’. In practice, this means that no one wants to pay for renovations.

You run your hand over the cracked walls, feeling every bump, years of history and memories of everyone who has ever been in this unfortunate school, even for a second. Your hands suddenly touch a different surface. At the height of your hand hangs a large, heavy phone on a cord. Cream-coloured, or a dull grey, as if someone had once painted it quickly and never perfected it. The handset is matte, with minor scratches on one side. Next to it, a pencil is tied to a notebook with a string, which has a small broken end.

You automatically turn your head away, but a wave of unwanted memories floods your mind faster than you can react. The memory of a phone call from a few days ago, maybe a few hours ago. Your head doesn't want to remember. But your ears remember your mother's voice as if she was standing right behind the wall.

‘Well, you know... we're leaving.’ Her voice is calm, too steady, as if she's rehearsed what she's about to say. ‘Yes, me and him. We need more time. You know how rare it is for us, we're always busy with work...’

A void forms in your chest. You want to bow your head, protest, but your words become thin as paper.

‘I know you're old enough to understand.’ Pause. There is something in it that is meant to be comforting. It sounds like she is explaining herself to herself.

You remain silent. You know you don't want to give her any reason to argue. Silence is a shadow. Hard, persistent. But you hear your own thoughts, uninvited, dialoguing with her words: Why? Why are you putting me second?

‘You can stay for the holidays, the school is organising watches. ’ She says it like a fact marked off on the calendar. As if the holidays were a ticking point that could be postponed, rescheduled, skipped.

The memory is stretched out. Her breaths, a slight grunt, maybe the plastic cup tapping against the tabletop. Images of a suitcase, quick glances, rare shared laughs that now strangely don't match her voice appear in your head.

‘Understand, this is important to me.’ Her voice crumbles at the end, not dramatically, but enough for you to know that there’s something bigger behind this ‘important’ than a weekend or a trip to an exhibition. You can sense a need in that word. The words are stuck somewhere in your throat. You thought you would say, Don't leave me, but it would have sounded like a scream. Then you bit your lip to hold back your tears, turning feelings into small, stringy balls that you swallow. Pain is more bearable when you swallow it.

‘It's not that I'm leaving you... it's just... I need a break. To breathe.’ Words too ordinary, yet carrying all the weight of the world. Night-time anxieties, silence, loneliness. You hear your mother trying to choose a sentence that would soften the punch, but instead it creates tiny cracks that announce a bigger break.

Images slumber within you: her blurred face in the car, her hands sticky with coffee, something you now understand as an escape. And you feel like saying: Does that mean I'll be alone? But the words are so cold that you know they won't warm up reality.

In your memory, the conversation continues, but there is more and more silence, long pauses, silence with a tangy taste. Your mother takes a breath, you tense up like a string. There is no dramatic tone, no emotion, but each pause builds tension, as if an invisible wall were growing between the words.

‘Understand, this is important to me.’ A repeat that has no other meaning than that it is important to her. This sentence asks for forgiveness and at the same time demands it.

Somewhere, a question arises that you don't say out loud, because words have weight: Why are you leaving me when I'm your child? You don't say it out loud, the sentence remains unspoken, a brief thought, like a piece of an unburned match. But the feelings of anger and frustration are stronger, and then that one line is said, not as a dramatic finale, but as a burden placed on the table:

‘You weren't like this before dad died.’

This statement, harsh and specific, lies on your tongue and is difficult to move. Suddenly, everything in your memory takes shape as a cause that has not yet been named.

The memory fades like a cloud over a forest. You feel your fingers gripping the phone more tightly, the peeling paint digging into your fingers. Then your hand slowly moves away from the receiver. You hear the quiet crackling of the lamp above you. Suddenly, the corridor seems colder, the air heavier, the light sharper.

The memory fades as you walk on. Your steps become automatic. One, two. Your body moves, and your thoughts forget about the cream-coloured telephone and that sentence, which weighed more than the whole conversation.

The corridor opens onto four directions, but they all look the same. The lights are too bright, it's too quiet. On the wall to the left hangs a calendar with small inscriptions by students. The ink has run in some places, as if someone had written in a hurry with wet hands. Sheets of paper with literature, pinned chaotically, sway gently, as if there were a draft in the building, even though the air is still.

Somewhere in the distance, you hear the slam of a heavy metal door. Someone else is here. Maybe they're leaving. Maybe they're coming back. It doesn't matter. You don't feel the need to check. You prefer to let your legs take you wherever they want.

The door to the gym is cold, metal, with a small window through which you can see only a fragment of the parquet floor. When you push it open, the air hits you with a different smell. A mixture of old paint and dust that has settled in the cracks in the floor. The light from the ceiling falls in long streaks, each patch of light is sharp, and the rest of the room is bathed in soft twilight. Sound behaves differently here. It stretches, bends, returns a little late.

On the court, someone stands alone by the basket.

Sunghoon.

He doesn't shoot recklessly, his movements are repetitive, precise as breathing, he lifts the ball, focuses his gaze, throws the ball into the air, it bounces, hits the rim, returns to his hand. There is no tension of competition in this, rather a need for order. It looks as if he is using the shots to organise his thoughts, which would otherwise spread out of control.

You stop at the doorway. You watch him from the side, without entering. He is wearing a dark green jumper that hugs his moving shoulders. It's not something that would normally catch your attention. Yet your gaze is glued to his movements, to the way he positions his fingers when the ball leaves his hand, to the short pause between throws, as if he were gathering his thoughts. The minutes pass differently. There's nothing to distract your gaze, there are no people to start a conversation with. There's only rhythm. For a moment, you wonder whether to approach or walk away.

Finally, one of the balls doesn't hit the target perfectly. It bounces off the hoop at the wrong angle, rolls across the floor and stops right next to your shoe. It's a small gesture of fate, one you didn't plan, but one that now decides for you. You bend down and pick up the ball.

At that moment, he looks up. His gaze is short. You can see that he was focused on his work and then realised that someone else was in the room. No dramatic emotions, no dramatic surprise. Just a simple, calm analysis of the situation.

You don't start talking. You pass him the ball with a simple throw, without thinking too much. He catches it confidently, softening the impact in his hands so that the ball doesn't move. A brief exchange that on a normal day would take just a moment. Here, it takes a little longer because you're in no hurry. You sit down on a bench by the side wall. Your shoulders drop because you no longer need to hold on to the tension. You watch him return to his throws, return to the same sequence. Time passes slowly. You count in your head. One throw, two, three. You don't feel like interrupting, even if somewhere under your skin there is a desire to ask why he is here, where he gets this rhythm from. Your breaths synchronise with the bounces of the ball. Each bounce on the floor is now significant, like a small sign that something exists and is moving forward. At one point, you notice a small detail. When he catches the ball after the bounce, his arms are slightly less tense than before, as if your presence in the room has taken up some of the space that previously absorbed his attention.

After a while, the door bursts open. The teacher enters with his typical ‘I don't have time for this’ look and gives a short command:

‘Put the balls in the storage room. Now. And tidy up.’

These words are not an invitation to conversation, they are a reminder that neatness must always be maintained. You begin the simple task of collecting the balls, and when the net is full, you both drag it towards the storage room. The metal wheels get stuck on the uneven floor, and the shuffling echoes loudly off the high walls. The storage room is tucked away in the corner of the hall, behind heavy doors made of thick wood, old from the previous decade. As you enter, you are surrounded by half-darkness and a distinctive, dry smell of dust mixed with rubber. The walls are lined with shelves full of long-unused equipment such as wrinkled tapes, broken blocks, wooden boxes with chips of paint. Light enters only through a narrow strip from a small window that should have been cleaned long ago.

Together, you put the net away. The balls hit each other with muffled sounds, slowly falling silent. The small vibrations disappear. Silence remains. Awkward, rough, uncomfortable. The kind where every little movement seems too loud.

When you entered together, you had to stand close together due to lack of space. The net lands in the corner, and time seems to slow down. His presence, usually neutral, takes on a certain intensity here in this cramped room. He doesn't look at you, he doesn't have to. His gaze rests on the shelf next to the old chest, as if too direct a look would be crossing some silent, unspoken boundary.

You instinctively touch a strand of hair on your cheek, trying to keep your hands busy, though you don't know why. The space is so small that you feel as if your thoughts bounce off the walls faster than sound. Absurd thoughts pop into your head: Is the door still open, should you leave first, is this a good moment to say goodbye?

And then, as if fate or simple physics wanted to play a little joke on you, the door slams shut. Not gently. Not quietly. Hard. Suddenly. So hard that small dust bunnies appear in the air. The chill of the wooden door immediately rushes inside. All you can hear is your own heartbeat, or perhaps the echo of your own fear, which for a moment reacts too quickly, as if the noise were a signal to run away.

You try to press the handle. No reaction. It doesn't budge. The wood is thick, old, heavy, like everything else in this school. It's the kind of door that students always push with their knees because it's so stiff. But now it's not about stiffness. It's just stuck.

The silence becomes even more awkward. You can hear your own breathing too clearly. You count the seconds too intensely. You feel the presence of the boy half a metre away from you too strongly. Sunghoon stands motionless, as if waiting for the awkwardness to go away. Or for you to say something. But he says nothing. The tension stretches like an invisible string. And just when you think you can hear even your thoughts moving in the silence, he finally speaks.

‘Your pass is too weak. You need to use more force.’

The words cut through the space like a sudden flash. So out of place that for a moment you don't realise they were directed at you. It takes you a second, maybe two, before your brain connects the dots and realises he's referring to a moment ago. An absurdly long series of thoughts pops into your head: Is he serious... now? Is this his way of talking? Should I answer? What do you even say to something like that in circumstances like these?

Before you even open your mouth, or manage to react in any way, the door breaks the silence a second time. This time, the movement is more aggressive than before, as if someone had pulled it with all their strength.

The teacher is standing in the doorway. His eyes are tired, but there is also something resembling irritation on his face. Not violent irritation, but the kind that has been stored up for years, typical for people who have seen too many neglected duties. He looks at you once. Once at Sunghoon. Then at the open net with the balls. And he says in a voice that sounds like both a scolding and the sigh of a man tired with the whole system:

‘You're supposed to be cleaning the room, not playing in the storage room.’

Each word is as heavy as a concrete brick, but spoken with that typicalmmixture of exhaustion and indignation that only teachers with several years of experience know. Those who believe that order is the foundation of good manners. He goes on to say something else about rules, about responsibility, about how the storage room is not a place to hang out, but the words blur in your head. Not because you're not listening. Just because you can still hear that one absurdly calm comment about passing the ball in your head.

Sunghoon leaves first. He doesn't turn around, but there is something a little more tense about his posture than a moment ago.

You sit on the bed with your knees pulled up, your back against the cold wall, as if you were trying to disappear along with its coolness. The plaster under your shirt is rough, uneven, unpleasant to the touch, but at this moment it is an advantage. Something real. Something that prevents you from drifting away in your thoughts. The room is filled with a silence so deep that it feels unnatural. Not the soft, soothing silence of the evening, but an alert, tense, listening silence. As if the space has held its breath with you. As if something is about to happen, but not yet. You hold a small flashlight in your hand. It is heavier than you remember. The metal case is cool, scratched at the edges from frequent use. You slide your thumb over the switch, which only responds when pressed at the right angle. The light flickers uncertainly, as if it itself is hesitating between lighting up the darkness or remaining in it.

You remember where you got it from. All too clearly.

‘Just in case,’ your mother said then, rather casually, as she tossed it into your bag before you left. The same tone of voice she used when pretending she wasn’t abandoning you for the holidays.

You don't want to think about it. So you turn the light in your hand until the metal clearly cools your fingers. You focus on the temperature, on the weight, on the fact that something is here and now. The cold is easier to endure than thoughts.

The burgundy jumper falls heavily on your shoulders. It's too big, the sleeves reach far beyond your hands, the fabric wrinkles on your back, and yet you feel the cold seeking its way underneath, slowly, stubbornly. As if it doesn't matter how many layers you put on. You move slightly, but the bed creaks anyway. The sound is short, sharp, completely out of place in the silence. You freeze immediately, as if you had done something forbidden. For a moment, you don't even breathe, listen to the space, waiting for a reaction, for any sound from outside.

Nothing happens. But you can't bring yourself to close your eyes. You don't want to fall asleep. You don't want to see those nightmares.

The very thought of it makes something tighten in your stomach, as if someone were squeezing it from the inside. So you stay seated. Breathing. Counting the cracks in the ceiling. One long, one shorter, the third spreading in two directions. The numbers help. For a moment. Time passes strangely. Too slowly and yet too quickly to control. And then the thought of leaving the room occurs to you. Anything that will allow you to change your location, change your perspective, not sit here idly.

You slide your feet onto the floor and slip them into your slippers. The cold pierces the bottom of your feet immediately, making you catch your breath involuntarily. You clench the flashlight in your hand, hiding it like something precious, as if it could protect you. You approach the door and open it carefully. The hinges don't creak, which is a small relief. The corridor behind them is shrouded in darkness. You close the door even more gently, almost silently. As if you were afraid that the building would remember the sound. That it would acknowledge your presence.

You walk slowly, sticking close to the wall. The doors of the next rooms pass you one after another. All closed, all silent. Just this morning, there were conversations, laughter, footsteps coming from there. Now there is nothing. As if someone had erased all the people with a single stroke.

Every step you take seems too loud. The floor creaks slightly, and you automatically slow down, placing your feet more carefully, as if quieter meant safer. The thought of the janitor patrolling the corridors at night makes your neck stiffen. He doesn't have to say anything. A glance is enough. One report is enough, and you can be expelled from school for breaking the rules.

As you turn into the long corridor leading to the kitchen, something catches your eye.

At first, it's just a shift in the air. Then a shadow that shouldn't move, but does. The light from one of the lamps flickers, casting an extended shape on the wall.

You stop. Your heart races. Your breathing becomes faster. For a brief moment, you consider turning back, returning to the room, closing the door and pretending nothing happened.

But the shadow moves again. Slowly. Too regularly to be an illusion. Someone is there.

You stop instinctively, before your mind has time to name the reason. Your body reacts first. You glue yourself to the wall, as if you could melt into it, blend into the paint and the shadow. Your shoulders tense up on their own, and your breath catches halfway through an inbreath.

The flashlight in your hand flickers out for a split second. Then it comes back on. Unsteady. Uncertain. As if it were also hesitating. Your heart beats faster, and one word immediately pops into your head: caretaker. The image of heavy boots, keys clashing against each other, a gaze that does not ask questions but declares guilt. But after a moment, something doesn't add up. The silhouette emerging from the darkness is too straight, too calm. It walks without haste, without the characteristic heaviness of someone who keeps an eye on things.

It's not him.

The figure moves as if the night were something natural, not disrupting the rhythm. As if the corridors belonged to it, even now, when the lights are turned down and the building is asleep. Only after a moment does it hit you that you recognise this way of walking. This efficiency of movement. This calmness does not come from a lack of awareness, but from habit.

Park Sunghoon.

The name pops into your head like a whisper, unspoken but clear. He stands slightly sideways in front of you, wearing a dark jacket that absorbs light. He is holding something hanging on strings in his hand. For a moment, you try to match the shape to familiar objects. A sports bag, something wrapped in fabric. For an absurdly short moment, you even think it's a pair of ice skates. The thought is so ridiculous that it eases the tension in your chest. You almost smile before you realise that this is neither the time nor the place for such thoughts.

What is he doing here?

The school is empty at this hour. The corridors at night are not a place for friendly encounters. Common sense tells you that you should turn back. Go back to your room, close the door and pretend that this night consists only of silence and a flashing light.

But curiosity is stronger than fear, and that is why it is more effective. It slowly and patiently creeps into your thoughts, raising questions to which you do not know the answers. And the lack of answers pulls you towards it.

So you follow Sunghoon.

Not too close. Not so far away that you lose him.

You take careful steps, synchronised with his, as if you were part of a single gesture stretched out in time. You hold the flashlight low, at your hip, covered with your hand. The light barely touches the floor, enough for you to see the outlines, but not enough to reveal your presence.

The corridor seems endless. The walls seem closer than before, as if the night had moved them. You hear your own breathing, too loud, too clear, and you try to calm it down by counting your steps in your mind.

And then Sunghoon stops suddenly.

Just like that. Without warning.

Your body reacts with a delay. You take one more step, then another, before you manage to stop at the last moment. Your heart beats painfully against your ribs. For a moment, you feel like he must have heard it. He turns slowly. Without a hurry. As if he knew exactly where you were standing. As if the whole night had been a game of waiting for the moment when you would reveal yourself.

‘You know,’ he says quietly, and there is something in his voice that sounds like amusement, ‘I've been wondering for a minute whether it's a ghost or you.’

You freeze.

The words reach you a little late. First, you notice the tone. Calm, slightly ironic. Then the meaning. A ghost. You. The comparison is so unexpected that for a moment you don't know how to react.

‘I... I don't...’ you begin, stepping out of the shadows, because there's no point in pretending any longer. The light in your hand trembles. ‘I was just... walking... that way.’

You point to an undefined spot in the hallway, which in the darkness could mean anything or nothing.

‘That way.’ he repeats, raising an eyebrow.

‘To the kitchen.’

‘In the middle of the night?’

‘I’m craving some cookies.’

‘And you followed me.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘The kitchen is the other way.’

The words fall one after another, as if you were both testing the limits of the conversation. Each sentence hangs in the air for a moment before being replaced by the next. For a second, there is silence. Short, but meaningful. The kind where you both decide if you want to break it.

‘That's impressive.’ he says finally. ‘Most people stop talking after the second sentence when you catch them doing something like that.’

You feel your cheeks start to burn. You don’t know if it’s embarrassment or the sudden warmth of being noticed. You open your mouth to respond, to defend yourself with something meaningful, when you hear footsteps.

Heavy. Slow.

They come from around the corner, echoing down the corridor, too clear to ignore. Your heart is in your throat and your thoughts race in panic: run? Back away? Hide? Your body tenses for movement, but none seems right.

Sunghoon reacts faster. He says nothing, but with a single gesture points to the shadow by the wall, the space between the door and the protruding recess. His moves are quiet and confident. As if he had done this before.

The footsteps are getting closer.

The decision is no longer yours to make. Your actions are faster than your mind, which is left behind, shattered by the suddenness of the moment. Sunghoon grabs your wrist, his fingers cool but his grip firm, as if he knows exactly how much force to use. He pulls you aside, gently but firmly, leading you towards a narrow recess in the wall

. Your back hits the cold stone. Hard. Unfriendly. For a split second, you can't breathe before you realise how close you are. Too close. The space between you disappears completely, narrowed to a few centimetres, to a shadow, to heavy breathing.

You could swear that not long ago there was a statue of some forgotten man. The trace of it is still visible on the wall as a lighter spot, as if even the stone remembered that something was there. Now you are here. Hidden in the empty space left by someone else.

Sunghoon says nothing. His hand rises quickly and covers your mouth before you can catch your breath. The gesture is instinctive, spontaneous, you can feel it in his slightly trembling fingers. The skin of his hand is smooth and soft, completely out of place on the unfriendly surface of the wall behind you. His other hand moves over your hand, the one holding the flashlight. For a moment, you're afraid you'll drop it, that the metal will hit the floor and betray you both. But he just gently presses the switch, exactly where you previously had to search for the right angle yourself.

Darkness falls immediately.

Not just ordinary night-time darkness. Thick. Absolute. As if the world had switched off along with the light. All that remains is the sound of breathing, yours, too fast, and his, controlled but not perfectly steady. You're breathing quietly. Too close to each other to be unaware of it. You feel the warmth of his arm against yours, the slightest movement of his chest as he takes a breath. The smell of the cold corridor mixes with something clean, soapy, completely out of place in this situation. Every second stretches painfully. Thoughts come in fragments: if I move, if I cough, if he hears my heartbeat. You focus on being still, on the weight of your hand on your mouth, on not reacting to the closeness that suddenly becomes too real.

The footsteps pass by.

Heavy footsteps pause for a moment, not far from the recess where you are having a heart attack. The janitor mutters something under his breath. The words melt into an indistinct sound, more of a mumble than a sentence. You hear the jingle of keys. A sound that stays in your memory for a long time.

You stand frozen. So does Sunghoon. His hand doesn't move an inch.

Only when the footsteps fade away completely, when the echo disappears and the corridor falls silent again, do you feel the tension slowly ease. Sunghoon takes half a step back. That's all. Enough to regain some space, but not enough for the moment to truly end.

His hand disappears from your lips. The air returns.

‘I think you should go back.’ he says calmly, as if nothing unusual had happened. As if it were just ordinary advice.

You nod too quickly. The gesture is almost nervous. You don't look at him. You turn away and walk off, your steps cautious, quieter than before.

You don't ask any questions. And for the rest of the way, you feel the place on your hand where his fingers were just a moment ago. As if your skin remembered the shape.

The morning arrives quietly, as if unsure whether it has the right to be here. It does not burst through the windows, it does not spill light into the corridors. Rather, it seeps in slowly, a thin streak of pale daylight that settles on the walls and floors, without making them any more welcoming. The building still looks as harsh as it did at night, only less sympathetic. Everything is clearer. Everything is more real.

You get up before the alarm clock rings. You feel as if sleep did not come to you at all, or came only to leave a heaviness under your eyes. Your body remembers the night better than your head. Every move is a little too slow, as if you had to find yourself in it all over again.

Breakfast is exactly as you expected. That is, bland.

The same long hall, the same tables arranged in neat rows, the smell of tea that has long since ceased to be hot, and bread that is more of a duty than food. You sit at the table, each in your own silence. Spoons hit plates with the same regularity. The sound repeats throughout the room, rhythmic, emotionless. Someone chews too loudly. Someone else adjusts their chair, dragging it across the floor with unnecessary noise. Every sound seems too clear, as if the silence is making room for them on purpose.

No one speaks. No one except the cook.

She bustles between the tables with a cloth slung over her shoulder, her movements are quick. She stops for a moment, rests her hand on the tabletop and says, without raising her voice:

‘Eat up, or it’ll get cold.’

Her tone is flat, almost tired, even though everything is already cold.

‘Don't look at each other as if someone forced you to sit here as punishment. It's just breakfast.’

Her gaze moves across the faces until it stops on you for a moment. A split second longer than necessary. Not questioning. More judgemental. As if she could see the burden you carry with you, even though you try to hide it with your shoulders slumped and your eyes lowered.

Because you remember.

Not a specific image, not a single scene. Rather, the distance between you and Seunghoon. How his hand closed around your wrist. How the darkness was full of breath, presence, awareness of another human being. How for a few seconds the world shrank into a narrow cavity and silence, where there was no room for chance.

Now you're sitting across from him, a little further away, and it seems worse.

You don't look at him. You focus on your plate, on the irregular edge of the bread, on the tea stain at the side. But you know he's there. You feel it with the same certainty with which you felt his arm next to yours that night.

‘All right,’ says the cook after a moment, placing the cloth on the back of the chair. Her voice takes on a hint of determination, as if the silence is beginning to annoy her. ‘You all look like someone has taken away what little joy you had left.’

She sighs briefly, then points her finger at you.

‘And you,’ she adds, barely changing the direction of her hand, nodding towards Seunghoon.

‘Go to the attic. Look for decorations. Something needs to be put up here, because these hallways are driving me depressed.’

She doesn’t ask if you agree. He doesn't wait for a reaction. It's not a suggestion, but a decision, spoken in an everyday tone. You don't ask why. You don't protest. You just get up, pushing your chair back with a quiet creak. For a moment, you feel like everyone is watching, not with interest, but with rather indifference, as if it were a minor change in the daily routine.

The way to the attic leads through a part of the school you don't know yet. The corridors become narrower, the walls more cracked, painted in a colour that was once bright but is now just worn out. The light is more muffled, the light bulbs cast faint circles, between which shadows lurk. You walk slowly. Step by step, leaving a safe distance between you, which does not give you a sense of security at all.

The attic door turns out to be heavier than it looked from downstairs. Sunghoon pushes against it with his shoulder, once, then twice. The wood groans loudly, the hinges respond with a sharp, reluctant sound, as if unsure whether they should still open after so many years.

‘Be careful.’ he says when they finally give way and he steps inside. ‘The stairs are steep.’

There is nothing special about it. No excitement. He doesn’t reach his hand out, he doesn’t look back to see if you’re following him.

And yet you slow down.

The old stairs lead upwards, narrow and almost vertical. The wood is smooth in places where feet have been placed over the years, and the railing is sticky with lacquer that lost its freshness long ago. Each step makes a quiet creak, as if it knows that someone still remembers how many people have walked this way.

The attic opens up in front of you more than you expected.

It is not a cramped space full of random junk, but something like a memory warehouse. Cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, old school benches with twisted legs, chairs with torn seats, paper decorations from previous years, faded, broken, half forgotten. Shreds of garlands hang from the ceiling, left behind after some long-ago ceremony. Light streams in through a small, dusty window. It is pale, breaking up on the particles of dust floating in the air. Every movement stirs up more, as if the attic itself is reacting to your presence.

You begin your work without words. You move the boxes, carefully checking inside. The paper rustles, the cardboard crackles under your fingers. Somewhere further away, wood creaks under the weight of a bench being moved. Every sound echoes louder than it should, as if the space wants to be heard. You pass him once, then twice, without looking, without comment. Your movements are unsynchronized, yet you don't get in each other's way.

‘Yesterday,’ you finally say, more to the air than to him. Your voice sounds quieter than you intended. ‘You had something in your hands.’

Sunghoon doesn't answer right away. For a moment, all you can hear is the box being moved and a dull thud as he puts it aside. Only then does he straighten up and say, as if it were nothing special:

‘Skates.’

He doesn't ask how you know. He doesn't even turn to face you. He simply states the fact. You don't ask why either. Silence returns. You reach for another box, your fingers carefully brushing the cardboard. The air is thick with dust, each breath trembling a little faster in your chest. And then you feel a movement. Something black, too clear, too real. You pull your hand back with a quiet, almost imperceptible squeak before you have time to think.

A spider. Large, hairy, definitely too alive. It clumsily places its legs on the edge of the box, as if exploring the area before deciding whether you are a threat. Your heart is in your throat. The world suddenly shrinks to a small animal, alert to your reactions. Your face expresses a million emotions in an instant.

Sunghoon looks up. First he looks at you, then at the cardboard box, his eyes seeming to weigh whether to react or let the situation be. The corner of his mouth twitches slightly, a quick movement, almost unnoticeable. It's not a laugh. Not yet. It's more of an impulse that tries to be one, but isn't quite sure if it has the right to exist in this space.

You look at him longer than you should. Your eyes follow every detail. Slightly raised eyebrows, a brief twitch of the cheek muscles, a minimal shift of the arm. And before you can stop yourself, you say the first thing that comes to mind:

‘That's... strange. You don't look like someone who's smiling.’

Surprise flashes across his face, immediately replaced by calm.

‘What do I look like?’ he asks, his voice low, more of a whisper than a question.

You think for a moment.

‘Like someone who should do it more often,’ you finally say, though you're not sure if the words fully express what you feel.

He doesn't answer. He doesn't comment. He turns back to the boxes, as if your presence were a natural background. He moves another box, looks under old garlands, searches for small traces of the past. The silence returns, but it is different now. It is no longer heavy and unfamiliar. It is not empty. There is breath in it, the presence of someone who shares the space, yet still maintains their own boundaries. Every sound, the rustle of cardboard, the trembling of dust, the creaking of wood becomes part of this rhythm. For a moment, you stand watching his movements. Every breath Sunghoon takes seems to be part of this space. Present, yet not interfering with your own. There are no words here, no plan, no agreement. Only presence. His presence. And your reaction to it. In this simple, everyday activity, a bridge begins to appear. Delicate, shy, barely noticeable. And in this space, so close to dust and forgotten objects, you feel for the first time in a long time that silence is not the enemy.

You are lying there with your eyes open.

It is not the sound that wakes you, but the feeling of being suddenly pushed to the top. Your heart is beating unevenly, your throat is tight, and the air in the room seems too cool, too thin. For a moment, you don't understand what's wrong. Only after a few seconds you realize that you're breathing too fast. That your hands are shaking. That it was a dream. It's over now.

You wipe your face. Your skin is damp, your nightdress sticks to your back. Cold sweat, always the same, the unchanging sign of a nightmare that has found its way back to you.

You stare at the ceiling. You count the cracks in the plaster, one by one, as if they were meant to keep you here. Now. In this room. In this school.

But the images seep through anyway.

Not like a film, more like fragmented frames, thrown under your eyelids in the wrong order.

Darkness.

Not nocturnal and soft. Darkness that is tight, heavy, the kind that has a scent. Dust. Old wood. Something sharp in the air that stings your nose. Knees pulled up too high, shoulders pressed against your sides. Not enough room to move, too much to stop feeling.

The closet.

Always the closet.

The memory returns with tension, not quite panic, more a feeling that your body knows more than your head. As if you were a string stretched to its limit.

You hear a whisper. Not in the room, but inside yourself.

Quiet.

Your father's voice, rushed, too calm for a situation which should be anything but calm. His hands on your shoulders are too tight.

‘It's just for a moment. For safety.’

Words that were meant to mean protection, but you remember them like the slam of a closing door.

You remember wanting to ask what was going on. That you opened your mouth and then the closet door closed, and the narrow line of light disappeared faster than you could remember it.

Then there was only time. Stretched out, sticky.

You counted your breaths. You held them when something creaked in the flat. You learned to sit still, believing that if you were quiet enough, everything would return to normal.

And then, a scream.

Your mother's scream tore through the air, burst into the closet, got under your skin. It made you move for the first time. It made you bang on the door. It made her name escape your throat, thin and terrified.

You don't remember how you got out.

You only remember her face when she sees you. She didn't look at you as she always did. It was as if she was seeing through you. As if you were standing on the other side of a pane of glass that could no longer be broken.

Your father is almost absent from this memory. There is only emptiness left after him. Silence. A fact that no one has ever fully explained, and perhaps that is why it has grown into something too big to comprehend.

After all this, your mother changed.

At first, she was just tired. Then she became more and more absent. As if part of her had stayed there that day, in the flat you never returned to.

And then someone new appeared.

And with him came something else. Distance. Decisions made without you. A voice that asked less and informed more. Love that became conditional. Convenient. Easy to put off until later.

Just like now.

You breathe deeply. Again. You clench your fingers on the blanket until your knuckles turn white. You are here. In your room. The door is open. No one is locking you in.

You lie still for a moment, staring into the darkness above you, as if it could answer the questions you are afraid to ask. You breathe slowly, carefully, as if every deeper breath could reveal something.

And then someone knocks on the door. It's not a loud knock. Not demanding. Rather shy, as if the hand hesitated halfway.

You flinch suddenly, as if someone had touched you in a place that still hurts from the nightmare. Your heart immediately speeds up, beating uneasily until you feel like you can hear it throughout the room. Your throat tightens instinctively. For a split second, you really think it's a dream. That you're about to wake up again and everything will disappear.

But the knocking repeats.

This time you are sure that it's real. And that reality has come at the least suitable moment.

You sit up in bed, too quickly, causing the mattress to creak warningly. You freeze, listening to see if the sound carries on. Nothing. The silence keeps its secret. You run your fingers through your hair, which is tangled, sweaty at the back of your neck, not at all how you would like it to look if someone were to see you. You throw on the jumper lying on the back of the chair and get up, placing your feet on the cold floor. You walk on tiptoe, as if the boarding school might wake up with you. Every step seems too loud. You open the door just wide enough to fit your hand, leaving a chain of shadow between yourself and the corridor.

Sunghoon is standing in the dim light.

For a moment, you think it's another illusion, that the night is still trying to do something to you. But he doesn't disappear. He's real. Too real.

He looks... awkward. Like someone who has already regretted his decision, but it's too late to back out. His shoulders are slightly tense, like he doesn't know what to do with his own body, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his sweatshirt. He stands a little too close to the door, yet at the same time, he looks ready to step back at any moment.

For a long second, neither of you speaks.

Then you become aware of your own appearance, your red eyes, your face still tense from sleep. You fix your hair completely without thinking, as if it could change anything. Only after a moment does the absurdity of this gesture hit you.

He clears his throat quietly.

‘I...’ he begins, then stops, as if the word is too heavy. ‘I heard a scream. Or something like a scream.’ He says it calmly, but carefully. ‘I wanted to check if everything’s okay.’

Your stomach clenches immediately, as if someone had pulled an invisible string. Everything flashes through your mind at once. The nightmare, the closet, the sound of your own voice.

‘Yes,’ you blurt out too quickly. Definitely too quickly. ‘I mean... no. It's nothing. Just... a spider.’

The word hangs between you, light and stupid.

Silence falls slowly, like dust settling on the floor. Sunghoon looks at you carefully, not invading your space, as if checking to see if the story holds up. The corner of his mouth twitches, slightly, almost unnoticeably. But you see it. Right away.

‘A spider.’ he repeats in a low voice, more like a fact than a question.

‘Yes.’ You shrug, a little too hard. ‘They... can be surprising. Sometimes.’

Another moment of eye contact. Another silence, in which something important or meaningless could be said. Finally, he nods, as if accepting your explanation not because it's convincing, but because he decides to respect it.

You're about to close the door, your hand touching the cool handle, when he speaks again with obvious hesitation.

‘Would you like... some cookies?

You freeze.

‘...What?

‘Cookies,’ he repeats, a bit quieter, as if testing the word. ‘We can sneak some from the kitchen.’

You look at him, trying to make sense of this suggestion in the context of the rest of the night. There is something so off about it that it's endearing.

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

And it is that ‘now’ that makes you nod your head before your common sense has time to protest. The door closes behind you almost silently, as if it wants to keep the secret.

The hallway is pitch dark. You walk slowly, carefully, like two people learning this space all over again. The floor creaks under your feet, and the sound seems unnaturally loud. The walls are higher and closer than during the day

. At one point, you stumble over an uneven spot on the floor and involuntarily gasp for air. Sunghoon reacts immediately. His hand grips your arm firmly and steadily before you lose your balance.

‘Be careful,’ he whispers.

The warmth of his fingers sinks into your skin faster than you would like. Your cheeks grow hot and you are grateful for the darkness. He doesn’t let go right away, it takes a moment, as if only then he realised he was still holding you.

‘Thanks.’ you whisper.

You continue walking.

‘Why cookies?’ you finally ask, quietly.

‘Because,’ he replies immediately, ‘when you were spying on me, you said you were going to the kitchen for some.’

You fall silent.

You think about how he really listened. That he remembered something you said in panic, something trivial, yet meaningful enough to him. Then you realise the rest of his words.

‘I wasn't following you.’ you say suddenly, a little louder than you meant to.

Sunghoon stops sharply.

‘Be quiet,’ he hisses. ‘Do you want the janitor or the teacher on duty to hear us?’

Your heart races again. You cover your mouth with your hand, remembering all the strict rules that hang over you like invisible warning signs.

The kitchen greets you with silence. It smells of old wood and something sweet and warm, like a memory of safety. The tin box opens with a quiet click. You take a few cookies, carefully, as if they were more than just food.

You freeze at the exit.

A few metres away, leaning against the counter, stands the cook. She watches you from under slightly narrowed eyes, with that specific expression that says she has seen much more in her life than night-time sweet-snatching.

You're already mentally preparing yourself for a scolding. For an ironic comment about the rules. For that familiar sigh that means trouble. Your shoulders tense up on their own.

But she just raises an eyebrow.

‘Well, well,’ she murmurs quietly, with amusement she makes no attempt to hide. Her gaze shifts from you to Sunghoon. ‘The school is asleep, and you’re having a midnight feast.’

She says nothing else for a while. She nods to herself, as if she really needs to think about something.

Then she tilts her head and nods towards the hallway.

‘The janitor is in the East Wing.’ she adds in a low voice. ‘And he’s in a very bad mood today. I wouldn’t advise testing how bad.’

The corner of her mouth twitches in what is clearly a smile.

‘Get going now.’

You don't wait a second. You disappear into the corridor faster than anyone could make a comment, with the cookies clutched in your hands. You walk almost silently, only allowing yourselves to slow down at the stairs and let the air out of your lungs. And although neither of you says it, you both think exactly the same thing, with the same quiet disbelief: the cook didn't give you away.

You stand by the Christmas tree for a while before doing anything else. It is as if the fact that you are holding an ornament in your hands gives you the right to stand still. The tree, squeezed into the corner of the main hall, looking exactly as you remember it from other years, like something you only think about when you really have to. The branches are patchy, thinned out in places, and the needles fall off with every touch, leaving tiny greenish marks on the floor. It smells of old dust and cardboard boxes that have absorbed everything over the years.

The ornament in your hands is heavy. Cool. You turn it slowly, watching as a fragment of the hallway and a piece of your face are reflected in the stained glass. In this crooked reflection, you look more tired than you feel. Perhaps the opposite. You wonder where to hang it. You run your fingers along one branch, then another, as if checking which one will hold the weight. You know it's just a decoration, but for a moment you treat the task with exaggerated seriousness. As if something more depended on this decision.

In your mind, the night returns. The quiet corridor, the darkness, the creaking floor. The taste of cookies eaten in a hurry and the realization that for the first time in a long time, you didn't have to fight sleep. This thought appears cautiously, uncertainly, as if it itself is not sure if it has the right to be there. You allow it to stay only for a moment.

At breakfast, everything looked the same as usual. The same tables, the same faces, the same silence. And yet something was different. Maybe it was just you. Maybe it was in the air. As if the tension that usually hung low over the room had risen a little higher.

You hang the ornament carefully, as if it could break not from falling, but from a rash decision. The hook catches on a branch with a quiet, dry click, barely audible in the long corridor. You don't let go for a moment. You hold the glass between your fingers, feeling its coolness and weight. As if you needed another second to make sure it was really okay.

Finally, you let it fall. It swings slightly, swinging in a small circle, reflecting the light in irregular streaks. Then it settles, hanging perfectly still, exactly where it should be.

‘Good spot.’

You flinch, even though you heard footsteps. Your heart races for a split second before your mind catches up with your body's reaction. Sunghoon is standing next to you, holding two boxes of Christmas decorations. He's not invading your space, but he's close enough that you feel his presence more clearly than you'd like to admit. He looks focused. His eyebrows are slightly furrowed, his gaze calm.

‘Do you think so?’ you ask quietly, somewhat instinctively.

‘Yes.’ He glances at the tree. ‘It’s not too high. And it won’t get lost among the others.’

You nod. You accept this with a seriousness that surprises even you. As if it really were about more than a glass ornament and a few needles on the floor.

Sunghoon takes a few steps to the side to put the boxes down, and just then the janitor appears from around the corner. They almost bump into each other face to face. You freeze, straightening your back, as if you were the one caught doing something wrong.

‘I'm sorry.’ Sunghoon says quickly, taking a step back.

‘Watch where you're going, boy.’. The janitor grumbles, scanning the boxes with a tired gaze. ‘Be more careful next time.’

‘I promise.’

The janitor walks away without another word, and it takes you a minute to realize that you've been holding your breath. You exhale slowly. The tension leaves your shoulders quietly, almost unnoticed. A smile appears on its own. Short, uncontrollable, more for yourself than for anyone else.

Sunghoon notices.

‘Funny?’ he asks, placing the boxes by the Christmas tree.

‘A little,’ you admit. ‘You looked like you suddenly forgot how to walk.’

‘Great,’ he sighs. ‘So, public embarrassment.’

‘Public?’ You look around the empty hallway.

He lets out a short laugh. It's not a loud sound, more like something that escapes him unintentionally before he can stop it. For a moment, he looks younger. Lighter.

You start decorating together. You hand him the paper chain, and he takes it from your hands carefully, as if afraid he might tear it. He unrolls it slowly, without haste. When he reaches for another bauble at the same moment as you, your fingers touch for a split second. You pull your hand back too quickly, pretending to adjust your cardigan sleeve.

‘Can you hang this one?’ he asks, holding out a red ornament towards you.

It’s shiny and heavier than you expected. When you take it in your hand, your fingers touch again for a brief moment. This time, you don’t pull your hand back immediately.

‘Sure.’

You move closer to the Christmas tree. To reach the higher branch, you have to stand on your toes and stretch your arm further than you planned. The tree reacts immediately. The branches rustle quietly, tilting slightly.

‘Be careful.’ Sunghoon says instinctively.

Before you can respond, his hand rests on the tree. He stops the swaying with one simple move.

‘Don't worry, I won't make it fall.’ you say, trying to sound casual, even though your heart is beating faster and your muscles are tense, as if you really were about to fall.

‘I didn't mean the tree.’

These words stop you more effectively than the swaying of the Christmas tree. You freeze for a second, your fingers still holding the ornament next to the branch. The air seems thicker. You hang it up carefully. The hook catches on the needles with a quiet click. You lower your hands more slowly than necessary. As if you need time to come back down to earth. You don't know what to say. Or maybe you're afraid that if you say something, the moment will fall apart.

‘Why exactly...’ you begin after a moment of silence. Your voice trails off before the question takes shape. You feel it's too personal. Too soon.

‘Why am I here?’ he asks calmly, as if he has heard this question before. As if he has been carrying it inside him for a long time.

You look at him in surprise. For a moment, you just stand there, your hands hanging down at your sides, unsure if you have crossed some invisible line.

‘Yes. If you don't want to, then...’

‘I didn't really have a choice.’ he says, shrugging his shoulders. The gesture is simple, but something about it betrays his tiredness. ‘Sometimes things just... stay the way they are.’

‘They stay.’ you repeat, more quietly than you planned. The word settles heavily within you, strangely familiar.

He doesn't continue the conversation. Instead, he adjusts the paper chain that has slipped from the branch, focusing on the small task as if it gives him a safe excuse. You also lower your gaze.

‘You know,’ you say after a moment, ‘I thought Christmas here would be... worse.’

Sunghoon pauses for a moment, his fingers frozen mid-movement.

‘I thought so too.’

‘And now?’ you ask, turning to face him.

He thinks about it. Really thinks. As if searching for a word that is neither too heavy nor too trivial.

‘Now they're just... different.’

You nod. That one word fits too well. As if someone had named something that had been inside you for a long time but hadn't yet taken shape.

You take a step back, looking at the Christmas tree from a distance. It's not perfect. The chain hangs awkwardly, the ornaments are mismatched. But it shines. It's there. It fills the space.

‘It looks better than I thought.’ Sunghoon says quietly.

‘A bit like us.’ you reply before you can stop yourself.

He turns to face you.

‘Like us?’

You shrug, suddenly unsure of your own words. ‘Also... like we're in the wrong place. But it still works.’

He looks at you a moment longer than necessary.

‘It has to work.’

These words linger between you longer than they should. They don't sound like the end of a conversation, but rather like something that sinks deeper and doesn't need an answer. You stand there for a moment, staring at the Christmas tree, and feel a warmth that starts high up, somewhere below your collarbones, and slowly spreads lower. Not rapidly. Calmly. As if someone had fixed something inside you that had been broken for a long time. Your cheeks feel warm, your heart is beating faster than usual, but not out of fear. It's a different feeling. Quiet, shy, still unnamed. As if for the first time in a long time, you allowed yourself to think that maybe not everything has to hurt.

When you finally move to finish decorating, you do it naturally, without rushing. You hand him another decoration. He accepts it with a slight nod. A small gesture, but enough. You are now in sync with each other, no longer as strangers.

You lie on the bed with your hands crossed on your stomach and stare at the ceiling, which seems lower than usual, as if it were trying to press you down onto the mattress and prevent your thoughts from escaping. The light from the lamp spills softly across the walls, but it brings no relief. You breathe carefully, watching your pace, because every deeper breath feels like it could stir something painful that has been lying motionless inside you for hours. Next to the bed, almost touching its frame, stands an open box. The cardboard is torn open along the edges, perhaps because you had no patience or because you were angry at its contents even before you saw it. The wrapping paper lies on the floor in a crumpled, shapeless pile, lacking the charm and magic of Christmas.

You didn't want to open it, really. All day long, the box stood quietly and innocently under your desk, and you pretended not to see it, telling yourself that the gift would not change the fact that it cannot reverse decision or fill the void that has settled too comfortably within you. You told yourself that cardboard and ribbon couldn't cover up the feeling that sat inside you like a heavy stone, but night always wins out over reasonable thinking, and curiosity over pride, especially when there's nothing else to occupy your thoughts.

Inside there are ice skates, heavy and solid, made of light-coloured leather that smells new. The laces are thick, cotton, arranged perfectly straight, as if someone had paid more attention to them than you had given to the whole day. The blades shine even in the dim light of the desk lamp, cold and sharp, as if they don't yet know what they were made for and how much risk they involve. They are beautiful, and that's why they hurt the most, because their beauty doesn't fit in with where you are.

You remember last year and how the students would sneak out between classes, pretending to go to the library or to extra-curricular activities, and then disappear for a few hours by the frozen lake behind the trees. You remember the laughter, the sliding silhouettes, the cheeks red from the cold, and the stories circulating in the corridors about who fell over, who pulled whom onto the ice, and how the teachers finally began to suspect something. There was a lot of talk about suspensions and expulsions, about consequences that were supposed to scare people off, although no one ever knew for sure what was true and what was just scare tactics for the sake of order.

The box arrived the day before Christmas Eve, as if your mother had sent it too early, perhaps out of guilt. You run your fingers along the edge of one of the blades, carefully feeling the cold under your fingertips, which quickly penetrates your skin. At that moment, there is a knock on the door, quiet and cautious, as if someone was afraid they might change their mind at the last minute.

You approach the door uncertainly and open it slightly.

Sunghoon is standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame so awkwardly that it looks as if he himself is not quite sure if he has the right to be here. His gaze first moves over your face, then to the skates next to the bed. For a moment, you see his eyes linger on their sharp edges, as if he's trying to figure out if they're real or if it's just the darkness playing tricks on his eyes.

‘Hi . .’ he says quietly, and there is something comforting about that ‘quietly’. It sounds like an invitation, so you respond. You fix your hair, a reflex that is meant to calm you down rather than change anything. You know you look like a mess, but you try to hide it with a gesture that is more theatrical than effective.

'You didn't scream...did you?' he says with a slight smile that appears at the corners of his mouth and makes his voice softer.

‘No. Not yet.’ You feel your heart beating too hard in your chest, that this one breath takes more effort.

You look away and can't help glancing at the skates, and you see that he notices them too. He raises his eyebrow but says nothing. You want to close the door, change the subject, say something trivial so you don't have to think about what's left in the box, about what could open another door, but he suddenly says:

‘Shall we sneak out?’

It sounds like a proposal for a short escape, an invitation to break the rules without making a drama out of it. You're surprised.

‘Sneak out...?’ you repeat, because the word sounds different coming from your mouth than from his.

‘For a moment. If you want.’ His tone is not pressuring, it leaves the choice open.

After a second of uncertainty, you agree, nodding your head, because it's really the most normal thing you could do right now. You grab a flashlight and head out. Step by step, you walk quietly, as if the surface were a precious object that could easily be scratched.

‘Where exactly are we going?’ you whisper, though you don't want him to see the uncertainty in your eyes.

Sunghoon is silent for a moment, then gently raises his hand, revealing a set of metal keys that reflect the light of the flashlight. Surprised, you blink, remembering how earlier, he ran into the janitor and must have taken his keys. For a second, you wonder if it's just a joke or if he's actually planning something bold. Before you can say anything, Sunghoon adds,

‘It's better to avoid the kitchen. The cook was understanding yesterday, but I'm not sure we can trust her anymore. The teacher is on the night shift, so we'd better be careful.

Your heart beats faster at the thought of the possible consequences. If you get caught, it could be very bad. The thought makes your stomach clench, reminding you of the rules, of the line between teenagers and the adult world, which can quickly punish those who break it.

You climb the stairs to the roof, the metal steps hitting the soles of your feet, making a quiet sound with every step. Every noise in this silence sounds loud, as if emphasising the importance of the moment. When you finally stand in the open air, the sky spreads out above you like a stretched silk canvas, smooth and impenetrable, woven from darkness and scattered fragments of light. The stars shine like thousands of tiny dots, as if someone had spilled hundreds of tiny pearls across the sky, and their glow is reflected in your eyes. The wind brushes your faces, cool and sharp, filling your nostrils with the scent of the night, smoke from distant chimneys and a slight mist.

You stand close together, your shoulders almost touching, and the flashlight in your hand casts a soft, warm glow between you. The moment lasts longer than you would have expected. No more words are needed, your presence alone is enough to feel something that cannot be put into words. Finally, you speak quietly, almost in a whisper, because you are afraid of breaking the delicacy of the moment:

‘You know, tomorrow... and looking at the time, today... is Christmas Eve.’ The words come out slowly, with some uncertainty, as if they weighed more than usual.

Sunghoon turns towards you, his face calm in the soft light, slightly lit up by a smile that is not exaggerated, but a natural reflection of his calmness.

‘In that case...’ he begins, and finally adds in a whisper ‘Merry Christmas.’

The words sound so soft and yet so meaningful that they seem to fill the entire space between you. There is no formality or distance in them, only sincerity, subtle and genuine, like a light suddenly found after a long period of darkness.

‘Merry Christmas, Sunghoon.’ you reply, and your words hang in the air between you, gentle yet full of importance.

You feel more than just the warmth that appears on your cheeks from the cool wind. A quiet heat arises in your chest, slow and subtle, filling you from within. The thoughts that a moment ago revolved around anger, loneliness and emptiness become the background for something else. They become the background for the fact that you are not completely alone.

For a moment, you glance at the boy's face, and he looks at you, raising his thick eyebrow slightly, with that calm smile. You want to say something else, but you remain silent because words seem too big at the moment. The silence ceases to be empty, it becomes something shared, full of understanding that you cannot yet name, but which is already between you.

The semi-darkness of your room is soft and calm, as if the night were deliberately trying not to impose itself. The lamp on the desk shines faintly, carefully casting a warm light on the wall and part of the floor, as if afraid to make its presence too obvious. You sit on the bed, your back against the cool wall, your knees pulled up to your chin and your hands hidden in the sleeves of your jumper.

The Christmas Eve dinner a few hours earlier had passed quietly, almost unnoticed. A few dishes arranged on the table in no particular order, plates sliding across the tabletop in silence, cutlery clinking against porcelain. No one started conversations, no one tried to pretend it was anything more than a duty to be ticked off. Only the cook made short, dry comments from time to time.

You thought it would hurt more. That this emptiness would spill over into you like a weight pressing down on your chest and preventing you from breathing freely. That you would feel clearly how much something was missing.

And yet... it wasn't that bad.

Maybe it was because Sunghoon was sitting across from you. Calm, present, his hands resting on the edge of the table. He didn't try to fix anything, he didn't ask questions, he didn't offer false comfort. He was just there. And to your own surprise, that turned out to be enough.

Now you run your finger along the edge of the pillow, slowly, unconsciously, letting your thoughts return to the last few nights. To the moment when you closed your eyes, expecting a nightmare that never came.

You frown, almost amused by the thought. When did you actually stop having nightmares?

It's ridiculous. Really ridiculous. And yet, somewhere in your mind, an absurd idea begins to form. Sunghoon is some kind of Christmas fairy or guardian spirit. A few days later, the nightmares disappear, as if someone had turned off an invisible switch.

You shake your head, smiling to yourself. If you said this out loud to anyone, they would think you were completely out of touch with reality.

Your gaze wanders towards the door. The thought comes suddenly, uninvited, yet surprisingly clear. Maybe he'll come today too. You feel the heat rising up your neck, betraying you instantly. A blush that no one else can see, but which you are all too aware of. You look away, as if the very thought could be caught.

And then there is a knock at the door.

Your heart leaps into your throat in a purely instinctive reaction. You startle, gasping for air, as if the sound were not just a sound, but a response. For a brief, absurd moment, you feel as if the corridor must have heard your thoughts.

You approach the door more slowly than you should. You put your hand on the handle, feeling the coolness of the metal under your fingers.

Sunghoon is standing on the other side. There is something calmer about him than before, as if this place is no longer unfamiliar to him. His shoulders are relaxed, his gaze confident, focused on you. In one hand, he holds his ice skating boots, hanging loosely, as if they were something completely natural.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

‘I didn't scream today.’ you finally say, before you have time to think about why that sentence seems so important.

The corner of his mouth twitches in an almost invisible smile.

‘I don't need an excuse to knock on your door,’ he replies quietly. ‘Not anymore.’

He raises his hand slightly, the one with the skates, as if he has only just remembered them.

‘I saw you have your own.’

You freeze for a split second.

‘They're... new,’ you say quickly. ‘And I've never really skated before. I mean, ever.’

He looks at you closely, without judgement. As if it were simply information, not a disadvantage.

‘I can teach you,’ he says simply.

You gulp loudly. Thoughts of rules, consequences, what would happen if someone saw you, try to break through to the surface... but this time they don't win.

The road to the lake is silent, almost unreal. The snow squeaks under your boots with every step, the sound dry and short, as if the night won't let it fade away completely. The flashlight in your hand draws a small strip of light on the ground, moving slowly, carefully, like a thought that doesn't want to go too far. You walk close to each other, but you don't touch. You feel tension under your skin, in your shoulders, in your fingers clenched around the light's handle. The thought of school rules keeps coming back. About night patrols. About what would happen if someone saw you. About the words ‘expulsion,’ ‘consequences,’ ‘rules,’ which sound too loud in your head for such a quiet night.

Sunghoon slows down, as if he senses all this without asking.

‘If you want to go back,’ he says quietly, without turning his head. ‘We can go back.’

You stop.

The light from the flashlight flickers as your hand moves slightly. The silence between you stretches out, thick and calm. For a moment, you see your room in your imagination. The closed door. The warmth. The familiar fears that at least you know how to name.

And then you think of the ice. Of the cold that is different from fear. Of the uncertainty that suddenly seems lighter. As if it were a choice, not a punishment.

You take a deep breath.

‘I want to go.’ you say finally.

The lake emerges slowly from the darkness, as if the night were giving it time on purpose. The ice surface is bright under the moonlight, almost milky, spreading out smoothly in front of you, without cracks or marks. It looks solid. Safe. Like a promise you're afraid to trust, but you can't take your eyes off it anyway.

You sit down on the edge. The cold seeps through the fabric of your trousers, biting your skin, but you don't get up right away. You lean over your skates, your fingers trembling as you grab the lace. The leather is hard, new, unbending. The boots resist, as if testing whether you really want to put them on. You think you're doing it wrong. That you always do these things wrong.

Sunghoon kneels in front of you before you can say anything.

‘Wait.’ he says quietly. ‘I'll help you.’

His hands take the laces with ease, his fingers moving confidently, calmly, as if each gesture had been practised over years of experience. You look at the ice, at your own knees, at everything but him, though you feel his presence more clearly than the cold.

‘Too tight?’ he asks uncertainly as he tightens the bow.

‘No,’ you reply immediately. ‘That’s fine.’

When he finishes, he straightens up slowly and offers you his hand. It is cold from the air, but beneath the chill you feel warmth.

‘Ready?’

The word sounds more serious than it should.

‘I think so.’ you say and laugh softly. ‘If I fall, then—’

‘I’ll catch you.’ he interrupts calmly, as if it was obvious.

You step onto the ice, your skates scraping the surface. Sunghoon comes closer, stands right next to you, leans forward and takes your hands in his. His grip is light but firm, he doesn't squeeze, he doesn't lead you roughly, he just holds you and gives you support.

‘Don't look at your feet.’ he says quietly. ‘Look at me. Trust me, I'll guide you.’

You do as he says. You look up and focus on his face, calm, focused, his eyes following your every move. In this light, he is less mysterious, more approachable. You see his lips stretch gently into a smile. You feel you can trust him, even though your heart is still beating a little faster and your cheeks are burning from the cold, or from something that has little to do with the temperature.

‘You're doing well.’ you hear after a moment. ‘You're natural.’

It's not exaggerated praise, just a simple comment, and yet something inside you relaxes. Sunghoon lets go of your hands for a moment so you can try to take a step on your own. You feel determined to prove that you can do it.

And... you lose your balance.

A light scream escapes your lips, and the ice instantly reminds you of its ruthlessness. However, his hand immediately returns to yours. He grabs you firmly but gently, guiding you back to an upright position. The gesture is not impressive, there is no dramatic effect, but there is the confidence of someone who knows what they are doing.

‘You've got this, easy.’ he says. His voice is soft, his tone indifferent to fear.

You feel the warmth of his hands through your gloves. It doesn't warm you up, but it stabilizes you and makes room for you to breathe and try again. You take a few steps, he lets you go again for a short moment, just to be next to you in case of emergency. It's not continuous leading, it's more like matching the rhythm together. Every time you lean, his hand seeks yours and you're back in your place. You're slowly starting to get better. Short glides, longer breaths, less tense muscles. There's something in your chest that's not just relief. A small, tentative crack through which heat seeps through. You feel proud that you didn't fall, you feel joy that you keep going. In the middle of the lake, you stop for a moment and look at each other. Both of your noses are red from the frost, your breath appears in the air.

‘Thank you.‘ you finally whisper, because it's the only word that expresses everything you want to say.

You don't say out loud that thanks to him, Christmas Eve wasn't so lonely, that thanks to him you didn't feel abandoned. It stays inside, silent, strong, unspoken. He smiles. His fangs appear slightly, which you find adorable. He doesn't say anything else. No words are needed at this moment. There is only you, ice and cold air, and between your hands the warmth that has begun to sprout and does not want to disappear.

It had been a few days since Christmas Eve. The boarding school was slowly coming back to life, the corridors were once again filled with the footsteps of students, their conversations, laughter and minor arguments, which had seemed so distant before. The morning light poured in through the tall windows, reflecting off the morning mist on the floors.

You walked slowly down the corridor, letting your thoughts wander around those few days. The memory of the ice rink still lingered in your mind like a delicate mist. Those hands of his that supported yours in moments of uncertainty, his calm voice that told you to look ahead and not at your own feet. You smile at your thoughts, a little embarrassed, feeling a warmth in your heart that had been so rare at school before.

However, you don't expect the peace of the day to be suddenly interrupted. The duty teacher asks you and Sunghoon to go to the headmaster's office. Your steps in the hallway become heavier, each breath speeding up the rhythm in your chest. Sunghoon walks calmly beside you, but you feel every twist in your stomach, every pang of anxiety that won't leave you alThe office door stands open like an invitation you did not want to accept. The headmaster sits behind his desk, his frail silhouette against the heavy curtains, his face covered with a shadow of tiredness and strictness. His eyes move over you with a calmness that doesn't bode well, his lips forming a line that knows no kindness. The smell of coffee and papers hangs in the air, and the clock on the wall ticks too loudly, as if highlighting every silent moment. You stand in front of him across the desk like two small, unprepared figures. The silence in the room is heavy.

The headmaster clears his throat, looks at the documents, then straightens up and says calmly but coldly:

‘We have received information about your little night-time adventures. ’ His words come without any introduction, without hesitation. ‘You have seriously violated the rules of the academy. Trips to the kitchen for sweets in the middle of the night, stealing the janitor’s keys, skating on the nearby lake, knowingly exposing yourselves to the consequences... The accusations are serious.’

You can hear them as if someone had thrown a stone into water and the sound was rippling through you. Your stomach tightens into knots and you feel the taste of fear rising in your throat. The thought of your mother comes like a sharp knife. Her displeased expression, her disappointment mixed with anger. One question spins in your head, then another: How can you explain this? What can you say? How can you explain that you were left here alone, and that... that everything got out of control? Your fingers are trembling, your palms are sweaty, your mouth is dry. Sunghoon stands next to you, calm on the outside, and you feel that his presence is the only source of stability at the moment. His gaze meets yours for a second, and there's a silent understanding between you, as if he's already prepared to face the words before they're even spoken. Meanwhile, the headmaster looks through the papers, takes notes, and his voice returns, this time lower, even more formal:

‘We have to take the circumstances into consideration, we will talk to the janitor, kitchen staff, and we will also talk to your parents. It may have disciplinary consequences.’

In an instant, the world narrows down to this room, to the papers, to his expression, to your stiffening knees. You feel the air getting thicker, your breathing quickening, and you can't find an answer that would take away your growing fear.

Sunghoon interrupts your inner chaos with one sentence, so ordinary and yet so heavy.

‘It's my fault,’ he says calmly but with a certain firmness, as if the most important thing was to finally say it out loud. ‘I came up with the whole thing. I took the keys from the janitor. I persuaded her to go ice skating. She had no choice.’

The words fall on you like blocks of ice. Cold, sharp, overwhelming the noise of your thoughts. You fall silent for a moment as your brain tries to process what has just been said.

He takes the blame. He takes the weight off of you.

You want to protest, you want to say that it's not true, that you are also responsible, but the words get stuck in your throat, fading away before they can reach the air.

The headmaster doesn't give you time. His finger points at you.

‘You,’ he says sharply. ‘Leave the office. We need to discuss the punishment with Mr Park.’

You take a step back automatically. You feel the ground beneath you become less stable for a moment. Sunghoon nods slightly, his eyes meeting yours for a split second. Without words, he gives you a sign. He doesn't need to say that everything will be alright, because in that nod there is a promise, an attempt to shield you.

The door closes slowly behind you with a quiet, dull click. You sit down on a nearby bench and lean your back against the hard wood. You rest your hands on your knees, your fingers automatically crossing as if to form a barrier, to shut yourself off from the outside world.

You wait. Every minute stretches like a rubber band. You twist your hands on your knees, count the stains on the floor. You try to organise your arguments, the sentences you will say to the headmaster later, if he comes out to you with the result. Your thoughts race: what will I tell my mum? How will I explain that someone else took the blame? Will it upset her more that you were treated like a child?

Behind the door, you hear distant voices, the tone of Sunghoon, the headmaster. You don't understand the words, but you recognise the tones. Firmness and calm on the one hand, formal protocol on the other. Every now and then, a fragment reaches you, a broken sentence, the name of the janitor, a deeper or shorter breath. Sometimes you hear the laughter of one of the students in the distance. A slight, unintentional contrast to your anxiety.

You rest your forehead on the palm of your hand. You try to occupy yourself with anything while you wait. You fix your hair, pull the sleeve of your jumper over your fingers, stare at the light bulb on the ceiling until small spots appear in your vision. You imagine the words that might be said: punishment, suspension, informing your guardian. Each one is like a heavy object that someone has thrown at you.

At one point, you see him through the glass in the door, just his profile, Sunghoon's figure leaning over the desk, his hands gesturing gently, as if he were choosing his words carefully and thoughtfully. His head turns once, twice, to send you a gentle smile to calm you down.

You keep waiting. People pass by here and there. All of this is just background noise that does not belong to you right now. Your thoughts revolve around one image. Sunghoon sitting opposite the principal, bending the truth to carry a burden that you could both bear. You wonder if he's doing it because he wants to protect you, or because he's not thinking about the consequences, or simply because he thinks it's the right thing to do. The questions multiply without answers.

A minute, two, ten pass. Finally, the door opens. The headmaster comes out first, the corners of his mouth tight with a notebook in his hand. Sunghoon follows right behind him. You don't see his face at first, you see his posture, the way he walks. Less lightly than usual, but still confidently. When he stands in front of you, there is something on his face that is difficult to define. Acceptance? Defeat? Exhaustion? Maybe all.

He doesn't say anything right away. He doesn't have to. His lips form a short, barely noticeable smile, but it hits you right in the heart. It's a signal that the subject is closed in some way, that a decision has been made. You don't know what it is and you don't ask. Right now, you prefer this fragment of normality, this sign that he didn't leave you without a fight.

‘Shall we go?’ he asks quietly, his voice a mix of calmness and heaviness.

You get up slowly, your legs only feeling like yours again when you feel the hard floor beneath your feet. Sunghoon takes your hand and squeezes it gently to calm your nerves. You leave together, but you don't say much. It's enough that you walk side by side, that his hand sometimes tightens around yours, that his pace has adjusted to yours. Deep down, however, you know that this is only the beginning. The consequences may come later: conversations with teachers, possible notes in your file, letters to your parents.

Inside you are still torn between fear and hope. Hope seems smaller and more fragile than fear, but it exists thanks to the hand holding yours.

The snow was falling slowly, gently settling on the fields around the school, covering everything with a white, fluffy blanket. Each flake seemed to melt in the air before landing on the ground, and there was a strange, peaceful magic in this movement that contrasted with the chaos in your head. The wind carried with it the sharp, cold smell of winter, which pinched your cheeks and made every breath sharp, almost painful in its freshness. You stood in front of the school, Sunghoon holding a travel bag that dug into his fingers. Your hands were tucked deep into your coat pockets, trying to stop your fingers from shaking, which wasn't just from the winter cold. The silence was heavy, almost physical, broken only occasionally by the distant sound of snow crunching under the feet of passers-by, a sound that only served to deepen your loneliness in that moment.

You couldn't bring yourself to speak. Every thought shattered in your head like glass, into sharp, painful fragments. The realisation that Sunghoon was being expelled from school, that this Christmas was ending in such unexpected emptiness, filled you with a crushing weight. You remembered spending the whole night crying after the headmaster's decision, tears streaming down relentlessly, leaving wet marks on the pillow, as if the mattress itself was absorbing your sadness.

Now, standing next to him in this white, cold world, everything came back with double force, spreading throughout your body, squeezing your stomach and tightening your throat.

Sunghoon noticed your trembling. His movement was so natural, as if he always knew when to show affection. He carefully placed his hand on your cheek, gently wiping away the tear that had escaped from your eye, and then adjusted your scarf to protect your neck from the cold air. His presence was confident yet calm, giving you the sense of security you so desperately needed right now.

‘Looks like you need some cookies.’ he said suddenly, breaking the silence with a simple, slightly foolish tone that had something very sad and therefore painfully fleeting about it.

A quiet, faint sound escaped you, one that could just as easily have been a cough.

‘Cookies?’ you repeated, still unsure whether he was joking or being completely serious.

He nodded, not taking his eyes off you.

‘Yes, cookies. You’d better cheer up before the world gets even gloomier.’

He looked into your eyes in a way that made you forget for a moment about your fingers, which were still shaking in your pockets. There was no chaos in his gaze, only warm sincerity. He was there for you, he noticed your pain, and he chose to do something small, imperfect, yet sufficient to interrupt that flood of sadness. And that's what struck you the most. The fact that he didn't try to shine with grand gestures, but offered you small pieces of ordinariness that suddenly became priceless.

He took a step back, giving you space, but his hand remained on your cheek, as if he still wanted to make sure you were there, that you were breathing.

‘You've got it.’ he said quietly, and in those few words there was so much meaning that it was difficult to grasp: a wish, a request, perhaps even a pleading.

‘I don't regret taking all the blame. I would do it again. And thanks to you... I had a much better Christmas than I could have imagined.’

It sounded so honest that something inside you broke, not from pain, but from that strange, bittersweet mixture of sadness and gratitude.

Tears welled up in your eyes again. Thousands of words you wanted to say were stuck in your throat: I'm sorry, thank you, stay, but for now, you could only catch your breath and whisper his name:

‘Sunghoon...’ The voice that reached his ears was thin as a needle, yet it was enough.

You didn't have to finish your sentence. He leaned in slowly, so gently that the world around seemed to adjust to his movement. The cold air hesitated for a second, as if it too wanted to see it. Your lips met in a kiss that was short and quiet but full of tension. At first, it was shy, then more and more confident, because at that moment, neither of you wanted to pretend that you weren't sure.

The world around you froze. The wind fell silent, the snow was falling slowly, everything seemed to be frozen between one breath and another. Until a car horn suddenly broke the silence. A rough, common sound that brutally reminded you that outside your bubble there was the rest of the world. Sunghoon moved away slightly, breaking the kiss, but his hand remained on your cheek, his gaze soft and pained.

‘It's time for me to go,’ he said softly. ‘My parents are already here.’

There was no hint of panic in his voice, only a statement of fact and something that sounded like pain, but also acceptance.

You nodded so you wouldn't have to hold your breath any longer. You wanted to hold on to every second of this conversation, every shadow of warmth that pierced through the frost for a moment.

‘Goodbye.’

His lips were warm from the kiss, his nose red from the cold, and his eyes full of the feelings you both had but couldn’t yet put into words. His smile held a promise, not loud and bold, but delicate and hard as glass. A promise to meet again in the future. He held your hand for a moment longer, and you felt his thumb gently caressing the back of your hand. Then Sunghoon turned and walked towards the car, his step confident, though there was a hint of sorrow in it.

He got in. The door slammed with a soft thud. The engine growled. For a moment, you could still feel his presence in the touch of his hand, in the echo of his kiss, and then the car drove away, leaving you surrounded by snow and emptiness. You stood there for a long time, letting the falling snowflakes wrap you in a white shell, feeling both the absence of his leaving and the completeness of what had happened between you. Your heart was still beating a little faster, your cheeks were burning, and a strange new feeling was growing in your chest.

notes: Merry Christmas 🎄 I can’t believe how much I ended up writing for this story. I didn’t expect it to get this long, especially with the holidays coming up. It was so much fun to write, and I’m really grateful you took the time to read it. If you enjoyed it, feel free to reblog or leave a comment. Honestly, it motivates me to keep going. I was inspired by The Holdovers, a film I absolutely love. I hope a bit of that cozy, wintery vibe made it through. Thanks again for reading🤍

💌:@kyunlov

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