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❝ ⎯⎯ The first encounter does not go as planned ! ꞌꞋ ࣪ 투어스 　❞

┈ Destinies that barely touch… until fate pushes them closer than expected.

› Pairing: Student!PopularBoy!TWS x Student!PopularGirl!Reader › Word Count: 14.7K › Warning: None. They have a really big crush on you. This is an overly in love version of the members. Just fluff…too much.

┈ Note ! ꞌꞋ Okay... Merry Christmas, this was supposed to be posted on the 24th, but well... things happened (I was drunk)... but back to this headcanon. I love it, to the extreme; I'm a huge fan of this AU, but it's also the main concept of TWS, so in honor of “Plot Twist,” let's just say I made a more cliché and ridiculously sweet version of the first encounter/interaction with them... I love it, even though it ended up being very, very long (I was very inspired).

I also want to clarify that English is not my first language, so there will probably be several typos or it will look very formal; an apology for that. Without further ado I hope you like it and have a nice night/day.

vee﹒ᵔᴗᵔ﹒

Shinyuㅤ ❛❛    ──── ㅤShin Junghwan !

The third floor hallway vibrated with that chaotic intensity so typical of high school just before break. The air was permeated with laughter, hurried footsteps, cross talk, and the metallic sound of doors opening and closing in uneven rhythm. Sunlight streamed through the wide windows on the right side, tinting the floor a soft gold that cast long, elongated shadows of students in motion, as if the entire building were breathing.

Shinyu was speeding down the stairs, body half-turned backwards as he laughed, driven by the joke Jihoon had just shouted at him from above. The laughter still vibrated in his chest, light and carefree. There was something about those moments that disarmed him. Moments when the weight of expectations, of exams, was diluted in that unreasoning running between classes, in the voice of his friends, in the orderless bustle that surrounded him.

Dohoon would shout something from the steps above, half feigning annoyance, half in jest, claiming him for “cheating again” as if they would ever stop competing, even in the most absurd of ways. The echo of his voice bounced off the walls, but Shinyu didn't pay attention at all. He was walking down without looking, body slightly cocked to one side, and backpack hanging loosely over a single shoulder.

It was a second.

A broken instant in the midst of all that energy. As if someone had pressed pause in a world that didn't know that button.

He didn't see you coming.

First it was a shadow, a moving figure entering his field of vision from the left side. Then, the slightest brush, barely perceptible, like a feather escaping from the wind… and the imbalance. He didn't know if it was you who spun, if it was him who crossed, or if the universe conspired with an exact choreography for that instant.

The next thing was pure instinct.

The body responded to him before the mind: Shinyu spun toward the source of the impact, seeking to compensate for the weight, feeling his center of gravity shift completely. His arm automatically reached out, firm, sure, meeting you before his eyes. He felt your waist under his hand, the soft fabric of your uniform's fabric, and the warmth. The warmth of a body he hadn't expected to touch.

And then, the stillness.

The pause wasn't just mental. The world really seemed to stop around you. The voices of his friends were silenced. The noise in the hallway, which seconds before was a storm of sound, became a distant murmur. He didn't even hear the soft thump of the backpack slipping off his shoulder and falling to the floor with a discreet thump. The only real thing at that moment was the contact.

Shinyu looked down. And he saw you. It was you. You.

The contact was immediate. Almost electric. Not like a shock, not like a violent discharge, but like that silent spark that ignites between two opposite poles touching for the first time. The warmth of your body, palpable under his palm, ran up his arm like an invisible current. It wasn't just warmth. It was an absolute awareness of the exact place where his hand touched you, at your waist, slim, firm, perfectly fitted between his fingers. A place he didn't know, but that his skin was no longer going to forget.

How close he was —a breath away, literally— didn't prepare him for the intensity of what he saw in your gaze. Because then, his eyes collided with yours.

And time, if it hadn't stopped before, it did now.

The noise in the hallway was completely gone, or so he thought. Maybe it was still there, maybe Jihoon was still yelling some nonsense from the stairs, and Dohoon was still coming down, clamoring for his backpack, but for Shinyu, it was all gone. There was nothing left. There was just you and him.

And your eyes.

Shinyu recognized them before he could think about it. He had seen you before. Many times. In the courtyard, under the shade of the building during breaks, half laughing with your friends, sitting in the third row of the auditoriums, or walking with that slowness that seemed to float above the ground. Always with that way of yours of filling the space without saying anything. Without looking for it.

It was impossible not to notice you.

Everyone talked about you. With admiration, with awe, with that half-contained voice used by those who name something sacred.

But he didn't.

He didn't say your name. He didn't comment on anything. He didn't follow the conversations that mentioned you. It was not out of disinterest. On the contrary. It was because, for him, talking about you —so publicly, so superficially— felt like a fault. As if naming you was trying to reduce something that clearly couldn't fit into words. So he didn't.

He watched you in silence.

From a distance. From where you couldn't see him. Like someone looking at something they dare not touch.

Until now. And now you were there. So close. So absurdly real.

And yet you seemed to be enveloped in that same soft light as always. He didn't know if it was the reflection of the midday sun streaming through the windows, or if it was you. But there was a warm clarity about your face that took his breath away. Your lips were barely parted, as if you had forgotten how to breathe. Your eyes wouldn't leave his, and for a second —just one— Shinyu felt like he could fall into them.

Your cheeks were flushed.

A rosy, delicate color, spreading like a brushstroke from your cheekbones to your ears. You didn't know if it was from the shock of the near collision, or from the way the distance between you had blurred as if space didn't exist.

Maybe because of both.

Shinyu didn't know how he was breathing either. His chest barely moved, as if any puff of air might break something invisible between you. He forced himself to blink, slow, as if he feared that, if he did it too fast, you would disappear.

Then, without thinking, without planning it, without even being fully aware that he had opened his mouth, his lips moved:

—Are you okay? —He asked.

His voice came out lower than he thought it would. Almost a whisper. He wasn't even sure if you heard him. It was an absurd question in theory —you clearly hadn't fallen, you were clearly in one piece— but it didn't matter. Because the phrase wasn't a formality. It wasn't to fill the silence. It was genuine. Almost urgent. As if he needed to know, as if he cared more than he knew himself.

You nodded. Slowly. And you didn't say anything. But you kept looking at him.

That look of yours, fixed, clear, without artifice, without masks. There was no inordinate surprise, no awkward embarrassment, no that subtle haughtiness that sometimes floated down the corridors. You were just there, wide-eyed, calm, looking at him as if the world had stopped for you too. As if you really saw him. Not his name. Not his reputation. Not to the one who walked surrounded by voices and compliments. Him.

And for a second, Shinyu felt like you understood him.

He couldn't explain what that meant, but he felt it as a soft, deep certainty. As if something in that shared gaze —in that wordless silence— had said much more than any sentence could have uttered.

A mute conversation, carved in the space between their breaths. An impossible coincidence.

The sensation was so powerful it scared him. As if he was about to learn something about himself that he didn't want to admit. As if you had seen something even he dared not look at in the mirror.

And then, the spell cracked.

—Shinyu Hyung! —the voice cut through the air, from somewhere in the hallway.

Youngjae. His voice always carried a kind of impatient cheerfulness, and now it sounded even louder because of the contrast with the silence that surrounded him inside. Shinyu did not turn immediately. Not because he didn't want to, but because his body didn't respond with the same speed.

The noise returned. The murmur of footsteps. The echo of voices crossing each other. A bell announcing recess. Time, again.

Shinyu realized then that he was still holding you. That his hand was still resting on your waist with a gentleness that bordered on intimacy. The contact that had once been impulse now felt conscious.

Alive.

He withdrew it carefully, as if letting you go all at once might break something more than the moment. As if letting you go was like closing a page he didn't want to leave behind. He did it slowly, without abruptness, as if his palm still wanted to keep your shape, the warmth of your body. It was not a physical gesture. It was something deeper. Almost reverential.

You took a step back.

Neither clumsy nor quick. Measured. As if you too knew that this had been something out of the ordinary, something that could not be undone with a simple movement.

And then your friends appeared. As if they had been waiting on the outskirts of a scene they knew it wasn't their place to invade prematurely. Surrounding you, questioning you in hushed tones, some with eyes alight with intrigue. One of them —the one with the shortest hair— had a smile that she didn't try to hide. Another whispered something in your ear. You just shook your head. Shinyu saw it.

He didn't look at yours. He didn't even try to locate Jihoon or Dohoon or Youngjae. He didn't listen to the voices that were probably calling him. He only looked at you.

One more time. As if that last look could help him remember everything, every line of your face, every shadow, every slightest gesture. As if he could keep you inside his chest. As if you would let him.

And then, just as you turned around to leave with your girls… you did it. You smiled.

It wasn't big. Nor provocative. Nor exaggerated. It was a small curve, barely drawn on the lips, but genuine. Almost shy. As if it had escaped on its own, without you noticing.

A smile for him. And that…that destroyed him. Shinyu stood still.

Literally. As if his muscles had been replaced by hot cement that had not yet finished setting. His lungs forgot how to breathe for a second. Or two. Or five. He felt his heart beating not in his chest, but in his ears, in his fingers, in his throat. A slight, constant pressure that told him: This is not everyday. This is not something you will forget.

That smile, so small… it was too much.

Not because you were unreachable. Not because you were “you”. Not because everyone looked at you or wished you or named you as if you were a legend walking the halls. But because, for that instant, that smile was just for him.

And Shinyu felt that nothing —nothing— after that was going to feel the same.

To go back to his group. To hear the laughter. To laugh with them as always. Sitting in class, looking out the window, joking with Jihoon, arguing with Dohoon, moving through the crowd as if nothing had happened.

All of that was going to feel different. Because there was something new inside him. Small. Fired up.

And even if he didn't know its name yet, he knew where it came from.

It came from you.

From that look. From that touch. From that shared sigh between two worlds that didn't touch.

And from that smile that had just broken him, without anyone else noticing.

Shinyu looked down, once again. The backpack was still on the floor.

He picked it up silently, as if by bending down he was coming down from a dream. As if that movement marked a return to reality.

But something inside him resisted. Because he didn't want to go back.

He wanted to stay there.

In that second that shouldn't have existed. Where you and he… at last, had touched.

Dohoonㅤ ❛❛    ──── ㅤKim Dohoon !

The sun was beating down on the court, slipping through the branches of the old oak tree that marked the boundary of the main courtyard. The light, golden and hot, bounced off the cracked asphalt and made the air seem almost liquid, as if the world were wrapped in a summer movie that never ended. The laughter of the students, mixed with the shouts between players, created a vivid echo that filled every corner of the place. Recess was not just a break; it was a vibrant scene, a choreography in which each group had a role, a space, a universe.

In the midst of it all, Dohoon was in the middle of his. The impromptu soccer game was his perfect excuse to escape the tedium of class, but more than that, it was his zone of control. His rhythm. His steps were agile, measured; his decisions, quick. He played with a mixture of restrained strength and precision, like someone who had nothing to prove, but did it anyway.

His white T-shirt was plastered to his back by sweat, revealing the defined muscles that constant training had sculpted him. His hair, dark and somewhat long, fell messily over his forehead, sticking up at times when he turned his head or ran too fast. The eyes, normally serene, were focused, with that sharp glint that only appeared when he really immersed himself in something. Like now.

He had just intercepted a pass from Hanjin, with a clean, quick ankle movement. A short turn, a step forward. He was preparing to return the ball when he heard his name among the voices:

—Hyung! —Youngjae shouted, further in the background.

He responded with a lopsided half-smile, the one that seemed to emerge effortlessly, almost distractedly, and turned his body naturally to return the ball with a touch of his instep. But just in that second of minimal unfocusedness, he knew: he had hit it too hard.

The ball soared higher than he intended, taking an unexpected, crooked trajectory. It gave a little bounce on the ground, then rose into the air, as if deciding to get out of the game. His eyes followed it with a microsecond's delay, as if time itself gave him a chance to correct it. But it was late. Too late.

Because he saw where it was going. Or rather… towards who.

You were there. A few meters away, near the edge of the court, right where the white line was blurred by wear and tear. With your back turned. Oblivious. Your hands were in the air, drawing something as you talked to your friends, laughing with one of those open laughter, the kind you can't hear clearly but feel. Your hair, loose and full of movement, seemed to capture the light itself as it danced in the wind. Even from afar, your presence had that strange effect: as if everything else —the voices, the shouts, the goals— were lowered in volume. As if you were the static part of a fast-paced scene.

Dohoon felt a flip, a sharp tug inside his chest. The ball was headed straight for you. And you didn't know it. He didn't think about it. He didn't measure, didn't evaluate. He just moved.

Your body responded before your mind did. It was a visceral, automatic start. He ran. And he did it with a speed he rarely put out. The air hit his face hard, sweat trickled down his neck, his sneakers scraped with a squeal against the asphalt as he turned his direction slightly. His muscles tensed, his senses sharpened. Each step was calculated, brutally fast, as if time itself was against him.

The ball was descending. But you remained there, right in the trajectory.

And just before the white sphere reached your head, his arm intervened. A sharp, dull thud vibrated from his forearm to his shoulder. He felt the impact run through his bones, leaving a warm pressure on his skin. The ball ricocheted and bounced off to the side.

But the sudden movement had startled you. You turned at the last second, just as he was arriving, and seeing you so close, your eyes still not understanding what had happened, you took a step back. Just one.

Enough to lose your balance a little. And he acted again without thinking.

His arm moved with the precision of one who responds to an instinct, not a decision. He circled your waist without hesitation. Firm. Sure. As if in that exact instant his whole body had become a natural barrier between you and the world. He did it with a serene confidence, without violence, without awkwardness. As if he knew your center of gravity better than you knew yourself.

And suddenly, you were close. Too close.

Closer than anyone could have anticipated. Closer than was allowed in the unspoken logic of the hallways, in the silent rules of the school. Closer than two worlds that don't touch usually are. It was as if the distance that had been maintained until then —perfect, intangible, respectful— had evaporated in a second, and now only that narrow, intimate, new space remained.

The contact was immediate, direct, strong.

Your body stopped abruptly as it collided with his. It was like bumping into something solid and warm at the same time. The center of his chest brushed your shoulder, his arm still wrapped around you, adjusting to the curve of your waist, not roughly, but with an inescapable firmness. There was no escape. There was no need.

And you felt it all.

Every inch of his closeness. The warmth of his skin under the thin fabric of the barely sweating T-shirt. The heartbeat that, for an instant, you thought was not yours, but his. The soft scent of something barely sweet —shampoo?, his lotion?, the sun on him?— that floated around, nameless, but that you already knew you wouldn't forget. Your breathing stopped. Not by choice, but by reflex. As if your body needed a second to process what was happening.

Dohoon felt it too. All of it.

He felt your body tense slightly under his hand, not out of fear, but out of surprise. He felt your figure adjust, as if it fit effortlessly into that exact spot where he held you. His open hand sensed the line of your back, the subtle way your waist descended. The warmth you radiated was uncommon; it felt human, alive, impossible to ignore. As if the whole world had centered on the point of contact between the two of you. His mind, normally quick and sharp, clouded for an instant.

And then, your eyes met his. It was intense.

Like a silent lightning between two different skies crossing for the first time. Your pupils were still dilated from fright, but also from something else: amazement, perhaps. Recognition. He didn't know for sure. But what he did understand was that in that look of yours there was a clarity that disarmed him. It was not the look of someone who sees a stranger. It was the look of someone who has seen, many times, from afar. Who has imagined. Who, perhaps, has waited.

And for him, it was impossible not to remember. All the times he had seen you. Not by chance. It was never by chance.

From the first time he saw you at the back of the hallway, bent over your notebook, the way you smiled without realizing it as you wrote. Since that time in the library, when you thought no one saw you and you arranged the books by color, as if order was more than just a habit. Since Friday afternoons, when you sat on the patio wall and laughed with your friends, with that laughter that you couldn't quite hear, but you felt it. Like a song that you can't hum, but that stays with you just the same.

You were that.

A constant, gentle presence, impossible to ignore. You didn't need to speak loudly or take up space. You did it differently. With the way you walked, with the way you looked at others. With your calm aura, almost oblivious to the general euphoria of the school. You had seen it. You knew it. That everyone was looking at you. That everyone, at some point, considered you the ideal that could not be touched. A serene, luminous, reserved beauty. As if you were part of a plane that the rest could not reach.

And yet, now you were there. Right in his arms. Dohoon didn't know if it was you or the sun that was burning him from the inside.

Because he held you so close, so real, so human, so tangible… that it hurt. It hurt him in a warm, unfamiliar, deep way. As if he had been waiting for you all this time without knowing it. As if this instant was the inevitable result of all the times you had looked at each other without saying a word. As if that space in his chest —the one he had never known was empty— had just been filled.

—You're okay? —He asked, in a low voice. Too low.

As if even the air had betrayed him, suffocated by the weight of all that was left unsaid. Because something inside him —something visceral, inexplicable, powerful— told him that this moment was suspended on a thin, fragile rope, like a bubble of silence that, at the slightest touch, could burst.

And he didn't want it to burst. Not yet.

Then he saw you nod. Slow. Silent.

An almost imperceptible movement, as if even that gesture cost you to break the spell that enveloped both. And yet, you did it. Firmly, but without harshness. A yes that was not verbal, but that outweighed any words. Because you looked at him as you did it. You didn't look down. You didn't look at your friends, or at the ball, or at the ground. You looked at him.

And there, in that tiny nod, there was something. An echo. A correspondence. A response.

There was something in that gesture of yours, in that tense calm, in that silence woven between the two of you, that told him he was not alone in what he had just felt. That what still had no name —that electricity under your skin, that unexpected giddiness in the center of your chest, that absurd sensation that the world had shrunk to a point between his hand and your waist— had not been his alone.

You had felt it too.

Dohoon knew it. As if the seconds shared in that minimal space had contained something that could not be erased.

And then, the world came back. All at once.

The sound of distant footsteps. A voice calling out his name —Jihoon, no doubt, in that familiar tone he used when something went off script. Then others: laughter, footsteps, murmurs. The outside world, which had been on pause, was returning with all its noise, with all its haste, with its brutal disinterest in the delicacy of what had just happened.

And Dohoon knew the moment was going to break. He knew it as one knows a dream is about to fade as one opens one's eyes. And yet, not yet. Not yet. So he didn't let go of you right away.

Not because he wanted to hold you —though maybe he did— but because letting go of that touch felt almost like a betrayal. As if letting go of your waist meant leaving behind something he was just beginning to understand. His hand, still resting on you, was slow to slide away. It did so carefully, with measured slowness, as if afraid that a sudden movement might erase everything that had just happened.

That's when your friends arrived. Like a flurry of voices, perfumes and concern.

—You all right? —they asked, all at once.

Dohoon took half a step back. Not out of discomfort, but because he knew it was the right thing to do. That space that had closed between you had to open again, out of obligation. As if the universe was reclaiming its balance.

But he didn't look.

He did not look at how they surrounded you. He did not observe their gestures, nor the barely concealed curiosity with which they scanned him from head to toe. He looked away. He took a deep breath. Not to calm down, but so as not to drown. Because inside there was something in him that was beating too loudly. As if his heart had decided to shout everything that his mouth did not dare to say.

And when he finally looked at you again…. You were already looking at him. Again. But this time it was different.

Your eyes were still fixed on him. No doubt about it. But now there was something else. Something slight, but precious, unrepeatable. A small curve of your lips. Just a hint of a smile. Small. Almost imperceptible. But so real that Dohoon's chest tightened.

It was enough.

There were no words. No need. That gesture of yours, as subtle as it was powerful, was a secret code between the two of you. As if in that second, amidst the chaos of the courtyard, the voices of your friends, and your breath still heaving from the shock, you took a moment just for him. To see him. To recognize it. To thank him. Or something else.

Dohoon didn't smile back. He couldn't.

Not because he didn't want to, but because he was too busy trying to stand. Because that smile of yours —so small, so quiet— had moved something in him that he didn't know could move. It had disarmed him. It had left him defenseless.

And he knew it.

He knew he was vulnerable at that moment. That if anyone looked at him closely, they would notice the way he was breathing slower. The way his jaw tensed from holding back any visible emotion. That if Jihoon approached him, or Youngjae said anything else, he wouldn't be able to respond with his usual tone. Because something had cracked.

And not in a bad way. It wasn't pain. It was vertigo.

It was a feeling of having touched something sacred, by accident. As if I had set foot on unknown and beautiful ground, and now I couldn't turn back. As if that instant, that exchange of glances, that tiny smile… had changed something that he could no longer ignore.

He didn't know what it was. Not yet. But he knew he wouldn't forget it.

He knew that smile of yours would replay in his head many times, when he went back to class, when he showered that night, when he tried to sleep. He knew he would return to that instant again and again, seeking to understand it, to chew on it, to decipher it. He knew it was the beginning of something.

And for the first time in a long time, he wasn't afraid of not understanding it.

He just wanted to see you smile like that again. He just wanted… to come back.

Youngjaeㅤ ❛❛    ──── ㅤChoi Youngjae !

The library had that kind of silence that not only filled the space, but seemed to spill out, seeping through the cracks between the doors, dampening the aisles and muffling the noises coming from beyond. Youngjae wasn't usually there. It was not his territory. Too still, too stopped. Too real, perhaps.

He had entered just a few minutes earlier, following Hanjin and Jihoon, who had insisted on going “just for a moment,” chuckling between inside jokes as they pretended to look for books they clearly didn't plan to read. Youngjae had allowed himself to be dragged along, as so often before, not for lack of an opinion, but out of habit. Because the routine of his days had a precise choreography, and he knew every step by heart. There was something comfortable about that.

He had a book under his arm —one he had pulled out of inertia from one of the shelves, without really looking at the title— and his uniform sweater was rolled up to his elbows, more for warmth than style. Although, of course, even that seemed calculated when someone saw it from the outside. As if everything about him was thought out, when in reality he was just existing within the formula that had been imposed on him, that everyone celebrated. He knew they called him “perfect.” Not because it was —and he knew better than anyone else— but because it seemed so. Because he was expected to be.

And that's when he saw you.

It's not that you were a stranger. You never were. In fact, you were a constant presence, a kind of visual buzz that inhabited the school with the same intensity as the sun's rays through the second-floor windows. Always there, but never within reach. He knew you without ever having met you. And that somehow made you sharper than many faces that were part of their days.

You were the kind of figure that was remembered without knowing exactly why. The kind that makes your head spin before your brain has finished processing what it's seeing. It wasn't just your looks —although yes, the beauty was undeniable, almost irritatingly perfect— but the way you moved through the world. As if you didn't need to prove anything, as if you knew everything but preferred to keep quiet about it. A gentle assurance, without arrogance. There was something hypnotic about it.

That day, you were sitting at one of the tables in the north wing, where the afternoon light fell sideways and turned everything golden, slower. Your hair was loose, falling like a silk curtain over one shoulder, leaning toward your friends as they turned leaves, whispered, laughed in a restrained way. Your smile was faint, like a piano note between the pages. Youngjae looked at you for just a second. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel something in his chest tighten. He didn't recognize it as nerves. Not yet.

He averted his gaze at once, as one who fears being caught observing the forbidden.

He followed the boys into the history section, paying no real attention to what they were saying. Hanjin and Jihoon's voices melted into a low hum, while he thought only of the fleeting image that had stuck in the back of his eyes. It wasn't the first time I'd seen you. Of course it wasn't. But there was something different that day. Maybe because you were closer. Maybe because it was the first time the idea of approaching you didn't seem completely absurd. Although, of course, it wouldn't. Why would it?

The minutes slipped by like water through your fingers. At some point, his friends decided to leave, and Youngjae followed them out of pure reflex. They crossed the hallway in the direction of the exit. Jihoon was still joking about something he had trouble following, but he pretended to laugh anyway. The habit of being “present” even when his mind was going somewhere else.

And then, it all happened. In a simple way. Almost without drama. But with an intensity that would mark him without him knowing it yet.

You were walking out right in front of him. He hadn't noticed you at first, busy adjusting his sweater and tucking his book under his arm. But then, that soft fragrance —light, barely a sweet whisper— reached him before your image. And he knew it was you. You were walking at a leisurely pace, with your friends a few steps behind, wrapped in complicit murmurs. You were smiling. That soft smile that needed no exaggeration. There was something about it that made everything become more… quiet.

The door leading out of the library was heavy, solid wood, with an old spring that always seemed to close with more force than necessary. That day was no exception.

Your friends had stayed behind, one looking for something in her purse, another probably commenting on something that made you smile. You kept walking, your head slightly turned towards them, that slight smile still alive on your lips. You didn't see the door. You didn't hear that particular high-pitched squeak that always preceded the violent closing. You didn't notice it.

But Youngjae did. Youngjae acted without thinking.

It was a reflex, a wordless impulse. He reached out with a jerk, catching the door just before the edge could close on you. The sound was a sharp thud, muffled against your outstretched palm. A firm, abrupt, final sound.

But what he did not expect was what came next. His body, propelled by the inertia of the movement, took a step forward. It was automatic, necessary to stop the force of the door. And right at that very second —as if the universe had aligned for that perfect mistake— you took a step backward.

Your back collided against his chest.

It was an instantaneous, gentle, yet devastating contact. He barely had time to process it before his free arm, out of pure instinct, out of that strange impulse that is born when the body protects before the mind commands it, slipped around your waist.

It was not a hug. It was not invasive. It was a restrained, but intimate gesture. His hand rested barely on your side, fingers splayed with a gentleness that betrayed the racing pulse he felt coursing through his arm. He did it to support you. To keep you from stumbling. To take care of you. But also for something else. Something he didn't fully understand, something that seeped into his pores without asking permission. A quiet, confused, trembling desire.

And then it stopped. You both did.

He remained motionless, as if any movement could break the magical stillness of that instant. You stayed like that too, wedged against him, your breath suspended. The contact was subtle, but absolute. There was no real space between you. Your body fit perfectly against his, with a naturalness that almost frightened him.

He could smell your perfume with an absurd sharpness. It was not a strong one. On the contrary. It was something warm, light, like flowers. He didn't know what it was, but in that instant he knew he could never smell it again without thinking of you.

His fingers, barely closed on your waist, trembled barely. Not from nervousness exactly. Or yes, but not the kind you get before an exam. It was something else. Something that was born in the center of his chest, between his ribs, and spilled outward. As if his body knew before his head did what was going on.

You turned.

Very slowly. As if you also felt that any sudden movement might break the moment. You turned on yourself, still inside his arm, and your gaze met his.

And there was the second impact.

The closeness was ridiculous. Absurd. Undeniable. Your eyelashes were so close that he could see the barely perceptible tremor when you blinked. Your eyes, wide as if trying to make sense of the scene, reflected more surprise than fear, more bewilderment than discomfort.

Your lips parted. You did not speak. But the gesture spoke for itself. And he… simply lost himself.

There were no concrete thoughts. Just sensations. The texture of your hair brushing against his forearm. The shared warmth. The subtle trembling of your breath. The softness of your voice that didn't quite come through. The intensity of your eyes, so close he didn't know if you were looking at him…or into him.

Youngjae wasn't the type to run out of words. He knew what to say, when to say it, and in what tone. It was part of his world, part of his role. But there, in front of you, with your body inches from his, he felt stripped of all that. Vulnerable. Raw. Real.

He had never had you so close.

Not even in his imagination, which sometimes —on long nights or too noisy recesses— had placed you in blurred scenes, amidst the murmur of nonexistent conversations and gestures that never happened. Sometimes, in those lapses of silent weakness, I imagined you turning to him by accident, brushing his arm as you passed, sharing a comment between classes. Simple, almost insignificant things, but things that had the power to wrench a visceral reaction from him when he was alone.

But this…

This was something else. This was you. Real. Physically present. Looking at him from such a close distance that he could feel the heat you radiated as if his body had been designed to recognize it. The air between you was different, thicker, denser, as if something invisible was enveloping just the two of you. As if the rest of the world had vanished for an instant - without drama - simply erased. Non-existent.

And his heart.

His heart was pounding with an urgency that scared him a little. Not just because it was beating fast, but because it was beating loud. As if it had a voice of its own. As if with every beat it was telling him: look at this, feel this, don't ignore it. I didn't know if it was because of the surprise or because of you. Or because of everything. But there it was, throbbing like he had never felt it throbbing before.

He didn't know how much time passed. It could have been seconds. Or a whole year. Or an early memory he didn't want to leave.

—I'm sorry —he murmured.

And his voice… it didn't come out the way he had rehearsed it so many times in his head.

It wasn't steady. It wasn't sure. It was low. Lower than he'd expected. A whisper that brushed the air between you as if afraid to break it. A sincere apology, but also unarmed. Vulnerable. As if, by saying it, you were acknowledging that that instant held a weight you didn't know how to handle.

But you didn't walk away right away. You didn't turn away in discomfort. You didn't turn sharply or make a gesture of discomfort or embarrassment. You stayed. There. Just inches away. Staring at him.

As if you didn't even know what to do with that second that had just been born between the two of you. As if something inside you —just as in him— was still processing the fact that that touch had not only been physical, but almost… electric. As if a part of your soul had been anchored to his for a fraction of time that neither of you knew how to handle.

Until one of your friends called out to you.

It was soft, from behind you. A voice that didn't sound impatient, but it broke the moment like a stone dropping into water: with concentric circles spreading out to undo the stillness. And then he reacted.

He released you immediately. Not clumsily, but with a hint of haste that betrayed his self-control.

He stepped back just barely. Just a step. But to him it was as if he had forced himself away from a place where he wanted to stay a while longer. His fingers trembled slightly, though he disguised it well. Enough so that no one —except perhaps you— noticed.

And you… You arranged your hair with that naturalness of yours, but which stuck in his mind like an image he would never forget.

Your fingers ran along the strand behind your ear, that small, everyday gesture, but which in that context suddenly became intimate. You didn't look at him immediately. Your eyes lowered. Your eyelashes swept the hallway light like wings. But your cheeks…

Your cheeks were pinker. And he saw it. He noticed.

As if the color in your skin was a silent response to what had just happened. Not exaggerated. Not theatrical. Just… real.

And then, when you finally looked up again, you found him there. Watching you.

But not like everyone else was. Not with the superficial look of someone who wants to see you without really knowing you.

You looked at him and saw that Youngjae… hadn't stopped looking at you. Not even for a second. As if he had been recording every detail of your face with his eyes. As if he couldn't, even if he wanted to, look away.

And then, you smiled at him.

It wasn't a big smile. It wasn't wide, or bright, or perfect. It was small.

Almost imperceptible.

Barely a movement at the corner of your lips, like a door ajar, like a wordless secret.

But for him… it was devastating. Enough.

Because that smile —yours, so simple, so unarmed— stuck with him. Like a light turned on in the midst of darkness. Like a song barely hummed in the background of a memory. He knew, without needing words, that it would not go away.

That that image was going to repeat itself over and over again, in the most absurd places: when he looked out the classroom window, when he heard his name in the hallways, when he opened the book he wasn't planning to read, when he leaned his head on the desk in the middle of class.

And he knew, with that quiet certainty that sometimes comes before understanding, that he was screwed.

Not in the superficial sense of a high school story. Not like boys who fall in love just because, because it's nice, because they like someone.

But for real. From the inside. From that place where emotions don't ask for permission, they just settle in and grow like roots under the skin.

Because now he knew. He knew how you smelled.

How your eyelashes barely trembled. How your body felt against his. How your voice sounded in the closeness of silence.

And worse: what your smile looked like when it came out unintentionally. And that…

That was going to haunt him for a long, long time.

Hanjinㅤ ❛❛    ──── ㅤHan Zhen !

The school supply store smelled of old wood, cardboard dampened by time and an almost invisible patina of dust that covered everything with a kind of silent veil. It was a place away from the usual noise of the school, those spaces where time did not seem to move forward as it did in the corridors full of echoes and laughter. Here, every creak of the aged linoleum floor, every click of the rusted metal of the shelves, felt deeper, as if the silence were a living being, breathing among boxes and shelves, attentive to everything.

Hanjin had come in with Jihoon and Kyungmin with a simple mission: to find the shooting racks for the archery equipment. Nothing particularly exciting, but important enough that they trusted him to do it. They always did. They trusted his calm judgment, the precision with which he did things, that almost stealthy way of moving as if each step was thought out before it was taken. He didn't talk much, but when he did, it was with a weight that made others listen. That was his nature: steady, contained, effective. Almost invisible if he so chose, yet impossible to ignore when he wished.

His fingers slowly slid the laminated inventory list he had taken off one wall, while Jihoon mumbled something about how everything there looked like something out of an eighties movie. Kyungmin chuckled under his breath, checking a few more boxes up front. But Hanjin wasn't listening anymore.

Because then, he saw you.

Not head-on, not in a direct way, but through one of the openings between the metal shelves, right in the far aisle, where the light from the skylight fell in soft lines on the mottled floor. It was like watching a scene through a crack —intimate, accidental, momentary.

Your friends were leaning against a low bookshelf, their voices a muffled murmur between restrained laughter, as if they knew that place deserved respect. But you… you were standing a few steps ahead, on your tiptoes, arms outstretched toward one of the higher shelves. You were reaching for a large box, probably light, but located just beyond your reach. You didn't jump or make noise; you didn't ask for help. There was an almost solemn concentration in the way you stretched, as if in your world there was only this small goal: to brush the cardboard with your fingertips.

Hanjin paused. The inventory forgotten in his hands.

It was as if the whole atmosphere was folding back into that image: you, lit by the indirect sun, your hair sliding down your back like a cascade of dark silk, your white T-shirt stretched barely above your waist as you reached out, gently outlining the curve of your silhouette. The scene had an almost dreamlike quality. Not artificial, not exaggerated, but honest. Natural. Real. Almost painfully real.

They had never spoken. Never a cross word, never a feigned conversation in shared hallways. But he had seen you. Of course he had. How not to. How to avoid it. Always surrounded by a serene, magnetic energy, the kind that needed no effort to attract attention. You were not like the others. You made no effort to be visible, and yet you were impossible to ignore. There was something about you, in the way you walked, in your slight but constant smile, in that look that seemed to see beyond the daily noise, that disarmed him in ways he couldn't explain even to himself.

And now you were there. In front of him, without knowing it. And then, his gaze lowered, involuntarily, toward the box.

The corner. It was barely protruding from the edge of the shelf, hanging like a small imbalance that no one had paid attention to. A barely perceptible shadow of instability. Almost a whisper. But he saw it. It wasn't a heavy box, but it was heavy enough to pose a danger. If you touched it inadvertently, if you pushed it just barely wrong… it would fall. On you. Perhaps not with devastating force, but with the kind of absurd violence that chance has. A foolish blow that could have been avoided.

And you didn't know it.

He reacted without thinking. His legs kicked in before his mind could register a conscious decision. A pure, precise impulse. There was something in the way his muscles moved, in the accuracy of the speed with which he closed the distance, that spoke of something deeper than habit or reflex.

His steps were silent, certain. Like a hunter, he slipped through the shadows of the warehouse without breaking the air around him. The floor barely creaked under his weight. His eyes did not blink. Every second seemed to multiply. He knew exactly what was about to happen.

The box tilted. It came off the shelf like a dead leaf in autumn, slow at first, barely a change of angle, and then, suddenly, vertigo. The carton fell.

But his hand —that hand that was so seldom raised without purpose — intercepted it halfway. It did not catch it tenderly. There was no delicacy in that gesture. It was a sharp, direct blow, almost aggressive in its precision, deflecting the box just before its corner could graze you. It fell to the floor with a hollow, muffled sound, bouncing on the linoleum with a slight crunch of cardboard and trapped dust.

It didn't touch you. It didn't hit you. It didn't even hit you.

In that same second, with no margin of distance, no measure, his other arm came up and leaned firmly against the shelf, right next to your head, as if it were a shield. It was not a threat. It was not intentional. It was instinct. Precise. Immediate. And that's why it was so real.

His body stopped in front of yours, close enough that the space between you both felt suspended, fragile, unreal. As if a sheet of paper could pass between you… or maybe not. Maybe not even that.

And you were there, right in that little corner of shadow and light, between him and the crowded shelf, between his arm and his chest. Between his presence and your surprise. Surrounded. Caged. Inches away.

Hanjin blinked.

His heart, normally steady, measured, restrained… was now pounding with a mute violence inside his chest. As if it had jumped straight into his throat, without permission. As if it were trying to break the calm that defined him. He had never been so close to you. Never, in all his life, had he held you like this, so close that he could count the tiny beats of tension in the line of your neck. So close that he could see your eyelashes tremble with surprise. So close that your held breath brushed against him, soft and brief, like a brush that even air couldn't avoid.

And you were looking at it.

Not as someone who had been waiting for this. Not as someone who understood what was happening. But as someone who was living a moment you never imagined like this, in this way, with this intensity. Your eyes, huge, with that unexpected gleam that mixed fright with something deeper, something harder to name, pierced it without looking for it. They did not challenge it. They did not flee. They didn't pretend anything. They simply… held him.

And he, who had learned to remain calm even when the world seemed to tilt beneath his feet, felt himself being lost.

Not by the gesture. Not by the impulse. But by you.

For that expression that did not quite correspond to a frightened person. Because the fright was there, yes, in the way you had held your breath, in the slight trembling of your lips, but it was also subsiding. It was slowly receding, giving way to another emotion that was quieter, harder to ignore. An unexpected sweetness. Curiosity, perhaps. Intrigue. Or something that neither he —nor you— would have been able to put into words at that moment.

Silence covered everything like a thick blanket. It was no longer the same silence of the warehouse that I had felt upon entering. It was no longer neutral or impersonal. Now it was intimate. As if everything else had disappeared. As if the world had stopped at the door to leave you alone, encapsulated, protected by dust, cardboard and that golden light that fell on your shoulder as if it had been waiting for it all day only to illuminate you now.

Your mouth half-opened, barely. Not even to speak. As if your body was trying to say something before your mind knew how. A reflex. A hesitation. But you said nothing. Your eyes were still on his. And yours couldn't move away.

And then he noticed. Your scent.

It was so light that he had not noticed it at first. Sweet without being cloying. Warm, enveloping. A mix of something floral and something deeper, something he didn't know how to identify but it seemed made for you. It was not strong. It didn't compete with the dust of the place or the old wood. But it was there, as if it had crept stealthily around you, slowly encircling you, entangling itself in your breath. It was like a gentle anchor. And now that he had felt it, he couldn't let it go.

And that unbalanced him even more than the fright. Because for an instant, for a single brutally honest second, he wished he hadn't moved.

He wished he could stay there. Still. Between that scent, that look, that tremor barely contained in your eyelashes. He wished he could capture that scene and frame it within himself, keep it intact before reality came to undo it.

But then… A voice.

Distant, but close. Feminine. One of your friends. She had said your name. Not with urgency. Not with alarm. Just… strangely. As if they'd just remembered they were there. As if they hadn't seen you for a few seconds. As if that moment, that moment so close and perfect, had been invisible to the rest of the world.

And with that voice, the spell was broken. Hanjin barely stepped back.

Just one step. Measured. As if your body was still trying to unknot what had just happened, carefully spinning the separation between what was impulse and what was reality. He lowered the arm that, until just a second ago, had been resting next to your head. His fingers brushed the empty air, as if the exact form of the gesture still remained there, the slight temperature of your presence among the wood, the cardboard, the golden light. The movement was restrained, almost reverent, as if any abruptness could explode the memory of what had just happened.

But his eyes did not move.

They were still there, in yours. Trapped. As if there was an invisible rope stretched between the two of you that not even physical distance could break. As if releasing that eye contact was somehow more difficult than physically moving away. Looking at you was… the only thing he could do. The only thing he wanted to do. Even in the suspended echo of shock. Even when the box was gone. Even when his body had already reacted and the danger was gone. It was as if his soul had been anchored to that moment, to those eyes, to that little piece of time that seemed more real than anything he had experienced lately.

You blinked.

It was a simple gesture. Human. Fragile. But within the silence that had formed between you, that flicker felt like a seismic event. Like a small jolt that broke the stillness and, at the same time, made it more intense. It was after that-only after-that it happened.

You smiled. Very softly.

Not a big smile. Not a bright, open gesture, the kind you throw when you're among friends or under the spotlight in the auditorium or in the middle of an aisle where everyone expects to see you shine. No. It was something much smaller, more subtle, more intimate. Just a slight curve at the corner of your lips. A gesture so minimal that, had he not been so close, had he not been watching you with that almost sacred concentration, Hanjin might not even have noticed it. But he did. And the instant he saw it, the instant he understood that that little smile was for him —just for him— something in his chest contracted.

A strange contraction. Internal. Silent. Not painful, but so intense that it almost seemed physical.

He'd seen it before, of course. Your smile. Many times. In the hallways, when your friends were talking, when you laughed without holding back, when you greeted teachers or new students who seemed to feel less intimidated just because you were around with that slight gentleness. Hanjin had seen it in all its forms: open, bright, playful, carefree.

But never like this. Never directed at him.

Never up close. Never in that tiny space where the world didn't seem to dare enter.

—Thank you —you murmured.

Your voice was barely a whisper, like a thought that had escaped without permission. It was not meant to be heard by anyone else. It was not meant to fill the space. It was a word woven between silences, almost like a secret, like something that existed only for him. Not out of obligation, not out of politeness. But for something else. Something soft. Something sincere.

And then, for a full second…. Hanjin forgot how to breathe.

It wasn't a metaphor. It was real. His chest tightened in a way he hadn't expected. His lungs didn't know what to do with the air. His mind, so clear, so rational, so used to analyzing things coldly and precisely, disconnected from his body. He stood there, looking, feeling, completely absorbed by the fact that that word, that thank you, had come from your lips and had been for him.

He, who had never had more than crossed glances with you. He, who had watched you so many times from afar without telling anyone. He, who had learned to respect that silent distance like someone who takes care of a delicate crystal. And now… now you were talking to him. You smiled at him. You were there, in front of him, as if everything else was just noise.

Hanjin nodded his head. Barely. It was a small movement, awkward by his standards, lacking the millimetric composure that normally accompanied it. Not because he was uncomfortable, but because he could afford no more. The words would not come out. His tongue seemed to have forgotten how to form sounds. To say anything aloud would have broken the exact fragility of that moment. So he just nodded. And that was enough.

And then, as naturally as it had come, you walked away.

Not in a hurry. Not with discomfort. But with that ethereal air that seemed to envelop everything you did. You turned gently, and your friends, still leaning against the nearest shelves, looked at you with wide eyes, with chuckles they didn't even try to disguise. Their murmurs were curious, anxious, floating like sharp echoes among the rows of old and forgotten objects. But you said nothing. You didn't look back.

And he…

Hanjin stood there. Still. Absolutely still. As if his body was still processing the scene. As if he could still feel the echo of your perfume floating in the air. As if his fingers —the ones that had brushed yours just as he returned the box to you— still carried the exact temperature of your skin.

He didn't know how much time passed. Seconds, maybe. Minutes. It didn't matter. The warehouse was no longer just a warehouse. The air was no longer the same. Everything had changed.

Because for the first time, that space of fantasy that had always existed between you and him —that unreachable space made of assumptions, of stolen glances, of unformulated hypotheses— had become real.

Tangibly real. And with it, came certainty.

He could no longer continue to admire you only from afar.

Not after this. Not after seeing you like this, so… close. Not after that smile, that whisper, that moment when the world stopped just for you.

That moment had stayed with him.

And Hanjin knew, with every part of his body, with every heartbeat that was still trying to return to its normal rhythm, that the thread that had been stretched between you in that warehouse… would not break easily.

He didn't want it to break. And though he didn't yet understand what it all meant, he knew something with a certainty that shook him to the bone:

He had just crossed a line. And there was no turning back.

Jihoonㅤ ❛❛    ──── ㅤHan Jihoon !

The high school cafeteria, at that midday hour, was a living organism. Every table a noisy cell, every voice an electrical impulse traveling unchecked through the rush hour chaos. The air was thick with fried food, teenage laughter, brand-name perfume mixed with cheap sports deodorant, and a constant murmur like that of a swarm that never slept. Jihoon was in his usual space, at a table toward the back where students dared not get too close, not because of anything explicit, but out of sheer inertia. His group always occupied that corner, as if the air itself knew it was his.

Kyungmin was talking —something about an inside joke at the athletic club— and Dohoon was chuckling, chopsticks pointed at a piece of kimbap that had turned out perfect. Jihoon smiled too, half out of politeness, half because it was easier to keep up than to interrupt him with thoughts he didn't share.

He had his team jacket over his shoulders, his backpack thrown as usual on the corner of the bench, and the posture everyone seemed to envy him: relaxed, confident, as if the world couldn't touch him. But inside, deep inside, he was not so still.

And then, as if an invisible line stretched taut in the air, he saw her. Again. You.

It wasn't that you did anything special. You didn't stumble gracefully, you didn't laugh louder than the rest, you didn't wear a brightly colored dress that stole attention by force. You just walked in. Just like you always do. Like every day. Walking through the sea of tables with that pace of yours —neither slow nor hurried, but with the precision of someone who knows where she's going, who she is and what she's leaving behind.

Dohoon's laughter became more distant. Kyungmin's fork hovered in the air in its periphery. But Jihoon was no longer listening. Because there you were.

You were talking to your friends —that squeaky-voiced girl with braids, the other one who always wore impeccable nails— but that wasn't what was stopping him. It was the way you tilted your head slightly as you listened, your expression so open, so genuinely present. It was the way you tucked a lock of hair behind your ear without looking aware that thousands of eyes were probably following your movement. And, more than anything, it was that thing you couldn't name: something between light and magnetism. It wasn't something you did. It was something you were.

Jihoon had never said it out loud. Not even to himself. It wasn't like he was “in love,” that absurd, adolescent word. No. It was something else. Something colder and more painful, more constant. A constant awareness of your existence, like a song that has been playing in the background for years and you can never get it out of your head. Because you weren't just “pretty” or “dear”. No. You were the kind of girl that made even the perfect ones feel… not enough.

And that's why he'd never tried anything.

Because while he could handle it all —the team pressure, the high grades, the girls who sought him out, the teachers who smiled at him— you were another league. A league where it wasn't enough to look good or say something witty. You had to be something more.

So she had settled for watching you from a distance. From time to time, a glance across the table. Sometimes in the hallways. Other times in the common room, when you were laughing quietly while reading something on your cell phone. They were moments that passed by like comets: bright, fleeting, impossible to catch.

Until now. It all happened in seconds. Fractions, even.

He was just returning his gaze to his tray, when he noticed something out of rhythm in the flow of the cafeteria: a silhouette running, tray in hand, one of those who do not know how to sustain the balance between haste and clumsiness. And he saw the bottle cap, half-loose. The trembling movement of a liquid that was not supposed to move like that. He calculated the angle without thinking: the turn of the student, the swaying of the bottle, the blow that would send it flying.

And you. With your back turned.

Just a few steps ahead. Unaware of the approaching disaster. It was as if something inside Jihoon ignited. A spring. An electrical impulse that fired without permission, born from a place as primal as it was inevitable. Neither logic nor reason had time to intervene. His body simply responded.

He stepped forward.

A single step. Precise. As if the distance between you was not an obstacle but a call. As if that space had always been destined to close in that instant. And in a second, he was right in front of you. The air seemed to split at the exact moment he turned quickly, his jacket brushing against your arm as it passed like a warm gust through the bustle of the cafeteria. The impact of the water hit, but not you. He received it.

The liquid hit his back, cold, an unexpected shock against the lightweight fabric of the team jacket. It slid swiftly down the sporty fiber, soaking the contour of his shoulder and the side of his side. But that wasn't what registered. It was his hand. His hand that, out of pure reflex, went to rest on your waist.

Not too hard, not too soft. Instinctive. Natural.

A single contact to stop you, to hold you steady, to keep you from continuing to walk toward the invisible danger beneath your feet. The puddle was already spreading on the ground, clear, harmless to the eye, but enough to have caused a fall. Or an uncomfortable scene. And Jihoon didn't let it happen.

And then you turned around. Not slowly. Not with a start.

It was almost at the same time. Almost as if his movements were your own. Almost colliding with him.

And then everything froze.

The sound of the cafeteria seemed to fade the instant your eyes met his. Jihoon literally felt time stand still. A pure, sharp pause. Not because of drama, but because his mind didn't know how to process so much at once. Your eyes —bigger up close, clearer, more vivid than he'd ever remembered them— looked at him with surprise, yes, but not fear. Not discomfort. A mixture of awe, recognition, and something else…something undefined. Brilliant.

Jihoon stopped breathing. Not by choice, but because his body forgot to.

His hand still rested on your waist. Just a touch. Just enough to know you were there. Just enough for the heat of your body to seep through the thin fabric of your blouse and burn his fingers. And yet, you didn't dare remove it right away. As if to remove it would be to break something fragile, something suspended in that delicate balance between what was real and what seemed like a dream.

They were close. Too close.

Close enough for him to see the slight blush that began to creep up your cheeks, warm, subtle, so human it left him speechless. Enough to see how your breath moved: short, ragged, as if you'd forgotten how air worked, too. Your lips —so close he could make out the exact curve of the lower one— were slightly ajar, not in preparation to speak, but as if the world had left you breathless too.

You did not speak. Neither did he.

But in that silence —in that perfect parenthesis from the usual noise— there were more than words.

Jihoon, his heart pounding so hard it almost hurt, noticed that there was no way to hide it. That if someone looked at him from outside, maybe even from across the cafeteria, they could see that something was happening. That something had broken between that distance he had always maintained. That you had always respected. Until now.

Because you were there. Real. Present. Really seeing him. And he… wasn't able to look anywhere else.

The dampness of his jacket clung to his back like an icy second skin. The cold was beginning to seep through his T-shirt, to soak his shoulder and waist. But he didn't care. He didn't feel it clearly. Because you were close. Because your eyes were still on his, as if you were searching for something. As if he could give you some answer to a question neither of you had asked.

And then, you broke it. Gently. Delicately. In a barely audible voice.

—I'm sorry —you murmured.

An apology for breaking into his world. Or for letting him into yours. And Jihoon felt something tighten in his chest.

He was the one who had broken in. The one who had crossed that invisible distance that had separated you forever. The one who had touched you, with the boldness of one who does not think, who simply acts. There was no time for judgment, no time for consequences. There was only the reflex. The impulse to protect yourself. To arrive before gravity. To come between you and the slightest accident.

And yet you apologized.

As if you felt it. As if you carried the weight of that instant. As if some of what had happened had been your responsibility, even though it was not.

—No, no… —Jihoon answered at last. The words barely came out. A barely audible exhalation. It wasn't that he chose to speak softly. It was that he didn't know how to make it louder. His voice sounded different even to himself: deeper, more intimate, as if each syllable had to work its way carefully through the dizziness he felt in his chest. —You're fine, aren't you?

You were silent for half a second. But then you nodded. And you smiled.

It wasn't a bright smile, the kind that lights up a whole room. It wasn't rehearsed, or nervous. It was small. Sincere. Slight, but so warm that Jihoon felt it more than saw it. As if that smile had slipped through the spaces of the world to touch him directly, to affirm something he couldn't even name.

And then, he felt it. Something in his world changed.

Not with a bang. Not like an earthquake. It was a silent, but irreversible change. Like when a leaf falls from a tree and you know, without a doubt, that summer is over. It was like that. As if an entire season inside him had changed color with that gesture of yours. And he knew it. Even if he couldn't explain it. Even if he had no words yet. His fingers —still resting, still hanging on the edge of your waist— began to separate.

Not abruptly.

Not like someone who walks away out of obligation, but like someone who says goodbye to something without wanting to break it. His touch faded little by little, each centimeter witnessing a silent resistance, as if his fingertips wanted to retain something beyond the skin. You were not just a physical presence. You were warmth. Light. Rhythm. And when he stopped touching you, something of him stayed with you.

Your friends were already calling you. Their voices cut through the moment like a thin rope being pulled taut until it broke. One of them called your name, slurring the vowels as if bringing you back to reality. Another looked at you with a mixture of surprise and disbelief, as if she didn't know whether to approach or stand there watching. The puddle on the floor was already evaporating in the general attention. An anecdote. A small incident. Nothing more. And yet, Jihoon knew —he knew with absolute certainty— that for him, that instant was never going to be just an accident.

Because in the silence that followed, between you and him, there was no awkwardness.

There was something else. A different pause.

A kind of promise suspended in the air, without words, without commitments, without expectations. Something latent, fragile, like those moments when two people look at each other and know they are on the edge of something. Of a beginning that still has no shape. Of a path that no one has named, but that begins in the way one holds the gaze of the other. And you did.

You walked away. Brief steps. Unsure, at first, as if you too were returning to the body, to the time, to the place.

You returned to your group. The laughter around you tried to normalize the situation. Someone offered you a napkin. Another pointed to your blouse with a quick gesture, checking for a drop of water. Everything kept spinning. Everything was moving.

But then… you turned around. Just once. Just for a second. But for Jihoon, it was everything.

Your eyes searched for him. They met his again, this time at some distance. Between people, trays, voices. But the line was clear. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a stray glance. You looked at him.

You knew that that look was unlike any of the others.

That you were no longer just that unattainable figure, that girl who seemed to always walk two centimeters above the world. The one everyone watched from afar. The one who was spoken of in hushed tones, as if she were unreal. You were no longer an image. A projection. An impossibility.

You were you. Close. Human. Real. And now, you had seen him too.

Not like the perfect athlete, the one who is always with his friends, the one who laughs with ease and walks as if everything comes easy to him. Not like the popular name that gets written on slips of paper, mentioned in casual conversation or tagged in group photos.

You saw him as him. Just him. And that was enough.

Jihoon stood still, watching you get back into the rhythm of the day. How you settled in among your friends, how you shook your head gently, trying to downplay what had happened. But your gaze still burned in his chest. Your smile. Your voice. The way your eyelashes barely trembled when you held him so close.

And he knew something had broken. Not a destructive break. A necessary one.

The distance between you and him, that invisible line that had separated you forever, was no longer intact. It had cracked with a step, a hand, a glance. And there was no going back. He couldn't see you the same. Not after having you so close.

And maybe… maybe, he thought as he slowly sat back down, still with his jacket soaked through and his heartbeat erratic… he no longer wanted to admire you alone from afar.

Because now he knew what it was like to have you inches away.

And the world, after that, simply could never be the same again.

Kyungminㅤ ❛❛    ──── ㅤLee Kyungmin !

The high school gymnasium was noisier than usual.

The lights were not yet fully on, but the large halogen lamps flickered to life as technicians adjusted the sound levels and spotlights on the makeshift stage. Voices mingled in a chaotic echo: students running back and forth, teachers giving directions, a couple of chuckles exploding from some corner, and the eternal hum of the sound system as someone tested a microphone with the classic “one, two, one, two.” It all sounded like a prelude to something important, as if the whole atmosphere was holding its breath before the big show.

Kyungmin watched it all with the calm of someone who, though present, seemed to float slightly above the chaos. He was standing with some of his own —familiar, unmistakable faces, always surrounded by a certain atmosphere of perfection forged by rumor, popularity, and an almost untouchable halo. They were also there for something. To rehearse, probably. To go over the entrance, the positions, some number prepared to close the event. But none of that seemed really important in that instant.

Because she was there. You.

He didn't need to look for you. He didn't need to ask. From the moment he had stepped through the double doors of the gym, his gaze found you with such immediate precision that he wasn't even aware that he was looking for you. There you were. With your back turned. Simply with your back turned, but even that sight had something that made him pause.

A high ponytail swaying with your steady gait, headphones dangling from your neck, arm raised to give directions, a tablet propped against the palm of one hand as your other hand rose to point at something with natural precision. A group of students surrounded you, keeping an eye on you. You were at the center of it all, without even needing to raise your voice. You were… clarity within the chaos. Control without effort. Authority without harshness. You had that kind of energy that didn't shout, but carried.

Kyungmin felt something tighten in his chest. It was not new. That feeling he already knew. He had seen you before. Many times. In the hallways, in the dining hall, during assemblies, on breaks. He knew perfectly well who you were, although he had never said it out loud. There was no need to. Everyone knew. You were one of those figures who existed almost like myths in the school environment, mentioned in whispers, in laughter, in veiled sighs. But what he remembered most about every time he saw you… was how you did nothing to draw attention to yourself, and yet you were impossible to ignore.

But that day, something changed.

It wasn't just seeing you. It was seeing you move. Seeing you coordinate. Seeing you take control without the world seeming forced to obey you. Seeing you smile with that almost luminous air while everything around you was in chaos. To see you even tired - the slight crease in your forehead, that almost imperceptible sigh when someone didn't understand your directions the first time. And yet, you were still you. And then… it was that moment.

He was close to the stage, a little away from the group but close enough to hear their jokes, to nod when they spoke to him even if he wasn't fully focused. His gaze kept alternating between the spotlights, the technicians, the cables, the rows of chairs… and you. Always you.

And then, he saw it. It was an instant. A flicker. A visceral anticipation that coursed through his body like electricity.

You were pacing hurriedly, eyes fixed on the tablet. You had finished talking to someone, probably giving some last order before checking another part of the setup. Your steps were quick, sure. But you didn't see the cable.

Black. Thin. Crossing the floor like a silent snake, lying just where no one was supposed to leave it. One of those traps that the accidental chaos of events used to plant.

He saw it all in sequence, as if time slowed down just for him. The movement of your leg, the sure and fast stride —too fast—, the slight gesture of concentration on your face, the tablet barely slipping through your fingers while your attention was still on something else. It was barely a second, maybe less, but for Kyungmin it was an eternity condensed into the certainty that something was wrong.

And then he shouted. —Watch out! —was the only thing that came out of his mouth as he instinctively stepped forward.

His voice didn't sound loud, or heroic. It was urgent. Sincere. Broken by the immediacy of fear.

You had already stubbed your toe. The gesture was so subtle that it didn't even seem like a fall at first. Just a loss of stability, of rhythm. Your body projected forward, unintentionally reaching for the ground, and he felt it as if you were fading in front of his eyes. The tablet spun in your fingers, about to come loose. Your friends, barely a couple of steps away, didn't notice. The noise from the gym covered everything like a thick blanket. No one saw it in time.

But Kyungmin did.

His body activated itself. The muscles tensing, the stride long, sure, as if he had been training for it all his life. In three moves, he was at your side. His arm darted, precise, straight to your waist, and in a single gesture, he caught you before your knees touched the ground.

He pulled you hard towards him. The impact was immediate, enveloping. Your body fit against his as if it was made for it. A perfect fit. Not awkward. Not abrupt. He held it all-your weight, your surprise, your held breath. He felt the slight tremor of your tense muscles, the soft thump of your forehead against his chest, the slight choked sound of your breath escaping as the whole world stopped.

And there you stayed. Glued together. Almost airless.

The gym, the sound, the voices, the flashing lights… all gone. It wasn't poetic, it was chemical. Physical. As if his senses were completely reconfigured to focus solely on you. On your body trembling slightly against his. On the heat you gave off, real, tangible. On the beating of his own heart, which suddenly became painfully evident in his chest, as if it wanted to break through the fabric of his shirt and brush against your skin.

Kyungmin's first thought was that you were incredibly light. As if air inhabited you. As if you were made of something different from everyone else.

The second thought was that your perfume had a sweet touch, with something floral, but not cloying. A soft, restrained scent, like a secret garden after the rain. It seemed so you to him, even without knowing you, that he almost laughed at how perfect that tiny detail was. And yet, that scent disarmed him inside. It left him stunned, still, as if breathing had become too intimate a function to do in front of you.

The third… was that you were looking at him.

Your eyes, still round with shock, were looking at him. Big, alive, with that watery gleam that appears when something really surprises you. And Kyungmin felt, without being able to help it, that something inside him was sinking, as if an invisible anchor was pulling at his chest.

Your pupils were not looking for a way out. There was no fear in them. Only surprise… and something else. A connection he didn't know if it was real or a figment of his imagination.

But he felt it.

Your lips were so close he could have counted the little lines that formed on them as he pressed them together. They were half-open, as if you were going to say something, but the words didn't come. They didn't even try to come. We were just there. Suspended.

His arm was still around your waist. And you couldn't force yourself to let go right away. A stupid, ridiculous fear… that if he let go too quickly, it would all disappear like a mirage.

And then, finally, his brain tried to function. What do I do? Do I say something? Do I let go now? Why can't I move?

But his body betrayed him. He was aware of the warmth of your back under his hand. Of the way your shoulder blades gently contracted each time you breathed. He felt the texture of your blouse against his fingers, the subtle way the fabric wrinkled from the tension of the moment. His palm trembled barely, not from insecurity, but from the intensity with which his every sense clung to the tangible, immediate, almost unreal presence… of you.

Your breath mingled with his in that minimal space between the two of you, that invisible bubble that had formed like a capsule out of time. Kyungmin was struck by how natural it was. As if the whole world had been pushing the two of them toward that collision point forever. And now both were there. Suspended. Connected.

He watched the slight movement of your eyelashes. You blinked slowly, as if checking to see if this was a dream or a joke of the universe. It wasn't. You were there. And you were still looking at him. Your pupils still anchored to his, doubtful but firm. As if you were looking for a wordless answer.

You were sure someone was looking at you.

Maybe many. Maybe all of them.

That kind of scene didn't go unnoticed in a packed gym, at an event where glances flew back and forth, always looking for something new to observe, comment on, or ruminate about.

But he didn't care. Not now.

—You okay…? —he asked. His voice did not sound as he expected. It was low, barely a whisper, almost unrecognizable.

Your eyes twinkled. A quick breath. A nod. You nodded.

You didn't speak, not yet. You just shook your head slightly, with that gesture that seemed a mixture of automatic affirmation and genuine vulnerability. Your breath was still unsteady. And it was then that Kyungmin noticed it: the blush that was slowly starting to creep up your cheeks. The pinkish hue that blossomed from the base of your neck to invade your face with a shyness that seemed to scream more than any words.

And in that blush there was something.

A mixture of pure, unfiltered emotions: embarrassment, of course, for the fall that almost happened. Adrenaline, for the suddenness of the moment, for how close you had come to hitting the ground and instead found yourself wrapped up in it. But there was something else.

Something Kyungmin couldn't quite identify.

Not logically. Not with certainty. But he felt it.

He felt it in his chest like an electric current, a clean, direct shock. As if something inside him, something old, something hidden —a need he had never wanted to name— was activated for the first time. Something that forced him to breathe slower, deeper, so as not to lose control. So as not to let his emotions boil over in front of you.

So he let you go. Slowly. Carefully. As if releasing you was an act that required a ceremony in itself.

First he loosened the pressure of his arm around your waist. Then he let the physical distance begin to grow, centimeter by centimeter. As if the air seeping between your bodies was cold, annoying, as if reality was trying to impose itself on the involuntary magic of the moment.

Your body took a slight step back. Your feet touched ground safely again. But Kyungmin felt something in his chest refuse to accept that you were no longer so close. As if his memory, just seconds old, clung to the warmth that still remained on his skin.

You tucked your hair behind your ear with an almost automatic, nervous gesture. He noticed how your fingers trembled barely. Not from weakness. Not from fright. Out of intensity. From the brief uncontrol of emotions that were still running beneath the surface.

You avoided his gaze for an instant. That instant.

That moment where your eyes lowered and he could see you in your most human, most unprotected form. And then, with the strength that only people who are truly in control of their emotions have, you looked up again.

Your eyes met his again. And you smiled.

It wasn't a big smile. It wasn't confident. It wasn't the kind of smile you give at an event, in front of people, with false confidence. It was something else. Small. Nervous. Real. A smile that contained gratitude, surprise, and something Kyungmin didn't want to name because he was afraid to break it with words.

And that was enough. Enough for the world around him to disappear again.

Kyungmin didn't know how long he held it in his mind. Whether it was three seconds or thirty. He just felt that smile imprint itself, with slow fire, somewhere inside him. A place where the images were not easily erased.

The noise came back. The gymnasium regained its sound. Voices, laughter, footsteps, music. It all hit again like a wave breaking the spell.

Your friends rushed over, alarmed, asking if you were okay. They touched your arm, picked up the tablet, laughed with that mixture of relief and confusion. They surrounded you without noticing, forming a warm barrier, a familiar shield.

And he… he returned to his own.

His friends were already looking at him. Dohoon whistled low. Jihoon nudged him, and Shinyu raised an eyebrow with a half-smile that said more than he dared say aloud.

They said nothing. But they all saw it.

He didn't react. He didn't answer them. He just sat on one of the side benches, where the sun streamed in through one of the gym's windows and illuminated the dust suspended in the air. The others went about their business, between jokes, comments, instructions for the event.

But Kyungmin was no longer really there.

He was in that instant.

In how you had looked at him. In how close you had been. In your blush. In your smile.

And how impossible, how absolutely impossible it was going to be to forget.

Because now, every time I thought of you —and I knew I was going to, countless times— it wouldn't be from far away.

It wouldn't be from across the hall. It wouldn't be with stolen glances between classes, or with extraneous conversations filled with your name without naming you.

Now he had felt you.

You had been real in his arms. Fragile and strong. Close. Possible.

And that… that changed everything.

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