Ji-Hoon didn’t return to the library corner.

He told himself it was because of midterms—notes to review, assignments stacking up—but the truth pressed heavier than that. He was avoiding Min-Soo.

Avoiding the look in his eyes.

Avoiding the warmth of that dance.

Avoiding what almost happened.

Again.

---

By Monday, the whispers began.

“You know Min-Soo? I heard he’s into someone.”

“Someone from Engineering, right?”

“No way. Ji-Hoon? Seriously? He barely talks to anyone.”

Ji-Hoon overheard them in passing—slipping through hallways, trailing behind him in café lines, curling like smoke just loud enough to sting.

No one said his name. Not yet. But he could feel it—his shadow sketched into their voices, his secret dangling just out of reach.

His skin prickled. His heart stumbled into old patterns. The past coiled tight around his chest.

Not again. Please, not again.

---

That night, his feet betrayed him. He found himself walking without thinking, pulled toward the library—the place he’d tried so hard to avoid.

And of course—

Min-Soo was already there.

He sat alone, headphones loose around his neck, fingertips tracing idle circles on the cover of a closed book. When his eyes lifted and found Ji-Hoon, his face brightened—but softer this time. Careful.

“You came back,” he said gently.

Ji-Hoon sat down. No greeting. Just presence.

A silence stretched, heavy but not unbearable.

Finally, Ji-Hoon spoke. “People are talking.”

Min-Soo didn’t flinch. “They always do.”

“They’re saying you… like someone.”

A beat of quiet.

“I do,” Min-Soo said.

Ji-Hoon’s throat tightened. “Are you… telling them it’s me?”

Min-Soo shook his head. “I haven’t told anyone. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Ji-Hoon looked away. “They’ll figure it out.”

“Let them.”

Ji-Hoon’s head snapped back, eyes wide. “What if they treat me differently? What if it’s like… before?”

Min-Soo didn’t ask what “before” meant. He didn’t push. He only leaned in slightly, his voice steady.

“Then I’ll be there. Every step of the way. Unless you don’t want me to.”

The air between them felt breakable, like the split second between two raindrops before they touch.

“I don’t know what I want,” Ji-Hoon confessed, voice low. “I feel like I’m standing in the middle of something… and if I move, it’ll all fall apart.”

Min-Soo’s smile was soft, tinged with sadness.

“Then I’ll stay still with you. For as long as you need.”

---

Later that night, Ji-Hoon sat on his bed, holding the candy stick from the festival. He hadn’t thrown it away.

He hadn’t eaten it either.

It stayed on his desk like a keepsake—half memory, half maybe.

He opened his notebook and wrote:

> He asks for nothing.

Not my smile, not my story—

Only my presence.