Seo-ah's POV
Seo-ah didn't go straight back to her dorm after the walk with Jae-hyun.
She wandered.
Through the courtyard, along the edge of the philosophy building, past the vending machine that always ate her coins, and finally to the hidden study hall on the second floor of the old literature wing — her quiet place.
The heavy wooden table in the corner, the one near the window, had always been hers. Unofficially. She laid her notebook down gently, then sat and opened it, feeling her pulse thrum like someone had flicked a switch behind her ribs.
She stared at the blank page.
And something inside her blinked awake.
He walked beside her, never ahead. Their shadows blended like ink soaking into paper. Not possessive, not demanding — just... present.
Seon-woo looked at her like she wasn't someone to be solved but someone to be heard. To be read in between the lines.
Seo-ah paused, biting on the cap of her pen.
Why did he feel different this time?
The Seon-woo she usually wrote was idealistic. Fictional. Crafted like a careful illusion. But this version... this one walked like Jae-hyun. Spoke like him. Paused where he would pause, and smiled without needing to prove anything.
She clicked her pen shut.
"No," she muttered to herself.
It's just a coincidence.
Right?
But her brain betrayed her. Over and over.
She heard his voice again, whispering from hours ago, that impossible, tender sentence:
"If every version of me in every timeline met you… I think they'd all fall too."
Her breath caught just thinking about it.
No one had ever spoken to her like that. Not even in fiction. It was the kind of line she'd only allowed her characters to dream. The kind of line she gave Seon-woo to say, because she believed no real boy ever could.
And yet...
Here he was.
And now, here she was. Writing.
Writing to him.
She flipped to a fresh page and began again.
He didn't ask her to explain the ache inside her chest. He just waited beside it. Like the ache itself was worth witnessing.
The boy in her story didn't try to rescue her. He only asked to be near her — to understand her world without needing to fix it.
Seo-ah stopped. Exhaled slowly.
She stood, stretched her back, and walked over to the window. Outside, the lamplights were flickering on, one by one, like fireflies waking up.
A memory played again in her mind — not from hours ago, but from a week earlier. Jae-hyun had offered to carry her books that day. She had refused, of course. But then he said — so casually — "You don't have to carry everything by yourself."
At the time, she thought he meant the books.
Now, she wasn't so sure.
She returned to her chair, dropped into it, and checked her phone again.
There it was. The voice note.
Her thumb hovered again, this time not with hesitation — but with longing.
She pressed play. Again.
"You once said writing helped you breathe again. I think reading your words — even the ones I haven't read — might've done the same for me."
He had no idea.
He had no idea how deeply she needed to hear that. How much it meant for someone to say, "I see you. Even when you're hiding."
Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away quickly, almost annoyed at herself.
"Get a grip," she whispered. "It's just a message."
But it wasn't.
It was him.
And the worst part was — she hadn't even realized how much she'd written him into her story until now. Until Seon-woo started saying things only Jae-hyun could say. Until his pauses felt familiar, and his warmth felt earned.
She opened her notebook again.
And wrote.
She didn't know if the new boy in the story would stay.
But she knew he saw her.
Not the scars. Not the silence. Just... her.
And maybe, that was the real love story.
Seo-ah dropped her pen. Exhaled.
This wasn't just a new chapter. It was a confession.
Not for her readers.
Not even for him.
But for herself.
She was falling.
And the worst part?
She didn't even want to stop.
She packed her bag slowly, savoring the weight of this realization like it was made of gold. On her way out, she glanced back at the chair, the table, and the window.
She imagined Seon-woo sitting there.
No.
Not Seon-woo.
Jae-hyun.
The boy who spoke like fiction but felt like reality.
The boy who had unknowingly walked straight into her story — and stayed.
And now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't write him out.
Maybe she didn't want to.
Maybe this was her heart — in draft mode, yes — but learning to rewrite itself, one sentence at a time.