Back in the stark silence of his room, the only sound was the soft rustle of a towel as Ji-won dried his hair. His gaze, almost against his will, kept drifting to his phone lying inert on the bedside table.
A silent war raged within him.
Did he reach home?
The question was illogical. Haneul was in a taxi, going to a safe, warm house—the exact opposite of his own. It didn't matter.
Should I text him?
No. That would be an invitation. An acknowledgment. It would open a door he had spent years nailing shut.
He grabbed the phone, his fingers hovering over the screen. He typed a cold, efficient "Did you arrive?"
It looked too eager. Too caring. He deleted it.
He tried again. "Let me know when you're home."
No. That sounded like a command, and he had no right to command him. Deleted.
Frustrated, he threw the phone back onto the bed as if it had burned him. He paced the length of his small room, the towel now a tense knot in his hands. This was ridiculous. It was just a text.
But it wasn't. It was a line in the sand, and he was about to cross it.
Finally, with a groan of surrender, he snatched the phone back up. His thumbs moved quickly, before his brain could veto the action again. He sent a single, stark message.
Jiwon: .
It was nothing. Just a punctuation mark. A placeholder. But it was a signal. A silent, hesitant knock on a door he had always kept locked.
---
Across the city, Haneul was sitting on the edge of his bed, still fully dressed. His legs swung back and forth like a pendulum, his phone clutched tightly in his hand. The screen was dark. He willed it to light up.
"Come on, Jiwon-ssi," he whispered to the empty room.
And then it did.
A notification. From Jiwon.
His heart leaped into his throat. He fumbled, nearly dropping the phone in his excitement, and tapped the screen.
There was no "Are you safe?" No "Goodnight."
Just a single, solitary dot.
.
A wide, brilliant smile spread across Haneul's face, so bright it could have lit up the entire room. It was the most beautiful, perfect message he had ever received. He quickly typed back, his own message full of the warmth and light Ji-won's lacked.
Haneul: I'm home! :) Thank you for tonight. And for the dot. Goodnight, Jiwon-ssi!
The line was open. The first, tiny splash of color had finally made it onto Ji-won's grey canvas.
The soft ping from his phone made Ji-won's heart stutter. He looked at the screen.
Haneul: I'm home! :) Thank you for tonight. And for the dot. Goodnight, Jiwon-ssi!
The cheerful text, the smiley face, the sheer, unfiltered warmth of it—it was so quintessentially Haneul. And for a single, unguarded moment, it worked. A small, genuine smile touched the corners of Ji-won's lips. It was a faint curve, barely there, but it was real.
And the moment he felt it, he froze.
The sensation was so foreign, so alien on his face, it felt like a betrayal. The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a wave of cold panic. What was he doing? Letting this boy affect him like this? Letting him in?
In a swift, sharp motion, he brought his hand up and slapped his own cheek. The sting was a welcome shock, a physical anchor dragging him back to the harsh reality he understood. Control. Discipline. Solitude.
He threw his phone onto the bed as if it were on fire, the device skittering across the blanket and falling onto the floor with a dull thud. He wouldn't reply. He couldn't.
He marched to his desk, forcefully opening his physics textbook. He would study. He would focus. He would purge this… this distraction from his mind.
But the equations blurred before his eyes. The numbers and symbols twisted and reformed into a different shape: a smiling face under a streetlamp, a determined pout outside a taxi, a look of radiant joy in a quiet library.
He clenched his pencil so tightly the wood creaked. He was trying to solve for X, but the only variable his mind would calculate was Lee Haneul.
Back in his cozy bedroom, Haneul stared at his phone screen, the cheerful "Goodnight!" he'd sent now looking a little lonely without a response. He pouted, a dramatic frown taking over his face.
"Fine. Be that way, you grumpy robot," he mumbled to the empty room. He stuck his tongue out at Ji-won's name in his chat, then flopped back onto his pillows and turned off his phone with a decisive click.
But he couldn't just go to sleep. The whirlwind of feelings was still buzzing inside him. He reached under his pillow and pulled out his trusted sketchbook, flipping it open to a fresh page.
He started to draw with a huff, intending to sketch a properly grumpy Ji-won. But as his pencil moved, his pout slowly melted away, replaced by a soft, uncontrollable blush. His thoughts drifted back to the library, to the intense look in Ji-won's eyes when he asked why Haneul stayed.
The drawing began to change.
Instead of a stern portrait, he found himself sketching a silly caricature. He drew Ji-won with a comically large frowny face. Then another of him with a tiny, awkward smile. He added a curly mustache and a monocle to one. He drew him trying to do a handstand, his usually perfect hair flopping everywhere. In another, he sketched him wearing a ridiculously frilly apron while holding a burning pan.
A giggle escaped Haneul's lips, then another. Soon he was laughing softly to himself, surrounded by a gallery of absurd, adorable versions of Han Ji-won. It was his way of processing the confusing, wonderful, and overwhelming boy who had stormed into his life. On the page, he could make the fortress silly. He could make the knight clumsy. And in doing so, the real Ji-won felt a little less intimidating, and a whole lot more endearing.
The playful, silly sketches slowly began to shift. Haneul's pencil, almost of its own volition, started tracing more defined lines. The comical frowns and mustaches gave way to the sharp line of a jaw he knew all too well. Then, his focus drifted lower.
He started sketching the slope of Ji-won's shoulders, remembering how they filled out his shirt at the board. His strokes became more deliberate, shading the contours of defined biceps, the faint hint of collarbones. He drew Ji-won leaning against a wall, his posture tense and powerful, just like in the hallway.
Haneul's breathing hitched. He was blushing, a deep, warm flush creeping up his neck. The artistic appreciation was quickly being overshadowed by something else, something hotter and more flustered.
His pencil moved again, this time erasing the lines of a shirt entirely. He sketched the firm planes of a chest, the subtle ridges of abdominal muscles. It was still just an anatomical study, he told himself. An artist understanding form.
Then, with a racing heart, he drew the waistband of pants, and then erased that too. The sketch now showed Ji-won from the waist up, completely shirtless. The intimacy of it made Haneul's hand tremble.
He hesitated, his pencil hovering over the lower part of the page. His face was on fire. This was crossing a line. This was no longer just a sketch.
But the image in his mind was too vivid, a product of his earlier, shocking thoughts in math class. With a shaky breath, he drew the rest. He outlined the lean hips, the strong thighs, and finally, with a stroke so light it was almost a ghost, he drew the member he had so brazenly imagined.
The moment the line was complete, he froze.
He stared at the fully nude, detailed drawing of Han Ji-won splayed across his sketchbook. A wave of mortification and raw, undeniable arousal washed over him. He slammed the sketchbook shut so hard the sound echoed in the quiet room, his heart hammering against his ribs. He shoved the book deep under his pillow as if it were contraband, his entire face burning with a blush so intense he felt dizzy. There was no pretending anymore. This wasn't just curiosity or a simple crush. This was a desire so potent it terrified him.
NEXT MORNING
Haneul woke with a jolt, the faint morning light filtering through his curtains. The first thing he was aware of was the uncomfortable, undeniable tightness in his pajama pants. The vivid, illicit images from his sketchbook flashed behind his eyes, and he groaned, throwing an arm over his face.
No, no, no.
He couldn't believe it. This had never happened to him before, not like this, sparked so directly by a thought—by a person. He scrambled out of bed and hurried to the bathroom, turning the shower to cold and stepping under the bracing spray, hoping to shock both his body and his mind back to normalcy.
By the time he emerged, dressed and slightly shivering, he felt more in control, but a deep sense of flustered embarrassment remained. He shuffled into the kitchen where his mother was humming, flipping a perfectly round egg.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," she said, her back to him. "You were up late with your sketches." She turned, and her cheerful expression softened into one of gentle curiosity. "You look... flushed. Everything okay?"
Haneul slumped into a chair, avoiding her eyes. "Yeah. Fine."
Lee Sun-hee placed the plate in front of him and sat down with her own tea, studying him. "You know, Haneul-ah," she began, her voice soft but deliberate, "when feelings start to get this strong, they affect everything. Your mind, your heart... even your body. It can be confusing. A little scary, even."
Haneul's head shot up, his eyes wide. How did she always know?
She smiled knowingly. "It's all a natural part of it. That intensity just means it's real. The important thing is to be honest with yourself about what you're feeling." She took a sip of her tea. "So, this boy... Han Ji-won. The feelings are getting stronger, aren't they?"
Haneul stared at his eggs, his cheeks burning again. He couldn't bring himself to speak, so he just gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
His mother reached over and patted his hand. "It's okay. Just breathe. And remember, no matter how intense it feels, you don't have to have all the answers right now."
AT SCHOOL..
Haneul stood outside the classroom, clutching the small box of vanilla cupcakes his mother had helped him bake. They were simple, not too sweet, with a light lemon glaze—a peace offering for his own chaotic feelings and a continued attempt to be the "sunshine."
He saw Ji-won through the window, already at his desk, a picture of focused isolation. Haneul took a deep, steadying breath. Be normal. Just be friendly.
He pushed the door open and walked in, his steps a little too deliberate. He approached their shared desk with a warm, if slightly nervous, smile.
"Good morning, Jiwon-ssi," he said, his voice softer than usual. He placed the box carefully on the desk. "My mom made these. They're vanilla, with lemon. Not sweet at all, I pro—"
"I don't want it," Ji-won cut him off, not even looking up from his book. His voice was flat, the familiar ice wall firmly back in place after the vulnerability of the night before.
Haneul's smile faltered. "But... you liked the brownie. These are similar, they're really not—"
"I said I don't want it!" Ji-won's head snapped up, his eyes flashing with a cold, sharp anger that was meant to push Haneul away for good. "I don't want your sweets. I don't want your gratitude. I don't want you constantly forcing things on me!"
In one swift, brutal motion, he snatched the box from the desk, stood up, and hurled it out the open classroom window.
The action was so sudden, so violently dismissive, that the entire class fell into a stunned silence.
Haneul stood frozen, his hand still outstretched where the box had been. He watched it disappear from view, his heart cracking audibly in the quiet room. The warm, hopeful smile was completely gone, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated hurt. The tiny, hard-to-notice flush of hope on his cheeks drained away, leaving him pale and shattered.
He didn't say a word. He just slowly lowered his hand, turned, and walked back to his seat, sinking into it as the first bell rang. The message was finally, cruelly, received. The sunshine had been not just rejected, but violently extinguished.
The slam of the classroom door closing behind the teacher was the only sound in the ringing silence. Ji-won sat rigidly in his seat, the phantom weight of the cupcake box still burning in his hand. He stared straight ahead, but his peripheral vision was locked on the boy beside him.
He had seen it. The exact moment his heartless action had landed. The way Haneul's bright eyes had shattered, the light in them snuffing out like a candle in a storm. A cold, sick feeling began to pool in Ji-won's stomach. He had wanted to push him away, but this… this felt different. This felt wrong.
Then, he saw it. A slight, almost imperceptible tremble in Haneul's shoulder.
Ji-won's breath hitched. He forced himself to glance over.
Haneul had his head bowed, his face turned away. But Ji-won could see the frantic, desperate motion of his hand as he swiped at his cheeks, over and over, as if his tears were a crime, a shameful secret that needed to be erased immediately. He was crying. Not loud, dramatic sobs, but a silent, broken weeping that was a thousand times worse.
A jolt, like a physical electric shock, went through Ji-won.
He's crying.
The thought was stupid, obvious. But it was the reality of it that froze him. He had only ever seen Haneul smile, laugh, pout, or look at him with unwavering admiration. He had never imagined this. He had never considered that his own coldness could produce something so… fragile.
And in that moment, staring at the violent, silent shaking of Haneul's shoulders, Ji-won realized with horrifying clarity that he hadn't just pushed him away. He had broken something. Something beautiful and persistent that had been offered to him, again and again.
His own heart began to beat a frantic, panicked rhythm against his ribs, so loud he was sure the whole class could hear it. The ice in his veins was melting, replaced by a flood of pure, unadulterated regret. He had gone too far.
The bell rang, a jarringly cheerful sound that shattered the tense silence. Before the echo had even faded, Haneul was out of his seat. He didn't gather his things, he didn't look at anyone—he just fled, a blur of hurt rushing out the classroom door, leaving a trail of stunned whispers in his wake.
The gossiping started instantly. "Did you see that?" "Ji-won threw his gift out the window!" "Why is Haneul crying?"
Ji-won sat motionless, the whispers scraping against his ears. He saw the empty seat beside him, the space that usually felt so crowded now feeling like a gaping chasm. A powerful, instinctual urge surged within him—to get up, to find Haneul, to… to what? Apologize? He didn't even know how.
He clenched his fists on the desk, his knuckles white.
It's good, he told himself, the thought a desperate mantra. This is what you wanted. He'll finally leave you alone. Don't follow. Don't make it worse.
But the image of Haneul's tear-streaked face, the memory of his silent, shaking shoulders, was seared into his mind, a more powerful argument than any logic he could muster. He remained frozen in his seat, a war raging between the walls he had built to survive and the terrifying, newfound need to tear them down for the one person he'd just brutally hurt.
The internal war was still raging when the classroom door burst open again. This time, it was Yoon Min-seo and Park Doyun, their faces expectant.
"Haneul-ah! Let's go, we're starving—" Min-seo's cheerful call died as her eyes scanned the room and landed on Haneul's conspicuously empty seat. Her smile vanished. "Where's Haneul?"
Doyun's gaze immediately locked onto Ji-won, his expression darkening. "Hey. Where did he go?"
Ji-won couldn't answer. The sight of them, Haneul's real friends, here to collect him for lunch as they always did, made the situation terrifyingly real. Haneul wasn't just upset; he was missing from his own life, from his routines, and it was Ji-won's fault.
That was the final push.
Without a word—without an explanation to Min-seo's growing concern or Doyun's simmering anger—Ji-won shot up from his seat. He brushed past them, his movements sharp with a sudden, desperate urgency.
He started his search in the most obvious place
Ji-won's search led him to the one place that made sense—the art room. He pushed the door open just a crack and peered inside.
There, surrounded by the cheerful chaos of half-finished projects, was Haneul. He was slumped at a table, a sketchbook open in front of him. But he wasn't sketching. His shoulders shook with silent, hiccupping sobs, and he was talking to himself in a wet, broken mumble.
"Stupid... just... just draw something," he whispered, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye. "It's okay, don't cry. Sketch. It'll be fine."
He grabbed his pencil, made one shaky line, then let out a frustrated groan, tearing the page from the sketchbook with a violent rip. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it, joining a small pile of similar paper balls on the floor.
"I'll never talk to him again," he declared to the empty room, his voice thick with tears. "I hate him. I really, really hate him!" He sniffled loudly. "Do I hate him? No. But I'll hate him! I will! From now on, I won't talk to him with my heart. I'll talk to him with my brain! Hmph!"
He nodded to himself, a picture of miserable determination, before another hiccup wrecked his resolve and a fresh wave of tears fell.
Standing in the doorway, Ji-won felt a strange, tight ache in his chest. It was heartbreaking, but the sheer, raw honesty of Haneul's one-sided argument—the way he was trying to logic his way out of a heartbreak—was also undeniably... cute. A soft, involuntary chuckle escaped his lips before he could stop it.
The sound was barely audible, but in the quiet room, it might as well have been a thunderclap.
The soft chuckle made Haneul freeze mid-insult. His head snapped up, and his tear-filled, red-rimmed eyes widened in shock to see Ji-won standing there.
Ji-won hesitated for a moment longer before walking fully into the room. He ignored Haneul's startled expression and the tear-stained cheeks, his gaze falling on the latest, half-ruined sketch in the open book. He leaned down, his voice surprisingly calm and measured.
"Your shading here," he said, pointing to a dark, angry patch on the paper, "is a bit too much. It flattens the form. And here," his finger moved to a blank area, "it needs a little value to give it depth."
Haneul could only stare, his mouth slightly agape. The anger and hurt were momentarily shoved aside by sheer, unadulterated surprise. Ji-won was talking to him. About art.
"You..." Haneul stammered, his voice hoarse from crying. "You know about shading?"
Ji-won didn't meet his eyes, focusing intently on the sketch. "It's just observation. Light and shadow. It's logical."
But Haneul was already leaning in, his previous vow to "use his brain" completely forgotten. The artist in him was captivated. "But how do you know where to put it? I always mess it up. It never looks right," he asked, looking up at Ji-won with his big, doe-like eyes, still glistening with unshed tears.
That look, full of genuine curiosity and vulnerability, was a knife twisting in Ji-won's guilt. He had to fight the urge to look away.
"You're overthinking it," Ji-won said, his voice softer than he intended. "Don't think of it as 'shading.' Think of it as describing the shape. Where would the light not be able to reach?" He picked up a spare pencil and made a few light, tentative marks on a clean corner of the paper, demonstrating. "Like this."
Haneul watched, mesmerized, his hurt momentarily eclipsed by the revelation of this hidden talent. "You're... you're really good at this."
Ji-won finally straightened up, the proximity and the trusting look in Haneul's eyes becoming too much to bear. The weight of what he had done came crashing back. He had reduced this bright, passionate boy to a crying mess, and now Haneul was looking at him like he held all the answers.
The guilt was a physical pain in his chest. He had to fix this.
Ji-won hesitated for a breath longer, then slowly pulled out the chair beside Haneul and sat down. The action felt monumental. He took the sketchbook and a fresh pencil.
"Here," he said, his voice low but clear. "Look at the apple on the teacher's desk. See how the light hits the top curve? You don't need a solid line there. Just a hint of the paper's color." His hand moved, creating a soft, gradual gradient that perfectly captured the roundness.
Haneul watched, his earlier tears completely forgotten. "How are you doing that? It's like magic."
"It's not magic. It's just observation," Ji-won repeated, but a flicker of something—memory, perhaps—crossed his face. "I... used to do this. A long time ago. Painting and sketching."
Haneul's jaw dropped. "You? You painted?" The idea of the stoic, logical Han Ji-won sitting before an easel was almost impossible to picture.
"For a while," Ji-won admitted, focusing on adding a subtle shadow under the imaginary apple. "When I was young. Before..." He didn't finish the sentence, but the unspoken words—before things got complicated—hung in the air. "It was... quiet."
"Quiet?" Haneul leaned in, his voice a whisper. "What did you paint?"
Ji-won's pencil stilled. "The view from my window. The way the light came in. Simple things." He risked a glance at Haneul and found the boy looking at him not with pity, but with rapt, genuine fascination. A small, real smile was blooming on Haneul's face, erasing the last traces of his tears.
Seeing that smile, so freely given after the pain he'd caused, sent a wave of profound warmth through Ji-won's chest. It was a feeling so foreign and powerful it momentarily stole his breath.
"Will you... will you show me someday?" Haneul asked, his eyes hopeful.
Ji-won looked down at the sketch, at the simple apple they had created together. The walls felt paper-thin. "Maybe," he heard himself say, the word a quiet surrender. "Someday."
Haneul's excitement was immediate and radiant. "Then you should join the art class! We meet every Thursday! And this year there's a big inter-school contest—we could enter it together! Can you imagine?"
The light in his eyes was so bright, so full of shared possibility, that Ji-won felt a physical pull toward it. But the old, cold habits were strong. He shook his head, the movement stiff. "No. I don't paint anymore."
"But why not? You're so good at—" Haneul began, his voice full of passionate insistence.
And then he stopped.
The memory of the morning hit him like a physical blow. The box flying through the air. The final, crushing dismissal. His own tears. He flinched, as if he'd overstepped an invisible boundary yet again.
His head dropped, his shoulders slumping in defeat. The vibrant energy vanished, replaced by a cautious, quiet sadness. "Right," he murmured, the word barely audible. "Sorry. I... I won't insist."
He began to slowly gather his scattered art supplies, the movement heavy with dejection.
The sight was a thousand times worse than the crying. This quiet acceptance of rejection, this dimming of his natural light, was Ji-won's own doing. The ache in his chest intensified into a sharp, painful throb. He couldn't stand it. He couldn't let his own fear be the reason that light went out.
"Haneul," Ji-won said, his voice unusually soft.
Haneul paused, not looking up.
Ji-won took a breath, the words feeling alien and dangerous on his tongue. "I... I'll think about it."
Haneul's head lifted slowly. His eyes, still slightly red-rimmed, were wide with a fragile, disbelieving hope. He searched Ji-won's face, looking for any sign of a joke. Finding none, a tiny, tentative smile touched his lips. It wasn't the brilliant beam from before, but it was a start. It was a flicker of the sun peeking through storm clouds.
And for Ji-won, that small, hesitant smile felt like a victory more meaningful than any academic rank.
The art room door swung open with a bang.
"There you are!" Min-seo exclaimed, rushing in with Doyun right behind her. "We've been looking everywhere for you! Are you okay?" She immediately wrapped Haneul in a protective hug, shooting a suspicious glare over his shoulder at Ji-won.
Doyun's expression was openly hostile. He stepped forward, his gaze fixed on Ji-won like a challenge. "What did you do to him?" he demanded, his voice low and threatening.
Before Ji-won could form a response—not that he had one—Haneul was gently pulled away. "I'm fine, guys, really," he said, but he allowed himself to be steered toward the door, casting one last, lingering look back at Ji-won. It wasn't angry or sad. It was full of that fragile, newfound hope.
Then they were gone, the door closing and leaving Ji-won in the sudden, profound silence of the empty art room.
He stood alone amidst the easels and the scattered, colorful evidence of Haneul's presence. Slowly, he brought a hand up, pressing his palm flat against his chest, right over his heart.
It was beating a frantic, steady rhythm. But the feeling wasn't the cold, hollow dread he was used to. It was a spreading, persistent warmth.
Why?
The question echoed in the stillness. Why did he promise to think about the art club? Why did the sight of Haneul's dejection feel like a physical wound? Why did that tiny, hopeful smile feel like the most important thing he'd seen all day?
He had spent his entire life building a fortress of ice around his heart, believing that the cold was the only thing that would keep him safe. But now, a stubborn ray of sunshine had found a crack, and instead of the pain he feared, it brought a terrifying, beautiful warmth. He pressed his hand harder against his chest, as if he could physically hold the feeling inside.
He shouldn't care. But he did. And the warmth, so foreign and alive, was proof that the ice was melting, and he was utterly powerless to stop it.