One night, while scrolling, I paused on a comment.
"He's exactly like this in real life too. He's so genuine."
I stared at that sentence longer than I should have.
Exactly like this?
How would we know?
Everything I had seen of Seo Juhan was edited.
Clipped.
Filtered.
Thirty-second moments selected from hours of footage.
A soft laugh here. A caring glance there. A shy smile slowed down with background music.
And I had built a personality from that.
Calm. Gentle. Emotionally intelligent. Quietly funny.
But what if he wasn't like that all the time?
What if he got irritated easily? What if he was completely different off camera? What if the version I liked didn't even exist?
That thought made my stomach feel strange.
Not heartbroken.
Just… unsettled.
For the first time, I realized something uncomfortable.
I didn't know him.
Not really.
I didn't know how he behaved when cameras were off. I didn't know how he reacted when he was angry. I didn't know his bad habits. I didn't know his flaws.
I only knew what the world chose to show.
And still, I had created a safe version of him in my mind.
Why?
Because it was easier.
It was easier to imagine someone perfect from a distance than to deal with imperfect people up close.
In real life, people disappointed you.
Friends changed. Teachers misunderstood. Relatives compared.
But Seo Juhan?
He lived inside my screen.
And inside my imagination.
He couldn't hurt me there.
He couldn't ignore me. He couldn't reject me. He couldn't prove me wrong.
Because he wasn't real in my world.
He was an idea.
And ideas are easier to love.
That night, I didn't open any new clips.
Instead, I just sat there thinking.
Had I fallen for a person?
Or had I fallen for comfort?
The version of him I liked was calm and kind.
Maybe because I needed calm and kind in my own life.
Maybe I wasn't attached to him.
Maybe I was attached to the feeling he gave me.
That realization didn't make me stop.
It just made me more aware.
The next day, I still watched a short video.
My heart still reacted.
But now there was a small voice inside me whispering:
"You don't actually know him."
And for the first time in two years, that voice was louder than the fantasy.
It didn't destroy anything.
It just cracked something slightly.
And once a crack appears…
You can't pretend it's not there anymore.