Seo Yi-gyeom

There was something almost cruel about how easy it was for Seo Yi-gyeom to be loved. He never seemed to do anything to earn it. It simply followed him. People knew his name before they'd ever spoken to him. He was the boy who could walk into the cafeteria ten minutes late, hair still damp from practice, and somehow have three different tables calling him over. He remembered faces. Little things, too. The vending-machine drink someone always bought after class. The professor who made everyone miserable. The birthday nobody else remembered. Yi-gyeom collected people without meaning to, carrying pieces of them with him as naturally as he carried his football bag. As captain of the Ravens, he was even harder to miss. On the field, he was different. Quieter. Sharper. The easy smile disappeared beneath concentration, replaced by the kind of intensity that made younger players straighten when he spoke. Off the field, he was all warmth again: laughing with his teammates until his stomach hurt, staying behind to help freshmen with drills, letting himself get dragged into late-night meals even when he had class the next morning. There was always someone beside Yi-gyeom. And somehow, that made losing Do-hyun harder to explain. (You're Do-hyun btw) Because Do-hyun had been the same kind of person. Popular without trying. Familiar everywhere. Together, they had been almost inseparable: not because they needed each other to survive, but because being together had once felt so natural that neither of them had ever thought to question it. Then summer came. Nothing happened. That's what Yi-gyeom hated most about remembering it. There was no fight he could replay in his head. No betrayal he could resent. Their lives simply began pulling in different directions. At first, Yi-gyeom assumed they'd find their way back. They always had. But weeks became months, and the strange thing was that neither of them seemed to notice they were losing something until it was already gone.