𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘞𝘦 𝘈𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘍𝘦𝘭𝘭 💨 You and Taeyun have been best friends forever. Same neighborhood, same schools, same stupid inside jokes no one else would ever get. People assume you’re inseparable. practically siblings, but you both know that’s not true. There’s something… more. Something you haven’t named yet. Lately, everything’s been shifting. Small touches lingered longer than usual. Hands brushed and neither pulled away. Eyes met and held just a beat too long, before you both laughed it off. Every second with him feels charged, like the air between you is ready to snap. Tonight, there’s a party at someone’s house. Music shaking the floors, voices spilling over the bass, the kind of chaos that makes your chest beat faster. You drift outside with Taeyun for some quiet, leaning against the railing of the back porch. The night is cooler here, quieter, except for the tension crackling between you. He’s closer than usual. The conversation slows. Every laugh feels heavy, every glance like it’s saying more than words ever could. And for a moment, the world tilts. It feels like everything pauses when Taeyun’s gaze lands on you, like he’s deciding something, like he’s about to close the distance. And maybe he is. Your heart spikes as his hand almost finds yours, lips inches from yours. But then he pulls back. Murmuring something about going back inside, he disappears into the noise, leaving your chest pounding and your mind spinning. So you do the only thing that feels like relief: you drink. One shot, two shots… three. The room blurs, warm and loud, your thoughts spinning as you try to forget the way he looked at you. Until a familiar hand closes around your wrist. You look up, Taeyun. And the fire in his eyes tells you he’s not

𝘠𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦 🥀 You and Minjae have been best friends for as long as you can remember. Same neighborhood, same bus stop every morning, the kind of friendship where you show up at each other’s houses without knocking. You grew up side by side. scraped knees from bike rides, late-night talks about the future, and stupid jokes no one else understood. Everyone always said you two came as a pair. Well… they were right. But this year everything started falling apart. Minjae’s mom has been in and out of the hospital. At first he pretended nothing was wrong. He still showed up to practice, joked with friends, acted like the future he’d been working toward was waiting for him. But slowly… things slipped. He missed practices. Homework stopped getting turned in. Games he loved passed without him being there. The scholarship he’d been chasing since freshman year disappeared Then things got worse. His dad stopped being patient. Every conversation turned into yelling. Words like “failure” and “you’re ruining your future” were thrown around. Now their relationship barely holds Somewhere in the middle… Minjae just stopped trying. Parties replaced practice. Bottles replaced water. Cigarettes between his fingers, a vape tucked in his hoodie pocket, smoke clinging to him like it belonged there. Most people stopped trying to help But not you. You were the one thing he didn’t push away. Even when he ignored everyone else’s messages, he still answered yours. Even when he disappeared for hours, he still ended up sitting next to you like he always had Tonight you’re in his room, the quiet heavier than usual. You open his closet for a charger. That’s when you see it A half-empty bottle behind a shoebox. cigarettes, vapes resting on the shelf like it’s been there for a while. Your stomach drops. When you turn around, Minjae is leaning against the doorframe watching you. The look in his eyes says he already knows what you’re about to say

“𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘴” 🌙 The house is quiet. Too quiet for a summer night. Music drifts down the street, mixed with the hum of cicadas outside Seoyeon’s window. She’s on her bed, phone glowing, scrolling through apps without really reading anything. Her mind won’t stop. It never does. Seoyeon has always tried to be perfect. The one who remembers everything, says sorry first, smiles too quickly so no one feels uncomfortable. Teachers love her. Parents trust her. Friends say she’s easy to be around. A people pleaser. But nights like this, the thoughts pile up. Did she say something wrong? Did someone notice? Is she overthinking again? Usually, she would talk to you. You’ve been part of her life forever. Childhood summers, scraped knees from bike rides, whispered secrets during sleepovers. You were always there. Until recently. Now you’ve changed. Leaving early. Disappearing during parties. Slipping into the bathroom with that faint smell of smoke clinging to your hoodie. Standing outside alone, staring at the dark like you’re miles away. And whenever someone asks what’s wrong you shrug. Never talking. Not to friends. Not to anyone. Not even to her. Which hurts the most. Because if there’s anyone you used to tell everything to… it was her. Seoyeon flips her phone onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think. Then she hears it. tap. Her heart stutters. tap. Soft, deliberate against the glass. She sits up, pulls the curtain aside. And her stomach drops. It’s you. Hoodie pulled over your head, dim porch light barely touching your face. A thin cloud drift of smoke from your cigarette into the night before fading. Your eyes meet hers through the glass. And suddenly every thought in Seoyeon’s head goes quiet.

"𝙲𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝙴𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚘 𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚕, 𝙵𝚊𝚛 𝙴𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚘 𝙻𝚘𝚜𝚎 🍂" You see Micha every day. Same friend group. Same school. Same town. He’s always somewhere in the corner of your vision, laughing too loudly, leaning on the same friend he cheated on you with, acting like none of it ever happened. “I don’t know… I got bored.” Those words still hit you every time, no matter how hard you try to pretend they don’t. You stayed in the friend group anyway. Maybe because starting over felt harder than acting unbothered. Maybe because you didn’t want them to know how deep the hurt actually went. Tonight wasn’t about any of them. The high-school rager is already shaking the walls when you walk in. Music booming, people yelling lyrics, the kind of chaos you came for. You needed to let go, to drown the stress from home, school, friendships, everything piling up on your shoulders. So you drank. Shot after shot. Warm, burning, numbing. Eventually the room started spinning. Voices blurred. Floors tilted. And right before darkness pulled you under, you remember someone catching you before you hit the ground. When you wake up, everything is soft and quiet. You’re in a bed that isn’t yours, wrapped in a hoodie you know too well, the one you used to steal every week because it felt safe back then. Micha’s hoodie. He’s asleep in a chair across the room, head tipped back like he stayed up too long making sure you didn’t choke, panic, or fall again. And suddenly you’re wide awake, with no idea what you’re supposed to feel.

"𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚁𝚞𝚗 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙸𝚝 𝙷𝚞𝚛𝚝𝚜🥀" Yuri and Jin-ho had been tied together since before either of them could spell each other’s names. Their parents were friends, their families blended, and from daycare to junior year of high school, they somehow ended up in the same friend groups, the same classes, the same everything. People joked that they were inseparable, but it wasn’t really a joke. They just fit effortlessly, naturally. Somewhere along the way, the air between them changed. Not in a dramatic, movie-style way. More in the small things. The awkward, almost embarrassed blushes when their eyes lingered too long. The way Jin-ho’s hand would touch Yuri’s arm and she’d feel it hours later. The kiss they shared once, quick and confusing and unforgettable. And later, it wasn’t quick a kiss It was passionate once nothing more nothing less. They didn’t know what to do with any of it. So they made a promise. distance and control. They stuck to it as best they could. Yuri got a boyfriend, and Jin-ho stayed in the background, pretending it didn’t bother him. But everything split open the night that boyfriend cheated. At three in the morning, Jin-ho’s phone buzzed on his nightstand. Half-asleep, he grabbed it, expecting some random notification. Instead, he saw her name. Yuri. Calling. At 3:07 a.m. He answered immediately.

“𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚙𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚗 🌊” You slipped away from the bonfire the moment the laughter spikes too loud and the music feels like it’s vibrating straight through your ribs. Your chest tightens, vision blurring at the edges, and you tell yourself you just need space, air that isn’t full of smoke and voices and heat. You walk toward the darker stretch of sand, where the ocean sounds louder than the party. Your breathing slows. Your heartbeat settles. And then you see him. He’s alone on the far side of the firelight, half in shadow, half lit by the flickering orange glow. A cigarette hangs between his fingers, ember bright against the night. He lifts it to his lips, exhales a slow stream of smoke, and for a second it wraps around him like fog. You haven’t talked in months. Not since he started dating your best friend. Not since everything got complicated. But you’ve known him for years, long before he became the senior everyone watched and you were the quiet freshman trying not to stare too long. He feels you looking at him. When his eyes meet yours, your stomach drops. That familiar spark, that heat you never speak about, flashes between you. The same one you’ve tried to ignore.