The Worst Day (1)
"Um, Lee Yujeong... I, I like you."
Seo Jinhyuk held out the letter.
At the exact moment his trembling hands extended the envelope, a group of students stepped into the classroom. The bustling laughter and chatter vanished into thin air, choked off in an instant. Jinhyuk's arm remained frozen in place, jutting forward into the empty space between them. No hand reached out to take it.
In the suffocating silence, someone snickered.
Only then did Jinhyuk realize his fingertips were shaking violently.
...Wait. This isn't how it was supposed to go.
Before that fateful day, at Saetbyeol High School.
With roughly twenty minutes left of the lunch period, Seo Jinhyuk was already sitting alone in the Class 1-3 classroom.
Scratch, scratch.
The quiet friction of graphite scraping against paper echoed softly. He was drawing on the very last page of his notebook. His actual sketchbook was tucked safely inside his backpack, but he never took it out.
The moment he pulled that out, he would become "an artist" in everyone's eyes—a label he wasn't ready to bear. Doodling in the back of a regular notebook kept it casual, even if the passion he poured into each stroke was anything but.
Beyond the window stretched the dirt athletic field, bordered by a handful of bare trees whose leaves had yet to fully bud in the early spring chill. Jinhyuk was sketching the leftmost tree among them. He had already erased and redrawn the angle where the main branch split several times, never quite satisfied with the curve.
Brushing away the gray rubber shavings with the side of his hand, he layered down another stroke. This one finally seemed right. Just then, sharp voices drifted over from the back of the room.
"Look, he's drawing alone again."
"Doesn't he do that every single day?"
"Isn't it kind of creepy? Just sitting there by himself like that."
"Hey, keep it down. He's gonna hear you."
"Who gives a shit if he hears, you dumb bitch?"
A chorus of snide giggles followed. Jinhyuk's drawing pencil froze mid-stroke.
Of course he could hear them. The distance between his desk and the clique of loudmouthed girls was barely a few paces. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he told himself, Just ignore it.
He forced his hand to lay down another line. But the angle that had looked fine just moments ago suddenly appeared warped and unsightly. He erased it. He drew it again. It looked wrong once more.
...Why can't I get it right?
Deep down, Jinhyuk knew it wasn't his hand that was shaking—it was his vision, clouded by humiliation and anxiety. In times like this, it was better to just close the book. He raised his hand to fold the notebook shut.
"Hey."
A low, composed voice cut across the classroom like a blade. The mocking snickers in the back snapped shut instantly.
"You guys, quiet down."
"Huh? Oh... no, we were just..."
That was all it took. She offered no further explanation, nor did she raise her temper. She had merely stated a fact, yet the entire back row fell utterly silent.
Jinhyuk remained frozen, his hand still resting flat against the open notebook. Feminine yet strikingly calm, there was no need to look to know who possessed that voice.
...Lee Yujeong.
His classmate, and a girl whose face was renowned throughout the entire school. Very slowly, Jinhyuk turned his head just a fraction, trying his best not to make it obvious.
Lee Yujeong was looking straight at him.
Their eyes met.
Gasp!
Jinhyuk whipped his head back toward the front so fast his neck ached with a dull throb. His heart began pounding against his ribs like a sledgehammer.
We made eye contact... Had she been watching me this whole time?
His gaze fell back onto the sketched tree on his desk. Even amidst the chaos in his chest, the angle of the branch still bothered him. But none of that mattered right now. Heat flooded his cheeks, surging all the way to the tips of his burning ears.
Of all people...
The prettiest girl in the entire school. No, calling her pretty didn't begin to do her justice. Only after entering high school had Jinhyuk learned that a person could exist who transformed the very atmosphere of a room just by standing in it.
The bell signaling the end of lunch rang shortly after. Jinhyuk shoved his notebook into the desk shelf and stood up, unable to look behind him until the very end.
"You're late, you know."
"Sorry."
In front of the school gate, Jang Yuna of Class 1-7 stood with her arms tightly crossed. Even as she watched Jinhyuk jog up out of breath, she refused to relax her posture.
"Took you long enough today."
"The closing class assembly dragged on a bit."
"You always say that."
Yuna let out a theatrical sigh. Though they attended the same high school, they were in different classes—Jinhyuk in Class 3 and Yuna in Class 7. With their classrooms situated on different floors and opposite ends of the building, they hardly ever bumped into each other during school hours.
As a result, the walk home was the only time they spent together. Having walked the same route since elementary school, it had become second nature to wait for each other without ever needing to make plans.
"Let's go."
"Yeah."
The two of them walked past the gates side by side. The road home was always a comfort. But just as Jinhyuk reached up to adjust his backpack strap, a figure caught his eye ahead. His gaze locked with hers.
"Oh."
It was Lee Yujeong.
"...Hi," Jinhyuk greeted first, his voice coming out far softer and more hesitant than he intended.
"Yeah."
Yujeong gave a curt nod and brushed past without stopping. That was all. Her footsteps didn't falter, and her expression remained impassive. A subtle, fleeting scent—whether perfume or shampoo, he couldn't tell—drifted past his nose before dispersing into the afternoon breeze.
It took several paces before Jinhyuk finally managed to look straight ahead again. Beside him, he could feel a piercing glare boring into his cheek.
"What was that?"
"Huh?"
"Since when were you on speaking terms with Lee Yujeong?" Yuna tilted her head, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"What? Oh, no, it's not like that."
"You guys just said hi."
"W-Well, we're in the same class, so we just greeted each other. It doesn't mean we're close or anything."
"Really?"
"Really."
Jinhyuk waved his hands in frantic denial, but realizing he was overreacting, he quickly dropped them back to his sides. Yuna scrutinized his fidgeting fingers with a critical eye.
"That's weird. Word is she always walks alone."
"Is that so?"
"People say she just ignores anyone who tries to say hello."
"Haha..." Jinhyuk forced an awkward laugh, unsure how to respond, and kept his eyes fixed firmly forward.
"Still, it's really fascinating," he murmured after a pause.
"What is?"
"Lee Yujeong." Jinhyuk's voice softened as he spoke. "She feels like she belongs in a completely different world."
Yuna said nothing.
"I mean, she's ridiculously pretty, isn't she?"
With model-like height paired with a face no bigger than a fist, a crisp, high nose bridge, and wide, alluring eyes, Lee Yujeong seemed almost unreal to him—a solitary, ethereal figure carved out of a dream.
Watching the boy beside her flush with embarrassingly obvious awe, Yuna remained silent. Lost in his own reverie, Jinhyuk didn't notice her expression at all, his mind already drifting back to a memory from earlier that spring.
Was it back in March?
It was right around the start of the school year. Just like today, Jinhyuk had been doodling on the back pages of his notebook when the dismissal bell caught him off guard, prompting him to hurriedly stuff his books into his bag. He had rushed too carelessly.
Flutter.
A single loose sheet slipped off the desk. Folding gently in midair, it fluttered down onto the linoleum floor. As Jinhyuk scrambled to bend down, another hand picked it up first.
It was Lee Yujeong.
Holding the sheet delicately between her fingers, she stared down at the drawing. It was a pencil sketch of the sky seen through the classroom window, rendered entirely in shades of graphite without any color. Jinhyuk's outstretched hand froze in the air. He knew he had to ask for it back, but his throat seized up completely.
"Did you draw this?"
"...Y-Yeah."
"You're good."
Her praise was neither overly impressed nor raised in volume—just a simple, even statement.
"Are you preparing for art school?"
"N-No. It's just... I was just bored."
"Is that so?"
Yujeong turned the paper over to glance at the blank back before holding it out to him.
"Here."
"...Thanks."
Jinhyuk took the paper from her fingers. Without another word, Yujeong turned and walked back to her seat. It was over in a matter of seconds. Those few sentences were the only words she had spoken to him that day, and they had never shared a conversation like that since. Yet, even now, Jinhyuk still kept that single sheet of paper tucked safely away.
"Well, this is where we split."
"Yeah."
Brought out of his pleasant daydream, Jinhyuk found they had already reached the familiar crossroads. Jinhyuk's house lay to the left; Yuna's to the right.
"See you tomorrow."
Jinhyuk looked down at her as he spoke. He was quite tall, even for a teenage boy. Yuna, on the other hand, was rather petite, leaving a noticeable height difference between them whenever they stood side by side. Back in their childhood days, they had been roughly the same height, but puberty during middle school had drastically widened the gap.
"See ya," Yuna waved lightly.
Jinhyuk turned on his heel and strode down his path. Yuna stayed right where she was, watching his retreating back for a long, quiet moment.
...So Jinhyuk turned out to be a total face fan too, huh?
It wasn't particularly surprising. She had seen countless boys wear that exact same dazed, enchanted look whenever Lee Yujeong's name came up. Even so...
I just didn't think you'd be one of them.
Adjusting her backpack strap, Yuna turned around and started the lonely walk home.
A few days went by.
Jinhyuk lay sprawled across his bed, flipping through reference materials for an evaluation project due the next day.
Chime.
His smartphone screen lit up with a crisp notification tone. Without much thought, Jinhyuk tapped the display to wake it up.
His finger froze instantly.
"...Huh?"
Resting on the notification banner was a name that left him entirely bewildered: Lee Yujeong.
Two unread messages sat waiting in the chat queue.
...Why?
At the beginning of the semester, classmates had shared their messenger IDs so they could reach out if needed. But because Saetbyeol High School sent out all official notices through a dedicated mobile app, there was no separate class-wide group chat. Consequently, there had never been any reason for him and Lee Yujeong to exchange private messages.
His heart began hammering erratically once more. Holding his breath, Jinhyuk tapped open the chat window.
Jinhyuk read those two short sentences, read them again, and read them once more.
It had happened days ago. It was a fleeting encounter that Jinhyuk himself had replayed in his mind countless times. But this meant she had remembered it too. Not only had she remembered it, but days later, she had gone through the trouble of looking up his profile just to message him.
Staring blankly at the glowing screen, Jinhyuk remained motionless for a long time, his trembling fingertips unable to bring themselves to press a single key.