Lee Han-jae's POV
The moment I stepped into the classroom, I could feel it.
The quiet shift in the air. The weight of unfamiliar eyes.
It wasn't the first time I transferred schools. I'd gotten used to this—people looking but never really seeing. My name was barely called before the teacher waved toward the only empty seat in the room.
Back row, by the window.
Perfect.
I liked to watch. Not because I was nervous—but because silence always told me more than words ever could.
I made my way down the aisle, letting the curious stares slide off me like water. A few girls whispered. Someone laughed nervously. But my eyes were already searching—
And then I saw him.
He was sitting by the far wall, second seat from the front.
Quiet. Head slightly tilted, his hair falling just enough to shadow his eyes. He wasn't looking at me like the others. In fact, he didn't look at me at all.
Kim Beom-soo.
The name reached me before anyone said it out loud. I didn't know how—I just knew.
He was too still. Like a mirror with nothing to reflect.
I found that interesting.
I dropped into my seat without a word and stared out the window, pretending not to care. But my peripheral vision was sharp.
---
It wasn't just the silence around him.
It was the way he seemed to fold into it—like the silence belonged to him, not the other way around.
Kim Beom-soo.
I asked someone for his name later, casually. Pretended it was for a group assignment. No one questioned me. They never do.
I watched him through the glass of the library window that week, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the far shelf, reading a book he wasn't really flipping through. I saw his fingers clench when the girl beside him leaned in too close. I saw the way he turned the pages slower when he was alone.
I didn't approach him. Not yet.
Because watching him was better.
Safer.
He was calm in a way that didn't feel natural. Like he had learned how to disappear even when surrounded by people. His two friends—Ahn Do-won and Kang Tae-min—were loud. Familiar with him. One too studious. The other too smug.
Especially Kang Tae-min.
He was always touching Beom-soo.
An arm around his shoulder. A hand tugging his sleeve.
Laughing at things Beom-soo didn't even smile at.
Possessive.
I didn't like that.
But Beom-soo didn't seem to notice—or care.
He let him.
That pissed me off more than it should've.
On Thursday, I passed by their classroom after lunch, earlier than I usually did. I heard Tae-min's voice before I saw him.
> "You always act like you don't care, Beom."
"Because I don't," Beom-soo replied, quietly.
I paused outside the door.
> "You liked that new transfer, didn't you? You looked at him."
Silence.
And then—
> "What if I did?"
My hand tightened around my bag strap.
He had looked at me.
I knew it.
I stepped away from the doorway before they could notice me. The hall was quiet, empty, echoing.
So he had noticed me.
He just pretended not to.
---
The next day, I took the empty seat beside him in the library without asking. He didn't look up.
"I'm Lee Han-jae," I said.
"I know," he answered.
His voice was low. Like smoke in a room that hadn't aired out yet.
I waited for more. He didn't give me any.
He didn't ask why I was sitting there. Didn't ask what I wanted.
And that's when I knew something about him was different.
He wasn't trying to impress me. He wasn't interested in gossip or charm or image.
He was waiting to see what I'd do next.
And something about that made my pulse quicken.
---
I left the library that afternoon with one truth buzzing in the back of my mind:
Kim Beom-soo wasn't afraid of me.
But he should be.
Because I was already beginning to want him.
And I don't let go of the things I want.
A week passed.
He didn't speak to me again.
Not in the library. Not in the hallway. Not even when our elbows brushed during that lab project the teacher forced us into together.
But I noticed things.
He always came to school fifteen minutes early and sat at his desk with his earphones in, staring at the blackboard like it owed him answers.
He never looked in the mirror when he passed one.
He liked black ink pens but only carried red ones, maybe because someone once told him they were unlucky.
He hated when people touched the back of his neck. I saw his whole body go stiff when Kang Tae-min flicked his collar playfully during gym.
He didn't flinch at anything else.
Not the gossip, not the girls whispering about how "pretty" he looked, not the rumors that spread like moss — about me, about him, about the fact we kept ending up in the same rooms.
He didn't smile at me.
He didn't smile at all.
But he looked.
When he thought I wasn't paying attention.
When I was talking to someone else.
When I leaned back in my seat and tapped my pen against the edge of his desk without speaking.
I could feel his eyes crawl across my profile like a question he hadn't dared ask yet.
That made it worse.
That made it addictive.
---
One day, during lunch, I caught him in the stairwell. He was sitting alone on the last step, head tilted back against the concrete, eyes half-closed like he wanted to disappear for a while.
He didn't move when he saw me.
"Skipping again?" I asked, leaning against the railing.
"I like the quiet," he replied. "Don't you?"
I didn't answer. Just walked down slowly until I was two steps above him. He didn't look up. His eyes were on the window. It had started to rain.
"I heard Kang Tae-min punched a guy last week," I said casually. "Said he was looking at you too long."
Beom-soo's lips twitched, but not into a smile.
"It's none of your business."
"But it bothers you," I said.
He looked up at me then. Finally.
His eyes weren't soft. They were sharp in the quietest way.
"And what about you, Han-jae?" he asked. "Do I bother you?"
I stared at him. Let the silence drag between us.
"You don't have to," I said, voice low. "I do enough bothering for both of us."
His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
For a second, just a second, I thought he might say something dangerous. Something real. Something like "Then stop" or "Don't."
But he didn't.
He stood and brushed past me with the same careful distance he always kept.
Still, I turned and followed his back with my eyes until he was gone.
He didn't smile at me.
But he heard me.
And that was enough. For now.