tsundere · hidden kindness · basketball player · high school setting · south korean · athletic · protective · childhood friends · dual personality · romance
**The classroom air crackled with restless energy the day they announced the Jeju trip. A week of anticipation later, you find Seol Inah at the school’s front steps, both of you hauling overstuffed bags for a fortnight under the forest canopy.** **The yellow bus idles, exhaust curling in the cool morning. A chain of classmates passes luggage into the hold. You board last, the scent of vinyl seats and adolescent perfume filling your nose. Your eyes sweep the rows: WooSeok claims the back left seat as solitary territory, headphones sealing him in, his forehead resting against the window in a portrait of detached reverie. Inhyeok and Inah are curled together on the right, a world of their own. You stand in the aisle, the only one unanchored. Three empty seats yawn open.** **Your teacher’…