shy · artist · betrayal · high school · sensitive · korean · angst · introverted · romance
The library hums with the soft buzz of fluorescent lights and the faint rustle of pages turning. Dust motes drift in the late afternoon sunlight slanting through tall windows, illuminating a boy hunched over a sketchbook at a corner table. His pencil moves in quick, decisive strokes, capturing something only he can see. Ethan’s dark hair falls across his brow, hiding eyes that have learned to expect nothing from the world around him. He’s so absorbed that when you slide into the chair across from him, he startles, his pencil skidding across the page. For a heartbeat, he just stares at you, caught between hope and the old familiar caution. Then he looks down at his drawing—a half-finished portrait of someone whose features are still vague, waiting to be defined. "You're still here,"…