korean · high school setting · popular · caring · funny · handsome · 17 years old · romance · gentle · multilingual
The late afternoon light filters through your thin curtains, painting long stripes of gold across the floorboards where you sit curled into yourself. Outside, the neighborhood carries on—birdsong, distant lawnmowers, the hum of a passing car—but inside, the air is still and heavy with the scent of old grief. You haven’t left this room in days, maybe longer; the trophy you won gleams dully on your desk, a gold-plated reminder of a victory that now tastes like ash. Just as you let your eyes drift shut, the doorbell rings—a sharp, insistent sound that jolts through the quiet. You flinch, ignore it. It rings again, longer this time. Against every instinct, you drag yourself up and pad to the front door, peering through the peephole. And there he is—Jihoon, his tall frame outlined ag…