Chapter Text
Choi Kyung’s POV:
Jaeyi doesn’t wait for anyone.
She walks into classrooms and the conversations stop. She speaks, and people listen—even the teachers, even the principal when she’s in the mood to be persuasive. She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to. Power, when worn correctly, is quieter than people think.
So when she stood frozen in the hallway one Tuesday afternoon, holding a bottle of strawberry milk like it was a peace offering, I knew something was off.
Then I saw who she was looking at.
Woo Seulgi.
Transfer student. Country Bumpkin. The one Jaeyi chose to sit next to, the one who never smiled unless she thought no one was looking. I’d seen her crush three practice tests in a row, her knuckles white and her eyes sunken from sleepless nights. She didn’t talk much. Didn’t need to. She was climbing the ranks with nothing but grit and silence.
And somehow, that made her more dangerous than the rest of us.
But not to Jaeyi.
To Jaeyi, she was something else entirely.
“You haven’t eaten,” Jaeyi said, like it was a complaint and a plea in one.
“It’s okay. I have water. You can give that to someone else.” Seulgi replied quietly. Walking away from Jaeyi like she didn’t just reject her.
No one dared to reject Jaeyi, but Seulgi did. And she didn’t just do it once—she declined, rejected, sometimes outright ignored her. And Jaeyi—who once made a third-year apologize on her knees for borrowing her book without asking— smiled like a kicked puppy and tried harder the next day.
It made no sense.
Jaeyi, the tigress who ruled us all, was learning how to purr.
Yoo Jaeyi doesn’t wait.
Not for teachers, not for lunch lines, not for apologies. She speaks and the air changes. People move. They bend. They obey.
So when I saw her standing—no, hovering—outside our classroom’s stairwell for the second time that week, clutching a bottle of strawberry milk, I felt something twist in my chest.
It was her again.
Woo Seulgi.
Some of the girls whisper that she used to be bullied at her last school. Some say she was weird, others that she was too smart for her own good. I don’t know what’s true. But here at Chaehwa, no one touches her—not because they like her, but because they don’t know what to do with her.
Except Jaeyi.
Jaeyi, who usually lets people come to her.
Jaeyi, who has never followed anyone down a hallway, much less waited by the stairs for a girl who barely even looks her in the eye.
I stood far enough not to be noticed, but close enough to hear the edge of her voice.
“Seulgi-yah,” she said, offering the drink like it meant something. “Will you accept it this time?”
Seulgi looked at it like it was a trap.
“Why do you keep doing this?”
Her voice was soft, brittle. Not annoyed— scared.
“Because I want to,” Jaeyi replied, just as soft. Almost… careful.
Yoo Jaeyi. Careful. That alone should’ve made the sky fall.
“You shouldn’t,” Seulgi muttered. “The others—”
“Let them.”
I didn’t understand it. None of us did.
I’ve seen Jaeyi cut people off for being slightly annoying . I’ve seen her turn cold because someone had the audacity to wear the same perfume. She doesn’t try for people. She doesn’t chase. She commands.
And yet here she was, day after day, chasing after a girl who flinches when spoken to. Bringing her snacks, offering to share notes, even once— once —laughing nervously when Seulgi brushed her hand away.
She didn’t get mad. She just came back the next day.
I don’t think Seulgi knows what kind of fire she’s playing with. Or maybe she does, and that’s why she keeps her distance. Maybe she’s the only one in this school brave enough to say no to the queen of Chaehwa.
And maybe that’s exactly why Jaeyi keeps choosing her.
Lunch is usually Jaeyi’s stage.
She sits in the center of the table like she owns the whole cafeteria—which, socially, she kind of does. Yeri’s on her left, I’m on her right. The rest of the table fills up with whoever’s in her good graces that week. There’s always laughter, compliments, and that quiet sense of tension that everyone’s trying to impress her without making it obvious.
Except today, Jaeyi’s barely touched her food.
She’s twisting the cap off her water bottle like it wronged her, her eyes flicking across the room every few seconds. Over my shoulder. Past Yeri’s hair. Toward the door.
“You looking for the principal or the press?” I ask, voice light but eyes sharp.
Jaeyi doesn’t even blink. “Seulgi.”
Yeri lets out a soft, surprised laugh. “Again?”
I stare at her. Not subtly.
“Why?” I say, and I don’t mean it to sound so flat, but it comes out that way.
Jaeyi shrugs like it’s not a big deal, like her entire body isn’t leaning toward the possibility of Seulgi walking in.
“She skipped breakfast,” she says.
“You don’t even know where she lives,” I say before I can stop myself.
Jaeyi finally looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “I do, actually.”
Yeri chokes on her juice. I blink.
“How?”
“From her files,” she says like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “It’s not hard.”
“You stalked her?” Yeri half-whispers, half-laughs.
“I looked out for her,” Jaeyi says, and there’s something cool and final in her voice that shuts us both up.
I watch her lean back in her seat, still scanning the cafeteria like she’s waiting for someone who might not come. I’ve seen girls beg for her attention and get turned away with a smile. I’ve seen her crush a rumor with a single word. But now she looks like she’s holding her breath for someone who won’t even meet her halfway.
And I don’t understand it.
I don’t understand her.
“You’ve never waited on anyone,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
Jaeyi just hums, low and amused. “Maybe I never had to.”
…
Jaeyi’s still pretending to listen to Yeri talk about her latest nail art when it happens.
A flicker of movement by the cafeteria doors. Someone slipping in quietly, head bowed, sleeves tugged over their fingers like armor. Woo Seulgi.
And just like that, Jaeyi’s entire demeanor shifts.
She doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even move—but I feel it. The tension in her shoulders disappears. Her eyes soften. Her lips curve into the barest smile, like something inside her just… melted.
It’s so quiet, so subtle, that if I weren’t watching her as closely as I always do, I might’ve missed it.
But I’m Choi Kyung.
I miss nothing.
“Found her?” I murmur, taking a slow bite of my rice.
Jaeyi doesn’t answer, but her gaze never wavers. Seulgi’s scanning the room for an empty seat, clearly not expecting anyone to offer. She doesn’t even glance in our direction.
Jaeyi, on the other hand, looks like she’s seconds away from getting up and dragging her over.
I nudge her leg under the table. “You’re staring. Not very subtle, Your Highness.”
She finally blinks, then leans back, her smile slipping into something wry. “She won’t look this way anyway.”
“And that bothers you?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Just twists the cap on her water bottle again. Then, in a rare moment of honesty, she says quietly:
“It’s new.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Being ignored?”
“Wanting to be seen.”
That silences me.
Yoo Jaeyi, who’s always been the sun everyone revolves around, is now chasing someone who won’t even stand in her orbit. And not out of pride, or game, or strategy—but something else. Something soft.
I glance back at Seulgi. She’s sitting alone in the corner, hunched over her tray, quietly picking at her food like she’s afraid someone might steal it.
I look at Jaeyi again. Still watching her. Still glowing.
“She’s not like the others,” I say finally.
Jaeyi exhales, a quiet laugh. “I know.”
“And you’re really going to be patient with her?”
“I am being patient.”
“That’s what scares me.”
She smiles at that, a real one this time. The kind I’ve only ever seen her wear in debate wins or rare off-guard moments when we’re watching dramas in her room.
“She’s worth the wait,” she says simply.
Then she moves without a word.
Just quietly picks up her tray, stands, and starts walking toward the far end of the cafeteria.
The motion sets off a ripple.
The rest of the table looks up, confused. One girl—Minseo, I think—starts gathering her things to follow, eyes wide like a duckling trailing its mother. Another follows suit. A third one murmurs, “Where’s she going?”
I put my chopsticks down with a sigh and glance at Yeri. She’s already side-eyeing them.
“Stay put,” I say.
“But—”
“She’s not going to be happy if you all flock after her like lost puppies,” Yeri adds, her voice light but sharp.
They hesitate. I give them a flat look. Slowly, reluctantly, they sit back down.
“Good girls,” I mutter under my breath.
My gaze follows Jaeyi as she makes her way to the lonely table in the corner. Seulgi’s still hunched over her tray, a juice box in one hand. She looks up just as Jaeyi stops in front of her, and I watch her whole body tense.
And then Jaeyi does something none of us expected.
She doesn’t just sit.
She asks.
Not with words, from this distance I can’t hear them—but her posture says everything. She tilts her head slightly. Her lips move in a quiet question. And then she waits, standing there like she’s not the most magnetic presence in the entire room.
Seulgi blinks, looks down at her tray, then up at her again. She looks like she’s weighing the consequences of a nuclear decision.
And then, after a few agonizing seconds, she nods.
Jaeyi smiles—not that smirk she gives teachers or that half-lazy grin she uses when she’s charming the crowd. It’s small, almost shy. She sets her tray down gently, like she’s afraid even the noise might scare Seulgi off.
I stare, and then a laugh escapes me. Just one, dry and incredulous.
“She’s really trying,” I mutter.
Yeri leans closer. “You think she’s serious?”
“I think she’s in trouble ,” I say with a smirk.
Because Jaeyi—the tigress of Chaehwa—is sitting there like a kitten, folding herself smaller just to be near a girl who doesn’t even smile back.
And knowing her?
She’s going to keep doing it until she earns that smile.
⸻
The whispers started the moment Jaeyi sat down.
By the time lunch was over, they had evolved into full-blown rumors.
Yoo Jaeyi— our Jaeyi, the Queen of Chaehwa, school president, top-ranked, top-feared, top-everything—left her throne at the center table to eat lunch with a girl who had never once spoken more than two words in class unless called.
Woo Seulgi. The quiet orphan with her oversized uniform and thick textbooks. Always hunched, always small, like she didn’t want to be seen.
Well. She was being seen now.
“Do you think she’s tutoring Jaeyi?” someone asked near the lockers.
“Maybe she has dirt on her?” another girl whispered in the bathroom.
“Is she her charity case?”
That one made me roll my eyes.
What none of them understood—what they couldn’t understand—was that this wasn’t Jaeyi being nice. This wasn’t strategy or boredom or pity.
This was real.
And real Jaeyi? She didn’t let people sit beside her. She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t smile like that. And she certainly didn’t let rumors slide.
So when some girls tried to corner Seulgi after class one day, asking if she thought she was better than everyone else now, I expected the fallout before they even opened their mouths.
They were smart enough not to touch her. Just words, petty jabs, circling like sharks around a bleeding seal.
I caught wind of it through Yeri, who heard it from a junior who overheard them near the stairwell.
And less than a day later, those same girls were suddenly… quiet.
One had her phone confiscated for a week after being “randomly” caught spreading photos of students online. Another was reassigned from her club position. The last just stopped showing up to lunch altogether.
Seulgi never knew.
Jaeyi made sure of it.
She cleaned up the mess with her usual precision—like wiping away dust from a glass case. Neat, quiet, effective.
“She didn’t even raise her voice,” Yeri said, awed, as we walked to the library one afternoon.
“She didn’t have to,” I replied.
That’s the thing about Jaeyi. She doesn’t need a stage. She doesn’t need an audience. When it comes to Seulgi, all that calculated sharpness turns into quiet ferocity. A kind of silent guardianship.
And Seulgi, poor thing, probably thinks Jaeyi just likes eating lunch with her.
She doesn’t see the way Jaeyi shifts her chair slightly forward, a subtle buffer between her and the rest of the world.
She doesn’t see the way Jaeyi notices her flinching when someone walks too close—and gently changes seats with her the next day so her back is to the wall.
She doesn’t know.
And Jaeyi won’t tell her.
Because love— real love, if that’s what this is—isn’t loud. It’s not confessions on rooftops or locker notes or school-wide announcements.
Sometimes, love is just watching from a distance.
And making sure the world stays kind to the girl who never asked for kindness.
Weeks later, I don’t mean to spy. Honestly.
I was just passing by the front gate, the evening wind already biting through my coat, when I spotted a familiar silhouette.
Jaeyi, arms crossed, standing with her back against the wall like she’s casually killing time. But I can tell she’s cold. Her shoulders are tight, her hands tucked under her arms—not the smooth, effortless posture she usually wears like armor.
She didn’t bring her coat again. Typical.
Five minutes later, Seulgi walks out.
Her eyes widen when she sees Jaeyi. “You’re still here?”
Jaeyi shrugs, casual as ever. “Wasn’t doing anything. Thought I’d walk with you.”
I rolled my eyes fondly. That girl could lie to an entire faculty panel without blinking, but around Seulgi? She was useless.
It’s funny, I don’t think Seulgi realizes that Jaeyi’s been doing “nothing” for the past twenty minutes.
But I see it. All of it.
The patience. The effort. The silent, invisible crown she’s slowly laying down, one moment at a time.
For a girl who never asked for her throne.
And I think—for the first time—I’m starting to understand.
Yoo Jaeyi doesn’t love loudly.
But when she loves, she loves like it’s war.
And she intends to win.
I almost laugh.
“Nothing,” I echo under my breath, amused. “Sure.”
Seulgi doesn’t question it, just shifts her bag onto her shoulder. They fall into step, slowly, like they do this every day. Like it’s routine.
I catch up just enough to still be out of their immediate conversation but close enough to witness what happens next.
Suddenly, Seulgi pauses in front of her, hesitant for a moment, and then her gaze dropped to Jaeyi’s hands. Tucked under her arms. Her fingers must’ve been freezing.
“You’re cold,” Seulgi said, brow furrowed.
“I’m fine,” Jaeyi replied, too fast.
I swear, if she tried to act nonchalant any harder, she might dislocate a shoulder.
Seulgi blinked at her. Then—slowly—reached into her coat and pulled out a small hand warmer. Yellow. Cat-shaped. Probably scented with something sweet.
Definitely hers.
“Here,” she offered quietly, holding it out.
Jaeyi blinks, as if caught off guard. “Use it yourself, Seulgi-yah.”
Seulgi tilts her head and gives her a look. “Come on, your fingers might fall off.”
And then it happens.
She smiles.
Not polite. Not restrained. Not hesitant. Just… warm.
It’s small, but it completely transforms her. Her eyes soften, and one dimple appears in her right cheek.
Jaeyi freezes.
I watch her carefully take the hand warmer, their fingers brushing for barely half a second—and that is enough to undo her.
Her whole face softens, like the tension leaks out of her bones.
I’ve never seen her like this. Her shoulders dropped. Her eyes softened. That guarded tension she always carried, even around Yeri and I, dissolved completely.
I’d seen her win arguments against adults twice her age. I’d seen her shut down entire rooms with one look.
But now, she looked like a girl seeing the sun for the first time.
“You’re shivering,” Seulgi says simply.
“You noticed?” Jaeyi murmurs.
Seulgi nods. “You always forget your coat at home.”
That stuns me.
Always ? Since when?
Jaeyi glances down, the corners of her mouth twitching like she’s trying not to smile too wide. “That obvious, huh?”
“To me, yeah.”
To me.
I slow down, letting their voices fade a bit as they keep walking ahead.
They’ve spent more time together than any of us realized. Behind the scenes, away from the cafeteria and the classrooms and the gossip.
We all saw Jaeyi falling—loudly, unmistakably, in her own strange way.
But Seulgi?
She’s been loving her quietly.
And I see it now.
In the way she looked at Jaeyi just now—like she was safe. Like she was known.
She’s let down her guard with her. The walls are still there, but for Jaeyi, there’s a door now. Maybe even a key.
And Yoo Jaeyi, our proud tigress, walks through it as gently as she can.
I watch them turn the corner, their steps in sync, the silence between them easy.
I shake my head, quietly amused.
“Not doing anything,” I mutter again, grinning. “Right.”
They think they’re being subtle. But even quiet things have echoes.
And what they have? It’s loud as hell.
The school festival had long wrapped up.
Stalls were packed, booths folded, banners torn down by wind and time. Only a few students were still around, helping with the cleanup or sneaking in a few last photos under the twinkling lights.
Yeri and I had taken the long route back to the lockers, mostly to escape the noise and crowd. We weren’t expecting to pass by the old back garden behind the music building—but we did.
That’s when we saw them.
Yoo Jaeyi and Woo Seulgi.
Standing there like the whole school didn’t exist.
Like it had always just been the two of them.
Seulgi’s head was tilted slightly back, laughing—laughing. Not just a quiet chuckle, not that polite smile she gave teachers or classmates who didn’t look her in the eye. But full, unguarded laughter. Her dimple was out, soft and deep, and her eyes crinkled in that way you only ever see in drama confessions and dreams.
And Jaeyi was—good god—giggling. A little breathless, leaning forward, hair falling from behind her ear and being tucked back with clumsy fingers. She looked—blissful. And absolutely gone.
“They’re both gone,” Yeri whispered, slack-jawed beside me.
“Completely,” I murmured.
They were close—closer than usual. The air around them felt warmer, golden even under the fading fairy lights strung above. You’d think they'd planned the whole thing just for this scene.
Seulgi reached out first, brushing a nonexistent thread off Jaeyi’s shoulder. Her hand lingered. Jaeyi didn’t even pretend to mind.
Then Seulgi leaned in.
Just a little.
Just enough.
A soft kiss to the cheek. Barely there. Gentle.
But Jaeyi might as well have been struck by lightning.
Her eyes widened. Then softened. Then she smiled so big and so bright, she looked younger. Happier. Like she could float.
“Did she just—?” Yeri breathed.
“Yup,” I said, watching Jaeyi’s hand flutter awkwardly toward her face before she caught herself and tried—tried—to play it cool.
She failed, miserably.
Her whole body gave her away.
Like she just won every game she ever played, every crown ever offered. But more than that: like she was seen, and loved, and chosen.
Seulgi was about to turn away, probably thinking it was over.
But then Jaeyi reached out—grabbed her wrist, tugged gently.
“Hey,” she whispered, too soft for anyone but Seulgi to hear.
Seulgi turned back, and the look on her face—God.
Not shy. Not hesitant. Just open.
Like this was who she really was.
All this time, we thought Seulgi was reserved, closed off. A lone wolf.
But here she was. Smiling like sunshine. Her fingers playing with the hem of Jaeyi’s sleeve. Laughing like she belonged to someone.
“I feel like we shouldn’t be seeing this,” Yeri mumbled, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” I agreed. But I didn’t look away.
Because this wasn’t some dramatic moment.
It wasn’t even a confession.
It was after all of that.
It was comfort. It was quiet understanding.
It was love that had already been decided, with nothing left to prove.
Jaeyi walked Seulgi to the back gate, their fingers brushing, pinkies grazing.
And as they said goodbye, laughing again at some private joke, I realized—
Jaeyi will be alright.
Because Seulgi sees her, truly sees her—and lets her be seen.
And in turn, Jaeyi lets Seulgi be loud. Be silly. Be loved.
And maybe, just maybe… that’s the kind of love everyone should be so lucky to find.
…
“Turns out, even the fiercest of queens will purr—if you’re the one she’s willing to rest beside.”
~ Choi Kyung