Work Text:
Rain always found its way to the university café. It clung to the windows like it didn’t want to leave, tracing thin rivers of silver down the glass.
Yoona sat by the corner table, laptop open, fingers hovering over an unfinished essay. The cursor blinked at her like it was waiting for something she couldn’t quite say.
Jinsol arrived late — as always, hair damp from the drizzle, sketch tube slung over her shoulder. She set her coffee down with a soft thud, grinning.
“You’d think a literature major would’ve written me a poem by now,” she teased, pulling out her drafting pen.
Yoona didn’t look up. “You’d think an architecture student would understand timing,” she replied, though there was a smile hiding behind her tone.
They worked in silence after that. The hum of the rain filled the small spaces between their breaths. Occasionally, Jinsol would glance up, catching how Yoona mouthed her sentences before typing them, as if she wanted every word to sound right before it appeared on screen.
“Do you ever get tired of overthinking?” Jinsol asked, eyes still on her sketch.
“Do you ever get tired of pretending you don’t?” Yoona shot back.
Jinsol looked up, and for a second, neither of them said anything. The air between them felt delicate — like one wrong word could make it crumble.
She smiled, wide and real. “Touché.”
Yoona aughed quietly, the kind of laugh that didn’t echo but stayed close, like a secret.
Outside, the rain softened to a drizzle. She closed her laptop, packing slowly, like she wasn’t quite ready to go.
“I should head back,” she murmured.
Jinsol nodded, tracing the edge of her sketch book with her pen. “Same time tomorrow?”
She hesitated, glancing back at Jinsol. The café light caught the curve of her smile steady, patient, waiting.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Same time.”
The bell above the café door chimed as she left, the sound small against the rhythm of the rain.
Jinsol looked at her empty seat, then at the cooling cup of coffee between them.
She drew the outline of a girl by the window — her gaze turned outward, her story unfinished.
And somewhere between pencil lines and paragraphs, the space between them lingered quiet, warm, and waiting.