Chapter Text
Autumn had settled over campus like a quiet sigh. Cold air slipping between buildings, leaves crunching under passing footsteps, the sky fading into that soft bruise-colored evening.
Jisung pushed his backpack higher on his shoulder. The wind tugged at his hair, cool and careless, but he didn’t seem bothered. Earbuds in. Coffee in hand. That easy smile he wore like a second skin—bright enough to warm the people he passed. He laughed with strangers. Bantered with friends. Greeted everyone as if the world was one big inside joke.
People adored him.
And he let them.
He knew how to be adored.
He had always gotten along with people effortlessly—born with a kind of charm you couldn’t quite explain, the kind that made disliking him nearly impossible.
A few meters ahead, someone caught his attention. Sitting on the library steps like he’d been placed there for dramatic effect: Leather jacket hanging off one shoulder, one knee up, cigarette between two lazy fingers. Black hair falling messily across a face that looked too composed for someone that young. Expression empty, but not hollow—guarded. Like he was somewhere else entirely, and the world wasn’t invited.
Lee Minho.
Jisung knew the name, of course he did. Everyone did.
Beautiful in a way that felt untouchable. The president of the dance club, the kind of striking young man impossible to overlook. But very few could say they truly knew him. A storm with a spine. A closed door with no key. A little dangerous. Maybe?
Jisung’s eyes lingered for a second too long. And Minho noticed. He looked up. Just a tilt of the head—slow, precise—like a predator acknowledging it’s been seen. Their eyes met.
And time stuttered.
The noise of campus fell away, replaced with a dull, underwater hush.
Something in Jisung’s chest tightened, like someone had pulled a string too hard. Jisung felt like two cats who’d suddenly locked eyes—are we supposed to claw each other now?
He smiled. Automatically. A reflex crafted from years of being “the friendly one.” Minho didn’t smile back. Didn’t even pretend. He just watched him for a breath, then took a long drag from his cigarette and looked away— as if the moment hadn’t mattered at all.
Maybe it hadn’t. For him.
Great. No catfight today.
But something in Jisung shifted. A prick of curiosity. A quiet ache. Because in that one-second collision of gazes, he had seen it— loneliness. Not the sad, poetic kind. The heavy, self-built kind. The kind that lives behind ribcages like a locked animal. And it startled him.
“Jisungie! Move your ass!” Changbin’s shout snapped him out of it.
Jisung blinked, laughed, waved at his friends… but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing back.
Minho was still watching him.
Not casually. Not by coincidence. Watching him like he was trying to figure out a puzzle piece that didn’t belong in the box. A darker curiosity. A quieter question. Jisung’s skin warmed. His throat tightened. He forced himself forward, steps a little too quick.
Behind him, Minho lifted the cigarette again, smoke curling around his lips.
A whisper to no one: “Relax. I’m not letting anyone in.” But his eyes stayed on Jisung until the boy disappeared completely.
*
Jeongin pinched Jisung’s arm.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jisung snapped, startled.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. I’m trying to reboot your brain,” Jeongin teased.
Chan’s voice followed, softer but worried.
“Seriously, are you alright? Nothing happened?”
“I just didn’t sleep. Please—stop hovering.”
Chan decided not to push him further.
“Well, today’s the club showcase. The booth is basically done—we just need a few things from the room.”
Right. The club showcase.
The four of them were in the Music Production Club—Chan the president, Jisung the vice president.
Music was probably the only place where Jisung ever let his emotions show honestly.
“Alright, let’s go!” Jisung chirped, wearing a happiness he didn’t feel.
But Minho’s eyes were still burning somewhere in the back of his mind.
*
The campus square was overflowing with students, their voices weaving into a hum that filled the air. New faces drifted through the chaos, getting swept from booth to booth, each club trying to catch a piece of their attention.
Jisung walked among them with a stack of flyers, smiling like it came effortlessly.
“Hi! Interested in the Music Production Club?”
“No? That’s totally fine! Have a lovely day!”
People gravitated to him.
It was like he had a quiet magnetism, a pull he wasn’t even aware of. Even students who had no interest in music stopped just to talk to him for a few seconds.
Meanwhile, someone moved along the edge of the crowd.
Lee Minho.
Leather jacket, gym bag over one shoulder, hair smoothed back like he’d actually bothered today. He was heading toward the Dance Club booth. He was the president—he had to be there. But his face made it look like he’d been dragged.
Jisung turned at that moment and saw him.
A single heartbeat.
Barely a moment.
But his eyes still caught on Minho like a hook.
Here again… Maybe fate was being unnecessarily persistent today.
Jisung adjusted the flyers in his hands— and someone slammed into him from behind. The flyers burst into the air, scattering like startled birds.
“Oh—no no no—!”
He crouched, scrambling to gather them.
Someone stopped beside him. Then crouched too. Minho. Silent. Sharp. Like a shadow that moved with intention. He picked up a few flyers. When Jisung lifted his head—
Minho’s face was right there, so close he could smell the faint mix of smoke and cologne.
Jisung smiled on instinct.
“Thanks… really.”
Minho handed him the flyers. Their fingers brushed—cold. Like touching winter through skin.
“It’s nothing,” Minho said, voice flat and precise.
Jisung tried to keep the conversation light.
“You’re from the dance club, right?” Why are you talking? Let him leave, idiot.
Minho raised an eyebrow.
“I am.”
“Cool. I’m from the music production club. Maybe we could—”
Minho cut him off.
His eyes sharpened, slicing straight through Jisung’s sentence.
“You didn’t even apologize for dropping your flyers.”
Jisung blinked. What? Why would he? Someone else bumped into him.
“I mean… I thanked you for helping.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” Minho said, shrugging.
“Maybe you should just be more careful.”
Jisung stared, baffled.
What is this guy talking about?
“So you’re saying… I’m careless?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No mercy.
For a split second Jisung froze. Then he swallowed.
“…Okay.”
The conversation felt strangely invasive. He suddenly wanted to be anywhere else.
Minho stood.
Then added, with the same coldness:
“Smiling doesn’t fix everything.”
The words slipped straight into Jisung’s chest— sharp, precise, like a needle pricking through a mask.
Because Minho was right. Jisung always smiled, even when something inside him twisted. It was his shield. His armor. His disguise.
And Minho had seen through it instantly.
As Minho walked away, Jisung watched him. His smile faded slowly. A faint, fragile ache took its place.
Why did he see that?
Why did he talk like he already knew me?
Before disappearing into the crowd, Minho turned once more. He saw Jisung’s expression. And for the first time regret flickered in his eyes. Brief. Barely there.
He hid it immediately.
“I don’t want anything to do with him,” he muttered to himself.
But he couldn’t shake the mix of guilt and something darker—the unsettling pride of being the one who wiped that smile away.
He hated masks.
If you’re hurting, show it.
If you’re upset, don’t pretend. Pretending felt like a lie.
He had his own walls, his own way of surviving but it’s different. Maybe Minho had lived in the dark and cold for so long that Jisung’s summer-bright light didn’t warm him, it burned.
Minho pushed the thought aside and took his place at the Dance Club booth.