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The classroom is a mess. Students yelling, laughing, walking around. Paper balls flying in every direction. Girls touching up their makeup for no reason. Some classmates are asleep. The more dedicated ones try to study and take notes.
Meanwhile, Donghyun stares at his phone screen, a messaging app open, his fingers typing something he’ll never actually send.
He types and deletes some. Others he saves in drafts whenever he has to put his phone away before the teacher notices. He repeats this process at least five times a day, hoping one message will feel right enough for him to actually send to the person he likes.
But that never happens.
“Donghyun?”
He quickly locks his phone, flipping it face down on the scribbled desk, looking up at the owner of the voice that takes over his thoughts.
“Hey, Dongmin.”
Han Dongmin is unfairly attractive. He’s the only student who somehow makes the standard school uniform look cool. Great at sports and insanely popular with the girls—and honestly, with the guys too.
His dark eyes curve along with his full lips into a soft smile. He pulls a chair closer to Donghyun’s desk, and Donghyun holds his breath, trying to act normal.
The truth is, there is already something between them. Platonic, but still something. Donghyun has mutual friends with Dongmin, which leads to a few interactions here and there, and they’ve grown a little closer. Not anything big—they’re more than classmates but not quite friends, you know?
“Did you finish the assignment?”
“Yeah. I like this part of Biology.” He meets Dongmin’s eyes, a polite smile forming on his shaky lips. “Why?”
“I need help. Unlike you, I’m not a science genius.”
Donghyun mumbles a shy “thanks” and opens his notebook, flipping through recent notes, trying not to make eye contact because apparently that makes him extremely nervous now, judging by the way his fingers tremble slightly as he turns the pages. Just being aware that Dongmin is sitting next to him, paying attention, is enough to make him nervous.
Not to mention Dongmin’s cologne. It’s intoxicating. It does things to Donghyun’s mind, flipping it upside down and messing with his imagination.
“Here. The energy pyramid. Did you draw it?”
Dongmin shakes his head, looking at the neat, rounded handwriting in the notebook.
“Well, you’ll need to. It’s important to visualize it to learn… at least for me. You can develop your own study method. Basically, to understand the energy pyramid, you need to have notes on trophic levels.”
“Producers, consumers, and decomposers, right?”
“Exactly.”
“Got it. But you know what messes me up?” Donghyun looks at him, while Dongmin holds the notebook, studying it closely. “Primary and secondary consumers. I mixed them up on the test and totally bombed it.”
Donghyun smiles a little at the honesty, admiring Dongmin’s willingness to improve. Just one more thing to admire.
“I have detailed notes if you want. I used to get confused too, so I focused more on that part.”
“Nice. I’ll take a picture, okay?”
“Sure.”
Dongmin pulls his phone out, glancing around to make sure the next teacher isn’t in yet. He snaps photos of the three pages and hands the notebook back, smiling.
“Thanks, seriously.”
“No problem.”
Dongmin stands up, and Donghyun’s heart sinks just a little. He wants to keep the conversation going, talk about random stuff, crack a joke—but he can’t. He’s too shy and awkward for that. He knows he’ll trip over his words and embarrass himself if he tries. So all he does is watch Dongmin walk away, throwing him a wink that almost makes him pass out.
It’s hard seeing your crush every single day and still being so distant from them in so many ways.
Donghyun sighs, tired. He unlocks his phone again, staring at Dongmin’s contact, typing another message.
He deletes it right away and rewrites it, because “think” isn’t accurate—he’s sure.
He stares at the screen, his finger hovering over the send button, hesitant.
The sound of chairs scraping and voices quieting signals the teacher entering, so Donghyun quickly locks his phone again, knowing the message is saved in drafts—again, like so many others.
And like every other time, he tries to convince himself it’s better this way.
The school day ends, and with it, Donghyun’s sense of responsibility. He follows his usual route—three blocks, then turning the corner to the bus stop, earbuds playing some random song from his latest playlist while he chews watermelon gum to trick his stomach during the forty minutes he’ll spend squeezed between strangers.
His mind replays his interaction with Dongmin over and over. He lets himself analyze every detail he’s memorized. Brown eyes under sunlight. Black hair falling over his forehead. That confident smile of someone who knows the effect he has on others. A flutter fills his stomach—it’s been happening a lot lately. He can’t ignore the way his heart races every time Dongmin walks into the classroom.
Time passes with Donghyun lost in daydreams. Sometimes he thinks about the pasta he’ll make for lunch and how good it’ll feel to collapse onto his soft mattress after finishing his chores while his mom is at work. The first thing he does when he gets home is ask Alexa to play his current favorite song. After kicking off his shoes, hanging his keys, and tossing his backpack in the far corner of his room, Donghyun sits at his desk, pulling out a book and opening it to a page marked with a sticky note.
The page explains the exact topic Dongmin was struggling with. Wanting to make sure his friend does well on the next test, Donghyun takes a picture and opens the messaging app.
He rereads the short message more times than necessary, making sure the tone isn’t weird and there are no typos or anything that could embarrass him.
His finger hovers over the send button for a few seconds, his hands slightly sweaty…
But the sound of the message sending doesn’t come. The screen freezes. Donghyun sighs and taps again. Nothing. Is this a sign that he shouldn’t send anything at all?
Nervous, he locks and unlocks his phone, hoping it resets. The screen takes longer to turn on, but when the app opens, the sending sound goes off.
Not once. Not twice.
Again.
Donghyun feels his entire world collapse as his phone vibrates and he watches a flood of confessions being sent to Dongmin instead of just the one message about the assignment.
“No no no no no! No!” His fingers shake, his breath stuck in his throat as he does the obvious—tries to delete everything. But instead of hitting “delete for everyone,” he ends up deleting half the messages just for himself.
And as if it couldn’t get worse, the read receipts turn blue.
Dongmin has seen everything.
Now he has weeks’ worth of unsent messages—all of Donghyun’s thoughts laid bare. A complete disaster. Who even keeps all that saved in drafts?
Oh. Right. Donghyun.
Such a good kid… what a shame he got hit with this absolute disaster from the universe.
The next few minutes are agony. A tear slips down his face, embarrassment burning through him, anxiety taking over completely. He stays sitting there, his phone abandoned on the desk, hands covering his flushed face.
“Idiot. I’m such an idiot. How could I be so stupid? Of course something like this would happen.” His voice cracks. “It always does.”
Deleting the messages doesn’t help, but he does it anyway. He even blocks Dongmin, then rethinks it and unblocks him because that doesn’t make sense either.
Feeling heavy, Donghyun throws himself onto his bed, the thick blankets wrapping around him like comfort. He hides under them, eyes squeezed shut, trying to tell himself everything is fine—that stuff like this happens, that his life isn’t over.
But the embarrassment creeps back in with one persistent thought:
Dongmin knows.
He knows everything.
And it feels like the end of the world.
Nothing is going to be okay.
The day starts off on the wrong foot. His alarm doesn’t go off because Donghyun forgets to leave his phone on overnight—and yeah, it’s been off since the whole disaster—and now he’s racing against the clock. He takes a rushed shower, throws on mismatched socks, and runs to the bus stop with his shirt half-buttoned and an apple in hand.
He almost misses the bus, bumps into an older woman carrying grocery bags, drops his phone on the ground, and trips over his own feet as he walks through the school gates.
Chaos.
All that just to rush down the hallways, avoiding eye contact with anyone.
He gets to the classroom, walks between the rows of desks, sits down, and lowers his head, his breathing uneven and his heart pounding against his chest. He doesn’t look at anything but his own feet the entire way, afraid of meeting a very specific pair of eyes.
The one he’s sure will never look at him the same way again.
And that scares him just as much as it hurts. Because even if he and Dongmin weren’t close, there was still hope that with time, more interactions, they could grow closer—but now everything’s gone to hell because of one stupid mistake.
“Donghyun?”
The voice is familiar. Donghyun keeps his head down, exhaustion weighing on every part of his body.
“You okay?”
He feels someone sit in the chair next to him, but he doesn’t move. There’s no need to—and even if there were, he doubts he could. He doesn’t want to face reality. Not right now.
Finally, he lets out a tired sigh, and that’s enough for the other person to understand.
“I’m not doing great today, Jaehyun.”
His voice comes out muffled against his crossed arms.
“I figured. But… did something happen, or are you just not feeling well?”
Jaehyun is really attentive. He’s the first friend Donghyun makes in high school, and they’ve stayed close ever since. But he’s also friends with Dongmin, which makes everything harder right now. Donghyun would rather lie, stay quiet, wait for things to settle down and for him to find the courage to face his own mess. That takes time—and patience.
“I’m just not feeling great. It’ll pass.”
Donghyun hears his friend sigh and can practically picture him running a hand through his black hair that keeps falling into his brown eyes.
“Yeah… I hope so. If you wanna talk, I’ll be hanging out with Dongmin during lunch today…”
Just hearing his name makes Donghyun break into a cold sweat. His leg starts bouncing, and he has to focus not to lose his breath.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Just like that, Jaehyun walks away, giving him a light pat on the back. Donghyun stares down at his own feet under the desk.
It’s going to be a long day.
During the test, during lunch, during the breaks between classes, his mind keeps going in circles.
“I ruined everything.”
“He probably thinks I’m crazy.”
“What if he hates me now?”
Ah… teenage drama. Donghyun never thought he’d go through this, but here he is, spiraling because of the voices in his head.
All this time, he avoids looking around, but there’s one moment—just a second—that sends him hiding in the bathroom for ten minutes. His eyes meet Dongmin’s for the first time since yesterday’s disaster.
Just for a second.
But it’s enough for him to notice that Dongmin is already looking at him before he even looks back—and that alone makes his cheeks burn and his head spin.
Dongmin not saying anything, not approaching him… that says a lot, right?
Maybe the voices are right.
Or maybe not.
The final bell rings, and Donghyun is ready to get out of there as fast as possible—but the universe isn’t done messing with him yet.
The classroom is empty now. The only sound is the zipper of his backpack closing and a tired sigh slipping out.
Everything feels normal—until Donghyun steps through the door and finds Dongmin standing there, arms crossed, one foot against the wall, his backpack hanging off one shoulder, somehow looking even better than the day before.
That’s how it is—the less you can have something, the more you want it.
At first, Donghyun just looks away, not knowing what to do. His mind is setting off five different alarms at once, and even walking away feels difficult.
He tries anyway.
But Dongmin notices him.
“Donghyun!”
Donghyun squeezes his eyes shut and freezes in place. He doesn’t dare breathe, doesn’t dare turn around, doesn’t dare relax his shoulders. All he can do is press his lips together and grip his backpack strap.
“I… want to talk to you.”
Five words.
Five words are enough to make the ground disappear beneath Donghyun’s feet. He stays with his back to Dongmin, not knowing what to do or say. His throat is dry, his pulse racing.
“Please?”
He slowly turns around, head lowered, eyes shy. Through the strands of hair falling over his face, he looks at Dongmin—and instead of what he expected, he sees him looking… kind of shy too.
That makes him hesitate before looking away again.
“I…” His voice cracks. He clears his throat and tries again. “Okay.”
That’s all it takes for Dongmin to step closer.
“We can walk through the park, you know? I think we have a lot to talk about.”
That alone turns the entire walk into a kind of torture. Donghyun is painfully aware of Dongmin’s presence, of the way their arms brush every now and then. The sun is out, making his skin prickle under his uniform. His backpack feels heavier. His lungs don’t seem to expand properly. His thoughts are a mess.
Still, the cool breeze under the trees helps a little. He takes a deep breath and follows Dongmin to a wooden bench under the shade of a few branches.
Donghyun sits down, awkward and anxious.
This is it.
If there’s one conclusion he reaches, it’s this: better not to lie. He needs to be honest. Whatever happens, happens. Life goes on. As much as it hurts to get rejected, he’s ready for it.
Well… not really.
But he’ll accept it.
“So…” Dongmin starts, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Donghyun inhales sharply right away. “I’m guessing you didn’t mean to send those messages to me, right?”
“I… yeah. I didn’t. It was an accident.”
Dongmin nods slowly, biting his lower lip for a second. Donghyun’s eyes linger there a little longer than they should.
“Got it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” Donghyun exhales, restless, picking at his cuticles. “Look, I’m really sorry for sending all that. I mean, it wasn’t even really me—it was my phone. Well, I did press send, but I only meant to send a page from a book about the topic you were struggling with. My phone froze, glitched, and ended up sending all the draft messages too. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Dongmin just listens, focused, not looking away, which somehow makes Donghyun even more embarrassed—but he pushes through.
“So you actually wrote all that… you just never sent it?”
Donghyun nods, staring down at his hands, fingers intertwined.
He wanted to send them. He wanted his feelings to be returned. He wanted to be braver, less flawed—but he’s just human.
“Why didn’t you send them?” Dongmin’s voice is soft, curious in a genuine way, which surprises Donghyun.
He imagined so many reactions, so many versions of this conversation—but not this one.
“I… I guess I didn’t feel like I had the right. I don’t know. It’s not like we’re close, you know? We talk, I help you when you need it, but that’s it. Sometimes we sit at the same table at lunch, but we’ve never really been alone. We’ve never actually talked. It didn’t make sense.”
“It didn’t make sense?”
“Liking you. It just… happened. One day I realized I liked looking at you. I liked the way you laughed at Jaehyun’s jokes, and suddenly they were funny to me too. I liked how you treat everyone without showing off, unlike some other guys. I liked how you talk to me, without judging me or anything. Just naturally, not forcing anything just because we have mutual friends. That’s how it happened. I don’t even fully understand it myself, but the feeling is real, and I’ve been keeping it to myself for a while. I just didn’t think it made sense to say anything. I don’t have the courage for that.”
The silence that follows isn’t heavy like Donghyun expected. In fact, he’s pretty sure he can breathe again. The colors around him feel more vivid, and for the first time that day, he looks at Dongmin without immediately looking away—and finds him already looking back.
“You know… I think I want to say something too.” Dongmin takes a deep breath, gives a small smile, then looks away. His ears turn red, his dark hair falling over his eyes. “I reread everything. More than once. Before you deleted it, obviously.”
Donghyun blinks.
He reread them? Why? What for?
He realizes he doesn’t need to keep those questions to himself.
“Why?”
“Because I liked it. I thought it was kinda cute.”
Donghyun’s expression must have faltered, because Dongmin’s eyes widen immediately and he rushes to explain.
“Cute—in a good way. I just… it caught me off guard. I was gaming when my phone started vibrating. I thought it was my brother being annoying, but the number wasn’t saved. I only recognized it because of your profile picture.”
“Oh…”
“So yeah, I started reading. At first, the messages were more normal. ‘I think we should be friends’—I think so too. Then they started changing. ‘I wish I could spend more time with you,’ ‘I wish I knew what cologne you wear,’ ‘I want to ask you something…’ I wanted that too. I wanted to spend more time with you, wanted to know what cologne you wear, wanted to ask you a bunch of things. But I never did. Because I kept thinking it didn’t make sense. That maybe you wouldn’t want that, or you’d think it was weird, so I just let it go. I could’ve talked to Jaehyun, but you know how he is—never spills other people’s secrets and definitely not a matchmaker—so I would’ve had to act on my own, and honestly… I got shy.”
Donghyun is speechless. If he didn’t know what to think before, now he knows even less. He watches Dongmin with his gaze lowered, a small, shy smile resting on his pink lips. A sigh escapes him, and he brings a hand to his chest without thinking, feeling his heart racing.
“I don’t think you realize it, Donghyun, but you’re really handsome. I always forget what I’m supposed to say when you’re around. You kind of intimidate me. I can’t look at you right now because I know if I do, I won’t be able to focus on what I need to say.”
“What do you need to say?”
“I think I could like you, yeah—and I can do you that little favor.”
Donghyun blushes hard, mumbling into his palms as he covers his face.
Dongmin laughs—a beautiful laugh Donghyun will never forget—and this time it sounds even better, because he’s the reason for it.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. Seriously. I thought it was cute. You always sounded really sincere in your messages, and I like that. That’s one of the things I started to admire about you after I got to know you.”
“I… okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what do you think about going out with me tomorrow? It’s Saturday. We could do something and get to know each other better.”
“That sounds great.”
And it doesn’t even hurt! Sometimes bad things turn out to be good, and Donghyun never really believed that—until now. Until Dongmin smiles at him. Until Dongmin walks him home while they talk about everything and nothing. Until Dongmin says goodbye with a long hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, like the shy pretty boy he is.
Until Donghyun gets a message as soon as he steps into his room.
Long live broken phones, then.
And teenage love too, of course.