?????? ???
??say my name and everything
just stops. i don't want you
like a best friend?
?? ????? they argue like it's a full-time job
and swear they're just friends but can't eve...
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❛❛ ─── chapter thirty PERFECT PEACE.❜❜
TO THROW SOMEONE TO THE WOLVES is to abandon someone to face danger or criticism alone, especially to save oneself.
The first period after lunch always carried the faint scent of microwaved kimchi stew and half-forgotten gossip. But today, for Ye Seul, the air was too thick to breathe.
She walked back toward the classroom with Young Chul trailing behind her, shoulders hunched, steps awkward and uncertain like he could feel the tension leaking off her body and didn't know how to hold it for her.
She didn't speak and didn't look back. She was just . . . existin but even before her foot crossed the threshold of the door, she heard their familiar voices.
Painfully familiar.
"Hi. Hello, my brothers," Hu Min's loud voice sang through the air, playful and grinning as he entered
Her stomach twisted. From the hallway, she could already see Si Eun and Jun Tae sitting together, heads bent over notebooks. Si Eun's pen moved with careful precision, and Jun Tae was kneeling beside him, copying notes in his usual frantic scrawl.
They were probably studying for some quiz she didn't know about. Everything moved on with or without her.
Then, as if on cue, Hu Min flung his arm over Si Eun's shoulders with a crooked grin. "Are you studying?" he asked, peeking at Si Eun's notebook like he had no plans of actually helping.
A voice followed immediately, familiar and sharper.
"You're bothering Si Eun again, you punk," Hyun Tak said as he entered behind him. His tone was scolding, brotherly. There was warmth and comfort in it, kind she once knew.
He slapped Hu Min's back, and Hu Min yelped, turning around to kick Hyun Tak in retaliation. But Hyun Tak didn't even flinch. "Stop bothering Si Eun while he's studying."
And then he pulled a chair to sit in front of Si Eun, leaning back casually, comfortable among them. Like nothing had happened and everything was normal.
Hu Min grinned again, gesturing to something on the page. "Okay, what's this? 2XL? Are you measuring sizes—"
His words stopped as all four of them fell quiet and Ye Seul knew why . . . because she had stepped inside. Their eyes, four pairs of them, found her like magnets.
She didn't even need to look to feel the heavy weight of their stares. Drenched in confusion, disappointment, and a pain they probably didn't even understand yet.
