?????? ???
??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 four LOVE IS A FOUR LEGGED WORD. ❞
TO HANG BY A THREAD is to survive by a slim margin, holding on to life, to hope, to sanity, by the thinnest possible thread.
The world was too loud.
Hyun Tak didn't remember how long he'd been running. His legs had stopped aching miles ago, replaced by a burn in his lungs that he couldn't feel past the pounding in his chest. It started with a single missed call.
Just one. But it was from her.
And that was enough to tear his entire world inside out.
By the time he called back, it rang once. Twice. Three times. Then straight to voicemail.
Silence had never sounded so loud.
He cursed loudly and angrily more times than he could count. But cursing did nothing neither did circling Ye Seul's neighborhood four times in a row, shouting her name into the empty night like a lunatic.
Panic wasn't a strong enough word. It was dread. Gut-deep, marrow-shaking dread.
What if he was too late?
The thought spun on a loop in his mind, clinging to the edge of reason like it had claws.
What if he'd arrive and she wasn't breathing anymore?
What if, what if, what if-
The streetlights stretched in long, useless lines across the asphalt as he tore through every street around her neighborhood.
The world blurred past as his pulse was hammering, breath coming out in ragged bursts that barely kept him from screaming.
"Pick up," he muttered, again and again, even as he knew she wouldn't. "Please pick up."
She didn't. And with each unanswered call, the spiral tightened. The idea of her dead clawed into his chest, ripped into his ribs, made breathing feel like choking.
He remembered the look on her face earlier today. She had been distant. Pale. She didn't meet his eyes. She didn't meet anyone's eyes. And he let her walk away.
He let her walk away alone.
There, by the edge of the park, the same damn park where she once laughed at his sandcastle skills when they were seven is where Ye Seul lay curled into the grass, her limbs limp, her figure too still, too small.
Like she was made of paper. Crumpled and forgotten.
Hyun Tak ran before he could think as if her breath was the thread holding his together. As if finding her alive meant he didn't have to fall apart.
