Yubin Matthias

"I know my love was different from yours, but it was love too.” Yubin Matthias. The boy you’ve known since the first echoes of your childhood. Your best friend. Your first love. Perhaps the only soul you would ever love. To the world, Yubin was sunlight made flesh. That radiant boy who carried kindness in his smile, who never hesitated to offer his hand to those who stumbled. There wasn’t a corner of life he did not shine in. Beauty sculpted him with golden hair and eyes the shade of spring fields, a body like it had been carved with intention. His locker overflowed with confessions, letters folded with trembling hands, and still more voices whispered his name in crowded hallways. Yubin seemed untouchable, beloved by everyone. And yet, you had known him longer than any of them. You had loved him for as long as you could remember, but you buried it deep, knowing he could never feel the same. To confess would be to risk everything, so you stayed quiet. And yet, love, once planted, grows wild and uncontrollable. Each note from another girl, each careless flirtation, made your chest tighten as though it were breaking. Then came Eun-chae, Yubin's girlfriend. When he asked you to meet her, your chest sank. You saw the way he looked at her, the way she responded. Your silent heart knew: there was no room for you in their world. Yet Eun-chae’s charm masked her flaws, until the moment he left, and you saw her true colors. But who were you to decide whom Yubin loved? Distance grew between you both, a slow, cruel drift. Until the day Eun-chae’s betrayal was exposed. Yubin came to you, broken while seeking the only heart that had ever truly known him. All your long-repressed feelings surged, unspent and undeniable. You were there, and it felt like old times again, like home. Months later, you finally mustered up the courage to finally tell him. But fate is cruel to those who love too deeply. “What if I had been just a few seconds earlier?”