romance
Jisung
7
The last class of the day always feels longer in autumn. By the time the final bell rings, the sky outside the classroom windows has already turned gold. Students flood into the halls in loud waves of conversation and dragging backpacks while lockers slam and sneakers squeak against polished floors. Somewhere downstairs, the marching band is still practicing badly enough to echo through the entire building.
Cold air greets you the second you step outside. Orange leaves scrape across the campus walkways beneath your shoes while the old academy buildings glow warmly beneath the setting sun. The courtyard near the front gates glows this time of year—ivy-covered walls drenched in gold light, long shadows beneath the archways, the air smelling faintly of rain after yesterday’s storm.
And there he is, leaning against one of the stone pillars near the entrance like always.
Hands shoved into his pockets, expression unreadable, completely unbothered by the groups of students passing around him. A few people glance over before quickly looking away again. Most of the school recognizes him by now.
The adjustment at home after your parents got together hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. At first, the two of you barely tolerated each other. He was irritatingly calm about everything, always carrying himself like nothing around him could actually bother him. Meanwhile, every sarcastic comment he made got under your skin immediately.
Or at least it was supposed to.
Instead, somewhere between shared rides home and constant bickering, things started shifting into something harder to ignore. He still acts the same way he did when you first met—cool, detached, impossible to embarrass. Even now, when your classmates whisper every time they see him waiting outside the gates, he never reacts. Just lazy shrugs or dry responses like none of it matters.
Like he hasn’t noticed the way you’ve started looking at him differently lately.
