WRONG NUMBER | NIKI

14 - The Easiest Target

I tell myself Niki is wrong exactly twelve times on the walk home.

The first time, I almost believe it. The second arrives with less conviction. By the fifth, the certainty has already begun slipping through my fingers like water I can't seem to hold no matter how tightly I close my hand around it. By the twelfth, the sentence has transformed into something else entirely, not a belief, but a prayer. 

Because people misunderstand conversations all the time. Locker rooms are loud. Boys exaggerate. Jokes grow uglier every time they're repeated. Maybe someone had taken Jungwon's words out of context. Maybe Niki had heard only half the conversation. Maybe he disliked Jungwon for reasons that had nothing to do with me. 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. The word follows me all the way home, collecting itself inside the quiet corners of my mind until certainty becomes almost impossible to distinguish from hope.

Besides, I don't know Niki well enough to trust him over someone whose kindness I've witnessed with my own eyes. Jungwon never knew anyone was watching when he stood in front of the library window to block the sunlight from reaching my face. He hadn't looked around first to make sure there was an audience. He hadn't expected gratitude when he'd quietly placed bread beside my notebook because I'd skipped lunch again. He'd listened when I spoke, remembered things I'd mentioned only once, smiled at me with the hesitant warmth of someone who always seemed afraid of saying the wrong thing. 

None of those moments felt manufactured. None of them resembled a performance carefully rehearsed for someone else's entertainment. And if kindness can be faked so perfectly that it becomes indistinguishable from sincerity... then what exactly is the difference anymore? As long as Jungwon hasn't looked me in the eyes and admitted any of it himself, I refuse to let someone else's version of him become louder than my own.

Even so, something has shifted. It's small enough that nobody else would notice. A tiny crack hidden beneath layers of carefully polished glass. The kind you only discover when the light reaches it at exactly the right angle. 

Every time I remember Jungwon's voice asking whether I'd walk around the festival with him tomorrow, another memory slips quietly beside it. Lee Hana would probably be the easiest target. I hate that the sentence exists now. I hate that my mind keeps placing it beside every gentle thing he's ever done until both memories begin stealing color from each other. 

By the time I step through the front door, exhaustion has settled somewhere behind my eyes. Mother calls my name from the kitchen before I've even finished removing my shoes. The smell of dinner drifts through the house, warm and familiar, accompanied by the quiet clatter of plates being arranged on the dining table. Under any other circumstances, I would've gone to help her automatically. Today, I stand perfectly still for a second longer than necessary, gripping the strap of my school bag with fingers that suddenly feel strangely heavy.

"Hana?" She calls again. "Dinner's almost ready."

"I have to study," I answer, already making my way toward the staircase before anyone can ask another question. My voice sounds polite. Too polite. The kind of careful politeness people use with strangers rather than family. "We have exams next week." Nobody stops me. 

I close my bedroom door with unusual care, set my bag on the floor, and immediately begin unpacking textbooks onto my desk with the same mechanical precision I've relied on my entire life whenever my thoughts become too loud. Mathematics first. Literature beneath it. Chemistry on the left. Pens arranged by color. Highlighters aligned neatly against the edge of the desk until everything resembles control again, even if only from a distance.

Studying has always been the safest version of silence I know. Numbers don't ask impossible questions. Historical dates don't smile kindly before breaking your heart. Chemical equations don't leave you wondering whether every interaction you've replayed a hundred times meant something completely different to the person standing across from you. They simply exist, unchanged no matter how uncertain everything else becomes.