✔︎𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 || 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐉𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧

7. 'You're Staring'

It's been two months since school started, and maybe, just maybe, I've managed to convince myself that it wasn't such a bad place after all. At least I wasn't alone, not as I thought I would be. Every single day, I found a safe place in Jisung's embrace. He walked me to school, had lunch with me, talked to me about anything, and I had to admit, spending time with that annoying boy was kind of nice.

He introduced me to his two friends as well: Felix and Seungmin. Felix was cheerful and sweet, maybe even more energetic than Jisung. He always treated me kindly, and when he realized I had trouble making friends, he went out of his way to include me in every activity or conversation. Seungmin, on the other hand, was a bit more reserved than the other two, but incredibly polite, and probably the smartest boy I've ever met.

Believe it or not, I even managed to make a friend on my own. Her name was Jieun. We shared art, math, and history class. We never hung out outside of school, but she was cool, I guess.

To be honest, the only person I hung out with was Jisung, but not because I wanted to at first. It was him who insisted on showing me his favorite spots or dragging me around the city. After a few weeks, though, I started saying yes whenever he asked me out.

I still didn't understand why Jisung had decided to befriend me in the first place. I was just an ordinary person; there was nothing special about me compared to anyone else in that school. Maybe it was my art that caught his attention, but I was sure he would eventually realize how boring I was and leave. But here we were, two months later, and day by day, he seemed to grow more attached to me. It didn't bother me—I just couldn't figure out why.

He probably just pitied me.

"You're staring."

Jisung snapped out of his thoughts as a deep voice to his right broke the silence. His eyes met Felix's, who was smirking at him with a devilish grin. Jisung felt his cheeks redden as soon as he realized he'd been caught staring, but he still tried to play it cool.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, looking back at his notebook and pretending to write down what the teacher was saying.

"Oh, come on. I saw you staring at her," Felix whispered, careful not to be overheard by the English teacher. "You were staring at Y/n."

Jisung felt a wave of embarrassment as he quickly glanced at me, sitting a few desks ahead. He had been staring, though he couldn't quite explain why. Maybe he found the dark waves of my hair interesting, or the way the grey fabric of the school uniform draped across my back, or how I bit my pen—perhaps from nerves. But there was no way he'd admit that to Felix.

"I wasn't staring at her. I just zoned out for a moment," Jisung replied quickly, trying to shake off the growing embarrassment that was irritating him.

Jisung didn't know why, but the idea of his friend knowing he was specifically staring at me unsettled him.

Felix chuckled. "Should I believe you? You've been zoning out in her direction a lot lately." He leaned back in his chair, still smirking at Jisung's discomfort.

"Well, yeah. English class is pretty boring."

Felix laughed louder this time, glancing at the ceiling. Meanwhile, Jisung sneaked another look at me, watching as my pen glided across the page, noting down the teacher's words. He observed how I occasionally looked up, meeting her eyes and nodding at her explanations, how I drank from my water bottle, careful not to lose focus, and how I tucked my hair behind my ear, though it always seemed to fall back into place.

And just like that, without even realizing it, Jisung was staring again, completely absorbed by every small move I made. He couldn't explain why he got lost in the sight of me, studying me like he'd never seen me before, like I was the most captivating thing in the room. But someone else knew why better than he did.