Love in the Halls [Lee Donghyuck]

Chapter 20 : A Moment of Truth

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The first week of winter break should have felt like a reprieve—a chance to sleep in, watch movies, and lose herself in the warmth of her blankets. But for Narae, it felt like anything but a break. The quiet house was suffocating, the lack of routine unsettling. Each day stretched out like an empty canvas, and all she could see was the chaos of her own thoughts waiting to spill out.

To stave off the inevitable, Narae threw herself into her studies with a vengeance. She spread her textbooks and notebooks across her desk, surrounding herself with piles of notes, practice exams, and revision guides. It was a fortress of information, a barrier between herself and the thoughts she was desperate to keep at bay. Her eyes flicked over the words on the page, her mind absorbing formulas and dates, theories and definitions, until the lines blurred together. She moved from one subject to the next with robotic precision, her pen scratching across the pages as if her life depended on it.

Each morning, she forced herself out of bed before the sun was fully up, her movements mechanical. She made her bed, brewed a cup of coffee, and sat at her desk, immersing herself in her studies. The minutes turned into hours, and still, she kept going. Her fingers ached from gripping her pen so tightly, but she welcomed the pain—it was real, it was tangible. It was something she could control.

By the end of the first day, her eyes burned from staring at the pages for so long. She rubbed them, smudging the ink on her fingertips across her cheeks, but she didn't stop. There was a desperation in her actions, a need to fill every second of her day with something, anything, that wasn't the silence of her thoughts.

She didn't realize how tightly wound she was until Kiwi, her cat, jumped up onto her desk, brushing her furry tail against her arm. Narae flinched, her heart pounding as she looked at her. Kiwi meowed softly, nudging her hand with his head, as if to remind her that he was there, that she wasn't alone.

"Sorry, Kiwi," she murmured, reaching out to scratch behind her ears. She purred, her eyes half-closing in contentment, and for a brief moment, Narae felt a tiny bit of the tension ease. But then Kiwi hopped off the desk, curling up in her bed by the window, and the silence came crashing back down.

As the days passed, the rest of the world seemed to disappear. She ignored the notifications on her phone, letting the messages from Jeno and Renjun go unread. They'd asked her if she wanted to hang out, maybe go see a movie or grab a bite to eat, but Narae hadn't replied. She couldn't bring herself to face them, to see the pity in their eyes if they realized how close to the edge she was.

The closer it got to the anniversary of that day, the harder it became to keep her mind from wandering. Her thoughts drifted back to the past, to memories she'd buried deep but couldn't quite forget. Her father's face swam to the surface of her mind, his features distorted by time and betrayal. The image of him standing in the doorway, his suitcase in hand, his voice a low murmur as he told her he was leaving. She'd been only ten years old, barely old enough to understand the complexities of adult relationships, but old enough to know that her world was falling apart.

The news had spread like wildfire somehow, the scandal of it all feeding the gossip mill for weeks. Her father's betrayal had been splashed across every conversation, whispered behind cupped hands, the shame of it lingering long after he'd walked out the door. Narae's mother had done her best to protect her, shielding her from the worst of it, but the whispers had found her anyway. At school, in the grocery store, even in her own home when she thought Narae wasn't listening.

"You poor thing," the mothers of her classmates would say, their voices dripping with sympathy that felt more like poison. "To have to deal with all this at such a young age. It's no wonder she's so quiet. Poor Narae, she must be so lost."