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riki leaned against the cold, concrete wall of the school hallway, his eyes narrowing as they tracked every move moonbyul made. she was laughing—really laughing—at something sunoo had said. it had been like that for days now. ever since they argued and stopped speaking, byul had been spending every free moment of her day with sunoo. riki absolutely hated it.
their complicated situation had affected her, of course, that was undeniable. but it seemed like sunoo could easily get her mind off things. her usual composed demeanor breaks into a radiant smile that made riki's chest tighten painfully. he mentally curses himself, because deep down he knew that he was at fault, that he deserved what had happened, but moonbyul— she did not deserve any of it. so he understood if she wanted to forget him even for just a moment, yet it hurt — and a lot.
he'd seen her smile before, but this was different. this wasn't just a casual smile; this was the kind of smile that reached her eyes, making them crinkle at the corners. he recalls how he used to make her laugh like that as well. it had been barely a week, but each day they didn't speak felt like a war declaration, hours passed agonizingly slow, and it wasn't a battle he was keen on fighting.
his fingers curled into a tight fist at his side as he watched sunoo lean closer to her, their shoulders brushing as they shared some private joke. riki knew sunoo genuinely cared about moonbyul—but that made it worse. the way sunoo acted, so carefree and playful, was setting off alarm bells in riki's mind. did he really think it was okay to be that close to her?
a sour feeling gnawed at riki's insides, something sharp and ugly that he was now used to. jealousy. it clawed at his composure, making him want to grab sunoo and shove him away from moonbyul, to remind him that she was off-limits. but of course, he couldn't. she wasn't his and they were never really together—not in the way everyone thought.
he felt his jaw tighten as sunoo reached out to tuck a stray strand of moonbyul's black hair away from her face.
I'm going to bury him alive.
the thought was irrational, of course. but in that moment, it didn't feel like an exaggeration. it felt like a very real, very present possibility. sunoo was crossing a line, whether he realized it or not, and riki's patience was fraying faster than he could patch it up.
his hand twitched at his side, the urge to march over and pull moonbyul as far away from sunoo as he could growing stronger by the second. but something held him back. pride, maybe. or the fear of showing too much, of letting moonbyul see just how deeply this was affecting him. he couldn't afford to show weakness, not now, not when everything was already so fragile between them.
riki's eyes bore into sunoo, who was now grinning as he showed Moonbyul something on his phone. She leaned in closer, and Riki felt something snap inside of him.
