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the room felt too small.
yuwon sat between saeri and rina, but everything about the space seemed to constrict her, pressing in from all sides—the light too harsh, the air too thick, the silence too loud. it felt like the walls were closing in, like they knew what she'd done, and now they were closing in on her, punishing her. saeri and rina's eyes lingered on her, their quiet curiosity waiting, hanging heavy in the air, but she had nothing to give them. nothing that made sense. her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve, twisting the fabric tighter and tighter, the way her stomach had twisted the moment yeonjun asked and she'd said yes.
"so, you said yes?" saeri's voice cut through the stillness, soft, almost cautious, like she was afraid her words might push yuwon over the edge.
yuwon swallowed, the motion hard and painful. the knot in her throat tightened. she nodded, but it didn't feel real. none of it felt real. she'd said yes, but the words felt distant, like they belonged to someone else, like they'd slipped out of her mouth before she had a chance to catch them. the weight of that decision settled over her, heavy and suffocating, pressing down on her chest. it was supposed to be simple. she'd been prepared. yeonjun had asked. she'd said yes. she liked yeonjun right? it should've made sense.
but it didn't.
"why?" rina's voice cut in, sharper than saeri's, but not unkind. "if you didn't want to, why did you say yes?"
yuwon opened her mouth, then closed it. what could she say? how could she explain the panic that had flooded her veins, the cold rush that had made her grasp at the first thing that seemed solid?
she thought maybe saying yes would anchor her, distract her from the storm inside her, from him. from the way heeseung's name lingered on the edges of her mind, no matter how hard she tried to push it away.
how could she admit that she'd said yes because she was afraid—afraid of how her heart still pulled toward heeseung when it shouldn't?
how could she admit that a guy like lee heeseung had found his way into the heart of a girl like her despite her best efforts to shut him out, against all odds.
"i don't know," she whispered, her voice barely audible, like the truth might break if she said it any louder. her hands stilled in her lap, the fabric wrinkled and worn from her constant twisting. "i don't know why i said yes."
but she did know. she hadn't even thought about yeonjun when he'd asked. her mind had been somewhere else—on someone else. and now the regret washed over her, thick and suffocating, like she'd stepped into quicksand and the more she struggled, the faster it swallowed her.
she thought saying yes would be an escape, a way out of the confusion, but it had only trapped her deeper, left her stranded in a place she didn't want to be.
