|| Philophobia || Baek Kyung

Chapter - 24 Echoes that shouldn't exist

The first time Dan-oh saw Haru again, it was like looking at a ghost that had been scrubbed clean of its soul. He stood by the classroom window, sunlight smudging across his features, uniform crisp, smile polite. The air around him used to hum — like the static before rain — now it was just... quiet.

"Hey," she said, forcing her voice to sound normal, teasing. "You disappeared for a while, Mr. Mysterious."

He blinked, slow. "Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry... do we—do we know each other?"

Dan-oh's heart cracked in the softest way. Like a hairline fracture that pretends to be fine until you breathe too hard. "Of course," she said lightly, the laugh catching in her throat. "We sat next to each other last semester. You, uh... used to draw on your desk when you got bored."

"Oh, that was me?" He smiled sheepishly, the blank eyes never once changing too much. "Guess I haven't changed much then."

Except he had. Everything in him had changed — the way his eyes didn't linger on her anymore, the way his hands didn't fidget when she laughed, the way he didn't seem to know she was the reason he'd once stayed behind after school, pretending to look for his pen just to walk her home.

Now he just existed in the same space — parallel, close enough to touch, but worlds apart. It broke her heart, he was so close yet so far away, but she was still determined to close the distance. Oh she definitely will.

Across the field, Baek-kyung watched them from under the bleachers. His jaw tightened, fingers tapping against the bench like a drumbeat he was trying to drown out.

"You're gonna break your fingers, dude," Do-hwa said, plopping beside him with a carton of chocolate milk.

Baek-kyung didn't answer. His eyes were glued to Haru — the way he stood with that new distance, like a stranger in his own story. All the author's doing.

"Can't believe he's back," Do-hwa continued, quieter now. "But... he's not him, you know?"

Baek-kyung exhaled, then mumbled with a sigh "Maybe that's better."

Do-hwa raised an eyebrow. "You don't mean that."

"Yeah, I do." He turned away. "If he can forget, he won't have to hurt."

Do-hwa's expression softened. "But what about Dan-oh?"

Baek-kyung's throat tightened. What about her? She was trying so hard to stay bright — laughing too loudly, smiling too easily, cracking jokes as if the cracks in her heart weren't spreading. And the worst part? Baek-kyung wanted to hate Haru for leaving. But how do you hate someone who doesn't even remember what they did?

Later that evening, Dan-oh found herself sitting by the old garden bench, the one Haru once fixed after she tripped on it and called it "the clumsiest bench alive." She hugged her knees, staring at the fading chalk hearts doodled on the wall.

"Still sitting in the cold like a weirdo," Baek-kyung's voice cut through the silence like a sharp knife

She looked up, smiling weakly. "Didn't know you cared."

"I don't," he said, but handed her his hoodie anyway.

Dan-oh slipped it on, burying her hands in the sleeves. "He doesn't remember, kyung."

"I know."

"He looked at me like—like I was just another face in the hallway." Her voice cracked. "Do you know how that feels?"