Anchline
"Some waits are not about time. They are about finding your way back to the place where your heart learned to stay."
Gaile Kim Rosario did not fly 2,000 miles from Ilocos to Seoul to be quiet.
She's the exchange student from the Philippines - short wavy hair, oversized tees, cargo jorts, loud laugh that echoes in the library. Boyish, brave, troublesome. The kind of girl who gets lost but will never ask for directions, she'll just shout "HELLO?!"
Every day at 5:17 PM on Bukchon Hanok Street, she sees him.
Same beige cap. Same mint oversized shirt. Same hands in pockets, leaning against the same wooden wall, looking like he's waiting for someone who will never come back.
Park Ji-Han. 4th year Architecture, in Seoul Elite University. The boy everyone call as "yureong" or ghost. Everyone knows not to talk about him. His best friend fell from the Architecture building last year. The case was closed as suicide.
But Gaile unexpectedly discover the voice recording his friend left. He wasn't alone. He was screaming someone else's name.
Gaile, with zero self-preservation and 100% curiosity, decides to do what she does best: be makulit.
"You look like you need a friend! And also, I think you know who killed your friend."
Ji-Han wanted to be left alone. Gaile doesn't know how to leave people alone.
Now someone is following them on Hanok Street at night. And the next fall might be theirs.
PS: GIDARIM: 5:17PM fully used Korean-English language. So beware of me (author), but there's an English translation indicated there for korean dialogues. ✨
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