chapter 2

The melody from Ji-won’s phone fades, but it doesn’t leave the room.

It lingers.

Like something unfinished. Something alive.

He looks at me, and I see it again—that quiet sorrow under his smile. Not the kind that demands attention, but the kind that waits for someone to notice it.

I set my brush down, heart still thrumming from the way his music fit so perfectly into the silence I’ve always lived in.

“That was beautiful,” I say.

“It was messy,” he replies, rubbing the back of his neck. “Unfinished.”

“Like most beautiful things,” I whisper.

He looks surprised. Then… relieved.

It’s strange. For two people who’ve barely spoken before today, it feels like we’ve always known how to talk to each other—just not with words.

“You know,” he says after a moment, “when I first saw you, it wasn’t in the courtyard or at lunch.”

I blink. “Then… where?”

“In the library. Second floor. You were sketching the spines of the books instead of reading them.”

My cheeks flush. I remember that day. I was sketching how the dust settled on old literature like memories no one had touched in years.

“I didn’t think anyone noticed,” I say.

He shrugs. “You were the only one in the room who looked like she belonged there.”

I look down at my hands, stained with paint and color, suddenly aware of how exposed I feel—and how warm it is to be seen.

Ji-won walks over to my painting again. “Do you have a name for this?”

“Not yet.”

He points to the girl with her arms open. “What if you called it Skybound?”

The name fits. Like a final brushstroke. Like the whisper of wings.

“I like it,” I tell him.

He leans against the windowsill. “Can I show you something else?”

I nod.

He opens his backpack and pulls out a thick black notebook. “I usually don’t let anyone see this.”

He hands it to me, and I open it slowly.

Lyrics.

Page after page, written in messy ink. Some are crossed out. Others are circled or rewritten. There are tiny drawings in the margins—stars, broken pianos, a lonely boy standing under an umbrella in the rain.

“I write when I can’t sleep,” he says. “When my thoughts won’t shut up.”

My throat tightens.

“Do you… feel alone?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is barely a whisper.

“Not right now.”

I don’t say anything, but I reach over and place my paper crane next to his on the windowsill.

Two fragile wishes, side by side.

The sun catches the edges of the cranes, casting soft shadows on the desk between us.

Then I speak before I can stop myself.

“My grandmother used to say that paper cranes carry pieces of our souls.”

He turns to look at me.

“I fold them when I’m scared,” I confess. “When I want something I don’t think I’m allowed to want.”

“What do you want now?” he asks.

I hesitate. Not because I don’t know. But because I do.

“I want… to stop hiding.”

Ji-won steps closer. Not enough to crowd me. Just enough that I can feel the steady rhythm of his presence.

“Then don’t,” he says. “You don’t have to.”

Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them back. I’ve cried alone before. But this—this isn’t the same. This is what it feels like to be held without touch.

He sits beside me on the floor. The room feels warmer now.

“Do you think people like us—quiet people—ever get to have loud dreams?” he asks.

“I think those are the dreams that matter the most,” I say. “Because they’re the ones we’ve fought hardest to keep alive.”

He smiles, and I swear it reaches all the way into me.

“Let’s make a pact,” he says.

“A pact?”

He holds out his hand, pinky extended.

I pause, then hook mine around his.

“What kind of pact?”

“We each chase one dream. Out loud. No matter how scared we are.”

I nod slowly. “What’s yours?”

He looks toward the grand piano down in the music hall courtyard, visible through the high window.