"Liz, are you seriously hanging out with him?"
Jia's voice cut through the hallway noise like a blade wrapped in bubblegum. Loud. Curious. Half-genuine, half-dramatic.
Liz didn't stop walking.
"He's not that bad," she said flatly.
"Not bad?" Jia jogged to match her pace. "The guy literally gives robot energy. Zero words. Zero friends. He stared at a vending machine for like five minutes yesterday."
Liz gave the faintest smile. "Maybe he was deciding between Coke and green tea."
"Or summoning demons."
Liz rolled her eyes.
They reached the stairwell. Jia lowered her voice, leaning closer.
"But really, why him? Everyone says you two are like… the same species. Ice queen and king."
Liz paused. Her fingers curled around the strap of her bag.
"Maybe that's the point," she murmured.
Jia blinked, taken aback. Before she could reply, Liz had already slipped upstairs toward the library.
---
The library was warm. Quiet. The kind of place where the world hushed itself.
Wonwoo was already there, sitting near the window, his camera on the table, sketchbook open. Liz sat across from him.
He slid a photo across the table—her again. This time on the rooftop, holding her pencil mid-air, hair fluttering slightly.
"You really like sneaking those," she said.
He didn't deny it. Just tilted his head. "You move quietly. It fits."
She didn't know whether that was a compliment, but it made her stomach flutter anyway.
She opened her own sketchbook. On the inside cover was the print he gave her—the first one. She hadn't removed it since.
"You take photos of everything else?" she asked. "Not just… me?"
Wonwoo looked thoughtful, then pulled out a small stack of prints. He slid them across. A stray cat sleeping on a scooter seat. Raindrops stuck on a tram window. A girl tying her shoelaces under a cherry tree.
And then—Liz again. From behind. Reaching for a library book.
"I don't take photos of everything," he said.
Only the quiet moments. The unnoticed ones. The ones no one else cared to save.
Her cheeks warmed.
She picked up the photo of herself by the cherry tree.
"I didn't even know you were there that day."
"I was," he said, without apology. "You looked... gentle."
Something about the way he said it—soft, unrushed, unafraid—made her chest ache.
Not the bad kind.
The kind that made her want to draw until the page ran out.
---
That afternoon, they worked on their project without speaking much. But the silence was different now.
It had weight.
It had meaning.
And in the middle of it, Liz looked up and caught him staring at her.
He didn't look away.
Neither did she.
A slow smile touched her lips.
Wonwoo blinked, just once. Then he smiled back—barely there, but real.
And that was the moment Jia had walked past the library window.
Later, she would say:
"He doesn't look at anyone like that. Ever. Just you."