Somewhere in spring, Yura feels the cold against her forehead, She doesn't remember when she fell asleep, but her eyes fluttered open to the sound of squeaking sneakers.
She slowly rubbed her eyes and blinked against the soft light that was pouring inside the classroom. Outside, there was a big cherry blossom tree, its pink petals swaying gently in the breeze.
And under it, there's a boy playing basketball, his movements sharp but graceful. Dark hair, white shirt, loose tie. He wasn't looking at her way, but there was something about him that made her chest tighten.
Her lips parted. Kang Jisoo?
The name slipped into her mind before she could stop it.
She stood quickly, and rushed out of the classroom. The corridors smelled faintly full of chalk and old paper, the sound of her shoes echoing against the tiles.
"This is Hanbyeol High, no way, I suddenly woke up inside my own story?" She ran towards the fountain and suddenly bummed into someone. Before she could realize it, her hands were on his chest, she was totally pushing him without thinking.
Splash.
Jisoo stumbled backward into the fountain, water spraying everywhere.
Yura froze and panicked, "Oh my god, sorry i didn't mean to push you."
Jisoo sat there, drenched from head to toe, staring at her with wide eyes. Unbelievable.
But before he could say anything, she already ran away.
"Hey! You!" His voice followed her, but she didn't dare to look back.
---
After that incident, Yura hid every time she saw Jisoo. If she heard his voice in the hallway, she will ducked into an empty classroom. If she spotted him in the cafeteria, she totally hid behind the pillar.
More than once, she caught herself glancing back, just to make sure he wasn't looking for her.
That's when Minjae, Jisoo's best friend started showing up.
"You're hiding again," blocking the view from the stairwell where she was peeking.
"I'm not hiding."
"You're crouching behind a wall because Jisoo's in the hallway," he said flatly.
Yura sighed, "It was an accident. I didn't mean to push him into the fountain."
Minjae leaned against the wall. "Then why not just apologize?"
She avoided his gaze. "Because…mm, well I don't know. It's totally complicated."
He didn't press further, but the next time she tried to slip away unnoticed, he was there again quietly distracting Jisoo, so she could escape.
---
Well of course, her avoidance didn't last forever.
One afternoon, Jisoo caught her by the wrist as she tried to pass the school gates.
"You owe me," he said simply.
"For… what? No way because of that incident?"
He smirked. "Obviously. So, why not have a date with me tomorrow? How about an amusement park?"
She stared. "Is that your revenge?"
"It's not revenge," he said with a grin. "Let's call it, repayment." After saying that he left her with her own thoughts that she can't even say.
That night, Yura stood in front of her wardrobe, searching for clothes to wear, too casual? Too formal? Too… boring?
After an hour of searching finally she pulled out a blue blouse, hesitated, then matched it with a white skirt. "This looks okay, right?" she muttered to herself.
Across the town, Jisoo was doing the exact same thing, frowning at his reflection in the mirror while holding up a crisp white shirt and a light blue jacket with denim jeans.
Neither of them knew that fate was quietly matching their colors for the next day.
---
The amusement park smelled of popcorn and cotton candy. When they met at the entrance, they both froze.
"You..copied me," Jisoo said.
"I didn't! You the one who copied me," she shot back.
"Surely you are," he said, grinning anyway.
They tried every ride. Yura screamed on the roller coaster while Jisoo laughed beside her. They wandered through the games, and somehow she won a pair of teddy bear keychains which was, pink and blue.
"Here," she said, holding out the blue one.
He frowned. "I'm not carrying that."
"Why not? They're cute!"
He muttered something about it being embarrassing but took it anyway.
Before they left, they stopped at a photo booth. The pictures turned out silly with her laughing with her eyes half-closed, and him pretending to look annoyed but clearly trying not to smile.
For Yura, it felt like more than a day out. It felt like, a real date.
That evening, Jisoo walked Yura home, they properly took photos under the cherry blossom tree. It's just because Yura wants to post it on Instagram.
---
Minjae scrolled through his phone that night while waiting for basketball practice to start. His thumb froze mid-swipe.
On his feed was a photo of Yura and Jisoo under a cherry blossom tree. The caption was simple, 'Some places are better with the right person.'
The comments were full of heart emojis and teasing replies, but what caught his attention was the username.
It was Jisoo's.
Minjae's chest tightened. He told himself it was just a picture. But the feeling wouldn't go away.
The next day, he found Jisoo in the gym, shooting hoops alone.
"You like her, don't you?" Minjae asked bluntly.
Jisoo caught the ball and turned. "What?"
"Yura," Minjae said, forcing the words out. "I… like her too. But seeing that post…" He gave a strained smile. "I guess I'm not the only one."
For a moment, Jisoo said nothing. Then he bounced the ball once and set it aside.
"I'm not going to give up," he said simply. His voice wasn't harsh, but it was steady. "No matter how complicated this gets, no matter how much she hides… I'm not letting her go."
The words hit harder than Minjae expected and though he managed a quiet, "Yeah… I figured," part of him already knew he was stepping back from a race he couldn't win.
---
But strange things began to happen.
Jisoo started looking at her differently. Not in a bad way, but like he was trying to figure her out.
"You know a lot about me," he finally said while they sat under the cherry blossom tree.
Yura's heart skipped. "Do I?"
"Yeah. Stuff I don't usually tell people." His tone was casual, but his eyes were sharp. "It's almost like we've met before."
She forced a smile. "You know what, I have a secret that I can't explain it to you either, it's just, I don't know how to tell you about it."
He didn't press, but she could tell he wasn't convinced.
"If you say it's a secret then I should not ask more about it"
---
And then, one day, She suddenly woke up in her real world bedroom.
Her school uniform was gone. The cherry blossom tree was gone. Hanbyeol High was gone.
She'd been pulled back.
Weeks had passed, cherry blossoms began to fall, no one remembered her in the novel world, Her seat in class was empty in their memory. No one seemed to notice she'd been gone.
Then one day, Jisoo just came back from school, Jisoo's gaze fell on two things he didn't remember owning, a sketch of a girl at a classroom window with cherry blossoms swirling outside, and a small blue teddy bear keychain on his study table.
His chest suddenly felt ached. A name , Yura slipped from his lips before he knew why.
That night, he sat at his desk, fingers brushing over the sketch. "Pictures might disappear as memories fade," he whispered, "but a drawing… stays. It keeps the memory alive."
And just like that, the memories came rushing back during the time when they were alone in the classroom.
Days had passed, and Yura kept wondering if she'd ever return to the novel world. Then, without warning, she found herself back at the school gates, her heart pounding in relief.
Jisoo was there. And he remembered her. Somehow, against the rules of this strange world, he remembered.
She didn't know how long he had. She only knew she wanted to tell him everything.
The fountain was quiet, petals floating on the water. She was standing there holding a letter, waiting for Jisoo.
She didn't hear his footsteps until she started to fade.
"Yura?"
She turned as she heard his voice but before she could see him, she was already back into the real world.
He was running toward her, panic in his eyes.
The words on the letter blurred and faded before he could read them.
Again she was gone, that was the last time he saw her.
A year has passed in the novel world, graduation came without her. Everyone forgot about her except him who remembered everything.
Jisoo walked to the fountain alone, carrying a bouquet of flowers. He sat for a long time before placing them down beside a folded note.
The note said only one thing,
'Wherever you are, I will find you.'
---
In the real world, Yura stared at her laptop. Finally the ending had been published. However, she didn't notice that somewhere else in the city, real Jisoo, was waking from a dream, his face wet with tears.
He didn't understand why he felt like he'd lost someone important. Until, one night, he found an old chat log from an anonymous messaging app, his messages with a girl who had called herself 'Spring.'
And then, he slowly scrolled through Instagram, he saw it. A drawing of a cherry blossom tree. The caption read exactly what he'd once said in his dream.
"Pictures might disappear as memories fade, but a drawing will stay and keep those memories"
---
That night, Yura suddenly found an Instagram post, she almost didn't click the username. But when she did, her breath caught.
Every photo was a scene from her novel. The amusement park. The school gates. The fountain. The cherry blossom tree.
One post showed the cherry blossom tree at sunset with the caption, 'I go here every evening.'
The next day, she went there, but he wasn't there. She stood for a while, telling herself she'd imagined such things, tears slipping down her cheeks.
"Why are you here alone and crying?"
She looked up. He was standing there. She knew that face. That voice. It's always the same as she remembered.
"You…" Her voice shook.
He smiled faintly. "Hi. I'm Kang Jisoo, Nice to meet you, Han Yura," And in that moment, she realized that he has always been a real person not a character that she made in the novel.
---
Two months had passed, Yura had become the most popular author. The fan meeting was full of schedules and she couldn't escape.
Jisoo was at the library cafe waiting for her. The atmosphere was warm with the smell of coffee and old books. He sat by the window, reading a familiar novel, the one she'd written. He heard a pair of girls whispering nearby about Yura's growing popularity as an author.
He chuckled to himself, but then the door bell was clinking, making him look at her who just rushed inside the cafe.
"Jisoo-ah, Sorry I'm late, the fan meeting ran longer than I expected," Yura said, sliding into the seat across from him.
He closed the book, and put it aside. "You never change."
She laughed, reaching for her coffee. "And why you still read that book?. I thought you didn't like it?"
"Well, it's a memory that I don't want to forget." They sat there together, laughing and enjoying their life in the real world settling comfortably around them. It doesn't matter what world they were in anymore because,
"Happiness isn't about the place you live in. It's about the person who makes every place feel like home."
Somewhere in Spring - The End