The cafeteria buzzed with voices, the air thick with the smell of fried noodles and miso soup. Students leaned across tables, trading stories too loud for the small space, laughter echoing against walls lined with faded posters.
He sat at the edge of it all, tray untouched in front of him, mind already wandering toward the night. Toward the bench beneath the oak tree. Toward her.
"Hey."
The voice drew him back, softer than the din yet steady enough to cut through it. He looked up to see Hana standing there, balancing her tray with both hands. Her dark hair was tied in a loose ponytail, strands falling free to frame her face. Her uniform was crisp, but there was always something practical about her, like she didn't waste time on unnecessary details.
"Mind if I sit?" she asked.
He blinked. "Uh… sure."
She set her tray down and slid into the seat across from him. Her presence carried warmth — not dazzling, not overwhelming, but the steady kind, like sunlight filtering through half-drawn curtains.
"You haven't touched your food," she noted, glancing at his tray.
"Not that hungry," he muttered.
Her brow furrowed. "You say that a lot."
He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, the way she seemed to notice the small things others let slide. Hana wasn't loud like Jin, who would've teased him for looking like a ghost. She was quieter, but sharper, her words cutting closer to the truth.
"You've been different lately," she continued. "Distant. Like you're… waiting for something."
The words made his chest tighten. Waiting. Yes. For the moon. For her.
But he only shrugged, forcing a laugh. "Just tired, I guess."
Hana didn't look convinced. She studied him for a long moment, then picked up her chopsticks and began to eat, though her eyes lingered on him more often than her food.
As the noise of the cafeteria swelled around them, he felt oddly trapped — caught between the warmth of Hana's presence and the memory of last night's fragile smile beneath the moonlight.
For a fleeting second, he wondered what it would be like if he let himself fall into this life instead. If he let Hana's sunlight steady him, if he let her pull him back from the strange orbit he'd found himself in.
But the thought dissolved almost immediately.
Because even as Hana spoke again, asking about classes, about exams, about ordinary things that should've mattered — his mind was elsewhere, already reaching for the silver glow that waited beyond the horizon.
And though he nodded at her words, though he smiled faintly at her small jokes, he knew the truth as surely as he knew his own heartbeat:
Day belonged to Hana.
But night — night belonged to her