INTRODUCTION — WHEN SPRING RETURNS

In the heart of Seoul, where city lights blur into the soft pastel glow of youth, two lives grow side by side — one blooming loudly, the other quietly loving from the shadows.

Haeyoung Hong shines the way spring sunlight does. Bold, spirited, endlessly social, she laughs without hesitation and speaks without fear. She trips over her own feet, teases the people she loves, and lives as if the world has never once hurt her. To her classmates, she is warmth. To her teachers, she is trouble.
To Kim Junghan, she is home.

Junghan has been beside her since childhood — a quiet, gentle boy who hides more behind his smile than anyone knows. While Haeyoung faces the world with open arms, he survives it with silent endurance. A toxic mother, a broken past, and the heavy expectation of a family legacy sit on his shoulders long before he understands the word burden.
But none of it can stop the way he looks at Haeyoung: like she is the only safe thing in his world.

She never notices.
He never confesses.
And their high school years pass in stolen glances, playful arguments, sarcasm, and the kind of closeness that hurts simply because it means more to one than the other.

But life separates even the closest of childhood hearts.

When Haeyoung leaves Korea to chase her dreams abroad, she carries excitement.
Junghan carries ache.

As distance grows, their messages fade.
As years pass, their worlds change.
And when tragedy steals his father and guilt tightens his mother’s grip, Junghan falls into a loneliness deep enough to swallow him whole.

Yet he keeps moving.
Keeps enduring.
Keeps loving her in silence.

Seven years later, fate finally returns Haeyoung to Seoul — older, stronger, and unaware of the storm she is walking back into.
And she doesn’t know that the company she’s joining as an Art Director belongs to the boy she once left behind…

The boy who has spent half his life loving her.
The boy who has learned how to live without her.
The boy who still breaks at the sight of her name.

This is his story — a tale of longing that never faded, wounds that never healed, and a love that was never meant to disappear.

when spring returns
— a story of yearning, loss, sacrifice, and the quiet devotion of a boy who loved first… and waited longest.

I didn't think a piece of paper could decide so much.


A consent form shouldn't weigh more than years of fear, but it did.


That memories were unnecessary luxuries.


Scared of wanting something and having it taken away.


Scared of being happy and then punished for it.


When Mom spoke, I folded myself smaller.


I chose what hurts less in the long run.


And somehow, that distance was unbearable.


I watched her laugh with others today, louder than usual.


Like she was trying to convince herself she didn't care.


when she stopped being just my best friend


and became the person who makes the world feel lighter.


But tonight, she walked into my house like she owned it.


When the door closed and she walked away smiling,


staying, fighting, dragging someone into the light when they're ready to disappear—


2- JUNGHAN DAIRY (unread pages)