Old Hut – Night
Rain continues crashing against the roof.
Thunder echoes through the forest.
The small hut is old but sturdy.
Jiho checks the door again.
Still stuck.
Jiho:
"Yeah... I think we're staying here tonight."
Kiara:
"What?!"
Jiho:
"The rain is too heavy."
Kiara sighs.
She pulls out her phone.
No signal.
She walks around the hut.
Tries near the window.
Near the door.
Near the back wall.
Nothing.
Kiara:
"Come on..."
No signal.
Again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
After ten minutes...
She finally sits down.
Defeated.
Kiara:
"I think you're right."
Jiho:
"First time you've admitted that."
Kiara throws a small piece of wood at him.
Jiho laughs.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The rain continues.
For a while neither speaks.
Just listening to the storm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suddenly Jiho smiles.
A real smile.
The kind Kiara hasn't seen in years.
Kiara notices.
Kiara:
"What?"
Jiho:
"Nothing."
Kiara:
"You're smiling."
Jiho:
"I remembered something."
Kiara:
"What?"
Jiho looks outside.
Jiho:
"Rain."
Kiara immediately understands.
Jiho:
"Do you remember?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔙 Flashback
High School
Heavy rain.
Students running everywhere.
Young Kiara standing under a tree.
Angry.
Very angry.
Jiho arrives completely soaked.
Jiho:
"Sorry."
Kiara:
"You're one hour late."
Jiho:
"It was thirty minutes."
Kiara:
"ONE HOUR."
Jiho:
"Thirty-five."
Kiara:
"JIHO."
Jiho laughs.
Kiara:
"Now we're both stuck because of you."
Jiho:
"Not true."
Kiara:
"How?"
Jiho suddenly jumps into a puddle.
Splash.
Water lands all over her.
Kiara:
"YOU DID NOT!"
Jiho:
"I DID."
Kiara chases him around the school yard.
Both soaked.
Laughing.
A teacher spots them.
Teacher:
"LEE JIHO!"
Jiho:
"Run!"
Kiara:
"Why am I running too?!"
Teacher:
"KIARA TOO!"
Both run away screaming.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔙 Present
The memory makes both laugh.
A genuine laugh.
For the first time in years.
Kiara:
"We got detention."
Jiho:
"Three hours."
Kiara:
"That was your fault."
Jiho:
"Our fault."
Kiara:
"Your fault."
Jiho:
"Fine."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The laughter slowly fades.
A comfortable silence remains.
Not awkward.
Comfortable.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara looks at the rain.
Kiara:
"We used to laugh a lot."
Jiho's smile softens.
Jiho:
"Yeah."
Kiara:
"We were really close."
Jiho:
"We were."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The mood changes.
Softer now.
More honest.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiho looks down.
Jiho:
"Kiara."
Kiara:
"Hm?"
Jiho:
"I'm sorry."
Silence.
Only rain.
Jiho continues.
Jiho:
"Not because I liked you."
Kiara looks at him.
Jiho:
"I'm sorry because I left."
The words finally come out.
After years.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiho:
"I know I hurt you."
Kiara doesn't answer.
Jiho:
"I know I disappeared."
Kiara looks at her hands.
Jiho:
"And I know saying sorry doesn't fix anything."
His voice becomes quiet.
Jiho:
"But I'm still sorry."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A long silence follows.
Kiara's eyes become slightly red.
She quickly looks away.
Jiho notices.
But doesn't push.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara:
"I don't know how to answer that."
Jiho nods.
Jiho:
"I know."
Kiara:
"I was angry."
Jiho:
"You should be."
Kiara:
"I hated you."
Jiho smiles sadly.
Jiho:
"That one hurts."
Kiara:
"Good."
Both laugh a little.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara:
"Then one day I stopped being angry."
Jiho listens carefully.
Kiara:
"And somehow that felt worse."
Jiho's heart sinks.
Kiara:
"Because I missed you."
The confession hangs in the air.
Jiho freezes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiho:
"You missed me?"
Kiara:
"Don't make a big deal out of it."
Jiho:
"I'm definitely making a big deal out of it."
Kiara:
"Jiho."
Jiho:
"Sorry."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rain continues outside.
Warm silence inside.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiho:
"So..."
Kiara:
"So?"
Jiho:
"What are we now?"
The question finally arrives.
The one both have been avoiding.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara thinks.
For a long time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara:
"Not strangers."
Jiho smiles.
Jiho:
"Good."
Kiara:
"Not classmates."
Jiho:
"Definitely not."
Kiara:
"Not enemies."
Jiho:
"Thank God."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara laughs.
Then becomes thoughtful.
Kiara:
"I don't know."
Jiho waits.
Kiara:
"We're... trying."
Jiho nods slowly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiho:
"I like that."
Kiara:
"Trying?"
Jiho:
"Yeah."
Kiara:
"Most people date."
Jiho:
"We're not most people."
Kiara:
"That's true."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiho looks at her carefully.
Jiho:
"Can I ask something?"
Kiara:
"What?"
Jiho:
"Do I still have a chance?"
Kiara's heart skips.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara:
"You're really persistent."
Jiho:
"That's not an answer."
Kiara:
"I know."
Jiho waits.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Finally...
A small smile appears on her face.
Kiara:
"Maybe."
Jiho blinks.
Jiho:
"Maybe?"
Kiara:
"Maybe."
Jiho:
"That's progress."
Kiara:
"Don't get excited."
Jiho:
"Too late."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Meanwhile...
📍 Resort
Everyone returned exhausted.
Secretary Ryu and Manager Hyun somehow won the treasure hunt.
Mr. Aura proudly gave them the prize.
Then everyone immediately fell asleep.
Too tired to think.
Too tired to notice something important.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Secretary Ryu:
"Wait..."
Manager Hyun:
"What?"
Secretary:
"Where are Kiara and Jiho?"
Manager Hyun thinks.
For exactly three seconds.
Manager Hyun:
"They'll survive."
Secretary:
"Good point."
Both go to sleep.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌧️ Back At The Hut
The rain finally begins slowing down.
Kiara is sitting against the wall.
Jiho sitting beside her.
Not too close.
Not too far.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kiara's eyes slowly become heavy.
Jiho notices.
Jiho:
"Sleep."
Kiara:
"What about you?"
Jiho:
"I'll stay awake."
Kiara:
"Why?"
Jiho smiles.
Jiho:
"Because if a snake comes in here, one of us should be awake."
Kiara immediately sits upright.
Kiara:
"Snake?!"
Jiho starts laughing.
Kiara hits his arm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A few minutes later...
Both are laughing again.
Like old times.
Like the years between them never happened.
Almost.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Outside—
The rain finally stops.
Inside—
Two hearts start finding their way back.
Slowly.
Together.
✨ End of Chapter 10