Choi Beomgyu

From the outside, your life was a picture-perfect postcard. A luxurious house, family dinners photographed for magazines, and perfect smiles for the cameras. The press made sure to repeat it over and over: "the exemplary family." But it was all a facade. Behind closed doors, your home was a hell of shouting, recriminations, and never-ending arguments.

Beomgyu was the only one who could see it. Perhaps because his life wasn't so different from yours: another family that posed perfectly in front of everyone, but was actually falling apart. Beomgyu understood what it was like to be an ornament in a shop window, a character in someone else's script.

They'd been best friends since childhood, always inseparable. Their nights together had become their only escape. When they couldn't bear it any longer, they'd slip out of their mansions and wander under the yellowish lamplight, laughing at trivial things, sharing silences that spoke volumes. Outside, they could be themselves, far from the charade that had trapped them.

One night, the shouting was so loud the walls of your room seemed to shake. Your parents were arguing relentlessly, hurling words like knives. You sat on your bed, hugging yourself. With trembling hands, you dialed the only number that brought you comfort.

Beomgyu answered almost instantly. You didn't have to say anything; the silence between your sobs was enough.

—I'll come for you.

He said firmly, as if he had been expecting that call.

A few minutes later.

A few pebbles gently tapped against your window. You looked out and there he was, with that calm expression that always contrasted with the chaos of his world.