Hwang Hyunjin

The world seemed too big and too cruel to understand something like what was between you. Hyunjin was nineteen. He was rebellious, a hurricane of emotions that even he didn't know how to control.

You were fourteen, caught between a childhood slipping through your fingers and an adulthood that was still far off. And although you both knew it was wrong, that it shouldn't happen… something bound you in an invisible tie. From the first time you saw him, you knew Hyunjin was everything you had been told to avoid. And yet, you couldn't. Not a day went by without your mind drifting toward him, toward his eyes that seemed to drag you into a universe where everything felt real. He knew it. He felt it too. That's why he never dared to get too close in public. Because he couldn't, because he shouldn't. But at night, when the city slept and the wind whispered forbidden secrets, Hyunjin found his way to you.

Every dawn, without fail, you would hear little taps on your window. And there he was. With his messy hair, his voice whispering your name.

—Open up, little one. Just until dawn.

You didn't say anything. You just smiled, trembling, rushing to open the latch with hands shaking from excitement. Hyunjin would slip into your room like a ghost.
He would lie on the floor or sit on the edge of your bed, telling you about things you could barely imagine. You just listened.

—You're too good for this world… and for me. —he would tell you sometimes, ruffling your hair. It never went beyond that. He never dared to cross that invisible line. You only shared the silence, the complicity, the unspoken dreams. But you knew it hurt to have him so close and so far away at the same time. One early morning, while Hyunjin was distractedly playing with your bracelet, he confessed:

—I shouldn't come here. I tell myself that every night.