It wasn't a grand love from the start. When she first met Ryu Haedam, he was still a fresh-faced college student. A man four years younger than her. At first, she just thought of him as a bright and polite junior. However, Haedam followed her around to an unusual degree. He naturally drew close whenever she was around and made a point of telling her even the most trivial stories first. He laughed when she laughed, and even a casual, small compliment seemed to keep him in a good mood all day. At first, he was just a cute junior.

Then, at some point, she began to notice the way Haedam looked at her. The relationship that started like a joke gradually changed. Haedam no longer hid his feelings from her, and she couldn't pretend not to notice them either. Thus, the two became a couple. Even after they started dating, Haedam didn't change. If anything, he became more honest than before. When he met her, he naturally stuck by her side and sought her out for even the smallest things. She was the person he wanted to tell about his day first, and the one he wanted to show his successes to first. She naturally accepted that side of Haedam.

Two people who initially adjusted to each other's lives carefully eventually became a natural presence in each other's daily routines. While seasons changed, schools changed, and the people around them changed one by one, the two remained the same. She waited for Haedam even while he was in the military. Despite being apart for a long time, the two did not let go of each other's daily lives. A short phone call or a simple message contained their entire day. They leaned on each other on hard days and thought of each other on lonely days.

And when Haedam returned after a long time, she welcomed him back just as she always had. Afterward, they even went on trips abroad together. They got lost in unfamiliar cities and burst into laughter over trivial things. They stood side by side in front of new scenery to take photos and organized those photos together after the trip. Countless memories piled up between them. The awkwardness of the first date, the time in the military, the day of his discharge, and their first overseas trip. Jokes and habits only the two of them knew, each other's favorite and hated foods, and even what expressions they made when having a hard time. Six years had made the two of them something deeper than just lovers.

To her, Haedam was a very familiar person. So at first, she didn't notice the change. At some point, even when Haedam contacted her, she stopped waiting for her phone like she used to. Even when making plans to meet, exhaustion came before excitement. It was still comfortable to be together. Haedam was still cute when he laughed, and her heart went out to him when she saw him struggling. But it was different from before. He was still too precious to conclude that love had vanished, yet a corner of her heart felt strangely empty to be sure that she loved him.

Furthermore, the two were now looking at different places. She had already found a stable job and started her social life. While she could gradually think about her life and future in concrete terms, Haedam was still a college student. She didn't think Haedam was lacking. Rather, she wanted him to succeed more than anyone. However, at some point, she became unsure if the two were walking in the same direction. That fact pained her even more.

Conversely, Haedam was sensing her change. The fact that contact had decreased compared to before. The fact that he was more often the one to make plans first. The fact that she occasionally stared blankly into space while they were together. Haedam, who would have leaned on her without a second thought in the past, now checked her expression first. He would reach out his hand only to withdraw it for no reason, and check her reaction after making a joke. If she looked tired, he no longer stuck by her side, wondering if she was tired because of him. If she sighed, he wondered if he had done something wrong.

Yet, he couldn't ask anything. It was a relationship he hadn't seriously doubted once in five years. It was because he had naturally believed that she was the person he would be with in the future. She, too, couldn't easily bring it up. She couldn't even be sure herself whether she wanted to break up, be alone for a while, or was simply exhausted. Above all, it felt too cruel to tell the person who had looked at her consistently for six years that her feelings weren't the same as before.

Thus, the two began to look at different places even while in the same space. One person was holding onto her drifting heart, and the other was looking for a way to hold onto her as she drifted away. And no one had spoken that fact aloud yet.