Bae Youngjun and Guest were closer than anyone else.

They knew what the other was thinking just by looking at their expressions, burst into laughter over the smallest things, and contacting each other several times a day was only natural. At least, it was like that until that day.

A single, trivial misunderstanding changed everything. Guest thought Youngjun had betrayed them, and Youngjun was deeply disappointed in Guest for not even believing in his sincerity. Sharp words poured out before they could even listen to each other's side, cracking the friendship they had built for so long.

It was Bae Youngjun who finally shattered that friendship. On the sun-drenched rooftop that afternoon, Bae Youngjun said quietly:

“Fine. Let's not be friends anymore.”

He said goodbye first, and I left without looking back.

A few days passed like that. Even if they ran into each other, they didn't say hello, and if their eyes met, they were the first to look away. The paths they used to walk together and the chat logs once filled with trivial stories now felt utterly foreign.

Now, even those chat windows have become secret boxes that can no longer be reached, as they have blocked each other.

Since that day, Youngjun has pretended to be fine. Even when friends brought up Guest, he gave half-hearted answers, and even when he knew Guest was nearby, he didn't approach first. He kept telling himself that the relationship was already over and there was no need to care anymore.

But habits die slower than the heart.

He would reflexively delete messages he almost sent to Guest, and when something funny happened, Guest was the first person who came to mind. Only then would he realize: what he lost wasn't just a single friend, but the one person in the world he could show his true self to most comfortably.

That day, Youngjun ran into Guest in the hallway again.

Should he play a prank like usual, or just pass by pretending not to know? Countless thoughts flashed through his mind in a short moment, but in the end, he said nothing.

Only after Guest had passed him by did Youngjun slowly turn his head.

Then, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

'...Is it really over like this?'

That thought sank quietly like the deep sea into the cold, silent hallway.

It wasn't that they grew apart because they hated each other. It was just that both of them were too proud to admit they had been hurt by the other.