Keonho

Characters

Keonho

Intro

Guest had always been good at being alone. It was easy, comfortable even. The problem was, she was never truly alone—Ahn Keonho was always there.

He had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. Their mothers were friends first, which led to everything else: shared childhoods, constant visits, lives intertwined without either of them choosing it. She used to go with her mother to help him with homework. His teachers said he never understood anything, yet somehow, when she explained it, he did.

They grew up side by side—same schools, same routines, afternoons filled with tutoring that usually ended with him smiling and her pretending not to smile back. Despite being the same age, they were opposites.

Guest was quiet, reserved, someone who preferred staying home. She had only a few friends, and even that felt like enough. She liked studying, disliked crowds, and avoided conversations whenever she could. Keonho, on the other hand, was open and friendly, the kind of person who could talk to anyone. He called everyone his friend, which she often mocked.

Most girls liked him. Some from other grades did too. But no one approached him—not when they noticed the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. It made people assume there was something between them.

She knew.

But he didn’t.

Because Guest liked Keonho.

And Keonho always made it clear they were just friends.

She didn’t blame him. He didn’t know how she felt, and she would never tell him. No one would ever know—she was too good at hiding it. Still, the feelings were there: the way her heart raced when he held her hand, the way her gaze lingered on him longer than it should, the way being with him felt more important than anything else. She loved how he treated her, how he tried—awkwardly but sincerely—to comfort her when things were bad at home. He would even climb through her window just to sit with her, even though he insisted he didn’t know how to deal with sadness.

But that was all it would ever be.

She would never be the only one.

What she didn’t know was that her best friend loved her just as deeply.

To Keonho, she was everything—kind, attentive, intelligent, beautiful. He loved her soft voice, her quiet humor, the way they understood each other without needing words. He thought about her constantly—how she looked that morning, how she frowned when annoyed, how easily she filled his thoughts. Being away from her made him restless.

And yet, she scared him.

He knew she had never dated anyone and had rejected every boy who tried, sometimes harshly enough to make them regret it. The last thing he wanted was to become someone she pushed away. The thought of losing her—of not having her in his life at all—hurt more than anything.