The inside of the gym storage room was cool. The orange glow of the sunset, seeping through the ventilation windows, floated in the dust-filled air. Hayoung, who usually had no presence like a shadow, looked at me with a pale complexion as if someone had stolen her very heart.

I held her notebook in one hand and shook it lightly. Between the pages, I caught glimpses of densely packed handwriting and illustrations drawn with bizarrely meticulous detail.